========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 10:51:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Foolishness "there's not much foolishness in Duncan." Yours, LIsa -------------------------- Much as I love Duncan (both the person and the poet), he was entirely capable of jaw-dropping foolishness and exhibited it on as many occasions as he could. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 09:00:43 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: san diego readings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm finally almost done deleting, I mean sorting, a lot of e-mail that I'd let accummulate while I was out of town & thought that some folks might be interested in this list of all of the Southern California performances by Jaap Blonk: >Monday, March 3, 7.30 pm: >lecture/performance at UCLA Graduate Art Building, 8535 Warner Drive (near >Hayden and National, Culver City) >info: Jon Pestoni (310) 586 0048 --- Evan Holloway (213) 478 1363 > >Tuesday, March 4, 12 noon: >lecture/demonstration at Langley Hall in the Main Building of CalArts, >24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, phone (805) 255 1050 > >Wednesday, March 5, 7 pm: >performance at UC San Diego, La Jolla, Visual Arts Complex, Studio 451 >info: Jerome Rothenberg (619) 436 9923 --- Harry Polkinhorn (619) 587 0960 > >Friday, March 7, 8 pm: >performance at LACE, 6522 Hollywood Blvd (parking in the rear off of >Wilcox, reduced price with entry), phone (213) 466 1767 > >Saturday, March 8, 8.30 pm: >performance at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, phone (310) >822 3006 >>For those of you in or near San Diego, the following may be of interest: >> >>Wednesday March 5 7:00 p.m. at Jerome Rothenberg's studio (Visual Arts 451 >>on UCSD campus): a performance by the Dutch poet / soundtext artist Jaap >>Blonk, along with improvisations by contrabassist Bert Turetzky. Sorry, I don't have any other dates for Ed Sanders on hand. Bests Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 12:13:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Foolishness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" and i hate to beat a dead horse, but what's wrong with "foolishness" anyway?... i don't mean the term as in, say, theoretical naivete (whatever that might be)... i mean it in a rather literal sense... i think a certain touch of juvenilia might help allay the various desperations that seem to permeate critical and aesthetic practice, and community... not only humor, but nonsense as such... as in 'stop making sense'... granted there may be limits to same, but who's to say?... serious fun can be, well, fun, why not?... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 14:08:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to Lisa Jarnot for providing a source for Duncan on "rejecting Hitler" as follows: "Reject Mae West as vulgar or Hitler as the enemy, reject them as fellows of our kind, and you have to go to battle against the very nature of Man himself, against the truth of things." I take it that in this Duncan is saying that the violence Hitler summoned, marshaled, represented, and used is a violence deep in humankind. That seems straightforward. I take him to be saying also that we get nowhere to read such violence, in the form of Hitler, as a symbol of something non-human -- an aberration, the enemy, the common enemy -- which we may therefore comfortably ignore or dismiss as "ignorance." Duncan is reminding us that such violence is well inside human nature and history. Hitler is not an isolated or aberrant case. Yes, this is far from "foolish." It is true. True, yes; but, it doesn't mean, to my ears at least, what Lisa makes it mean. As I saw Duncan resist actively what he thought was evil on several occasions, I don't think it means "forget about Dorn's racism." Indeed, I think it counsels precisely against such forgetting. We can no more ignore or dismiss Dorn's racism than we can reject Hitler as some aberrant irrelevant "enemy." Lisa concludes her short note by saying: "I kind of thought it (i.e. the reference to Duncan) made sense in the context of the Dorn discussion since there has been talk of counteracting ignorance with physical violence." Indeed, it does make sense. And by offering Ed a knuckle sandwich I was making the same point Duncan was making. Or, the point Pogo made so eloquently: "I have seen the enemy and we are it." But, it's not ignorance. Hitler was brilliant not ignorant. Dorn's active excessive mind and linguistic force need no underlining. His racism, like Hitler's, must be resisted. I'm struck by the blandness of a word like ignorance in this case, and by -- I'm sorry to say -- the self-praise. If racism is ignorant, then "I" must be wise, and of course that should do the trick I guess. Let me ask Joe Safdie directly -- since he knows Dorn over a long period and is Jewish -- did Dorn *ever* taunt you as a Jew or "jew-bait" you in any way? A truthful answer will clear up -- and I think end -- this creepiness. Joe knows the truth (in a funny way, so do I). And just needs to propose the truth here. Tom Mandel Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 14:07:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: news of the weird MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT friends -- Chuck Shepherd's admirable weekly coluumn News of the Weird is -- it might interest you to know -- available online. Here's the deal: > NEWS OF THE WEIRD, founded in 1988, is a nationally syndicated > newspaper column distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. > Individuals may have the columns mailed to them electronically, free > of charge, approximately three weeks after the cover date, which is > the date when most subscribing newspapers will publish the column. > Send a message to notw-request@nine.org with the Subject line of > Subscribe. To read these News of the Weird newspaper columns from > the past six months, go to http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html (That > site contains no graphics, no photos, no video clips, no audio. Just > text. Deal with it.) I've been subscribing for some while now. Without giving any specific excerpts here, I'll just say I've a feeling that many denizens of this listserv are likely to enjoy Shepherd's outre sensbility and the bizzare info he tends to unearth. f.y.i., d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [ &/or.office......disrael@skgf.com ] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} |"...sleuthing out all clues, blues & news"| \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 12:38:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: main Subject: Re: Holy Moly! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII i'd say that duncan's right on: rejection would push away and make other what is human (i.e., the problem of evil). hitler himself used rejection as a solution: a "final" solution. this solved nothing. dan featherston ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:13:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Holy Moly! In-Reply-To: from "main" at Mar 1, 97 12:38:32 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree - Duncan's quote reminded me of a poem I just read with some highschool students I (along with many others) tutor on Mondays and Fridays. The poem is called "The Hangman" - its a formal poem in rhymed iambic tetrameter quatrains and is ostensibly a moral about the holocaust (which they're studying). A man in the "village" volunteers to help the hangman execute people thinking that in doing so he'll save himself - of course in the end, after everyone else is dead, the hangman kills him too. As a simple moral its fine, I suppose, but th problem is this hangman - he's purely allegorical and one finds oneself either comfortably distant from him ("Thank god there's no hangman around here") or condemning him as pure evil (a version of the devil). Consequently, you don't learn anything about how an event like the holocaust could take place in real space and time. The student s are very street-wise North Philly kids and they reacted with real suspicion - one of them called the hangman "an abstraction." It seems to me that its that sense of "abstraction" - the way it allows Hitler to disappear in the realm of mythology - that Duncan is arguing against. For me its what gives he as well as someone like Creely real political weight even when their "subject matter" is not political. -Mike Magee. According to main: > > i'd say that duncan's right on: rejection would push away and make other > what is human (i.e., the problem of evil). hitler himself used rejection > as a solution: a "final" solution. this solved nothing. > > dan featherston > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:22:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Foolishness In-Reply-To: <199703011813.MAA13772@charlie.cns.iit.edu> from "amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU" at Mar 1, 97 12:13:02 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Emerson: "The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense." According to amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU: > > and i hate to beat a dead horse, but what's wrong with "foolishness" > anyway?... i don't mean the term as in, say, theoretical naivete (whatever > that might be)... i mean it in a rather literal sense... > > i think a certain touch of juvenilia might help allay the various > desperations that seem to permeate critical and aesthetic practice, and > community... not only humor, but nonsense as such... as in 'stop making > sense'... > > granted there may be limits to same, but who's to say?... serious fun can > be, well, fun, why not?... > > best, > > joe > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 09:29:13 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Indeed, it does make sense. And by offering Ed a knuckle sandwich I was >making the same point Duncan was making. Or, the point Pogo made so >eloquently: "I have seen the enemy and we are it." But, it's not ignorance. Ah, Walt Kelly there is another ambivalent figure. He seemed to buy into cold war propaganda in a way that left room for a great deal of humanism & thoughtfulness. Yet when you read him he would regularly punctuate his very endearing foolishness with something completely anti-absorptive - for me anyway - something really foolish in the sense it is being used here. dan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:22:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Holy Moly! In-Reply-To: <199703012013.PAA56904@dept.english.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > According to main: > >> i'd say that duncan's right on: rejection would push away and make other >> what is human (i.e., the problem of evil). hitler himself used rejection >> as a solution: a "final" solution. this solved nothing. >> >> dan featherston >> there's a difference between rejection and denial. it is not a good idea to reject "hitler" as an abstraction, an aberration, "it can't happen here," or it can't happen within us etc. however, it is not a good idea to pretend we didn't know what hitler, or other less demonized members of society, including ourselves, did, or that to pretend that it;s not really that big of a deal, because, as they say in The Producers, "the fuhrer was an excellent dancer, he was much better than churchill." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:24:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon In-Reply-To: <199703012029.JAA14528@ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 9:29 AM +1300 3/2/97, DS wrote: >>Indeed, it does make sense. And by offering Ed a knuckle sandwich I was >>making the same point Duncan was making. Or, the point Pogo made so >>eloquently: "I have seen the enemy and we are it." But, it's not ignorance. isn[t it: "...and he is us"? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 16:49:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > At 9:29 AM +1300 3/2/97, DS wrote: > >>Indeed, it does make sense. And by offering Ed a knuckle sandwich I was > >>making the same point Duncan was making. Or, the point Pogo made so > >>eloquently: "I have seen the enemy and we are it." But, it's not ignorance. > > isn[t it: "...and he is us"? > I think the actual quote is: "We have met the enemy and they is us." __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 18:25:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jarnot@PIPELINE.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In response to the ongoing Dorn/Duncan thread i just want to say two things: one/ yes, ron, thank you for reminding me that duncan was filled with foolishness. as a duncan devotee i responded emotionally to tom's post (using the words foolish and duncan in the same sentence). two/ yes, tom, of course issues of anti-semitism and racism are serious. but i wasn't trying to be self-congratulatory or more "evolved" by saying racists are "ignorant." I'm talking about the ignorance encouraged by the powers that be (corporate /hegemonic/media/USA) to keep marginalized groups separated from each other by convincing them that they should be enemies. I teach at Long Island University in Brooklyn where 90% of my inner city students are convinced that they are oppressed exclusively by Jews. Their fierce anti-semitism only begins to fade when they become informed of the complexities of the issue, of the ways in which their oppression is similar to that of the Jews, and that the Jews in their neighborhood who seem so well-off are hardly the people who run the country. This is what I mean by the ignorance in relation to various xenophobias. I'm not saying that anyone's racism should be disregarded, but the truth is that we live in a violent racist homophobic country, where maybe "The Dorn Discussion" obscures the bigger problem. ciao, lisa ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 20:08:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: your mail Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" several versions of this quote are to be found in the corpus. the title of a 1972 Pogo collection is _Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us_; likewise, Pogo uses this version of the phrase in the final panel of the daily strip for "earth day" 1971. these late versions should probably be considered the canonical form. the earliest verified occurance is in the introduction to the 1952 collection _The Pogo Papers_ --quoted here in context, appropos of the ongoing discussion: "...Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous. leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. resolve then, that on this very ground, wtih small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy , and not only may he be ours, he may be us." --Walt Kelly [for "cartoonist" read "poet"... or "critic"... ] asever lbd >On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > >> At 9:29 AM +1300 3/2/97, DS wrote: >> >>Indeed, it does make sense. And by offering Ed a knuckle sandwich I was >> >>making the same point Duncan was making. Or, the point Pogo made so >> >>eloquently: "I have seen the enemy and we are it." But, it's not ignorance. >> >> isn[t it: "...and he is us"? >> > >I think the actual quote is: "We have met the enemy and they is us." > > Steven Marks ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 20:13:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Holy Moly! In-Reply-To: <199703012013.PAA56904@dept.english.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I agree - So do I. Duncan was saying something that was not all that much different from what Williams was suggesting in _In the American Grain_, that America and Americans contain both Pere Rasles AND Cotton Mather, bith Boone and Franklin, and that if one does not realize that, one will continue the bad psychological health the Puritans were prone too, as WCW saw them. He even shows Valery Larbaud telling him this in the Rasles chapter. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 20:15:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: <199703012029.JAA14528@ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Ah, Walt Kelly there is another ambivalent figure. He seemed to buy into >cold war propaganda in a way that left room for a great deal of humanism & >thoughtfulness. Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against cold war positions! George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 20:17:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think the actual quote is: "We have met the enemy and they is us." Of course it is. The bellicose statement that Kelly was parodying was "We have met the enemy and they are ours." George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 01:46:45 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: we have met the enemy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Bowering wrote: > > >I think the actual quote is: "We have met the enemy and they is us." > > Of course it is. The bellicose statement that Kelly was parodying was > > "We have met the enemy and they are ours." Yes--apparently it all started with the introduction to _Pogo Papers_ (1952). Here he seems to be in dialogue with Robert Duncan: "Specializations and markings of individuals everywhere abound in such profusion that major idiosyncrasies can be properly ascribed to the mass. Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of the cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. "There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us." Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 02:15:01 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: back to bp In-Reply-To: <199701252120.OAA21928@pantano.theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >No, not one bit similar. bp's is a short series of prose bursts about Billy. >Very irrevent, very poetic. Check it out. It's in another book of his >selected prose works, but I don't have my books with me now to give me the >reference. Anyone else? > >charles It's in the book that Ondaatje and I edited (after a conference with other bpers including Ellie) called _An H in the Heart_, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1994. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 02:32:41 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: Pogo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Bowering wrote (the last bit): > > >Ah, Walt Kelly there is another ambivalent figure. He seemed to buy into > >cold war propaganda in a way that left room for a great deal of humanism & > >thoughtfulness. > > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against > cold war positions! Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 10:19:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: <33195749.3C4A@concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote: > > > > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against > > cold war positions! > > Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people > were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, > clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 > at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. > I seem to remember a character modeled after Spiro Agnew that was a hyena. And then there was the Pogo presidential campaign in which his swamp buddies resorted to some familiar tactics. I, too, wonder what Walt Kelly's clay feet look like. Steven __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 14:13:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Zukofsky Conference at UB (fwrd from Robert Creeley) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" LOUIS ZUKOFSKY CONFERENCE Poetics Program University at Buffalo, SUNY ***Friday, April 25th*** Panel: 10:00 am -- 12:30 pm Joseph Conte, Burton Hatlen and John Taggart (Poetry Collection, 420 Capen Hall, North Campus, SUNY-Buffalo) Panel: 2:30 pm -- 4:30 pm Ira Nadel and Paul Zukofsky (Poetry Collection) Recital: 6:30 pm -- 8:00 pm Udo Kasemets (Hallwalls) ***Saturday, April 26th**** Panel: 10:30 am -- 1:00 pm Stephen Fredman, Michele Leggott and Robert Creeley (Poetry Collection) Reception: 5:00 pm -- 8:00 pm (64 Amherst Street / (716) 875 2108) ***************** This Wednesdays at Four Plus Special Event is sponsored by the Poetics Program, the English Department, the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, the David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters, and the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities. Particular thanks to Joel Kuszai for his generous help and advice and to Marilyn Dunlap for her care and patience. All panels will take place in the Poetry/Rare Books Collection, 420 Capen Hall. Udo Kasemets' performance of a selection of his compositions for Louis Zukofsky's 80 Flowers will take place at Hallwalls, 2495 Main Street, Buffalo, New York. Persons wishing further information can call (716) 645 3810. Those wanting help with hotel reservations should call or write immediately: Louis Zukofsky Conference, Poetics Program, 438 Clemens Hall, University at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo, N.Y. 14260. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 10:22:47 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Okay i concede perhaps i have been overly suspicious. Having dicovered him in my teenage years, whcih after all wasn't that long ago, i automatically assumed him to be more of an apologist figure - this was reinforced by interviews/essays he wrote about travelling to eastern europe (I have briefly looked for these but they are not in the house at present) which seemed to take a 'we are more enlightened' line. The S J Malarkey was at the other end of the ambivalence and one i could not align with the 'voice' of his essays. I will read through them again - (next time i have a long bath) I also never fely comfortable with Bumbazine - who luckily disapeared as the series progressed. Henceforth please consider my opinion under revision. Dan At 02:32 AM 3/2/97 -0800, you wrote: >George Bowering wrote (the last bit): >> >> >Ah, Walt Kelly there is another ambivalent figure. He seemed to buy into >> >cold war propaganda in a way that left room for a great deal of humanism & >> >thoughtfulness. >> >> Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against >> cold war positions! > >Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people >were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, >clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 >at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. > >Rachel L. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 15:36:19 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Weinberger, Neruda, Stalin Folks: After the brief exchange on this list with Mark Weiss (from ten days or so ago) I queried Eliot Weinberger re: the matter of Neruda's relationship to Trotsky's murder in Mexico City. I have EW's permission to share part of his reply with the list. One would need to look further into the whole issue, of course, but it would seem that there are at least some serious grounds for doing that. _Twenty Love Poems and a Big Favor for Comrade Stalin_? Anyway, FYI: Kent > To: KJOHNSON@student.highland.cc.il.us > Date sent: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 18:20:57 +0000 > ... Anyway-- got your Neruda/Stalin package. It is universally known > that Neruda was an active participant in the first (Siquieros) plot to > assassinate Trotsky. As the Chilean consul in Mexico City, he supplied the > conspirators with visas or passports (I forget which) so that they could > escape to Chile. What has been debated, however, is Neruda's > knowledge/complicity in the second (successful) attempt. So he is clearly on > a different level of shameful politics than Uncle Ezra, who had his opinions > but never tried to kill anybody. > The political climate of the time is evoked in Paz's "Itinerario"-- > with much about STalinists, Trotskyites etc in Mexico, and a passing ref to > Neruda's involvement. > By the way, your mention of Siquieros as one of the two great > Mexican muralists (with Rivera) forgets a far greater muralist than > Siquieros (who looks worse and worse as the years go on): Orozco. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 18:07:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Pogo said, "I have met the enemy, and he is us." It was a play on "I have met the enemy, and he is (h)ours." Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 18:12:41 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weinberger, Neruda, Stalin In-Reply-To: <149421626EE@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ... So(NERUDA) is clearly on >> a different level of shameful politics than Uncle Ezra, who had his opinions >> but never tried to kill anybody. >> ... i thot ep, as well as broadcasting il duce propoganda to us gis, also tried to find out where they were so he cd pass the info on to italian troops? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 21:35:12 +0000 Reply-To: dmachlin@flotsam.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Dan Machlin Subject: The Marginalization of Poetry @ SEGUE The Segue Foundation for Poetry & The Arts is pleased to announce -- the poetics event of the season!! _________________________________________________ THE MARGINALIZATION OF POETRY, AN EVENING of responses to Bob Perelman's new book from Princeton University Press _______________________________________________________________ SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1997 @ 7:30 p.m., Admission $7.00 The Segue Performance Space, 303 East 8th Street, New York City (between Avenues B&C - right off Tompkins Square Park). 212-674-0199 wine and cheese reception will follow _________________________________________________________________ with: Bob Perelman Steve Evans Ann Lauterbach Ron Silliman Juliana Spahr Moderated by Sean Killian/curated by Sean Killian & Dan Machlin ______________________________________________________________ SEGUE 20th Anniversary (1977-1997) Roof & Segue Books, Big Allis, Open City, Incisions Arts Prison Workshops, The Segue Performance Space, The Ear Inn Reading Series, The Segue Small-Press Archive for Experimental Poetry & Poetics, HomeGrown Theatre Co., M/E/A/N/I/N/G Magazine, FoWalls Gallery (Brooklyn), Purgatory Pie Press, Individual Artist Projects in Film, Dance, Music, Theatre & Performance. Etc. And watch for news on Lee Ann Brown's CINEMAKI SPRING ROLLS @ SEGUE (Poetry/Film/Video/All rolled into one). Starting March 27th. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 19:57:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I used to own most of the Pogo books (big error to have let em go) but the following isn't something I remember directly: but apparently there was one or more occasion--the Watergate cartoons w Agnew et al (he sure did) being the one I'm pretty sure of--on which lots of papers in which Kelly was syndicated refused to run whole long sequences of Pogo. Apparently there was a backup, less controversial, Pogo that they could run instead. I don't know if Kelly was contractually obligated to do this, or what. But if true it might account for some folks' perception that Kelly went soggy in key periods. best, Tenney At 10:19 AM 3/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote: > >> > >> > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against >> > cold war positions! >> >> Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people >> were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, >> clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 >> at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. >> > >I seem to remember a character modeled after Spiro Agnew that was a hyena. >And then there was the Pogo presidential campaign in which his swamp >buddies resorted to some familiar tactics. I, too, wonder what Walt >Kelly's clay feet look like. > >Steven > >__________________________________________________ > Steven Marks > > http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html >__________________________________________________ > > ---------------------------------------------------------- tenney nathanson tenney@azstarnet.com nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 19:20:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tenney, you may be right, but my memory (perhaps I'm conflating this later period with the McCarthy period) is that a lot of papers ran the strips they objected to on the editorial pages, with the political cartoons, as many still do with Doonsbury. There's another possible source of confusion: after Kelly's death his widow and others attempted to continue the strip. It was very different in character--I don't remember any political content--but I stopped reading it fairly quickly because it was so disappointing. Someday somebody's going to do a study of the effect of Pogo on American English. At 07:57 PM 3/2/97 -0700, you wrote: >I used to own most of the Pogo books (big error to have let em go) but the >following isn't something I remember directly: but apparently there was one >or more occasion--the Watergate cartoons w Agnew et al (he sure did) being >the one I'm pretty sure of--on which lots of papers in which Kelly was >syndicated refused to run whole long sequences of Pogo. Apparently there >was a backup, less controversial, Pogo that they could run instead. I don't >know if Kelly was contractually obligated to do this, or what. But if true >it might account for some folks' perception that Kelly went soggy in key >periods. > >best, > >Tenney > >At 10:19 AM 3/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >>On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote: >> >>> > >>> > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against >>> > cold war positions! >>> >>> Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people >>> were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, >>> clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 >>> at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. >>> >> >>I seem to remember a character modeled after Spiro Agnew that was a hyena. >>And then there was the Pogo presidential campaign in which his swamp >>buddies resorted to some familiar tactics. I, too, wonder what Walt >>Kelly's clay feet look like. >> >>Steven >> >>__________________________________________________ >> Steven Marks >> >> http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html >>__________________________________________________ >> >> > >---------------------------------------------------------- > >tenney nathanson > >tenney@azstarnet.com >nathanso@u.arizona.edu > >http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 22:25:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: <199703030320.TAA18845@lithuania.it.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually my father and I do have all the Pogo and they're hardly soggy; in fact there were books put out that were totally political. But there was censorship and alternative scripts involved. It should have stopped with Walt's death. I've lived them all. Alan On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Mark Weiss wrote: > Tenney, you may be right, but my memory (perhaps I'm conflating this later > period with the McCarthy period) is that a lot of papers ran the strips they > objected to on the editorial pages, with the political cartoons, as many > still do with Doonsbury. > There's another possible source of confusion: after Kelly's death his widow > and others attempted to continue the strip. It was very different in > character--I don't remember any political content--but I stopped reading it > fairly quickly because it was so disappointing. > Someday somebody's going to do a study of the effect of Pogo on American > English. > > At 07:57 PM 3/2/97 -0700, you wrote: > >I used to own most of the Pogo books (big error to have let em go) but the > >following isn't something I remember directly: but apparently there was one > >or more occasion--the Watergate cartoons w Agnew et al (he sure did) being > >the one I'm pretty sure of--on which lots of papers in which Kelly was > >syndicated refused to run whole long sequences of Pogo. Apparently there > >was a backup, less controversial, Pogo that they could run instead. I don't > >know if Kelly was contractually obligated to do this, or what. But if true > >it might account for some folks' perception that Kelly went soggy in key > >periods. > > > >best, > > > >Tenney > > > >At 10:19 AM 3/2/97 -0500, you wrote: > >>On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote: > >> > >>> > > >>> > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against > >>> > cold war positions! > >>> > >>> Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people > >>> were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, > >>> clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 > >>> at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. > >>> > >> > >>I seem to remember a character modeled after Spiro Agnew that was a hyena. > >>And then there was the Pogo presidential campaign in which his swamp > >>buddies resorted to some familiar tactics. I, too, wonder what Walt > >>Kelly's clay feet look like. > >> > >>Steven > >> > >>__________________________________________________ > >> Steven Marks > >> > >> http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html > >>__________________________________________________ > >> > >> > > > >---------------------------------------------------------- > > > >tenney nathanson > > > >tenney@azstarnet.com > >nathanso@u.arizona.edu > > > >http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 20:50:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I isn't read the book but I is dreamed the dream.... ....I allus liked the part about the cowboys. At 10:25 PM 3/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >Actually my father and I do have all the Pogo and they're hardly soggy; in >fact there were books put out that were totally political. But there was >censorship and alternative scripts involved. > >It should have stopped with Walt's death. > >I've lived them all. > >Alan > >On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Mark Weiss wrote: > >> Tenney, you may be right, but my memory (perhaps I'm conflating this later >> period with the McCarthy period) is that a lot of papers ran the strips they >> objected to on the editorial pages, with the political cartoons, as many >> still do with Doonsbury. >> There's another possible source of confusion: after Kelly's death his widow >> and others attempted to continue the strip. It was very different in >> character--I don't remember any political content--but I stopped reading it >> fairly quickly because it was so disappointing. >> Someday somebody's going to do a study of the effect of Pogo on American >> English. >> >> At 07:57 PM 3/2/97 -0700, you wrote: >> >I used to own most of the Pogo books (big error to have let em go) but the >> >following isn't something I remember directly: but apparently there was one >> >or more occasion--the Watergate cartoons w Agnew et al (he sure did) being >> >the one I'm pretty sure of--on which lots of papers in which Kelly was >> >syndicated refused to run whole long sequences of Pogo. Apparently there >> >was a backup, less controversial, Pogo that they could run instead. I don't >> >know if Kelly was contractually obligated to do this, or what. But if true >> >it might account for some folks' perception that Kelly went soggy in key >> >periods. >> > >> >best, >> > >> >Tenney >> > >> >At 10:19 AM 3/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >> >>On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote: >> >> >> >>> > >> >>> > Wow, what's happened to my memory? I recall Kelly as a satirist against >> >>> > cold war positions! >> >>> >> >>> Yes, how was he ambivalent? At the height of McCarthyism--when people >> >>> were cowering all over the country--he introduced Simple J. Malarkey, >> >>> clearly modeled after Senator Joe, and with similar obsessions. I was 4 >> >>> at the time but Kelly was a hero in my house. >> >>> >> >> >> >>I seem to remember a character modeled after Spiro Agnew that was a hyena. >> >>And then there was the Pogo presidential campaign in which his swamp >> >>buddies resorted to some familiar tactics. I, too, wonder what Walt >> >>Kelly's clay feet look like. >> >> >> >>Steven >> >> >> >>__________________________________________________ >> >> Steven Marks >> >> >> >> http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html >> >>__________________________________________________ >> >> >> >> >> > >> >---------------------------------------------------------- >> > >> >tenney nathanson >> > >> >tenney@azstarnet.com >> >nathanso@u.arizona.edu >> > >> >http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ >> > >> > >> > >____________________________________________________________________ >URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html >Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 >CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 > > ---------------------------------------------------------- tenney nathanson tenney@azstarnet.com nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 02:26:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Welcome Message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Rev. 03-03-97 ____________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Poetics List & The Electronic Poetry Center sponsored by The Poetics Program, Department of English, Faculty of Art & Letters, of the State University of New York, Buffalo ____________________________________________________________________ http://writing.upenn.edu/epc ____________________________________________________________________ _______Contents___________ 1. About the Poetics List 2. Subscriptions 3. Cautions 4. Digest Option 5. Temporarily turning off Poetics mail 6. Who's Subscribed 7. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) 8. Poetics Archives at EPC 9. Publishers & Editors Read This! [This document was prepared by Charles Bernstein (bernstei@bway.net) and Loss Pequen~o Glazier (glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu).] ____________________________________________________________________ 1. About the Poetics List Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories of lists. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume manageable. The Poetics List, while committed to openness, is moderated. While individual posts of participants are sent directly to all subscribers, we continue to work to promote the editorial function of this project. 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Please do not send a message to the list asking for the address of a specific subscriber. ____________________________________________________________________ 7. What is the Electronic Poetry Center? our URL is http://writing.upenn.edu/epc The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the world. The Center provides access to the burgeoning number of electronic resources in the new poetries including RIF/T and other electronic poetry journals, the POETICS List archives, an AUTHOR library of electronic poetic texts, and direct connections to numerous related electronic RESOURCES. The Center also provides information about contemporary print little magazines and SMALL PRESSES engaged in poetry and poetics. And we have an extensive collection of soundfiles of poets' reading their work, as well as the archive of LINEbreak, the radio interview series. The EPC is directed by Loss Pequen~o Glazier. ____________________________________________________________________ 8. Poetics Archives via EPC Go to the EPC and select Poetics from the opening screen. Follow the links to Poetics Archives. You may browse the archives by month and year or search them for specific information. Your interface will allow you to print or download any of these files. Or set your browser to go directly to: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/poetics/archive ____________________________________________________________________ 9. Publishers & Editors Read This! PUBLISHERS & EDITORS: Our listings of poetry and poetics information is open and available to you. We are trying to make access to printed publications as easy as possible to our users and ENCOURAGE you to participate! 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Initially, you might want to send short anouncements of new publications directly to the Poetics list as subscribers do not always (or ever) check the EPC; in your message please include full information for ordering. If you have a fuller listing at EPC, you might also mention that in any Poetics posts. Some announcements circulated through Poetics and the EPC have received a noticeable responses; it may be an effective way to promote your publication and we are glad to facilitate information about interesting publications. ____________________________________________________________________ END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 05:30:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT here's a topic -- the conventions that have developed of an email "signature quotation" (sort of the tailend of an epigraph -- a postgraph?) -- one sees this used variously (or, as case may be, uses 'em variously) -- and the notion of raising it as a proper topic amid this august crowd arose just now, when perusing a msg. from my South Asian Lit listserv, wherein -- in a single post (contianing a quoted excerpt of another) I found thus, by happenstance, the following 2 signoffs in tandem: [1st a bit graphically scrambled, but no matter] | | In India, "cold weather" is merely a > > conventional phrase and has come | | into use through the > > necessity of having some way to distinguish between | | weather > > which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only | > > | make it mushy. > > | | -- MarkTwain > > > [& second pristine in all its clarity & irony] -------------------------------- i am a bear of very little brain and long words frighten me - winnie the pooh -------------------------------- So, what questions? Not sure, in truth -- except to note the prevalence of quotation practice, the variety of use, and perhaps to wonder abt. the useage of a singoff convention for a sort of literary / philosophical / whatever identity tag. Not quite the same, no, as personalized licence plates; more like the sort of gimmicks & fun that folk tend(ed) to develop w/ the (once) new technology of answering machine greeting-message(s), eh? what say ye? . ..... ............ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ > david raphael israel < >> washington d.c. << | davidi@wizard.net (home) | disrael@skgf.com (office) ========================= | thy centuries follow each other | perfecting a small wild flower | (Tagore) //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 09:21:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I say those quotations are frequently more interesting than the message, but they should be changed now & then. "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx. (pace, pace, woman's too) sp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 09:29:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: anger and violence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A colleague of mine, talking about teaching the essays of bell hooks, says that "students always perceive her as very angry and bitter when they read her essays--they get upset that she seems to be taking them to task. Then when I show them a video of her talking about her work and laughing, sometimes they suddenly revise their opinion, because they see her as witty and likeable. In any case, they're far more likely to respond to her personality than they are to her ideas." What is interesting to her about this, she says, is the issue of how anger and violence relate inside American ideology. To generalize (perhaps too much), it is not necessary to express violence through anger--indeed much violence in this country is done through a calm conviction that violence is the correct tactic. Students will often think of violence as a GIVEN--in my own experience, at least several students a semester will make the argument that violence is innate and normal, and that attempts to eliminate it are utopian and go against human nature. Violence, if accepted as natural, doesn't even need ANGER as a motivation--indeed, it can be seen simply as a natural extension of one's right to possess whatever one can get ahold of. Anger, on the other hand, often remains very intensely a social taboo. Perhaps this comes in part out of the very deep U.S. ideological conviction that things are really okay--indeed that they MUST be okay, since "this" is America. So when people express anger, one response is that their confusion must be their own fault (or perhaps the fault of their parents) because how can there be any legitimate anger against what we all know to be a system of freedom? Anger and violence are certainly related at times, but at other times, anger can be a legitimate reaction AGAINST violence, and does not necessarily lead to it. Indeed, it's far more likely that violence will result from the belief that one needs to repress one's anger than from the idea that expressing anger is actually okay. Are there times and places where one should express anger, and others where it should not be spoken? Perhaps, but perhaps not also... for where is that place where anger is totally taboo on every occasion? I think I'm saying all this because, at times, it is easy on this list to confuse anger with violence--even to confuse expressions of desire for violence with the act of violence itself. But again, it is just as likely in many circumstances that vocal anger is a REFUSAL of physical violence. And I have been reading recent posts by Lisa Jarnot and Tom Mandel and others with the sense that everyone, in various ways, has been talking about how to REFUSE violence, and in that sense, I have found none of the recent discussion "disturbing" at all, except to the extent that disturbance is necessary to learning. I think where this also relates to poetry has to do with what Charles Bernstein was saying about recognizing and continuing to deal with the "dark side" of poets and poetry. I'm not sure that poetry serves necessarily as an outlet for this "dark side," although it certainly can in some cases. But it just as equally can be a continued expression of fascination with, and extension of that "dark side." But I think that even in dealing with this "dark side" one has to work with the complex problem that poetry, in its interrelation with life, is not the same as other activities (indeed that all physical activites are distinct and cannot be reduced to sameness with each other). One can express a line, and not act on it--one can even express a line that is the opposite of what one would act on. Similarly, it is possible to be greatly motivated by that which one would never speak... Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu "I have not yet begun | | to go to extremes" | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 10:03:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Duncan Dorn Nuts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lisa Jarnot is "talking about the ignorance encouraged by the powers that be (corporate /hegemonic/media/USA) to keep marginalized groups separated from each other by convincing them that they should be enemies." Without disagreeing, I hope it is clear that hegemonic powers have no need, alas, to *create* this kind of xenophobia, hatred, etc. As Duncan pointed out, and as I have been trying to make clear in my posts on this Dorn issue which has its teeth so deep in the leg of the list. Why racism must be resisted is *not* that this is a way of resisting the hegemony, what the rabbis used to call the "kingdom of arrogance" or "Rome" but that racism is within us (like self-praise conscious or not) -- and that is why I offered my critique in the form of a knuckle sandwich. An acknowledgment, not an offer of violence. Additionally, Lisa is not "saying that anyone's racism should be disregarded, but the truth is that we live in a violent racist homophobic country, where maybe "The Dorn Discussion" obscures the bigger problem." But it's not "a racist country" it's a racist world (where "racism" can also stand in for what divides, for example, xtian and moslem bosnians who have clearly dropped from the same tree). Not that the uses of racism in policy should not *also* be resisted, of course they should. But it is easy to resist something so big that announcing one's opinion does the job. It is resisting the particular, the racism of a poet for example, that is difficult -- for a poet, for example to do or to read -- and may have a cost attached to it. I've gotten *several* backchannel messages, for example, that I shouldn't stick myself so far into this, it may not be wise (i.e. I am in danger of differing with opinion-makers and trend-setters in *my* world). Tom Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 09:15:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Duncan Dorn Nuts In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970303100344.00695098@cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ...mandel writes.... But it is easy >to resist something so big that announcing one's opinion does the job. It >is resisting the particular, the racism of a poet for example, that is >difficult -- for a poet, for example to do or to read -- and may have a >cost attached to it. I've gotten *several* backchannel messages, for >example, that I shouldn't stick myself so far into this, it may not be wise >(i.e. I am in danger of differing with opinion-makers and trend-setters in >*my* world). > >Tom > i for one enjoy your posts, tom; tho' in specific cases i find myself ambivalent (genet, stein, spicer, baraka) i find your lack of ambivalence bracing. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 08:16:31 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: (Fwd) Re: Halsey in USA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT sort of taking the sort of liberty of forwarding this - I think martin probably meant to send it here anyway. chris ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sun, 02 Mar 1997 12:35:44 -0700 From: Martin Corless-Smith Reply-to: M.CorlessS@m.cc.utah.edu To: british-poets Subject: Re: Halsey in USA This is a request to those in the US who might know of any institutions etc interested in having Alan Halsey give a reading etc in the fall. Susan Howe has Alan coming over to read at Buffalo and I thought as he is over...When I last spoke to Alan he didn't have exact dates arranged, but while I think about it (knowing how early fall budgets are allocated, I hope I am not too late already) I wanted to lodge that little nugget of info in any brains out there looking to present something spiffy and real in the fall. I am certainly hoping to get him out to the west coast if possible, maybe some places can join coffers? Martin ----------------------------- .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 10:45:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: correction in Welcome message Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Correction on Welcome Message (listserv address was misstated in this section only): Who's Subscribed To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@listeserv.acsu.buffalo.edu; leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics Please do not send a message to the list asking for the address of a specific subscriber. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 11:58:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: Re: correction in Welcome message Usually, the command review LIST by name will yield the list of subscriber's names and e-addresses in alphabetical order. beth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 14:46:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Bebe Repogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What was the influence of Bill Griffith's Zippy on langang poetry? Also, hey, F. Bruno, while you're checking out the influence of Ashbery on Malkmus, could you check out what effect William Carlos Williams had on Walter Salas-Humara, and how much Olson there really is in D Berman's head, and whether David Byrne's favorite book really is _Bean Spasms_? Hey, Mark Wallace, wait, nobody thought you were _angry_! Whoa, Rod Smith, nice reading at Segue! keep those Minutemen references coming. Didn't you love it when Louis Cabri, in the middle of his breathy sequence of Canadian politics and expletives, dropping his manuscript all over the floor, whispered, in time with the poem, "Damn!" Was it not excellent of Heather Fuller to thank 'the woman in the corner' (Lee Ann Brown) for reading out loud along with all of Heather's choral poem, "Placards"? When's Heather's book's comin's out's? ? J ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 16:03:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is an interesting convention. As David said (or did I think it??) related to things like bumperstickers...As such, sort of a subset of de/trans-personalized verbalizations characteristic of late cap/urban experience? (an attempt to re-personalize same..) In other word, related to the ubiquity of advertizing and signage (..have been reading R. Waldrop's wonderful The Road is Everywhere, which encorporates pictograph'd street-signs into the dense personal-flow of the verse). One Australian librarian who posts on library listservs has a box at the bottom, labelling it a "pithy-quotation-free space." thus the expectations a new convention gives rise to, can in turn be used to make (to feel compelled to make?) a statement... One use for pithy quotations, which I think is fairly frequent--To make clear something one feels, to delinieate an emotional commitment to a value, without having folks think you're being too pushy about it. Another library worker has as her tag a Conrad quotation: "We live, as we dream, alone." As a socialist I find this quote depressing and even rather angering every time I see it. By the same token I've been using my signature to make a political point about outsourcing, which is part of capital's high-drive attack on people (working people, the majority); since my library actually does a little outsourcing, and I can't be too outspoken when cyberspeaking as part of my job, I hide behind 1. the putatively light, "witty" character of pithy-quotations; and 2. the prestige of a widely-read recent book in library science...I hereby append that signature, which I usually leave off when Poetix-izing: Mark Prejsnar-- Acquisitions/Cataloging One good rule of thumb in MacMillan Law Library librarianship and elswhere is: Emory University the uglier the neologism, Atlanta GA 30322 the more undesireable the notion 404-727-6798 it describes. Vide "outsourcing." fax 404-727-2202 mprejsn@law.emory.edu --Walt Crawford & Michael Gorman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 23:39:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jennifer Sondheim Subject: (me again) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Jennifer Turns For Lorn Today I up-and-gathered myself, all dressed in my new frock, and went gai- ly-raily to the store where I could buy books read by others. And there I found, guess, two volumes by sad Elinor Wylie, called Angels and Earthly Creatures, and Angels and Earthly Creatures! One was the very first edi- tion and the other was even earlier There were these sad poems, and this very sad comment written right in both of them: "The contents of this, Elinor Wylie's last, book of poems was selected by her for publication on the evening of December 15th, 1928, the day prior to her death. It is printed precisely according to her own arrangement without any necessity for the exercise of literary executorship." Was she in bed? And, oh, Jennifer, that novel of hers which popularized my name, from Guinevere, Jennifer Lorn, that is I do believe, Jennifer For- Lorn! And what pretty books these books are! O break the walls of sense in half And make the spirit fugitive! This light begotten of itself Is not a light by which to live! She wrote, and that other sense is me! Now this, from Miss Edna St-Vin- cent Millay! To Elinor Wylie [In answer to a question about her] Oh, she was beautiful in every part! The auburn hair that bound the subtle brain; The lovely mouth cut clear by wit and pain, Uttering oaths and nonsense, uttering art In casual speech and curving at the smart On startled ears of excellence too plain For early morning! - Obit. Death from strain; The soaring mind outstripped the tethered heart. Yet here was one who had no need to die To be remembered. Every word she said, The lively malice of the hazel eye Scanning the thumb-nail close - oh, dazzling dead, How like a comet through the darkening sky You raced! . . . would your return were heralded. Now me!: would I have had the time to have been her instead of Jennifer, or have sat down against the clock killing her, dressed down in one or another violation fabric, cotton, silk, of pinafore or lovely frock, train, velveteen of lace, red wedding gown: would I these gloves have fit her, dark with grace and veil these lines would not have fit her, face of pearl, failed at being life, o Jennifer forlorn, o gods, o ghastly gruel, o meales, o scales and carapace, nylons, garters rule the thin constricted waste, garnered heels turned to blacks; the violent maelstrom churns, burns against your slacks. I describe myself upon the shelf. I am so happy to have found love and death and Elinor Wylie! __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 02:16:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: SEGUE READING(rehm/stroffolino) To announce that I be reading with Pam Rehm this thursday is the expressed purpose of this message. "I hold a picture up everybody thinks it's me" is a Graham Parker line. The event is listed as a reading (I am from a town or tavern called Reading and Pam too was "raised" in Pennsylvania) and it will be at 7:30, March 6th 303 East 8th, btw. B and C. I think that is all the information one would need to know I think. But, although I can't speak for Ms. Rehm here, I should say that any potential audience people should not necessarily EXPECT it to be a reading. It's even less likely that I will play paino, though that might be more fun. But fun isn't the same as "pleasure". It's likely that there will be drinking before the reading--as if there would be no reading without drinking. Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 13:01:12 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: matt Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think there is a certain analogous use of the sig.s to that os epigraphic prefatories, a certain aura, era, ira. but then there is the usual, the humourous, the 'god aren't I quick' etc. and the display of our pretentions, character slippage. much probably. matt ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 08:42:59 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Genie: The Wild Child Content-Type: text This will possibly come too late for those getting the list on digest, alas, but ... If you haven't seen it, watch Nova tonight on PBS. It's a very provocative and disturbing piece on Genie, a contemporary "wild child" and addresses *a lot* of issues, including the role Truffaut's film had in shaping what happened to this poor human being who became a research tug of war. With all of our talk here about "linguistically innovative" poetry, there is very little *news* here about what's going on in language research. Perhaps we think too much that we are the news. Whatever, this program addresses several disturbing issues regarding the role of research, science, and the fate of individual human beings in a dire discourse concerning core issues over the nature of language. -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 08:56:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: award In-Reply-To: <199702260041.SAA21827@dfw-ix15.ix.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable hi all thot i'd share what just came across my screen: Greetings! > >Following are the rules for the 1997 Tamarack Award contest for creative >writing. Please share this information with writers. The winner of the >1996 award was Lise Erdrich for her story "XXL." Writers who would like >a copy of these guidelines mailed to them may mail a S.A.S.E to Tamarack >Awards, Minnesota Monthly, 10 South Fifth Street, Suite 1000, >Minneapolis, MN 55402. > >Thanks! >Nancy Doyle >Minnesota Monthly Magazine > > > >1997 TAMARACK AWARDS > >The Rules > >1. The competition is open to residents of Minnesota, North Dakota, >South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. > >2. Previous Tamarack Award winners and employees of Minnesota Public >Radio and its affiliated companies are ineligible. > >3. You may submit only one manuscript. It must be an original, >unpublished piece of prose. We will accept short stories or novel >excerpts. > >4. Please limit your entry to 3,500 words. > >5. Your entry must be postmarked no later than May 19, 1997. > >6. Please type and double-space the manuscript. > >7. Submit one copy of your manuscript. Please do not put your name on >the manuscript. Judging is anonymous. > >8. Include a cover sheet with your name, address, and daytime and >evening phone numbers. Please indicate on the cover sheet whether your >work is fiction or non-fiction. > >9. Include a stamped, self-addressed postcard, so that we can >acknowledge receipt of the manuscript. > >10: Address your entry to: > >1997 Tamarack Awards >Minnesota Monthly >Lumber Exchange Building >10 S. 5th St., Suite 1000 >Minneapolis, Minn. 55402 > >The winners of the 1997 Tamarack Awards will be announced and published >in the November 1997 issue of Minnesota Monthly. Authors of the winning >manuscripts will, upon signing Minnesota Monthly's standard publication >contract, be paid $500 for one-time publication rights; > >Minnesota Public Radio will reserve the right to broadcast readings of >the winning manuscripts. Winners also will be announced in the >January-February issue of Poets and Writers Magazine. > >Thank you for your interest in Minnesota Monthly's 1997 Tamarack >Awards=97and good luck! > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:23:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: is "hate" speech "free" speech MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sorry not to let this thread die, but I don't think I'm quite ready to let go of it yet. Frankly, I'm not sure where I would ultimately come down on this issue, but my understanding of the problems regarding "hate" speech have to do with potential contradictions between the first amendment, permitting free speech for all, and the fourteenth amendment, granting equal opportunity to all under the law. Those who think of "hate" speech as purely a first amendment issue will, undoubtedly, want on all occasions to reserve people the right to speak as they please, although even this is limited, because certain kinds of speech ARE prohibited under the law (yelling "fire" in a theater being the cliched example). Thus, a first amendment position would clearly argue that more damage is done by repressing the free speech of racists, etc, than by allowing them to speak freely, because of the potential dangers that the loss of free speech may lead to. A Fourteenth Amendment position may, on the other hand, argue that it is necessary for the law to promote an environment in which opportunity remains equal for all. How does this impact the subject of speech? Does an environment of "free" racist speech harm the ability of individuals to have access to education, housing, etc? If such "group hate" speech does create an unequal environment, is a law restricting such speech in certain instances really an attack on the First Amendment? Does the question shift if one is talking not simply about an instance of a single racist speaker, but of a racist group that demands equal rights to resources on the grounds that their speech is as allowable as any other? Interestingly, both Canada and Britain (if I understand correctly) do have laws prohibiting, in certain specific instances, the right of individuals to engage in "speech" specifically designed to denigrate any group of people based on some supposedly shared characteristics such as "race" etc. By interpreting these laws narrowly (that is, by only prosecuting very specific instances of indviduals preaching violence against groups), there has PERHAPS been very little impact on "free" speech. A Fourteenth Amendment position might point out, therefore, that in a case where there may be a conflict between the right to free speech and the right to equal opportunity under the law, both individuals defending their right to free hate speech and individuals defending their right to equal opportunity by making attempted prosecutions of hate speech must prove "compelling reasons" that 1) their activity be protected 2) that the activity of others can be definitely SHOWN to impact their freedom. Thus, someone who sues someone else for "hate speech" must prove how they have been harmed, while someone defending their right to free speech must prove why their need to denigrate others based on race outweighs the right of individuals to equal access under the law. Both such instances would then need to be pursued on the basis of the particularities of their cases, rather than by generalities about "free speech" or "equal rights." As I am still forming my point of view about these matters, I welcome response... Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu "I have not yet begun | | to go to extremes" | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:34:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: to clarify about Padgett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For Rachel Duplessis and others: Just as a clarification, my point last week about Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan in relation to Tulsa was NOT that they knew nothing about the Tulsa incidents later in their life--I'm aware of Ron's poem on the subject. Rather, my point was simply that information about the Tulsa riots was not publically available in Tulsa for many years. In the case of someone like Ron, he clearly went on to research the subject--based on rumors he had heard? information from where? I don't know. Rather, my point was this: what does it mean to live in an environment in which information about social reality is so biased that the public account of the Tulsa riots (despite several books that appeared on the subject (in the 60s?)) was that the National Guard had been called in to suppress a "Negro rebellion"? Where does such a reality intersect with the story of some young men who find that life in Tulsa does not perhaps offer sufficient outlet for a creative existence as a poet. Some might say: the two are not related--how could something that one could not know as a child impact one's later choices. My answer was this: is it not likely that what one does in reaction to one's social environment is influenced even by that which one does not know? That is: does not the suppression of information in one instance at least suggest why information (about creative choices, about poetry) is suppressed in other instances? Or put it this way: one may not know all of the reasons why one leaves a place, but the reasons one knows are intimately and historically bound with the reasons one does not know at the time, but may be lucky, committed, and intelligent enough to explore later. mark wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu "I have not yet begun | | to go to extremes" | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:05:24 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: is "hate" speech "free" speech Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" mark, have you looked at catherine mackinnon's _only words_ (harvard, 1993)?... she makes a strenuous case for a more conservative reading of the first amendment in light of the fourteenth, very much along the lines you're suggesting... while i'm ultimately in disagreement with mackinnon, dworkin and others, i found the book useful in highlighting the contentious issues... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 12:42:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Re: is "hate" speech "free" speech "Yell 'Shower!' in a crowded theater." --Ron Silliman, _Xing_ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 12:00:40 -0800 Reply-To: evadog@bitstream.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: is "hate" speech "free" speech MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Wallace wrote: > As I am still forming my point of view about these matters, I welcome > response... > You may be interested in the forthcoming _Excitable Speech: Contemporary Scenes of Politics_, by Judith Butler, pub. Routledge. She has as well an essay in the current issue of _Critical Inquiry_, "Sovereign Performatives in the Contemporary Scene of Utterance," and excerpt of which can be viewed at http://www2.uchicago.edu/jnl-crit-inq/v23/v23n2.butler.html And while I take it that you are simply marking the terrain of the discussion with the juridicial lingua franca of 'constitutional' 'rights', I'm sure you'd agree that the ethical parole your post humanely searches for is hog-tied to the narrow legalisms of amendment cuneiform chiseled 'in order to form a more perfect union' (sic). mc ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 11:36:36 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry Rothenberg Subject: Ed Sanders reading (San Diego) Owing to a scheduling mixup. Ed Sanders' reading at the Porter Troupe Gallery in San Diego is moved to Saturday March 8 at 2:30 p.m. The address (unchanged) is 301 Spruce Street, and the number for further info is 619.291.9096. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:06:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: eons of mass Comments: To: evadog@bitstream.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 2nd issue of Mass. Ave. came in the mail or the ups today Kim Lyons' Eon rules the world which is made up of people you like and who for the most part like you -- this after last week's mail which brought Steve Evans' lecture -- is it ok to mention it? -- on the structure of literary change a lecture which will no doubt change the way one talks about what goes on -- a TINA-formation a young Hegelian and the autonomy that beats all hegemony, that bests it on graceful excursions into the outlying territory ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 16:11:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maxianne Berger Subject: Re: Pogo Comments: cc: swmar@conncoll.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Am delayed due to being on digest -- and this post conrains very trivial information. On Sunday, 2 Mar 1997, Steven Marks asked about Kelly's clay feet: > I, too, wonder what Walt > Kelly's clay feet look like. Make that clay *foot* as Kelly lost one leg accidentaly at the age of nine, hitching a ride on a truck bumper--if memory serves me correctly. Maxianne, who only remembers a ketchup-bottle dress otherwise :) ================================= Maxianne Berger * maxib@cam.org ======================================= << Qui se sent morveux, qu'il se mouche! >> ========================================= ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 16:33:45 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: recommended reading I urge everyone to get and read through the March 17th issue of The Nation, whose cover story is "The Crushing Power of Big Publishing." It's wonderful, as are a great many other related articles in this special issue on The National Entertainment State. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 14:04:12 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nope, that's Al Capp, whose politics were more shmoozville. At 04:11 PM 3/4/97 -0500, you wrote: > >Make that clay *foot* as Kelly lost one leg accidentaly at the age of >nine, hitching a ride on a truck bumper--if memory serves me correctly. > >Maxianne, who only remembers a ketchup-bottle dress otherwise :) > ================================= > Maxianne Berger * maxib@cam.org > ======================================= > << Qui se sent morveux, qu'il se mouche! >> > ========================================= > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:10:32 -0800 Reply-To: Joe Safdie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: More (sigh) Dorn In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970301140819.0068df10@cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Tom Mandel wrote (in part): > Let me ask Joe Safdie directly -- since he knows Dorn over a long period > and is Jewish -- did Dorn *ever* taunt you as a Jew or "jew-bait" you in > any way? A truthful answer will clear up -- and I think end -- this > creepiness. Joe knows the truth (in a funny way, so do I). And just needs > to propose the truth here. This "direct" question by Tom totally ignores a post I made a few days earlier (February 25th) in which I said "in 20 years of off-and-on friendship my Jewishness was never the occasion for any Jew baiting." I would have thought this statement was fairly clear. I know Tom saw the post because he referred, in the verbal equivalent of a sneer, to other parts of it later. Perhaps he jumped over this part. If there is any single human being still interested in this issue, let me state that, unlike Maria, I haven't found Tom's "lack of ambivalence" at all refreshing, that I think he's been wrong from the start, that I fail to see how offering anyone a "knuckle sandwich" can be seen as implying that the perceived fault is shared, and that (finally) the reason I haven't responded before this was because I was concerned about an issue of public/private posting that I thought gave rise to Tom's question: I'm told -- and I indeed thought -- that the impetus for this question came from his knowledge of a PRIVATE post I had made to another member on the list, who then paraphrased it (perhaps prematurely) to Tom, who then posted it to the entire list. That's troubling. If, however, the impetus for the question came solely from my statement that I have, in fact, known Ed for some 20 years, he should have read the rest of the post where that statement appeared. I suggest, now, that the place to pursue any further discussion of this issue is through back-channels, where I'll be happy to discuss with any and all what I do and (mostly) don't know. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 18:29:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Yell "Shower" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN AREOPAGITICA, Part Deux In the field of this world confused seeds are promiscuously read the infection may spread, not unelegantly, into the first rank. Yet one jewel left, in any hermitage, denotes a rigor contrary to a streaming fountain. Like trading all day without your religion. These are the fruits (how to be washed?) as any January cld freeze together a perfect shape into a thousand pieces. We boast our light, discern those planets we have gained: remote, unmitering, stark blind. All concurrence of signs: anvils hammers plates lamps harvest cannot be a continuity dissimilitudes arise. And graceful symmetry, the whole pile wise as prophets (radiance, noise) who love twilight in a year of sects and flowery crop. By privilege to write and speak in agitation a man finds his findings scattered by the wind and sun (what keeps a narrow bridge and has more shapes than one) He who eats the handwriting of the ghost of linen sees the disunion of all formality, the sudden sub-dichotomies of gold and silver sever the end of mortal things ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 19:40:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19970302205619.087f7af8@pop.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Now Walt Kelly wd be in another kind of trouble. Once Pogo and Albert were out on their flatboat (remember the name on the side wd chgange a little with each panel?) fishing, and Pogo went to throw the anchor, but it went into Albert's mouth and he fell overboard. When he surfaced, Pogo said "Albert you is swoggled the anchor!" And lighting up, Albert said, "Yep, and I is smokin' the rope!" Another time the turtle guy was standing on Albert's chest, looking down his maw at something else Albert has swoggled, and he says, "Albert, you is deeper than I thunk!" George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 21:55:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 7:40 PM -0800 3/4/97, George Bowering wrote: > > >Another time the turtle guy was standing on Albert's chest, looking down >his maw at something else Albert has swoggled, and he says, "Albert, you is >deeper than I thunk!" > "that turtle guy" had the brilliant name of, as i recall, churchy la femme. this whole cold war thread, including people's passion for pogo, is teaching me a lot about my stoically complacent father, who had a passion for pogo, mentioned once that the rosenbergs' only crime was being jewish, and otherwise struck me as more of a podhoretz-type than anything else...now i can see between some of those silences...thanks all.--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 21:57:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: announcements In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey guyzies: a couple of short essays of mine, including the angel piece i mentioned last year, just came out in "mass culture and everyday life," edited by peter gibian, routledge. also, did i mention that thanks to the suggestion of a list member, i was able to place my lenny bruce piece in postmodern culture? it's on the web now, current issue. thanks all.--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 23:52:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin J Spinelli Subject: looking for Marinetti audio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm looking for recordings of F.T. Marinetti and other Italian Futurists. I've located some Marinetti on the Tellus #21 cassette, but would like to uncover more (as much as there is). Can anyone point me in the right direction? Post here or back-channel me and I'll post the findings to the list all at once. Many Thanks, Martin _________________________________________________________________________ Martin Spinelli martins@acsu.buffalo.edu English Department, SUNY @ Buffalo LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak EPC Sound Room http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/sound ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 22:24:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: looking for Marinetti audio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martin, the Belgian recording label Sub Rosa has a collection called Futurism & Dada Reviewed, that includes recordings of Apollinaire, Cocteau, Duchamp, Grandi, Huesenbeck, Janco, Wyndham Lewis, Marinetti, Russolo, Schwitters, & Tzara. Some of the recordings are old & not well restored & some of the editing/collaging of sound is confusing & weird, but it's the only relatively easy to find source of recordings of lots of these people. I've got the LP, but I've seen it on CD. Bests Herb >I'm looking for recordings of F.T. Marinetti and other Italian Futurists. >I've located some Marinetti on the Tellus #21 cassette, but would like to >uncover more (as much as there is). > >Can anyone point me in the right direction? Post here or back-channel me >and I'll post the findings to the list all at once. > >Many Thanks, >Martin > >_________________________________________________________________________ >Martin Spinelli martins@acsu.buffalo.edu >English Department, SUNY @ Buffalo >LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak >EPC Sound Room http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/sound Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 00:38:41 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: Pogo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Bowering wrote: > Once Pogo and Albert were > out on their flatboat (remember the name on the side wd chgange a little > with each panel?) Yep. And those were (sometimes) the names of real swamp denizens, I have reason to know, because once it was my best friend in grade school. Okay all this has sent me back to the Pogo books (I knew this list was good for something). Where I find a poetry contest between Albert and a worm. Albert, glaring at worm: BY JING! I could write a BETTER poem than that with BOTH HEADS tied behind of my back. Worm: Phoo! You missed its fruity import. Albert: Phoo yo' own self...It don't mean nothin' an' I don't unnerstan' it! Howland Owl: You don't understand RUSSIAN, so Russian means NOTHIN'? Worm: NYET! ... Albert: Fuddle- stucks! I'll outscan that li'l grub TWO TO ONE. Worm: WELL! I'll go home an' work on my I-ambic pentameter. Albert (enraged): By tunkit, if you uses any MACHINERY, I'll declare a FOUL! and so on. Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 02:06:06 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: nico vassilakis Subject: peoigreqmvertyntynyutrtyrwvpuqwv! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII march fifth's poetics list digest strangest i've everseen weird knitmare play-marble shrapnel xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo salimat pagi = may yr morning be blessed now get da fuck outta here www.speakeasy.org/cgi-bin/gallery/show?g=46 is drunken"un" what happens to tom waits' voice at home near the potatoes and mustard and the curled piece of meat on the grill. does it go to the soft or scrape purr sawtooth cant imagine that whole robert wilson absorption so david burns and tom waits patula clarks and dion well he's dion like elvis crest-nut these moving magazines, e.mail bonfires, merry-go-tronics, hotwired.com bodegas, fashion-plate electroburros, white muddafuckers teeming with taxable income, who makes = or < 14K?, who admits this, who conjures distraction, so much deep ends on wheelburros, herein seattle the only thing to talk to - you see miles before it approaches, preferably not in the dreaming, exnihilo, esquire letterhead, leave pizza by the subway entrance, did a vehicle come and land from somewhere out there in the andes, did a vehicle come, i wish somebody better put out the big light. good night guillaume, keeper of black stones where universe begins vacuuming genesis and american cities break the posture of emotive struggle. L=poets forenite unite despite respite eclipse dismiss summarily from viewing l=guage in common usage / is similar in age, as in age between the two, language-usage ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:48:34 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: email address for Steve McCaffery Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Is Steve McCaffery on the list? Or can someone back channel me with a current email address for him. I just sent a message to what I thought was correct and it was bounced. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > John Cayley / Wellsweep Press http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: (+44 171) 267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk < - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:12:46 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Mark P, What IS outsourcing? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:32:46 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: eons of mass In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Jordan, Steve Evans lecture: tell more. Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 07:33:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Poor Joe Safdie, feeling pressed to deny the Jew-baiting (or whatever) of which his friend Ed Dorn *accuses himself* in the letter to Baraka Al Nielsen quoted oh so long ago, refers to: "a PRIVATE post I (i.e. Joe) had made to another member on the list, who then paraphrased it (perhaps prematurely) to Tom, who then posted it to the entire list." What=92s he talking about? What did I "post to the entire list?"=20 And, oh yes, what about -- Dorn defending, at the Berkeley conference on Olson a few years back, Vincent Sarich and his ideas about the genetic intellectual inferiority of certain racial groups=20 -=96 as someone emailed me recently (and shamefully I share it with the entire list). Is it fact or fiction? Is it irrelevant? Doesn't affect *my* life (whose?) Now, I could go on and ask Joe whether and what he knows about that subject, but I won=92t. My concern is not the question of Dorn=92s racism; maybe it's all an unfortunate tissue of coincidental misquotations, anyway he doesn=92t seem placed where he can do much harm, anyway harm to him occurs only if he comes around me with that kind of stuff (pop in the puss). I am concerned with the way it got handled here. The fact that Al Nielsen=92= s personal testimony and then his reference to a researcher-available letter were both pooh-poohed. The fact that the subject seemed embarrassing, somehow vulgar perhaps, to certain members of the list, the fact that it prompted the really low-level response that "why yes, poets can be bad people." Or worse, can be "difficult" people. Und so weiter. That=92s what I meant by calling the thread "creepy." Not Dorn, the response on the list. Tom=20 =20 Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 10:25:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Peter Gizzi and Nate Mackey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Is there anyone on the list who can give me either the e-mail address and/or phone number for Peter Gizzi and Nathaniel Mackey? A backchannel note would be much appreciated. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu "I have not yet begun | | to go to extremes" | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 10:46:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Outsourcing is one of those lovely corporate weasel-words for a way to attack people's lives.....Essentially, it means hiring a worker on an "independent contractor" basis. Usually you "downsize" first--i.e. you fire a lot of your employees. then you hire people (often the folks you just fired) for limited amounts of time to do the same work without unions, at much lower pay, without job security, without basic medical or dental coverage, without vacation or sick leave...You get the picture. Sometimes outsourcing involves contracting with a firm to provide a bunch of folks without benefit, decent pay or job security to do work that used to be done by people with decent jobs. I have to admit I use the Crawford/Gorman quote because of its implied political edge....As a poet, I don't necessarily agree that neologisms some people find "ugly" are bad language---Messing with the language in "irresponsible" ways is one of the mothers of invention... On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, F.A. Templeton wrote: > Dear Mark P, > > What IS outsourcing? > > Fiona > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:14:29 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry Rothenberg From jrothenb@carla.ucsd.edu Tue Mar 4 22:02:10 1997 Received: from mailbox1.ucsd.edu by carla.UCSD.EDU (4.1/UCSDPSEUDO.3) id AA10411 for jrothenb; Tue, 4 Mar 97 22:02:09 PST Received: from carla.UCSD.EDU (carla.ucsd.edu [128.54.16.41]) by mailbox1.ucsd.edu (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id WAA17472; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 22:01:39 -0800 (PST) Received: by carla.UCSD.EDU (4.1/UCSDPSEUDO.3) id AA10408 for martin@acsu.buffalo.edu; Tue, 4 Mar 97 22:02:06 PST Date: Tue, 4 Mar 97 22:02:06 PST From: jrothenb@carla.ucsd.edu (Jerry Rothenberg) Message-Id: <9703050602.AA10408@carla.UCSD.EDU> To: martin@acsu.buffalo.edu Subject: Marinetti recordings Cc: jrothenb@ucsd.edu Status: RO dear Martin -- The most Marinetti I have is on an old lp "musica futurista: antologia sonora a cura di Daniele Lombardi, published by Cramps Records (Italy) -- I think in 1980. The Marinetti listings are (1) Profilo Sintetico Musicale di Marinetti (1923); (2) Cinque sintesi radiofoniche (1933), (3) Marinetti (voce) with Aldo Giuntini (pianoforte) performing "sintesi musicali futuriste 1931; & (4) Marinetti reciting "La battaglia di Adrianopoli" and "Definizione di Futurismo" (1924). The last is said to be from a disc titled "Marinetti e il Futurismo" (EMI 3C-065 17982/A), if that's of any help. Are these on the Tellus #21 cassette you mention, which maybe you can otherwise identify for me? I also have no idea whether the Cramps disc ever reappeared as a CD. Anyway, all best, Jerome Rothenberg / JERRY ps. Other interesting things on the disc, including later realizations of Russolo intonarumori. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 11:41:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970305073304.006a9240@cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think Tom Mandel is right that the Dorn thread is creepy: I mean creepy not only in every sense in which I think he means it (I agree with him) but also creepy in the sense of gothic: the return of the uncanny: the fear of politics is the fear of people who have been killed by someone ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 09:32:21 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: email address for Steve McCaffery In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Is Steve McCaffery on the list? Or can someone back channel me with a >current email address for him. I just sent a message to what I thought was >correct and it was bounced. Yes, Steve M's email seems to change with the weather. Here's his latest: Steve McCaffery Good luck. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 09:34:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: email address for Steve McCaffery In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry, I really didn't mean to post Steve M's email to the whole world. The poetics list *is* the whole world, isn't it? Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:37:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: mimeo revolution Comments: To: POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite mags from the Mimeo Revolution? I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. Thanks & best to all, Steve Clay Granary Books NYC ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:57:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I vote for Bill Brown's not bored On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Steven Clay wrote: > I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via > the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a > beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on > the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite > mags from the Mimeo Revolution? > > I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such > material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. > Thanks & best to all, > Steve Clay > Granary Books > NYC > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:57:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII also if I may vote for one in which I appeared the National Poetry Magazine of the Lower East Side On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Steven Clay wrote: > I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via > the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a > beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on > the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite > mags from the Mimeo Revolution? > > I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such > material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. > Thanks & best to all, > Steve Clay > Granary Books > NYC > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:00:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: Welcome Message In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII and also of course Mirage Periodical which Kevin and Dodie make consistently brilliant ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:39:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" C Mag City Adventures in Poetry The Harris Review Dodgems C Comics The World Gandhabba and then later... Object The Impercipient Explosive Magazine Antenym Stud Duck Torque Tads Mirage (Periodical) Yale Younger Poets Situation Tamarind ... ________ Dear Fiona, Steve Evans' lecture "The Dynamics of Literary Change" is available from The Impercipient Lecture Series, 61 E Manning St, Providence RI 02906-4008. I misspoke when I said that it proposes a structure of literary change. What would be more accurate is to say that the talk digresses around the subjects of the autonomy of the work of art, the beginnings and ends of literary eras, and the writings of Hegel, Musil, Bourdieu, Adorno and others. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:51:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The World ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:53:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sorry - also, Bernadette's and Vito's 0 to 9, out around the same time, truly amazing for the most part, prescient in its nervousness. Acconci's poetic/ry hasn't been reprinted as far as I know and remains a unique body of work - Alan ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:08:51 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: mimeo revolution A couple of other mimeo/xerox notables: Mark Nowak's old Furnitures, and Giants Play Well in the Drizzle. Also Andrew Schelling's Jimmy and Lucy's House of K, which I think was reincarnated into something else. Kent > Date sent: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:39:49 - 0500 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Jordan Davis > Subject: Re: mimeo revolution > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > C > Mag City > Adventures in Poetry > The Harris Review > Dodgems > C Comics > The World > Gandhabba > > and then later... > > Object > The Impercipient > Explosive Magazine > Antenym > Stud Duck > Torque > Tads > Mirage (Periodical) > Yale Younger Poets > Situation > Tamarind ... > > > ________ > > Dear Fiona, > > Steve Evans' lecture "The Dynamics of Literary Change" is available from > The Impercipient Lecture Series, 61 E Manning St, Providence RI 02906-4008. > I misspoke when I said that it proposes a structure of literary change. > What would be more accurate is to say that the talk digresses around the > subjects of the autonomy of the work of art, the beginnings and ends of > literary eras, and the writings of Hegel, Musil, Bourdieu, Adorno and > others. > > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 11:56:37 +0000 Reply-To: jays@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jay Schwartz Subject: Re: mimeo revolution MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Some of the magazines listed here are photocopied- does the original post specify mimeographed? I would be very interested in hearing from magazine producers about the difference in production choices that mimeograph vs. photocopy entails. Not just technical, but the aesthetic choices as well. Thanks, Jay Shxwartz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:05:35 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pam Brown Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello everyone - In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) "P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo (we called it "roneo")magazines. Cheerio Pam Brown At 12:37 PM 5/3/97 -0500, you wrote: >I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via >the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a >beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on >the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite >mags from the Mimeo Revolution? > >I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such >material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. >Thanks & best to all, >Steve Clay >Granary Books >NYC > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:15:15 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Pam Brown Subject: mimeo/roneo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. And Mark can speak for himself I guess Best Wishes, Pam Hello everyone - In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) "P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo (we called it "roneo")magazines. Cheerio Pam Brown ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 07:05:56 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chicago, edited by Alice Notley ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 07:07:14 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII United Artists, edited by Bernadette Mayer and Lewis Warsh ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:10:19 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Dear Mark P, > >What IS outsourcing? > >Fiona > > That is when the government tells poets that they can no longer afford to fund culture and in order to save 'costs' poets should no longer write their own work - instead they should 'outsource' the writing of poetry to the private sector who, after all, can produce poetry much quicker and for much less unit cost. Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:29:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation Comments: To: Mark Roberts MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN "The unit cost per stanza is a concern to this panel." - Ron Silliman ---------- From: Mark Roberts To: POETICS Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation Date: Wednesday, March 05, 1997 5:24PM >Dear Mark P, > >What IS outsourcing? > >Fiona > > That is when the government tells poets that they can no longer afford to fund culture and in order to save 'costs' poets should no longer write their own work - instead they should 'outsource' the writing of poetry to the private sector who, after all, can produce poetry much quicker and for much less unit cost. Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:37:33 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yes P76 used MAGIC SAM as inspiration. (i've still got two gestner machines in the garage). I can also remember a few others from the Poetys Union book box I used to cart around with me selling small press stuff at readings, conferences, parties, funerals etc....Pam can you remember a magazine called CHOOK CHOOK CHOOK (i think) which had a chicken feather stuck to the cover, or THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN WHITING (as in fish). As an aside P76 is about to reborn as an web magazine. The 6th issue will be uploaded to the AWOL (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ site sometime in the next fortnight) There will be a photocopies print out available on request (no gestner PLEASE!). The 7th issue will be edited by andrew burke in perth. (the idea being that each issue will be edited by someone different in a different area of Australia (or even os?). Anyway more details when the issue is uploaded. btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a brillant little book by Pam Brown). I just remembered Magic Sam produced a roneoed Mental as Anything single...!!!! >And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" >Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union >publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on >buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. >And Mark can speak for himself I guess >Best Wishes, >Pam > >Hello everyone - >In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? >But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as >well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late >seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo >(we called it "roneo")magazines. >Cheerio >Pam Brown > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:53:15 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just remebered that the last two or three issues of Kris Hemnensly's H/EAR where roneoded with gift wrapping (I think) used as a cover. It was basically a collection of letters/comments form and to Kris from writers around the world. >Yes P76 used MAGIC SAM as inspiration. (i've still got two gestner machines >in the garage). I can also remember a few others from the Poetys Union book >box I used to cart around with me selling small press stuff at readings, >conferences, parties, funerals etc....Pam can you remember a magazine called >CHOOK CHOOK CHOOK (i think) which had a chicken feather stuck to the cover, >or THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN WHITING (as in fish). > >As an aside P76 is about to reborn as an web magazine. The 6th issue will be >uploaded to the AWOL (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ site sometime in the >next fortnight) There will be a photocopies print out available on request >(no gestner PLEASE!). The 7th issue will be edited by andrew burke in perth. >(the idea being that each issue will be edited by someone different in a >different area of Australia (or even os?). Anyway more details when the >issue is uploaded. > > >btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover >appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). >Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a >brillant little book by Pam Brown). I just remembered Magic Sam produced a >roneoed Mental as Anything single...!!!! > > > > > > >>And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >>Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >>has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" >>Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union >>publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on >>buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. >>And Mark can speak for himself I guess >>Best Wishes, >>Pam >> >>Hello everyone - >>In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >>Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >>not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >>"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? >>But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as >>well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late >>seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo >>(we called it "roneo")magazines. >>Cheerio >>Pam Brown >> >> >Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ >SIS Team >Building G05 Maze Crescent >University of Sydney >Phone 61 2 93517710 >Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 93517711 > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:13:06 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Pam Brown Subject: roneo-offset Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mark you wrote "btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a brillant little book by Pam Brown). " Just to get pedantic - that book was called "Small Blue View" and was offset printed at the Experimental Art Foundation in 1982 - Ken Bolton moved on to offset printing that year with that series - me, Laurie Duggan, Denis Gallagher & Sal Brereton.... Cheerio from Miss Brown (History Inspector) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 19:19:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: manny savopoulos Subject: Fw: student takeover at UMass-Amherst (fwd) Comments: To: michael t welch , jeffrey tobin , deyon warren , michael blitz , robert williams , sal renzo , sarah bowman , penny rodopoulos ---------- > From: Jennifer Mitchell > To: ENGRAD-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: student takeover at UMass-Amherst (fwd) > Date: Wednesday, March 05, 1997 4:18 PM > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 09:47:54 -0500 > From: Ira Shor > Reply-To: Working Class Student Study Group > To: Multiple recipients of list WCS-L > Subject: student takeover at UMass-Amherst > > Hello--Thought some folks might like to know about this...Ira > > > >>Date: Tue, 4 Mar 97 11:55:15 CST > >>From: VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE > >>To: Multiple recipients of list > >>Subject: student takeover at UMass-Amherst! > >> > >>On Monday, March 3, 1997, a group of students took over the controllers office > >>at the University of Massachusetts. Students are demanding, among other > >>things, an increase in financial aid, increase in recruitment and retention of > >>students of color to 20%, scholerships for poor and working students. > >>deiversification of staff, faculty, and administration, elimination of holds > >>on preregistration and late fees and a flexible child care center. Over 150 > >>students stayed overnight in the building, while hundreds more supported us > >>inside. We have recieved the unanimous support of the SGA at Amherst College, > >>as well as financial support from all four private schools in the Pioneer > >>Valley. The administration is giving us a lot of rhetoric, but we are > >>committed to staying in the building until all of our demands are met. > >>If you are interested in supporting this important action, forward this > >>message to anyone and everyone. > >>In addition, you can write/wmail/phone Chancellor Scott expressing support for > >>these demands. > >> David Scott > >> 374 Whitmore > >> Umass-Amherst, MA 01003 > >> 413 545 2211; dkscott@chancellor.umass.edu > >>Thanks for your support!! > >> > > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:21:50 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: roneo-offset Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Pam maybe you and I should get a grant to write a history of the period!! (whats the weather like on the other side of campus?) :) Mark >Mark you wrote >"btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover >appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). >Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a >brillant little book by Pam Brown). " > >Just to get pedantic - that book was called "Small Blue View" and was offset >printed at the Experimental Art Foundation in 1982 - Ken Bolton moved on to >offset printing that year with that series - me, Laurie Duggan, Denis >Gallagher & Sal Brereton.... > >Cheerio from Miss Brown (History Inspector) > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 16:49:47 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Norma Cole has just reminded my that the first issue of Acts was mimeographed - edited by David Levi Strauss and Benjamin Hollander I think the first issue of Vanishing Cab, edited by Jerry Estrin, may have been mimeographed - Done by PG&E but unknown to them - But it may have been xeroxed - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 16:58:05 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Welcome Message In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >and also of course Mirage Periodical which Kevin and Dodie make >consistently brilliant Also _Tish_ _The Floating Bear_ _Motion_ _Sum_ George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:00:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Also _I's_ George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:00:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Havent seen a mention of _Fuck You: a magazine of the arts_ probably too obvious. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:02:00 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: <18ECE693904@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Not to mention some of the British ones: _Move_ _Tlaloc_ and that one, what was its name, from Preston? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 20:08:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Mimeo/Off-set Revolute Re J S's interesting question: "Some of the magazines listed here are photocopied- does the original post specify mimeographed? I would be very interested in hearing from magazine producers about the difference in production choices that mimeograph vs. photocopy entails. Not just technical, but the aesthetic choices as well." if my memory serves me well (??), the change from mimeo to photocopy(xerox and/or off-set) occured in about 1971 or 72. Mimeo went out and Xerox Copy shops and cheap off-set places began to appear. The issues of aesthetics for each technology was not a question of enjoying one technology more than the other. That was not the choice. With the exception of a small overlap period, photocopy machines and photo off-set presses became the dominant technology. . In terms of aesthetics -- in at least a visual sense -- students primarily via art schools played most interestinly the possibilites first with memory and then with zerox. Even though I think some of that work is wonderful, and it's great Granary Books going to bring the mimeo format back into public exposure, I don't think much of the art centered work ever caught much art collector attention. In terms of literary output mimeo production was attractive because it was both inexpensive and small. A machine could fit easily on to a table in an appartment. In the context of sixties radical politics, it was an ideal device for clandestine productions (broadsides, books etc.) Though I knew some people with off-set equipment in their basement or garage, no one could afford a xerox machine. For small presses and magazines with small runs, small budgets, no government grants etc. the mimeo was a terrifically affordable way to go. The intimate, hand made, slightly ink blurred, soft paper feel of many mimeo mags and books fit into an aesthetic of back to the land, back to the streets, back to the people etc. - a definite sense of rejecting the corporate. Publishers took a certain pride in coping multiple color mimeo papers from corporate offices and filling them with poetry rather memos, stats, etc. The use of art in the literary mags varied in qualtity - multiple colored inks wd jazz them. The multi color Gestener - which was hot through out the seventies was great for cheap 8 1/2 by 11" posters. (The Intersection Poetry Series in San Francisco was often wonderful. John Brandi in New Mexico (Tooth of the Nail?? Press) did what seemed then rather extraordinary mixes of color images, text, multiple color papers etc. Instead of making use of either xerox or the mimeo as an aesthetic medium for images, I suspect most of the time, to use computer language, images were "imported" from an established artist. In terms of text the 8 1/2 by 11" format made a broad expanse of space for text - either for variations on two column format, or filling it to the max. I don't think it had a major effect on the use of the space. In "reality" since in the days of type writer, 8 1/2 by 11" was the "real time" format so there was the possibility of a genuine correspondence/ similary between the artifact of the poet's manuscript and the mag as an artifact! Off-set production made for more professional looking work, made for larger press runs, access to commerical distribution, etc. Off set most often required a relationship with a professional printer and a set of more costly variables. The costs and circumstances limited most aesthetic experimentation on account of the costs and other obligations of the printers. Interesting the further away the process got from the domestic mimeo, the government, via the NEA, became more involved, funding, for example, the West Coast Print Center - this interface with the Government and its effect on poetry production is a whole other story. Most problematic was that the cost of off-set required larger editions (500 +) - the poetry market was soon flooded with more and more titles than any store could support - and that was part of the ambition. Mimeo had the advantage of limited runs and providing a more accurate guage of the market. This memory is totally off the top of my head - not that I should worry to ask, but I would look forward to hearing other people's takes. West Coast sixties mimeo mags: Wild Dog Or (David Sandburg) Magdalene Syndrome Gazette (Ron Silliman is probably a good memory source here - some of us were there and do remember). Detroit - John Sinclair's "Work" and "Change" were big. To me it seems that the computer technology (net, web sites. zines) has redomesticated the whole production process that is comparable to mimeo times. But that brings up current issues which is probably something for later. Cheers, Stephen Vincent ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 12:10:34 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just remembered rae desmond jones - your friendly fascist was gestnered Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 12:19:26 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: Mimeo/Off-set Revolute Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It was much more of a party printing a magazine off a gestner machine in your bedroom..taking lots of drugs and staying up for days with the click/thump of the machine and loud music. I also found you could do much better graphics on a gestner. By cutting a stencil and printing one copy at a time you could bet a great lino cut look - we did an ad in P76 no1 for ON THE BEACH magazine and ended up printing another fifty copies of the add on textured paper for the artist. We would occassionally do two or more colours on a page. My second gestner machine was wonderful. It had a light switch which seemed to make it glow inside and it had all sorts of arms which swang out, folded down and tucked in. I bought it for $10 off a hippie in Balmain in 1984 who had just bought himself a computer (back in those days I don't think I'd even seen a pc!) Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:51:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: db's mimeo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Haven't seen any mention of David Bromige's mimeo _Open Reading_, from the seventies. I still have all my copies of No. 3, with Kathy Fraser, Michael Davidson, Charles Simic, David Henderson, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Thom Gunn, db, etc. (even me). Everything in it he had heard aloud first. Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 18:19:23 +0000 Reply-To: jays@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jay Schwartz Subject: Re: Mimeo/Off-set Revolute MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A great deal of beautiful and interesting xerography is happening today, but mostly right outside the world of poetry- with "zines". As a Kinko's employee I had the blessed oppportunity to produce a poetry magazine with multiple color copies and multiple textured/ colored papers, all on the sly on the graveyard shift. I would agree that offset is generally a domesticating process, but have to say that photocopiers lend themselves to spontaneous, diverse products. The magazine I helped create is Proliferation, 1 - 3. (Available through SPD.) Jay Schwartz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 21:57:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Toni Simon Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 432 Review edited by Simon Schuchat -Nick Piombino On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Schuchat Simon wrote: > Chicago, edited by Alice Notley > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 19:33:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Oops Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Kenny, I found the package of 2 CDs & press release that I thought I'd sent to you when I got back today. It's in the mail now & I think you'll have it by Saturday, Monday at the latest. Sorry. Here's a few URLs that may be of interest to your visual poetry self: though I'm sure you've seen them all. Hope to see you at Roulette next Saturday. Bests, Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 00:20:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Open Space edited by Harold Dull - San Francisco, early sixties. (tres rare, brilliant - Spicer, Kyger etc etc) primarily - as I recall - publically given away free atop a table in the basement of City Lights Beatitude - San Francisco - various hands, en perpetua ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 21:58:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Michael Davidson? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" does anyone have a current email address for Michael Davidson (who is not currently subscribed to the list?)? Address I have doesn't work. please backchannel. thanks tenney ---------------------------------------------------------- tenney nathanson tenney@azstarnet.com nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 22:01:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the whole strip (intro to Positively Pogo): Pogo and Porkypine on bank, fishing frame one, Pogo (I think): I read a book once what said you can do anything you want if you puts your mind to it. frame two, Porkypine: I isn't read the book, but I is dreamed the dream frame three, nothing: they just sitting there fishing and thinking frame four, Porkypine: I allus liked the part about the cowboys. ---------------------------------------------------------- tenney nathanson tenney@azstarnet.com nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 05:35:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Typing on green stencils Many of my first publications, such as in Richard Krech's Community Libertarian ('65), Will Inman's Kauri ('66--where my work first came into contact of the likes of Clayton Eshleman, David Antin, et al), John Sinclair's mags, Robert Parker's mag (name now escapes me) were all mimeographed. Others, such as Clifford Burke's Hollow Orange, John Fowler's Grist, d alexander's Odda Tala seemed to have much better technology and were I believe offset. By comparison, something like Caterpillar, with perfect binding and the ability to reproduce photos on the cover, was a real jolt toward "official" culture in that Clayton could get it into bookstores that would never have handled a stapled mag. Anselm Hollo (Hi, Anselm) has spoken of a period in the 1950s when, in London, he felt it was possible to obtain almost any small English language press publication, partly because the distribution was so much better but also partly because there were, relatively, so few of them (remember, in the 1950s, there were less than a tenth of the books published that there are now, so that how stores handled stock was very different). By the mid-1960s, when I first was paying attention, it was already pretty different. For example, Gino Clay Skies was rumored to have many copies of Heads of the Town Up to the Aether, but it was years before I was able to find a copy. By 1966, the rare book collection at SF State (thanks to Robin Blaser) was already a profound resource, with its collection of Origin etc. The first issues of Tottel's, my own mag, were photocopied (editions of under 100), then photo-offset in very small runs--the final issue was mimeo'd on a giant Gestetner in the basement of Hospitality House in the SF Tenderloin. I'd used mimeo before on non-profit mags I'd worked on, but this was my only foray into typing poetry onto those stencils. I recall that the machine was very quirky (I had to call in the guy who normally ran it, a burly fellow named Peter McCarthy, who hammered a few wayward pieces of metal back into place). It ate a couple of masters, so I had to retype them in order to get the run of 150. With fulltime jobs that paid hardly any money (I lived on around $125 a month in 1972), I was able to put out the mag. One of the requirements in those days was finding a typewriter that had the ability to "cut" a clean stencil. I do think that HTML and web technology has some of the very same potential that generated the "mimeo revolution" back then, but with some important differences. The most important one is that the world of writing itself is far more dispersed and decentralized than it was 30-40 years ago (generally a good thing, but not unabashedly so). The other is that these pieces of equipment are hardly free, even if they are becoming common. I could never have afforded the upfront costs of owning a PC when I was in my 20s and didn't actually buy one until I was 41. Yet the sort of effort that yields something like Luigi-Bob's scratchpad for the wr-eye-ting list is virtually exactly the same impulse and much of the same result as a little mag effort of those olden days, and with few of the same limitations vis a vis distribution or reliance entirely on the local. Ron Silliman >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 20:08:43 -0500 >From: Stephen Vincent >Subject: Mimeo/Off-set Revolute > >Re J S's interesting question: >"Some of the magazines listed here are photocopied- does the original >post specify mimeographed? > >I would be very interested in hearing from magazine producers about the >difference in production choices that mimeograph vs. photocopy entails. >Not just technical, but the aesthetic choices as well." > >if my memory serves me well (??), the change from mimeo to photocopy(xerox >and/or off-set) occured in about 1971 or 72. >Mimeo went out and Xerox Copy shops and cheap off-set places began to appear. >The issues of aesthetics for each technology was not a question of enjoying >one technology more than the other. That was not the choice. With the >exception of a small overlap period, photocopy machines and photo off-set >presses became the dominant technology. . In terms of aesthetics -- in at >least a visual sense -- students primarily via art schools played most >interestinly the possibilites first with memory and then with zerox. Even >though I think some of that work is wonderful, and it's great Granary Books >going to bring the mimeo format back into public exposure, I don't think much >of the art centered work ever caught much art collector attention. > In terms of literary output mimeo production was attractive because it >was both inexpensive and small. A machine could fit easily on to a table in >an appartment. In the context of sixties radical politics, it was an ideal >device for clandestine productions (broadsides, books etc.) Though I knew >some people with off-set equipment in their basement or garage, no one could >afford a xerox machine. For small presses and magazines with small runs, >small budgets, no government grants etc. the mimeo was a terrifically >affordable way to go. The intimate, hand made, slightly ink blurred, soft >paper feel of many mimeo mags and books fit into an aesthetic of back to the >land, back to the streets, back to the people etc. - a definite sense of >rejecting the corporate. Publishers took a certain pride in coping multiple >color mimeo papers from corporate offices and filling them with poetry rather >memos, stats, etc. The use of art in the literary mags varied in qualtity - >multiple colored inks wd jazz them. The multi color Gestener - which was hot >through out the seventies was great for cheap 8 1/2 by 11" posters. (The >Intersection Poetry Series in San Francisco was often wonderful. John Brandi >in New Mexico (Tooth of the Nail?? Press) did what seemed then rather >extraordinary mixes of color images, text, multiple color papers etc. Instead >of making use of either xerox or the mimeo as an aesthetic medium for images, >I suspect most of the time, to use computer language, images were "imported" >from an established artist. In terms of text the 8 1/2 by 11" format made a >broad expanse of space for text - either for variations on two column format, >or filling it to the max. I don't think it had a major effect on the use of >the space. In "reality" since in the days of type writer, 8 1/2 by 11" was >the "real time" format so there was the possibility of a genuine >correspondence/ similary between the artifact of the poet's manuscript and >the mag as an artifact! > > Off-set production made for more professional looking work, made for larger >press runs, access to commerical distribution, etc. Off set most often >required a relationship with a professional printer and a set of more costly >variables. The costs and circumstances limited most aesthetic experimentation >on account of the costs and other obligations of the printers. Interesting >the further away the process got from the domestic mimeo, the government, via >the NEA, became more involved, funding, for example, the West Coast Print >Center - this interface with the Government and its effect on poetry >production is a whole other story. Most problematic was that the cost of >off-set required larger editions (500 +) - the poetry market was soon flooded >with more and more titles than any store could support - and that was part of >the ambition. Mimeo had the advantage of limited runs and providing a more >accurate guage of the market. > >This memory is totally off the top of my head - not that I should worry to >ask, but I would look forward to hearing other people's takes. > >West Coast sixties mimeo mags: > >Wild Dog >Or (David Sandburg) >Magdalene Syndrome Gazette > >(Ron Silliman is probably a good memory source here - some of us were there >and do remember). > >Detroit - John Sinclair's "Work" and "Change" were big. > >To me it seems that the computer technology (net, web sites. zines) has >redomesticated the whole production process that is comparable to mimeo >times. But that brings up current issues which is probably something for >later. > >Cheers, >Stephen Vincent > >------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 08:28:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kennyg Subject: The Great Smell of Mimeo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As a child in the late 1960s, I loved the Public School look and SMELL of purple mimeo, which smelled like cheap vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmmmm. I miss it. Kenny G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 08:38:12 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Magic Sam, et. al. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Re: "And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther"" I assume (nearly) everyone on this list knows the names and music of Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Little Esther. Obvious point if not: these mags were named after blues guitarists/singers MS and OR and blues singer LE. Tom Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 08:39:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Evans' lecture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Re: "Steve Evans' lecture "The Dynamics of Literary Change" is available from The Impercipient Lecture Series, 61 E Manning St, Providence RI 02906-4008." Not on line somewhere (I must be getting spoiled). Tom Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:07:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: Mimeo/Off-set Revolute Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" cleveland was home to a number of mimeographd magazines, starting praps w/ d.a. levy's _the marrahwannah quarterly_ and his 7 flowers press; also t.l. kryss's Black Rabbit Press, Robert Head's Neo Ex Press, and a slew of fugitive/alias ventures (ground zero, falling down press, mostly broken scabs press). i had an mimeod "underground newspaper" in jr. high, as much concerned w/ dress codes as the war, but thru that ran into d.a.'s work & it was one ov those life-changing experiences. levy's use of th medium, w/ all it's limitations, fr visual effect seemed only "sloppy" to me at first, but... luigi ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:57:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks to all for your memories, comments & lists. lewis warsh, certainly one of the masters of mimeo, made the comment, while looking at granary publications recently, 'this is so great, i've always wanted to do this, i've always wanted to make books' - i felt like shaking him: "lewis! you have, you've been making wonderful books for 30 years!" there is something about the 'non-design' design of mimeo publications that is fascinating- and yet they are totally designed even resplendent in their expression of design, literature, art and the ever present "bookness". i'm remined of a comment mikeal made some weeks ago suggesting that the magazine l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e somehow had the ambition to present 'the text and just the text' (like sargent friday 'just the facts ma'am') - but this seems impossible! l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e was every bit as consciously designed & produced as, say, 'wired' magazine. it's 'materiality' as with mimeo, contributes forcefully to its total message. one of the interesting things about mimeo is that, although it required certain skills, one didn't really need a grasp of the history of typography, printing and bookmaking. whereas, for example, printer/publishers using letterpress (also relatively cheap and widely available at the same time as mimeo) tended to be much more conscious of design etc. of the whole heritage of 'fine bookmaking'. mimeo, as a technology, was nearly invisible, yet now, as we look back, those books and magazines are totally striking in every way, not the least of which is their 'design'. it would be nearly impossible to produce books of such purity today, at least in the u.s. steve granary books ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:04:06 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: The Great Smell of Mimeo Yes, Kenny G, that smell, wonderfully mnemonic. Mere mention of it, and I can begin to see Mr Tollefson's sixth grade classroom, and smell the hamsters in the back of the room.... Thanks. Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:17:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mimeo journals with far reaching effects--by the Lettrists and the Situationists--early Fifties to Seventies-- erupted on to walls in '68 a bas l'abattoir l'imagination au pouvoir de l'envers on verra . . . ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:40:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Poetry City Mnemonics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It's Thursday, and that means Poetry City is on the radio! At 11:45 this morning, if you're in New York or the environs, set your FM radio to 91.5 (not 91.9 as previously reported) and you'll hear the list's own Dan Bouchard reading among other poems "A Pavement Ontology", which is about Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, not Malkmus and Ashbery. Then, tomorrow at 7 p.m., come by Poetry City (in the luxurious offices of Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 5 Union Sq W, NYC) to hear international superstars Quentin Crisp and Lee Ann Brown read their work. You won't be sorry you did! With fond regards, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:24:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Does anyone remember The San Francisco Zoo-Keeper's Voice? Early-mid '60s, Alec Weiss put it out (& if anyone has his address please send it). Ran a poem of mine in 65. then there was Mother, from Pennsylvania--can't remember Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. Prob. have a copy somewhere, because that editor published me too. Anyone done a study on how we remember those who said yes? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 08:37:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: <970306001736_-1707487121@emout12.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:20 AM -0500 3/6/97, Stephen Vincent wrote: >Open Space edited by Harold Dull - San Francisco, early sixties. (tres rare, >brilliant - Spicer, Kyger etc etc) primarily - as I recall - publically given >away free atop a table in the basement of City Lights "Open Space" was actually edited by the poet Stan Persky, under Spicer's direction. Tho' it looked like a mimeo magazine it was actually offset. "Open Space" was planned to run for one year, from Jan-Dec 1964, with an issue appearing every month; in the event 15 issues appeared, extra issues to celebrate Valentines Day, Baseball Season, and one extremely limited issue, #9, was printed to thwart collectors who might sell a complete run to universities, libraries, etc. Spicer's earlier magazine "J" was indeed a mimeo magazine. "J" appeared for five issues during the second half of 1959. Jack Spicer and Fran Herndon solicited the writing and art work for "J," and the artists who contributed (Herndon herself, Jess Collins, Russell FitzGerald) drew their pictures directly onto the stencil. Jess' comic strip panels, so intricate, so flowing in line, and so funny, were executed without a single false line. How did they do it? How did they do these things without a backspace key? Wonderingly, Kevin Killian Wonderingly, ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:40:21 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: The Great Smell of Mimeo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" another on e of my favorite things about old mimeo forms was that the stencils were called "Spirit Masters." At 7:04 PM 3/6/97, Hank Lazer wrote: >Yes, Kenny G, that smell, wonderfully mnemonic. Mere mention of it, >and I can begin to see Mr Tollefson's sixth grade classroom, and >smell the hamsters in the back of the room.... Thanks. > >Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:53:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Lewis Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 4 Mar 1997 to 5 Mar 1997 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Granary Books >NYC > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:57:04 -0500 >From: Joseph Lease >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >I vote for Bill Brown's not bored > >On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Steven Clay wrote: > >> I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via >> the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a >> beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on >> the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite >> mags from the Mimeo Revolution? >> >> I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such >> material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. >> Thanks & best to all, >> Steve Clay >> Granary Books >> NYC >> > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:57:42 -0500 >From: Joseph Lease >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >also if I may vote for one in which I appeared the National Poetry >Magazine of the Lower East Side > >On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Steven Clay wrote: > >> I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via >> the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a >> beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on >> the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite >> mags from the Mimeo Revolution? >> >> I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such >> material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. >> Thanks & best to all, >> Steve Clay >> Granary Books >> NYC >> > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:00:44 -0500 >From: Joseph Lease >Subject: Re: Welcome Message >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >and also of course Mirage Periodical which Kevin and Dodie make >consistently brilliant > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:39:49 -0500 >From: Jordan Davis >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >C >Mag City >Adventures in Poetry >The Harris Review >Dodgems >C Comics >The World >Gandhabba > >and then later... > >Object >The Impercipient >Explosive Magazine >Antenym >Stud Duck >Torque >Tads >Mirage (Periodical) >Yale Younger Poets >Situation >Tamarind ... > > >________ > >Dear Fiona, > >Steve Evans' lecture "The Dynamics of Literary Change" is available from >The Impercipient Lecture Series, 61 E Manning St, Providence RI 02906-4008. >I misspoke when I said that it proposes a structure of literary change. >What would be more accurate is to say that the talk digresses around the >subjects of the autonomy of the work of art, the beginnings and ends of >literary eras, and the writings of Hegel, Musil, Bourdieu, Adorno and >others. > >Jordan > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:51:36 -0500 >From: Alan Jen Sondheim >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >The World > >____________________________________________________________________ >URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html >Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 >CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:53:07 -0500 >From: Alan Jen Sondheim >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >Sorry - also, Bernadette's and Vito's 0 to 9, out around the same time, >truly amazing for the most part, prescient in its nervousness. Acconci's >poetic/ry hasn't been reprinted as far as I know and remains a unique body >of work - > >Alan > >____________________________________________________________________ >URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html >Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 >CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:08:51 +0600 >From: KENT JOHNSON >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution > >A couple of other mimeo/xerox notables: Mark Nowak's old >Furnitures, and Giants Play Well in the Drizzle. Also Andrew >Schelling's Jimmy and Lucy's House of K, which I think was >reincarnated into something else. > >Kent > >> Date sent: >Wed, 5 Mar 1997 13:39:49 - 0500 >> Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group >> >> From: Jordan Davis >> Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >> To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >> C >> Mag City >> Adventures in Poetry >> The Harris Review >> Dodgems >> C Comics >> The World >> Gandhabba >> >> and then later... >> >> Object >> The Impercipient >> Explosive Magazine >> Antenym >> Stud Duck >> Torque >> Tads >> Mirage (Periodical) >> Yale Younger Poets >> Situation >> Tamarind ... >> >> >> ________ >> >> Dear Fiona, >> >> Steve Evans' lecture "The Dynamics of Literary Change" is available from >> The Impercipient Lecture Series, 61 E Manning St, Providence RI 02906-4008. >> I misspoke when I said that it proposes a structure of literary change. >> What would be more accurate is to say that the talk digresses around the >> subjects of the autonomy of the work of art, the beginnings and ends of >> literary eras, and the writings of Hegel, Musil, Bourdieu, Adorno and >> others. >> >> Jordan >> > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 11:56:37 +0000 >From: Jay Schwartz >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >Some of the magazines listed here are photocopied- does the original >post specify mimeographed? > >I would be very interested in hearing from magazine producers about the >difference in production choices that mimeograph vs. photocopy entails. >Not just technical, but the aesthetic choices as well. > >Thanks, > >Jay Shxwartz > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:05:35 +1000 >From: Pam Brown >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Hello everyone - >In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? >But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as >well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late >seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo >(we called it "roneo")magazines. >Cheerio >Pam Brown > > At 12:37 PM 5/3/97 -0500, you wrote: >>I'm co-curating an exhibition of books and magazines produced (mostly) via >>the mimeograph machine. I've compiled a list of a hundred or so as a >>beginning but would be very curious to hear some suggestions from those on >>the poetics list. Anyone wish to offer their "top ten list" of favorite >>mags from the Mimeo Revolution? >> >>I'm also interested in acquiring collections/libraries/archives of such >>material for the exhibit. Please back channel any offers. >>Thanks & best to all, >>Steve Clay >>Granary Books >>NYC >> >> > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:15:15 +1000 >From: Pam Brown >Subject: mimeo/roneo >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" >Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union >publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on >buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. >And Mark can speak for himself I guess >Best Wishes, >Pam > >Hello everyone - >In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? >But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as >well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late >seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo >(we called it "roneo")magazines. >Cheerio >Pam Brown > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 07:05:56 +0800 >From: Schuchat Simon >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >Chicago, edited by Alice Notley > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 07:07:14 +0800 >From: Schuchat Simon >Subject: Re: mimeo revolution >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >United Artists, edited by Bernadette Mayer and Lewis Warsh > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:10:19 +1100 >From: Mark Roberts >Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >>Dear Mark P, >> >>What IS outsourcing? >> >>Fiona >> >> > >That is when the government tells poets that they can no longer afford to >fund culture and in order to save 'costs' poets should no longer write their >own work - instead they should 'outsource' the writing of poetry to the >private sector who, after all, can produce poetry much quicker and for much >less unit cost. > > > >Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ >SIS Team >Building G05 Maze Crescent >University of Sydney >Phone 61 2 93517710 >Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 93517711 > >------------------------------ >Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:29:00 -0600 >From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" >Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN > >"The unit cost per stanza is a concern to this panel." > > - Ron Silliman > ---------- >From: Mark Roberts >To: POETICS >Subject: Re: e-signoffs / tradition & innovation >Date: Wednesday, March 05, 1997 5:24PM > > >>Dear Mark P, >> >>What IS outsourcing? >> >>Fiona >> >> > >That is when the government tells poets that they can no longer afford to >fund culture and in order to save 'costs' poets should no longer write their >own work - instead they should 'outsource' the writing of poetry to the >private sector who, after all, can produce poetry much quicker and for much >less unit cost. > > > >Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ >SIS Team >Building G05 Maze Crescent >University of Sydney >Phone 61 2 93517710 >Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 93517711 > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:37:33 +1100 >From: Mark Roberts >Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Yes P76 used MAGIC SAM as inspiration. (i've still got two gestner machines >in the garage). I can also remember a few others from the Poetys Union book >box I used to cart around with me selling small press stuff at readings, >conferences, parties, funerals etc....Pam can you remember a magazine called >CHOOK CHOOK CHOOK (i think) which had a chicken feather stuck to the cover, >or THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN WHITING (as in fish). > >As an aside P76 is about to reborn as an web magazine. The 6th issue will be >uploaded to the AWOL (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ site sometime in the >next fortnight) There will be a photocopies print out available on request >(no gestner PLEASE!). The 7th issue will be edited by andrew burke in perth. >(the idea being that each issue will be edited by someone different in a >different area of Australia (or even os?). Anyway more details when the >issue is uploaded. > > >btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover >appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). >Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a >brillant little book by Pam Brown). I just remembered Magic Sam produced a >roneoed Mental as Anything single...!!!! > > > > > > >>And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >>Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >>has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" >>Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union >>publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on >>buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. >>And Mark can speak for himself I guess >>Best Wishes, >>Pam >> >>Hello everyone - >>In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >>Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >>not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >>"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? >>But "Magic Sam", with its sometimes four/five colour silk-screened comics as >>well as the most interesting poetry, prose & interviews of the mid to late >>seventies/early eighties, gets my vote as the best of the Australian mimeo >>(we called it "roneo")magazines. >>Cheerio >>Pam Brown >> >> >Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ >SIS Team >Building G05 Maze Crescent >University of Sydney >Phone 61 2 93517710 >Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 93517711 > >------------------------------ >Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 10:53:15 +1100 >From: Mark Roberts >Subject: Re: mimeo/roneo >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >I just remebered that the last two or three issues of Kris Hemnensly's H/EAR >where roneoded with gift wrapping (I think) used as a cover. It was >basically a collection of letters/comments form and to Kris from writers >around the world. > > > > > >>Yes P76 used MAGIC SAM as inspiration. (i've still got two gestner machines >>in the garage). I can also remember a few others from the Poetys Union book >>box I used to cart around with me selling small press stuff at readings, >>conferences, parties, funerals etc....Pam can you remember a magazine called >>CHOOK CHOOK CHOOK (i think) which had a chicken feather stuck to the cover, >>or THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN WHITING (as in fish). >> >>As an aside P76 is about to reborn as an web magazine. The 6th issue will be >>uploaded to the AWOL (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ site sometime in the >>next fortnight) There will be a photocopies print out available on request >>(no gestner PLEASE!). The 7th issue will be edited by andrew burke in perth. >>(the idea being that each issue will be edited by someone different in a >>different area of Australia (or even os?). Anyway more details when the >>issue is uploaded. >> >> >>btw I think the 3rd issue of P76 was the best (that's the one whose cover >>appeared in the introduction to Pio's Penguin anthology OFF THE RECORD). >>Magic Sam also produced a series of roneoed books (one of which was a >>brillant little book by Pam Brown). I just remembered Magic Sam produced a >>roneoed Mental as Anything single...!!!! >> >> >> >> >> >> >>>And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >>>Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >>>has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther" >>>Les Wicks was the editor of "Meuse" (which I think began as a Poets Union >>>publication). Les now edits Transit Poetry - which is the poetry posters on >>>buses project in Sydney & Newcastle. >>>And Mark can speak for himself I guess >>>Best Wishes, >>>Pam >>> >>>Hello everyone - >>>In Australia , well, in Sydney, we had the amazing roneo magazine "Magic >>>Sam" with silk-screened covers & graphics - and later the >>>not-as-brilliant-looking "Meuse" followed by Mark Roberts' (& Adam Aitken's) >>>"P76" - maybe you can remember some others Mark ? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 11:53:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Lewis Subject: mimeo rev Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I nominate VORT -- which did useful double poet issues such as Jackson macLow/Armand Schwerner, Ted Berrigan/Tom raworth, w/ interviews, essays, etc. Also mag city, larry fagin's adventures in poetry & so on joel lewis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:02:40 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Readings next week In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Paul Hoover will be reading from his new book of poems, VIRIDIAN, at three locations on the East Coast next week: 1.) Thursday, March 13, at Brown University, 7:00 p.m. 2) Sunday, March 16, at Pasman's Books, NYC, 3:00 p.m. 3.) Tuesday, March 18, at U of Pennsylvania, late afternoon. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:10:06 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Shurin Subject: publication (not mimeo'd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'd like to let readers on the List know that my new book, UNBOUND:A Book of AIDS, is out from Sun & Moon. Thanks, Aaron Shurin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:52:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Prosodia benefit reading In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Small Press Traffic is pleased to support Prosodia, the literary magazine produced every spring by the students of the New College of California Graduate Poetics Program. This year=B9s editors are Stephanie Baker, Liz Burke, Eric Frost, Nick Karavatos, Fitz Schwartz, and Tricia Roush. Past contributors include Will Alexander, Rosmarie Waldrop, Rodrigo Toscano, Dorian Harding-Morick, Anselm Hollo, and Diane Di Prima. Please note that this event is happening on SATURDAY, not Friday: Saturday, March 8 7:30 in the New College of California Theater Admission is $5 (no one turned away). All proceeds will benefit Prosodia 7. Kit Robinson Tricia Roush Kit Robinson=B9s books include Balance Sheet (Roof), The Champagne of Concrete (Potes & Poets), and Windows (Whale Cloth). His translation from the Russian of Ilya Kutik=B9s Ode on Visiting the Belosaraisk Spit on the Se= a of Azov is recently out from Alef Books. Tricia Roush is a second year M.A./M.F.A. student at New College of California and a member of the collaborative performance group The Underbelly Sextet. Her work has appeared in Prosodia, Notes From the Underground, The Word Enamel, Tales from Around the Bend, Boog Literature, and Phaeton. She likes Johnny Mathis, and is allergic to wool. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 15:51:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Re: mimeo revolution re clay Maybe one aspect of mimeo - especially those that used the heavy, soft papers - was that the ink literally sank into the page. The reading process compelled a certain quality of literal absorption. Mimeo as a soft, felt medium was the antithesis of formica, the plastic fifties. An organic, or vegetal quality about it. The materiality slowed down the reading. (As could letter press in that 'fine print' tradition. Who would want to rush through Spicer's "Language" as set and printed by Graham Macintosh for White Rabbit? At its worse the quick impression of off-set printed introduced a quick-disposable feel to work. The way that e-mail can perhaps similarly go up in quick smoke - and a good pesonal letter usually does not. The materiality of a medium can create a resistance -- as well as a larger labor input -- which impels a depth, a quality. Cheers, Stephen Vincent ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 16:13:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eliza McGrand- CVA Guest Subject: a wacky e-zine site in australia people might enjoy From geekgirl-list-owner@Next.COM.AU Mon Mar 3 01:34:47 1997 Received: from Next.COM.AU (drjones.next.com.au [203.8.88.5]) by life.ai.mit.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5AI/life.ai.mit.edu:1.11) with ESMTP id BAA26199; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 01:34:44 -0500 (EST) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by Next.COM.AU (8.7.5/8.7.3) id DAA08286 for geekgirl-list-outgoing; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 03:16:42 GMT Received: from localhost (spyfood@localhost) by Next.COM.AU (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA08275 for ; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 14:16:38 +1100 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 14:16:37 +1100 (EDT) From: geekgirl To: geekgirl-list@geekgirl.com.au Subject: geekgirl#9 *woof & doof* out now! Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-geekgirl-list@drjones.next.com.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: gg@geekgirl.com.au Status: RO A kennel of one's own. It's a well known fact a girl's best friend is her dog! The world's first and most popular cyberfeminist hyperzine presents *woof* & *doof*. Issue #9 is just itchin' to hit the road & goes online March 1, '97. Never work with dogs or artists? Well find out for yourself! Produced with the assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts *W&D* is a fun look at kids, kelpies, kreatures and kosmic beings. We hear news of the Australian spoken Word tour of Terence McKenna; meet Vali Myers Australian born artist at home in her wildlife oasis in Italy; lots of info about geekgirl's fave organisation "Guide Dogs for the Blind"; Critter from Bohemian Ink tackles some gnarly questions; Miriam from Wrong Kind of Stoneage pays homage to Gracie and sings a tune-or-two; plus some hot shockwave, animation (and upcoming doof) by - Laura Jordan, Sally Harbison, RobJ and Komninos. Monika Jansch gets let out and does Dip, Dunk, Dog and we have sniffed out some more Penapls as Therapy, and Hollywood Hound Dogs. Yelp-Yippee!.. Visit! you'll enjoy the RealAudio, Poodle Parlor and some kewl comps for kids and all kreatures. For the fussy types you'll nibble on the new merchandise and play with paper dogs. An extensive wired hair women's section is also included this issue to celebrate International Women's Week. Thanks for your support in ensuring geekgirl continues to lead the way.. rosie x / geekgirl http://www.geekgirl.com.au/ gg@geekgirl.com.au |o/ \o\ |o/ po box 759, newtown | \ / australia 2042 /> <\ /> phax +61 2 95506777 never loose site of # 1. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 14:06:45 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: mimeo revolution re clay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nostalgia for mimeo from a consummate bookman like Steve Vincent--that's a good one. I used the damned things extensively for political work--it was all over my fingers, all over my kitchen, all over everything. Typeface was dependent on typewriter. Mistakes--I'm a lousy typist--were like fate or original sin. Multilith used to make a typeable offset plate, so you could do offset and still not get into bucks. The first issue of Broadway Boogie was done that way and printed at night on a desktop AB Dick at Hostos College, unbeknownst to the powers that were, and hand cut on a guillotine. Artwork was drawn on those self-same plates. All the joys of mimeograph, but longer runs and cleaner copy. Then I discovered the compositor. Wow. If I made a mistake I didn't have to start all over, I could simply cut out the goof with an exacto and replace it with the correction. Good way to learn hand-eye coordination. But of course that married me to the short-run houses and budgets. But if it could be photographed it could be printed. Sometimes I get nostalgic for cars with broken clutches. All kinds of poverty are fun to visit when you're young. At 03:51 PM 3/6/97 -0500, you wrote: >Maybe one aspect of mimeo - especially those that used the heavy, soft papers >- was that the ink literally sank into the page. The reading process >compelled a certain quality of literal absorption. Mimeo as a soft, felt >medium was the antithesis of formica, the plastic fifties. An organic, or >vegetal quality about it. The materiality slowed down the reading. (As could >letter press in that 'fine print' tradition. Who would want to rush through >Spicer's "Language" as set and printed by Graham Macintosh for White Rabbit? > At its worse the quick impression of off-set printed introduced a >quick-disposable feel to work. The way that e-mail can perhaps similarly go >up in quick smoke - and a good pesonal letter usually does not. The >materiality of a medium can create a resistance -- as well as a larger labor >input -- which impels a depth, a quality. > >Cheers, >Stephen Vincent > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 05:07:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: The Great Smell of Mimeo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >another on e of my favorite things about old mimeo forms was that the >stencils were called "Spirit Masters." > >At 7:04 PM 3/6/97, Hank Lazer wrote: >>Yes, Kenny G, that smell, wonderfully mnemonic. Mere mention of it, >>and I can begin to see Mr Tollefson's sixth grade classroom, and >>smell the hamsters in the back of the room.... Thanks. >> >>Hank Lazer the purple & odiferous printing process that spurs such fond memory is actually th product of "spirit duplicators"--ink was transfered from a sheet (similar to carbon paper) to a master; solvent frm the machine then transfered that ink to the paper... occasionally but not much used fr publications, & most ov those will have vanished, as th ink fades, especially in contact w/ air... a different beast frm mimeos, which pushed ink thru a wax-impregnated stencil... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 17:24:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Pogo In-Reply-To: George Bowering "Re: Pogo" (Mar 4, 7:40pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii George Bowering wrote: > Now Walt Kelly wd be in another kind of trouble. I must have missed the beginning of this Pogo thread. Was a PC problem ever perceived here? Anyway, I love the language possibilities. Are the Pogo books still available in the bookstores? Bill Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:13:38 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: cutting stencils on html Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ron Silliman wrote: > >I do think that HTML and web technology has some of the very same potential that >generated the "mimeo revolution" back then, but with some important differences. >The most important one is that the world of writing itself is far more dispersed >and decentralized than it was 30-40 years ago (generally a good thing, but not >unabashedly so). The other is that these pieces of equipment are hardly free, even >if they are becoming common. I could never have afforded the upfront costs of >owning a PC when I was in my 20s and didn't actually buy one until I was 41. Yet >the sort of effort that yields something like Luigi-Bob's scratchpad for the >wr-eye-ting list is virtually exactly the same impulse and much of the same result >as a little mag effort of those olden days, and with few of the same limitations >vis a vis distribution or reliance entirely on the local. I think this is true and it is interesting that P76 is re-emerging on the www having basically missed the offset revolution completely. A computer and internet connection does cost more than a gestner machine a lot of students (and others) have access to cheap internet connections through universities (P76 actually accessed stencil cutting machines to cut stencils for our gestner which meant we did paste ups which could include graphics and then cut the stencils at Sydney Uni for the cost of the stencil - the cost of hiring or buying a stencil cutting machine was way beyond our means). Mark Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 12:17:54 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: Pogo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" They are occasionally in New Zealand - and are re-releases or new anthologies, so they must be in Amerikee. At 05:24 PM 3/6/97 -0500, you wrote: >George Bowering wrote: > >> Now Walt Kelly wd be in another kind of trouble. > >I must have missed the beginning of this Pogo thread. Was a PC problem ever >perceived here? > >Anyway, I love the language possibilities. Are the Pogo books still available >in the bookstores? > > > >Bill Burmeister > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:19:18 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: Magic Sam, et. al. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" There was also a small press set up I think (correct me if I'm wrong Pam) Ken and Anna and later run by Anna called Sea Cruise Books (they actually published some roneoed titles (Robert Kenny's BOOK OF DECTION was roneoed I seem to recall - & then there was the NO REGRETS anothologies of womens' writing). .....come and let me take you on a sea cruise........... >Re: > >"And I should add that "Magic Sam" was edited & produced by Ken Bolton (with >Anna Couani & later, Sal Brereton) - Ken now edits "Otis Rush Magazine" and >has a poetry publishing imprint called "Little Esther"" > >I assume (nearly) everyone on this list knows the names and music of Magic >Sam, Otis Rush, Little Esther. Obvious point if not: these mags were named >after blues guitarists/singers MS and OR and blues singer LE. > >Tom > > > > > >Tom Mandel >************************************************************ >Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com >4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 >Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 >************************************************************ > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:25:18 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: The Great Smell of Mimeo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yeah a trick we had at primary school was to tell younger kids that mimeograph sheets tasted great if you licked them. More often than not the metho would make them sick....... >another on e of my favorite things about old mimeo forms was that the >stencils were called "Spirit Masters." > >At 7:04 PM 3/6/97, Hank Lazer wrote: >>Yes, Kenny G, that smell, wonderfully mnemonic. Mere mention of it, >>and I can begin to see Mr Tollefson's sixth grade classroom, and >>smell the hamsters in the back of the room.... Thanks. >> >>Hank Lazer > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 22:37:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin J Spinelli Subject: Marinetti recordings Comments: To: jrothenb@carla.uscd.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks Jerry, The Cramps LP sounds exactly what I'm looking for. I'll check our music library hear tomorrow, failing that I.L.L. (if they do audio). Tellus is an audio cassette magazine produced by Harvestworks in NYC. Their #21 issue was called "Audio by Visual Artist" and has Marinetti's "La Battaglia di Adrianopoli" only. Also included are Maurice Lemaitre, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann, Mimmo Rotella, Antonio Russolo, and about a dozen others. If you want, I can dig up their phone number for you. Just email me. Thanks again, Martin _________________________________________________________________________ Martin Spinelli martins@acsu.buffalo.edu English Department, SUNY @ Buffalo LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak EPC Sound Room http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/sound ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 14:42:07 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: mimeo revolution & P76 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From memory think there are copies of P76 in the University Library at buffalo. Let me know if I'm wrong. Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 21:58:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: mimeo revolution In-Reply-To: <199703070342.OAA16409@extra.ucc.su.OZ.AU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" what is the origin of the word "mimeo"? i assume it's somehow related to the concept of mimesis, but any further insights wd be enjoyed by moi. goodnight to all, md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:45:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Raworth reading Sunday March 9th 8 PM Tom Raworth Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC ph 202 965 5200 three to five dollar suggested donation Tom is amazing. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:41:40 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: asteroid to hit earth I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- -and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally unsuspecting future. So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or memory of it after the big one hits. language poetry, its precursors and fellow travellers, along with all its contraries, will be blown to smithereens. The World and APR. Waht makes us talk of evanescent words and letters in the face of potential nothingness? Or would this be provocation and reason for mimeo an its strange smelles? Leinenkugel's is not a micro, but it's a noble beer. ("btw"--as the buffaloish idiom goes--what beers, sodas, or other drinks do avant- garde poets prefer when writing? perhaps as relevant a thread as waht one is wearing and comic strip guys? how about George crumb if we're going to do comics..) Wouldn't a progressive political stance for avant-garde poets be to lobby their governments to invest in research to track the thousands of still unknown earth-crossing asteroids? The cost for effectively doing so is very minimal compared to military budget. No doubt a number of experimental poets will be laughing right now. well Kaboom, Kent ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 00:49:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <1B15BED6B09@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I always donate my poems to stopping anything from outer space. Alan ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:55:00 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Of course, how stupid of me. I'm going to start writing traditional sonnets and save the earth from being hit by an asteroid. >I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in >Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, >have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is >fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- >-and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen >suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally >unsuspecting future. > >So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, >sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose >or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or >otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or >memory of it after the big one hits. language poetry, its >precursors and fellow travellers, along with all its contraries, will >be blown to smithereens. The World and APR. Waht makes us talk of >evanescent words >and letters in the face of potential nothingness? Or would this be >provocation and reason for mimeo an its strange smelles? > >Leinenkugel's is not a micro, but it's a noble beer. ("btw"--as the >buffaloish idiom goes--what beers, sodas, or other drinks do avant- >garde poets prefer when writing? perhaps as relevant a thread as >waht one is wearing and comic strip guys? how about George >crumb if we're going to do comics..) > >Wouldn't a progressive political stance for avant-garde poets be to >lobby their governments to invest in research to track the thousands >of still unknown earth-crossing asteroids? The cost for effectively >doing so is very minimal compared to military budget. No doubt a >number of experimental poets will be laughing right now. > >well Kaboom, > >Kent > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:56:52 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth good luck Jennifer and Alan. may the force be with you! > Date sent: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 00:49:15 -0500 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Alan Jen Sondheim > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > I always donate my poems to stopping anything from outer space. > Alan > > ____________________________________________________________________ > URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html > Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 > CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:59:42 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just thought of something. I think we have just proved that dinosaurs where language poets - and therefore they were wiped out by a giant asteroid. I mean there they were sniffing roneo ink when...WHAMO > > > > >>I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in >>Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, >>have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is >>fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- >>-and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen >>suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally >>unsuspecting future. >> >>So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, >>sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose >>or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or >>otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or >>memory of it after the big one hits. language poetry, its >>precursors and fellow travellers, along with all its contraries, will >>be blown to smithereens. The World and APR. Waht makes us talk of >>evanescent words >>and letters in the face of potential nothingness? Or would this be >>provocation and reason for mimeo an its strange smelles? >> >>Leinenkugel's is not a micro, but it's a noble beer. ("btw"--as the >>buffaloish idiom goes--what beers, sodas, or other drinks do avant- >>garde poets prefer when writing? perhaps as relevant a thread as >>waht one is wearing and comic strip guys? how about George >>crumb if we're going to do comics..) >> >>Wouldn't a progressive political stance for avant-garde poets be to >>lobby their governments to invest in research to track the thousands >>of still unknown earth-crossing asteroids? The cost for effectively >>doing so is very minimal compared to military budget. No doubt a >>number of experimental poets will be laughing right now. >> >>well Kaboom, >> >>Kent >> >> >Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ >SIS Team >Building G05 Maze Crescent >University of Sydney >Phone 61 2 93517710 >Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 93517711 > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:59:41 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth well, of course, Mark, that would be stupid. > Date sent: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:55:00 +1100 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Mark Roberts > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Of course, how stupid of me. I'm going to start writing traditional sonnets > and save the earth from being hit by an asteroid. > > > > > >I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in > >Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, > >have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is > >fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- > >-and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen > >suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally > >unsuspecting future. > > > >So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, > >sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose > >or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or > >otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or > >memory of it after the big one hits. language poetry, its > >precursors and fellow travellers, along with all its contraries, will > >be blown to smithereens. The World and APR. Waht makes us talk of > >evanescent words > >and letters in the face of potential nothingness? Or would this be > >provocation and reason for mimeo an its strange smelles? > > > >Leinenkugel's is not a micro, but it's a noble beer. ("btw"--as the > >buffaloish idiom goes--what beers, sodas, or other drinks do avant- > >garde poets prefer when writing? perhaps as relevant a thread as > >waht one is wearing and comic strip guys? how about George > >crumb if we're going to do comics..) > > > >Wouldn't a progressive political stance for avant-garde poets be to > >lobby their governments to invest in research to track the thousands > >of still unknown earth-crossing asteroids? The cost for effectively > >doing so is very minimal compared to military budget. No doubt a > >number of experimental poets will be laughing right now. > > > >well Kaboom, > > > >Kent > > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ > SIS Team > Building G05 Maze Crescent > University of Sydney > Phone 61 2 93517710 > Mobile 015063970 > Fax 61 2 93517711 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 00:02:11 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth well, of course Mark, that would be stupid. > Date sent: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:55:00 +1100 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Mark Roberts > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Of course, how stupid of me. I'm going to start writing traditional sonnets > and save the earth from being hit by an asteroid. > > > > > >I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in > >Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, > >have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is > >fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- > >-and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen > >suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally > >unsuspecting future. > > > >So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, > >sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose > >or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or > >otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or > >memory of it after the big one hits. language poetry, its > >precursors and fellow travellers, along with all its contraries, will > >be blown to smithereens. The World and APR. Waht makes us talk of > >evanescent words > >and letters in the face of potential nothingness? Or would this be > >provocation and reason for mimeo an its strange smelles? > > > >Leinenkugel's is not a micro, but it's a noble beer. ("btw"--as the > >buffaloish idiom goes--what beers, sodas, or other drinks do avant- > >garde poets prefer when writing? perhaps as relevant a thread as > >waht one is wearing and comic strip guys? how about George > >crumb if we're going to do comics..) > > > >Wouldn't a progressive political stance for avant-garde poets be to > >lobby their governments to invest in research to track the thousands > >of still unknown earth-crossing asteroids? The cost for effectively > >doing so is very minimal compared to military budget. No doubt a > >number of experimental poets will be laughing right now. > > > >well Kaboom, > > > >Kent > > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ > SIS Team > Building G05 Maze Crescent > University of Sydney > Phone 61 2 93517710 > Mobile 015063970 > Fax 61 2 93517711 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 20:18:32 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Reed Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The question is it seems why bother doing anything, ever as eventually some disaster may befall us. The answer is survival ie reseach, investigate cures for diseases, learn to build spacehips to escape asteriods etc What part for poetry in this? Not much, but maybe it keeps the scientists and people with real jobs entertained for a while or at least gets them thinking laterally If the asteriod is big enough we can make it our new home, revert back to carving verse in rock and maybe one day progress to the high technological level of mimeo ps Hi DS - finally made it on! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 01:29:50 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth fantastic! have you read phillip k. dick? > Date sent: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 20:18:32 +1300 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Demian Reed > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > The question is it seems why bother doing anything, ever as eventually some > disaster may befall us. The answer is survival ie reseach, investigate > cures for diseases, learn to build spacehips to escape asteriods etc > > What part for poetry in this? > Not much, but maybe it keeps the scientists and people with real jobs > entertained for a while or at least gets them thinking laterally > > If the asteriod is big enough we can make it our new home, revert back to > carving verse in rock and maybe one day progress to the high technological > level of mimeo > > > ps Hi DS - finally made it on! > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 02:38:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <199703070718.UAA05798@ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I started to write a reply about why does poetry need a _part_ and why not stop legitimation crises behavior phenomena and then I got NO CARRIER so it was all precluded but I remember asking Edwin Honig why we studied Eng. Lit. when I did and he said because it makes us better people. Sometimes I pray for the asteroid. Alan ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 02:50:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: mimeo Maria Damon asked -- << what is the origin of the word "mimeo"? i assume it's somehow related to the concept of mimesis, but any further insights wd be enjoyed by moi. >> Not sure -- but a few thoughts anyhow -- At the little Quaker grade school I attended in So. California in the '60s (Pacific Ackworth Friends School, Temple City), mimeographs were used regularly for ordinary lesson materials (esp. I think in the lower grades, for some reason; perhaps textbooks were more common in the upper grades). I've a notion that part of the typist's skill (w/ manual typewriter) involved even force on the keys (true for carbon copies too, but here I referr to the cut of the mimeo sheet). Seem to recall some variation in shade -- purple, blue. Now as for the word, we find these related words: ~mimeograph / mimeography / mimeographic ~xerox / xerograph (?) / xeroxgraphy / xerographic ~reprographics ~facsimile reproduction also: telegraph also: autograph / polygraph / pictograph (not to mention: paragraph) & also: ~stenotype / stenographer / stenography / stenographic "mimeo" is (of course) a shortened (familiar) form of "mimeograph" -- and sure, as for derivation, it *seems* like a direct Latin thing (from mimesis + graph?). My guess is, perhaps it's modeled after stenography (?) -- quite big circa '30s-'50s et seq. