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AS numerous critics have remarked, Jose Juan Tablada made several major contributions to modern poetry in Mexico. Bridging the gap between the modernista poets at the turn of the century and later writers such as the estridentistas and the Contemporaneos group, he represented a crucial link between Europe and Latin America. Although Tablada is generally credited with having introduced Latin American poets to the Japanese haiku, he was also responsible for encouraging them to experiment with visual poetry. Entitled "Madrigales ideograficos," his first visual works were composed in New York City in 1915 under the aegis of Marius de Zayas, who was an old childhood friend from Mexico City. Associated with Alfred Stieglitz' art gallery "291" in various capacities, de Zayas had recently returned from Paris, where he had collaborated on a theater piece with Guillaume Apollinaire and had witnessed the creation of the latter's calligrammes. 1 Taking his cue from Apollinaire, Tablada combined two poems, entitled "El punal" and "Talon rouge," to form a larger composition (Figure 1).2 As in many of the calligrams, the dagger and the red high heel were juxtaposed to make a cubist still life. Like many of the French poems, they were portrayed in outline form and were essentially tautological. In both cases, the picture illustrates an object named in the text, which simultaneously evokes this object and depicts it visually.
For Eduardo Mitre, the charm of "El punal" resides not in its verbal message, which "no sobrepasa la escasa calidad de un madrigal romantico comun," but in its visual design (667). By contrast, he finds its companion poem pleasing in both respects. Although Tablada's typographical effects are rudimentary, the dagger's hilt appears to be outlined in boldface letters. According to visual conventions this signifies that it is relatively heavy and/or a solid (probably dark) color. In order to decipher the text, one must turn it counter clockwise 90 degrees and begin at the upper left. In order to read the crosspiece, the poem must be rotated to the right momentarily. This procedure produces the following reading:
Tu primera mirada
tu primera mirada de pasion
Adn la siento clavada
como un penal dentro del coraz6n
This does not seem to be a madrigal so much as a piropo, that...