The scribble or scrawl is not a secondary product born of distraction, but a primary neurological output triggered when concentration moves downwards, expressing the minds fundamental rhythm of brain to hand movement. The poetry of rearguard consciousness, it is more often a product of writing than visual art. So why does poetry, the language art, not hold scribbling closer to its chest as a mediator of our internal writing rhythm?
Image credits (from top to bottom):
1. SJ Fowler, Woob [detail]
2. SJ Fowler, Jerusalem
3. SJ Fowler, Woob
4. SJ Fowler, Light Pollution
5. SJ Fowler, Jerusalem
6. SJ Fowler, Lavender on Instagram
The Selected Scribbling and Scrawling of SJ Fowler: Asemic Poems will be published by Zimzalla in September 2020 in a second edition – featuring over 100 abstract poems in a dozen sequences, and new essays by David Spittle, Tim Gaze and more.
This is part of RHYTHM, a section of The Learned Pig devoted to exploring rhythm as individual and collective, as poetic and biological, and the ways that rhythm dictates life. RHYTHM is conceived and edited by Rachel Goldblatt.
