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

Analysis: Asemic Cartography - Selections from "Mapping Terra Nullius" by John R. McConnochie (Australia)

From Mapping Terra Nullius by John R. McConnochie (Queensland, Australia) 

(November 2025) (Image Courtesy of the Artist)

Asemic Cartography - Selections from Mapping Terra Nullius 

by John R. McConnochie

by De Villo Sloan

Among the many promising sub-genres of asemics evolving globally, I want to spotlight asemic texts rooted in cartography, both its practical and conceptual aspects.

A current master of asemic cartography is Australian visual poet John McConnochie. In this post, I share excerpts from Mapping Terra Nullius, a vispo series McConnochie has published online, although currently uncollected and fragmentary.

I noted in a recent review of digital, AI-assisted asemics by Miekal And that some of the most important asemic work being published today is digital and mutating beyond the classic printed book formula. 

From Mapping Terra Nullius by John McConnochie (October 2025) 

(Image Courtesy of the Artist)

“Terra nullius” is a widely used Latin term translating to, “no one’s land.” McConnochie, an artist whose work often carries distinct ideological messages, makes subtle allusions to European colonization and systemic violations of the rights of indigenous peoples.

For me John McConnochie’s maps reference the Romanticized, pseudo-rational, often confused, attempts to chart and claim the world during the Age of Discovery. Mapping Terra Nullius provides remarkable deconstructions of colonization myths.     

From Mapping Terra Nullius by John McConnochie (October 2025)

(Image Courtesy of the Artist)

Beyond the ideological level of his work, McConnochie explores the unique symbol systems and rules of composition embedded in cartography. Asemics reduce the logic and narratives of cartography into incomprehensible, non-existent worlds. Nameless, enchanted places connect us to the mystery and imagination that is at the root of our fascination with maps.

In previous essays, I have emphasized my belief that visual poetry – including asemic writing – must necessarily incorporate the abstract principles of “textuality” in order to deliver a composition that reaches meaningfully into the poetic realm.  

Maps – as found material and resonant symbol systems – currently serve as inspiration for our innovative visual poets. I encourage you to explore this fascinating area.

 

-     - De Villo Sloan

November 28, 2025

Elbridge, New York, USA

From Mapping Terra Nullius by John McConnochie (October 2025) 

(Image Courtesy of the Artist)

From Mapping Terra Nullius by John McConnochie (September 2025) 

(Image Courtesy of the Artist)

Toward A Spoken Word Asemics: "unonu klat" by Alan Sondheim (Rhode Island, USA)

"Outtake from 'Liquid Pleistocene'" by De Villo Sloan (October 2025)

      

unonu klat

                                              

                                                     by Alan Sondheim

 

    

ytfin swe[a-z] gnitset ole elgan nocnu stxet seton lp3la bup krowten

psil tsila gnitsil tse lp3la bup u:tnerru[a-z] 53zz krowten lp5la

oib ztivroh lia[a-z] lp5la 53zz d a sklat liam klatole liaM seton

ecapsemag codtensn d nacal lpgnolla liam lpla oibtstrohs

lpgnolla nacal d psil ecapsemag klatole liam sklat a d codtensn

ecapsemag lpla lia[a-z] ztivroh oib sklat gnitset a nocnu stxet

gnitsil ztivroh oib gnitset gnitsil tse seton tse ole gnitset

oib ytfin bup lp3la tse gnitset ole elgan swe[a-z] ytfin stxet nocnu

psil tsila ole elgan oibtstrohs lpla ytfin swe[a-z] krowten lp5la

psil tsila lpgnolla nacal lp3la bup krowten :tnerru[a-z] a lp5la

klatole liam lia[a-z] seton :tnerruC 53zz seton lpgnolla liam

klatole lp5la 53zz :tnerru[a-z] lpgnolla tsila psil lp5la krowten

codtensn d d codtensn ecapsemag lpla oibtstrohs nacal a nocnu

txet lpla oibtstrohs elgan ole gnitsil tse nocnu stxet ytfin

swe[a-z] sklat gnitset bup lp3la lp3la bup ztivroh oib gnitset stxet

nocnu tse gnitsil gnitset oib ztivroh lpla stxet nocnu a gnitset

sklat swe[a-z] ytfin codtensn d ole elgan oibtstrohs tsila lpgnolla

nacal oibtstrohs lpla ecapsemag liam lpgnolla seton d codtensn

krowten lp5la psil lp5la a :tnerru[a-z] :tnerruC 53zz lp5la klatole

lp5la krowten 53zz :tnerru[a-z] seton liaM liam klatole tsila psil

krowten bup lp3la nacal lpgnolla tsila psil elgan ole

 

