John M. Bennett Blanksmanship

The first ever reissue of 1994 sound poetry masterpiece »blanksmanship«, a high point in the work of legendary avant-garde poet and artist John M. Bennett. Editions Basilic and Luna Bisonte Prods previously collaborated on »A Flattened Face Fogs Through: Selected Sound Poetry (1986-1994)«, an anthology of Bennett’s sound poetry released in 2022 to widespread acclaim.

John M. Bennett’s »blanksmanship« is a totemic representation of something impossible: a linguistic object containing a totality. Written and recorded in the early 1990s and released as a sound poetry cassette and chapbook, »blanksmanship« begins and ends with a ten word mantra, distilling the poem’s ten cantos that act as phases of an extended meditation. Performed by the author accompanied only by minimalist shakuhachi flute and bell, a narrative emerges from a mythic place, spoken by a single voice that eventually multiplies into a horde of selves. The author states that »blanksmanship« refers to a state of mind, the "empty yet swarming void from which the poem’s voice arises, as if it were the voice of completeness itself".

Riyl: Robert Ashley, Akio Suzuki, William S. Burroughs, Steve Dalachinsky, Max Headroom, Japanese Shakuhachi Flute Music