Asemic Front 2 Top Ten Faves of 2025

From "decompositions" by Jim Leftwich (2004) 

(AF2 Archive)

1. "The State of Asemia 2025 according to Jim Leftwich" Published @ AF2 January 30, 2025 (Jim's last post on AF2 - prophetic)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-state-of-asemia-2025-according.html

"untitled" by Rosaire Appel (New York City) (January 2025)

 (Image courtesy of the artist)

2. "AF2 gallery: Recent asemics and vispo by Rosaire Appel (New York City)" (Published @ AF2 February 3, 2025) 

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/02/af2-gallery-recent-asemics-visual.html

From WRITTEN IN The Zero One by Hannah Weiner. 

Published by Pete Spence at Post-Neo 

(original 1985) (AF2 Archive)

3. "AF2 commentary: Hannah Weiner at the intersection of asemic writing and poetry." (A re-assessment of WRITTEN IN The Zero One by Hannah Weiner published by Pete Spence at Post-Neo in Australia.)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/05/af2-commentary-hannah-weiner-at.html

Collaboration by Sarah Ridgely (USA) and Christian Bok 

(Canada) (June 2025) (Image courtesy of the artists) 

4. "Intermedia collaboration by Sarah Ridgely (USA) and Christian Bok (Canada): Algorithmically generated asemics in 'Fifty Days of Illium' [performed in UK]." Published @ AF2 June 2025.

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/06/intermedia-collaboration-by-sarah.html

From PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM by Miekal And (USA) 

(2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

5. "AI-semics and Human creativity: Selections from PANSEMIC TEXTSTORM by Miekal And (USA)" (Published @ AF2 September 2025)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/09/ai-semics-human-creativity-selections.html

"Eco-asemics (2) (found forest material)" by Brigitte Tye 

(Seengen, Switzerland) (August 2025) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

6 "Eco-asemics & other recent asemic art by Brigitte Tye" (Published @ AF2 August 16, 2025)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/08/asemic-front-2-gallery-eco-asemics.html

                               

                               "The high pressure of humanity" by Geof Huth 

                                   (March 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

7 "Asemantic (asemic) calligraphy by Geof Huth (North Carolina, USA)" (Published @AF2 March 31, 2025)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/03/asemantic-asemic-calligraphy-by-geof.html

Cover of Visual Poetry by John McConnochie 

(Queensland, Australia) (Pete Spence's BlackHill Pres) 

(2025) (AF2 Archive)

8 "AF2 review: Visual Poetry by John McConnochie (Australia) (BlackHill Press)" 

(Published @ AF2 May 22, 2025)

Asemic Front 2: AF2 Review: "Visual Poetry" by John McConnochie (Australia) (BlackHill Press)

        

"Asemic writing [1]" by Monica Gorgoteanu (Romania)

 (2025) (Image courtesy 0f the artist)

9 "AF2 gallery: Selected asemic writing by Monica Gorgoteanu (Romania) (Published @ AF2 July 3, 2025)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/07/asemic-front-2-gallery-selected-asemic.html

Vispo by Nick Piombino (New York City) (2025)

 (Image courtesy of the artist)

10 'The Spectacle' and other recent vispo by Nick Piombino (New York City) (Published @ AF2 June 29, 2025)

https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2025/06/asemic-front-2-spectacle-other-recent.html

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)

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.

Asemic Front 2 Review: Ed Sanders & The Fugs at Byrdcliffe Barn (Woodstock, New York, August 23)

The Fugs at Byrdcliffe Barn (Woodstock, New York) 

(August 23, 2025) (Image by Daniel E. Stetson)

The Fugs at Byrdcliffe Barn, August 23, 2025

Review by De Villo Sloan

“The Fugs will NEVER be inducted into the RocknRoll Hall of Fame.”

      - Jann Wenner (according to Ed Sanders)

 

My trusted confidant and advisor Dan Stetson and I went “on the road” to attend The Fugs concert on Saturday, August 23, at Byrdcliffe Barn in Woodstock, New York, that was part of their celebration of the 60^th anniversary year of The Fug’s first concert.

Byrdcliffe Barn is a wonderful venue (and Woodstock is a great artist’s community). Long ago, I heard Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, Andy Clausen and others give a concert/reading at Byrdcliffe that included songs from Ginsberg’s William Blake album.

A professor of mine – Albert Glover – was a student of Charles Olson’s and spent much of his time on a massive project called The Curriculum of the Soul. Ed Sanders was a contributor to the project. Through Al, I gained an appreciation of Sanders’ literary contributions that were amplified in grad school and beyond. I also heard Ed Sanders deliver the Charles Olson Memorial Lecture at S.U.N.Y. in the eighties.

Ed Sanders founded the band in 1964, and his performance at the age of 86, I believe, puts him on equal footing with Dylan as a contemporary performer pushing boundaries. 

Steve Taylor, on vocals and guitar, joined the band in 1984. Scott Petito on bass and keyboards and Coby Batty on drums and vocals are also longtime Fugs members.

The Fugs at Byrdcliffe Barn (Woodstock, New York) 

(August 23, 2025) (Image by Daniel E. Stetson)

Taylor, Petito and Batty commanded an array of styles ranging from a spacey, experimental jam to a down-on-the-Delta searing, swampy bass and guitar solo. Orphic Sanders stood between them singing and reciting. They matched any heavy metal shredders today. Even drone music slipped in, and some great acoustic guitar playing identified the Fug's ties to the folk music scene of the early sixties.

