Asemic Front 2 Review: Toward Asemic Minimalism: "Anthology of one letter poems" edited by Piotr Szreniawski

 

Antologia wierzy jednoliterowych (Anthology of one letter poems)

Piotr Szreniawski, Editor

wydawnietwo neopoemiksowe

Lublin 2021  124 pages

Free e-book (link provided)

by De Villo Sloan

Piotr Szreniawski has given us an extraordinary gift with the publication of Antologia wierzy jednoliterowych (Anthology of one letter poems), an e-book he edited, assembled and now makes available around the globe. You can "cut to the chase" easily with a click below, save the book as a resource & explore the world of monopoeticz at your leisure (and without fee):

http://skr.comicgenesis.com/jednoliterowe.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3BejzN_MCGI6AjRcuJVAepC1qG990vr8MOZixaAaRqv8xV1xQXCBDYPyE

For documentation purposes, however, here is a list of anthology contributors: Aid, Rosaire Appel, Sacha Archer, Volodymyr Bilyk, Andrew Brenza, Roland Dill, Tim Gaze, Geof Huth, Satu Kaikonen, Piotr Kasperowicz, David Kjellin, Karri Kokko, Stephen Nelson, Michael Orr (Orzechowski), Dave Read, Aziza Ibragimova Mystic Rose,  Denis Smith, Sven Staelens and Andrew Topel. 

By Andrew Topel from Anthology of one letter poems (2021)

The one letter poem was in ascendency during the 20th century, even if embraced cautiously as a prank, curiosity and/or avant garde provocation. The tensions then - consider Aram Saroyan - mostly concerned the conceptual viability of a one word poem. Sub-word fragmentation appeared among more marginal constituencies, such as sound and concrete poetry.

Szreniawski has chosen some work within the historical continuum. He also reveals just how far contemporary visual poets have departed from their roots to transform the single sign poem.  The Anthology of one word poems is an indicator this form is likely to have a continued ascendency and evolution in the post-literate 21st century.

In his announcement of the anthology's release, Geof Huth - a minimalist visual poet widely acclaimed - discussed the state of the form in helpful terms: "Today, Piotr Szreniawski released Anthology of one letter poems, a small but also rich anthology of two kinds of visual poems: 1. what I call invented choerms and 2. poems that repeat the same letter in a single poem. This description of mine makes the anthology seem boring, yet it is a visual delight. Plenty of pieces by me and other better visual poets appear herein, so take a look for a brief but reverberating state of bliss."

By Geof Huth from Anthology of one letter poems (2021)

The anthology achieves closure with especially powerful sequences. Sections by Geof Huth and Sacha Archer are stellar examples. Rosaire Appel's stamp series radiates gentle energy and intimate tonal qualities that only she seems capable of attaining; these are especially fine examples. In terms of linear reading, I find the edition builds momentum as it moves forward; and it took me several reads to pinpoint the ending sequences I wanted to study closely.  

I find I am drawn to the poems that seem to be part of a discernible series arranged thoughtfully by the poet and/or editor (or any sequence with structural characteristics). Perhaps the latent power of the minimalist poem is not in its apparent isolation and self-sufficiency but in its unique variability when placed in different contexts. 

The one letter poem has evolved, from what I see, mostly through the application of postavant tropes, such as performance, conceptual writing, art actions, object poems, found material, etc. Three decades of visual poetry innovations have contributed to healthy growth in the one letter genre. The merging of image-text that we see in visual poetics has altered the field for minimalism.

Especially from the AF2 perspective I also note the considerable impact the asemic writing movement has had on the one letter poem, if one sees the anthology as representative, and I do. The asemicists, or visual poets making a foray into these waters, have created calligraphic, collaged and concrete "glyphs."

Those practicing "deconstructive asemics" have produced an astonishing array of pulverized non symbols, recombined language fragments, cracked prosody debris that are expanding the idea of the one letter poem. Indulge me, please, as I coin more asemic jargon and suggest some of the most interesting one letter pieces today compose using "sub-semic particles."

The anthology of one letter poems is a must-have, must-read look into the state of a fascinating poetic genre positioned for a bright future.

