Craft: Mary Ellen Solt

Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007) was a major figure in visual and concrete poetry, known especially for her series of flower-shaped poems. A new edition of her Collected Poems shows her achievements fully.

Solt: “I couldn’t throw my flowers down the / stairs / still fragrant / alive / they / fell / anyway”

In 1958 Solt sent an essay she wrote about William Carlos Williams, “The Shape of the Bridge,” to Williams himself. Thereafter Solt and her husband  became acquainted with Williams and his wife.

At that time Williams was still a controversial figure in English Departments (as odd as that seems).He became a mentor to Solt, encouraging her to pursue her unusual poetic theories and vision.

Her early poems were heavily influenced by Williams:

Later, Solt became familiar, through Ian Hamilton Finlay, with Brazilian concrete poets. (The Brazilians had been innovative in this form before it became interesting to most American poets).

Finlay first published Solt’s flower poems between 1964 and 1966 in a magazine of visual poetry, Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.

This is “Lobelia”: