A Review of gnōstos, volume VII of  The Grammaton Series

by Joshua Martin

gnōstos (BlazeVOX, 2023), volume VII or Irene Koronas’ The Grammaton Series, continues her trajectory of extreme experimentalism through a fragmented poetic language filled with radical juxtapositions, snippets, neologisms, and minimalistically ecstatic aphorisms. Linguistic flares and miniature rhapsodies. Each word a new world unto itself, brimming with exaltation, reveling in the illogical and the mystic. Overflowing with rich treats and poetic mashups. A heady potpourri of languages and references, this wildly inventive and diverse work probes the very nature of our 21^st century world. Filled, as it is, with huge amounts of textual varieties, never standing still, always performing new and perverse syntactical experiments and collisions.

Letters, words, language itself, are simply building blocks for an expansive and stimulating poetics that reaches into the fringes of what language can and should do. At times reminiscent of Russian Futurism (particularly Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh) and its desire to transcend conventional language, creating something spontaneous through Zaum, Koronas’ work seems to be developing a new language all its own, free from the rigidity of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, no matter its origin. And there is a myriad of origins in Koronas’ work. Her seemingly endless knowledge of a wide range subjects, alphabets, theories, languages, and texts is impressive and inspiring. Koronas’ work is written with a scholar’s information and an experimental poet’s skill. Khlebnikov’s “language of the gods” and “language of the stars” aptly applies to gnōstos.

Though the length of many of these lines are often quite brief, they are packed with beauty, sublimity, and chaos. Many words are new creations in themselves. Disorienting, transfixing, and sonically innovative, gnōstos deftly explodes poetic convention, instead offering the reader a dizzying array of staccato riffs and verbal treats. There is no net. As readers, we are free floating among her endlessly unique creations. At times, the speed at which Koronas’ lines whizz by can make us feel lightheaded in the best possible sense. We feel as though we are reading lightning strikes on a page. 

Language is taken apart, constructed, reconstructed, and made into an entirely new thing. Mystical and rapturous, reading Koronas is like reading an invented language, offering us a whole new way of seeing, being, and understanding. A poetics that wishes to explode, implode, and pull apart all conventions in order to find something truly novel. Experimentation at its finest. A radical performance seeking to encompass the entire cosmos in its fragments.

Exciting, elusive, entirely readable, illogical, visionary, and virtuosic. Bending, breaking, forming and reforming. Reading gnōstos is an inspiring and disorienting experience. A work which requires multiple readings in order to truly absorb its many secrets, mysteries, and triumphs. The Grammaton Series is a massive undertaking not only in its length and scope, but in its bold and formidable search for invention. gnōstos is reaching for something unique and intangible, pulling readers along as far as it can toward something visionary and profound.

Irene Koronas’ new book gnostos is available from publisher BlazeVox here.

GRAVE AND LIFE

Hi guys! Hope you are well by the grace of Allah.
Friends, my religion is Islam and it is the fastest growing religion in the world. But many times I have heard some negative thoughts and rumors from the people of other religion.
Now I am here to fix those issues.

Introduction: Burial is a process where we have to bury people in soil after they die. But before burying we have to complete some more cultural rituals. First of all we have to wait, so that many people can see the dead man last time and can get support from other
people. Then we have to wash the body to make the body holy and clean. Then we took “khatiya” means a type of vehicle which is powered by four people by hand. Before burying we
have to say a prayer for that the dead person that Allah will forgive the man and give him/her Paradise. Then we bury the body with a white cloth named ‘Kafon’.

Negative thoughts: the negative thoughts of other people are:

1. Burial takes up too much space
2. Burial doesn't offer anyone benefits
3. Burial costs too much money for the land and plot
4. Burial is useless

Now I will tell you the advantages

Natural advantages: first of all we don’t have enough trees and the climate is changing every year and we are at risk. But when we make a family place for graves we will have a garden of trees. On the other hand the water level is decreasing every year because of concrete and human made structures. But when we have a place for graves we automatically make a place where the soil can absorb water. And also the dead body will serve as natural fertilizer for soil.