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 02:45:18 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth dear Alan: if I could be with you and jennifer when the asteroid hits, i think i'd be happy. IO've been amazed and wondering about those panties you talk about on FOL. But I think that when the asteroid hits, most people won't be with the people they want to be speaking to, touching, fucking lovingly, or expressing a kindness to. This is the terrible thing about the asteroid that will kill us all and/or our innocent descendandts. What do you think we should do? do we, as avant-garde poets do something about this by putting on our bras and panties or our bvd Jim Palmer briefs or boxers and call our senator and say, look, mother fucker, our planet could be blown up any second by a rogue asteroid, what the fuck are you doing spending your time tinkering on the such and such bomber and so on? ... or do we say to our senator, jennifer is hot in her panties; she touches herself and Peter jennings does it behind the screen for jennifer while no one eis looking, thinkin gabout her, whose thinking about him, peter jennings, who is coming while he talks about the asteroid and the way we fucked the fucking iraquis with our astral weapons? This latter, jennifer, would be a better way to defeat the asteroid. I'm not sure how, but mimeo has something to do with this. I'm not sure how, but how is mimeo connected to the death of iraqui sodiers buried alive in their sad trenches? I read these painfully lovely little books, not desiring to hurt anybody, these US mimeo things, desiring in all thier hearts to be separate from all the fucking shit. peter jennings puts his right hand in Jennifer's panties. Is jennifer happy the moment the asteroid hits? does she think: I'd like to see peter jennings in the nude, I'd like to be with my son and with my daughter in a field talking about what happened today at grade school, feeling the little bones of their shoulders as i try to think of the right motherly words to say? her son cries because the bully said something cruel about his little birthmark. What does it mena to take a chance, to send it off on e-mail without cahnging a thing? How does this e-mail exist only becaude a young iraqui man was buried alive in atrench, while we watched, amazed, how mimeo could had led to this miracle of precission? Peter and Jennifer look at each other an want it. Ket I say you're a better poet than I, jennifer, but I still say, kaboom. Kent > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Alan Jen Sondheim > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > I started to write a reply about why does poetry need a _part_ and why not > stop legitimation crises behavior phenomena and then I got > NO CARRIER > so it was all precluded but I remember asking Edwin Honig why we studied > Eng. Lit. when I did and he said because it makes us better people. > Sometimes I pray for the asteroid. > Alan > > ____________________________________________________________________ > URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html > Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 > CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:56:43 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <1B15BED6B09@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII wait a minute. I was under the impression that the asteroid had already hit the earth, and is now known as the gulf of mexico. if lightning never strikes twice, why would an asteroid? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 05:14:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: mimeo revolution The most prolific producer of mimeo poetry books has got to be Bob Cobbing's Writers Forum, which started in the 1950s and continues to this day, although Bob switched to xeroxing some 15 years ago or so. There are presently well over 600 WF titles, all claimed to be "in print" (Bob will photocopy a book on demand). The magazine AND is associated with the press, and has also been running (sporadically) since the 50s. Write to him at 89a Petherton Road, London N5 2QT, UK. No e-mail I'm afraid. Ken ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 06:47:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Anent Kent Johnson's dramatic query -- << ... So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an eventual, sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the purpose or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or otherwise? I mean, there will be no smell of mimeo ink or memory of it after the big one hits... What makes us talk of evanescent words and letters in the face of potential nothingness? >> The fact that all that now appears before us shall one day vanish -- that is already (on some level) well known. Don't need asteroids to make it so. With 'em or without 'em, the basic story remains. The contemp. myth of asteroids serves to dramatize this (in ways that seem dubious). But no matter. They don't tell us a whole lot we didn't already "know." That's part of the given situation. Poetry -- often, or at best, or in some circumstances (or poss. w/ other such levels of qualification, but finally & withal) -- poetry seeks to take adequate stock of this very situation. It has been said (by the wise, if you'll pardon this) that consciousness itself transcends the vehicles which it employs (such as what we call our "body" -- clearly evanescent, as well as what usually mean by our "mind" -- rather more longstanding [according to many], yet ultimately also destined for annihilation). To certain writers (especially many a poet), such issues grow to become as no-shit serious as are those pesky little asteroidal issues to certain science-writers whose speculations have, as noted, lately adorned the here-today pages of American journalism. >well Kaboom, > >Kent one day (perhaps) -- but hey, *not yet* [as quoth the bloke in The Little Buddha], David ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 07:58:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Clarke book MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ANNOUNCING THE PUBLICATION OF JOHN CLARKE'S IN THE ANALOGY (Books 1-7) Devil's Triangle "How should the hero now speak? Who is after all--a vision?" --Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy "Texas has a lot on its head." --Edward Dorn, "The Degeneration of the Greeks" "Power can stage its own murder to rediscover the glimmer of existence and legitimacy." --Baudrillard, "Precession of the Simulacra" "Happiness is not based on oneself, it does not consist of a small home, of taking and getting. Happiness is taking part in the struggle, where there is no borderline between one's own personal world, and the world in general." --Lee Harvey Oswald, Letter to his brother If we are the seminal fluidity, then we contain already, as Whitman knew, _everything_, "diddling" (Poe) as well as the Good, however forced sometimes the dilation as seen from old heroic organization before the shit rolled like termite droppings into the load-bearing bridges for everyone to cross into Dealy Plaza, Dallas "takes us" November 22, 1963, and not only Oswald and Ruby, but Guy Bannister, Shaw, Ferrie, Bloomfield and Permindex, now Roscoe White and more aliens up from the South, Watergate's Sturgis, Union survivors up North, all those insane in Honolulu since the birth of the Nation/Hail to the Chief shot American Transcendentalism out of the feudal individual and delivered into the hands of Walt's "unprecedented average," thank you Abe, thanks Jack, now it's up to us. ************ _In the Analogy_ is a ravishing translation of the sonnet into an american language. Realizing the poetics he put forward in _From Feathers to Iron_, Clarke here brings to bear the push toward what he called _the world strengthening method_, a way of thinking through the epic impulse after Olson. This work, astonishing in the range of its thinking and reference, is John Clarke's final work, not finishing, though it knows that fact, but finally just stopped in its tracks. Each of the six completed books contains 40 sonnets, and the final book conatins 4. "John Clarke is among those stand-out poets who are guides in what to do in writing that thinks. So--we may come through. . . . A concourse of poems--necessary rests between them--runs into and investigates our ongoing predicamnt. Here we are just plain after-the-modern (to use Olson's clear recoognition and step around the pile-up of postisms) and at work." --Robin Blaser "John Clarke's poems carry off an integration of a whole gamut of moods. . . . They reach out to startling conclusions and skein out to a future from a deep past in a web of many dimensions. . . . [A]s far beyond Olson as Olson was beyond Melville." --Albert Cook, _American Poetry Review_ John Clarke (b. 1933, Winesburg, Ohio, d. 1992) is also the author of _Lots of Doom_ (1973), _Gloucester Translations_ (1974), The End of This Side_ (1979), and _From Feathers to Iron: A Concourse of World Poetics_ (1987). As Director of the Institute of Further Studies (founded 1965) he oversaw saw publication of the ongoing series, _A Curriculum of the Soul_. He taught for 29 years at the State University of New York at Buffalo. From 1989 to 1991 he edited _inent: letter of talk, thinking, and document_. 6" x 9"; 265 pp.; ISBN 1-880631-10-5 (pbk, sewn), $18.00US, $23.00CDN; 1-880631-11-3 (hdbk), $35.00US, $45.00CDN. (Please include $5.00 for postage and handling). In the Analogy is available from shuffaloff books, 260 Plymouth Ave., Buffalo NY 14213 USA or 653 Euclid Ave., Toronto ON M6G 2T6 CAN. (e-mail Michael Boughn at mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca) It's also available through Small Press Distribution, 1814 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley CA 94702, and Talking Leaves Books (talklvbk@fcs-net.com). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:17:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <9703070542.AA17392@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Not to worry, Kent. Asteroids "read," though they don't move their lips and only rarely review. The whole point of the internet is to increase and amplify linguistic activity on a global scale; as long as we keep our bubble of words inflated, nothing can touch us. Check out that seminal work on Bell's Theorem, _Whistling in the Big Dark: Quantum Butterflies and the Development of Human Culture_. Wendy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:38:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <199703070555.QAA16842@extra.ucc.su.OZ.AU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark, I am, on the other hand, going to remain starstruck. Get it? Get it? Gwyn WHOMP ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 08:43:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Anent Kent Johnson's dramatic query -- > ><< ... So my question is this: Given this overwhelming fact of an >eventual, sudden, and irreversible asteroidal extinction, what is the >purpose or worth of poetry, "avant-garde" or otherwise? I mean, there >will be no smell of mimeo ink or memory of it after the big one hits... >What makes us talk of evanescent words and letters in the face of >potential nothingness? >> i don't get why we shd get upset abt this. i mean it's kind of cool to think of everything being different. better this kind of apocalypse than one we do to ourselves (ecological abuse, nuclear etc). some of us are already living in the wake of our own apocalypses. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:52:52 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: the blushing power MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Someone here recommended recently that all we read the current (3/17) issue of THE NATION (Crushing/Publishing). MC Miller's article struck me as a rant, and a mediocre rant at that. He said publishers don't LOVE their books anymore and interested in the money only. He said that a lot of what is published today is "crap." While he says all this he claims to avoid idealizing a past "golden age" in the same way someone might avoid saying something callous by prefacing it with "I don't mean to be callous or anything but . . . " and then making a distinctly callous remark. Toward the end he offers a warning ("a dark development indeed") that if the present situation persists-- that of professors having great difficulty in getting "an arcane study published"-- then tenure rules in the academy may be revised and professors may have to qualify in some other way-- by the merit of their teaching, for instance. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:53:56 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: the blushing power MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Someone here recommended recently that all we read the current (3/17) issue of THE NATION (Crushing/Publishing). MC Miller's article struck me as a rant, and a mediocre rant at that. He said publishers don't LOVE their books anymore and are interested in the money only. He said that a lot of what is published today is "crap." No argument with Miller. While he says all this he claims to avoid idealizing a past "golden age" in the same way someone might avoid saying something callous by prefacing it with "I don't mean to be callous or anything but . . . " and then making a distinctly callous remark. Toward the end he offers a warning ("a dark development indeed") that if the present situation persists-- that of professors having great difficulty in getting "an arcane study published"-- then tenure rules in the academy may be revised and professors may have to qualify in some other way-- by the merit of their teaching, for instance. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:52:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <1B15BED6B09@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Uhhhhmmm.... we're all going to die anyway at some point in the future. But then again, there is cloning. __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:10:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: KENT JOHNSON "asteroid to hit earth" (Mar 6, 11:41pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I can't go on, I must go on. If this happens, the survivors will go back to eating poetry (maybe mimeographed poetry at that!) They sure as hell won't be watching peter jennings. BB > I have a question. Astronomers and people in-the-know writing in > Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and The New Yorker, > have made it clear in the past year and a half that the Earth is > fated to be whomped with an asteroid or comet, wiping out everything- > -and they mean everything-- as we know it. It might happen > suddenly *tonight* or next month or in a further but still totally > unsuspecting future. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 09:24:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Comments: To: Schuchat Simon MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Contrary to popular opinion, Simon, lightning frequently touches the same place not twice, but many times. There have been numerous asteroid impacts: the Tungushka event in Siberia, c.1910; Arizona's "tourist" crater; Yucatan, of course, and many smaller ones all over. Apocalypse fever - catch it! And of course the answer to Kent's question is: so what? just keep writing. I mean, the sun is going to enter the red giant phase in 20 million years anyway, swallowing the innerplanets in its death throe expansion. You might as well as write... ---------- From: Schuchat Simon To: POETICS Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Date: Friday, March 07, 1997 2:59AM wait a minute. I was under the impression that the asteroid had already hit the earth, and is now known as the gulf of mexico. if lightning never strikes twice, why would an asteroid? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:44:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: france readings for you french folks: There will be a bilingual reading of Mon Voyage a New York a chapbook by me in Bordeaux wednesday march 12 at 4:00pm at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. And again with party in Bouliac thursday march 13 chex Maya Andersson & Alexandre Delay 7pm. And again saturday march 15th at noon at the abbey of Royaumont outside of paris. for info call bordeaux france: 5.56 81 27 55 or paris france: 4734-1770 hope to see you there, Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:46:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To this thread I'd like to add a note about my book _Small Press: An Annotated Guide_ (Greenwood Press) which has an essay contextualizing the Mimeo Revolution and innovative small press and also lists and reviews nearly 200 sources related to small press. The focus of the book is to view independent, content-oriented publishing from the perspective of the IDEA of a mimeo-revolution which, publishing history has shown, was not so much tied to a particular type of machine but to a sense of how to make writing circulate. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:01:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Russkies MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Watched a portion of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" last night. Had to break off to read "Ivan Ilyich" for class. My query is this: who is Arseny Tarkovksy, listed in credits for writing poetry for film? Is he related to Andrei? Seems I've seen this name before in some anthology. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:18:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <01IG7SDFRNAE9H39I3@iix.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 20 _million_ years? Hardly, I'd go up an order of magnitude... (I need time to shower/prepare.) Alan On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume wrote: > Contrary to popular opinion, Simon, lightning frequently touches the same > place not twice, but many times. There have been numerous asteroid impacts: > the Tungushka event in Siberia, c.1910; Arizona's "tourist" crater; Yucatan, > of course, and many smaller ones all over. > > Apocalypse fever - catch it! > > And of course the answer to Kent's question is: so what? just keep writing. > I mean, the sun is going to enter the red giant phase in 20 million years > anyway, swallowing the innerplanets in its death throe expansion. You might > as well as write... > ---------- > From: Schuchat Simon > To: POETICS > Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > Date: Friday, March 07, 1997 2:59AM > > > wait a minute. I was under the impression that the asteroid had already > hit the earth, and is now known as the gulf of mexico. > > if lightning never strikes twice, why would an asteroid? > ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:35:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <1B46AF35625@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jennifer'd want to let the race die with grace, flat on its face. Species extinction's up to 104 per day, latest web estimates. Humanity's 1/104 along that turn of mind, never mind the biomass. Scales'd weigh in way in for the other 103. Jennifer'd vote that way. Jennifer'd take her panties off at the very last moment. Slugs. Slugs. ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:36:44 -0800 Reply-To: evadog@bitstream.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oh, men of science! Oh, versifiers, balladmongers given over to that illusory materialism of asteriods. Listen all those who have ears to hear! O for that warning voice, which he who saw Th' Apocalypse heard cry in Heaven aloud, Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be reveng'd on men, "Woe to the inhabitants on Earth!" that now, While time was, our first parents had been warn'd The coming of their secret foe, and scap'd, Haply so scap'd, his mortal snare! For now Satan, now first inflam'd with rage, came down, The tempter, ere th' accuser, of mankind, To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss Of that first battle and his flight to Hell; milton says get it while the gettin is good. mc ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:49:05 -0800 Reply-To: evadog@bitstream.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: the blushing power MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco wrote: > > Someone here recommended recently that all we read the current (3/17) issue of > THE NATION (Crushing/Publishing). > > MC Miller's article struck me as a rant, and a mediocre rant at that. Yes. Very thin analysis, and very puffed up about itself. I just read this too, and I'm happy to learn that monopoly capitalism is bad, thank you very much, and that we readers and writers live in the declension that not even gutenberg can save us from. And for all his mau-mauing about the always already absent goldenage (or is that goldeneggs) he has a lot of sentimental longing looks over his shoulder. but, Maybe he's sniffing the air for that mimeo olfactory sensation. Or, more likely he is keepin a eye peeled for an asteroid. mc ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:37:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Paging Tod Thilleman In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19970307154614.008a8750@pop.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII wd. someone be so good as to backchannel me the e-mail address of Tod Thilleman? all intentions pure. Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 12:00:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: is "hate" speech "free" speech In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Mark Wallace wrote: > Sorry not to let this thread die, but I don't think I'm quite > ready to let go of it yet. > Me neither. Here is the paragraph I'm responding to. > > A Fourteenth Amendment position might point out, therefore, that in a case > where there may be a conflict between the right to free speech and the > right to equal opportunity under the law, both individuals defending their > right to free hate speech and individuals defending their right to equal > opportunity by making attempted prosecutions of hate speech must prove > "compelling reasons" that 1) their activity be protected 2) that the > activity of others can be definitely SHOWN to impact their freedom. Thus, > someone who sues someone else for "hate speech" must prove how they have > been harmed, while someone defending their right to free speech must prove > why their need to denigrate others based on race outweighs the right of > individuals to equal access under the law. Both such instances would then > need to be pursued on the basis of the particularities of their cases, > rather than by generalities about "free speech" or "equal rights." > In theory, I think this is a good theory, but I wonder how it differs from the Common Law (or Talmudic for that matter) tradition that we have inherited. Won't we start noticing similarities in the particularities of individual cases? And what does that lead to but amendments based on sweeping generalities. I'm afraid that we will simply invent the wheel all over again. And now to tie this in with asteroids on collision courses with the earth, what do we as poets and critics do about this eternal return of the present? Should we be architects or chroniclers? I'm not sure either but I'd argue that the latter offers more opportunities for influence in the bazaar of ideas. Steven __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 13:27:01 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: the blushing power daniel, i mentioned the issue. yes i do think that a memoir by john gotti's daughter, for instance, ghost written or otherwise, is not what i would call "high culture." in other words, it's crap. you like crap? burt ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 13:51:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: the blushing power In-Reply-To: <009B0E83.B40D0732.64@admin.njit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I missed the early part of this thread: what was the question On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT wrote: > daniel, > > i mentioned the issue. yes i do think that a memoir by john gotti's > daughter, for instance, ghost written or otherwise, is not what i would > call "high culture." in other words, it's crap. you like crap? > > burt > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:55:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks, asteroidals, for some much-needed humor . . . but seriously folks, is anyone interested in this and other doomsday scenarios as examples of "millenium fever"? -- strange cults tend to gather around the fin de siecle (not to mention that we're all, anyway, writing under a death sentence, as several have mentioned) But I thought the Mayans had given us until December, 2012. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:14:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: of purely local historic interest / kill me with an asteroid MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -- [First Appearance of Jennifer in Internet Text] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer They surfaced again in 1688. _____________________________________________________________________ [Melded First Appearances of Jennifer in Files dd / ee Internet Text] Jennifer walked to the window, thought albatross around her neck. Her sails unfurled like a curly girl. I'm Jennifer, she said. I'm Jennifer and I'm still Jennifer, she said. Now I'm still Jennifer and I'm Jennifer now and still Jennifer. She somersaulted back into the malted, licked herself over and Jennifer, she said. And I'm Jennifer, she said, and went to bed. Jennifer had a thought. Honey had a thought. Pip had a thought. Jennifer sat up and stood down. She raised her frock and cut her panties a table. "I will make you pile on the screen," said Jennifer (and panties). There's a lighthouse and my eyes, said Jennifer, sitting up and lying down. She cycled tremendously! Whirr! "You are looking at my shit!" cried! Jennifer! Jennifer-I-Jennifer-Jennifer is a silicon chip embedded in Clara's brain. Jennifer is an installation of Alan! I Jennifer-Jennifer is Clara's brain. You are Delirious-Jennifer delirious Jennifer, you won't let me go. Kill me, kill me, delirious Jennifer. Put a bullet in my head, do it fast and do it quick. Get rid of me, delirious Jennifer. Are Jennifer you delirious Jennifer? If I can't, I won't and can't and won't. Can't think another thought worthwhile, delirious Jennifer, if I can't I can't! Motherfather, delirious Jennifer, then kill me! I be the woman, I piss milk, wet Jenni- fer! You be the killer, kill my children! Thud, wet! Delirious Jennifer, thud thud! Kill me, I can't think delirious! Jennifer! Thud! Thud! Thud! ThE nEw MaChInE gets cold. Jennifer moves towards the center where every- thing evens out and there are new microbes. Thud! Thud! __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 10:19:33 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Reed Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Re Mayans and Doomsday: THe push here is two fold: 1) Mayan notion of time being cyclic, and the expectations that extinction and rebirth is natural and fated. Hence Aztecs represent themselves as legitimate successors to the Toltecs, as opposed to conquerors of them. The problem arises when the Spanish arrive and Cortes goes on a spree. In a real sense there is a level of indecision based on religous belief about 'This is fated'. But for us I think what is more interesting is the argument that the Mayans were defeated by language: it was their inability to interpret language laterally that leads to their downfall (or so Todorov would argue) ipso facto: Indians and Spaniards practice communication differently. The Indians devote a great deal of their time to the interpretation of messages, and this interpretation takes elaborate forms, which derive from various kinds of divination. Interpretation is systemnatic (ie dividing time into a thirteen week calendar) and contextual (which takes the form of omens) Every event is interpreted as the herald of another event (Which implies that nothing in this world ocurrs randomly). The Aztecs are convinced that all such divinations come true and only very rarely resist the fate declared to them. In Mayan the word fate also signifies 'prohecy' or 'law'. The world is from the start posited as overdetermined, everything is forseeable hence everything is forseen, Secondly the society is highly heirarchical and regulated: the individual exists for the group, not themselves. The Spanish on the otherhand practice a different kind of communication: If you say there exist two major kinds of communication: one between person and person, the other between person and the world, the Mayans and Aztes practised the latter and the Spanish the former. Communciation of couse is not limited to that between individual and individual, it also encompasses that between individual and the woder social group, the natural world and the religious universe. When a messanger comes to Montezuma and tells him what he has seen (Spanish ships and horses) he is thrown into prison. The magicians try to have prophetic dreamns to interpret the supernatural omens. So when the information about the Spanish reaches Montezuma his interpretation of it is made in the context of communication with the world, not of that with other individuals. It is this particular way of practicing communucation (neglectinmg the human dimsension, privaliging contact with the world) which is responsible for the Indians distorted image of the Spanish during the first encounters, and notable for the paralyzing belief that the Spanish are gods. Perhaps more to come on the production of discourse and symbols by the Mayans ie discourse as symbols, as symbolic - each word is a signifier rather than the signified etc >Thanks, asteroidals, for some much-needed humor . . . > >but seriously folks, is anyone interested in this and other doomsday >scenarios as examples of "millenium fever"? -- strange cults tend to >gather around the fin de siecle (not to mention that we're all, anyway, >writing under a death sentence, as several have mentioned) > >But I thought the Mayans had given us until December, 2012. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 10:25:46 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: is "hate" speech "free" speech Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have kept quiet on this thread (I think) but now have both 'a solution' and an 'observation' Solution: (having watched Mr Smith Goes to Washington recently) all poets who feel strongly about anything should in a poetic filibustering hereby drowning out opposing voices and diminishing the need for violence. Observation: In yet another instance of New Zealand political life imitates poetics mailing list this week our deputy prime minister 'assaulted' another politician (in parliament but outside working hours) - who said stuff he didn't like. The politician assaulted was one all thinking New ZEalanders would have (as with some peoples attitudes to Dorn) have liked to punch at some if not many times over the last few years. He is an racist, sexist, homophobic, classist etc etc asshole. HOWEVER the deputy PM who puched him is himself a lying, scheming, manipulative drunk. Curiously the debacle was witnessed by the leader of our more 'old school left wing' (what else can i call it) party. The question here arises - and i guess this is directed more at punchers than anti-punchers - how do we react when someone long over due a good pop in the kisser has it administered by someone equally scarey. (To tie hitler into it again - would we cheer if he were punched by Mussolini?) One thinks couldn't have happened to a better person - but unfortunately someone - probably both is gonna get a whole lotta mileage out of it. ANyway how this relates to poetics i am not sure - as these threads have a tendency to wander - i hope i have not wandered to far. Guess i really wanted to check whether our deputy PM was on the list & as i was concerned this discussion may have had a negative influence on him. Winston are you out there? Dan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 17:20:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Subject: Re: Russkies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume wrote: > > Watched a portion of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" last night. Had to break off to > read "Ivan Ilyich" for class. My query is this: who is Arseny Tarkovksy, > listed in credits for writing poetry for film? Is he related to Andrei? > Seems I've seen this name before in some anthology. > > Patrick Pritchett Patrick - In response to your question, Arseny Tarkovsky, (b. 1905), the poet, was Andrey Tarkovsky's father. Andrey frequently quoted his father's poetry in his films. If you are interested in knowing more about the filmmaker and/or his father the poet get ahold of the book, Sculpting In Time: The Great Russian Filmmaker Discusses His Art, translated from Russian by Kitty Hunter-Blair, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1987, ISBN 0-292-77624-1. If you're in Buffalo get this at Talking Leaves. That's where I got my copy. Caryll Balzano PS - Check out all Andrey's films. He is brilliant. I'd love to have a discussion by e-mail about his work and what you think of it. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 18:32:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Mimeo Miss, Ms., Misses Just struck me this moring that the List had missed some important staple bound - either mimeo and/or off-set presses which wd add 'grain' to the Granary exhibit. Shameless Hussy was the imprint of Alta's infamous Berkely based imprint. Late in the sixties, I suspect she started with a mimeograph machine and then went "kind of" multilith. The books were invariably done on the cheapest stock imaginable with varying and fading inks. All of which corresponded to the aesthetic of a mother working out of a kitchen amongst kids and other obligations, no support from no where - the books were never more than 75 cents. Her best title "No visible means of support" was a lovely ironic play on Spicer's line. Her most famous book was "For Colored Girls..." by Ntozake Shange - which went Broadway ballistic. The Women's Press Collective was an equally significant player among the staple-bound. (In fact I think 'staple bound' is probably the common denominator of what's been discussed - rather than just mimeo. I think it's also important to see the sixties as something that really begins - as a national or global phenomenon -- in 1964 and ends about 1975.) Anyway, in addition to Alta, the WPC was the local, if not national ground breaker in terms of new feminist writing. The book EDWARD THE DYKE by Judy Grahn - at least in my opinion - was not only good, but a crucially provocative text. Teachers & Writers Collaborative: Back in the very early days circa 1965 - under the initial directorship of Herb Kohl - TW did some of the first works of Victor Cruz, David Henderson and a bunch of other then young writers working in the NY School System. Stapled and printed, either in mimeo or off-set (my copies have since disappeared) these little black ink on cheap white paper phamplet editions, especially the Henderson and the Cruz, were urban, edgy, and very popular, striking a chord, or fire among the young. Distributed primarily in the schools, they were no doubt in part responsible for initiating Victor Cruz's early career. When he was about 19, SNAPS (1968, Random House) sold over 10,000 copies in cloth, going thru several editions. I can't imagine an exhibit of "sixties" spirited publications without these books. My own mag "Shocks" comes at the early edge of the seventies and was definitely pushed forward by the political etc. smarts of these three different presses. (I welcome corrections or additions to any of this info!) Cheers, Stephen Vincent ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 15:48:30 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" There seem to be some strange notions afloat. Here's a few correctives (I haven't read the Todorov, so I don't know quite who I'm correcting): 1. Mayans are not Aztecs. Which Mayan defeat are you talking about? The abandonment of the great centers that tourists like me enjoy exploring? That happened several centuries before the Aztecs arrived a thousand difficult miles further north, to say nothing of the Spanish. Do you mean the 16th century defeat of the highland Maya by the Spanish, which seems to have been accomplished more by way of the agency of strategic alliances and European diseases, the Quiche being far more ready to fight than Moctezuma had been? Do you mean the defeat of the last of the post-classic Maya kingdoms in 1698? Do you mean the defeat by the Mexicans of the independent Maya state that existed in the Yucatan for much of the latter half of the 19th Century and the first part of the 20th? What about all those Mayans who still live in their original homelands and who recently have managed to force the Mexican and Guatemalan governments to the bargaining table? 2. We have little idea how Mayans and Aztecs communicated. What survives from that time are government proclamations on stone monuments, creation myths, Nahua court poetry, and litle else. Except for the latter these documents do tend to be communications between "persons and the world," but so are the inscriptions on the Lincoln Memorial and a billboard ad for Miller Light. 3. "Every event is interpreted as the herald of another event (Which implies that nothing in this world occurs randomly)" could also be said of medieval Christianity, which the early Renaissance Spaniards who invaded Mexico had not yet, and never really, succeeded in escaping. The end of the story of humankind as both individuals and as a whole was well-known and largely agreed-upon. 4. After the Aztecs got rid of Moctezuma they got rid of the Spanish. When the latter came back with greater force the Aztecs resisted heroically, despite their language deficits, and were ultimately defeated by smallpox, not syntax. Moctezuma hesitated, many others did not. Sometimes those of us whose primary interest is language tend to inflate its importance, coincidentally inflating our own in the process. At 10:19 AM 3/8/97 +1300, you wrote: >Re Mayans and Doomsday: > >THe push here is two fold: 1) Mayan notion of time being cyclic, and the >expectations that extinction and rebirth is natural and fated. Hence Aztecs >represent themselves as legitimate successors to the Toltecs, as opposed to >conquerors of them. The problem arises when the Spanish arrive and Cortes >goes on a spree. In a real sense there is a level of indecision based on >religous belief about 'This is fated'. > >But for us I think what is more interesting is the argument that the Mayans >were defeated by language: it was their inability to interpret language >laterally that leads to their downfall (or so Todorov would argue) > >ipso facto: Indians and Spaniards practice communication differently. The >Indians devote a great deal of their time to the interpretation of >messages, and this interpretation takes elaborate forms, which derive from >various kinds of divination. Interpretation is systemnatic (ie dividing >time into a thirteen week calendar) and contextual (which takes the form of >omens) Every event is interpreted as the herald of another event (Which >implies that nothing in this world ocurrs randomly). The Aztecs are >convinced that all such divinations come true and only very rarely resist >the fate declared to them. In Mayan the word fate also signifies 'prohecy' >or 'law'. > >The world is from the start posited as overdetermined, everything is >forseeable hence everything is forseen, Secondly the society is highly >heirarchical and regulated: the individual exists for the group, not >themselves. > >The Spanish on the otherhand practice a different kind of communication: If >you say there exist two major kinds of communication: one between person >and person, the other between person and the world, the Mayans and Aztes >practised the latter and the Spanish the former. > >Communciation of couse is not limited to that between individual and >individual, it also encompasses that between individual and the woder >social group, the natural world and the religious universe. > >When a messanger comes to Montezuma and tells him what he has seen >(Spanish ships and horses) he is thrown into prison. The magicians try to >have prophetic dreamns to interpret the supernatural omens. So when the >information about the Spanish reaches Montezuma his interpretation of it is >made in the context of communication with the world, not of that with other >individuals. > >It is this particular way of practicing communucation (neglectinmg the >human dimsension, privaliging contact with the world) which is responsible >for the Indians distorted image of the Spanish during the first encounters, >and notable for the paralyzing belief that the Spanish are gods. > >Perhaps more to come on the production of discourse and symbols by the >Mayans ie discourse as symbols, as symbolic - each word is a signifier >rather than the signified etc > >>Thanks, asteroidals, for some much-needed humor . . . >> >>but seriously folks, is anyone interested in this and other doomsday >>scenarios as examples of "millenium fever"? -- strange cults tend to >>gather around the fin de siecle (not to mention that we're all, anyway, >>writing under a death sentence, as several have mentioned) >> >>But I thought the Mayans had given us until December, 2012. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 12:59:28 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Reed Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" re Mayans And Doomsday Plus This! Previous transmission concerned communication: what is peculiar about this for the Mayans and Aztecs is that there was an absence of writing. Stylised drawings, the pictograms used among the Aztecs are not a lesser degree of writing: they note the experience, not the langauge (one reason why Charles Olson was so attracted to Mayan civilisation in terms of its resemblance to Projective Verse - but that is another story). The absence of writing is revelatory of symbolic behaviour in general, and at the same time, the capacity to understand the 'other' appears to be illustrated by another fact. The three great AmerIndian civilisations encountered by the Spanish are not located on the same evoution of writing. Then Incas are the most unfamiliar with writing, possessing mnemotechnical use of braided cords; the Aztecs have pictograms and the Mayas have pictograms with rudiments of phonetic writing. This corresponds directly to the level of belief that the Spanish are Gods. The Incas firmly beieve in this divine nature, the Aztecs do so only during initial exposure, and the Mayans raise the question and answer it determining that the Spanish are not gods, but rather 'strangers' or 'bearded ones' or 'powerful ones'. What is important that as writing cannot assume the role of memory support, speech must do so - through ritual discourse (bardic activity). The essential feature of these discourses then, is that they come from the past - both in production and interpretation. In to this past -oriented , tradition dominated world erupts the conquest : an absolutely unpredictable event, surprising and unique, even bringing with it another conception of time (linear as opposed to cyclical). The collsion between a ritual world and a unique event results in Montezuma's incapacity to react. Masters of ritual discourse the Indians are inadequatte in a siuation requiring improvisation, and this is precisely the siuation of their conquest. Their verbal experience favors paradigm over syntagm, code over context, conformity to order over effacicy of the moment, tha past over the present. So what lesson for poetics and the threat of an asteriod (ie an unpredicatble, unique event)? Well, you will say, but the asteriod is predictable, trackable, and not unique as it has happened before. Which is precisely the point. Language denotes not only abiity to communciate and style, but also predicates a certain genus, or type of interaction with the world and other people. The usefulness of poetics - of investigation into language, is that it is not simply investigation into langauge, but also investigation into relationships (with people, world, the future and the past) and any new way of interpreting or dealing with these future events has to have a basis in the way we understand and deal with the present. That is why we write poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 19:18:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: Mimeo Miss, Ms., Misses In-Reply-To: <970307183224_1516255836@emout05.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let's never forget Yugen or Birth, both of which, at least for me, exerted an exhaustive influence. The latter (Tuli Kupferberg) published early childhood diaries of Anais Nin, the first I'd heard of her. Alan ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Images: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ Telephone 718-857-3671 CuSeeMe: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, Being On Line, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 13:28:33 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Brief Commects in () below with the NB that I was trying to make a point about lanaguage not give a history lecture. >1. Mayans are not Aztecs. Which Mayan defeat are you talking about? (Defeat of Aztecs after invasion by Cortes who first landed in 1519) >2. We have little idea how Mayans and Aztecs communicated. What survives >from that time are government proclamations on stone monuments, creation >myths, Nahua court poetry, and litle else. Except for the latter these >documents do tend to be communications between "persons and the world," but >so are the inscriptions on the Lincoln Memorial and a billboard ad for >Miller Light. (see comments in previous letter - three key types of langaue - Aztec Symbolic drawing (pictograms), Mayan Phonetic writing and Incas braided cords ) >3. "Every event is interpreted as the herald of another event (Which >implies that nothing in this world occurs randomly)" could also be said of >medieval Christianity, which the early Renaissance Spaniards who invaded >Mexico had not yet, and never really, succeeded in escaping. The end of the >story of humankind as both individuals and as a whole was well-known and >largely agreed-upon. Agreed! >4. After the Aztecs got rid of Moctezuma they got rid of the Spanish. When >the latter came back with greater force the Aztecs resisted heroically, >despite their language deficits, and were ultimately defeated by smallpox, >not syntax. Moctezuma hesitated, many others did not. (Certaintly there a number of reasons for defeat - mainly due to Spanish use of horses, tactics, superior weaponry etc. and of course the long term imapct of intriduction of small pox. The point is about difference in interpretation of language rather than the rise and fall of civilisations) >Sometimes those of us whose primary interest is language tend to inflate its >importance, coincidentally inflating our own in the process. ( ouch - Sometimes those of us whose primary interest is self importance tend to inflate it coincidentally by commenting on others' use of langauge.) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:57:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In medieval christianity every event, even the most intimate, replicates and repeats another event, and will until the end of time, in a world designed as a set of symbols revealing god's truth. An intensely symbolic world. Cortez invades Mexico less than 50 years after moveable type is introduced to the european world. Before that, book production was rather Mayan (remember that the jesuits burned untold numbers of codices). The writing system, which was a lot more than rudimentarily phonetic, was, we think, practiced only by a class of scribes and aristocrats. Of course, the same had always been true in Europe--in both places the vast majority depended on oral transmission and memory systems--and still was in 1519. European churches were vast books of symbols for the illiterate. As late as 1640 there were only 14 printing presses, each capable of producing one sheet at a time, in all of England. If language explains Moctezuma's undoing it better explain Cauhatemoc's (and Tupac's) resistance. If pictograms are related in this easy way to belief systems and ability to react to the unexpected are the Chinese (were they ever) like the Mayans and Aztecs? Some of the Spaniards were armed with an alphabet, but all of them were armed with microorganisms, guns, horses, attack dogs, sailing ships and steel. Europeans and Aztecs/Mayans/Incas were clearly very different, but perhaps not so much in the ways portrayed. Large historical interpretations usually benifit from deep historical foundations. At 12:59 PM 3/8/97 +1300, you wrote: >re Mayans And Doomsday > >Plus This! >Previous transmission concerned communication: what is peculiar about this >for the Mayans and Aztecs is that there was an absence of writing. Stylised >drawings, the pictograms used among the Aztecs are not a lesser degree of >writing: they note the experience, not the langauge (one reason why Charles >Olson was so attracted to Mayan civilisation in terms of its resemblance to >Projective Verse - but that is another story). > >The absence of writing is revelatory of symbolic behaviour in general, and >at the same time, the capacity to understand the 'other' appears to be >illustrated by another fact. The three great AmerIndian civilisations >encountered by the Spanish are not located on the same evoution of writing. >Then Incas are the most unfamiliar with writing, possessing mnemotechnical >use of braided cords; the Aztecs have pictograms and the Mayas have >pictograms with rudiments of phonetic writing. This corresponds directly to >the level of belief that the Spanish are Gods. The Incas firmly beieve in >this divine nature, the Aztecs do so only during initial exposure, and the >Mayans raise the question and answer it determining that the Spanish are >not gods, but rather 'strangers' or 'bearded ones' or 'powerful ones'. > >What is important that as writing cannot assume the role of memory support, >speech must do so - through ritual discourse (bardic activity). The >essential feature of these discourses then, is that they come from the past >- both in production and interpretation. In to this past -oriented , >tradition dominated world erupts the conquest : an absolutely unpredictable >event, surprising and unique, even bringing with it another conception of >time (linear as opposed to cyclical). > >The collsion between a ritual world and a unique event results in >Montezuma's incapacity to react. Masters of ritual discourse the Indians >are inadequatte in a siuation requiring improvisation, and this is >precisely the siuation of their conquest. Their verbal experience favors >paradigm over syntagm, code over context, conformity to order over effacicy >of the moment, tha past over the present. > >So what lesson for poetics and the threat of an asteriod (ie an >unpredicatble, unique event)? Well, you will say, but the asteriod is >predictable, trackable, and not unique as it has happened before. Which is >precisely the point. Language denotes not only abiity to communciate and >style, but also predicates a certain genus, or type of interaction with the >world and other people. The usefulness of poetics - of investigation into >language, is that it is not simply investigation into langauge, but also >investigation into relationships (with people, world, the future and the >past) and any new way of interpreting or dealing with these future events >has to have a basis in the way we understand and deal with the present. >That is why we write poetry. > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 17:04:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sometimes those of us whose primary interest is language tend to inflate its >importance, coincidentally inflating our own in the process. ( ouch - Sometimes those of us whose primary interest is self importance tend to inflate it coincidentally by commenting on others' use of langauge.) NB I use "us" advisedly--it's a trap I've been known to fall into myself. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 09:16:41 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: <199703080057.QAA05594@armenia.it.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Mark Weiss wrote: > If pictograms are related in this easy way to belief systems and ability to > react to the unexpected are the Chinese (were they ever) like the Mayans and > Aztecs? short answer is that the Chinese writing system, despite what Ezra Pound thought, is not pictographic. the characters are put together from elements that are variously phonetic, symbolic, mimetic, and which are recombined, recurrent, etc. Although learning to read Chinese is generally conceived of as learning each word separately,in fact that isn't the case, e.g., the most common example is the character for a kind of fish that consists of the fish radical (recurring character component) and a phonetic that sounds like the oral name of this fish. it is not alphabetic, of course, but in some senses it is syllabic in construction. (the Korean writing system is fully phonetic but it constructs words into identically sized boxes, so that they look like characters) there is a modern Chinese artist (I forget the name) who creates these wonderful "tianshu" (heavenly or abstruse books) that consist of line after line of nonexistent characters, all of which could be real characters, since they are composed out of the regular character elements: these works are like inventories of all the words that do not yet exist in written Chinese. meanwhile, that asteroid must be getting closer. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 17:40:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks for the elucidation. Much the same is true of Mayan writing, as we've learned in the last few decades. Olson could not have known this. So the question, as a test of a theory, still stands. At 09:16 AM 3/8/97 +0800, you wrote: >On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Mark Weiss wrote: > >> If pictograms are related in this easy way to belief systems and ability to >> react to the unexpected are the Chinese (were they ever) like the Mayans and >> Aztecs? > > >short answer is that the Chinese writing system, despite what Ezra Pound >thought, is not pictographic. the characters are put together from >elements that are variously phonetic, symbolic, mimetic, and which are >recombined, recurrent, etc. Although learning to read Chinese is >generally conceived of as learning each word separately,in fact that >isn't the case, e.g., the most common example is the character for a kind >of fish that consists of the fish radical (recurring character component) >and a phonetic that sounds like the oral name of this fish. it is not >alphabetic, of course, but in some senses it is syllabic in >construction. (the Korean writing system is fully phonetic but it >constructs words into identically sized boxes, so that they look like >characters) there is a modern Chinese artist (I forget the name) who >creates these wonderful "tianshu" (heavenly or abstruse books) that >consist of line after line of nonexistent characters, all of which could >be real characters, since they are composed out of the regular character >elements: these works are like inventories of all the words that do >not yet exist in written Chinese. > >meanwhile, that asteroid must be getting closer. > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 19:59:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > there is a modern Chinese artist (I forget the name) who >creates these wonderful "tianshu" (heavenly or abstruse books) that >consist of line after line of nonexistent characters, all of which could >be real characters, since they are composed out of the regular character >elements: these works are like inventories of all the words that do >not yet exist in written Chinese. Is this Xu Bing? I ask only because this is the only Chinese "book" artist I know, but I don't know much about his work, would love to know more. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 19:48:30 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Marinetti, Musica Futurista, and more Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anomalous Records here in Seattle just got several copies of a double CD re-issue of the Cramps LPs Musica Futurista, mentioned earlier in the week by Jerry Rothenberg as a source for recordings of Marinetti. The price was about US$29. They'll also be getting a new Heidseck book/CD set and new Henri Chopin CDs sometime later this month. Anomalous Records 1402 E. Pike St., Seattle, WA 98122-4148, USA telephone: (206) 328-9339 fax: (206) 328-9408 e-mail: www: Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 16:17:14 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing Daniel Bouchard et alia, Now that Saturday has rolled around I have a moment to give a more to the point response to your comments suggesting your disappointment with the issue of The Nation dated 3/17/97, whose cover story is "The Crushing Power of Big Publishing." While I accept your criticism of the tendentious tone of the cover article, I do not agree that what the article contains has all been said before. I'd like to think that I more or less keep up with this subject; and I learned a few things from the article about how and why news does and does not get reported, about the esthetics of that reportage and about its ethics as well, about how and why books of all stripes are or are not nowadays getting published or if they are getting published, and are worthy, why they may hardly see the light of day, and so on. I hasten to point out, moreover, that the issue contains not one article on this subject, but six informed articles (not including a column called "Media Matters," which I will choose to count as a seventh relevant piece). Did you note these other articles before you, in my regard, and with all due respect for what I believe, based on your past commentary on this list, is your integrity and acuity, glibly trashed a very important news event? I only hope that others on this list will still feel inclined to check out the issue. I thought to mention it here especially because so many of us are involved in, and believe in, small press publishing, and in bookstores, and in literature. Best wishes, Burt Kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 13:48:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: Chinese character Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This does very much sound like Xu Bing & his "A Book From The Sky" a several volume masterwork. Each of the characters in his imaginary alphabet was carved in wood and hand printed in China where Xu Bing lived until 1990. The design of the work is modeled after traditional Chinese scholarly publishing. About a hundered copies were produced. The *entire edition* was shown as one piece at the Elvehjem Museum of Art (Univ of Wisc-Madison) several years ago. They made a useful catalog which is probably still available at about $10. The catalog is called "Three Installations by Xu Bing" (Elvehjem Museum of Art, 800 University Ave., Madison WI 53706. Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 19:59:05 -0700 From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth > there is a modern Chinese artist (I forget the name) who >creates these wonderful "tianshu" (heavenly or abstruse books) that >consist of line after line of nonexistent characters, all of which could >be real characters, since they are composed out of the regular character >elements: these works are like inventories of all the words that do >not yet exist in written Chinese. Is this Xu Bing? I ask only because this is the only Chinese "book" artist I know, but I don't know much about his work, would love to know more. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 10:52:12 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Offset OINK! In-Reply-To: <199703072348.PAA04709@germany.it.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Listees: OINK! Magazine, 1971-1985, was an offset magazine. Issues 5-11 were done in our own dining room on an AB Dick Offset table model that rattled the whole place when it worked. Then we'd use a coffee mug to make the middle fold and have a stapling party. It (the mag.) was the precursor to NEW AMERICAN WRITING, which still publishes many of the same people. Maxine Chernoff ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 08:03:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eliza McGrand- CVA Guest Subject: is silence golden? no messages for two days -- is server down (mine, poetics)? is this silence better than our usual loud chatter? e ps what do people think about the message on umass amherst occupation -- is it for real? is it a necessary stand? e ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 23:03:10 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Dan in La Paz (fwd) Comments: To: kanakamaoli allies list Comments: cc: poetics , mot-l MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I thought you'd like to know about this. Hurts my heart. gab. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 23:43:30 +0100 From: Joy Moore The folowing is a forwarded message from Dan Moriarity, who is one of our friends from undergraduate and is now doing missionary work in La Paz, Bolivia. >24 February 1997, La Paz, Bolivia > >Hello family and friends, >I'm writing to you all again to tell you about some recent >developments here in La Paz. I mentioned in my last big e=mail that I >was a little worried about an impending hunger strike. Well, it has >started. >In San Pedro, the men's prison where I work, and several other >prisons in Bolivia, the prisoners have begun an indefinite "huelga de >hambre." They have certain demands, and they plan on continuing the >strike as long as it takes to get those demands met. During this >strike they will only drink water and perhaps mate de coca (coca >tea). They will be allowed to chew coca leaves, which Bolivians >commonly do to kill hunger pain. Eight of the prisoners in San Pedro >have begun a "huelga dura" (hard strike) in which they will not even >chew coca or drink tea. They have actually sewn their mouths shut >with surgical needles and thread, leaving just enough space to sip >water. >The demands are simple and reasonable. In fact, ironically so. The >main thing many of the prisoners want is to be judged. Retardation >of justice is a huge problem in Bolivia. Many of the accused have >been in prison for years without trials or sentences (the eight >inmates in the "huelga dura" have been in for over six years without >trials under "ley 1008," the aggresive Bolivian anti-narcotics law). >A law was passed a while back saying that if prisoners with serious >charges were not tried within a year, they must be given provisional >freedom until tried and judged. Well, the year is now up, and judges >in many cases have simply refused to apply the law. The prisoners are >demanding that the law be executed. Their second big demand is that >parole be reinstated for those with serious sentences. There are >conflicting policies currently on the books, as parole is still >guaranteed by one law, but another proposal has been passed by >certain bodies aboloshing it. It is not clear whether the proposal >is legal, but it is clear that parole is not being granted. Both of >these situations are especially urgent when one considers that San >Pedro, not atypical of Bolivian prisons, was built for 300 prisoners >and currently houses 1290, not counting the children who often stay >there with their fathers. >The hunger strike is a passive/pacifistic action. However, there were >ugly incidents last night as the prisoners prepared to begin. A >secret police agent was found posing as a prisoner and trying to turn >other prisoners against the strike, and he was beaten up by cell- >block delegates. Police then gassed the prison (tear gas is common >and terrible enough in the streets of Bolivia, but in a prison there >is nowhere to run to escape it). There are now over a hundred riot >police inside the prison. Negotiations have been going on all day. >The strikers have closed themselves into the chapel. Today as I stood >with a group of women (family-members of inmates) across the street >from San Pedro, the police >came and tried to send the women away. They were threatening and >insulting (I heard one offer tell a woman with one eye bandaged >over that she needed to see the situation "with both eyes"), but I >ran and got some press people who were down the street, and they came >with camaras and scared the police away. >I was inside San Pedro yesterday (before any of the ugliness began). I >went to mass there, and then met with >some of the inmates with whom I work (in theology classes and a Base >Christian Community). The men were prepared for the worst. They >spoke of a strike "with all the consequences." Last month, when I >first heard talk of a strike, a friend said it would be a "Bobby >Sands-type" strike, refering to the IRA prisoner who died in a >British jail during a hunger strike for prison reforms. >Needless to say, it was difficult to say good-bye to good >friends as I left the prison yesterday, and hurt to watch the >gate close behind me. >Several situations make this a tough fight for the prisoners. Mainly, >the MRTA hostage situation in Lima, Peru. Many of the prisoners to >whom the provisional liberty law should apply are political >prisoners, >charged with terrorism-related crimes. There are even MRTA prisoners >here in La Paz. All the groups tend to be lumped together and viewed >in the same light as the MRTA, and so no judge or politician is >looking to do them any favors while the hostage crisis continues. >Also, it is an election year, which makes public perception and >misperception, especially regarding terrorism, more important than >true justice. I got some insight into the attitudes of the >authorities when the judge in charge of the case of one group of >political prisoners said that the prisoners themselves were as >responsible as anyone for the postponement of their trial because >they had requested an investigation into their tortures! So, it looks >like a long, hard struggle has begun. >I promised my friends in San Pedro that I would write this message, >so that all of you, in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, >would know about their strike and their cry for justice. They are >not demanding absolution, nor even new laws. Only that the laws >already in place to protect their basic rights be excercised. They >would very much appreciate your solidarity, in whatever form. >Personally, I have decided that, as long as the strike continues, I >will fast, "Ramadan style." That is, I will only eat after the sun >goes down. For those of you who observe Lent, you might want to >consider this or something similar as a Lenten observance and a way >to be in communion with the prisoners of the Bolivian penal system. >You internet masters may look for ways to pressure the Bolivian >Government from wherever you are. But most of all, the prisoners >would like to know that they are in your thoughts and prayers. Prison >is a lonely place, but shut into a room without visits or food, it >must be overwhelmingly so. For myself and for them, I thank you. >Viva La Huelga! >Peace and Justice, >Dan > >Daniel J. Moriarty >MMAF Bolivia > >ps For any of you who might read this and worry about me, please >don't. I will not be entering the prison while things are so tense. I >am convinced that the kind of moral/spiritual support I am asking of >all of you is the best way that I can help right now, and I do not >wish to jeopardize my work in the prisons by getting in any trouble >with the police. And as for those of you (MOM) who worry about skinny >little Dan deciding to fast, well, the sun has just gone down on day >one of the strike, and I am about to prepare myself a heaping batch >of Spaggetti Carbonara. The main objective here is mindfulness and >solidarity, not self-abuse. >------------------------------------------ >Daniel Moriarty > >Telefono: - Fax: >E-mail: daniel@djmo.bo > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 22:56:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: mimeo revolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It comes from mimeograph, which according to Websters is a trademark. Mimeo probably comes from mimesis, to imitate or mimic, and graph is writing. Also known as a ditto machine, be glad you don't have to use one on a regular basis: they're messy, the paper is wet, the ink bleeds and smudges, the ditto masters exude blue dust, and they break down constantly. Pre-photocopier office technology at its finest. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 09:58:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: is silence golden? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Sun, 9 Mar 1997 08:03:57, Eliza McGrand asks: > is silence golden? good question! Also: is e-chat silvern? > no messages for two days -- is server down (mine, poetics)? is this > silence better than our usual loud chatter? same deal here -- but now seems the wheels are rollin' again -- seven msgs. lately circulated -- incidentally, though I usually get Poetics in digest form, I find that if I care to go no-digest for a time, presto! the listserv sends me an immediate part-digest of what's appeared since the last digest. Very convenient. But trying that yesterday & even earlier today, nada! nuthin'! -- so I'd say, yep, the Buffalo had wandered to another pasture. Now guess it's back in the proper plot. Thanks, Burt K., for the further notes re: the current Nation -- will check it out. Just now reading something or other in The New Yorker, the Nation was characteized as a "neoliberal" publication (in contrast to some other mentioned as "neoconservative") -- maybe I've been living in the forest or something, but don't recall seeing this "neoliberal" as a modifier much anywhere before. Perhaps they merely wanted a nice parallelism w/ the long-ballyhooed neocon adjectival. d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} | "...honk if you believe in geese" | \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 09:17:43 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: call for papers redux In-Reply-To: <199703091457.JAA27328@wizard.wizard.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey guyzies, deadline has been pushed back to april 1. i'm getting anxious; not too much cross-cultural stuff's been passing thru my mailbox; please share and circulate to other lists (postcolonial, american studies, cultural studies, af-am, etc)!!! CALL FOR PAPERS Conference: Cross-Cultural Poetics Dates: October 16-19, 1997 Place: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Campus Keynote Speakers: Kamau Brathwaite, Diane Glancy, Dennis Tedlock, Kirin Narayan, David Antin Despite artificial disciplinary barriers, ethnographers & poets have in recent years come to realize how similar their projects are. Cross-Cultural Poetics seeks to address the increasingly untenable boundaries between poetic & ethnographic practices. The conference will focus on the role of poetry in the on-going discourses of multiculturalism, ethnography, and literary theory and practice. While recent years have seen a debate in "how culture is written (about)" and most of these debates make extensive use of the term "poetics," poetic discourse itself has not been foregrounded in these debates. Construing the term "poetry" fairly broadly, we invite poets and scholars working in a broad range of fields -- anthropology, urban studies, ethnic studies, folklore, literature and literary theory, sociology, history, publishing, film, American studies, performance studies, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, etc. -- to propose readings, papers or panels that address the topic of cross-cultural poetics. the following are suggested topics, but you need not feel limited to them: - Comparative Poetries &/or Poetic Traditions - Oral/Literate Interfaces or Standoffs - Anthropological Methodologies Applied to Poetic Texts, Communities, Events, or Individual Poems or Poets - Ethnography as Poetry/Poetry as Ethnography - Ethnic, Folkloric & Vernacular Poetries - Poetry as Cultural & Social Praxis - Poetry as Cultural & Social Critique - Constituting Communities through Poetic Activity - Poetry as Mass Culture - Poetry & the Public Sphere -Poetry and Politics - The Anthropology of Writing & the Writing of Anthropology - Representing Self/Other - Issues in Cultural Translation - "Ethnopoetics": Reappraisals? - Poetry & Other Media (Song Lyrics, Music, Film, Movement, Visual Arts, etc.) - Close Readings of &/or Listenings to Ethnographic Documents - The Poetics of Thick Description - Ritual, Play, etc. as Elements in Poetic Composition - The Act of Inscription: Fieldnotes, Notebooks, etc. - The Cultural Migration of Texts - Hybridization of Genres & Traditions -Trans/post/supra national Poetix? PAPERS (and Writing Samples for people wanting to read) AND PANEL PROPOSALS (a 1-2-page abstract) should be sent by April 1, 1997 to Maria Damon, English Dept., 207 Lind Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 08:50:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Pogo books? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I got behind on reading the list, but if anyone is still interested, Dragon Press used to have a bunch of the Gregg Press reprints of Pogo books. You could try them at Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY, 10570. There were nine volumes, in hardcover @ $30, or #20 each. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Shakespeare Department of English drag yr mouldy old bones University of Alberta up these stairs & tell me Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 what you died of (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 I think H: 436 3320 I've got it too. Sharon Thesen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 10:56:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: is silence golden? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sometimes silence is in the ear of the beholder. That is to say, I've been getting messages--suggest you check the archive to see/hear. (p.s., don't know about the p.s.) >no messages for two days -- is server down (mine, poetics)? is this >silence better than our usual loud chatter? >e >ps >what do people think about the message on umass amherst occupation -- is >it for real? is it a necessary stand? >e ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 16:34:45 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: book (not asteroid) from the sky Comments: cc: schuchat@mail.ait.org.tw, chax@theriver.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >there is a modern Chinese artist (I forget the name) who >creates these wonderful "tianshu" (heavenly or abstruse books) that >consist of line after line of nonexistent characters, all of which could >be real characters, since they are composed out of the regular character >elements: these works are like inventories of all the words that do >not yet exist in written Chinese. Strange, I had just been thinking/writing about the 'Book from the Sky'. This is by the excellent Xu Bing (surname Xu), currently resident in NYC and exhibiting widely. Not sure that I agree with 'all the words that do not yet exist in written Chinese', I think they are a bit further out than that (but coming closer so, *watch the skies*). I plan to do an essay on Xu Bing's work for a forthcoming book on Chinese literary/artistic culture in the 90s. Here is something I recently wrote about Xu Bing's work and emailed to a well-known colleague of ours: ... Xu Bing, who now lives (mostly) in NYC and has exhibited widely in the States, notably at the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, when he showed 'Book from the Sky'. I used characters from this book on the cover of the anthology of contemporary Chinese writing which I (Wellsweep) published in 1994, _Under-Sky Underground_. The following is the caption I wrote for the frontispiece of that book: - "The cover artwork and the above illustration incorporate pages from Xu Bing's _Tian Shu_ or 'Book from the Sky'. This work, comprising a limited edition of a four volume, traditionally bound Chinese book in the style of a bibliographic rarity, was first exhibited in Beijing during October 1988 where it caused a sensation. Xu, a printmaker specializing in woodcuts, had carved the printing blocks for the books himself, entirely of 'characters' which are not found in any Chinese dictionary. His characters look as if they should be legible to someone who reads Chinese - they contain familiar strokes and components - but they are not. Neither is this a Chinese _Finnegans Wake_ - although the *visual* effect of the text is comparable - there are no construable segments of meaningful language. However, the material cultural forms of the Chinese literary and scholarly tradition are strictly, even lovingly, observed: a striking paradox and eloquent contribution to the continuing debate which rages amongst Chinese intellectuals concerning their relationship with their own tradition." - ? as well as a very interesting piece of applied grammatology. - Xu Bing's latest project is a set of books describing his so-called 'Square Writing'. This is a method he has devised for writing English words in rectangular arrangements which resemble Chinese characters. There is a code of calligraphic script elements which map to the 26 roman letters, then relatively simple rules for the construction of the square words allow you to write English using Chinese calligraphic principles. As a piece of conceptual ?grammatological art, Xu Bing has composed and published a manual of 'Chinese calligraphy' entirely in these English 'square words' (it looks like a Chinese book, but once the code is learned it is perfectly legible as English) along with a companion volume of calligraphic models for (ink and brush) writing practice. (Books of this type are familiar and common in Chinese educational contexts.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > John Cayley / Wellsweep Press http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: (+44 171) 267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk < - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 14:03:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Re: mimeo One more miss: Blue Suede Shoes edited by Keith Abbot. Wonderful covers, not afeared of humor, etc. Went through about 20 issues with enough variant numbers to keep collectors/libraries jumping for years. I sometimes suspect that keeping a two page issue in an editon of say five of anything (book or mag) is the small press publishers illusion of a pension fund. One more techno item not mentioned. My memory of one definition of sixtie's terror was the elecrtric stapler with the three quarter or one inch staples. (These staplers usually had to found stationary in a printers shop - I forget if the "guns" had been invented yet) The huge seeming machine slam of the staples going through a half inch of stacked paper - and the question of whether or not your fingers might be included in the binding - I always found just plain scary as well as at odds with the contents of what I was publishing. But who said culture isn't built on violence! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 13:19:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Conference on Whiteness (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII for any in the Bay area who are interested -- It's free -- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 11:03:29 -0800 (PST) From: Helen Cavender To: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Conference on Whiteness (fwd) >---------- Forwarded message ---------- > >PLEASE POST WIDELY!! PLEASE POST WIDELY!! PLEASE POST WIDELY!! > >The UC Berkeley Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies is pleased to >announce a conference: > >WHAT:The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness >WHEN: April 11-13, 1997 >WHERE: Lipman Room, 8th floor Barrows Hall, UCB Campus. > >THE CONFERENCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!! > >Participants include: Norma Alarcon, Allan Berube, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, >Troy Duster, Michelle Fine, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Neil Foley (pending), >Ruth Frankenberg, Cheryl Harris, John Hartigan, Jr., Saidiya Hartman, >Patricia Penn Hilden, Mike Hill, Aida Hurtado, Noel Ignatiev, Caren Kaplan, >Josh Kun, Eric Lott, Steve Martinot, Cameron McCarthy, Walter Benn >Michaels, Annalee Newitz, Michael Omi, Sam Otter, Fred Pfeil, John Powell, >Jasbir Puar, David Roediger, Michael Rogin, Jose Saldivar, Alexander >Saxton, Mab Segrest, Richard Walker, David Wellman, Lois Weis, Howard >Winant, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano. > >For more information, see details below, or visit our website: > >http://violet.berkeley.edu/~ethnicst/conference/main.html > >or email us at: whiteinfo@garnet.berkeley.edu > >************************************************************************** >************************************************************************** >CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION: > >As a recent articles in _American Quarterly_ and the _Chronicle of >Higher Education_ explain, there is a growing group of scholars who are >working in a new field: the study of whiteness. This field has expanded >over the past decade in part as a result of suggestions by intellectuals >like Toni Morrison, who have long suggested that race studies must include >a critical, self-reflexive body of work about whites >which is both anti-racist and progressive. Thus, the study of whiteness is >both comparative, in that whiteness is understood as one specific race >among others, and critical, in that whiteness is generally viewed as a >socially-constructed identity which has historically helped to perpetuate >social inequalities. Scholars of whiteness represent a very diverse range >of disciplines. Sociologists, historians, anthropologists, as well as >practitioners of ethnic, legal, cultural, and literary studies, are >bringing interdisciplinary methodologies and critical concerns to the study >of whiteness. Additionally, many anti-racist activists have spoken to >issues around whiteness as they appear in community organizing, coalition >building, and other forms of political movement. > >Our chief goal is to promote dialogue among scholars of whiteness across >the disciplines and throughout the UC system. Although scholars in the >field read and comment upon each other's work, there has not yet been an >opportunity for the kind of discussions and networking that a full- scale >conference permits. This conference is the first of its kind. >Rigorously interdisciplinary,"The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness" >features presentations, works-in-progress, and respondents at the graduate >and professorial level. We have chosen a conference format which will be >conducive to discussion among participants. Audience members will be >encouraged to ask questions and given ample time and space to do so. >________________________________ >TENTATIVE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE > >Friday, April 11 > >9:00am Welcome Address: Michael Omi & Jose David Saldivar > >9:30am-12:00pm Panel 1 > >Shelley Fisher Fishkin (moderator) > >Josh Kun: "The Yiddish are Coming!": Mickey Katz and American Whiteness" > >Eric Lott: "Race Traitor, Patriot, Iceman, Pig: The New Discourses of Whiteness" > >Annalee Newitz: "On the Whiteness of the Police" > >Fred Pfeil: "The Not-So-Great White Way: Some Lessons from the Fantasies of >the American Gulag" > >12:00-1:30pm Lunch > >1:30-4:00pm Panel 2 > >Evelyn Nakano Glenn (moderator, pending) > >Michelle Fine: "'You're Stealing My Soul!': Preserving Whiteness as Quality >in a Public High School" > >Cameron McCarthy: "Reading the American Popular: Suburban Resentment and >the Representation of the Inner-City in Contemporary Film and Television" > >Lois Weis: "Re-examining 'A Moment in History': Loss of Privilege Inside >White Working Class Masculinity in the 1990s" > >Aida Hurtado: (abstract pending) > >4:30-7:00pm Panel 3 > >Norma Alarcon (moderator) > >John Hartigan: "Establishing the Fact of Whiteness" > >Walter Benn Michaels: "Whiteness as Social Construct?" > >Mike Hill: "After Whiteness Studies" > >Cheryl Harris: "Deconstruction and Anti-Essentialism in Legal Discourse: >Reconstructing Whiteness" > >Saturday, April 12 > >9:00-11:30am Panel 1 > >Patricia Penn Hilden (moderator) > >Neil Foley: (pending) > >Howard Winant: "White Racial Projects: A Comparative Perspective" > >Caren Kaplan: "Whiteness in a Transnational Frame: Commodity Feminism in a >Era of Globalization" > >Ruth Frankenberg: "Locating Research on Whiteness" > >12:00-1:00pm Lunch > >1:30-4:00pm Panel 2 > >Saidiya Hartman (moderator) > >Jasbir Puar: "Transnational Configurations of Desire: The Nation and its >White Closets" > >Allan Berube: "How Gay Stays White" > >John Powell: "The Fluidity of the Self and the Stability of Race" > >Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano: "Whiteness in the Last Generation: The >'Half-Breed,' the Queer, and the Nation" > > >4:30-7:00pm Panel 3 > >Michael Rogin (moderator) > >Noel Ignatiev: "The New Abolitionism" > >Mab Segrest: "The Souls of White Folks" > >David Roediger: "Studying Whiteness: An African American Tradition" > >David Wellman: "Whiteness as a Site of Contestation" > >Sunday, April 13 > > >9:00-11:30am Panel 1 > >Richard Walker (moderator) > >Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: "The Proof of Whiteness: More Than Skin Color" > >Steve Martinot: "Racialized Whiteness: Its Meaning, History, and Politics" > >Samuel Otter: "White Jackets" > > > >Alexander Saxton: "The Dance Macabre of Universalism, White Racism, and >Nationalism" > > >11:30-1:00pm Bag Lunch and Closing Remarks: Troy Duster > >____________________________________________________ >CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS > >Eric Klinenberg >Irene Nexica >Pamela Perry >Birgit Rasmussen >Kellie Stoddart >Jillian Sandell >Matt Wray > >Faculty Sponsors: > >Michael Omi >Jose David Saldivar > >___________ >SPONSORS > > The Conference is sponsored by: the University of California Humanities >Research Institute, the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, Office >of the Dean of Social Sciences, Berkeley Graduate Assembly, Doreen B. >Townsend Center for the Humanities, Beatrice Bain Research Group, Critical >Studies in Whiteness Working Group, and the UC Berkeley Departments of >African American Studies, American Cultures Program, American Studies >Program, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, and Geography. > > >========================== > > > Melissa S.K. Ponder mponder@edcc.ctc.edu 206-640-1065 NW Center for Equity and Diversity EDCC 20000 68th Ave. W. Lynnwood, WA 98036 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 19:08:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Toni Simon Subject: Re: mimeo In-Reply-To: <970309140322_1881212499@emout15.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I remember asking Ann Waldman one day while she was stapling copies of The World magazine at St Mark's Church (as most of you probably know the home of The Poetry Project) if she had stapled all those copies with that cheesy little stapler and she said yes, and most of them herself (this was in the early 70's). She showed me the callouses on the heels of her hands, and I was so impressed I went out and bought the church a moderately priced one that probably didn't help that much. This was one of those experiences that taught me how much individuals can have an impact on the world of poetry if they are willing- sometimes literally- to take matters into their own, sometimes aching, hands. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 19:16:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Toni Simon Subject: Re: mimeo In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Nick Piombino the author of this message this message not Toni SimonOn Sun, 9 Mar 1997, Toni Simon wrote: > I remember asking Ann Waldman one day while she was stapling copies of The > World magazine at St Mark's Church (as most of you probably know the home > of The Poetry Project) if she had stapled all those copies with that > cheesy little stapler and she said yes, and most of them herself (this was > in the early 70's). She showed me the callouses on the heels of her hands, > and I was so impressed I went out and bought the church a moderately > priced one that probably didn't help that much. This was one of those > experiences that taught me how much individuals can have an impact on the > world of poetry if they are willing- sometimes literally- to take matters > into their own, sometimes aching, hands. > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 01:32:11 -0500 Reply-To: "Thomas M. Orange" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Thomas M. Orange" Subject: robt kelly In-Reply-To: <9703100510.AA05099@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII looking for advice on whether i should pick up a used copy of "the loom" (1975) in a used bookstore here. makes a nice intro into his work does it? better suggestions on volumes to start with? i'm familiar only with the stuff he included in his "controversy of poets" anthology. any decent critical overviews of his work? was fairly active in publishing journals and small presses, incl. some of zukofsky's stuff i understand. any and all enlightenment appreciated. tom. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:39:51 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Re: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Burt, I feel I've pissed you off somehow with my comment on the Miller article. Not my intention. Still, I don't feel any differently about my post. I called Miller's article it a mediocre rant which is not trashing it so much as categorizing it. I did read the other articles, but like to keep my posts to the list brief. I also follow this subject with great interest. I've learned a lot from reading Michael Parenti, Edward Herman, Ben Bagdikian, Solomon & Cohen of FAIR, etc. Miller's article, for me, illustrated previously made points with fresh examples. As for the world of small presses that we know, Miller seems unaware of its existence. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:01:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: robt kelly Comments: To: "Thomas M. Orange" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Tom: Yes--pick up "The Loom"--quite a weave as they say-- There's an excellent essay on "The Loom" by Edward Schelb in Sulfur 36. (Schelb also has a good review of Irby collection in that issue.) On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Thomas M. Orange wrote: > looking for advice on whether i should pick up a used copy of "the loom" > (1975) in a used bookstore here. makes a nice intro into his work does > it? better suggestions on volumes to start with? i'm familiar only with > the stuff he included in his "controversy of poets" anthology. any decent > critical overviews of his work? was fairly active in publishing journals > and small presses, incl. some of zukofsky's stuff i understand. > > any and all enlightenment appreciated. > > tom. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:45:22 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: is silence golden? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > what do people think about the message on umass amherst > occupation -- is it for real? is it a necessary stand? well, is it for real is one thing. there are at least a few (what is it) bostonians out there listening - any word? i forwarded to some folks who oughtta know, but may not hear back for awhile. took the precaution of writing a short letter of support. even if the event isnt for real, the demands are; in other words, this could be designed as a sort of terrorist attack & not a prank - possibly safer if less publically effective than the seizure of a university office. so id be glad to lend my support to that effort, too. is it a necessary stand? well, the demands seem reasonable, though i would like to see a more detailed report on the situation surrounding their formulation. as to the means by which they were/are(?)/may be made, well, people dont usually take over offices & issue demands without some kind of provocation. i take it that the action itself indicates a climate of unrest & frustration, though of course only an account of the sequence of actual events could really legitimate that judgement. so i guess no way to evaluate those claims from here at the moment. chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 11:21:52 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing Daniel, No you didn't piss me off but I was looking for some clarification and maybe expansion. Anyway, I bow to your deeper knowledge of this subject. If you have the energy and time, I'd love to have a bibliog from you about this (back channel, hard copy, or maybe others on the list would welcome the same). Warm wishes, Burt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 12:36:06 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: perloff on anthologies Hi everyone I'm back in digestible form, quiet & reserved, after a few long weeks (days?) of lenten fasting. Re: asteroids - not to worry. I have engaged in lengthy negotiations while I was away with the Space Commissariat division of the Girl Scouts of America. They have developed a new cookie, called the Biosphere Sponge, which both earthlings and asteroids will be able to share and enjoy in a multi- orbital, nondisruptive environment. Have read M. Perloff's smart critique of toast-mod anthologies (_Who's New American Poetry_, diacritics f/w 1996). I guess it's probably already been chewed over here. Love the way she juxtaposes a Levertov with an Ammons poem to highlight the vagaries of us/them groupings. She points out how the fin-de-siecle non-consensus on what exactly is good poetry leads to both balkanization and pseudo-balkanization - and that they are the SAME THING!! What I'm not sure she succeeds in doing is making a convincing argument that the anthologies she critiques are much different, really, from the yearbook (_Exact Change Yearbook 1995_) she applauds. (None of them include either me or Jack Spandrift, for one thing. That proves it.) Seriously, though, a good guide to all this swimming mass of live fish poetry schools and groups is a prose writer: Proust. An anthology is a kind of crystallization of two kinds of Proustian illusion: the false "prestige" of literature and the snobbery of social groups. America is big and rich enough to contain 3 or 4 levels of insiders and outsiders - each with their own intricate techniques of apprenticeship, acceptance, back-scratching, membership, publication, and credentialism. What holds them all together is self-interest and snobbery. What redeems them is each writer's naive love for a certain style or approach to writing (regional, experimental, traditional in variegated ways). But the snobbery and the prestige are the same, across the board. (Paradoxically, in a survey conducted by Nordstrom Brothers, Jack Spandrift (samisdat) was by far the most popular poet among high school students in Wingdim, Wyo. They're all wearing "Spandrift spurs" on the backs of their necks.) Little poets swim through the anthology-schools, but nothing substitutes for a lifetime, as Josephine Cliche wrote. It would be worthwhile looking for an approach to poetry which is conceptually deep enough to stretch beyond the borders of visual-surreal, rebel-young-fun, imagist-epical-engage, no-rhyme-antiestablishment-ha-ha, etc. It would be worthwhile looking for the individualist poet (the joke's on you, Club Poesie) like Jack Spandrift, who refuses to be included in ANY anthology, on principle. (Norton begged him for his sequence, "Dream of the Cube Steak" - without success.) - Henry Gould (Henry's new CD, "Why I am Not a Poet", is available from Providence School Fish & Aquarium Supplies, PO Box U-2, Prov RI 0299999. Send fish food only - barter economy in place) p.s. when a critic at a poetry conference in Russia called poet Ivan Zhdanov "the first Russian postmodernist", Zhdanov broke a plate over his head. What say, Mandel? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 11:41:20 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: mimeo revolution MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ive really been enjoying this thread, having not been around for most of but I also want to put in with Loss on > a mimeo-revolution which, publishing history has shown, was not so much tied > to a particular type of machine but to a sense of how to make writing circulat e. if it wasnt for photocopy, none of my own work would have appeared in print to date, & the same goes for many poets I know. not self-promotion but I think some of the best work Ive seen circulates almost unseen in our midst. wasnt going to say anything about it until the project was further along but Ive been working clandestinely on a web site which will be devoted mostly to the circulation of self-published works & presses too small to appear in SPD etc. the idea is to make the work public, available for trade or sale etc. its going to be coupled with an ezine which will deal mostly with the publications resident onsite but really anything else too. what I mostly need now I guess are people who would be interested in participating. Ive got some more work to do on the site but Im fast approaching the point at which it has to be opened up to contributors. that means books etc that people would like to see posted there, work, short essays, reviews. people are welcome to come take a look at the site & then email me with suggestions or material etc. the address is http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/index.html & you can reach me from there (or here). also Id appreciate it if youd pass this information along to people you know who publish their own work or run very small presses or press collectives (like the recently-announced newly-reconstituted SMALL PRESS COLLECTIVE). chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:32:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: main Subject: Re: robt kelly Comments: To: "Thomas M. Orange" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII _loom_, yes. a road map: _red actions: selected poems, 1960-1993_ (black sparrow). on earlier kelly, see edward schelb's "'witness cycladic afrodita': alchemy and the gateway to the tower" in _sulfur_ 36 (sp 95). interesting interview of kelly by morrow in _conjunctions_, but can't recall #. best, dan featherston ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:08:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: perloff on anthologies Henry Gould: A refreshingly honest point of view on the snobbery/prestige issue. Tell me what you think of the Rothenberg/Norton Anthology though? I think it its important to set your "school" up against the traditions from which it draws, an avant garde tradition let's say. Doesn't the problem you outline make a strong case for increasing student's sense of history in regards to poetry? I guess I found your comment about the naivete of the poet a little flippant, but perhaps you did not intend it to be so. Standard Schaefer ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 11:41:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: is silence golden? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" More information would certainly help. I was under the impression that the Amherst behemoth was in fact trying to do a good job in these areas, but that may be outdated. As an old academic disrupter it pains me to acknowledge that not all protests make sense. A few years ago, when I was living down the road from U Mass, a group of about 150 students occupied the deanery protesting the school mascot, which is 'The Minuteman," whose picture, after the Daniel Chester French, I think, statue, adorns teeshirts, etc., worn at football games. This is "the embattled farmer" who "fired the shot heard round the world" at Lexington and/or Concord. The gripe? It's a white guy with a gun. That demo provoked a lot of clucked tongues and hysterical laughter. The Minuteman still guards the bridge. At 09:45 AM 3/10/97 MDT, you wrote: >> what do people think about the message on umass amherst >> occupation -- is it for real? is it a necessary stand? > >well, is it for real is one thing. there are at least a few >(what is it) bostonians out there listening - any word? >i forwarded to some folks who oughtta know, but may >not hear back for awhile. > >took the precaution of writing a short letter of support. >even if the event isnt for real, the demands are; in other >words, this could be designed as a sort of terrorist attack >& not a prank - possibly safer if less publically effective >than the seizure of a university office. so id be glad to >lend my support to that effort, too. > >is it a necessary stand? well, the demands seem reasonable, >though i would like to see a more detailed report on the >situation surrounding their formulation. as to the means by >which they were/are(?)/may be made, well, people dont >usually take over offices & issue demands without some >kind of provocation. i take it that the action itself indicates >a climate of unrest & frustration, though of course only an >account of the sequence of actual events could really >legitimate that judgement. > >so i guess no way to evaluate those claims from here >at the moment. > >chris >.. >christopher alexander, etc. >calexand@alexandria.lib.edu >(Marriott Library Computer Systems) > >language code not found. illegal operation error. >this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be >lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:49:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eliza McGrand- CVA Guest Subject: Re: perloff on anthologies your jack spandrift sounds like a compatriot of mine -- missy laPrism. missy has an impressive resume -- she has not been included in the all the most prestigious anthologies around. norton sent flowers for weeks, had them hand-delivered by the handsomest Bright Young Things in the intern department, and even had some Bright Young Females in case they had got her all wrong... and money, i won't even tell you! but missy refused; no, she said, she had to stand up for her principles. she would not be included. where, after all, would her Rebel Outsider stance, her entire "i am uniquely underappreciated" position be? and think of her career, based as it is on papers about the real inside story of Boheme -- if she were anthologized, she would lose all credibility. she might even lose tenure, based, as it is on her distinguished record of non-publication. no, come what may, missy laPrism will not anthologize... e ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:05:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing In-Reply-To: <009B10CD.B7A77EE4.85@admin.njit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Just a quick note to say that I found the article in question OK (especially when judged in context with the others), but it does suffer from an affliction that plagues a lot of NATION articles -- a kind of "preaching-to-the-converted" laziness, so that one doesn't really know anything new at the end, but already-formed biases and notions get reconfirmed. But Christopher Hitchens has been spectacular lately; check out his column on Clinton (a month ago now), a masterpiece of invective, and the first two paragraphs of his Mother Theresa column in this issue: it's just politics, of course, but he has what they used to call "high style," and it's very funny. And David Levi-Strauss, whom some of you might know, has gotten a few reviews published in THE NATION lately, as well, on Michael Palmer's latest book and a book of letters from John Berger to his daughter; the second, especially, I found very fine. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 11:59:29 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: the blushing power MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT joseph wwroth: > I missed the early part of this thread: what was the question no question - daniel registered his low opinion of the recent the Nation big bin publ bus.ness. havent read it yet myself. chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:10:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: perloff on anthologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I too found the juxtaposition of Ammons and Levertov in Perloff's essay quite illuminating, though there are differences in vocabulary, stance toward subject, and line break that are not touched upon. There were lots of other wonderful moments in the piece too; as for Exact Change, her claims will be more testable when & if Volume II comes out -- is that going to happen or not? However, Perloff's discussion of identity politics in that essay (as elsewhere in Majorie's work) I find really quite disturbing. It seems to me that her attitude toward such issues exists in a tense relationship, to put it mildly, with the surface pluralism of the piece. (In this regard it's interesting to find that her piece, for me, confirms some of my criticisms of her work in the same issue of _Diacritics_.) Anybody else want to juxtapose our respective contributions and see what sparks fly? Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. --Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 15:29:07 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: perloff on anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > > Henry Gould: > > A refreshingly honest point of view on the snobbery/prestige issue. Tell me > what you think of >the Rothenberg/Norton Anthology vass dat? > though? I think it its > important to set your "school" up against the traditions from which it draws, > an avant garde tradition let's say. Doesn't the problem you outline make a > strong case for increasing student's sense of history in regards to poetry? > I guess I found your comment about the naivete of the poet a little > flippant, but perhaps you did not intend it to be so. > > Standard Schaefer -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertation. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 17:06:12 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: 19th C Japanese poetics From: IPFW::SIMON 10-MAR-1997 17:03:55.60 To: MX%"poetics@listserv@acsu.buffalo.edu" CC: SIMON Subj: 19th C Japanese poetry Very sorry to run this on the list, but I've lost the name of the sender.... When I queried the list about deixis, would the person who contacted me about 19th C Japanese poetics please contact me again. Thanks! beth simon ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 15:32:15 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Bakker in Dinosaur Heresies proved conclusively not only that dinos were not at all reptilian but in fact were not offed by an asteroid. In fact, multiculturalism did them in. It seems there was suddenly a land bridge between the hemishpheres and wham bam all these diseases and unsavory miscengenation extincted them. The lesson here of course is to give all your poetry not to stop stuff from outer stuff but to Bennett's fight against the softening of traditional western culture, pure and uncluttered. Thanks, Eric (ps Bakker did write that). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 16:30:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing I'll agree with Joe Safdie. Burt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 21:11:37 -0500 Reply-To: "k.a. hehir" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k.a. hehir" Subject: londonOnt MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII poeTrypoetRE:poemsRe:poeTry Wajdi Jenn Bright Kate Kenwell Dr. Hugo Alexander of phuc Tom Orange an evening of verse navigated by Kevin Angelo Hehir at the always delicious WHIPPET LOUNGE Tuesday March 11, 1997 in the Embassy Hotel 732 Dundas St. E 8:30 PM 438-7127 but the white of the snow eats the eyes to the quick Osip Mandelstam ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 18:42:18 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: creiner&asteroid I've been trying to contact Chris Reiner at creiner@crl.com re: an article that's to appear in Witz, but keep getting it bounced back. Can anyone tell me if I have something wrong with the address? Plese backcahnnel if so and thanks. It's pleasing that my initial post on the coming asteroid caused so many posts in return! That a first remark on impending, irrevocable catastrophe would refine itself after 40 or so posts into commentaries on a Chinese poet who composes in ethereal, invented characters seems fitting and beautiful, even if I can't say exactly why. The universe imperceptibly corrects itself every so often without reason or warning. Nothing millenial about it. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 13:51:09 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: creiner&asteroid Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" cute....a post on giant asteriods keeps bouncing....... . . . >I've been trying to contact Chris Reiner at creiner@crl.com re: >an article that's to appear in Witz, but keep getting it bounced >back. Can anyone tell me if I have something wrong with the >address? Plese backcahnnel if so and thanks. > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 21:29:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Call for reviews, "Traffic" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is Dodie Bellamy. Again I "reach out" to the members of the poetics list asking for brief reviews of recent small press books for an upcoming issue of "Traffic," the newsletter of Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center. This time the books in question don't even have to be recent, in fact it would be great to get some reviews of neglected books, or well-known books; whatever you feel like writing on--so long as it is or was "innovative" of course! When I say "brief" I mean circa 300 words, that's not too long. We want to have the next issue out in May, so the deadline will be the end of April. Is that too soon? E-mail me back channel if you're interested. I'll be glad to be hear from you all. Thanks everyone. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:40:05 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: robt kelly Comments: To: tmorange@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca, tmorange@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca Tom, buy it, i did. Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:55:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Special Issue of THE NATION on Publishing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" those interested in reading the feature story, discussed here, on the web can find it at http://www.TheNation.com/issue/970317/0317mill.htm best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 23:23:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: CD Release Party for Deep Listening Band & Long String Instrument Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My new company, Periplum, released it's first CD, Suspended Music by Deep Listening Band & Long String Instrument, earlier this year. It's a really great CD featuring the combined forces of DLB (Stu Dempster, David Gamper & Pauline Oliveros) & Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument performing recent long works by Pauline Oliveros and Ellen Fullman. Other discs to be released this year include the 2nd release by the collaborative group Land (Jeff Greinke, Lesli Dalaba, Dennis Rea, et alia); New Songs commissioned by David Mahler & Ann Obery from eleven US composers; and recordings of interactive computer music by Martin Bartlett, including performances by Peter Hannan, George E Lewis, & Frances-Marie Uitti. We had a great CD party in Austin a couple of weeks ago with Ellen, and there are more release parties on the way. Hey, wait, here's some now, near where you live: Friday, March 14, 1997 5-7 pm The Gallery at Deep Listening Space 74 Broadway Kingston, NY 12401 Saturday, March 15, 1997 4-7 pm Roulette 228 West Broadway New York, NY 10013 Sorry for this impersonal bulk mail, I hope to get a chance to talk to you when I'm in your neck of the woods. Bests Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 23:37:24 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: CD Release Party for Deep Listening Band & Long String Instrument Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry about the message with this header showing up on the list. I've already mentioned these events here enough. My Eudora nicknames file is more screwed up than I'd thought when my earlier message to Kenny Goldsmith went to the whole list. It turns out more than one person has the list address included as part of their own e-mail address. I think I've got rid of all of this duplication now. Bests, H Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 00:27:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Thomas M. Orange" Subject: robt kelly In-Reply-To: <9703110507.AA22779@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII thanks to stephen, pierre, dave, dan, joe, aldon, and wystan for the advise and guidance with robert kelly. much reading to do now. cheers, tom __________________________________ | Alle Dinge, an die ich mich gebe | | werden reich und geben mich aus | | - Rilke - | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 05:32:54 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: [Fwd: CCCP] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------4447111147FE" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------4447111147FE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thot this of some innerest to the list -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertation. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== --------------4447111147FE Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from naga.mailbase.ac.uk (naga.mailbase.ac.uk [128.240.226.3]) by sarah.albany.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA04914 for ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 05:04:34 -0500 (EST) Received: by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:12 GMT Received: from hermes.dur.ac.uk by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:09 GMT Received: from venus.dur.ac.uk by hermes.dur.ac.uk id (8.6.12/ for dur.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:04 GMT Received: from vega by venus.dur.ac.uk id ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:02 GMT Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:01 +0000 (GMT) From: R I Caddel To: british n irish poets Subject: CCCP Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-List: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave british-poets' to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Reply-To: R I Caddel Sender: british-poets-request@mailbase.ac.uk Precedence: list Message from Peter Riley says, Can you put this out on your list thingy, as we're a bit late with publicity this year... C.C.C.P. The seventh annual Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry will take place Friday to Sunday April 25th-27th at Kings Colleg Cambridge. For very particular reasons the event this year will emphasise non-British poetry, with poets from Australia (John Tranter, Tracy Ryan), Canada (Karen Mac Cormack, Deanna Ferguson), France (Dominique Grandmont and Emmanuel Hocquard), Belgium (Pierre-Yves Soucy), Sweden (Staffan Soderblum). Also Fiona Templeton, David Chaloner, Grace Lake. Bookings and information: Ian Patterson, Kings College Cambridge. tel. 01223 576422 Information: Peter Riley, 27 Sturton Street, Cambridge. tel. 01223 576422 --------------4447111147FE-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 05:38:24 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: [Fwd: pig pig offers] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------1E537FDD7BD9" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------1E537FDD7BD9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can't remember seeing this on the list -- Ric posted it only to the BritPoet list, though it gives US prices too -- excellent little press, go & buy a pig or 2 -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertation. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== --------------1E537FDD7BD9 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from naga.mailbase.ac.uk (naga.mailbase.ac.uk [128.240.226.3]) by sarah.albany.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA20347 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:46:07 -0500 (EST) Received: by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk); Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:31:49 GMT Received: from hermes.dur.ac.uk by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk) with SMTP; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:31:46 GMT Received: from venus.dur.ac.uk by hermes.dur.ac.uk id (8.6.12/ for dur.ac.uk) with SMTP; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:31:45 GMT Received: from vega by venus.dur.ac.uk id ; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:31:42 GMT Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:31:39 +0000 (GMT) From: R I Caddel To: british n irish poets Subject: pig pig offers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-List: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave british-poets' to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Reply-To: R I Caddel Sender: british-poets-request@mailbase.ac.uk Precedence: list Amazing offers on these Pig titles until after Easter. All prices are in POUNDS STERLING: Tony Baker : Scrins 5.50 Guy Birchard : Birchard's Garage 5.90 William Corbett : Schedule Rhapsody 2.50 Kelvin Corcoran : TCL 4.00 Robert Creeley : Memories 2.50 George Evans : Nightvision 3.20 Allen Fisher : Stepping Out 5.50 Roy Fisher : It Follows That 2.90 Lee Harwood : Monster Masks 3.90 Alasdair Paterson : The Floating World 3.20 Maurice Scully : The Basic Colours 6.95 Catherine Walsh : Pitch 5.95 UK individuals: 20% off four or more items; post free UK libraries: 20% off four or more items; post free US individuals: 20% off four or more items; add a pound per item to cover post, and payment in Sterling only, please (otherwise all titles available through SPD). Orders to this e-mail address, or by post to: Pig Press, 7 Cross View Terrace, Durham DH1 4JY, quoting "BritPo Offer 1997". Phew. ___________________________________________________________ Richard Caddel Durham University Library, Stockton Rd., Durham DH1 3LY, UK E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)191 374 3044 Fax: +44 (0)191 374 7481 WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dul0ric "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." - Basil Bunting ___________________________________________________________ --------------1E537FDD7BD9-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 07:32:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: perloff on anthologies In-Reply-To: from "Henry Gould" at Mar 10, 97 12:36:06 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > An anthology is a kind of crystallization of two kinds of Proustian > illusion: the false "prestige" of literature and the snobbery of social > groups. America is big and rich enough to contain 3 or 4 levels of > insiders and outsiders - each with their own intricate techniques of > apprenticeship, acceptance, back-scratching, membership, publication, > and credentialism. What holds them all together is self-interest and > snobbery. What redeems them is each writer's naive love for a certain > style or approach to writing (regional, experimental, traditional in > variegated ways). But the snobbery and the prestige are the same, > across the board. I don't think I've ever read a better analysis of the anthrpologizing process in the market economy. Thank you, Hankski. Here's a plate on yer head. Mike mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:16:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Zhdanov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > p.s. when a critic at a poetry conference in Russia called poet Ivan > Zhdanov "the first Russian postmodernist", Zhdanov broke a plate over > his head. What say, Mandel? Having rubbed bellies with Ivan Zhdanov (literally: we were attempting to move past each other at a very crowded party) I can say from close up that he is much taller than I. Fortunately we are in agreement on the subject and category called post-modernism. It's a marketing term, like "crunch" or "classless." Tom Tom Mandel ************************************************************ Screen Porch * tmandel@screenporch.com 4031 University Dr. Suite 200 * vox: 703-934-2034 Fairfax, VA 22030-3409 * fax: 703-391-6881 ************************************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:11:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: anthologies? BALLADE LITTERAIRE I wanted to write. I had it in mind to astonish the world, with a vision quite new. I memorized all the Great Verse I could find. I measured, and metered, and rhymed a lot too. I sent my work sailing to Kalamazoo, and Great Neck and Austin and South Liverwurst... kind Editors wrote back to ask - Who are you? And one proverb stood by me. Through every reverse. The first shall be last - the last shall be first. I saw my subjectivist Ego unwind. I joined a Collective - they knew what to do. We wrote for each other. That Postmodern bind of Theory and Action - l'Autre - c'est nu - negativity - nebulous - transfigured - _blue_... We Hugged and Supported. Each Other we nursed. Soon voluptuous Fame warbled..._Poetry! ooh!_ and read from a Book - with her lips pertly pursed: The first shall be last - the last shall be first. My peers were advising me - scrape through the rind of conventional wisdom. She just wants to screw. So I went to the doorway. Her boudoir was lined (compacted, in fact) with a jostling crew of suitors... New Critics, Old Masters - Langpo, Beat, Formalist - Outsider, Insider - Cursed-and- Blest - all Frustrated by that monotonous moo glued on every last gallant (from fine-assed to worst) - The first shall be last - the last shall be first. I never made love to her. Neither will you. But I've mastered her mantra. I've often rehearsed. And if you want a glimpse - you'll whisper it too. With lips pertly pursed (you should get undressed first). The first shall be last - the last shall be first. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 07:48:48 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: CD Release Party for Deep Listening Band & Long String Dear Herb: the CD is fantastic! I am aware that I still owe you for it--it's comeing. Thanks, Kent > Date sent: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 23:23:34 -0800 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Herb Levy > Subject: CD Release Party for Deep Listening Band & Long String Instrument > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > My new company, Periplum, released it's first CD, Suspended Music by Deep > Listening Band & Long String Instrument, earlier this year. It's a really > great CD featuring the combined forces of DLB (Stu Dempster, David Gamper & > Pauline Oliveros) & Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument performing > recent long works by Pauline Oliveros and Ellen Fullman. Other discs to be > released this year include the 2nd release by the collaborative group Land > (Jeff Greinke, Lesli Dalaba, Dennis Rea, et alia); New Songs commissioned > by David Mahler & Ann Obery from eleven US composers; and recordings of > interactive computer music by Martin Bartlett, including performances by > Peter Hannan, George E Lewis, & Frances-Marie Uitti. > > We had a great CD party in Austin a couple of weeks ago with Ellen, and > there are more release parties on the way. Hey, wait, here's some now, > near where you live: > > > Friday, March 14, 1997 5-7 pm > > The Gallery at Deep Listening Space > 74 Broadway > Kingston, NY 12401 > > > Saturday, March 15, 1997 4-7 pm > > Roulette > 228 West Broadway > New York, NY 10013 > > > Sorry for this impersonal bulk mail, I hope to get a chance to talk to you > when I'm in your neck of the woods. > > Bests > > Herb > > > Herb Levy > herb@eskimo.com > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:47:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eliza McGrand- CVA Guest Subject: Re: anthologies? yes there is a clique mentality at work in anthologies, but you know, there is clique mentality at work whenever two or more beings shall gather in any name... i'll do my usual ambiguous experiential fence-sit here: when i was a kid, about 9, i found a poetry anthology in my brother's books, the laurence perrine Sound and Sense, one of the early ones. i remember liking a few things in it, being fascinated enough to want to read but not having quite the stamina yet. i came back, periodically. the anthology worked perfectly as a vehicle for this, though to be fair, it was a textbook, and that helped in that i got explanations for things and historical notes. i had a few books by individual poets, but couldn't read them -- too much, too confusing. the anthologies gave me a chance to pick at particular poems, get a sense of how poems work in general. around the age of 15, i started being ready for books of poems -- my first were sexton, plath, and dickinson. and there lies the rub: when i went back to the perrine in more of an age of reason, i realized that there were almost no women writers in it. almost no black writers. now, it was an old edition but still... the norton, the massive compendium of about 1800 pages on thin thin paper, was great in that i could find works that were referred to easily. and i could find work by authors whose names i came across right away, much of the time. BUT, again, BUT, women were grossly underrepresented, and, as has been mentioned by someone else, what you read is the anthologist's idea of a "great" poem. often, with skilled anthologists, when i've gone to complete works, i've agreed with the choices, but there have been exceptions. richard hart lovelace gets anthologized on the basis of lucasta, to althea from prison, occasionally "The Grasshopper," and in a few (norton is one), the gorgeous gorgeous "To Amarantha, that She Would Dishevel Her Hair" ("Every tress must be confessed/ But neatly tangled at the best;/ Like a clue of golden thread,/Most excellently ravelled"). but what almost never gets anthologized, and which, when compared to the well known lines of lucasta "I could not love thee, dear, so much/ loved I not honor more," is "A Loose Saraband." Lucasta was written in lovelace's early years, when he was a beautiful honored young man at court, when Charles I presided with his family, when lovelace's life seemed to open into a halcyon of family, honors, riches, glory... then came the civil war, the massacres right and left, the despoilings, pillages, rapes. it has never been clear whether lovelace ever was a soldier, but he was put in prison twice and his brothers fought. he saw his family impoverished, his future destroyed, his fortune confiscated... and then he wrote "A Loose Saraband." for a description of a country in a firestorm of civil war, try, from the poem entreating a fellow drunk at a tavern to go off and have sex, "See all the world how't staggers,/More ugly drunk than we,/ As if far gone in daggers,/ And blood it seemed to be" and then, in the final couplet, the wrenching (set in biographical/contextual frame) "Now, is there such a trifle/ As Honour, the fool's giant?/ What is there left to rifle,/ When wine makes all parts pliant?/ Let others glory follow,/ In their false riches wallow,/ And with their grief be merry;/ Leave me but love and sherry." this poem doesn't make it into the anthologies -- i think because everyone is so enamored of the image of the courtly cavalier poet that they don't _see_ or want to see, or want to have as part of the writer, the bitter, disillusioned, agony of the last years, as well as the no longer high flown, but often more compassionate writings. anthologies encourage quick snapshots, easily tagged and sorted "representations." all part of what i hve railed on about before, the desire for Mastery OF All Texts. if you can sort, do quick and dirty and shallow summations of selection, you can say you "Know" all about a writer. i'd have less of Knowing All About X or Y and how it Fits Into the Grand Critical Trend of the Blahblahblah years, and more of a sensitive, deep, perhaps by necessity poet-by-poet, analysis of bodies of text, with allowance given for much more complexity, changes in feeling and opinion, effects of history... all right, off my dull soapbox... e ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:39:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703110507.VAA06809@leland.Stanford.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My friendly antagonist David Kellogg is "deeply disturbed" about what I say about identity politics. Sometimes I wonder if David reads what I write. What I say, for the record, is that, whereas in 1959 Don Allen could put together an anthology of "the" new American poetry, an anthology that pretty accurately pitted the counterculture against the establishment, in the 1990s, there can no longer be ONE counterculture anthology and so attempts to produce one that is "the" avant-garde can't wholly succeed. And I write: "More important: the eightiies witnessed the coming of the minority communites. . . In their inception, many of these poetries were, ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the ontology of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics couldn't--and still can't--say this out loud because they would have immediately been labeled racist or sexist. And thus the picture has become increasingly clouded. " and then I go on to complain about the absence of all but U.S. poets in most of the new anthologies. Now David perfectly proves my point by implying I'm somehow making a racist statement. What I meant, of course, is that the mainstream anthologies today like the Norton will include a lot of, say Rita Dove, because she's a black woman when the Norton doesn't even include Zukofsky, Reznikoff etc. not to mention Harryette Mullen, Erica Hunt, Will Alexander, or Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian--well, the list goes on and on, right? This is where identity politics does indeed cloud the picture because if you object to these inclusions or exclusions you are immediately branded. I myself am "deeply disturbed" that, at the moment, on this list, people worry so much about what, say, Ed Dorn either said or didn't say and are not deeply disturbed --it seems--by the erosion of all democracy in Washington, where recent events make clear elected office or cabinet appointments that need congressional approval mean less and less, the real power coming only from those who can write a check for $100,000 at the drop of a hat. Clinton's remark that he just loves to listen to people and get good ideas--that was deeply disturbing--since he obviously doesn't listen to 99% of the population that doesn't have that kind of money. The Left has recently written brilliantly on Clintonism--read Christopher Hitchens, Alexander Cockburn etc. But in the poetry world where post "Reagan-Bush" there seems to be no commentary on anything that goes on in the White House, there has been a curious refusal to criticize. How about Clinton's demand yesterday that the Federal Government hire the welfare people, whose money he cynically took away? And now it turns out there are no entry-level Federal jobs since he downsized the government just last year. What I'm trying to say, badly probably, because email is not the easiest writing venue, is that, yes, I am opposed to identity politics in its crude form and no, that doesn't make me a racist, and if we want to be political, let's be political and try to do something about what is happening in Washington. Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 12:20:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain I agree with so much of what Marjorie Perloff has just said that my first reaction is to NOT post anything that may merely reverberate like an "Aye" (as opposed to a "Nay"). The problem--perhaps "my" problem-- is the dymanics of e-mail interaction, so that when poet Dorn's remarks on race come up in discussion, the "thread" resembles one of those hand-held aerosol canisters that spray some kind of colored polymer goo more than it resembles a pattern, as in a tapestry, etc. The goo is fun but messy. Tapestries are useful and ornamental. If the list touches upon something like "the erosion of all democracy in Washington" then the discussion, if it flourishes at all, will turn archival and meditative, in diminutive posts, always going back to poets (& what they may or may not have said) coeval with administrations of long ago. People's sense of protocol differs; what wants to be included in the discussion, disagreements about much. In a sense, the List epitomizes democracy. But generalizations are useless since most people signed on don't write anything at all. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 12:09:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i'm struck by what marjorie is saying in her last post... i don't mean to contribute to any vitriole here... but the problem goes back to this question of judgment, as i see it... something that we hammer through on poetix every now and again, but never seem to resolve... in part b/c it *can't* be resolved for once and for all... let me step back a moment, to an earlier variant: while it's clear that critics can now ask, fruitfully, what sort of cultural work is *done* by a poem (or a novel, say, or whatever), it's likewise clear that this doesn't resolve the judgment (quality) issues... i mean, to bracket the political per se for just a second, it's constructive that we should be at odds over our aesthetics per se... this is one aspect of what writers busy themselves with when they're writing, for one... in such terms too---i don't always scrutinize my politics first when i'm looking at my line breaks... which is not to say that my line breaks are apolitical, but that perhaps my aesthetic judgment is what's first and foremost, at times... even ex post facto, for that matter... at the same time, *as a teacher*, i find mself in a difficult situation when my white male students bring in their more experimental writing, rife with distended phalli, as exemplary moments in contemporary poetry... and an even more difficult situation, as a white male, when i hear my african-american women students voicing what sound like watered-down versions of maya angelou's "phenomenal woman," a poem that clearly speaks directly to their experience, as they see same... but is what's good for the goose good for the gander?... if i rail against the unsubtle identity gendering of male fantasy driven work, regardless how aesthetically informed, then should i likewise rail against the unsubtle essentializing of experience in the work of african-american women?... whereas the former usually reinforces an existing power relationship, the latter seems on the surface of things to act as a sort of corrective, at least short-term (i set aside the fact that such poetry often positions its subject as an object of male gaze)... to flip things around, from a more nurturing pedagogical perspective: do i credit the aesthetic in the former, ignoring the more macho dimension?... and do i credit the identity politics of the latter, and ignore the aesthetic dimension?... clearly, it seems to me, i need to do BOTH, somehow... i need to help students grasp the gendering of the former, the ways the aesthetic at times trivializes same, and the aesthetic simplicity-qua-simple identity of the latter... i need to discuss both the sociopolitical/cultural *work* done by the poems in varying communities, and the ways in which the aesthetics *work* or don't in this process of meaning-making, of valuing and revaluing... as contributors to this meaning-making process (along with human beings, i mean), poems can work to produce mean-spirited de- and connotations quite effectively, or well-intended de- and connotations not so effectively (in tech. writing, incidentally, you can supplement "mean-spirited" and "well-intended" with "inaccurate" and "accurate")... but the field of meaning and possibility, the discourse of poetry, is such that one's attention is (or should be) drawn not only to various connotations, but to effectiveness (yeah, i'm slipping & sliding on a form/content dualism here, and i'm using "effectiveness" itself to denote aesthetic efficacy, but i trust i'm making my point)... in any case, these are fraught waters, in the classroom and in other public spheres... i don't mind saying *here*, anyway, that it's pretty easy to be misunderstood when one slams the writing of a minority poet, however justifiably... but i don't mind saying *here*, as well, that i've noted a tendency at times on poetics to be down on more conventional work, even more conventional work that, imnsho, is exemplary... i mean, marketplace dynamics are one thing, aesthetics can be quite another... i can like the best of all worlds, or try to... incidentally, the new _chronicle_ has, as its back-page "point of view," an article by simon frith, "john keats vs. bob dylan: why value judgments matter"... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 11:10:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703111809.MAA22197@charlie.cns.iit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:09 PM -0600 3/11/97, amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU wrote: >at the same time, *as a teacher*, i find mself in a difficult situation Joe, while I think what you say about teaching is very important and interesting, I think you're talking apples and oranges here: critiquing undergraduates' shakey attempts at expression versus what gets included in the Norton anthology (i.e., what is declared serious, important, of lasting value). Like nobody discusses what's included in the Whitney Biennial (or however you spell that B word) in terms of pottery classes going on at community colleges. I get frustrated with the burdens literature has to bear that nobody would place on visual art--or music. I was at an arts administration seminar recently on audience development and marketing, and it started with everybody going around the room describing a particularly memorable reading they'd been to (mine was James Schuyler's reading at the SF Art Institute). After each person talked, the facilitator extracted the essence of what made the reading so memorable: things like intimate, emotional, musical accompaniment, made the audience feel good--even my description of the Schuyler reading was reduced to these terms. When the list was completed with all these touchy-feely things, I rose my hand and said that these things were fine, but that form was left out, that many of my audience comes to readings to experience the formal pleasure of the work. She told me that if I thought form was important I would never develop my audiences. How funny that most of SPT's readings this past year have been packed to capacity! Most grants that I've seen are steeped in identity politics--like it would be impossible to get any funding if you didn't write about your programming in those terms. There is immense pressure out there to maintain this attitude which I think turns people into cartoons. Like, would you like to be known as Joe Amato, Working Class Writer? Isn't that terribly condescending? Joan Retallack offers a wonderful, thoughtful, beautifully written critique of identity politics (among other things) in ":RE:THINING:LITERARY:FEMINISM: (three essays onto shaky grounds)." Unfortunately, I just read it from a xerox, so I don't know where it was published. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 14:17:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dodie, i see your point... i'm finding it so very difficult to respond to this issue w/o casting stones, as it were... and being my typical long-winded self... i bring up teaching b/c it's simply one public context in which i often find mself... there are others, sure... let me say it this way: i can see marjorie's point, which i take to be your point --- that it's often difficult as hell even to discuss matters of form, and that, perhaps partly as a result, it's often difficult to be publicly critical of minority/ethnic writers' work on the basis of form... of course this is a function of audience, context... but the same could be said for mainstream white guys' writing too... to be critical of a white guy's conservative approach to form will not go over big in many circles... albeit one might not be labeled a racist as a result of such criticism... still, my point here is that it's one thing to concern oneself with problems owing to critical reception (being viewed a racist, say, b/c of one's critical response), it's another to suggest that problems owing to critical reception stem from the formal tendencies of the writing being critiqued... now i'm *not* saying anybody has said this, but it seems to me that the intimation is present... if 'minority writing' is deemed shallow, say, in terms of identity politics or formal innovation, this doesn't mean that the writing itself is to be held accountable for (as suggested) a certain reticence as to saying so... this reticence is more a function of larger dynamics between communities, in which the writing in question *as well as other such writing* (white guys' writing) does in fact play a role... so what's at issue here, as i see it, has still to do with the ways different communities---poets and their critics, black white and brown---come to the work... i mean, i still don't see, again, how we can avoid both the matter of cultural work and the matter of aesthetics (which latter we *can* discuss, as you suggest, in terms of the bias against discussions of form as such)... btw, as a white guy who grew up in so many ways in a working class household (like you) i guess i don't mind so much that i should be so associated... but i'd hate to be pigeon-holed as same, whatever this might mean aesthetically (in fact i can't stand the thought of being pigeon-holed aesthetically!)... so i see your point here... i suspect that my more recent work, in fact, being both more conventional, more male-centered, and more working class (and, dare i say it?, more marketable!) is likely down the road to give me some real conniptions, critically... i mean, from critics... it's already given my creative|critical side its share of headaches... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 16:04:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph M Conte Subject: Robert Kelly In-Reply-To: <199703110506.AAA27382@mailhub.acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yes, _The Loom_ is one volume in a very impressive long poem series, from an author who practically defines the term "prolific." A very good overview essay on Kelly's massive oeuvre is by Patrick Meanor in _Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Poets Since World War II_ vol. 165. It also contains a full primary and secondary bibliography. Joseph Conte University at Buffalo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 15:12:08 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" This is a realy interesting discussion, and very intelligent on all parts, I'd say. A few years back I tried to articulate some of my own thoughts on similar matters in the Notes section of Sulfur, responding to an essay by Jed Rasula. My attempt was critical of certain early langpo positions, and tho littered with grad school jargon I was excited to spew at the time, I recall it raises soem issues (as does Rasula's essay in his usual brilliant ways) that connect with this new thread. Anyway, should anyone care to look, this is in Sulfur 24. I vote for more people jumping in on this. This is imporatnt, no? > Date sent: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 14:17:19 -0600 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU > Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > dodie, i see your point... i'm finding it so very difficult to respond to > this issue w/o casting stones, as it were... and being my typical > long-winded self... > > i bring up teaching b/c it's simply one public context in which i often > find mself... there are others, sure... let me say it this way: i can see > marjorie's point, which i take to be your point --- that it's often > difficult as hell even to discuss matters of form, and that, perhaps partly > as a result, it's often difficult to be publicly critical of > minority/ethnic writers' work on the basis of form... of course this is a > function of audience, context... > > but the same could be said for mainstream white guys' writing too... to be > critical of a white guy's conservative approach to form will not go over > big in many circles... albeit one might not be labeled a racist as a result > of such criticism... still, my point here is that it's one thing to concern > oneself with problems owing to critical reception (being viewed a racist, > say, b/c of one's critical response), it's another to suggest that problems > owing to critical reception stem from the formal tendencies of the writing > being critiqued... now i'm *not* saying anybody has said this, but it seems > to me that the intimation is present... if 'minority writing' is deemed > shallow, say, in terms of identity politics or formal innovation, this > doesn't mean that the writing itself is to be held accountable for (as > suggested) a certain reticence as to saying so... this reticence is more a > function of larger dynamics between communities, in which the writing in > question *as well as other such writing* (white guys' writing) does in fact > play a role... > > so what's at issue here, as i see it, has still to do with the ways > different communities---poets and their critics, black white and > brown---come to the work... i mean, i still don't see, again, how we can > avoid both the matter of cultural work and the matter of aesthetics (which > latter we *can* discuss, as you suggest, in terms of the bias against > discussions of form as such)... > > btw, as a white guy who grew up in so many ways in a working class > household (like you) i guess i don't mind so much that i should be so > associated... but i'd hate to be pigeon-holed as same, whatever this might > mean aesthetically (in fact i can't stand the thought of being pigeon-holed > aesthetically!)... so i see your point here... i suspect that my more > recent work, in fact, being both more conventional, more male-centered, and > more working class (and, dare i say it?, more marketable!) is likely down > the road to give me some real conniptions, critically... i mean, from > critics... it's already given my creative|critical side its share of > headaches... > > best, > > joe > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 14:29:12 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT dodie wrtg: > Joe, while I think what you say about teaching is very important and > interesting, I think you're talking apples and oranges here: critiquing > undergraduates' shakey attempts at expression versus what gets included in > the Norton anthology (i.e., what is declared serious, important, of lasting > value). on the contrary, I think joe is articulating a very real problem ["difficulty"] here, viz. the unwillingness to separate ["the attempt not to separate"] political, aesthetic, & hortatory practice ["work"]. accepting the sometimes contradictory political claims of a left-guarde ["as opposed to right guard"] modernism (not speaking for joe but for myself) implies this kind of dilemma in teaching writing, as does, more generally, an interest in the cultural work of different writings. the apples & oranges approach just doesn't make sense to me; it seems to point up the basically New Critical assumptions that underlie most american creative writing workshops. best, chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 16:28:06 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > i don't mind saying *here*, anyway, that it's pretty easy to be > misunderstood when one slams the writing of a minority poet, however > justifiably... but i don't mind saying *here*, as well, that i've noted a > tendency at times on poetics to be down on more conventional work, even > more conventional work that, imnsho, is exemplary Joe: I sympathize with you in both of your conundrums. Regarding the first dilemma (good politics and bad aesthetics) : What can you do with writing that is at the same time politically astute or important and also the worst sort of kitsch? Your painstaking process of discussing "both the sociopolitical/cultural *work* done by the poems . . . and the ways in which the aesthetics *work* or don't" seems like the only reasonable way to treat the topic, better than an easy dismissiveness based on either political or aesthetic grounds. Regarding the second (exemplary conventional work): The issue you raise is important, and deserves extended discussion on this list. Eavan Boland, widely considered to be both conventional and exemplary, and now working among the Bay area's experimental community, put the problem this way in a recent interview (forthcoming in the next Notre Dame Review http://www.nd.edu/~english/ndr/ndr.htm ): "The issue in poetry is not the multiplication of poetries. It's the fact that there isn't yet a language of respect between these poetries." And the solution she advocates involves a painstaking process like that you advocate for the first of your two dilemmas: "I think one of the new tasks of workshops everywhere over the next decade is going to be to widen their vocabulary not just to speak about poetry, but to engage with, and develop a language of respect for the energies of other communities and other ideas of craft. The alternative is just sterile division . . ." This list seems like the right venue for notes toward such a language. It will be a good interview to check out when it appears in the next issue (and I'm not just saying that because I conducted it). Robert Archambeau ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:46:00 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I applaud M. Perloff's post, bringing politix into the mix more directly than it has been for some time on the list....I do feel that it's a problematic challenge..As a socialist activist and a militant in the labor movement since seventh grade (a very, very long time ago) I feel that it's good that people on this list so often have a politix close to mine... (The cultural-historical sociology of how the Left and the non-mainstream poetry world have become intertwined, has yet to be written..) But...if we address all the questions Marjorie brin gs up, will this become primarily a listserv dealing with left issues? For instance, I could go on for the next eight screens, as to what I think "we," by which I mean "the people of the U.s.", by which I mean the majority, who don't vote for the republicrats, leaving it mainly to the far-right affluent to vote, should do to address the political state of affairs she describes quite well...It has to do with the structure of organizing, with dropping single-issue and defensive struggles, and seriously facing issues of organizational unity and putting forward a critique of the single governmental machine (the Republicrat "party", which is not a party but a voter-registration mechanism, as it is controlled by money and not by a mass membership)... But, obviously, I do value the list for its concern with poetry issues..At least the other thread was about poets, and how they/we relate to racism and violence (..altho' the latter two thirds of it kind of drifted away from having much direct application to poetry, as things on the list will do..) How we see politics as related to our work as poets or as people concerned with poetry, is of course more germane. That gets so intricate, and so all-inclusive of most of my own day-to-day concerns, that it is almost intimidating.. mark p. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:49:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Comments: cc: Marjorie Perloff In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Marjorie (and others who may be listening), If I'm your antagonist, I am indeed a friendly one. I neither intended to nor in fact did imply that you were a racist. I'm happy to read what you wrote, however, though I'd enourage the same from you ;-). I think we can start to talk to (rather than past) each other. So let's focus on the particulars you quote from your article: > What I say, for the record, is that, whereas in 1959 Don Allen could put > together an anthology of "the" new American poetry, an anthology that > pretty accurately pitted the counterculture against the establishment, in > the 1990s, there can no longer be ONE counterculture anthology and so > attempts to produce one that is "the" avant-garde can't wholly succeed. OK fine. Here I'm totally in agreement with you (and think the major thrust of your argument quite on target). > And I write: > "More important: the eightiies witnessed the coming of the minority > communites. . . In their inception, many of these poetries were, > ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the ontology > of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics > couldn't--and still can't--say this out loud because they would have > immediately been labeled racist or sexist. And thus the picture has > become increasingly clouded. " and then I go on to complain about the > absence of all but U.S. poets in most of the new anthologies. First: "the eighties witnessed the coming of the minority communities." I honestly don't know what this means; I can't hold it in my head, it just drains out between my skullplates. Are you saying that there weren't minority communities before the eighties? Or just that there weren't minority POETRY communites? Or that these communities hadn't "come" (to maturity, to coalescence, etc.)? None of these interpretations seem to me satisfying, because none of the assertions that result are, so far as I can tell, true. I'm not trying to bait you, honestly; I simply can't see what that sort of generalizaion means, nor what its point is. Second: "In their inception, many of these [minority community] poetries were, ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the ontology of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics couldn't -- and still can't -- say that out loud because they would have immediately been labeled racist or sexist." Agreements: that many of these poetries were conservative in the ways you mention. Disagreements: 1) that this formal conservatism is ironic in any sense whatsoever; and 2) that you can't say these poetries are conservative (etc.) without being labeled racist or sexist. I certainly labelled you neither, neither on this list nor in my article. > Now David perfectly proves my point by implying I'm somehow making a > racist statement. You are reading into (as opposed to "not reading") what I wrote. What I wrote was that the pluralism of your approach is in tension with the exclusivity of your actual critical practice. This seems to me a perfectly reasonable critique to make. Sure I find this disturbing; but not because I think you're a racist (I don't) -- rather, because of the slippage that comes into play in passages like the one that follows: > What I meant, of course, is that the mainstream > anthologies today like the Norton will include a lot of, say Rita Dove, > because she's a black woman when the Norton doesn't even include Zukofsky, > Reznikoff etc. not to mention Harryette Mullen, Erica Hunt, Will > Alexander, or Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian--well, the list > goes on and on, right? This is where identity politics does indeed cloud > the picture because if you object to these inclusions or exclusions you > are immediately branded. "Inclusions or exclusions." This is not a symmetrical complaint. The complaint about exclusions is well taken, and I'm wholly on your side in that struggle. The complaint about inclusions is where I think your pluralistic stance conflicts with your practice. Mullen, Hunt, et al. are not excluded because Rita Dove is included. (Nor do I think it fair to say that the Norton includes "a lot of . . . Dove, because she's a black woman," barring evidence to support that assertion.) Giving Dove less space will do not one damn bit of good in making more space for Zukofsky, Howe, or Bernstein. > What I'm trying to say, badly probably, because email is not the easiest > writing venue, is that, yes, I am opposed to identity politics in its > crude form and no, that doesn't make me a racist, and if we want to be > political, let's be political and try to do something about what is > happening in Washington. 1) identity politics: I do am opposed to "its crude form," but I think such opposition must not be crude either; 2) that doesn't make you a racist. Agreed (never thought otherwise); 3) politics: it's all over the place, both in Washington and in the poetry community etc. But I'd append also: If we want to do something about excluded poetry, let's not act as though the currently included poets are the problem. If we want diversity, let's have diversity, and not some revised Norton. I don't really have any response to your comments on Dorn, because (except for one moment at its inception) I did not really participate in that thread. I hope this is helpful in clarifying our disagreements. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:55:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703111809.MAA22197@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joe Amato's post was a great addition to the whole (very hard to get a handle on) question, of what we are messing with, in relating poetry to politix...As someone who is as far as can be from classroom and similar situations, it's fascinating to hear from the trenches, about what comes up in teaching situations regarding poetry...It strikes me that it reflects much of what the rest of us are feeling, about how form and politics inter-react; as if situations with students were sharper crystalizations of what many of us are trying to come to grips with, who don't teach.. mark p. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:06:13 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: [Fwd: CCCP] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" pierre is there a email contact for this conference? mark >Thot this of some innerest to the list -- Pierre >-- >========================================= >pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 >tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Everything that allows men to become rooted, through >values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in >_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which >constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, >[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality >and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose >it as a conquering assertation. -- Maurice Blanchot >========================================== > >Received: from naga.mailbase.ac.uk (naga.mailbase.ac.uk [128.240.226.3]) > by sarah.albany.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA04914 > for ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 05:04:34 -0500 (EST) >Received: by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id > (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:12 GMT >Received: from hermes.dur.ac.uk by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id > (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:09 GMT >Received: from venus.dur.ac.uk by hermes.dur.ac.uk id > (8.6.12/ for dur.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:04 GMT >Received: from vega by venus.dur.ac.uk id ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:02 GMT >Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:01 +0000 (GMT) >From: R I Caddel >To: british n irish poets >Subject: CCCP >Message-ID: >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >X-List: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk >X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave british-poets' > to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk >Reply-To: R I Caddel >Sender: british-poets-request@mailbase.ac.uk >Precedence: list > >Message from Peter Riley says, Can you put this out on your list thingy, >as we're a bit late with publicity this year... > >C.C.C.P. > >The seventh annual Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry will take >place Friday to Sunday April 25th-27th at Kings Colleg Cambridge. For very >particular reasons the event this year will emphasise non-British poetry, >with poets from Australia (John Tranter, Tracy Ryan), Canada (Karen Mac >Cormack, Deanna Ferguson), France (Dominique Grandmont and Emmanuel >Hocquard), Belgium (Pierre-Yves Soucy), Sweden (Staffan Soderblum). Also >Fiona Templeton, David Chaloner, Grace Lake. > >Bookings and information: Ian Patterson, Kings College Cambridge. >tel. 01223 576422 > >Information: Peter Riley, 27 Sturton Street, Cambridge. tel. 01223 576422 > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:10:11 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: (Fwd) AWOL: New magazines in the bookshop Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 07:20:00 +1000 >To: awol@ozemail.com.au >From: awol@ozemail.com.au (AWOL) >Subject: AWOL: New magazines in the bookshop > >New Magazine Releases from the AWOL Virtual Bookshop > > >It can be difficult keeping up with the latest issue of your favourite >magazine. Now you can order them through AWOL. Here are the latest >magazines available through our online bookshop (for a wider range of >magazines and titles visit or Virtual Small press bookshop at >http:www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ if you can't find the title you want email >us and we will see what we can do) > > > >SALT 8 (ISSN 1035-204X) Featuring work by John >Ashbery, Charles Bernstein, MTC Cronin, Andrew Duncan, John Forbes, Alison >Georgeson, Denis Haskel, Coral Hul, Helene Jaccomard, Urs Jaeggi, Kate >Jarman, Wendy Jenkins, SK Kelen, John Kinsella, Carolyn Kizer, August >Kleinzahler, Grace Lake, Rod Mengham, Les Murray, Glen Phillips, Peter >Porter, Ron Pretty, Peter Riley, Mark Reid, Tracy Ryan, Susan M Schultz, >Ron Shapiro, Ron Silliman, Simon Smith, Nicolette Stasko & John >Tranter. >$10.00 > > >AEDON 4.1 (ISSN 1039-8007) Aedon: The Melbourne University Literary Arts >Review 4.1 contains fiction by Saskia Beudel, Scott Brook, Paul Magee, >Mischa Merz, James Hawthorne. Karen Burns, SJRR & Richard King; Poetry >by Deborah Staines, Gig Ryan, Julie Hunt, Kevin Murray, Kathryn Hoffman, >John Forbes, Jordi Albiston & Emma Driver. Interviews with Elizabeth >Grosz and McKenzie Wark. Articles include Meaghan Morris on 'Beyond >Assimilation: Aboriginality, Media History and Public Memory, Peter Phipps >on 'Watching Clifford watching Leiris watching himself fall aprt:undoing >anthropology in reply to Klaus Neumann, Christopher Ziguras on 'Paying your >respects to someone else's elders: the western appropriation of Asian and >Indigenous religious discourses', Helene Gronda on 'Why are we watching the >news again mum?: Walter Benjamin, Television and Experience', &; Phil >McCluskey on 'Cold Diffusion'. Reviews include Daniel Ross on Siegfried >Kracauer The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, Andrew Smith on Melbourne >graffiti, Dom Pettman on Independence Day Megan Grant on Elspeth Probyn >Outside Belongs. Plus graphics by Louise Forthun, Bridget Kearney, Paul >Dash, Saffron Newey, Jane Brown, Felicity Marks, Joelle Baudet, Alex >Stamboultgis & Greg Defteros. >$10.00 > > >Overland 145 Poetry by Bruce Dawe, john malone, Marguerite Varday, Emma >Lew, Michael Crane, Libby Robin, Phil Ilton, Clive Faust, Graham Rowlands, >Jean Thorton & Kieran Carrol. Anthony Weare on Port Arthur, Brian >Matthews on the Millennium, Julie Lewis on Mary Martin's Bookshop. Plus >fiction, the usual high quality OVERLAND reviews and much much more. >$8.00 > > > > > >Postage >$3.50 for the first book >$5.00 for more than one book > > >How to order > >Simply print this form, circle the magazines you want, and mail it, >together with you payment (don't forget postage) to: >AWOL >PO Box 333 >Concord NSW 2137 > >Don't forget to include you postal address. > > > > >All prices Aust$. Overseas orders please contact us by email first. > > > > > > > > >AWOL >Australian Writing On Line >awol@ozemail.com.au >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol >PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia >Phone 61 2 7475667, Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 7472802 > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 18:44:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Lecky Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel Bouchard wrote: > But generalizations are useless since most people signed on don't write > anything at all. As one who has written very little here, let me whisper a cheer for Marjorie Perloff's last post in the "deeply disturbing" thread. As Joe Amato also intimated, much of what seems to be happening on this list of late stinks of the worst type of judgment, i.e. self-righteousness. Most of the Dorn/"deeply disturbed" discussion has come down to an unfortunate and ill-conceived creation of binaries: form/content, right/wrong. Marjorie Perloff makes a very apt point: those of us who dissent from "identity politics," or more poetically speaking, from a poetics based only on one's identity (religion, race, gender, etc.) set ourselves up for attack. I can flatly say that Maya Angelou is an incredibly weak poet, on the grounds that her verse is systematic, formulaic, reactionary, sentimental. Am I a racist? As a young member of the list (20s), I've had to choke on these issues throughout my higher education. I left the Stanford graduate program, where Marjorie Perloff teaches, because I knew that if I pursued my chosen field (20th century American poetry, Objectivist, Black Mountain, New York, and Language schools) I (male, white) would greatly restrict the possibilities of employment, i.e. my "identity" did not succeed into the marketplace. I don't know Dorn, but I respect and admire his poetry. I have no idea if he is a racist or an anti-Semite. I think we had better consider some of the things that are going on in Washington in an administration peppered with absolute base ignorance at best, illegality at worst. I'm not arguing that a discussion of poetry need be political, but when it becomes political it could at least consider larger issues that are critically important to the mechanics of our society, not gossip relating to a poet who, to the larger society, is an unknown. Yes, I left graduate studies because I saw people (Gil Sorrentino for one) with real convictions about the history and legitimacy of art crushed by the political weight of the academy. Who wants to suffer through it? After all, great art should transcend these things, politics in particular, and become something else. And that "something else" is an irrational commodity. Thomas Lecky ____________________________________________________________________________ Thomas Lecky editor@qwertyarts.com Qwerty Arts http://www.qwertyarts.com ____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 18:28:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" robert and mark, thanx for your comments... and robert, i'll definitely check out the next notre dame review... and thanx to backchannel communique, i've been made aware that my example of teaching glosses the sorts of resistance ALL students tend to have to critique of form, and expression... this is true, and this complicates the scenario pedagogically, illustrating the degree to which i exploit what is in essence a stereotype... i like complications, hence i appreciate the backchannel (thanx!)... still, i don't think this fact alters the issue substantively, insofar as the sorts of concerns i'm raising... i've been in situations where my critical attitude toward both white and minority literatures has been mistaken to mean that i'm opposed to minority literatures... i've also been in situations where simply stating that i like, say, the work of sharon olds (YES, i do) has been taken to mean that i'm opposed to or dislike the work of less mainstream or less orthodox poets... wrong on both counts... and mea culpa for those occasions that it's been ME doing the "mistaking"... fact is we're all, all of us, a product of our various institutions, to varying degrees... and i can't imagine how this could not be the case... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:55:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let me make my confession since everybody seems to be owning up to what they admire or read. I find Harold Bloom's notion of agon, or the anxiety of influence, hard to resist. I wouldn't put it in quite the Freudian terms that he does, but I think that much of what we call creativity is born in the "intentional" misreading of what has come before and what is around right now. It is what I sometimes try to do with rhyme. I know it's somewhat ridiculous to write couplets, but I am doing so in one poem primarily because of the sense of absurdity it brings. I see the rhyme scheme as some sort of dilapidated grid that tries to force the poem in certain directions. Furthermore, there is an aleatory element to rhyming that I find intriguing. As I list words to rhyme, I find my poem shoved in directions I never anticipated. And sometimes that I don't even quite understand. But damn, they sound good. At least to me! For anybody interested in seeing this poem, it's called Joist and is at the Web address below. I invite all backchannel comment. Thanks, Steven __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 21:39:01 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: [Fwd: CCCP] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Roberts wrote: > > pierre > > is there a email contact for this conference? > > mark > Mark -- not that i know of -- Riley is involved but had to ask Ric to mail that info -- you cld try Caddell below & ask him. Patterson in Cambridge must/may have email. -- Pierre > >Thot this of some innerest to the list -- Pierre > >-- > >========================================= > >pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 > >tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu > >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Everything that allows men to become rooted, through > >values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in > >_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which > >constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, > >[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality > >and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose > >it as a conquering assertation. -- Maurice Blanchot > >========================================== > > > >Received: from naga.mailbase.ac.uk (naga.mailbase.ac.uk [128.240.226.3]) > > by sarah.albany.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA04914 > > for ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 05:04:34 -0500 (EST) > >Received: by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id > > (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:12 GMT > >Received: from hermes.dur.ac.uk by naga.mailbase.ac.uk id > > > (8.7.x for naga.mailbase.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:10:09 GMT > >Received: from venus.dur.ac.uk by hermes.dur.ac.uk id > > > (8.6.12/ for dur.ac.uk) with SMTP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:04 GMT > >Received: from vega by venus.dur.ac.uk id ; Tue, > 11 Mar 1997 08:41:02 GMT > >Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:41:01 +0000 (GMT) > >From: R I Caddel > >To: british n irish poets > >Subject: CCCP > >Message-ID: > >MIME-Version: 1.0 > >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >X-List: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk > >X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave british-poets' > > to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk > >Reply-To: R I Caddel > >Sender: british-poets-request@mailbase.ac.uk > >Precedence: list > > > >Message from Peter Riley says, Can you put this out on your list thingy, > >as we're a bit late with publicity this year... > > > >C.C.C.P. > > > >The seventh annual Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry will take > >place Friday to Sunday April 25th-27th at Kings Colleg Cambridge. For very > >particular reasons the event this year will emphasise non-British poetry, > >with poets from Australia (John Tranter, Tracy Ryan), Canada (Karen Mac > >Cormack, Deanna Ferguson), France (Dominique Grandmont and Emmanuel > >Hocquard), Belgium (Pierre-Yves Soucy), Sweden (Staffan Soderblum). Also > >Fiona Templeton, David Chaloner, Grace Lake. > > > >Bookings and information: Ian Patterson, Kings College Cambridge. > >tel. 01223 576422 > > > >Information: Peter Riley, 27 Sturton Street, Cambridge. tel. 01223 576422 > > > > > > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ > SIS Team > Building G05 Maze Crescent > University of Sydney > Phone 61 2 93517710 > Mobile 015063970 > Fax 61 2 93517711 -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 22:45:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: FFCop's story mambo / SA lit workshops? Guyzies [as quoth Maria D, but can I affect such salutation?] -- from So. Asian Lit. listserv, I patch in, for poss. interest (read: ironist apreech?) a note anent Francis Ford Coppola's entry into the literary periodical biz (though likely not xerographic) -- the gent having resolved to cast his attention at litrachure -- this reminds (anecdotally -- & w/o aspersions as to FFCo in particular) of Meredith Monk's remark some number of years ago, amid efforts to deal w/ funding issues in wake of that exceptional film of hers *Book of Days* (1987), that although she was having a bit of a time recouping expenses, the movie was merely made for the equivalent of "Francis Ford Coppola's pasta budget" (or, peanuts as they say) -- conversely, one assumes the new Zootrope 'zine is now flung into the world at the equivalent of . . . . (? what culinary simile? so-&-so's morel diet, I suppose) SECONDLY (more particularly), kindly note Prentiss Riddle's inquiry re: So.Asia-focused writing workshops (or any along such lines) -- info re: which could be sent to me (&/or forwarded to Prentiss, or for that matter to Champa Bilwakesh, the original inquirer). [allowing "workshop" to be oftentimes construed w/o zeal hereabouts, I figure on a level of tolaration] [the orig. post was responsive, incidentally, to Sasialit group chat w/ Bay Area-based fiction/poetry writer Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni] cordial-like, d.i. Received: from larry (listserv.rice.edu [128.42.5.5]) by listserv.rice.edu (8.7.5/8.7.5) with SMTP id UAA00371; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:36:12 -0600 (CST) Received: from LISTSERV.RICE.EDU by LISTSERV.RICE.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 207255 for SASIALIT@LISTSERV.RICE.EDU; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:35:49 -0600 Received: from is.rice.edu (is.rice.edu [128.42.42.24]) by listserv.rice.edu (8.7.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id UAA00361 for ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:35:47 -0600 (CST) Received: (from riddle@localhost) by is.rice.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA14999; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:34:38 -0600 (CST) X-WWW-Page: http://is.rice.edu/~riddle/ X-Bundle-Of-Joy: http://is.rice.edu/~riddle/mango.html X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <199703120234.UAA14999@is.rice.edu> Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:34:37 -0600 Reply-To: Prentiss Riddle Sender: SASIALIT -- Literature of South Asia and the Indian diaspora From: Prentiss Riddle Subject: Re: Writers' workshops Comments: To: Champa_Bilwakesh@AVID.COM To: Multiple recipients of list SASIALIT In-Reply-To: from "Champa_Bilwakesh@AVID.COM" at Mar 11, 97 03:19:39 pm > From owner-sasialit@LISTSERV.RICE.EDU Tue Mar 11 14:49:45 1997 > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 15:19:39 -0500 > From: Champa_Bilwakesh@AVID.COM > Subject: Writers' workshops > > I often see a writers' workshop advertised in Vermont. It sounds > heavenly. There are several others in the east coast and northeast. A > fellow would-be writer and friend are considering seriously attending > one. Anybody attended one of these? Would you share your experience? A general catalog of writers' workshops would be beyond the scope of SASIALIT (has anybody found such a catalog online, by the way), but here's one that caught my eye: Francis Coppola's Zoetrope organization is sponsoring a short story writer's workshop in the mountains of Belize this July 8-15. It sounds like a great junket. Info is available from 1-800-223-9832. And I might as well mention where I heard about it. I recently received unsolicited the first issue of a new magazine of short fiction started by Coppola and also named "Zoetrope". It seems to be sort of a vanity project, as Coppola writes in an editorial of the dreariness of reading screenplays and his desire to revive the lost (?) art of the short story. A quick leaf-through of the magazine didn't reveal any stories which grabbed me in particular, but the price is certainly right: subscriptions are free. If you'd like to receive a sample copy, drop a line to: Zoetrope Short Stories 126 Fifth Ave. Suite 300 New York, NY 10011-5606 Now, to bring this back to the theme of SASIALIT: are there any writers' workshops specializing in South Asian literature? Or perhaps "postcolonial" literature? Or any good writing programs based in South Asia? -- Prentiss Riddle ("aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada") riddle@rice.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 01:03:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: CD Release Party for Deep Listening Band & Long String Instrument Comments: To: herb@ESKIMO.