kurt cobain meets william burroughs

Kurt Cobain was…

…first exposed to Burroughs’ work in high school, it heavily influenced Cobain’s writing when he started enforcing the Beat writer’s “cut-up” method. First introduced to Burroughs by artist Brion Gysin and inspired by a similar technique used by Dadaists by the 1920s, the collage-like approach mixes words and phrases that are pieced together, often creating juxtaposing text or narratives.

“My lyrics are total cut-up,” said Cobain.”I take lines from different poems that I’ve written. I build on a theme if I can, but sometimes I can’t even come up with an idea of what the song is about.”

read more here: https://americansongwriter.com/remember-when-kurt-cobain-collaborated-with-william-s-burroughs/ (=a piece by Tina Benitez-Eves) here:

#BrionGysin #cutUp #cutup #experimentalWriting #KurtCobain #TinaBenitezEves #WilliamBurroughs

so what am I writing for? to make a thing? perhaps that is (in the end) enough. so that there will be beautiful things … who I am even if I … no, even if I wore a mask, they’d still see through this shabby part born to return abnormally to the edge of destruction (a bottle episode : Hell wasn’t always a place of torment, it was just the place you went after you were done with your body, a place full of naked souls) … in what way is this substance at all suggestive of a liquid when the sealed quartz tube contains nothing but smoke & ash? Such flavors are subtle: I intend to go West — going West is beyond any doubt ,,, when I was young I could fly in my dreams, now I ride my horse on a boat in search of a portentous & mysterious prehistoric monster come back for a second underground nuclear test. Once I rode my horse Gonzo down the aisle of a 747 jumbo jet in search of a stairway to heaven. Below me the wild & distant seas boiled

#TheIrrealists #ExperimentalWriting #WIPWednesday

from Space Pirates (a WIP):

The wild boys might have given up their amateur pursuits … every healthy wild boy loves roaming for friendship … but Kathy continued her elevations with twin purpose until she came to the gangplank leading to a great whale-spotting ship : its industrial-sized hold open to the sky above … waiting. A sailor scaling the mainmast shouted: It’s crazy to go to sea when it’s the end of the world! Kathy felt a mystical vibration invisible to human eyes. The ship was an ancient structure carved from oak, incongruous, out of place in this modern marina with boats made of glass and metal moored to concrete jetties with gleaming stainless steel chains. To the uninitiated eye/ear the musical fountains ,, centerpieces of iron-fenced gardens flanking the harbor evoked memories that needed washing in a psychic soap (she sniffed her armpits, all clear) : all this is not without meaning when cooled by blackness.

#TheIrrealists #ExperimentalWriting

when hope is just another lie (do you believe that? macho macho man) … something the 80s sold to us : is it just me? as I walk down Poydras Street in New Orleans, I hear the chorus of “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley, not even a song I cared for particularly when … is it still popular? … and that feeling of being there or having been there that feels a little bit like joy : I hope … I buy me some of that, thanks. They meant it as a lie (to sell something), but it was a lie that was true. What they wanted was that we would be convinced … fool me once! … that hope is for pussinboots. Yeah, capitalism is bad boys of summer, but guess what! it hurt so good, don’t it? What I know is that it felt completely different to be alive then, and that feeling was real. I was happy. A lot of us were, we privileged middle-class white kids living in the suburbs … our garage bands, guitars and synthesizers, the robot sound of the future is now.

#TheIrrealists #80s #Music #ExperimentalWriting

SUPPORT DIFFERX ON KO-FI : https://ko-fi.com/differx57119

posts here:
https://ko-fi.com/differx57119/posts

#differx #experimentalwriting #palestine #kofi #asemic #news #abstract #glitch #theory #politics #italy

and speaking of hashtags (I'm still trying to figure this social media thing out) I'm going to start using #TheIrrealists to mark posts as part of public exchange of how to use #ExperimentalWriting to break up repressive social structures (in the mode of Kathy Acker #KathyAcker & William S. Burroughs #WilliamSBurroughs) ... and others

for more context see the essay by Kathleen Wheeler I posted earlier this week, here it is again

https://dalkeyarchive.substack.com/p/reading-kathy-acker

One of my experimental writing & publication projects is #NovaLetters , here's an example of a "deeper cut" which introduces Burroughs' concept of "coordinate points" mentioned in two of his cut-up novels

https://write.as/leadworth/coordinate-points

for fun I'm testing out applying terms from #DoctorWho to Burroughs' Nova concepts. A little for everyone.

a gunless tea / differx
dusie, 2007
https://slowforward.net/2014/04/19/an-excerpt-from-mgs-a-gunless-tea-dusie-chap-project-2007/

#experimentalwriting #dusie
#differx #agunlesstea

“after words: visual and experimental poetry in little mags and small presses, 1960-2025”: exhibition and book

After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960-2025, (catalogue and exhibition), Curated by Steve Clay and M. C. Kinniburgh of Granary Press, The Grolier Club, New York, NY, April 23 – July 26, 2025
[from garadinervi & Granary Books]

AFTER WORDS: VISUAL AND EXPERIMENTAL POETRY IN LITTLE MAGAZINES AND SMALL PRESSES, 1960–2025

Granary Books, 2025. Item #3913

click to enlarge

10.75 x 8.25 in., 232 pp. smyth-sewn in wrappers. Printed full color.

This book offers a visual and thematic journey through avant-garde, concrete, visual, and experimental poetics as they appeared in ephemeral little magazines and small press publications from the 1960s onward. This book serves as an exhibition catalog for After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960–2025 from April 23rd to July 26, 2025, at The Grolier Club exhibition in New York City. [«The exhibition presents a wide range of international works with approximately 150 publications, including Assembling, Kontexts, Poor.Old.Tired.Horse., blewointment, Rhinozeros, The Marrahwanna Quarterly, Granary Books, Something Else Press, Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Ou, and Stereo Headphones. Poets presented include Cecilia Vicuña, bpNichol, Johanna Drucker, Tom Phillips, Emily McVarish, d.a. levy, Mirtha Dermisache, and Philip Gallo among many others»]

Small presses include: 7 Flowers Press, Agentzia, Anabasis, Asylum’s Press, Ayizan Press, Beach Books Texts & Documents, Beau Geste Press, blewointmentpress, Burning Press, C Press, Chax Press, Coach House Press, Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Edizioni Geiger, Expanded Media Editions, Fleye Press, Goliard Press, Grabhorn-Hoyem, Granary Books, Druckwerk, Hawk’s Well Press, Heiner Friedrich, The Hermetic Press, Hermetic Gallery, John Martin, Joseph Melzer Verlag, Kickshaws, Kontexts Publications, Letter Edged in Black Press, Luna Bisonte Productions, Membrane Press, Milano: East 128, New Wilderness Foundation, Nietzsche’s Brolly, Nova News, Open Book, Openings Press, PANic Press, Phenomenon Press, Poltroon Press, Renegade Press, Roaring Fork Press, Scorribanda Productions, Seedorn Verlag, Seripress, Siglio Press, Station Hill, Tarasque Press, Tetrad Press, Visual Poetry Workshop National Poetry Society of London, Wild Hawthorn Press, and Xexoxial Editions.

Little magazines include: “before your very eyes!”, A: An Envelope Magazine of Visual Poetry, Abracadabra, Alcheringa, Anti-Isolation, Approches, AQ, Assembling, Blank Tape, Bulletin From Nothing, Cenizas, Diagonal Cero, E pod, Fruit Cup, Ganglia, Geiger, Gnaoua, Industrial Sabotage, Interstate, Journeyman, Kaldron, Klacto 23, Kontakte, Kontexts, Kroklok, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Libellus, Life Begins with Love, Lines, Lost and Found Times, Lost Paper, Mini, New Wilderness Letter, Pages, Poor.Old.Tired.Horse., Rawz, Revue OU, Rhinozeros, Sammelband Futura, Schmuck, Shi Shi: Concrete & Visual Poetry, Signal, Soft Need, Sondern, Spanish Fleye, Stereo Headphones, Taproot Reviews, The Acts: The Shelf Life, The Difficulties, The Improbable, The Insect Trust Gazette, The Marrahwanna Quarterly, The San Francisco Earthquake, The Subtle Journal of Raw Coinage, Toothpick Lisbon & the Orcas Islands, Unarmed: Adventurous Poetry Journal, UNI/vers(;), WhiteWalls, Xerolage, and xtant.