Emotional advantage: In many religions like Hinduism, they burn the body and throw the ashes into the Ganga river. Because of that fire there is air pollution and they can't feel the loved one again physically. But when it comes to a grave there aren't pollution problems. In fact it is healthy for nature. And you can share your feelings with the people in front of the grave. In fact if you are worried about the dead person, you can also pray for him/her in front of the
grave and the next generation will also recognize the dead people.

Now many people will tell that grave takes too much space but I have to tell you that it is renewable. In fact, in the soil of your property there is a buried person. It can be 50,100,150, 200 years old and that is true.

(Disclaimer: It is made only for education purpose. We are not doing hate speech. We are just telling what truth is.)
Thanks.

Mahmudul Hasan Fahim is a student of grade 9 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

He was brought to the hospital in a serious condition. His internal organs were also ruptured from the strong blows. The doctors could not find out who did this until the police officers arrived. The mother, who was crying on top of the child, was punching her chest, but it was clear from her eyes that she was hiding something. The child was connected to an artificial respiration machine and was on the verge of dying. Only then did the woman begin to tell the truth.

- When they came to drink, I was in the kitchen, Akmaljon was playing in the corridor. As a young child, he asked for money for ice cream, not knowing what condition his father was in.

Unfortunately, his condition worsened. The doctors provided all the help they could, but the injuries were so severe that the doctors were helpless. They brought the mother in to say goodbye to her child. Pib slowly opened his eyes after hearing the sound of his crying mother. He removed the artificial respiration device from his mouth and began to speak.

"Dude, I didn't ask for ice cream, I asked for money for medicine. You said you had a heart attack. So...
He began to breathe heavily. But he stopped the hurrying doctors and explained with a sign that he wanted to tell them what he had to say.

- Don't cry, my father doesn't drink anymore.
- Well, let him die without drinking, instead of putting you in this situation, wouldn't it be possible to break his legs?

- Don't curse him, he won't be able to walk if his legs are broken.
The boy stared hopefully at the door. If his father came in now, he was ready to throw himself on his lap and hug him tightly. Not the cursed one, whose eyes were filled with blood and brutally beaten two hours ago, but he once carried him on his shoulders and He finally wanted to see his lover, who led him to the store and bought him cars. His father is not there, he did not come. After losing hope, he called the detective who was standing on the corner.

- Uncle, please don't arrest my father, he is a very good person. You will see that he will be a good father again as before. Because I will become an angel and always pray for him.
The experienced officer, who had seen various crimes, could not stop himself. The boy's life was cut off before he promised the boy with tears in his eyes...

However, the law takes precedence over any promises. Taking into account the fact that he has a family and other children, a lighter punishment was given. The father could not bear this sin and committed suicide several times in prison. they did not punish him for it.

I turned to the mother who told me this story with tears in her eyes:
- Your husband got out of prison, has he stopped drinking?
He sighed deeply, showing a smiling photo of his sweet 6-year-old son in his hand, his voice trembled and answered...

- Yes, he gave justice, but in order for adults to understand, is it necessary to multiply such angels? My child entered his father's dreams many times...

Traditional Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is one of the oldest countries in world history and a country rich in many historical places and historical events. Uzbekistan consists of 12 regions and one autonomous republic and is currently one of the developing countries in every field. Now I want to tell about the most ancient and well-known places in Uzbekistan. My hometown is Surkhandarya region where is located in southern part of the country.

According to some facts, my hometown has a long-life history  which is located next to Amudarya and is the southernmost part of our country. Our nation is strong, brave and courageous, and also still the same. Even there are many stories and fairy tales about it. For example, there are our historical heroes Barchinoy and Alpomish, these people are symbols of bravery, loyalty and love. In addition, there are many historical places in my motherland, for example, 2000-year-old buildings and their remains are still available. The most important thing to say about our people is that they are very hardworking, open-minded, kind and simple-minded people compared to other regions of Uzbekistan. Our family consist of eight people, they are my grandparents, parents, three sisters and me. Elders in our country are wise, knowledgeable and experienced people. That is why, youngsters always respect and help them also ask some some advice for difficulties in their life. Every Muslim people in the world are aware of religious people in Central Asia, one of the most person Al-Hakim at-Termiziy lived in our country and his tomb is located in my hometown.

