La Lecture by Jan Baetens, Milan Chlumsky (review)

When poetry and photography begin a discussion, even a polite one, what role does the reader/viewer play? Does he or she take the event into account, is the discussion read or watched, or is it the interactivity between the two media that draws attention? Taking the event into account might be the only honest choice when, paradoxically, the reader’s eyes are at first listening to the words that the mind is configuring based on the visual form of the letters appearing on the page and then attempting to link those images to the photos. The least that can be asked of readers is to keep an open mind when opening La Lecture by Jan Baetens and Milan Chlumsky.