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" price and availability? At 11:23 PM 3/10/97 -0800, Herb Levy wrote: >My new company, Periplum, released it's first CD, Suspended Music by Deep >Listening Band & Long String Instrument, earlier this year. It's a really >great CD featuring the combined forces of DLB (Stu Dempster, David Gamper & >Pauline Oliveros) & Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument performing >recent long works by Pauline Oliveros and Ellen Fullman. Other discs to be >released this year include the 2nd release by the collaborative group Land >(Jeff Greinke, Lesli Dalaba, Dennis Rea, et alia); New Songs commissioned >by David Mahler & Ann Obery from eleven US composers; and recordings of >interactive computer music by Martin Bartlett, including performances by >Peter Hannan, George E Lewis, & Frances-Marie Uitti. > >We had a great CD party in Austin a couple of weeks ago with Ellen, and >there are more release parties on the way. Hey, wait, here's some now, >near where you live: > > >Friday, March 14, 1997 5-7 pm > >The Gallery at Deep Listening Space >74 Broadway >Kingston, NY 12401 > > >Saturday, March 15, 1997 4-7 pm > >Roulette >228 West Broadway >New York, NY 10013 > > >Sorry for this impersonal bulk mail, I hope to get a chance to talk to you >when I'm in your neck of the woods. > >Bests > >Herb > > >Herb Levy >herb@eskimo.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 01:29:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jena Osman Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dodie Bellamy wrote: >Joan Retallack offers a wonderful, thoughtful, beautifully written critique >of identity politics (among other things) in >":RE:THINING:LITERARY:FEMINISM: (three essays onto shaky grounds)." >Unfortunately, I just read it from a xerox, so I don't know where it was >published. I agree that this is an excellent essay! It is in a book called _Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory_, edited by Lynn Keller and Cristanne Miller. In the essay, Retallack calls for a "use theory" rather than a "picture theory" of identity as communicated through language--a new poetics to accompany new politics. She writes: "A use theory of meaning, one that locates the making of meaning in a collaborative engagement with interdynamically developing forms (rather than in the interpretation of a fossil signified), allows exploration of the medium of language itself, and thus the invention of new grammars, where subject-object, master-mater relations can never be presupposed, where nothing ever shrinks and stabilizes into an irresversible 'it.' The picture is the prototypical 'it.'...What once flowed in all directions at 'once' is reduced to the servitude of the inanimate. In the picture all has been isolated in space and stopped in time, reflecting not glorious, multifarious (chaotic) reality, but the vanishing point of the photographer's, painter's, or writer's single-point imagination." If interested, check out the Keller-Miller book--they did a great job of mixing what could be called "conventional" essays with essays that perform their content, and thus test the limits of the genre. Also includes work by Rachel Blau DuPlessis and M. Nourbese Philip, among others. Jena Osman josman@acsu.buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 07:50:03 GMT+1 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Paul Miller Organization: Coll. Paderevianum, Jagiell.Univ. Subject: Re: XEROX REVOLUTION Does anyone recall how innovative clean and inexpensive Xerox copy shops were in the seventies? That was part of the premise of THE POETRY MAILING LIST, which I put out with Kenneth Deifik in the mid- seventies. We published a one page poetry magazine. People were still not used to spotless Xeroxes, and it often seemed like a personal letter. It had an immediate effect. For instance, when I asked Peter Schjeldahl for a poem, he told me that he had not written one for a long, long time. However, that night he found himself writing DEAR ART OF VERSE, and he sent to me. I Xeroxed it and put it in about 300 hundred envelopes with Ken and out it in the return mail. Peter received many calls from people who thought he had personally sent it to them, which I think he liked. THE POETRY MAILING LIST created an unobstrusive focus on poetry. Other poets and and artists included John Cage, Jackson MacLow, Lucio Pozzi, Kathy Acker, David Shapiro, Beth Anderson, Jill Kroesen, Joel Oppenheimer, and many others. Stephen Paul Miller ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 08:16:03 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: deeply disturbed As a deeply-disturbed former card-carrying food coop community organizer political researcher magnum cum laude left worker student activist genre-jumping wigged-out Keseyian busrider acid head, let me just say... poetry is not writing it's an elusive element that sometimes appears here and there even in Maya Angelou even in Dr. Seuss "Without hesitation, I'm happy to say Dr. Seuss trumps us all in this trite centuray." On politics, identity, and writing in school: two words of advice - get poor. (translation: read it back to me, quietly, quietly.) - Henry Gould (Henry's new CD: "Let's talk Money", is available from DC Yaketeeyak Records, The White House, Lincoln Bedroom, Washington, DC. Checks only, please - make them out to Harold Hughes.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 07:25:06 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: XEROX REVOLUTION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Does anyone recall how innovative clean and inexpensive Xerox copy > shops were in the seventies? That was part of the premise of THE > POETRY MAILING LIST, which I put out with Kenneth Deifik in the mid- > seventies. We published a one page poetry magazine. People were > still not used to spotless Xeroxes, and it often seemed like a > personal letter. remember? I'm still taking advantage of that spotlessness every time I publish a book! chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 09:28:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: poetry that sells? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII An article in Publisher's Weekly on March 3 called "The Different Faces of Poetry" estimates the sales of some recent books of poetry: Jorie Graham's THE DREAM OF A UNIFIED FIELD (Ecco Press, 1995), winner of the Pulitzer Prize: 8500 copies sold. POETRY LIKE BREAD, an anthology of "leftist multicultural writing" (Curbstone Press, 1993): 9000 copies. Dave Alvin (rock musician formerly of the Blasters, etc), ANY ROUGH TIMES ARE NOW BEHIND YOU (Incommunicado Press, 1995): 5000 copies. Charles Berstein's DARK CITY (Sun and Moon, 1995): 4000 copies. Mark Wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 08:52:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear thomas (lecky), i *do* understand your decision to leave stanford (to leave standford... wow!) on the basis of reduced job possibilities... but please: as a white male het (one having strong sympathies with that olsonian line you mention), i must observe that your problems with the academic job market, or most other job markets for that matter, do not reduce to your identity... statistically speaking, it's other white guyz whom you're losing out to, so to say... much as am i... this much is verifiable... and you're losing out, too, to a growing tendency to create part admin-part faculty line positions, most with "writing" someplace in the job description... which again is not a function of your, or anybody else's, "identity" per se... and you're losing out to the continuing, and perhaps growing, practice of hiring adjuncts to teach courses instead of full-time, tenure track faculty... UNLESS, unless perhaps your field is, say, african-american lit, and you're white?... knowing a few folks who are in this position, job placement is undoubtedly at some level a function of identity politics... which brings up another point about this thread: i'm finding it difficult as hell to articulate a position which is (please forgive me, marjorie) not exactly marjorie's, but not exactly anti-marjorie's either... not exactly david kellogg's, but not exactly anti-david kellogg's either... that is, i'm finding it difficult to navigate these waters w/o finding mself in the midst of various binaries, binaries that are themselves a function, in part, of identifying [this or that]... in fact, i take this to be confirmation of the sorts of public tensions raised when one attempts to flush the aesthetic-political tangle... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 08:52:12 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: FFCop's story mambo / SA lit workshops? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i've read _zoetrope_ mself, and find the idea of coppola getting involved in a literary mag intriguing, what with, e.g., william kennedy on the masthead... i mean, coppola HAS made some great flicks, no?... i don't necessarily share his desiderata (in that first issue) about the short story, but he claims to be keenly interested in the written word... so what the hell, then --why not?... i mean, for example: in that first issue, they reprint "the wisdom of eve," by mary orr... now this short story was the basis for the film *all about eve*... personally, i love this latter, and i find it fascinating to read the story and imagine its transformation into film... so as far as i'm concerned, if more hollywood types want to create more fora that add to the flow, that's fine with me... it may well be -- i assume this will be the case, based on this first issue -- that exposure will be limited to more orthodox work, as is generally the case with more mainstream pubs... but again---if the work published is exceptional, why not?... i can't say that it'll 'squeeze out' in any way less orthodox work, given that it seems to be coppola's money behind the mag... but let's wait and see... and to be a bit crass about it (and i'm *not* just being provocative here): if they publish something of mine (i have every intention of submitting short fiction), i'm going to find it really difficult to complain... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 09:01:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" oh and yeah, i neglected to write "please forgive me, david" with regard to my last post on this vexed issue... i don't wish to alienate marjorie, OR david... or any of you, for that matter... again, i see *this* list, *this* space as one of the few such spaces around for hashing out such issues... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 09:04:23 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: suspended music Just a heartfelt plug for Herb Levy's Periplum CD, Suspended Music. The "long string instrument" is amazing. Totally new. There used to be a magazine called _Ear_ devoted to new music--is there anything out there comparable? Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 09:20:59 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: CD Here too a BRAVO for Herb Levy's CD. A beautifully different pace and place of listening..... Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 08:35:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: poetry that sells? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On what are these estimates based? They seem pretty high to me, but perhaps they are accurate? charles At 09:28 AM 3/12/97 -0500, you wrote: > An article in Publisher's Weekly on March 3 called "The Different >Faces of Poetry" estimates the sales of some recent books of poetry: > > Jorie Graham's THE DREAM OF A UNIFIED FIELD (Ecco Press, 1995), >winner of the Pulitzer Prize: 8500 copies sold. > > POETRY LIKE BREAD, an anthology of "leftist multicultural >writing" (Curbstone Press, 1993): 9000 copies. > > Dave Alvin (rock musician formerly of the Blasters, etc), ANY >ROUGH TIMES ARE NOW BEHIND YOU (Incommunicado Press, 1995): 5000 copies. > > Charles Berstein's DARK CITY (Sun and Moon, 1995): 4000 copies. > > > > Mark Wallace > > ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:55:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe, You've put forward some of the most interesting ideas on this whole thread. Very sensitive and thoughtful -- I have learned a lot. >which brings up another point about this thread: i'm finding it difficult >as hell to articulate a position which is (please forgive me, marjorie) not >exactly marjorie's, but not exactly anti-marjorie's either... not exactly >david kellogg's, but not exactly anti-david kellogg's either... You know, so am I ;-). Actually, however, I think I'd take a position close to yours regarding the job market. Like you, I'm W-M-Het committed to formally challenging poetry. Probably among the twenty-one tenure-track jobs I've come close to getting but didn't, some offers were made where the applicant's gender, race, and/or investment in identity politics were at issue. But so what? I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be easy -- too easy -- to blame this situation on dominance of identity politics. There are a lot of other factors at stake, including the funding of jobs in general, resistance to contemporary work, resistance to the kind of criticism/sociology/theory that I do (esp. with regard to contemporary poetry), etc. When Marjorie indirectly suggests that I'm too sympathetic to identity politics, that I've somehow bought into the rhetoric of that whole line of thinking, I want to laugh -- she should sit in on some of my interviews. With regard to binaries, a crude opposition to identity politics that assigns "it" (whatever "it" is) blame for whatever situtation (my lack of a job, certain poets' exclusion from the Norton or some other standard anthology) -- in their binary opposition, both submit to a zero-sum-game view of poetic value. If my poet's in, somebody else has got to leave. There ain't room in this town . . . Can't we get beyond that? Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. --Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:15:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: poetry that sells? In-Reply-To: Mark Wallace "poetry that sells?" (Mar 12, 9:28am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The Poets & Writers zine out on the bookstore shelves now has article on the popularity of poetry. Haven't read it yet, but is probably the official verse culture business as usual (Dana Goia is still worried about a downward trend). Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:19:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Felix Subject: Re: suspended music/ EMF.ORG Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >There used to be a magazine called _Ear_ devoted to new music--is >there anything out there comparable? > >Kent Hello, snagging this from the fluxlist. Not to imply that only the electronic is new of course. jfelix > ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOUNDATION >============================ >UPDATE > >Contents: > >1. Check The EMF Worldwide Calendar >2. Major offerings from CDeMUSIC: CRI and Tellus >3. A historical note >4. A few words from our sponsors >5. Become a Subscriber >6. Information available by email >7. On or off this list > >============================ >1. Check The EMF Worldwide Calendar > >There's an important need for a single place where an electronic musician >or listener can find out what's going on in the world, including concerts >and festivals, extraordinary web sites, reports on events, news of people >on the road, job opportunities, product announcements, calls for materials, >and other items of interest. Some sites and email lists give a partial view >responding to specific interests. Our goal for The EMF Worldwide Calendar >is to give an overview of the global scene. > >The List of Events aims at being comprehensive, with pointers to sources >for further information. > > http://www.emf.org/cal_eventlist.html > >The 'Don't Miss These Events' page focuses your attention on important, >unusual, and/or sponsored events. This week, you'll read about the >Interpretations Series, the Henry Cowell festival, and other events in New >York. You'll find out about the Son-Mu series and IRCAM's presentation of >Manoury's new opera in Paris. You'll find out about a theremin festival in >Maine in June, not to mention other summer events in New Mexico, France, >and everywhere else. And you'll get a glimpse of the fall in Chicago, >Thessaloniki, Seoul, New York, and Karlsruhe. > > http://www.emf.org/cal_exceptional.html > >>From our correspondents far and wide, there's news about genetic models for >art and mysterious happenings in the Malaysian jungle. There are many many >calls for submissions on the Bulletin Board, for festivals, contests, >conferences, and publishing. And there's some hot news from our sponsors. >E-mu Systems, for example, announces 37 (!) new job openings. Find every >calendar item from > > http://www.emf.org/cal_frontdoor.html > >============================ >2. Major offerings from CDeMUSIC: CRI and Tellus > >The CRI catalog is in the CDeMUSIC spotlight! Just as a sample, there's a >historic recording of women in electronic music in 1977, with music by >Johanna Beyer, Annea Lockwood, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, Megan >Roberts, Ruth Anderson, and Laurie Anderson. There's Harry Partch's 'The >Bewitched'. There's Alvin Curran's 'Schtyx', lyrical, explosive, moving. >Lou Harrison's music, some of it with gamelan, some of it for string >quartet, is classic. Maro Ajemian's recording of John Cage's 'Sonatas and >Interludes for Prepared Piano', as played by in Cage's 1958 retrospective, >was the first. There's Morton Feldman, Jerry Hunt, Otto Luening, and more >more more. Look at the catalog. > > http://www.emf.org/cdcat_cri.html > >And take advantage of the Tellus cassette blowout! We're offering 11 Tellus >cassettes, with historical text sound compositions, soundart, microcomputer >music, Fluxus music, and more, for $5 each. > > http://www.emf.org/cdcat_telluscassettes.html > >Here's some advice. Don't wait to buy! If you see a CD you want, get it >right away, while it's available. We've seen many CDs become unavailable, >some temporarily, some forever. To get an overview of all of the fabulous >music that's available now, start at the CDeMUSIC home page, browse through >the List of Catalogs, look through the Alphabetical List by Composer. > > http://www.emf.org/cde_frontdoor.html > >Starting in mid-May, we're planning to start a CDHotline as a one-time per >month email update, dealing with new releases, recommended compact discs, >listener's comments, brief CD reviews, and other items of interest. If >you're interested in receiving this, send us a message. Say, "Yes to >CDHotline." It's free. > >============================ >3. A historical note > >In the early 1960s, James Beauchamp designed the Harmonic Tone Generator, >actually the first additive-synthesis synthesizer at the University of >Illinois. He presented a paper on it at the AES Convention in October 1964 >in New York, during the same session that Robert Moog gave his talk on >voltage-controlled modules. Among the composers that used it were Herbert >Brun, Lejaren Hiller, Salvatore Martirano, and Kenneth Gaburo. See the >photos on our home page. > > http://www.emf.org > >============================ >4. A few words from our sponsors > >One of our most important goals is to provide access to materials. So look >at our list of sponsors and follow the links to find out about the most >forward-looking companies in the world. > > http://www.emf.org/emf_sponsors.html > >Some announcements: Big Briar announces that the Series 91 theremins will >soon be unavailable. E-mu Systems announces 37 new job opportunities. Link >to them from the calendar. > > http://www.emf.org/cal_frontdoor.html > >Note that we've just opened a Big Briar department in The EMF Store, the >better to bring you theremins. Link to it from The EMF Store. > > http://www.emf.org/store_frontdoor.html > >We'll open other stores soon, with spectacular discounts for Subscribers. > >============================ >5. Become a Subscriber > >As CDeMUSIC expands, as offerings increase in The EMF Store, and as The EMF >Calendar reaches more and more people, you may be interested in becoming a >Subscriber. There are both professional and consumer benefits, and you may >find that your small one-time subscription fee may indeed come back to you >manyfold and quickly. See our invitation. > > http://www.emf.org/emf_invitation.html > >If you can't access the web page, email us and ask for Subscriber information. > >============================ >6. Information available by email > >If you don't have easy access to the web and you'd like to receive >catalogs, product notices, or other information as email, just send an >email message to EMF@emf.org and tell us what you'd like. We'll do our best >to comply. > >The 'Pioneers of Electronic Music' catalog, which represents EMF's basic >mission, is continually updated and always available by email, as is 'The >EMF Store' catalog. > >============================ >7. On or off this list > >We are sending this update to you either because you're already on our list >or because we believe you'll be interested in the information we provide. >We send an update like this one around the 5th of every month and an email >calendar around the 20th of every month. Every now and then, you'll receive >an updated catalog or an alert with a particular important message. > >If there is any type of message you don't want to receive, just send us a >message and say, for example, "I don't want to receive the catalogs," or "I >don't want to receive the calendar." If you would rather not receive >anything from us, just say, "Please take me off your list." > >If this has been forwarded to you by someone else and you would like to >receive these notices directly, just send an email message to list@emf.org >and say something like "Put me on your list" and we'll put you on our list. > >===================================================== >EMF, CDeMUSIC, CDHotline, The EMF Store, and The EMF Worldwide Calendar are >trademarks of Electronic Music Foundation, Ltd. > >Electronic Music Foundation >116 North Lake Avenue >Albany NY 12206 >USA > >(518) 434-4110 Voice >(518) 434-0308 Fax > >EMF@emf.org >http://www.emf.org > >X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X >Joseph Nechvatal, Paris, France, Europa >http://www.cybertheque.fr/galerie/jnech >X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 23:35:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: suspended music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Just a heartfelt plug for Herb Levy's Periplum CD, Suspended Music. >The "long string instrument" is amazing. Totally new. > >There used to be a magazine called _Ear_ devoted to new music--is >there anything out there comparable? > >Kent a heartfelt plug for MusicWorks magazine: 179 Richmod St West, Toronto ONT Canada M5V 1V3... a tremendous resource; when subscribing be sure to shell out the extra $19 for the accompanying CDs... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:58:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703121555.KAA24724@argus.acpub.duke.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dkellog rites: I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be easy >-- too easy -- to blame this situation on dominance of identity politics. >There are a lot of other factors at stake, including the funding of jobs in >general, resistance to contemporary work, resistance to the kind of >criticism/sociology/theory that I do (esp. with regard to contemporary >poetry), etc. i've been staying out of this one cuz it seemed like same old same old, but i feel the need to ask: were identity politics *not* a part of what kept women/folks of color *out* of the job market for so many years? did we invent identity politics? have they not always been a part of determining who gets what? why is it only a "problem" when normative identity's (ie.e straight white male etc) normativity is called into question? and for that matter, why have "identity politics" suddenly become such anathema, as if they were essentialist in nature? compare income levels, education levels, life opportunity levels of people of different "identities" and it seems that there might actually be a need to talk about it. > >When Marjorie indirectly suggests that I'm too sympathetic to identity >politics, that I've somehow bought into the rhetoric of that whole line of >thinking, I want to laugh -- she should sit in on some of my interviews. david i don't see any reason why you should apologize for noticing that there is social stratification in this country based on certain demographic factors, and for thinking it might be not okay. i *do* see a problem with people's knee jerk reaction to attempts to talk about politics on this list. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:05:32 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: [Fwd: CCCP] In-Reply-To: <3325D0F6.5FBA@cnsunix.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > is there a email contact for this conference? > > > > mark Mark, I'll get numbers for Ian Patterson and Rod Mengham if they use them. Meanwhile, you can try through me, as I'm partly involved and close by in Cambridge. Fiona Templeton ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:10:09 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed"/Retallack essay In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jena: Who are the publishers? Know whre it's available? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:35:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Zitt Organization: Human Systems Subject: Re: suspended music MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii KENT JOHNSON wrote: > There used to be a magazine called _Ear_ devoted to new music--is > there anything out there comparable? There are a few: I religiously read Musicworks (from Canada), Wire (from England), and various stuff online, such as the ezine Juxtaposition. I had a few pieces in Ear, long ago; it was a very cool magazine, and I wish it had survived. -- ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------- |||/ Joseph Zitt ===== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \||| ||/ Austin, Texas! =========== SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List \|| |/ http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt == <*> <*> == Empty Words == ecto \| ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:53:57 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703111809.MAA22197@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 11 Mar 1997 amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU wrote: > at the same time, *as a teacher*, i find mself in a difficult situation > when my white male students bring in their more experimental writing, rife > with distended phalli, as exemplary moments in contemporary poetry...... if i rail against the unsubtle identity > gendering of male fantasy driven work, regardless how aesthetically > informed, then should i likewise rail against the unsubtle essentializing > of experience in the work of african-american women?... whereas the former > usually reinforces an existing power relationship, the latter seems on the > surface of things to act as a sort of corrective, at least short-term and more with which you qualified this, I know, as below and in later posts, but: 1. to you: "exemplary moments in contemporary poetry" ??? 2. in general: Isn't it not just that you have to do both, as you answer yourself, but that the macho dimension you're talking about and/or its converses is actually informing the sense of what experiment is for and is? And that much as we may like messing about in the matter of our art, doesn't "aesthetic" become limited to pretty reshuffle or stylistic look-alike if that poetic matter isn't a vehicle for being able to see anew in all senses? My terms aren't rigorous here either, I just think the question is important. > to flip things around, from a more nurturing pedagogical perspective: do i > credit the aesthetic in the former, ignoring the more macho dimension?... > and do i credit the identity politics of the latter, and ignore the > aesthetic dimension?... > > clearly, it seems to me, i need to do BOTH, somehow... i need to help > students grasp the gendering of the former, the ways the aesthetic at times > trivializes same, and the aesthetic simplicity-qua-simple identity of the > latter... i need to discuss both the sociopolitical/cultural *work* done by > the poems in varying communities, and the ways in which the aesthetics > *work* or don't in this process of meaning-making, of valuing and > revaluing... as contributors to this meaning-making process (along with > human beings, i mean), poems can work to produce mean-spirited de- and > connotations quite effectively, or well-intended de- and connotations not > so effectively (in tech. writing, incidentally, you can supplement > "mean-spirited" and "well-intended" with "inaccurate" and "accurate")... > but the field of meaning and possibility, the discourse of poetry, is such > that one's attention is (or should be) drawn not only to various > connotations, but to effectiveness (yeah, i'm slipping & sliding on a > form/content dualism here, and i'm using "effectiveness" itself to denote > aesthetic efficacy, but i trust i'm making my point)... > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:55:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Joyeux Fetes Jack Kerouac In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR JACK KEROUAC-- No. 75-- Then over the bridge, the flash and Au nom du Pere mystery of oncoming car lights(something a Ma tante Cafiere writer using words can never quite get), the Pistalette de bois sense of old wooden jetties however unphoto- Ainsi soit-il! graphable far below roting in the mud and bushes, the old Potomac into Virginia, the (Visions of Gerard) scene of old Civil War battles, the crossing into the country known as The Wilderness, all a sadness of steel a mile longnow as the waters rollon anyawy, mindless of America's mad invention, photographs,words. (On the Road to Florida) WHO WALKS IN HIDDENESS HAS LIGHT TO GUIDE THEM (Chuang Tzu) river turning edge again fills the road give glance restless heart sing waiting music journey day feeling sun sang away comes out find cave jukebox shadow walls tell pictures make visible mysteries wind rock grass bright liquid dusk tunes incantations dust snowy away outside road halo quickened hurry slow film visual words EVERYTHING- one giant drop ness hands held parted road arrowing waters immensities quartering night sky tree guitar star (1st three lines words from Han Shan all other words from Emily Dickinson & Jack Kerouac arranged dbc) "He Honored Life" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 14:33:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > i've been staying out of this one cuz it seemed like same old same old, but > i feel the need to ask: were identity politics *not* a part of what kept > women/folks of color *out* of the job market for so many years? did we > invent identity politics? have they not always been a part of determining > who gets what? why is it only a "problem" when normative identity's (ie.e > straight white male etc) normativity is called into question? and for that > matter, why have "identity politics" suddenly become such anathema, as if > they were essentialist in nature? compare income levels, education levels, > life opportunity levels of people of different "identities" and it seems > that there might actually be a need to talk about it. Oh, absolutely, I'm totally in agreement with you. I guess I was using "identity politics" in the narrower sense that Marjorie put forward, in terms of something that has just emerged ("the coming of the minority communities" etc.). Of course, you're right, this very narrowing, or exclusion of normative identity from the discourse, is part of the political game that's played. > >When Marjorie indirectly suggests that I'm too sympathetic to identity > >politics, that I've somehow bought into the rhetoric of that whole line of > >thinking, I want to laugh -- she should sit in on some of my interviews. > > david i don't see any reason why you should apologize for noticing that > there is social stratification in this country based on certain demographic > factors, and for thinking it might be not okay. i *do* see a problem with > people's knee jerk reaction to attempts to talk about politics on this list. I'm not apologizing for that. Fer sure. I was thinking of certain kinds of questions I get in interviews that are difficult to answer because of a difference in vocabulary & critical syntax. Not really worth going into on this list, but -- to put it generally -- the repeated pattern of those questions indicates how my work's failure to adhere to a certain _disourse_ of cultural identity is taken in interviews to indicate resistance to multiculturalism as such. Which couldn't be farther from the case, since my work is (in my estimation) as relativist as they come. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:01:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <732B022BE7@alexandria.lib.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII which basically new critical principles underlie most creative writing workshops where are they are they bad are they bad because when can compare them to a particular era long gone in lit crit explain please On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Christopher Alexander wrote: > dodie wrtg: > > Joe, while I think what you say about teaching is very important and > > interesting, I think you're talking apples and oranges here: critiquing > > undergraduates' shakey attempts at expression versus what gets included in > > the Norton anthology (i.e., what is declared serious, important, of lasting > > value). > on the contrary, I think joe is articulating > a very real problem ["difficulty"] here, > viz. the unwillingness to separate ["the > attempt not to separate"] political, aesthetic, > & hortatory practice ["work"]. accepting > the sometimes contradictory political claims > of a left-guarde ["as opposed to right guard"] > modernism (not speaking for joe but for myself) > implies this kind of dilemma in teaching > writing, as does, more generally, an interest > in the cultural work of different writings. the > apples & oranges approach just doesn't make > sense to me; it seems to point up the basically > New Critical assumptions that underlie most > american creative writing workshops. > > best, chris > .. > christopher alexander, etc. > calexand@alexandria.lib.edu > (Marriott Library Computer Systems) > > language code not found. illegal operation error. > this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be > lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:02:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <33258816.7488@LFC.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII what is Eavan Boland doing among bay area experimental communities: please inform On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Robert Archambeau wrote: > > i don't mind saying *here*, anyway, that it's pretty easy to be > > misunderstood when one slams the writing of a minority poet, however > > justifiably... but i don't mind saying *here*, as well, that i've noted a > > tendency at times on poetics to be down on more conventional work, even > > more conventional work that, imnsho, is exemplary > > > Joe: > > I sympathize with you in both of your conundrums. > > Regarding the first dilemma (good politics and bad aesthetics) : > > What can you do with writing that is at the same time politically astute > or important and also the worst sort of kitsch? Your painstaking > process of discussing "both the sociopolitical/cultural *work* done by > the poems . . . and the ways in which the aesthetics *work* or don't" > seems like the only reasonable way to treat the topic, better than an > easy dismissiveness based on either political or aesthetic grounds. > > Regarding the second (exemplary conventional work): > > The issue you raise is important, and deserves extended discussion on > this list. Eavan Boland, widely considered to be both conventional and > exemplary, and now working among the Bay area's experimental community, > put the problem this way in a recent interview (forthcoming in the next > Notre Dame Review http://www.nd.edu/~english/ndr/ndr.htm ): > > "The issue in poetry is not the multiplication of poetries. It's the > fact that there isn't yet a language of respect between these poetries." > > And the solution she advocates involves a painstaking process like that > you advocate for the first of your two dilemmas: > > "I think one of the new tasks of workshops everywhere over the next > decade is going to be to widen their vocabulary not just to speak about > poetry, but to engage with, and develop a language of respect for the > energies of other communities and other ideas of craft. The alternative > is just sterile division . . ." > > This list seems like the right venue for notes toward such a language. > > It will be a good interview to check out when it appears in the next > issue (and I'm not just saying that because I conducted it). > > Robert Archambeau > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:03:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: "depply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hapy typeo -- _disourse_ -- J ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:05:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII it seems to me that it would be better to do away with the Norton and just work to develop a consensus around demystifying anthologies (there is no one anthology nor should there ever be one or one that pretends to be one) than to fight to get token language poets into the Norton (the old Norton obviously I don't mean Paul Hoover's Norton: I mean it is nostalgic even to worry about some anthology claiming to be central): teachers do tend to want anthologies but it gets less and less likely that they can claim to be covering modern poetry by using any anthology On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, David Kellogg wrote: > Dear Marjorie (and others who may be listening), > > If I'm your antagonist, I am indeed a friendly one. I neither intended to > nor in fact did imply that you were a racist. I'm happy to read what you > wrote, however, though I'd enourage the same from you ;-). I think we can > start to talk to (rather than past) each other. > > So let's focus on the particulars you quote from your article: > > > What I say, for the record, is that, whereas in 1959 Don Allen could put > > together an anthology of "the" new American poetry, an anthology that > > pretty accurately pitted the counterculture against the establishment, in > > the 1990s, there can no longer be ONE counterculture anthology and so > > attempts to produce one that is "the" avant-garde can't wholly succeed. > > OK fine. Here I'm totally in agreement with you (and think the major > thrust of your argument quite on target). > > > And I write: > > "More important: the eightiies witnessed the coming of the minority > > communites. . . In their inception, many of these poetries were, > > ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the ontology > > of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics > > couldn't--and still can't--say this out loud because they would have > > immediately been labeled racist or sexist. And thus the picture has > > become increasingly clouded. " and then I go on to complain about the > > absence of all but U.S. poets in most of the new anthologies. > > First: "the eighties witnessed the coming of the minority communities." I > honestly don't know what this means; I can't hold it in my head, it just > drains out between my skullplates. Are you saying that there weren't > minority communities before the eighties? Or just that there weren't > minority POETRY communites? Or that these communities hadn't "come" (to > maturity, to coalescence, etc.)? None of these interpretations seem to me > satisfying, because none of the assertions that result are, so far as I > can tell, true. I'm not trying to bait you, honestly; I simply can't see > what that sort of generalizaion means, nor what its point is. > > Second: "In their inception, many of these [minority community] poetries > were, ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the > ontology of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics > couldn't -- and still can't -- say that out loud because they would have > immediately been labeled racist or sexist." Agreements: that many of > these poetries were conservative in the ways you mention. Disagreements: > 1) that this formal conservatism is ironic in any sense whatsoever; and 2) > that you can't say these poetries are conservative (etc.) without being > labeled racist or sexist. I certainly labelled you neither, neither on > this list nor in my article. > > > Now David perfectly proves my point by implying I'm somehow making a > > racist statement. > > You are reading into (as opposed to "not reading") what I wrote. What I > wrote was that the pluralism of your approach is in tension with the > exclusivity of your actual critical practice. This seems to me a > perfectly reasonable critique to make. Sure I find this disturbing; but > not because I think you're a racist (I don't) -- rather, because of the > slippage that comes into play in passages like the one that follows: > > > What I meant, of course, is that the mainstream > > anthologies today like the Norton will include a lot of, say Rita Dove, > > because she's a black woman when the Norton doesn't even include Zukofsky, > > Reznikoff etc. not to mention Harryette Mullen, Erica Hunt, Will > > Alexander, or Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian--well, the list > > goes on and on, right? This is where identity politics does indeed cloud > > the picture because if you object to these inclusions or exclusions you > > are immediately branded. > > "Inclusions or exclusions." This is not a symmetrical complaint. The > complaint about exclusions is well taken, and I'm wholly on your side in > that struggle. The complaint about inclusions is where I think your > pluralistic stance conflicts with your practice. Mullen, Hunt, et al. > are not excluded because Rita Dove is included. (Nor do I think it fair > to say that the Norton includes "a lot of . . . Dove, because she's a black > woman," barring evidence to support that assertion.) Giving Dove less > space will do not one damn bit of good in making more space for Zukofsky, > Howe, or Bernstein. > > > What I'm trying to say, badly probably, because email is not the easiest > > writing venue, is that, yes, I am opposed to identity politics in its > > crude form and no, that doesn't make me a racist, and if we want to be > > political, let's be political and try to do something about what is > > happening in Washington. > > 1) identity politics: I do am opposed to "its crude form," but I think > such opposition must not be crude either; > > 2) that doesn't make you a racist. Agreed (never thought otherwise); > > 3) politics: it's all over the place, both in Washington and in the poetry > community etc. But I'd append also: If we want to do something about > excluded poetry, let's not act as though the currently included poets are > the problem. If we want diversity, let's have diversity, and not some > revised Norton. > > I don't really have any response to your comments on Dorn, because > (except for one moment at its inception) I did not really participate in > that thread. > > I hope this is helpful in clarifying our disagreements. > > Cheers, > David > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > David Kellogg Duke University > kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program > (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 > FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ > > There is no mantle > and it does not descend. > > -- Thomas Kinsella > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:12:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703121555.KAA24724@argus.acpub.duke.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII right on! On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, David Kellogg wrote: > Joe, > > You've put forward some of the most interesting ideas on this whole thread. > Very sensitive and thoughtful -- I have learned a lot. > > >which brings up another point about this thread: i'm finding it difficult > >as hell to articulate a position which is (please forgive me, marjorie) not > >exactly marjorie's, but not exactly anti-marjorie's either... not exactly > >david kellogg's, but not exactly anti-david kellogg's either... > > You know, so am I ;-). Actually, however, I think I'd take a position close > to yours regarding the job market. Like you, I'm W-M-Het committed to > formally challenging poetry. Probably among the twenty-one tenure-track > jobs I've come close to getting but didn't, some offers were made where the > applicant's gender, race, and/or investment in identity politics were at > issue. But so what? I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be easy > -- too easy -- to blame this situation on dominance of identity politics. > There are a lot of other factors at stake, including the funding of jobs in > general, resistance to contemporary work, resistance to the kind of > criticism/sociology/theory that I do (esp. with regard to contemporary > poetry), etc. > > When Marjorie indirectly suggests that I'm too sympathetic to identity > politics, that I've somehow bought into the rhetoric of that whole line of > thinking, I want to laugh -- she should sit in on some of my interviews. > > With regard to binaries, a crude opposition to identity politics that > assigns "it" (whatever "it" is) blame for whatever situtation (my lack of a > job, certain poets' exclusion from the Norton or some other standard > anthology) -- in their binary opposition, both submit to a zero-sum-game > view of poetic value. If my poet's in, somebody else has got to leave. > There ain't room in this town . . . > > Can't we get beyond that? > > Cheers, > David > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu > Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 > Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 > http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ > > There is no mantle > and it does not descend. > --Thomas Kinsella > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:59:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Coffey Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply Comments: To: chax@THERIVER.COM >>> Charles Alexander 03/12/97 10:35am >>> On what are these estimates based? They seem pretty high to me, but perhaps they are accurate? Charles, et al. The figures in Pw about sales of some poetry books were given to us by the publishers, i believe, though douglas messerli could probably say if that isn't so. What follows is the Publishers Weekly article itself, not quite a final version i believe... it appeared in March 3 issue. And thanks to some of the listfolk who got involved in a discussion with me prior to the writing of this piece; it was written by a woman named Mallay Charters, and I assigned and edited. THE DIFFERENT FACES OF POETRY "No one listens to poetry," complained the 1950's San Francisco poet Jack Spicer. While it still hasn't stormed the bestseller lists, at least today poetry is enjoying its broadest hearing in recent years. The sales climate is warming, greater numbers of books are being published, and more and more poetry-related events are popping up in the press. Says Bill Wadsworth, the Executive Director for the Academy of American Poets, "Poetry was strong in the culture in the 1960s and 70s, but by the mid-80s it had been eclipsed by commercial art, glitz. Since 1990 there's been a complete turnaround?people started looking for more than junk food."So what kind of poetic fare is in the offing? Certainly, there is something to please most every palate, from the most traditional to the most avant-garde. Poetry in America is a diverse, highly contested field, crowded with a variety of practices and philosophies, none of which lend themselves easily to generalizations. How, for example, to classify Rafael Campo, an acclaimed gay Hispanic poet who writes often in formal verse? Or Allen Ginsberg, still as radical as in the heyday of the Beat movement, but also one of the most famous?and, relatively speaking, wealthiest?poets of his time? As literary critic and Stanford professor Marjorie Perloff points out, "Thirty years ago you had the establishment?Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop?and the counterculture. Now you have endless overlapping, dispersed groups. There is no one movement; rather, there are many movements."The landscape of poetry publishing itself reflects and promotes this heterodoxy. The number of small presses in America has grown precipitously in the last three decades, fueled in part by advances in desktop publishing. The 1,127 volumes of poetry produced in 1996 were the offerings of a staggering 463 publishers, the majority of them independent and small presses. In such a climate, it is not hard to understand why there is no single poetic center of gravity, be it aesthetic, ideological, or even geographical.Buying patterns reveal a corresponding breadth of taste. "The poetry-reading audience has probably never been larger... or more decentralized and fragmented," says Poets House Executive Director Lee Briccetti. The "establishment" poets?those writers championed by the leading critics and literary magazines?predictably sweep the prestigious awards, but their sales that edge on their lower-profile brethren, from the avant-garde to the multicultural, are less dramatic. Where Ecco Press reports sales of 8500 for 1995's The Dream of a Unified Field, the selected poems of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jorie Graham, Curbstone Press can claim sales of 9000 copies of Poetry Like Bread, their 1993 anthology of leftist multicultural writings; Sun & Moon estimates 4000 copies sold of language poet Charles Bernstein's 1995 Dark City; and Incommunicado Press reports 5000 copies sold of punk rock poet Dave Alvin's 1995 Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You. "We're in a period of ferment," says Herb Lebowitz, editor of the poetry journal Parnassus. "There is no dominant voice, there is no dominant school, and in a way that's healthy for poetry."Certainly the relatively level playing field generates some interesting intrapoetry sparring. One of the most controversial movements is experimental poetry, particularly the segment that grew out of the so-called "Language" poetry of the 1970s and 80s. Hailed alternately as the future of poetry and a poetic dead end, Language poetry is dense, quirky, intellectual, and above all politically and stylistically radical, trading in the traditional poetic voice in favor of verbal collages and suggestive sentence fragments."We wanted to keep the language moving, changing and shifting, so it didn't become a dead thing," says Doug Messerli, who became involved with Language poetry while a graduate student in the 1970s and who now runs America's largest publisher of experimental writing, the Los Angeles-based Sun & Moon Press. In June Sun & Moon will bring out Republics of Reality, the latest collection by Charles Bernstein, who, with Bruce Andrews, is considered one of Language poetry's founders (they co-edited the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, from which the movement derived its name) Other current writers closely associated with Language poetry include Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, Bob Perelman, and Leslie Scalapino, plus younger experimental writers such as Mark Wallace, Juliana Spahr (editor of the journal Chain), Lee Ann Browne (whose Sun & Moon collection Polyverse is due in May) and Rodrigo Toscano (a Chicano writer whose Sun & Moon collection The Disparities is due in August.)Good samplings of current Language and experimental writing can be found in the anthologies The Other Side of the Century: 1960-1990 (Sun & Moon) and Postmodern American Poetry (Norton). In 1997 Incommunicado plans to publish Tense Present, an anthology of West Coast Language and avant-garde writers.Other experimental presses include Black Sparrow, Roof Books, O Books, Wesleyan and Pittsburgh University presses, and the SPD-distributed Kelsey St., Tender Buttons, Burning Deck and Hanging Loose. Sun & Moon's annual Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry is Messerli's "alternative" to Scribner's more traditional annual, The Best American Poetry. (Says Messerli with cheerful resignation, "Innovative poetry always gets excluded, and that has always been the way.")Language poetry has found a warm reception in academic circles. Says Perloff, "We recently invited Susan Howe to Stanford, and the reception was just wonderful. That really encouraged me, and it seems to me that that's the direction that poetry is going."In other quarters, it has raised hackles. "Language poetry is highly personal, it's highly narcissistic, and it turns its back on the audience," says Robert McDowell, the publisher of Story Line Press. McDowell has conceived a rather radical response to what he sees as contemporary poetry's inaccessibility to the general reader. His press promotes the work of the so-called New Formalists, who use traditional verse forms like rhymed couplets and sonnets and often tell stories in their poems. "Narrative," says McDowell, "allows one to put together all the elements of both poetry and storytelling to create a more extended creative form." Prominent New Formalists include Dana Gioia, Brad Leithauser, and Mary Jo Salter, all of whom are included in Story Line's 1996 anthology Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism, edited by Mark Jarman and David Mason. The New Formalists are also showcased in the Hudson Review, a poetry journal edited by Frederick Morgan. New Formalism itself has not been immune to criticism: says Harvard professor and New Yorker critic Helen Vendler, "It's kind of a red herring?some of our best poets, like James Merrill and Elizabeth Bishop, wrote in both free and formal verse. It's not like it's an article of faith or a dogma."The vigor of the current spoken word/performance poetry scene owes much to Miguel Alarin and Bob Holman's "Poetry Slams" at New York City's Nuyorican Poets' Cafe. The movement has its roots in the theatrically charged 1960?s writings of Allen Ginsberg and African American writers Amiri Baraka andGwendolyn Brooks, and in the 1970s the movement received additional impetus from poet David Antin's creation of the "talk poem." At a Nuyorican slam, poets recite their work and are then rated numerically by randomly selected audience members, although they are warned ahead of time that "the best poet always loses." (The poems are anthologized in Holt's 1994 ABA-winning Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe.) Currently there are slams in over 30 cities advertised in 10 spoken-word newsletters. While the movement's vigorous, in-your-face style has brought poetry to the MTV generation, it receives scant respect in many sectors of the poetry industry. Louise Solano, the owner of the Grolier Bookshop, an all-poetry bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., spoke for many whom PW interviewed when she said that "I consider 'poetry slam' a contradiction in terms. That's not poetry?they're spoken-word performances. True poetry is about language, and it's meant to be read."Holman sees it otherwise. He is currently on leave from hosting slams to work at Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records, which he calls the "world's first poetry label," devoted exclusively to publishing albums of spoken-word performances."What people don't realize is the number of books that have been released through the generation that came through the slam," he says. "I don't see any other generation that has penetrated the publishing or music business the way that this crew has." Nuyorican Poets' Cafe alums include Paul Beattie (published by Penguin and Houghton Mifflin), Willie Perdomo (Norton), Hal Sirowitz (Crown), Dana Bryant (Boulevard) and Holman himself (Holt). Cafe alums with spoken-word CDs include Reg E. Gaines (who also wrote the book for the current Broadway hit Bring in ?Da Noise, Bring in ?Da Funk), Edwin Torres, and Maggie Estep, whose second album, Love Is a Dog from Hell, is due from Mouth Almighty in April. Mouth Almighty also recently released Allen Ginsberg's The Ballad of the Skeletons, which was an MTV Buzz Clip, and the soundtrack to Holman's 1996 PBS series The United States of Poetry (the tie-in book is available from Abrams).The spoken-word movement is closely allied with multicultural poetry. Miguel Alarin himself was a leading figure of the Nuyorican movement of the 1970s, which established a literature of Puerto Rican identity, and is currently an Arte Publico author. The prominent Hispanic poets Jimmy Santiago Baca (published by Curbstone Press) and Victor Hernandez Cruz (Coffee House Press) are also performance poets, as is the African American poet Wanda Coleman (Black Sparrow). The connection is partly an outgrowth of multicultural and spoken-word poetry's shared roots in the radical political tradition of Baraka and Brooks; for certain African American writers, it is also a reflection of the importance of jazz and blues both as artistic heritage and as source of poetic rhythms."In black poetry, we have always been very close to the musicians and the music," says Haki Madhubuti, the publisher of the Chicago-based Third World Press, America's largest African American press, who also plans to begin "publishing" CDs this year. Madhubuti, who founded the press 30 years ago with $400 and a mimeograph machine, is the exclusive publisher of Gwendolyn Brooks, and has also published Gil Scott-Heron and Sonia Sanchez. His poetry titles for 1996 included The Sandman by Sterling Plumpp, whose work was included in The Best American Poetry of 1996. Other African American writers have found homes at a variety of presses, large and small. Reginald Shepherd, a prize-winning gay poet whose work has been singled out for praise by Vendler, published his most recent collection, Angel Interrupted, in 1996 with the University of Pittsburgh Press. Nathaniel Mackey, whose poems draw on African rituals, folk wisdom and jazz rhythms, publishes with Sun & Moon and Coffee House. Former Poet Laureate Rita Dove publishes with Norton. Forthcoming 1997 African American poetry titles include Sonia Sanchez's Does Your House Have Lions (Beacon, Apr.); Maketa Grove's Red Hot on a Silver Note (Curbstone, May); Dark Eros, an anthology edited by Reginald Martin (St. Martin's,Aug.); The Collected Poems of Audre Lord (Norton, Aug.); Last Chance for Tarzan Holler, by MacArthur Award-winning Thylias Moss (Persea Books, Sept.); and From the Devotions, by NBCC Award and Lambda Award finalist Cary Phillips (Graywolf, Nov.).In Hispanic poetry, notable presses include Curbstone Press, Bilingual Press, Arte Publico, and White Pine Press.Curbstone, founded in 1975 by Sandy Taylor and his wife, Judith Doyle, promotes Latino and Chicano writers and publicizes human rights abuses in Central America. Says Taylor, "We publish poetry that is accessible, and deals with human issues in daily life, like poverty and political oppression." Curbstone's authors include NBCC Award-winning Puerto Rican poet Martin Espada (whose fifth collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread, will be published by Norton in April); experimental Latino poet Juan Felipe Herrera; and Daisy Zamora, featured on Bill Moyers's 1995 PBS series, The Language of Life. Set for April publication is Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos.Bilingual Press and Arte Publico are both active in the flourishing Southwestern Chicano literature scene, which began in the 1960s in the context of the Chicano civil rights movement. Says Bilingual Press managing editor Karen Van Hooft, "U.S. Latino poetry is a very active field?there's a lot of publishing going on, and the best-known poets are in a lot of demand for appearances and readings." Bilingual Press published prominent Chicano poet Alurista's Et Tu... Raza? in 1996, and has previously published Espada, Puerto Rican poet Judith Ortiz Cofer and Demetria Martinez, who is included in their popular anthology Three Times a Woman: Chicana Poetry. Arte Publico is home to the experimental Miguel Alarin, and published Rafael Campo's first collection, The Other Man Was Me, winner of the 1993 National Poetry Series' Open Competition. Forthcoming 1997 collections by Hispanic writers at other houses include the paperback edition of Chicana writer Pat Mora's Agua Santa: Holy Water (Beacon Press, May); Chicano poet and National Book Award finalist Gary Soto's Junior College (Chronicle Books, Apr.); and Mexican poet Jose Emilio Pacheco's City of Memory and Other Poems, a bilingual edition from City Lights (Apr.).A notable independent publishing house with a broadly multicultural list is Minneapolis's Coffee House Press. Says publisher Allan Kornblum, "We still publish as many white writers as ever, but our growth has been in the multicultural area." Coffee House poets include Adrian Castro, an Afro-Cuban writer who came out of performance poetry; Native American writer and NBCC-finalist Linda Hogan; and African American writer and NBCC-finalist Quincy Troupe, whose collection Avalanche appeared last spring. On Coffee House's upcoming publishing schedule is Drawing the Line (Apr.) by Japanese American poet Lawson Fusao Inada, and Sacred Vow, a bilingual collection by Cambodian poet U Sam Oeur. "One of my goals as a publisher is to expand the sense of what we mean when we say 'we,' " says Kornblum.A trend among some ethnic poets is a growing dissatisfaction with the category "multicultural" itself. Reports Sun Young Li, associate editor at the experimental, New York City-based Asian American publishers Kaya Publications: "All of our poets are moving beyond the issue of identity. It's a phase people have to go through, but it's ultimately limiting. The writers at Kaya are much more concerned with aesthetic, literary and political issues." Kaya's 1995 anthology Premonitions included gay and lesbian, Buddhist, Language, Vietnamese American, and Korean American poets, and was intended as a counterpart to Doubleday's more traditional The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America (1993).A similar theme is voiced by certain lesbian and gay writers. Mainstream poets such as Adrienne Rich (who is published by Norton) and Mark Doty (HarperCollins) dominate book sales and literary awards, while their experimental counterparts struggle for reviews and shelf space. "If you're gay and avant-garde, you suffer from a double invisibility," says Eileen Myles, who recently edited The New Fuck You, an anthology of gay and lesbian writing from Semiotext Press. On the other hand, notes Myles, moving beyond the expected has its rewards. "What's really exciting is that we're in this atmosphere of no 'nos.' Who's driving the car of the culture? Me, you? There's such a sea of possibilities."Myles herself is associated with the experimental New York School, which was developed in the 1950s by the poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler and Frank O'Hara. It is identified with a casual, spontaneous style, a foregrounding of personal material and an urbane wit and sophistication. Second-generation New York School writers include the late Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Alice Notley and Bernadette Mayer. (Myles's latest collection, School of Fish, is due from Black Sparrow Press in April.)Upcoming gay and lesbian poetry titles for 1997 include Things Shaped in Passing: More 'Poets for Life' Writing from the AIDS Pandemic, edited by Michael Klein and Richard McCann (Persea Books, Mar.); Telling Things, by Michael J. Rosen (Harcourt Brace, Apr.); Selected Poems: Revised and Enlarged by Robert Duncan, also associated with the Black Mountain School (New Directions, Apr.); Cold River, by Joan Larkin (Painted Leaf, Oct.); and Beautiful Signor, by Cyrus Casselly, winner of the Poetry Society of America's 1994 William Carlos Williams Award (Copper Canyon, June). Recently published titles include an expanded, bilingual edition of Colombian poet Jaime Manrique's My Night with/Mi Noche Con Federico Garcia Lorca (Painted Leaf).Several major Beat poets are still actively publishing. In May New Directions will bring out A Far Rockaway of the Heart, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a follow-up to his 1958 classic, A Coney Island of the Mind, as well as two new selections of the work of Denise Levertov. Black Sparrow will publish Ed Sander's 1968 in June (and, in March, Bone Palace Ballet, a new collection by recently deceased L.A. literary icon Charles Bukowski). In November, Hanging Loose Press presents Hettie Jones's Driver Lover Witness Woman. Prominent 1996 Beat titles included Allen Ginsberg's Selected Poems 1947-1995 (HarperCollins) and Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers without End (Counterpoint).America's "establishment" poets have, of course, significantly participated in and contributed to the aesthetic currents animating the other poetic schools.Jorie Graham, for example, writes poetry with some philosophical affinities to the work of John Ashbery. (Ashbery himself, probably America's most celebrated experimental poet, publishes with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Knopf and Ecco Press.) Knopf's Anne Carson incorporates prose sections into her work, stretching the conventional definition of a poem. And Farrar, Straus & Giroux's August Kleinzahler writes in a direct, colloquial voice that is a far cry from the formal diction and abstruse vocabulary of traditional "high" poetry. What sets mainstream poetry apart from other forms is its reliance on a coherent central viewpoint, or "I"; its largely conventional syntax; and its generally muted political stance. It has also been criticized by poets such as Adrienne Rich for resisting ethnic voices.But Jonathan Galassi, the editor-in- chief of FSG argues that a poet doesn't have to be explicitly "experimental" to be progressive. "You can have new things in old boxes," he says. "Sometimes the poets that seem the most traditional are actually the most innovative."FSG's poetry program includes Nobel Prize Laureates Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Joseph Brodsky, Irish poet Paul Muldoon (whose new collection, Kerry Slides, was published by Dufour Editions in February), Gertrude Schnackenberg, Charles Wright and C. K. Williams. FSG?s 1997 titles include Black Zodiac, by Lenore Marshall Award-winner Charles Wright (Apr.);the paperback of last year?s hardcover editon of The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems by Robert Pinsky (Apr.); and Desire, by Frank Bidart (Sept.).Norton boasts the likes of two-time NBA-winner Stanley Kunitz, Gerald Stern, Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Martin Espada (see above), A. R. Ammons (whose new long poem Glare is due in July), and Maxine Kumin (whose Selected Poems is due out in May) on its poetry list. Says editor Carol Houk-Smith, "I publish what I love, and I don't think about schools at all." Norton editor Jill Bialosky, whose authors include lesbian writer Marilyn Hacker, Irish writer Eavan Boland, James Lasdun (whose collection Woman Police Officer in Elevator appeared in February), says she is especially pleased to be bringing second books by Janet Sylvester (The Mark of Flesh, June) and Marie Howe (What the Living Do, Nov.) in 1997. "Unlike in fiction, where it is often the first novel that is really exciting, it takes a little bit longer for a poet to establish him or herself," she says. "Usually by the second or third book you begin to see an audience for that poet." (Bialosky is also a poet in her own right; her first collection, The End of Desire, is due from Knopf in March.)Knopf editor Harry Ford finds that author appearances are the best way to promote their poetry books. "We ask poets to read for us as much as possible," he says. "We don't tour them like a big-time author, because we just don't have the money, but there are many cities that welcome poets and have reading series." Knopf's list includes W. S. Merwin, Donald Justice, and Lucie Brock-Broido; in February they published Edgar Bowers's Collected Poems and Marge Piercy's What Are Big Girls Made Of?, and in October they will release The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt.Ecco Press has a heavily international list?Louise Gluck, Poet LaureateRobert Hass, James Tate, Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer and Czech poet Czeslaw Miloz?to rival that of a major publisher, even though it is an independent press, located in Hopewell, N.J. Publisher and poet Daniel Halpern argues that there are advantages for poets to working with a smaller house: "We try to publish poets continuously, book after book, which is something the bigger houses don't always do." The sentiment is echoed by Sam Hamill, the publisher of Copper Canyon, one of the few presses in America devoted exclusively to poetry. Says Hamill, "In New York publishing, the poetry is at the very bottom of the list. We felt that if we could produce a beautiful edition of something and keep it at a reasonable price, we could keep it in print longer." Copper Canyon's eclectic list includes Hayden Carruth, the Pulitzer Award-winning Carolyn Kizer and Greek poet and Nobel Laureate Odysseas Elytis.Not everyone associated with establishment poetry is defensive when questioned about the relative lack of experimental and ethnic writers in the mainstream. Wadsworth, whose academy administers some of America's biggest poetry prizes, has sometimes been accused of being part of an "official verse culture," but it doesn't bother him. "When the academy was founded [in 1934], the whole point was to take some poets who were not established and establish them," he says. "If we've succeeded in that, we're glad. The misconception is that we're in some kind of competition with people who are not established."Myles, for one, is optimistic that today's open climate will eventually bring poetry's more marginal movements greater recognition. "The big houses are starting to look to the small houses for inspiration," she says. "And that's good news for everyone." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 14:32:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:12 PM 3/11/97 +0600, KENT JOHNSON wrote: >This is a realy interesting discussion, and very intelligent on all >parts, ... Sulfur 24.... I vote for more people jumping in on this.... It would also be interesting to hear your own critical summary of what you wrote in Sulfur. Below are some (extremely lengthy) thoughts. Perhaps I am only saying what others have already said. At the same time I think the "deeply disturbed" discussion might suffer from a lack of any agreement on terms. More or less, I think anthologies are extremely useful, only they might be (and often are) compiled for reasons we (you or I) disagree with, and are of course influenced on a more general level by dominant ideologies, which in fact they more reflect than create. I think that multi-culturalism, which is not only dramatized in recent marketing trends concerning the creation of anthologies, and which is also similar to anthologizing on the more profound level of method, is also much too useful to be scorned, but in fact does not provide a very stable support for any view of the world above and beyond immediate political situations: in short, is not very revolutionary in the Marxist sense. I think it is important to try to keep a connection between poetry and politics and have tried to do so when possible. Eliza McGrand- wrote: >Lucasta was written in >lovelace's early years, when he was a beautiful honored young man at court, >when Charles I presided with his family, when lovelace's life seemed to >open into a halcyon of family, honors, riches, glory... then came the civil >war, the massacres right and left, the despoilings, pillages, rapes.... [snipped] >this poem doesn't make it into the anthologies -- i think because everyone >is so enamored of the image of the courtly cavalier poet that they don't >_see_ or want to see, or want to have as part of the writer, the >bitter,disillusioned, agony of the last years, as well as the no longer high >flown, but often more compassionate writings. Perhaps one reaon for this is that the compilers of these anthologies want to classify thier subjects, and to keep the boundary lines neat. Lovelace, as you describe him, writes during a period of intense political and aesthetic upheavel: the bougeoise coup-de-grace of aristocratic power, a shift in the make-up of the dominant class (perhaps make-up is not a good word, since they all wore so much of it!?) which eventually becomes reflected in poetry in the shift from courtly poetry to Romanticism. If Lovelace was neither particularly progressive (as, say, Arnold or Whitman), or particularly reactionary (as, say, Spenser or Milton), then it becomes very difficult to decide on which side of the aesthetic he is to be placed. Even anthologies claiming to provide an overview of "Literature in English" always feel compelled to enforce certain groupings. Every "chapter" begins with a pity little argument about why they have choosen to start the section about the 1800's in 1789, or etc. Poor L-l. straddles the fence, as it were, and so one half of his ouevre must be lopped-off in order to make him fit without the aesthetic bounds (or at least to keep him from appearing "out of place.") I remember from college the frustration of trying to understand these groupings in the face of the poetry itself. It would all make sense in the survey class, but back in the dorm I'd wonder: but HOW is this Victorian verse (or what have you)? And it was never easy to pin it down. More than most, Blake causes trouble, since you might pick up those anti-proverbs, for example, and have no great difficulty in determining thier approximate date: if I remember correctly Norton somewhat acknowledged this difficulty by using Blake as the "dividing line" between the two volumnes of their standard collection. In this way, I agree that: >anthologies encourage quick >snapshots, easily tagged and sorted "representations." This is indeed the problem I have with them. And I have a similar problem with identity politics, which none the less do much, imo, for equality. However I have a couple thoughts: like anthologies identity politics, as practiced, say, in hiring demographics, assumes a very easy form of representation. One is either male or female, black or white, opressed or un-opressed. This series of opposites arises from a priori categories of sex or race that have been put in place and are still assumed to be "natural." In other words, the fact that your sex is largely determined by societal norms is ignored. Judith Butler, would, I believe, be the most frequently cited source of these ideas. I wish I could remember the name of the essayist and performance artist (and professor, and etc.) who has a video work in the Chicago Contemporary Arts Museum in which she sits at a desk and, looking directly into the camera, addressing "whites", proves step by step that on a scientific, emperical level, regarding blood and genes, they are part black; she then addresses issues of minority hiring ("Why don't you tell that to your boss? Your co-workers? You could get that minority scholarship. Afterall, you are part black. Why deny this fact? Why do you not admit it to yourself?"), etc. The "problem" with identity politics, as I see it, is a matter not of what it does now, which is basically a good thing, but where it leads, what channels of thought it sanctions, which ones it diverts from a public discourse. For example, even though I.P.'s is mostly concerned today with helping people to get jobs, it suggests a view of the world in which people are not viewed in terms of their class-relationships and economic positions, which I think is a dangerous thing to do because it only shifts the burden of the problem--and does not solve the problem itself. It transforms class solidarity into ethnic solidarity--and that is a shame because those two solidarities in no way cancel each other out and might instead be combined for greater effect, as the Black Panthers proved for a little while. Thank you for reading this far. Finally, I said in the beginning, "in the Marxist sense" and have tried to carry my crude understanding of these politics on my sleeve through the above--my point now being that anthologies are less offensive when they state what and which and who they intend to represent (many posts have come while I was writing this that have contained versions of this)--then when they claim to represent an over-arching range. Ultimately this form of representation, ever dividing itself into small and more detailed parts (like Borges book in the Babylonian library, with pages so thin each page is two clinging toghether--into infinity [I've often thought Norton's was after this effect]) leads to a decline in usefullness, since much of that usefullness is in fact based on discrimination, which is obviously a form of representation, and the more detailed representation you get the less discrimination you have. And since anthologies are in point of fact not people, it is acceptable to say of them: at what point do I consider them useless? At what point do they stop being collections are begin to simulate archives? How far will they go on including before I am just as well off reading the individual books? Perhaps this sounds as though I am suggesting that minorities write less "good" poetry: I in fact belive quite the opposite, as it seems to me that our present historical situation in this country, and in the world, is more attuned to minority representation than before, and that this leads to, on the whole, better representations. However, about THAT whole issue--the connections between clearly defined representation and aesthetic quality--we would need another thread. Thanks for enduring. Matthias Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:53:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:05 PM 3/12/97 -0500, Joseph Lease wrote: >it seems to me that it would be better to do away with the Norton and just >work to develop a consensus around demystifying anthologies (there is no >one anthology nor should there ever be one or one that pretends to be one) >than to fight to get token language poets into the Norton (the old Norton >obviously I don't mean Paul Hoover's Norton: I mean it is nostalgic even >to worry about some anthology claiming to be central): teachers do tend to >want anthologies but it gets less and less likely that they can claim to >be covering modern poetry by using any anthology Right on! Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. --Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 13:19:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Speaking as a finishing MFA candidate at UC Irvine, all of us teaching the undergraduate introductory poetry writing course usually utilize an anthology _in addition to_ frequent handouts. Another common practice is to put a homemade anthology pieced from magazines, individual books of poetry, and anthologies on reserve and let students copy from that. But we have the freedom to design our own syllabi and to select our own texts; I doubt this is true across the board. Carrie Etter On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Joseph Lease wrote: > it seems to me that it would be better to do away with the Norton and just > work to develop a consensus around demystifying anthologies (there is no > one anthology nor should there ever be one or one that pretends to be one) > than to fight to get token language poets into the Norton (the old Norton > obviously I don't mean Paul Hoover's Norton: I mean it is nostalgic even > to worry about some anthology claiming to be central): teachers do tend to > want anthologies but it gets less and less likely that they can claim to > be covering modern poetry by using any anthology > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 16:36:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Joseph Lease wrote: > it seems to me that it would be better to do away with the Norton and just > work to develop a consensus around demystifying anthologies (there is no > one anthology nor should there ever be one or one that pretends to be one) > than to fight to get token language poets into the Norton (the old Norton > obviously I don't mean Paul Hoover's Norton: I mean it is nostalgic even > to worry about some anthology claiming to be central): teachers do tend to > want anthologies but it gets less and less likely that they can claim to > be covering modern poetry by using any anthology > Probably a very useful point to make...Many of us here are clearly involved with small and alternative publishing ventures that direct energy/attention away from large institutional/monumental power-nodes, like The Anthology......Some of us (like me) tend to continue to think of anthologies, in this large resonant sense, as important because we grew up with NAP and other exemplars..But it is argueable that everyone, including teachers, might usefully turn away from "tomes" to more fugative texts, as a basis for evaluation/debate/struggle over what we want our poetries to become...(On the other hand, I would hate to see a bad financial return for those who have made the effort/gamble to put out alternative anthology projects--Hoover's, but the several major anthologies from Sun & Moon especially, recently...) It would also need to be said that there are anthologies and then there are anthologies...The ongoing Rothenberg project of reconceptualizing the structure, scope and function of the form, is something else again; that is the other approach: not to abandon anthologies but to radically redo their meaning and identity... mark prejsnar ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:40:47 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is some of the "problem" of identity politics I was trying to describe near the tedious end of my last post: > Poetry in America is a diverse, highly >contested field, crowded with a variety of practices and philosophies, >none of which lend themselves easily to generalizations. Absolutely true, or as Joseph Lease says, "Right On!" But then what is this? > How, for >example, to classify Rafael Campo, an acclaimed gay Hispanic poet who >writes often in formal verse? Is this not classification? Does this sentence not actually read: How, for example to classify Rafael Campo? --An accalimed gay Hispanic poet who writes often in formal verse. And the problem then is that the original disguises the actual claim. Marjorie Perloff points out, "Thirty years ago you had >the establishment?Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop?and the >counterculture. Now you have endless overlapping, dispersed groups. >There is no one movement; rather, there are many movements. The reason for this, imo, being not some greater sensitivity or growth in humanistic potential, but the poetry market itself, which has considerably broadened its base. In other words, not: "The >landscape of poetry publishing itself reflects and promotes this >heterodoxy. But that it causes this heterodoxy. On the one hand, this is a wonderful thing, leading to greater opportunity for more people to be heard, and in part helping to begin the process of erasing racist, sexist, homophobic aspects of the dominant ideology. On the other hand: more people find more ways to make more money. The number of small presses in America has grown >precipitously in the last three decades, fueled in part by advances in >desktop publishing. In the final analysis, the people making the computers are the more people making more money I was thinking of. I do not mean to suggest that more small presses is not a Very Good Thing, only that it didn't come out of nowhere. Thank you for posting this article! Matthias Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:11:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII this is more or less what I did when teaching intermediate poetry writing as an MFA candidate at Brown: obviously one key thing is to get the young poet into the library both for current literary journals and for weird books from the nineteen twenties or the sixteen twenties On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Carrie Etter wrote: > Speaking as a finishing MFA candidate at UC Irvine, all of us teaching the > undergraduate introductory poetry writing course usually utilize an > anthology _in addition to_ frequent handouts. Another common practice is to > put a homemade anthology pieced from magazines, individual books of > poetry, and anthologies on reserve and let students copy from that. But > we have the freedom to design our own syllabi and to select our own texts; > I doubt this is true across the board. > > Carrie Etter > > On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Joseph Lease wrote: > > > it seems to me that it would be better to do away with the Norton and just > > work to develop a consensus around demystifying anthologies (there is no > > one anthology nor should there ever be one or one that pretends to be one) > > than to fight to get token language poets into the Norton (the old Norton > > obviously I don't mean Paul Hoover's Norton: I mean it is nostalgic even > > to worry about some anthology claiming to be central): teachers do tend to > > want anthologies but it gets less and less likely that they can claim to > > be covering modern poetry by using any anthology > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:21:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII reply to Mark: yeah of course I like the Hoover and Rothenberg anthologies and Messerli's recent big one all very much: my point is that every time we have to make the old Norton mean what it used to mean (my guess is it never meant that: I mean not in the contexts that inform this one most directly) we give it a big boost: we need to touch just teach our children that anthologies are human institutions like a clubhouse in a tree (or like a Joseph Cornell box in the case of Rothenberg especially) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:44:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: poetry that sells? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Those numbers are pretty good (although I wonder what the print runs were). One of the things that makes poetry publishing different is scale. It's not like your average poetry publisher is printing 50,000 copies of any particular book. I work for a very small (about four titles a year) press, Tia Chucha Press, and our print runs are about 1,000 to 2,500. From what I know, runs of that size are typical for books of poetry. We're lucky that we have a stable distributor at Northwestern University Press (our three previous distributors went bankrupt and we lost a lot of money). So long as you don't get megalomaniacal and print too many books, it's not too hard to sell out your printing run. The books sell, some faster than others, but they do sell. Some of our titles are already in their third printings. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 18:37:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Lecky Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU wrote: > > dear thomas (lecky), i *do* understand your decision to leave stanford (to > leave standford... wow!) on the basis of reduced job possibilities... > > but please: as a white male het (one having strong sympathies with that > olsonian line you mention), i must observe that your problems with the > academic job market, or most other job markets for that matter, do not > reduce to your identity... statistically speaking, it's other white guyz > whom you're losing out to, so to say... much as am i... this much is > verifiable... Absolutely. I was perhaps being a bit reductive: I left not for that reason alone, of course, but because of a host of worries, fears, etc. that surround study. And I think you've really hit on something with your phraseology: "losing out." And I do not exclude myself from the equation; that is the real pity in parts of this discussion, the exclusion of one's own self from the problems we as a species have created. As much as we are all part of the solution, we are all part of the problem. My "identity" (I don't even know what the hell that really means) is a mess. The academy is a mess too; anthologies are a mess; so what? So, I like to read Robert Creeley and I am totally uninterested in Rita Dove. All you on Dove's side attack. All of us on Creeley's side will defend. And? This thread has swirled in and out of politics by way of the thing we cannot name: taste. There are so many factors at work making things sour that we could continue ad infinitum. I'd rather go read Creeley. It is in his words, among so many others (including, for me, many list members), that we approach the democracy of words Williams recognized as the true source of freedom. Williams to Creeley: "My own (moral) program can be chiefly stated. I send if for what it may be worth to you: To write badly is an offense to the state since the government can never be more than the government of the words... Bad art is then that which does not serve in the continual service of cleansing the language of all fixations upon dead, stinking dead, usages of the past. Sanitation and hygiene or sanitation that we may have hygienic writing." And in "A 1 Pound Stein": "It's the words, the words we need to get back to, words washed clean. Until we get the power of thought back through a new minting of the words we are actually sunk. This is a moral question at base, surely but a technical one also and first." These are the best moral and political positions I can use to defend my own. Thomas Lecky -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Thomas Lecky editor@qwertyarts.com Qwerty Arts http://www.qwertyarts.com ____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 20:05:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: Thomas Lecky "Re: "deeply disturbed"" (Mar 12, 6:37pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thomas Lecky wrote: > This thread has swirled in and out of politics by way of the thing we > cannot name: taste. > There are so many factors at work making things sour that we could continue ad > infinitum. I'd rather go read Creeley. I couldn't agree more. It seems to me (at the risk of perhaps over simplifying a complex issue) that taste or preference is at the heart of many discussions on the value of poetry and the marginalization of this or that poet, or poetry movement. But why isn't taste or preference named as such more often? I do realize that in my position (outside of the universities and colleges) it is easier for me to avoid the identity politics faced by those who teach and those who interview to teach. But at home, do I practice discrimination when I browse the bookstores and pick up, and read, and buy Zukofsky, Bernstein, Stein, etc., but not Rita Dove, Maya Angelou, or Adrienne Rich? In the stict sense of the word yes! Am I a racist or sexist? No. It probably has more to do with what I find engaging, interesting, mind-blowing, etc. The "Different Faces of Poetry" by Mallay Charters also has: > Reports Sun Young Li, associate > editor at the experimental, New York City-based Asian American > publishers Kaya Publications: "All of our poets are moving beyond the > issue of identity. It's a phase people have to go through, but it's ultimately > limiting. The writers at Kaya are much more concerned with aesthetic, > literary and political issues." This makes sense as a goal. Attainable? We'll see. Identity politics as a vehicle for recognition and representation? Definitely. But when do the training wheels come off? Best, Bill Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:13:03 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Absolutely. I was perhaps being a bit reductive: So, I like to read Robert Creeley and I am totally >uninterested in Rita Dove. All you on Dove's side attack. All of us on Creeley's side >will defend. You 'were' being a bit reductive. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 20:17:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: FFCop's story mambo / SA lit workshops? Joe Amato -- your remarks abt. Coppola's new lit-mag read sensibly; as noted, I've not yet seen it, but agree w/ your points (& "let's see!" stance). Further: of course the interface between literature & cinema is an important one culturally. Vital -- but poss. not enought thought about / grappled with / considered. If the "Faces of Eve" instance proves not isolated, but an example of ongoing attention to that borderland, this in itself would do Mr. C. some credit. Too: readership of the Z zine is apt to include Hollywood-types -- who (depending on editorial bent) might benefit . . . Inshallah, look forward to your work therein (& anon on screen? ;-) ). d.i. p.s.: speaking of film, I'd meant to mention -- pursuant to now-long-ago thread re: film heroines (don't have the posts right at hand -- but I was the unwise chap [& Poetics newbie] who made mention of *Bandit Queen* in connection w/ that query) -- So: here's another (I dare say better) suggestion: director Ketan Mehta's *Mirch Masala* (Hindi), in English circulated under title *SPICES*. Remarkable -- beautiful film, w/ a strongly feminist POV, a historical setting (I suppose circa 19th century), excellent use of image, music (folksong), story (something of a morality tale, but told w/ an interesting sense of the archetypal) -- dealing in fact w/ some of the same issues as *Bandit Queen* endeavored to address, but in a different manner. Saw it when new -- abt. a doz. years ago at Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley). So happens, San Francisco writer / sound-recordist Shafi Hakim had a part in writing the script. (If the Poetics chap who'd sought such films might be interested in this but has a hard time tracking down a copy, one could check w/ Shafi, I suppose.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:28:02 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In the stict sense of the >word yes! Am I a racist or sexist? No. It probably has more to do with what I >find engaging, interesting, mind-blowing, etc. Or with the way you read? And are taught to read? I'm not defending third rate non-white non-male writers but then i'm not comparing them with the great dead whites either. There are some excellent u.s.w. non-w non-m writers and have been for centuries. It's ridculous comparing Angelou to Creeley. Perhaps to Heaney or Ted Hughes or more popular/accessible 'poets'. And to write off the rest of the world by 'ethnicity' ooops except Baraka (who is okay) is REDUCTIVE in the extreme and to rationalise this in almost Bloomsian terms as not racist but. Well... I don't know i always try to stay out of discussions like this, but then find myself dragged in. Its like letters to the editor in the local paper (now there is a peculiar poetics) I read & read & get steamed up at least 2 letters out of three & slam the paper down - or leave it on a bus in disgust & very rarely - usually when a whole lot of variables manage to line up - time, convenience, writing implements, the planets, my mood, nothing better to do (there is always something better to do) I write in response. One of three things happens 1. i don't post it 2. i post they don't print 3. i post they print i regret Obviously the first option is the best & least frustrating. Today I post knowing it will be published (to the list at least). So regrets in advance & love & respect to all... & more to those who agree with me - if they find i have really said anything at all. & more to those who disagree & to those who really disagree - I'd love to step outside, it's sunny & warm in Auckland today. Oh resevoir, Dan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:38:33 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dorulet D Ana Subject: Re: Oops >You might have sent it to the wrong address because when I made my E-mail >account I might have put the wrong state make sure you sent it to NJ.Sorry. >From, Filip >Ps.this is the first time I am using e-mail. I am only nine.I hope I do everything right. On Wed, 5 Mar 1997 19:33:07 -0800 Herb Levy writes: >Kenny, > >I found the package of 2 CDs & press release that I thought I'd sent >to you >when I got back today. It's in the mail now & I think you'll have it >by >Saturday, Monday at the latest. Sorry. > >Here's a few URLs that may be of interest to your visual poetry self: > > > > > > > >though I'm sure you've seen them all. > >Hope to see you at Roulette next Saturday. > >Bests, > >Herb > > >Herb Levy >herb@eskimo.com > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 22:01:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carnography Subject: Re: The Twentieth Century Comments: To: UB Poetics discussion group In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19960617042723.006b2ab4@pop.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To all: >From: ron >alert! FC2/Black Ice Books is under investigation by a congressional >committee trying to shut down NEA. more to follow. letters of support can >be faxed to 319-438-3523. First books targeted: SM, by Jeffery DeShell, Blood of Mugwump, by Doug Rice, The Mexican Trilogy, by D.N. Stuefloten, and Chick Lit 2, edited by Chris Mazza. It seems my book, Distorture, will probably be the next to be targeted. After that, I'm not certain who's next. Even if this turns out to be good for individual writers, the fact remains that it's bad news for BIB and for all other literary academic presses. Please write letters of support and do what you can. Also: In celebration of two new books: Distorture & Beneath the Empire of the Birds March 27, 7:00 p.m. Tower Books Readings by Rob Hardin Darius James and Carl Watson 383 Lafayette Street NY, NY 10009 212/228-5100 There will be posters, wine, beer, an ad in the Voice, a choice pic in The NY Press: The place will be a madhouse. An aside: All responses to me personally must be emailed to me personally: After getting continuously flamed for punctuation, and then getting flamed for calling a punctuation flame bad netiquette (which it is: I worked for NetBooks for two years and copyedited the Masquerade book on the internet--I use such neologisms accurately), I don't really see much point in perpetuating arguments on listserv. Therefore, I won't be reading the list and won't respond to messages on the list. Still, Black Ice Books/FC2 is more important than the logistics of any personal exchange. Jeffery DeShell is a great writer and future DeShells deserve to be published. Please support free speech and let's forget about past differences. All the best always, Rob Hardin http://www.users.interport.net/~scrypt/ http://www.horrornet.com/hardin.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:57:43 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dorulet D Ana Subject: Re: Oops This is Ana Doina I am sorry for the previous message. My son thought he was using his e-mail on Juno when in fact he was using mine. sorry for any inconvenience or confusion his message might have created. AD On Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:38:33 PST Dorulet D Ana writes: >>You might have sent it to the wrong address because when I made my >E-mail >account I might have put the wrong state make sure you sent it >to NJ.Sorry. >>From, Filip >>Ps.this is the first time I am using e-mail. I am only nine.I hope I >do everything right. >On Wed, 5 Mar 1997 19:33:07 -0800 Herb Levy writes: >>Kenny, >> >>I found the package of 2 CDs & press release that I thought I'd sent >>to you >>when I got back today. It's in the mail now & I think you'll have it >>by >>Saturday, Monday at the latest. Sorry. >> >>Here's a few URLs that may be of interest to your visual poetry self: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>though I'm sure you've seen them all. >> >>Hope to see you at Roulette next Saturday. >> >>Bests, >> >>Herb >> >> >>Herb Levy >>herb@eskimo.com >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 22:05:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carnography Subject: BIB targeted by congress/Three monologues for heterogeneous voices and free beer Comments: To: UB Poetics discussion group Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To all: >From: ron >alert! FC2/Black Ice Books is under investigation by a congressional >committee trying to shut down NEA. more to follow. letters of support can >be faxed to 319-438-3523. First books targeted: SM, by Jeffery DeShell, Blood of Mugwump, by Doug Rice, The Mexican Trilogy, by D.N. Stuefloten, and Chick Lit 2, edited by Chris Mazza. It seems my book, Distorture, will probably be the next to be targeted. After that, I'm not certain who's next. Even if this turns out to be good for individual writers, the fact remains that it's bad news for BIB and for all other literary academic presses. Please write letters of support and do what you can. Also: In celebration of two new books: Distorture & Beneath the Empire of the Birds March 27, 7:00 p.m. Tower Books Readings by Rob Hardin Darius James and Carl Watson 383 Lafayette Street NY, NY 10009 212/228-5100 There will be posters, wine, beer, an ad in the Voice, a choice pic in The NY Press: The place will be a madhouse. An aside: All responses to me should be emailed to me personally. After getting continuously flamed for punctuation, and amassing further flames for calling a punctuation flame bad netiquette (which it is: I worked for NetBooks for two years and copyedited the Masquerade guide to the internet--I use such neologisms accurately), I don't really see much point in perpetuating arguments on listserv. Therefore, I won't be reading the list and won't respond to messages on the list. Still, Black Ice Books/FC2 is more important than the logistics of any personal exchange. Jeffery DeShell is a great writer and future DeShells deserve to be published. Let's all support free speech and forget about our differences. All the best always, Rob Hardin http://www.users.interport.net/~scrypt/ http://www.horrornet.com/hardin.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 23:37:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <9703130106.AA01824@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thomas Lecky wrote: > This thread has swirled in and out of politics by way of the thing we > cannot name: taste. "Taste" may be be trivial, but love isn't. Love is just the inadmissable motor that gives energy (however waning) to judgment. Perhaps if we could own up to the poets who woke us we'd be better equipped to hear what wakenings are available elsewhere? Pound & Yeats & Stevens & Bassho & Donne & Blake woke me, and I've had students teach me how Cummings & Bukowski & even god help me Gerald Stern woke them. It's not the same second-hand, but it's not a bad place to start. Wendy --------------------------------------------------------------------- Wendy Battin (home) http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/wjbat/ (CAPA) http://shain.lib.conncoll.edu/CAPA/capa.html (Multiple Poetics) http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5471/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:16:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Vogler Subject: [1]POETICS Digest - 11 Mar [1]POETICS Digest - 11 Mar 1997 to 12 Mar 3/12/97 Sorry. Unavailable by email until April 14, 1997. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 03:31:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Perloff/Kellogg, et al. I've been watching with much interest (and dare I, at the risk of seeming an irresponsible aesthete, say "with much pleasure) the recent "deeply disturbed" thread and am excited by the possibility of something like a "public sphere" beyond coterie debates and would like to address a few points that hopefully could be further addressed, etc.--- At one point, Marjorie writes that these mutlicultural poets are "ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric and the ontology of the poem are concerned." Being a reader of Marjorie's work, I know what she means, but it may not be self-evident to many why these forms AND ONTOLOGIES are conservative, or naive, or unreflective, etc. For there IS a valid point to be made that much of what many of us (I'm including myself in a larger interpretative community here, but any one of you may feel free to deny you share these assumptions, in fact I myself do not ALWAYS share these assumptions and who knows what tomorrow will bring) consider to be properly self-conscious, sophisticated, reflexive, recursive, whatever, work may, for many people, actually be a kind of decadent masturbatory work. I find such a dialogue interesting and it is often the subject matter of my work, as well as the work of many writers I admire--but it is NOT a necessary precondition for GOOD POETRY for me (I am, by the way, not saying that anybody on the list has said it was--just trying to raise some questions). And I guess what I would like to see more of is the kind of dialogue, or "coalition building" between some of these rigid factions. In the first place, to speak of identity politics or multicult, whatever, as a recognizable kind of verse, may very well elide the differences between several kinds of modes--i.e. RITA DOVE (as current whipping woman DU JOUR) is very far away from say Sterling Plummp(sic?) or Paul Beatty. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, and suggested in Marjorie's calling attention to "the erosion of all democracy in washington" and the "refusal to criticize" (at least in any blatant way) on the part of many poets many of these problems, that there may be a UNION of practictioners of "radical formal innovation" and "radical CONTENT innovators" that can be emphasized more than it seems to have been in the past. Even the union of "bohemian" and "avant-garde" is a good-place to start (and certain gestures in Paul Hoover's anthology are to be very applauded for moving in this direction). That a poet can be INTELLECTUALLY or EMOTIONALLY or ETHICALLY radical, or at least challenging (even on a strict word level, as say BRECHT or LANGSTON HUGHES or D.H. LAWRENCE, is, despite the lack of what many would call formal innovation in their work--in ways, admittedly, Angelou or Dove, FOR ME, are not) may "compensate" for the lack of the more purely formal radical qualities in their work. I've said this before, but will again--that there is no necessary connection between FORMALLY innvative and SOCIALLY innovative work. It's great when a poem can be both, but for me if it's at least ONE of these (and if often doesn't matter which one, as long a it's at least one), it passes through my censors and is therefore deemed INTERESTING, etc. What makes certain poets in the ALLEN anthology, for instance, radical is NOT NECESSARILY form, or limited to form, or the formal radicalism may, after 38 years, seem now incidental, more a matter of fashion (see O'Hara's "Mayakovsky" for an example of a "speaker" theatrically aware of the the STRICTURES of the avant-garde as much as say a Lowell would come to feel the strictures of the "mainstream"--and in this light I could call attention to the replacement in the 80's (the period that is largely in questin here) of both Amiri Baraka by Michael Harper and of Kenneth Koch by Gerald Stern in the widely taught Poulin anthology (the latter of which, in both cases, are more benign both FORMALLY and SOCIALLY), or, more generally, the way much black radicalism was replaced in anthologies (definitely the NORTOn--not the Hoover one) by 1) more benign black writers (i.e. Dove again) or 2) other "fashionable" minorities (which in many cases, and probably not accidentally, are also more conservative, I think of Cathy Song, in particular, but there are others)--which has the effect retroactively of calling into question the decisions on the part of the anthologists to publish the more radical writers in the first place (kinda like the way "silly love songs" called into question the motives behind, say, Sgt. Pepper--for those who didn't already suspect SGT. Pepper when it came out--okay, sorry, a strained analogy). So, I would question David (Kellogg's) remark that "MULLEN, HUNT, ET AL., are not excluded because Rita Dove is included...." Sure, I do not want to act as if "the currently included poets are part of the problem" and I hope I will be forgiven for the use I am making of RD (Dove, not Duncan or DuPlessis) here, as a kind of intellectual shorthand, or synechdoche, for a certain style, but sometimes it is important to entertain the possibility of conspiracy (as long as one does not get all ghasthy serious about it) and realize that, YES, the poetry climate as well as the "larger" political climate has indeed gotten much more conservative in the last 20 odd years--but I do think that we should question what we mean by "conservative" in several ways. 1) the rhymes in the work of many slam-type poets (or rap) are not EXACTLY conservative in a new formalist way, as Creeley once told me in a letter "NEVER TOO LATE TO RHYME!" (Bernstein is rhyming alot lately, and Lee Ann Brown....others....). There is a whole set of issues of orality involved, and to say I HATE SPEECH does not necessarily make one a radical these days. Also, conservative and conservation share a similar root, no? What if one says "I am a conservative in exactly the ways that the so-called 'conservatives' are not"? COnservatives are actually some of the most WASTEFUL, final-fronteir, macho, make it newers out there in many FIELDS (clinton's techno "bridge' to the 21st century). Anyway, one can only go SO FAR out, and the urge to be simple can be radical, it needn't implicate one in a reductive sense of "identity politics" or "esentialism" (on this, Maria Damon's point is also, well taken). I'll stop here, because I'll probably be seen as contradicting myself, or confused, or trying to play more than one part in this discursive situation--i definitely have more questions than answers, but, then, if one can not help but define oneself maybe it's okay to define oneself as undefinable.....at least as an opening gambit, in a cultural climate that seems way too rigid (but then rigidity IS rather comic, no?)----Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 04:06:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: suspended music Comments: cc: KJOHNSON@STUDENT.HIGHLAND.CC.IL.US Ken Johnson remarks -- << Just a heartfelt plug for Herb Levy's Periplum CD, Suspended Music. The "long string instrument" is amazing. Totally new. There used to be a magazine called _Ear_ devoted to new music--is there anything out there comparable? >> EAR (NYC-based), alas, bit the dust circa. '91-'92, sheerly for lack of ready money to get through a rough spot. Up till then, it was "growing" in many ways, but hit a snag. (FYI, EAR's latest till-the-end publisher, Carol Tuynman, moved back to Beaufort, South Carolina some years ago.) I had pleasure of writing for (& doing some editing at) EAR in the late '80s et seq. (while some of you'all mayhap were gathered at yonder EAR Inn). As for other, similar, extant magazines? -- I don't know full scope of what's out there, but one that I know & like is: MusicWorks (based on Toronto). (rather close to the old EAR in several respects) Editorially savvy, the writing is various, sometimes arcane, typically smart & well-informed. Many of the more obscure & remarkable doings & developments in new music find (sometimes rare) overage in the pages of MusicWorks. AND they include an accompanying CD w/ each issue, specially cut [if that's the word], coordinated w/ feature articles. (In truth, I gotta re-subscribe.) Last I knew, MusicWorks getting on-line (don't have e-address on hand); by now, bet they may have a website. d.i. p.s.: among EAR writers I knew, one bright young bloke, Neil Straus, "graduated" (?) to (still-current) music coverage for the NY Times, btw. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 04:07:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: suspended music (p.p.s.) Comments: cc: KJOHNSON@STUDENT.HIGHLAND.CC.IL.US I wrote >Ken Johnson remarks but pardon, -- meant Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:51:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: TINFISH (fwrd from Susan Schultz) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: Susan Schultz Subject: TINFISH! Collectors' Edition! TINFISH #4 is now available. Each copy has a different full-color cover, featuring palimpsests of Hawai'i travel brochures and other local advertising; the overlays are incredible. The covers are by Gaye Chan and Duncan Dempster of the University of Hawai'i art department. Contributors from Hawai'i, Australia, New Zealand, the continental U.S., and elsewhere, include: Kapulani, Murray Edmond, Adam Aitken, Pam Brown, Yunte Huang, Richard Hamasaki, Rebecca Mays Ernest, Paul Hoover, John Noto, Dan Raphael, Gabrielle Welford, Joshua McKinney, Jorge Guitart, John Kinsella, Susan M. Schultz, Loss Pequeno Glazier, Sue Moss, Dan Featherston, Michelle Murphy, Liz Waldner, Cydney Chadwick, Marie Hara, Joshua Harmon, and Hazel Smith; design by Suzanne Kosanke. The price is $5 per copy; $13 per 3 issue subscription. TINFISH's address is 1422A Dominis Street, Honolulu, HI 96822, or you can reach me through this email account . ______________________________________________ Susan M. Schultz Dept. of English 1733 Donaghho Road University of Hawai'i-Manoa Honolulu, HI 96822 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/schultz http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/tinfish ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 06:30:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: Perloff/Kellogg, et al. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you, Chris. >I've been watching with much interest (and dare I, at the risk of seeming an >irresponsible aesthete, say "with much pleasure) the recent "deeply >disturbed" thread and am excited by the possibility of something like a etc. Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu 37 Washington Square West #10A New York, New York 10011 (212) 254-3984 phone/fax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 09:18:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan A Levin Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <33273E4F.75E4@qwertyarts.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This topic has been gnawing at me for the last couple of days. I have nothing illuminating to say on it. I feel instead that it reveals something disturbingly (deeply disturbingly) ill-luminated about me, about us (poetics-us, but also U.S. us). I too hate the anthology that sacrifices interesting work for the mundane (though there are ways of making the mundane interesting, and I take both Harriet Davidson's and Bob Perelman's talks at the recent MLA on teaching poetry to be prods in the direction of making us find and profess the interesting where we maybe have deadedned our sensiblities toward it). And I hate the professional impulse to sacrifice interesting minds, with all their lively passions, to an essentialist paradigm that is (and that most everyone in the profession agrees is) hot air. And I can't find a way to make THAT interesting. It's important to see how the "job market" problem crosses into the "identity politics" problem: the tighter the market, the tighter the pressure will be to think in narrow-reductionist terms. (The scenario: we can only hire one person, so it has to be someone who fits THIS description.) The profession (read students) is the biggest loser: just as we are expanding (in the sense of becoming increasingly open to new kinds of work from new kinds of people), we are also shrinking (fewer jobs, steady conversion to adjunct labor). So: we will invariably lose good people, many of whom a generation back would have found their calling in teaching. It saddens me. It seems our most urgent professional responsibility, those of us who teach in college programs, is to resist the adjunctification of the profession. Let course enrollments grow, let students complain? Enlist the MLA's power of publicity? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 08:42:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Perloff/Kellogg, et al. In-Reply-To: <9703131130.AA18905@is.nyu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yes; let's have some real conversation, but not at the expense of enlarged opportunities for heretofore underrepresented folks, no matter how they write. At 6:30 AM -0500 3/13/97, Susan Wheeler wrote: >Thank you, Chris. > >>I've been watching with much interest (and dare I, at the risk of seeming an >>irresponsible aesthete, say "with much pleasure) the recent "deeply >>disturbed" thread and am excited by the possibility of something like a > >etc. >Susan Wheeler >wheeler@is.nyu.edu > >37 Washington Square West #10A >New York, New York 10011 >(212) 254-3984 phone/fax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 10:30:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: More shilly-shallying battle cries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just would like to agree completely with Jonathan Levin (and Joseph Lease and David Kellogg and Lisa Jarnot, I think) that the intersection of the 'job market' with 'identity politics' is the center of this particular death star. There is no sound fiscal reason the humanities departments of universities need constrict -- follow the money. Locate the bonuses. Get better at fighting. Are we politically involved yet? Are we talking about an invented need, like office supplies? Lose the administration! Lose the professional development seminars! There is no sound long-term reason that we should accept the short term gains of ... to lose weight Elvis would have a coma induced? Hang the cost-cutters from the rotunda! Before the opening of Depression II! And put your socks in a bad poet's mouth -- Chakras on stun. Jordan (disguised as Henry) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 11:17:14 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: Perloff/Kellogg, et al. In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 13 Mar 1997 08:42:15 -0600 from "The tradition is more than you can read. It's an entire climate. It has to be total, I mean you can't preclude any department or tendency for any reason. It's the total of what as a poet you belong to and can learn from and contribute to. Some poet might be there because of one line. You can learn from anybody. Poetry's volatile,it can escape through the people who write it. This is very unacademic of me but I believe it. The academics, as I know them, which is the Cambridge tradition, insist on a fewness. It is very, very important to them that in any stretch of literary history there be a few, and their job, the critic's job, is to nominate that few. It's surprising how that attitude permeates to the most outlandish outposts of candle-power and Tinkerbell poetry, but it does. It's very academic. From a creative point of view it's much more important that there be many. It's more important to search, quite assiduously if need be, for the good in someone's work than to recognise the dangers in it, because there are dangers in everybody's work, for others. If you stand up in public like Leavis and insist on your selected few, your discriminations, you just end up a cultural curiosity because your few can only be a temporary historical partiality, an item of enforced waste, and all you've done is try to prevent a large number of writers from being read." --Peter Riley, _Reality Studios_ 8 (1986), 15. "I just want to say that I think it's really important to love all kinds of poetry and to realize that for the whole history of the planet there have been all these different kinds of poetry. . . ." --Bernadette Mayer, _lingo_ (1993), 141. "Very curious, Hortense, how things keep coming around on your list. What's life like beyond memory, Harry? Who was in the last final four?" --Keith Tuma, this morning, he thinks, while wondering why nobody picked up on marjorie's point about the parochialism of many uspoetry anthologies and still believing in the importance of evaluation albeit in re-invented critical idioms ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:04:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well put. I couldn't agree more. mark p. On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Joseph Lease wrote: > reply to Mark: yeah of course I like the Hoover and Rothenberg anthologies > and Messerli's recent big one all very much: my point is that every time > we have to make the old Norton mean what it used to mean (my guess is it > never meant that: I mean not in the contexts that inform this one most > directly) we give it a big boost: we need to touch just teach our children > that anthologies are human institutions like a clubhouse in a tree (or > like a Joseph Cornell box in the case of Rothenberg especially) > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 11:07:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well i've just had the questionable pleasure of wading through sixty posts, most of them from poetics, the order of which was completely scrambled thanx to my system shutting down unexpectedly, and burping them forth in no particular order... so i'll try to respond to various posts, apologies if somebody posted remarks addressed primarily to me and i missed 'em (please just backchannel): fiona: i think my sarcasm was just too thick for my own good... i was trying to suggest that i generally have some young white guys in my classes who submit work to me that often seems intended to shake up the establishment, when in fact it doesn't do a heck of a lot more than, say, the beats managed---four decades ago... to your observation as to "see[ing] anew in all senses," i'd like simply to say YES... at least, my own reshuffling is geared toward that (whether i succeed or no is another story)... and YES too to wendy battin's remark about loving poetry... and yes too to chris s.'s appropriately parenthetical-ed (?) longish post plumbing the possibilities of talking about radical "content" as well as "form"... long long overdue in these parts, from my pov... i am esp. interested mself in work that broaches the various "literature"-"science" interfaces... david k: thanx for your note... i know you know (that i know that you know etc) what the job scene is about these days... as academix, we're probably all too wound up on that score to be much good at remaining sangfroid... but at the same time, i sometimes wish that, as academics, we'd get MORE wound up... the job scene is creating some awfully complicated political and economic realities for many of us, and it's difficult as academics to shake the sense that what we do within the educational system as a result has everything to do with how we come to poetry... of course it has something to do with how we come to poetry... i suspect (read "know") non-academics will in general find that we play our institutional card too often, but it has to do with the fact that our institution (-al situation) has become SO visible in the last decade... i would only ask that those who are NOT academics (self-defined, if you like) take account of how their workaday world figures into their writing (an old topic)... perhaps it would behoove us academics, poets and critics, to imagine what effect shifting careers might have on our writing, on our sense of commitment and audience?... i mean, imagine if you didn't teach, and if you didn't have to worry about tenure---how would this affect your writing?... and i'd ask non-academics whether they might feel differently about their writing if they were in a position to teach writing/literature every other day... this is perhaps a bit empathically facile, but i've found such internal rumination to be quite revealing, in my moments of solitude... and most recently to keith: your final lines... i believe, as do you, that the question of evaluation is not going to go away, not only cultural but aesthetic evaluation (which in fact i take to be your point, and marjorie's point)... for those who posted in about "taste," i would observe only that (like "craft") this denotes something very particular (depending on context, perhaps, but then---*here*---this one)... i'd rather too that we find new idioms, if you like, in which to discuss our "tastes" (and "craftS")... and it strikes me as revealing that not only should the political be regarded in somewhat kneejerk terms hereabouts (to gloss maria) but that questions pertaining to aesthetics (both content and form) are ALSO regarded in somewhat kneejerk terms in other, academic contexts... as somebody who writes both poetry and criticism (i really DO have some more conventional stuff 'out there') i've often had a HELLuva time discussing my motivations as a writer with folks who write primarily critical stuff for academic audiences... not to 'erect' any barriers here, but just to make sure to indicate that the boundaries cut in multiple directions... and apologies for denoting all non-academics with the negative, my brain is full at the moment... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:16:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: from "Jonathan A Levin" at Mar 13, 97 09:18:30 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > It seems our most urgent professional > responsibility, those of us who teach in college programs, is to resist > the adjunctification of the profession. Let course enrollments grow, let > students complain? Enlist the MLA's power of publicity? MLA members will soon have an opportunity to vote on a resolution initiated by the MLA's Graduate Student Caucus and passed almost unanimously by the Delegate Assembly at the recent convention; it's language charges MLA in part to, "take the lead in working with other disciplinary and higher-education groups in encouraging legislative and policy bodies at the national or state level to adopt and fund initiatives which would provide for labor equity in graduate-employee and adjunct work, and provide incentives for higher-education institutions to begin reductions in their reliance upon such labor." --Matt ================================================================= Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:20:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: DS "Re: "deeply disturbed"" (Mar 13, 2:28pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I wrote: In the stict sense of the >word yes! Am I a racist or sexist? No. It probably has more to do with what I >find engaging, interesting, mind-blowing, etc. Dan wrote: > Or with the way you read? And are taught to read? Yes. An essential consideration. How we develop as a reader over time. What directions we take. Or our we being carried along. Since I generally learn by way of the discovery principle, I tend to locate what I read and buy through exhaustive searching. But more and more, I am reading through references from others, or their writing. If I start as a surrealist, I may find myself later on in language and experimental poetry (because I tend toward the subversive perhaps). This would preclude, for example, an interest in a poetry "selected to represent cultural diversity, a poetry that accepts the model of representation assumed by the dominant culture in the first place." Because, as Charles Bernstein writes, "what can be decried as parochial patterns of reading is in fact an essential strategy for survival, to have a deep immersion in a contemporaneity and history that are difficult to locate and need to be championed." > And to write off the rest of the world by 'ethnicity' ooops except Baraka (who is okay) is REDUCTIVE in the extreme Right on! So is the official verse culture sanctioning, essentializing, and tokenizing of signature styles of cultural difference. Best, Bill Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:22:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <9703122005.ZM6126@plhp517.comm.mot.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thomas and William et al.: The bringing up of taste does indeed get at some of the (often unstated or understated) issues that hang around just under the surface on this list...As is my wont, I'm probably about to oversimplify dreadfully, but there are two strong urges in the nonmainstream universe. One is inclusive and recognizes the legitimacy of many different poetries and the preferences for them; the other (often articulated by LangPo theory in its early, heroic days) is less tolerant, and strongly critiques much of the established award/workshop/grant scene for the artistic/ideological bankruptcy of the poetry it produces and rewards...The latter often is associated with theories (Brechtian in lineage) that see more innovative writing as a form of political struggle, in which the reader is active rather than passive and disempowered (or as Perelman somewhat confusingly puts it, the reader is abolished, by which he means readers become active members of a culture/community, become poets, the poet and reader meld into one). In fact the passages from WCW that Thomas quotes (great passages!) read like early formulations of this second, more militant point of view--one which is rather firm about making negative judgments and doesn't foreground taste and preference. Mark Prejsnar atlanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 09:39:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Comments: To: David Kellogg In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear David (and List): I've been in Las Vegas lecturing at UNLV where Ming-Qian Ma is now teaching and touring the casinos so my head is still spinning a bit--but let me try to answer your questions: On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, David Kellogg wrote: > > Dear Marjorie (and others who may be listening), > > If I'm your antagonist, I am indeed a friendly one. I neither intended to > nor in fact did imply that you were a racist. I'm happy to read what you > wrote, however, though I'd enourage the same from you ;-). I think we can > start to talk to (rather than past) each other. > > So let's focus on the particulars you quote from your article: > > > What I say, for the record, is that, whereas in 1959 Don Allen could put > > together an anthology of "the" new American poetry, an anthology that > > pretty accurately pitted the counterculture against the establishment, in > > the 1990s, there can no longer be ONE counterculture anthology and so > > attempts to produce one that is "the" avant-garde can't wholly succeed. > > OK fine. Here I'm totally in agreement with you (and think the major > thrust of your argument quite on target). > > > And I write: > > "More important: the eightiies witnessed the coming of the minority > > communites. . . In their inception, many of these poetries were, > > ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the ontology > > of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics > > couldn't--and still can't--say this out loud because they would have > > immediately been labeled racist or sexist. And thus the picture has > > become increasingly clouded. " and then I go on to complain about the > > absence of all but U.S. poets in most of the new anthologies. > > First: "the eighties witnessed the coming of the minority communities." I > honestly don't know what this means; I can't hold it in my head, it just > drains out between my skullplates. Are you saying that there weren't > minority communities before the eighties? Or just that there weren't > minority POETRY communites? Or that these communities hadn't "come" (to > maturity, to coalescence, etc.)? None of these interpretations seem to me > satisfying, because none of the assertions that result are, so far as I > can tell, true. I'm not trying to bait you, honestly; I simply can't see > what that sort of generalizaion means, nor what its point is. Minority communities in the 80s: I didn't think this needed spelling out. I am referring to simple fact here: namely, check out any anthology or critical study of "contemporary poetry" prior to that time and you'll see that the issue of minority poets is simply ignored. (read, for example, Altieri, J. Breslin, P. Breslin, von Hallberg--you name it). The anthologies may have included, say, Baraka and one or two other black poets but the notion of "Chicano poetics" or "Asian-American poetics" did not yet exist. This isn't a value judgement, just a fact. > Second: "In their inception, many of these [minority community] poetries > were, ironically, quite conservative so far as form, rhetoric, and the > ontology of the poem were concerned. But counterculture poets and critics > couldn't -- and still can't -- say that out loud because they would have > immediately been labeled racist or sexist." Agreements: that many of > these poetries were conservative in the ways you mention. Disagreements: > 1) that this formal conservatism is ironic in any sense whatsoever; and 2) > that you can't say these poetries are conservative (etc.) without being > labeled racist or sexist. I certainly labelled you neither, neither on > this list nor in my article. I didn't say the "formal conservatism" was ironic--I said it is ironic that one kind of oppositionality (early exemplars of minority poetics) were conservative formally. This, incidentally, is now a hot and interesting debate. In the new ALH, James Longenbach slaps me and others on the wrist for assuming that, in the case of Ashbery, his subject, formal innovation and semantic innovation go hand in hand. He says this in making the case against THE TENNIS COURT OATH I totally disagree. For me, form and "content" cannot be separated; it's the point Charles Bernstein makes so beautifully in "Artifice of Absorption." There is no "subject matter" outside form. I've therefore always objected to Adrienne Rich's supposedly radical stance which is presented to us in the received lyric modes--to be that's a contradiction in terms. Therefore--and this is all I meant--the job of putting together an "avant-garde" anthology in the 90s is very different from putting one together in 1960. Don Allen could just choose those poets that satisfied what he took to be the New American Poetry. Today, the anthologist does not have that freedom because --witness what John Yau did to Eliot Weinberger--s/he is under pressure to include X number of poets from this or that grouping. I am optimistic enough to think this phenomenon will pass as there are increasing numbers of, say, Mexican-American poets to choose from. But at the moment it's tricky and so inclusions are often somewhat cynical. So--as I said in the article--the picture is clouded and no anthologist can quite proceed freely as Don Allen could. > > Now David perfectly proves my point by implying I'm somehow making a > > racist statement. > > You are reading into (as opposed to "not reading") what I wrote. What I > wrote was that the pluralism of your approach is in tension with the > exclusivity of your actual critical practice. This seems to me a > perfectly reasonable critique to make. Sure I find this disturbing; but > not because I think you're a racist (I don't) -- rather, because of the > slippage that comes into play in passages like the one that follows: The "exclusivity of my actual critical practice"--I don't know what this means. I admire particular poets and those are the ones I write about--yes. If that's "exclusivity" --I plead guilty. I try, on the other hand, to include non U.S. poets so in that sense I believe I'm much more "inclusive" than others. There's only so much time. > > What I meant, of course, is that the mainstream > > anthologies today like the Norton will include a lot of, say Rita Dove, > > because she's a black woman when the Norton doesn't even include Zukofsky, > > Reznikoff etc. not to mention Harryette Mullen, Erica Hunt, Will > > Alexander, or Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian--well, the list > > goes on and on, right? This is where identity politics does indeed cloud > > the picture because if you object to these inclusions or exclusions you > > are immediately branded. > > "Inclusions or exclusions." This is not a symmetrical complaint. The > complaint about exclusions is well taken, and I'm wholly on your side in > that struggle. The complaint about inclusions is where I think your > pluralistic stance conflicts with your practice. Mullen, Hunt, et al. > are not excluded because Rita Dove is included. (Nor do I think it fair > to say that the Norton includes "a lot of . . . Dove, because she's a black > woman," barring evidence to support that assertion.) Giving Dove less > space will do not one damn bit of good in making more space for Zukofsky, > Howe, or Bernstein. I disagree with the last sentence above. I believe it's Charles B who noticed that the Norton, so far as poets born after 1950 goes, includes not a single white man. Our Quals list at Stanford is similar. The list, made up by a faculty committee includes Leslie Marmon Silko Sandra Cisneros but not Charles Olson or John Ashbery or Louis Zukofsky If this isn't identity politics, what is it? You will note, if you study reading lists around the country that this is the case. The post World War II period has been turned into a kind of grievance list. > > What I'm trying to say, badly probably, because email is not the easiest > > writing venue, is that, yes, I am opposed to identity politics in its > > crude form and no, that doesn't make me a racist, and if we want to be > > political, let's be political and try to do something about what is > > happening in Washington. > > 1) identity politics: I do am opposed to "its crude form," but I think > such opposition must not be crude either; > > 2) that doesn't make you a racist. Agreed (never thought otherwise); > > 3) politics: it's all over the place, both in Washington and in the poetry > community etc. But I'd append also: If we want to do something about > excluded poetry, let's not act as though the currently included poets are > the problem. If we want diversity, let's have diversity, and not some > revised Norton. > The very fact that we have to talk about""" included" and "excluded" poetry is the problem. Which is all I originally said and which you found "deeply disturbing." And the Norton is not to be so easily dismissed, given that 9/10 of Intro. poetry courses use it. The newest edition is virtually worthless so far as I'm concerned. But the compilers get away with it in the name of a spurious radicalism ("Look! 23 people of color, etc. etc.). What this cynical move on the part of the publishing industry is doing does deserve comment, doesn't it. Or--to take a second example--look at Adrienne Rich's recent BEST AMERICAN POEMS of 1996. She has poems in their by highschool girls "of color" that are not even competent--all in the name of some putative "diversity." > I don't really have any response to your comments on Dorn, because > (except for one moment at its inception) I did not really participate in > that thread. > > I hope this is helpful in clarifying our disagreements. > Cheers, > David Cheers in return, Marjorie > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > David Kellogg Duke University > kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program > (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 > FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ > > There is no mantle > and it does not descend. > > -- Thomas Kinsella > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:39:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: TINFISH (fwrd from Susan Schultz) In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19970313025127.00687e40@bway.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII By the by, since we are addressing identity politics/left politics/non-mainstream writing; on the basis of the one issue I've see, TinFish and Susan should be applauded for a very creative start at precisely the rapprochement people have been (very articulately) arguing for... Awareness of regional/ethnic/political/formal lines, and how they cut across each other... This magazine is to be VERY strongly recommended to anyone who hasn't already seen it, and is a good reference point for the current politics/form discussion here. Mark Prejsnar atlanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:54:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: "depply disturbed" II Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hapier tpho tody: >to be that's a contradiction >in terms. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:58:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar "Re: "deeply disturbed"" (Mar 13, 12:22pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mark writes: > The bringing up of taste does indeed get at some of the (often unstated or > understated) issues that hang around just under the surface on this > list... and > In fact the passages from WCW that Thomas quotes (great > passages!) read like early formulations of this second, more militant > point of view--one which is rather firm about making negative judgments > and doesn't foreground taste and preference. and Joe writes: > for those who posted in about "taste," i would observe > only that (like "craft") this denotes something very particular (depending > on context, perhaps, but then---*here*---this one)... i'd rather too that > we find new idioms, if you like, in which to discuss our "tastes" (and > "craftS") Accurately said. I used the words "taste" and "preference" for lack of a better idiom with which to discuss my own preferences. The more I think of the word in this context, the more it seems vague or nondescript, a cop-out, or biased. I too "prefer" that we locate a new idiom for our tastes. Wendy used "love" which, if I understand her correcetly, suits me far better (I'm going to run out of synonyms soon). Best, Bill Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:04:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: SSchu30844@AOL.COM Subject: Re: More shilly-shallying battle cries I've read a couple of messages now in which "identity politics" and "job market" have been spoken in the same pixellated breath, but where the actual discussion seems to be about the increasing use of adjuncts and so on. I'd like to hear someone develop the argument about the relationship between identity politics and jobs, though I promise to be skeptical. Identity politics has been around a lot longer than the inclusion of some conservative ethnic (in its labored sense as "non-white") voices in the Norton. And job woes have been around a lot longer than multiculturalism. I'm not in any way defending the job market/process as it's now practiced, but I don't want to see the problems with it racialized--which is not what anyone's meaning to do, I know, but the language slippeth a bit. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:10:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: SSchu30844@AOL.COM Subject: Re: TINFISH (fwrd from Susan Schultz) Thanks much, Mark, for your kind plug. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:11:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <9703131258.ZM23228@plhp517.comm.mot.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII very old fashioned words like love (as in Wendy Battin's usage), tone, style, form, taste can often be extremely useful in the storm created by radical aesthetics meets radical politics: a monster movie edited by Jameson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:12:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: More shilly-shallying battle cries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Susan -- What I was Oblekly suggesting was that the discussion has been miscast in precisely this way -- as to allow the Other Professor to be scapegoated when it is clearly the Administration or better the Foundation which ought to be hogtied. Viz Steve Martin, _Cruel Shoes_. -- Jorban ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:15:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" marjorie, surely in conceptual terms, "form" and "content" are not susceptible to any easy division... but the fact that there are reading communities who insist on seeing these as (at least somewhat) separate, whether one agrees or no that this behooves poetic practice in toto, is itself at issue... i mean, we can argue (as i have mself) that seeing form and content as dissociable permits for a sort of incursion of the technological (there are those in cogsci circles who speak now, formal-ly, of the mind as a technology)... perhaps this is broadly sociocultural, effect-wise... but in the immediacy often attendant to more political aims---and i would agree with you that poets need not be shy about same---it seems to me that there may be positive cultural work to be had BY maintaining this distinction... for instance, there is work both by w. d. ehrhart and horace coleman that is, on the one hand, not all that formally innovative, but on the other, speaks directly to the experience of vietnam vets... with all that "speaks directly to" implies, both in a positive as well as a negative sense... it's here that, say, *my* tendency to regard such writing in terms of its cultural work may be viewed---by, say, other readers of these poets---as a kind of aesthetic condescension... that is, i've converted issues of "taste" (note those quotes, puh-leez) into issues of reception... worth noting too that the political aims of dominant groups often go unchallenged in such terms, simply b/c "identity" as such operates as a tacit given... i trust i'm being clear here... i guess i'm trying to pinpoint and flesh out what i see as the controversy in your comments---i surely don't mean to intervene for david, even to mediate (though i've got this thing about watching folks argue---)... i think one of the reasons much of *your* writing appeals to us poets is b/c you bring to the writing a real sensitivity as to formal considerations (which is not to suggest in any way that you don't understand the stakes implicit in "identity politics")... and the tendency of many academics to overlook such considerations---and the evaluations that accompany them---is part of why i often have such a problem talking with colleagues about my more writer-ly motivations... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:22:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII when I talk about the usefulness of old fashioned words I am of course assuming that their meanings are context-dependent: for example, there are lots of poetry worlds in which poets who I think are great poets are considered to be bad in the sense of incompetent: so when I use terms of value I mean them with the activist awareness that their meanings are context dependent: therefore, it seems to me, that poets who love the avant-garde tradition (on the next jenny jones) are obligated (in order to be intellectually consistent) to at least respect what different lefts define (determine, as in self determination) to be terms of aesthetic excellence (this in relation to Marjorie Perloff's evalaution of Rich's (granted deeply problematic) anthology) respectfully and tremblingly, ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:24:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" michael coffey, question: that piece on poetry publications comes off as so HAPPY!... but like, what about the small press distribution problems we've been witnessing in the last decade (at least)?... why is there no mention made of same?... not holding you "accountable" or some such, just wondering why there's so much attention to publishers --- which is great --- and evidently (as i read the piece) so little attention to how books get distributed --- which is not so great... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:33:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply In-Reply-To: <199703131824.MAA22294@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII agreed: the bookstore situation is horrible horrible horrible: PW isn't responsible for that but PW could address it in the interest of supporting innovative work ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:44:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <199703131815.MAA20391@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chris Stroffolino raises some super-good points in his post (I won't quote because I'd probably end up quoting the whole thing): rhyme is a perfect example (and Creeley's poetics and yes Lee Ann Brown) of ways in which something that once seemed old-fashioned can suddenly become (in a different interpretive context) singing and zinging with pleasure and even corrosive politics: ugliness (as in Chicago funk art (I'm from Chicago not Harvard)), narrative, stanzaic structures, speech acts, and even (gasp!) a lyric self-in-process (term from Kristeva, I mean to distinguish from confessional unitary self) are also perfect examples of aspects of poetics for which it is never too late: because after all it could only be too late for a given aspect of poetics if that aspect had only one fixed unitary meaning (Chakras on stun, as Jordan points out) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:02:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETH LEE SIMON Subject: forum on deixis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_858290429==_" --=====================_858290429==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" --=====================_858290429==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="DEIXCALL" CALL FOR ABSTRACTS/PROPOSALS for a two-session forum STUDIES IN DEIXIS: WORKING THE MARGINS OF PRAGMATICS AND SEMANTICS for the Midwest Modern Language Association Meeting, Chicago, November 6-8, 1997, Ramada Congress Hotel Abstracts are being accepted for "Studies in Deixis: Working the Margins of Pragmatics and Semantics." The multidimensionality of deixis, a linguistic phenomenon at the heart of communication, remains one of the most intriguing aspects of human language. It is impossible to imagine communication that functions without deixis. Deictic elements such as pronouns, demonstrative adjectives, and spatial or temporal adverbs, express a user-centered perspective on time, place and person relationships in the social context of an utterance; simultaneously, they denote formal grammatical functions within an utterance. The aim of the forum is to bring together scholars working on different aspects of deixis--from formal linguistics to stylistics--to discuss the activity that occurs at the intersection of language and reality/structure and function. Publication of the proceedings is planned. Abstracts/proposals should be a maximum of 150 words in length and must be received by Friday, April 4, 1997. Send abstracts (e-mail preferred) to: Beth Lee Simon, Dept. of English and Linguistics IPFW, Fort Wayne, IN 46805 simon@cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu fax: 219-481-6985 and/or Anna Fellegy, Department of English, 207 Lind Hall, #185, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455 felle001@maroon.tc.umn.edu --=====================_858290429==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:30:19 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: More shilly-shallying battle cries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" amen At 1:04 PM 3/13/97, SSchu30844@AOL.COM wrote: >I've read a couple of messages now in which "identity politics" and "job >market" have been spoken in the same pixellated breath, but where the actual >discussion seems to be about the increasing use of adjuncts and so on. I'd >like to hear someone develop the argument about the relationship between >identity politics and jobs, though I promise to be skeptical. Identity >politics has been around a lot longer than the inclusion of some conservative >ethnic (in its labored sense as "non-white") voices in the Norton. And job >woes have been around a lot longer than multiculturalism. I'm not in any way >defending the job market/process as it's now practiced, but I don't want to >see the problems with it racialized--which is not what anyone's meaning to >do, I know, but the language slippeth a bit. > >Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 12:06:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: 4 poets, 2 days (S.F., March 8-9) Comments: To: AERIALEDGE@aol.com, Lppl@aol.com, jms@acmenet.net, maz881@aol.com, Marisa.Januzzi@m.cc.utah.edu, drothschild@penguin.com, Daniel_Bouchard@hmco.com, jarnot@pipeline.com, jdavis@panix.com, lease@HUSC.HARVARD.EDU, wmfuller@ix.netcom.com, fittermn@is.nyu.edu, daviesk@is4.nyu.edu, lgoodman@ACSU.Buffalo.EDU, mwinter@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu, I.Lightman@uea.ac.uk, eryque@acmenet.net, kunos@lanminds.com, levyaa@is.nyu.edu, harris4@soho.ios.com, chris1929w@aol.com, poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu, aburns@fnbank.com, cah@sonic.net, andrew_joron@sfbayguardian.com, 102573.414@compuserve.com, acornford@igc.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Saturday evening at New College in San Francisco there was a benefit reading for _Prosodia_ 7, the New College literary journal. Tricia Roush, one of the editors of this year's issue, started off with a reading from her work _The Books of Danger_, starting with book one, "Danger Is My Business". Some great lines included: courage is something that keeps logic from working I am rich and sick in the same moment the bottom of the sea is my workshop, and I like it I worked so hard I don't remember it needless to say, the shark charmers are now in place everyone was killed; it cannot be otherwise it could have been shot over and over again, but everyone was so astonished Kit Robinson then read a selection of stuff old and new, including a bit from _Balance Sheet_ and the lines: it is important to do something meaningless three peacocks strut by. They just say nothing. it is the hour of the rampant shadow There was more, and there were people there, but my pen ran out of ink and I didn't get much more. Let's see, who all was there? I remember Kevin Killian, Marina Lazzara, Steven Jones, Laura Moriarty, Nick Robinson, Adam DeGraff, Mary Burger, Alex Cory, Mac from Santa Cruz, Cami Bontiates, Stephanie Baker, Simon Pettet (more about him shortly), Jean Day and family, and was that Margaret Butterfield? After the reading Adam Mary Alex and I go to David Larson's 27th birthday party in Oakland. David's cooking a turkey (there's quite a spread; since I'm a vegetarian I content myself with gnawing on the hollow white chocolate easter bunny), and there's copies of his "Modern Dewlap Special" sitting out, a collage of writing, drawing, cutting and pasting from David, Jia Ching Chen, Raymond Pettibon and Aaron Sinift. Sunday there's the Simon Pettet/Kathy Lou Schultz reading at Canessa Park. Avery Burns introduces Kathy Lou Schultz first and she reads from a sonnet sequence, a work called _Tool It Down_, another called _Some Vague Wife_, and yet still another, "Toward Fissures Forming Plots". Her work can be quite funny, to wit: he set out in the rain in his theory suit and came back damp precipitation bulb and annuals there's something about writers: they're damned hard to re-educate very particular hell over this lemon, late afternoon light, lawn of torso supersensory abstinence your leaving cleaves my (startled? starving?) heart returning is a grand gesture emphasizing departure Simon Pettet, in from New York, then got up somewhat nervously and read (occasionally then re-reading) some new pieces and a bunch of stuff from the _Selected_: how fortunate to be alive for just this second I am illegally parked in your heart still life which is endlessly moving the fool is the image of a life chosen the evening jukebox sun goes down so quietly so what do you select? Witnesses included Adam DeGraff, Edward Berrigan, Yetta, Ed Foster (in town for his own reading this Saturday at New College with Giovanni Singleton), Bill Berkson, Spencer Selby, Mary Margaret Sloan, Jack and Adelle Foley, Brian Lucas, Kevin Killian and Thoreau Lovell. ********************************** sjcarll@slip.net Steve Carll http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mags/antenym http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/antenym In seed- sense the sea stars you out, innermost, forever. --Paul Celan ********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:23:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Marjorie Perloff writes: >I believe it's Charles B who >noticed that the Norton, so far as poets born after 1950 goes, includes >not a single white man. Our Quals list at Stanford is similar. The list, >made up by a faculty committee includes Leslie Marmon Silko Sandra >Cisneros but not Charles Olson or John Ashbery or Louis Zukofsky >If this isn't identity politics, what is it? An example of the fact that the antholigists are more comfortable with accepting "minority" representation than with accepting white male radicalism. Probably radicalism by anyone: so what are they including in the defintition of radicalism then? The danger lies in then seeing the latter (revolutionary form) as being oppossed to the former (political inclusion), which as this list demonstrates it usually isn't. What if you substitute Doty for Olson, etc.? Can there be one fulcrum for this debate? I think it is frustrating but important to act as though there could be. Matthias Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 15:29:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: More shilly-shallying battle cries In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 13 Mar 1997, Jordan Davis wrote: > Susan -- > What I was Oblekly suggesting was that the discussion has been miscast in > precisely this way -- as to allow the Other Professor to be scapegoated > when it is clearly the Administration or better the Foundation which ought > to be hogtied. Viz Steve Martin, _Cruel Shoes_. > -- Jorban That was, I thought, my point too: such scapegoating as red herring, a missed opportunity for real debate, both in the job market and in the poetry-anthology discussion. As an adjuct, I feel this issue pretty acutely. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 14:36:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" J. L. writes: >when I talk about the usefulness of old fashioned words I am of course >assuming that their meanings are context-dependent: for example, there are >lots of poetry worlds in which poets who I think are great poets are >considered to be bad in the sense of incompetent: so when I use terms of >value I mean them with the activist awareness that their meanings are >context dependent: when you say context-dependent do you mean because they perform the dialectical function of reminding us of their meaning in another, previous context? e.g., a context in which specific meaning could be ascertained? or soemthing else that I'm missing? >therefore, it seems to me, that poets who love the avant-garde tradition >(on the next jenny jones) > >are obligated (in order to be intellectually consistent) to at least >respect what different lefts define (determine, as in self determination) >to be terms of aesthetic excellence yes! Matthias Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:02:12 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: upcoming at Small Press Traffic In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19970313200613.0068e628@pop.slip.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At 12:06 PM -0800 3/13/97, Steve Carll wrote: >Witnesses included Adam DeGraff, Edward Berrigan, Yetta, Ed Foster (in town >for his own reading this Saturday at New College with Giovanni Singleton), Ed and Giovanni are reading FRIDAY for Small Press Traffic. Though we are located at New College, Small Press Traffic's series is separate from New College's own reading series. Small Press Traffic presents: =46riday, March 14, 7:30 p.m. Edward Foster Giovanni Singleton New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street $5 Edward Foster wears many hats. He=B9s the editor of Talisman, one of the leading U.S. poetry magazines. His critical works include studies of William Saroyan, the Beats, Jack Spicer, and a memoir of his friendship with the poet Ted Berrigan. He=B9s the publisher of Talisman House Books and has edited or co-edited the anthologies Postmodern Poetry: The Talisman Interviews and Primary Trouble. He is a controversialist whose essay =B3Poetry Has Nothing To Do With Politics=B2 startled many with its insisten= ce that poetry =B3precedes intention, choice, and dialogue.=B2 His own poetry=8Bromantic, grand, picaresque=8Bmarvelously moves between personal an= d world history with painful honesty and hard-won ease. Giovanni Singleton=B9s work has appeared in Prosodia, Mass Ave., Mirage, No Roses Review, and The Breast Anthology (Global City, 1995). She holds an M.F.A. from the Poetics Program at New College and is currently writing an M.A. thesis on the poet and activist Jayne Cortez. Her writing updates and revises the modernisms of the Harlem Renaissance poets and the Black Arts Movement of the 50s and 60s, as well as African-American modernist film, visual art and music. Her poetry is sensual, exciting, formally radical, like velcro on steel. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:19:32 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Pavement Saw query Can anyone backchannel me a current phone or email address for Pavement Saw Press? Thanks - Henry_Gould@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:45:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <9703132036.AA23342@mercury.chem.nwu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII just a quick ps regarding my use of context dependent even the word traditional means very different things to different poets: certainly the word experimental does: likewise the word form ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:41:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Coffey Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply -Reply Comments: To: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU >>> 03/13/97 01:24pm >>> michael coffey, question: that piece on poetry publications comes off as so HAPPY!... but like, what about the small press distribution problems we've been witnessing in the last decade (at least)?... why is there no mention made of same?... dear joe amato: the publishers weekly piece tried to focus on the diversity of poetry being published, informing booksellers and others in the trade of that fact, and hopefully giving them a notion of which publishers were doing which kinds of work. Issues of distribution, consolidation, returns, the plight of the independent booksellers, the inroads of internet bookselling, the expanding reach of warehouse clubs, the costs of paper, the diminishment in arts funding and other developments that imperil all manner of publishing, big and small, poetry and no, were not addressed, although, in the pages of PW, these are regularly monitored. As for the damnably happy tone: I would say that poetry publishing is pretty vital at the moment, and seems to be on the rise; distribution, which 10 years ago was an absolutely dire situation for small literary presses, has much improved, generally speaking. For new presses, and very small presses that have no distributor, things are, as always, bleak as regards sales in the trade, but no bleaker than in 1970 or 80. Publishers still must find their audience in other ways and get a great deal of contentment out of simply (!) producing a person's work in the venerable form of a book. One could argue that poetry is marginalized by culture, by commerce, by most people. And that TV isn't. The reasons are clear, and perhaps not to be wished away. As for sales of poetry, the thorny issue arises as to how much poety poets buy. Lovers of mysteries and romance and scifi read one a week; lovers of fiction with a capital F read a couple a month; how much poetry does a poetry lover buy? For that matter, could a lover of poetry find enough good new poetry to buy and read one a week? I don't think any one's individual tastes are being published to that successfully, clearly. There is a world of backlist to find and read, but do we? Poetry is not consumed quite the way other literatures are, it seems to me. The emphasis is on its production, and I think therefore it might be wrong-headed to fret about its success in the marketplace. It's encouraging to know that it is out there. To mean, perhaps, it simply must be. To sell well, well, perhaps something else is going on. I'm not saying a publisher (or poet) should be happy with a barn full of unsold books but it is not a failure by any means. However, traincars full of unsold book's by Johnnie Cochran, which one large New York publisher was recently in receipt of, very well might be. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:58:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" more tomorrow Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 10:53:40 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: TINFISH (fwrd from Susan Schultz) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For anybody outside of the US Tinfish can be ordered through the AWOL (Australian Writing On Line) Virtual Bookshop at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ >From: Susan Schultz >Subject: TINFISH! Collectors' Edition! > > TINFISH #4 is now available. Each copy has a different full-color >cover, featuring palimpsests of Hawai'i travel brochures and other local >advertising; the overlays are incredible. The covers are by Gaye Chan and >Duncan Dempster of the University of Hawai'i art department. Contributors >from Hawai'i, Australia, New Zealand, the continental U.S., and elsewhere, >include: Kapulani, Murray Edmond, Adam Aitken, Pam Brown, Yunte Huang, >Richard Hamasaki, Rebecca Mays Ernest, Paul Hoover, John Noto, Dan >Raphael, Gabrielle Welford, Joshua McKinney, Jorge Guitart, John Kinsella, >Susan M. Schultz, Loss Pequeno Glazier, Sue Moss, Dan Featherston, >Michelle Murphy, Liz Waldner, Cydney Chadwick, Marie Hara, Joshua Harmon, >and Hazel Smith; design by Suzanne Kosanke. > > The price is $5 per copy; $13 per 3 issue subscription. TINFISH's >address is 1422A Dominis Street, Honolulu, HI 96822, or you can reach me >through this email account . > > > >______________________________________________ > > >Susan M. Schultz >Dept. of English >1733 Donaghho Road >University of Hawai'i-Manoa >Honolulu, HI 96822 > >http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/schultz >http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/tinfish > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:02:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: new music mags MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I concur with all of the various praise heaped upon Musicworks (right down to the need to renew my sub). But I'd like to add a few other zines that are far less frequently published, which are also quite useful. All three are particularly interesting to me cause they helped me to understand some of the connections between old (60s-80s) new music & some of the more recent stuff that has a slightly younger demographic and more "pop" cachet (by which I mean stuff that might be name checked in Spin magazine). Unfortunately I don't have addresses with me, Luigi may, but I can supply these if folks are interested early next week. The zines, listed in the order in which I find them most useful, are EST (roughly annual from the UK), Halana also roughly annual, and ND, from Austin with a new issue coming out "real soon now" after about a 2-3 year hiatus. Bests, Herb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 18:35:03 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joe Amato wrote: . i'd rather too that we find new idioms, if you like, in which to discuss our "tastes" This theme is what most interests me most in the ongoing Perloff-Kellog-"disturbed" threads: How can we find a way to speak that will allow us to say that Bob Perelman produces excellent work in his idiom (as I believe he does), and that Seamus Heaney produces excellent work in his idiom (as I believe he does)? Okay, there are probably not that many people on this list who admire the work of both poets (that David Antim dictum along the lines of "if what he does is poetry, what I do isn't" seems more prevalent), but _I_ admire both, and I find myself having a hard time articulating a critical language that can find a place for both poets. Boland's call for "a language of respect" between poetries intrigues me, because it admits of the possiblity for a kind of ecumenism that I long for. Yes, the forms used by a poet like Heaney have political/ontological corollaries about, for example, the nature of the self which I don't subscibe to -- but I refuse to make this grounds for a categorical dismissal of his work -- he does what he does with excellence, and I can understand my own (Perelman-esque) views about the self better by looking to Heaney's work and seeing a fine articulation of something quite "other" to my own convictions. I am suspicious of any attempts to dismiss whole genres of work as valueless, boring, or lifeless (although there are certainly poems, and even poets, that fall into these categories). I will not make an idiom my enemy. But I don't know that there is, at the moment, much by way of a vocabulary in which to articulate an appreciation for many poetries, or to explain an admiration for many poetries. Where is there a poetics of pluralism? Shouldn't one of the tasks of this list to be to explore such a vocabulary? Robert Archambeau ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was so long ago, I barely remember it, didn't Keith Tuma quote Bernadette Mayer: I just want to say that I think it's really important to love all kinds of poetry and to realize that for the whole history of the planet there have been all these different kinds of poetry. . . ." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 17:04:28 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Comments: To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU In-Reply-To: <332848D7.4BDE@LFC.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 6:35 PM +0000 3/13/97, Robert Archambeau wrote: > I am suspicious of any attempts >to dismiss whole genres of work as valueless, boring, or lifeless >(although there >are certainly poems, and even poets, that fall into these categories). I >will not >make an idiom my enemy. But I don't know that there is, at the moment, >much by >way of a vocabulary in which to articulate an appreciation for many >poetries, or >to explain an admiration for many poetries. Where is there a poetics of >pluralism? > >Shouldn't one of the tasks of this list to be to explore such a vocabulary? I think that a lot of the discussion on this list is taking place in a liberal dreamscape instead of the "real" world. Isn't it traditionally through dismissing "whole genres of work as valueless, boring, or lifeless" that many groups and individual poets have generated the energy to go on and do something interesting/innovative? Good-citizen poets, do they also always buckle their seatbelts? Tom Clark's rantings, which I keep hearing reports of, are starting to sound refreshing to me. And, Robert, this is no personal attack on you, good god, I just used your quote as jumping off point to bitch. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 19:22:42 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Comments: To: dbkk@sirius.com MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dodie wrote: Isn't it traditionally > through dismissing "whole genres of work as valueless, boring, or lifeless" > that many groups and individual poets have generated the energy to go on > and do something interesting/innovative? Granted some poets may find the dishing of poetics unlike their own to be psychologically ennabling (the ends -- good poetry -- can justify the means -- narrow polemics). But this doesn't help me, as a poet and reader who wants (foolishly?) to understand his own very catholic tastes. We have a critical language that honors LANGUAGE poetry (in fact, much LANGUAGE poetry _is_ a critical language honoring langugae poetry) and we have critical languages honoring other experimentalisms and more traditional kinds of poetry. What I wonder is this: what can the underpinings of a language of respect between poetries be? Robert Archambeau ------ Maybe this would make a good sig "I will not make an idiom my enemy" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 20:19:00 +0000 Reply-To: dmachlin@flotsam.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Dan Machlin Subject: MARG.OF POETRY @ SEGUE DON'T MISS IT! The New York City Poetics Event of the Season. We hope to make this an open forum after the panel speaks, so please come and voice your opinions and questions @ THE MARGINALIZATION OF POETRY, An Evening of responses to Bob Perelman's recent book of that name from Princeton University Press, with Bob Perelman Ann Lauterbach Ron Silliman Juliana Spahr Steve Evans Moderated by Sean Killian (curated by Sean Killian & Dan Machlin) SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1997 @ 7:30 p.m. sharp The Segue Performance Space, 303 East 8th Street (between A & B) Buzz 1R Admission $7.00 (all proceeds go to The Segue Series) Wine and Cheese Reception will follow Copies of The Book will be available at a special one-time-only price of $10.00. This event is co-sponsored by Princeton University Press. SEGUE FOUNDATION FOR POETRY & THE ARTS 20th Anniversary (1977-1997) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 14:41:37 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think that a lot of the discussion on this list is taking place in a >liberal dreamscape instead of the "real" world. Isn't it traditionally >through dismissing "whole genres of work as valueless, boring, or lifeless" >that many groups and individual poets have generated the energy to go on >and do something interesting/innovative? Sure, but if the nature of this poetry is so 'exclusive' and assured of its own importance - it merely goes on as part of an elitist poetics history & surely colludes with other power structures, language structures etc to exclude those who perhaps are taking a more roundabout/or conservative 'poetic' route - but who may be fighting the same war. Kind of like the whole spanish franco thing. Sorry more/war metaphor. Yuck. Dan > >Good-citizen poets, do they also always buckle their seatbelts? > >Tom Clark's rantings, which I keep hearing reports of, are starting to >sound refreshing to me. > >And, Robert, this is no personal attack on you, good god, I just used your >quote as jumping off point to bitch. > >Dodie > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 21:14:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Vogler Subject: [1]POETICS Digest - 12 Mar [1]POETICS Digest - 12 Mar 1997 to 13 Mar 3/13/97 Sorry. Unavailable by email until April 14, 1997. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 22:12:31 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mark P wrt: > But it is argueable that everyone, including > teachers, might usefully turn away from "tomes" to more fugative texts, as > a basis for evaluation/debate/struggle over what we want our poetries to > become... yes yes, I think this is a crucial strategy for teaching contemporary poetry. for the cost of most anthologies, you can teach several smaller, entire books (& support several smaller presses). you do lose the possibility of more casual contact - the student who discovers a poet's work by paging through the anthology (it's rumored that this actually happens). but along with that you lose the authoritative gesture of the Anthology, & its possible to gain 1. a deeper immersion in the work at hand; 2. the students introduction to the small press, where most of contemporary poetry (or most of what I would teach) makes its public appearance; 3. a fleeting glimpse into the "field" of contemporary poetry, its socius - what poets do these days (many of us seem to have become proficient in publishing, organizing reading series, etc), the relation of contemporary poetry to its social situation, to publishing, etc. all arguably good gains. I'm particularly interested in the possibility of teaching not just poetry ("the same vacuous workshop all over again", or " the workshop in a vacuum all over again") but the conditions of its production as a commodity--I mean the various sorts of books & coterie work out there-- & its reception. so that when Joseph asks: > which basically new critical principles underlie most creative writing > workshops where are they are they bad are they bad because when can > compare them to a particular era long gone in lit crit explain please my explanation is precisely the above, & it seems to me, well "bad" if you like, but I'd prefer to say a failing that we tend to teach poetry as if it were socially an other realm--as high art? to the extent that american creative writing workshops tend exclusively toward an emphasis on the internal, structural unities of the individual poem or isolated self-expression & turn away from social, theoretical, political questions, I'd say that they are distinctly the inheritors of New Criticism. (I'm talking here about the average program, & not Brown--you have to remember that my experience was considerably more conservative than your own). it seems to me problematic, for instance, that you wouldn't dream of teaching Donne without teaching Early Modern England in seminar, but he'll be dragged into every workshop in america in just that manner. if you believe Marotti, as in fact I do, this kind of treatment, first by critics but sustained here, has lead to a terribly deformed reception of his work. (one could speak similarly of McGann's admirable work on the English Romantic Epoch, but I don't think anybody's actually teaching Byron in workshop). Donne's coterie readers would have understood his work as a part of the social & yes political fabric of their time. & we understand our own, contemporary work as similarly engaged: we understand it in context. my point was simply to applaud those of us (Joe) who make an effort to teach it that way. chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 22:27:20 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jonathan wrttr: > It seems our most urgent professional > responsibility, those of us who teach in college programs, is to resist > the adjunctification of the profession. absolutely yes, very well said. > Let course enrollments grow, let > students complain? Enlist the MLA's power of publicity? or shut down the universities? with a few hundred experienced union organizers & a few years we could have this problem cleared up. chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 22:48:23 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT joseph wrt: > therefore, it seems to me, that poets who love the avant-garde tradition > are obligated (in order to be intellectually consistent) to at least > respect what different lefts define (determine, as in self determination) > to be terms of aesthetic excellence tolerance is a virtue yes but respect does or does not include critique? I respect the efforts of certain clergy members, past & present, to "better the lot" of wage workers & the poor. but I also think it would be my responsibility to reveal the limitations of any such approach. chris, so-called because .