When it comes to my education. I am third course student in higher education where located in Samarkand. I think more people around the world know about this city, because here is most famous, historical and touristic location. Thousands of tourists visit this city in a year from verity parts of the world. Especially, Samarkand is  well-known for its historical places, mosques, and madrasahs such as Registon squere, Bibikhonim mosque, Guri Amir, Shkokhi Zinda and so on. Like all of  this places are releted to Middle Ages when Amir Timur and his generations lived. By the way, this city is a country where was the capital of Amir Temur’s country.

If I tell about higher education our country that it consists of four year for bachelor degree but for Master’s degree students study for two year. I study at Samarkand state institute of foreign languages, the faculty of English philology and translation studies. In the future I will be teacher and translator, because my major is to be translator or interpretor but my dad really wants me to be a teacher in higher education. So that I wil be both of them. In our institute there are more international teachers who are from USA, UK, Japan, Korea, Chine Turkey and so on. Therefore, our local teachers also have the same knowledge and practise. For example, all of teacher in our institute teach students with efficient methods and through modern high- digital technologies. Different holidays, compitations,conferences,camps and other meetings are held every month.

After graduating this institute I am going to study for Master’s degree abroad may be in the USA, UK or Turkey. I want to tell you about my parents, they are very kind, sincere, open-hearted, easy-going and my closest people in my life. I thank them for all the love they have shown and the opportunities they have created. In our country, it is very important to respect and honor parents. Because they grow you up by giving their everything. My dad and mum are the best people in the world. I clearly remember, I was in the 6th grade at secondary school, my father had to come from abroad, and I asked them to bring me a computer. I didn’t believe that he would bring it, but unexpectedly he gave me a new laptop of the latest model. I was very happy at that time. Because I was the only student in the class who had a personal computer. Also, they always emphasize that we should study and be good professionals. My sisters and I are always trying to make my parents’ dreams come true. I am very proud to be a child of such parents. 

Muhammed

Marnie had linked-in with Ellie and had developed a body suit with haptic feedback features. Ellie was able to render her lost daughter into real-time, similar to holographic girlfriend Joi—Ana de Armas, #KnivesOut—product belonging to the Nexus-9 Blade Runner KD6-3.7. Instructing Ellie to initiate Sareh, a holographic apparition. A digital avatar of Sareh was generated, magically, restored to virtual existence. #Ellie #shortfiction #interstellar #scifi …

Struck by this, Mia telepathically caused the quantum engine to levitate into the air, both hands spaced apart. Similar to teenage orphan and an avid Gunter, Wade Watts / avatar Parzival logged into the OASIS, except without the visor and haptic technology gloves. She had tilted and rotated the sphere like a Rubik’s Cube, visually, assessing the damage of PLUTO. The meteor orb, dubbed ATOM, was still fully functional, causing the working components to glow. #Marnie #shortfiction #scifi #nostelgia

A Review of The Metempsychosis of Salvador Dracu, Part VI of The Posthuman Series

by Joshua Martin

Part VI of Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series, The Metempsychosis of Salvador Dracu (BlazeVOX, 2023) further pushes Harris’ project as an extreme experimentalist forward. Harris has created a kind of modern day Merz filled with, instead of the physical trash of the 20^th century, all the many incarnations of digital and cyber debris fused into an immense amalgam of dense poetics mingling words, numbers, symbols, code, script, and nearly anything and everything else in between. A 21^st century Dada filled to brim with digital nonsense and encoded beauty. The sections (themselves numbered in a disorienting manner, i.e. 2.14121, 3.3521, etc., which follow the infrastructure of  Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus) range from a word or a line to large blocks of nearly indecipherable text, all building upon each other as part of this vast and monumental ongoing experimental project.

This work is filled with neologisms and portmanteaus to rival Khlebnikov’s or Joyce’s greatest achievements (and just as untranslatable!). Harris’ work, which he dubs posthuman, could be called post-language, post-syntax, and certainly post any conventional poetic form we’ve come to expect or understand. Throughout The Metempsychosis of Salvador Dracu, Harris challenges not only what writing is and can be but also what it even means being human in this noisy, cluttered, and overwhelming age of information and technology. This project suggests a means of integrating the entire language of cyberspace with our conventional language(s) to form a highly idiosyncratic, fascinating, and disarming poetic vocabulary reaching to the farthest possible future, while also astutely representing our present age.

