Asemic Writing for Mail-Artists

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Comment by chris wells on September 7, 2015 at 12:26am

I also agree with Richard--I had a pre-literate fascination with written words. Even after I learned to read, as a child I loved looking at people's signatures because they were indecipherable--a scrawl that somehow represented the uniqueness of the person who made it.

My introduction to anything like asemic writing came from Robert Grenier's visual poems, via Ron Silliman's blog, about ten or so years ago. I believe he calls them "drawing poems"--very short poems in an almost impossible to read (at least for me!) style of handwriting. Not purely asemic, but of possible interest. Here's a link to some of them:

http://www.whalecloth.org/grenier/pennscans/pennscans.html

Comment by MISS NOMA on September 6, 2015 at 8:59pm

DAT RICHARD IS QUACKERS

Comment by John M. Bennett on September 6, 2015 at 8:33pm

You're absolutely right, Richard!

Comment by Richard Canard on September 6, 2015 at 8:31pm

06.09.15 Dare De Villo S. & John M. B., ...in regards to asemic historical references...I would suggest our own childhood memories .... I seem to recall( even other younger children than I) drawing with crayons & simulating  "words"or the writing of adults by the simple  act of scribbling flamboyant across the page with our crayons....Not to mention the practice of scanning  pages & pages in a book or magazine looking for a particular  passage  or illustration (or just looking). ...then, there's the business of Dyslexia & all the variables in that human condition.  I personally know all about the cliche'  "It's Greek to me."...I'm faced with a similar experience to what I  would easily consider "asemic" whenever I come face to face with a completely foreign language.  All I can do or know to do is just look at it & or admire it. Ave uh nez dae. Richard C.   Post Scriptum: Is Alzheimer's disease some sort of variable of  Asemic literature???

Comment by John M. Bennett on September 6, 2015 at 3:11pm

People have been playing around with fake oir asemic writing forever.  I've seen fake glyphic writing on the back of bricks used in Mayan and Andean buildings,

Comment by De Villo Sloan on September 6, 2015 at 1:29pm

Great link, Jan, and very interesting that it's on an Allen Ginsberg site.

The first time I can ever remember seeing asemic writing in a "real" book was when reading Henri Michaux (I think Miserable Miracles) in a college class. Guido Vermeulen was a big Henry Michaux fan.

As you might be seeing, Jim Leftwich claims the current asemic writing movement did not start until the 1990s. So this looking back to people like Michaux and Brion Gysin is finding sources who are influential but did not call themselves asemic writers.

I saw LOTS of asemic writing in the network before it was named: John M. Bennett has been doing it a long time as well as Jake Berry, just to name two.

Again, wonderful link that is very relevant to current dialogs here and elsewhere.

Comment by Jan Hodgman on September 4, 2015 at 4:36pm

Much wonderfulness appearing here!

Just ran across this video---wish I understood French, though the visuals alone are fantastique:

http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/spontaneous-poetics-131-he... 

Comment by Jason C. Motsch on September 4, 2015 at 5:00am

Thank you for your comment about vispo/asemics, De Villo.  It was helpful.

Comment by De Villo Sloan on September 2, 2015 at 12:53pm

Received an asemic card from Henry Denander (Sweden).

Comment by De Villo Sloan on September 1, 2015 at 9:40pm

Thank you for sharing, Jason.

You might have noticed on FB and in this group to some extent there is an ongoing discussion about the line between vispo and asemics. Some very eminent visual poets, in fact, prefer we call it vispo and drop the asemic idea altogether. It becomes a matter of personal choice.

I have always felt that the work we see in this group tends toward vispo-asemic hybrids, and we have never kept much to purist definitions.

So whether it might derive from vispo, concrete, asemic, haptic, etc., - and the poster thinks it's relevant - then I'm thrilled to see it in the group.

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