MIT Press Will Release "The Complete Stein Poems" by Jackson Mac Low (computer-generated poetry)

 

To be published August 19, 2025 by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press:

The Complete Stein Poems

by Jackson Mac Low

A landmark publication in computer-generated poetry drawn from the works of Gertrude Stein.

The Stein poems of Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) were written between 1998 and 2003. Comprising more than 500 pages of text, this edited series of 161 poems—most of them never published—is the poet’s last great work, composed during the final years of a lifetime of prolific creation.

The raw material of each poem was produced through Mac Low’s diastic text-selection method of reading through passages of either Ulla E. Dydo’s A Stein Reader or a corrected version of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. 

Guided by Charles O. Hartman’s 1994 DIASTEX5 computer program, which replicates the diastic method first developed by Mac Low in 1963, the process requires that words be drawn sequentially from the source text in accordance with their rule-driven, algorithmic correspondence with a seed text.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552868/the-complete-stein-poems-19982003/

Taken as a whole, these poems are a breathtaking invitation to the reader into a space of creative possibilities and unforeseen encounters.

Jackson Mac Low was a leading member of the Fluxus group, an innovator of procedural poetics and liminal compositional forms, and a progenitor of the Language Poets and other conceptual artists.

Asemic Front 2 Gallery: Selected Recent Work by Kristen Szumyn (Sydney, Australia)

 

"databending" by Kristen Szumyn (Sydney, Australia) (June 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"untitled" by Kristen Szumyn (June 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"found stamp" by Kristen Szumyn (May 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"Untitled" by Kristen Szumyn (June 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"'Introduction à l’Esthétique Imaginaire ou Mémoire sur la 

particule infinitésimale' from the archives; still

 shot from the short film for De Villo Sloan" 

by Kristen Szumyn (May 2025)

 (Image courtesy of the artist)

"found stamp" by Kristen Szumyn (June 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

Intermedia Collaboration by Sarah Ridgely and Christian Bok: Algorithmically Generated Asemics in "Fifty Days at Iliam" (Canada, USA, UK)

Algorithmically generated asemics by Sarah Ridgley (Arkansas, USA) in her collaboration 

with Christian Bok entitled "Fifty Days at Iliam." Performed at Ladbroke Hall, London. 

(Image courtesy of the artists) (June 2025)

Algorithmically generated asemics were among the wonders of new poetic and artistic genres featured in the collaborative piece "Fifty Days at Iliam" performed in London by Canadian experimental poet Christian Bok. 

The work was commissioned by VERSEverse and both documentation and digital art from the performance are available online for free and some of the art is available for sale.

More about artist Sarah Ridgely:

https://sarahridgley.com/

More about "Fifty Days at Iliam":

https://theverseverse.com/poems/fifty-days-at-iliam-sarah-ridgley 

"I prompted AI [Artificial Intelligence] to compose ten lyrics based on paintings by Cy Twombly. Then Sarah [Ridgely] used an algorithm to convert each poem into an asemic script."

- Christian Bok

Asemic Front 2 Gallery: Asemics & Automatic Writing by EgiDia Elle (Turin, Italy)

 "At School - Scrittura Asemica 2" by EgiDia Elle (Turin, Italy)

 (April 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

 "At School - Scrittura Asemica 1" (April 2025) by EgiDia Elle

(Image courtesy of the artist)

 "Colori liturgici su mimetica militare - Pace disarmata - 

Papa Leone XIV" by EgiDia Elle (May 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"Asemic Code" by EgiDia Elle (April 2025)

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"Asemic Cherokee - Tecnica Mista Su Carta" 

(April 2025) by EgiDia Elle 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"Asemic Neolithic" by EgiDia Elle (April 2025)

(Image courtesy of the artist)

"Inconfinabile" by EgiDia Elle (June 2025)

(Image courtesy of the artist)

AF2 Review: "Dead Wax" A William S. Burroughs Asemic Fanzine (Spain)

Cover page of Dead Wax: Las escrituras del Tio Bill (fanzine edited 

by Francisco Galvez) (Spain) (Dead Wax 2020)

Recently I posted an Asemic Front 2 update of work by mail art friend Spanish visual poet Ferran Destemple. One of his ongoing projects is an intensive exploration of asemics by William S. Burroughs (WSB). Destemple has both isolated asemic anti-signs created by Burroughs, and he has entered into an other-worldly dialog with the departed William Lee. 

Ferran Destemple also sent me a copy of Dead Wax fanzine from 2020. This fanzine is created by Francisco Galvez and made from WSB’s writing that includes asemic anti-symbols. Thus Dead Wax both chronicles WSB’s imagination and vital interpretations and collaborations taking place. To learn more about DeadWax:

https://deadwaxzine.tumblr.com/ 

I see in Dead Wax extended and astute reflections on masculinity, guns, colonization and other themes. This is an excellent publication for those interested in vispo, asemics as well as Beats.

From Dead Wax: Las escrituras del Tio Bill (Spain) (Dead Wax 2020)

WSB’s reputation rose beyond the literary and into the realm of popular culture during his lifetime. David Cronenberg brought Naked Lunch into the filmic realm, fully aware WSB had a popcult persona that influenced the ultimate narrative.