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 00:40:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jocelyn Emerson Subject: joining conversation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just signing up for this list serve, I have only heard a few of the strands being discussed but wanted to venture an observation or two about adjunct teaching and "identity" politics. I think the issue of adjuncts cannot be separated from other dynamics outside of the literary/academic world, and that this situation of working in the field with little stable material renumeration, advancement, etc. vis a vis having a career with all of the material and ideological capital is intimately tied with other forms of oppression. Women make up the vast majority of adjunct teachers, and it seems crucial to me that we consider the demographics of adjunct teaching as a manifestation of larger oppressions in the cultural matrix. The other issue about the Norton anthology and identity politics/aesthetics brings to mind, for me, how difficult it is to stand outside of one's own ideologies and bear some deeper than a priori responsibility for the Other and what that might look like in real terms beyond boutique multiculturalism which I agree, is completely cynical and really a desire to appropriate (and contain) hard won struggles for material and cultural leverage in a system designed to render invisible all forms of alterity--discoursively and bodily. One of the things which interests me a great deal is doing much more conscious work on (anglo)whiteness as race, and the discoursive constructions of such whiteness as a method of making partial, or returning to a relational/contingent position, the constructed and equally socially-engineered nature of whiteness as "racelessness"--and therefore the "neutral" racial position. Jocelyn Emerson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 02:03:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Zukofsky in April at Buffalo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Poetics: A note to announce the EPC is currently building a page for the Buffalo Zukofsky conference. As select Poetics subscribers, you are welcome to preview this page by selecting the link from the EPC home page, selecting "Zukofsky" from the author list, or by going directly to: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/zukofsky/april.html NOTE: This is only the first "draft" of these pages so also check back since these pages will be growing! Most importantly at this point I wanted to invite anyone who might have Zukofsky-related materials that might be interesting to link to - i.e., visuals, papers or other work, or special issues of magazines that might be scanned etc. - to let me know. If so, please drop me a note backchannel! And in any case, here's hoping this info will help if you're planning to come to the conference! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 23:48:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Franklin Bruno Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Robt. A writes (in a post to which I am largely sympathetic): >Yes, the forms used by a poet like Heaney have political/ontological >corollaries about, for example, the nature of the self which I don't subscibe... And I think herein lies part of the answer to why a "language of understanding between poetics" (or whatever Robert said a few posts later) is so difficult--it's the assumption that the forms HAVE these corrolaries ESSENTIALLY, that they aren't a product of the use to which these forms are put, which I suppose is a function of the complex relationship between the form, the content, the context, the tradition, and who knows what else. The notion that form and content are inseparable in understanding a given poem or poet tends to slide (Marjorie's view, and probably a correct one, or at least one deeply entrenched in our whole understanding of what makes poetry poetry and not something else) into the view that a certain form somehow cannot help expressing a certain content (except perhaps when the form is used ironically). I think this is sort of a 'heroic lang-po' (someone used that phrase here yesterday) article of faith, which can take either the form that there are certain (radical) messages a (conservative) poetics JUST COULDN'T convey by virtue of not enacting them in form, or, conversely, that the use of certain (radical) forms will prevent us from re-enacting a (conservative) content. The pluralist poetics Robert wants (maybe not everyone does) will have to question this. I think that only someone (most of us) with an abiding belief in the importance/power/specialness of poetry would even be tempted to believe that form alone FORCES a content, an ontology, a metaphysics the way that a magician forces a card, which is all to the good, but the idea has its limitations. Much of what I'm saying isn't that different than what Chris S. said earlier. I think there's the start of an explanation here of what makes it so hard for many folks (me included) to get their head around the Pound problem, but it's too late as it is. Unrelated: I second the recommendation of Halana as far as new music magazines go. The new one includes a CD w/ work by Tony Conrad, Japanese noise artist Keiji Haino, and others. The previous issue, if you can find it, had a rare interview with LaMonte Young. I don't think anyone's mentioned The Wire, an English magazine that is a little too taken with the wonders of techno, drum and bass, etc. for my taste, but which does cover a lot of experimental music. fjb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 23:50:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: form In-Reply-To: <199703140502.VAA01356@leland.Stanford.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is for Chris S., Joe D'Amato especially-- there's a confusion going on about the word "form." It has nothing to do with whether "rhyme" is or is not a good "form." As someone who wrote her dissertation/first book on "Rhyme and Meaning in the Poetry of Yeats"--I'm actually quite a rhyme addict. Form has nothing to do with technical features as such. It has to do with the connection to meaning, with language use. For instance, I've always disliked Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck" because the theme--"I am he, I am she"--the transformation, the androgyny, is presented as this (to me) dopey metaphor about deep-sea diving, "First I put on my flippers...." It's so willed. If, as she claims to be saying, human identity is fluid, amormphous, and sexuality open, then what the hell are we doing with these neat stanzas and overriding metaphorical structure--one basic metaphor throughout. The form belies the intended meaning and the tranformation "diving" produces is just too easy to be interesting. Conversely, one can use all the fragments and dislocations around and still not have a good "language poem" if there is no real reason to fragment. This all sounds like English 101 I know, but it bears saying, given the comments about "technically innovative" or "not that technically innovative." As Hugh Kenner once put it, the avant-garde can be just as boring as anything else. This has been a great discussion and I've learned a lot from the postings1 Marjorie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 03:49:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Zitt Organization: Human Systems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Franklin Bruno wrote: > Unrelated: I second the recommendation of Halana as far as new music > magazines go. The new one includes a CD w/ work by Tony Conrad, Japanese > noise artist Keiji Haino, and others. The previous issue, if you can find > it, had a rare interview with LaMonte Young. You can still get it, I think -- I got mine a few weeks ago. More info at: http://members.aol.com/halanazine/index.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 07:56:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: form In-Reply-To: from "Marjorie Perloff" at Mar 13, 97 11:50:17 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree, for what its worth, with Marjorie Perloff's comment about Rich's "Diving into the Wreck." - it's always bugged me, somewhat juvenilly I admit, that friends whose minds and tastes I admire like that poem - compare the gender fluidity that happens in, say, Carla Harryman's *there Never was a Rose without a thorn* through the blurring of pronouns, the non-specificity of narrators, etc, and...well it isn't much of a comparison, Rich's "fluid" freezes up pretty quick. -Mike Magee. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 08:36:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: a branch off the . . . Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To use an example from the excoriated, an (apocryphal?) story has Spender whining over an ace poem he's found by someone else that he envies. Auden shrugs and says "Why envy? More to raid!" (My contribution to the hegemonized field, banking up the corroding Powers That Be) Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu 37 Washington Square West #10A New York, New York 10011 (212) 254-3984 phone/fax ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 08:53:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Public applause Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Dodie, for saying the sane thing. I think it's mysticism to say that a form forces its message. "The suit makes the person." "A book by its..." Form may lead with its chin, but that's something else, and irony is too general a description to cover the various counter-uses there are for formal writing. Furthermore, at this point, aren't "earned" uses of fragmentation predictable? Modern, even? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 08:30:24 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: disturbing ant ticks pol If poetry is part of larger free-standing art process - like science, as a kind of work, develops a certain autonomy - (I'm talkin in the abstract, youse adjunct cab door openers) - which "helps people live their lives" (W. Stevens) - it can "open the doors of perception" in some ways - encourage people to rethink their habits, expand, grow, feel, think, enjoy reality (no kiddin) - then on the one hand an expansive, generous critical attitude - not exclusive - rather radical (in Jordan's sense) when it comes to making room for it on campus or elsewhere - is the way to go - but an expansive critical attitude also should be able to absorb a CRITICAL attitude & include it (in Dodie's sense) - strategically, both are important - since the free-standing space for art should be recognized as a subset of free-standing democratic space - where people build political platforms that balance work, property, learning, and justice - and are free from greed, hate, violence, and ignorance - constitutions, in other words - hypotheses - and traditions (there are good things about Anglo-American common law tradition, folks) - capitalism will be curbed and tamed, not transcended - (as I'm sure we ALL agree) - (check the Catholic Bishops' Statement on the Economy - they did their homework) - and the CRITICAL attitude which is a civic attitude - might temper the natural tendency of free-standing art - to become simply self-absorbed self-interest - this is a simple aesthetic - an illustration: has anyone read Valery's "On Poetry and Abstract Thought"? Do any of your hotly-vaunted innovations actually DO what Valery proposes is the basic thing poetry does? and did anybody like my Ballade Litteraire? it has rhymes - it makes fun of you - - Henry (disguised as Jordan's Uncle Waldo) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 08:24:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: jobs and poetry Comments: To: POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Joe Amato asked how nonacademic jobs affect our writing. I have two jobs: 1) Prep school teacher and 2) evening child care while my wife works. The big impact on my writing is that right now (funny pun?) I haven't the time. Next week I'm on vacation and I plan on writing away to my heart's content. But it probably won't work that way: I don't suffer from writer's block. I suffer from writer's excess. I have more ideas, feelings, visceral urges than I have time to write them down. And they all don't lie fallow, some just wither away. I became a prep school teacher because I wanted a steady job that would not compromise my principles that had time off to write. I am a trained academic, but I figured "who needs the bullshit of spending ten years in part-time work before a chance at full-time finally comes around?" My wife and I found ourselves in the situation where I was the one who had to get the job with benefits. My child care job truly affects my writing: In November and December I managed to eek out a manuscript length poem-meditiation that swirls around various perspectives on my daughter's moderate autism. Most are from her wordless perspective: I translated her wordless being into words. It feels successful. School? Well, prep school connnects me with the elite class. I encounter their hang-ups, troubles, insecurities, and drivenness. How does it enter my writing? Sometimes as a position for satire. While I believe in education in principle, I don't believe in it as "style" or badge of social status. But any eductational institution has its watering down point. I'm not complaining. What impacts my writing more than anything else is my sense of a dumbing down of the culture, of a pervasive lack of memory skills, concentration skills, and discernment skills. I see the work of "innovative" poets as heroic -- I sincerely believe that we as a group are among the few attempting to keep thinking alive amid this insanity. "Culture" in the old sense is dissolving, and while I welcome the end of bourgeois "we went to the ballet this weekend" braggart culture, I am concerned about what is happening to our brains. The way I see to address this "dumbing down" is to wade right in, and make serious thought of the very material of the "dumbing down." This can be done in a lot of ways. But poems about seeing a bear outside your cabin don't work for me. Jeff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 10:51:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Mossin Subject: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Responding late to this segment of the discussion, I would just add (in response to Robert Archambeau's important urging of a "language of respect" between and among otherwise seemingly "opposing" models of poetic practice) that Robert Duncan remains perhaps the best contemporary example we have of such an approach that regards a multiphasic conception of poetic art as central to any real undertaking in the work. Dismissing the conventions of literary "taste" or the currently fashionable attachments of any one school as useful to the apprehension of poetic meaning, Duncan remains exemplary in showing us how, out of communal respect for the practice and activity of poetries, the disparate, dissimilar strands can be woven together: Marianne Moore and Garcia Lorca, Ezra Pound and Edith Sitwell,William Carlos Williams and Mary Butts, etc. "Movement and association are not arbitrary, but arise from an inner need," Duncan writes in "Ideas of the Meaning of Form. "I must study thru, deepen my experience, search out the challenge and salvation of the work." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:00:49 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: bk review (medium rare) THE PARTS, by Loss Pequeno Glazier Buffalo: Meow Press, 1995 "I recognize it in myself by this: that all possible objects of the ordinary world, external or internal, beings, events, feelings, and actions, while keeping their usual appearance, are suddenly placed in an indefinable but wonderfully fitting relationship with the modes of our general sensibility. That is to say that these well-known things and beings - or rather the ideas that represent them - somehow change in value. They attract one another, they are connected in ways different from the ordinary; they become (if you will permit the expression) _musicalized_, resonant, and, as it were, musically related. The poetic universe, thus defined, offers extensive analogies with what we can postulate of the dream world... "A poet's function - do not be startled by this remark - is not to experience the poetic state: that is a private affair. His function is to create it in others." - Paul Valery, "Poetry and Abstract Thought" The whole of which Loss Glazier's THE PARTS is a small, refreshing part is a poetic universe fallen into sin/sign/synecdoche. Charles Olson an early opponent of idle lyricism called for a "middle voice", little knowing that a sober middle voice, neither inspired nor dis-re-despaired, could emerge from the particulated nonspeech verbal medium of . Sober, but funny! There are bits of Olson seeping through these poems: As with the hundreds of files per dye formulation (but see it's not the _number_ as much as the "patching" - weave as the ply resulting in branches seem to make it find. Sheer exhaustion! a part of sense of what does pry apart. Until on the "line" other issue of this. It's as if the alert where its brambles from the Fort here and see with you who wrote 'not about bits, bytes, bells or whistles' . ... (day in D-town...your words on screen marked as people's next-in-order. - This is from a poem called "The Com'ns" - with the word INTERNET stamped in bold oddly above the title. Yon book reviewer finds much in this little excerpt to illustrate the "whole". To digress though: many of these poems are wit-sly satires - the opener, called "The Apex", a serious (in the Olson way) send-up of _Apex of the M_ calls for a "transparent" revolutionary poetry - which argues (by example) that poetry's pith, spine, whatever, is to be both opaque-resistant AND responsive-expressive (politically relevant). Glazier's Apex satire though is a subset of the writing throughout the chipbk - which takes apart both utilitarian mechano-chatter and obsolete poetic phrasing from an exact middle-voice midpoint - that zone of Glazier's special position - AS AN EXHAUSTED INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY WORKER GRUNT. ("Sheer exhaustion!") (_Poetry does not / gain from mummified speech_. - from the final [title] poem.) There is a real speaker standing paradoxically behind the syntactically rhythmically and typesetfully SHREDDED bits & bytes of these poems - who "places" poetry as a part of computerized "speech" overkill - the worldwide web as a bizarre cocoon or womb drifting with bits of dead speech-food - yet each bit reflecting some origin or history, not devalued or dehumanized but ironized like iron filings not yet translated. Here is the beginning of the prose piece "How I was Attila in a Past Life": "Losing its words. Take some aegis or exit point where alpha types disperse. The family grows old and leaves without you. There was some hook to holdings how the etzels regenerated. The 'rod and cones' of it. As it was penned, the bull waited to bolt forward but the human cannot wait until sunrise. Hence dismemberment makes a myth of words salving a permuted path." This last sentence - the image of weaving/dismemberment appears here & there - the archaic or archetypal suddenly showing beneath the techno- jargon. From "Five pieces for Sound File" (a funny little set maybe written in England(?) - pathos of the nowhere bumping against the immemorial): on the verge - that constituent contact ends - though I'm no diner King - it meant so much and again will break his I - does it falter? Like the note passed in the row ahead _these men's books are the whole of language_ how we navigate only - piecemeal - there is the shadow of Old Ez visiting Londres here and readying his fractions. Glazier has put together a breathing chaos. As the physicists are starting to repeat ad nauseam, chaos is a species of order, the part is an empty promise of an inescapable whole, the whole of poetry breathing underneath the robotic shim of shunted language-bearers. The Parts, perhaps are part of the fibrillated stone wheel of the mother-demon Coatlicue pulled up from a Mexico City subway excavation, alive, breathing and terrible to behold in her furious dismemberment WHEELING AROUND AND AROUND NOW IN THE MUSE'UM of walk-walk-talk-talk. This is a cool and hilarious little book. Here's the last 2 stanzas: "Elipsis" is incision point and conversely prolapsed. Whether there's a break for want - strong pull-time passes. Kin to "living" in a period of adapted measure. There should only be one book; texts weave through that. * ["Dante thought so too" - Uncle Waldo] - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:25:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: form Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:56 AM 3/14/97 -0500, Mike Magee wrote: >I agree, for what its worth, with Marjorie Perloff's comment about Rich's >"Diving into the Wreck." - it's always bugged me, somewhat juvenilly I >admit, that friends whose minds and tastes I admire like that poem - >compare the gender fluidity that happens in, say, Carla Harryman's *there >Never was a Rose without a thorn* through the blurring of pronouns, the >non-specificity of narrators, etc, and...well it isn't much of a >comparison, Rich's "fluid" freezes up pretty quick. But why stop the investigation of form & content with accepting the impasse? Why not say that the form does grow out of the content at some other level, not nec. more abstract? I do not think form and content need "match up", need reflect each other _nec._, : that is to say, not in the manner suggested above: but I think they might both be seen as being formed by a situation in which just that content, just that form was nec. Perhaps to articulate something new it is something nec. to use an old form? Matthias (ps Joeseph Lease this is where you ps comes in: what understanding of what form is shall hold sway for any given poem? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 10:05:48 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: Perloff/Kellogg, et al. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Chris Stroffolino wrota: > that there may be a UNION of > practictioners of "radical formal innovation" and "radical CONTENT > innovators" that can be emphasized though I've been more dogmatic about this in the past, this is an issue I've been rethinking of late, & so I just want to agree that Chris raises a very important point here, as did Joseph with "respect". not too long ago, I watched again one of my favorite films, Bunuel's Exterminating Angel (El Angel Exterminador), & since then I'm sort of haunted by this vision (only superficially related to the film) of a group of people, trapped in this parlor, & fighting amongst themselves because they are incapable of collective action. on the other hand, I do think that a critical approach to conservative methods is necessary. as far as an issue like inclusion in the Norton, well, I'd like personally to see us get past the kind of divorce from context that most anthologies represent. but isn't our discussion of the Norton & similar anthologies partly synecdochal for concerns of representation of *our* left alongside a content-oriented left (aside, of course, from a concern that *any* left be represented there). I'm reminded ["that boy, always with the films"] of Groucho Marx in Duck Soup: "what if I put out my hand & he [sic] doesn't take it?" chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:12:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: (Fwd) New Music on World Instruments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Po-Listies -- in light of recent q. re: music mags & some references to MusicWorks, I'm forwarding this post from another Buffalo U listserv -- the latter (incidentally) being a list devoted to discussion of Asian-influenced contemp. music. I attach this partly bec. of the convenient MusicWorks URL noted at bottom. cheers, d.i. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 08:07:39 -0800 Reply-to: Asian Contemporary Music Discussion Group From: Randy Raine-Reusch Subject: New Music on World Instruments To: ACTMUS-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Thought I would let you all know that Musicworks magazine is currently doing a series on New Music on World Instruments. Last issue Musicworks 66 contained two articles, one which was an overview on the subject and the second was an interview with the Japanese koto phenomenon Kazue Sawai, who was the originator of a lot of New Music for traditional instruments in Japan. This issue, Musicworks 67, has an interview with Japanese composer Yuji Takahashi who is currently specializing in scores for traditional Japanese instruments, koto, shamisen, gagaku, etc. He talks about writing for how the body moves, as a traditional / contemporary approach! Next issue will feature an interview with the Tuvan New Music/traditional singer Sainkho Namtchylak. I don't know if you have heard of her yet but she has more sound in her throat than almost anyone I have ever heard, from overtone and undertone, to Innuit throat singing to extended vocals! If you are interested in Musicworks, contact them and you can receive a free sample issue (unfortunately without the CD that usually accompanies the magazine, you have to subscribe for that or buy it seperately). I don't know if you can request one of these issues, but it is certainly worth a try! It usually is published four times a year and the subscription rates are low! Contact info is : Musicworks Magazine, sound@musicworks.web.net, http://www.musicworks.web.net/sound, 179 Richmond St West, Toronto M5V 1V3, Canada . . . . . . . . . \ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ \ david raphael israel \ washington d c / davidi@wizard.net (home) / disrael@skgf.com (office) / ===================== | poets weave the net of you | with golden-image thread | painters limn the form of you | ever & afresh ... | one half of you is woman | the other utter dream | | Tagore, "Manasi" (a la d.i.) ///////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:06:00 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Franklin Bruno's Post MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Franklin Bruno writes: > The > notion that form and content are inseparable in understanding a given poem > or poet tends to slide [ . . .] into the view that a certain form somehow > cannot help expressing a certain content (except perhaps when the form is > used ironically). [ . . . ] The pluralist poetics Robert wants (maybe not > everyone does) will have to question this. Franklin -- Good point -- I was writing a bit sloppily, and I agree that the work done by a form is entirely contextual (hell, I wrote my dissertation about the different kinds of work that neo-Romantic poetics can do in different postcolonial contexts). This gives us all the more reason to be open to a larger variety of poetries, and to work toward a critical language that can value them. R.A. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:25:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: <25E5C9554D@alexandria.lib.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII tolerance absolutely includes critique On Thu, 13 Mar 1997, Christopher Alexander wrote: > joseph wrt: > > therefore, it seems to me, that poets who love the avant-garde tradition > > are obligated (in order to be intellectually consistent) to at least > > respect what different lefts define (determine, as in self determination) > > to be terms of aesthetic excellence > > tolerance is a virtue yes but respect > does or does not include critique? > > I respect the efforts of certain clergy members, past & present, > to "better the lot" of wage workers & the poor. but I also think it > would be my responsibility to reveal the limitations of any such > approach. > > chris, so-called because > .. > christopher alexander, etc. > calexand@alexandria.lib.edu > (Marriott Library Computer Systems) > > language code not found. illegal operation error. > this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be > lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:33:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <332848D7.4BDE@LFC.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I want to praise Robert Archambeau's call for a poetics of pluralism and note Chris Alenxander's point that respect can (and often must) include critique: I also want to note that maximilism (as David Shapiro has named it) can be more activist than mere liberal pluralism: maximalism can be a starting point for writing and thinking about writing ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:33:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <332848D7.4BDE@LFC.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII PS the quotation from Bernadette Mayer is a wonderful instance of Maximalism ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:48:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: Franklin Bruno's Post Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <33293F28.2AAA@LFC.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'd like to hear more about postromantic form in postcolonial contexts: also it was the vicious and narrow Yvor Winters who makes the claim that a certain kind of form always has a certain kind of cultural political meaning (Winters among others of course): Jameson reading Perelman is a good example of this problem On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Robert Archambeau wrote: > Franklin Bruno writes: > > > The > > notion that form and content are inseparable in understanding a given poem > > or poet tends to slide [ . . .] into the view that a certain form somehow > > cannot help expressing a certain content (except perhaps when the form is > > used ironically). [ . . . ] The pluralist poetics Robert wants (maybe not > > everyone does) will have to question this. > > > Franklin -- > > Good point -- I was writing a bit sloppily, and I agree that the work done by a form is > entirely contextual (hell, I wrote my dissertation about the different kinds of work > that neo-Romantic poetics can do in different postcolonial contexts). This gives us all > the more reason to be open to a larger variety of poetries, and to work toward a > critical language that can value them. > > R.A. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 13:56:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII also: yes Dodie's message is super-useful in reminding us of real state control and other palpable instances of power crashing into aesthetics ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 10:40:56 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: joining conversation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You maybe interested in the situation in New Zealand where 'whites' have been called Pakeha for so long it has eventually become accepted by most of the country as a way to describe non-Maori specifically white folk. Although there are still those who are offended & claim them selves to be 'New Zealanders' following the ol' meltin pot theory i guess. Still others are 'European' Recent Asian immigration has spawned use of the term tauiwi - which really means foreigner & it seems this term is becoming used politically to describe 'pakeha' - which many find disconcerting. Pakeha was useful for breaking down the racially neutral position & a hell of a lot of people recently are discovering their irish/scottish/eastern european roots. But I am aware the use of tauiwi seems like a betrayal to those who see themselves as sympathetic to Maori causes. I do not feel strongly about it yet, but admit to certain difficulties with being described as foreigner - tauiwi - whereas had grown up embracing ethnicity Pakeha - cos it's sure as hell to far back for me to realistically find any other national identity - except perhaps a bit of Tasmanian convict. Yesterday someone wearing a tino rangatiratanga t-shirt ( a strong Maori pol. movement) smashed up the 'America's Cup' with a sledge hammer. I don't know how this is relevant - but makes an interesting statement & the newspapers love this sort of thing. Guess i better go get me one, Hope this reads as a discussion of your point Jocelyn Dan >and the discoursive constructions of such whiteness as a method of making >partial, or returning to a relational/contingent position, the constructed >and equally socially-engineered nature of whiteness as "racelessness"--and >therefore the "neutral" racial position. > >Jocelyn Emerson > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 10:52:19 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In voicing a support of Robert Archambeau I wonder if the side of the debate that writes off 'contemporary' non-language (and i use the term loosely - i guess i really mean a tradition from Olson on - judging by this debate) poetries is not just a bit mired in early marxism that managed also to avoid/ignore the fact that there were other people who didn't always want their battles fought by a (and i hate this almost-meaningless word) western elite. I find a great deal to value in the poetry most usually championed on this list and don't really read Heaney - but shitloads of Irish do - internationally and he obviously fills a need. As Robert writes, why this need for a reductive - even manichaen delineation of poetries. It is easy to become infamous hating things, fundamentalists have been doing it for years, and while i don't preach moderation - & am incredibly opinionated myself - (and am confident my opinions are the TRuTH) - i read Walcott, Rich, Tuwhare, & others who examine a personal human condition without (usually) entering into the language melee (& may have to start reading Heaney just so i can sleep nights) alongside the americans we all know & love, sure I read them in different ways & for different things - but christ if we can still listen to Bob Dylan surely we can read pretty much anybody (except perhaps Rod McKewan (or however his name is spelt). ANy not wanting to get peoples backs up - just concerned this thread could begin going round in even tighter circles soon & trying to get it off the rails a bit & other cliche metaphor. Dan btw like the Messerli anthology - maybe because i like big fat books, probably affects my poetics far more than photocopied zines etc I can see it & it can see me on the shelf & it always says you paid for this read it some more - got to get $$$$ value out of these things - photocopies get lost in office piles. Actually I read it more as from My side of the century - but the other side of the world. Yuck. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 17:02:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: joining conversation In-Reply-To: DS "Re: joining conversation" (Mar 15, 10:40am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > You maybe interested in the situation in New Zealand where 'whites' have > been called Pakeha for so long it has eventually become accepted by most of > the country as a way to describe non-Maori specifically white folk. Although > there are still those who are offended & claim them selves to be 'New > Zealanders' following the ol' meltin pot theory i guess. Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some latin american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 18:11:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: joining conversation >Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some > latin american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). > >Bill B. It's interesting how likeable the term "gringo" is (or seems -- or am I wrong?) to the whites who get so dubbed (or maybe it's only when self-dubbing, w/ some pleasant irony, that this somehow playful sense of the term comes into play?) A comparison, of course, is the Japanese "Gaijin" ("foreign [hu]man" -- the kanji character gai = the Chinese "wai" -- which could be rendered more exactly, or more anciently, as "outside[er]"). So: from what I hear, that term is by no means playful, in general (pervasive) use in Japan. One thing I didn't quite get from DPSalmon's original post is what a literal meaning (or even, what sort of sense) Pakeha might hold or evoke. Anecdote: Coincidentally, today I sent an e-note to a small group of South Asian writers whom I'm joining in a "writer's critique" e-venture (sort of email fiction-writing workshop: just these 8 So.Asians plus now moi, who'm pan-Jewish in ancestral origin [E.Europe / Palestine], Calif. by birth). The group is dubbed as of "So. Asian writers" -- & I thus found myself tempted to self-describe as the lone (or so to say token) "gringo" in the batch; then mentally edited that to "farenghi" [Hindi = foreigner / european]; then (besides being doubtful abt. the transliteration) felt it just as well to scuttle the whole adjectival issue altogether (rather than seeming to make an issue of what they're liberally construing as a non-issue in my case). In any case: Rolling into century 21, no doubt there'll increasing emerge ways & contexts wherein we white guys find ourselves (surprisingly) the exception rather than the rule, (even) in America. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 16:35:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: praise Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just a commendation to Jeff Hansen, for extending the notion of the political and of identity in this discussion. So often it seems we discuss ourselves as writers, or our positions within or without the academy, and I really like the way Jeff put himself as person-in-family in the midst of all of this. Used to be the phrase was "the personal is the political," but now it often seems as if the political is the political and there is no personal at all. Decentered self or not, there is something to be said for beginning from the immediate, and getting wherever we get, around and about. charles ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 16:38:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: identity Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Also in the midst of this identity discussion, I have been preparing one grant proposal and helping with another, grants which will go before a local (Tucson, Arizona, and Pima County, Arizona) arts council. The categories of people recognized by this council, according to their questions and statistics about boards, audience, and artists, which they require, are only three: white, hispanic, and other minority (not hispanic) strikes me as a limited point of view about diversity charles ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 13:57:10 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: joining conversation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:11 PM 3/14/97 -0500, you wrote: >>Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some >> latin american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). >> >>Bill B. tauiwi - is more like gringo - Pakeha has become - an ethnicity - whether some people like it or not. It is different again because of this countries peculiar demographic. I was mentioning it interms of Jocelyn's interest in the study of whiteness. By literal meaning - you mean direct translation? - well my dictionary says - not Maori/ European - its practical (literal?) defintion is both of these really - non-Maori of European descent. Though reactionary 'white' talkback definitions range from ghosts, carrot and white turnip to other less complimentary things. I hadn't really intended to give a potted rundown of ethnicity-New zealand - I'm sure there are folks with far greater knowledge than me & I am wary of trying to define these terms from my limited lay perspective. Dan Salmon >One thing I didn't quite get from DPSalmon's original post is what a >literal meaning (or even, what sort of sense) Pakeha might hold or evoke. > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 14:01:38 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: joining conversation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Not really because as i said elsewhere it has become an ethnic identity in itself - most white new zealanders (at least publicly) think of themselves/ourselves as Pakeha - Paakehaa >Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some latin >american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). > >Bill B. > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 20:50:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Vincent Subject: Disturb D/re Perloff Marjorie Perloff writes in response to David Kellogg: "Minority communities in the 80s: I didn't think this needed spelling out. I am referring to simple fact here: namely, check out any anthology or critical study of "contemporary poetry" prior to that time and you'll see that the issue of minority poets is simply ignored. (read, for example, Altieri, J. Breslin, P. Breslin, von Hallberg--you name it). The anthologies may have included, say, Baraka and one or two other black poets but the notion of "Chicano poetics" or "Asian-American poetics" did not yet exist. This isn't a value judgement, just a fact." If I'm not misunderstanding Marjorie Perloff's point, I think a number of people would disagree with this assessment of minority writing prior to the eighties. What I think she is actually saying is that other anthologists and critics and she herself(?) were mostly unaware of "minority" writing that began to strongly emerge with the various "liberations" of the late sixties and early seventies (simultaneous with gay and feminist writing, as well) . An obliviousness to the work of Victor Hernadez Cruz, Ntozake Shange, Jessica Hagedorn, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight among many others who were consistently published in books and periodicals is possibly more a reflection of Town and Gown, "high and low" culture divisions-- unless there is an assumed separation between the poets who make poems, and the critics who create a "poetics" around the work - the latter sometimes not happening until much after the fact. On the other hand, it's still not clear to me, if Marjorie Perloff was familiar with any of the this writing, or whether or not she is dismissing these and other writers out of an aesthetic principle -- which I find a perfectly acceptable thing to do, as long as it's not confused with an exclusive notion of "the one and only principle." In response to another one of Kellogg's arguments, Perloff goes on to say: "Therefore--and this is all I meant--the job of putting together an "avant-garde" anthology in the 90s is very different from putting one together in 1960. Don Allen could just choose those poets that satisfied what he took to be the New American Poetry. Today, the anthologist does not have that freedom because --witness what John Yau did to Eliot Weinberger--s/he is under pressure to include X number of poets from this or that grouping. I am optimistic enough to think this phenomenon will pass as there are increasing numbers of, say, Mexican-American poets to choose from. But at the moment it's tricky and so inclusions are often somewhat cynical. So--as I said in the article--the picture is clouded and no anthologist can quite proceed freely as Don Allen could." I'm again not sure of the point of view being expressed. Is her point that in order to make an ideal avant garde anthology -- one that is not burdened by a rhetoric of gender and ethno-identity issues -- we must wait another generation or so for people of color and women to learn to write in an an acceptable experimental mode? If this is the view, I immediately want to know who is the "who" that is determining what is acceptable here? With all due respect to her reference to Charles Bernstein's criteria of substance and form, might the presence of writers and editors of color, for example, bring other criteria to the table that do not revolve around what Perloff sees limited to issues of "grievance" and "identity," or, to further the net here, what she and others have variously referred to and dismissed as "speech based poetics." Frankly I have a tough time with the "tongue cutter" character of that phrase -- as if pure text is primary and that which is spoken is disposable, of no significance, or resonance. If I understand what is being stated, cultures that are orally based -- which are often minority ones -- no matter how rigorous the construction of their poems or songs, these groups or cultures are automatically contained in a "less than" category. Personally I don't understand why in a contemporary text that there is not room for voice(s) - I'm daily surrounded by them and they give me great delight! And I am often taken by voice as a textual component of a work. If I'm interpreting her correctly, I think my own discomfort with Perloff's argument stems partly from what appears to be this strict, exclusive notion of text. It seems to me that there is much more room on the playing field -- without implying a return to a "me, voice" centered poem. But, finally what I find most troubling is Perloff's implied point of view that "we" must wait for minorities and others to catch up with what she values in the way of experiment. I'm much more curious as to what happens when the tables are turned. In particular, how have issues of "grievance" and "identity", for example, impacted on the work of white experimental writers. There has been much talk here of exp. writers not being able to find work on account of issues of race and gender - which well might be true. But I hear little of ways in which these issues -- which are vigorously alive in most of the culture -- have impacted on the making of experimental work. To be quick and speculatively specific, what, by way of example, is the influence of Cecil Taylor on line and structure in the work of Barrett Watten? If so, how does he deal with issues of appropriation from Taylor or any "other" cultural zone. What's the difference between cultural robbery, reciprocation and respect? (This is not to suggest Barry's any one of them). In part I'm wondering to what degree "experimental writers" are compelled to acknowledge the larger cultural context - and what are the aesthetic issues and consequences of that inner-change? ((Has anyone on this list addressed this issue/process??). And, in a progressive English Department, shouldn't a "white male" candidate who has engaged these issues in fresh way be considered of more value than one who has not? I sometimes think "white" artists/writers feel it is an option to ignore this larger sphere. On the other hand this is not a position with which minorities can very often "privilege" themselves. For example, I was recently thinking, it's impossible to look at the photographs & texts of Carrie Mae Weems and not be totally taken by her awareness and interpretation of a history of both white and black worlds. For her, I don't believe one functions without the other, and this largeness of vision gives her work a major signifcance. In comparison, does the concept of "innovative poetics" (which is the basis of this list) make this awareness -- or is it a vulnerability to "the other(s)" and a willingness to acknowledge, wrestle and change? -- an implicit responsibility of its project? I guess what I'm hearing in Perloff's view is a mono-centric critical vision of what constitutes a memebership in an avant-garde. Dropping the relatively easy "grievance and identity" herrings, I believe we live in a much more polycentric environment in which the containment of poetic and critical work is a much more elusive task. Cheers, Stephen Vincent I do think Perloff rightly points out that these two criteria for anthologies are cynically seized upon by probably "white" editors as marketable, acceptable criteria. I'm just curious -- in terms of an ideal, advanced anthology -- as to who she sees as the arbiters of what is appropriate. I assume Norton's way of "liberally" dealing with this potential impasse is to give every major group an anthology - including the current ones of Hoover for the experimental, Gates for the Afro-Americans and on an on. (A parallel to this phenomenon is all various Smithsonian museums that are planned up down the Washington Mall - American Indian, Afro-American etc. etc.) All this might look well on paper, but it avoids the issues and great works of art that have occured because the various groups that constitute this country are so historically inter-webbed. Objectively -- especially in terms of making contemporary work -- I think it's silly for anyone to imagine autonomous grounds for any particular group - experimental, "minority" or otherwise. That said, given this country's history it's understandable why many groups will want to secede into their own anthology or museum. > > Now David perfectly proves my point by implying I'm somehow making a > > racist statement. > > You are reading into (as opposed to "not reading") what I wrote. What I > wrote was that the pluralism of your approach is in tension with the > exclusivity of your actual critical practice. This seems to me a > perfectly reasonable critique to make. Sure I find this disturbing; but > not because I think you're a racist (I don't) -- rather, because of the > slippage that comes into play in passages like the one that follows: The "exclusivity of my actual critical practice"--I don't know what this means. I admire particular poets and those are the ones I write about--yes. If that's "exclusivity" --I plead guilty. I try, on the other hand, to include non U.S. poets so in that sense I believe I'm much more "inclusive" than others. There's only so much time. > > What I meant, of course, is that the mainstream > > anthologies today like the Norton will include a lot of, say Rita Dove, > > because she's a black woman when the Norton doesn't even include Zukofsky, > > Reznikoff etc. not to mention Harryette Mullen, Erica Hunt, Will > > Alexander, or Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian--well, the list > > goes on and on, right? This is where identity politics does indeed cloud > > the picture because if you object to these inclusions or exclusions you > > are immediately branded. > > "Inclusions or exclusions." This is not a symmetrical complaint. The > complaint about exclusions is well taken, and I'm wholly on your side in > that struggle. The complaint about inclusions is where I think your > pluralistic stance conflicts with your practice. Mullen, Hunt, et al. > are not excluded because Rita Dove is included. (Nor do I think it fair > to say that the Norton includes "a lot of . . . Dove, because she's a black > woman," barring evidence to support that assertion.) Giving Dove less > space will do not one damn bit of good in making more space for Zukofsky, > Howe, or Bernstein. I disagree with the last sentence above. I believe it's Charles B who noticed that the Norton, so far as poets born after 1950 goes, includes not a single white man. Our Quals list at Stanford is similar. The list, made up by a faculty committee includes Leslie Marmon Silko Sandra Cisneros but not Charles Olson or John Ashbery or Louis Zukofsky If this isn't identity politics, what is it? You will note, if you study reading lists around the country that this is the case. The post World War II period has been turned into a kind of grievance list. > > What I'm trying to say, badly probably, because email is not the easiest > > writing venue, is that, yes, I am opposed to identity politics in its > > crude form and no, that doesn't make me a racist, and if we want to be > > political, let's be political and try to do something about what is > > happening in Washington. > > 1) identity politics: I do am opposed to "its crude form," but I think > such opposition must not be crude either; > > 2) that doesn't make you a racist. Agreed (never thought otherwise); > > 3) politics: it's all over the place, both in Washington and in the poetry > community etc. But I'd append also: If we want to do something about > excluded poetry, let's not act as though the currently included poets are > the problem. If we want diversity, let's have diversity, and ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 21:11:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: jobs and poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Time is what is all about, especially when you don't have one of those cushy situations set up for you. Working 9 to 5 has had a profound impact on my writing. I used to write fairly elaborate collages, involving a good chunk of research. I used to stay up late and write till three in the morning. I can't do those things anymore because I don't have the time. I have to get up early and put on a tie and stare at a computer screen for eight hours. So I sneak and I steal and I adapt to my environment. Instead of collages, I write couplets (because it's less time consuming to crank out couplets). I revise less and write quickly. I use the photocopier and laser printer at work to prepare manuscripts. I write at home and and rewrite at work, hoping no one's looking over my shoulder. And whenver I can get the energy to go to a reading, or volunteer for Tia Chucha or the Guild complex (a literary org. in Chicago), I do it because I don't know when I'll be able to do it again. That's the way it is for most people, I guess, although probably many have it worse. If practicing your art is a priority, you find a way to get it done regardless of the circumstances. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 16:29:15 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Subject: Re: jobs and poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Time is what is all about, especially when you don't have one of those >cushy situations set up for you. Working 9 to 5 has had a profound impact >on my writing. I used to write fairly elaborate collages, involving a good >chunk of research. I used to stay up late and write till three in the >morning. I can't do those things anymore because I don't have the time. I >have to get up early and put on a tie and stare at a computer screen for >eight hours. > >So I sneak and I steal and I adapt to my environment. Instead of collages, >I write couplets (because it's less time consuming to crank out couplets). >I revise less and write quickly. I use the photocopier and laser printer >at work to prepare manuscripts. I write at home and and rewrite at work, >hoping no one's looking over my shoulder. And whenver I can get the energy >to go to a reading, or volunteer for Tia Chucha or the Guild complex (a >literary org. in Chicago), I do it because I don't know when I'll be able >to do it again. That's the way it is for most people, I guess, although >probably many have it worse. If practicing your art is a priority, you >find a way to get it done regardless of the circumstances. > >Hugh Steinberg I empathise re working. What does this do for your writing, or to it? Certaintly you do find a way to get it done. I write on the way to work and on the way home I revise. There is no time to write at work. This means that the way you write is dictated largely by circumstance: It takes me 15 minutes to get home so writing has to fit into fifteen minute blocks. These blocks are separated by reasonable time periods: so the writing takes on a disjointed tone ( if what is beng written is more than a few lines). Writing can take a position in such circumstances (I am loathe to say prioirity because I spend the greater part of most days working), but as such it is a writing which is a victim of cirumstance, and to a certain extent shaped by it. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 21:31:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Disturb D/re Perloff In-Reply-To: <970314205033_-1438816468@emout20.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 8:50 PM -0500 3/14/97, Stephen Vincent wrote: >Marjorie Perloff writes in response to David Kellogg: >"Minority communities in the 80s: I didn't think this needed spelling out. >I am referring to simple fact here: namely, check out any anthology or >critical study of "contemporary poetry" prior to that time and you'll see >that the issue of minority poets is simply ignored. (read, for example, >Altieri, J. Breslin, P. Breslin, von Hallberg--you name it). The >anthologies may have included, say, Baraka and one or two other black >poets but the notion of "Chicano poetics" or "Asian-American poetics" did >not yet exist. This isn't a value judgement, just a fact." > >If I'm not misunderstanding Marjorie Perloff's point, I think a number of >people would disagree with this assessment of minority writing prior to the >eighties. yes indeed, thank you stephen vincent. What I think she is actually saying is that other anthologists and >critics and she herself(?) were mostly unaware of "minority" writing that >began to strongly emerge with the various "liberations" of the late sixties >and early seventies (simultaneous with gay and feminist writing, as well) . >An obliviousness to the work of Victor Hernadez Cruz, Ntozake Shange, Jessica >Hagedorn, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight among many others who were >consistently published in books and periodicals is possibly more a reflection >of Town and Gown, "high and low" culture divisions-- unless there is an >assumed separation between the poets who make poems, and the critics who >create a "poetics" around the work - the latter sometimes not happening until >much after the fact. On the other hand, it's still not clear to me, if >Marjorie Perloff was familiar with any of the this writing, or whether or not >she is dismissing these and other writers out of an aesthetic principle -- > which I find a perfectly acceptable thing to do, as long as it's not >confused with an exclusive notion of "the one and only principle." i wish i'da said this. right on sv, thanks for saying what is obvious to many who are not on this list and who do not need to pretend the emperor has no clothes. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 22:37:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Jennifer an other weary time MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Jennifer's Sonnet of Marbles and Brambles Brambles have marbles by their bases, glass against knobby bark up towards dark green shoots, lovely white fleshy soles. They're in cahoots, marbles' burbled presence by Jennifer's toes. One among each and each, each other. Jennifer's in throes Of pain and anguish, delirious happenings. The sap drains from Jennifer's waist down to the ground hoisted by the naval beach. We're not going to the beach, to the ocean or the grotty sea. There are no waves. Jennifer shaves her body, slides marble packets in and out. They make rackets, Jennifer shouts with joy, delight, dissolution. Proliferation of cornucopia of confusion, white wire tangling profusion, the marbles are covered with dirt, whole villages of paramecia, stentor, amoeba, nematodia clad and pillaged by Jennifer's souls. We're not going anywhere, Jennifer-in-the-brambles monuments herself in dark white beautiful marble plinth, she's in't. _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 00:03:00 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: joining conversation In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some >> latin american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). Have I been wrong all my life? Are Mexican whites called gringos? I always thought that the word was applied to people from north of the U.S.-Mexican border. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 09:19:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703142152.KAA00918@ihug.co.nz> from "DS" at Mar 15, 97 10:52:19 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dan wrote: "(& may have to start reading Heaney just so i can sleep nights)" I always liked Heaney's stuff from the seventies, never gaga over them but they're interesting and often political poems (*North* especially) - to some extent I think his "formalness" is not passive acceptance but, at least in his mind, an act of intervention: as he writes in "The Ministry of Fear," "Ulster was British, but with no rights on / The English lyric: all around us, though / We hadn't named it, the ministry of fear." In the end of "Punishment" he describes himself, in relation to a waoman's mob-killing, as someone "who would connive / in civilized outrage / yet understand the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge." Perhaps its worth thinking about the idea that the Irish have a different relation to the English metric that Americans (I don't know, I'm just hypothesizing). As someone asked earlier, what's Eavan Bolamd doing in the west coast experimental scene? - actually it makes a fair amount of sense to me having talked to her a couple times - in her own context she's progressive as hell and very involved on the grassroots levelof Irish feminism. So, what am I saying here? Well, I can't think of a single post-ww 2 formal poet who I would list as a "favorite" but certainly several deserve a careful, open minded reading. I said earlier I didn't like "Diving into the Wreck" and its true, I don't, but I've certainly gained by reading Rich over the years, I mean, hell, she's interesting, the way someone you meet might be - the poets we read don't have to be, transcendentally, on "the right path," for me reading's usually more of a scavenging expedition. -Mike Magee. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 09:42:20 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: jobs and poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Havent worked for money for about 7 years but then a novel I wrote in 90 said as its last line, "the next book will contain no recognizable words" & I havent yet come to writing anything since then because I recognize everything I come to. Miekal ok, say maybe Ive written a tiny bit. -- @#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@# Dreamtime Village website: http://net22.com/dreamtime QAZINGULAZA: And/Was/Wakest website: http://net22.com/qazingulaza e-mail for DT & And/Was: dtv@mwt.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 10:05:12 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Disturb D/re Perloff Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well i've been away for a day, oversaturating mself again, and return to find all sortsa poetix things to discuss... you folks are great!... thanx esp. to jeff hansen and others for taking me up on my request to elaborate on other-than-academic contexts... i'd like to hear more too on the way this shapes one's writing... having just been hard at work on another list (litsci-l) a week or so ago arguing that crossing the disciplines of "science" and "literature" (note those quotes, puh-leez) requires both reverence AND irreverence, i'd hate to see robert a's call for "respect" taken as a call for no critique (as joseph l., chris a., and robert himself have indicated)... my point there is equiv. to my point here, and even MORE controversial given that there are great divides between (as among) sci phuds and lit phuds: that being critical of a particularly disciplinary knowledge is not quite the same thing as being critical of a discipline's practitioners... and that the best way to refrain from coming off as holier-than-thou in this regard is to account for one's own institutional moorings... that said, i might say, again and again, that it don't hurt none to be able to critique poetry in terms of what works and what doesn't aesthetically and culturally... i will be talking at the upcoming denver conference on the problems with "craft" and "voice" as these are played out in the creative writing classroom, and through a simple twist of fate (thank you bob dylan) i will manage to poke a bit of fun at the way in which robert frost, for example, gets used in popular versions of "the poet" (quotes again)... now from my pov, IN MY OWN WORK, 'taking account of my critical moorings' has often amounted to *enacting* my theoretical claims *while* making same... i'm certain that, if not my product, at least my intentions/motives are likely to be appreciated in *this* forum... call it poetry, call it criticism, call it neither... but at the same time, arguments twixt those of you who, on the whole, tend to write scholarship in sentences and paragraphs -- whatever the content content (as opposed to formal content---if you'll permit me this slippage) -- *might* (i say *might*) be taken to mean that you accept, without a whole lotta critical intervention, your own critical moorings to varying degrees... i mean, some might observe that marjorie perloff writes in paras, as does stephen vincent, as do i (HERE)... this particular view is not meant as a *criticism*, but IS offered (by ME) by way of (self-)critique... this is, after all, the primary way of going public in this forum (some here, like dbchirot, write in ways that are not so sequential---thanx david!)... but what happens when you try to "do" theory and not "do it" the customary way?... we KNOW what happens---it's tough to get published!... or, it's tough to be understood... or---- that's point the first, which i offer, unabashedly, as a wee bit of mediation, intended to knock me and others offa our high hobbyhorses... point the second cuts in a sort of opposite direction, requires a, well, trip report: yesterday i was down at u of i at urbana-champaign, where i used to teach, to hang with some friends/acquaintances for a panel forum that was part of their "cyberfest," a celebration of HAL from *2001: a space odyssey* (HAL, as i'm sure many of you know, designed and fired up down at uiuc, in 1997 (in the book version))... anyway, the panelists: n. katherine hayles -- writes some just incredible lit-sci critical, that crosses multiple disciplines richard powers -- a novelist who's written some, well, incredible novels brad leithauser -- novelist/poet/essayist, i don't know brad's work hans moravec -- perhaps the leading theorist of robot/ai technologies in the world at the moment, at carnegie melon bruno latour -- french sociologist of science, one of the beter known social constructivists writing today all moderated by michael berube... whose first book was on pynchon and tolson, but who's written some astonishing stuff since on higher learning... needless to say, a very male-gendered discussion in all, but something interesting turned up along the way, something from leithauser about, in his opine, the current status of the novel, its refusal to really deal with science and technology... i can't say that i entirely agreed with him (for all sortsa reasons i won't detail here---though i *was* thankful to hear him praise h. g. wells' work) but his point about the novel form is methinks pertinent here: that much if not most scifi in fact, though 'conservative' at the level of the sentence and in terms of structure, nevertheless *is* radical in many ways in terms of ideas (some scifi does both, of course)... and that the failure to value this latter sort of literary endeavor vis-a-vis what is now called literary fiction results in a hierarchy that perhaps we oughtta take a long hard look at... but hold!---i mean, i appreciate the need for literary fiction too, and i AM suspicious, as a poet, of 'junk prose,' of pulp... it's just that i've read some damned good scifi on occasion, and LOTS of damned good COMIC BOOKS... gotta come at it all with somewhat altered expectations though, aesthetically and in terms of the cultural work that gets done... and yeah, sure, with critical prophylaxis intact... making any sense?... too much?... looking to learn more from this exchange... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 10:53:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: poetry that sells? -Reply -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" michael coffey, thanx for your reply!... you raise some good points... part of my thing, both as an educator and as somebody who just talks with other writers about writing, has to do with getting a fix on the states of the arts, helping to generate some public recognition about what's going on... i find it tough as hell sometimes to discuss, even with writers (esp. established writers published in the larger publishing venues) the situation in the small press world... the absence of a solid distribution network, save for spd (and the web notwithstanding---heck, i've been making arguments about using the web to promote distribution for five years anyway), is something that needs, as i see it, more press---and i say this regardless of the realities (read *numbers*) of poetry consumption and production... i can't help but observe that---if ten years ago things were bad, and today things are better---then it would be nice if things got a LOT better!... for example, to reference my own tiny little woes: i've been unsuccessful in getting seminary co-op down the street from me (one of the best academic bookshops in the nation) to stock my first book... first thing that screwed me up was the collapse of inland... a year later, although i could provide catalogs and samples etc., they were unwilling to contact the publisher... the first response is always, "yes, we stock local authors"... the second response is NOTHING HAPPENS... what it comes down to is whether spd stocks same (i understand now that spd will stock my press's inventory, and i await that *material* transfer)... the point here is that there are just not a helluvalotta options... i've taken a few books up to woodland pattern, where the folks there were nice enough to inventory same formally (i'm not looking to make money here)... but in fact many bookstores don't WANT you to give them copies!... and working on consignment---me trying to inventory my own 'stock'---well some of you can speak to same better than me... anyway... i appreciate your response... i wonder if the audience for _publishers' weekly_ would care to read an article on the current situation?... now i'm *not* the guy to write same---i just don't have the background... but mebbe somebody in these parts is?... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 09:09:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed In-Reply-To: <199703150502.VAA17917@leland.Stanford.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Two quick points in response to Chris Jenkins, David K and others: 1) I am NOT NOT NOT saying that I hope after things shake out we can once again have THE anthology. That's the antithesis of what I said in the article. My whole point is that you can't and don't want to because there are such varied poetries and not one avant-garde. Moreover, I don't particular want any anthology--I never use one in class if I can avoid it. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to poets like the zoo to animals. 2) However--for those who do want to construct anthologies or reanimate the canon (which has never been my sport--I hate the canon debates and think they're a great distraction from real issues), you might as well be upfront and define your own criteria. Clearly, there is no anthology without a principle of selection. So all this talk of reaching out, opening up, caring about others is slightly specious. Reaching out to whom? why? And why not to a million others? Enough already! Marjorie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 12:31:29 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Michael Magee wrote: > to > some extent I think his [Heaney's] "formalness" is not passive acceptance but, at > least in his mind, an act of intervention: as he writes in "The Ministry > of Fear," "Ulster was British, but with no rights on / The English lyric: This is a great example of the kind of contextually specific work done by poetic forms that Franklin Bruno was posting about -- kudos to Michael. The only danger in pursuing this kind of speculation (and we haven't fallen into this trap yet by any means) is to end up concluding that only one kind of form can do positive work in any particular context. It would be wrong to argue along the lines of -- "oh, well, traditional form is alright for the Irish, but none of it can ever be any good in America" or the analogous "the Irish ought to stick to traditional form and leave experimentalism to Buffalo and SF" --(I don't mean that Michael has done anything like this, far from it, I just mean that this _could_ be a hazard when thinking through a "contextualist poetics"). [There are, by the way, a number of fascinating Irish experimentalist poets, who very deliberatley choose innovative form as a way to respond to their environment -- Billy Mills, Catherine Walsh, Randolph Healy, and Maurice Scully spring to mind. There is a review of some of them coming out (by yours truly) in the same issue of the Notre Dame Review that has the Boland interview.] Robert Archambeau ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 21:47:15 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Litsci Comments: To: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU In-Reply-To: <199703151605.KAA24103@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (So what does that make Gramsci?) No, what I'm asking is, more info on n. Katherine Hayle, and how do I take a look at that litsci list? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 10:35:05 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" . I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to >poets like the zoo to animals. > I've been thinking about this. One strong defence of Zoos is educational/ We have just had a simulated underground antarctic open up in this city. Auckland. With live penguins. Many people are upset by the idea of sticking pengies underground although there has been no formal protests. I am uncomfortable with it, but feel there is a necessary trade off. If all the people who go to it went to antarctica the resulting polution would be horrific. And polution is a very real problem down there already. As one of the last still relatively untouched environments on earth i believe very strongly we should attempt to preserve it. Keep out all proposed development, pillage, military shit etc... Having access to the simulated environment and seeing these penguins - as the real penguins are undeniably the ATTRACTION - brings to many casual tourism punters the reality of a place most of the world does not even think about. & particularly the generation of school children who are being introduced to the antarctic as the habitat of these curious & attractive creatures rather than the great conqueable whiteness that ed hillary scott shakleton et al so valiantly tried to CONQUER. Anyway my hope is some good will come of it, given all the obvious problems many of have with captivity. The same argument applies generally to the new generation of zoos as the current trend for recreating environments etc increases the animals health, welfare & comfort. & anyway there's a bad poetry metaphor here somewhere. Dan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 15:58:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Franklin Bruno Subject: flirt? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry for a not-very-poetic query, but does anyone out there remember what city the second section of Hal Hartley's -Flirt- was set in. The other two were New York and Tokyo. I want to say Berlin, but I'm not sure. Backchannel me to avoid clutter. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 18:32:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Litsci Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" fiona and interested others: to sub to litsci-l, post liststar@humnet.ucla.edu with the following message (nothing in subject line): subscribe litsci-l (no need to type in your name, and please note the newer form, listSTAR not listSERV.) you will (should!) receive a blurb back from liststar confirming your subscription etc. it's been a tres quiet list for most of its history, but it recently erupted (finally!) thanx to a rather controversial keynote at the society for literature and science (sls) annual meeting in atlanta last fall (the list is public, though it serves as the official list for sls)... but this more recent eruption seems to have subsided, at least for the moment... so i don't know what'll happen next---it's nothing like poetics, it's generally not in daily flux... a couple by hayles: n. katherine hayles, _the cosmic web: scientific field models and literary strategies in the twentieth century_ (ithaca: cornell up, 1984); _chaos bound: orderly disorder in contemporary literature and science_ (ithaca: cornell up, 1990). i think she's edited a collection of essays since (can't recall the title at the moment) and she has another book forthcoming this year (again, my mind is failing me as to title/subject)... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 15:47:55 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Nicoll Subject: Re: Katherine Hayles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Greetings all, Katherine Hayles' edited _Chaos and Order, Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science_, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1991. Hugh (mostly lurking) but loving the on-going chaos/grit of this list. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 03:17:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: DIVING Into The (Human) Zoo... I'd like to address a couple of points re "Rich" (notice how we've gone from Dove to Rich, as if this is the REAL issue "Dove" disguised). Marjorie's point (which is very similar to a point Perelman makes in THE MARGINALIZATION--and by the way, I will once again plug next saturday's event at the SEGUE space ostensibly on Perelman's book, for, as I foresee it, the discussion will not be limited to the book hopefully but to such issues as these, and beyond ((like MUSIC, etc....))I digress)--anyway, Marjorie's objections (echoed by Mike Magee) seem to be twofold here. First, she critiques the poem because "It's so willed". In this, I would agree with Jordan Davis that it very well may be a form of "mysticism to say that form forces its message" in a way more "indeterminate" poetics do not. Or, again, I'd point to the seeming parodox of "you HAVE TO let (as opposed to will) in poetry" assuming that description as a way of becoming injunction, and that the "will" vs. "letting" dualism may be as troublesome as the "mind" vs. "body" dualism (and, no, I am not denying that we may need such dualisms at least strategically, and at least in order to seem to be able to communicate, or even "think"--but of course then there often comes the point where these dualisms go meta and what's "at stake" is the "dualism" between "monism" and "dualism" etc.). In any rate, I do not think that the form of Rich's poem NECESSARILY undercuts its message and I guess this leads me (though not seamlessly) to my second point. The issue of what I will call "metaphysical conceits" in poetry. Mike Magee (and Perelman in the MARGINALIZATION) contrasts Carla Harryman favorably to Rich because the former is more formally fluid while the latter is not. Specifically, Magee mentions "THERE NEVER WAS A ROSE...." Now, I have been more interested and engaged in studying Harryman's work than in RIch's (I am trying to avoid the dogmatism of saying that I like it and will always like it better however) and yes I do believe there's a lot of truth in Magee's statement. However, if one wants the more FLUID Harryman it is, I believe in ANIMAL INSTINCTS and especially VICE....although even in vice she's looking for that "adequate vice to LIMIT the liquid of this voice" (i.e, she's trying to come to terms with WILL, and forms or in Dan Salmon's analogy ZOOS?) and in many of the new pieces in "NEVER WAS..ROSE..." Harryman does, far more than anywhere else in her PUBLISHED ouevre (thinking of the GAME "poems" in particular) employ something that, to me, seems very similar to "a metaphysical conceit"--it may be done more SELF-Consciously than Rich does (though there is, I believe, a way to read rich's poem as an allegory of its own form as well), but it is not SO self-conscious that the conceit shatters before it is constructed. This, in my opinion, is largely the strength of these new works of Harryman's. I do believe that metaphysical conceits are hard to sustain, and I do not WISH to make them into a STANDARD by which we judge poetry (by such a standard of course I'd have to shoot myself in the foot and admit that I'm just not a poet, etc.)--but I do think there is a thrill in constructing and sustaining such an illusion and that it needn't destroy one's allegedly postmodern love of "work that rejects easy closure" etc. Now, maybe Marjorie's (and others') rejection (that may not be the right word) of Rich's poem has more to do with its tight STANZAIC FORM than it has to do with the fact that it employs such conceit(s)--Marjorie, I WOULD appreciate clarification on this point, since they are two DIFFERENT criticisms---and if so, we have to deal with other issues than the issue of "conceit", but I'd like to extend this question of "conceit" beyond Harryman and even towards more seemingly PURE "language poetry", which seems to me to be as "cooked" (raw vs. cooked allusion) as Rich, and that therefore the silliness of Rich's FLIPPERS may be seen as part of its charm and even power. I don't think Rich's poem CAN be as written off as easily as say William Stafford's TRAVELLING THROUGH THE YARD, partially because the former is less conservative on a content level, or at least CAN BE (if we really do believe in THE READER), in a way it seems the stafford poem can not....because, to invert Jordan's claim, it's possible the MESSAGE can force the form without being a form of mysticism..... Well, just some thoughts.... And, thank you Jonathon Levin for the word "adjunctification" and thank you Dan Salmon for the ZOO metaphor ("we're all inmates of the human zoo" or do i mean "the prisonhouse of language" which might as well be "sestina") and thanks Keith Tuma, Franklin Bruno, and Susan Wheeler, and Chris Alexander and Joseph Lease (and others) for interesting posts in this in the last few days. Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 10:51:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Litsci I too would love to know how to get on the litsci list. Thanks anyone who can help with this. Burt Kimmelman Department of Humanities and Social Sciences New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102 Phone: 201.596.3376 Fax: 201.642.4689 Internet: kimmelman@admin.njit.edu Home phone: 201.763.8761 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 10:20:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: DIVING Into The (Human) Zoo... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the only thing i would add to chris s's last post, which again i enjoyed, is this: that there are surely poems with teeth that are formally more traditional... i don't mean (though i could mean!) traditional form... it seems to me, as i'll say again and again, that different communities will handle the form/content issues differently (and i've tried to suggest that this happens in different genres---the novel, scifi, etc)... i mean, there are other poems in _diving into the wreck_ that i find effective ("trying to talk with a man"), but these poems may be viewed as didactic or some such from those who prefer (gross shorthand coming) more nuance... i won't go on here except to say that yes, there are probably more folks in the mainstreams who'll appreciate rich's work than, say, mayer's... and that i'll continue to make the argument --- what i would say amounts to fighting the good fight --- for recognition of aesthetics and formal maneuvers such as mayer's (making that argument, that is to say, in whatever institutions)... but this doesn't stop me from actually "liking," de facto, rich's poetry... in fact what troubles me actually --- just to be a bit personal about it --- is when i'm faced with somebody whose aesthetic i appreciate, but who doesn't appreciate *mine*!... this is bound to create all sorts of hard feelings... and yes---i've rec'd this treatment in mainstream circles from folks i've met, in some cases from folks i've met who are good writers... but hey -- i've also *on occasion* experienced this sort of rejection in specifically un-mainstream circles... anyway, i would like to address, briefly, marjorie's question (and i think she's correct to keep pushing this point of selection) about 'reaching out to whom': from a strictly (and perhaps reductively) critical pov, the issue of critics recuperating particular poetic writing can be viewed in terms of appropriation (and i don't mean this in a 'bad' sense only)... when we select what we write 'about' (speaking as a reductively-defined critic now), we generally have mixed motives... we may find the work really challenging aesthetically, or we may just plain love it and want to write about it... we may find that the various appeals it makes to us, or to others, deserve a more public appraisal (this is the 'function of the critic' in more 'public intellectual' terms)... or any mix really----i'm not trying to be exhaustive here... our motives may have to do with any combination of passion, excitement, curiosity, justice, ______... so ok: why reach out as a critic to, say, the work of high school students?... i can think of LOTS of reasons -- though if you'll permit me just a bit of nasty sarcasm here, i already have plenty of so-so poems to read from my student-writers! (i say this just to keep in mind that teaching poetry is not the same thing necessarily as teaching writers how to write poetry)... for one, reaching out to high school students in such terms defines the status of poetry in those communities---communities that will one day shape the readership for published poets, as well as the poets themselves... i can imagine all sorts of interesting conclusions one might draw, ethnographically speaking... for another thing, writing by high-school students IS writing, deserves some attention on its own account, and speaks to the cultural status of writing in this society... for another still, i've come across some REALLY GOOD writing in my classes, with no condescension implied or intended and with every aesthetic register in place when i say this... (some of you can help me out here, this ain't my field... and the really controversial point: why scrutinize the writing of high school students (please don't take me to mean this latter as a monolith either!) as opposed to the work of more, shall we say, polished or professional poets? (eek, there's that p word applied to poetry again!)... well, even if, as a writer, i am NOT so predisposed, i must observe that, as a writer, there IS something to be gained from listening to and examining writing that isn't so caught up with the various conventions of poetry---i mean mainstream, radical, avant-garde, etc... of course, in writing about such writing, critics will nonetheless be making a *selection* from *among these sample of writing* to make whatever points they wish to make... that is, and not to condescend again, there is an aesthetics to consider here as well---which is that 'reach' to which marjorie alludes, finally, coming in, if not the front, then at least the back door (yes, like nature, as i mentioned to a friend backchannel)... and to whom does such a critic write?---well, same answer as 'before': to other critics, other writers, who are so interested... personally, i've found maria damon's work on teenage women writing (women who live in the projects) to be quite revitalizing (_the dark end of the street_, a book with which i'm sure many of you are familiar)... in fact i need, as a writer, for folks like maria to keep doing what they do even as i need, as a writer, for folks like marjorie to keep doing what they do... and i do not see why such critical work need be treated in terms of the implicit dichotomy through which i've advanced same, either, except as this helps to clarify things (or does it?)... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 08:40:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: new music mags redux Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm deeply disturbed that I neglected to mention Experimental Musical Instruments in my early posting on this off-topic subject. It's a very good mag, comes out quarterly, even seems to have reasonable newsstand distribution. Always worth looking at, though I don't buy every issue. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 13:31:57 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Amittai F. Aviram" Subject: Anthologies In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 16 Mar 1997 00:05:51 -0500 from I've been a bad lurker, not having enough time to keep up with the immense volume of learned discourse here, but once in a while I do try ... Marjorie and others, about anthologies and zoos ... I've always had a very similar feeling of distaste for anthologies and desire to get students to read _books_. And yet ... 1) I confess that, despite all the obvious problems and flaws, I _vastly_ admire _all_ the Norton anthologies. It's just _great_, especially for poetry _before WWII_--before our time--to be able to _find_ something quickly and have _notes_ to it! Some of the notes are wrong or misleading, but it's nice to have them anyway. And, when it comes to other languages, anthologies can be a real blessing, too--as a way to try to get started, or to find some poem that you know everybody quotes (in French or German or Italian or Latin or Hebrew or Portuguese or whatever). 2) Aren't literary magazines, actually, anthologies? You can see that, here, the boundary is a bit fuzzy, isn't it? I think Marjorie's last comment really _does_ address point #2 a bit. She'd just as soon have _no_ anthologies, but, if we must have them, let's be up front about our selection criteria. The same could surely be said for magazines. I think we have less of a problem with magazines-- sometimes--because, after a while, you learn the "map" and know what the _implicit_ criteria are for those magazines that don't make them _explicit_ (which is of course the great majority of them and all of the ones with prestige--_Poetry_, _Paris Review_, etc.). But, insofar as one learns the "map" of magazines, doesn't one do the same with anthologies? I think Marjorie's initial problem, as I take it, is with what seems to be internal and unspoken conflicts between criteria systems within any given anthology (or magazine, for that matter?)--between the "poetic" or "aesthetic" criteria and the "political" criteria of "inclusion" or "representation." And I took Marjorie's comment about Mexican-American poets, etc.-- did I mistake you, Marjorie?--as simply meaning that, the more of these poets get published, the more eventually will be available to editors to make decisions _not_ primarily motivated by the desire for "inclusion" but rather some criteria not related to the identity of the author ("aesthetic" criteria). It's a matter of probability, and this is precisely--or was, anyway--the hope of affirmative action to begin with: if we put up with this institutionalized artifice for a while, there will _eventually_ be enough people from various hitherto underrepresented minorities within the pool of applicants (or whatever) so that one can simply make a truly race-blind, sex-blind choice based on truly relevant (job-related, project-related) criteria, because probability would now ensure that representation would occur by default. In the case of affirmative action, this didn't work because the money wasn't put behind it, in the form of scholarships and fellowships for students (of any ethnic or racial background or sex) who needed the money. And salaries in academics, though nowadays somewhat reasonable if you're lucky to get a tenure track job, do not compete with salaries in business or some of the other professions, which naturally seem more attractive to those minority groups that have been excluded from wealth for generations. But the same logic _could_ reasonably apply in the field of choosing poets to include in an anthology, it seems to me. And I think, in general, it _has_ been working--the canon _has_ been changing, and, in many cases, the "new" works entering the canon have been quite _good_. Amittai ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 19:30:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: joining conversation In-Reply-To: David Israel "Re: joining conversation" (Mar 14, 6:11pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Yo escribi >Yeah, sort of like a white being called "gringo" in the Americas by some > latin american groups (even in the U.S.for that matter). David writes: > It's interesting how likeable the term "gringo" is (or seems -- or am I > wrong?) to the whites who get so dubbed (or maybe it's only when > self-dubbing, w/ some pleasant irony, that this somehow playful sense of > the term comes into play?) I couldn't resist posting that one, but only as a light aside. I am about to marry an Ecuadorian national, and while she doesn't use the term, others in Ecuador have with me. She explains to me that it's ok--not derogatory--to be so dubbed. To me, it could have been a dubbing or a drubbing depending on how I felt at the time. I explained to her (as a private joke) that we North Americans (thanks George for the clarification) have a bad time with that term because of its ignoble use in the Hollywood (and sphagetti) westerns (which also provided a stereotype of the Mexican man I think). All of that aside, isn't this thread, in its most general terms, just another instance of Blanchot's principle of alienation? Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 21:09:50 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Blarnes oeuvre Has anyone read the poetry (early, especially) of Eric Blarnes? Controversial to say the least - he was born in Belize in 1907, grew up in BENARES (believe it or not) (family old-time colonial Brit) - became Hindu in 1929 - wrote under pseudonym of Pravat Singh. Poetry, for the most part, also Pessoa-like take-offs on Eliot-like criticism of 30s anglo-Indian poets (unknown outside India). Here's a sample: ELEPHANT SHADOW Trumpet of the marvelous. Bellicose traveler, you trample across deep-chested dreams. This is from 1923. Blarnes was all of sixteen - completely isolated, living in a convent school for Catholic daughters of (Portuguese, for the most part) merchant families (he worked as a part-time tutor there for 2 years - the Siringarh Convent School of Benares). I'd be curious if others have come upon this obscure work - Henry Gould p.s. any S. Ray fans out there? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 21:40:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Blarnes oeuvre In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This wouldn't be some of your early St. Paddy's day blarney, now would it? Shlantih, Steven On Sun, 16 Mar 1997, Henry Gould wrote: > Has anyone read the poetry (early, especially) of Eric Blarnes? Controversial > to say the least - he was born in Belize in 1907, grew up in BENARES (believe > it or not) (family old-time colonial Brit) - became Hindu in 1929 - wrote under > pseudonym of Pravat Singh. Poetry, for the most part, also Pessoa-like > take-offs on Eliot-like criticism of 30s anglo-Indian poets (unknown outside > India). Here's a sample: > > > ELEPHANT SHADOW > > Trumpet of the marvelous. > Bellicose traveler, you trample across > deep-chested dreams. > > This is from 1923. Blarnes was all of sixteen - completely isolated, > living in a convent school for Catholic daughters of (Portuguese, for the > most part) merchant families (he worked as a part-time tutor there for > 2 years - the Siringarh Convent School of Benares). > > I'd be curious if others have come upon this obscure work - Henry Gould > p.s. any S. Ray fans out there? > __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:14:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: wieners + (alan) davies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The line is the individual of the social. The phrase is her habit. Words? There isn't that kind of hope. - "Capitalism and Form" Alan Davies, _Candor_, 1990 JOHN WIENERS reads and launches the publication of his journals (just out from Sun & Moon) in Philadelphia April 11th. Alan Davies, Bob Perelman, Joshua Schuster, others including myself will each speak some words of introduction. ALAN DAVIES reads the following day, Saturday, at noon. Thanks to Laura Moriarty we are broadcasting Robert Duncan's 1975 interview with Wieners during the week prior to the reading. This is at Writers House, University of Pennsylvania. All are invited! Not to horse a dead beat, but with this event in mind, and having just read recent listserv posts (worst of the worst for months I've been a lapsed lurker) I looked up "John Wieners" in Hoover's Norton. And there he is. Now I could well be mistaken, and/or naive to think otherwise, but little criticism seems to be written on Wieners' work - he is, like many in the Hoover, Nortonized (erstwhile sign of "tradition") sans the legitimacy of a "citational matrix" (its absence the erstwhile sign of "innovation"). - The sign of modernist time is out of joint. Hoover's three paragraphs of introduction to the Wieners selection stands him in the company of the best (only) readers of Wieners' ouevre. If listmembers know of writing on John Wieners that is unavailable through usual library channels, I would appreciate your posting news of it here (or to me backchannel). Of listmembers, Douglas Messerli wrote a review - I believe so, although I haven't found a copy of it yet - of Behind the State Capitol or Cincinnati Pike in 1976. Bruce Andrews' review came out in 1978.... I might be overlooking chapters of or references/footnotes to JW in books by listmembers (please forgive this haste) and by others, books that may be well-known - but what I have in mind in addition would be smallpress materials like Charles Shively's review of Behind the State publ the year it came out, 1975 (in Gay Sunshine no. 25; I've yet to get hold of a copy of it). Which leads me perhaps too unceremoniously and inevitably to ask: what role/influence has Wieners' work had on your own work? This event that we're doing can't come near to what could be done to properly address Wieners' (life and the context of his) writing. Nevertheless, responses to this listserv query could conceivably be read at the event, or possibly (speaking for myself) cited and incorporated into the presentations for the event, with your permission. At the very least a list of reviews and such, if any, from hard-to-find periodicals might be compiled here for later use. I'd welcome news/opinions/memories of any kind and from anyone. Thanks in advance, Louis Cabri Organizers of this event also include Kristen Gallagher and Shawn Walker ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 23:08:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: DIVING Into ... / "mysticism" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Have been reading the dialogue re: Rich & form & suchlike things a bit patchily, tho w/ interest -- Chris Stroffolino's strand in this thread cites the recent (worthy) observation of > . . . . Jordan Davis that it very well may be a form of > "mysticism to say that form forces its message" in a way more > "indeterminate" poetics do not . . . an observation reminiscent -- jumping from form to notions of word-sounds themselves -- to broader mysticisms in poetry (such as that connecting sound & meaning -- a topic I think O. Paz [to name one] did a good riff on in an old, perhaps well-known essay) -- This here will (I daresay) amount to pulling the strand out of the thread (or, the thread out of the rug?) -- but I felt (on re-greeting Jordan D.'s utterance thus afresh today) that it might not be altogether amiss to propose this notion: there is (can be) no poetry w/o mysticism Seems axiomatic from where I sit. Where (how) might others sit w/ it, I wonder? d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} | "...honk if you believe in geese" | \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 20:24:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AARON SHURIN Subject: Re: Wieners In-Reply-To: <199703170407.XAA14816@wizard.wizard.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In one of its earliest issues/incarnations, before it became #4/Period(ical), Mirage devoted an entire invaluable issue to John Weiners. Contributers included Steve Abbott, Bruce Boone, R. Creeley, Alan Davies, Bob Gluck,Fanny Howe, Kevin Killian, me too, among quite a few others.With Wieners poems. 1985. Beautiful work. Aaron Shurin ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 20:34:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed In-Reply-To: <199703152235.KAA13867@ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to >>poets like the zoo to animals. >> > >I've been thinking about this. One strong defence of Zoos is educational. Yes, maybe, but what do the poor creatures learn? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 23:51:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Goerge Browning inquires -- > >. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to > >>poets like the zoo to animals. > > > >I've been thinking about this. One strong defence of Zoos is > >educational. > > Yes, maybe, but what do the poor creatures learn? well that's perhaps where the trope breaks down? -- coincidentally, I spent a nice afternoon w/ friends in the DC Zoo today (thus missing, come to think of it, some avant-garde poets reading locally abt. the same hour) -- the bird house is the best. d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [ &/or.office......disrael@skgf.com ] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} |"...sleuthing out all clues, blues & news"| \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 18:30:38 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:34 PM 3/16/97 -0800, you wrote: >>. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to >>>poets like the zoo to animals. >>> >> >>I've been thinking about this. One strong defence of Zoos is educational. > >Yes, maybe, but what do the poor creatures learn? > touche... fencing i think? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 05:42:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carnography Subject: BIB Targeted By Congress/three monologues for heterogeneous voices and free beer Comments: To: UB Poetics discussion group Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To all: >From: ron >alert! FC2/Black Ice Books is under investigation by a congressional >committee trying to shut down NEA. more to follow. letters of support can >be faxed to 319-438-3523. First books targeted: SM, by Jeffery DeShell, Blood of Mugwump, by Doug Rice, The Mexican Trilogy, by D.N. Stuefloten, and Chick Lit 2, edited by Chris Mazza. It seems my book, Distorture, will probably be the next to be targeted. After that, I'm not certain who's next. Even if this turns out to be good for individual writers, the fact remains that it's bad news for BIB and for all other literary academic presses. Please write letters of support and do what you can. Also: In celebration of two new books: Distorture & Beneath the Empire of the Birds March 27, 7:00 p.m. Tower Books Readings by Rob Hardin Darius James and Carl Watson 383 Lafayette Street NY, NY 10009 212/228-5100 There will be posters, wine, beer, an ad in the Voice, a choice pic in The NY Press: The place will be a madhouse. An aside: All responses to me should be emailed to me personally. After getting continuously flamed for punctuation, and amassing further flames for calling a punctuation flame bad netiquette (which it is: I worked for NetBooks for two years and copyedited the Masquerade guide to the internet--I use such neologisms accurately), I don't really see much point in perpetuating arguments on listserv. Therefore, I won't be reading the list and won't respond to messages on the list. Still, Black Ice Books/FC2 is more important than the logistics of any personal exchange. Jeffery DeShell is a great writer and future DeShells deserve to be published. Let's all support free speech and forget about our differences. All the best always, Rob Hardin http://www.users.interport.net/~scrypt/ http://www.horrornet.com/hardin.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 03:55:01 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Wieners , + once more, deeply disturbed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David R. Israel wrote: > Goerge Browning inquires -- Um, Goerge Browning--was he married to Elizabeth Barrett Bowering? And Louis Cabri wrote: > If listmembers know of writing on John Wieners that is > unavailable through usual library channels, I would appreciate > your posting news of it here (or to me backchannel). There's a review of _Ace of Pentacles_ by Kenneth Irby in _Kulchur_ 19, and an interview with Wieners in _Chicago Review_ 26:1. There's an essay called "To Celebrate this Broken Man: the Poetry of John Wieners" at http://angel-exhaust.offworld.org/html/issue-11/Wieners.html and an interview with Raymond Foye and David Trinidad (with a few paragraphs on Wieners) at http://www.levity.com/hanuman/inter.html I'd like to know if the issue of _Mirage_ mentioned by Aaron Shurin is still available. There's so little. Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 08:29:58 -0500 Reply-To: jconte@acsu.buffalo.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Conte Organization: SUNY at Buffalo Subject: LITSCI-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Burt Kimmelman requested subscribe information for the LITSCI-L, currently involved in cross-examination of its cliental and a discussion of the ethics of cloning. Can one clone a literary form? Or as Handel writes in _The Messiah_: "All We Like Sheep." Send a mail message to liststar@humnet.ucla.edu with the usual subscribe litsci-l (and nothing else, nothing in the subject line). Apologies to the Poetics-L if Joe Amato et al have already provided the above information. Joseph Conte ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 08:10:54 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Blarnes Steve Marks, you win the golden shamrock award. Blarnes was in fact a pseudonym for Irish poet Shamful Mac Harnessey - here's one of his more sober lyrics: WHACK RA-LOO Well, I've taken a dram of ye miracle effluent scribbled a line evanescent-fervescent debouched like a leprechaun riding a pheasant and if you believe it, well. I'm having to say: you've swallowed an elephant. happy St. Paddy's - Friedrich Von Schlosschenteufelwissenschaflichtaube ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 08:43:43 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Getting more disturbed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is partly bouncing off Robert Archambeau's post...But also he was stating something I've seen now so many times, on the list in the last year, and in printed discussions by pretty nonmainstream folks, that I take it to represent a new emerging consensus. Which doesn't by a long shot mean everyone agrees with it; but there is an unmistakeable swing in this direction, obviously a corrective to earlier intolerance/militance.. The emerging consensus, a sort of Rodney King line ("can't we all just get along?") is phrased in Robert's post by saying he likes both Perelman and Heaney. Similar dunciations of party-lineism can be found with increasing frequency; in Rasula's fabulous Wax Museum book, someone is quoted in a footnote as stating a similar warning on this listserv. (I have the book next to me, but can't find the reference right now.) I have great sympathy with this; I also feel that the new consensus is rising to dominance without as much discussion as I'd like...That was why I posted about five days ago, pointing out in very simplistic terms the two (now quite old) contemporary nonmainstream paradigms. The one opposed to get-alongism can be articulated, as I pointed out, in a sharply left-political way, as in classic LangPo theory; i.e. Seamus Heaney (or Amy Clampitt, or Philip Levine, or Adrienne Rich) work with form in such a way as to deaden the sensibility of readers, whereas more challenging formal work can empower by demanding that the reader become an active co-creator of culture, polity, of the world she lives in. I also have great sympathy with this argument, which gets pushed aside without enuff thought if we simply agree to have broad tastes. And then there's another verison of the intolerant line. This I've oftern heard from friends who were poets or editor/poets. This doesn't drag politics in much, but might be seen as embodying a kind of Blakean "mental fight;" this attitude simply rejects having a lot to do with poetry that is (argueably) too mass-commodified and unchallenging, as being without interest or artistic force in our time. I have sympathy with this impulse as well... I remain suspended in negative capability. Which in this case may just mean, I possess the negative attribute of being incapable of making up my mind!...But I'm afraid of too easy an agreement to move on to a new consensus, without engaging the harder, more intolerant lines that have had a huge impact, as I see it, on the poetic space many of us now occupy. Mark Prejsnar Atlanta ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 09:24:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703142152.KAA00918@ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, DS wrote: > In voicing a support of Robert Archambeau I wonder if the side of the > debate that writes off 'contemporary' non-language (and i use the term > loosely - i guess i really mean a tradition from Olson on - judging by this > debate) poetries is not just a bit mired in early marxism that managed also > to avoid/ignore the fact that there were other people who didn't always want > their battles fought by a (and i hate this almost-meaningless word) western elite This brings up losts of interesting stuff....I see some good points to this critique, but...First off, it simply takes it for granted that form need not be discussed; if the militant post-Olson line has even the slightest legitimacy, then some of the formal quesitons are still real, even if there are folks who feel that they do not belong to a white western (male, straight, affluent) elite, and that it shouldn't talk for them; second, the questions of the form of politics, are sometimes being debated to clarify one's own practice as a poet (or editor, or publisher, or reader!) and not necessarily to impose judgments or practices on Others; third, as a revolutionary socialist, I think it muddies things quite a bit to conflate Olson and various more recent practitioners in a vague way with a somewhat fuzzy "early marxism." The various political/poetical formulations at issue here are more carefully worked out, in many cases, than to deserve that! My own practice on the left, as an activist, for 25 years, makes me VERY wary of folks questioning my beliefs, on the grounds that by being militant I'm forcing my values on some (less empowered) other; that is almost always the argument of the right against the left, in my opinion. My answer, which I feel is accurate, is: this is my struggle, I'm fighting it for me, and for others who I'm in solidarity with; ain't tryng to force anything on anyone;....and mutatis mutanda that applies here. Mark Prejsnar Atlanta ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 07:28:01 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: BIB Targeted By Congress/three monologues for heterogeneous MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > >alert! FC2/Black Ice Books is under investigation by a congressional > >committee trying to shut down NEA. more to follow. letters of support can > >be faxed to 319-438-3523. can we get some more info on this? exactly what is going on?! .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 09:35:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703151419.JAA62320@dept.english.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII By the by, since Heaney has been figuring in this cluster of threads....A story in the Sunday NYT yesterday announced that he is considered a serious candidate for next president of the Irish Republic. (Not surprisingly, the republic considers political leadership open to anyone born in the north, as he was.) The story also points out that this is a "largely symbolic" post (guess the overall governmental form is parlimentary...) Is that an ironic wink from history's gods, for all of us who think poetry matters politically? Mark Prejsnar ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 08:53:51 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed aka 'raised in captivity' MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Bowering wrote: > > >. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to > >>poets like the zoo to animals. > >> > > > >I've been thinking about this. One strong defence of Zoos is educational. > > Yes, maybe, but what do the poor creatures learn? Well they no doubt, along with their zoo-keepers (the reflective ones anyway), contemplate oblivion. Oblivion being that idee-maitresse (not just metaphysical star-dust, mind you) in this one of the single greatest periods of species extinction in the history of the planet. That means now. So go homo sapiens-sapiens to the zoo and peer side-long into that post-evolutionary abyss. But then again, I suppose, oblivion is not always pedegogically efficacious; so, indeed, what do the poor creatures (the reflective ones anyway) . . . learn. mc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 09:54:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: WCW Review Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Donna Hollenberg asked me to pass this call along to the Poetics List: The William Carlos Williams Review is seeking essays for a special issue on H.D. and Williams to be published in Fall 1999. Essays can take any approach and can be on any aspect of the relationship between H.D. and Williams but they must focus on both writers. Possible topics include their relationship to modernism and to the other arts as well as their personal and/or textual relationships. Send papers, preferably 15-20 pages, double-spaced and in MLA style, to guest editors Glen MacLeod and Donna Hollenberg, Department of English, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 by March 1, 1998. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want your paper returned. ************************* ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 09:06:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" mark, you're probably already aware of this, but speaking as a teacher (again!), i've seen the unreconstructed left argument (what teresa ebert calls a "pedagogy of critique" over and against a "pedagogy of pleasure") take precisely the dogmatic turn you yourself wish to avoid... i.e., 'in order for my students to learn from me, they must accept this version of the world'... in its worse manifestation, i mean---a sort of conversion process, with the terms of said conversion already worked out (by the instructor-authority)... and of course, this matches rather precisely the old guard connoisseur-driven pedagogy, predicated on students tacitly ceding that certain authors/texts are worth reading (and sometimes worth reading *this* way, yknow) simply b/c the instructor sez so, goddammit... just a thought as to how ideology can play itself out in the classroom in undesirable ways... and perhaps in other institutions... the problem, old or new, is that there is insufficient critique of pedagogical authority *in the first place*... which is not to wish away instructional authority... btw, i like that you're foregrounding the 'consensus' position in such terms---thanx!... i think, in order to continue to turn these conflicts over & over, we'll probably have to agree that it's not a 'consensus' folks are after exactly, except as to our willingness to turn these conflicts over & over!... i mean, the problem is more that certain positions get drowned out, certain aesthetics go unanswered (and unquestioned), than that we don't "agree" (or even "agree to disagree") about same... so it's really more of a dissensus i'm seeking, anyway---which is to say that some 'we' recognizes that there ARE actually controversies, regardless the direction one turns... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 09:40:52 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: wieners + (alan) davies You probably know about this, but there is a recording of Wieners from circa late 60's (?) doing a powerful reading The Hotel Wently Poems and other things. I listened to this at the Univ. of Wisconsin/Milwaukee library years ago and remember being quite moved by it. Or is this a rare tape? Kent > Date sent: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:14:49 -0500 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Louis Cabri > Subject: wieners + (alan) davies > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > The line is the individual of the social. > The phrase is her habit. > Words? There isn't that kind of hope. > - "Capitalism and Form" > Alan Davies, _Candor_, 1990 > > JOHN WIENERS reads and launches the publication of his journals > (just out from Sun & Moon) in Philadelphia April 11th. Alan > Davies, Bob Perelman, Joshua Schuster, others including myself > will each speak some words of introduction. ALAN DAVIES reads the > following day, Saturday, at noon. Thanks to Laura Moriarty we are > broadcasting Robert Duncan's 1975 interview with Wieners during > the week prior to the reading. This is at Writers House, > University of Pennsylvania. All are invited! > > Not to horse a dead beat, but with this event in mind, and having > just read recent listserv posts (worst of the worst for months > I've been a lapsed lurker) I looked up "John Wieners" in > Hoover's Norton. And there he is. Now I could well be mistaken, > and/or naive to think otherwise, but little criticism seems to be > written on Wieners' work - he is, like many in the Hoover, > Nortonized (erstwhile sign of "tradition") sans the legitimacy of > a "citational matrix" (its absence the erstwhile sign of "innovation"). > - The sign of modernist time is out of joint. Hoover's three paragraphs of > introduction to the Wieners selection stands him in the company of the > best (only) readers of Wieners' ouevre. > > If listmembers know of writing on John Wieners that is > unavailable through usual library channels, I would appreciate > your posting news of it here (or to me backchannel). Of > listmembers, Douglas Messerli wrote a review - I believe so, > although I haven't found a copy of it yet - of Behind the State > Capitol or Cincinnati Pike in 1976. Bruce Andrews' review came > out in 1978.... I might be overlooking chapters of or > references/footnotes to JW in books by listmembers (please > forgive this haste) and by others, books that may be well-known - > but what I have in mind in addition would be smallpress materials like > Charles Shively's review of Behind the State publ the year it > came out, 1975 (in Gay Sunshine no. 25; I've yet to get hold of a > copy of it). > > Which leads me perhaps too unceremoniously and inevitably to ask: > what role/influence has Wieners' work had on your own work? > > This event that we're doing can't come near to what could be done > to properly address Wieners' (life and the context of his) > writing. Nevertheless, responses to this listserv query could conceivably > be read at the event, or possibly (speaking for myself) cited and > incorporated into the presentations for the event, with your > permission. At the very least a list of reviews and such, if any, from > hard-to-find periodicals might be compiled here for later use. > I'd welcome news/opinions/memories of any kind and from anyone. > > Thanks in advance, > Louis Cabri > > Organizers of this event also include Kristen Gallagher and Shawn > Walker > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 11:36:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: jobs and poetry In-Reply-To: <199703150329.QAA13225@ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII couplets aren't necessarily any less time consuming than verse paragraphs or tercets or quatrains ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:27:08 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703171506.JAA21704@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Joe: I'm interested in some of the places this thread is going, particularly re: teaching. I think you are quite correct to point out that there has been little if any "critique of pedagogicaly authority" as such, even in some decidedly lefty pedagogical theorists, practitioners, etc. I can think of Graff's teaching the conflicts book some years ago as an example, where I believe that the difference practice of teaching began to be articulated (as far as I know). What strikes me as odd in all this is a kind of elision in any pedagogy in that no one seems to talk about what we think we're doing as teachers. I.e., what the goal of teaching is? This usually gets worked out in terms of a dialectic, unquestioned, of indocrination or improvement. In that those more on the right see teaching as a sort of rite of passage, whereby the student learns "his" culture in order to more properly live as a responsible student within it, such as Bennett's "virtue." Or on the other hand those more on the left see it as some sort of improvement: making better kids, better citizens, better folk in general. The former has at least the benefit of being somewhat practical, but I wonder about the latter. For what, exactly, are we improving them? As O'Hara would ask "for death?" What usually gets taught more than anything else in all this is precisely the pedagogy of authority, which more and more seems to me what the real hidden goal of actually existing teaching. This troubles me, but I wonder what else we can do. In an institutional framework, how do we avoid teaching institutionalization? Just some scattered questions, which ultimately, I think conclude any dialogue re: pedagogy. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 11:48:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I don't know: there are anthologies where the only honest principle of selection (the only one that can be discenred and sustained) is the fact of the editor(s): and sometimes, in a weird way, those are more honest than the others On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Marjorie Perloff wrote: > Two quick points in response to Chris Jenkins, David K and others: > > 1) I am NOT NOT NOT saying that I hope after things shake out we can once > again have THE anthology. That's the antithesis of what I said in the > article. My whole point is that you can't and don't want to because there > are such varied poetries and not one avant-garde. > Moreover, I don't particular want any anthology--I never use one in class > if I can avoid it. I go with David Antin's quip that anthologies are to > poets like the zoo to animals. > > 2) However--for those who do want to construct anthologies or reanimate > the canon (which has never been my sport--I hate the canon debates and > think they're a great distraction from real issues), you might as well be > upfront and define your own criteria. Clearly, there is no anthology > without a principle of selection. So all this talk of reaching out, > opening up, caring about others is slightly specious. Reaching out to > whom? why? And why not to a million others? > > Enough already! > > Marjorie > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 11:51:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: once more, deeply disturbed In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII PS my previous post (on the fact of the editor(s)) might sound individualist: I don't think it is (the fact of the editor(s) is cultural and historical thick, specific): probable more honestly aware of materialist cultural critique than most soi-disant principles of selection: that (speaking of the phrase soi-disant, which Ashbery supposedly once used, as in the soi-disant NY School): reminds me of why (apart from that old past/present dichotomy) the NY School often seems more theoretically sophisticated than the langpo discourse ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 11:57:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: Getting more disturbed Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > The emerging consensus, a sort of Rodney King line ("can't we all just get > along?") is phrased in Robert's post by saying he likes both Perelman and > Heaney. Similar dunciations of party-lineism can be found with increasing > frequency; in Rasula's fabulous Wax Museum book, someone is quoted in a > footnote as stating a similar warning on this listserv. (I have the book > next to me, but can't find the reference right now.) > > I have great sympathy with this; I also feel that the new consensus is > rising to dominance without as much discussion as I'd like...That was why > I posted about five days ago, pointing out in very simplistic terms the > two (now quite old) contemporary nonmainstream paradigms. The one opposed > to get-alongism can be articulated, as I pointed out, in a sharply > left-political way, as in classic LangPo theory; i.e. Seamus Heaney (or > Amy Clampitt, or Philip Levine, or Adrienne Rich) work with form in such a > way as to deaden the sensibility of readers, whereas more challenging > formal work can empower by demanding that the reader become an active > co-creator of culture, polity, of the world she lives in. I also have > great sympathy with this argument, which gets pushed aside without enuff > thought if we simply agree to have broad tastes. > > > Mark Prejsnar > Atlanta > absolutely yes: the above could make a gorgeous manifesto for the activist awareness of form, formal severity, beauty, discovery, play-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:05:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703171506.JAA21704@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joe--- Yes, I think what you say below (and in the rest of your post) is very on target...A number of folks have posted comments saying that not rejecting and despising "mainstream" verse does not preclude critiquing it, engaging in qualifications and debate, etc., and I think those points are in the same spirit as your call for a dissensus... I was beginning to feel impatient for someone to point to a form that such a critique-with-respect might take; I feel that Marjorie and Chris S. kind of began to answer that, by getting very concrete in their debate over "Diving into the Wreck." Lots of kudos are due to them, for a good well-focused debate and for turning our discussion somewhat in a more concrete direction. Mark Prejsnar Atlanta On Mon, 17 Mar 1997 amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU wrote: > > btw, i like that you're foregrounding the 'consensus' position in such > terms---thanx!... i think, in order to continue to turn these conflicts > over & over, we'll probably have to agree that it's not a 'consensus' folks > are after exactly, except as to our willingness to turn these conflicts > over & over!... i mean, the problem is more that certain positions get > drowned out, certain aesthetics go unanswered (and unquestioned), than that > we don't "agree" (or even "agree to disagree") about same... so it's really > more of a dissensus i'm seeking, anyway---which is to say that some 'we' > recognizes that there ARE actually controversies, regardless the direction > one turns... > > best, > > joe > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:27:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: Granary Books reception Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We're having a reception for current Granary Books publications to which I'd like to invite poetics list recipients in the New York City area. Copy for the announcement follows. Best, Steve Clay ______________________ Come to Granary and see these new, fairly new and in-progress books: *****New 'Kin', text by Anne Waldman & drawings by Susan Rothenberg 'Funagainstawake', Harry Reese's monotypes in dialogue with "The Ten Thunderclaps" from 'Finnegans Wake' 'Mettle', poem by Kimberly Lyons & images by Ed Epping *****Fairly New 'Little Orphan Anagram', a collaboration by Susan Bee & Charles Bernstein 'Ligeia', Robert Creeley's first libretto with a set design drawing by Alex Katx 'A Flower Like A Raven', poems by Kurt Schwitters translated by Jerome Rothenberg & drawings by Barbara Fahrner 'The Word Made Flesh', a facsimile edition of an artists' book by Johanna Drucker 'The Book, Spiritual Instrument', a collection of writings, pictures & interviews approaching the "ethnopoetics" of the book, edited by Jerome Rothenberg & David Guss *****In-Progress 'Vulva's Morphia', images and writings by Carolee Schneemann 'If It Rained Here', Julie Harrison's digital images & Joe Elliot's modular poems 'Ted Berrigan: An Annotated Checklist', compiled by Aaron Fischer with an introduction by Lewis Warsh. Contains "new work"-seldom seen literary pictures made around 1970 in collaboration with George Schneeman On display will be all of the above as well as selections from Aaron Fischer's legendary Ted Berrigan collection. Many (but not all) of the writers and artists will be present. Friday March 21, 1997 5-7 PM Granary Books 568 Broadway (corner of Prince) #403 New York, NY 10012 sclay@interport.net / 212 226-5462 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:32:35 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: form MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT matthias wrttt: > I do not think form and content need "match up", need reflect each > other _nec._, : that is to say, not in the manner suggested above: but I > think they might both be seen as being formed by a situation in which just > that content, just that form was nec. Perhaps to articulate something new it > is something nec. to use an old form? well, I'd say yes ok. I mean clearly there is no paraphrase etc so the form of utterance is doing some kind of work, whatever that form happens to be. sorry if this is totally disjointed, for instance. & as several people (joseph?) have pointed out, a given form can be enlisted to do various kinds of political work in different contexts. so for instance, we both know the argument can be made for derek walcott's work being in a certain kind of dialogue with english colonialism that is differently but not less political than brathwaite (see for ex terry eagleton's review of midsummer); & along those lines would be a sort of adrienne rich or even marilyn hacker as "stealing the language" argu. on the other hand, I think it's appropriate to point up (& I think this is what was being pointed up in previous posts in this & the "disturbed" thread) the shortcomings of those forms, too, particularly as they can persist unquestioned in the work itself or, that is, to the degree that the relation of the form of utterance to meaning remains unproblematized (form as vessel). ["it's all-natural & packed with goodness"]. which is not to imply that we don't at times see a similar problem in so-called innovative work, nor to say that problematizing that relation means necessarily rehearsing the question in the same way that, for instance, I (think I) do in my work--a sort of dogmatic etc. obviously I'm not talking "form" as rhyme & meter etc anymore but something broader. hope this is somewhat coherent-- I'm at work & things keep happening around/to me to pull me away from the pc. I hear this said a lot round here, & I know, to be forever saying I'm bored is to admit that I have "no inner resources"--but, for what it's worth, one of the problems I have personally with much of this work is the sense of having things served to me on a platter: identity/assertion/tale du jour served up in a clear glass. whereas, to my mind, thought involves a bit more work than just "yes, yes" or "heavens I know the place" or that (god I hate this) poetry-noise people make at certain readings I get roped into attending from time to time, a kind of semi-orgasmic "oh" that signals "yes, I've been touched" & is sometimes, for maximal effect, emphasized by bringing one hand up to brush the chest... possibly this is less a matter of critique or even disrespect to the modes in question than disgust with Patrons of the Arts. but though there are greater complexities to some of these works, they do seem to encourage these responses, which bespeak a kind of "goes down smooth" commodifying presentation of their ostensibly political content. too, I have to question [says "rhetorically"] the rhetoric of visibility & representation that often supports this mode of discourse: whether certain language-forms don't distort what they ostensibly represent by disallowing some forms of expression altogether. the difference between chi-chi & mexico is palpable. & there is the possibility, isn't there, that arguments for access legitimate the authority of the dominant culture. which isn't of course to say "separatism" or "hold the [party] line, please"--but does explain why a broader acceptance on both sides is necessary. it's not a problem with me if gay couples want to live monogamously in the suburbs--the problem starts when people think gay couples *have* to live monogamously in the suburbs in order to be "legitimate". a language of "respect" is fine by me, though I'm not sure what form that would take for many of us, except possibly Absence of Malice. I suppose that's what we're trying to work out now. what does it mean to "respect", let alone "support" writers whose works I don't have any interest to read, even if we all "have an interest in" them? chris .. christopher alexander, etc. calexand@alexandria.lib.edu (Marriott Library Computer Systems) language code not found. illegal operation error. this program will shut down, & all unsaved data will be lost. if problem persists, consult your systems operator. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:37:57 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ira Lightman Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Is there a term that's the equivalent of literacy for consciousness? So that an empathetic consciousness, able to play and be open, is "literate", and this "literacy" is more important, more a priority for the kind of moralistic educationalist approach one finds in many postings on this thread (or that is expected in halls of learning)? Isn't literacy a secondary priority to, for example, raising consciousness that we don't kill each other and hurt each other and needlessly miss our opportunities for synergy with each other (human synergy in action, or what we may call caritas)? What is the bad that results from literary narrowmindedness, or formal conservatism *in writing*? Can formal conservatism, or even illiteracy, sometimes be the lynchpin of a kind person; and to rattle it is to lose the kind person, a destablising which can be like brainwashing? (:i.e. the person who's been rattled, by one's negative dialectic, can either go back to where they were through amnesia, or to acceeding to the brainwasher's line: don't very few go on to the independence of mind that is assumed as the point of education, yet is rarely achieved?) Cannot speech be seen as what's trying to come through the writing, and a kind of consciousness-literacy of a speech community be coming though? Could this consciousness-raising be being impeded by literacy education, our premium on it, and should itself be impeded? Is the argument against impeding literacy education the need to have information written down where it can be debated, i.e. law, because without writing you could not challenge leaders in a speech community? Then, has writing helped us challenge leaders? I chime most with Fiona Templeton's post: "And that much as we may like messing about in the matter of our art, doesn't "aesthetic" become limited to pretty reshuffle or stylistic look-alike if that poetic matter isn't a vehicle for being able to see anew in all senses? My terms aren't rigorous here either, I just think the question is important...." And these were my other questions. Ira Lightman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:52:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "by way of BETH LEE SIMON " Subject: Call for abs: forum on deixis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If you were unable to read it before, here it is again--thanks to Charles Bernstein. CALL FOR ABSTRACTS/PROPOSALS for a two-session forum STUDIES IN DEIXIS: WORKING THE MARGINS OF PRAGMATICS AND SEMANTICS for the Midwest Modern Language Association Meeting, Chicago, November 6-8, 1997, Ramada Congress Hotel Abstracts are being accepted for "Studies in Deixis: Working the Margins of Pragmatics and Semantics." The multidimensionality of deixis, a linguistic phenomenon at the heart of communication, remains one of the most intriguing aspects of human language. It is impossible to imagine communication that functions without deixis. Deictic elements such as pronouns, demonstrative adjectives, and spatial or temporal adverbs, express a user-centered perspective on time, place and person relationships in the social context of an utterance; simultaneously, they denote formal grammatical functions within an utterance. The aim of the forum is to bring together scholars working on different aspects of deixis--from formal linguistics to stylistics--to discuss the activity that occurs at the intersection of language and reality/structure and function. Publication of the proceedings is planned. Abstracts/proposals should be a maximum of 150 words in length and must be received by Friday, April 4, 1997. Send abstracts (e-mail preferred) to: Beth Lee Simon, Dept. of English and Linguistics IPFW, Fort Wayne, IN 46805 simon@cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu fax: 219-481-6985 and/or Anna Fellegy, Department of English, 207 Lind Hall, #185, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455 felle001@maroon.tc.umn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:02:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Mark Prejsnar wrote (in part): > > The emerging consensus, a sort of Rodney King line ("can't we all just get > > along?") is phrased in Robert's post by saying he likes both Perelman and > > Heaney. Similar dunciations of party-lineism can be found with increasing > > frequency; in Rasula's fabulous Wax Museum book, someone is quoted in a > > footnote as stating a similar warning on this listserv. (I have the book > > next to me, but can't find the reference right now.) > > > > I have great sympathy with this; I also feel that the new consensus is > > rising to dominance without as much discussion as I'd like...That was why > > I posted about five days ago, pointing out in very simplistic terms the > > two (now quite old) contemporary nonmainstream paradigms. The one opposed > > to get-alongism can be articulated, as I pointed out, in a sharply > > left-political way, as in classic LangPo theory; i.e. Seamus Heaney (or > > Amy Clampitt, or Philip Levine, or Adrienne Rich) work with form in such a > > way as to deaden the sensibility of readers, whereas more challenging > > formal work can empower by demanding that the reader become an active > > co-creator of culture, polity, of the world she lives in. I also have > > great sympathy with this argument, which gets pushed aside without enuff > > thought if we simply agree to have broad tastes. to which Joseph Lease responded: > > absolutely yes: the above could make a gorgeous manifesto for the activist > awareness of form, formal severity, beauty, discovery, play-- I've loved reading manifestos ever since I first started getting interested in this biz, which, for me, was William Blake and the English Dept., circa 1971 or so. Blake, as some of us might remember, thought that a good fight had the great virtue of clearing the air -- "without Contraries there's no Progression" -- and thus provocative positions (ANY provocative positions) might help us think through exactly what we feel about the issue at hand. Shelley's (and Sidney's) "Defense(s) of Poetry," Pound's "Three Don'ts," Olson's "Projective Verse," Silliman's "The New Sentence" -- these are all contentious manifestos, demanding response and articulation, not just a lukewarm "Yes but I like Robert Service too" (fill in the blank). So I applaud Mark's post here, and Dodie's earlier one, to the effect that we can and should be arguing different principles of poetics on this list -- with "respect" of course -- and beware of premature synthesis. I mean, what's a poetics list for? Hopefully poetics informs the work (which, by the way, is the OTHER thing we see too little of here! and thanks to Henry and Alan/Jennifer for that); sometimes it's just a necessary clearing of the ground before the work, sometimes it has nothing to do with the work! But, hopefully it has some kind of wit, style, humor, intelligence, i.e. "value" of its own. So, that said . . . . . . I have a lot of difficulties with the premise that Mark and Joseph advance above. Apologies in advance to the avant-garde gods -- I certainly wouldn't want to be seen as "conventional" -- but for me, Creeley's ancient dictum that Olson takes up in "Projective Verse" solved a lot of problems. That is, CONTENT (however defined) has to start the process -- something is the world is perceived (or "apperceived," as Whitehead would say) -- and this "thing" then creates its own form, which could be endlessly mutable and random, or could be a sonnet. Starting with an idea of form, for me, trivializes the work -- it brings in too many ancillary considerations, it provides work for academics (!), it ultimately deflects attention from the WORK, itself. We follow, if we do, a poem, or book of poems, through to the end because we're momentarily entranced, we want to know what happens, we feel it's important for our lives, that our lives in fact can't proceed until we finish the poem -- yes, of course we help create the meaning as we read, of course we're active participants, but that doesn't arise as a consequence of FORM, it arises because there's something there that preceded the form, that has demanded to be articulated in (yes) just this form, in just this way. (Was it Duncan that said "out of deep need"?) In other words, it's not an exercise. So arguing about traditional forms versus post-modernist forms, Rich versus Harryman, etc., I don't know, I just don't see it. A poem "works" -- or not -- for other reasons. But of course I welcome critique . . . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 13:10:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: form In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII one problem with conversations about form and innovation is the desire for caricature: it is not precise to say traditional equals conservative: and: it is not precise to say traditional does not equal conservative: so many are suggesting that we start with innovative/traditional with regard to what and why: and those thick specific descriptions can be starting points: re: why reach out and to whom?: well, if I may sound Black Mountain (please let me): the particulars of the poem generate the poet's need to reach out: for example Duncan felt he needed to reach out to George Herbert and what would it have meant to say no that is conservative ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 13:54:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII my whole point is that form is not an exercise: that it must be a discovery and must embody a real need also I don't think (I'm writing a bit fast this morning) that those were the paragraphs from Mark's post that I included in mine On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Joe Safdie wrote: > On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Mark Prejsnar wrote (in part): > > > > The emerging consensus, a sort of Rodney King line ("can't we all just get > > > along?") is phrased in Robert's post by saying he likes both Perelman and > > > Heaney. Similar dunciations of party-lineism can be found with increasing > > > frequency; in Rasula's fabulous Wax Museum book, someone is quoted in a > > > footnote as stating a similar warning on this listserv. (I have the book > > > next to me, but can't find the reference right now.) > > > > > > I have great sympathy with this; I also feel that the new consensus is > > > rising to dominance without as much discussion as I'd like...That was why > > > I posted about five days ago, pointing out in very simplistic terms the > > > two (now quite old) contemporary nonmainstream paradigms. The one opposed > > > to get-alongism can be articulated, as I pointed out, in a sharply > > > left-political way, as in classic LangPo theory; i.e. Seamus Heaney (or > > > Amy Clampitt, or Philip Levine, or Adrienne Rich) work with form in such a > > > way as to deaden the sensibility of readers, whereas more challenging > > > formal work can empower by demanding that the reader become an active > > > co-creator of culture, polity, of the world she lives in. I also have > > > great sympathy with this argument, which gets pushed aside without enuff > > > thought if we simply agree to have broad tastes. > > to which Joseph Lease responded: > > > > absolutely yes: the above could make a gorgeous manifesto for the activist > > awareness of form, formal severity, beauty, discovery, play-- > > I've loved reading manifestos ever since I first started getting > interested in this biz, which, for me, was William Blake and the English > Dept., circa 1971 or so. Blake, as some of us might remember, thought that > a good fight had the great virtue of clearing the air -- "without > Contraries there's no Progression" -- and thus provocative positions (ANY > provocative positions) might help us think through exactly what we feel > about the issue at hand. Shelley's (and Sidney's) "Defense(s) of Poetry," > Pound's "Three Don'ts," Olson's "Projective Verse," Silliman's "The New > Sentence" -- these are all contentious manifestos, demanding response > and articulation, not just a lukewarm "Yes but I like Robert Service too" > (fill in the blank). So I applaud Mark's post here, and Dodie's earlier > one, to the effect that we can and should be arguing different principles > of poetics on this list -- with "respect" of course -- and beware of > premature synthesis. I mean, what's a poetics list for? Hopefully poetics > informs the work (which, by the way, is the OTHER thing we see too little > of here! and thanks to Henry and Alan/Jennifer for that); sometimes it's > just a necessary clearing of the ground before the work, sometimes it has > nothing to do with the work! But, hopefully it has some kind of wit, > style, humor, intelligence, i.e. "value" of its own. So, that said . . . > > . . . I have a lot of difficulties with the premise that Mark and Joseph > advance above. Apologies in advance to the avant-garde gods -- I certainly > wouldn't want to be seen as "conventional" -- but for me, Creeley's > ancient dictum that Olson takes up in "Projective Verse" solved a lot of > problems. That is, CONTENT (however defined) has to start the process -- > something is the world is perceived (or "apperceived," as Whitehead would > say) -- and this "thing" then creates its own form, which could be > endlessly mutable and random, or could be a sonnet. Starting with an idea > of form, for me, trivializes the work -- it brings in too many ancillary > considerations, it provides work for academics (!), it ultimately deflects > attention from the WORK, itself. We follow, if we do, a poem, or book of > poems, through to the end because we're momentarily entranced, we want to > know what happens, we feel it's important for our lives, that our lives in > fact can't proceed until we finish the poem -- yes, of course we help > create the meaning as we read, of course we're active participants, but > that doesn't arise as a consequence of FORM, it arises because there's > something there that preceded the form, that has demanded to be > articulated in (yes) just this form, in just this way. (Was it Duncan that > said "out of deep need"?) > > In other words, it's not an exercise. > > So arguing about traditional forms versus post-modernist forms, Rich > versus Harryman, etc., I don't know, I just don't see it. A poem "works" > -- or not -- for other reasons. > > But of course I welcome critique . . . > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:54:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" eric, i think one way to institutionalize things in constructive ways is to consider turning a certain amount of responsibility over to students... to ask students to take an equal share of responsibility in their own educations... how this plays out in particular classrooms will vary... but in general, when i use a term like "student-centered," i mean instructors learning to let go some... learning to construct courses in which, for example, students have a hand in constructing "assignments"... which, btw, is *not* what is meant, generally --- as i'm sure you know --- when admins use the term (what they mean is that students are now, as consumers, entitled to "excellence" in education --- entitled, that is, to the sort of education that corporations expect of good consumers)... i hope this doesn't sound like a dodge on my part, as an instructor... i'm willing to accept responsibility --- i just can't be held completely responsible for a desire to learn... albeit i *can be* responsible for creating an environment in which such desire --- its absence or presence, its type and degree of presence --- is an accessible, active part of a course (or discourse)... i have much in sympathy with the left here in general, and not with the right, insofar as what my ultimate agenda is (a sloppy version would be something like 'helping to build a better world' --- which includes the world of education, mself)... but certainly there are abuses of instructional authority on both the left AND the right --- if we take "left" and "right" to mean where our more specific political sympathies lie... once some folks get to lording it over others, they become real dictators --- no matter their party loyalties... of course, "lording it over" varies in terms of amount of institutional sanction rec'd... a "strict" prof is often viewed positively --- esp. by 'advanced' students in the sciences (believe me) --- *but* if the prof is strict about inculcating the "masterpieces" of "world lit," she will probably face fewer problems from the admin and from students than if she's strict about theorizing the nature of the educational process itself... sad to say, more functional, consumer-oriented types are likely to regard this latter as mere navel-gazing... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 14:30:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: zoothology MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII The zoo-nalogy has never really persuaded me and the more I think about it the more I am troubled by its implicit organicism. On the face of it, the comparison seems to depend on the idea of representativeness: two polar bears, two poems by x. Poems, however, are not individuals but always exist in multiple states, whereas polar bears are both unique entities and members of a reproductive and ecological class. Sure, both poems and polar bears originate in situations which zoos and anthologies cannot hope to replicate; but the being of bears is altered, probably for the worse, and I do not think of poetry as having the kind of ontological status which can be distorted in that way. Of course, anthologies which aim for representativeness carve up a poem, the work of a poet or of a group, in ways which are usually unsatisfactory to those who are devoted to the uncarved texts and contexts. But when Duncan in "Ideas of the Meaning of Forms" appeals to his "immediate concerns in living" and to "inner need" as justifications for Allen's anthology-groups, he dismisses the possibility of reconfiguring the poetry of his contemporaries in ways other than that which is dependent on his private understanding of his own social network. This network colludes with his poetics of forms, and in the context of an anthology substitutes for it. The collusion is ultimately a kind of organicism which like the zoo analogy is nostalgic for the unbroken body and its radiating concentric textual affiliations. Anthologies can do a better or worse job of sampling poets; to repudiate such sampling I think requires more than a clever quip. I think anthologies can help re-frame poems in ways which are responsible to contexts but which do not make essential claims for definitive representation; they can serve the end of promoting poetry when understood as provisional collections, works in progress. They should never serve as an evasion of the work of discovering and questioning principles of selection, but instead should be an invitation to do so, which is only what we have been stating or suggesting. Comparison to zoos rests on questionable premises. Gary R ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 14:30:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Form/A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From James Scully, _Line Break: Poetry as Social Practice_ (Seattle: Bay Press, 1988) "We need a provisional, intramural history of poetic technique: one that may not explicitly engage the subtler extra-poetic conditions of poetic practice, but that will approach technique(s) historically, dialectically, rather than as a succession of devices or still lifes. The absence of this history is disabling. Writers (not stylists, who are locked in synchronicity) do assume a technical history. Yet in our time there has been no serious attempt to theorize that history. When and where a history appears, it is as an encyclopedia of discrete fragments and arbitrary givens: a catalog of forms in space. The reasons why there is no such history are many and complex. For instance, even my generalizations about technique are based on the unarticulated technical history that informs, _and is a consequence of_, my own technical practice. There is no metahistorical source of illumination or (re)construction. I understand and reconstitute past technical practices by the light of my own practice (itself 'born' among untheorized absorptions), but that's all any writer does. The point is, this discussion must take place in a primitive half-light. We haven't even begun to _desire_ a shared understanding of what it is that we have been doing. Or why. There is no Darwin or Marx of poetry. Not even a L=E9vi-Strauss. Poetic technique, like a de rigueur= dead saint, is shrouded in more mist than the relations of (economic) production ever were." Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. --Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:05:07 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Demian Subject: Re: form Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Christopher Alexander wrote: "what does it mean to "respect", let alone "support" writers whose works I don't have any interest to read, even if we all "have an interest in" them?"." "Respect" and "support" of course are completely different things from "like", "admire" or even "advocate". To respect a work implies an understanding of the poetics which underpins it. If you can understand what impells a poem or poetry, see the logic and agree that the logic is sound, I think you have a degree of respect, and the potential for support; whereas if you see the logic and feel it is flawed in any way, there is unlikely to be any respect and this certaintly precludes support. You can have a language of respect without liking, admiring or advocating, but I don't believe you can do so without an interest. It should not be a given that it is necessary to respect or support for any given writing, but this doesn't rule out having an open-minded interest to begin with. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:09:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: _Stepping Razor_ by A.L. Nielsen announcing publication of _Stepping Razor_ by A.L.Nielsen "What Bogart was to crime-flicks, Nielsen is to postmodern poetry--a conscience and a court-jester by turns. Rueful comedy, at once spacey and rigorous, very funny. Read this book if it's the first thing you do." --David Bromige "The poetry of Aldon Nielsen is marked by rare insight, which penetrates the invisible moments of our daily peregrenations." --Will Alexander co-published by Edge Books & Upper Limit 64 pages, perfectbound paperback cover art by Laura Wilber $10 postpaid Orders to: Edge Books POBox 25642 Washington, DC 20007 other Edge Books available, all prices postpaid: _Errata 5uite_ by Joan Retallack, $8. _Asbestos_ by Wayne Kline, $6. _the julia set_ by Jean Donnelly, $4. _Dogs_ by Phyllis Rosenzweig, $5. _Cusps_ by Chris Stroffolino, $2.50. _World Prefix_ by Harrison Fisher, $4. _On Your Knees, Citizen: A Collection of "Prayers" for the "Public" [Schools]_ ed. Rod Smith, Lee Ann Brown, & Mark Wallace, $6. _Aerial 8: Barrett Watten_ ed. Rod Smith, $14.95. _Aerial 6/7_ featuring John Cage, ed. Rod Smith, $15. checks payable to Aerial/Edge. thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:15:43 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This brings up losts of interesting stuff....I see some good points to >this critique, but...First off, it simply takes it for granted that form >need not be discussed; No it doesn't. I believe strongly form should be discussed, but don't expect everyone to have to discuss it before I will talk with them, hell i go to all kinds of movies, but i make a special effort when i feel there is something of quality or groundbreaking (& i don't mean just in special effects) value. I feel the same about poetry. , I think it muddies things >quite a bit to conflate Olson and various more recent practitioners in a >vague way with a somewhat fuzzy "early marxism." The various >political/poetical formulations at issue here are more carefully worked >out, in many cases, than to deserve that! I was trying not to do that, my point was more 'in its non-participation with many it is claiming to be political for'... I am in no way questioning your activism & empathise with your feelings below. Yours, dan > >My own practice on the left, as an activist, for 25 years, makes me VERY >wary of folks questioning my beliefs, on the grounds that by being >militant I'm forcing my values on some (less empowered) other; that is >almost always the argument of the right against the left, in my opinion. >My answer, which I feel is accurate, is: this is my struggle, I'm fighting >it for me, and for others who I'm in solidarity with; ain't tryng to force >anything on anyone;....and mutatis mutanda that applies here. > >Mark Prejsnar >Atlanta > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:17:24 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: In the disturbed tree Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think your post Mark, while articulating your position well, misses Robert's point. I saw no such pat homile (could be the name of a c&w poet) as 'can't we all just get along'. Rather a discussion of the different values of other less 'experimental' poetries. The point i made earlier about old marxist politics - i think is partly reflected in your statement below. My question is - What good left wing politics if the only time you think they are valid in poetry is when linked up with 'language' poetry. Surely politics is about change, and for change you need to reach those people who make change, or pull to gether enough to shout loud enough. So Walcott, Heaney, Rich etc are written off as not adressing adequately questions of language. So their poetry is not of your taste... I think you can articulate that without dismissing their value to the THOUSANDS of lesser committed poetry participants who glean at least a little political empathy - be that gender, race or colonial issues from their accessible populist art. I am just aware that many talented, educated non-White poetry readers i have come accross dismiss langpo as WHITE & elitist. While i do not think this a fair accusation & argue my case for langpo frequently, there exists a strong distrust - and you have to admit that on the surface it is a white movement. I am aware of the necessary value of langpo politics - but what good from sitting on the top of a hill & never going down to drink with other folk & by this action never making them feel welcome in your turf. Dan Salmon >two (now quite old) contemporary nonmainstream paradigms. The one opposed >to get-alongism can be articulated, as I pointed out, in a sharply >left-political way, as in classic LangPo theory; ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:33:03 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joe Safdie--- I hope none of us are quite in favor of "starting with form," so that we have no interest in actual human experience!! But please remember that many a Richard Wilbur fan will look at some of the following and say, there is no real human experience there, it's only about form (I know, because I've had it happen in conversation more than once): Finnegans Wake The Kingfishers Spicer anything by Zukofsky, practically Rene Char Mac Low Joe Ceravolo Now, I can't speak for anyone else, but that's a pretty basic reading-list of some works that have shaped me, and that I don't think anyone should consider beyond the pale, too lacking in contact with human experience. When I speak of nonmainstream wrk, that's the ground level from which I assume we're building....Is that a group of poets and works too preoccupied only with form??!!! Yee gods! Mark Prejsnar ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 16:02:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Eric, for bringing some of these points back to teaching & its responsibility. There's the rub, eh? > What strikes me as odd in all this is a kind of elision in any pedagogy >in that no one seems to talk about what we think we're doing as teachers. >I.e., what the goal of teaching is? This usually gets worked out in terms >of a dialectic, unquestioned, of indocrination or improvement. I can only speak in personal terms, and this trope of improvement is necessary to these terms: I can only hope that they are better for the experience after putting in the hours. But by better I mean that they are considering more alternatives, making more conscious choices, questioning their assumptions, understanding a larger dimension (political/ethical/etc.) in these choices and assumptions. I try to do this in a workshop by giving them a huge breadth of "poetics" texts (journalism as well as theory, and from throughout the 20th century terrain). Because I feel I'm not much of a talker I have never felt comfortable with holding forth, and I still have not found an adequate way of questioning the entire (learned, albeit invested) approach to poetry on the part of a student. I also always begin discussion of a student poem by asking what operations it's employing, as a way of orienting us to it, rather than vice versa and running the risk of skewing all work just to please my own aesthetic/politics. But by reading all of these questioning texts, students generally begin to raise a lot of the bigger issues, and perhaps 80% of the time begin to question themselves, too, before the other students get the chance. They give each other material on a lot of structure aspects (space, metrics, traditional forms, etc.), and here too I supplement with many sides of various arguments around what appears to them at first glance as cut-and-dry "purely formal" approaches. I'm more like an indulgent mom that I want to admit: I don't ever assign them say a sonnet, but I like them to have the whole array, the whole toy chest, at their disposal. What I do give are a lot of throwaway in-class exercises (chance, etc.) to help melt the deep-freeze both graduate and undergraduate writers can lock into when honing this kind of ambivalence about every "speech act." In an institutional framework, how do we avoid >teaching institutionalization? Included in the texts I make them read are a lot of critiques of an academic context for poetry. Students usually come in after reading these impatient with the whole kit&kaboodle, and keen on altering the idea of a workshop. Once again undermining the teacher/writer spell is a big relief to me. The biggest tangle in this though, privately, is that sometimes I leave a classroom feeling more like a resource room than the kind of critical guide I learned so much from by working against in my own edification. To counteract this, I comment and steer a great deal individually, ever bracketing with my own bias. It often feels ridiculously labyrinthine, this hobbled process o. Someone noted a week back or so Simon Frith's piece on "value" in the Chronicle of Higher Education 3/14. He wrote that students "should have to think about evaluation and why it matters," but the only example he can offer his participation in a UK jury that awards a music prize and its agreeing that "our decision would be determined not by vote but by persuasion." This conjures articulate defenders of abysmal poems, in the classroom, dissuading other students from their good questions. In truth, I admit, I do judge some poems abysmal, and do my best to explore those good questions. No doubt this has been discussed ad infinitum in years past on this list and it's been skirted since I signed on (I remember some helpful postings from Dodie), but as someone who went through no MFA mill except now to teach in one, ideas on teaching in an era of etherized value would be much, much appreciated. Susan W. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:52:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Form/A branch off the "Disturbed" thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ah david, thanx for that!... how's the rest of that book?... this is why (and where) the question of poetry opens to that of technology... i would think it impossible to discuss "technique" without reference to what's been going on in history of science/history of technology, and for that matter, without reference to broader sociocultural trends in the workplace and elsewhere (and texts which have plumbed, again, that "lit-sci" interface)... of course poets have, depending on the poet, been more or less attuned to such developments... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 18:45:15 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Disturbed Tree/Contraries MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joe Safdie wrote (of Pound, Olson, others): > these are all contentious manifestos, demanding response > and articulation, not just a lukewarm "Yes but I like Robert Service too" Before I get cast as the Pat Boone of poetic blandness, smiling sweetly in my white bucks, let me say this: what I've said is not that we should appreciate all poetries equally everywhere and always, nor is it that we should simply play nice -- what I've been asking for is an investigation of the plurality of tastes. That is, if someone out there can both assent to Perelman's or Olson's or Pound's dicta, and still say "yes but I like Robert Service too" (a low blow, that, makes me sound unbelievably sniveling) -- what is at work in this person's act of distinction? What work do these (apparently contradictory) aesthetic commitments involve, in a particular context? What I've been asking for is an exploration of this kind. Dan -- thanks for: > > > > I think your post Mark, while articulating your position well, misses > > Robert's point. I saw no such pat homile (could be the name of a c&w poet) > > as 'can't we all just get along'. Rather a discussion of the different > > values of other less 'experimental' poetries. Robert Archambeau ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:48:34 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: contracted SUNY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ["pause for a brief inquiry"]: I heard last night that SUNY profs, with all negotiations stalled, have been working 9 months without a contract. is this true?! I admit that I don't always follow the list so closely, but surely I would have heard about it here? chris .. christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************** forthcoming in march: _constellation voice_ by linda russo ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:35:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: for those in the neighborhood (Antin talk piece) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For those in or around Tucson, or likely to be on the day before Easter: David Antin is going to be doing a talk piece, "yesterday tomorrow today." saturday, March 29, at 10 a.m. In the ahem "Swede" Johnson Building (Foundation/Alumni Building) on NW corner of Speedway & Cherry (1111 N Cherry). In the "Dining Room" (it's a BIG dining room). Free, and free eats (modest). David will be appearing as part of the Arizona Quarterly Symposium, which runs Th the 27th through Sat the 29th. Others appearing: Ed Dryden (on Melville), Susan Griffin (on James), Pat O'Donnell (on Mailer), Judith Roof (on "Perverse Viewing: Eve Arden and the Bliss of the Secondary"); Don Pease (on Jack London). I can post or backchannel a full schedule if anyone is interested. There's also a big bash on Saturday night. Hope to see some of you there. best Tenney ---------------------------------------------------------- tenney nathanson tenney@azstarnet.com nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 20:49:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: FC2/BIB funding cuts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To the list: Publishers Weekly (3/17/97 issue) has a story about how Rep. Pete Hoekstra is calling into question a $25,000 grant to FC2/BIB. He is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. He says that he is upset by the sexually explicit material which is "an offense to the senses of this Subcomittee and, I would presume, to the taxpayers that have been unwittingly forced to pay for it." (I suppose that explains that curious pain I've been feeling in my shoulder.) He is also questioning a $45,000 grant to the Unit for Contemporary Literature at Illinois State. Seems he is also upset that they are going to use this money to put up a Web site showing their smutty books. Meanwhile, the university and FC2 have a week to produce requested documentation for the Subcommittee. There goes some of that grant money, but then that's almost certainly the intent. Story is by Bridget Kinsella. Perhaps Michael Coffey could post the entire article to the list. Not so coincidentally, there is another story on the same page about Wole Soyinka being charged with treason by the Nigerian government. They claim he is connected to a series of bombings of army installations. __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 20:14:12 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: "deeply disturbed" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >What is the bad >that results from literary narrowmindedness, or formal >conservatism *in writing*? > Not too much when you just hone in on individual writers writing their individual poems. But what happens when such narrowminded people sit in positions of authority over other people's writing: editors, teachers, publishers, grant judges, etc. Having experienced more than a few narrowminded editors, teachers, publishers, grant judges, etc., I can say it is wonderful if they like you and you jibe with their tastes, and pretty darn miserable when you don't. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:16:20 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: form/"deeply disturbed" (incestuous dub mix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT thanks for a good & serious response, demian. I like your thoughts on "respect", though honestly I think the poetic logic which informs some of the work I (& others) mentioned is flawed; & as much sympathy as I may have with the impetus of the work--be that irish nationalism or any of various feminisms or an attempt to increase class consciousness--I am suspicious of much of it on the basis of the subject relations it sets up & the relationship of content to form, which can seem more like language as hand-truck, loaded with pre-determined meaning, than a deep encounter with the medium & its relation to meaning (which, yes, can happen outside of what we here term-- most recently--"innovative" work). I guess I'm suspicious--though probably not so dismissive as I let on earlier--of a poetry that is primarily attractive to me by means of what it says, the sort of gestalt of political ideas visible through the poem, or which the poem stands for (acts as a representative of), than what the poem itself actually says, i.e., the poem itself as an evolution of meaning as inextricable from form & vice versa. & if I'm not or if I try not to be dismissive of such a poetry, it's more because of my enthusiasm for the kind of social relations of which that poetry partakes-- as with joe amato's mention of poetry that appeals to the experience of vietnam vets, poetry that they can "relate to" directly, or (ever been to a marilyn hacker reading?)--than out of enthusiasm for that poetry. & when I am dismissive, as often I am, it's at least in part because, outside of the immediate social context (i.e., a way of bringing people together physically), I think there's more benefit in reading a good provocative essay or a book which engages those political questions specifically & in detail, than in the usual sort of head-nodding recognition. I guess, though, that when I asked "what does it mean to respect/support etc", I should have specified that I was thinking in more practical terms, viz., what form, in practice, does this "respect" or "support" take? it's a very fine thing to announce it here ["everybody I love you"], but what is actually being proposed? will we teach these poets? buy their books? read their books? attend their readings? invite them to read with us? I'm not sure I'm willing to do these things. I've read enough of heaney & walcott, for instance, to last me; & enough "hard-hitting" "tell-it-like-it-is" american "poetry of protest" to consider reading more. I own this could be my intolerant streak showing--I do have one. [straight edge = "hate edge"]. but, he asks in a friendly manner, how far, then, or where specifically, do others intend to go? chris .. christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************** forthcoming in march: _constellation voice_ by linda russo ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:27:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: in or around tucson? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:35 PM 3/17/97 -0700, you wrote: >For those in or around Tucson, or likely to be on the day before Easter: > >David Antin is going to be doing a talk piece, "yesterday tomorrow >today." > >saturday, March 29, at 10 a.m. thanks, tenney and also, for anyone in around or about to visit Tucson: A POETRY READING & Reception TOM MANDEL Sunday, March 23, 7:30 pm at the Chax Press Studio 101 West Sixth St., no. 6 (enter on west side of warehouse building, the middle of three doors) no admission charge Call Chax Press at 620-1626 for more information Tom Mandel's book of poetry, Prospect of Release, was recently published by Chax Press. Tom Mandel was born in Chicago in 1942, the American child of Austrian Jews fleeing Hitler. He was educated in Chicago's public schools and jazz/blues clubs, and at the University of Chicago. He has lived in New York, Paris, and San Francisco, and now resides in Washington DC. Mandel is the author of ten books of poetry. His first book, Ency (Tuumba, 1978), was a foundational work in th early history of language poetry. Recent books include Four Strange Books (GAZ, 1990), Realism (Burning Deck, 1991), Letters of the Law (Sun & Moon, 1994), Ancestral Cave (Zasterle, 1996), Prospect of Release (Chax, 1996), and, with the late Daniel Davidson, Absence Sensorium (Potes & Poets, 1996). The poet Ron Silliman says of Prospect of Release, "These are the most intensely felt poems I have ever read." from Prospect of Release, by Tom Mandel: Subtle, handsome vanity visits me. Hands large, fingers long, face modeled and content, a bare spark binding to release, soul dances in the prospect. Hands drew across his face. None to comfort me but him, and he is gone. My reverence is modeled on his absence the absence of his lips and eyes. Dust entered a window behind his head, whirred in a shaft of Autumn light. Winter light. Silent, a message it did not bear but now suggests, long settled like an issue, election or argument, cleaved rock, or two that never joined. ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:33:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: another in tucson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If you have a chance to be in Tucson on April 12 Saturday, April 12 7pm Dinnerware Gallery (135 E. Congress in downtown Tucson) A Reading by KAREN MAC CORMACK & STEVE McCAFFERY And a celebration of Karen's new book, The Tongue Moves Talk, due out then from Chax Press Reception in the gallery to follow the reading This reading will also be taped by KXCI radio and broadcast at a later date. I'll let you know when that will be. ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 21:57:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Form/A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <199703172352.RAA26017@charlie.cns.iit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 17 Mar 1997 amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU wrote: > ah david, thanx for that!... how's the rest of that book?... Damn good, actually. In my view, one of the best books of its kind in recent memory, up there with Silliman's _New Sentence_ tho not nearly so well known. Scully takes his Marxism very seriously, and to good effect. In the essay quoted, he distains what he calls "stylistics" in advocating an approach to form deriving from Macherey and Althusser. Buyt despite that, the prose is never dry. > this is why (and where) the question of poetry opens to that of > technology... i would think it impossible to discuss "technique" without > reference to what's been going on in history of science/history of > technology, and for that matter, without reference to broader sociocultural > trends in the workplace and elsewhere (and texts which have plumbed, again, > that "lit-sci" interface)... of course poets have, depending on the poet, > been more or less attuned to such developments... More or less is right. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:06:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Disturbance in the Field In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII David Bromige will meet with my graduate seminar at San Jose State University on Tuesday night March 18 -- any in the area are invited to drop by -- Seminar meets in Sweeney Hall 348, next to the seventh street garage, at 7:00 P.M. -- If you need directions, call me at (408) 924-4488, and leave a number where I can call you back -- also I'll be in Atlanta for the College Language Association meeting over at Spellman and environs April 16-20 -- Is anybody else on this list headed there this year? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 21:15:33 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Disturbance in the Field MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You trust David with your grad students? Miekal ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 23:57:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: shoemakers@COFC.EDU Subject: Re: Disturbed Tree/Contraries Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <332D913B.1CE4@LFC.EDU> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII re: "the Pat Boone of poetic blandness"--Has anyone else noticed that Pat has undergone some sort of bizarre heavy-metalish makeover? Last time i saw him on the tube he was sporting leather, chest hair, and tattoos (albeit, probably the kind that wash off... steve ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 21:06:49 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Disturbance in the Field In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >David Bromige will meet with my graduate seminar at San Jose State >University on Tuesday night March 18 Glad you alerted us about this. Now, if Bromige claims that I was a co-author of his scabrous unpublished novel _Piccolo Mondo_, I want to go on record as saying I didnt have anything to do with it. In fact, I could not finish reading it. It is not only gratuitously pornographic, but it is also politically insensitive. I wash my hands and declare innocence. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 00:29:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: form/"deeply disturbed" (incestuous dub mix) In-Reply-To: <171F8F2482@alexandria.lib.utah.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, Christopher Alexander wrote: > > I guess, though, that when I asked "what does > it mean to respect/support etc", I should have > specified that I was thinking in more practical > terms, viz., what form, in practice, does this > "respect" or "support" take? > what is actually being proposed? > will we teach these poets? buy their books? > read their books? attend their readings? invite > them to read with us? > he asks in a friendly manner, how far, then, or > where specifically, do others intend to go? > A very large question to which I can give only this small answer. As a reviewer of nonmainstream poetry, I try not only to place reviews with the magazines and reviews which serve this group (I know these are all very general terms, but I'm trying to be brief), but with more mainstream journals as well. I only review what I enjoy and fully understand so my reviews are written more from a descriptive than evaluative perspective. This, I think, helps readers unfamiliar with innovative poetry to find a thread which they can follow. I don't how "far" this goes but I hope that it is supportive. cheers, Steven (proud winner of the Golden Shamrock Award) __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 23:44:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jocelyn Emerson Subject: Re: Disturbed Tree/Contraries In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >re: "the Pat Boone of poetic blandness"--Has anyone else noticed that >Pat has undergone some sort of bizarre heavy-metalish makeover? Last >time i saw him on the tube he was sporting leather, chest hair, and >tattoos (albeit, probably the kind that wash off... >steve Yes, apparently he did this as a joke for some TV music awards thing, but it got him in a hell of a lot of trouble with his Christian TV audience for his daily sunday program (somewhere) and apparently, in thinking about the censorship he's gotten from that audience, he's rethinking some of his more doctrinal assumptions about appearance vs. reality, and humour. A happy ending. Jocelyn Emerson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 22:13:21 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: Disturbed Tree/Contraries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > re: "the Pat Boone of poetic blandness"--Has anyone else noticed that > Pat has undergone some sort of bizarre heavy-metalish makeover? Last > time i saw him on the tube he was sporting leather, chest hair, and > tattoos (albeit, probably the kind that wash off... > steve mein gott! I miss those smiling white bucks. chris "spiked with milk" etc .. christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************** forthcoming in march: _constellation voice_ by linda russo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 00:43:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: clare emily clifford Subject: sharon olds..... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i don't think this has been mentioned before but i thought i'd send the news on... for those interested or in the near area sharon olds will be reading at university of virginia in charlottesville, virginia at one pm on wednesday march 19th and on thursday march 20th at 3pm.... i believe that both readings are going to be the the UVa bookstore... hope some of you might be able to make it... smiles, love and light, clare emily 'the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which would not actually kill him... at that point he's in business...' -john berryman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:09:58 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: Blarnes oeuvre In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 16 Mar 1997, Henry Gould wrote: > Has anyone read the poetry (early, especially) of Eric Blarnes? Controversial Henry, where is it to be found? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:58:05 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: Blarnes oeuvre In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henry, You got me. But what else do you know about 30s anglo-indian poets? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:31:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: from "Joe Safdie" at Mar 17, 97 10:02:57 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe wrote: > Apologies in advance to the avant-garde gods -- I certainly > wouldn't want to be seen as "conventional" -- but for me, Creeley's > ancient dictum that Olson takes up in "Projective Verse" solved a lot of > problems. That is, CONTENT (however defined) has to start the process -- > . . . Starting with an idea > of form, for me, trivializes the work -- it brings in too many ancillary > considerations, it provides work for academics (!), it ultimately deflects > attention from the WORK, itself. . . > that doesn't arise as a consequence of FORM, it arises because there's > something there that preceded the form, that has demanded to be > articulated in (yes) just this form, in just this way. (Was it Duncan that > said "out of deep need"?) > A poem "works" -- or not -- for other reasons. Isn't your "(however defined)" precisely the issue, Joe? You can read the Creeley at least two ways, one of which blurs into a kind of sloppy Platonic dualism, the other of which sees these two domains (of thinking?--is this an ontological problem--or a taxonomic one?) to be immanent each within the other. And it is important to keep in mind (as someone--I think Professor Perloff--pointed out) that form is NOT rhymes and quantities, but--what?--a kind of thinking? (your "work"?). After reading a hundred books of poems for an omnibus review for University of Tornto Quarterly, I was sharply reminded of what both Olson and Creeley were concerned to get away from--that self-satisfied display of the poet's skill (at doing what's been done). It doesn't really matter, finally, whether the device is the perfect metaphor or the perfect syntagmatic distortion. The YAWN is the same. YES to the Duncan (tho now I think maybe it's originally Pound), but is there any way to separate that "need" from what you're calling "form"? Contrarily, Mike mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:41:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: deep need MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No, what a dummy I am, it's Zukofsky: Out of deep need four trombones and the organ in the nave something like that, but definitely Zukofsky. Tho I'll bet Duncan wished he'd said it. Mike mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 08:43:44 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: formally disturbed Once again, I find all the talk about "formal innovation" and "challenging the reader" vs. "manipulating the reader" with "conventional rhyme and meter" set in a "political" context of "radical" and "conservative" to be pure unadulterated yimmer-yammer & hogwash. I refer you all to Baudelaire, Villon, or recent hip-hop "breakthroughs". I refer you to Edgar Poe & Valery. I refer you to Whitman's constancy, his readable expressiveness. I donate you to Emily, if you dare stand in the same room with her. You are still living among the tombs of John Crowe Ransom & pals, the 1950s and Wilbur's (and Ashbery's, and Lowell's, and Rich's, and Ginsburg's & all dat generation's) SLEEP. And they snore on the veritable edge, the periphery, the surface, the shim, the slag, the nothing, of what poetry is all about. Your idea of "conservative form" is not even THE BEGINNING of what it's about. I will allow all manner of bravery and daring and innovation - but I will judge by results - the impact of the whole thing. Show me something found and won - not something mumbled and put-over, and justified as "experimental." - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:49:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Disturbed Tree/Contraries Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <332D913B.1CE4@LFC.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey. Hey. Let's not stereotype Pat Boone either. His rendition of Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" on the new album of the same title is, well, really something. Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:10:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: pre-determined form in the avant garde MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I've been following this mini-thread about form as exploratory or predetermined with some interest, and I did want to point out that there is, in fact, quite a bit of interesting avant garde poetry that works with certain elements of predetermined form. The non-intentional methods of Jackson Mac Low, for instance, have often used a variety of pre-determined mathematical, computer, and other techniques to shape the form of his poems, and indeed much of his work revolves around such structures. Similar examples--Silliman's use of Fibonacci sequences in, I believe, Tjanting (I'm at work--no books in front of me), Tina Darragh's use of the dictionary. Given time, I could probably come up with more--but I've got no time this morning. In any case, the relation between exploratory and pre-determined form is quite complex--in some cases, predetermined forms of various types and degrees can certainly be exploratory and about discovery. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu "I have not yet begun | | to go to extremes" | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:11:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: formally disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" henry, the only possible way i can take your more recent provocation is thusly: that we're busy, around here usually, talking *about*, not actually enacting, poetry (whatever this latter)... and i don't quite understand -- though i trust you have some writing in mind here? -- how our, well, more critical demeanors are going to "measure up" or some such to poetry in poetic terms... or to be a bit provocative mself, how poetry is going to "measure up" or some such to criticism in critical terms... (if you'll permit me this one archaism) my heart may lie with trying to write a poem... but i'm still not about to dismiss all commentary as merely ex post facto... as a matter of fact, i don't think we're all still barking at the new critical moon, either... so though i believe it's correct to point, say, to hip-hop as apropos of what's happening these days --- the spirit of your post (?) --- i think it's probably not so helpful to dismiss the chatter in these parts as "hogwash"... seems to me this is a function of how one comes to these regions --- and while i'll allow that there are all sortsa motivations possible, i take it as an article of faith that most of us are here to learn something from one another... which again is not to suggest that you or i don't have a sense of humor... i know you do, and i do too --- so to return the gesture in kind --- and what i've been trying, in so many words, to say --- is that, dear henry, your post strikes me as, well, balderdash... best, really joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:24:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: zoothology In-Reply-To: <01IGM1829CJMHV4F72@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Gary's response is excellent, and very helpful...I do feel though that Antin's remark was more than a "clever quip" --to some extent it was a cri de coeur; it reflects a way poets often feel, when dismembered in order to be remembered. It's a reasonably serious feeling in relation to one's work (one's self-construction); it needn't be taken primarily as a snide attack on anthologists; if you place yourself at the existential point of the writer being anthologized, it has some honest resonance (like any real cry from the heart, it's validity doesn't mean that it isn't also a limited point of view; on the contrary of course it emphasizes its partiality as a pserspective!) Mark Prejsnar ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:37:04 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: In the disturbed tree In-Reply-To: <199703172017.IAA17848@ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dan first sent his post to me privately; since the same text has now been sent to the list, I'm re-posting a copy of my backchannel reply to him.. Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:38:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: In the disturbed tree (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:54:26 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Prejsnar To: DS Subject: Re: In the disturbed tree Well, I'm not sure.....Uh, you say I missed soneone else's point, but none of your arguments in your posting to me seem to be replying to positions I've articulated...I explicitly said that the "tolerant" position is one with which I feel a lot of sympathy; the poets you firmly list as ones who may not be to my taste (Walcott, Heaney, Rich)..I haven't been disparaging 'em here (on the Poetix list), I specifically mentioned that I have sympathy with ALL these positions;,,,that's one of the reasons I was trying to get more debate stirred up (--this thread has been very exciting to me; too often the list gets bogged down, in my opinion, in personal chit-chat, or topics very far from its ostensible theme). I've read the 3 poets you accuse me of disliking for 20 years or so, know them well, and have plenty of respect for them. Now what various Black or female etc. poets or readers think about LangPo, I can't precisely help...One of the basic lessons I take from both publishing my work and working on the left since around 1969 (when I was in 7th grade) is, that you can't let anyone else make your choices for you. I think it's very interesting that few people ask jazz musicians/affecianados to justify to working or Black people their love of Ornette Coleman's music! But he occupies a similar place in the universe of musical expression that say Clark Coolidge does in universe of poetry...So no, I don't really give a damn that some people don't like my work or Coolidges..I'm no longer young and there isn't time to be held back by browbeating. I don't identify myself or my work with LangPo, which is a term I believe shd. be used specifically for the folks who used it of themselves and involved themselves with that circle's activities...Meserli, Silliman, Perelman, Hejinian, Harryman, our great list-owner,etc. But I of course think their work has been helpful and empowering. However, I do indeed think that those more establishment-approved poets should be read and responded to; by expressing a hope that we on the list could thresh out these positions (the tolerant vs. the sharp-edged political poetix of someone like Bruce Andrews, say) I meant just that: that I hoped we could have a broader and broader dialogue. You seem to be implying that I was putting people (and positions) down where I most difintely wasn't, and trying to shut off dialoge, which I most definitely wasn't.. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:43:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: <199703181331.IAA09914@chass.utoronto.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Michael Boughn wrote: > Isn't your "(however defined)" precisely the issue, Joe? You can read > the Creeley at least two ways, one of which blurs into a kind of sloppy > Platonic dualism, the other of which sees these two domains (of > thinking?--is this an ontological problem--or a taxonomic one?) to be > immanent each within the other. And it is important to keep in mind > (as someone--I think Professor Perloff--pointed out) that form is NOT > rhymes and quantities, but--what?--a kind of thinking? (your "work"?). > Let me chime in: Yeah, sure. But in practice talk about poetry seems to keep privileging one over the other; either we talk about content in terms of form (form comes first), or vice versa (the form "fitting" the content). The problem is, reading Creeley's dicta rigorously doesn't necessary last into our reading of actual poems. Besides, this "immanentist" reading actually blurs Creeley's words. Form as an extension of content is NOT the same thing as Content as an extension form. "Extension" suggests temporal and ontological priority. I'm not saying we should not dissolve such priorities; I'm only saying that dissolving them in practice is pretty damn difficult. That was one element of my critique of Perloff in _Diacritics_. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:23:11 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:11:15 -0600 from my balderdash is very specifically motivated, Joe. Let me hedge my remarks by acknowledging my limitations. I too am a dweller among the tombs. I'm Gould. I'm ghosted. I'm spooked. In poetry, I face backwards (both faces) and listen. My daily grind in a library only augments that particular narrow strength/limitation. (Not to say libraries face backwards - far from it. But it gives me fuel for my particular aim.) My approach has always been to inhabit & build on past methods. This is inherently conservative (no matter what models you choose). What most people find innovative & exciting in poetry today builds on the border between poetry per se and other things: music, math, theory, marginality, other cultures, performance, visual art, bizarre language practices, etc. But I say poetry's on a continuum between such things and poetry per se, which is made of words. Words themselves are already so distended, deep, distortable, dimensional, messy, mundane, non-poetic, that adjacent arts - music, visual - are, for me, always just that: adjacent. Poetry per se is, I agree with Mandelstam, a sort of verbal crystal - a stone with an unprepossessing surface and a "terrible density" hidden inside. Poetry is other-textual. Poetry is verbal espionage. Marlowe & Shakespeare understood this VERY well. So did the writers of the Bible. So did Celan. My quarrel with the "disturbed" discussion is that it really does replay, and play over the surface, of issues of form/cultural politics which end up stereotyping MY particular approach to poetry - without even knowing what formal questions involve. It all boils down to "rhyme & meter", "willed form", "formal innovation", blah blah... meaningless counters in an endless merry-go-round of superficial nonsense. Not to mention politics... it IS a constant echoing of issues more relevant to bubbling blab of 50s new critics and beats. What I said in a previous post still holds: get poor. What does this mean? "Read it back to me - quietly, quietly." - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:47:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Disturbed Tree/Contraries In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I read recently that his strong ties to fundamentalist family-values Xian cultural events have taken some hits because of this new image (but other conservative groups he has ties to are so far taking it in stride)...I wondered whether being exhibit A against cultural deadness in Moore's "Roger and Me" had had a delayed effect on ol' Pat.. Mark P. On Mon, 17 Mar 1997 shoemakers@COFC.EDU wrote: > re: "the Pat Boone of poetic blandness"--Has anyone else noticed that > Pat has undergone some sort of bizarre heavy-metalish makeover? Last > time i saw him on the tube he was sporting leather, chest hair, and > tattoos (albeit, probably the kind that wash off... > steve > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:52:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Uhh, do you refer us to any actual living poets?? On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Henry Gould wrote: > Once again, I find all the talk about "formal innovation" and "challenging > the reader" vs. "manipulating the reader" with "conventional rhyme and meter" > set in a "political" context of "radical" and "conservative" > > to be > > pure > > unadulterated > > yimmer-yammer & > > hogwash. > > I refer you all to Baudelaire, Villon, or recent hip-hop "breakthroughs". > I refer you to Edgar Poe & Valery. I refer you to Whitman's constancy, his > readable expressiveness. I donate you to Emily, if you dare stand in the > same room with her. etc etc.> ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:10:44 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: formally disturbed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT henry wrrrr: > Once again, I find all the talk about "formal innovation" and "challenging > the reader" vs. "manipulating the reader" with "conventional rhyme and meter" > set in a "political" context of "radical" and "conservative" I'd agree with your judgement of these simplistic terms, henry, but are these the terms of the discussion, or an easy dismissal of same? & are the variety of questions raised regarding the subject relations of a poem & so forth really as separate from aesthetic concerns as you seem to imply below? > I will allow all manner of bravery and daring and innovation - but I will > judge by results - the impact of the whole thing. I sympathize with your lack of patience-- our handling of this re-/current discussion can & does get too sloppy--but then I tire of attempts to grandly sweep away what could be, though again often is not, an important questioning of our own assumptions about art & its political functions (rather than, say, a renumeration of the "views" & "values" that make us a "community"). or maybe I'm just cranky at 9 am. btw, what are these recent hip-hop breakthroughs? chris .. christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************** forthcoming in march: _constellation voice_ by linda russo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:48:53 MDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Alexander Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net Subject: Re: formally disturbed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT alright, let me try again-- my server is a bit slow to reach the list in buffalo this morning. henry wwrtt: > My quarrel with the "disturbed" discussion is that it really does replay, > and play over the surface, of issues of form/cultural politics which > end up stereotyping MY particular approach to poetry - without even > knowing what formal questions involve. It all boils down to "rhyme & meter", > "willed form", "formal innovation", blah blah... meaningless counters in > an endless merry-go-round of superficial nonsense. I see your point henry, but again I'd argue that what you're reacting to is an unfortunate slippage, which several participants have tried explicitly to prevent or correct (thanks marjorie et al.), from form as "the relation of language to meaning" to form as "received versus (so-called) innovative form". certainly it hasn't been my intent, & I'm not the only one, to disparage work which is formal in the latter sense. I'd hate as much as you would for this discussion to degenerate into a round of sonnet-bashing, because I don't learn anything from that at all. whereas I am concerned about an easy acceptance, easy both as hastily-made & as non-commital, of a sort of content-oriented left poetry, & I would, like mark, hope to see more discussion in that vein. .. christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************** forthcoming in march: _constellation voice_ by linda russo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:54:12 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ira Lightman Subject: Astrology poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Does anyone know of poetry, music or any other art form influenced by astrology and the zodiac, esp. twentieth century work? I'm currently working creatively on this, and am drawing inspiration from two works especially: Finnegans Wake, and Zodiac, a musical piece by Stockhausen. Is anyone interested, for example, in contemplating the astrological influences on the experimental poets mentioned or contributing to this list? I look them up from time to time because the reference volume, Contemporary Poets, gives exact birthdays; time of birth is rarely printed, unfortunately.... Any tips from anyone would be truly appreciated. Ira Lightman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 12:37:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Astrology poetics In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII There's always Kenneth Anger's /Scorpio Rising./ Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:08:27 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 8:43 AM -0500 3/18/97, Henry Gould wrote: >I refer you all to Baudelaire, Villon, or recent hip-hop "breakthroughs". >I refer you to Edgar Poe & Valery. I refer you to Whitman's constancy, his >readable expressiveness. I donate you to Emily, if you dare stand in the >same room with her. Don't you think "Emily" deserves a last name like the poet guys have--or is she some kind of maid or dog or something? Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 13:35:22 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:08:27 -0800 from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:08:27 -0800 said: > >Don't you think "Emily" deserves a last name like the poet guys have--or is >she some kind of maid or dog or something? > >Dodie we're on a first-name basis. She calls me "Dolt". ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 13:38:12 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:48:53 MDT from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:48:53 MDT Christopher Alexander said: > >acceptance, easy both as hastily-made & as non-commital, >of a sort of content-oriented left poetry, & I would, like >mark, hope to see more discussion in that vein. In my view there is only poetry. Discussions at this level of generality (left poetry, formal poetry, innovative poetry) somehow miss the poetry. OK I'm being tendentious & vociferous. It's a way of underlining. - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 12:53:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: formally disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" henry, thanx for your last post... i think there's a distinction to be drawn (albeit a subtle one) twixt "conservative" and *preservative*... esp. given the various political registers one is likely to hit with the former... universities are in general highly preservative institutions... but by way of answering directly to your sense that more needs to be discussed wrt contemporary poetries, however "innovative," i can only say for my part that i've always assumed that poetry is not just about language --- that in fact i don't see why poetry shouldn't be, among so many other things, a matter of persuasion... albeit there are so many different ways to go about persuading... which is probably as oracular as i'll be hereabouts... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 13:45:33 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:52:48 -0500 from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:52:48 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: >Uhh, do you refer us to any actual living poets?? If I see any I'll let you know. - the Ghoul ALLEGORY OF THE POETS The were clustered together in the Crystal Room, the Poets. Dressed in leather and velvet, and sprawled across the loveseats with carefree insouciance, they spoke in measured sentences of the coming Reading; of their various accomplishments; their travels near and far; their books, their audiences, their salaries. They laughed and winked and nodded and stared like ordinary men and women. No one sat in the Chair that faced them, solitary, at the end of the room. They waited for someone to come, but no one came. They chatted on, waiting, for hours there... but I can't remember what they said, and I forget their names. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:00:11 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: Astrology poetics In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:54:12 BST from Ira-- Check out Joseph Gordon Macleod, _The Ecliptic_ (Faber, 1930). Keith Tuma ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:11:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Henry Gould "formally disturbed" (Mar 18, 8:43am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > I refer you all to Baudelaire, Villon, or recent hip-hop "breakthroughs". > I refer you to Edgar Poe & Valery. I refer you to Whitman's constancy, his > readable expressiveness. I donate you to Emily, if you dare stand in the > same room with her. I appreciate the roundness of your post. With all due respect to your interests, what hip-hop "breakthroughs" have we seen of late. Is any of it truly "new"? Is anything ever "new"? Are we just dwarves on the backs of the literary giants? (Born at the wrong time I guess). Rilke had as high an estimation of poetry, but we all know that he too could be boring or predictable at times. Breakthroughs as breakaways, break outs, break offs, break ins, breakdowns. Regardless, great verse still gets written. I do like where all this discussion is going. To me though, this post seems to suggest the death of poetry (?) The endgame as Marjorie suggests in Radical Artifice. Best to all in a great discussion, Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:33:27 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry Rothenberg Subject: Re: Astrology poetics Comments: cc: jrothenb@ucsd.edu Ira -- This was never my thing exactly, but there was a time (if I remember right) when poets near and dear to me were exploring older, more recently occulted sciences like astrology & alchemy, etc. I would trace it back to surrealist roots at the very least -- the kind of thing that Artaud denounces Breton for in his great letter & outcry of February 1947 (a surrealist exhibit structured on the 12 houses of the zodiac). I'm sure, once you get started on this, that the examples will be astronomical (not only astrological). But one to look out for -- totally neglected on this list -- is Wakoski, who was at one time into casting charts & who surely has it running through the work -- at least the early work. (Di Prima too, who was otherwise a close student of alchemy & such.) You might also check back into AMERICA A PROPHECY (if available to you) -- the anthology that George Quasha & I committed in the early 70s -- & there you'll find (on p. 239) a "horoscope [with illustrated chart] of a tentative north American republic / born Philadelphia, Pa., 4 July 1776" -- the work credited to "anonymous" but revealed as transmitted "per R.K. Amanuensis" [aka Robert Kelly]. This was also around the time (a few years later) that Richard Grossinger put out an astronomy issue of his magazine IO but including takes on that that would more readily be identified with astrology. And David Antin has a lovely take-off on the reading of constellations in the second section of his poem "The Black Plague" (reprinted in the Sun & Moon Selected). It is all -- as you know and, if I remember, have recently expressed -- an indication of the closeness between poetry (& art) & "mysticism" of all sorts that makes for a lot of current problematics in our practice. It is something that fell out of (or never really got into) the talk around language poetry and has therefore obscured -- to my mind -- a sense of where poetry comes from and (by extension) where it can conceivably go. And I would also, while I'm at it, want to put in a word about David Antin & anthologies, since David is my oldest & remains one of my dearest friends over all these many years, viz that David's crack about anthologies -- like others about Lowell and the (so-called) sacred and the dreams that he once claimed not to have -- is a very directed remark aimed at something that he wants to get at or around under very particular circumstances. He has therefore been my closest (silent) collaborator on various anthologies, beinning with Technicians of the SACRED about which he knows as much (or more) as anyone around. I would also be very interested in what your own project is -- to get a better handle on it. But maybe it would be better to continue this, if you want to, by the back channel method. With all best, Jerome Rothenberg jrothenb@ucsd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:48:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: formally disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Henry--and if I read you right, your School of Providence, the hot seat in the front of the room would be the eclectic chair? >On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:52:48 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: >>Uhh, do you refer us to any actual living poets?? > >If I see any I'll let you know. - the Ghoul > >ALLEGORY OF THE POETS > >The were clustered together in the Crystal Room, >the Poets. Dressed in leather and velvet, and >sprawled across the loveseats with carefree >insouciance, they spoke in measured sentences >of the coming Reading; of their various >accomplishments; their travels near and far; >their books, their audiences, their salaries. >They laughed and winked and nodded and stared >like ordinary men and women. > > No one >sat in the Chair that faced them, solitary, >at the end of the room. They waited >for someone to come, but no one came. >They chatted on, waiting, for hours there... >but I can't remember what they said, >and I forget their names. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 13:46:43 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: formally disturbed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Chris w0r9ttu2tin49g;a: >btw, what are these recent hip-hop breakthroughs? Having just this weekend caught the hip/hop/rap documentary, "Rhyme & Reason" I second this question. Anyone else seen this? I thought the docu. itself nothing inspired, but some of what the artists said was interesting--though often the "importance" of the movie's expectations seemed determined to a large part by racist cultural expectations, as Ice-T pointed out regarding the size of his house. Anyone else see this yet? Matthias Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:09:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: Tree/formally disturbed/ deep need In-Reply-To: <199703181341.IAA11600@chass.utoronto.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII from HOW ARE VERSES MADE by V. MAYAKOVSKY (Moscow, 1926; London: Jonathan Cape, 1970 translated G. M Hyde) Here there is no call to take up the metaphysical question of who is better, Demyn Bedny("an example of a social command for today which has been properly understood") or Kruchonykh("its aim or purpose is to assist future poets"). These are poetcial achievements of very different kinds, on different planes, and each of them can exist without excluding the other and without competing with the other . . . I am deliberately exagerting because I want to show more strikingly that the essence of modern literary work doesn't lie in the evaluation of this or that ready-made thing from the standpointof literary taste, but in a correct approach to the study of the productive process itself . . . How are verses made? Work begins long before one receives or is aware of a social command. Preliminary work goes on incessantly . . . A poet regards every meeting, every signpost, every event in whatever circumstances simply as material to be shaped into words(20-21,24). Mike Boughn made a good point re "this or that ready-made thing"--and expectancy-- incessant preliminary work--study of process--every event-material shaped into words- Mayakovsky's book was written for a series for schools and such--along with books on" How are . . .s made" (ships, shoes, paste, paper, etc etc) maybe instead of anthology arguments (and noticed no one has as yet mentioned very good one--Primary Trouble--from Talisman House)-- some how to books--- "Do you want to write, and want to know how it's done . . .You're right to demand of poets that they shouldn't carry with them to the grave the secrets of their skill. "I want to write about poetry not as a pedant, but as a practitioner. My article has no scholarly significance. I write about my work, which by the light of my observations and convictions, I see as differing very little from the work of other professional poets. "Once again I want to insist that I offer no rules to make anyone a poet, by following which he can write poetry. Such rules simply don't exist. A poet is a person who creates these very rules" (12-13) --dbchirot ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 15:25:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:48:50 -0500 from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:48:50 -0500 Sylvester Pollet said: >Henry--and if I read you right, your School of Providence, the hot seat in >the front of the room would be the eclectic chair? Close, close. Not Providence - Paradise. Dante saw it there with Bea - it was still empty. (They were waiting for Henry to show.) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 15:29:51 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: Tree/formally disturbed/ deep need In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:09:48 -0600 from To go along with Mayakovsky: "the poetics of the future will focus on the poetic IMPULSE". (Mandelstam) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 15:32:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:11:58 -0500 from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:11:58 -0500 William Burmeister Prod said: > >truly "new"? Is anything ever "new"? Are we just dwarves on the backs of the >literary giants? (Born at the wrong time I guess). Rilke had as high an >estimation of poetry, but we all know that he too could be boring or >predictable at times. Breakthroughs as breakaways, break outs, break offs, "Unless you do battle with giants, you will remain a dwarf." - Hrothgar the Troublesome, Jr. > >I do like where all this discussion is going. To me though, this post seems to >suggest the death of poetry (?) The endgame as Marjorie suggests in Radical >Artifice. "Some of it should have died a long time ago." - Hrothgar the Third Artificer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:58:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: Astrology poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" jerry, what i would mself find very useful would be a discussion of the "mystic" (shorthand) as this might be made to resonate with the "social" (more shorthand)... i'm not so interested in classroom practices -- where i'm pretty certain the "mystic" is no less harmful than, say (again) "craft"... i am, though, interested in what to do about more popular, representational biases against poet-madmen/women -- which i find a damaging and problematic mysti-fication on so many fronts... seems to me there's also this issue of social responsibility, however ecstatic one's apprehension (not meaning to raise any eyebrows around here but---)... all to steal a bit of thunder from a short conference paper i'm busy tweaking... seems to me that, going back some, whitman is one obvious north american lead-in... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:05:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: OREN.IZENBERG@JHU.EDU Subject: Re: Astrology poetics In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ira, You can always count on Yeats when it comes to such atavistic enthusiasms...astrology figured into his syncretism along with mysticism (various kinds), ceremonial magic (always subject, for Yeats, to empirical verification), alchemy, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, etc. etc... Best, O. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:06:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: <199703181331.IAA09914@chass.utoronto.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII for one thing form is never more than an extension of content means that content becomes form and extends form: so the reality of form is integral: experience made actual in a construct of words ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:42:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: henry "Re: formally disturbed" (Mar 18, 3:32pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 14:11:58 -0500 William Burmeister Prod said: > >truly "new"? Is anything ever "new"? Are we just dwarves on the backs of the >literary giants? (Born at the wrong time I guess). Rilke had as high an >estimation of poetry, but we all know that he too could be boring or >predictable at times. Breakthroughs as breakaways, break outs, break offs, > "Unless you do battle with giants, you will remain a dwarf." > - Hrothgar the Troublesome, Jr. > >I do like where all this discussion is going. To me though, this post seems to >suggest the death of poetry (?) The endgame as Marjorie suggests in Radical >Artifice. > "Some of it should have died a long time ago." > - Hrothgar the Third Artificer Ok Hrothgar. I can appreciate the "battling with giants" homily for now. Let's say I too am a tomb dweller, but hip-hop? Isn't that going from tomb to Hollywood (by present indications at any rate)? How does today's hip-hop stand in with the symbolists, Whitman, and Dickinson? I wouldn't dare stand in the same room with Ice-T for fear of being riddled by something other than words. Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 15:51:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Contraries will not rest/Mental Fight, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" But the experience might be an experience of experiencing form. The perfect sentence. A variation on it. >for one thing form is never more than an extension of content means that >content becomes form and extends form: so the reality of form is integral: >experience made actual in a construct of words > ps. I hope experience is conceived to be more than form; that form is imperfect. Matthias Regan Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Phone: 847/467-2132 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 15:58:17 -0800 Reply-To: Joe Safdie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: Contraries will not rest/Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: <9703182151.AA20746@mercury.chem.nwu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Okay, I vote that the next post that mentions either "form" OR "content" be relegated to oblivion -- or at least ignored for a few days. I mean, this can get to be head-hurting stuff, and as a sweeping rejection of that possibility, I salute Henry's exemplary balderdash. I myself had to go back into the archives (i.e., last week's posts) to try and make sense of what, exactly, we were talking about: one of Joe Amato's earliest posts last week said he was "slipping and sliding on a form/ content dualism here" -- implying that that dualism was really artificial -- and this has since been echoed by many comments, including Ms. Perloff's that, for her, "there is no subject matter outside form" and "form and content can't be separated." Appreciating David Kellogg's latest, that it is in fact almost impossible to talk about poems without separating them, I want to say I AGREE with those who say we should try and keep them together: I was trying to demean empty form without content (and by the way, Mark P., did you know that Pound considered _Finnegans Wake_ "decadent"?), while others have disparaged poems that appear to be just "content" (or poems that come from and speak to various "identity" communities) which don't seem to have "innovative" form. Of course these are all loaded terms and mean different things to different people. But if there's an issue here for me, it's that, once these terms are separated, or talked about as if they were separate, mischief begins. That is, I agree with Jordan that it's mystification to think that a form can force a message -- I agree with Marjorie that "one can use all the fragments and dislocations around and still not have a good 'langpo' " -- and I CERTAINLY agree with the (perhaps unintended) hilarity contained in this post (sorry, I forgot its author): " . . . a critical language that honors lang-po -- in fact, much lang-po IS a critical language honoring lang-po" Is this not form without content? So it's not an ontological argument, Michael -- it's a phenomenological argument. The "work" of the poem, as it's undertaken -- that "stuff", those (ap)perceptions, that dynamically developing, meaning-making articulation -- creates its own form, the only form that can possibly encompass that meaning. Who would possibly WANT to separate them, except politicians of some order? Robert A., I look forward to your interview, and it wasn't a low blow or personal attack; Mark P., glad to see your list of influences, many of whom are in fact problematic for me (even the sainted Zukofsky), but hey, I'm starting to think I'm almost illiterate compared to the denizens of this list; maybe this post is a bit less confusing about what I meant. and thank you especially Chris S., for your wonderful contributions to this and other issues. I really want to talk about astrology now . . . ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:11:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: far reader MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mittenthal brilliantly critiques James Scully's book, _Line Break_, starting from the fact that while the book is about the "the social practice of poetry" poetry is hardly ever referred to described or invoked. And Scully didn't even write his book on a listserv! (See Mittenthal's review in _Writing_ 25 [1990].) Of course arguing from out of - from within - poetry does not _garantee_ a better argument either - that is, a truly "deep encounter," for instance, as Christopher Alexander would urge practitioners to experience with their medium. Does close reading even garantee an argument? No longer - yet perhaps if you are reading the Metaphysicals, Chris. Thus it might be necessary in arguing for the "social practice of poetry" to not mention poetry at all. Of course arguing _alongside_ poetry, in paralogue as it were, does not garantee a better argument either - that is, a truly deep encounter with "social practice...." Apart from saying that, I may as well also state that for me there are so many unhelpful contradictions and connotations in the language of the quotation from Scully's book, that I think David Kellogg posted, I don't know where to even begin in pointing them out. Here's one, not necessarily the best: Is he for or against a "metahistorical source of illumination" for poetry? From his own disparaging language, I would say definitely not. Yet I can't figure out from the quotation how he proposes that "shared understanding" would occur elsewise. Share my cropper. Ira, re: astrology, try Cdn. Gwendolyn MacEwan (b.1941)-- There is a great unspeakable wheel which keeps Us slender as myths, and green with sleep. Warning: This is a general reference in that I have no investment, psychical speculative or otherwise, in MacEwan's work. Force that mystifies a message is form. I've always liked Steve McCaffery's early concept of the cipheral (he later rejected it) to think about that aspect of language practice which eludes exhaustion by conventions of sense making and contextual reception. Neither "form" nor "innovative form" do the same work as "cipheral" of disclosing the poem as a visual materialized surface and also as a set of devices that jam the codes of sense-making beyond the means of the best close reader, while reaching out, in the same stroke, to other readers: far readers (anybodies, nobodies, other communities, classes, subgroups). "Nonsense," which has been variously used to invoke this sort of poetry, forever indefinable yet concrete, that is "at the edge" "vanguard" "etc," is inadequate - far too taming of the social revolutionary practice of the poem. This does not resolve itself as a tame question of genre, as "nonsense" has suggested it can be - to, for example, Marnie Parsons, and others who have written on Bernstein, Hejinian, Lear, etc. The cipheral aspect of poetry is perhaps its spectral aspect, which has to do with tombs, those that Henry mentions, the dead letter, but not as much with the mystic mists as with the future as mysterious, future readings yet to be articulated. The social practice of the poem would operate on the analogy of Ernesto Laclau's "empty signifier." He is talking of the empty signifier on a macro political scale. For him, for instance, "social" would be an empty signifier, around which rallies a movement for change; and the reason why it's empty for him is that it's meaning is indefinite, and open to multiple, conflicting interpretations by various communities. Until it is realized to have no meaning, at which point it is dropped as valueless. Chop it off, Louis Cabri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:31:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: astrology poetics Comments: cc: I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK Re: Ira Lightman's -- <> here's one stray item: record album *Venus in Cancer* by the late Robbie Basho (Tacoma Records, I think was the label) -- Robbie (like the present e-writer) happened to have said planet in said sign; (Basho recorded abt. a dozen albums, till his demise (early 80s); he was a steel-string guitar innovator, sometimes linked with John Fahey & Leo Kotke as a threesome of antecedents to the so-called Windham Hill school of solo guitar); he explained the title *Venus in Cancer* (as I recall) simply by noting that he'd always had a certain feeling abt. Venus in Cancer, and that same was given expression (I think in an eponymous track). BTW, Robbie was unhappy w/ the absurd cover-art (involving a pair of nubile women, I think) -- not quite his own design; so he would paste-over Indian prints of Meher Baba attired as Krishna (on copies he sold of this album ...) (& BTW Henry Gould -- this is not apocryphal nor blarney -- I sold copies of same at the Meher Baba Bookstore in Pasadena, circa 1973) d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 06:41:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathleen Crown Subject: Re: Astrological poetics In-Reply-To: Automatic digest processor "POETICS Digest - 17 Mar 1997 to 18 Mar 1997" (Mar 19, 12:01am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Ira, You might be interested in the angelology & mathematics of H.D.'s long poem SAGESSE (1957), in which degrees of an astrological chart become angel-visitants. The poem is in HERMETIC DEFINITION. Kathy Crown -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 07:28:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathleen Crown Subject: Poetry and the Public Sphere In-Reply-To: Automatic digest processor "POETICS Digest - 17 Mar 1997 to 18 Mar 1997" (Mar 19, 12:01am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii "POETRY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE: A CONFERENCE ON CONTEMPORARY POETRY," April 24-27, 1997, at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, now has a website with a complete and up-to-date schedule of events, along with registration forms and useful information about lodging, meals, and travel. You can access the website from a link at the EPC (thanks to Loss Glazier, highly appreciated information superhighway worker). http://english.rutgers.edu/poetry.html Readings by Amiri Baraka, Tracie Morris, Willie Perdomo, Aileen Reyes, keith roach, Carl Hancock Rux; Adrienne Rich, Cheryl Clarke, Alicia Ostriker, Robin Pastorio-Newman; Eliot Katz, Ed Roberson, Robert Hass, Sonia Sanchez and others Keynote Panelists: Meena Alexander, Charles Altieri, Charles Bernstein, Abena Busia, Maria Damon, Cary Nelson, Arnold Rampersad, and Tricia Rose PARTICIPANTS include Charles Alexander, Amittai Aviram, Michael Bibby, Steve Caton, Michael Davidson, Marianne DeKoven, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Stanford Friedman, Ed Foster, Alan Golding, Lynn Keller, James Haba, Bob Holman, Walter Kalaidjian, Bob Perelman, Ross Talarico, Michael Taussig; Jan Barry, Regie Cabico, Rafael Campo, Andy Clausen, Enid Dame, Carolyn Forche, Loss Pequen~o Glazier, Lisa Jarnot, Irena Klepfisz, Rachel Hadas, Michael Heller, Albert Mobilio, Burt Kimmelman, Ted Pearson, Robyn Selman, Vijay Seshadri, Grace Schulman, Susan Schultz, Leonard Schwartz, Armand Schwerner, Mary Margaret Sloan, Pamela Sneed, Gerald Stern, Michael Weaver, Susan Wheeler, and others. Email inquiries to the Conference Coordinators--Harriet Davidson, Kathleen Crown, and Nicholas Yasinski--at poetry97@fas-english.rutgers.edu or leave a phone message at (908) 932-8537. -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 07:41:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: from "David Kellogg" at Mar 18, 97 10:43:23 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe, I always think of Valery's proposal of the poem erupting or arising out of the insistence of a specific rhythm that invades the mind. That would seem to anticipate Kristeva. Doesn't the phenomenological return us to some point before the intervention of taxonomy? Mike mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:03:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: angelology In-Reply-To: <9703190641.ZM15768@niflheim.rutgers.edu> from "Kathleen Crown" at Mar 19, 97 06:41:36 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michel Serres has a book, _Angels: A Modern Myth_, or close to that, publ. 1995, set, much like Godard set Mary & Joseph at a gas pump, at the Paris airport, where the busy archtectture itself repeats the patterns of "angel-visitants" who come and go from one destination to another as messengers of other worlds. -Louis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:10:31 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Astrology poetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ira -- Jerry mentioned Robert Kelly's birthchart for the US in IO -- there are many other Kelly works that involve astrology. Check for exampole the ZODIAC CYCLE in _Finding the Measure_ (Black Sparrow 1968) -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:03:43 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: far reader In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:11:30 -0500 from On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:11:30 -0500 Louis Cabri said: > >I've always liked Steve McCaffery's early concept of the cipheral >(he later rejected it) to think about that aspect of language >practice which eludes exhaustion by conventions of sense making >and contextual reception. Neither "form" nor "innovative form" do >the same work as "cipheral" of disclosing the poem as a visual >materialized surface and also as a set of devices that jam the >codes of sense-making beyond the means of the best close reader, >while reaching out, in the same stroke, to other readers: far >readers (anybodies, nobodies, other communities, classes, >subgroups). "Nonsense," which has been variously used to invoke >this sort of poetry, forever indefinable yet concrete, that is >"at the edge" "vanguard" "etc," is inadequate - far too taming of >the social revolutionary practice of the poem. This does not I like the term "cipheral" - this is sort of what I was getting at when I said "poetry is verbal espionage". I guess I question the revolutionary potential of it. It's more like subversive - a practice that grows up under repressive state apparati. But for me the political aspect is less interesting than the allegorical literary aspect of sending a very specific secret message. >who have written on Bernstein, Hejinian, Lear, etc. The cipheral >aspect of poetry is perhaps its spectral aspect, which has to do >with tombs, those that Henry mentions, the dead letter, but not >as much with the mystic mists as with the future as mysterious, >future readings yet to be articulated. The social practice of the >poem would operate on the analogy of Ernesto Laclau's "empty >signifier." He is talking of the empty signifier on a macro See Mandelstam "On the Interlocutor". The proper audience is the unknown, particular, specific reader in the future. "Yet again I will liken the poem to an Egyptian ship of the dead, in which is stored everything necessary for life." (O.M.) - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:14:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Mar 1997 07:41:13 -0500 from On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 07:41:13 -0500 Michael Boughn said: >Joe, I always think of Valery's proposal of the poem erupting or >arising out of the insistence of a specific rhythm that invades the >mind. That would seem to anticipate Kristeva. Doesn't the >phenomenological return us to some point before the intervention of >taxonomy? I'm glad you brought up Valery. I think this whole form/content slosh was best articulated in his essay "Poetry and Abstract Thought" where he differentiates poetry from prose in terms of a pendulum effect. There IS pure form - the hypnotic rhythm/sound/meaning of the actual words - which swings like a pendulum into the reader's mind and sets off its cognitive/emotive effects, enacts its changes. Then the pendulum swings back and the pure form REMAINS - in memory, in culture (2nd life of art). Prose, on the other hand, swings its effects into the mind - and dissolves after completing its work. - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:22:52 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: astrology poetics In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:31:08 -0500 from On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:31:08 -0500 David Israel said: > >(& BTW Henry Gould -- this is not apocryphal nor blarney -- I sold >copies of same at the Meher Baba Bookstore in Pasadena, circa 1973) Eric Blarnes, at least according to his biographer, Ronald Singh (_Eric Blarnes : a Double Half-Life_, Benares Univ. Press, 1987, pp.53-59), used to carry Leo Kottke's guitar cases for him on tour in the early 70s. This MAY have brought him into the Meher Baba periphery in southern California: my early copies of Pasadena Sun Rock Magazine advertise Kottke performing at Loose Change Coffeehouse & Headshop in July of 1972. Whether this connection is real, or provided some impetus to Windham Hill new age loop-guitar styles - it's too early to tell without further research. I believe Madras Wilson is doing his dissertation on the cultural coding overlap of instrument-holding techniques of 70s guitarists and sitar-players, and his efforts may bear fruit in this regard - worth watching. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:40:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: angelology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sittin' at the terminal for ten minutes just watchin' the messages come in, yeah Beats fountains in Rome Yea ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:58:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: astrology poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:31:08 -0500 David Israel said: >> >>(& BTW Henry Gould -- this is not apocryphal nor blarney -- I sold >>copies of same at the Meher Baba Bookstore in Pasadena, circa 1973) > >Eric Blarnes, at least according to his biographer, Ronald Singh (_Eric >Blarnes : a Double Half-Life_, Benares Univ. Press, 1987, pp.53-59), >used to carry Leo Kottke's guitar cases for him on tour in the early >70s. This MAY have brought him into the Meher Baba periphery in southern >California: my early copies of Pasadena Sun Rock Magazine advertise Kottke >performing at Loose Change Coffeehouse & Headshop in July of 1972. Whether >this connection is real, or provided some impetus to Windham Hill >new age loop-guitar styles - it's too early to tell without further >research. I believe Madras Wilson is doing his dissertation on the >cultural coding overlap of instrument-holding techniques of 70s guitarists >and sitar-players, and his efforts may bear fruit in this regard - worth >watching. - Henry Gould Henry--Thanks for Allegory, and for this fascinating material. I'm happy indeed that we've moved beyond your poet of the laundromat--what was his name, Jack Spindry? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 09:31:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Astrological poetics In-Reply-To: <9703190641.ZM15768@niflheim.rutgers.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII There are passages in John Wieners' journals about the alignment of planets and such. (again, at work, no wonderful bookshelves in front of me) Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 09:51:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Mystery Poetry Theater 3000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Could there not be a dynamics of form to accomodate such varying practices as Rod Smith's Carolyn Forche's Joan Retallack's and Joe Ross's? Could we not bottle it and call it DC Spring? How long until the cherry blossoms start? All of this about form and content seems so far from what has been said by reasonable and amusing people about what writing is like (or reading for that matter) that I feel like I'm stuck in the middle period of Joseph Beuys learning about electricity. Or, the IRS as described on NPR the other day: organizational processes from the 50s, technology from the 70s. As opposed to PAP (Postmodern [north]American Poetry) which uses organizational processes from the 60s and technology from the 80s. Eau de beagle, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:09:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Mimeograph/Ditto printing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Given the conversation not long ago here, I thought I'd forward this message in case anyone might want to check it out. charles > >Those interested in Mimeograph/Ditto printing might want to take a look at >the archives of Exlibris a listserv for the rare books and special >collections community. > >The URL is >. > >Pretty interesting stuff for the most part. Richard Minsky had some >interesting comments as well. > >Peter > > >>>> I love working in the library. <<< >>>There is something to be said for working in a place bound in leather.<< > >Peter D. Verheyen 315.443.9937 >Conservation Librarian 315.443.9510 >Syracuse University Library pdverhey@dreamscape.com >Syracuse University http://www.dreamscape.com/pdverhey >Syracuse, NY 13244 Book_Arts-L@listserv.syr.edu > > ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:17:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: pre-determined form in the avant garde Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have to agree with Mark Wallace: " In any case, the relation between exploratory and pre-determined form is quite complex--in some cases, predetermined forms of various types and degrees can certainly be exploratory and about discovery." And Marjorie has written a lot about such things. I do think that Creeley's mantra still works in relation to such. And then, as someone who reads poetry & SF, I think of Samuel R. Delany's somewhat similar statement "Put in opposition to 'style'[form], there is no such thing as 'content'." Which makes clear that the opposition _is_ a false dichotomy, a constructed one. One thing is for sure: setting up some arbitrary formal controls often allows for creative discovery in the writing, & that, if (or when) it works, can create a poem worth reading. Well, hey, what about all those 'sonnets' in _In the Analogy_ -- a stunningly beautiful book, & one that's going to take a long time to read, but given _From Feathers to Iron_ I know I'm going to find it stunning as poetry too. I do recommend it to all. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour How long Department of English University of Alberta it takes for the promise to arrive, Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 shaped as a flirt, a cheating (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 kiss, a whistle, an ambulance. H: 436 3320 John Tranter ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:50:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Mystery Poetry Theater 3000 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Whew! there sure have been a lot of superior-sounding posts recently..I personally found a lot of the posts on the recent thread very useful and provocative--Several comments by these folks who are apparently much smarter than the rest of us, have characterized the thread as being about form and content..If they're thinking about the same thread I am, it was about a number of poetics issues, not all of which could be so characterized. Maybe these folks, being so much more "reasonable and amusing," actually have some poetics cherry blossoms of their own to contribute?? Mark P. On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Jordan Davis wrote: > Could there not be a dynamics of form to accomodate such varying practices > as Rod Smith's Carolyn Forche's Joan Retallack's and Joe Ross's? Could we > not bottle it and call it DC Spring? How long until the cherry blossoms > start? > > All of this about form and content seems so far from what has been said by > reasonable and amusing people about what writing is like (or reading for > that matter) that I feel like I'm stuck in the middle period of Joseph > Beuys learning about electricity. Or, the IRS as described on NPR the other > day: organizational processes from the 50s, technology from the 70s. As > opposed to PAP (Postmodern [north]American Poetry) which uses > organizational processes from the 60s and technology from the 80s. > > Eau de beagle, > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 08:06:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Astrology poetics/Spicer's "Language" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Ira, it's Kevin Killian. Here's a piece by Jack Spicer which is an *anti-astrology* poem, I hope this counts in your survey. =B3If you don=B9t believe in a god, don=B9t quote him,=B2 Val=E9ry once said when he was about ready to give up poetry. The purposefull suspension of dis- belief has about the chance of a snowball in hell. Lamias maybe, or succubi but they are about as real in California as night-crawlers Gods or stars or totems are not game-animals. Snark-hunting is not like discussing baseball. Against wisdom as such. Such Tired wisdoms as the game-hunters develop Shooting Zeus, Alpha Centauri, wolf with the same toy gun. It is deadly hard to worship god, star, and totem. Deadly easy To use them like worn-out condoms spattered by your own gleeful, crass, and unworshiping Wisdom The Duncan-Spicer crowd was way influenced by astrology--in this poem Spicer is attacking Robert Duncan, George Stanley and Harold Dull for their repetitive use of astrology in their then (1964) current projects . . . aligning himself with Charles Olson who in his 50s essay "Against Wisdom as Such" had warned American readers about San Francisco writing as a school of mages "ominous as Ojai." This poem is from Spicer's "Love Poems" in his book "Language." Now I get to repeat my *songspiel.* A marvelous benefactor has given Small Press Traffic a number of copies of the first edition of Spicer's "Language" allowing us to sell them to benefit the organization. They are in mint condition and you have never seen anything as beautiful as this book, more often now seen in rare book catalogues looking tattered, dirty, and gray and still costing a bomb. She (anonymous benefactor) wants us to make sure they get into what she calls "the right hands" (those of artists and poets) so, a couple months ago, Dodie Bellamy announced this offer through the poetics list to *quelle* response. There are however still a few copies left, so, if anyone is interested, back channel me or Dodie at dbkk@sirius.com for more information. And now back to regularly scheduled programming. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:05:20 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:42:36 -0500 from On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 16:42:36 -0500 William Burmeister Prod said: > >Ok Hrothgar. I can appreciate the "battling with giants" homily for now. Let's >say I too am a tomb dweller, but hip-hop? Isn't that going from tomb to >Hollywood (by present indications at any rate)? How does today's hip-hop stand >in with the symbolists, Whitman, and Dickinson? I wouldn't dare stand in the >same room with Ice-T for fear of being riddled by something other than words. As a library worker, I have some special access. I checked with a Signor Borges, who referred me to certain archives of the future. Under the subject AMERICAN LITERATURE - POETRY - LATE 20th CENTURY, you will find eight titles published between 2012 and 2120, specifically dealing with the rap/langpo dialectic as an index of cultural dissonance in late-20th cent. US culture. You will find 3 books on Rap metrics/rhyme, and an whopping 85 titles on poetry as performance in late millenial caffeine etiquette. An if you mess wi me you gonna bookified be I am the numbala one king of dis library thing I say libuububububary bury me baby inna bubblemath sea - hey - Henny Ghoul'd ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:44:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: Astrological poetics In-Reply-To: <9703191141.AA08175@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Kathleen Crown wrote: > You might be interested in the angelology & mathematics of H.D.'s long poem > SAGESSE (1957), in which degrees of an astrological chart become > angel-visitants. The poem is in HERMETIC DEFINITION. About 30 years after Marc Edmund Jones' Sabian Symbols, all 360 of them, supposedly "channeled" (canal-ed like Mars?) but quite a poem in itself. Wendy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:47:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Mystery Poetry Theater 3000 Dear Jordan, I am a tourist with too much of the language. Reasonable? Amusing? You're just mad cause they're not being hermetic enough? or else cause technology is driving history off of several cliffs at once? it's important? "to err is statemental" & _today has already been observed_ pay our Mr Davis no-mind & tribute for only it is that he yelleth "shower" in _The Norton Anthology of Sick Monks_. --Rod ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 09:09:41 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Spicer's "Language" Comments: To: KENT JOHNSON In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:37 AM +0600 3/19/97, KENT JOHNSON wrote: >How much? $32 in the U.S., includes postage. Elsewhere--it's negotiable. (Recently SPT received a $10 check from Canada, in U.S. funds, and the bank charged us $5 to cash it). Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:14:28 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: [Fwd: LitLink news release] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Received: from bitstream.net (root@marley.bitstream.net [204.73.77.85]) by westbyserver.westby.mwt.net (8.7.3/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA25121 for ; Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:57:35 -0600 (CST) Received: from [206.144.237.161] by bitstream.net (8.8.2/SMI-4.1.R930813) id KAA10469; Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:58:03 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:58:03 -0600 (CST) X-Sender: london@bitstream.net Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable To: dtv@mwt.net From: london@spoken.com (Bob Gale) Subject: LitLink news release Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" NEWS RELEASE 3/17/97 =46or Immediate Release -- Please redistribute Contact: london@spoken.com LITLINK LITERARY ARTS FESTIVAL, SUNDAY, APRIL 27, AT CALHOUN SQUARE, MINNEAPOLIS, MN SECOND ANNUAL NATIONAL POETRY MONTH CELEBRATION SHOWCASING DIVERSITY OF TWIN CITIES LITERARY ARTS COMMUNITY LitLink Literary Arts Festival, one of the nation's largest free celebrations of the second annual National Poetry Month of April, is to take place at Calhoun Square, April 27, noon - 6:00 p.m., in Uptown Minneapolis. Spearheaded nationally by The Academy of American Poets, this local festival is created to bring poetry to the broad public making it playful, relevant, and accessible to everyone. Minnesota's top literary arts presses and organizations will participate in this community celebration of literary arts exhibitions and events. Highlights include: + Exhibition of 40 small press publishers and literary arts organizations. + Magnetic Poetry Kit=81, makers of one of the world's most successful non-book literary products of all time, will build a 8'x 20' metal wall covered with thousands of Magnetic Poetry words for people to create their own poems. Founder Dave Kapell will make a presentation of the one millionth Kit. + Cabaret by the Cacophony Chorus, the Twin Cities leading spoken word performance series. + Showcase of cutting edge video poetry and spoken word recordings. + Selection of poetry workshops and community forums. + Readings and book signings from top Minnesota authors. + Open stage reading and poetry slam for coffeehouse poets and the general public alike. This free event is co-sponsored in part by Borders Book Shop-Uptown Minneapolis, Calhoun Square, Coffee House Press, Cowles Foundation, Graywolf Press, The Loft, London Productions, Magnetic Poetry, Milkweed Editions, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, New Rivers Press, S.A.S.E.: The Write Place, and YMCA Writer's Voice Project. To request an exhibitor brochure, please call (612) 822-0762 or browse our web site at www.spoken.com/festival for more information. --------------------------------------------------- London Productions 3010 Hennepin Ave S, #245, Minnapolis, MN 55408 USA voice (612) 822-0762 fax (612) 823-3975 london@spoken.com http://www.spoken.com =20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:08:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: force mouth content Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry. Looked from here like there was a lot about 'force' 'mouth' 'content'. I will try to work up a paraphrase of the findings for the subcommittee. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:58:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maryrose Larkin Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music Has anyone mentioned George Crumb's Makrokosmos? I think both sets are based on the zodiac. The scores are quite lovely. Maryrose Larkin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:25:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Landers Subject: Re: Astrology poetics In-Reply-To: <199703190502.AAA32878@node1.frontiernet.net> from "Automatic digest processor" at Mar 19, 97 00:01:56 am Content-Type: text There is a composer named Dane Rudyar, I think, who is more conservative than Stockhausen. He has also written several books on astrology. That's all I have. Now if you were doing a study on martyrology ... :-) Pete Landers landers@frontiernet.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 11:44:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Comments: To: Wendy Battin MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Those symbols, quite fascinating in themselves and a good source for a Zodiac poem of whatever sort, were later collected and given a gloss by Dane Rudhyar. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Wendy Battin To: POETICS Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Date: Wednesday, March 19, 1997 11:23AM On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Kathleen Crown wrote: > You might be interested in the angelology & mathematics of H.D.'s long poem > SAGESSE (1957), in which degrees of an astrological chart become > angel-visitants. The poem is in HERMETIC DEFINITION. About 30 years after Marc Edmund Jones' Sabian Symbols, all 360 of them, supposedly "channeled" (canal-ed like Mars?) but quite a poem in itself. Wendy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:59:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Mister Apology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ok ok. You got me, Rod. I just mad. I'd like to go back to Chris Stroffolino's post on Harryman, metaphysics, and whether message forces form. Isn't there an essay by Kleist about puppet theater that warns against this kind of analysis? that the self-consciousness it induces destroys the possibility of formulating the message in a beautiful way? I realize this is exactly the injunction Chris is betting against with most of what he writes. Hyperconsciousness (Bach)? Or, as Steve Evans calls it, the mordantly recursive work of Chris Stroffolino. That is, he worries about the moral life of words and the linguistic activity around the ethics of the person engaged in the pursuit of ordinary unhappiness. Not to make this a discussion of individual writers, but following the work of say Milman Parry on Homer, I'd suggest that there are a number of strategies that a writer uses, a number of 'moves' that are combined, not mechanistically but something like that, kinesthetically. These 'moves' are connected to but different from the writer's 'ideas', which it seems to me are the ways the writer looks at [listens to?] what is written (coordination). The 'moves' are often acquired from the texts of other writers (influence), while the 'ideas' seem to be more closely connected to people talking -- the social lives of upbringing, education, etc etc. Then there are the ongoing biographical entropic/building-up effects on the writing -- the moves and the ideas -- that are legible also in the individual's behavior (okay I'm a mystical Freudian). The 'amusing and reasonable' statute hasn't been on the books for a hundred years, sorry I tried to prosecute. Now if you wanna talk about mysticism ... Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 13:21:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Re: wieners + (alan) davies In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 16 Mar 1997 22:14:49 -0500 from Louis--I git April 11, John Weiners, Writer's House, Penn. But WHEN (i.e. what time of day) Thanx, RBD across the Schuylkill ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 10:59:29 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: Astrology poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ira: My book Persia (Chance Additions) was written in relation to tarot cards - though not apparent from the work the Roman numerals stand for the cards - some astrological stuff in there - and there is also mention of such in Symmetry (Avec Books) - even a poem called Astrology - I've alwasy been interested in the detritus of western civ/con game aspect of the pseudo sciences - Norma Cole's book Mars (Listening Chamber) does have to do with the god of war, Dante etc so that should relate - the cover (by Jess) is an interesting use of that kind of material - Would be happy to backchannel more thought about this - Laura Moriarty ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:54:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Might as well beg the obvious--Gustave Holst's The Planets is about astrology, not space travel. I think it's garbage, but there it is. At 11:58 AM 3/19/97 -0500, you wrote: >Has anyone mentioned George Crumb's Makrokosmos? I think both sets are based >on the zodiac. The scores are quite lovely. > >Maryrose Larkin > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:55:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Astrology poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm piggy-backing on others to save time. The zodiac is a common theme in the decoration of medieval and renaissance churches, particularly in Italy, but I forget just where. Should be easy to track down. At 12:25 PM 3/19/97 -0500, you wrote: >There is a composer named Dane Rudyar, I think, who is more conservative >than Stockhausen. He has also written several books on astrology. That's >all I have. Now if you were doing a study on martyrology ... :-) > >Pete Landers >landers@frontiernet.net > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:19:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: New Sun & Moon titles Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sun & Moon Press has several new titles, just in. As in the past, we will give anyone ordering through E-mail from the poetics list a 20% discount. UNBOUND: A BOOK OF AIDS by Aaron Shurin Witnessing the illnes and death of many of friends from AIDS, San Francisco poet Aaron Shurin began a series of writings that, as he puts it, "are the stations of an elarging question: the question, alarmed, of a cell aroused by invasion, or the yearning curl of a lover's body awake on the vacated sheets." The startlingly original and provocative book that resulted was not a project but a process of learning about AIDS and its implications THROUGH the activity of writing itself. It is, in that context, not a book ABOUT AIDS but, growing from Shurin's attempt to understand and reach out to those around him, a book OF AIDS. Cloth $19.95 SEEKING AIR, by Barbara Guest Guest's 1978 novel, a truly original and fabulous work, is now reprinted into Sun & Moon's Classics Series. Paperback, $12.95 THE BLIND CAT BLACK and ORTHODOXIES by Ece Ayhan Translated from the Turkish by Murat Nemet-Nejat Wonderfully experimental poetry by the great Turkish poet, Ece Ayhan. Both works printed here take the reader through the dark streets of the Galata district of Istanbul, an area where European minorities lives historically side by side with red light sexual activities. Like a modern-day Rimbaud, Ayhan explores a world of fear, love, and wonderment. MAY SKY: THERE IS ALWAYS TOMORROW A History and Anthology of Haiku in the World War II Interment Camps for Japanese American Citizens Edited and Translated by Violet Kazue de Christoforo Sun & Moon is extremely proud to have published this profoundly moving history of the Japanese Haiku clubs and their continution, along with other artistic activities, in the Internment Camps of World War II. Kazue de Christoforo recounts the background of the California clubs, the painful process of arrest and internment, and translates a large selection of haiku written in the camps. She has tracked down most of the active members of the various haiku clubs and presented biographies of them as well. With maps, photographs, and many other fascinating details. Cloth $29.95 Order from Sun & Moon Press djmess@sunmoon.com or directly from our Web Site http://www.sunmoon.com Douglas Messerli ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 16:02:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: formally disturbed In-Reply-To: henry gould "Re: formally disturbed" (Mar 19, 11:05am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii What Henry Ghoul'd said: > Under the subject > AMERICAN LITERATURE - POETRY - LATE 20th CENTURY, you will find eight > titles published between 2012 and 2120, specifically dealing with the > rap/langpo dialectic as an index of cultural dissonance in late-20th > cent. US culture. You will find 3 books on Rap metrics/rhyme, and an whopping > 85 titles on poetry as performance in late millenial caffeine etiquette. > An if you mess wi me > you gonna bookified be > I am the numbala one king > of dis library thing > I say libuububububary bury me > baby inna bubblemath sea - hey > - Henny Ghoul'd Yes but how does all that pulp fit into your own weltanschuuang my dear Herr Ghoul? Throwing books and dead letters at me eh?. You must be Ghoul'd! An if you bookified baby gonna say you king of dis library thing I say, hey, you's a mess. "Avant-Garde is revolt and metaphysics" -Rosenberg Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:27:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: Re: New Sun & Moon titles Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I forgot to give the price of the Ayhan book. It's Paperbound at $10.95, in the Sun & Moon Classics series. Douglas wrote: > > Sun & Moon Press has several new titles, just in. > As in the past, we will give anyone ordering through > E-mail from the poetics list a 20% discount. > > UNBOUND: A BOOK OF AIDS > by Aaron Shurin > > Witnessing the illnes and death of many of friends > from AIDS, San Francisco poet Aaron Shurin began a > series of writings that, as he puts it, "are the > stations of an elarging question: the question, > alarmed, of a cell aroused by invasion, or the > yearning curl of a lover's body awake on the vacated > sheets." > The startlingly original and provocative book > that resulted was not a project but a process of > learning about AIDS and its implications THROUGH > the activity of writing itself. It is, in that > context, not a book ABOUT AIDS but, growing > from Shurin's attempt to understand and reach out > to those around him, a book OF AIDS. > > Cloth $19.95 > > SEEKING AIR, by Barbara Guest > > Guest's 1978 novel, a truly original and > fabulous work, is now reprinted into Sun & > Moon's Classics Series. > > Paperback, $12.95 > > THE BLIND CAT BLACK and ORTHODOXIES > by Ece Ayhan > Translated from the Turkish by Murat > Nemet-Nejat > > Wonderfully experimental poetry by the > great Turkish poet, Ece Ayhan. Both works > printed here take the reader through the > dark streets of the Galata district of > Istanbul, an area where European minorities > lives historically side by side with red > light sexual activities. Like a modern-day > Rimbaud, Ayhan explores a world of fear, > love, and wonderment. > > MAY SKY: THERE IS ALWAYS TOMORROW > A History and Anthology of Haiku in > the World War II Interment Camps for > Japanese American Citizens > Edited and Translated by Violet Kazue > de Christoforo > > Sun & Moon is extremely proud to have > published this profoundly moving history > of the Japanese Haiku clubs and their > continution, along with other artistic > activities, in the Internment Camps of > World War II. Kazue de Christoforo recounts > the background of the California clubs, the > painful process of arrest and internment, and > translates a large selection of haiku written > in the camps. She has tracked down most of > the active members of the various haiku clubs > and presented biographies of them as well. With > maps, photographs, and many other fascinating > details. > > Cloth $29.95 > > Order from Sun & Moon Press djmess@sunmoon.com > or directly from our Web Site http://www.sunmoon.com > > Douglas Messerli ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:23:58 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: SPT: Pamela Lu and Ann Verornica Simon In-Reply-To: <199703192055.MAA09402@armenia.it.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic presents Friday March 21, 7:30 p.m. Pamela Lu Ann Veronica Simon New College Theater 777 Valencia Street $5 Pamela Lu, from Southern California, received a B.A. in math from U.C. Berkeley, and her groundbreaking work has appeared in Explosive, Prosodia, Chain and Clamour. Lu's writing weaves in and out between poetry and fiction, mixing the theoretical wit and spark of Barthes or Avital Ronell with a bewildered confusion and terror-like some Berkeley-born mutant blend of Gayatri Spivak, Shirley Jackson and Kurt Cobain. Ann Veronica Simon is originally from Michigan. She received her M.F.A. from Louisiana State University and is currently in the Ph.D. program in Rhetoric at U.C. Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Trivia, Prosodia, Idiom and is forthcoming in Mirage and Clamour. A brilliant performer, Simon is the Ruth Draper de nos jours. Reading her cool, angular poetry is like following the dance notations of Martha Graham. This event was programmed by Renee Gladman. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 18:11:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: wieners + (alan) davies In-Reply-To: <970319.132159.EST.RDUPLESS@VM.TEMPLE.EDU> from "Rachel Blau DuPlessis" at Mar 19, 97 01:21:00 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'll let you know soon as we do - really hope you can make it! It might be as early as 4pm, and no later than 7pm. Louis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 22:14:57 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You also might want to look at James Merrill's long poem, The Changing Light at Sandover, structured (and supposedly channeled through) a Ouija Board. Also Ira, you might want to investigate non-western astrologies. I think Francisco Alarcon did some work using Aztec materials. Leslie Silko's the Almanac of the Dead is another place. I'm sure there's been some interesting stuff using Chinese and other Asian divination resources as well. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 22:39:22 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: A branch off the "Disturbed" thread In-Reply-To: <9703172102.AA17278@is.nyu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Joe and Susan: I tried to send separate posts a day ago but my server somehoww kicked it back to me. Hence the delay. I'm glad to see someone else is willing to face the sloppiness of the idea of teaching as "making a better world." It is sloppy, of course, to say so, and entirely impractical, but it's something I keep abutting against in my own teaching. I think, really, its all the hope I have, at least in the more general pedagogical terms we've been addressing. Of course, there is all the hope in the world on a student by student basis, and perhaps that's the point after all. But at some point, I think, we will have to more rigorously explain what we mean by a better world, but that will have to deal with questionsof revolution, utopia, etc, which can't clearly be addressed here.But this must be the central ideal of any pedagogy. Yes,Susan, this threadhas come up before several times, with some very interesting results. If I remember properly, Gwyn and Carolyn Forche had some particularly important things to say in this context (I hope I'm not putting words in folks's mouths). But I think this is something that will keep coming up not only in poetic situations, since so many poets now teach, but also for "radicals,"since so many radicals also teach. Of course, this is not to say, here on this list more so, that poetry or radical politics has come to find a privileged site in academia. I certainly hope not, since I may soon be leaving the profession. Nevertheless, for those of us caught between, so to speak, it is important we keep talking about this stuff. Finally, I like to think that I too teach my students how to be more critical consumers of culture, questioners, etc. Most of the time, though I think I just entertainthem for awhile and release them to do their own work. I remember how important it was for me to find out that there was a context in which such stuff as poetry mattered, and maybe that's the best thing I can provide them. I just hope, basically, that I don't get in their way. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 16:01:53 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: (fwd) AWOL: PANIC MORALITY, MEDIA, CULTURE Conference Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In case anyone is passing through Sydney.......... mark >Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 23:58:56 +1000 >To: awol@ozemail.com.au >From: awol@ozemail.com.au (AWOL) >Subject: AWOL: PANIC MORALITY, MEDIA, CULTURE Conference > >The following information has been posted by AWOL for the organisers of the >PANIC MORALITY, MEDIA, CULTURE Conference at Artspace. Please address all >enquiries to Artspace at the contacts listed below. > > >********************************************************************** > > >PANIC >MORALITY, MEDIA, CULTURE >Conference at Artspace > >Saturday 12 April 9.30am - 5.30pm > >Last year was a year of panics in Australia. The news constantly took us in >close to terror and frenzy. Victims and eyewitnesses were coaxed to share >their horror. Revelations were made about the sources of the panics, and >figures emerged to fear and hate: killers, pedophiles, Asians. > >So far this year it's business as usual in the news media: yet another >massacre, yet more revelations of abuse... But in 1996, when Australians >expressed their nostalgia for home and 'family values', their yearning for >belonging and security, fears were unleashed of strange introverts, >diplomats, clerics, migrants, street people. Our public places are >anonymous and nondescript, yet they house these clever and well-disguised >devils. And the news media are obvious culprits in creating the 'threats', >with their entertainment values, ritual practices and social control >agendas. Can the media do panic differently? > >Other fears were more established, and these, curiously, are often about >new media: violent video games, Internet porn, even commercial television. >A moral crisis is provoked, tough measures are called for and a >particularly susceptible target is named: boys, women, Generation X. But >whose crisis is this? > >In 1972 British sociologist Stanley Cohen published Folk Devils and Moral >Panics in response to similar outbreaks of fear and frenzy. There were >mods, rockers, muggings and football hooliganism. His terms 'folk devil' >and 'moral panic' have become common sense categories in media and cultural >studies, so that we don't think of them as connected to a particular >theoretical tradition, the study of youth subcultures. What use are the >categories when much of that tradition has been superseded? > >Speakers: > >Paul Jones (Dept of Sociology & Social Anthropology, UNSW) The Role of >'Moral Panic' in the Work of Stuart Hall > >Jeannie Martin & Fiona Allon (Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, UTS) >Panic in the Streets: home, homelessness & public spaces > >George Morgan (Centre for Aboriginal Cultural Studies, University of >Western Sydney) The Bulletin, Street Crime & the Larrikin Moral Panic in >the Late 19th Century > >Catharine Lumby (Media & Communication Studies, Macquarie University), >author of Bad Girls (Allen & Unwin), Mindless Violence & Loveless Sex: > >John Potts (Media & Communi-cation Studies, Macquarie University) The >Irrational in Commercial Television News > >Philip Bell (Media & Communi-cation Studies, UNSW) Blainey and Hanson: the >media "debates" > >Lea Redfern (Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, UTS) The Pedophile as >"folk devil" > >Stephen Stockwell (Faculty of Education & the Arts, Griffith University) >Childsplay, Racism and Port Arthur > >Sally Stockbridge (Network 10) & Tim Dwyer (Aust Broadcasting Authority) >Recurring moral panics & new methods of regulation > >Clarice Butkus & Mark Evans (Media & Communication Studies, Macquarie >University) Regulating the Emergent: traditional media's moral panic > >Jason Sternberg (Dept of Journalism, University of Queens-land) Generation >X: lifestyle panics & the new generation gap > >David Marshall (Media & Cultural Studies Centre, University of Queensland) >Technophobia: video-games, computer hacks & cybernetics > > >Registration: Full Day ($20 full / $15 concession) >or Single Sessions - 3 in total (Individual Sessions $8 full / $6 concession) > >For full program details and registration, please contact Artspace. > >Artspace >The Gunnery >43 - 51 Cowper Wharf Road >Woolloomooloo NSW 2011 >Australia > >tel +61 2 9368 1899 >fax +61 2 9368 1705 >e-mail artspace@merlin.com.au >URL http://www.culture.com.au/scan/artspace/ > > > >***************************************************************** > > > >AWOL >Australian Writing On Line >awol@ozemail.com.au >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol >PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia >Phone 61 2 97475667, Mobile 015063970 >Fax 61 2 97472802 > > > > Mark Roberts SIS website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/sis/ SIS Team Building G05 Maze Crescent University of Sydney Phone 61 2 93517710 Mobile 015063970 Fax 61 2 93517711 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:04:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Hugh Steinberg notes -- >...Also Ira, you might want to investigate non-western astrologies. I > think Francisco Alarcon did some work using Aztec materials. Reminds of Octavio Paz's *Puerto del Sol* (I think?) -- based (if memory serves) on (or inspired by) the Aztec calendar. Enjoyable translation was done by Elliot Weinberger. BTW, I recall seeing "new formalist" Dana Gioia's vol. entitled *Daily Horoscope* (Graywolf Press) --though I somehow doubt it has much to do w/ horoscopes. As interesting as poetry based on astrological themes might be a study of astrological coordinates of poets. I find myself wondering about some of the classics -- Whitman vs. Dickinsen (Leo vs. Virgo? -- a wild guess); Williams vs. Pound (Taurus vs. Scorpio? -- ditto). (I was never much good w/ guessing sun-sign of conversants at parties, so be gentle w/ me if I've flubbed this one on all counts.) -- David (sun in Gemini, moon in Libra) Israel ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:18:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >for one thing form is never more than an extension of content means that >content becomes form and extends form: so the reality of form is integral: >experience made actual in a construct of words Yeah, but it is literally true that one loves only form, & form comes into being when the thing is born. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 08:47:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: bat hartman Subject: Re: Astrological poetics In-Reply-To: <9703200521.AA02540@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, David Israel wrote: > the classics -- Whitman vs. Dickinsen (Leo vs. Virgo? -- a wild guess); > Williams vs. Pound (Taurus vs. Scorpio? -- ditto). (I was never much > good w/ guessing sun-sign of conversants at parties, so be gentle w/ me if > I've flubbed this one on all counts.) You got Pound right--Oct. 30, just shy of All Souls'. Williams is the Virgo, Sept. 17. Whitman, May 31--Gemini, like Yeats & Dylan & Emerson. Dickinson, Dec. 10, Sagittarius. All courtesy of book of days from a student. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 09:10:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan A Levin Subject: Re: force mouth content In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I like Jordan't tag line, so keep it. I've been wondering much lately myself about form/content, though in a different context. I'm tempted to want to say, in Rorty fashion, that it's a bad metaphor and we're better off just letting go of it. Where does it come from? I can't imagine anyone in a Renaissance context, sonneteers, say, really having any use for it. Poetic practice would simply make the distinction irrelevant, and even impossible to formulate. When is it formulable? After, I think, Goethe and Coleridge, who make a point of saying form is content in order to combat a hyperrationalized scheme governed by analysis, taking things apart, murdering to dissect, etc. Form/Content is a product of the analysis wing of 18th century rationalism. (Frankly, I don't know if I have my history right here: I'm shooting from the hip, but I've been trying to understand the larger contexts of organicism, in order to understand the larger contexts of contemporary holism/ecology metaphors.) Here's where I'm heading: from an organic point of view, or from the modified organicism that now passes as holism, form is necessarily an expression of content and content is necessarily a manifestation of form. They can't be teased apart. And the effort to keep talking in that language can only reflect our continued abasement before the gods of enlightenment analysis. I'm still thinking about the practical implications for poetry and "formal" "experiment." "!" This could take a long time. Jonathan Levin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 07:26:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: that other thread about teaching Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe Safdie makes some good points (although I didnt read his call to arms until I had sent in my previous post with those terms in it). But all this talk about conservative & innovative form/content keeps coming up because it is important & it does have something to do with what many of us do. Hands up: how many of us have to teach poets we dont always admire as much as some of the poets we dont get a good chance to teach? I taught a 3rd year course on Post-WW2 poetry in the US & the UK: it's a coverage course, so I have to teach such as Larkin, Lowell, those "L"s (both of whom, btw, Marjorie has written extremely interesting recent[last decade anyway] essays on), as well as Creeley, Olson, Levertov, O'Hara. I gave up on the Norton (partly because I even disagreed with its choices of poems by *its* poets, let alone appalling representation of those I care for (when they're in there). But some students really 'like' Larkin or Lowell or Plath. They find their work 'liberating,' 'moving.' say it 'speaks' to them. Wanting, like Joe, to let them find their own ways (as much as I can do so when I am up front & have all that power), I can certainly alert them to my biases, but also praise them for not just following my lead. Besides, there are interesting things to say about some of these writers' poems, both positive & critical (Larkin is fascinating as a figure of his culture, which so many in that culture 'trust': why?). Rich tends to capture the attention of many young women. Perhaps they will go beyond her & eventually find her writing a problem because it doesnt fully enact the free flow it announces, Perhaps not. There is an argument to be made for the reach of writing that carries a somewhat radical message in a way that allows many readers to connect with it (but there I am somehow falling into that division again; even as I say, everyday, that it is a construct & false, it's hard to teach without invoking it on some level, & then immediately, again, saying, no, no, that's not whatI meant at all...) All of which is just to say, I've found this thread really interesting & do want to keep thinking the dangers inherent in what goes on when we carry our desires & biases into the classroom, a place where we dont always have complete control over what we teach. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour How long Department of English University of Alberta it takes for the promise to arrive, Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 shaped as a flirt, a cheating (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 kiss, a whistle, an ambulance. H: 436 3320 John Tranter ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 09:42:55 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ira -- listening right now to John Coltrane's INTERSTELLAR SPACE THE 6 CUTS OF WHICH ARE TITLED: 1. MARS 2. LEO 3.VENUS 4. JUPITER VARIATION 5 JUPITER 6. SATURN -- the music (Coltrane on tenor & bells, Rashied Ali on drums) is instellar, the space, according to the titles, however sub-solar. Trane's last recording. -- Pierre ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 09:56:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: spicer on f/c MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The idealist concept-philosophy that Jonathan Levin traces for one dichotomy - form/content - of the discursive trade on poetry haunts this list much more than any tomb of a living poet. Actually Spicer's theory, in the quote Kevin Killian posted from _Language_, has been, in the laboratories of the university humanities departments, recently confirmed (much like Einstein's theories were by later empirical observation of the galaxy): for if you trace the history of the condom - materials employed, its link-up with industrial manufacture, embeddedness [literally] in the domestic patriarchal economy, etc etc, and its recent marketing, etc., the whole social-historical works connected with it - you will find it parallels the development of the form/content dichotomy (and/or identity) in poetics. Louis Cabri ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 10:11:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: OREN.IZENBERG@JHU.EDU Subject: Re: force mouth content In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT jonathan, I don't know when "form" and "content" began to play these particular roles as TERMS, but the concepts are older than you allow-- you _might_ start with Bacon, whose critique of eloquence distinguishes between copia verborum and copia rerum-- so that augmentation, increase, discovery, PROPERLY takes place in relation to things rather than words, which are consigned to poetry. Poetry, for Bacon, marks the outside of the knowledge system...poetry is not error, it is that which is known not to be true. But the appearance of copia with reference to vernacular English goes back to Puttenham...who annexes the rhetorical taxonomy of figures (in the Arte of English Poesie) on behalf of poetry, making the figuration the essence of poetry and backforming rhetoric into a mode of speech resistant to figuration. Puttenham's kind is account of poetry as the change in the word that MAKES NO DIFFERENCE even as it is different (thus preserving 'innovation' while bracketing its association with factions and violence), is the prior move that allows Bacon to eliminate poetry from counting as knowledge at all. The Romantics had to "recover" form, not just from the Enlightenment , but from the whole long history of epistemology as such, which depends in large measure on the invention of the difference between words and things--a difference in which poetry was a main antagonist and patsy. take care, O. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 08:41:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/Spicer's "Language" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'd forgotten that lovely quote from Spicer, but thanks, it reminded me of George Bowering's long poem, _Allophanes_, which begins "The snowball appears in Hell / every morniing at seven." & continues: Dr. Babel contends about the world's form, striking its prepared strings endlessly, a pleasure moving rings outward thru the universe. All sentences are to be served. It then keeps its eyes fixed firmly far away from the stars. Probably doesnt fit either, since whatever 'mysticism' it engages it denies with wit -- including astrology. "Fixed" things & ideas: "Drive right past that lady, that's / St. As. Is." every so often it's worth remembering George writes some damn fine poems, as well as all these fun postings... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour How long Department of English University of Alberta it takes for the promise to arrive, Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 shaped as a flirt, a cheating (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 kiss, a whistle, an ambulance. H: 436 3320 John Tranter ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 10:55:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: force mouth content In-Reply-To: from "OREN.IZENBERG@JHU.EDU" at Mar 20, 97 10:11:37 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit oren's post strikes me as a very good comment on the f/c business -- as though 'form' and 'content' were easy terms to dismantle! i'd say 'the whole long history of epistemology as such' =is= where we have to 'start' -- whatever it is we propose, exactly, to 'start' doing or changing or overcoming. one book i have found very useful for these matters is marcia colish's =the mirror of language. a study in the medieval theory of knowledge= (revised edition, nebraska, 1983). she explains that classical philosophers tended to treat words as one type of sign, while augustine and other medieval thinkers tended to view signification as primarily verbal. meanwhile christianity encouraged the notion that knowledge was semiotic; but knowledge of god was inexact and so that encouraged the notion of signs as inexact. while medieval sign theory saw the =aenigma= of language as essential to understanding the content of the world, the development of formal logic (12th-14th centuries) decisively separated reality, thought, and language. can we have aquinas's '=verbum mentis='? only if language is the whole world. that's why the form/content debate won't go away, i think, though it can be profitably imagined in less binary ways. -lisa s. According to OREN.IZENBERG@JHU.EDU: > > jonathan, > > I don't know when "form" and "content" began to play these particular > roles as TERMS, but the concepts are older than you allow-- you _might_ > start with Bacon, whose critique of eloquence distinguishes between copia > verborum and copia rerum-- so that augmentation, increase, discovery, > PROPERLY takes place in relation to things rather than words, which are > consigned to poetry. Poetry, for Bacon, marks the outside of the > knowledge system...poetry is not error, it is that which is known not to > be true. > > But the appearance of copia with reference to vernacular English goes > back to Puttenham...who annexes the rhetorical taxonomy of figures (in > the Arte of English Poesie) on behalf of poetry, making the figuration > the essence of poetry and backforming rhetoric into a mode of speech > resistant to figuration. Puttenham's kind is account of poetry as the > change in the word that MAKES NO DIFFERENCE even as it is different (thus > preserving 'innovation' while bracketing its association with factions > and violence), is the prior move that allows Bacon to eliminate poetry from > counting as knowledge at all. > > The Romantics had to "recover" form, not just from the Enlightenment , but > from the whole long history of epistemology as such, which depends in > large measure on the invention of the difference between words and > things--a difference in which poetry was a main antagonist and patsy. > > take care, > O. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 12:25:57 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:18 AM 3/20/97 -0800, you wrote: >>for one thing form is never more than an extension of content means that >>content becomes form and extends form: so the reality of form is integral: >>experience made actual in a construct of words > > >Yeah, but it is literally true that one loves only form, & form comes into >being when the thing is born. Form might be very popular now, might have been very popular for the modernists, but I'm not so sure that "one loves _only_ form" would apply to much eng. poetry before 1900. Hopkins makes a pretty good case against love of form in "Kingfishers Catch Fire"; and I think Herbert in _The Temple_ ultimately discards form, a vehicle for this known world only. I make this case to suggest that in at least eng. lit. the love of form and form alone is relatively new and perhaps we shouldn't take it so much for granted. For the modernists the form/content dualism is analagous to, if not another word for, a dualism between individual, different details and abstractions. (This dualism breaks down when the idea of a single right abstraction dissolves, Truth becoming hegemony.) (I'm absolutely NOT advocating some wildly reactionary return to poetry of a Christian God as the above examples, taken alone, might indicate.This is more an effort to describe what people today think when they think about "poetry.") Someone in the astrological poetry thread recently mentioned Merrill: what was form for him? I belive _Changing Light_ makes use of almost every major "poetic form" in eng. (This discussion hasn't been limited to traditional ideas of form, but as a shorthand signifier of poetic form historical rhymes & meters work well.) And of course the whole poem claims it was originally to be a novel. Is the message something other than its form when a Ouji board is used? Matthias, pondering loudly ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 12:28:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthias Regan Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:47 AM 3/20/97 -0500, you wrote: > >You got Pound right--Oct. 30, just shy of All Souls'. Williams is the >Virgo, Sept. 17. Whitman, May 31--Gemini, like Yeats & Dylan & Emerson. >Dickinson, Dec. 10, Sagittarius. All courtesy of book of days from a >student. What about Scorpios? Who shares signs with me? I remember Sam Shepard from a Calender I used to have... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 12:16:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: Re: Astrological poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Keats, Dostoevsky, Augustine, Lamantia, Goethe, Musil, Malreaux, Notley, Berrigan, and Kyger, to name a few. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 13:41:55 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: form/content? good idea! It's not the questions around form/content (which seem to be endless and inherent, whether you're coming from a theoretical/philosophical/historical interest or from a fabricator's perspective) over which I lose my easily- lost temper. It's the other binary - the idea that a poet goes for "traditional" (rhyme/meter) or "innovative" - that loses me. But yes nobody really said that anyway so let's not start that wheel going, Hank... I liked what Mark Wallace said about people like Mac Low & other "innovators" working from their own "strict" forms. This ground has been plowed many a time but it's worth remembering... & for my book, again Valery's essays are a gold mine of insight on these questions. See "Man and the Seashell" on form & content - and the useless freedom of art-making as its only truly HUMAN characteristic. Such a position should give pause to both philosophical "enemies" of poetry (Bacon?) and philosophical "friends" (all those false friends in the Party of Ideology - are you listening, "Poetry & the Public Sphereoids"? I's bein provocative, I thinks uh hopes) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:25:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: far reader Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks, Louis, for the reference to Mittenthal, which I did not know. I'm somewhat mystified by the broad brush of your dismissal, however, as well as its specifics. For example, I don't understand the critique about poetry being "hardly ever referred to described or invoked"; my copy, anyway, invokes poetry in every essay except for the chapter entitled "in defense of ideology." Poets quoted in block form include Auden, Marvell, Blake, Tadeusz R=F3zewicz, Mahmoud Darwish, Roque Dalton, Erich Fried, Nazim= Hikmet, Herberto Padilla, Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Bly, Bob Perelman, and Scully himself. =20 At 12:11 AM 3/19/97 -0500, Louis Cabri wrote: >Robert Mittenthal brilliantly critiques James Scully's book, >_Line Break_, starting from the fact that while the book is about >the "the social practice of poetry" poetry is hardly ever >referred to described or invoked. And Scully didn't even write >his book on a listserv! (See Mittenthal's review in _Writing_ 25 >[1990].) Of course arguing from out of - from within - poetry >does not _garantee_ a better argument either - that is, a truly >"deep encounter," for instance, as Christopher Alexander would >urge practitioners to experience with their medium. Does close >reading even garantee an argument? No longer - yet perhaps if you are >reading the Metaphysicals, Chris. Thus it might be necessary in >arguing for the "social practice of poetry" to not mention poetry >at all. Of course arguing _alongside_ poetry, in paralogue as it >were, does not garantee a better argument either - that is, a >truly deep encounter with "social practice...." Apart from saying >that, I may as well also state that for me there are so many >unhelpful contradictions and connotations in the language of the >quotation from Scully's book, that I think David Kellogg posted, >I don't know where to even begin in pointing them out. Here's >one, not necessarily the best: Is he for or against a >"metahistorical source of illumination" for poetry? From his own >disparaging language, I would say definitely not. Yet I can't >figure out from the quotation how he proposes that "shared >understanding" would occur elsewise. Share my cropper. Again, I guess I'm lost. Of course he's not for such a "metahistorical source of illumination." The point of invoking such a source in order to dismiss it, in my reading, is to qualify his own pronouncements as both provisional and presumptuous, in other words to press up against the limits of the sayable within the discourse of talk (writing) about poetry. The contradictions are in the field itself before they're in Scully's intervention -- not to say they're _not_ in his interventions, which is precisely his point. =20 Perhaps I blurbed his book too highly. I came across it when I was particularly distressed by the numbingly repeated gestures of most poetry criticism; Scully's book, for me, avoided these gestures, and thus was (and is) a positive event. =20 Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Box 90023, Duke University (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ There is no mantle and it does not descend. --Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:39:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: The Death of Poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=unknown-8bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The Death of Poetry You were invited there You overslept again What�s your excuse this time You missed the boat/vote/rote/ moat/bloat/goat ?????? The book was printed up The words all ran together The pages black with ink So the faux po�s used invisible stink It was a fluke that you were inside of the coffin as they swung it upon their shoulders Wasn�t it a real nice graveride? You�re finally inside in (inside) Real nice graveride riptide.... Woho the death of poetry Mercifully fast Only lasted a millenium of two The art of the past No mo po get down to bisness Po�s no show Good riddance The view was dark/hark/lark/bark/park The time was passing slo/ e motion The day was calm and a foggy, cool and a balmy, April is the cruelest/coolest The creeps were creeping out Shouting eulogymissiles in the street The word's worth opposite beat The drummer�s melodizing feet Typewriters on parade Walt�n�Emily rolling grave Nothing left save to save The Death of Poetry It was a computer thing A neuter thing Belligerent knucklehead Brat art teeth shred Flesh word battery nozzle Fair skin carousal Itchy mean grouse kiss Whatta life death is The Death of Poetry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:54:57 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: The Death of Poetry In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:39:40 -0500 from The Dearth of Poetry Man & a seashell up out of bat hell - was human nature a double feature? Have a future? Nature or Nurture? Shakespeare a big fish he made a mish-mash call it "trod culture" - neurotic vulture had his ideology made no apology Make a better fry invent a new pie use our own mix call it Edge Poetix debunk the old slag corroded lang-wag Huffa puff po 2000 leagues below Atlantis deep well she sell a seashell almost unnatural (poesie after all) (--you win, Nyupoman) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 19:01:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: for Blarnes scholiasts & such Henry et alia, this just in.... (msg. attached) best, d.i. p.s.: further anent Robbie Basho, might interest: I personally typed up his unpublished (& alas, now poss. lost) MS entitled *The Divan of Sky Bull*. Robbie complained (mildly) that I tinkered w/ his syntax (or poss. diction), shifting the poems in (what he viewed as) China-influenced directions. But I dare say he seemed pleased withal. His anthemic "Bury My Heart at Wonded Knee" still rings in my ears (not in the *Divan*, which was poetry proper rather than song-lyrics; rather, was on an album called [something or other?] Eagle . . . details fade; blue cover). Received: from jws.sunyerie.edu (jws.sunyerie.edu [198.99.89.1]) by mailhub.sunyerie.edu (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id PAA21733; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:43:00 -0500 Received: from JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU by JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 18322 for BABA@JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 17:16:34 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by f30.hotmail.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA20816; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from 137.141.31.1 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 PST X-Originating-IP: [137.141.31.1] Content-Type: text/plain Message-ID: <199703202206.OAA20816@f30.hotmail.com> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 -0800 Reply-To: Avatar Meher Baba Listserv Sender: Avatar Meher Baba Listserv From: Wounded-dog Ken Meherdas Littlebear Ninety Subject: Ram Dass web site To: BABA@JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU Up dated health news plus previous info and some fun grafics can be found on the three Ram Dass home pages beginning at http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/heights/1143/ramdas.html Hey folks that's what serch engines are for:-) (this from alta vista) --------------------------------------------------------- Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:14:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU Subject: The Death of Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (yet the thread... poof! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 16:50:21 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Trane was very much involved w/ astrology. Bill Cole makes a point about this, if I remember correctly, in his biography. Look into Braxton as well. Graham Lock's book _Forces in Motion_ gives an overview of Braxton's chart... On angelology (but not astrology): there is of course Henri Corbin, whose work has been applied and/or alluded to by Olson, Duncan, Clarke, and Mackey (among many others I'm sure). In brief, Stephen Cope >Ira -- listening right now to John Coltrane's INTERSTELLAR SPACE THE 6 >CUTS OF WHICH ARE TITLED: 1. MARS 2. LEO 3.VENUS 4. JUPITER VARIATION 5 >JUPITER 6. SATURN -- the music (Coltrane on tenor & bells, Rashied Ali >on drums) is instellar, the space, according to the titles, however >sub-solar. Trane's last recording. -- Pierre >========================================= >pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 >tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Everything that allows men to become rooted, through >values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in >_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which >constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, >[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality >and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose >it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot >========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 19:46:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: p.s. re: Ram Dass pardon, but a URL correction hath been pointed out: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subject: Ram Dass add an s corection ! >>> Wounded-dog Ken Meherdas Littlebear Ninety 03/20/97 05:27pm >>> that should be http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/heights/1143/ramdass.html sorry! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [chap could add an r to corection too, but not all so crucial] (shouldn't wish to proffer inauthentic info / pseudo-URLs, ergo this addendum) d.i. Received: from jws.sunyerie.edu (jws.sunyerie.edu [198.99.89.1]) by mailhub.sunyerie.edu (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id PAA21733; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:43:00 -0500 Received: from JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU by JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 18322 for BABA@JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 17:16:34 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by f30.hotmail.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA20816; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from 137.141.31.1 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 PST X-Originating-IP: [137.141.31.1] Content-Type: text/plain Message-ID: <199703202206.OAA20816@f30.hotmail.com> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:06:54 -0800 Reply-To: Avatar Meher Baba Listserv Sender: Avatar Meher Baba Listserv From: Wounded-dog Ken Meherdas Littlebear Ninety Subject: Ram Dass web site To: BABA@JWS.SUNYERIE.EDU Up dated health news plus previous info and some fun grafics can be found on the three Ram Dass home pages beginning at http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/heights/1143/ramdas.html Hey folks that's what serch engines are for:-) (this from alta vista) --------------------------------------------------------- Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 20:14:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: LA Magazines Just wanted to call everyone's attention to two interesting magazines coming out of Los Angeles. The older more established one is Ribot (ree-boe) edited/published by Paul Vangelisti. The sixth issue has a "history" as a theme. A corresponding conference will be held on the island of Catalina in May. Guests will include Ray DiPalma, Douglas Messerli, Dennis Phillips, Kevin Young, and others. The second magazine is called Rhizome and it was started by some younger people, myself included, in order to facilitate a conversation between east coast and west coast writers. Writers included are Cole Swenson, Mac Wellman, Charles Bernstein, Juliana Spahr, Martine Bellen, Martha Ronk, Spencer Selby, Paul Vangelisti, and many others. It is available for $10.00. Checks should be written to Standard Schaefer. 366 S.Mentor Ave. #108, Pasadena, CA 91106. It will also be distributed by Small Press Distributors, Fine Print, Berhard DeBoers in short time. Submissions will accepted through July. Rhizome also carries reviews and should be queried if anyone would like to submit one of those. Thanks for your time. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:35:40 GM+5 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Organization: SLAIS, UBC Subject: Against Wisdom as Such It's delightful that Kevin Killian quotes Spicer, and in particular that poem. The Seminar on Mythos at Runcible Mountain College (here in Vancouver) was discussing the poem in our class just last week. I'm not clear on how the poem can be seen as aligning itself with Olson contra Duncan. We thought that the poem passed judgement over both of them as false prophets. But also, there's something odd in Spicer's positive conception of the mythic within his own poetry. Olson's polemic against Duncan charges him with illegitimately dragging in figures external to art and scolds him for not being properly subordinate to the moment of composition. "I fall back on a difference I am certain the poet at least has to be fierce about: that he is not free to be part of, or to be any, sect; that there are no symbols to him, there are only his own composed forms, and each one soley the issue of the time of the moment of its creation, not any ultimate except what he in his heat and that instant in its solidity yield. That the poet cannot afford to traffick in any other 'sign' that his one, his self, the man or woman he is. Otherwise God does rush in. And art is washed away, turned into that second force, religion." (Human Universe, 68-9) Our seminar thought that Spicer's criticism of the arrogance of the poet extended to Olson because of the latter's insistence upon the MOMENT of writing, upon the primacy of the poet IN that moment, and hence the "usability" of anything which may enter the field-- including god, star, totem. But it is odd, too, that Spicer brings in the image of the condom. To what use does one put a spattered, worn-out condom? More troubling for us, however, was the question of what this thing called belief has to do with poetry. ("If you don't believe in a god, don't quote him"). Doesn't the very idea betray the principle of dictation? What business is it of the poet to be dabbling in epistemology at all? Also troubling was the question of distinguishing the mythological from the non-mythological within a poem. Why point to the presence of "Zeus" as a problem while "house" remains an understood commonplace, readily assimilated into a readerly unpacking. Is there a clear basis for making the distinction without reverting to some form of scientism ("that which is non-cognitive does not exist")? I'm curious to hear any replies to these comments, here, or elsewhere. Aaron Vidaver, on behalf of the Seminar on Mythos Runcible Mountain College Here too of import is Duncan's "And a Wisdom as Such." (Etude from the Fourth Treatise of the _Convivio_, Chapters XVII and XXI) And a wisdom as such, a loosening of energies and every gain! For good. A rushing-in place of "God", if it be! Open out like a rose that can no longer keep its center closed but, practicing for Death, lets go, let's go, littering the ground with petals of its rime, _"and spreads abroad the last perfume which has been generated within"--_ sweet warning the heart, the rose hip, knows of how soon the rapturous outpouring speech of self into the silence of the mind comes home, and, even the core dispersed, in darkness of the ground is gone out from me, the very last of me, till I am rid of every rind and seed into that sweetness, that final giving over, letting go, that scattering of every nobleness... _"the seed of blessedness draws near de- spatcht by God into the welling soul." [October 20,1973] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 01:09:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: far reader In-Reply-To: <199703201925.OAA09350@argus.acpub.duke.edu> from "David Kellogg" at Mar 20, 97 02:25:35 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I realize only now, David, that I left out one important word in my account--and I have disserviced Mittenthal's critique as a result: Scully does not directly write of _living_ poets (except thirdhand of two besides himself). I would likely not have overlooked this had I a copy of Scully's book at hand--which I don't. Robert Mittenthal says: The only reference to living North American writers (save Scully's discussion of his own work) comes to us third hand via an article in the _New York Times Book Review_, by Michael Davidson, which briefly contrasts two paragraphs from Robert Bly and Bob Perelman. That Scully discounts both these writers' works as symptomatic of bourgeois ideology without referring to more than two decontextualized paragraphs in Davidson's article is indicative of just how (in Scully's words) "little curiosity many poets have regarding their own language" (p. 73 [_Line Break_]). In eight essays, two of which are not about poetry at all, Scully tries to make a case for a poetry that would communicate (i.e., convert or commit us to) his political ideals. This idealized poetry, instead of physically embodyting language, would use it as if it had no physical presence.... (_Writing_ 25, p. 87) That is: as if language has no physical--in the sense of living-- presence. And yet (this is Mittenthal's point, I think) Scully argues for a social practice (of commitment, for/by poetry). It's undoubtfully important to remember that Scully is writing in the 1980s, as is Mittenthal, almost. In a way, Mittenthal's review neatly summarizes Language Writing doxa, and thereby also the larger debate of how the politics of language in the 1980s seemed, for some, to be divided into (not surprisingly) two camps, on one side intralanguage-oriented, and on the other extralanguage-oriented views on politics and the political--Mitttenthal and Scully, respectively. Together with some others including Maria Damon I think you have, in your response to Marjorie Perloff's last post (the one that proposes to narrate a history of the "rise" of a representational politics of poetries) you have alluded to the concept of the field itself in which these two camps lay (in which I have M and S as allegorical figure-generals), and to, therefore, the existence of other camps, which were overlooked, elided by these two camps. But it is precisely the field itself--that is, equal to the field itself--that was in contestation by these two camps. No better proof of how bitter and divisive this contest was, I think, than Erica Hunt's essay in _The Politics of Poetic Form_. That moment, historical, of equivalency to the field itself, has passed, as Steve Evans knows, or is at least no longer recognizable in those terms today, I think. And so now the field looks larger, or large, or horizontal (when before it all seemed verticle and oppressive) and is, besides, changing. Gosh! Where was I...? What about others' views on this history? Meanwhile--or, elsewhere--_Mirage_, in San Francisco, ed. Kevin Killlian, puts out a special on John Wieners in 1985. Some of it is in tension with a getting-ready-to-have-been-"dominant"-subordinate poetics: Dear John [Wieners, presumably], I'm so tired of being serious now tho the 80s writing scene increasingly demands it. And where's all my fancy French crit vocab gotten me? Into _Poetics Journal_? Fat chance! (Steve Abbott, "Wienerschnitzel," _Mirage_ p. 7) In any event I will photocopy Mittenthal's review for you, if your library doesn't have _Writing_ 25 (1990)--this is to anyone, I guess. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 22:35:35 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Form/Content again In-Reply-To: <199703210501.VAA20960@leland.Stanford.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, today's postings are so intresting so I think I'll throw in a word or two after a week or so of being too tired to respond to all the deeply disturbing allegations etc. I've been reading the various new books on Duchamp (the bio by Calvin Tompkins only so-so, but I recommend strongly Jerrold Siegel's new book--a kind of psychobiography that really says new things about the work. It's called THE PRIVATE WORLDS OF MARCEL DUCHAMP (California, 1996). Anyway, Duchamp, who is hardly a "formalist" has in fact an incredible sense of "form" in that the how always surpasses the what--in fact there is no "what." Take, for instance, the care D took to have the urinal photographed by Stieglitz in front of the Mardsen Hartley painting so that the inverted "fountain" matches the shape in Hartley with the Buddha. It's so brilliant and that's how we almost always see "Fountain." So what is "content" here outside form? In contrast--and here comes content--I'm reading with sick fascination the recently published (thus far only in German) diaries by Victor Klemperer, 1933-45, a best-seller in Germany and reviewed recently in TLS. Klemperer was one of the few Jewish intellectuals (maybe the only one) who stayed in Germany--Dresden, where he was a French prof--throughout the whole Nazi time and his diary, begun the day Hitler became Chancellor and Klemperer sees exactly what goes on day by day as all his friends are fired and stores are shut down and the most vile stuff goes on and yet, for complex set of reasons doesn't try to leave. I shall have nightmares about these diaries no doubt. They are very well written. But I would never read them a second time because there would be no point--I'm absorbing the content. Wheras, as the man said, Poetry is news that stays news." I know--there's no hard and fast contrast between art and non-art but that, to me, is the difference between poetry and, say, these Klemperer diaries. Poetry is what must be reread--can only be reread. And by that criterion, a lot that passes for "poetry" at the moment just isn't. It's absorbable in a linear way. Five years from now no one will give a damn. And so I don't think we need be so generous that we say, oh great, I love it all! Let's reach out--and all that bla bla. But "form" can never just mean stanza form or generative device. Generative devices can be brilliantly used as in Oulipo, Sorrentino, Silliman, Hejinian, etc etc. but per se no device is either good or bad. Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 01:44:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Against Wisdom as Such In-Reply-To: Aaron Vidaver "Against Wisdom as Such" (Mar 20, 6:35pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Aaron writes: > More troubling for us, however, was the question of what this thing > called belief has to do with poetry. ("If you don't believe in a god, > don't quote him"). Doesn't the very idea betray the principle of > dictation? I don't know. What about dictation as inspiration? & > Also troubling was the question of distinguishing the mythological > from the non-mythological within a poem. Why point to the presence > of "Zeus" as a problem while "house" remains an understood > commonplace, readily assimilated into a readerly unpacking. Is > there a clear basis for making the distinction without reverting to > some form of scientism ("that which is non-cognitive does not exist")? I agree that reverting to some form of scientism is not the answer, not in poetry. Outside of poetry, rational-scientific-critical thinking has already killed the god. Inside of poetry, (it's too dark to read) that has always been something to be contained so that it's not so terrifying. As for a "house" (or other thingy for that matter), I hope it never becomes "understood, commonplace, readily assimilated into a readerly unpacking." I don't need poetry to tell me that! No; "make it strange" for me. A search for that unknown something in everyday experience but cannot be merely pointed to or described without being altered or diminished. Lyn Hejinian does this so well when she writes as she thinks and feels. The meditational needn't be purely cognitive per se (perceived as a kind of scientism). & > there are only his own composed > forms, and each one soley the issue of the time of the moment of its > creation, not any ultimate except what he in his heat and that > instant in its solidity yield. > Our seminar thought that Spicer's criticism of the arrogance of the > poet extended to Olson because of the latter's insistence upon the > MOMENT of writing, upon the primacy of the poet IN that moment, and > hence the "usability" of anything which may enter the field-- > including god, star, totem. Intense individualism without the freedom. The poet only the poet of a moment? The moment when you have your mojo working. But I don't think that Olson is advocating chance methods here. Bill B. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:10:42 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ira Lightman Subject: Astrology poetics post structuralism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Thanks everyone for a reading list I'm going to chase up in all its details! My own interest in astrology is a) I seem to be able to guess people's sun, and often moon, signs in up to 3 guesses so there's something in it for me. Plus, I trawl around horoscope columns, and those that seem to match up somewhat with my day (as a sun sign Aries), I go back to, and use as another of those correctives to self and ego: "I thought the meaning of my day was this, but look at it this way too...". *Not* as what *rules* my life, though. The more I look into the various columns (in newspapers, in the gay press, in Cosmopolitan etc), the more I see how it's an act of using metaphor to interpret, through topological assumptions, data held in common (i.e. conjunctions of the planets each day), and I find that fascinating. One column will interpret the influence of a water moon on a fire sign as drowning it, another as allowing it emotional space etc, depending on a kind of "chicken and the egg", "what's the ground of your being" analysis; which is also the root of metaphor; refraction through which one can "return" to what's "really" indicated. My take is more all things are a-flowing, sage Heraclitus says, though even that is too much "grounded" in one ideal state: water, not air, not fire, not earth. I also find the fact that I can guess people quite well indicates (to me) that, like Lacan and Derrida might say, we're genres, with a rising sign genre and moon sign genre grafted onto our sun sign genres. Astrology gives me one way to articulate too my reservation about Lacan (which I think is Derrida's too): that even if the unconscious is structured like a language, that doesn't mean it's rewriteable like computer language; the self is genre collision, from personal and cultural histories, and the chemistry in one from them. Does that interest anyone (or answer Spicer?) Ira ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 09:18:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan A Levin Subject: Re: Form/Content again In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Marjorie-- Your point is well taken, and of course, we do read in this way--I don't store away my newspapers either. But this is of course not to say there is no form in these cases--only that as readers--and as readers (yourself, myself, others like us who would bother to follow these postings on a daily basis) who have developed an interest in form per se--we find it more interesting to read and write about and teach formally innovative (or, as I'd probably prefer to say, playful) works. There is as much form to the Klemperer diaries, I suspect, as there is to journalism, or text-book writing. These forms carry their own meanings (have their own ontologies), and are potentially as interesting as any other forms, depending, ultimately, on one's going interests and standards of evaluation. We all know people (some of us may be them!) who will always prefer reading books and poems that don't foreground formal issues, who will dislike, say, The English Patient (the book) because it doesn't just tell its love story (I didn't know it was a love story till I finally saw the movie!). People surely have returned to all the great "realist" novelists--just to use one kind of example--despite the relative "bacgrounding" of formal issues. In other words, using the terms I so dislike, content-focus doesn't make a work of only passing interest, even as a work. It all depends on what the content is, how one chooses to frame it with other content issues, and so on. I remember an essay by D. A. Miller some time back in which he commented that he always reads Jane Austen novels when he is laid up sick in bed. Now I'm sure, with Miller, it is hard to disentangle form and content, but that's my point--just when you think you've isolated a content, you're left holding a form. So: what about the Klemperer, or the newspaper, or the textbook? I suspect you could return to the Klemperer, if you were interested enough in it, if you were working on, say, diaries written by people undergoing traumatic experiences. You might find certain details, tics, interesting, so that the content is illuminated in unusual, interesting ways by the form. I don't think you're going to put it away forever because there is something essentially different about its formal ontology, only that you won't return to it because its particular formal ontology doesn't interest you enough. It's not a form/content distinction, but a difference between two varying form/content matrices. My point is just that by keeping the boundary between content-works and form-works operative, we lose sight of the way in which writing that is "content-based" is also a formal (and I would add rhetorical, thinking of the old rhetoric/philosophy divide) construction. Well, best regards, as ever, Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 11:45:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: force mouth content In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually, several posts have agreed with the general point Jonathan makes below; I agree with it too, for sure.. The nub, for me is in Jonathan's last line. I sort of thought most of us who get characterized in this way by others (i.e. as people doing "formally experimental" poetry) were rather strongly in agreement on this point: & that it was the worst end of reflective work-shop verse (as well as much neo-formalist verse) that proceeded on the basis of a sharp perceptible chasm between form and content... Some of the hectic posts challenging form/content language, when I look back at it, were I think set off by folks who were talking about "form" as a way of addressing questions of technique; technique with regard to self-aware, nonmainstream writing.. Is there anyone on the list who actually wants to DEFEND the idea that form and content are seperate?? Mark P. On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Jonathan A Levin wrote: > I like Jordan't tag line, so keep it. > > etc. Form/Content is a product of the analysis wing of 18th century > rationalism. (Frankly, I don't know if I have my history right here: I'm > shooting from the hip, but I've been trying to understand the larger > contexts of organicism, in order to understand the larger contexts of > contemporary holism/ecology metaphors.) > > Here's where I'm heading: from an organic point of view, or from the > modified organicism that now passes as holism, form is necessarily an > expression of content and content is necessarily a manifestation of form. > They can't be teased apart. And the effort to keep talking in that > language can only reflect our continued abasement before the gods of > enlightenment analysis. > > I'm still thinking about the practical implications for poetry and > "formal" "experiment." "!" This could take a long time. > > Jonathan Levin > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 12:14:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: force mouth content Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:45 AM 3/21/97, Mark Prejsnar wrote: >Is there anyone on the list who actually wants to DEFEND the idea that >form and content are seperate?? And I would like to say 'hi'. I would like to defend the idea that 'form' and 'content' are not categories worth defending at this point -- since we see no useful distinction, or rather since we see no isolable quality of one or the other category, why keep talking about them? Why not try and develop a vocabulary we can think of as valid? Sure, people will think it's odd when they hear us referring to a 'querzblatz' poetics from time to time. Stendhal flipped out at the beginning of _Love_ when he had to introduce the concept of 'crystalization' of affection. The Joe Brainard show at Tibor de Nagy (nazh -- 724 Fifth Ave, btw 56 & 57). Nancies, portraits, cut-paper works, collages, bead sculptures, paintings on plastic, Porteresque landscapes with dog, catalog with foreword by John Ashbery and essay by Robert Rosenblum. Wow, wow, wow. My particular favorite was "Portrait of Pat, 1971", but "Whippoorwill's World" was the one I laughed at the hardest. I tried to describe some of the cut-paper tall-grasses-and-flowers works to people, but it came out wrong. All best, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 13:10:15 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Guillevic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Eugene Guillevic, the French or rather the Breton poet who wrote in French, died yesterday in Paris at the age of 89. A terse, sparse poetry that says more than it sings the objects of his scapes. In English there are two "Selected Poems" -- one, translated by Denise Levertov from New Direction (1969), the other translated by teo Savory from Penguin (1974). I don't know if either of them are still in print. -- Pierre FACE Country of rubble, country of brush -- rocks Rasped by drought. Earth Like an inflamed throat Calling for milk, Woman without man, hill Like a scaled antheap, Earth without womb, music of brass: Judge-face. (translated by Teo Savary) ETERNITY... Eternity never was lost. What we did not know was how to translate it into days, skies, landscapes, into words for others, authentic gestures. But holding on to it for ourselves, that was not difficult, and there were moments when it seemed clear to us we ourselves were eternity. (translated by Denise Levertov) -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything that allows men to become rooted, through values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 13:59:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: Re: Form/Content again Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ms. Perloff's example of Duchamp is to the point regarding form. Formal composition shapes what Adorno calls the mimetic impulse. Form squeezes out the extraneous elements of creative impulse, thus producing content and giving it the most expedient vehicle of expression. For me, art exhibits a unison of form and content. Form directs, helping content become what it needs to become during the creative act. Duchamp's Fountain is a good example. Like the Shakespeare of Sonnets, Duchamp clearly understood how form determines an economy of expression in art works. Ms. Perloff is also right when she says that "a lot that passes for 'poetry' at the moment just isn't." Formal experiments can sometimes lead to wonderful art. But without the value content provides, strictly formal experiments provide very little usable substance. Moral conflict, humor, and conflicting human emotional exchanges--found in artists like Tolstoy or Jack Kerouac--are value-laden elements content provides. Form shapes these into compact, expressive art. Too much that is written by contemporary poets denies the power form can provide. Often poets allow form to exist in itself without the complication of aesthetically valuable content, which is focused and expresses something of that original impulse which urges the poet to create in the first place. Dale Smith ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 11:58:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: Astrology poetics post structuralism In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I know Ira originally called for 20th century astrological poetics, but it seems to me that if one is serious about this practice (more than just casual sun sign questions or newspaper column borrowings) we do in fact have to go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear -- which may also shed a little light on medieval language theory. What exactly WAS Spicer talking about with "snark hunting"? To wit: "Astrology dominated all the natural sciences in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and even the Church (!) had to compromise with superstition. Pagan gods and heroes became identified with the astral divinities that ruled the cosmos; to this deification of the natural world was added the doctrine of number. Number was the key to _scientia universalis_, and numerical 'correspondences' between things of every class -- seven metals, seven planets, seven virtues, seven sins, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven joys of Mary, seven liberal arts, and so on -- were supplemented by the idea of melothesia, the correspondence of the microcosm and macrocoms, especially the planets. The theory of numerical correspondences was also part and parcel of the Neopythagorean and Neoplatonic philosophies, both of which flourished at the beginning of the Middle Ages, and taught that the universe is made according to geometric forms, abstract relations, and proportions which can be expressed numerically. Each of these proportions corresponded to a musical interval, and altogether, therefore, the universe is a harmony. This idea was usually expressed in the image of the music of the spheres, but all things, not only the spheres, harmonize (or ought to) with everything else. The soul of man was a harmony -- this Platonic idea is familiar -- and so is his body. Moreover, both body and soul are a harmony corresponding to the cosmic harmony . . . the cosmos is a 'book,' whose symbols, which must be 'read,' are made of plant fibres, starlight, fur and feathers." (Patricia Vicari, "Orpheus Among the Christians," in _Orpheus: Metamorphoses of a Myth, ed. John Warden, U. of Toronto). I love that last sentence best -- but one can see Trane, I think, here -- as well as Giordano Bruno and Frances Yates and all the Warburg Institute folks -- in Robert Kelly's "The Loom" (asked about two weeks ago) Ramon Lull is one of the major personae -- Walter Benjamin also has some provocative things to say about correspondences in his Baudelaire essay as well as an earlier one on mimesis -- "A seminar on mythos" -- god, do you realize how lucky you people are? Is there any distance learning coming out of this seminar? Sorry for darkening so much of your computer screens this morning . . . ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 14:15:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Contraries/I will not rest from Mental Fight, etc. In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19970320182557.54afe9c6@mercury.chem.nwu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Form might be very popular now, might have been very popular for the >modernists, but I'm not so sure that "one loves _only_ form" would apply to >much eng. poetry before 1900. I think you might read Olson a little closer, tighter. more literally. I mean he is saying that it is form that makes us love. It is unlikely, for instance, that one will love the content of a person--intestines, bones, shit, etc. One notices her or him make a certain move, sees a light on her/his face, hears her/his voice say things in a certain way, and love starts up again. Similarly, for instance, with a sculpture by Rodin. One doesnt particularly love the chemical makeup of bronze, but loves the way it shines, or the way it is molded. How about the Grecian Urn? Does one love clay? Probably not. More likely the shape left by the hands of the sylvan historian. Remember this song: "The way you sip your tea, the way you wear your hat...." etc. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 17:22:38 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grotjohn Organization: Mary Baldwin College Subject: Re: Form/Content again Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dale Smith wrote: > > > form determines an economy of expression in art works. > into compact, expressive art. What do people think about these statements as statements of aesthetic value? To what extent is "expressive" contingent on "compact" (if I am reading the implication correctly, or even if I am not)? How well does Kerouac fit the statements? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 20:55:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: Astrology/post structuralism/Forum & conTent In-Reply-To: <9703211956.AA32044@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is a nice post to put next to the form/content thread. What does it mean to define form in terms of what makes us love? One indeterminate chasing another. This isn't algebra and I don't want it to be, but to make a charged statement in context into a formula out of context is tricky. It makes me want to say that anything that sparks my love is form, and that's too easy. How is form/content distinguished from mind/body? You think you think when the chemistry goes dead and the body doesn't move (e-motion)? I suspect metaphor is lurking in the wings here, and that there's a critique of metaphor implicit in these converging threads. I stand by it, myself, since all my experience tells me that the real work doesn't happen in the narrow band of consciousness. But I'd be grateful to anyone who'd fill me in on the other side of this large unsaid. Wendy On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Joe Safdie wrote: > "Astrology dominated all the natural sciences in the Middle Ages and > Renaissance, and even the Church (!) had to compromise with superstition. > Pagan gods and heroes became identified with the astral divinities that > ruled the cosmos; to this deification of the natural world was added the > doctrine of number. Number was the key to _scientia universalis_, and > numerical 'correspondences' between things of every class -- seven metals, > seven planets, seven virtues, seven sins, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, > seven joys of Mary, seven liberal arts, and so on -- were supplemented by > the idea of melothesia, the correspondence of the microcosm and macrocoms, > especially the planets. The theory of numerical correspondences was also > part and parcel of the Neopythagorean and Neoplatonic philosophies, both > of which flourished at the beginning of the Middle Ages, and taught that > the universe is made according to geometric forms, abstract relations, and > proportions which can be expressed numerically. Each of these proportions > corresponded to a musical interval, and altogether, therefore, the > universe is a harmony. This idea was usually expressed in the image of the > music of the spheres, but all things, not only the spheres, harmonize (or > ought to) with everything else. The soul of man was a harmony -- this > Platonic idea is familiar -- and so is his body. Moreover, both body and > soul are a harmony corresponding to the cosmic harmony . . . the cosmos is > a 'book,' whose symbols, which must be 'read,' are made of plant fibres, > starlight, fur and feathers." (Patricia Vicari, "Orpheus Among the > Christians," in _Orpheus: Metamorphoses of a Myth, ed. John Warden, U. > of Toronto). > > I love that last sentence best -- but one can see Trane, I think, here -- > as well as Giordano Bruno and Frances Yates and all the Warburg Institute > folks -- in Robert Kelly's "The Loom" (asked about two weeks ago) Ramon > Lull is one of the major personae -- > > Walter Benjamin also has some provocative things to say about > correspondences in his Baudelaire essay as well as an earlier one on > mimesis -- > > "A seminar on mythos" -- god, do you realize how lucky you people are? Is > there any distance learning coming out of this seminar? > > Sorry for darkening so much of your computer screens this morning . . . > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Wendy Battin (home) http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/wjbat/ (CAPA) http://shain.lib.conncoll.edu/CAPA/capa.html (Multiple Poetics) http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5471/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 23:40:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: Astrology poetics post structuralism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I hope you don't take it that seriously. I had a friend who used to write the astrology column for the Boston Globe, and although she had a rough guideline for the various signs, she basically made everything up. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 22:13:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Mathews Losh Subject: Form/Genre In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi All. I tend to think that talking about the fundamental abstractions of poetry is too theological for me. I'm hardly a literalist, but all this seems too dependent on things that I can't see or hear, like worrying about whether God can make a rock too heavy for Him to lift. In other words, I don't think that poetry can be experienced as a suprasensuous entity without ceasing to be poetry. That said, I also think that the whole form/content dichotomy is much less interesting than the interplay between form and genre. For example you have things like the ODE that began in English as something defined by its form and ended up as a genre (after the Romantics were through with it!) or things like the VILLANELLE that began as a genre (defined by its pastoral subject) and ended up as a form (oh, those French!). Maybe I'm too oriented toward the reader-response approach to poetry and not enough oriented toward aesthetics (and all the metaphysics that goes along with it), but form vs. content just doesn't do it for me. I tend to think that content is something to be consumed and that language which is consumed isn't poetry. After all, Bataille said that poetry is language which is consumed (in the sense of used up), but Heidegger said that poetry is language which is never consumed (in the sense of something used as a commodity). To use an example that keeps coming up, l am much more interested in thinking about how something like the SONNET went through all these formal changes as it moved from its status so close to legal discourse (an entertainment for a bunch of Italian lawyers) to something via Petrarch in which its wordplay became much more about the conversation between self and other. Or to rip off an idea from _The Birth of the Modern Mind_ (not a book which I would necessarily endorse) what does it mean to talk about the form of the sonnet -- not just it's vertical and horizontal orientation on the visual page, but its AURAL symmetries and asymmetries -- when you are talking about a type of poetry which assumed (for the first time since the Roman Empire) that it be read in SILENCE? With all the "defense of form" nonsense of the past few years I can't help but think that a defense of genre could use more crusaders and mercenaries alike. I wonder how much of contemporary poetry which is attacked for its lack of form suffers much more from its lack of genre. Liz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 22:25:38 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Mathews Losh Subject: Re: Form/Genre In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII P.S. As though you didn't need more proof that astrology was all made up, I now know, thanks to the poetics list, that I have the same birthday as Ezra Pound. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 03:16:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Toni Simon Subject: Re: Form/Genre In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Albeit admittedly one of your typical lurkers, I've been closey following this form/content thread, and, at the risk of beating a wobbling, if not a dead horse, I think the underlying issue here is one of boundaries. It is not form, per se, or content per se, that interests, confronts and so much and effects us poets, but the fact that we can't help but be astonished athow the boundaries between the two are becoming (sic)so blurred. It is also that we poets must study ways of comprehending the energies that so frequently seem to emit from suchsources, and learn to exploit these for our "special effects." Coming near to and being prone to such such energies often make many other folks feel disoriented and threatened (sometimes less obviously a lot of our own folk too,in part, occupational hazard, in part, a spontaneous obsessive inquisitiveness into the effects of certain unusual juxtapositions. The more content we see, the more we sometimes oddly get interested in what this tells us about the underlying forces, and the more we specify those, the more we turn back to the objects of this world within a revisualized and reconstitued set of forms. One question this brings forward for me is- within this reformulated relationship between form and content doesn't there also arise a parallel (if anxiety provoking) reformulation between otherwise clearcut disciplinel like poetry and criticism (two types of professional activity) and, say, psychoanalysis and poetry, poetry and polical activity, writing poetry and and talking, writing poetry and teaching, etc. Thanks Jordan Davis for mentioning the Joe Brainard show so vividly. I heard it mentioned last night at the Granary Books book art show where some wonderfully boundary-breaking work was on display from Kimberly Lyons and Joe Eppings sumptuous and metaphysically witty Mettle, a compilation of poems and images, to Susan Bee and Charles Bernstein's Little Orphan Anagram, a wise and wise-acre witty poem/painting tap-dance duet, a Kurt Schwitters round translated by Jerome Rothemberg with drawings by Barbara Fahrner, and Kin, a text by Ann Waldman with drawings by (shhh) Susan Rothenberg. Also heard mentioned were the Alice Neel show and the fantastic Hannah Hoch montages at the Modern. Yours in blurs, Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 04:36:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Bennett M. Sm [Dimpson" Subject: Re: Form/Genre In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Elizabeth, Where does Bataille say this? I've only read things in _Visions of Excess_ and in the _Encyclopedia Acephalica_ which tangentially speak of poetry (as such), but I'm very curious about this idea of poetry as "expenditure." Incidentally, R. Smithson says: "Poetry is always a dying language, but never a dead language." Which is, something becoming "used up," but never totally so. On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Elizabeth Mathews Losh wrote: > I tend to think that content is something to be consumed and that > language which is consumed isn't poetry. After all, Bataille said that > poetry is language which is consumed (in the sense of used up) &c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c. &c. Bennett Simpson &c. bms5q@virginia.edu &c. &c. &c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 07:49:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Subject: Re: Form/Content MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. Having eavesdropped on this thread for a few weeks, I'd like to offer the following: Forms form; form forms--by accretion, by direction, by cascade & interruption [as in embryo: "Eternity is no match for the zygote," Bob Hogg said]. A feedback loop. Freud pointed, in "The Antithetical Sense of Primary Words," to bifurcations, e.g., host/hostile. When not content with the inn's content, host turns bouncer. Otherwise, why reject unsuccessful poems? If only because of their content, change the content. But the form-- extensive from (or at least throughout) and superordinate to content-- resists change more intractably. Otherwise, the inn would assimilate the surly and disruptive guest [losing its form as inn in the process and becoming--what? A drunk tank?]. Not that, on occasion, a gatecrasher can't liven up a party, but until that determination becomes clear, the party metamorphoses from party to polygraph, then either ejects or welcomes the uninvited, then reforms itself as party. If the gatecrasher becomes a guest, the imminent becomes immanent. In his triadic theory of the Parasite, Michel Serres argues the necessity, for communication, of both the presence of the static by which the parasite seeks to disrupt communication between two interlocutors and the need for the interlocutors continually [continuously?] to resist the intrusion, allying themselves to allay the threat. When they stop resisting, communication ends. Does form, parasitizing contents, unify them? Do contents, resisting the imposition, form alliances? "One man's ceiling is another man's floor." Don't you hate it when people finish your sentences for you? Don't you love it when, if they seem about to, you reorient the sentence, leaving them somewhere different from and better than either of your expected destinations? "Because the whole sentence meaning is inherently present in the mind of each person, it is quite possible for the pratibha of the sphota to be grasped by the listener even before the whole sentence has been uttered." --Harold G. Coward, The Sphota Theory of Language. "Farewell, then, Reader, from Montaigne." Daniel Zimmerman 485 Parsonage Road Edison, NJ 08837 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 10:48:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: some events Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some of these upcoming events I've mentioned before, but I'll summarize here once again. I know it's very late notice, but if anyone's in the Tucson area tomorrow, in the Chax Press studio we're having a reading by poet Tom Mandel at 7:30 pm (101 W. Sixth St., no. 6/ call 520-620-1626 for information). And on Saturday April 12 at 7 pm, a reading by Canadian poets Karen Mac Cormack & Steve McCaffery, with a new book from us by Karen Mac Cormack, at Dinnerware Contemporary Gallery, 135 E. Congress St., in Tucson. This second reading is also something of a celebration of Chax's return to Tucson after a 3-year stay in Minnesota, and a celebration of National Poetry Month. Both events are free. For more of a look at the handmade books we've been making since 1984 in Tucson (and altogether since 1981), come to our open studio as part of our entire warehouse art building's open studio party, Friday, April 12, from 5 until 7 pm, at 101 W. Sixth St. The readings are co-sponsored by POG in Tucson. POG will also sponsor a reading at Dinnerware Gallery on May 17 by David Bromige. ------------------------------------------------------------ Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Gertrude Stein, from "A Substance In A Cushion," in TENDER BUTTONS Charles Alexander Chax Press chax@theriver.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 12:53:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Toni Simon Subject: Re: Granary Books Show Friday 3/21 In-Reply-To: <3333FF8B.2D20@tribeca.ios.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In addition to the works mentioned above also presented were Funagainstawake, Harry Reese's monotypes in dialogue with "The Ten Thunderclaps", reprints of The Word Made Flesh by Johanna Drucker and The Book, Spiritual Instrument, the famed collection edited by Jerome Rothenberg and David Guss, a classic in approaching the ethnopoetics of the book; and works in progress, Vulva'a Morphia, by Carolee Schneeman, the beginning stages of Ted Berrigan: An Annotated Checklist (keep your eyes open for the arrival of this one, some choice items will be made available from the Berrigan oevre) and If It Rained Here, a fascinating mixed media work including video images by Julie Harrison and modular poems by Joe Elliot,also in progress. Granary Books is fast becoming the most interesting new gallery/bookstore/showplace for innovative works at the boundaries of all current literary/artistic genres. This is important, because Granary is helping to make happen what I believe to be what has been most missing in contemporary artistic production are the connections, the links between the genres. This, of course, encourages connection between some of the most energetic and productive people in these areas. I've always been fascinated (as have been many others) in the dynamics of the belle epoque, as discussed in The Banquet Years by Shattuck,for example. The interconnections between the arts as seen during that era have led to innovations and artistic "threads" which have continued to date. Check out the Granary at 568 Broadway (corner of Prince) or contact Steve Clay at sclay@interport.net Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:32:26 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: Form/Content again In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 20 Mar 1997 22:35:35 -0800 from On Thu, 20 Mar 1997 22:35:35 -0800 Marjorie Perloff said: >diaries. Poetry is what must be reread--can only be reread. And by that >criterion, a lot that passes for "poetry" at the moment just isn't. It's >absorbable in a linear way. Five years from now no one will give a damn. >And so I don't think we need be so generous that we say, oh great, I love >it all! Let's reach out--and all that bla bla. But "form" can never just >mean stanza form or generative device. Generative devices can be >brilliantly used as in Oulipo, Sorrentino, Silliman, Hejinian, etc etc. >but per se no device is either good or bad. > I think this is what Valery meant by the pendulum effect of poetry. as opposed to prose. - HG ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:37:50 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: force mouth content In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 21 Mar 1997 11:45:04 -0500 from On Fri, 21 Mar 1997 11:45:04 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: > >Is there anyone on the list who actually wants to DEFEND the idea that >form and content are seperate?? They are separate to the extent that we have two words for two different aspects of a composition. Separate to the extent that we have the poetry echo-effect as opposed to the prose absorption-effect. Correlated to the extent that we have a particular "work" of art in front of us. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:50:59 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: farm/produce Yeah. trouble is with the word: "form". sounds like a kind of envelope, or tax form, a thing you fill out, fill in. "content" too. what the heck. "Please describe the content of MADAME BOVARY, in 25 wrds or less." Whereas what we are calling form is the actuality, the visceral thing itself. The content of a poem is the more formal aspect - the topos, the subject,the directional arrows, the icon, the outline, the set of signals. The farm produces the content. The farm is... the former continent. What ARE the ramifications of incontinence with regard to foam? CONTENT IS FOAM. AND FOAM IS CONTENTMENT. MENTAL FOAM + EARWAX = ODYSSEUS. - Ezra J. Gould Hallelujah addendum: prose is poetry translated by reality into readable French. Poetry came before Proust - and yet, there would be no poetry without Proust! This is Zeno's paradox writ large and illegible! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 15:12:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: Form/Content again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This today from Henry Gould -- > I think this is what Valery meant by the pendulum effect of poetry. > as opposed to prose. but one of several interesting recent references to Valery's essays. Can someone recommend a volume (in print)? Every so often I hear V. quoted -- and it's inevitably interesting stuff. How is it that everyone's read Valery, yet one doesn't (or I've not) seen his work (except for one stray volume of poems -- not essays) in bookshops? High time to read this dude. One such old citation of Paul Valery's ideas was from a character in an Anne Beattie novel (believe it or not) -- I mean, the fellow manages to get around. Is there a standard -- or favored -- book? thanks, d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} | "...honk if you believe in geese" | \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:33:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Form/Content again Comments: To: "David R. Israel" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Ironically, I've always found Valery's prose much more readable than his poetry. His _Collected Works_ is pub. by Princeton UP/Bollingen. _Art of Poetry_, to which Hank alludes, is the place to start. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: David R. Israel To: POETICS Subject: Re: Form/Content again Date: Saturday, March 22, 1997 2:18PM This today from Henry Gould -- > I think this is what Valery meant by the pendulum effect of poetry. > as opposed to prose. but one of several interesting recent references to Valery's essays. Can someone recommend a volume (in print)? Every so often I hear V. quoted -- and it's inevitably interesting stuff. How is it that everyone's read Valery, yet one doesn't (or I've not) seen his work (except for one stray volume of poems -- not essays) in bookshops? High time to read this dude. One such old citation of Paul Valery's ideas was from a character in an Anne Beattie novel (believe it or not) -- I mean, the fellow manages to get around. Is there a standard -- or favored -- book? thanks, d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} | "...honk if you believe in geese" | \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 22:03:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: face-violent-defile-you MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cycle of hidden tiny deaths