Nothing about this work can be easily classified or understood (if its even supposed to!). Harris’ work represents the absolute best of the notion of experimental writing. This book is for the most adventurous of readers who are willing to have their brains fried by a veritable feast of linguistic gymnastics. No one should go into this work expecting to be anything less than absolutely disarmed and sent into disarray by this captivatingly obscure, unclassifiable, and unbelievably erudite project.

The Posthuman Series requires anyone approaching it to question all their notions of what literature is, what can or does make sense, and where poetics can or might go as our lives become increasingly consumed by screens, our experiences rendered by algorithms written by coders in a language most of us cannot and do not understand. In this sense, Harris’ project is aligned perfectly with our times, as he collects all the overwhelming madness of our digital world, rearranges it into an amazingly expansive and all-encompassing poetics that reaches beyond all languages (there are many languages scattered throughout the text, not just English) to create a blueprint in poetry for the computerized (posthuman?) mind.

The words, forms, and phrases of The Metempsychosis of Salvador Dracu pass through our minds at a dizzying rate offering us little chance to catch our breaths. This is the Dada of now. Everything is intangible, massive, filled with more information than we’ll every be able to comprehend. We, as readers, can only succumb to its extremes and allow ourselves to be consumed by the massive scale of this undertaking, in awe of Harris’ skill, innovation, and fortitude. This is literature that makes us question everything, which is, after all, what art and, in particular, experimental art should make us do.

Daniel Y. Harris’ The Metempsychosis of Salvador Dracu is available here from publisher BlazeVOX.

Design for Multiplanetary Life (If Ever Required)       (499 words)

Flip?

Yah. Ho!  = to lay down back up and explain what’s going on here when the planet Rstyj touched Earth’s farthest out registers {which had been set to zero by wise elders way long back who, in the grip of this that and those silly superstitions, believe that such collisions were at least, remotely, if not less than, actually possible.} all qualified minds (whew) came up with OOPS this hippo; what was needed, in anticipation of the number of planets unpredictably expanding, there needed to have a flexible material set in place that when planet # 2 came out and there needed to be a seamless state-of-being between planets #1 and #2, this flexi-floor would stretch on its own providing seamlessly unified living surface for each and every planetary creature, each one of which, though having been forced into interplanetariazational existance, the stretching device would transform this interplanetariazationalism into invisibility for the living creature who would become aware of and be comfortable living on a virtual uniplanetary surface (and be happy to do so. yip This being way way much more practical organically pleasing underlayment of their plane of existence than the way way back there previously described roundy-bout sum early pages as “elaborate and rickety illusionary systems of catwalks, slim scaffolding, mind/memory machine tools, error traps, run-off diverters and pap-scagagglia la la pap-scagagglia, hooonley, with the necessary vision generators belief drowners hoit-toit Spangle! Co-lock’t Spangle! of a Spangle! and scads of other barely profitable jury-rigged illusion systems” and et-cetranoonia (back-whistle dumpster) which, of course, given the mystical nature of reality nowadays, may actually underlie this new-flangied flexi-floor stretched out under the multiplanetary string, on its own providing seamlessly unified living surface for each and every planetary creature {whether they like it or knot up died trying} so rich     sweat          whizz         DIP!         sweat      wheeze                       wheeze            sweat      the last part of this document outline of what the hells going on at this juncture in the sweet polite yet lightly scarred “lives” off this here these two chloroform twins Jan and Jon seeking an in-in-the-wall to entre into the architectural worksite on the corner known way back yas yaas waaaaay back as the trigger what fumbled off into the void of memorized existence the raw materials backhauling the first seed drop’t into the gulf of the Mass-Tragedy that raged up the eight blocks of the most of the main street knocking it out of economic commission and you do know what the hell THAT’s called why after all Willy (aka Albert and Victoria’s (evening wear required (WHERE’S MY GOD-DAMNED SUPPER!!) ) gently go, my townfolk, gently, eh ah, gently MANY LIVES BRUNCH FESTIVAL-POP PARTY pop PARTY   |||||| so now that you’re equipped of what’s underlying this whole splat, know that Jan and Jon have not done anything you may have missed but only keep creeping on rightward searching for a way through that green wall (we think)

                                           happy

    wheeze                   Hey! It’s Picklebackin’ Minnie            dark helmet              wheeze                squeak              sweat           sweat    Party!