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)