As a writer and visual artist, I find the breakdown of consensus fact and meaning in public discourse disturbing and ominous. After the 2017 presidential inauguration, I responded by inventing a new language, based on the nonsense phrase “All Gonch.” The shape and structure of the words offer clues to the culture that might arise after the death of the current (American) culture and language. The project has several phases. The first involved composing text pieces in the Gonch language. This phase culminated in the book Gonch Poems (available via online outlets).

The second, ongoing project phase is the Gonchlog, which involves cutting the letters of “Gonch” from various consumer magazines and pasting them onto accounting paper. The source, its date of publication, and volume number are noted. The intention is to draw out that key nonsense word from these commercial propaganda vehicles in order to find a way forward. Or something like that. To date, the Gonchlog stands at approximately 500 unique entries.

The photos below represent entries from the first volume. These were published in various literary journals, including Otoliths, Angry Old Man, Word For/Word, and X-Peri. A photograph of the cover of Volume 9 is included.