Ferran Destemple identifies the mytho-poetic aspects of WSB's life and at the same time reveals his own formidable talents to us.

- De Villo Sloan

June 2, 2025

Elbridge, New York

 

From Dead Wax: Las escrituras del Tio Bill fanzine (Spain) 

(Deadwax 2020)

From Dead Wax: Las escrituras del Tio Bill fanzine (Spain) 

(Deadwax 2020)

AF2 Commentary: Hannah Weiner at the Intersection of Asemic Writing and Visual Poetry

Cover of WRITTEN IN THE ZERO ONE by Hannah Weiner. Published in 1985 

(edition of 350) by Pete Spence, Post-Neo Publications, Victoria, Australia. 

(Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive)

I have been reviewing presses where I believe contemporary iterations of visual, concrete, and asemic poetries first took root. Correspondent of many miles and years, Pete Spence, sent me a package that included a 24-page chapbook titled WRITTEN IN THE ZERO ONE by Hannah Weiner. Pete Spence produced this first edition of 350 in 1985.

New forms in visual poetry, the emergence of a new concrete poetry plus the articulation of a theory of asemics aka asemantic writing were shared on a global scale in the 1980s: new genres evolving to the present moment. Pete Spence and a few others – such as Miekal And in Wisconsin, USA – invented and disseminated these new forms of visual poetry to tiny and “underground” audiences.

Marveling at Weiner’s WRITTEN IN THE ZERO ONE, I can see from a distant perspective that critical theory and especially the work of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets had a pronounced impact on the evolution of visual poetry and asemic writing. Weiner’s interest in clairvoyance and apparitions of language make her of keen interest to calligraphers and glitchers alike who have roots in automatic writing.

Entering Weiner’s chapbook, I am drawn into a world where I am enmeshed in a net of language, which is the only way I can comprehend my reality. Weiner is engrossed in process, wordplay, the appearance of poly-voices: I find her discourse more and more engaging as I read. She presents the writing like a sound poem score. Not surprisingly, the words make structures on the page, and we are moving into the realm of a concrete poetry but far from George Herbert’s angel wings. 

From WRITTEN IN THE ZERO ONE by Hannah Weiner. Published in 1985 

(edition of 350) by Pete Spence, Post-Neo Publications, Victoria, Australia. 

(Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive)

A crucial difference between the stance of the New American Poetry and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing is that the former strove for immediacy and direct experience. Allen Ginsberg’s “first thought; best thought” is well-known. L=A=N=G-U=A=G=E writers insist our only experience of the world is language and, ultimately, language can only speak about itself. Regrettably, the nihilist view endures as visual poetries emerge as serious contenders in 21^st century literary culture. 

- De Villo Sloan

May 29, 2025

Elbridge, New York, USA

From WRITTEN IN THE ZERO ONE by Hannah Weiner. Published in 1985

 (edition of 350) by Pete Spence, Post-Neo Publications, Victoria, Australia. 

(Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive)

Burroughs is a Virus: Ferran Destemple's Asemic Clairvoyant Dialogs with "Uncle Bill" (Spain)

Cover of art catalog altered by Ferran Destemple (Barcelona, Spain) 

with asemic signs made with/by William S. Burroughs

 found in The Soft Machine and elsewhere. 

(no date) Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive. 

Burroughs is a Virus: Ferran Destemple's Asemic 

Clairvoyant Dialogs with "Uncle Bill"

I have written a number of Asemic Front 2 articles about a Spanish visual poet - Ferran Destemple - who is doing fascinating work with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs. See the Soft Machine article and other work by Destemple and Burroughs on AF2.

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2024/08/af2-commentary-ferran-destemples-asemic.html

A number of us currently involved in asemics discovered this esoteric practice via the work of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs. (Many more sources of asemic inspiration can be found and, I think, are worthy of in-depth exploration.) 

While examples of Gysin's calligraphic work are readily available, Burroughs' asemic output is less well known. Destemple "writes-over" Picasso (and cultural Modernity) with anti-symbols  invented by Burroughs. Destemple's asemics salvage incomprehensible lost languages from the wasteland of WSB's imagination.

Of even more interest to me are Destemple's asemic dialogs with the dearly departed Burroughs. The result is an asemiotic construct of beauty and complexity. We live in a time when musicians collaborate via AI with musical partners dead nearly a half century to make new hits. Ferran's dialogs with WSB are entirely reasonable - even expected.

I look forward to sharing more work by Ferran Destemple. His kind missive explains much and is so articulate I give you the full text:  

Dear De Villo, 

I am sending you an asemic piece by Uncle Bill (Burroughs). In this work, Bill's asemic writing is inscribed over a Picasso art catalog. It is a dialog between two artists' visions: Burroughs' (writing) and Picasso's (paint), the language virus, the writing virus, injects Picasso's drawings.

Uncle Bill is making more work with printed texts by other artists. He is also working on pieces of asemic writing with AI. 

I will send you more work soon.

Best regards,

- Ferran Destemple

April 14, 2025

Cabrils, Spain

From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain) 

with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.

(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)

From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain) 

with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.

(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)

From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain) 

with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.

(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)

From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain) 

with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.

(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)