ART AND POETRYYOUR WEEKLY MIND EXPANSION JOURNAL

São Paulo, Friday 7th n°3, 2014

ASEMIC WRITING

Asemic writing is a type of art involving lines that appear to form words but that are without specific meaning. Sometimes, the shapes of the letters or the words may suggest certain meanings, but all interpretations of the text are equally valid because the words do not directly relate to those meanings. This type of writing is often considered a form of art or visual poetry rather than writing for practical communication. Page 6

SPOKEN WORD POETRY

Spoken word poetry is poetry that is written on a page but performed for an audience. Because it is performed, this poetry tends to demonstrate a heavy use of rhythm, improvisation, free association, rhymes, rich poetic phrases, word play and slang. It is more aggressive and “in your face” than more traditional forms of poet-ry. Page 2

CONCRETE POETRY

Product of a critical evolution of forms. Assuming that the historical cycle of verse ( as formal-rhythmical unit) is closed, concrete poetry begins by being aware of graphic space as structural agent. Qualified space: space-time structure instead of mere linear-temporistical development.Page 5

Tony Burhouse, 25, designer

São Paulo, Friday 7th Spoken word poetry

SPOKEN WORD POETRY

What is spoken word poetry? Spoken word poetry is poetry that is written on a page but performed for an audience. Because it is per-formed, this poetry tends to demon-strate a heavy use of rhythm, improv-isation, free association, rhymes, rich poetic phrases, word play and slang. It is more aggressive and “in your face” than more traditional forms of poetry. What should I keep in mind when writing a spoken word poem: Use of Concrete Language – Use words and phrases that project on the minds of the listeners vivid images, sounds, actions and other sensations. If your poem is rich with imagery, your listeners will see, smell and taste what you’re telling them. Repetition – Repetition is a simple but powerful poetic device. Some-times just the repetition of a key phrase or image, with extensions of image and thought for each repe-tition, can help a writer generate exciting poems. Rhyme – Rhyming can enrich your poems and performance if used with skill, surprise and moderation. Attitude – “No attitude, no poem!” Feelings and opinions are the “stuff ” poetry is made of – Each poet has a unique perspective and view of the world that no one else has. It is important that a spoken word poem embodies the courage necessary to share one’s self with the rest of the world. Persona – Spoken word poetry allows you to be anyone you wantto be. You can write a poem in the “voice” of someone or something

BECAUSE A TEXT ISN’T ENOUGH

other than yourself or with a person-ality trait that is different from your own. Performance – Remember, spo-ken word poems are written to be performed. After your poem is writ-ten, practice performing the poem with the elements of good stage presence in mind… Posture – Stand up straight, If you approach the stage with your head hung low and your shoulders slumped, the audience won’t be in-terested in listening to you. Eye Contact – Don’t stare at the floor, or hide behind whatever it is that your reading. From time to time, look into the eyes of the differ-ent people in the audience to hold their attention. Projection – Speak loudly and clearly so that your voice can be heard from a distance. Facial Expressions – Smile if you’re reading something happy. Don’t smile if you are reading some-thing serious. Use the appropriate facial expressions for the various

emotions expressed in the poem. Gestures – Use hand motions and body movements to emphasize different elements of your perfor-mance. However, don’t rock back and forth or wave your hands about carelessly or the audience will be-come distracted. Memorization – Committing a poem to memory is a wonderful exercise. If you have a poem mem-orized you can focus more on the performance of the poem. However, so far as performance is concerned, it is more important to “learn your poems by heart.” If you are really in touch with the meaning and the emotional content of your poem, even if you forget a word or a line you can keep going. Learning by heart allows you to incorporate improvisation (freestyle) into your poem which is one of the most important elements of spoken word poetry.

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Décio Pignatari, um movimento from Noigandres 3, 1956; English version Claus Clüver.

São Paulo, Friday 7th Concrete Poetry

CONCRETE POETRYA BRIEF GUIDE

Bye, by Anatol Knotek

While many readers now associate the term “concrete poetry” with poems whose outlines depict a recongnizable shape—John Holland-er’s collection Types of Shape, for example—the ideas behind concrete poetry are much broader. In essence, works of concrete poetry are as much pieces of visual art made with words as they are poems. Were one to hear a piece of concrete poetry read aloud, a substantial amount of its effect would be lost.European artists Max Bill and Öyv-ing Fahlström originated the term in the early 1950s, and its early methods

methods were described in the Brazilian group Noigandres’ man-ifesto “Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry.” During this period, con-crete poems were intended to be abstract and without allusion to an existing poem or identifiable shape. An interest in ideograms—and the notion that words themselves could be ideograms—accompanied the ty-pographical innovations developed by these artists and by such visual writers as E. E. Cummings and Ezra Pound. As the movement spread across the continents, reaching the height of

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of its popularity in the 1960s, concrete poetry became less ab-stract and was adopted by many conventional poets as a specific poetic form rather than a combi-nation of literature and visual art. In response, some artists adopted the term “poesia visiva” to describe more experimental fusions of word and image. As with much visual art, concrete poetry and poesia visiva now use photography, film, and even soundscapes in combination with letters and words to achieve new and startling effects. An extremely well-curated website that successfully addresses the synthesis of literary, visual, and sonic arts can be found at UbuWeb. The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, located in Flori-da, maintains a brief, informational website as well.