- De Villo Sloan

A Semic Rosetta Stone? On A Re-discovered Collab by John M. Bennett & Jim Leftwich

 

Collab by John M. Bennett (Ohio, USA) & Jim Leftwich (Virginia, USA) 

(August 2018) (Images courtesy of John M. Bennett)

Thanks to John M. Bennett's (JMB) excellent documentation, I came across this eye-catching vispo collab by JMB & Jim Leftwich made in August of 2018. 

I think it is of some interest to the Asemic Front 2 audience. The poets combine "semic" (a go-to jargon descriptor that has emerged in asemics to identify signs that communicate "meaning" & that can be read as conventional text) with abstract calligraphy, deconstructed text & linear associations between the various signs. The work suggests relationships between the symbols, words (& sometimes the unintelligible).

Asemics & pansemics have wide-ranging, often contradictory, interpretive possibilities. Sometimes I've been known to engage in these reader-response based "interpretations" of asemic writing. 

This piece by Bennett & Leftwich, I think, deserves this kind of reflection. For instance, I frequently receive questions & mail art about the relationship of the Rosetta Stone to asemics. 

I believe it is safe to generalize that when "readers" first encounter asemics they most likely assume there is surely a meaning that can be decoded or - in an even greater nod to the power of imagination - that the asemic text (somehow) communicates complex concepts & emotional nuances - that other cultural forms cannot express adequately.   

I hope we find a new poetics & a reconstituted language in asemics, I do. Early L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing initially promised the literal collapse of capitalism if its methods could be widely applied, but the rhetoric deflated quickly.

I believe in the piece above Bennett & Leftwich do illuminate the linguistic-philosophical core of the asemic text, which I can best explain through an allusion to one of the great, pervasive popcult metaphors in The Wizard of Oz: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" 

The old pop myth - adequate for the despairing 20th century - reveals a charlatan behind the spectacle, a skeletal signification of the patriarchy controlling the machinations of economy & kultur. That is still a narrative; the asemic text is incapable of narrative.

When the curtain is pulled aside in the asemic text, which is what Bennett & Leftwich do here, we find ................ no thing, nothing meaning less.

- De Villo Sloan 

gliTchXT (disrupted asemics & vispo) by Lanny Quarles

 

By Lanny Quarles (Texas, USA)

Moving ahead with the Asemic Front 2 glitch text vispo series (woven among other interests), I am thrilled to introduce this work of extreme relevance by artist & writer Lanny Quarles from Dallas, Texas, USA.

Lanny Quarles is an experimentalist in novel forms of text & image disruption & distortion (among other efforts), deconstruction & reconstitution (see work above). Quarles is a master of disrupted image-text while not necessarily using the same digital sources & method as most of the glitchtexters. I think the result is of equal brilliance & new directions.

Quarles is likely well known to the AF2 audience. He is not, however, with the "usual suspects" in the self-identified asemic writing community (no antipathy suggested) or the various conceptual writers attached.  This might help account for his, sometimes fierce, individualism & originality.

Many thanks to Lanny Quarles for sharing this work with AF2. I look forward to including more. Quarles' piece will be of interest in terms of composition & process as well.

- De Villo Sloan

gliTchXT noir? (femmeglitch) by Kristine Snodgrass with Commentary

 by Kristine Snodgrass (Florida, USA)

Faithful AF2 readers have doubtless detected I am posting a series  (non-linear as it will surely be) about visual poets engaged in experimental asemics & pansemics using glitch software and/or otherwise corrupted/disrupted programs & methods. They are in my estimation producing exciting new forms of vispo & asemics. 

I am also proposing that glitchtxt (aka Femmeglitch, gliTchXT & related others) is a process practice apart from the better-known & older Glitch Art & Glitch Music, although intersections surely abound. Glitched spoken-word asemics, for instance, might yield some fresh classics.

While these poets are neither the first nor the only practitioners of glitching image-text, they do, I believe, represent a current, primarily digital (& international) community sharing & advancing glitchtxt in a collaborative spirit. Their shared perception of text as image is of socio-cultural interest in the context of Michael Jacobson's postliterate theories. 