network pub al3pl notes texts uncon nagle elo testing [a-z]ews nifty

al5pl network zz35 [a-z]urrent:u pub al3pl est listing alist lisp

notes [a-z]ail elotalk mail talks a d zz35 al5pl Mail horvitz bio

shortstbio alpl mail allongpl lacan d nsnetdoc gamespace

nsnetdoc d a talks mail elotalk gamespace lisp d lacan allongpl

texts uncon a testing talks bio horvitz [a-z]ail alpl gamespace

testing elo est notes est listing testing bio horvitz listing

uncon texts nifty [a-z]ews nagle elo testing est al3pl pub nifty bio

al5pl network [a-z]ews nifty alpl shortstbio nagle elo alist lisp

al5pl a [a-z]urrent: network pub al3pl lacan allongpl alist lisp

mail allongpl notes zz35 [a-z]urrent: notes mail mail elotalk

network al5pl lisp alist allongpl [a-z]urrent: zz35 al5pl elotalk

uncon a lacan shortstbio alpl gamespace nsnetdoc d d nsnetdoc

nifty texts uncon est listing elo nagle shortstbio alpl texts

texts testing bio horvitz pub al3pl al3pl pub testing talks [a-z]ews

testing a uncon texts alpl horvitz bio testing listing est uncon

allongpl alist shortstbio nagle elo d nsnetdoc nifty [a-z]ews talks

nsnetdoc d notes allongpl mail gamespace alpl shortstbio lacan

elotalk al5pl zz35 [a-z]urrent: Current: a al5pl lisp al5pl network

lisp alist elotalk mail [a-z]ail notes Current: zz35 network al5pl

elo nagle lisp alist allongpl lacan al3pl pub network

 

                                                                                     October 2025

"Outtake from 'Liquid Pleistocene'" by De Villo Sloan 

(October 2025)

AF2 Review: Poetry as Opiate of the Masses: "COPIUM" by Nada Gordon (above/ground press, Canada)

 

Cover of COPIUM by Nada Gordon (above/ground press) 

(Ottawa, Canada) (2025)

Poetry as Opiate of the Masses: A review of COPIUM by Nada Gordon (above/ground press, Canada)

 

COPIUM by Nada Gordon

Ottawa, Canada: above/ground press, August 2025

24 pages; stapled

 

Review by De Villo Sloan

 

Rob Mclennan has added another literary gem to the list of recent chapbooks issued by above/ground press in Ottawa, Canada, with the publication of COPIUM by Nada Gordon.

COPIUM is a single lyric poem composed of elegant tercets that encode opulent imagery like ornate beadwork. Through associations, wordplay, unexpected juxtapositions, and explorations of poetic discourse, Gordon creates a unique and engaging record of what in Modernity is known as “the stream of consciousness.”

Her narrative melds objective and subjective realities; she skillfully provides multiple perspectives on daily life. The book includes images by Gordon in collaboration with MidJourney AI.

COPIUM succeeds on its Flarfy juxtapositions, irony, popcult references, and occasional absurdist incoherence. She has developed a postavant poetic line that extends Modernist fragmentation into new realms, which I believe is an accomplishment of great significance.

From COPIUM by Nada Gordon (above/ground press) 

(Ottawa, Canada) (2025)

Nada Gordon has a rare ability to create poetic forms that permit (if they do not encourage) multiple but equally illuminating interpretations. In COPIUM, I unexpectedly found a lyric poem of outstanding beauty and insight. The third and fourth stanzas of the poem provide a good example of how its self-reflexivity contributes to the poem’s genesis:

Peacock fanning out…

swans entwining necks

as co-beings

 

feathering extremities

like kelp, flowers, hands

in a diamond brain (brine) of lost time.

 

For me, the pleasure of reading COPIUM is found in its self-reflective reverie, (consciously) aesthetic escapism, and its meta-poetical commentary. Gordon gives me the sublime experience of decayed opulence described to perfection with imagery by Charles Baudelaire in The Flowers of Evil. I find myself returning to the text for the pleasure of its aesthetic decadence for the same reasons I return to Baudelaire and Poe. 

COPIUM is also a fascinating compendium of English language nouns and adjectives that are useful in both scientific and artistic discourse. Here is an example from COPIUM by Nada Gordon showing her use of particulars:

 

           Caves of gems, and a pomegranate gem

           as a giant war demon.

           Mendelssohn infuses a dark city

 

           With the idea of ‘charging’

           (being recharged) –

           rogue elephants

 

           the tusk, the tree

           the metals, the mortals,

           breath and gourds and reeds.

