SELECTED ASEMICS

KERRI PULLO



SELECTED ASEMICS
(2012-14)

by

Kerri Pullo























Copyright 2014
MinXus-Lynxus







The Asemic Expressions of Kerri Pullo



The formalist approach that dominated literary analysis in the second half of the 20
th

century and that persists unabated in these early decades of the 21
st
dictates the
primacy of the text over the life and experiences of the author. When I consider the
remarkable achievement of Kerri Pullos asemics, I find the accepted approach
inadequate and must abandon it. Much asemic writing is a cold critique of language
process and structure. The production is often mechanical, industrial, sterile and/or
self-referentially digital, a final gasp of the theory-ridden postmodern impulse. In
contrast, Kerri Pullos asemics are warm, expressive, organic and deeply human.
They are an affirmation of individuality and the interconnection of life and art.

Kerri Pullo discovered asemic writing through the international mail-art network also
known as the Eternal Network. (She reminds me of another writer and artist I first
encountered via the network many years ago: Hannah Weiner.) For decades, the
mail-art network has supported, encouraged and circulated avant literary forms
including visual poetry, concrete poetry, haptic poetry and asemic writing and poetry.
The network overlaps with other related communities, and Kerri Pullos work has
been embraced and praised by these audiences. This first selection of her work
gathers many of the pieces that first gained recognition as well as previously
unreleased material from several years of tremendous productivity.

Walt Whitman wrote: There was a child went forth every day;/And the first object
he lookd upon that object he became;/And that object became part of him for the
day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. In
this spirit of Whitmanic individualism, assimilation and synthesis (and forgiving the
poems masculine pronouns), Kerri Pullos asemic writing is an expression of her
perceptions and experiences, direct and with minimal mediation.

She is a product of the American Midwest, having grown up in the Chicago area
and Gary, Indiana. Her cultural roots have led her to seek inspiration in Arabic
calligraphy and Islamic art as well. (Brion Gysins ground-breaking asemics are
rooted in the same sources.) Kerri Pullo is formally educated in psychology and has
been a professional psychologist. She considers herself a self-taught artist. The

The Asemic Expressions of Kerri Pullo 2


influence of abstract expressionism Cy Twombly and Jackson Pollock for
instance is apparent in her work.

Kerri Pullos discovery of asemic writing via the Eternal Network has been
fortuitous both for her and for her audience. Her challenges with conditions that
impact her perceptual and language processes, including Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), have given her heightened abilities to become a
master of asemics and has fulfilled a need in her. Conventional writing is an
inadequate medium for Kerri Pullo to express her emotions and vision. Her
spontaneous and organically woven asemic compositions, however, have the power
of the best lyric poetry. Her use of elements from the visual arts enhances the work
and makes it, most accurately, a visual poetry-asemic writing hybrid. A transcription
of Kerri Pullos revealing comments on asemic writing in an interview with Alex
Porco provide extraordinary insight. Kerri Pullo states:


So asemics is very it fits me very well because I can just its just instinctual, its very
impulsive. And thats what I am: impulsive. And the other thing is because its not
language-based. Its expression of your thought. Its expression of your thought without
words. And I think its a very, well, clearly, its very well researched a topic, you know. Is
there thought without language? Vygotsky and stuff. And the reason asemics is so good
for a person with the deficits that I have is because its just its human nature for us to
express ourselves and connect with people. Otherwise, well, we die. Asemics allows me to
nonverbally vomit my thoughts no words because those are scary [with] asemics, I get
to avoid my panic of talking like, feelings and stuff to people. Oh my, seriously, just
saying that made my heart pound. So, asemics, it lets me express emotion secretly to other
people. So, basically I found this loophole, you know, to avoid dying.

Asemic writing enables Kerri Pullo to reach into the deep unconscious, taking us with
her, where emotions and perceptions are only partially filtered through the repressive
process of language formation. It is deep and powerful expression from the
borderland of language and feeling that ultimately shows us what it is to be human.


- De Villo Sloan
Auburn, New York, USA
October 21, 2014



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The gAsemics Series


Collabs by Kerri Pullo
& De Villo Sloan















Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan 98 gAsemics #1


Kerri Pullo 99 gAsemics #2




















Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan 100 gAsemics #3



Kerri Pullo 101 gAsemics #4


Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 102 gAsemics #5


Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 103 gAsemics #6 (version #1)


















Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 104 gAsemics #6 version #2



















Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan 105 gAsemics #7


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Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 107 gAsemics #9



Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 108 gAsemics #10



Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan - 109 gAsemics #11 version #1



Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan 110 gAsemics #11 version #2




Asemic Collabs



by Kerri Pullo
& Guido Vermeulen


In memoriam Guido Vermeulen
(1954-2014)

(Images courtesy of
Rebecca Guyver)









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