maya mama murmur world last message to multitudes i multitudes beg you for the means and the ways i am down on my knees i am praying to nothing i am ending the end of it i am the last dawn i am the last dusk i am the meal toilet maya i am the maya mama murmur i am maya mama murmur world

beg you for bread for wine beg you for forgiveness bright-light-maya turn stone toward me turn granite toward me stone marble maya murmur world

turn death stone cold angles murmur toward world maya turn marble turn marble down

maya mama murmur world last message to multitudes i multitudes beg you for the means and the ways i am down on my knees i am praying to nothing i am ending the end of it i am the last dawn i am the last dusk i am the meal toilet maya i am the maya mama murmur i am maya mama murmur world

 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 21:26:30 -0500 Reply-To: Jordan Davis Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: valery In-Reply-To: <199703222011.PAA10668@wizard.wizard.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bollingen / Princeton did a great 15 vol series of Valery, and almost every volume is worth snapping in two. (Though it may be difficult to care for the plays, and the autobiographical volume Moi.) About seven years ago Princeton reprinted a few volumes of Valery's essays, the best of which volumes were _The Art of Poetry_ and _The Outlook for Intelligence_. Of the non-reprinted [in English] work, _Idee Fixe_ is a wild "novel", a conversation between a narrator whose dialogue sounds very much like Valery's essays, and an intellectual doctor, as the two walk across a beach. The man loved the ocean, there's a description of thinking as attempting to stand on a wet rock. Also unreprinted is _Analects_, a selection from Valery's rather huge and ungodly witty journals. Before the Boolean, there was a selected Valery from New Directions, and a selected essays titled _Variety_ which has most of the pieces Henry's referred to. Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 23:48:05 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: form is emptiness Much of this content/form discussion has been fascinating, very educating, and it's a relief to see that a consensus seems to be "forming" around the idea that the relationship between the two terms is an endless paradox with no hope of resolution. What would we do, actually, if we figured it all out? What poems would be left to write? I for one sure hope that there is much more to this "problem" than an intellectual puzzle to be assembled, as if the form/content conundrum were some kind of "dream of a final theory" waiting to come true. Isn't it more likely that the mystery and intractability of the form/content paradox constitutes the very essence and life-force of everything poetic? That it's the ground out of which everything in the past along with New Formalist sonnets, Oulipian lipograms, sentimental workshop poems and so on has grown and grows? Weeds and bizarre looking vegetables and sweet smelling flowers (and *not* that one poet's weed is another poet's flower, but just that there are simply weeds and flowers and that they wouldn't exist, simply, one without the other). So the fight about what counts as good, I'd offer, takes place very much on the surface of things, where each gardening club has its distinct patches to sow and hoe. Some clubs plant in neat, unvaried rows and spray their plots with chemicals; others use more unconventional methods that actually *invite* insects and weeds, and the villagers scratch their heads and accuse and whisper and so on. (Some of these experimantal plots wither miserably, but a few give fruit in astounding, mind-boggling ways.) This list is a club that grows weirdly deformed heirlooms, to the point that they don't even qualify for any ofthe contest categories at the State Fair-- and hopefully never will. In any case, Marjorie Perloff (who, we might remember, started allthis talk) mentioned in a second or third post Duchamp's urinal: "(He) has an incredible sense of"form" in that the how always surpasses the what--in fact there is no "what." Taake for instance the care D took to have the urinal photographed by Stieglitz in front of the Marsden Hartley painting so that the inverted "fountain" matches the shape in Hartley with the Buddha. It's so brillliant and that's how we almost always see "Fountain." So what is "content" here outside form?" Wasn't Duchamp's urinal one of those great irrigation spouts shooting content all over the planted field of form? (and reverse the syntax.) And apropos Marjorie's above example, it's interesting that one of the most cherished aphorisms of Buddhism is this (from the Heart Sutra): *Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.* I might be wrong, but doesn't Buddhism propose here that there is something at bottom that is beyond "figuring out" in the usual way? And can't one attempt to fully set one's practice as an artist within this mystery? Not to figure it out but to make the mystery even more bewildering, wild, and strange. Or as Nick Piombino put it yesterday, to bring forth how "It is not form per se, or content per se, that interests, confronts and so much effects us poets, but the fact that we can't help but be astonished at how the boundaries between the two are becoming (s=i=c) so blurred." Thanks, Nick. You've written twice, I think, and offered everyone a lesson in a few sentences. A personal anecdote: I studied with Samu Sunim, a Korean teacher at the Zen Buddhist Temple Ann Arbor back in 88 and 89. During what I had taken to be an informal meeting with him he suddenly shouted and gestured in a thrusting way at a poem written by an idiosyncratic Korean monk and old friend of Sunim's (I can't recall his name) who painted and wrote poems with a calligraphy brush tied onto his penis with the hairs of deceased relatives. This artist would--or still does(?)--squat over large sheets of rice-paper and thus create works of powerful and ethereal beauty. The work in question had a line of migrating geese, delicately rendered, though flying vertically upward, beside a line of characters I could not decipher. "Now," Sunim said, "I'd like you to go to this poem and point out its content." I walked over to the poem and put my finger on the cracked glass. "Now," he said, " point to its form." I did so, quite confidently, putting my finger on the same spot. "And now," he said, "point to your own original nature." Though by Zen terms this challenge was quite conventional, my inability to answer impressively inthe manner of an avant-garde poet in-the-know has been haunting me since. Here's a question: Isn't this list space also a particular form, in *essence* no different from a sonnet or a villanelle? I can't imagine anyone saying it isn't, especially when you consider (even as new as it is) how deeply rooted its rituals and mechanisms are , and how what we say here--both its content and form--is determined by what we are given to speak within. One could ask: is there a content here separate from the form? Prior to it? After it? Where would one separate? There's no way of doing it. Emptiness is vast, and for a fleeting moment (before the inevitable asteroid hits to irreversibly erase everything we have done) we assume its form and sit down to write. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 00:13:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jocelyn Emerson Subject: small corner of the form/content discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Herbert in _The Temple_ultimately discards form, a vehicle for this known world only. In the form/content conversation I wanted to inquire more about the above statement (sorry--I can't find the original posting) as it seems most puzzling to me; is discarding meant to be read as Fish's sense of a self-consuming artifact. Herbert invented more than 2/3rds of the forms in The Temple, and the forms, more than anything, seem to be a method of measuring (making visible.audible) the distance between this world and the next; the struggle of faith vis a vis the always already completed redemption through Christ's sacrafice (for Herbert); more than anythinng, I read H's poems as a prolonged formal investigation into the exact nature of the distance between the self and other (in H's case, Other), a project which his perfection of form is designed to reveal as ultimately impossible. We could map on to Herbert's terms sign/signified, etc--not necessary to read, linguistically, only within his High Anglican context. Jocelyn Emerson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 03:06:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Jaeger Subject: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Can boring poems operate as critique, until a critique of boredom is formulated? Why do I get bored by poems? But at the same time, why am I most interested in poems that s(t)imulate boredom, making me blank & drain? If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? And what if a poem is so boring it invites readers to question why they're bored? Peter Jaeger ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 03:14:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Peter Jaeger wrote: > Can boring poems operate as critique, until a critique of boredom is > formulated? By whom? For who? Isn't this a question of audience. And how does a poem _operate_? And how does it _operate as_? If it's boring, what would also make it a critique? > > Why do I get bored by poems? But at the same time, why am I most > interested in poems that s(t)imulate boredom, making me blank & drain? Are these questions autobiographical? What poems are boring to you? Do you require psychoanalytical/psychological answers or do you feel there is a philosophical critique (via your first questions) at work? > > If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? > Again, this seems to pertain to audience. Desirable for whom? In other words? Or do you feel there is a general economy of desire, such that this question can be answered sub specie aeternis? > And what if a poem is so boring it invites readers to question why > they're bored? > What if? Do you mean is it still boring? When I was teaching in artschools, watching painting teachers at work, critiques usually ran along the lines of "this isn't working here" (perhaps pointing to a particular section of the canvas) - instead of "this doesn't work for me" (never mind the need to deconstruct "work"). Audience is replaced by universal, taste becomes transcendent, reified into theoretical position. So these questions would seem, i.e. "poem _is_ boring" to reference your/ our reading; thus a lot of people are bored by Chaucer, depending on demographics/century/habitus/cultural economies, and so forth. Alan > > > Peter Jaeger > ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ ++++++++++++++++ IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ TELEPHONE 718-857-3671 CUSEEME: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, BEING ON LINE, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:55:51 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: dichotomous or not MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I suppose most of us on this list are not content with form as such, or are we? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 10:29:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: dichotomous or not Comments: cc: Schuchat Simon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Schuchat Simon (writing from an avant timezone -- Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:55:51 +0800) asks: > I suppose most of us on this list are not content with form as such, > or are we? Can you site an instance of what would represent "form as such"? If so, then (as an instance of those "on this list" -- not to say, as "most" thereof) I could try to consider a more considered reply. Or, I mean: is it that there's a back of other fools who are content with form as such, whereas we -- a cut above -- are discontent with it? But what is it? Is there anywhere, in any canon, textbook, notebook, any medium, some poem that exemplifies [mere] "form as such"? -- I am, in a word, doubtful. best, d.i. . . . . . . . . . \ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ \ david raphael israel \ washington d c / davidi@wizard.net (home) / disrael@skgf.com (office) / ===================== | poets weave the net of you | with golden-image thread | painters limn the form of you | ever & afresh ... | one half of you is woman | the other utter dream | | Tagore, "Manasi" (a la d.i.) ///////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 11:18:06 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: dichotomous or not In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:55:51 +0800 from On Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:55:51 +0800 Schuchat Simon said: >I suppose most of us on this list are not content with form as such, or >are we? I'm presently working through L. Turco's Book of Forms. And no I'm not a new formalist or an old formalist. I hate formalisms. formalities always make me nervous. Have written a sestina, a villanelle, a roundel, a madrigal, a large ode, a sonnet, four ballades, and a chant royal. The occasion, for me, is mysterious. I feel lucky to have the time/space to be doing this right now. But the impulse behind the individual poems is not the ambition to "do the forms". No, I am not content with the forms. In fact, the impulse for each poem and for the series as a whole (from my blinkered perspective, at least) is the CONTENT. The best way I can put it is: just as in those social formalities which make us nervous, we nevertheless somehow to some faltering extent RISE TO THE OCCASION, so these forms seem to me to be attaching themselves like barnacles to the OCCASION of the general impulse (content, thought) behind them. The fact that I have a lot of practice behind me & can DO the forms is a considerable factor. The fact that (in my blinkered view) the content & the style JUSTIFY the forms - that is, make them actually possible and not workshop run-throughs or antiquated anachronisms - makes it worth doing. Because I find it exciting to do something in the teeth of the zeitgeist (i.e. postmodern barnacle-poems, neo-archaic barnacle-poems, neo-Beat barnacle-poems, neo-fifties formalist barnacle-poems, eterno- experimento barnacle-poems, etc. etc.). Because my philosophy differs from the reigning postmodernist zeitgeist. I will outline my philosophy yet again in Poetics List Henry Posting #1345708, due out in 3 weeks or so. - Henry Ego Et Fries In Arcadia ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 12:00:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: dichotomous or not MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Sayeth Henry -- > . . . . Because I find it > exciting to do something in the teeth of the zeitgeist (i.e. > postmodern barnacle-poems, neo-archaic barnacle-poems, neo-Beat > barnacle-poems, neo-fifties formalist barnacle-poems, eterno- > experimento barnacle-poems, etc. etc.). Because my philosophy > differs from the reigning postmodernist zeitgeist. I will outline > my philosophy yet again in Poetics List Henry Posting #1345708, due > out in 3 weeks or so. I look forward to that w/ informal anticipation. Speakin' btw of zeitgeist, this past week's New Yorker carries an amazing bit of chutzpa in the form of a brazen specimen of theory-mongering (clearly satirical, in a way, but successful not merely as satire, but rather, in the theory it alleges to espouse) anent the nature of the zeitgeist / popular-culture-wise. The essay concerns a supposed "Iron Law of Stardom" which boils down to the proposition that a Star (film, music, politics, whatever) experiences proper & true Stardom for a specific limited term of 3 years (or, in certain, carefully explained exceptions, 6 years -- where there's been a re-make of identity . . .) -- don't have the mag on hand, and I didn't even take note of the author's name (pardon to be so non-attentive) -- but whoever the chap is, he wrote a memorable item. The final-paragraph theory self-destruct mechanism was, in a word, awesome. I venture to recommend this mass-culture moiety to the august theoreticals here gathered. best, d.i. p.s.: Mr. Gould -- also do look forward to your spectrum-spanning formalities, at whatever-such point as done & available. I went thru a villannelle phase myself, abt. a year ago last summer -- lasted for a couple months, and I really enjoyed it. When one's in that sort of groove, it can be groovy. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} | "...honk if you believe in geese" | \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 11:42:59 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Henry Philosophy in Small Nutshell Modern philosophy began with Descartes, who created the Mind/External Reality dichotomy. Postmodernism, confronted with the 20th century techno- police state-dead universe positivist worldview of the triumphant Modern, countered with this dichotomy: Mind/No External Reality (or its variable: No Mind/No Reality). (see Nietzsche, etc.) Henry thinks postmodernism is a dialectical coin-flip. He goeth back to the pre-modern. Not to the irrational archaic, nor to Heraclitus' dialectical yin-yang of united-opposing forces. He goes to Heraclitus' philosophical interlocutor: Philo. According to Philo, the opposites in reality are not united in eternal war. They are help apart-together by the supernatural dividing Word, the ineffable which keeps opposites in balance. Cosmos is thus not a dichotomy but a trichotomy: Humankind/Supernatural/Nature. This olden worldview has been a resource for poetry before: for me, a little academic treatise by Sanford Burdick - a study of Milton, called _Dividing Muse_ (Yale U.P., 1985) is a very important little book. Humankind as ANALOGY, as IMAGO DEI, for a transcendent HEART-SPIRIT - the ancient imago displayed very forcefully in the Byzantium exhibit in NY right now at the Met (which I would love to see) - well, it ain't dead yet, ye philosophes. Reality is a text, yes - but Nietzsche/Derrida's only chapter 13. Wait til you get to Chapt. 24. - Henri Gould de l'Ecole de Providence provocative p.s.: Where are ye then, ye academic barnacles of postmodern style? And where are ye, archao-huffapuffers of the new primitif? And ye also, fussy neo-formalistes? The physics of postmodernism is irrel- evant, compared to the chemistry-biology of social criticism (see issue one of Tim Woods' NEGATIONS magazine to see what I mean)...let us descend through style into the interstices of the soup kitchen, sistren & brethren... perhaps there our poems will be remembered...in the echo-chamber of real world... (hear dat ghoul a-callin?) (whew, dassa ghost-voice, man) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 12:23:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: roundel for D. Israel Here's a roundel. It was written after a long meeting of the Poetry Mission, in Cranston, a litte ways from Ted Berrigan's b-place (this old-fashiooned poem will sound like sacrilege to many). The "pioneers' are them forthright compagnards making a non-institutional civic poetry space. NOCTURNE _in Pawtuxet, with the "pioneers" The night air is soft, the trees hold their places, the meeting's adjourned, we emerge from the loft. The streetlight illuminates (diverted faces). The night air is soft. Words, words, tarred with a treacherous weft... heart's treason, scars. Posthumous traces you'll replicate later--when no one's left. Soul... death will bear your disgraces. Friend... let this river be--raft. Soon, soon--the deep gulf will displace us. And the night air is soft. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 12:41:29 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: BRIEF 3rd thought The weak point of recent harangue, as many will note & should emphasize, is the leninist/totalitarian postscript. Art needs no social justification. It is what it is, and let its makers always thrive in blessed obscurity and irrelevance and innocence & joy & creativity & freedom & originality & idiosyncrasy & poverty & criminality & shame & degradation & happiness & sex too. - Pope Hank da Turd (modernist in disguise?????? wha!!) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 10:47:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: from "Alan Jen Sondheim" at Mar 23, 97 03:14:23 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > When I was teaching in artschools, watching painting teachers at work, > critiques usually ran along the lines of "this isn't working here" > (perhaps pointing to a particular section of the canvas) - instead of > "this doesn't work for me" (never mind the need to deconstruct "work"). > Audience is replaced by universal, taste becomes transcendent, reified > into theoretical position. those art teachers, if they were any good, knew what they were saying. c. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:49:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RaeA100900@AOL.COM Subject: Marginalization Dear Listees, Has the Segue space discussion of Perelman's Marginalization of Poetry happened yet? If so, I'd like read an account of it. Anybody else? R.A. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:52:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: <199703231847.SAA18213@beaufort.sfu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII They weren't. On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Carl Lynden Peters wrote: > > When I was teaching in artschools, watching painting teachers at work, > > critiques usually ran along the lines of "this isn't working here" > > (perhaps pointing to a particular section of the canvas) - instead of > > "this doesn't work for me" (never mind the need to deconstruct "work"). > > Audience is replaced by universal, taste becomes transcendent, reified > > into theoretical position. > > those art teachers, if they were any good, knew what they were saying. > > c. > ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ ++++++++++++++++ IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ TELEPHONE 718-857-3671 CUSEEME: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, BEING ON LINE, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 14:07:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: roundel for D. Israel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: Self To: henry gould Subject: Re: roundel for D. Israel Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:59:48 -0500 Henry -- "nice ring, Pope" (as a friend of mine remarked, when, as a kid, he had an audience w/ the actual [now, the late] Roman Catholic gent -- or if not an "audience" at least a ceremonialish meeting w/ Catholic kids I guess; the deal being, the Pope extends his hand so the lads can kiss the ruby [prob.?] ring, vestigal from monarchical days) or, in other words: thanks for that (the likeable roundel) - the language is of a quality, of a kind that I will admit to favoring, thus feels rather close (in fact) to things I've assayed (if I my presume to so claim) -- will have to (nods to Perloff &c) *re*-read no doubt -- will reciprocate in not-quite-kind (but a formal somethin',-- e.g. one of the mentioned villannelles [I figure, when in doubt, double-letter-it w/ that word]) when I'm back at my other (office) computer, where I've got old MSS stashed away. > Words, words, tarred with a treacherous weft... > heart's treason, scars. Posthumous traces > you'll replicate later--when no one's left. asks some thought, yes .... the eternal cycle of obscurity / posthumous fame / et alia how about "elegiac realism" ? -- (a new school ! (?)) here at century-end anon again a trend (or if no trend it prove at least a lyric friend) d.i. . , ......., 1.................., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...' .o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....' ///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...' .David..........Raphael..........Israel...' [ &/or.office......disrael@skgf.com ] {telephonic.location.202/882-1179} |"...sleuthing out all clues, blues & news"| \\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..' ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 14:25:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: Marginalization MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Has the Segue space discussion of Perelman's Marginalization of Poetry > happened yet? If so, I'd like read an account of it. Anybody else? yes of course, very much so . . . In particular (or fer instance), what mght the estimable Ann Lauterbach have had to say, I wonder? d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:45:05 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music In-Reply-To: <333106A8.42D9@cnsunix.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" though sun ra was heavily space and planet oriented, it was not so much from an interest in astrology (as i understand it) as from a feeling that he and other Black people were not welcome on Earth, and would in fact prefer to live elsewhere (saturn in particular) given the current state of the earth. about a year ago we had a discussion on this list about how gay writers etc often used tropes of otherworldliness (angels, outerspace etc) not so much out of a graviation twoard systems of esoterica as an articulation of otherness and a sense that "somewhere a place for us...". etc., so i hesitated to suggest his name in connection with this thread until pierre posted the below. At 9:42 AM +0000 3/20/97, Pierre Joris wrote: >Ira -- listening right now to John Coltrane's INTERSTELLAR SPACE THE 6 >CUTS OF WHICH ARE TITLED: 1. MARS 2. LEO 3.VENUS 4. JUPITER VARIATION 5 >JUPITER 6. SATURN -- the music (Coltrane on tenor & bells, Rashied Ali >on drums) is instellar, the space, according to the titles, however >sub-solar. Trane's last recording. -- Pierre >========================================= >pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 >tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Everything that allows men to become rooted, through >values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in >_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which >constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is, >[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality >and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose >it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot >========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 13:48:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? > Boredom, like talk, is cheap. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 15:32:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathrine Varnes Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, henry gould wrote: > On Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:55:51 +0800 Schuchat Simon said: > >I suppose most of us on this list are not content with form as such, or > >are we? > > I'm presently working through L. Turco's Book of Forms. And no I'm not a > new formalist or an old formalist. I've done this too, (but about 12 years ago with Turco's old Book of Forms -- the thin red one -- is that the same one you're using or is it the new one, the thick black one?) I think how HG articulated his interest is not that different than how most people who try these things feel, even if they can't say it as well. I wonder if there's a way this discussion obliges that second sentence in counter to the "guilty" confession. Well, I won't do it, and besides I have no idea what "form as such" might be. But I'm curious. Has anyone else on this list worked through this or other books, or other ideas on form, as a way to something else? Kathrine Varnes ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 18:22:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: howard mccord In-Reply-To: <199703231527.KAA03092@wizard.wizard.net> from "David R. Israel" at Mar 23, 97 10:29:03 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ron Silliman has on another listserve mentioned Howard McCord--a forgotten poet of the times, for Ron, and I'm sure lots, but hopefully not all, of us. Invoking McCord's name here might interestingly allow a perception to form in outline--in the stars, if you like--of what until now might appear on this listerve as just a nameless pattern (i.e., the pattern itself is nameless) of subjects/posts in listserve-space to do with astrology, angelology, form/content (and the history of), lists like this one I'm writing and the one we're on, Spicer and Duncan and Olson on wisdom, and institutional versus community memory and praxis. Last year I picked up, in Calgary, secondhand, a 1971 Sand Dollar (Berkeley) chapbook by McCord, *Gnomonology: A Handbook of Systems* and gifted it to Fred Wah, figuring, rightly as it turned out, that Fred would know who this interesting-seeming poet is. I would like to hear from others on his work and context-- and to pose the question: how might McCord's project be recognizexd today as one of constituting a reading-horizon for a community out of and to which new poetry is written? This question relates directly to the status of "knowledge" in the work, in the community. (In asking this question via McCord of today, the heroic individualism endemic to the New American moment would have to be revised and "community" substituted for "individual" as a constitutive pregiven--or would it.) Perhaps the title of this post--playing on Howard's last name--should be: "Synthesis in the age of MacDonald's." "Synthesis" as being, of course, something that poetry might propose to do--and that McCord's poetics has a specific approach to, one that is a form of "direct action" where action is verbal. From my cursory knowledge of McCord, it seems that his "handbook" grows from Olson's well-known etymological seed- injunction to poets to take history as they (should) take themselves, since "history" derives from "'istorin," to find out for oneself. McCord's handbook, then, follows Olson. It's a synthesis of books, maps, worldviews, prioritizing the local grounded, literally, in the land. But "land" turns out to be as much as code-word for context that comprises a reading-horizon. Indexically it's got, as would be expected in Olson's line, a singular *range*-- from Wittgenstein to Sauer, Foucault to Yi-Fu Tuan. I find the utopic hope thrusting McCord's singular synthesis forward and outward to be articulated five years later by Ed Sanders, who also belongs, for a time, to this same Olsonian impulse (that itself has a history predating Olson), in his notion of an "investigative poetry," whose chapbook by that name is dedicated to the memory of Olson: Investigative poesy is freed from capitalism, churchism, and other totalitarianisms; free from racisms, free from allegiance to napalm-dropping military police states--a poetry adequate to discharge from its verse-grids the undefiled high energy purely-distilled verse-frags, using *every* bardic skill and meter and method of the last 5 or 6 generations, in order to describe *every* aspect (no more secret governments!) of the historical present, while aiding the future, even placing bard-babble once again into a role as shaper of the future. (Ed Sanders, *Investigative Poetry*, City Lights, 1976, p. 11) The gist and grist of such a poetics stance is encapsulated in the McCord statement: "I take the lyric as an epistemic form." Knowledge and poetry, knowing and writing, how does that jointure take place where. This post sent to the list, instead of my harddrive under "doodles." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:11:52 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 23 Mar 1997 15:32:07 -0500 from I'm using the old Turco, thin red, which is heavy on obscure Welsh forms. Just finished a Portuguese riff, the "glose". Like an enlarged carol. - HG ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:31:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > >If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? > > > Boredom, like talk, is cheap. Boredom & desire are opposites. Or rather: there's desire & antipathy (w/ boredom at the fulcrum)? Reverse the rhetoric, invert the formulation: If desire were a commodity, would it be boring? One can only commodify needful things (if the need is real, imagined, pre-existent, or insta-manufactured -- those are secondary issues) I'd say some more abt. this, but hesitate (for reasons you can perhaps imagine . . . ) ;-) d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:17:55 -0500 Reply-To: Peter Jaeger Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Jaeger Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Alan Jen Sondheim wrote: > When I was teaching in artschools, watching painting teachers at work, > critiques usually ran along the lines of "this isn't working here" > (perhaps pointing to a particular section of the canvas) - instead of > "this doesn't work for me" (never mind the need to deconstruct "work"). > Audience is replaced by universal, taste becomes transcendent, reified > into theoretical position. > Alan, When I was painting in artschools, I often had a hard time figuring out what my teachers meant by "this works" and "this doesn't work" too. I realize my questions last night were de-historicized, and not at all rigourously framed. To be more specific, but not entirely specific, I'm thinking of the contemporary *use* value of easy to access excitement/entertainment, as opposed to waste, boredom, expenditure, general economy etc. Imagine a virtual sub-culture who invert the excitement / boredom binary, and who organize their enjoyment on wasting time (anti-time=money). Their existence as a sub-culture is based on their enjoyment of boredom. At the same time, they see this boredom as a critique of the commodification of excitement--after all, they are revolutionaries, and poets too. The question is whether their criticism actually reaches and impacts on the world of entertainment, or whether it merely serves as a focus for maintaining their own social coherency as a sub-group. To my mind, the potential of their critique outweighs the limitations (the foreclosure) of reducing their boredom to a mere site for structuring enjoyment. Is it better to bore large than excite small? Peter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:57:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Comments: To: Peter Jaeger In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Peter Jaeger wrote: > Imagine a virtual sub-culture who invert the excitement / boredom binary, > and who organize their enjoyment on wasting time (anti-time=money). Their > existence as a sub-culture is based on their enjoyment of boredom. At the > same time, they see this boredom as a critique of the commodification of > excitement--after all, they are revolutionaries, and poets too. The > question is whether their criticism actually reaches and impacts on the > world of entertainment, or whether it merely serves as a focus for > maintaining their own social coherency as a sub-group. To my mind, the > potential of their critique outweighs the limitations (the foreclosure) of > reducing their boredom to a mere site for structuring enjoyment. This sounds very much like Situationism - you might look into the work of Guy Debord and the others - and their thinking did impact (for example, detournement, flaneurship, etc. that was a kind of drifting related to, but not equilvalent to, boredom) in a lot of areas, particularly around May '68 - but they were also critically tuned into the culture at that point. There is also a lassitude in a lot of Bataille... As far as impact, I doubt it would have any whatsoever today; there is a combination of boredom and skittering in Websurfing (something related to a concept I developed, "defuge," described in my texts) that would simply short-circuit or bypass the site. There was also enormous attention devoted to the aesthetics of boredom vis-a-vis Warhol; it was, as I re- member, Laurie Anderson who first, for example, promoted the idea of en- tertainment to combat a kind of boring structuralism that had taken over a lot of performance art at one point. (I'm too tired, sorry, for citations here.) > > Is it better to bore large than excite small? > > Peter > Ask Madonna in both categories... Alan ____________________________________________________________________ URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia..edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ ++++++++++++++++ IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ TELEPHONE 718-857-3671 CUSEEME: 166.84.250.149 +++++ Editor, BEING ON LINE, Lusitania, 1997 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:38:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It strikes me that among the ways we talk about form two stand out: one as product (this is a sonnet, that's a rondel); another as process (I am writing a sonnet, I am working on a rondel). Having studied as an undergraduate with genuine unreconstructed new formalists, I remember being ordered to write in iambic pentameter, and the profs would pick my poem apart either at the points where the scansion broke down, or I had used an easy fix to work my way out. I kept Miller Williams, John Hollander and Dacey and Jauss's anthology _Strong Measures_ on my desk beside the dictionary. I learned a lot, but I often felt like a six year old forced to take piano lessons because it would make me more cultured. But with a few years behind this experience, I think I understand why they acted the way they did. I think it's a lot easier to talk about poems, especially in the workshop environment, by only engaging with the formal/technical aspects of the work at hand. This is often why so many workshop poems look and sound alike. An ideal form is assumed, which is then used as a yardstick to which the poems on the worksheet are compared. Issues of content, what the poem is about, are seldom broached because workshops are social as well as pedagogical beasts, and one of the rules seems to be that because authors have the right to write about anything they please, no person's content should be privileged over another's. This makes sure everyone plays nice. It also guarantees a certain sloppiness in the ideas of the poem, in much the same way as a person's ideas become sloppy when no one disagrees with them. I think my profs were operating under the assumption that if you imposed a formal strictness or rectitude upon the poem, the content would also have to straighten up. I don't agree with this. It's just as easy to write a bad poem that scans as one that doesn't. One of the reasons why traditional forms (I would also throw traditional free verse such as the so-called Iowa poem into this category) are often treated with a certain degree of animosity is because they occupy a priviliged position. They're like the aristocracy of poetry, they have long pedigrees and insist on a certain amount of deferrence (which is assumed but seldom earned). Yet despite this critical/historical baggage, I think these forms and the language used to analyze the formal aspects of a poem are useful for the act of reading and writing poems. Not good. Not bad. Just useful. Much like finally learning how to play the piano. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 02:33:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Peter Jaeger elaborates: > Imagine a virtual sub-culture who invert the excitement / boredom > binary, and who organize their enjoyment on wasting time > (anti-time=money). Their existence as a sub-culture is based on > their enjoyment of boredom. At the same time, they see this boredom > as a critique of the commodification of excitement . . . (etc.) I think what you're fishing for, Peter, is sort of interesting -- but have a feeling there's a problem with use of the word "boredom." There are surely many levels & types of enjoyment, involvement, attention, engagement, interest, awareness, consciousness, etc., which are dissimilar to & far from industrial-strength "excitement" (especially as mass-culturally purveyed & cultivated -- or as you say, "commodified"). A problem with your notion & proposition abt. "boredom" as a culturally fruitful principle involves the fact that boredom seems (in most common senses of the term) to suggest a mere falling off of attention & interest. Perhaps there could be nuances of meaning & feeling huddled under that clunky catch-all moniker "boredom" -- but to proceed in general terms here, I find it hard to see boredom per se as the basis of anything very vital or interesting -- or I dare say, all that worthwhile. Boredom, however, is in the brain of the beholder. You speak of "the enjoyment of boredom." I say: if it's enjoyment, is it really boredom? Many of us have -- at various times, in various ways -- experienced the paradoxical response you described: being most interested in poetry that seemingly articulates an experience of boredom. I can't say I've had that exact experience -- but memories of (e.g.) concerts from the likes of the estimable John Cage do come to mind -- in which one must sometimes work (or be willing to work, if need be) to be fully attentive to what's happening. The challenge is to find the interesting side(s) of what might at first blush seem uninteresting. The payoff is in the finding of such. If it were *strictly* boring -- if it always failed to engage -- it would be something very different from what (in my view, & that of many) it is. If one succeeds & manages to be attentive -- & further discovers something worth attending to -- presto! one is involved in a process transcending boredom. Boredom might be one phase or aspect or (initial) *gambit* of the overall process, but the whole hardly fits under the B rubric.If one attends to the work -- ipso facto, one is not properly bored. Boredom is (isn't it?) the waning of attention & interest. Out of knee-jerk antipathy for boredom, the pop-culturites try (as we all know) to turn up the volume & knock the socks off, playing the excitement game for fun & profit. There's a fear of boredom behind this (partly); but the fear is somewhat purile. Serious (or for that matter playful) interest in (so to say) *the secrets of the mundane* can short-circuit the boredom phobia, -- and much of 20th century art has (arguably) sprung from practitioners who've walked that path. There are a few thoughts on this -- I think it's a complex topic; the above is (at best) an imprecise precis. d.i. p.s.: boredom is one thing, but bland (say) is another. Ni Tsan -- painter & poet of Yuan-dynasty China -- was, like many of his insoucient chums, fond of the term "bland" (tan, I think, is the Chinese). It became, in fact, a term of high critical praise. Another comparative reference that comes to mind is the remarkable opening text in Chogyam Trungpa's little introductory volume about meditation entitled *The Path is the Goal* (Shambhala Books). He characterizes meditation as "wasting time" -- a very worthwhile wasting of time, in his view. This likely has something to do with what you're endeavoring to get at here. . ..... ............ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ > david raphael israel < >> washington d.c. << | davidi@wizard.net (home) | disrael@skgf.com (office) ========================= | thy centuries follow each other | perfecting a small wild flower | (Tagore) //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:58:46 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >though sun ra was heavily space and planet oriented, it was not so much >from an interest in astrology (as i understand it) as from a feeling that >he and other Black people were not welcome on Earth, and would in fact >prefer to live elsewhere (saturn in particular) given the current state of >the earth. about a year ago we had a discussion on this list about how gay >writers etc often used tropes of otherworldliness (angels, outerspace etc) >not so much out of a graviation twoard systems of esoterica as an >articulation of otherness and a sense that "somewhere a place for us...". >etc., Yes, very much so (Ra, of course, was both black and gay). I would want to add, however, that Sun Ra's reputedly vast knowledge of astrology (along with many other 'esotoric' systems) was based in a belief, however ironic, that such a 'somehwere' did in fact exist, and was related to the stars, planets, etc. (as with Coltrane, or certainly Braxton). I think of Duncan's 'Atlantis' here - a place which ultimately becomes very 'real' in the poetry ("a made place" etc.) as much as it stands as a figure for loss. Or - specifically in relation to music - the sense I get in Nate Mackey's work of New World African religious and cosmological practice being carried out _not only_ as critique of the current state of affairs, but as continuation of (or participation in) models of thought the 'otherness' of which has caused them to suffer a marginalization at the hands of imperializing discourse which itself warrants redress. I think, that is to say, that Ra's thought does call attention to the latter as well as the former... Stephen Cope ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:36:14 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" George Oppen saw boredom (or "the knowledge of boredom"), following Heidegger, as a means to knowledge - an instrument of clarity (see the first poem, in his first book). His sense, tho, is obviously not of the kind of boredom referred to here. The Heidegger passage makes this clear: Real boredom is still far off when this book or that play, this activity or that stretch of idelness merely bores us. Real boredom comes when "one is bored." This profound boredom, drifting hither and thither in the abysses of existence like a mute fog, draws all things, all men and oneself along with them, together in a queer kind of indifference. This boredom reveals what-is in totality. In Oppen, it is quite literally "what-is:" "the world, weather-swept, with which/ one shares the century," that boredom reveals. It becomes a common theme Oppen, especially in _Of Being Numerous_... Stephen Cope >Can boring poems operate as critique, until a critique of boredom is >formulated? > >Why do I get bored by poems? But at the same time, why am I most >interested in poems that s(t)imulate boredom, making me blank & drain? > >If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? > >And what if a poem is so boring it invites readers to question why >they're bored? > > > >Peter Jaeger ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 07:29:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: <199703240732.CAA31820@wizard.wizard.net> from "David R. Israel" at Mar 24, 97 02:33:29 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Boredom is part of the Logos too." --Jack Spicer ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 08:18:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "DEAN F. TACIUCH" Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Hugh Steinberg wrote: [cut] > I think it's a lot easier to talk about poems, especially in the workshop > environment, by only engaging with the formal/technical aspects of the work > at hand. This is often why so many workshop poems look and sound alike. An > ideal form is assumed, which is then used as a yardstick to which the poems > on the worksheet are compared. Issues of content, what the poem is about, > are seldom broached because workshops are social as well as pedagogical > beasts, and one of the rules seems to be that because authors have the > right to write about anything they please, no person's content should be > privileged over another's. This makes sure everyone plays nice. It also > guarantees a certain sloppiness in the ideas of the poem, in much the same > way as a person's ideas become sloppy when no one disagrees with them. > > I think my profs were operating under the assumption that if you imposed a > formal strictness or rectitude upon the poem, the content would also have > to straighten up. > > I don't agree with this. It's just as easy to write a bad poem that scans > as one that doesn't. > True, but as one who teaches Undergraduate Creative Writing courses, and who doesn't spend much time on sonnets and the like, I find that it is not only easier but more useful to talk about matters of form than to discuss "content"--the latter discussion often breaks down into "What did you mean here?" (which then turns into the even less productive "What _I_ was trying to say here. . .") True, this retreat to easy questions and answers can happen with formal discussions, too, it's not nearly as often. By form, since I'm not a "formalist," I take to be the actual use of the words--I concentrate on sound patterns (though I discourage end rhyme since its just too easy to write simplistically in that mode) and heavily on lineation. I ask them to justify each line break (a task I wonder if I myself could perform convincingly). So the questions from the class are more along the lines of "why did you do this _here_?" rather than "why'd you say that?" At least that's what I hope for. Often, just to get a discussion of form going in a beginning writing class is a victory. Presenting form as ubiquitous (that everything they write is formed) is, I hope, a means to begin questioning constructions of all kinds. Dean ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 08:07:32 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:38:27 -0600 from On Mon, 24 Mar 1997 00:38:27 -0600 Hugh Steinberg said: > >I think it's a lot easier to talk about poems, especially in the workshop >environment, by only engaging with the formal/technical aspects of the work >at hand. This is often why so many workshop poems look and sound alike. An >ideal form is assumed, which is then used as a yardstick to which the poems I agree with Hugh here completely, except I would go so far as to argue that meter & rhyme & form (sonnet, etc.) are not even the formal aspects. In my own writing work, it seems to me that unless these are treated as almost trivial scaffolding - there to be bent and twisted & fooled around with in whatever way you please - you'll never get out of the straitjecket. These formalist workshop teachers (sounds like a nightmare) have got it backwards. 30 years practice, let's say, at my own speeds & lineations etc. make these forms malleable. Piano playing - scales - free verse or metered, it comes to the same thing. & if it don't swing to begin with... > >I don't agree with this. It's just as easy to write a bad poem that scans >as one that doesn't. Easier, according to Auden. No doubt about it, according to me. 99% are bad for you. Better to go down the street & have a donut dunked in whiskey. > >Yet despite this critical/historical baggage, I think these forms and the >language used to analyze the formal aspects of a poem are useful for the >act of reading and writing poems. Not good. Not bad. Just useful. Again I go back to the point Mark Wallace raised about U.S. experimentalists who set their own formal parameters & see what develops. I see no difference between this and what the forms do. A lot of the forms actually WORK (at least in my dumb lowbrow workshop). I did a "glose" last night (no, it's not a drug - it's a Portuguese form). You start with a 4-line rhymed "text" - then each line is the refrain, in order, of a ten-line stanza, rhymed or whatever any way you like. It works - it underlines the text, sets up an echo-chamber. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:23:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Catherine Elizabeth Paul Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I, too, had undergrad creative writing profs who emphasized form at the expense of content, but their reason, and as I get older I agree (read: become more stodgey?), was that the purpose of such a class was to teach tools so that when we finally had something to say, those tools would be at our disposal--very much like piano lessons, indeed. Catherine Paul University of Michigan cepaul@umich.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:50:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The famous myth (I mean I'm pretty sure it is factually true, but a bit of mythologizing too), wherein Pound wrote that he had written a sonnet a day for a year, then burnt them all, was very impressive to me in my teens (long ago). The idea of formal frames (form in the prosodic sense) is still to be really clarified for us at this historical moment...Just what is the relation between the two impulses...The one represented by working (partly "to learn") with older forms, as mentioned by Henry and Katherine; and the other impulse represented by more innovative "formal exercises" --the B.Mayer list of St. Marks ideas, the spinoff used by CB in teaching, which is on the Web...?? Are we thinking about "form" very differently in the two different instances? or is the one just an "updated" version of trying sonnets and terza rima? (I personally do get a lot out of playing with such form ideas; I have one rather long poem which I attempted to make consist of nothing but verbs; which I rather like; most such things get tossed tho'......And as for my own provisional sense of the answer to my question: I think the two impulses are related, but crucially different, not just versions of the same thing..But haven't yet thought it thru....) Henry's roundel was wonderful... Mark P. > be. But I'm curious. Has anyone else on this list worked through this or > other books, or other ideas on form, as a way to something else? > > Kathrine Varnes > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:50:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In regard to boredom: didn't Freud say something about boredom being a form of anxiety? Didn't John Cage say, if something is boring, keep going for half an hour; if it's still boring, keep going for an hour? The first few years I went to poetry readings I logged a lot of boredom. This had a lot to do with not knowing how to hear the work, sure, but it may have had to do with the work being read being not totally great. At any rate, ten years later I am seldom _bored_ at readings within the social circle of poetry downtown New York. Uptown, well, I don't know the people. When my students report that they're bored, I decode this as meaning that I haven't made the project at hand available to them. When I notice my mind wandering when I'm reading, I go as far as I can in that other direction, then I come back. Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:34:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Comments: To: Michael Boughn MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN That is a wonderful quote! I like Stephen Cope's post on Oppen/Heidegger, too, and wld just add that bordeom is a writer's best friend. To be stripped of the usual objects or purposes of desire is to be compelled to create new ones. So I wld disagree with the good David Israel's remark that boredom and desire are opposites. I see them working very much in tandem. Bordeom fuels desire. But does desire lead to boredom? I wld guess it does. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Michael Boughn To: POETICS Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Date: Monday, March 24, 1997 6:33AM "Boredom is part of the Logos too." --Jack Spicer ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:56:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:11 PM -0500 3/23/97, henry wrote: >I'm using the old Turco, thin red, which is heavy on obscure Welsh forms. >Just finished a Portuguese riff, the "glose". Like an enlarged carol. >- HG i was on a panel w/ turco a few yrs ago, i talked about jack spicer and camp as subaltern wit; he looked mortified (bright red apoplectic furious) to be on a panel where someone was talking about queers, later he said that women were taking jobs away from men in the academy these days (a bit like our recent discussion about "identity politics"?) ...that was my intro to the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters poetic, but turco? nein danke. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:58:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Morris" Subject: Steve Abbott on Kaufman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A plea for help with a reference. Steve Abbott called Bob Kaufman "the hidden master of the Beats" somewhere, maybe in a 1986 issue of Poetry Flash, though I'm not sure. If anyone knows the source, please backchannel me with a specific citation. Thanks a lot-- Dee Morris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:59:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: <199703240429.XAA27122@wizard.wizard.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:31 PM -0500 3/23/97, David R. Israel wrote: >> >If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? >> > >> Boredom, like talk, is cheap. > >Boredom & desire are opposites. >Or rather: there's desire & antipathy (w/ boredom at the fulcrum)? > i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like anger or loneliness. nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach you stuff, if only more about your own desires. i like this thread of theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content treadmill.--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:07:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:50:52 -0500 from my first reaction to Mark's interesting post is probably an obvious one (I'm famous for being obvious). The main difference between "working through the old forms" and doing more experimental work is that the two paths are usually aimed-at and responded-to by different audiences. There is a contemporary art world, with which experimental poetry has a (more or less) close relationship. Experiment, to some degree, MEANS autonomy or liberation from these traditional forms, studied (are they still?) in academia, read by old fogies, trudged through in formalist "writing workshops", published in strange anthologies, etc. etc. And the whole thing has been "politicized" forever & ever by Pound & Williams, especially, along with Eliot, etc. Wallace Stevens was different - he basically said in various ways & times that the whole form question is a bore. (Agreed, Wally.) But the question for the maker is, do I need to be bound by these dialectics? When I get down into the subatomic level of form & creation, do they even exist? I see a fabric, a verbal fabric. Someone at a meeting the other day read Hart Crane's "Chaplinesque" out loud, & very well. She displayed just at what depth of performance & innuendo this amazing poet (who played across all kinds of trad/experimental lines) was working. Ed Honig was there - he said he was around when Chaplin was flourishing - & that Crane was verbally mimicking Chaplin's mannerisms in a number of ways. Yet this is only one level on which that poem works. Now that's an example of technique which blows your meter/rhyme/form-as-technique claptrap (workshop-lingo) out of the water. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:31:42 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:34:00 -0600 from "Love in an animal sense is an illness, but a necessity which one has to overcome. Politics is an odd game, not without danger I have been told, but certainly sometimes amusing. To eat and drink are habits not to be despised but often connected with unfortunate consequences. To sail around the earth in 91 hours must be very strenuous, like racing in cars or splitting the atoms. But the most exhausting thing of all--is boredom. "So let me take part in your boredom and in your dreams while you take part in mine which may be yours as well." - Max Beckmann (who fell dead one day on the streets of Chicago) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 12:26:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathrine Varnes Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > i was on a panel w/ turco a few yrs ago, i talked about jack spicer and > camp as subaltern wit; he looked mortified (bright red apoplectic furious) > to be on a panel where someone was talking about queers, later he said that > women were taking jobs away from men in the academy these days (a bit like > our recent discussion about "identity politics"?) ...that was my intro to > the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters > poetic, but turco? nein danke. Technically, Turco is not "new" but old formalist. That red book was published in 67, I think, and he just last year retired from SUNY. The women taking jobs away from men thing is infuriating, but this baloney is ubiquitous (which is not to say that i don't fight it). But I've heard marxists and medievalists and, yes, postmodernists say the same thing and then hire five white men in succession in a predominantly male department. ain't no movement owns that lame position. I've written about the troubled politics in new formalism, so please don't mistake _my_ position, but I'm not sure this characterization of Turco is fair. Did he _say_ he had this problem with queers? Or did he have a problem with your argument about queers? There is a difference. Kathrine Varnes ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:26:03 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Jung Kwang In a posting the other day I mentioned an astounding contemporary Korean zen monk and artist who paints and composes poems by tying a calligraphy brush to his penis. There is published work on him, though the only thing I've seen is a beautiful catalog from an exhibit some years ago, but I can't remember what museum. I remember the essay there as referring to him as the "Jackson Pollock of Zen," though many of his works are "representational," somewhat in the manner of sumi-e. In any case, for those who might be interested in pursuing information on this incredible person, his name is Jung Kwang. I can also provide address to those interested of his good friend, Samu Sunim who makes his "home" between Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Toronto. Sunim also has a number of his works. Just backchannel if so. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 12:29:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like > anger or loneliness. nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go > inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach > you stuff, if only more about your own desires. i like this thread of > theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content > treadmill.--md > yes, yes, yes. I had an editor at a newspaper some time ago who overheard a fellow reporter whining about a boring story. "There are no boring stories, only boring writers." And to prove his point, he went on a drive through the town which the reporter covered and came up with about a dozen fascinating stories. He hated reporters who never left the office and rounded up the usual "supsects" on the telephone to use for quotes in a story. Talk about writing to an already conceived form! Steven __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 12:37:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII boredom can be a form of anger: there's an intuitive connection between Warhol works such as sleep and Robert Wilson trace works and a readymade or Hemmings Ball jamming at the Cabaret Voltaire: boredom can be anger On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Jordan Davis wrote: > In regard to boredom: didn't Freud say something about boredom being a form > of anxiety? Didn't John Cage say, if something is boring, keep going for > half an hour; if it's still boring, keep going for an hour? > > The first few years I went to poetry readings I logged a lot of boredom. > This had a lot to do with not knowing how to hear the work, sure, but it > may have had to do with the work being read being not totally great. At any > rate, ten years later I am seldom _bored_ at readings within the social > circle of poetry downtown New York. Uptown, well, I don't know the people. > > When my students report that they're bored, I decode this as meaning that I > haven't made the project at hand available to them. > > When I notice my mind wandering when I'm reading, I go as far as I can in > that other direction, then I come back. > > Jordan Davis > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 10:03:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Dodie Bellamy takes L.A. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, this is Dodie. FYI all you Southern California folks: I'll be reading this Friday night at Beyond Baroque with visual artist Raymond Pettibon. I hear Raymond is going to show slides. Saturday, Raymond and I will be teaching a workshop, "Dialoging with Images and Text." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:01:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > At 11:31 PM -0500 3/23/97, David R. Israel wrote: > >> >If boredom were a commodity, would it be desirable? > >> > > >> Boredom, like talk, is cheap. > > > >Boredom & desire are opposites. > >Or rather: there's desire & antipathy (w/ boredom at the fulcrum)? > > > i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like > anger or loneliness. agree!: absolutely and it's a key point: there should be a post on the way about boredom and Warhol and Dada nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go > inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach > you stuff, if only more about your own desires. often people defend against scary ideas by saying oh that old thing that's boring we've heard that before (that's we construction in relation to boredom): Warhol did it to Neruda: may tried to do it to Ashbery: but surely we can learn from the old farts: I mean imagine a poem that actually combines what's long and weird and heterogeneous in say (name a language poet) with the versions of long and weird and heterogeneous in (name a narrative poet from the twenties or thirties): that wouldn't bore me i like this thread of > theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content > treadmill.--md > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:02:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII right: you can't tar Adrienne Rich or Elizabeth Bishop with Turco On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Kathrine Varnes wrote: > On Mon, 24 Mar 1997, Maria Damon wrote: > > i was on a panel w/ turco a few yrs ago, i talked about jack spicer and > > camp as subaltern wit; he looked mortified (bright red apoplectic furious) > > to be on a panel where someone was talking about queers, later he said that > > women were taking jobs away from men in the academy these days (a bit like > > our recent discussion about "identity politics"?) ...that was my intro to > > the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters > > poetic, but turco? nein danke. > > Technically, Turco is not "new" but old formalist. That red book was > published in 67, I think, and he just last year retired from SUNY. > The women taking jobs away from men thing is infuriating, but this > baloney is ubiquitous (which is not to say that i don't fight it). But > I've heard marxists and medievalists and, yes, postmodernists say the same > thing and then hire five white men in succession in a predominantly male > department. ain't no movement owns that lame position. I've written > about the troubled politics in new formalism, so please don't mistake _my_ > position, but I'm not sure this characterization of Turco is fair. Did he > _say_ he had this problem with queers? Or did he have a problem with your > argument about queers? There is a difference. > > Kathrine Varnes > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:09:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Subject: Re: Form/Content again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. I posted the following to the listserv a few days ago, but didn't use the reply function [my first time posting], so I believe it may not have gone out to everyone. Here goes again: Having eavesdropped on this thread for a few weeks, I'd like to offer the following: Forms form; form forms--by accretion, by direction, by cascade & interruption [as in embryo: "Eternity is no match for the zygote," Bob Hogg said]. A feedback loop. Freud pointed, in "The Antithetical Sense of Primary Words," to bifurcations, e.g., host/hostile. When not content with the inn's content, host turns bouncer. Otherwise, why reject unsuccessful poems? If only because of their content, change the content. But the form-- extensive from (or at least throughout) and superordinate to content-- resists change more intractably. Otherwise, the inn would assimilate the surly and disruptive guest [losing its form as inn in the process and becoming--what? A drunk tank?]. Not that, on occasion, a gatecrasher can't liven up a party, but until that determination becomes clear, the party metamorphoses from party to polygraph, then either ejects or welcomes the uninvited, then reforms itself as party. If the gatecrasher becomes a guest, the imminent becomes immanent. In his triadic theory of the Parasite, Michel Serres argues the necessity, for communication, of both the presence of the static by which the parasite seeks to disrupt communication between two interlocutors and the need for the interlocutors continually [continuously?] to resist the intrusion, allying themselves to allay the threat. When they stop resisting, communication ends. Does form, parasitizing contents, unify them? Do contents, resisting the imposition, form alliances? "One man's ceiing is another man's floor." Don't you hate it when people finish your sentences for you? Don't you love it when, if they seem about to, you reorient the sentence, leaving them (and yourself) somewhere different from and better than either of your expected or intended destinations? "Because the whole sentence meaning is inherently present in the mind of each person, it is quite possible for the pratibha of the sphota to be grasped by the listener even before the whole sentence has been uttered." --Harold G. Coward, The Sphota Theory of Language. "Farewell, then, Reader, from Montaigne." Daniel Zimmerman 485 Parsonage Road Edison, NJ 08837 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:01:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:56:14 -0600 from On Mon, 24 Mar 1997 09:56:14 -0600 Maria Damon said: >the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters >poetic, but turco? nein danke. I don't know much about the politics of phone book publishers (maybe I should) but I just go ahead and use it. And this is the 2nd time I've been noted for "eclecticism" on this list. I will not be smeared with that popcorn butter! Wilbur Delaze Potato, my lawyer, is documenting these accusations. As i sayed to Joe Amato, I have my own narrow motivations, & these machine- gun blabs of mine have probably distorted, once again, the "big picture". The EPOCH-MAKING BREAKTHROUGH of 20th cent HAS been the breakdown of trad formalisms in poetry. It has ushered in an explosion of just plain "writing" and "performance" which is powerful/authentic/original art in ways far beyond the 19th cent or previous could imagine. This goes back to as M.Perloff mentioned, Duchamp & his frames. You put a frame around it - even an invisible, surreal/ironic frame - and it says something new. The question is whether by now these frames haven't gotten awful heavy, clunky, expensive, and recherche. (i.e. boring????) But the question for anybody working in "forms" - trad. poetry forms - is whether they really CAN be authentic/original/new & interesting to any degree comparable with the experiments. I don't know the answer to this - may be one reason I'm doing them (at the moment). I am not a formalist and I am not eclectic. If you look on the underside of the paper on which each and every one of my poems is written, down on the lower left corner, you'll see a small fingerprint in green ink. That is MY PERSONAL TRADEMARK which runs like a motif through ALL my work. I AM NOT GOING TO TELL YOU which finger it represents. Eclectic, pish. - Hankovitch (I am not a crook, neither) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:52:07 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:02:20 -0500 from On Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:02:20 -0500 Joseph Lease said: >right: you can't tar Adrienne Rich or Elizabeth Bishop with Turco this is being forwarded from another list: ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * POLICE BREAK UP ACADEMIC O.F. RING South Liverwurst, NY (ap). After a tip-off from Prof. Dendra Smothaird and campus police, Liverwurst authorities were able to penetrate and arrest 5 members of an Old Formalist ring they said had been "active" for years in the upstate NY area. "We don't know why they chose Buffalo," said Luongo Frim, chief detective. "It looks like a very professional operation. These guys - if you can believe it - were operating under a front, a punk rock band called Angry Young Dandruff - most of them are in their sixties, seventies! Writing sonnets & stuff. I don't know - upstate NY used to be a nice, clean, progressive experimental area..." Lois Mechanique, owner of Lois's Lo-Fat Diner, said - "And I used to serve them coffee. I shoulda known - these were eggs-over-hard guys. Every morning - and they'd be mumblin over their coffee - like, rhymes and stuff." The five men, who's names have been withheld (they have tenure), are being held without bail in the Louisville Lock-Up, for some reason. 3.24.97 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:21:00 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Jung Kwang Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This technique should be a real advantage in doing watercolors. Do you think there are gender connotations here? At 11:26 AM 3/24/97 +0600, you wrote: >In a posting the other day I mentioned an astounding contemporary >Korean zen monk and artist who paints and composes poems by tying a >calligraphy brush to his penis. There is published work on him, >though the only thing I've seen is a beautiful catalog from an >exhibit some years ago, but I can't remember what museum. I remember >the essay there as referring to him as the "Jackson Pollock of Zen," >though many of his works are "representational," somewhat in the >manner of sumi-e. In any case, for those who might be interested in >pursuing information on this incredible person, his name is Jung >Kwang. I can also provide address to those interested of his good >friend, Samu Sunim who makes his "home" between Ann Arbor, Chicago, >and Toronto. Sunim also has a number of his works. Just backchannel >if so. > >Kent > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 14:45:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Jung Kwang In-Reply-To: <199703241921.LAA25233@iceland.it.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark, do you mean to tell me that *all* male artists don't paint this way? Gwyn ;) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:58:22 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ira Lightman Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Stockhausen has said that he has had visions that tell him he has been reincarnated from Sirius (see his piece Sirius, drawing on musical themes based on Capricorn, Aries, Cancer and Libra), and that he is sometimes "channels" music from Sirius. Ira On Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:58:46 -0800 Stephen Cope wrote: > From: Stephen Cope > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:58:46 -0800 > Subject: Re: Astrology poetics/music > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > >though sun ra was heavily space and planet oriented, it was not so much > >from an interest in astrology (as i understand it) as from a feeling that > >he and other Black people were not welcome on Earth, and would in fact > >prefer to live elsewhere (saturn in particular) given the current state of > >the earth. about a year ago we had a discussion on this list about how gay > >writers etc often used tropes of otherworldliness (angels, outerspace etc) > >not so much out of a graviation twoard systems of esoterica as an > >articulation of otherness and a sense that "somewhere a place for us...". > >etc., > > > Yes, very much so (Ra, of course, was both black and gay). I would want to > add, however, that Sun Ra's reputedly vast knowledge of astrology (along > with many other 'esotoric' systems) was based in a belief, however ironic, > that such a 'somehwere' did in fact exist, and was related to the stars, > planets, etc. (as with Coltrane, or certainly Braxton). I think of Duncan's > 'Atlantis' here - a place which ultimately becomes very 'real' in the > poetry ("a made place" etc.) as much as it stands as a figure for loss. Or > - specifically in relation to music - the sense I get in Nate Mackey's work > of New World African religious and cosmological practice being carried out > _not only_ as critique of the current state of affairs, but as continuation > of (or participation in) models of thought the 'otherness' of which has > caused them to suffer a marginalization at the hands of imperializing > discourse which itself warrants redress. I think, that is to say, that Ra's > thought does call attention to the latter as well as the former... > > > Stephen Cope ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 15:00:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Lease Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I just want to apologize for an aspect of one of my posts earlier today: I hadn't really read all of the post about Turco when I hit the reply and include buttons: all I really wanted to say was: it doesn't make sense to use Turco against Rich or Bishop ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 10:59:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Comments: To: Maria Damon MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Maria, I think you're right that boredom often does mask some emotional state that's gone willfully unrecognized. But there's another sense in which I think writers deliberately attempt to cultivate bordeom as a means with which to "break out/into" a fresh line on things. Perhaps cultivate is the wrong word. But when boredom comes, it ought not to be eschewed as it can lead to a new avenue. Which links to Jordan's remarks about anxiety and Cage. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Maria Damon To: POETICS Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Date: Monday, March 24, 1997 10:48AM i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like anger or loneliness. nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach you stuff, if only more about your own desires. i like this thread of theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content treadmill.--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 15:21:31 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: Re: Jung Kwang The prosthetic aesthetic. beth simon ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 14:35:24 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Comments: To: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yes indeed. At 10:59 AM 3/24/97, Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume wrote: >Maria, I think you're right that boredom often does mask some emotional >state that's gone willfully unrecognized. But there's another sense in which >I think writers deliberately attempt to cultivate bordeom as a means with >which to "break out/into" a fresh line on things. Perhaps cultivate is the >wrong word. But when boredom comes, it ought not to be eschewed as it can >lead to a new avenue. Which links to Jordan's remarks about anxiety and >Cage. > >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- >From: Maria Damon >To: POETICS >Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions >Date: Monday, March 24, 1997 10:48AM > > >i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like >anger or loneliness. nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go >inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach >you stuff, if only more about your own desires. i like this thread of >theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content >treadmill.--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:24:43 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Antenym 12 publication and April readings Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu, AERIALEDGE@aol.com, Lppl@aol.com, jms@acmenet.net, maz881@aol.com, Marisa.Januzzi@m.cc.utah.edu, drothschild@penguin.com, Daniel_Bouchard@hmco.com, jarnot@pipeline.com, jdavis@panix.com, lease@HUSC.HARVARD.EDU, wmfuller@ix.netcom.com, fittermn@is.nyu.edu, daviesk@is4.nyu.edu, lgoodman@ACSU.Buffalo.EDU, mwinter@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu, I.Lightman@uea.ac.uk, eryque@acmenet.net, kunos@lanminds.com, levyaa@is.nyu.edu, harris4@soho.ios.com, chris1929w@aol.com, SAB5@psu.edu, jaukee@slip.net, basinski@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu, ninthlab@aol.com, israfel@uci.edu, dcmb@metro.net, kristinb@wired.com, hgburrus@msn.com, chadwick@crl.com, leechapman@aol.com, cah@sonic.net, vent@sirius.com, sscollis@sfu.ca, wr-eye-tings@sfu.ca, scope@ucscb.ucsc.edu, jday@uclink.berkeley.edu, jdebrot@aol.com, billder@teleport.com, cyanosis@slip.net, jdonahue@ups.edu, steven_evans@brown.edu, feathers@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu, jasfoley@aol.com, gfoust@osf1.gmu.edu, dgansz@csn.org, peter_gizzi@macmail.ucsc.edu, chrisko@sirius.com, jeg48@columbia.edu, dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu, hale@etak.com, robert.a.harrison@jci.com, distguill@aol.com, mvh2@columbia.edu, olmsted@crl.com, cynthia.huntington@mac.dartmouth.edu, joris@csc.albany.edu, kimmelman@admin.njit.edu, hlazer@as.ua.edu, juxta43781@aol.com, tlovell@sfsu.edu, 75323.740@compuserve.com, wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu, bam4c@virginia.edu, jmcnally@postoffice.ptd.net, dmelt@ccnet.com, fmm1@cornell.edu, murphym@earthlink.com, shemurph@aol.com, smithnash@aol.com, el500005@brownvm.edu, anielsen@isc.sjsu.edu, jnoble@ccvm.sunysb.edu, john_r._noto@sfbayguardian.com, petersm@coral.indstate.edu, spettet@vaxa.stevens-tech.edu, pphillip@risd.edu, quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca, raphael@aracnet.com, kit_robinson@peoplesoft.com, jross@tmn.com, ssschaefer@aol.com, sschultz@hawaii.edu, schutzl@ceb.ucop.edu, jays@sirius.com, maseidl@VASSAR.EDU, ashurin@mercury.sfsu.edu, lisas@ncgate.newcollege.edu, bstrang@sfsu.edu, 102573.414@compuserve.com, tomt@ch1.ch.pdx.edu, tunguska@tribeca.ios.com, xerxes999@aol.com, pvangel@mail.idt.net, jet@interfaceic.com, jrlw@west.net, tubesox@sirius.com, banes1017@aol.com, gondola@deltanet.com, monkeys@easystreet.com, jfcobin@aol.com, acorn@sirius.com, ghabas@ncgate.newcollege.com, 2420vir@sirius.com, 103667.110@compuserve.com, rjm@merkle.baaqmd.gov, vrgnamgnta@aol.com, jennyo@edgesemi.com, celeste@slip.net, fraz3371@tao.sosc.osshe.edu, sam@europa.com, kmstockd@uci.edu, ovenman@slip.net, bill.wilcox@hq.nasa.gov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (Apologies to anyone who gets this message more than once) announcing the imminent publication of Antenym 12 Pluto in Sagittarius, Sun and Co. in Aries, 1997 (that s April) featuring work from George Albon (San Francisco), David Baratier (Columbus, OH), Steve Carll (San Francisco), Stephen Collis (Victoria, B.C.), Jordan Davis (New York City), Darin De Stefano (San Francisco), William Fuller (Winnetka, IL), Robert Hale (San Francisco), Jonathan Hayes (Berkeley, CA), John High (San Francisco), John Lowther (Atlanta, GA), William Marsh (San Diego, CA), Fernando Pessoa as Ricardo Reis (Lisbon, Portugal 1888-1935) translated by Chris Daniels (Berkeley, CA), Mark Peters (Cheektowaga, NY), Larry Price (Summit, NJ), Meredith Quartermain (Vancouver, B.C.), Stephen Ratcliffe (Bolinas, CA), Elizabeth Robinson (Berkeley, CA), Douglas Rothschild (Brooklyn, NY), Spencer Selby (San Francisco), and Rod Smith (Washington, D.C.) Three dollars (plus $1.50 postage per copy). Published three times annually by Bathysphere Press. Ed. Steve Carll. Please address all correspondence to 106 Fair Oaks St. #3, San Francisco, CA 94110-2951, or e-mail: Subscription rate: $13.50 per year (includes postage; checks payable to Steve Carll). All rights revert to authors upon publication. Also available in the S.F. Bay Area at City Lights, Modern Times, and Cody s Bookstores. Back issues available by e-mail; samples may be viewed at & Issue 12 will be celebrated with a reading mini-series to take place on Saturdays at 1:00 pm in the Redwood Trail area of Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, if it s not rainy or cold. April 5: Darin De Stefano, Elizabeth Robinson, Chris Daniels April 12: George Albon, Robert Hale, Douglas Powell Enter the Park at 9th Ave. and Lincoln Ave. Turn left at the gate just past the County Fair Building into Strybing Arboretum. Continue walking straight, bearing to the left of the fountain, through the "Asia" and "California" environments of the arboretum, and bearing right past the nursery buildings to the Redwood Trail. Enter the Redwood Trail and look for markers #17, 18 and 19. There's a little enclosed clearing there with benches and a podium. This is where the reading is. A donation of $2.00 will be requested. Come out for some fresh air, sunshine, and poetic meditations! Bathysphere Press "It's Deep!" Antenym, a xeroxed 8 and a half by 11 stapled magazine, invites submissions of poetry, fiction, critical and/or philosophical essays, visual art, and other varieties of work on the theme "Ontological Activism and its possibilities" to which issue #13 of the magazine will be dedicated. Submissions may be emailed to or analog-mailed to Steve Carll at 106 Fair Oaks St. #3, San Francisco, CA 94110-2951, with an SASE for reply (and return of mss. if desired). Deadline is June 15, 1997. On Ontological Activism: It's often pointed to as the oldest and most fundamental complex of questions to occur in human consciousness: "Who am I, and what am I doing here?" Questions of this type, along with the resources needed to ask them and give them adequate reflection, are increasingly proscribed by the conditions currently structuring much of our daily experience, which ultimately threatens that human consciousness that makes such questioning possible and even necessary. The phrase "ontological activism" announces itself as the public asking of the questions of being, transforming the individual "who am I?" through re-integration with the communal--"who are we?" in such a way that the opening up of personal perspectives may continually transform the communal as well, by offering examples of investigative strategies. In this way, the question becomes, "Do we as human beings wish to continue being, and if so, how?" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:53:39 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Jung Kwang Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My god (goddess)! What do women paint with? Which raises a couple more questions abt Master Kwang: Does he do nudes? Is his stroke different erect or flaccid? At 02:45 PM 3/24/97 -0500, you wrote: >Mark, do you mean to tell me that *all* male artists don't paint this way? > >Gwyn ;) > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 16:27:12 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Jung Kwang MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Weiss wrote: > > My god (goddess)! What do women paint with? > > Which raises a couple more questions abt Master Kwang: > > Does he do nudes? > > Is his stroke different erect or flaccid? Now, this is why I joined the poetic list. Forget form & content & boredom. Sounds very Gutai to me. Miekal ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 23:59:44 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: howard mccord In-Reply-To: <199703232322.SAA16706@dept.english.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Louis, Examples? Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 00:01:25 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: Re: Marginalization In-Reply-To: <970323134937_1285296358@emout10.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 23 Mar 1997 RaeA100900@AOL.COM wrote: > Dear Listees, > > Has the Segue space discussion of Perelman's Marginalization of Poetry > happened yet? If so, I'd like read an account of it. Anybody else? Yes, please, centralize. Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:11:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: Maria Damon "Re: boredom, poetry, questions" (Mar 24, 9:59am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Didn't John Cage say, if something is boring, keep going for > half an hour; if it's still boring, keep going for an hour? ...and if you keep at it, it will no longer be boring to you. I think that Gertrude Stein had a good handle on this. Reading Stein may force one to have to redefine one's own definition of boredom. > i thinkk boredom is like depression, a cover up for something else, like > anger or loneliness. nothing is inherently boring, so the gaze should go > inward to find out why. so if a poem is boring to you it can still teach > you stuff, if only more about your own desires. i like this thread of > theorizing boredom, it seems far more fruitful than the old form/content > treadmill.--md Wonderful and insightful comments from md. I found that boredom (as opposed to entertaining) was most often an excuse on my part. When that feeling occurs, I go back to reread the poem with renewed vigor since I may actually be missing something. In this negatively capable manner, I have been able to expand my own interests to include poets that I never considered before. BB ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 18:24:58 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" About eight years ago I used to hang on the periphery of this group of writers who published under the name of Apathy Press (I still have their t-shirt, which consists of an anatomically acurate brain with swans' wings attached). Anyhow, the origin of the name of the press, according to Tom DiVenti, was the idea that it is only out of a state of apathy can anything start. Boredom strikes me as a particularly negative energy source, much like a black hole or drug addiction. The trick is to come close enough so that you slingshot out into something fresh. The risk is that you fall in, perhaps forever. Personally, I find I have more than enough boredom at my job that I need to seek out other experiences to bore me as well. It's not like boredom is ever a scarce commodity. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 18:40:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It also strikes me that this discussion of boredom is linked with either flight or transformation: either one runs from what is boring towards what is not boring, or one sticks with what is boring until it is no longer boring. >> Didn't John Cage say, if something is boring, keep going for >> half an hour; if it's still boring, keep going for an hour? > > >...and if you keep at it, it will no longer be boring to you. I think that >Gertrude Stein had a good handle on this. Reading Stein may force one to have >to redefine one's own definition of boredom. > > What if it's boring for years? What if it will always be boring? When is it time to quit? After you receive the gold watch? I guess I have an impatience with boredom. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 20:03:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CHRIS MANN Subject: Re: Marginalization In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Existentialism and the bad picnic After 'The Marginalization of Poetry, An Evening of responses to Bob Perelman's recent book from Princeton University Press' I was asked by one of the respondents what question I would like to have asked. I thought later that it would have been something along the lines of whether the panel and discussion would have been any differently constituted if the work being dealt with had been a poem. This I sent as an observation to someone who replied 'But some of the work in that book IS poetry...' around and about marginalia: Identity politics is only and inevitably ironic*. Yes, fault was found in the work's not being something else** (evidenced by the author's polite stammering, an eloquent mea cupla so long as you didn't pay attention to the words), however the discussion was generally overshadowed by the I-know-coz-I-was-there school of inanity represented (and I use the word advisedly) by the academic trope of 'about'. 'Aboutness' was evidently the topic under discussion. However 'aboutness' has no logical intersection with change. It is a decorative form of identity which yields to description and is indulgently pathetic. And as to the politics of ancestor snatching (semantics), we already knew that it's easier to be embarrassed by our friends - enemies at least have the moral integrity of not being right for the wrong reasons. They at least have no confusion of form and content, no 'about'. And no blame. They at least are blessed with the possibility (decadence) of changing they're minds. * It in no way requires a me to be understood. In it, I has the exclusively romantic status of a victim. ** 'I am' is the blessing of stupidity - write your own fucking book. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 21:18:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dave Zauhar Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms (Turco) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 11:11 PM -0500 3/23/97, henry wrote: >>I'm using the old Turco, thin red, which is heavy on obscure Welsh forms. >>Just finished a Portuguese riff, the "glose". Like an enlarged carol. >>- HG > >i was on a panel w/ turco a few yrs ago, i talked about jack spicer and >camp as subaltern wit; he looked mortified (bright red apoplectic furious) >to be on a panel where someone was talking about queers, later he said that >women were taking jobs away from men in the academy these days (a bit like >our recent discussion about "identity politics"?) ...that was my intro to >the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters >poetic, but turco? nein danke. Hey, I was in the audience for this (was it MMLA or MLA? Chicago or Washington? Anyway) if I remember correctly Diane Wakowski was the third panelist, and she also apparently got on his nerves, because within a year he published a hissy-fit disguised as an essay attacking her views on the politics of form (which are open to criticism, but you could tell by the ferocity of his "essay" that she got under his skin). Mercifully, I missed the wounded white guy screed. Dave Zauhar ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 21:39:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: John Wieners (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This for the list, from Victor Coleman in Toronto: > > Although I never actually published Wieners, I > almost did, and I had a fairly long association with him, beginning with a > meeting in Detroit (of wch I have a snapshot [as does UCSD Library Spec. > Coll.]), and continuing in Buffalo when he was a (grad?) student there at > the behest of Olson & Creeley.My soon to be 2nd wife, Sarah Miller & I > acted as kind of "care-givers" to John in various stages of need and tried > to salve his general paranoia as best we could. I also hung out a fair > amount with John & Bill Hutton when Billy was running Billy Zeigfeld's > Heaven, wch is mentioned in my 'first' book "one/eye/love" (also in > CORRECTIONS) KENKYUSHA: Day 22 -- "John is on the bed/with Billy > Holiday/humming her melody". At one point Island Press was going to reprint > all of the extant issues of MEASURE; but John held it up with the intent of > doing a 'last' issue, wch I think had something to do with Charles Boer's > translations of the Homeric Hymns, wch eventually came out in 1970 & was > reprinted as recently as 1987--but Wieners was looking for it in 1965. John > came to Toronto, I think in 1977, with Charlie Shively, to read at A Space > when I was running it, and we had a good visit then. I can remember sitting > with Ron Caplan at the Coach House lunchtable on Bathurst Street in 1966 > and impressing Stan Bevington w/ both of us writing down the name of the > writer we were most excited about at that time, just to see if we really > had something in common. Wieners it was. So yes he was a huge influence on > me. I haven't seen him since then & am glad he's still alive. > Victor > > Coach House Books is Canada's oldest ( and newest) small press. Visit our > website at http://www.chbooks.com - bookmark it because it changes > practically everyday. To get in touch with us otherwise... 401 Huron Street > (rear) on bpNichol Lane, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2G5 > fax: (416) 977-1158 email: chp@chbooks.com phone: (416) 979-2217 or > outside the Toronto calling area 1-800-367-6360 > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:29:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Bromige Subject: what am I doing wrong? in response to the attached, i wrote to "poetics@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu", only to be told that I ought to write to "listserv@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu" ! how many times do I have to go around this corner, please? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 21:11:09 -0500 >From: "L-Soft list server at University at Buffalo (1.8c)" > >Subject: Output of your job "dcmb" >To: David Bromige > >> join poetics@listserv david bromige >There is no LISTSERV server at LISTSERV. The syntax of LISTSERV commands >does not usually require you to give the name of the site where the list is >located. You may want to try again with just the name of the list (POETICS). > >Summary of resource utilization >------------------------------- > CPU time: 0.010 sec > Overhead CPU: 0.000 sec > CPU model: SPARCstation-20 (384M) > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 23:49:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: clare emily clifford Subject: confidence, fire, birth..... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dean f.tacuich said: >True, but as one who teaches Undergraduate Creative Writing courses, and >who doesn't spend much time on sonnets and the like, I find that it is not >only easier but more useful to talk about matters of form than to discuss >"content"--the latter discussion often breaks down into "What did you mean >here?" (which then turns into the even less productive "What _I_ was >trying to say here. . .") > >True, this retreat to easy questions and answers can happen with formal >discussions, too, it's not nearly as often. By form, since I'm not a >"formalist," I take to be the actual use of the words--I concentrate on >sound patterns (though I discourage end rhyme since its just too easy to write >simplistically in that mode) and heavily on lineation. I ask them to >justify each line break (a task I wonder if I myself could perform >convincingly). So the questions from the class are more along the lines >of "why did you do this _here_?" rather than "why'd you say that?" At >least that's what I hope for. Often, just to get a discussion of form >going in a beginning writing class is a victory. and catherine paul said: >I, too, had undergrad creative writing profs who emphasized form at the >expense of content, but their reason, and as I get older I agree (read: >become more stodgey?), was that the purpose of such a class was to teach >tools so that when we finally had something to say, those tools would be >at our disposal--very much like piano lessons, indeed. the hardest part, when working with budding writers, is initially to instill the confidence in them that what they have to say is worthwhile. doesn't the molding of the craft _then_ come after? i mean... with dedication comes the venturing to explore different forms and styles which will best bestow the voice with a resonant clarity, but the first step, i think, is the initiation of breathing into those words, and then with the discipline of form and texture of language comes the compression and necessity of each aspect of the piece (ie: why _this_ word, does _this_ form best illustrate the sanctity of the piece as a whole?) working with a jorie graham-esque aspect of language (the invisible stitches being just as essential to the working whole as the stitches that you can see), and as the students engage not only in the exploration of their own writing, but the analytical study of other poets, they can decipher the methodology which best suits the content of their piece. the words on the page are just as essential as the precise placement of the white space that remains _around_ those words. they all work as a whole to bring the language to life. call this all form, if you will. basically what i think a lot of this comes down to, is that with experience you begin to utilize the tools of your trade. intro creative writing poetry courses are the most intimidating place for the little freshman/sophomore undergraduate to be when they're still struggling with the intimacy of their writing. the crafting comes with experience. _that's_ when the tools (ie: more confining forms, more confining topics, etc) will become generative for them. jordan davis >When my students report that they're bored, I decode this as meaning that I >haven't made the project at hand available to them. its' all about illuminating that spark and letting it start a brush fire in their minds, eh? but isn't that what teaching is supposed to be about? which leads us to henry's statement of: henry > Experiment, to some degree, MEANS >autonomy or liberation from these traditional forms, studied (are they >still?) in academia, read by old fogies, trudged through in formalist how many classes teach traditional form in present day academia? wow. think about that one. do any of you offer classes that focus on the specialized use of what some would call more 'traditional' form? i think that this would be wonderful in aiding many students today.... kids are _screaming_ for opportunities to mold their craft... they're doing excersizes on their own in writing cantos, sestinas, villanella's, etc, if only to _impose_ a form upon themselves in order to explore the boundaries of language and see what is hiding in the 'narrw diary of [their] mind' (sexton). but what it comes down to, is that if they're doing this work on their own, they are obviously starving for the opportunity to engage in this 'mental foreplay' in a classroom setting. they're raging on challenges. we can't underestimate their passion. Hugh Steinberg said: >Boredom strikes me as a particularly negative energy source, much like a >black hole or drug addiction. The trick is to come close enough so that >you slingshot out into something fresh. The risk is that you fall in, >perhaps forever. in 'education of the poet' louise gluck said, "Periodically, in those seven years [of psychotherapy], I'd turn to my doctor with the old accusation: he'd make me so well, so whole, I'd never write again. Finally he silenced me; the world, he told me, will give you sorrow enough," therecan be something generative hiding in that darkness. and i do agree that it can slide destructively out of hand.... one great book on this topic is a. alvarez' 'the savage god'... just a little babble from my corner.... love and light, clare emily 'the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which would not actually kill him... at that point he's in business...' -john berryman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 01:38:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: A New Circle -- April 4 & 5 NYC A New Circle: Communities of Poetry 1997 April 4th & 5th 2 Days of Readings & Open Discussion All events at Ireland House, One Washington Mews (entrance on 5th ave. south of 8th st.) Friday, April 4th 6:00-7:00 p.m. Opening Reception/Book Sales 7:00-9:00 Readings: Ruth Danon Michael Heller Erica Hunt Pierre Joris Andrew Levy Maureen Seaton Rod Smith Saturday April 5th 11 am -- 12:30 pm Panel 1: Ruth Danon Ben Friedlander Michael Heller Andrew Levy Maureen Seaton Rod Smith Karen Volkman 12:30 -- 2:00 pm Panel 2: Stacy Doris Rob Fitterman Erica Hunt Pierre Joris Hermine Meinhard Hugh Seidman Paul Violi 2:00 -- 5:00 pm Lunch Break 5:00 -- 6:00 Reception/Book Sales 6:00 -- 8:00 Readings: Stacy Doris Rob Fitterman Ben Friedlander Hermine Meinhard Hugh Seidman Paul Violi Karen Volkman Sponsered by New York University and SCE Writer's Community. Organized by Ruth Danon & Rob Fitterman. With thanks to Deans Gerald A. Heeger, Steve Curry, and Bill Cipolla. It's free. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 00:17:05 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Franklin Bruno Subject: four melismas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 1) Clare Emily Clifford wrote: >working with a jorie graham-esque aspect of >language (the invisible stitches being just as >essential to the working whole as the stitches >that you can see)... Not that familiar w/ Graham's work, but this notion sounds a lot like something I contended about music in something I just wrote. (What's important to me is that the invisible stiches are, in fact, still stiches.) Where would I find Graham discussing this? 2) Someone mentioned a few days ago that 'a consensus' seemed to be forming around the form/content discussion, to the general effect that they're inextricable from one another. But isn't this where we started? And, though I understand the -form- of the consensus, I don't think I've quite gotten its -content-. Someone else said that this listserv was a form, and rhetorically asked if it had a content separable from it. Well, if not, then this list has the same content as, say, the white-power-music list that has been mentioned (as something to vote against the existence of, though I'm not clear on the details). This seems an odd conclusion. "I love the Mets," "I hate the Mets," and "I misuse the olive fork" all have the same grammatical form, but might be said in -some- sense to have different contents. Now that sounds like the kind of banality John Searle might perpetrate, but I'd like to know -specifically- how we are to go beyond it. Is the sense in which these have the same (I'd just say similar--nothing's ever the same) content just the sense in which they all make certain assumptions about the relation of subject to object? What else can be said? (I'm not being rhetorical -at all- here, I want to know what people will say--and I realize that I'm treating the sentences above as linguistic abstractions, divorced from any particular utterance or use, as in a poem. Still...) 3) Recent discussions about teaching form boil down, for me, to this question: Why couldn't "Write a sonnet in strict iambic pentameter" be an entry on Bernadette Mayer's or Charles Bernstein's experiments lists? I think the answer has to do w/ breaking the hold of the cultural capital such forms possess. At Pomona College, the main creative writing teacher was Robert Mezey, the ex-"Naked Poetry" editor who recanted at became, at least when I encountered him, an arch-formalist. I remember being in a workshop with a talented student who gave him a sestina that the student had, I gathered, worked over a number of times. The gist of his comments was something like, "It's getting there, but it's not there yet." To me, this is an indicator of how -mystified- (in something like the John Berger sense) the Unity-of-Form-and-Content can be for a certain sort of teacher. All Mezey seemed to be saying was: Go back and revise and revise this until it is 'perfected' according to some standard that does not admit of analysis, but can only be apprehended by pure artistic intuition. Then, my son, you'll be a poet. In a word, feh. (Jed Rasula was a visiting prof my senior year, and that loosened things up a bit.) 4) Could Maria (or anyone) tell me where to look for info on Sun Ra's gayness? I've never encountered this in print, even (unless I've forgotten) in John Corbett's excellent -Extended Play-, which has a great chapter on alien-ness in Sun Ra and George Clinton. 5) This was from a few days ago, but: Plato would be surprised to learn that the medievals invented the difference between words and things. (I'd like to be quoting the -Cratylus- in this regard, but I don't have a copy here.) heterogenously, fjb ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 00:19:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Bromige Subject: derusticating Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David Bromige here, I'm back on the list, so careful what you are seen saying about me if anybody does. Apart from George. I understand Bowering has for the third time renounced his good work in _Piccolo Mondo_ . How about if I post some bits of George's chapters, and let listmembers gauge whether my parodic powers could possibly reach that far? Guage?? Gauage??? Gauauge???? Looking forward to spelling with you-all for a spell. db ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 07:13:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: THEY WANNA COVER US WITH MARGARINE(alization) Dear to whom it may concern: Although I've been suspicious about what "call" it is that I am exactly responding to, I will try to "suspend" (or at least diffuse) such suspicions and try to address some of what for me seemed the issues that were (and were not discussed) at the MARGINALIZATION event..... Perhaps the best place to begin would be at the "ending...." (in real time) The last question asked at the event was by Jackson Maclow (who, earlier that day, had given one of the best readings I'd seen him give--despite that damn ear inn perennial p.a. problem), and it was a question that, had it been asked earlier, may have changed the whole discussion. It was something to the effect of---(warning: all following 'quotes' are paraphrases and if I misrepresent anyone PLEASE let me know) "I came here thinking that this was going to be a talk about THE MARGINALIZATION OF POETRY, and it turned out it was a talk about a particular book called "The Marginalization of Poetry" and...." Jackson apologized for his ignorance and naivete, on a "face value" level, but also addressed, although in his rather childlike zen-master way, a question that in some ways was "very near the surface (or the heart)" of what seemed to be Silliman's challenge (which I'll address shortly) to Perelman's project here. The question, for me, and that seemed to get lost in the discussion that night, might be phrased in terms of Steve Carll's "ontological activism" (why am I here? etc or how do do we position ourselves viz-a-viz certain questions). Marginalization is a LOADED term and perhaps (as Steve Evans and others pointed out) a cliche by now--and its meaning (like the "sublime object") depends on its context, and WHAT WAS the context of the event? Was there a context? Can there be a context? Maybe it hasn't been constructed yet and of course *I* can not construct it here, but only in questoning.... Jackson's question elicited from Bob the response and REMINDER that the book's title grew out of the essay/poem (or whatever you wanna call it) that he wrote for a very specifically academic context in response to a call for papers from Marjorie Perloff (see book for details). Had this REMINDER been made at the beginning of the event, I think the discussion would have gone quite differently. For, IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE (as Jonathon Levin and others), and in English Departments, poetry is marginalized viz-a-viz novels, cultural studies, etc (again, take a look at the latest MLA call for papers, etc.) in a way it might not have been in previous eras (I'm not going to get into that one here though....). Marginalized in general, and there is perhaps a desire amongst poets who work in the academy to DEFEND poetry against such a status (there is even a desire, for understandable reasons, of teachers of poetry to do so)--this is perhaps as true of champions of "the western canon" as much as it is of champions of "language" or "new york school" etc. etc. writing Yet, when we take Perelman's book OUT of this particular context, and bring it to the SEGUE space, suddenly it becomes a DIFFERENT book. Suddenly we see a Professor at an Ivy League school on the defensive because the audience (and perhaps the fellow panellists) was mostly people who see themselves as MORE MARGINALIZED than Perelman as poets, and one could imagine the satiric scenario depicted in Kenneth Koch's "FRESH AIR" being updated, and instead of the "you make me sick with your talk of swans and candy hearts" etc of that poem, there was "Free Bob Perelman" stickers and whispers in the wings of him, from both the linguistic left (as a native informer), the social left (as an unmarginalized white middle-to-upper class male) (which may be seen as a "linguistic right" though I that's why I objected to what I saw as Marjorie's distinction a few weeks back although I certainly agree that poems that CAN'T STAND UP AMONG REPEATED READINGS are 99% of the time boring and dull) and others. The point I'm trying to centralize here is that, as far as I could tell, THERE WASN'T ANYBODY MORE ACADEMIC THAN BOB in the audience (or on the panel) and this certainly informed the tone of the event and seemed to ironize the book and at least its title in ways that could have been made clearer BEFORE Jackson's pointed question. Ron Silliman's paper (which began the event, after a pointed introduction by moderator Sean Killian in which he lamented the lack of intellectual forums in NYC and hoped this event would begin to change what he perceives as the rather anti-intellectual bent of the "downtown" NYC poetry scene and after a recital of the poem by Bob about being abducted by (academic?) aliens he posted to this list) did seem to make many of these points about Bob's book as he pointed out that it was primarily addressed TO ACADEMICS rather than to poets and considered that the primary FAULT of the book---that the distortions of the kind of NORMATIVE ACADEMIC DISCOURSE Bp is working in here simply CAN NOT do justice to what, for ROn, is the most exciting and interesting strains and achievements of LP (Hannah Weiner and Bob Grenier) and centered on BP's reading of Grenier as an example of this method. Ron made a conceptual distinction between "critical" and "academic" writing (as if the latter is always already more corrupted) and found Bob's attempt to create a NARRATIVE for Grenier's poetry as well as for his PLACE in "poetry" (canon, etc.) deeply disturbing, as if narratve is always more corrupt than poetry that "is not ABOUT" or "about the nanosecond before choice itself occurs" (and as I digression I wonder about what the implications of Ron's seeming preference of Grenier's project to Bob's--especially considering Ron's problems with the "Burning Deck" or "French minimalism" thing, which to me seems to have much more in common with Grenier than it does with Perelman in terms of this "nanosecond" standard Ron is setting...but this is another topic) Ann Lauterbach took a different tactic. Not needing to SPEAK FOR THE HEART AND SOUL of LANGUAGE POETRY as Ron's argument with Bob seemed to, she dealt more with what she perceived as Bob's ghettoization of emotions and the personal. One of the high moments of her talk in this connection was her reading of Bob's reading of a Creeley poem aout him having sex with another woman as his wife drives the kids to school or something. I think she did a very interesting job of pointing out an aporetic hedging on Bp's part as he tried to disclaim the importance of content in a writer who write "form is nothing but an extention....". She also addressed some gender questions--for instance, why THEORISTS are gendered male and PRACTICTIONERS are gendered female in this book. Of course, Lauterbach concluded, PRACTICE subsumes theory, and BP was not necessarily claiming a hierarchical privilege of one over the other--but, then, he doesn't really devote that much page space to the women writers he addresses and that might be telling (again, this may be a severe misrepresentation of the thrust of Lauterbach's paper).... This is going on too long (I think I understand Joe Amato).... but Juliana SPahr was next and spoke about what she perceived as Bob's COASTAL bias, and (as if NEW YORK is the NEW COAST) focussed on what for me seemed to be a defense of Bruce A. and Charles B. against what she perceived as Perelman's neglect. She claimed that, in contrast to BP's assertion, that these writers CAN be taught... Then Steve Evans did a long and funny (and almost dada-like) performance of a reading of a Bunuel movie, and claimed to have DIRECT EVIDENCE of how academia dulls people and used some VERY interesting DOWNSTREAM metaphor in which I would like to cast myself as the missing SALMON swimming upstream.... But, all these discussions (and most of the Q and A session afterwards) stayed within the confines of the agenda the book set up. In the Q and A session, bp was primarily on the defensive, as i said before. It would have been interesting had THE MARGINALIZATION oF POETRY (the issue as much as the book) in SOCIETY as well as in the academy had been addressed...It would have been at least interesting not to single out Bob but to ask what role the L poets have played in marginalizing poetry? Did they willfully marginalize it? (with their own networks of publishing and not needing to make certain compromises in the beginning that other, perhaps pooer (economically speaking) poets, must, at least at the beginning? And in this light, can this vindicate Bob for at least trying to break out of a small, perhaps too self-satisfied coterie, and fight certain academic battles? Or is poetry marginalized through no fault of poets? Is it one of the exigencies of heavy "LITE CAPITALISM" (who said that?) that poets are helpless against, and in such a light are the strategies the L poets adopted (I'm talking about "circulation of texts" as much as the actual writing of them) seen as at least NOT making matters worse in the increasing rifts and poetry wars? Or has poetry ALWAYS been marginalized and is it perhaps okay that it is best so? (always best so, or at least sometimes, as in Evans' quoting Auden's "poetry makes nothing happen" and stressing the positive side of such a formulation--as if this "nothing" is kind of like Silliman's "nanosecond before choice is made" and CLASS IS SUSPENDED)? These questions, as well as why are so many poets deciding to go back to school later in life (not just bob, but myself and Ben Friedlander come to mind)--after already publishing at least one book, are interesting questions, as are the questions of the workplace and race and class that were attempted to be discussed in the Q and A session......(hope this helps Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 07:36:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: In Other News.... Just wanted to say that earlier this month I saw readings by Thomas Sayers Ellis and Tom Breydenbach (sic) in NYC. Both excellant writers circa 30 years old and both excellant readings. Names to look out for, as is Joe Ross, whose FUZZY LOGIC SERIES has just been been published by Texture Press). I consider it to be one of his best (along with GUARDS OF THE HEART), though I may be biased, because the work does seem EXTREMELY similar to some of my own....(mordantly recursive?) and Jordan, I will respond to your post soon, for which I thank you, but I don't want to HOG up too much space in one day on the listserv.....Chris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:12:17 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hen Subject: Re: THEY WANNA COVER US WITH MARGARINE(alization) In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 25 Mar 1997 07:13:37 -0500 from thanks Chris for the thorough report from the frontlines of Edg.Po. Some off-the-cuff widgets: 1. WHO WILL ARISE and write the good definitive popular academic book about me & my poetry friends and tell it like it is? Back, sharks... 2. If poetry has circled the wagons & has only academics left to handle the winchesters... well, I wouldn't bet on it. Hey, they care. Take care. Let's think about it. Baby sharks have mothers too. 3. Maybe part of the problem - maybe this is what Mac Low was getting at? Is the draining struggle to approach poetry as if it were a political campaign or a community organization? WHO SPEAKS FOR US TODAY? HERE!! READ THIS PROSE POEM!! (It's easy to criticize from the easy critical chair though... I'm a member of the ECC organization (Easy Critics Club)) - Henry Gould (Old Fumblist) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:24:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: THEY WANNA COVER US WITH MARGARINE(alization) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks for that report, Chris. And don't worry about hogging time/space when you're providing info/analysis that many have called for! Now, could you, or anyone, give me some events/readings happening March 27-30? I'll be in NYC, & plan to visit Granary, etc. Missed that party, The margerine thing, and the NYU too late for me. The Marginalization of Maine. I must say, the list really helps. & Welcome back Bromige! Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:29:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: In Other News.... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just wanted to second Chris's nod to Joe Ross's passionate and droll _Fuzzy Logic Series_ from Texture Press, a sort of self-portrait in a _concave_ oh man I won't put you all through that. "An old woman walks in the rain, homeless but with an umbrella passed bars of driving lightning..." .. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:48:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: NYC EVENTS MAR 27-30 for S Pollet Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" March 27 LYN HEJINIAN and TRAVIS ORTIZ at POETRY CITY 7 p.m. at Teachers & Writers, 5 Union Sq W, NYC (free) followed immediately by TENDER BUTTONS BENEFIT PARTY 8:30 p.m. at Segue, 303 E 8th St NYC We will be shuttling people from T&W to Segue via the secret ski lift .. you can make both events! Sylvester, I do hope that we'll get to see you at both. As for the rest of you, tell everyone you know that there's a new starting time for Lee Ann's party, and make sure to tell people you don't know about the Hejinian/Ortiz reading. All best, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:47:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: boredom, poetry, questions In-Reply-To: Hugh Steinberg "Re: boredom, poetry, questions" (Mar 24, 6:40pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > It also strikes me that this discussion of boredom is linked with either > flight or transformation: either one runs from what is boring towards what > is not boring, or one sticks with what is boring until it is no longer > boring. > What if it's boring for years? What if it will always be boring? When is > it time to quit? After you receive the gold watch? The words flight and transportation make a nice addition to the vocabulary of this thread. It's possible to deceive oneself for a reason. I would only say that everything has its limits, and besides, we will all eventually run out of time. BB ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:55:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms (Turco) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 9:18 PM -0500 3/24/97, Dave Zauhar wrote: >>At 11:11 PM -0500 3/23/97, henry wrote: >>>I'm using the old Turco, thin red, which is heavy on obscure Welsh forms. >>>Just finished a Portuguese riff, the "glose". Like an enlarged carol. >>>- HG >> >>i was on a panel w/ turco a few yrs ago, i talked about jack spicer and >>camp as subaltern wit; he looked mortified (bright red apoplectic furious) >>to be on a panel where someone was talking about queers, later he said that >>women were taking jobs away from men in the academy these days (a bit like >>our recent discussion about "identity politics"?) ...that was my intro to >>the "new formalism." hank, i respect and enjoy your eclecticism in matters >>poetic, but turco? nein danke. > >Hey, I was in the audience for this (was it MMLA or MLA? Chicago or >Washington? Anyway) if I remember correctly Diane Wakowski was the third >panelist, and she also apparently got on his nerves, because within a year >he published a hissy-fit disguised as an essay attacking her views on the >politics of form (which are open to criticism, but you could tell by the >ferocity of his "essay" that she got under his skin). Mercifully, I missed >the wounded white guy screed. > >Dave Zauhar yeah, wakoski was one of the four of us. she also insisted that spicer's only interest was "poetry" (i.e. stay away from those queer politix, little girl --as if there's such a thing as "only poetry") but at least she wasn't turco, and didn't add insult to injury by implying that women were responsible for the job shortage. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:17:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: National Poetry Month Disccusion area for Librarians (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Please send suggestions to these folks. > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 08:16:45 -0500 (EST) > From: Tom Bevan > To: Library and Information Technology Association List > > Subject: National Poetry Month Disccusion area for Librarians > > I hope this doesn't junk up anyone's mailbox with materials they don't want, > but I'd like to tell as many librarians as possible about a forum we've > created on our web site (http://www.poets.org) where librarians can share > their ideas about how to participate effectively in National Poetry Month. > > Some ALA people we work with suggested that librarians would really welcome > the opportunity to share National Poetry Month ideas with each other, if we > would only create a place where they could do it. > > We've created such a place, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be getting > much use. I'm hoping it's just a matter of librarians being unaware of its > existence. > > Thus, I'd like to invite you to visit www.poets.org and look under the > heading of "National Poetry Month" for an area called "Forums". If you know > a lot about poetry already, we hope you will go there to provide advice to > those librarians who don't. And, if you'd like to get ideas about things > you can do, we hope you'll post your questions there as well. > > Thanks to all of you. > > Kindly, > > Tom Bevan > National Poetry Month Coordinator > > P.S. You'll find that, with the help of Poets House in New York, and ALA, > we've provided some tips to get you started, in the "Resources" area of the > site. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:27:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: NYC EVENTS MAR 27-30 for S Pollet Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jordan, thanks, that's perfect! I'm pretty sure I'll be able to make both--have to check with my othered significant (who, on another thread, manages to paint just fine without one of those appendages). >March 27 > >LYN HEJINIAN and TRAVIS ORTIZ at POETRY CITY >7 p.m. at Teachers & Writers, 5 Union Sq W, NYC (free) > >followed immediately by > >TENDER BUTTONS BENEFIT PARTY >8:30 p.m. at Segue, 303 E 8th St NYC > > >We will be shuttling people from T&W to Segue via the secret ski lift .. >you can make both events! Sylvester, I do hope that we'll get to see you at >both. > >As for the rest of you, tell everyone you know that there's a new starting >time for Lee Ann's party, and make sure to tell people you don't know about >the Hejinian/Ortiz reading. > >All best, >Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:12:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: four melismas In-Reply-To: <676B280AE3@113hum9.humnet.ucla.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:17 AM -0800 3/25/97, Franklin Bruno wrote: >4) Could Maria (or anyone) tell me where to look for info on Sun Ra's >gayness? I've never encountered this in print, even (unless I've forgotten) >in John Corbett's excellent -Extended Play-, which has a great chapter on >alien-ness in Sun Ra and George Clinton. > thanks for the citation! i'm working on bob kaufman's poem "THE POET" as, among other things, an expression of this identity-related (but not identity- determined, so don't all you anti-identitarians jump all over me!) sense of alienness and/or mission, and this essay shd help. apparently there is debate about sun ra's sexuality. my info came second-hand, from a coupla friends who follow the sun ra list (i haven't signed up yet). one member of the band claims to have had sex w/ sun ra, but others say he was not gay but simply not sexually active due to some kind of problem w/ his genitals (herniated testicle???). again, this is not definitive reportage on my part. xo, md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:10:30 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hen Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms (Turco) In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:55:34 -0600 from On Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:55:34 -0600 Maria Damon said: >girl --as if there's such a thing as "only poetry") but at least she wasn't There is such a thing as only poetry. It's just hard to write disses on it these days unless you relate it to something else. I'm starting a new school of poetry, folks, for those of you for whom Providence School is too heavy on heaven. It's called Edg.po - here are the guidelines for joining THIS new school: 1. Ephebes will have to make a good-faith effort to write only poetry for a while. 2. Ephebes will through trial and error & exploration over the millenia try to infuse either the whippoorwill-effect (Russians), the mockingbird- effect (Ghould), the pendulum-effect (Valery), and/or the boomerang-effect (Edgar Poe) into their poetic compositions. 3. Each member of the Edg.po school will NOT be required to write a lengthy treatise or compile an anthology illustrating one or more of the above modes of Edg.poetics. This will be done by the grad students - not to worry. 4. Edg.poets will wear little black string ties, shoes that are too small for them, and walk around with a pained look most of the time. They will remain for long periods in their place of residence and will not attend conferences or ham it up with their compadres - no shop talk allowed. They will correspond in longhand with their readers at large - that is IT, folks. - Henry Gould, Edg.poet (today I will take a walk down Benefit St, where Eddie had maybe his last (& most famous) photo taken (the one with the pained look), drunkenly wooed the demure Helen Whitman, and got ready to die.) a.k.a. the Ghoulish Raven of the Revenge of the Scriptor ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:27:34 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: edg.po add.endum just to forstall any grad student queries out there: "Nedge" is a math term, shorthand for "number of edges" - HG, edg.po ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:57:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "With regard to 'Neo-Formalism': ever since I studied linguistics when I was a kid, it's bothered me that the word 'Formalist' has been used to talk about exactly the opposite people from those whom I think of as Formalists, to talk about people who would never question ideas of form, but are only interested in what they call content, and are really happy to use whatever Edward Arlington Robinson used in their versification. What is called Formalism displays no interest in Formalism at all. That's not what is meant by Formalism in talking about European painters of the early twentieth century. If they had not been Formalists they would have been doing Poussin." George Bowering, on a panel in Ottawa, 1986. I've always liked this statement, & I tend to think it's on the nose. Have to admit that in my classes I tend to be as specific as I can about formal aspects of the students' poems, & try to get them to ask questions along those lines, not specifically about 'content' (?) as such. But setting some formal challenges can help them to see that working on the challenge often frees new content into being. bpNichol always talked about that: he sought new forms in order to free up possible statments he might not otherwise make, especially if he stuck with the way of saying things he already knew too well. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour How long Department of English University of Alberta it takes for the promise to arrive, Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 shaped as a flirt, a cheating (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 kiss, a whistle, an ambulance. H: 436 3320 John Tranter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 11:22:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: NY READINGS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit SATURDAY APRIL 5TH 8:00PM SEGUE 303 E.8th Street GOLDEN BOOKS BLOW OUT Jordan Davis Robert Hale Sam Truitt SUNDAY APRIL 6TH 4:00PM EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE 197 East Broadway Robert Hale Sam Truitt ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:33:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Is there a National Poetry Month? Comments: To: Loss Glazier MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN The idea of a National Poetry Month was recently attacked by Richard Howard in a speech reprinted in the latest Harpers. Basically, he says that the idea of such a "celebration" ghettoizes poetry, reducing it from something lofty and "millennial" to something commodified and sanitized, on a par with National Secretary's Week. Of course this is "the logic of late capitalism" and while I'm inclined to agree with him in a way, his denunciation begs the question of the relationship between poets and the public: who is the audience for poetry and isn't that audience in fact not one but many? Poetry, I've often thought, needs all the press it can get and yet - writing poetry is also a wager that the poem will eventually "find" its reader, thus obviating the need for "crass" promotionalism. Ultimately, gestures like National Poetry Month wld seem lost on its intended recipients. But if it leads just a few people to pick up some poetry books, well then, why not? That's as far as I can think this morning. Still dreaming of Juliette Binoche, Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 11:20:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Safdie Subject: Re: Is history dead? In-Reply-To: <01IGX01T61GE9H64Z9@iix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Juliette Binoche was really classy, wasn't she -- except for that rather ghoulish (sorry, Henry) dress. I think she was the best thing about "The English Patient," which I found rather empty at the core -- the movie, I mean, not the book. BUT -- Pat's mention of the latest Harper's makes me wonder if anyone here is interested in responding to Lewis Lapham's challenge -- in an extended three-part essay, the first two of which have now been published -- of the impossibility of writing (historical) narrative in a culture organized solely around media images. Here's some quotes: "The sensibility shaped by the electronic media over the last forty-odd years has by now acquired a distinctive form--impatient, easily bored, geared to increasingly short bursts of attention, intuitive, musical, tuned to abrupt changes of mood and scene. Most importantly, it is a senbsibility bereft of memory." "Three years ago at Yale I taught a course of English composition and found only four of twelve students capable of writing a well-arranged paragraph -- not because they weren't intelligent but because they had never acquired the habit of reading. Familiar with a vast archive of visual images, they could easily recall scenes and fragments of scenes from {he mentions several movies and TV shows here} but books were grim tasks instead of pleasant diversions, foreign objects, unfamiliar and vaguely ominous, meant to be studied as if they were cancer cells . . ." And, finally, he quotes the historian Bernard DeVoto (his _1846: Year of Decision_ is a great book on American history, recommended by Pound and Olson, among others) on Gertrude Stein: ". . . but how do we write history in a language like Gertrude Stein's, one that floats freely 'in a medium of pure caprice sustained by nothing except its awareness of its own inner wondrousness' ". As I say, he's talking mainly about the writing of history, but I think his remarks can be extended to all narrative writing -- I was just wondering if anyone who's read it had any response. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:54:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: edg.po Henry (et alia)-- Am interested in your new-school notes, partly bec. the "Ephebes" admonishments remind (not irrelevantly?) of Wally Stevens (whom I admit to liking) & partly for other reasons not yet much investigated. Now, in re: Poe's (?) "boomerang effect" -- quoth you, << 2. Ephebes will through trial and error & exploration over the millenia try to infuse either the whippoorwill-effect (Russians), the mockingbird- effect (Ghould), the pendulum-effect (Valery), and/or the boomerang-effect (Edgar Poe) into their poetic compositions. >> f.y.i., a few years ago, I invented (so I thought) a form of poem which I styled the "boomerang poem" -- actually, I borrowed same from some medieval Chinese sources (not now sure who'all; I've seen a couple in translation somewhere, but others I was saw in untranslated books while browsing the hundreds, nay thousands such hidden volumes away on upper levels of the East Asiatic Library at UC Berkeley [where I worked shelving books, circa '79]) . . . anyway, here's one specimen of a boomerang poem (from an early '90s summer) [better to illustrate than merely to laboring out a description): | this is where the meeting oft' convenes | this is where the circus plants the tent | through this window watch the limpid scenes | by this river hear the soft lament | fragrant flowers gather here their scent | leafage here attains the coolest greens | in this box a myriad dreams are pent | this is where the meeting oft' convenes [boomerang, here, signifying final line = first line, ergo boomerang; & rhyme-form being ABAB BABA (or alternatively, ABAB CACA)] My problem w/ your new school though, Henry, mainly involves dictum #1. Epheebe though I be, I'll not presently swear off no-po writing. (Specially not now when I'm just getting going with some such.) Thanks anyway, will be interested in developments withal. d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:32:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Bromige Subject: what am i doing wrong Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I hadnt expected quite so many people to know the answer to my question. Thanks folks, all is clear now. I hadnt unsubbd, I had merely stopmailed. db ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:43:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Bromige Subject: formalism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I found myself agreeing enthusiastically with the comments relayed by Douglas Barbour today, and I believed they were his. "Right on, Douglas!" I was saying, "I myself always say 'the trouble with the Neo-Formalists is that they're not nearly Formalist enough.'" Imagine, then, with what chagrin I found he had led me into agreeing with a comment (and a decade-old comment at that) by George Bowering. "How is the poem built up?" Is what I always ask students, just that it's what i always wonder. "What keeps one reading?" is potentially handy, also. Think of _Malone Dies_ . ****** Having thoroughly enjoyed Stroffolino's assessment of something that happened in NYC lately, what a joy to receive his Dogberry essay in today's mail. Am still reading with grateful pleasure Steve Evans kickoff essay in this new series. And this, while reading with the same emotions Jennifer Moxley's _Imagination Verses_ . I know this book has been praised to the list (by the list) before, but what harm in praising it again? db ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:02:47 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: THEY WANNA COVER US WITH MARGARINE(alization) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" DIRECT >EVIDENCE of how academia dulls people and used some VERY interesting >DOWNSTREAM metaphor in which I would like to cast myself as the missing >SALMON swimming upstream.... sorry mate - role taken, dan S. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 16:26:54 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: dichotomous/Bk of Forms In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 25 Mar 1997 08:57:19 -0700 from right on, Doug. But then some of the greatest painters & poets of this century (Max Beckmann, W. Stevens) specifically repudiated formalism al- together. Maybe because they were grappling with a more basic art issue: finding a connection, a bridge, a continuum, between the general and the specific, the symbolic and everyday experience, the tradition of art and the real. There is no quick fix or ornamental flavor to their work, no form for utility's sake. Has to be lived & felt (at least vicariously). Art as search for truth &authenticity, not display of mastery. (But forms - CAN be made to feel & speak - transcend their formalities. And maybe making old forms work again is a way of saying - all formalisms are equal.) & right on, George. -HG edg.po ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 16:48:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: don't know. just requested to wear my hat. this pilfered from harris schiff's web site $lavery, a maclow piece read at St Marks during the conference on content last year. http://soho.ios.com/~harris4 Content Content or content What is this about The words speak for themselves or do they Wherever there are words there's content What is the subject of this poem Are you content with what the words say Writing is not talking Poems are not freight cars What are you getting at I do not understand your poem's form Some say form is extension of content The other way around seems just as likely Are the words the content Many say the meaning is the content Do they mean meaning or meanings What about the poems Where one word has led to another And the meaning is enacted by perceivers And the other kind of poem Where the poet has one thing to say And says it No wonder there are poetry wars Some poems are made by invented procedures The poet faithfully carries out Neutral as a referee Other poems seem to come Directly from the mind of the poet What was in the mind's what's on the page Many poems come to be Between the mind and the mouth and the page Or both in the mind and the mouth and on the page Many poets are partisans Only one way of writing is right Others are wrong For other poets one way of writing Is right for making some poems Other ways for other poems Some want only what they mean to say To be conveyed To readers and hearers Others welcome many Among a multitude of meanings But not all of them A very few let the poems Mean whatever they mean To whomever they reach They are content With the meanings that come to be As the words are seen or heard Many believe one kind of meaning Is far more important than others And deplore the absence of that kind The catchword is privilege Some privilege political meanings Others religion or morality or the real And a few poets privilege private meanings Ones that are theirs and no one else's That never would have come to be without them Some write poems Only to get such a privileged meaning Across Some want poems to cause actions Others seek changes in consciousness Many want themselves to come across And a few desire chiefly That the poems come to be More than makers they are midwives The coming-to-be of the poems That each poem becomes itself Contents the midwife poet But that contentment never lasts So poets' midwifery Proliferates new poems And soon the poems of all the kinds of poets May proliferate and interpenetrate Throughout our space and time Will this end the poetry wars Jackson Mac Low New York: 29-30 April, 2-4 May 1996 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 16:44:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: edg.po In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:54:59 -0500 from David, thanks for poem & scholarly interest in Poe's boomerang. In my book a great generator of the boomerang effect is the Malayan form the pantoum (abab bcbc cdcd etc. until xaxa). The pantoum echoes twice but if the poem has any momentum it has a dizzying vibration-effect - like you're hearing MORE than one echo. Now as to Poe's boomerang effect. This has a couple of meanings. On the ur-cult-ur-ologic-ur-l level, it simply refers to the fact that a dead American Poet became a live French Symbolist. I'm trying out this effect over in Russia, as we speak. Now specifically on the comp-o-sition-ur-l level (which is related to the other): Valery's pendulum-effect is in effect a miniaturized, highly calibrated/refined version of the boomerang-effect; in fact Poe satirized this situation ahead of time in his story (prose!) _The Pit and the Pendulum_, which is about how cutting edge continental writing emerged from the pits of Baltimore & New York - it has to do with that edgy Angoisse du Neant, so popular among decadent symbolists - Poe would have laughed his head off (not literally). - HG edg.po ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:12:37 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Is history dead? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The question isn't how to write history in Gertrude Steinese, but why? A fork is good for what it's made for, but it's a lousy shovel. I agree that Juliette Binoche would have looked better if she hadn't been wearing a dress. At 11:20 AM 3/25/97 -0800, you wrote: >Juliette Binoche was really classy, wasn't she -- except for that rather >ghoulish (sorry, Henry) dress. I think she was the best thing about "The >English Patient," which I found rather empty at the core -- the movie, I >mean, not the book. > >BUT -- Pat's mention of the latest Harper's makes me wonder if anyone >here is interested in responding to Lewis Lapham's challenge -- in an >extended three-part essay, the first two of which have now been published >-- of the impossibility of writing (historical) narrative in a culture >organized solely around media images. Here's some quotes: > >"The sensibility shaped by the electronic media over the last forty-odd >years has by now acquired a distinctive form--impatient, easily bored, >geared to increasingly short bursts of attention, intuitive, musical, >tuned to abrupt changes of mood and scene. Most importantly, it is a >senbsibility bereft of memory." > >"Three years ago at Yale I taught a course of English composition and >found only four of twelve students capable of writing a well-arranged >paragraph -- not because they weren't intelligent but because they had >never acquired the habit of reading. Familiar with a vast archive of >visual images, they could easily recall scenes and fragments of scenes >from {he mentions several movies and TV shows here} but books were grim >tasks instead of pleasant diversions, foreign objects, unfamiliar and >vaguely ominous, meant to be studied as if they were cancer cells . . ." > >And, finally, he quotes the historian Bernard DeVoto (his _1846: Year of >Decision_ is a great book on American history, recommended by Pound and >Olson, among others) on Gertrude Stein: > >". . . but how do we write history in a language like Gertrude Stein's, >one that floats freely 'in a medium of pure caprice sustained by nothing >except its awareness of its own inner wondrousness' ". > >As I say, he's talking mainly about the writing of history, but I think >his remarks can be extended to all narrative writing -- I was just >wondering if anyone who's read it had any response. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:51:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: edg.po / pantoum ah the great pantoum pantaloon -- have seen 2 instances (& liked 'em both, esp. the 1st): *John Ashbery's admirable "Hotel Latraemont" [pardon spelling?], which appeared in The New Yorker in '90 -- (I snatched it up for appropriation of lines into paintings); later JA so titled his next collection-book (i.e., eponymously); also *Agha Shahid Ali read a good-sounding one (but it whizzed by bit to quick to absorb it) yep, a likeable form. You write, << Now as to Poe's boomerang effect. This has a couple of meanings. On the ur-cult-ur-ologic-ur-l level, it simply refers to the fact that a dead American Poet became a live French Symbolist. >> perhaps I shd. do homework rather than pestering w/ questions -- but, um, what might that mean, one wonders? Does this refer to posthumous critical reception / appraisal of Poe in France? (was he the Jerry Lewis of his century?) . . . << I'm trying out this effect over in Russia, as we speak. >> meaning: introducing Poe there? -- or ? Henry, it's only as I start reading your explication as regards << Valery's pendulum-effect . . . in fact Poe satirized this situation ahead of time in his story (prose!) _The Pit and the Pendulum_, which is about how cutting edge continental writing emerged from the pits of Baltimore & New York . . . >> that it slowly dawns on me I'm taking you as credulously seriously, here, as I lately took your report concerning Blarnes Sahib -- (slow learner, as they say) did you know, btw, that Edgar A. found special resonance among certain fallen aristocratic literati of antebellum neoHellenic Atlanta GA & thereabouts, -- albeit their increasingly penurious & hapless descendants (Poe white trash, so-called) did but little to salvage the old legacy . . . (me po' attempt at following in auguster footsteps) d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 15:32:44 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: four melismas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Franklin, Maria, and others: That Sun Ra was gay is a "rumour" that seems to have taken the leap from that staus to the status of "truth" among those who would whisper. I've often heard it mentioned in conversation as if it was common knowledge. I know of no books which deal with it explicitly (Val Wilmer's _As Serious As Your Life_ might make breif mention). It was a ridiculous point of contention on the Sun Ra list a while back (maybe a year), prompting an alarming flurry of homophobic responses, and finally prompting my own signoff. One thing that I know can be gleaned from Wilmer's book is that Sun Ra was most definitely a misogynist (he was apparently very vocal about his desire to exclude women from membership in Bill Dixon's Jazz Composer's Guild, among other things). How much these two aspects of Ra are connected I don't know. Nor do I know the extent to which they influenced his music. Some informed speculation about the latter would certainly be welcome considering the dearth of gender/sexuality-related critical work in music studies (If anyone, by the way, knows of books on this topic, let me know either here or backchannel - thanks). In a less (and more) related vein: Sun Ra was also a poet who produced a large body of lyrical work, where his cosmological views are often very apparent... ok, best to all, Stephen Cope ps - I second the Corbett book. I'd consider him one of the more interesting theorists of music working... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 23:56:58 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F.A. Templeton" Subject: The Margaretization In-Reply-To: <970325071336_-771029402@emout05.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Chris Stroffolino: Thank you for taking the trouble to write that report on the discussion of the papers on the book of the poem entitled the m of p in relation to the academy. Dear Chris Mann, What's your beef with about as such? Despite the above. See my Talk About About, in a Raddle Moon I forget which number, recently reprinted in the 94-5 Gertrude Stein anthology. About would be on all sides. Fiona ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 16:59:45 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "linda v. russo" Organization: University of Utah Subject: Retallack essay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Fiona, dodie, Jena etal. I see I'm jumping in a bit late here to put in my plug for Joan Retallack's amazing :RE:THINKING:LITERARY:FEMINISM: but _Feminist Measures_ is pub'd by U of Mich.Press. I'm sure it's still in print. -- linda v. russo linda.russo@m.cc.utah.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:14:32 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: four melismas In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 3:32 PM -0800 3/25/97, Stephen Cope wrote: ... > (If anyone, by the way, knows of books on this topic {music and gender studies], let me know >either here or backchannel - thanks). susan mcclary, now at ucla, has done a great deal of feminist work in musicology. her husband rob walzer (walser?) (also at ucla) has done work on masculinity in heavy metal. in addition, a lot of work on and by gay men and opera has appeared in the last couple of years, including wayne koestenbaum's the queen's throat, and something by richard mohr (?) on wagner i blieve. md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:48:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Is there a National Poetry Month? In-Reply-To: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" "Re: Is there a National Poetry Month?" (Mar 25, 10:33am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Patrick writes: > The idea of a National Poetry Month was recently attacked by Richard Howard > in a speech reprinted in the latest Harpers. Basically, he says that the > idea of such a "celebration" ghettoizes poetry, reducing it from something > lofty and "millennial" to something commodified and sanitized, on a par with > National Secretary's Week. Was Angelou doing the inauguration lofty? The problem is largely the profuse amounts of corn porn (I think that is Perelman's phrase) that accompany any media version of late American poetry. The media and whoever else gives a damn will seek out the officially licensed and bonded poets of the land for nice comments. Come on folks, we're talking full-blown hegemonalization here! > Of course this is "the logic of late capitalism" and while I'm inclined to > agree with him in a way, his denunciation begs the question of the > relationship between poets and the public: who is the audience for poetry > and isn't that audience in fact not one but many? Poetry, I've often > thought, needs all the press it can get and yet - writing poetry is also a > wager that the poem will eventually "find" its reader, thus obviating the > need for "crass" promotionalism. Ultimately, gestures like National Poetry > Month wld seem lost on its intended recipients. Social realist and populist sentiments on the part of any poetry spokesperson not withstanding, a secret readership of one individual at a time will always exist as long as the goods are put out there (text and speech),and therein lies the rub. Good questions that will spurn a new and lively thread I hope. BB ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:52:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Is there a National Poetry Month? In-Reply-To: "Pritchett,Pat @Silverplume" "Re: Is there a National Poetry Month?" (Mar 25, 10:33am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Still dreaming of Juliette Binoche, Did anyone else see the Charley Rose interview of Juliette Binoche on PBS? BB ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:59:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: come on Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Is this list going to turn into "boys talking about Juliet Binoche?" I seriously hope not, and I imagine some list-folk are offended. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:03:33 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: bp/bob Chris: In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or whatever. thanks, Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:09:55 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > Date sent: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:21:00 -0800 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Mark Weiss > Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU On 24 March, Mark Weiss wrote in rerference to my post on Jung Kwang, a Korean monk, who paints beautiful works with a brush attached with the hairs of deceased relatives to his penis: > This technique should be a real advantage in doing watercolors. > > Do you think there are gender connotations here? Geez, Mark, I'm not sure. Why don't you ask the Zen teacher closest to you? Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:13:52 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > Date sent: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 15:21:31 EST > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU > Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > The prosthetic aesthetic. > > beth simon As in a pencil or pen or typewriter or computer attached to our "aesthetic" hands? Where does the prosthetic for you end and the aesthetic begin? Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:23:09 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > Date sent: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:53:39 -0800 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Mark Weiss > Subject: Re: Jung Kwang > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU On 24 March, Mark Weiss wrote in regard to the Korean master Jung Kwang: > My god (goddess)! What do women paint with? > > Which raises a couple more questions abt Master Kwang: > > Does he do nudes? > > Is his stroke different erect or flaccid? > > At 02:45 PM 3/24/97 -0500, you wrote: > >Mark, do you mean to tell me that *all* male artists don't paint this way? > > > >Gwyn ;) > > 1) Actually, Mark, there is a Tibetan nun who composes traditional calligraphy with a brush inserted into her vagina. Why do you assume that this is less viable a mode of artistic composition than a man attaching a brush to his penis? 2) I've never seen "nude" works by Kwang, though after seeing his work, you might feel embarrassed by asking such a "skin-deep" question. 3) Flaccid or erect? In the photos I've seen, his beautiful, creative cock is flaccid. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:28:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: bp/bob In-Reply-To: from "KENT JOHNSON" at Mar 25, 97 07:03:33 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Chris: > > In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to > digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't > do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob > Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of > more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and > Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or > whatever. > > thanks, Kent Is this a joke, or is that asteroid closer than we think? --Matt ================================================================= Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 13:34:12 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: Is history dead? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What really irritated me was her underwear. IN WARTIME italy - Now i wasn't there, so if anyone was they are welcome to correct me, but i find it hard to believe such underwear was readily available. & i sure can't rememember them from the book. At 02:12 PM 3/25/97 -0800, you wrote: >The question isn't how to write history in Gertrude Steinese, but why? A >fork is good for what it's made for, but it's a lousy shovel. >I agree that Juliette Binoche would have looked better if she hadn't been >wearing a dress. > >At 11:20 AM 3/25/97 -0800, you wrote: >>Juliette Binoche was really classy, wasn't she -- except for that rather >>ghoulish (sorry, Henry) dress. I think she was the best thing about "The >>English Patient," which I found rather empty at the core -- the movie, I >>mean, not the book. >> >>BUT -- Pat's mention of the latest Harper's makes me wonder if anyone >>here is interested in responding to Lewis Lapham's challenge -- in an >>extended three-part essay, the first two of which have now been published >>-- of the impossibility of writing (historical) narrative in a culture >>organized solely around media images. Here's some quotes: >> >>"The sensibility shaped by the electronic media over the last forty-odd >>years has by now acquired a distinctive form--impatient, easily bored, >>geared to increasingly short bursts of attention, intuitive, musical, >>tuned to abrupt changes of mood and scene. Most importantly, it is a >>senbsibility bereft of memory." >> >>"Three years ago at Yale I taught a course of English composition and >>found only four of twelve students capable of writing a well-arranged >>paragraph -- not because they weren't intelligent but because they had >>never acquired the habit of reading. Familiar with a vast archive of >>visual images, they could easily recall scenes and fragments of scenes >>from {he mentions several movies and TV shows here} but books were grim >>tasks instead of pleasant diversions, foreign objects, unfamiliar and >>vaguely ominous, meant to be studied as if they were cancer cells . . ." >> >>And, finally, he quotes the historian Bernard DeVoto (his _1846: Year of >>Decision_ is a great book on American history, recommended by Pound and >>Olson, among others) on Gertrude Stein: >> >>". . . but how do we write history in a language like Gertrude Stein's, >>one that floats freely 'in a medium of pure caprice sustained by nothing >>except its awareness of its own inner wondrousness' ". >> >>As I say, he's talking mainly about the writing of history, but I think >>his remarks can be extended to all narrative writing -- I was just >>wondering if anyone who's read it had any response. >> >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 13:36:44 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DS Subject: Re: come on Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" sorry i though it was a type of bread with raisons At 05:59 PM 3/25/97 -0700, you wrote: >Is this list going to turn into "boys talking about Juliet Binoche?" I >seriously hope not, and I imagine some list-folk are offended. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 19:37:11 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: bp/bob > Date sent: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:28:22 -0500 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Matt Kirschenbaum > Subject: Re: bp/bob > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Chris: > > > > In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to > > digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't > > do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob > > Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of > > more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and > > Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or > > whatever. > > > > thanks, Kent > > Is this a joke, or is that asteroid closer than we think? > > --Matt > > ================================================================= > Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia > mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English > http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center Joke? That bp nichol is a writer light years beyond what Bob Perelman or nearly all of us could aspire to? No, Matt (pat on the head) Kirschenbaum. Is Bob P. on your dissertation committee? Hurry up and defend your thesis, 'cause the big one is on its way! Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:55:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: bp/bob In-Reply-To: from "KENT JOHNSON" at Mar 25, 97 07:37:11 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Date sent: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:28:22 -0500 > > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > > From: Matt Kirschenbaum > > Subject: Re: bp/bob > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > > > Chris: > > > > > > In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to > > > digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't > > > do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob > > > Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of > > > more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and > > > Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or > > > whatever. > > > > > > thanks, Kent > > > > Is this a joke, or is that asteroid closer than we think? > > > > --Matt > > > > ================================================================= > > Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia > > mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English > > http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center > > Joke? That bp nichol is a writer light years beyond what Bob Perelman > or nearly all of us could aspire to? No, Matt (pat on the head) > Kirschenbaum. Is Bob P. on your dissertation committee? Hurry up and > defend your thesis, 'cause the big one is on its way! > > Kent > Actually, I meant the idea that anyone might find this "confusing." By the way, isn't it properly bpNichol -- or at least that's how I always refer to him in my thesis. Seems to me that if it matters it matters. --Matt ================================================================= Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:36:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Kendall Subject: New Hypertext Poem: A LIFE SET FOR TWO Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" An announcement from Eastgate Systems that should be of interest to this list: >EASTGATE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF HYPERTEXT >volume 2 number 4 >A LIFE SET FOR TWO by Robert Kendall >and >GENETIS: A RHIZOGRAPHY by Richard Smyth > >The latest issue of the Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext is now >available. > >"A Life Set For Two" welcomes you to the Cafe Passe', where acclaimed poet >Robert Kendall sets a place and where reminders of lost love linger >everywhere. Choose your reading to suit your appetite. Among the many >delectable choices are Prison Rations, Naughty Treats, Manna from the >Stars, and Dainties Under Glass. Place a retrospective order and discover >how regret, desire, and bitterness feed on memories and dreams. Don't >forget to leave room for desert! (for Windows) > >In the style of what Gregory Ulmer calls the "mystory", Richard Smyth uses >the genre-defying capabilities of hypertext to present a case for the power >of writing in desperate circumstances. After the narrators mental meltdown >on his honeymoon, he learns that only writing has the power to salvage his >sanity and his life. But as he writes, his life becomes stranger still. >(For Macintosh and Windows.) > >ISBN 1-884511-32-5. Copies of A LIFE SET FOR TWO and GENETIS are available >for $19.95; the entire volume 2 of the Eastgate Quarterly, including all >four issues, is just $49.95. > > >- - - - - - >The Eastgate List info@eastgate.com >read HypertextNOW often! http://www.eastgate.com/HypertextNow/ >visit Eastgate on the web! http://www.eastgate.com/ >call us! (800) 562-1638 (617) 924-9044 ----------------------------------------- Robert Kendall e-mail: rkendall@wenet.net home page: http://www.wenet.net/~rkendall ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:43:38 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: edg.po / pantoum In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:51:56 -0500 from On Tue, 25 Mar 1997 17:51:56 -0500 David Israel said: > ><< Now as to Poe's boomerang effect. This has a couple of meanings. >On the ur-cult-ur-ologic-ur-l level, it simply refers to the fact that a dead >American Poet became a live French Symbolist. >> >perhaps I shd. do homework rather than pestering w/ questions -- but, >um, what might that mean, one wonders? Does this refer to posthumous >critical reception / appraisal of Poe in France? (was he the Jerry Lewis of >his century?) . . . It means: what goes down must come up, like a bad centime. > ><< I'm trying out this effect over in Russia, as we speak. >> > >meaning: introducing Poe there? -- or ? Means I'm considered an up-&-coming Russian poet in St. Petersburg. & more dead than alive roun' here. AND I DON'T EVEN SPEAK FRENCH!!! > >Henry, it's only as I start reading your explication as regards ><< Valery's pendulum-effect . . . >in fact Poe satirized this situation ahead of time in his story (prose!) >_The Pit and the Pendulum_, which is about how cutting edge continental >writing emerged from the pits of Baltimore & New York . . . >> >that it slowly dawns on me I'm taking you as credulously seriously, here, >as I lately took your report concerning Blarnes Sahib -- >(slow learner, as they say) David, it's all true. CIVIC PANTOUM (have to allow here for frequent italics - shown with _ markers _) _I caught a glimpse of the immortal City circled round and around with a rocking sea ineffable zone of evanescent deity a sight of what was once, and was to be_ _Circled round and around with a rocking sea whose motion moves me toward--away from again a sight of what was once, and was to be Atlantis--thy recurring dream-phenomenon_ Whose motion moves me toward--away from again this metropole-mirage--so _faux-Parisienne? Atlantis--thy recurring dream-phenomenon_ echoes backward... toward some millenial _fin_ This metropole-mirage--so _faux-Parisienne_ like Baudelaire or Benjamin--one headache echoes backward... toward some millenial _fin_ of repetitions... some mastery at stake! Like Baudelaire or Benjamin... one headache like a dream left overnight... and growing tired of repetitions... some mastery at stake... I left my boring job--got myself fired like a dream left overnight... and growing tired I moved out on the street, where it was warm _I left my boring job--got myself fired_ I said (to the reporter's microphoned underarm) I moved out on the street, where it was warm underneath my army-navy discard--in my heart I said (to the reporter's microphoned underarm) I must plunge down where all the adders start Underneath my army-navy discard--in my heart a phantom muttered... like an empty well _I must plunge down where all the adders start_ (or was it just my empty stomach--who can tell) A phantom muttered... like an empty well _and like low humming from a bat-filled cave_ (or was it just my empty stomach--who can tell) _stand up upon the rooftop--howl and rave_ _and like low humming from a bat-filled cave_ you--bronze serpent-servant of those spheres _stand up upon the rooftop--howl and rave_ Jerusalem emerges through your tears _You--bronze serpent-servant of those spheres_ ineffable zone of evanescent deity _Jerusalem emerges through your tears_ I caught a glimpse of the immortal City. - HG edg.po ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:18:08 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: bpNichol Matt: Yes, pat me on the head here. bp would love this fair jousting over his name. But you got me on this round. I'm in the dust. Where's the "H" where you need him or her? I'll be looking up your thesis! Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:27:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: bpNichol In-Reply-To: from "KENT JOHNSON" at Mar 25, 97 08:18:08 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit check out the new LIFE brand shampoo that they're selling down at the wal-mart. it has a "bp" writ on it in gold: Balsam & Protein: LIFE and EXTRA BODY! i bought 5 and passed them round my seminars as found poems! why not? bp asked the question originally in book 5: "if i become a brand name." god i am having a ball working on my dissertation on that incredible poet! he is everywhere -- and this is his school. c. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:28:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: FC2 vs. Hoekstra Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Has anything happened recently with Rep. Hoekstra, the NEA, and the investigation of FC2/Black Ice? The whole thing raises my hackles. If they go after them, it won't be long before they come after us. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:53:55 +0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: FC2 vs. Hoekstra Hugh: Good point. I just received two mailings from a former colleague who currently teaches at U or Kent/Salem with Doug Rice, the author of _Blood of Mugwump_, the work under investigation, and a book that is, no question, pushing the edge. Actually, the book makes me want to puke. But I suppose that's the whole issue here. If something is truly out there, and is out there no matter how out there (and here we are talking about CONTENT in the first instance folks--check it out), what do we do when it is threatened with censorship by the state? I have copies of the letters written by the Christian Coalition Congressional Representatives in question who are trying to use this as an issue to permanently erase all government funding for the arts--I'll post more info when I get these from home and give addresses, etc. But isn't this an urgent thing to consider on this list? As Hugh points out, who's next? Kent > Date sent: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:28:29 -0600 > Send reply to: UB Poetics discussion group > From: Hugh Steinberg > Subject: FC2 vs. Hoekstra > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Has anything happened recently with Rep. Hoekstra, the NEA, and the > investigation of FC2/Black Ice? > > The whole thing raises my hackles. If they go after them, it won't be long > before they come after us. > > Hugh Steinberg > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:40:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: A New Circle -- April 4 & 5 NYC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" FYI: Tia Chucha Press will be publishing a collaboration between Maureen Seaton and Denise Duhamel in either the Fall of 97 or the Spring of 98. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 22:15:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: FC2 vs. Hoekstra Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Has anything happened recently with Rep. Hoekstra, the NEA, and the >investigation of FC2/Black Ice? you can keep current w/ their side ov th ongoing, at least: http://www.altx.com/whatsnew.html > >The whole thing raises my hackles. If they go after them, it won't be long >before they come after us. ^^^^ ^^ do you really think there's a distinction between "them" & "us"? (echos ov form & content... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 22:16:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: come on In-Reply-To: <199703260059.RAA00415@pantano.theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 5:59 PM -0700 3/25/97, Charles Alexander wrote: >Is this list going to turn into "boys talking about Juliet Binoche?" I >seriously hope not, and I imagine some list-folk are offended. pas moi; for me, tho', i got a kick out of seeing fargo win some awards and hearing that the good peiople of brainerd, where the film was shot, held parties in celebration and conceded that, in spite of its flaws (ie it's portrayal of minnesotans), the film put their town on the map. they were, however, offended that frances mcdormand didnt thank them in her speech. i thought binoche was very cute tho i didn't like her outfit much; also, i'd never seen courtney love and found her ravishing. all the nominated songs were dreck, tho. this is the second time in my life that i've watched the oscars; not having a tv, i was delighted with the total immersion in american mass culture, esp that coca cola ad set in south asia with thta great music. wonderful and enraging to be so seduced! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 21:52:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: bp/bob Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm not sure I know what the joke would be. At 08:28 PM 3/25/97 -0500, you wrote: >> Chris: >> >> In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to >> digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't >> do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob >> Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of >> more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and >> Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or >> whatever. >> >> thanks, Kent > >Is this a joke, or is that asteroid closer than we think? > >--Matt > >================================================================= >Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia >mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English >http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 16:33:09 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Pam Brown Subject: Texture Press Address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Poetics List - Could someone please email me a contact address for Texture Press so I can order "Fuzzy Logic Series" - Thanks Pam Brown http://postbox.library.usyd.edu.au/~pbrown/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 03:35:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: the margaritas of poetry--where were they! In-Reply-To: <970325071336_-771029402@emout05.mail.aol.com> from "Chris Stroffolino" at Mar 25, 97 07:13:37 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fiona, I'd be happy to give examples. First I am going to read Kent Johnson's article "Howard McCord and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E." I was about to flame Professor Kent Johnson, and handily (only a pocket flame needed), after his bp/BP adventure into the wide and dizzy land of the patter of lettered feet--and then I looked him up on ol' MLA. I realize I don't know him in the sky well enough yet. But I have read almost everything bpNichol has ever written--he's not so much a comet as a Christmaslight for the literary industry in Canada, after all. He's enabled a lot of critics to thematize and thereby dumb-down and take the sharp political edge off of radical theory--and critics from prestigious universities and departments, too. The beauty of Nichol is his political neutrality of language (some might puke at that, however)--that he often performs wordplay without ever stirring into the social meanings that those words connote (except in *love: a book of remembrances* and in his early letter-based works, as well as his concrete and sound poetry). His essays, on the other hand, are more feisty--the parodies of academic and scientific jargon, for instance, many co-written with McCaffery. But neutrality is something Perelman's poetry never is--if anything, it refuses itself as poetry so long as it fails to incite social meanings, and meanings/forms lodged the more centrally in the literary establishment/tradition the better for defamiliarizing effects. Even his "academic poem" "Marginalization of Poetry" figuratively insults (to only begin) the professor-role and institutional context of its occasion of delivery--it would be absurd, for a professor, to politely clap on hearing this read, unless that professor were a Bouvard or Pecuchet. Perelman too has outdistanced the fetishization of the new, in that he is absent, for example, from Marjorie Perloff's critical appropriation and promotion of Language Writing as the next-last movement-moment. I think *Marginalization of Poetry*, regardless of how you judge it, and I do, could be looked at in context of his work as a whole for startling contrastive (and instructive) news, and *that* in context of the broader concept of "politics" of language propounded by Language Writing writing. Anyway I am looking at this in an essay right now so keep your hat near, Bill. I don't think Perelman needs an apologist so much as readers of his poetry. I do think the event, however, needs an apologist. Post-panel discussion did barely materialize. It was like listening to lectures. Not even a lecture: Steve Evans felt that for the NYC crowd he had to mock the very theory he is steeped up to his intellect in--and, get this, noone reacted liked he was condescending! Chris S. mentioned Mac Low's question in his last post (I won't repeat it here). Why is it that it seemed to me at the time of hearing it that Mac Low's question was off topic? Putting Mac Low's que at the beginning of the discussion would have helped--but for me the odd realization now is that answering Mac Low's question is *exactly* what Perelman's book proposes to deal with. So, if critical of the book as project, is that even the que which should be asked? James Sherry asked why even bother doing a literary history, and that particular kind of literary history. Lisa Jarnot questioned--as a complement to Ann Lauterbach's questioning of the contents of Perelman's book--the representativity of the panel, since all the panelists are in a position to write a book about the same poets and issues as Perelman. Lee Ann Brown's question brought formal discussion to an end: she surprised us all and instead of asking a question, read-out the next event at Segue, which was her own event, and up and coming events--and so the relentless calendar of events, the very form that Sean Killian wanted to disrupt by organizing a discussion panel in the first place, seamlessly reasserted itself over the night. And discussion was left for the critics. No, for the poets. No, for the critics. No, for--Hi, I'm Louis Cabri. Ya. Ya. Oh ya. Hah. Yas. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 02:39:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Bromige Subject: bp/BP Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Louis, and good to have yr e-ddress. _Hole_ #6 has some excellent reads. I think Lisa Robertson's "The Device" is a knockout. From the p-o-v of that poem, and one who wasnt at the NYC event, we must ask why it didnt prove more pleasurable; were the superego's imperatives being muffled by unsupervised _id_iots? With yr account, we have something quite other than Chris Stroffolino's, and thus the picture grows bigger and more spherical and jagged. Good. I was saddened to hear Bob P was put on the defensive, never an attractive mode, at least when phrased that way. I would sooner imagine him a-brim with lively conjecture, where he seems happiest. There, and in the dismissing of fools lightly. How did this miscarriage of pleasure transpire--who nudged whom? I dont even know the names of all the players. Does someone want to mail me a spare program? I suppose the proceedings will be part of a book, but i'd sooner not wait, who would. The shuffling of reputations by initials this morning I found bemusing. Thought I was on the stock exchange list thru some error of my own. Nearly phoned my broker to order a spare set of everything bpNichol ever published,and entertained a number of offers for my signed copy of _7 Works_ . But then I remembered these names had people attached to them somewhere. History refuses to die. It was fun to see Bouvard and Pecuchet on the list. I thought they were running an arts program in Ft.Milltown. I hope to read further accounts of the NYC event. Things have been a little quiet in Sebastopol since the Canadians were here. db. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 07:32:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: Texture Press Address Comments: cc: pbrown@lib4.fisher.su.OZ.AU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Hi Poetics List - >Could someone please email me a contact address for Texture Press so I can >order "Fuzzy Logic Series" - texture press/susan smith nash 3760 Cedar Ridge Dr., Norman OK 73072 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:27:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: four melismas In-Reply-To: from "Stephen Cope" at Mar 25, 97 03:32:44 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Sun Ra was most definitely a misogynist (he was apparently very vocal about > his desire to exclude women from membership in Bill Dixon's Jazz Composer's > Guild, among other things). Grounds, no doubt, for x-ing all further references to that dude. Send him to the Dorn jail. Knuckle sandwiches all around. JOEL, be warned, all further attempts by anyone on Saturn to subscribe to the list should be viewed with utmost suspicion. Purely yours, Mike mboughn@chass.utoornto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:33:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Any recommendations for weekend/summer workshops/seminars in SF that I can pass on to an avid student? Backchannel appreciated. Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:37:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: come on In-Reply-To: <199703260059.RAA00415@pantano.theriver.com> from "Charles Alexander" at Mar 25, 97 05:59:41 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit But Charles, Juliet really is *hot* whatever Bp or BP or bP or bp says. According to Charles Alexander: > > Is this list going to turn into "boys talking about Juliet Binoche?" I > seriously hope not, and I imagine some list-folk are offended. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:14:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: LPHILLIPS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: questions re: Merrill and Jarnot MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Does anyone know if there are any commercially available recordings of James Merrill reading his poetry? I'm looking for anything I can get my hands on but would be especially pleased to find recordings of him reading from the Book of Ephraim. I was told by someone that there was a recording at one time from a now-defunct press. Secondly, I badly need to order Lisa Jarnot's book from Burning Deck Press but I have mislaid my info. Someone have an address handy? Many thanks. Lisa Amber Phillips ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:28:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: four melismas In-Reply-To: <199703261327.IAA19756@chass.utoronto.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 8:27 AM -0500 3/26/97, Michael Boughn wrote: >> Sun Ra was most definitely a misogynist (he was apparently very vocal about >> his desire to exclude women from membership in Bill Dixon's Jazz Composer's >> Guild, among other things). > >Grounds, no doubt, for x-ing all further references to that dude. >Send him to the Dorn jail. Knuckle sandwiches all around. JOEL, be >warned, all further attempts by anyone on Saturn to subscribe to the >list should be viewed with utmost suspicion. dorn was not sent to any jail; no one is x-ing further references to sun ra. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:36:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: Re: four melismas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Send him to the Dorn jail. And the Adorno jail? And the Pound jail? Come on, Mike Boughn. That sounds like a pretty good jail. More purely yours, Dale ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:51:47 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: Re: four melismas In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:36:55 -0500 from On Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:36:55 -0500 Dale Smith said: >>Send him to the Dorn jail. > >And the Adorno jail? > >And the Pound jail? > >Come on, Mike Boughn. That sounds like a pretty good jail. they serve marginalin on the toast, though. & Jack Spandrift is the trusty. He forces them to purify his dialect every morning, in front of a bunch of NY attack literatures. Avaunt, aroint ye, roisterers! Be P or Be S. - Eric Blarnes ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 12:02:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Diane Marie Ward Subject: Re: questions re: Merrill and Jarnot In-Reply-To: <01IGYDLC33WEHV8O8O@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII There are dozens of sound recordings of Merrill -- one of the best is by the Academy of American Poets recorded in 1992 at NYU. The Poets in Person series from the Modern Poetry Association also has a cassette interview/reading available -- They have a website where you may find more info: http://www.wilmington.net/arts/poets/index.html Backchannel me if you want/need more ? Burning Deck Press's address = 71 Elmgrove Ave. Providence, Ri 02906 --- Diane Marie Ward Univ. Libraries SUNY Buffalo --- On Wed, 26 Mar 1997 LPHILLIPS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU wrote: > Does anyone know if there are any commercially available recordings of > James Merrill reading his poetry? I'm looking for anything I can get > my hands on but would be especially pleased to find recordings of him > reading from the Book of Ephraim. I was told by someone that there was > a recording at one time from a now-defunct press. > > Secondly, I badly need to order Lisa Jarnot's book from Burning Deck Press > but I have mislaid my info. Someone have an address handy? > > Many thanks. > Lisa Amber Phillips > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 12:42:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Jaeger Subject: Re: bpNichol In-Reply-To: <199703260227.CAA01043@beaufort.sfu.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 25 Mar 1997, Carl Lynden Peters wrote: > check out the new LIFE brand shampoo that they're selling down at the > wal-mart. it has a "bp" writ on it in gold: Balsam & Protein: LIFE and EXTRA > BODY! i bought 5 and passed them round my seminars as found poems! why not? > bp asked the question originally in book 5: "if i become a brand name." > A while ago a noticed a brand of cashews called ST*R, obviously a reference to one of bp's one word poems from his *Still Water* box set. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 13:27:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Jaeger Subject: bpNichol, sound poetry, social meaning In-Reply-To: <199703260835.DAA06996@dept.english.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Louis Cabri wrote: > But I have read almost everything bpNichol has ever written--he's > not so much a comet as a Christmaslight for the literary > industry in Canada, after all. He's enabled a lot of critics to thematize > and thereby dumb-down and take the sharp political edge > off of radical theory--and critics from prestigious > universities and departments, too. The beauty of Nichol is > his political neutrality of language (some might puke at that, > however)--that he often performs wordplay without ever > stirring into the social meanings that those words connote > (except in *love: a book of remembrances* and in his early > letter-based works, as well as his concrete and sound > poetry). His essays, on the other hand, are more feisty--the > parodies of academic and scientific jargon, for instance, > many co-written with McCaffery. Louis, I wonder if you could talk a bit about how and why you think bp's concrete and sound poetry are more concerned with social meanings than his other stuff. yes, his interest in the concretist "play activity" of Gomringer and the Brazillian Noigrandes group invites the reader to produce meaning, and therefore re-oreints the social role of the reader. But it seems to me that his sound poetry comes not only out of the dada trad., but also out of his experience as a "lay analyst" at the therafields therapeutic community, where he worked from 1966-82, and was vice-president from 1968 onwards. The types of sounds made by the horsemen owe a great deal to the healing dimensions therafields attached to associational word games and to primal scream therapy. However, therafields set itself up as an isolated island where participants could discover their "inner child" (again, a bp desire) outside of the larger pressures of the social world at large, before returning to the world to function as healthy individuals. In this respect, therafields upheld the kind of complicity with capitalism that Deleuze and Guattari criticized the psychoanalytic institution for--i.e., the creation of a normalized subject, without self-reflexively criticizing its own collusion with normalcy. Steve McCaffery's approach to sound poetry seems far more concerned with the social, because in both his early and late writing on sound poetry he centres on sound as the site for investigation of the subject of socio-linguistic relations. Peter Jaeger ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 10:56:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: william marsh Subject: Re: bpNichol Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" carl-- San Diego's very own Southwestern Cable has recently introduced its new cable modem system, called "Road Runner," which "beeps" out "bee pee" everytime i log in! -------> FOUND SOUND! bill At 06:27 PM 3/25/97 -0800, you wrote: >check out the new LIFE brand shampoo that they're selling down at the >wal-mart. it has a "bp" writ on it in gold: Balsam & Protein: LIFE and EXTRA >BODY! i bought 5 and passed them round my seminars as found poems! why not? >bp asked the question originally in book 5: "if i become a brand name." > >god i am having a ball working on my dissertation on that incredible >poet! he is everywhere -- and this is his school. > >c. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 11:03:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Formal Riddle Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Fun from the Nabokov list: a riddle poem by VN for his son. (Sorry, no prizes for the right answer.) A RIDDLE A word there is of plural number, An enemy of peaceful slumber*; Now if you add an s to this - - O magic metamorphosis: plural is plural now no more, And sweet what bitter was before. * And if read backward, it may cause The cautious mountaineer to pause. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 15:53:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: four melismas From Michael Boughn -- << . . . JOEL, be warned, all further attempts by anyone on Saturn to subscribe to the list should be viewed with utmost suspicion. >> Considering notarious SLOWNESS of the Saturnine server, this concern is probably moot. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 16:28:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: Formal Riddle In-Reply-To: <9703261923.AA29276@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cares ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:53:58 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Pam Brown Subject: thanks Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thankyou o helpful ones for Texture address Cheers Pam Brown ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:17:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: Formal Riddle Wendy Battin gives the answer: > cares Very good, Vlad (& Wendy). But I don't get it vis-a-vis the footnote abt. the mountaneer: > * And if read backward, it may cause > The cautious mountaineer to pause. cares + s = caress (okay); but cares backwards = serac (?) (some poison weed? some trail hazard?) d.i. p.s.: btw, word on the street is, Jeremy Irons is cast to play Humbert Humbert in new filming of VN's *Lolita*. Don't know the schedule. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 14:22:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: bpNichol, sound poetry, social meaning In-Reply-To: from "Peter Jaeger" at Mar 26, 97 01:27:15 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Louis Cabri wrote: > > > universities and departments, too. The beauty of Nichol is > > his political neutrality of language (some might puke at that, > > however) -- puke indeed. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:35:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: Re: Formal Riddle In-Reply-To: <9703262222.AA16913@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, David Israel wrote: > cares backwards = serac (?) > > (some poison weed? some trail hazard?) Serac (accent aigu over the e) is a sort of ice-tower--means the glacier's moving down the mountain & is unpredictable. Hey, it's Nabokov, remember. Hasn't Jeremy Irons been playing Humber Humbert for the last dozen years? (M. Butterfly, Damage, etc etc.) Wendy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:36:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Jen Sondheim Subject: Lieus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Lieu (introduction): The first Lieu runs as .htm, cutting/incising into the textual body; it is lieu.htm. The second Lieu substitutes language for html, transforms other sections of the texts, results in a breathing-apparatus. The first places text between < >, as with a block of granite, sculpted away; intermediate sections between and are visible. Formally, using locates comments, but browsers tend to ignore extraneous uninterpret- able commands. Thus a document can be written to be doubly read, one way with .htm ex- tensions, and one way without; further, it can be additionally encoded as well, so that, saving it as .txt then results in another document that can be moved to .htm. Over and over again, things thicken, take on attributes of the book of the world, dense, particulate, broken or sheared, _talus_ sloping nowhere. The breathing-apparatus of the second Lieu/place places Jennifer at the heart of commands; the text is no longer performative, but mimics the body constructed by repeated sed 's/foo/bar/g' commands. The first Lieu pro- duces the second; in creating the second, I am well aware of the _body of the text_ itself, sed an operator _onto_ totality, the text hidden as I shuttle back and forth between twin files, churning itself according to the pronouncement of surgery or suture: sed 's/foo1/bar1/g' < z1 > z2, and sed 's/foo2/bar2/g' < z2 > z1, etc. What results is a simulacrum of the hysterical embodiment of attempted speech, Jennifer-Alan-suppuration. By way of explanation, in place of / Lieu. _________________________________________________________________________ Lieu.htm 
 "HTML is like house-construction, bottom up, almost
always framed between <> and 
 - this _spanning_ also creates the
appearance of a _bounded entity._ Boundary-layers, in fact, jeweled facets
<- everything measured against your perfect screen, adjusting itself acco-
rding to semantic markup. The world becomes totality _precisely_ because
of bracketing, eidetic reduction, transcendental phenomenology.  The 'age-
old dream' is complete.">

