Visual Poems

"In writing about this world, you create another," I once wrote in some notes I was making on the poet Wallace Stevens. I have been exploring this aspect of creativity using asemic writing. Asemic writing is defined as writing that is "post-literate," or "has no semantic content," or (my favorite) "abstract calligraphy." I have begun to see asemic writing everywhere: the rippled reflections on the surface of a lake; dried reeds bent at all different angles around the edge of a pond; birds' footprints in snow; beetle burrows in wood. I love how something I do at my desk (abstract calligraphy) reveals itself to me as I walk outdoors.

I think of this abstract calligraphy as part of visual poems that I create. These poems tell a story—no, wait, not “tell,” but “suggest”—these poems suggest a story, no doubt a different story for each person who “reads” one. I have emotions, images, even sort of a story in mind as I create each visual poem, but I leave it to the reader/viewer to bring his or her own meaning to the work. The asemic writing on the piece adds to the mystery, the tone, and to the subconscious associations present in each piece for each viewer.

What does it mean? You tell me. In viewing this world, after all, you create another.

__________

Photographs: Top left: "autobiography" by Jean LeBlanc, collage and watercolor on cardstock; bottom right: grasses in ice (a Paulinskill River view), photograph by Jean LeBlanc