Asemic calligraphy by Jay Snodgrass
(Tallahassee, Florida, USA)
Calligraphy by Jay Snodgrass becomes immediately recognizable to readers and is much-admired in the international asemic writing and art community. In particular, he is associated with Michael Jacobson's post-literate venues that have done so much to advance the asemic movement and explore complex theoretical issues.
I am very pleased to be able to share this selection of work by Jay Snodgrass as a part of his first appearance on Asemic Front. He thoughtfully sent along work that I see falling into two categories: (1) Calligraphic work (above and below) - that to me evokes medieval calligraphy - that forms the basis of his asemic symbol systems and (2) image-text pieces (the last three on this blog) that qualify as the kind of "visual poetry-asemic hybrids" that are examined with great interest - but not exclusively - on Asemic Front.
I am neither a medievalist nor do I ultimately know much about calligraphy. So this "reading" of the Snodgrass work might be highly subjective. (All the same, I think we need to share our "readings" of asemics more than we do.) With that disclaimer, I return to my contention that asemics by Jay Snodgrass often evoke medieval calligraphy. I feel as if I am looking at a medieval text that has been uprooted from conventional signification and/or deconstructed to the elemental shapes and forms from which written language emerged. Yet these primal, archaic shapes are re-forming into something new that is, as yet, ineffable.
Even if my response is highly subjective, it points to the fact that much asemic writing evokes or alludes to existing written languages and often from specific historical periods. This is one way asemic writing functions as a meta-language and is emotionally expressive. For example, how often have you heard or read responses to asemic work like this: "That looks like Arabic!" "Those look like Runes!" "That looks like Japanese!" But they are not Arabic, Japanese or Runes nor can they be read in any conventional way. These allusions to existing written languages are one way asemics convey emotions, ideas, subtle tonality, connections to language on an unconscious level, allusions to history and culture as well as linguistic and poetic forms.
Some asemic writers concentrate on individual symbols and glyphs. Others go further into structure via "asemic syntax" and "asemic poetics." As these pieces testify, Jay Snodgrass experiments freely with asemic forms ranging from the linear to organic structures.
by Jay Snodgrass
The next three pieces by Jay Snodgrass are the image-text compositions with asemics; asemic visual poetry. Every visual poet is challenged with integrating the interplay (or downright contradiction) between text and image in her or his own way. It is fascinating to me how Jay Snodgrass chooses to integrate - very successfully - the flow of asemics with the shapes of the human body expressed through the rationality of anatomy. Ordinary linear text is integrated into the piece as well.
Since Jay Snodgrass is very adept with what is certainly one of the world's most obscure and esoteric practices - creating asemic structures - I want to mention the organic forms that emerge in most of these pieces. Jay Snodgrass chose to connect his asemics with the shapes of the human body, as noted. (As a result, his somewhat rigid asemics become more fluid and less linear.)
Mid-20th century poets who were the great champions and innovators of organic form in poetry often associated the poem with the body (body defines form): literally! Some of this was related to the emphasis on breath lines and breathing, but other physical attributes were connected as well. Charles Olson saw the poet's body and the poem as essentially the same being (although I am not completely clear on the alchemical process involved). And Michael McClure saw the poem not only as linguistically organic but literally as a living being. Thus, Jay Snodgrass's choice of the human body in these visual poems has, I think, poetic resonance as well as literal and metaphorical possibilities.
- De Villo Sloan
by Jay Snodgrass
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