Futurism and the Origins of Experimental Poetry

Dom Sylvester Houédard and Concrete Poetry in Post-war Britain

The Estorick Collection starts 2025 by exploring the revolutionary world of experimental poetry.

Although perhaps better known today for its contribution to the visual arts, Italian Futurism was in fact founded and led by a poet – Filippo Tommaso Marinetti – and the many writers who gravitated toward the movement would go on to produce a body of work that was as vast and as groundbreaking as that of its painters. The first part of this display charts the distinct phases through which Futurist poetry passed, with a particular focus on those forms of experimentation that reflected the movement’s desire to “redouble the expressive force of words” by emphasising and exploiting the visual and/or sonic dimensions of language.

Among the items on display are rare original editions of works such as Fortunato Depero’s famous ‘bolted book’ Depero futurista, and copies of important manifestos from the Estorick Collection’s archives. Also featured are newspapers and journals such as L’Italia futurista, which made a significant contribution to the dissemination of new poetic research in their day and helped establish an international avant-garde network.

This contextualising display complements an exhibition focusing on the work of Dom Sylvester Houédard (1924– 1992), widely recognised as one of the masters of concrete poetry. A Benedictine monk and noted theologian, Houédard wrote extensively on new approaches to creativity, spirituality and philosophy, and collaborated with figures such as Gustav Metzger, Yoko Ono and John Cage.

His work – which blurs the boundaries between literature and visual art – helped shape the development of post-war British poetry, but also influenced the global experimental poetry movement.