Cristina De Simone catapults the collection into a twentieth century of avant-garde experimentation and the radical revision of what might constitute theatre. Focusing on the post-war period, De Simone describes how ‘action poetry’ and ‘performance poetry’, inspired by the historical avant-garde of the start of the century, positioned orality, namely the physical act of utterance, centre-stage. Artists including Artaud; non-professional actors such as Colette Thomas with whom he worked; movements such as the Lettrists founded by Isidore Isou; and events such as the Domaine Poétique evenings staged by poets such as Bernard Heidsieck, Henri Chopin, François Dufrêne and Brion Gysin had, until the 2010s, been relegated to historical oblivion. Now rehabilitated, they are considered, argues De Simone, as foundational figures and moments in modern and contemporary research-led experimental performance into the voice, the body and language.

This chapter discusses the songlines of First Nations people as living song emerging from the land and vehicle of cultural knowledge. It then analyses engagements with an international avant-garde in the twentieth century, through the transnational performances of Amanda Stewart and Chris Mann, Jas H. Duke’s Dada-inspired sound poems, Javant Biarujia’s created language, and the performance poetry of Ania Walwicz and Ouyang Yu. The chapter also investigates visual poetry in Australia, including the techniques of cryptographic symbols and icons, comic strip narratives, and collage. Using the sonnet poems of Alex Selenitsch and Cath Vidler as examples, it asserts the value of comparative readings of visual and concrete poetry. The chapter suggests that concrete poetry of the 1970s, hypermedia experiments of the 1980s, and Language art all typically fall outside institutional histories and often unsettle the constitution of a national literature. It distinguishes conceptual poetry from electronic poetry, arguing that the conceptual poem questions the ground of the work while electronic poetry tests new environments and makes poetry through the test.