Artist, writer, and poet Karla Van Vliet published three works this year: Colors of the Grittiest God, a collaboration with Kristine Snodgrass in August; and two in September – Bone Scribed and Wildwood Devotions. I recently read the two from September, but before I started them, I had to look up a word.
The word is asemic, as in asemic writing, which Van Vliet writes.
Described as “the coolest writing you can’t read,” it has been defined as abstract text that conveys ideas as opposed to meaning. In fact, its literal definition is “having no specific semantic content” or “without the smallest unit of meaning.” It can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, but its more recent versions derive from abstract art (think Wassily Kandinsky and Cy Twombly) and the postmodern literary theories of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Roland Barthes(1915-1980), credited with the concept of “deconstruction” and “”The Death of the Author.” “Asemic” was first applied to art in 1997 by two visual poets, Tim Gaze and Jim Leftwich.
Looking up “asemic” is like clicking on a hyperlink that takes you to the entire literary internet.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
The Hour of the Wolf – poem by Lynne Knight at 32 Poems.
Out of the ashes: how Notre Dame has been resurrected in a miraculously short period of time – dale Browning Sawa at The Art Newspaper.
Notre Dame is back – but not quite as you knew her – Joseph Ataman at CNN.
Casa Luna – poem by Tricia Gates Brown at Every Day Poems.
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