Visual poetry as the name
suggests is visually appealing, probably the first thing one would notice
before the text. That makes poetry all the more exciting, I guess. There is of
course double interest in the written words and the intentional form that is
mostly based on the theme. It could be a recognizable pattern or a free form
that could range from poems
exploring handwriting, scribbling and scrawling, abstraction and illustration, mathematical
equations, asemic and pansemic writing with invented scripts, xerographic
pieces, material process, colour and collage, crossings out, forgotten notes,
found text, interaction between paper and pen-ink, geometric poems, inarticulate
poems and minimalism and the list may go on. In short, it is something like raw
poems or Poem Brut. It’s more experimental in nature and your imagination can
run wild creating all sorts of patterns/forms with concrete words using
different typography as well. There’s a play of intermedia as well in the
current times with digital formats being available and made easy. You can see
earliest examples in the Metaphysical poet, George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” and the radical
experiments of e e Cummings poems like “In
Just” etc. The movement is said to have drawn inspiration from Dada and
Surrealism. One can see examples in the works of Joan Miro’s “Le corps de
ma brune” (1925) and Piet Mondrian's incorporation
of Michel Seuphor's text in “Textuel”
(1928).
My inclination here is more
towards Asemic writing as of now. As mentioned it’s more of an invented script,
an impression or shadow of the conventional writing personal to the poet but
having an effect on the reader all the same. It’s a kind of pseudo or mock
writing like what the children do even before they begin to write actual words.
We see them do it all the time, it’s natural. Some even have pictograms and
ideograms in it and the meaning isn’t rigid. It’s open to interpretation and
each interpretation can be the perfect one. The most important aspect is that
it is not bound to any language and the knowledge of a particular language is not
essential to understanding the writing. It’s beyond all those barriers and yet
able to relate to words and meaning. It bridges the void where words fail.
Simply put, it is something you can’t read. There are calligraphers from circa
800 CE like Zhang Xu and Huaisu who have practiced illegible writing; it is not
something that sprung up in the modern times though the variations and mediums
have just widened beyond belief.
Andrew Topel’s Letters Patterns Structures
Mary
Ellen Solt’s Forsythia
Abstract calligraphy, Concrete
Poetry, controlled scribble, doodles, earliest writing, experimental
calligraphy, ideograms, illegible writing, Inism, jazz writing, Kandinsky shamanism,
Ungno Lee letter abstracts, Mail Art, André Masson automatic drawings, Henri Michaux alphabets
narrations, mock letters, pseudo writing, scrittura asemantica, Austin Osman Spare
sigils, Taoist magic diagrams, Cy Twombly’s works, Vinča script, Made Wianta calligraphy
period, Zhang Xu wild cursive, Luigi
Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus and several more come under asemic
writing.
Man Ray, Kandinsky, Henry
Michaux, Max Ernst have all experimented asemic writing at some point of their
creative career.
Michael Jacobson’s blog
TheNew-Post Literate is an impressive treasure-trove of Asemic writing. I read
about him at
Asymptotejournal. Some Asemic writers/poets include Tim Gaze, Geof
Huth, Erik Belgium, Michael Jacobson and many more. I am just starting out and
new to this scenario and have a lot to learn about the people and the works
here. So please excuse me if there are important omissions but then do let me
know so that I can include it as well.
Michael Jacobson - Page 1 from The Giant's Fence
Tim Gaze
Now that you have a general idea and a sense of what this is all about, let me show you a couple of works that I did. I can not share my favourite ones here though as I have submitted it elsewhere. These are the most recent ones from my booklet project (the second one). Glimpses from the first are on my
Instagram. I took these pictures while the sun was setting and I loved the shadow it created through the glass door. What do you think?
Aurora
Euphoria
Serendipity
These two are from my first booklet:
Epiphany
Talisman
I did a lot of readings from different sites like Asymptote Journal, Michael Jacobson, Asemic writing, Wikipedia, Geof Huth blog, Andrew Topel blog, Richard Kostelanetz, 3am Magazine, Poetry Foundation, Litro, Brittanica, Power Poetry, Hyperallergic, Script and a couple more random articles before I wrote my piece.
So, have you heard of Asemic writing/poems before? What do you think of it? Do let me know your views, thoughts and ideas.
