Concrete Poetry and Scottish Women’s Writing: The Case of Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between concrete poetry and women’s writing, focusing especially on the concrete-influenced work of the Scottish poet and literary critic Veronica Forrest-Thomson. I initially acknowledge the male-dominated nature of the concrete poetry movement, consider some sociological reasons for the exclusion of women from the movement, and bring to light some examples of women creatively involved with concrete poetry. I then explore Forrest-Thomson’s early concrete-influenced verse and argue that Forrest-Thomson’s willingness and ability to experiment with concrete and other late-modernist literary styles reflected an exceptional degree of intellectual and economic independence. Finally, I consider the possibility that the term “Scottish women’s poetry” sometimes indicates a resistance to intellectually adventurous work such as Forrest-Thomson’s.