I would be remiss not to include AF2 frequent contributor Kristine Snodgrass in the series. As AF2 documented, her asemic glitch work has helped define current practice & has inspired her contemporaries. 

In our exchanges regarding this remarkable black & white series, Kristine provided some thoughts & commentary, "I am thinking about how it seems like color is EXPECTED in this current phase of glitchtxt," she wrote. "Are these explosions of color a distraction from the distortion, destruction & symbol creation? I wanted to focus on light & line, black & white in this series; I am still processing to an extent. Cannot we be stark?"

"Stark" is a fine descriptor for a tendency toward black, white, grey minimalism I have seen in some asemic/pansemic work lately. Now Kristine Snodgrass writes about it & uses it in her own work, suggesting my own similar thoughts are more than idle, subjective speculations.

Otherwise, yes, there is another counter-tendency (the greater I think) toward powerful color in glitched asemics. I find the vibrancy positive as we seem to be emerging from the peculiar lifelessness of conceptual-influenced vispo & uncreative writing. These are choices ultimately resting with artist & audience, of course.

I associate the current stark & dark strain in asemics (both glitched & straight) with the gradual circulation of writing about asemics by Jim Leftwich & work in response that is emerging from a number of sources. Again, some of that work has appeared at AF2. Perhaps the Leftwich material has had a stronger impact here at AF2.

For me at least, Leftwich's vision of asemics is deeply rooted in Existentialism (as in philosophy) & even rooted in the nihilist views of language in late & remote corners of postmodernism. I do not mean to imply this is a disappointment or failure of asemics: I am very intrigued by this counter-vision of asemics. Kristine Snodgrass has arrived at a realization as well.

The sunny even utopian rhetoric of the "asemic art movement" - even in certain quarters promising an international poetic language - is tempered by another view. I hope you find these glitchtxts & noir vispo by Kristine Snodgrass intriguing, expanding & transforming, as I do.

-De Villo Sloan

Enter

Kristine

by Kristine Snodgrass 

The Post-Lettrist Impulse: "COLOURS/COLORS" by Serse Luigetti

"COLOURS/COLORS" by Serse Luigetti (Perugia, Italy)

gliTchXT (asemics, visual poetry) by Michael Orzechowski

 

gliTchXT by Michael Orzechowski  (Georgia, USA)

by Michael Orzechowski  (Georgia, USA)

by Michael Orzechowski (self-portrait)

by Michael Orzechowski

gliTchXT (glitched asemic & visual poetry) by Toddy Bee

 

gliTchXT by Toddy Bee (Louisiana, USA)

Toddy Bee, a previous Asemic Front 2 contributor (commencing 2018), includes textual experiments in his creative production process. This ensures we will find his new work engaging & full of surprises, the example closest at hand being these digital compositions displayed today at AF2.  

Along with Kristine Snodgrass (USA), John McConnochie (Australia) & other innovative visual poets, Toddy Bee is working - shown here - on glitched texts (& general text corruption techniques) to create symbols, structures & images through random digital destruction, distortion & disruption of (originally) material &/or digital texts. (I realize these would not be the first visual poets to stumble upon glitching.)

Another important aspect of this post is offering evidence that asemic art is not limited to calligraphy. (A chorus of faceless asemicists is doubtless cued to disagree.) The whole notion of "deconstructive asemics" as well as the identification of a strong Post-Lettrist strain in contemporary asemics has been championed by the Asemic Front project since inception. 

And this is not to even touch the surface of eco-asemics & found asemics.

Clouded - I hope not too badly - by my lack of expertise in the digital realm, I see glitching text as a tool with the same impact now as the cut-up technique had generations earlier. Toddy Bee seems to be working in the same direction.

The GliTchXT is a departure from the glitch art genre because it is an investigation into the depths of language & expression. Thus, I do not believe visual poets owe any allegiance to "conventions" of glitch art; but much can be learned from the glitch artists, clearly. Another comparison would be the uses of glitches & distortion in music: The technology is defining, but only the artist can unlock the potential of the technology.

Deepest thanks to Toddy Bee for sharing his digital work.

- De Villo Sloan

gliTchXT by Toddy Bee (Louisiana, USA)

gliTchXT by Toddy Bee (Louisiana, USA)