Asemic Front 2 Collab by John M. Bennett & Osvaldo Cibils

Collab by John M. Bennett (Ohio, USA) & Osvaldo Cibils (Spain) (2017)

 

 

 

The Asemic Front project has been documenting the evolution of asemic-visual poetry collaborations by John M. Bennett and Osvaldo Cibils (along with others who have worked with the two artists on expanded collabs). John M. Bennett kindly send AF2 a gorgeous example of a Bennett-Cibils collab courtesy of Luna Bisonte Prods. Also included is some JMB solo work.

 

- De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asemic Front 2 Review: "on the oth" by c.r.e wells (Faint Press)

Faint Press mailing from c.r.e. wells (Chris Wells) (Columbus, Ohio, USA)

 

 

Chris Wells is active in the international vispo community and the Eternal Network (mail art). This hard copy mail from him for Asemic Front 2 shows the benefits of circulating work in both these groups that are gallant supporters of post-avant art. Wells' Faint Press, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA, is increasingly a presence of note with its innovative, finely produced yet refreshingly non-elitist publications. Chris Wells has been a faithful contributor to both iterations of Asemic Front, so I am always very interested in watching the evolution of his solo work and his collaborations.

 

on the oth is a well-considered series of visual poems (image-text) that originally appeared in digital form in the venerable journal Otoliths (#46 Winter 2017):

 

 

https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2017/06/cre-wells.html 

 

 

Since on the oth is available in both digital and print form, I will not worry about reproducing the series in its entirety for readers. This access is exactly why I applaud Wells' involvement in vispo and the Eternal Network. on the oth is available and well-documented for our viewing and study.





 

 

 

  

on the oth by c.r.e. wells (Chris Wells)

 

 

Chris Wells is a visual poet whose work tends to be rooted in concrete poetry and explorations of the relationship of image to word (sign). And on the oth is a particularly excellent example of this work. Readers know an exploration of concrete poetry's relationship to asemic writing is a central preoccupation of Asemic Front 2. Chris Wells' work, along with Cheryl Penn's for example, is of great importance to the AF2 effort.

 

The book is an extended (long lyric) or serial poem; thus we can follow themes and variations, deconstructions and reconstructions with far more depth than the quick, single-scan form that the digital world inherently encourages. I have written before about visual poetry and asemic writing requiring a new kind of reading. on the oth will provide profound revelations to any reader who spends meditative time with the text and abandons preconceptions about reading.

 



  

 

  

Faint Press mailing from c.r.e. wells (Chris Wells) (Columbus, Ohio, USA)

on the oth confirms my theory of a vital and enduring "school" of visual poetry in the heartland of the United States. Some of the important historic figures include: Miekal And, Liz Was, David Chirot, Matthew Stolte (Wisconsin); Diane Keys (Illinois); John and C. Mehrl Bennett and now Chris Wells (Ohio). These poets do not simply share geographic proximity; they have shared aesthetic and thematic concerns. on the oth surely places Wells on equal footing with this seminal group of USA visual poets.

 

Wells achieves the gritty urban industrial repetitions and textures found so masterfully cultivated in work by Chirot and Stolte. This is a trademark of the Rust Belt vispo. He uses to great effect the copyart aesthetic of Miekal And's best work. Modernist fragmentation and the Burroughs cut-up as filtered by John M. Bennett are prevalent in Wells' work. While I admire and recognize Chris Wells' originality, this book is rife with influences from other poets and his environment. Wells seems to embrace in Whitmanesque expansiveness the spirit of his regional literary community.

 

The Rust Belt vispo was primarily in its origin, even curiously, a masculine genre that blended into the popcult landscape of its time with Punk anger and antiart; it has matured and mellowed. The presence and growing influence of C. Mehrl Bennett and Diane Keys (again only to present a few female examples) is taking this vital aspect of American vispo in new directions. Chris Wells has produced successful vispo collabs with Diane Keys, which reflects his place in the continuum.  

 

We live in a time when asemic writing is a practice and sometimes issue of contention in the vispo community. Few visual poets are working without at least feeling the presence of asemics as they compose. on the oth is primarily a book of text-centered vispo, but I believe asemics are present in the book because on the oth de-signifies the conventionally readable text present at its beginning; the title itself points to de-signification. This process might also be called moving the comprehensible to the incomprehensible, estrangement, and reducing language to its core materiality. All these are devices recognized in the composition of asemic texts. They are also consistently present in work by Wells and related poets.  

