#63
Statement from the creator: “Typoetry” is made from digital collages of typography that explore an experience I had while driving behind a truck with a big logo painted on the back—large, gothic capitals—that simply refused to resolve into coherent lettering for me. There were letters there, and I could recognize that the curves and uprights were text, but it refused to become coherent as lettering. Making typoetry is my attempt to explore that experience, to modulate the recognition of language without the need to always or consistently produce letters, words, or lexical statements.
Michael Betancourt is a Cuban-American artist whose work with asemic poetry adapts his interests with Glitch Art to include language and typography; books of his typoems have been published by RedFox Press, Timglaset, and the Post-Asemic Press, and have also appeared in the vispo magazines Die Lerre Mitte, To Call, aurapoesiavisual, and Utsanga.it. His book CMYK was a winner in the 45th Society of Typographic Arts STA100 competition in 2023. An archive of his work is at michaelbetancourt.com.