The article deals with the problem of the interaction of words, music and visuality in Russian avant-garde poetry. Analyzed are theoretical constructions and practical gains in this area, both in the historical (first half of the twentieth century) and in the non-historical avant-garde (second half of the twentieth - early twenty-first centuries). Poetry appears in new guises. On the one hand, it is sounding matter, born of a special phonetic tension. The author introduces a special term for such poetry – “wordmusic”. On the other hand, poetry appears in the form of visual images. At the same time, the author notes that all these forms can interact with each other, shows how visual works can transform into sound and performative ones. The author, being an avant-garde theorist and practitioner, considers the problem from several positions, as a participant in the process and its analyst.