AF2 Review: Attack of the Glitchtards - "Analog Glitch" by Lova Delis (Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series)

 

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.)

Asemic Front 2: "The Spectacle" & Other Recent Vispo by Nick Piombino (New York City)

"The Spectacle" by Nick Piombino (June 2025)

 (Photo courtesy of the artist)

"Pop-Up" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

"What?" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

"RA" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

"Go" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

"One" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

"$5" by Nick Piombino (June 2025) 

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

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)