#19602025 #3913 #7FlowersPress #AAnEnvelopeMagazineOfVisualPoetry #Abracadabra #AfterWords #AfterWordsVisualAndExperimentalPoetryInLittleMagazinesAndSmallPresses #Agentzia #Alcheringa #Anabasis #AntiIsolation #Approches #AQ #Assembling #AsylumSPress #avantGarde #AyizanPress #BeforeYourVeryEyes_ #BeachBooksTextsDocuments #BeauGestePress #BlankTape #blewointment #blewointmentpress #bpNichol #BulletinFromNothing #BurningPress #CPress #CeciliaVicuña #Cenizas #ChaxPress #CoachHousePress #concrete #dALevy #DiagonalCero #Druckwerk #EPod #EditionHansjörgMayer #EdizioniGeiger #EmilyMcVarish #exhibit #exhibition #exhibitionCatalog #ExpandedMediaEditions #experimentalWriting #FleyePress #FruitCup #Ganglia #Geiger #Gnaoua #GoliardPress #GrabhornHoyem #GranaryBooks #HawkSWellPress #HeinerFriedrich #HermeticGallery #IndustrialSabotage #Interstate #JohannaDrucker #JohnMartin #JosephMelzerVerlag #Journeyman #Kaldron #Kickshaws #Klacto23 #Kontakte #Kontexts #KontextsPublications #Kroklok #LANGUAGE #LetterEdgedInBlackPress #Libellus #LifeBeginsWithLove #lines #lostAndFoundTimes #LostPaper #LunaBisonteProductions #MCKinniburgh #materialiVerbovisivi #MembranePress #MilanoEast128 #Mini #MirthaDermisache #NewWildernessFoundation #NewWildernessLetter #NietzscheSBrolly #NovaNews #OpenBook #OpeningsPress #Ou #Pages #PANicPress #PhenomenonPress #PhilipGallo #poets #PoltroonPress #PoorOldTiredHorse_ #Rawz #RenegadePress #RevueOU #Rhinozeros #riviste #RoaringForkPress #SammelbandFutura #Schmuck #ScorribandaProductions #SeedornVerlag #Seripress #ShiShiConcreteVisualPoetry #SiglioPress #Signal #smallPresses #SoftNeed #SomethingElsePress #Sondern #SpanishFleye #StationHill #StereoHeadphones #SteveClay #TaprootReviews #TarasquePress #TetradPress #TheActsTheShelfLife #TheDifficulties #TheGrolierClub #TheHermeticPress #TheImprobable #TheInsectTrustGazette #TheMarrahwannaQuarterly #TheSanFranciscoEarthquake #TheSubtleJournalOfRawCoinage #TomPhillips #ToothpickLisbonTheOrcasIslands #UnarmedAdventurousPoetryJournal #UNIVers_ #vispo #visualPoetry #VisualPoetryWorkshopNationalPoetrySocietyOfLondon #WhiteWalls #WildHawthornPress #xerolage #XexoxialEditions #xtant #zines

'It doesn’t matter what transformative anticapitalist, antiracist or antiheteropatriarchal ideas we profess in the content of our work. They can be inspired by Karl Marx, Audre Lorde, Gilles Deleuze, María Lugones, Walter Mignolo, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alain Badiou, Donna Haraway, Silvia Federici, Byung-Chul Han, Benjamin Bratton … whoever. But when it comes to our knowledge-making practices – the taken-for-granted forms our writing takes, the habitual ways in which we disseminate and monetise it, the associated upholding of notions of individualism, human rights and property rights – we still have to operate according to what is actually a Euro-Western, modernist and middle-class, straight white male model of the humanities researcher.'

- Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Creative Intelligence:
http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/

#newmedia
#academicpublishing
#experimentalwriting
#genai
#posthumanism
#copyright #OA

Latest title in Open Humanities Press's MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW series:

Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Creative Intelligence by Gary Hall

http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/

Open access
(= it can be downloaded for free)

If we want a socially and environmentally just future, do we need a radical new theory of change – or to radically change theory? It’s this question Gary Hall and his collaborators have been addressing for over 20 years with experimental projects such as OHP, Liquid and Living Books, and the Culture-Led Re-Commoning of Cities. Unsettling received ideas of the author and book, originality and copyright, real and artificial intelligence, these theorist-mediums test the ‘non-modernist-liberal’ modes of creating and sharing knowledge enabled by media technologies, from writing and print, through photography and video, to computers and GenAI.

