RECEIVED: NOT Asemically Correct! Vispo Mail-Art from Matthew Stolte (Madison, Wisconsin, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Matt Stolte (Madison, Wisconsin, USA)

 

July 7, 2011 - Matt Stolte is an accomplished visual poet and excellent mail-art correspondent who is enlarging my archive with some very interesting work. The piece above - postcard size on cardboard - I think is a beautiful piece that showcases his talent. It's much more sparse than much of the vispo we see in the mail-art network, but it is tremendously textured and rich, an ideal melding where language and image are complementary. I wanted you to be able to read Matt's title with ease. Try another take:

 

I imagine I might see a reference in "This is Vispo" to typewriter generated concrete poetry of previous generations. Not once but twice Matt wrote on this work: "This is vispo." Definitely accepted. Lively discussions in the IUOMA "Asemic Writing for Mail-Artists" group have involved boundaries between asemic writing and visual poetry - we're staying loose to let a wide variety of artists working different areas to experiment.

 

Some people have very prescriptive views others more descriptive. I can see the potential for identifying asemic symbols in this piece by Matt but overall read it as an exploration of existing language and - a theme to which he often returns - the impact of various kinds of technology on the presentation of language. The reverse side is plain fun:

 

 

As ever, many thanks Matthew Stolte! Matt has a great blog where you can see state-of-the-art in vispo and work by mail-art friends:

http://illegitimateprescriptions.blogspot.com/

[De Villo Sloan]

Matt, I am glad you brought it up. Wisconsin has a corner on being home to some of the best visual poets, IMHO. And I was sorta thinking Meikal And has been governor of Wisconsin for a long time. But that's where the comparison ends because I've liked his work for a long time. Would be a whole lot easier to be asemic governor of Utah. I hope he goes on forever. Thanks again.

[Matthew Stolte]

an asemic vote is a vote for me!  (ok, I tried).

[De Villo Sloan]

OH Geez Matt.... you're grocery list is going to end up on ebay the way it's going. Yip. get out the asemic votes 4 ya. Thanks.

[Matthew Stolte]

Grocery List: Packet 2 De Villo; Pizza to Dark Horse; & leftovers till they run out.  &, thanks for the suggestion, something for Mr. Walker! 

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Three cheese (cheers) for Matt. Maybe he can save the fluxonomy of Wisconsin. Minnesota is burning again. Matt-er of fact.

[De Villo Sloan]

Stolte-ifying! Food for thought! What do we want? Asemic writing! What have they given us! ANEMIC writing! Throw the bums out! Matt for Governor of Wisconsin!

[De Villo Sloan]

Excellent Matt-erial!

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

Taco!

[De Villo Sloan]

wow, that is different. the one I have - we used to take concrete poetry and keep enlarging it on a photocopier - like a microscope - so you could see where there had been imperfections in the printing and the edge of letters were distorted - the one he sent me makes me think of that

[cheryl penn]

Seeing you asked so nicely - here's the back ;-) - there is a wonderful fragility to the work - very different to yours.