The Fugs played well-known favorites such as “Slum Goddess” and “Kill for Peace.” But for me the highlight was the classic Fugs songs that required audience participation: “River of Shit” was an impassioned group effort. The Fugs’ exorcism song was transcendental.

The Fugs at Byrdcliffe Barn (Woodstock, New York) 

(August 23, 2025) (Image by Daniel E. Stetson)

The Fugs’ “Exorcism of the White House” in 2017 found the band engaged in political protest against the first Trump administration. The basic concept originated in 1968 when Sanders, Allen Ginsberg and others sought to levitate the Pentagon (Washington, DC) in an effort to end the Vietnam War, recounted in Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night. The audience and The Fugs at Byrdcliffe joined voices with an urgent message:

 

        “We call upon the Spirits of Eternity

        to raise the White House

        from its foundations

        spin it around

        & cleanse it of Evil & Malevolent Demons…

        “Out Demons, out!

        Out Demons, out!

        Out, Demons, out!

        Out, Demons, out!

        Out, Demons, out!”

 

Ed Sanders invoked two poetic figures who contributed to the band: Tuli Kupferberg (who was mythologized in the Brooklyn Bridge stanza of Howl) and Allen Ginsberg himself. Along with memories of Tuli and his best-known songs, The Fugs played a new Kupferberg composition selected from a large collection of cassette tapes Tuli sent to Sanders.

They also played a song written in honor of Harry Smith who nursed The Fugs through early recording sessions. Tuli Kupferberg and Allen Ginsberg were welcome spirit presences with us at Byrdcliffe.

I went to the concert mostly due to my admiration for Ed Sanders as a literary figure, and I was not disappointed. He used spoken word quotes from Shakespeare (“Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow”), Heraclitus, Decadent poet Algernon Charles Swineburne as well as a wonderful rendition of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” set to music.

Sanders spoke of his admiration for Allen Ginsberg (“I thought he was a genius”) and recounted Ginsberg’s report of having a vision of William Blake in the late nineteen forties. Sanders and Taylor have written their own version of “Ah! Sunflower” and shared the piece with the audience. With no disrespect intended, I far preferred The Fugs’ adaptation of Blake compared to Allen Ginsberg’s. I found Sanders’ version of Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” the most impressive song by far in an unexpectedly Blake-laden evening.

Steven Taylor collaborates on songwriting with Sanders and has collaborated with literary figures including Ginsberg, Kenward Elmslie and Anne Waldman.

As Ed Sanders performed “Ah! Sunflower” he seemed to channel Allen’s gestures as he had once passionately performed the song. For a moment in the blazing lights, it seemed to me Sanders became Allen Ginsberg carrying Blake's vision from the cosmos, but I am sure that was just a subjective reaction.

The Fugs had excellent, tight sound and great playing. They created a remarkable montage of music, spoken word and visual image with much audience participation.

 

-             - De Villo Sloan

    Elbridge, New York, USA

    August 25, 2025

 

Asemic Front 2 Review: "Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel" by mIEKAL aND (Wisconsin, USA)

 

Cover of Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(West Lima, Wisconsin, USA) (Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) 

(Image courtesy of the Asemic Front 2 Archive)

Review of Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel 

by mIEKAL aND

La Farge Wisconsin, USA: 

Xerox Sutra Editions 2024

8 X 10 inches; 84 black & white plates

Review by De Villo Sloan 

I have just recently obtained a copy of mIEKAL aND’s Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel published in 2024 by Xerox Sutra Editions in La Farge, Wisconsin, USA. I am enjoying perusing this excellent collection and want to register some observations in the official record of my reviews and commentary before at last saying a fond farewell to 2024.

The creation of AI-assisted digital vispo (for which mIEKAL aND is receiving much praise) is opening new literary genres. We are witnessing the birth of patasemics, metasemics, conceptualism, quantum poetry, and numerous other new poetic forms and concepts.

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(West Lima, Wisconsin, USA) (Xerox Sutra Editions 2024)

(Image courtesy of the Asemic Front 2 Archive)

Canadian conceptualist Christian Bok has created his Xenotext, a truly revolutionary bio-poem of the 21^st century. Experimental poets are creating visionary digital epics as well as graphic novels and asemic comics.

Visual poet Shawn McMurtagh (California, USA) and I collaborated on an asemic, glitchtext graphic novel titled, The Many Masks of 'Doc' Mortag (2021). I know firsthand the structural challenges of sustaining an extended vispo piece

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

mIEKAL aND’s Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel is a collection of nearly one hundred visual poems by one of our most significant and inventive visual poets. The series ranges from contemplative asemic calligraphy to sci-fi hyperreal landscapes of deconstructing texts.  

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

Unfortunately, in Interrupted Narrative, I can find no structures or repeating themes that suggest this is meant to be a continuous piece, narrative, or meta-narrative. In that sense, the reader must look elsewhere to find better examples of aND’s ability to create expansive textual structures. The book is extremely ambitious, but its strength is found in the individual works on a single page.

Make no mistake: Interrupted Narrative is a dazzling and diverse showcase of mIEKAL aND’s talents. (I hope the selections from the book shared here in the blog will give you a sense of his talents.) Owning a copy of this book is making an investment in the best visual poetry being made.

 

-       - De Villo Sloan

-        July 21, 2025

-        Elbridge, New York, USA

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

From Interrupted Narrative: A Hypergraphic Novel by mIEKAL aND

(Xerox Sutra Editions 2024) (Image courtesy of the 

Asemic Front 2 Archive)

De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate, New York. He writes frequently about postavant art & culture. He is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr., Charitable Fund.