The New Concrete Poetry & Neo-Concrete Poetry

  Mail art visual poetry by Angela Caporaso (Caserta, Italy) (July 2025) (Photo courtesy of Asemic Front 2 Archives) Visual poetry and mail art go well together among friends. I want to extend my deepest thanks to Angela Caporaso in Caserta, Italy, for sending me this fabulous piece via snail mail. With the cost of postage and other challenges, a piece of genuine mail art today is a luxury and privilege. I certainly feel this way about Angela's missive.  Angela creates a distinct blend of asemic writing, concrete poetry, and visual poetry. I reviewed her book Wars on AF2.    https://asemicfront2.blogspot.com/2024/07/asemic-front-2-review-wars-by-angela.html?spref=tw I appreciate her concretism as well as her ability to create larger structures, which I explain in-depth in the review of Wars. Now I have another amazing vispo structure to ponder and enjoy. - De Villo Sloan July 8, 2025 Elbridge, New York, USA

By Patrick Plyter Hartigan (Portland, Oregon, USA) (November 2021)  (Image courtesy of the poet) Constrained Concrete:  Text-Centric Visual Poetry  by  Patrick Plyter Hartigan  & Mike Ferguson Patrick Plyter Hartigan and Mike Ferguson are two poets associated with the New Concrete Poetry who share poetic sensibilities.  Both their styles are grounded firmly in the "old" concrete. In a time when many visual poets - sometimes me - use the old modes to create undecipherable asemics or leave linguistic meaning behind altogether to create abstract art with typewriters, Playter Hartigan and Ferguson remain, steadfastly, text-centered.  "Classic Concrete" Poetry seeks balance and harmony between form and content. Modernity has challenged this notion and created new avenues. John Hollander's poem "Swan and Shadow" is a textbook example of this Classical golden ideal of concrete poetry.  In the poem above by Plyter Hartigan, we see a deeply intimate, a...

"Set point" by Frank Singelton (Buffalo, New York, USA)   (June 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist) "Misty meadow" by Frank Singelton (June 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist) "Diamond harmony" by Frank Singelton   (April 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist) "Diamondly" by Frank Singelton   (June 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist) "The history of architecture" by Frank Singelton   (June 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist)   "Untitled" by Frank Singelton   (March 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist) "Upper Lower Together" by Frank Singelton   (March 2025)  (Image courtesy of the artist)

Cover of  Analog Glitch  by Lova Delis (Ohio, USA)  (Photo courtesy of Asemic Front Archives) Review:  Analog Glitch by Lova Delis (Curated by Kristine Snodgrass) Tallahassee, Florida, USA:  Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series 10 X 7 inches, 58 pages Review by De Villo Sloan "For the bad bitch in us all..." - Lova Delis,  Analog Glitc h intro Asemic Front 2  readers sometimes ask why I only "publish good reviews."  Indeed, I like to accentuate the positive and share my enthusiasm for innovative and creative work that crosses my path. Amazing things are happening in the visual poetry and asemic communities. But sometimes I see things so egregious, poorly conceived and financially and spiritually bankrupt that I am compelled to break the silence. The fledgling Anhinga Press Visual Poetry Series has churned out a half dozen, expensively produced and weighty tomes with little to no promotion. Each new release, in the estimation of this reviewer, grows ...

"The Spectacle" by Nick Piombino (New York City)  (June 2025)  (Photo courtesy of the artist) "Pop-Up" by Nick Piombino  (June 2025)  (Photo courtesy of the artist) "What?" by Nick Piombino  (June 2025)  (Photo courtesy of the artist) "RA" by Nick Piombino  (June 2025)  (Photo courtesy of the artist) "Go" by Nick Piombino (New York City, USA)  (June 2025) (Photo courtesy of the artist) "$5" by Nick Piombino  (June 2025)  (Photo courtesy of the artist)

  To be published August 19, 2025 by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press: The Complete Stein Poems by Jackson Mac Low A landmark publication in computer-generated poetry drawn from the works of Gertrude Stein. The Stein poems of Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) were written between 1998 and 2003. Comprising more than 500 pages of text, this edited series of 161 poems—most of them never published—is the poet’s last great work, composed during the final years of a lifetime of prolific creation. The raw material of each poem was produced through Mac Low’s diastic text-selection method of reading through passages of either Ulla E. Dydo’s  A Stein Reader  or a corrected version of Gertrude Stein’s  Tender Buttons .  Guided by Charles O. Hartman’s 1994 DIASTEX5 computer program, which replicates the diastic method first developed by Mac Low in 1963, the process requires that words be drawn sequentially from the source text in accordance with their rule-dr...