Judith Copithorne (1940-) has been an influential voice in the Canadian experimental writing community from the 1960s to the present. Starting in the 1960s, Canada became a fertile place for the foment of concrete and visual poetry, and Copithorne was an influential figure in this scene. Like bpNichol, another looming figure in Canadian concrete poetics, Copithorne has been a longtime resident of Vancouver. Throughout her long career, Copithorne has restlessly experimented with many forms of visual poetry, ranging from the kinetic and sketchy (as seen in the example above) to angular and structural typewritten forms. The poems from "Runes" exhibit an energy and vitality not often present in many works of visual poetry. These poems suggest narrative, but a story told as much through movement as through the succession of the words on the page. The poem may easily be read as map, choreography, or as an additive graffiti, simultaneously resisting and embracing all of these modes of reading. One of the great contributions of visual poetry of the 20th century in general is the notion of a vastly expanded set of ways for interacting with the page, not limited to a strict, regimented reading from left to right, top to bottom. Across her body of work, Copithorne embraces this notion and invites a new sense of movement to the poem on the page.
