Cover of Analog Glitch by Lova Delis (Ohio, USA)
(Photo courtesy of Asemic Front Archives)
Review: Analog Glitch
by Lova Delis (Curated by Kristine Snodgrass)
Tallahassee, Florida, USA:
Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series
10 X 7 inches, 58 pages
Review by De Villo Sloan
"For the bad bitch in us all..."
- Lova Delis, Analog Glitch intro
Asemic Front 2 readers sometimes ask why I only "publish good reviews."
Indeed, I like to accentuate the positive and share my enthusiasm for innovative and creative work that crosses my path. Amazing things are happening in the visual poetry and asemic communities. But sometimes I see things so egregious, poorly conceived and financially and spiritually bankrupt that I am compelled to break the silence.
The fledgling Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series has churned out a half dozen, expensively produced and weighty tomes with little to no promotion. Each new release, in the estimation of this reviewer, grows increasingly more vulgar feminist, tasteless and pointless. How a supposedly historic press devoted to fine writing can be hawking self-indulgent, selfie collections - I hope we soon see the demise of this pathetic series.
From Analog Glitch by Lova Delis
I have been told the Anhinga Press vispo series is now womyn-run and devoted to a brand of feminism fused with glitchart. Apparently the Anhinga Vispo Series writers - such as Lova Delis - compose with the "femmeglitch." I applaud gender exploration; I resist the feminist isolationist stance assumed by Anhinga Press.
Producing glitchart involves pressing a key on your keyboard over and over again. Apparently males do not have the "femmeglitch" key. I do not have one because only women can make a "femmeglitch," which allows access to some deep emotional states only women can experience. Try as I might, I can never know the suffering and oppression endured by a white, middle class soccer mom/political activist/ glitchtard.
The warped female images in Analog Glitch only lead me to speculate what a really bad acid trip must be like. They certainly do no enable me to transcend.
Please look at "Pouring Over" above and explain to me how you apply the femmeglitch to the piece by Lova Delis. Analog Glitch uses traditional collage approaches as well as the avant so there is more complexity than the standard femmeglitch.
A garden variety femmeglitch will be a selfie of you. Usually bits of words are added like "semioti" or "deconstruc" to send a wink you are way hip to all the intellectual theories or popular political actions of the time. (Most likely you're clueless.)
For decades, we avant garde artists have felt legally safe - at least in the USA - because all the obscenity trials of the 20th century left the precedent: You can't mess with it if it's "socially redeeming" art. With Analog Glitch by Lova Delis, I believe I have found an instance of "art" without redeeming social value.
Needless to say, do not waste a cent or a moment more of your precious time on Analog Glitch by Lova Delis or the Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series.
- De Villo Sloan
June 30, 2025
Elbridge, New York, USA
(De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate NY who frequently writes on postavant culture. He is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund. The Fund previously awarded a grant to Anhinga Press but has no current affiliation with that organization.
Sloan earned his Ph.D. in literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo where he studied with Robert Creeley, among others. He has taught and held administrative positions at University of Maryland College Park, Syracuse University, University of Rochester and others. Over the last 40 years, his reviews, essays and creative work have appeared frequently in the world's leading literary and academic journals.
He is the author of an academic study of Native American archaeology and gothic Romanticism, in addition to several volumes of poetry.
At the University of Rochester, he helped establish and wrote case material that lay the groundwork for the school's successful $2 billion comprehensive campaign.
At Wells College he was part of the campaign that raised $50 million for the institution.)
