Introduction

Summary

Reading is a seemingly static activity. As experimental literature shows, it may also involve dynamic manipulation of the volume whose materiality cannot go unnoticed. Significantly, there are writers willing to engage with the physicality of the book who have likewise gained experience in theatre, a medium that works explicitly with the mobile body in space. Such intermedia parallels can be found in liberature – a literary genre defined by Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik, encompassing books whose shape is intentionally designed by the author and constitutes a part of the message conveyed to the reader. In Bazarnik's words, the term “would denote a kind of creative writing that fuses text with its physical form into an inseparable whole in the space of the book” (Bazarnik 2016: 13).

The content-form blend has been for many (including myself) one of the most accessible clues to what liberature is and what it may be used for. It is always safe to check whether the author had their say about the volume, fonts, colours, the arrangement of text on the page, etc., and, if so, look for material devices that help to navigate and comprehend the work, encouraging one to manipulate the book while holding it in one's hands. Yet the longer one deals with liberature, the more it has to offer. One begins to notice that oftentimes different media are involved in the construction of a liberatic work, e.g. William Blake used his painting skills to make poetry collections, Radosław Nowakowski drew on his architectural interests while writing Ulica Sienkiewicza w Kielcach / Sienkiewicza Street in Kielce, and Fajfer himself included a DVD and a QR code in his poetry collections. Cherishing the diversity, one may be further inspired by numerous reading paths provided by the works and the partnership between the author and the audience, who are invited to contribute to the meaning-making process. This is one of the most crucial encounters arranged by means of the material book – touching in its physicality, swift in its uniqueness, exciting in its unpredictability.