What is the relation of image and word, of sentences and pictures? What kind of message does this combination produce when juxtaposed on a single material plane? And how do we read its ?infinite? relation? These are the questions at the center of this inquiry. My main interest concerns the exact nature of the relation between photographic images and textual elements of poetic language when these are juxtaposed in what I call Phototext poetry.The thesis calls into question the conventional reading habits of the conjunction of photographs and texts, and seeks to understand the more complex connections intrinsic to the relation image/word and its material and perceptual play in poetic works. Does a text always ?anchor? the multiple meanings of an image, as Roland Barthes argues? What if the alterations of an image could ?anchor? certain fractions of a poetic, polysemantic textual construct? Is a photograph indifferent to the visual, material permutations of texts that certain contemporary poetic practices produce?I discuss Phototextual works and collaborations of various kinds, from Molin fontän [?Molin?s fountain?] (1866) over classic surrealist poetry to language-oriented writing.