#newmedia #academicpublishing #experimentalwriting #openai #genai #art #posthumanism #copyright

è possibile seguire slowforward.net cercando sul sito il form visibile qui in foto, e inserendovi la propria email.
in alternativa, ci si può iscrivere a uno dei canali:
https://t.me/slowforward
oppure https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9EcsE9mrGdtRzwSG1K

*

chi è soprattutto interessato all'asemic writing / scrittura asemica, poi, è invitato a iscriversi a https://t.me/asemic, oppure a https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VatHHjBL2AU8CU6zTa00

#scritturadiricerca #experimentalwriting #scritturesperimentali #asemic #asemicwriting #scritturaasemica

Announcing the latest title in Open Humanities Press's MEDIA : ART : WRITE : NOW series:

Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Creative Intelligence by Gary Hall.

Available open access - to be downloaded for free:

http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/

If we want a socially and environmentally just future, do we need a radical new theory of change – or to radically change theory? Unsettling received ideas of the author and the book, originality and copyright, real and artificial intelligence, Masked Media tests ‘non-modernist-liberal’ modes of creating and sharing knowledge enabled by media technologies, from writing through to GenAI. Thinking outside the black box that renders Euro-Western knowledge-making practices invisible – keeping the human ontologically separate from the nonhuman – it shows there’s no such thing as the human, the nonhuman already being in(the)human.

#newmedia #academicpublishing #experimentalwriting #humanities
#philosophy #ai #openai #genai

cipm: 8 mars, finissage de l’exposition al dante

rencontre, finissage de l’exposition Al Dante
samedi 8 mars 2025 de 15h à 18h

AL DANTE : FIN DE RAOUT

Frédéric Acquaviva, Amandine André, A.C. Hello, Philippe Simon, Benjamin Fouché, Jean-Marie Gleize, Virginie Lalucq

Un programme de lectures, performances et concert acousmatique mis au point avec Laurent Cauwet et Stéphane Nowak Papantoniou pour clore la séquence du grand raout Al Dante.

Remerciements au GMEM pour sa très amicale participation technique.

Au programme de la journée : 

• Frédéric Acquaviva
« Bonjour Frédéric. Je viens de finir d’écouter “No Soy Un Robot” et c’est inouï. Bien sûr mon commentaire n’a pas beaucoup de valeur car je ne connais rien à la musique en général et contemporaine encore moins. Mais alors que j’ai mis le disque tout en consultant mes mails et autres bidouilleries sur ordinateur, je me suis surpris à tout arrêter et écouter. Je me suis mis à entendre une sorte de vocabulaire des sons. C’est très interessant, marrant, curieux, grave vivant. Quand tout s’est arrêté “No Soy Un Robot” Frédéric Acquaviva, j’ai encore entendu… le son du vieux lecteur de CD, puis quand il s’est mis en pause, mes accouphènes. Bref, merci de partager ce monde sonore singulier. »
E-mail de Fap Eyla,
poète et directeur de Frichez-nous la paix, Paris
• Amandine André
Lecture.

• Micheline (A. C. Hello, Philippe Simon)
« “Micheline est un projet musical avant-gardiste né de la collaboration entre Philippe Simon, musicien noise, et Anne-Claire Hello, liclutréuf c-eoedmr puphfila onaidéconstruit la narration à travers le sampling. Ce groupe s’inspire de l’histoire vraie de Micheline, née en 1944 et décédée en 1964, dont la vie tumultueuse et tragique résonne profondément avecu’linjrhvivr  mmianmeaa ie aetrohmi srttieuugqi  oreieurjsltcss’sifpnl,gqtsleetii ,hmincildeir esevvae eFmv,oiflruopaceeiuosaemol  nn,dinuseuoju ar ltrpae nurnsoe  ilvcde ceitrhqubl  cmo pe  utn qsooei”,onsle irlaeh dnrmqeeio  iasciltidv letaiugmioc iassen netpho foqpc excoisnmoi hln lttennccar llisoioejqmsi fsomoise eonu cepi’hmuitg,h .leem eohtn i sumdle es ehirveth o,”la tioesrsucofse  aisapim – irf ilrosretsroe iohtnshtelu ecd ob nrns  ghr . […]si vous si et si moi et vite si et si et si et si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si si – et si seulement lorsqu’on voyage dans un fragment de crâne ?“»
A. C. Hello
• Benjamin Fouché
Lecture d’extraits de ses deux premiers livres (Du concept de féerie, 2022, Merveilles du monde, 2024) ainsi que de travaux en cours. Les textes évoqueront diverses figures de la littérature pour enfants (Peau d’Ane, Cendrillon, Max et les maximonstres, etc.)