 

           what are:

           ‘words’ ‘texts’ ‘friends’

           ‘membranes’ ‘borders’ ‘organs’

 

‘           countries’ ‘Jews’ ‘food’

‘           animals’ ‘cities’ ‘books’

           ‘cells’ ‘Gaza’ ‘gauze’

 

Paradoxically, however, looking beyond traces of conceptual writing, Gordon’s lyric is built on the solid foundation of, “No ideas but in things.” In fact, a close linguistic analysis of the various catalogs woven into COPIUM would likely produce interesting results.

A worldview present in Gordon’s writing is that language is an inevitable intermediary in human communication, expression and – of course - poetry. COPIUM is a lush sea of imagery and a (sometimes) mechanistic interrogation of language. Nada Gordon often approaches the edge of meaning: the same terrain as asemic writers. She brings COPIUM into the realm of visual and concrete poetry:

 

    Owls

    Opals

    Opossums

 

    and a lunar pOnd

    the loss of pherOmOne pOwer

    in the OdORless digital world

 

    The letter O:

    Just lOOk at it!

    Ketamina LOy.

Nada Gordon's COPIUM is a multi-faceted composition that invites readers to engage with the text often, revealing multiple perspectives and interpretations. She is one of our most important poetic voices. above/ground press has done extraordinary work producing this edition. If you only purchase one chapbook in 2025, order COPIUM by Nada Gordon. 

From COPIUM by Nada Gordon (above/ground press) 

(Ottawa, Canada) (2025)

De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate NY. He writes about postavant lit & culture and is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund.

AI-semics & Human Creativity: Selections from PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM by Miekal And (Wisconsin, USA)

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (West Lima, Wisconsin, USA) 

(August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

Since August 2025, visual poet Miekal And has been creating and publishing digitally PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM, an image-text series that represents, for me, the most state-of-the-art work being done today at the intersections of asemics, concrete poetry, and vispo.

Thus far, PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM has been published only online. His audience has been able to follow the genesis of Miekal And’s piece from drafts to a “finished” work.

In fact, I am posting some favorite pieces from drafts of PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM first shared in the Facebook asemic writing group in August when Miekal And published online "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm," a series of 76 image-text pieces. 

While the series could easily be adapted to the physical book form, the affordability and ease of publishing the work solely online has obvious advantages made evident by And's digital acumen. The shift from The Age of Print to digital poetics still presents many challenges to artists and publishers. 

 

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM is a meta-textual and metasemic lyric cycle. Miekal And explores the deep roots of language and his own poetic origins. He masterfully incorporates many current vispo subgenres that are evolving in contemporary vispo. I believe PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM is a composition of great significance revealing the potential of AI to revolutionize asemic composition.

PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM presents an awe-inspiring tour of calligraphic styles, exotic and mundane fonts, organic forms, and glyphs all composed digitally. Miekal And's asemics are widely admired for seemingly expressive strokes of the stylus, but in reality his success is the result of collaborations with Artificial Intelligence, photoshop, and fontographer. A close examination of botanical images and references in the series alone could fill a hefty thesis.

A complete (83 plates thus far) version of PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM can be viewed (free) at the Internet Archive. Miekal And wrote:

"Recovered from the memory-skin of a vanished species, PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM is a corpus of 83 visual utterances rendered in what may be a language, ritual, or recursive hallucination. Glyphs emerge not to be read, but to breathe—spiraling, mutating, decomposing across each frame.

"The forms resemble botanical alphabets, fungal grammars, and the calligraphy of oxygen-deprived minds. Some plates tremble with footwritten tremor-lines; others dissolve in brush-pool smudging or flicker with quantum simultaneity—saying all things, always, and never.

"Fragments of Martian humidity script, Venusian biosignal, and neural circuitry calligraphy suggest transmission across multiple atmospheres. Meaning is neither fixed nor central—it decomposes mid-glyph into cephaloglyphic debris, insectoid syntax, and sacred obelisk scrawl.

"These works are ambient, recursive, post-syntactic. Together they form a multilingual pansemic palimpsest: not a language lost, but one that refuses to be found.

"Format: 83 images, mixed digital/analog media

"Origin: Unverified | Context: Pre-collapse dialects | Function: Unknown

"https://archive.org/details/pansemic-textstorm"

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

While numerous visual poets today in The Asemic School of Quietude practice meditative simplicity with stylus, ink and handmade paper, technology is opening new doors for creativity as well. The task will likely fall upon writers and artist to define what it means to be human.

- De Villo Sloan

September 28, 2025

Elbridge, New York USA

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

From "The Not So Literal Chronology of Pansemic Textstorm" 

by Miekal And (August 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate NY. He writes about postavant lit & culture and is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund.