The Sackners are still very much collecting, but are a bit behind in their cataloging of everything. The collection is amazingly well-organized and maintained. They do want to sell it to a library, but so far haven't worked out a deal with one.
They don't buy everything (how could they?) but as you know their collection is amazingly wide-ranging, has historical depth, and includes work by several artists in considerable depth (like Tom Phillips). A lot of people give them stuff.
Onword,
John
At 10:20 PM 6/25/01 -0400, you wrote:
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 12:24:05 -0400
> From: "John M. Bennett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: FLUXLIST: visual poetry
>
> Pedro et al:
> Sorry to take so long to respond further to this matter - I've been on a
> retreat (during which I took a field trip to the Sackner Archive of
> Concrete and Visual Poetry in /Miami Beach) -
John, I envy you having been able to visit the Sackners' archive- I had just
been asking John Held what was up with them... he said they were trying to
sell
their collection, but I suspect this was just another of John's I'm-trying-
to-make-myself-look-important-by-starting-rumours-about-something-I-have-no-
clue-about responses. Which brings me to the question- so what actually IS
going on with the Sackners? I remember in the early 90's some of the older
mailartists I met were bemoaning the fact that they could no longer count on
the Sackners to buy their work, that the well had run dry so to speak. I'm
not so concerned about money, only whether they are still collecting work
or is the collection closed?
Also, Pedro et al. one really great publication in which some folks tried to
get at defining the whole area of visual poetry is the survey/book called
"CORE: A Symposium on Visual Poetry" edited by John Byrum (Generator) and
Crag Hill (SCORE) around 1993. You can get it (as I did) from John Byrum
for $15 + $2 postage from Generator/3503 Virginia Ave./Cleveland/OH/44109.
Highly recommended.
RA
but as to defining What
> visual poetry is, that's a tough one. I tend to think of it as anything
in
> which there is a visual element to the work (that is, SEEING it is part
of
> the experience). That, however, could well include almost all poetry, so
I
> think it also includes a quality of the work which makes it in one way or
> another totemic and/or talismanic. That is, its physical presence is
part
> of the thing; it's not just "abstract" like a purely linguistic artifact
is.
>
> The Sackner archive is AMAZING - there's nothing else like it anywhere.
>
> Onword,
> John