 

on the oth by Chris Wells is a much-appreciated addition to the Asemic Front 2 project. I hope we will share more work by this author/artist in the future.

 

- De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

Asemic Front 2 Collabs: Diane Keys & De Villo Sloan

Asemic visual poetry collab by Diane Keys (Illinois, USA)

& De Villo Sloan (NY, USA)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collab by Diane Keys & De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 By Diane Keys and De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

Asemic Front 2 Review: "Meta Poetry" by Cheryl Penn

Cover of Meta Poetry (a this and that guide to this and that Volume 1)

by Cheryl Penn (Durban, South Africa)

 

 

Cheryl Penn's Meta Poetry is an artist's book (or chapbook) of 16 color images released in a (micro-)edition of 10 books signed by the artist. I feel very fortunate indeed to obtain a hard copy and hope the book will be available online or in further editions for the many who will benefit from seeing it. (More information is provided at the end of the blog. I will resist the temptation to simply reproduce the entire collection in deference to the writer and publisher.)

 

Meta Poetry is a collection of asemic poems by Penn. In this era, asemic writing/art is growing in popularity; its sub-genres - still largely undefined - are beginning to emerge, not without heated debates. Penn's book provides invaluable practical and conceptual directions for asemic poetry.

One point that seems to have achieved a consensus in the asemic community is that asemic writing is (or is a form of) visual poetry. Thus the notion of "asemic poetics" becomes even more complex than if we were addressing a new type of textual writing making a claim to the written poetic tradition. (Let us set aside sound poetry and spoken asemics on this occasion.) In Meta Poetry Cheryl Penn provides intriguing possibilities that beg further expansion and exploration by others. Hoping not to overstate my point I will venture a rephrase: Meta Poetry is an important collection of asemic poems.
 

 

 

 

 Contents of Meta Poetry by Cheryl Penn

 

 

Asemic writing is widely considered a post-avant cultural pursuit, so some might be surprised or perplexed by the fact that the basis of composition and organization in Meta Poetry is the historical continuum of poetic form itself. Penn's work in the collection is a synthesis of literary tradition and the iconoclastic avant garde. As a result, we are left to wonder if the opposition between the two is not a false dichotomy since she is able to achieve such unity and harmony. The title Meta Poetry is well-chosen because the book is a meditation on form, asemic writing can be viewed as meta-language and the pieces investigate lyric poetry's range and limits of emotional expression.

 

She presents  an asemic-vispo history of poetic form (English language-based) from sonnets to organic structures. Penn is building upon the concept that "the verse that print bred" as Charles Olson wrote has recognizable shapes on the page. For example, we can recognize the visual form of haiku or sonnet without reading it; that recognition sparks subjective responses. When the space of language in these forms-shapes is inhabited by the expressive calligraphy of asemic writing, we have a new kind of reading and a new kind of poetry. Thus Meta Poetry is a merging of a highly self-reflective "shape poetry" or "pattern poetry" with asemics. In the hands of an artist-writer as gifted as Cheryl Penn, the result is a tremendous achievement and experience for the reader.

 

- De Villo Sloan 

 

 

 

 

 [Asemic] "Sonnet" (left) by Cheryl Penn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Rorschach Plot" by Cheryl Penn (organic form)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Visual Poetry" by Cheryl Penn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



New Abstract Asemic Art by Yayoi S.W.

Asemic abstract art by Yayoi S.W. (Kirkland, Washington, USA)

 

 

 

Yayoi S.W. comes to Asemic Front 2 via the Eternal Network. She has become an important contributor to the project.

Yayoi S.W. is prolific; she has committed herself to producing one artwork per day for one year. This pace would be overwhelming for most artists, but she seems to thrive following this demanding program. One result of this extraordinary output is that Yayoi S.W. is generating a large body of spontaneous asemic work rooted in abstract art. Following the results on AF2 reveals much about the asemic writing process and a spontaneous approach as compared to - for example - developing a complex symbol system and then applying it.

On Asemic Front I have written before about the relation of asemic writing to automatic writing and related methods of spontaneous composition rooted in Romanticism, Surrealism and Beat writing. This leads us to possible psychological and psychoanalytic methods for interpreting asemics: Seeing asemic writing as an unmediated conduit to the unconscious.

Yayoi's wonderfully expressive, free and engaging "writing" is an invitation to delve into deeper levels of consciousness shared by all humans.

- DVS  

By Yayoi S.W.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mail art by Yayoi S.W. (Kirkland, Washington, USA)