Everything is windowpane between <_x_ and >, clear acid between  and
.

The flux flows around images, across tables, through variable frames, in
and out of browsers, across various platforms and video configurations.
The flux is oral/flux, grainless, adapting to architecture, speaking to
_you_ through any available means. 


out the text; there is a remnant, a set of at-
tributes, determining vocalization. ful-
fills Oxherding images, reductions. (If meaning in other words is cons-
tructed in relation to residue, noise, within the system, interpenetrated
by abjection, then what can be said in relation to noise which, by virtue
of semantic markup, becomes contiguous at best? noise which is not inher-
ent within the ideality represented by the 
 document,
but which becomes floating by virtue of its simulacrum of grounding.) (In
other words, if noise cathects meaning, then the particular browser format
appears nonetheless as ground or ideality against the play of semantic
markup, which must remain both in flux and extraneous, although the embed-
ding matrix, maternal against those html drives which are inherently ab-
sent of meaning, creating meaning in relation to their overall sememe.)
(In other words, consider the closed sememe of 


within ; there is an interplay of interior and exterior at work
here which, confused and exhausted, nonetheless references all idealities
- this  equivalent in appearance to that , the manual
fabrication of cancellation, for example, absented, in favor of tokens or
markers.)>

flooding impossibility wherein
lieu of or within the specified construction of meaning. The text fits the
frame; the frame dissolves, moves; meaning _pools._


_______________________________________________________________


Lieu.dead.breath


suck dead hole suck body hole suck beneath you, Jennifer hole "HTML is
like house-construction, bottom up, almost always framed between suck hole
and suck finger hole suck beneath you, Jennifer hole - this _spanning_
also creates the appearance of a _bounded entity._ Boundary-layers, in
fact, jeweled facets suck - sexthing measured against your perfect screen,
adjusting itself according to semantic markup. The world becomes totality
_ beneath you, precisely_ because of fucking, eidetic reduction, transcen-
dental phenomenology. The 'age-old dream' is complete." hole

Sexthing is windowpane between suck _x_ and hole , clear acid between suck
x hole and suck /x hole . suck /Acid reduces it to pure meaning; design
becomes associative, flexible, cleansed. Just this: that meaning decath-
ects from aura, the grain of the voice; it works through semantic flux.
finger hole

The flux flows around images, across tables, through variable frames, in
and out of browsers, across various platforms and video configurations.
The flux is oral/flux, grainless, adapting to architecture, speaking to
_you_ through any available means. suck / beneath you, Jennifer hole suck
/body hole suck /dead hole

suck dead hole suck body hole suck blink hole suck strike hole out the
Jennifer; there is a remnant, a set of attributes, determining vocal-
ization. suck /blink hole suck /strike hole suck /body hole suck /dead
hole fulfills Oxherding images, reductions. (If meaning in other words is
constructed in relation to residue, noise, inside you, Alan the system,
interpenetrated by abjection, then what can be said in relation to noise
which, by virtue of semantic markup, becomes contiguous at best? noise
which is not inherent inside you, Alan the ideality beneath you, presen-
ted by the suck dead hole suck body hole suck beneath you, Jennifer hole
suck i hole document, but which becomes floating by virtue of its
simulacrum of grounding.) (In other words, if noise cathects meaning, then
the particular browser format appears nonetheless as ground or ideality
against the play of semantic markup, which must remain both in flux and
extraneous, although the embedding matrix, maternal against those dead
drives which are inherently absent of meaning, creating meaning in rela-
tion to their overall sememe.)  (In other words, consider the closed
sememe of suck /i hole suck / beneath you, Jennifer hole suck /body hole
suck /dead hole

suck which throughputs meaning-flux by virtue of the formalization of
fucking, the eidetic reduction given in relationship to the particular
browser and computer configuration bandwidth, but _inside you, Alan_ such,
as in suck inside you, Alan hole inside you, Alan suck /inside you, Alan
hole ; there is an interplay of interior and exterior at work here which,
confused and exhausted, nonetheless references all idealities - this suck
strike hole equivalent in appearance to that suck /strike hole , the
manual fabrication of cancellation, for example, absented, in favor of
tokens or markers.) hole suck finger hole

suck sexthing is acid hole flooding impossibility where suck /sexthing is
acid hole in lieu of or inside you, Alan the specified construction of
meaning. The Jennifer fits the frame; the frame dissolves, moves; meaning
_trips._


_________________________________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:38:53 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: Howard McCord

Dear Louis:

Actually, when you teach at a community college (even
with tenure) you are an instructor, not a "Professor." Are you a
Professor yet?

The article you refer to ('87?) was written when I was a graduate
student at Bowling Green. Howard McCord was my dissertation advisor,
and in this
essay I go after him for waht I see as his shortsightedness re:
Language writing. As far as I know, it was among the first defenses
of Langpo written by someone not in that circle, and I remember it
brought friendly letters from Bob Perelman, Michael Palmer, and
Marjorie Perloff (out of which began for me a sporadic but very
fruitful intellectual association with her).

It's great that you brought Howard to the list's attention, for he is
certainly a "forgotten" writer. Back during the early
70's he was actually a "big" name in the world of poetry, but then
faded, through partial fault, surely, of his own indifference to the
name game, from sight. I can say that I have never met a single
person in my life who is more eclectically brilliant than he. The man
just knows an incredible amount across a great range.

But I would say you are wrong (if I'm reading you right) when you
suggest in an earlier post that his work and career might point in
the direction of a hidden *comunitas* on the margins of New American
Poetry individualism. If there is a poet alive today who has more
consistently espoused the ideals of self-reliant libertarianism than
Howard has (and his politics would *not* be at all welcome by most
people on this list--he and Dorn are good buddies) then he or she has
retired to the mountains.
In fact, Bowling Green is kind of like the mountains, flat as
northwestern Ohio is. Howard is its quiet hermit sage, hunting and
writing now mainly for the gun magazines.

He's quite a person. I care for him immensely and admire him deeply.
Gnomonology: A Handbook of Systems is a wild work. There's much more,
including most recent a novel soon to appear from Macpherson, titled
The Man Who Walked to the Moon.

Now for what its worth, I'll say I was being a bit silly last night
with my remark about Bob Perleman who is not better or lesser than
bpNichol, whatever such zero-sum evaluations might ever mean! Ok, ok,
it was a moment of iconoclasm, against what seems to often be some
hero worship on this list of names that are already operating under
the inertia of the Name. (tho I admire Bob Perleman's work!) Enough
for now, but is no one going to step up and say something decent
about bpNichol? Is Steve McCaffery on this list? (for those not
familiar, his essay in North of Intention is a great intro to the
work.) Do you honestly feel, Louis, that his work is merely a
"Christmas light"? Such language doesn't really open one up to a
generous reading of seriously undertaken work, does it?

Kent



> Date sent:      Wed, 26 Mar 1997 03:35:32 -0500
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           Louis Cabri 
> Subject:        the margaritas of poetry--where were they!
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> Fiona, I'd be happy to give examples. First I am going to
> read Kent Johnson's article "Howard McCord and
> L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E." I was about to flame Professor
> Kent Johnson, and handily (only a pocket flame needed),
> after his bp/BP adventure into the wide and dizzy land of
> the patter of lettered feet--and then I looked him up on ol'
> MLA. I realize I don't know him in the sky well enough yet.
> But I have read almost everything bpNichol has ever written--he's
> not so much a comet as a Christmaslight for the literary
> industry in Canada, after all. He's enabled a lot of critics to thematize
> and thereby dumb-down and take the sharp political edge
> off of radical theory--and critics from prestigious
> universities and departments, too. The beauty of Nichol is
> his political neutrality of language (some might puke at that,
> however)--that he often performs wordplay without ever
> stirring into the social meanings that those words connote
> (except in *love: a book of remembrances* and in his early
> letter-based works, as well as his concrete and sound
> poetry). His essays, on the other hand, are more feisty--the
> parodies of academic and scientific jargon, for instance,
> many co-written with McCaffery. But neutrality is
> something Perelman's poetry never is--if anything, it refuses
> itself as poetry so long as it fails to incite social meanings,
> and meanings/forms lodged the more centrally in the literary
> establishment/tradition the better for defamiliarizing effects.
> Even his "academic poem" "Marginalization of Poetry"
> figuratively insults (to only begin) the professor-role and institutional
> context of its occasion of delivery--it would be absurd, for a
> professor, to politely clap on hearing this read, unless that
> professor were a Bouvard or Pecuchet. Perelman too has
> outdistanced the fetishization of the new, in that he is
> absent, for example, from Marjorie Perloff's critical
> appropriation and promotion of Language Writing as the
> next-last movement-moment. I think *Marginalization of
> Poetry*, regardless of how you judge it, and I do, could
> be looked at in context of his work as a whole for startling
> contrastive (and instructive) news, and *that* in context of
> the broader concept of "politics" of language propounded
> by Language Writing writing. Anyway I am looking at this
> in an essay right now so keep your hat near, Bill. I don't
> think Perelman needs an apologist so much as readers of his
> poetry. I do think the event, however, needs an apologist. Post-panel
> discussion did barely materialize. It was like listening to
> lectures. Not even a lecture: Steve Evans felt that for the
> NYC crowd he had to mock the very theory he is steeped
> up to his intellect in--and, get this, noone reacted liked he
> was condescending! Chris S. mentioned Mac Low's
> question in his last post (I won't repeat it here). Why is it
> that it seemed to me at the time of hearing it that Mac Low's
> question was off topic? Putting Mac  Low's que at the beginning of the
> discussion would have helped--but for me the odd realization now is that
> answering Mac Low's question is *exactly* what Perelman's book
> proposes to deal with. So, if critical of the book as project, is that
> even the que which should be asked? James Sherry asked why
> even bother doing a literary history, and that particular kind
> of literary history. Lisa Jarnot questioned--as a complement
> to Ann Lauterbach's questioning of the contents of
> Perelman's book--the representativity of the panel,
> since all the panelists are in a position to write a book about
> the same poets and issues as Perelman. Lee Ann Brown's
> question brought formal discussion to an end: she surprised
> us all and instead of asking a question, read-out the next
> event at Segue, which was her own event, and up and
> coming events--and so the relentless calendar of events, the
> very form that Sean Killian wanted to disrupt by organizing
> a discussion panel in the first place, seamlessly reasserted
> itself over the night. And discussion was left for the critics.
> No, for the poets. No, for the critics. No, for--Hi, I'm Louis
> Cabri. Ya. Ya. Oh ya. Hah. Yas.
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 26 Mar 1997 22:50:51 -0400
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         shoemakers@COFC.EDU
Subject:      Re: Is history dead?
In-Reply-To:  <199703260134.NAA11387@ihug.co.nz>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I'd been dipping into (picking at?) this thread, and then by one of those
strange coincidences (you know the kind) i chanced on this poem:

Indian

I don't know who this Indian is,
A bow within his hand,
But he is hiding by a tree
And watching white men land.
They may be gods--they may be fiends--
They certainly look rum.
He wonders who on earth they are
And why on earth they've come.

He knows his streams are full of fish,
His forests full of deer,
And his tribe is the mighty tribe
That all the others fear.
--And, when French or English land,
The Spanish or the Dutch,
They'll tell him they're the mighty tribe
And no one else is much.

They'll kill his deer and net his fish
And clear away his wood,
And frequently remark to him
They do it for his good.
Then he will scalp and he will shoot
And he will burn and slay
And break the treaties he has mad
--And, children, so will they.

We won't go into all of that
Fir it's too long a story,
And some is brave and some is sad
And nearly all is gory.
But, just remember this about
Our ancestors so dear:
They didn't find an empty land.
The Indians were *here*.

from *A Book of Americans*--Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet (1933), and
stamped in my copy in red ink are the words Greenwood Elementary School...


Steve Shoemaker
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 26 Mar 1997 23:30:33 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Zimmerman 
Subject:      Re: four melismas
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Michael Boughn wrote:
>
> > Sun Ra was most definitely a misogynist (he was apparently very vocal about
> > his desire to exclude women from membership in Bill Dixon's Jazz Composer's
> > Guild, among other things).
>
> Grounds, no doubt, for x-ing all further references to that dude.
> Send him to the Dorn jail. Knuckle sandwiches all around. JOEL, be
> warned, all further attempts by anyone on Saturn to subscribe to the
> list should be viewed with utmost suspicion.
>
> Purely yours,
> Mike
> mboughn@chass.utoornto.ca

Mike,
        The last time I went out with Jack Clarke (& you) we saw Sun Ra
in Buffalo at the (new) Tralf. The next time I go out with Jack, I'll
read from my collaboration with him--Blue Horitals (Amman, Jordan: Oasii,
1997 --Stephen Ellis' press)--which includes poems from his In the
Analogy from your shuffaloff books (just come, beautifully, in the
mail)--on April 12 at Middlesex County College in Edison, NJ [at the New
Jersey College English Assn. Conference] & (more publicly) on April 20 at
the Old Bridge, NJ, public library. Wish you were here, &c.

Dan Zimmerman
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 09:10:37 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Jordan Davis 
Subject:      real audio Poetry City
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

If you use the www in the next couple of days, why not get a copy of the
RealAudio Player 3.0 (www.realaudio.com) and then point yourself to:

http://www.twc.org/ratest.htm

There you'll find a recording from Rod Smith's 1996 Poetry City reading in
realaudio format. (Technical note: we're testing a RealAudio server, and
we'd appreciate any feedback -- send your comments to me at
jdavis@panix.com)

Hop on over to T&W tonight to hear Lyn Hejinian and Travis Ortiz, and then
get beamed over to Segue for the Tender Buttons Benefit Party!

Thanks,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 09:45:42 +0000
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Pierre Joris 
Subject:      Re: real audio Poetry City
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Jordan Davis wrote:
>
> If you use the www in the next couple of days, why not get a copy of the
> RealAudio Player 3.0 (www.realaudio.com) and then point yourself to:
>
> http://www.twc.org/ratest.htm
>
> There you'll find a recording from Rod Smith's 1996 Poetry City reading in
> realaudio format. (Technical note: we're testing a RealAudio server, and
> we'd appreciate any feedback -- send your comments to me at
> jdavis@panix.com)
>
> Hop on over to T&W tonight to hear Lyn Hejinian and Travis Ortiz, and then
> get beamed over to Segue for the Tender Buttons Benefit Party!
>
> Thanks,
> Jordan


Jordan -- checked it out, & it sounds good -- have been using RealAudio
player for some time now & it does seem to do the job well.  -- Pierre
--
=========================================
pierre joris   6 madison place   albany ny 12202
tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu
http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything that allows men to become rooted, through
values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in
_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which
constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is,
[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality
and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose
it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot
==========================================
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 10:01:50 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Kellogg 
Subject:      Re: Formal Riddle
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>p.s.: btw, word on the street is, Jeremy Irons is cast to play Humbert
>Humbert in new filming of VN's *Lolita*.  Don't know the schedule.

Cast?  Wrapped!  The filming, as I understand it, is complete.  Should be
out any time now, if distribution isn't complicated by censorship issues.

Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg                     kellogg@acpub.duke.edu
Box 90023, Duke University        (919) 660-4357
Durham, NC 27708                  FAX (919) 660-4381
http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/

                    There is no mantle
                    and it does not descend.
                                 --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 10:43:28 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      puking and the state

A couple days ago I mentioned the controversy around FC2 (originally
the Fiction Collective), and one of its books currently at the
center of a little Congressional maelstrom, _Blood of Mugwump_, by
Doug Rice. I had said that the book made me "want to puke," so to
elaborate and clarify a bit, I thought I'd offer an hors d'oeuvre of
sorts, though one quite randomly found by flipping through:

"Grandma Mugwump had marked our blood with her own blood. Blue under
our shallow skin, visible and waiting to be touched. Now under
Caddie's suffering white voice we were making Grandma vanish. Caddie
began by sewing Grandma's decrepit eyes shut. Closed and throbbing
with blind blood. Inside the pain she cried out: "Let what God so
joined together, man never tear asunder." She stared out at the
knives we held in our hands. Fingers cut and bleeding. Quickly to
stop her screams, Caddie trapped Grandma's slippery tongue in her
strong hand. Then in one continuous, swift musical motion, Caddie cut
Grandma's tongue free and swallowed it whole intoher own belly.
Wedding of all those unknown familial desires. This, here is the
birth of no longer being able to to remain silent. Noise jammed her
mouth, filled her, choking her parched throat. Thread and needle,
Caddie sewed Garndma's lips together. Blood trapped Grandma.
Gurgling, growling, Grandma's revolting stomach caved. Hunger. Not
words, just sounds stormed out of Grandma's belly. Words unspeakable
sprung forth from the thunder caught one last time in her dry cunt.
Time inthe mirror. Grandma created herself into a shape only there to
fill a lack as the words of Caddie opened her wounds. Moon clouds
slicing across the Ides of midnight. Time. Floating. Grandma's
buzzard hands rose from the bed and fell. Nearly dead now. etc..."

It actually gets better. Many other things in this book get
eaten, and it's not pretty. Clayton Eshelman and other lower-body
poets move over! You've barely cracked the surface!

But seriously, what seems involved here is an incipient repeat of the
Mapplethorp affair, only this time in the field of exploratory,risk-
taking writing. I'm sure many people onthis list would
regard the attack on FC2 as a matter importance and
basic principle, though there has been little stirring yet here on
FC2's call for solidarity--though I realize that there may be stuff
goign on backchannel, etc. Anyway, I have documemts here from the NEA
Literature Program, including a long, threatening memo from Rep. Pete
Hoekstra, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
(ominous sounding, no?) to Jane Alexander. This and other information
(including newspaper articles and an unpublished stomach-churning
interview with Doug Rice) is available from Rice's colleague Craig
Paulenich at University of Kent/Salem. His e-mail:
   paulenic@salem.kent.edu

Interestingly, Craig P. was co-editor with me of an anthology of
American Buddhist poets, published back in '89. Rice's book is
dedicated to Craig! The Dharma is vast. Or as Gary Snyder puts it
ecstatically in a poem somewhere, "Ah, eating each other..."

Hope this provokes some checking into the issue and further action on
it!

Kent
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:59:01 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      picky picky picky ( puking and the state)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

>  The Dharma is vast. Or as Gary Snyder puts it
> ecstatically in a poem somewhere, "Ah, eating each other..."

Actually it's:

        Eating each other's seed
                    eating
         ah, each other.

Rachel L.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 12:07:19 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         William Burmeister Prod 
Subject:      Re: puking and the state
In-Reply-To:  KENT JOHNSON  "puking and the
              state" (Mar 27, 10:43am)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Kent writes:

> Anyway, I have documemts here from the NEA
> Literature Program, including a long, threatening memo from Rep. Pete
> Hoekstra, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
> Investigations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
> (ominous sounding, no?) to Jane Alexander.

Would it be possible to post the Hoekstra memo on the list? I believe that
might incite something in the name of action. From what we have heard of so
far, the subcommittee's intent is to use this as an example of why funding for
the arts and literature should be cut, which suggests a memo replete with
sweeping generalizations.

BB
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 11:57:46 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: puking and the state

Bill:

The memo is four detailed pages, and I'm currently very involved and
in last five days of a Mayoral race against the northwestern
Illinois mafia. No time to type it all up! But you might ask Craig
Paulenich who should have a way of scanning a clear copy and then
posting it. Or, perhaps the Unit for Contemporary Literature at
Illinois State University could be contacted (home of FC2): phone:
309-438-3523, fax: 309-438-3523. In fact, I'm goign to call them
right now and see if they can help and send something to us all.

Oh, and thanks, Rachel, for the correction. My accuracy seems to be
off the past couple of days!

Kent



> Date sent:      Thu, 27 Mar 1997 12:07:19 -0500
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           William Burmeister Prod 
> Subject:        Re: puking and the state
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> Kent writes:
>
> > Anyway, I have documemts here from the NEA
> > Literature Program, including a long, threatening memo from Rep. Pete
> > Hoekstra, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
> > Investigations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
> > (ominous sounding, no?) to Jane Alexander.
>
> Would it be possible to post the Hoekstra memo on the list? I believe that
> might incite something in the name of action. From what we have heard of so
> far, the subcommittee's intent is to use this as an example of why funding for
> the arts and literature should be cut, which suggests a memo replete with
> sweeping generalizations.
>
> BB
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:18:01 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU
Subject:      web piece...
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

this is just a plug for a short piece by my wife kass fleisher, who served
as short story judge for the latest issue of the student journal *the
palimpsest review*, published by penn state u...

in her own words,

>a little essay i wrote called "spinning miss stein's grave:  thoughts on the
>order of words in short fiction" is on the web now at
>
>http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/fleisher.htm

i think some of you may find it of interest...

best,

joe
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 14:31:46 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      thrice-vexed conformtent

for all you controversy-sport lovers:

Is innovative experimental writing considered liberating in a socio-
political sense?  I.e. non-fetishized-commodified in itself?
Or is this a politically condescending attitude (which may have
nothing to do with the value of innovative writing per se)?

Is there a literary virtue in simplicity?  Is perhaps the most
accurate way of expressing COMPLEX and contradictory/complementary
ideas via a combination of divagation and concision?  Is this a
rhetorical leading question, or what?  Did the old masters of
conformtent cover this already?  I know people don't want to
write like those guys anymore?  Huh?  Conformtent must die?
Does Promethean Youth = Elderly Complacency = Self-righteous
Bull All Around?   YES!!!  CAN WE ALL GET A LOAN?  NO!!!!

How does innovative writing avoid being "innovative"? And should it?

To respond, push either the YAK button or the YELL button.  In extreme
cases, press the DELETE HENRY button (this will only work on applications
which zone out Spandrift spam and Blarnes blarney - available on
Nutscape 666). - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 15:52:04 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Don Cheney 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

henry,

i thought this was a jordan davis post (SERIOUSLY). especially seriously
when i seriously read:

"Does Promethean Youth = Elderly Complacency = Self-righteous Bull All
Around?  YES!!!  CAN WE ALL GET A LOAN?  NO!!!!"

funny stuf.f.

but then i came to the

"In extreme cases, press the DELETE HENRY button..."

reference and thought "jordan, you're really a renegade of this atomic age"
and scrolled back up to see who was fucking with my head.

funny.stuff.com
don

 ===================================
 Don Cheney  San Diego, CA, USA
 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5791
 doncheney@geocities.com
 ===================================

>for all you controversy-sport lovers:
>
>Is innovative experimental writing considered liberating in a socio-
>political sense?  I.e. non-fetishized-commodified in itself?
>Or is this a politically condescending attitude (which may have
>nothing to do with the value of innovative writing per se)?
>
>Is there a literary virtue in simplicity?  Is perhaps the most
>accurate way of expressing COMPLEX and contradictory/complementary
>ideas via a combination of divagation and concision?  Is this a
>rhetorical leading question, or what?  Did the old masters of
>conformtent cover this already?  I know people don't want to
>write like those guys anymore?  Huh?  Conformtent must die?
>Does Promethean Youth = Elderly Complacency = Self-righteous
>Bull All Around?   YES!!!  CAN WE ALL GET A LOAN?  NO!!!!
>
>How does innovative writing avoid being "innovative"? And should it?
>
>To respond, push either the YAK button or the YELL button.  In extreme
>cases, press the DELETE HENRY button (this will only work on applications
>which zone out Spandrift spam and Blarnes blarney - available on
>Nutscape 666). - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:00:22 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: farm/produce
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Yeah.  trouble is with the word: "form". sounds like a kind of envelope,
>or tax form, a thing you fill out, fill in.

I never thought of it that way. I think of it as a synonym for shape. As a
noun or a verb.

That is, structure might be premeditated, but not form.




George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 15:52:04 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      RI upcoming event

Poetry Mission & Cranston Public Library are sponsoring

PRAISES, MANIFESTOS, & PROVOCATIONS
a "poetic action" - community debate
the Wm. L. Bergeron Memorial Poetry Program for 1997
Wed. Apr 23, 7:30-9 pm
William Hall Library, 1825 Broad St, Cranston

"What does it mean to be a poet today?  Is contemporary poetry alive or dead
in the US?  Does poetry fill a social need?  Should it? Do poets have a right
to expect an audience?  Has poetry become overprofessionalized?"
  "Every poet has written at least one poem which argues for its own existence
and that proposes a role for poetry in the world.  What shapes can it take?
   "This debate will take place on two levels, poetic and polemical.  We will
provide a moderator responsible for keeping discussion focused and energetic.
You are encouraged to bring poems to read that grapple with these issues and
contribute a rhetoric of their own.  Bring your own work & that of others.
Conversation will weave around the poems as discussion develops."

