Concrete poet Mary Ellen Solt dies

SANTA CLARITA, Calif., June 29 (UPI) -- Concrete poet Mary Ellen Solt, creator of "Forsythia," which resembled a flowering shrub, died in Santa Clarita, Calif., at age 86.

Solt died June 21 in a hospital after suffering a stroke, her daughter, Susan, said.

Solt was a leader in the concrete poetry movement, in which the visual effect of characters' arrangement on a page was an important element in poetry, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

She traced the movement's history from 17th century English sonnets through the stream-of-consciousness writing of symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme, novelist and poet James Joyce and e e cummings.

While it never captured the attention of its predecessor Beat poetry, the concrete movement in recent years has been re-evaluated as a forerunner to digital poetry, which is composed on a computer, said critic Marjorie Perloff.

Digital poets select a typeface, add color and arrange the words on the screen in the spirit of the concrete poets, "who felt that poems are to be not just heard but seen," Perloff said.

Solt's poems were published in poetry magazines and anthologies.