Can Flattened by Use into Poetry

richard canard, "Readymade Asemic Poem" for Geof Huth (22 Oct 2010)It happens that I have been focused over the past few days on organizing my papers, those still inhabiting my house, for donation this year. I am an organized person but don't necessarily keep anything organized during use (not in a kitchen, and not in an office), but I clean up everything in the end. And that's what I've been doing, primarily focusing my work on four years of partially filed correspondence.

And one of my frequent though not constant correspondents over the years has been richard canard (a mailartist and reader of this blog whom I once crowned with the name dick duck, possibly to his discontent). Richard sends me interesting mail, usually postcards and sometimes in response to postings here. But today there arrived at my home a quite unusual piece of mail: a small flattened box inside of which I discovered a flattened beverage can, which richard, in the manner of R. Mutt, signed, though he also gave it a descriptive title, a dedication, and a date.

Quite a wonderful piece of found asemic writing, and I particularly like the way the ink of the can has been worn away, apparently from being driven over, thus creating the illusion of letters where the color has disappeared.

I have nothing else to say. I just hold the piece in my hand and enjoy it. And I've filed it away properly, as I plan to do with mail as I receive it, at least through the end of the year.

ecr. l'inf.