São Paulo, Friday 7th Asemic Writing 6

ASEMIC WRITINGIT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO HAVE MEANING

Asemic writing is a type of art involving lines that appear to form words but that are without specific meaning. Sometimes, the shapes of the letters or the words may suggest certain meanings, but all interpre-tations of the text are equally valid because the words do not directly relate to those meanings. This type of writing is often considered a form of art or visual poetry rather than writing for practical communica-tion. There are many different styles and philosophies of asemic writing, and the resulting art is often highly individual. People who produce asemic writing typically consider themselves artists, though they may be referred to as writers. It is often said that most people produce some form of asemic writing at some time in their lives, though not all of that writing is artistic. Sometimes a person will write without specific semantic goals when doodling, testing a pen, or even when learning to write. Wheth-er this art is perceived as art depends on context and presentation as well as the intention of the writer. There are many different styles of asemic text, and work produced by an individual artist may vary over time. Some people design the writing deliberately, while others allow it to flow naturally from the mind. The action of writing is often itself viewed as pleasurable and part of the artistic process, which is one reason many people create this type art. Personal interpretations of asemic writing de-pend not only on the finished prod-uct, but also the personal experience

of creating it, which is not something that can be directly transmitted to viewers. Interpretations of asemic writing are highly individual and may be inspired by the shapes of the words or the piece overall. Some texts ap-pear to express emotions, but there is never any specific interpretation that can be said to be correct even on an emotional level. It is, however, arguable that works that incorporate pictograms may have slightly nar-rower meanings than texts that are

entirely abstract. While many asemic works are presented as two-dimensional static images either in print or online, there are many potential ways in which this type of art can be presented. In many cases, it is incorporated into larger projects like books and works of art. One interesting way in which asemic writing can be presented is in the act of creating it, in which the writing itself becomes part of the art. This can be used to highlight the relationship between the author and the text as well as the integral role of

works that I discovered along the way are the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript and the Rohonc Codex, though these works fall more into the category of cipher mysteries than asemic writing. But who knows, Luigi Serafini admitted recently that the Codex Seraphinius is asemic. All of the works previously mentioned I find aesthetically pleasing, and I am fascinated by the prospect that they could turn out to be proto-asemic text—computers will tell!

the physical process of writing in the production of this art.

“History”

There is a long history of peo-ple creating unreadable works. One could probably go back to the beginning of time. Tim introduced me to ‘crazy’ Zhang Xu, a Tang Dynasty calligrapher, who ex-celled at cursive script. Zhang was creating wild illegible calligraphy almost 1200 years ago. Other older

Henri Michaux Narration, 1927

Yin yang, by Voltism

I Love, by Nicola Simpson

Menos, by Haroldo de Campos

Asemic Writing by Nuno de Matos

Asemic Writing by Rosaire Appel

Asemic Writing by Andrew Topel

Asemic Writing São Paulo, Friday 7th 7

Contemporary Situation

1997 was the year of genesis for the current movement of asemic writing. It’s when visual poet Jim Leftwich and Tim Gaze connected and started sending out quasi-calligraphic works to poetry magazines and calling them asemic. I was doing something similar in ‘98, but I didn’t make contact with them until 2005, when I had the resources to officially pub-lish and had gained Internet access. Today asemic writing is a full-blown movement. There are almost 1800 people in the Facebook group, with 50 or so who are hardcore and madly into it. There is going to be an anthology of asemic writing put out by Uitgeverij out of the Hague, Netherlands, in late 2013. On the backburner is a film about asemic writing, which I am not working very hard on, with Quimby Melton who is the editor at SCRIPTjr.nl.com

There is Nuno de Matos a.k.a. Matox and José Parlá a.k.a. Ease who have brought graffiti into asemic writing, there is also a robot that performs asemic writing live, and there are ar-chitecture models which incorporate asemic writing in the design process.

Asemic writing by Tim Murray

Asemic writing by Stephen Vincent

The use of english

if a writer is serious about the use of language, she or he needs to weigh up the moral issues of writing in English. the Roman alphabet is a collec-tion of symbols without a theoretical basis. each letter has its own history. the uppercase & lowercase letters are completely different symbol sets, with only a few common elements.unlike the Korean Hangul alphabet, which was designed specifically to represent the shape of the mouth of a person speaking Korean, the Roman alphabet is a haphazard bunch of symbols. the letter “o” is the only letter with a clear meaning: a mouth making an o shape, & the resulting o sound made by the human voice.more loosely, we could say that an “s” resembles a snake, & by exten-sion, the sibilance of a snake sliding along. but I wouldn’t say that letter s means snake or hissing.