kerri pullo selected asemics

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SELECTED ASEMICS

KERRI PULLO


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SELECTED ASEMICS

(2012-14)

by

Kerri Pullo


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The Asemic Expressions of Kerri Pullo

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

century and that persists unabated in these early decades of the 21st 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 workgathers 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 lookdupon 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 herperceptions 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


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The Asemic Expressions of Kerri Pullo

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 beenfortuitous 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 transcriptionof 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 toexpress ourselves and connect with people. Otherwise, well, we die. Asemics allows me to

nonverbally vomit my thoughtsno wordsbecause 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


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Kerri Pullo De Villo Sloan 98 gAsemics #1


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Kerri Pullo 101 gAsemics #4


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


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


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Asemic Collabs

by Kerri Pullo

& Guido Vermeulen

In memoriam Guido Vermeulen

(1954-2014)

(Images courtesy of

Rebecca Guyver)


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Kerri Pullo Guido Vermeulen - 112
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kerri pullo selected asemics

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