from an email to john m. bennett

this is what jukka and i have so far. the process is
interesting. i'm just beginning the get clear about
what it is and how it works.

a poem is not an encryption of another text.

i've been thinking about wittgenstein's assertion
that poetry does not participate in the language
game of exchanging information. on one level
he's right and his point is an important one, but
on another level he is wrong, and why he is wrong
is also important.

a poem communicates information about itself,
at least, and perhaps about poetry, or the potential
of poetry, what poetry is uniquely capable of.

reading a poem should at least in part reenact the
writing.

reading a poem should not be a process of
translating the poem into another text.

this is a good part of the attraction of asemia. an
asemic poem is not about anything (not even about
itself), unless we want to say it is about being itself.

this is also a good part of the attraction of some
fluxus event scores. george brecht wrote about
wanting a chair to be a chair, a lamp to simply be
a lamp.

is this achievable in any kind of art context? i
coined the word 'pansemia' a few years ago as a
way of exploring this question. my initial answer
was no, everything will be theorized and interpreted.

now i'm not so sure. writing these collaborative
poems has helped clarify this uncertainty.