• Jean-Marie Gleize
Lecture.

• Virginie Lalucq
Sans trop en dévoiler, Virginie Lalucq* dira :
Rhapsodie Napalm (extrait de Placide Molotov)
+ « On n’sait plus qui est qui, on n’sait plus quoi est quoi
Qui est qui, quoi est quoi »
(Essai de contre-rituel poétique) =
20
*Antiphagocytaire à poésie.

CIPM
Centre international de poésie
centre de la Vieille Charité
2, rue de la Charité13002 Marseille

#ACHello #AlDante #AmandineAndré #AnneClaireHello #BenjaminFouché #experimentalWriting #FrédéricAcquaviva #GMEM #JeanMarieGleize #LaurentCauwet #lectures #Micheline #PhilippeSimon #reading #StéphaneNowakPapantoniou #VirginieLalucq

derek beaulieu: no more poetry

download a PDF of Please, No More Poetry: The Poetry of derek beaulieu (Kit Dobson, ed.) https://derekbeaulieu.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/downloadable-pdfs/

#DerekBeaulieu #essay #experimentalWriting #KitDobson #noMorePoetry #noPoetry #pdf

jim leftwich passed away

the bad news make me absolutely astonished, sad. my/our friend Jim Leftwich passed away. he had an heart attack. I’m still speechless and in shock.

as soon as I read the news, my first reaction was disbelief. but it was soon confirmed.

for more than twenty years Jim has been a great interlocutor for me, an inexhaustible source of critical dialogue, on experimental writing and verbo-visual art, but also on all the political questions that experimentation entails.

Jim was also a slowforward editor, a tireless promoter of other people’s work, writings, and connections. not to mention his primary role in the spreading of the practice of asemic writing.

I miss him so much.

this passing, with the passing of Peter Ganick, is a truly major loss for the literary community as a whole, and for me as a friend. I never met him in person, despite the thousand messages we exchanged, and I’ll never meet him anymore.

#art #death #experimentalWriting #JimLeftwich #loss #majorLoss #passingAway

ubuweb is back – fighting with us

https://www.ubu.com/

February 1, 2025

A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elseawhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It’s now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.

#ubuweb #experimentalwriting  #scritturediricerca 
#scritturadiricerca #scritturaconcettuale #conceptualwriting 
#archive #archiving #memory #resistenza #archivio 
#archiviodelmondo #archiveoftheworld #archiviazione 

#365DaysProject #archive #archiveoftheworld #archiviazione #archiving #archivio #archiviodelmondo #art #arte #AspenMagazine #conceptualComics #ConceptualWriting #conceptualwriting #dance #DerekBeaulieu #ElectronicMusicResources #Ethnopoetics #experimentalwriting #KennethGoldsmith #memory #outsiders #papers #politica #politics #Resistenza #scritturaconcettuale #scritturadiricerca #scritturediricerca #sound #thanksToDerekBeaulieu #ubuEditions #UbuWeb #UbuWebTopTens #video #vispo #visualPoetry

Chaos Will Ensue by Debbie Robson is a short #ExperimentalWriting piece in #FrightenTheHorses #LitJournal

“If I ignore the cars outside and the decor of the café, it could be 1976…”

https://frightenthehorses.com/chaos-will-ensue/

#nonbinary #poems #art #feminism #experimentallife #experimentalwriting

speaking of #ExperimentalWriting, check out “Spandau: A Powerpoint" by Andrew Riddles in our sister journal, Frighten The Horses.

“Today I will tell you something about common assumptions I have made previously about the name #SpandauBallet…”

https://frightenthehorses.com/spandau-a-powerpoint/

is #ExperimentalWriting dead?

“You snap out of it! VANESSA: - Oh, those just get me psychotic! VANESSA: - Park. BARRY: - I don't think these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it. BARRY: I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means. (The scene switches and Barry look up at the flower, shooting tubes that suck up the nectar to the point of weakness!”

This was written by software. Better than that, it was written as #AlgorithmicSabotage. Check it out...

https://poison.madhouse-project.org