Two Homages: For Mary Ellen Solt by Joel Lipman (Ohio, USA) & for Paul Celan by Cheryl Penn (South Africa)

"Homage for Mary Ellen Solt" by Joel Lipman (Ohio, USA) 

(December 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

Earlier this week I was excited to see visual poets Joel Lipman and Cheryl Penn had both digitally published impressive homages to two important figures in poetry, experimental literature, and visual poetry: Joel created a piece for Mary Ellen Solt and Cheryl – always a fan of great European poetry – produced an impressive work honoring Paul Celan.

Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007) earned a master’s degree in literature from the University of Iowa. She became one of the most important leaders of the global concrete poetry movement of the 1960s, co-editing the influential and classic anthology Concrete Poetry: A Worldview (Indiana University Press 1968).

Learn more about Mary Ellen Solt, including Concrete Poetry: A Worldview at Ubu:

https://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/index.html

Solt’s concrete poetry collections, Flowers in Concrete and Marriage: A Code Poem, are contemporary classics. Among many other honors, she received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research William Carlos Williams.

"Amsel: for Celan" by Cheryl Penn (South Africa) 

(December 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

Paul Celan (1920-1970) was a German-speaking Romanian who became a French citizen in 1955. He survived a forced labor camp where he was sent by the Nazis. In the ruins of Post-World War II Europe, Celan became globally recognized for his literary and cultural innovations. Today, he is enjoying revived interest among visual poets.

I am not at all surprised that Cheryl Penn chose Celan for the powerful visual poem in this post. Cheryl’s work has always included text and cryptic experiments with language and the borderland between word and image.

The invocation of Solt and Celan by Lipman and Penn allude to a powerful and rich history in visual poetry and experimental writing that is in need of further exploration. 

- De Villo Sloan

December 18, 2025

Elbridge, New York, USA

AF2 Review - "eyesore" by Johannes S.H. Bjerg & Charlotte Jung (above/ground press, Canada)

 

Cover of eyesore by Johannes S.H. Bjerg (Denmark) 

& Charlotte Jung (Sweden) (October 2025) 

(above/ground press)

Review of eyesore

by Johannes S.H. Bjerg & Charlotte Jung

Ottawa: above/ground press 2025

isbn: 978-1-77460-421-2

20 pages; 8 X 7 inches; stapled

 

Review by De Villo Sloan

 

Stockholm-based poet and playwright Charlotte Jung and Danish writer and artist Johannes S.H. Bjerg have collaborated to produce what might easily prove to be this year’s best collection of visual poetry: Jung’s minimalist concrete poetry and Bjerg’s calligraphic, asemic neoglyphs. 

rob mclennan – above/ground press editor – again displays his talent for locating and publishing the best postavant art and lit in his burgeoning chapbook series.  eyesore is eminently collectible, and the thoughtful reader will want to revisit the book many times to explore its possibilities for interpretation.

Asemic neoglyph  in eyesore by Johannes S.H. Bjerg

Johannes S.H. Bjerg is known in the visual poetry community primarily for his calligraphy-based asemic texts. He eschews the faux abstract expressionist approach taken by many of his contemporaries in favor of a stark, black and white textuality that complements Charlotte Jung’s poetry perfectly. Bjerg's vision of asemics is similar to the vision of Jim Leftwich and Tim Gaze (1993).

Bjerg’s compositions in eyesore are imbued with complexity not fitting a strict minimalist definition. His cursive streams weave in, above, and below the boundaries of our shared language.

Yet each piece is a single entity, drawing from the concept of the neoglyph (a term coined by John R. McConnochie). In the context of eyesore, each of Bjerg’s pieces can be read as a single asemic poem in a dialog with Jung’s work. His asemic pieces, for me, are similar to the approach taken by John M. Bennett and Henry Michaux.

“meaning” by Charlotte Jung in eyesore

In my review of Charlotte Jung’s Collected (Timglaset 2023), I praised her concrete poetry, which I see sharing many traits with the work of Aram Saroyan. She works within the constraints of concrete poetry rooted in Modernity.

Jung also has a unique ability to present fluidity and subtle expression in a way that surpasses the work of previous generations. eyesore is another valuable addition to the growing body of Jung’s work.

rob mclennan has made an important contribution to vispo with the publication of this chapbook. The audience is presented with a unique opportunity to explore “new poetries” in the form of asemic writing and minimalist poetry in a lyric sequence. In eyesore, we see a glimpse of poetry’s future.

 

-        - De Villo Sloan

December 2, 2025

Elbridge, New York, USA