Free, open to public.  Refreshments. Email Henry_Gould@brown.edu for
directions.  Moderator: Thomas Epstein. [p.s. dear poetics people:
this is not an edg.po propaganda front].
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 16:01:46 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
In-Reply-To:  Message of Thu, 27 Mar 1997 15:52:04 -0500 from
              

I'm sorry you blew my cover, Don.  Henry Gould, Jordan Davis, Eric
Blarnes, Jack Spandrift, and Dendra Smothairn are all fairly recent
soi-disant "heteronyms" of me, Fernando Pessoa, a.k.a. "Elroy
Jenkins, Farmer-Poet"
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:18:03 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent

Hey Henry:

"how does innovative writing avoid being 'innovative?'"

Penetrating question! Thank you.

But tell me, you who have been the liveliest voice on this list the
past couple or three weeks: What do you think of the recent attempt of
the Christian fascists to use FC2 as a wedge against free speech in
the arts? And what do you think of the apparent silence on this list
about it?

Kent

> Date sent:      Thu, 27 Mar 1997 14:31:46 EST
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           henry gould 
> Subject:        thrice-vexed conformtent
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> for all you controversy-sport lovers:
>
> Is innovative experimental writing considered liberating in a socio-
> political sense?  I.e. non-fetishized-commodified in itself?
> Or is this a politically condescending attitude (which may have
> nothing to do with the value of innovative writing per se)?
>
> Is there a literary virtue in simplicity?  Is perhaps the most
> accurate way of expressing COMPLEX and contradictory/complementary
> ideas via a combination of divagation and concision?  Is this a
> rhetorical leading question, or what?  Did the old masters of
> conformtent cover this already?  I know people don't want to
> write like those guys anymore?  Huh?  Conformtent must die?
> Does Promethean Youth = Elderly Complacency = Self-righteous
> Bull All Around?   YES!!!  CAN WE ALL GET A LOAN?  NO!!!!
>
> How does innovative writing avoid being "innovative"? And should it?
>
> To respond, push either the YAK button or the YELL button.  In extreme
> cases, press the DELETE HENRY button (this will only work on applications
> which zone out Spandrift spam and Blarnes blarney - available on
> Nutscape 666). - Henry Gould
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:36:47 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
In-Reply-To:  Message of Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:18:03 +0600 from
              

I think this list is silent about it because I've successfully aestheto-
nesthetized it. (zzzzzzzzz....) (conformtent...tencomfornt...fortencomet...)
- Eric Blarnes

I think we're silent because of apathy and political idiocy (in the Greek sense
).  & because we were all grossed out by that quote you sent.

I think people should take a look at the new apex of the M #5, especially
David Matlin's extended essay on the US prison "industry" & his experience
as a prison instructor, ex-Viet conscientious objector - the said industry's
effect on African-American men, Viet vets, and all of us.  An extremely
eloquent & prophetic piece of writing.  If I have any social conscience or
conscience period that essay will end useless petty/complacent blab forever.
- an Anonymous Former Poetics List Addict (name of Ghoul...Glue...something)
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:00:28 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent

Good Henry. Let's see!

(I mean come on, tough guys and gals, if you can't do it now, when are
you going to do id?)

kent

> Date sent:      Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:36:47 EST
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           henry 
> Subject:        Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> I think this list is silent about it because I've successfully aestheto-
> nesthetized it. (zzzzzzzzz....) (conformtent...tencomfornt...fortencomet...)
> - Eric Blarnes
>
> I think we're silent because of apathy and political idiocy (in the Greek sense
> ).  & because we were all grossed out by that quote you sent.
>
> I think people should take a look at the new apex of the M #5, especially
> David Matlin's extended essay on the US prison "industry" & his experience
> as a prison instructor, ex-Viet conscientious objector - the said industry's
> effect on African-American men, Viet vets, and all of us.  An extremely
> eloquent & prophetic piece of writing.  If I have any social conscience or
> conscience period that essay will end useless petty/complacent blab forever.
> - an Anonymous Former Poetics List Addict (name of Ghoul...Glue...something)
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 19:19:51 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         William Burmeister Prod 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
In-Reply-To:  henry gould  "thrice-vexed
              conformtent" (Mar 27,  2:31pm)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Henry writes:

> Is innovative experimental writing considered liberating in a socio-
> political sense?  I.e. non-fetishized-commodified in itself?
> Or is this a politically condescending attitude (which may have
> nothing to do with the value of innovative writing per se)?

> Is there a literary virtue in simplicity?  Is perhaps the most
> accurate way of expressing COMPLEX and contradictory/complementary
> ideas via a combination of divagation and concision?  Is this a
> rhetorical leading question, or what?  Did the old masters of
> conformtent cover this already?  I know people don't want to
> write like those guys anymore?  Huh?  Conformtent must die?
> Does Promethean Youth = Elderly Complacency = Self-righteous
> Bull All Around?   YES!!!  CAN WE ALL GET A LOAN?  NO!!!!

> How does innovative writing avoid being "innovative"? And should it?


Probing questions of the kind I like to see! Interesting as a lead-in for a
discussion on received form (ahem) vs innovation. The last Louis Cabri post
comes to mind:
> Perelman too has outdistanced the fetishization of the new, in that he is
> absent, for example, from Marjorie Perloff's critical appropriation and
      > promotion of Language Writing as the next-last movement-moment.
where "Language writing as the next-last movement-moment" strikes me in an odd
way. What does it mean? This must have been heard before in the wake of past
Research and Development movements. Yes? Received form (as conformtent?) is
probably inescapable and non-lethal in small doses. Can we say that we are in
any greater crisis than any who have come before us? (I know this is turning
millenial and that's fine; I like a good maudlin "where we have been and where
we are going" discussion)

Speaking only for myself, and as one among many who have come into Language
writing from the "outside," innovative experimental writing has been both
liberating and liberalizing in a personal sense first, in a social-community
sense second, and lastly a political sense. Therein lies its value with me. It
seems that most poetries suffer from the more or less same
non-commodifiability.

Well, enough rambling from me for now. Thanks henry for the much needed probing
in the area of the heretofore thought dead threads.

Bill B.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 21:41:24 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Alan Jen Sondheim 
Subject:      last html wk for a while
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

SCHIZZ


Schizz consists of two html files cut at dotted line placed in the C:\
directly and accessed by Netscape, oh what fun. Soon you will crash, but
no harm is done. Oh, and. Schizz stutters sheared. You can see it but no
matter it does trail. Do run. Cut at dotted line. First file: index.htm
and second file: frame.htm and do run. Run index.htm. Open in Netscape by
file:///C:/index.htm do run. It does. Cut at dotted line, dotted line not
included. Both files much be included, C:\index.htm, C:\frame.htm, oh what
fun.


-------------------------------------------------------------



schizz







ddder




-------------------------------------------------------------



   ddder
   


ddder



___________________________________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 22:40:57 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: bp/bob
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I have to agree with this one. (Well, it's better than agreeing with
Bromige, for instance. ) How about we call Bob BP (with caps)?




>Chris:
>
>In your fantaastic long post (which I have to still go back to
>digest), you refer to Bob Perleman as "bp." May I ask that you don't
>do so any more? This confuses him with a poet that I suspect Bob
>Perelman would agree is bound to be (if justice is to be done) of
>more historical import than he: bp nichol. Let's keep bp as bp and
>Bob Perleman as Bob Perleman, or Ivy Bob, or just Bob P., or
>whatever.
>
>thanks, Kent





George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 22:42:26 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: Is history dead?
In-Reply-To:  <199703260134.NAA11387@ihug.co.nz>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

When I see some actor getting Binoche in a movie, I get bleu with envy.




George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 27 Mar 1997 22:55:53 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      FC2 & attempts to censor/punish
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Maybe because theres nothing to say.  What is remarkable about a
congressman cynically affecting moral outrage in order to get money away
from the poor so that it may be given to the rich?

Thanks for the tip, some list one, i looked under "whatsnew" and found the
chapter from one of the novelists in question as well as an interview with
Doug Rice. I liked the writing in the novel. Enjoyed the orgasm. Of course,
its one more man writing abt woman's sexuality.  Do any of the women on the
list find it accurate?

The congressman might be genuinely outraged, i suppose.  That he wasnt
there to help. Perhaps he feels left out. But I really doubt that we need
to hunt for unconscious motives. That NEA money is needed for corporate
welfare. db.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 02:07:45 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Hugh Steinberg 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I take it very seriously.  I write the NEA grants (and final reports) for
Tia Chucha and the Guild Complex in Chicago.  We recently had a reading
featuring FC2 writers.  And frankly, the attacks on the NEA wreck havoc on
the organizations that support literature in this country.  It's gotten a
lot harder to get money because of this, at a time when money is becoming
ever more dear (for example, the cost of publishing a book has doubled in
the last five years).  Plus, when the effects of welfare reform sink in,
there'll be even less for luxuries such as literary publishing.

Hugh Steinberg
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:14:44 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Eliza McGrand- CVA Guest 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent

what is apex of the M#5?  where does one get it?
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 08:00:05 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry 
Subject:      Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
In-Reply-To:  Message of Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:14:44 -0500 from
              

apex of the M is a little red lit mag.  I don't have the address in front of
me.  They have a distributor so it's probably around in some big-city
bkstores?  There's info on it on the epc mags alcove site on the web,
http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mags.

HG
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:34:34 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Perelman 
Subject:      name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

A student asked me the following question. I don't know the answer. & who
was the first to use the things?

> do you know the technical term for a space in a poem
> that resembles these:
>
>       she knew the name    a big black winged
>       bird on the end of a line    Clothes.
>
>                               ?
>       I'm going crazy.  I heard it was a lacuna, but I think there's
> another term.

[I'll be putting in my {non-defensive} two cents about the NYC panel as
soon as time & mind clear]
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:30:54 EST
Reply-To:     rreynold@rci.rutgers.edu
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         Rebecca Reynolds 
Organization: Rutgers University
Subject:      poetry reading

Poetry Reading:
Alicia Ostriker & Patricia Deinstfrey

Thursday April 3, 4:30 p.m.
Voorhees Chapel Lower Level, room 005
Douglass College Campus, New Brunswick

for info and/or directions from New York city call
Rebecca Reynolds (908) 932-9626
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:08:25 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry 
Subject:      Re: name gap
In-Reply-To:  Message of Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:34:34 -0500 from
              

On Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:34:34 -0500 Bob Perelman said:
>A student asked me the following question. I don't know the answer. & who
>was the first to use the things?
>
>> do you know the technical term for a space in a poem
>> that resembles these:
>>
>>       she knew the name    a big black winged
>>       bird on the end of a line    Clothes.
>>
>>                               ?
>>       I'm going crazy.  I heard it was a lacuna, but I think there's
>> another term.

A caesura with skid marks?  May be some term from anglo-saxon prosody...
- edg.po
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 08:25:09 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Re: name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Bob Perelman wrote:
>
> A student asked me the following question. I don't know the answer. & who
> was the first to use the things?
>
> > do you know the technical term for a space in a poem
> > that resembles these:
> >
> >       she knew the name    a big black winged
> >       bird on the end of a line    Clothes.
> >
> >                               ?
> >       I'm going crazy.  I heard it was a lacuna, but I think there's
> > another term.

From the OED:

c�sura
[a. L. c�sura �cutting, metrical pause�, f. c�s- ppl. stem of c�dere to
cut...

1. In Greek and Latin prosody: The division of a metrical foot between
two words, especially in certain recognized places near the middle of
the line...

2. In English prosody: A pause or breathing-place about the middle of a
metrical line, generally indicated by a pause in the sense.
1556 Abp. Parker Psalter A ij, Obserue the trayne: the ceasure marke To
rest with note in close.
1581 Sidney Def. Poesie (1622) 529 The C�sura, or breathing place in the
midst of the verse.
1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie (Arb.) 88 Such Cesure must neuer be made in
the middest of any word, if it be well appointed.
1603 Drayton Odes ii. 40 That ev�ry lively Ceasure Shall tread a perfect
Measure.
1751 Chambers Cycl., Caesure, in the modern poetry denotes a rest or
pause towards the middle of a long Alexandrine verse.
1841 D�Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 170 In the most ancient manuscripts of
Chaucer�s works the c�sura in every line is carefully noted...

Rachel L.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 11:55:08 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Wendy Battin 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I don't know of a term. I'd guess it's too recent a development to have
fallen within any period in which it was particularly fashionable to give
Greek or Latin terms to such things. "Lacuna" is good, though
traditionally it refers to an accidental and damaging gap. When Jimmy
Merrill uses blanks in "Losing the Marbles," he produces a section that
looks like a contemporary "spaced-out" poem, but the gaps prove to be
lacunae left by rain on an ink manuscript, which get filled back up
(reconstructed?) in a later section. I do like "lacuna," because usually
the gap _does_ signify something missing, some syntactical ligature, if
only a mark of punctuation.

Charles Hartman
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:39:33 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      fascism and surrender

Total agreement, Hugh. But David Bromige (you, one of my favorite
writers), I have to admit I'm bewildered
by your response which seems to suggest there is nothing to do and
bemused silence is the answer? Please correct me here if I'm
misinterpreting.
I want to ask: If a bunch of fascists came after your work, and you
appealed to fellow writers for help, how would you feel if you got
left alone? I guess I'm sounding like the moral yardstick here, but
really, this issue strikes me as a matter of principle, honor
and plain tactical necessity for all of us on this list. I say there's
five hundred letters that need to be written to Rep. Hoekstra from
this list. And we should be sharing ideas about how to contact
others through this incredibly useful medium that brings us together!

Let me ask a hypothetical specific: If this gang
can get away with this one, will it make it *less or more likely* that
they will go after someone like, say, the publisher of Aaron Shurin's
latest beautiful work?

I've got a call in to FC2 and left a message requesting that they
post more detailed info here.

Kent
> Date sent:      Fri, 28 Mar 1997 02:07:45 -0600
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           Hugh Steinberg 
> Subject:        Re: thrice-vexed conformtent
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> I take it very seriously.  I write the NEA grants (and final reports) for
> Tia Chucha and the Guild Complex in Chicago.  We recently had a reading
> featuring FC2 writers.  And frankly, the attacks on the NEA wreck havoc on
> the organizations that support literature in this country.  It's gotten a
> lot harder to get money because of this, at a time when money is becoming
> ever more dear (for example, the cost of publishing a book has doubled in
> the last five years).  Plus, when the effects of welfare reform sink in,
> there'll be even less for luxuries such as literary publishing.
>
> Hugh Steinberg
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:02:54 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      lacunae
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Bob & fellow listmembers, its early in my day & I have to dash out, or I'd
do this research myself. But: I'd take a look at Robert Duncan, his preface
to one of his 60s collections, either _Bending the Bow_ or _Boots &
Ranches_ .I think he discusses his gappings and the time values assigned to
them, and he may declare precursory users. Rachel & Henry (was it?) are
correct of course to direct us to A-S verse, and also to the Latin.
"Caesura" is the break but doesnt necessarily involve visual gapping. How
about Old _Usura? any info there?  db.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:17:59 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      doing something
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Yes, Kent, now you let us know what action you wish us to take, I for one
will take it.

I didnt think i sounded bemused. I was only attempting to account for the
list's silence on this matter, which you were finding a puzzle. I believe I
summed the situation up quite crisply. I realize that more than style is at
stake here.

I'll write a letter, but it's difficult to believe a ton of letters will
make a difference. Once upon a time, perhaps. But by now, every voter in
the nation must recognize the scenario on sight : who's going to support
Hoffstra, except those we will never convert? Might be better to write to
one's own congressperson, rather than to a man who can't or won't own his
humanity. db.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 12:44:59 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Maz881@AOL.COM
Subject:      reading

Chris Mann will be reading in new york city soon.   He will explain how us
railroads of the southwest procurred the wrong kind of eucalyptus.

April 11 7.30 The Synagogue Space 108 E 1     (212) 8029872
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:57:14 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
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Examples of c�sura from Du Bartas (Fr.), Old English, Gascoigne, Pope
all have not only breath-break but also visual gapping.  (These are in
_Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_.)

Charles Hartman wrote (in part):

>  "Lacuna" is good, though
> traditionally it refers to an accidental and damaging gap.

I love lacuna too.  In OED it is:

1. In a manuscript, an inscription, the text of an author: A hiatus,
blank, missing portion...

2. Chiefly in physical science: A gap, an empty space, spot, or cavity.

Rachel L.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 13:56:05 +0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bil Brown 
Subject:      Re: Is there a National Poetry Month?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

ANYTHING that gives NATIONAL attention the the art of poetry is fine with
me. The proto-Maraxist crit. of a "National Poetry Month" is fine for
academic concerns, and in a perfect world it would always be POETRY any
month any day. Since all that IS is Poetry... it is nice to be acknowledged
once in a blue fucking moon. Don't you think? Sort'a like Father's
Day/Mother's Day/Valentine's Day, Poetry Month should be a celebration of
whatever prole-sense forgot to mention to the kiddies...

For example:
I'm setting up this festival at the end of April. When I started working on
this Poetics festival I DIDN'T know it was "Nationalized" as the month set
aside for poetry by our gov't. Granted I really wouldn't have cared fucking
less, 'cause poetry is my national pastime, but it made things easier in
getting people that normally wouldn't have thought twice about a poetry
festival (even bookstores, and record stores) to be interested in the
festival. In this imperfect world there are egoistic reasons for the
attraction to anything nationally publicized (someone can get a little PR
for helpng out a grassroots poetry event, a little of that 15 seconds). But
hell I don't care if someone strokes their ego a little , as long as it's
not at the expense of my integrity, or the integrity of my event.

National Poetry Month would assume that there is ONE national poetry, but
it gives us the opportunity to prove otherwise.

My last example:
When Barnes & Noble helps to fund a festival that features Anne Waldman...
that makes me happy. Fuck being an ideological prude, we DO NOT live in a
perfect world.


Bil Brown
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 11:34:12 -0700
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         main 
Subject:      Re: lacunae
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

duncan's preface to _ground work: before the war_ figures caesurae as
articulated silences, which is arguably a more varied measure of the
_time_ of the poem than standard grammatical indicators (comma, period,
etc.) provide: not the metronome's uniformity, but the body's "flexible
durations."
dan featherston
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:39:15 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Weiss 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Rachel, these are all occasionally-employed printer's or calligrapher's
conventions, like the more common capitalization of first letter in a line
or bracketing a triplet in an Augustan poem. In Old and Middle English, if
memory serves, they usually divide the first two alliterative stresses from
the last two (sometimes a bullet [dot] is used instead). In Augustan verse
the caesura is supposed to be a natural pause and as such is usually
unmarked. It usually falls after either the second or third iamb. The
breath-group usage, with its appearance of typographic randomness, is quite
different. I wonder if it has a name at all. When I'm typesetting I usually
ask my poets how many they want--none of them seem to have a term.
To broaden the field, there are things that don't have any commonly accepted
names. My favorite is the little crusty things that form in the corner of
the eye while we sleep. In my family they're called sleep seeds. I've also
heard "sleeps" and "what the sand man left."  But these are all baby talk.
Other languages have normative adult terms, but English apparently doesn't.
If there's an answer to Perelman's question it would be handy to know. I'm
also cuious to find other examples of the unnamed in general.

At 09:57 AM 3/28/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Examples of c=E6sura from Du Bartas (Fr.), Old English, Gascoigne, Pope
>all have not only breath-break but also visual gapping.  (These are in
>_Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_.)
>
>Charles Hartman wrote (in part):
>
>>  "Lacuna" is good, though
>> traditionally it refers to an accidental and damaging gap.
>
>I love lacuna too.  In OED it is:
>
>1. In a manuscript, an inscription, the text of an author: A hiatus,
>blank, missing portion...
>
>2. Chiefly in physical science: A gap, an empty space, spot, or cavity.
>
>Rachel L.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 13:19:27 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: doing something

David: Yes, the letter to one's own representative is perhaps the
most effective, with copy to Hoekstra's Oversight Committee. I'll be
posting that mailing info as soon as I return Curt White's message
taht I just picked up on the machine. I actually didn't mean to say
"bemused"--I meant to say "amused." (i.e. what's so remarkable after
all about this, just another right-winger jealous of the orgasm, etc.)
But your last message makes clear you *do* think this is serious.

Ok, I'll be back shortly!

Kent
> Date sent:      Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:17:59 -0500
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           David Bromige 
> Subject:        doing something
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> Yes, Kent, now you let us know what action you wish us to take, I for one
> will take it.
>
> I didnt think i sounded bemused. I was only attempting to account for the
> list's silence on this matter, which you were finding a puzzle. I believe I
> summed the situation up quite crisply. I realize that more than style is at
> stake here.
>
> I'll write a letter, but it's difficult to believe a ton of letters will
> make a difference. Once upon a time, perhaps. But by now, every voter in
> the nation must recognize the scenario on sight : who's going to support
> Hoffstra, except those we will never convert? Might be better to write to
> one's own congressperson, rather than to a man who can't or won't own his
> humanity. db.
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:23:23 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco 
Subject:      No Virginia, there is no Nat'l Potry Mnth: now go home!
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Text/Plain

>>ANYTHING that gives NATIONAL attention the the art of poetry is fine with me.
>>The proto-Maraxist crit. of a "National Poetry Month" is fine for academic
concerns, and in a perfect world it would always be POETRY any month any day.


Bill Moyers is fine with you? The catatonic verses of Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy
Carter and Kahil Gibran are fine with you? Anything that keeps the Language
Poets off of Nightline is fine with me. Anything that meaninglessly
institutionalizes the belly-scratching Beats is fine with me (Kerouac stamps
from Lowell coming soon). Anything that keeps the bugs out of the kitchen is
fine with me.

Someone asked earlier what an Apex of the M#5 was.  It sounds like what I
picked up a case of on the bus home from NYC Sunday. It comes on like
gangbusters. A couple of years ago I had severe Apex of the M#1 but I shook it
off easier than I expected.  Anyway--my point was--someone was speaking in
proto-maraxist-crit loudly on the bus, right into my brain as it were. Anything
that kills the pain of NATIONAL attention is fine with me.

Since all that is Poetry is Poetry why confuse it with holiday artifice? That
is, unless your poetry  sounds like a [Father's
Day/Mother's Day/Valentine's Day, Poetry Month] greeting card.

If your festival was "nationalized" Bil, YOU wouldn't be running it.
As it is, the fesitival is PRIVATIZED.

For example:

"Granted I really wouldn't have cared fucking less,"

 In proto-maraxist chat, this is NIHILISM.

"'cause poetry is my national pastime,"

 In proto-maraxist chat, this is a deviant NATIONALISM blended with
SENTIMENTALISM and strong  overtones of
 ULTRA-BOURGEOIS all rolled in one.

"but it made things easier in getting people that normally wouldn't have
thought twice about a poetry
festival "

 In proto-maraxist chat, this is OPPORTUNISM.


"In this imperfect world there are egoistic reasons for the attraction to
anything nationally publicized"

 No need to apologize to US. We like poetry too.

"hell I don't care if someone strokes their ego a little , as long as it's
not at the expense of my integrity, or the integrity of my event."

 Never sacrifice these my boy. Never never never.


Writing prudishly from the ideological camp of thank-god-it's-the fucking
weekend again,


daniel_bouchard@hmco.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 11:24:51 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Mark Weiss wrote (in part):

> The
> breath-group usage, with its appearance of typographic randomness, is quite
> different.

I wonder.  According to _Princeton_ again, caesura is "a rhetorical and
extrametrical pause or phrasal break within the poetic line...The
caesura, which is frequently marked by punctuation, corresponds to a
breath-pause between musical phrases...in modern Eng. the caesura is
often used as a device of variety, a device whose purpose it is to help
mitigate metrical rigors by shifting from position to position in
various lines..."

Rachel
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:58:24 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         hen 
Subject:      Re: No Virginia, there is no Nat'l Potry Mnth: now go home!
In-Reply-To:  Message of Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:23:23 EST from
              

On Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:23:23 EST Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco said:
>
>Someone asked earlier what an Apex of the M#5 was.  It sounds like what I
>picked up a case of on the bus home from NYC Sunday. It comes on like
>gangbusters. A couple of years ago I had severe Apex of the M#1 but I shook it
>off easier than I expected.  Anyway--my point was--someone was speaking in

Yeah but I still recommend this essay by David Matlin.  It's not proto-marxist.
it's the good friday reading for the crucifixion of America by inbred ancient
racism, militarism, and prisons as Big Business.  I KNOW HOW DUMB THIS SOUNDS!!
I wish I could improve on it.  It's not a rant, it's a personal essay by
a guy who taught in prisons for ten years.  there's some interesting
thought about teaching Creative Writing too.  Did you know that the Clinton
Crime Bill did away with federal funding of Prison Education?  I didn't.
If there is such a thing as the zeitgeist (I think I proved this definitively
in a penetrating dialogue on this list several moons ago), in America this
time is the epiphany of the Prison.

Hey, have a nice day... and a wunderful weekend :)  :)  ### +++++++ + + + + +
- Henry G
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 15:37:05 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Yunte Huang 
Subject:      displace
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Humbly announce the appearance of a small journal of poetry and
translation: _Displace_. The first issue features: Martin Spinelli's
translation of Marinetti's "Battle"; Pierre Joris's "From the Notebooks";
William Howe's "from a#'s"; Fred Wah's "China Journal."

Don't expect anything big or beautiful. Pink commis have a different taste
for print matters. It's free, but you need to send me a one-dollar bill
(no check please) to cover the mailing cost. Address: Yunte Huang, 193
Pepper Tree Drive, Apt. 8, Amherst, NY 14228.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 15:41:19 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM
Subject:      Schuyler Diaries &&& @ Bridge Street

some of what's new. . . discount description/ordering instructions, at end of
the list.

1. _Can You Hear, Bird_ by John Ashbery, FSG, new in pb.   $12. "I saw no
need to cancel love-- / Heavens, what was I thinking of?/ I cannot read what
others read./ I see no need."

2. _The Autobiography of Leroi Jones_ by Amiri Baraka, Lawrence Hill Books,
$16.95. "And that was cold funky, spaced out above the real, which got to be
corny or wrong, since laying in the cloud of ain't-I-hip here in the capital
of anything goes, how could the who-ain't-here be anything but not?"

3. _Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History_ by Eduardo Cadava,
Princeton, $29.95. An excellent reading of Benjamin. "Like photography, stars
are another name for what makes similarity possible, for the process of
mimetic reproduction. They are the models on which Benjamin bases the theory
of likeness that underlies his reflections on language."

4. _Corporations Are Gonna Get Your Mama: Globalization and the Downsizing of
the American Drea_ ed. Kevin Danaher, foreword by Noam Chomsky, Common
Courage, $15.95. Contributors include Richard Barnet, Kirkpatrick Sale, Jerry
Mander, Patricia Horn, and Jeremy Rifkin. "Deceit has become so entrenched
that it may well have been internalized, passing below the threshold of
consciousness. Prevailing market rhetoric is an interesting case."

5. _Diacritics V 26, Nos. 3-4: Poetry, Community, Movement_ Jonathan Monroe,
special editor, $12. That one you heard about. DuPlessis, Waldrop, Kellogg,
Nielsen, Perloff, Lauterbach, Perelman, Bernstein.

6. _Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference_ by David Harvey,
Blackwell, $21.95. "Can the relational theory of space and time be used to
understand the dialectics of space and place? If so, can it be extended in
some way to construct a dialectical understanding of the
_space-place-environment_ triad? There are strong grounds for answering "yes"
to both questions."

7. _Viridian_ by Paul Hoover, U. Georgia, $14.95. "Because it has rained and
the TV/ is on, the world is not itself."

8. _Proper Names_ by Emmanuel Levinas, Stanford, $14.95. "Is it certain that
a true poet occupies a place? Is he not that which, in the eminent sense of
the term, _loses its place_, ceases occupation, precisely, and is thus the
very opening of space, neither the transparency nor the emptiness of which
(no more than night, nor the volume of beings) yet displays the
bottomlessness or the excellence, the heaven that in it is possible, its
"heavenhood" or its "celestiality," if one may use such neologisms?"

9. _The Lost Lunar Baedeker_ by Mina Loy, FSG, new in pb. $13. "the City's
circulatory/ sanitary apostles/ a-leap to ash-cans/ apply their profane
ritual/ to offal"

10. _The Black Reeds_ by Mark McMorris, U. Georgia, $14.95."Crowds pressed in
on us/ the progress of talk was over/ only the body spoke out now/ a small
name written on/ vacancy, over which, intent,/ we brooded on our pulse"

11. _Amorous Nightmares of Delay: Selected Plays_ by Frank O'Hara, with a
preface by Ron Padgett and an introduction by Joe LeSeur, Johns Hopkins,
$14.95.
"What pseudo-kinetic response dins its palpitations into my flapping breast?
The wanderer like a gust of wind be-devils me towards that role I can't run
fast enough to catch the coat-tails of."

12. _The Diary of James Schuyler_ ed. Nathan Kernan, Black Sparrow, $15. "I
just came back from the market I favor with a colorful bag of juice oranges
(4 for $1) and limes (3 for $1). Mystery: a while ago limes went up in price
as they became smaller, more wizened and juiceless: "end of season, end of
season" was the cry. Now they are big smooth and crowded with juice. Where do
they come from, what's it all about? And as I rounded the corner I looked
over my shoulder and the sun, in a clear sky that could become searing, shone
blindingly straight in my face."


Poetics folks receive free shipping on orders of more than $20. Free shipping
+ 10% discount on orders of more than $30. There are two ways to order.
1. E-mail your order to aerialedge@aol.com with your address & we will bill
you with the books. or 2. via credit card-- you may call us at 202 965 5200
or e-mail aerialedge@aol.com w/ yr add, order, & card # & we will send a
receipt with the books. We must charge some shipping for orders out of the
US.

Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 15:58:37 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Lisa Samuels 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 on the question of     gaps

following up on mark weiss & rachel loden's posts, perhaps this
has some extra (as well as shared) information, esp. on the
metrics of alliterative verse.  the midline gap or sometimes dot
is a modern typographical convention to mark the metrical pause
or caesura that separates the two halves of an alliterative line.
it doesn't usually appear in medieval mss, where the caesura is
sometimes marked by an oblique stroke or punctus elevatus (kind of
inverted semi-colon) but more often left unmarked.  caesura is
the name of the metrical phenomenon (also found of course in other
kinds of verse with long lines, e.g. hexameters and alexandrines,
but of less structural significance there), not of the gap that
represents it; as others have noted, i don't think the gap has a
name of its own.

 another nameless phenomenon: that space or moment in which the
constituent parts of a painting (blots of paint, lines) resolve
into the 'represented' depiction -- eg, the space btw the brush
strokes and, moving back, the image of ophelia's face in
millais's painting would be tighter than the space between the
same two things in, say, warhol -- when one moves from looking
closely at the surface of a painting to a position further
away.  or perhaps there is a name for this? --

lisa s.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:32:39 -0500
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From:         AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)

I believe it's called a gap. I mean, when there's a gap
I believe that's what it's called.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:31:00 -0800
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Lisa Samuels wrote:
>
>  on the question of     gaps
>
> following up on mark weiss & rachel loden's posts, perhaps this
> has some extra (as well as shared) information, esp. on the
> metrics of alliterative verse.  the midline gap or sometimes dot
> is a modern typographical convention to mark the metrical pause
> or caesura that separates the two halves of an alliterative line.
> it doesn't usually appear in medieval mss, where the caesura is
> sometimes marked by an oblique stroke or punctus elevatus (kind of
> inverted semi-colon) but more often left unmarked.  caesura is
> the name of the metrical phenomenon (also found of course in other
> kinds of verse with long lines, e.g. hexameters and alexandrines,
> but of less structural significance there), not of the gap that
> represents it; as others have noted, i don't think the gap has a
> name of its own.
>
>  another nameless phenomenon: that space or moment in which the
> constituent parts of a painting (blots of paint, lines) resolve
> into the 'represented' depiction -- eg, the space btw the brush
> strokes and, moving back, the image of ophelia's face in
> millais's painting would be tighter than the space between the
> same two things in, say, warhol -- when one moves from looking
> closely at the surface of a painting to a position further
> away.  or perhaps there is a name for this? --
>
> lisa s.

Mai-Mai Sze, in The Way of Chinese Painting (Vintage, 1959), writes that
"the painter has to be able to experience the rhythm of life to be able
to express it in his work by means of the rhythm of the brush. And it may
be deduced that 'to clarify understanding and increase wisdom' means a
contemplative attention to all things and to all of nature's changes in
order gradually to gain a sense of the permanent and significant. The
brush will then be swift and sure, setting down only the essential
strokes, in some places expressing by 'absence of brush and ink.'
Painters summed up this power in the phrase  i tao pi pu tao  (idea
present, brush may be spared performance). In the style called freehand
or free-sketch painting (hsieh i, write idea), this kind of brushwork is
often carried out by sweeping strokes of a fairly dry brush that leaves
the paper or silk showing within the strokes or by deliberate breaks in
the stroke that yet do not interrupt the continuity of the idea. Such
results are possible only after the painter has reached an advanced stage
of cultivation and technical skill, the stage at which rules and methods
are no longer consciously applied but are implicit in the results. It is
the stage when the  ch'i  of the painteris effortlessly trqansmitted
through the painting" (119).
        This kind of thinking also seems apropos for the form/content
discussion.
Dan Zimmerman
485 Parsonage Road
Edison, NJ  08837
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:35:12 -0400
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From:         shoemakers@COFC.EDU
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Gestalt?

lisa s. writes:

another nameless phenomenon: that space or moment in which the
constituent parts of a painting (blots of paint, lines) resolve
into the 'represented' depiction -- eg, the space btw the brush
strokes and, moving back, the image of ophelia's face in
millais's painting would be tighter than the space between the
same two things in, say, warhol -- when one moves from looking
closely at the surface of a painting to a position further
away.  or perhaps there is a name for this? --




Steve Shoemaker
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:15:51 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
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Hi, Everybody.  I just joined your group a few days ago, shortly after
going broke getting a new computer system that would let me use the
Internet.  I'd intended to sit back and watch your exchanges for at
least a month before venturing any comments of my own.  This discussion
of what to name the gaps in

          she knew the name    a big black winged
          bird on the end of a line    Clothes.

is too insanely just my kind of thing, though, so here I am already.

Such interesting and informative comments have already been made I hate
to end the fun by being unarguably definitive, but . . .  Well, here's
what I think: "caesura" isn't quite the right term because, as at least
one of you pointed out, it can, and most often *does*, refer to pauses
marked not with spaces but with punctuation, or not marked at all.
"Lacuna" has to do with missing material, which isn't the case, it
doesn't seem to me, in the passage above.

For a moment or two I thought maybe my term, "nulletter," might take
care of the problem.  But a nulletter is not a kind of punctuation but
a space that's used where a letter is expected (mostly in visual
poetry).  My solution, then?  Call the gaps "caes     urae."

Okay, okay, I'll give you the proper term: "interior indentation."
Since when?  Since now.  (Note, it can be measured in letter-widths.)

Thank you for your attention.    --Bob G.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 15:15:31 -0800
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Since we're being lexical, the usefulness of a technical term declines in
proportion to its inclusivity. The medial caesura in a line by Dryden (who,
like all critics of the period, talks about it a lot) is very different from
what Duncan or Olson or I do with multiple n-spaces, regardless of the fact
that on occasion the former is indicated by a comma. To illustrate, if, as
was common, there were no comma in the Dryden line, it would make no
difference to the way the line was read or understood--the caesura, tho
typographically invisible, would still be there, because it was part of the
rules of the heroic couplet game. Leave out my extra spacing and you destroy
the rhythm, and sometimes the intent, of the line.

At 11:24 AM 3/28/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Mark Weiss wrote (in part):
>
>> The
>> breath-group usage, with its appearance of typographic randomness, is quite
>> different.
>
>I wonder.  According to _Princeton_ again, caesura is "a rhetorical and
>extrametrical pause or phrasal break within the poetic line...The
>caesura, which is frequently marked by punctuation, corresponds to a
>breath-pause between musical phrases...in modern Eng. the caesura is
>often used as a device of variety, a device whose purpose it is to help
>mitigate metrical rigors by shifting from position to position in
>various lines..."
>
>Rachel
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 18:31:12 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         William Slaughter 
Subject:      Re: name gap
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> on the question of     gaps

Somehow this excerpt, from an essay of mine on Chagall's paintings, seems
relevant to the this thread. You decide.

"'To me, a painting is a large surface with objects represented in a
certain order...for example, the headless woman with a pail of milk who
appears in one of my canvases executed in 1910-11; if I had the idea of
separating her head from her body, it is because I needed an empty space
right at that spot.' Chagall said that about his painting _To Russia,
Asses, and Others_. But he might just as well have said it about other
paintings of his, including _The Poet, or Half-Past Three_. What interests
me in Chagall's explanation is his phrase 'an empty space' and his need for
it.

"Apollinaire--'that gentle Zeus,' Chagall, liking poets, called
him--viewing Chagall's paintings at the same timne, 1910-11, in Paris,
uttered the magic word _surnaturel_ which, translated, meant Chagall had a
'vision of the world,' his own peculiar way of seeing it. But Chagall
himself admitted only to solving a compositional problem when he separated
that woman's head from her body. _He needed an empty space._

"So do I...."  Et cetera.

Perhaps what really matters is the fact of the empty space and not what we
call it. I, for one, am inclined to mind the gap, not name it.

Bill

William Slaughter
_________________
wrs@unf.edu
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 18:51:38 -0400
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         shoemakers@COFC.EDU
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Well, moving away from the search for classical terminology, i've heard
the term "gap syntax" applied to the (very important) internal spacings
in Oppen's lines.  Think i heard it first from Ted Enslin, but i don't
know who might have coined it--whether it was Ted or someone else.  I like
the way that term emphasizes that the gap is part of the articulation of
the line, but i guess there are gaps and then there are gaps.  I've
just been teaching Mallarme's A Throw of the Dice, and the gaps there
wld seem to work on a more purely *spatial* rather than "syntactic"
level.  As also in Apollinaire's calligrams: "...for the bond between
these fragments is no longer the logic of grammar but an ideographic logic
culminating in an order of spatial disposition totally opposed to
discursive juxtaposition..."*

But i think the original example was more "linear"...

steve

*with s
       p
        a
         t
          i
           a
            l
              thanks

         to Jerry & Pierre

         an  tho  lo  gists

         extra
               or di
                     naire!

(but it's too hard to make a *really good* spatial poem on e-mail...)

Steve Shoemaker
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 18:26:33 -0600
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From:         Jocelyn Emerson 
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May we have a break from the Binoche thing on this line--ii.e. is "getting"
here referring to her as a posession? a dog?  a piece of meat?  There are
other forum for male fantasies of this sort.

JE





>When I see some actor getting Binoche in a movie, I get bleu with envy.
>
>
>
>
>George Bowering.
>                                       ,
>2499 West 37th Ave.,
>Vancouver, B.C.,
>Canada  V6M 1P4
>
>fax: 1-604-266-9000
>e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 18:51:23 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Maria Damon 
Subject:      name gap/thread  bare
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>> on the question of     gaps
>
>Somehow this excerpt, from an essay of mine on Antoinette Brioche's taste
>in fashion, seems
>relevant to the this thread. You decide.
>
  "get     it

to    get     her"

thabj yoi bury muck,
maria damon, gentleman
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 18:29:43 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         George Bowering 
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Merrill? Merrill? I shared a cab ride with him a couple years ago, and that
wasnt too bad. But then I heard him read his poems. Good god! All
I-knew-that-was-coming metaphors, and cracker barrel American wisdom, and
thundering or plunking conclusions. So poetical. So tweed. So depandable.




George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 21:32:02 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Wendy Battin 
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On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, George Bowering wrote:
> Merrill? Merrill? I shared a cab ride with him a couple years ago, and that
> wasnt too bad. But then I heard him read his poems. Good god! All
> I-knew-that-was-coming metaphors, and cracker barrel American wisdom, and
> thundering or plunking conclusions. So poetical. So tweed. So depandable.

Oh, but a good soul.  We can't all be burdened by wealth, but he used it
pretty generously & well for poets. And g*d knows we can't all be cool.
Some of us are born nerds.

Wendy of the great but grateful unwashed
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 20:17:58 -0800
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Subject:      Re: Is history dead?
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Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or wetting.


At 06:26 PM 3/28/97 -0600, you wrote:
>May we have a break from the Binoche thing on this line--ii.e. is "getting"
>here referring to her as a posession? a dog?  a piece of meat?  There are
>other forum for male fantasies of this sort.
>
>JE
>
>
>
>
>
>>When I see some actor getting Binoche in a movie, I get bleu with envy.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>George Bowering.
>>                                       ,
>>2499 West 37th Ave.,
>>Vancouver, B.C.,
>>Canada  V6M 1P4
>>
>>fax: 1-604-266-9000
>>e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 23:09:32 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
In-Reply-To:  Message of Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:31:00 -0800 from
              

Dear Lisa & Dan,
  always hoping to stay modestly in the background (sure Henry)... & yet
tonight I was so struck by your two posts - since just a couple days ago
I "went through" everything you've described in the process of making a
poem... it happened like this:  I was sitting on a couch one afternoon,
about 40 feet - quite a long distance - from a print hanging on a wall
in the next room.  Afternoon sunlight (which I'm not usually there to see)
gave the picture an extra radiance.  I don't know what the technical name
for that kind of printing is - but the artist had covered the plate with
ink entirely, then lightly brush-stroked some of it off to make a kind of
negative image, then laid the paper directly on the wet plate - so that the
strokes were actually the GAPS in the ink, & the image was white on black.
Anyway - from a distance of 40 feet, suddenly this print I had looked at
for years COHERED.  The entirety of its design organized itself & I saw
things in it (a landscape) which had been somewhat loose, inchoate, from
a more usual viewing distance.  I don't even know if the coherence was
planned by the artist, but it was there.  Anyway, in the resulting poem
(the Portuguese form of a "glose") dealt with this coherence-in-distance
on a different, symbolic level - the order or meaning that life takes
on when seen through the distance-perspective (often tragic) of long time
(forty YEARS, say).  (aside from the peanut gallery: "i.e. youth is wasted
on youth").  I don't know what the NAME for this coherence-via-gaps is,
either (hasn't stopped me from writing 1,000 words about it...). Proustville.

the poem's too long to send here (4-line text followed by 4 10-line stanzas
with each line of the text as a consecutive refrain to each stanza = glose).
so here's a shorter poem illustrating the specific form of the gap known
as the Renaissance knee-hole gap (incidentally today is a very traditional
gap day - between death & resurrection - Holy Saturday).

51

The struggle of the mind to bring to bear
a pattern in the mystery     the quiet
balance     imaged in these wet
streams     circling the old town everywhere.

Here once came    the young barbarian,
who fell in love     with this integrity of
land     & gently curving waterway;
found kingdom come     a petrine origin,
where dikes     domesticate the ocean -
Atlantis,     very human now     & Dutch.

& here     within this village radius
the labors of a Mondrian     circuitous
uplifted principle     serene     would reach
a dreamy apogee -     & build a world to match.

                        --Amersfoort, 12.7.96

- Henry Gould

(Amersfoort, Netherlands, is the birthplace of Mondrian.  the "young
barbarian" is Peter the Great, who traveled to Holland disguised as
an ordinary sailor, in order to learn shipbuilding.)
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 00:07:33 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Zimmerman 
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henry gould wrote:
>
> Dear Lisa & Dan,
>   always hoping to stay modestly in the background (sure Henry)... & yet
> tonight I was so struck by your two posts - since just a couple days ago
> I "went through" everything you've described in the process of making a
> poem... it happened like this:  I was sitting on a couch one afternoon,
> about 40 feet - quite a long distance - from a print hanging on a wall
> in the next room.  Afternoon sunlight (which I'm not usually there to see)
> gave the picture an extra radiance.  I don't know what the technical name
> for that kind of printing is - but the artist had covered the plate with
> ink entirely, then lightly brush-stroked some of it off to make a kind of
> negative image, then laid the paper directly on the wet plate - so that the
> strokes were actually the GAPS in the ink, & the image was white on black.
> Anyway - from a distance of 40 feet, suddenly this print I had looked at
> for years COHERED.  The entirety of its design organized itself & I saw
> things in it (a landscape) which had been somewhat loose, inchoate, from
> a more usual viewing distance.  I don't even know if the coherence was
> planned by the artist, but it was there.  Anyway, in the resulting poem
> (the Portuguese form of a "glose") dealt with this coherence-in-distance
> on a different, symbolic level - the order or meaning that life takes
> on when seen through the distance-perspective (often tragic) of long time
> (forty YEARS, say).  (aside from the peanut gallery: "i.e. youth is wasted
> on youth").  I don't know what the NAME for this coherence-via-gaps is,
> either (hasn't stopped me from writing 1,000 words about it...). Proustville.
>
> the poem's too long to send here (4-line text followed by 4 10-line stanzas
> with each line of the text as a consecutive refrain to each stanza = glose).
> so here's a shorter poem illustrating the specific form of the gap known
> as the Renaissance knee-hole gap (incidentally today is a very traditional
> gap day - between death & resurrection - Holy Saturday).
>
> 51
>
> The struggle of the mind to bring to bear
> a pattern in the mystery     the quiet
> balance     imaged in these wet
> streams     circling the old town everywhere.
>
> Here once came    the young barbarian,
> who fell in love     with this integrity of
> land     & gently curving waterway;
> found kingdom come     a petrine origin,
> where dikes     domesticate the ocean -
> Atlantis,     very human now     & Dutch.
>
> & here     within this village radius
> the labors of a Mondrian     circuitous
> uplifted principle     serene     would reach
> a dreamy apogee -     & build a world to match.
>
>                         --Amersfoort, 12.7.96
>
> - Henry Gould
>
> (Amersfoort, Netherlands, is the birthplace of Mondrian.  the "young
> barbarian" is Peter the Great, who traveled to Holland disguised as
> an ordinary sailor, in order to learn shipbuilding.)

Henry,
        Sounds like a monoprint. Did the image hold up when you
approached the print to examine it more closely? If so, I'd say it didn't
result as an artifact of distance, but inhered in the work itself [like
bones before an x-ray].
        Beautiful piece on Peter the Great--the gaps work like patches of
landscape too deep to wade through, but mirroring the bright Dutch sky.
[Now THAT may qualify as an artifact of distance!].
        Keep those cards & letters coming!
Dan Zimmerman
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 28 Mar 1997 23:39:14 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         Hugh Steinberg 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
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Caesura strikes me as more of a sonic than visual term.  I like lacuna
(sounds like a new car, the Ford Lacuna) although it seems a bit fancy.  I
tend to use the term "white space" when describing those blanks.

Hugh Steinberg
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 17:25:45 +0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         Schuchat Simon 
Subject:      Re: name gap
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On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote:

> Bob Perelman wrote:
> >
> > A student asked me the following question. I don't know the answer. & w=
ho
> > was the first to use the things?
> >
> > > do you know the technical term for a space in a poem

> >From the OED:
>=20
> c=E6sura
> [a. L. c=E6sura =91cutting, metrical pause=92, f. c=E6s- ppl. stem of c=
=E6dere to
> cut...
>=20
> 1. In Greek and Latin prosody: The division of a metrical foot between
> two words, especially in certain recognized places near the middle of
> the line...
>=20
> 2. In English prosody: A pause or breathing-place about the middle of a
> metrical line, generally indicated by a pause in the sense.
>=20
> Rachel L.
>=20

if Bob's student questioner means the pause, then caesura is right, but I=
=20
think the question has to do with the typographical feature, which is not=
=20
caesura (though the space may be used to indicate a caesura).  maybe it=20
has no name, being characteristic of projective verse and after.  we=20
could name it the "charles" if we like.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 04:48:02 -0500
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From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: name gap
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Poeticos & Poeticas,

have enjoyed the chat     abt. the space
lacuna (no) caesura (perhaps)     whatever
you name it however     it's used one
must goatlike jump across     many rives


On a ussage (rather than nominclative) note, said gap (or a species
of same -- personally I've long considered 'em caesurae), at various
time in his long writing, W.S. Merwin has favored this convention or
device or     whaterer.  Most noteably in the volume *Opening the
Hand* (1983) -- but also sometimes earlier & sometimes later.

To illustrate how it appears in Merwin (or one way it does), here's a
4-line poem from said volume.  But first, another tangent:

Incidentally, there's a correlative sense of caesura in classical
Chinese poetics -- in a 5-word (5-word) line, it's almost always
between the 3rd & 4th words.  In a 7-word line, there's -- I'd say --
a minor caesura after the 2nd word, and major caesura after the 4th
-- or at least this is rather common.  Those are for the classical
[shih or shi] lines most prevalent.  In the more lyrical ci [tzu]
that came into vogue after the Tang dynasty, there was wider metrical
variation -- using, still, strictures of words-per-line (of course),
but the strictures now based on lyrics which might allow (say) both
5-word & 6-word lines in the same poem (unthinkable in shi).

Anyway, in all of these practices, the audible (& grammatically
anchored) sense of the caesura is very strong in that tradition.

In terms of how the poems appeared in print?  Not only were these
caesurae not noted, even the breaks from "line" to "line" were not
noted!  An entire poem (e.g., an "8-line poem" of 5 charaters each)
was most commonly printed (from top of page to bottom) with no gaps
visible at all: 20 characters, zip zip zip.  It's the job of the
*reader* to recognize what sort of poem he/she's reading (though
typically publishers/editors helped by putting all the
5-word-per-line poems in one section, follwed by the 7-word-per-line
pomes -- or sometimes that's done).  But in classical reaading
practice, it's also common for the reader to physically mark the book
(with, say, a vermillion pen, making a little circle) wherever the
line breaks occur -- and sometimes also, the same mark is used
indiscriminantly for the gap of the innerlinear break (caesura).

End of Chinese tangent, back to Merwin (poem follows).

best,
d.i.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 W. S. Merwin:

 TIDAL LAGOON

 From the edge of the bare reef      in the afternoon
 children who can't swim      fling themselves forward calling
 and disappear for a moment      in the long mirror
 that contains the reflections      of the mountains


 .
 .....
 ............
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\
   >    david   raphael   israel    <
   >>      washington  d.c.      <<
 |  davidi@wizard.net      (home)
 |  disrael@skgf.com      (office)
 =========================
 |   thy centuries follow each other
 |   perfecting a small wild flower
 |                                       (Tagore)
 //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\/////
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 05:05:43 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: name gap / chinese example
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

A little erratum-note --

I wrote:

> Incidentally, there's a correlative sense of caesura in classical
> Chinese poetics -- in a 5-word (5-word) line, it's almost always
> between the 3rd & 4th words.

but *meant* to write:  in a 5-word (5-syllable) line . . .

well now that I'm here, I shd. also illustrate same from renderings
of Chinese.  These two lines appear as the conclusion to a rather
bitter eight-line poem by an empoverished medieval, a certain Huang
Jingren [or, in the older system:  Hunag Ching-Jen] (1749-83).

A few of this chap's poems appear in the anthology *Sunflower
Splendor* (but this is my own rendering).  These are 7-word lines
(which break into 2 / 2 / 3 lines; -- in English, each Chinese word
tends to generate a metrical foot).  The poet was (one might
interpret it) complaining abt. the vagaries of fate, stupidities of
humankind, and his own extreme poverty.  The poem finds this
memorable conclusion:


 perhaps it is     for poetry-books    that grief turns into sight
 birds in spring    bugs in autumn    naturally make their sound


d.i.
 .
 .....
 ............
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\
   >    david   raphael   israel    <
   >>      washington  d.c.      <<
 |  davidi@wizard.net      (home)
 |  disrael@skgf.com      (office)
 =========================
 |   thy centuries follow each other
 |   perfecting a small wild flower
 |                                       (Tagore)
 //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\/////
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 08:37:47 +0000
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Pierre Joris 
Subject:      Re: name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
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re caesura -- more than a metrical or breath device, in H�lderlin, the
caesura becomes the breathless aporia, the suspension around which the
line, the poem organizes itself. Paul Celan, a close reader of
H�lderlin, talks of this in a late poem:

I DRINK WINE from two glasses
and harrow
the King's caesura
like that other
does Pindar,

God turns in the tuning fork
as one of the small
just ones,

from the lottery drum falls
our doit.



A number of essays in the Celan-Sekundarliteratur deal with this, but I
haven't got the time right now to dig'em out.  May your eggs be boiled
hard & painted brightly! -- Pierre

--
=========================================
pierre joris   6 madison place   albany ny 12202
tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu
http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything that allows men to become rooted, through
values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in
_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which
constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is,
[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality
and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose
it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot
==========================================
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 09:34:23 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Zimmerman 
Subject:      Re: name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Pierre Joris wrote:
>
> re caesura -- more than a metrical or breath device, in H�lderlin, the
> caesura becomes the breathless aporia, the suspension around which the
> line, the poem organizes itself. Paul Celan, a close reader of
> H�lderlin, talks of this in a late poem:
>
> I DRINK WINE from two glasses
> and harrow
> the King's caesura
> like that other
> does Pindar,
>
> God turns in the tuning fork
> as one of the small
> just ones,
>
> from the lottery drum falls
> our doit.
>
> A number of essays in the Celan-Sekundarliteratur deal with this, but I
> haven't got the time right now to dig'em out.  May your eggs be boiled
> hard & painted brightly! -- Pierre
>
> --
> =========================================
> pierre joris   6 madison place   albany ny 12202
> tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu
> http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Everything that allows men to become rooted, through
> values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in
> _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which
> constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is,
> [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality
> and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose
> it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot
> ==========================================

Perhaps, too, gaps call attention to the lost moments in which
connections and disconnections mysteriously occur: not necessarily the
X-Files abductees' stopped wristwatches, but what Paul Virilio explores
in The Aesthetics of Disappearance:

        THE LAPSE OCCURS FREQUENTLY AT BREAK-
        fast and the cup dropped and overturned on the table
        is its well-known consequence. The absence lasts a
        few seconds; its beginnings and its end are sudden.
        The senses function, but are nevertheless closed to
        external impressions. The return being just as sud-
        den as the departure, the arrested word and action
        are picked up again where they have been interrupted.
        Conscious time comes together again automatically,
        forming a continuous time without apparent breaks.
        For these absences, which can be quite numerous--
        hundreds every day most often pass completely un-
        noticed by others around--we'll be using the word
        "picnolepsy" (from the Greek, picnos: frequent).
        However, for the picnoleptic, nothing really has hap-
        pened, the missing time never existed. At each crisis,
        without realizing it, a little of his or her life simply
        escaped. (9-10)

--not that the gaps induce these petit-petits mal, but that they propose
what Blake calls "a moment in each day which Satan cannot find," a moment
brief as the "pulsation of an artery." I suppose critics might say such
gaps "problemmatize" the connections assumed to exist between adjacent
elements by separating them, though I'd rather think of it as
"potentiating" those connections, much as the asymmetry integral to
Japanese flower arrangement or traced upon the faces of Levi-Strauss'
Caduveo woman [in Structural Anthropology]. As someone said earlier in
this thread, Gestalt. Or a way to achieve ostranenie, the
"defamiliarization" of the world which the Russian formalists saw as a
central function of art [here, as an 'opening of the center'].
        And thanks for the H�lderlin!

Dan Zimmerman
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 09:35:30 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Zimmerman 
Subject:      Re: name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Pierre Joris wrote:
>
> re caesura -- more than a metrical or breath device, in H�lderlin, the
> caesura becomes the breathless aporia, the suspension around which the
> line, the poem organizes itself. Paul Celan, a close reader of
> H�lderlin, talks of this in a late poem:
>
> I DRINK WINE from two glasses
> and harrow
> the King's caesura
> like that other
> does Pindar,
>
> God turns in the tuning fork
> as one of the small
> just ones,
>
> from the lottery drum falls
> our doit.
>
> A number of essays in the Celan-Sekundarliteratur deal with this, but I
> haven't got the time right now to dig'em out.  May your eggs be boiled
> hard & painted brightly! -- Pierre
>
> --
> =========================================
> pierre joris   6 madison place   albany ny 12202
> tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu
> http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Everything that allows men to become rooted, through
> values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in
> _one_ language, is the principle of alienation which
> constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is,
> [...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality
> and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose
> it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot
> ==========================================

Sorry, Pierre: thanks for the Celan!
Dan
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 10:59:26 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
Subject:      Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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On reflection, I've concluded that "caesura" is right for any kind of
pause occurring in a line of poetry, except at its end, including one
that consists of two or more spaces.  But "caesura" is too general, so
here is my taxonomy:

                              CAESURAE

      Implicit Caesurae              Explicit Caesurae

                         Punctuation-Breaks    Internal Indentation

I put no categories under "Implicit Caesurae" since there seems to be
only one kind of unmarked caesura.  The two kinds of explicit caesurae
should be self-evident.  Note my change of terminology from "interior
indentation" to "internal indentation"--to parallel "internal rhyme."

Now back to the real excitement here: the discussions, with terrific
examples, of the VALUE rather than the NAME of these entities.  --Bob G
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 09:01:27 -0700
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Douglas Barbour 
Subject:      Re: bpNichol & all that he might mean, even politically
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Kent Johnson wondered if  no one going to step up and say something decent
about bpNichol, given what appeared to be Louis Cabris's attack. First: he
needs no defense, & is a major figure in Canadian poetry only to some.
Others never knew, or still dont. I find it interesting than some yuonger
writers want to find fault with bp, but what the hell, that's what the
young do. I would want to argue that there are lots of 'politics' in _The
Martyrology_, but then what do we mean by 'politics' & dont we all tend to
agree that there can be no art without it/them? Anyway, I'm one of those
academics who has written on bp, so whatever I say cant really count.
Perhaps.
Let's just say that for those who cared, those who knew him, the loss
continues to hurt. And the poems remain to be read & reread. Happily.

 =============================================================================
Douglas Barbour                         the precision of openness
Department of English                   is not a vagueness

University of Alberta                   it is an accumulation
Edmonton  Alberta  T6G  2E5             cumulous
(403) 492 2181  FAX:(403) 492 8142                      bpNichol
H: 436 3320
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:43:37 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Thomas Bell 
Subject:      sound
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  >Steve McCaffery's approach to sound
>poetry seems far more concerned with the social, because in both his early
>and late writing on sound poetry he centres on sound as the site for
>investigation of the subject of socio-linguistic relations.
>Peter Jaeger
Don't really want to single this out, but I wonder if there is any need
for what follows "centres on sound"?  Does not one abandon poetry in the
"absence of all inner need" - Beckett?

or the writer must stay away from the "Big Words...the aim of writing
being not to tell but to represent".  Bachmann

tom bell
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:06:09 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Maria Damon 
Subject:      Re: Is history dead?
In-Reply-To:  <199703290417.UAA06212@iceland.it.earthlink.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

but certainly not wedding.

At 8:17 PM -0800 3/28/97, Mark Weiss wrote:
>Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or wetting.
>
>
>At 06:26 PM 3/28/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>May we have a break from the Binoche thing on this line--ii.e. is "getting"
>>here referring to her as a posession? a dog?  a piece of meat?  There are
>>other forum for male fantasies of this sort.
>>
>>JE
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>When I see some actor getting Binoche in a movie, I get bleu with envy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>George Bowering.
>>>                                       ,
>>>2499 West 37th Ave.,
>>>Vancouver, B.C.,
>>>Canada  V6M 1P4
>>>
>>>fax: 1-604-266-9000
>>>e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
>>
>>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:14:12 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grotjohn 
Subject:      Re: name gap
Mime-Version: 1.0
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I'm sorry.  I couldn't help myself.


have a          break from the Bin      oche thing on
        this            line


--
Bob Grotjohn
Assistant Professor of English
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, VA 24401

540/887-7054
bgrotjoh@cit.mbc.edu
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:12:54 EST5EDT
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         LYNES- KATHERINE 
Organization: Rutgers University English Dept.
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)

i believe that brenda hillman [ in a book of poetry the name of which
i have momentarily forgotten and don't have in front of me -- i think
it is in _death tractates_ ]  uses astericks which are, according to her when she
read  the poems to a class at portland state, were to indicate significant
pauses... longer than a "natural breath" silences?  places of contemplation?
 [the latter being my interpretation  of what she meant....].

kl


    Mark Weiss wrote:


> If there's an answer to Perelman's question it would be handy to know. I'm
> also cuious to find other examples of the unnamed in general.
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:44:04 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Christina Fairbank Chirot 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
Comments: To: Bob Grumman 
In-Reply-To:  <333D3C5E.4EEF@nut-n-but.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

        Many thanks to Bob Grumman for his precise and useful notes.

        Though expanding by quite a bit on Bob Grumman's noting
caesura" as occuring in a line of poetry--

        I've often thought of it in terms of film (the suturing of
editing in relation to the gaps of montage for example)--or of the use of
spaces in the work of Paul Metcalf--the space being used as visual, sound
and "thought" pause--that is--making room--"making space"--for the
reader/listener--to "fill in the gaps"--"make the leap"--from one mass of
materials to another--or among a constellation of these--

        the caesura then works dynamically--rather than marking an arrest--

        Paul Virilio has written quite interestingly of an  aspect of this
in his books Lost Dimenison and The Aesthetics of Disappearance--Virilio
notes what he calls the "picnoleptic interruption"--similar to an
epileptic seizure--or the moment just preceding it--a pause, a stillness
and intense awarenes--then a gap in consciousness--and no memory of what
moved one from one place to the next, or from one moment in time to the
next--

        for Virilio--it is in these moments--that what is unavailable to
memory--is introduced--

        (he makes note of Pascal:  "It is not the elements which are new,
but the order of their arrangement".  And Metcalf notes Poe, who
countered the Romantic concept of Originality with the idea of taking
elements and combining them to create an effect--)

        in a film or in Metcalf's works--it's in the spaces in
between--that the dynamism "takes place" which makes the movements among
materials--generate that which is previously unavailable to memory--

        this may be to extend the strict definition of Bob Grumman's
byond the line of poetry--
        yet the ways in which a line of poetry functions--in using
notation as marks, letters spaces in spatial and temporal arrangements--
do seem to indicate a movement outward--a form of triangulation as it
were--into spatial and temporarl arrangments going on--all
around--
        "caesura" as an opening in time & space through which rush . . .

in and out . . . that which is unavailable to memory--

        "caesura" then--the Achilles heel of Caesars . . . ?

Mayakovsky:

                Four words,
                heavy as a blow:
                " . . . unto Caesar . . . unto God . . . "


a lot of pauses there--
to feel those blows raining down  . . .
and thinking about getting out from under . . .

--dave baptiste chirot



On Sat, 29 Mar 1997, Bob Grumman wrote:

> On reflection, I've concluded that "caesura" is right for any kind of
> pause occurring in a line of poetry, except at its end, including one
> that consists of two or more spaces.  But "caesura" is too general, so
> here is my taxonomy:
>
>                               CAESURAE
>
>       Implicit Caesurae              Explicit Caesurae
>
>                          Punctuation-Breaks    Internal Indentation
>
> I put no categories under "Implicit Caesurae" since there seems to be
> only one kind of unmarked caesura.  The two kinds of explicit caesurae
> should be self-evident.  Note my change of terminology from "interior
> indentation" to "internal indentation"--to parallel "internal rhyme."
>
> Now back to the real excitement here: the discussions, with terrific
> examples, of the VALUE rather than the NAME of these entities.  --Bob G
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:58:08 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Steven Marks 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Faulkner, when asked about his long sentences, said something to the
effect that he wanted to put all of history between a capital and a
period. Equally fascinating to me is what goes on between the period and
the capital. And things like the space between being asleep and being
awake, between day and twilight, twilight and night, night and morning,
between liquid and gas, solid and liquid and so on....

                                                and so on...

St  even

__________________________________________________
   Steven Marks

   http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html
__________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:53:38 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Jocelyn Emerson 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
In-Reply-To:  <4D2B2404AE9@fas-english.rutgers.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Her new book Loose Sugar just out from Weslyan makes more extensive "use"
of such breaks dissjunctures, etc.  She's reading here in Iowa City next
week; if anyone's interested in how she reads from this, i can make some
notes on line to wit .

JE




>i believe that brenda hillman [ in a book of poetry the name of which
>i have momentarily forgotten and don't have in front of me -- i think
>it is in _death tractates_ ]  uses astericks which are, according to her
>when she
>read  the poems to a class at portland state, were to indicate significant
>pauses... longer than a "natural breath" silences?  places of contemplation?
> [the latter being my interpretation  of what she meant....].
>
>kl
>
>
>    Mark Weiss wrote:
>
>
>> If there's an answer to Perelman's question it would be handy to know. I'm
>> also cuious to find other examples of the unnamed in general.
>>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:06:47 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Weiss 
Subject:      Re: Is history dead?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Or perhaps Bowering confused Binoche with brioche?

At 02:06 PM 3/29/97 -0600, you wrote:
>but certainly not wedding.
>
>At 8:17 PM -0800 3/28/97, Mark Weiss wrote:
>>Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or wetting.
>>
>>
>>At 06:26 PM 3/28/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>>May we have a break from the Binoche thing on this line--ii.e. is "getting"
>>>here referring to her as a posession? a dog?  a piece of meat?  There are
>>>other forum for male fantasies of this sort.
>>>
>>>JE
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>When I see some actor getting Binoche in a movie, I get bleu with envy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>George Bowering.
>>>>                                       ,
>>>>2499 West 37th Ave.,
>>>>Vancouver, B.C.,
>>>>Canada  V6M 1P4
>>>>
>>>>fax: 1-604-266-9000
>>>>e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
>>>
>>>
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 15:07:54 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Craig Douglas Dworkin 
Subject:      terminological gaps
In-Reply-To:  <199703290505.VAA03551@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Greetings All:

There seem to be plenty of terms already assembled, but for what it's
worth, Denise Levertov used to call those intra-linear spaces
"articulations,"  or more broadly "articulated lines" (a term implicit in
the Duncan quote already offered); as with the line-break, she had a very
precise measure for them (1/2 the pause given to a comma, or something
like that).

--Craig Dworkin
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 20:26:35 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Nuyopoman@AOL.COM
Subject:      Mouth Almighty Opens Wide, Says "Awe"

March 29, 1997
POETS IN CYBERSPACE!
        Mouth Almighty Records Launches Website
        Come Sit for a Spell:
http://www.mouthalmighty.com


        Mouth Almighty Records, the poetry/spoken word label affiliated with Mercury
Records, has launched its own website.  The site's address is
http://www.mouthalmighty.com.
        "Our mission has always been to put the world's newest media at the service
of the world's oldest artform," says Mouth Almighty honcho Bob Holman.  "I'm
very proud of our website.  It's got the juice and immediacy of poetry itself
and I think it'll help us reach poetry lovers everywhere -- as well as all
the people who don't know yet that they love poetry."
        The site, which will be updated weekly, includes bios of the Mouth
Almighty's artists (including Wammo, Allen Ginsberg, Michele Serros, and
Sekou Sundiata), audio and video downloads of the CDs themselves (including
the soundtrack to "The United States of Poetry" and "Flippin' the Script:
 Rap Meets Poetry"), a "secret poem" contest, and links around the globe to
simpatico websites, defined by Holman as the sites of "performance poets who
make you think while you dance and dance while you think."  Pages will be
added shortly for the Last Poets and Maggie Estep, both of whom have albums
coming shortly.  (The Last Poets on April 15, Maggie on July 1.)
        The Mouth Almighty web site was produced by Bob and Amy Trachtenberg of
Naked Ear Productions and designed by Deck Reeks and Lisa Daniels for
Clickstream, Inc.
        For more information, please call Bob Holman at 212 645 0061 -- or drop him
a line at work at the Mouth branch office in cyperspace:
 bob@mouthalmighty.com.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 12:30:21 +0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Schuchat Simon 
Subject:      Killian/Spicer
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I just want to say that Kevin Killian's piece "Faggot Vomit: Jack Spicer
vs. 'the Maidens'" in the most recent issue of the Poetry Project
newsletter is great.

When will the Spicer bio be available?
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 00:20:38 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Gwyn McVay 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

St      even,

In her introduction to the City Lights edition of Kerouac's /Scripture of
the Golden Sutra/, Anne Waldman sez,

        Sanskrit poetics speaks of /Sandhyabasha/ or
        twilight speech, which is an "upside-down"
        language harboring contradictions and
        paradoxes.

I'd love to find out her source on this--it reminds me of the Sioux
(please correct me if I've misattributed this) /heyoka/, thunder-clown,
who lived, spoke, and acted backwards--
Gwyn
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 22:39:39 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche
In-Reply-To:  <199703290417.UAA06212@iceland.it.earthlink.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or wetting.


No no. I was using "Binoche" as an adjective. "Getting Binoche" means
acting like the lead in "Bleu". That is. walking around with no expression
on one's face, but rtelying on the music and lighting to convey one's inner
turmoil.




George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 23:17:41 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         nico vassilakis 
Subject:      Re: name gap
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

                                    r e:namegapageman:e r
                                    re :namegapageman: er
                                    re: namegapageman :er
                                    re:namegapage ma n:er
                                    re:na megapage man:er
                                    re:namega pageman :er
                                    re:name gapag eman:er
                                    re:nameg a pageman:er
                                    re:namega p ageman:er
                                    re:namegap ageman :er
                                    re:namegapa geman: er
                                    re:namegapag eman:e r
                                    re:namega page man:er
                                    re:namegapagem an:e r
                                    re:namegapa gem an:er
                                    re:namegapage man :er
                                    re:namegapageman:  er
                                    re:namegapageman  :er
                                    re:namegapagema   :er
                                    re:namegapagem     er
                                    re:namegapag        r
                                    re:name           :er
                                    re:na            n:er
                                    re:n            an:er
                                    re:            man:er
                                    re:nam        eman:er
                                    re:na        geman:er
                                    re:nam      ageman:er
                                    re:name    pageman:er
                                    re:namega  pageman:er
                                    re:namegap  ageman:er
                                    renamegapag e  man:er
                                    re:namegapag  eman:er
                                    re:name gap ageman:er
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 02:52:51 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Alan Jen Sondheim 
Subject:      (fwd)(long)(Jennifer's gap)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

     helpe min se halga dryhten       THu gesceope heofon und eorTHan



I climb 1 steps to heaven
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I climb 41592 steps to heaven
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 07:18:45 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

George Bowering alleges:

> >Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or
> >wetting.
>
> No no. I was using "Binoche" as an adjective. "Getting Binoche"
> means acting like the lead in "Bleu". That is. walking around with
> no expression on one's face, but rtelying on the music and lighting
> to convey one's inner turmoil.

If this is legit, it reminds a bit of our honorable List-meister's
contribution to the 17-poets-marathon (assoc. w/ the MLA conference
in DC, few months ago) at the 4 Seasons Hotel --

Mr. Bernstein recited (well, sang) a work the memorable lyric refrain
whereof was:

>Don't Sokohl me! . . .
or
>So don't Sokohl me!

Sorry I can't recite chapter & verse anent the literary antecedents
-- I think he mentioned the work of Danny Kaye.  At the time, I
didn't get it -- the name Sokohl didn't happen to ring a bell.  But
then somehow or other, it dawned on me (poss. when browsing thru the
New York Rev. of Books or something) that Sokohl was the chap who'd
pulled that lit-crit caper (submitting a pseudo-postmod piece to a
journal that was published as if serious . . . )

So now we have

>getting Binoche
and
>don't Sokohl

is this just the beginning?

d.i.

.
,
.......,
1..................,
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...'
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....'
///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...'
.David..........Raphael..........Israel...'

[&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com]
{telephonic.location.202/882-1179}
| "...honk if you believe in geese" |
\\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..'
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 08:26:26 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      as for Sandhyabasha
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Poetas,

so happens I've lately joined an Indology listproc [similar to
listserv].  This is mainly comprised of non-nonsense specialists, so
one must mind one's Ps & Qs a bit, but anyway so far they've been
nice to amateur-me -- so I presumed to forward to that list Gwyn's
interesting question.  I also provided -- in said forwarding -- what
amounts to a bit of annotation anent the Sandhyabasha question --
though I suspect some more detailed & particular stuff'll surface
pretty soon.  But I thought even this bit might interest you'all a
bit, ergo attaching same.  I'll not deluge Poetics w/ everything that
might appear on Indology re: Sandhyabasha, but will perhaps forward
one or two things if they look to be of interest here.  Will see.

yours truly,
d.i.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sun, 30 Mar 1997 14:10:45 BST
Reply-to:      indology@liverpool.ac.uk
From:          "David R. Israel" 
To:            Members of the list 
Subject:       "Sandhyabasha"

Respected Indologists --

on the Poetics listserv (based at Univ. of Buffalo, and an active hub
for avant-chitchat), poet Gwyn McVay posted this inquiry:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date:          Sun, 30 Mar 1997 00:20:38 -0500
From:          Gwyn McVay 
Subject:       Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation" To:
          POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

In her introduction to the City Lights edition of Kerouac's /Scripture
of the Golden Sutra/, Anne Waldman sez,

        Sanskrit poetics speaks of /Sandhyabasha/ or
        twilight speech, which is an "upside-down"
        language harboring contradictions and
        paradoxes.

I'd love to find out her source on this--it reminds me of the Sioux
(please correct me if I've misattributed this) /heyoka/,
thunder-clown, who lived, spoke, and acted backwards-- Gwyn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the mentioned device in Sanskrit poetics is too familiar to
merit special Indology discussion -- but I wonder if someone might
care to present a few useful references abt. this?

[I myself recall reading (maybe 15-20 years ago) an essay on the topic
by an Indologist (somehow I think the essay-book was published in
USSR, oddly) -- but I forget the bloke's name or other particulars.
I'd picked up the vol., so happens, at Shambhala Books in Berkeley;
the subject was indeed an interesting one, in terms of poetics.  As I
recall, the sort of backwards-speech in question (a form of irony) was
traced back quite far -- I think to the Ramayana -- though naturally
was more prevalent in far-subsequent court poetry & such.  But I' m
speaking here from a too-vague recollection of that essay.]

ALSO, while on this Sanskrit poetics topic:  is there, by chance, any
manner of critical consensus regarding the lovely-looking translation
of Sanskrit poetry verses, in which American poet W.S. Merwin was
involved, entitled *The Peacock's Egg* (published by the erstwhile
North Point Press), I wonder?  Merwin collaborated w/ that
psycholigist chap Massoud (who managed, later, to get into some fine
controversies, I've noted -- w/ the Freud Archives, et seq.)

thanks / best,
d.i.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 11:09:09 -0500
Reply-To:     Steven Marks 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Steven Marks 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Sun, 30 Mar 1997, Gwyn McVay wrote:

This sounds very interesting. I hope that David Israel can get us some
more info on this.

>         Sanskrit poetics speaks of /Sandhyabasha/ or
>         twilight speech, which is an "upside-down"
>         language harboring contradictions and
>         paradoxes.
>
> (please correct me if I've misattributed this) /heyoka/, thunder-clown,
> who lived, spoke, and acted backwards--

I've never heard of this term. I remember learning about secret societies
such as the "contraries" who would say good-bye when you met them and
hello when they left you. (Or the Native American equivalents.) There's a
scene in _Little Big Man_ where the man whose life was saved by Dustin
Hoffman's character demonstrates this behavior. As I remember from a
college class on N. Am. Indians, these societies were composed of the
bravest of the brave. It certainly must have been difficult to remember
to do everything backward.

best,
St even

P.S. alan jen sondheim: I get the mathematical engine (add the odd numbers
to the preceding term beginning with 11) but not the one for the letters.
Looks like maybe we should be reading some groups of letters forward and
some backwards.

P.P.S. Nico V. -- enjoyed your evolving palindrome.

__________________________________________________
   Steven Marks

   http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html
__________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 11:29:17 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      (Fwd) Job Opportunity (U. Manitoba)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

1st:  thanks, St even, for interest in twilight speech (which, for
starters, has been corrected to sandhya bhasa (from "sandhyabasha"
cited by Gwyn from Ann W.'s preface to Jack K.) --

my impression of the term is that it was a rather broad Sanskrit
poetics techno-term for "irony" or "ironic utterance" -- not
necessarily backwards in the literal ways you mention.  (Have gotten
one reply so far, referencing unorthodox Sakta traditions of Tamil
Nadu . . . will see what'all else turns up.)

Meanwhile, on another topic, there's a job out there for one who's
(a) an expert in women's studies / humanities, and (b) interested in
living in Manitoba.  That info follows.

best, d.i.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Tue, 25 Mar 1997 22:40:24 GMT
Reply-to:      indology@liverpool.ac.uk
From:          Hueckstedt 
To:            Members of the list 
Subject:       Job Opportunity

List Members:
There is a job opportunity here at the University of Manitoba, but it
is not specifically for South Asianists. It is for people in women's
studies and the humanities. Therefore, South Asianists who have
expertise in those areas would probably be able to apply. A copy of
the advertisement is at this web site:
  http://www.umanitoba.ca/programs/womans_studies/job.html

The application deadline is 30 April.

This is a tenure-track, full-time position.

I know nothing more about this position than I have already described
above. Questions about it should be directed to the Women's Studies
Program at the University of Manitoba.

Best,
Bob Hueckstedt

Robert A. Hueckstedt, Associate Professor of Indic Languages
Asian Studies Centre, 328 Fletcher Argue, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/asian_studies
fax 1 204-261-4483 phones 1 204-474-8964, 1 204-488-4797
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 09:40:45 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Weiss 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Oh--getting as in "getting a cold"

At 10:39 PM 3/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
>>Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or wetting.
>
>
>No no. I was using "Binoche" as an adjective. "Getting Binoche" means
>acting like the lead in "Bleu". That is. walking around with no expression
>on one's face, but rtelying on the music and lighting to convey one's inner
>turmoil.
>
>
>
>
>George Bowering.
>                                       ,
>2499 West 37th Ave.,
>Vancouver, B.C.,
>Canada  V6M 1P4
>
>fax: 1-604-266-9000
>e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 09:45:48 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Weiss 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Actually, Bernstein didn't invent this piece of grammar. Think of name-verbs
like "Boycott."

At 07:18 AM 3/30/97 -0500, you wrote:
>George Bowering alleges:
>
>> >Getting may have been a typo for for the more correct bedding or
>> >wetting.
>>
>> No no. I was using "Binoche" as an adjective. "Getting Binoche"
>> means acting like the lead in "Bleu". That is. walking around with
>> no expression on one's face, but rtelying on the music and lighting
>> to convey one's inner turmoil.
>
>If this is legit, it reminds a bit of our honorable List-meister's
>contribution to the 17-poets-marathon (assoc. w/ the MLA conference
>in DC, few months ago) at the 4 Seasons Hotel --
>
>Mr. Bernstein recited (well, sang) a work the memorable lyric refrain
>whereof was:
>
>>Don't Sokohl me! . . .
>or
>>So don't Sokohl me!
>
>Sorry I can't recite chapter & verse anent the literary antecedents
>-- I think he mentioned the work of Danny Kaye.  At the time, I
>didn't get it -- the name Sokohl didn't happen to ring a bell.  But
>then somehow or other, it dawned on me (poss. when browsing thru the
>New York Rev. of Books or something) that Sokohl was the chap who'd
>pulled that lit-crit caper (submitting a pseudo-postmod piece to a
>journal that was published as if serious . . . )
>
>So now we have
>
>>getting Binoche
>and
>>don't Sokohl
>
>is this just the beginning?
>
>d.i.
>
>.
>,
>.......,
>1..................,
>\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\0/\/////////////////////...'
>.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o....'
>///\\\\\\/////////\/\\\o///\/\\\\\\\\\//////\\\...'
>.David..........Raphael..........Israel...'
>
>[&/or.office......disrael@skgf.com]
>{telephonic.location.202/882-1179}
>| "...honk if you believe in geese" |
>\\\//////\\\\\\\\\/\///&\\\/\/////////\\\\\\///..'
>
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 13:35:43 +0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bil Brown 
Subject:      Re: Mouth Almighty Opens Wide, Says "Awe"
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hey Bob,

Geat to hear it. Do me a favor and see if you can record Brenda Coultas. I
KNOW you know who she is & I know YOU know her work. Brenda's modesty needs
to be supplimented by exposure!! Her wit/intellegence treated with kindness
and nurturing.

***

On a side note:
The VOX Festival down here in Louisville seems to be chugging along. I'm a
little burnt around the edges... but poetic fire burns pure. If you could
take the below message and send it on some of your email lists I would
greatly appreciate it!!!

Cheers,

Bil Brown

********For IMMEDIATE RELEASE************
A little something something for you all...

The First Annual VOX Festival: April 25-27 1997

Louisville's first Poetics and Performance Conference will bring Oral
Performance from some of the key Spoken Word and performance artists from
around the country to the Louisville Metropolitan area, for three days of
panel discussions, workshops,demonstrations and music, featuring some of
the most controversial and prolific of Performing Spoken Artists in
America.

INCLUDING:
Nicole Blackman
Brenda Coultas
Anne Elliott
Anne Waldman
Pasq Wilson
Todd Colby
and others...

REGISTRATION RATES & DEADLINES:
Postmarked by March 25th, 1997 (Extended Deadline April 15th)
$15 postage paid all event pass
$25 event pass after April 15th
Check & Money Order Only, Please
Make Check out to VOX Festival
Write for more info on registration to:

VOX Festival
c/o The Kentucky Writers Coalition
Clifton Center
2117 Payne Street Suite 304-B
Louisville, KY 40206

Call The VOX Voice-Mail HOTLINE
(502) 583-5783
or Email bil@orca.sitesonthe.net
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 13:47:51 +0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bil Brown 
Subject:      Re: Mouth Almighty Opens Wide, Says "Awe"
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Sorry to send the last mssg to the list.. it was personal to BOB. I ment no
harm and was confused. Forgive.

(But, gee I sure do HOPE Bob gets it...)

Bil Brown
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 14:52:47 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: sandhyabhasha
Comments: To: Bruce.Sullivan@nau.edu
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Bruce --

thanks much for the corrective note.  I do recall reading (as
mentioned) an interesting essay from an Indologist dealing with
certain (and various) specific types of poetical irony in Sanskrit.
One early citation, I think, may have involved the well-known verse
from Ramayana, wherein Valmiki ponders with wonderment how out of
soka [sorrow] came sloka [verse] (though if this was in fact cited in
the context of the development of irony in Skt. poetics, I'm afraid I
lose the particulars of exactly why it was felt to be relevant)
Many other later references included not only primary sources (esp.
from court poetry or dramatic works), but also what seemed to be a
rather sophisticated theory-context from the medieval grammarians &
suchlike.  In any event, seeing the quotation with reference to
"twilight language" from Waldman, I mistakenly conflated the latter
term with this other (quite different) Skt. subject-matter.

The post from Ganesan with references to Tamil Siddha tradition did
put me on the alert that I had likely confused these disperate ideas;
-- and now you've quite clarified the matter.  When thus conversing
w/ experts, perhaps I shd. make a greater modicum of effort to check
my initial notions; -- anyway, again thanks for setting this right.

best,
d.i.

> From:          Bruce.Sullivan@nau.edu
> Date:          Sun, 30 Mar 1997 09:50:28 -0700 (MST)
> Subject:       sandhyabhasha
> To:            davidi@wizard.net

> David:
>
> Masson was a fine Sanskrit scholar who turned his attn. to
> psychanalysis.
>
> "Sandhya-bhasha" (sa.mdhyaa-bhaa.syaa) has little to do with irony
> or "upside-down" language, despite the quote from Anne Waldman.
> Sanskrit poetics was not concerned with this term or mode of
> expression.  It refers to the use of language to conceal meaning
> from non-initiates, and is most often applied to describe texts of
> Tantric traditions.  Since some Tantric traditions were/are esoteric
> and sought to transmit teachings only to those properly initiated,
> coded language was used, such that sun = male, moon = female, or
> whatever.  Any discussion of Tantra, especially Hindu, will treat
> this phemonenon, sometimes also called "intentional language."
>
>
> Bruce M. Sullivan
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 15:01:34 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Peter Jaeger 
Subject:      Re: sound, McCaffery
Comments: To: Thomas Bell 
In-Reply-To:  <199703291943.OAA01939@SMTP.USIT.NET>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

>   >Steve McCaffery's approach to sound
> >poetry seems far more concerned with the social, because in both his early
> >and late writing on sound poetry he centres on sound as the site for
> >investigation of the subject of socio-linguistic relations.
> > Peter Jaeger

> Don't really want to single this out, but I wonder if there is any need
> for what follows "centres on sound"?

Tom,

I was trying to point out that Steve McCaffery's *theorization* of sound
poetry explicitly considers the social.  In the 1978 catalogue for the
11th international sound peotry festival, he wrote that sound poetry is
opposed to all social pre-conditioning.  Then in the mid 80s he criticized
some sound poetry for privileging lexical meaning by exempting it
altogeher...this shift might owe something to his intrest in Bataille,
because a complete exemption of lexical meaning would be restrictive, and
so contrary to Steve's desire for simultaneous production and loss...a
desire that foregrounds the social production of meaning

Peter
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 15:24:59 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl / gotta Boycott
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Quoth Mark Weiss --

> Actually, Bernstein didn't invent this piece of grammar. Think of
> name-verbs like "Boycott."

no, not to suggest he invented the grammatical principle; but he did
apply it (as did, we read, Mr. Bowering).  My post was by way of
pointing to another (i.e., Bernstein's) instance of the principle
(and, for that matter, wondering abt. what'all further cases might be
floating around the universe).  Didn't know about Mr. [?] Boycott,
but even this late in the game, always good to get up to speed.

best, d.i.

> >So now we have
> >
> >>getting Binoche
> >and
> >>don't Sokohl
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 13:53:49 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      alan jen sondheim's poem
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heaven 2 steps 12 climb I  (db.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 14:04:12 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Dan Raphael Dlugonski 
Subject:      Re: NEA/ NPM (national poetry month/ etc
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NEA-- biting the hand the feeds us (or a small percentage of us).
some crumbs are better than
no food at all.
how anything can used to sow disruption.
fighting over the scraps of a continually shrinking pie.

the main censorship we're fighting is economic, the mass markets,
controlling the tastes tfor safety and for releasing steam, to drift us into
fantasy and self-hatred and internal competition.

what can be done, typing away in isolation, or writing against the flow.
like something i recently read, not like david vs goliath but more like
shirley temple vs king kong. can get hopeless.
act locally. maintain the magic.

and here's a somewhat political poem:

                                "EARTH FIRST.
                        WE'LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS LATER"
                                                                         (bumperticker)


  a corrugated line knits this tight diffuse sweater
  thru the asphalt, the latex, the momentum of routine
       canalized like sugar, cannibalizing this ghost zoo of images
      melting in the waste-stream of self-desiccating tear ducts
                                       i can't imagine that chunky, that prolific in color,
intense organic value
                                          an economy too diverse to exploit without killing

       designer body germs fine-tune our spasms like optic cables
                              flossing  the inner kidney's endocrine hosanna,
                    running ridge-tops at 10 miles per hour for days
                                 with the green leaves thru every orifice
                           so the sun won't set       the moon forever in my pineal
                             i'm 6-legged 8-armed frisbee pollen
                                   germinating between a thousand unnamed species
           to croon       to set a fine table       spew energy beyond our
needs and laws
        since we're all family             since we all speak separate languages
                                the way your eye is a tattoo of a dog
                         wearing a flame skirt and thermonuclear ear tag
                         jumps between the 19th and 20th vertebrae
                      ribs straining like the radiator on the 18th floor
                            with walls removed by acid vision,
                    sulfuric tarantulas teleporting from almagordo wearing green
eye-shades
                                    and dealing a realignment of dna razor-wire
     capable of showing up unexpected
                                       despite layers of pavement      despite a lack of conversation,

              There's so much work unacknowledged in replacing knees with
stained glass
                         never wearing pants or leggings;
       an environment for the numb;       a church for those with several
bodies--
                                            knock and you're at risk, ask
                                        & your voice is no longer your own

           we slowly strip search the earth:
                 fewer species are easier to count, easier to inventory
                   scanning dna's complex bar code, a treasure map encrypted in
alien physics


                   so we drill in the backyard    on the moon
                             in long volcano teeth  psychics show beneath wall street icon
        morphing into textured phoenixes rise from the desert
                                             to greenhouse this land with no official history;
                                preserving old structures as batteries to focus meat-time
               as more bodies gather to tympanize the substrata,
                                             to throw me onto a pavement of rain and possibilities,
                                         floodtide of used condoms and unopened labelless cans
                        i pray my deepest instinct/luck to know
                                                                  what won't react,    what is safe enough to eat
                                                   safe enough to stick your mouth on the exhaust pipe of

"they say the best things in life are free. but you can give them to the
birds and bees"
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:06:39 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU
Subject:      Re: as for Sandhyabasha

sandhyaa is "evening" or "twilight"

sandhyaa is, as well, a selection or group of Vedic hymns recited
as part of the morning or the evening prayers

beth simon
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:07:50 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Stephen Vincent 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl / gotta Boycott

D.I writes:
> Didn't know about Mr. [?] Boycott,
>but even this late in the game, always good to get up to speed.

Godspeed (?)

Eggs & Easter, Happy.

Stephen Vincent
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:15:33 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU
Subject:      Re: sandhyabhasha

sandhyaa "twilight"  bhaashaa "language"
is a cover label for the highly codified set of interrelated
metaphors used in texts where surface meaning differs substantially
from functional meaning.
sandhyaa bhaashaa both obscures the functional and, for those
for whom such texts are practical outlines or guides, provides
the key words or catalysts for specific (mental or physical) actions.

beth simon
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:17:41 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: as for Sandhyabasha
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from beth simon --
> sandhyaa is "evening" or "twilight"
>
> sandhyaa is, as well, a selection or group of Vedic hymns recited as
> part of the morning or the evening prayers

ah yes -- to take this toward another tangent: "sandhyaa" was thus
the morning prayer that Ramakrishna suggested (to his Hindu devotees)
should be practiced as prescribed -- until such time as the need for
all that falls away . . .  (recited while bathing in Ganges . . . )

but back to McVay's original interest: there are indeed some precise
Sanskrit poetics terms for various of forms of irony in poetry

(it simply turns out that SB isn't one of 'em  . . . )

d.i.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:47:24 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Louis Cabri 
Subject:      catching up
In-Reply-To:  <199703302316.SAA16572@wizard.wizard.net> from "David R. Israel"
              at Mar 30, 97 06:17:41 pm
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        Kent, your firsthand info on McCord is very useful--
thanks. And no, "Christmas light" does not generous
reading make. I take back comet, too. I don't know if they
were poet-suicides in San Diego, or what....
        Fiona, I had in mind the archival method of the
_Cantos_, a method which seems down the line to be given
coherence--that it might not otherwise have for a reader--by
Howard McCord post-Olson in his programmatic assertion
for the _lyric_ as epistemic form. --Doesn't knowledge
require an archive of some kind, even for/of the present
moment?
        A lyrical persona unifies by constructing/reading an
"archive." So I was recognizing McCord's individualism
(not a _communitas_ in him) as being one with such
unifying lyricism, expressed by many New American Poets.
But what about, more significantly, the archival effort itself,
which might not require the lyrical? Does constructing an
"archive" not equal the necessary construction of a reading-
horizon which is itself necessary for the construction of a
community of readers/writers?
        These community reading-horizons--"archives"--are
differently constituted for specific audiences.
        For Nichol at various points the archive is language
itself--Language: the letters of its alphabet is the world and
his world. (He's not the first to posit Language, of course.)
What specifically Nichol does, at times, however, is legitimize, with the
connective glue of his poetry (puns, homonyms, etc.),
various already written, if you like, semantic chains in the
language. These semantic chains are the social products of
existing property relations. It seems that the semantic chains
whose links he particularizes and polishes are often
stereotypically affirmative of the way the land already lies--
the myth of the ruler. It's as if social meanings were
politically neutral, and a part of the substance of Language--
they only need to be disclosed for truth to be revealed by,
for instance, the pun. I think of Riffaterre's hypograms,
which posits at the core of a cultural corpus meaning as
already meant. So, very different from McCaffery's
paragram--in fact, McCaffery's reading of Nichol reflects
more directly on McCaffery's own work. There is a huge
heave of politics in _The Martyrology_, Douglas, that hasn't
been written about, I think. Instead, its politics is overlooked due to
what might be called a conceptual enthusiasm and need--
professional and otherwise--to find poetical demonstrations
of newfound learning from abroad. A poem may only seem to have a
fundamental indeterminacy if one's initial premise about the
nature of language, and especially poetic language, is, for
example, that pronouns are referential. That premise isn't
sufficently accurate enough, however, to notice
indeterminacy in differeent kinds of poetry--as anything other than a
shared theme. So I think the pronouns in The Mart are actually very
stable, or as stable as most linguistic phenomena--because pronouns are
not referential, or importantly so. But getting back
to the poetry, in Nichol there are always exceptions. "Inchoate" is
captured in a semantically rich pun
in the lines "ink eau / ate world" (from--book taken and
page opened at random--Book 6 of _The Martyrology_).
But there again, the pun must because of what it is fall back
on already-constituted meanings which, back to the bible,
are reincarnated once again as is. It's quite funny to think that
playing on a semantic rift in the letters "bp" is most
exemplary of Nichol's poetic practice.
        Peter, I don't hear a narrative of closure and
normative repair a-la-Therafields in his or their sound
poetry. Is that just me?
        Much thanks to Aaron Shurin and Rachel Loden and Gwyn McVay for
their Weiners's tips (I will check see again if I've left anyone out!),
and to everyone else who has responded backchannel. Don't forget, it's
April 11th!
        Ron Silliman says: "It is only through the signifier
that the cultural limits of the self, the subject, become
visible" (_New Sentence_ 146). Why wasn't Wieners'
_Behind The State Capitol_ considered as much an
influence on Language Writing as the writings of Hannah
Weiner? Charles Shively suggests in a special issue of
_Mirage_ (ed. Kevin Killian) on John Wieners that an aura
of mythologizing around John Wieners, to do with his
schyzophrenia, has prevented closer attention to the wriitng
in his writing--much as Ron pointed out that notions of
clairvoyancy prevented a reading of the "pre thinking
thought" of Hannah Weiner's work.
        I thought the panel presentations themselves were great.
        Gotta go!
        Louis Cabri
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:47:20 -0700
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Douglas Barbour 
Subject:      Re: Mind the gap
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David Israel points to W S Merwin's use of the 'gap,' & that's fine, but it
seems to me that the 'space' (the term I've usually used) in the Merwin
poem he quotes is fairly standard from line to line. It isn't in many other
writers' work (I would again point to various moments in the ten volumes of
_The Martyrology_ for example). It's not just a caesura, especially when
there are more than one per line, I would think. I also know, at least from
my own experience, but also having seen it in others' work, that Mark Weiss
is right to ask writers how many 'm' of space are required, because the
length of the pause that the space signs changes with the length of the
space (& it seems to em that Duncan wrote quite carefully about this in
regards to his own work).
This is a fascinating thread, although I had never before been bothered by
the need for a name for this act. And 'space' or 'gap' seem the most useful
still, because the most 'open' in terms of indexicality...

 =============================================================================
Douglas Barbour                         the precision of openness
Department of English                   is not a vagueness

University of Alberta                   it is an accumulation
Edmonton  Alberta  T6G  2E5             cumulous
(403) 492 2181  FAX:(403) 492 8142                      bpNichol
H: 436 3320
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:47:26 -0700
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Douglas Barbour 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
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On the other hand, Bob Grumman's 'taxonomy' is lovely in its capacity.

I too thank Pierre for the Celan, but note that from my reading of various
translations, Celan used line breaks but not midline ones. Is that a fair
assessment?

 =============================================================================
Douglas Barbour                         the precision of openness
Department of English                   is not a vagueness

University of Alberta                   it is an accumulation
Edmonton  Alberta  T6G  2E5             cumulous
(403) 492 2181  FAX:(403) 492 8142                      bpNichol
H: 436 3320
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:05:04 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
In-Reply-To:  <4D2B2404AE9@fas-english.rutgers.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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>i believe that brenda hillman
  uses astericks



I like that: "astericks". Sort of like tricks done by flowers that seem to
be stars. Neat word!




George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:13:06 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl / gotta Boycott
In-Reply-To:  <199703302023.PAA11693@wizard.wizard.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Quoth Mark Weiss --
>
>> Actually, Bernstein didn't invent this piece of grammar. Think of
>> name-verbs like "Boycott."
>
>no, not to suggest he invented the grammatical principle; but he did
>apply it (as did, we read, Mr. Bowering).  My post was by way of
>pointing to another (i.e., Bernstein's) instance of the principle
>(and, for that matter, wondering abt. what'all further cases might be
>floating around the universe).  Didn't know about Mr. [?] Boycott,
>but even this late in the game, always good to get up to speed.
>
>best, d.i.


Hey, don't Bogart that explanation!





George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:23:37 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      Easter Sunday afternoons, when the Mall is closed
Mime-Version: 1.0
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I've been bowering my mind for something pithy to say. db
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 19:34:13 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Kenneth Goldsmith 
Subject:      No. lll 2.7.93-10.20.96 Press Release
Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

*************************************************************
                          THE FIGURES
                       5 CASTLE HILL AVENUE
                    GREAT BARRINGTON MASS 01230
                          413.528.2553
                        info@ubuweb.com
*************************************************************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

     The Figures proudly announces the publication of Kenneth Goldsmith's
_No. lll 2.7.93-10.20.96_, the long awaited 606 page book of conceptually
uncategorizable brilliance by one of New York's most unpredictable young
artists.

     Made up of literally thousands of short phrases and hundreds of long
phrases, carefully crafted full sentences of great eloquence as well as
typographic rant of total gibberish, Goldsmith's book is a trove of found
and formally fudged language.  Ordered by syllable count and alphabetic
rigor, as well as by sound, the material in _No. lll_ invites the reader to
browse, scan, read aloud, howl, goof and wonder at the impossible
juxtapositions of diction, reference, and attitude.

     In the words of Marjorie Perloff, "Goldsmith's eye and ear for
contemporary argot is near perfect," and Charles Bernstein adds, "In this
useless collection of perishable information, this wily catalog of everyday
life, Goldsmith has written what could be the longest, and maybe the last,
list poem of the 20th Century."

     Known primarily as a fine artist (he shows at Bravin Post Lee Gallery
in Soho), Goldsmith has been using words and writing in his art production
for a decade.  Now, in trade book form, with a spare white cover that
echoes the look of How To Write, by Gertrude Stein, the reader can have
this largest sampling of his work to date.

     Kenneth Goldsmith has been active in the art, literature, and music
worlds for several years. He received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School
of Design in 1984. He has shown his text-based artworks in museums and
galleries around the world. In 1993, he completed _73 Poems_ (Permanent
Press, CD release Lovely Music, Ltd.), a collaboration with avant-garde
vocalist Joan La Barbara. He is a DJ at Freeform Radio 91.1 WFMU in the New
York City area and lives in lower Manhattan with his wife, the video artist
and painter Cheryl Donegan.



No lll  2.7.93-10.20.96    5 1/2 x 8"   606 pages    perfect bound
Available 15 March 1997    $17.50       ISBN 0-935724-87-7

Available through The Figures 413-528-2552, info@ubuweb.com
In NYC: Printed Matter, 77 Wooster St. NYC, 212-925-0325
        Bravin Post Lee Gallery, 80 Mercer St., NYC 212-966-2676
Small Press Distribution, 1814 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705

*************************************************************
                          THE FIGURES
                       5 CASTLE HILL AVENUE
                    GREAT BARRINGTON MASS 01230
                          413.528.2553
                        info@ubuweb.com
*************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 19:59:22 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: Easter Sunday afternoons, when the Mall is closed
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> From:          David Bromige 

> I've been bowering my mind for something pithy to say. db

I realize the meaning shd. be apparent, but for the dim-witted, care
to lexicate?
d.i.

p.s.:  re: Bowering's "don't Bogart that explanation!" -- right, I
*knew* there was some instance floating around in antique memory;
& that was perhaps it (or at least one of 'em).
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 20:32:35 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
Comments:     Authenticated sender is 
From:         "David R. Israel" 
Subject:      Re: "Sandhyabasha"
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Here -- at last or at length -- is a note that speaks most directly
to the original question re: Anne Waldman's reference.  d.i.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Mon, 31 Mar 1997 02:15:00 BST
Reply-to:      indology@liverpool.ac.uk
From:          thompson@jlc.net (George Thompson)
To:            Members of the list 
Subject:       Re: "Sandhyabasha"

I'm pretty sure that the source of Waldman's remarks is Eliade's
"Yoga: Immortality and Freedom", since it refers briefly to
sandhyA-bhASA [in the Kyoto-Harvard transcription system], and since
all of the Beats were reading Eliade [besides the book on yoga, there
was a lot of interest in his book on Shamanism].

You might check out the now classic study of S. Das Gupta [upon which
Eliade depended greatly], "Obscure Religious Cults" [3rd edit., 1969],
who by the way suggests that the alternation between sandhA- [i.e.,
"intentional" language] and sandhyA- [i.e., "twilight" language; cf.
"sandhi"] is not due to scribal error but to intentional double-sense.

There is a lot of more recent literature on this, which specialists
might want to recommend, but these two books seem to me to have the
best chance of being the ones that Waldman, Kerouac, et al., were
familiar with.

Best wishes
George Thompson
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 18:37:04 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      explication du texte
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

        I've been scouring-in-a-bowering-like manner my mind, in hopes that
something bowering-like (pithy & amusing & unforgettable) will form in
words. db
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 19:41:04 MDT
Reply-To:     calexand@alexandria.lib.utah.edu
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Christopher Alexander 
Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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david israel wrrt:
> Mr. Bernstein recited (well, sang) a work the memorable lyric refrain
> whereof was:
>
> >Don't Sokohl me! . . .
> or
> >So don't Sokohl me!

wish I could heare the tune.
I'm thinking that refrain in
the grateful dead's "dire wolf":

"don't murder me,
I beg of you don't murder me..."

chris
..
christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective
calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / ************************

Hey!!
Now Available: _constellation voice_ by linda russo
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 20:30:19 MDT
Reply-To:     calexand@alexandria.lib.utah.edu
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Christopher Alexander 
Organization: U of U Marriott Library Staff Net
Subject:      constellation voice
MIME-Version: 1.0
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just want to announce briefly that
Linda Russo's chapbook _constellation voice_
is now available for a pittance ($4) from

nominative press collective
160S 1300E, no. 16
Salt Lake City UT  84102

so those of you who are planning to attend the
denver conference next weekend can impress
her by having already read it when you meet.

also, still have some copies of my _Dusky Winders_
available @ $3 apiece. so those of you who are
planning to attend the denver conference next weekend...

chris
..
christopher alexander, etc. / nominative press collective
calexand@alexandria.lib.edu / *************************

http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce

        Hey!!
               Now Available for a mere $4:
           _constellation voice_ by linda russo
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 30 Mar 1997 23:18:01 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Gwyn McVay 
Subject:      Re: Mind the gap
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

The three-em dash is used for intentionally omitted names--you know, "In
the summer of 18-- we stayed at the Chateau V------." Don't most
typesetters make those internal line-gaps about three ems?

Gwyn, squinting
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 02:52:18 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Thomas Bell 
Subject:      Are poets citizens? Re: RealPoetik - touchy, longish
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Of possible interest, from the RealPoetik list a reply to a reply to
a lament on American poets' shunning the role of "citizen"
>>>>>>>

At 10:20 AM 3/30/97 -0800, Robert Salasin wrote:
>Dear Tom,
>
>Please feel free to post it anywhere, but do please make
>sure RealPoetik gets credit, and provide our email address
>(rpoetik@wln.com) and web site (http://www.wln.com/~salasin/
>rp.html).
>
>Drop me a note if it actually goes up anywhere.
>
>Best,
>Sal Salasin
>RealPoetik


Gwendolyn Albert wrote an essay on the lack of local or national politics
in American poetry, even the poetry of progressives, and mentioned the
work and appearances of Carolyn Forche, an award winning and quite prominent
American progressive writer.  Carolyn Forche, a subscriber to RealPoetik,
fired off a response, and Ms. Albert has been kind enough to respond to
the response.

Gwendolyn Albert, Editrix of JEJUNE:  america eats its young, is a native
of Oakland, California.  She holds a BA in Linguistics from the University
of California at Berkeley and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Charles
University in Prague, Czechoslovakia for the 1989/90 academic year.  This
was the year of the "Velvet Revolution," an event which she was fortunate
enough to witness firsthand and participate in as a translator for Civic
Forum, the interim governmental entity formed by Vaclav Havel and other
Charter 77 members.  Following her return to Oakland in 1990 she published
two chapbooks of poetry with Norton Coker Press in San Francisco, started a
local poetry reading series, and began to edit JEJUNE magazine in 1993.
Since returning to the Czech Republic in 1994, she has lived in Tabor and
Prague.  She can be reached at PO Box 85, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic.



An Open Letter to RealPoetik


Dear Sal and RealPoetik readers,

So.  Since I sent you my musings on the supposed US poetry renaissance of
the '90's, I have received quite a response.  Unfortunately, my description
of the experiences which led me to the question I was trying to ask -- why
do American poets, by and large, tend to shy away from wearing the hat of
"citizen" in their work? -- seems to have interfered significantly with
that question being heard.  However, the essay seems to have struck a chord
despite its flaws, so I will try to clarify.

The various responses I received described the essay as "combative," as a
"demand" for a "mandate" of  "political content" in poetry, and as
"accusatory".  Unfortunately, the mistaken conclusion people are jumping to
seems to be that I am advocating some sort of neo-Stalinist thought
policing of America's poets.  I am not.

I did not use the very general word "political" in my essay to describe
what I sense is missing from the US poetry most widely on offer to the
world, (to judge from the sample available to me).  I did use the word
"civic" -- in the sense of relating to citizenship or civil affairs, "of or
relating to the general population," according to my Merriam-Webster.  I am
noticing that with a few exceptions (such as Adrienne Rich) the poets of
this alleged renaissance do not address our common lives as citizens.  I
find this reflects a lack of that sense in the larger culture.  It is an
essay about what is missing:  plain speech about the underlying premises of
our civic or civil culture.  Maybe it is the sense of civil culture that
has gone missing.  I don't know.

What I was taught in America is that politics are supposed to serve the
citizenry.  In a democracy, it is the responsibility of the citizen to
determine the extent to which politics deviate from that aim and to use the
means available to try and keep on course.  I precisely do not advocate
poets turning into lobbyists or propagandists.  I'm talking about poets
standing as citizens, looking at how the politics which is supposed to
serve US ALL functions and then commenting on that function.  My
impression, which is all I am qualified to discuss, is that this is
something very few of them choose to do. Why is that?  Does it have to do
with the nature of poetry itself? Of the American experience? I don't know.

My great fear is that if poetry ceases to be written from the stance of the
citizen, there becomes yet one more area of human endeavour in which the
idea of the "civic" or the "civil" -- that general population separate from
politics and to which politics should be subservient -- dies a quiet death.

Now I would like to specifically address some of Carolyn Forche's concerns:

I am disappointed that Ms. Forche did not answer my question about her
evaluation of US politics more directly in our interview, and that she told
the anecdote she told in the way she told it at the Prague Summer Writing
Conference.  I will transcribe the interview and forward it to RealPoetik
so it can speak for itself.  I would only say here that I was not
interested in "sound bites" and that it is precisely the "subtlety" of
Forche's response that I find objectionable.  I understood what was being
said (and I am familiar with Chomsky's political writings), but I don't
understand where all this pussyfooting around is supposed to get us.

At the time of the interview I considered it an honor to meet Forche.  I
have read all of her works, and I have attended her readings and talks
whenever possible in the hopes of hearing her shed some light on what
concerns and troubles me about life in our times.  It is perhaps for this
reason that, as a member of her audience, I found her behavior
disappointing.  I find it disappointing that the "after-reading question
period is not, in [her] view, the place for sustained and serious
discussion...."  My essay discusses what  I observe American poets saying
and not saying when they have opportunities to address the public.  It does
not constitute a lament for my personal opportunities for "conversation" --
and my living in Prague, Oakland or Outer Mongolia is beside the point.
Where I reside has no bearing on what Carolyn Forche said and how she said
it.

I live in the Czech Republic because I prefer it to the US.  But that's
another story -- as is the "expat" "community" Ms. Forche assumes I belong
to, and with which I have virtually no contact.  I can assure her that the
thousands of Americans here in this post-89 feeding frenzy do not
constitute a community, but a collection of business owners and clientele.
My "community" consists of the writers, musicians, artists and other people
with whom I live and correspond, whether they are from the US or Ukraine.
Due to the constant daily reminders that I am a foreigner, however fluently
I go about my business, I am perhaps more aware of myself as an "American"
here than when I lived in America.  To see Czechs walking down the streets
in "Desert Storm" tshirts is to experience that complex of myth and
horrible reality that America has exported to the world -- on the receiving
end.  However, lately I'm beginning to realize that Americans buy their own
advertising most of all.  But I digress...

I did not wish to imply that Amnesty International is guilty of anything --
and I was horrified that Forche should feel she had to apologize for the
stridency of the volunteers in Berkeley (as if anyone could take
responsibility for the stridency in Berkeley -- heaven help us!!)  My point
was that non-governmental organizations are the institutions that many
concerned, um, citizens hope can address these issues of social justice.
But common sense alone should tell us they cannot be infallible -- and that
they can only do so much.  I would like to know more about the "rather
unblemished" history of AI -- especially since I recently came across an
article in an underground publication here which was critical of Czech
Amnesty's response to the Romany situation.  I would be very interested to
learn from whomever makes the decisions within Amnesty about how AI goes
about verifying human rights abuses, how AI decides when to release
information to the public -- in short, how does such an organization deal
with its increasingly powerful role in global politics?  How does it
approach the reality that it is often up against the work of the very most
secret, best-funded and highly organized defenders of the "carceral
corporate state[s]"?

Unfortunately, Forche's response goes far afield.  Once again the question
-- why do American poets, by and large, tend to shy away from wearing the
hat of "citizen" in their work? -- is being AVOIDED.  Forche closes in a
near-litigious fury by accusing Salasin of publishing potentially libelous
material.  Let's leave him out of it: I stand by my feeling of revulsion
and the right to describe it, however inadequately I may have done so --
and however unclear the connection of that experience to the others
mentioned may have been.

Forche's parting shot is a "subtle" dismantling of my having been inspired
to address civic matters by the example of the writers of Central and
Eastern Europe.  She implies that they would be opposed to what she
perceives as my "demands" -- perhaps as they were opposed to the demands of
socialist realism?  I know an "equals sign" when I see one, subtle or not.
I can only think that Forche's sense of the need to defend herself has
caused her to willfully misinterpret what I was saying.  So I'll say it
again in a different way:  in my country  -- and it is my country, even if
I live elsewhere -- Oliver North is free to run for the Senate.  In the
Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel is President.

And you wonder why I don't want to come "home"?

With great respect,

Gwendolyn Albert
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 00:16:34 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         George Bowering 
Subject:      Re: detention with a redhead woman
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>I've been bowering my mind for something pithy to say. db

Aw come on, you can always think of something worth pith, David.





George Bowering.
                                       ,
2499 West 37th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada  V6M 1P4

fax: 1-604-266-9000
e-mail: bowering@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 02:51:36 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
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From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Sokal, Pogo, Bernstein, &c.
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Story is spun of a torch song by Chas. B.:

> > >Don't Sokohl me! . . .
> > or
> > >So don't Sokohl me!
>
> wish I could heare the tune.

Oh, me too!  But it's Sokal, isn't it?  Alan Sokal of the _Social Text_
follies?  Seems plausible that the trail leads right back to Pogo:

Oh I may be your cup of tea
But baby don't you Sokal me
Don't stir me boy, or try to spoon
Don't Sokal me
Cause us is throon!

(It's faintly possible that) I hear America singing,

Rachel L.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:59:21 +0000
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Pierre Joris 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
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Douglas Barbour wrote:
>
> On the other hand, Bob Grumman's 'taxonomy' is lovely in its capacity.
>
> I too thank Pierre for the Celan, but note that from my reading of various
> translations, Celan used line breaks but not midline ones. Is that a fair
> assessment?
>

Douglas -- you are right, of course, Celan does not -- or only very
rarely & in rather hidden ways -- use caesuras directly. The reason I
posted that poem was that in it Celan addresses the concept of the
caesura via Holderlin who worked on that question in his Pindar
translation. The whole of the Celan poem queries the fact that one (the
poetic line) can / has to be two, i.e. that the caesura both breaks &
makes the "line" -- "I drink wine from two glasses" says the first line
& on to the last one with its "doit" -- a translation of "Deut" an old
coin (the coin drops, the penny drops -- but always double, deut is
tuppence, in the old brit coin(age), or "my two pennies worth." & in the
middle there's the "tuning fork" -- has 2 branches to set up the
resonance, create the sound. -- Pierre
=========================================
pierre joris   6 madison place   albany ny 12202
tel/fax (510) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu
http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything that allows men to become rooted, through
values or sentiments, in _one_ time, in _one_ history, in
_one_ language, is the principle of alienation which
constitutes man as privileged in so far as he is what he is,
[...] imprisoning him in contentment with his own reality
and encouraging him to offer it as an example or impose
it as a conquering assertion. -- Maurice Blanchot
==========================================
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Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 20:31:28 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: name gap and heart gap

"rest," "pause," "joint," "gap," "scissoring," "pregnant space,"
"diaeresis," "silent excuse for not responding to an appeal for
solidarity from fellow writers."

Here is a marvellous small occasion in the history of American poetry!
A cyberspace gathering place of "avant-garde" writers who choose to
be silent about issues of censorship and right-wing attacks on theri
camerados, choosing instead to gabber urgently about caesuras and
lacunae. Oh, the irony     of it all.

oh   Yes   I    here    finger    wag.

Kent




> Date sent:      Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:34:34 -0500
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           Bob Perelman 
> Subject:        name gap
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

> A student asked me the following question. I don't know the answer. & who
> was the first to use the things?
>
> > do you know the technical term for a space in a poem
> > that resembles these:
> >
> >       she knew the name    a big black winged
> >       bird on the end of a line    Clothes.
> >
> >                               ?
> >       I'm going crazy.  I heard it was a lacuna, but I think there's
> > another term.
>
> [I'll be putting in my {non-defensive} two cents about the NYC panel as
> soon as time & mind clear]
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 07:40:18 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Michael Boughn 
Subject:      Re: catching up
In-Reply-To:  <199703302347.SAA52186@dept.english.upenn.edu> from "Louis Cabri"
              at Mar 30, 97 06:47:24 pm
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>         A lyrical persona unifies by constructing/reading an
> "archive." So I was recognizing McCord's individualism
> (not a _communitas_ in him) as being one with such
> unifying lyricism, expressed by many New American Poets.
> But what about, more significantly, the archival effort itself,
> which might not require the lyrical? Does constructing an
> "archive" not equal the necessary construction of a reading-
> horizon which is itself necessary for the construction of a
> community of readers/writers?
>         These community reading-horizons--"archives"--are
> differently constituted for specific audiences.
>         For Nichol at various points the archive is language
> itself--Language: the letters of its alphabet is the world and
> his world. (He's not the first to posit Language, of course.)
> What specifically Nichol does, at times, however, is legitimize, with the
> connective glue of his poetry (puns, homonyms, etc.),
> various already written, if you like, semantic chains in the
> language.

note also how for Nichol the archive opens into intimations of the
epic, as in Book 5 of Martyrology, where the street signs in the
neighborhood become occasion for an Odyssean journey, both temporal
and spatial

Mike
mboughn@chass.utoronto.ca
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Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:17:17 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Re: name gap and heart gap
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> gabber urgently about caesuras and
> lacunae

Oh, please.  Years have passed since I've been on this list and we've
never *before* talked about caesuras and lacunae, or really any of the
bolts and wrenches of poesy.  How terrible, how truly decadent that we
should do so now.  Give me a break.  Speaking as somebody with intimate
knowledge of what it's like to be on the receiving end of heavy state
power, I pick my own battles and I pick them carefully.  So I'm sure do
others here.  I don't feel the need to be harangued from some heroic
ramparts.

Tell us about what's going on, Kent, but please don't imagine you can
stand in judgment of our "silence."

Rachel L.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 08:10:15 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      Re: Are poets citizens? Re: RealPoetik - touchy, longish
In-Reply-To:  Message of Mon, 31 Mar 1997 02:52:18 -0500 from
              

Thanks, Tom Bell, for the letter from Gwendolyn Albert.  This question -
why American poetry seems to lack or avoid the "civic" - worth talking
about.  Will quickly draw forth answers from people based on their political
rationale or work credentials (community organizer, radical activist, etc.).
& can quickly descend into cacaphony.  Maybe it has, paradoxically, only
a personal meaning or answer, based on the individual writer's understanding
of and real commitment to political participation.

The simple answer (to why...) is that American poetry reflects a basic
situation of: suburbanization/balkanization/institutionalization/
privatization and other 'zations like that.  People (including some poets)
are involved with civic life through: 1)work, 2)voluntary service groups,
3)political parties [a distant 3rd, maybe].

But the answer is made more complicated by the present historical situation
(political non-involvement; domination by professional pseudo-parties;
balkanization) - AND by the whole issue of how poetry & art respond to
political reality (if one can even say anything useful about that anyway).

Probably the real answer is that most of us have no concept of how to make
democracy a reality in our own lives.  Political action is disconnected
from dormant ideals or visions of life.  This is the true   gap   today.
Has anyone seen Pasolini's film "Gospel According to St.Matthew"?
Now there's a work of art about a poet-organizer if there ever was one.
And in a sense, there has always been a dormant 3rd party of the
kingdom of heaven (from the lunatic fringe to the Catholic Church...)
- Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 08:35:29 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         henry gould 
Subject:      Re: name gap and heart gap
In-Reply-To:  Message of Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:17:17 -0800 from
              

On Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:17:17 -0800 Rachel Loden said:
 Give me a break.  Speaking as somebody with intimate
>knowledge of what it's like to be on the receiving end of heavy state
>power, I pick my own battles and I pick them carefully.  So I'm sure do
>others here.  I don't feel the need to be harangued from some heroic
>ramparts.
>

This is also a relevant response to the "civic" thread from Tom Bell...
- Henry G.
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Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 09:52:30 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Prejsnar 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
In-Reply-To:  <199703282058.PAA290046@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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One of the problems with finding a term, for the visual embodiment of a
caesura, and similar typo-graphic instances, has to do with the involved
nature of the medium and its techniques.  I mean, placement of verse
across physical space is both painterly and a vibrant form of mucial
notation in U.S. originary attempts (from Whitman on)...Lisa's mention of
a parallel ambiguity in the apprehension of painterly space is suggestive.
And of course someone's already mentioned Duncan's intensity about how
to understand lineation as a musical notation...As someone with a
background of intensive musical training and performance experience, I've
always believed the poem's surface had a strong element of performatory
adumbration.  I'm most comfortable with not dictating interpretive timing
quite so rigorously, as Duncan; but the principle makes sense to me.
Still, the one area of prosody lacking an intricate terminology, is the
area involving visual placement as an involvement with sound and movement
thru space.   (--which may be a good thing..But there is still a lot of
interesting theory to be done on this dimension of post-Cantos verse)

Mark P.
Atlanta
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Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:06:04 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Prejsnar 
Subject:      Re: name gap (fwd)
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The poetix of car model names, what could be more amerikan?? The reason
Lacuna sounds like one, is the long-established pattern that Latin (and
sometimes hispanoid)-sounding words, with those distinctive vowel endings,
are considered classy in the right kind of way by U.S. auto
marketers...Which is kind of interesting given that Hispanic and other
Latin-derived cultures are not exactly looked on as classy and positive by
most of contemporary U.S. captialist culture!!

Favorite car names for poets: the Stanza, and the Prelude.

Mark P.

On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Hugh Steinberg wrote:

> Caesura strikes me as more of a sonic than visual term.  I like lacuna
> (sounds like a new car, the Ford Lacuna) although it seems a bit fancy.  I
> tend to use the term "white space" when describing those blanks.
>
> Hugh Steinberg
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 09:07:37 +0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         KENT JOHNSON 
Organization: Highland Community College
Subject:      Re: name gap and heart gap

> Date sent:      Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:17:17 -0800
> Send reply to:  UB Poetics discussion group 
> From:           Rachel Loden 
> Subject:        Re: name gap and heart gap
> To:             POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

Well, there's nothing at all wrong with talking about lacunae! It's
just the silence the lacuna seems to mark in this instance that
I find fascinating.

Still, for those who might choose this as a "battle" worth adding a
voice to, I'll be posting info from FC2 as soon as I get it from
Normal.

Heroically,

Kent


> Oh, please.  Years have passed since I've been on this list and we've
> never *before* talked about caesuras and lacunae, or really any of the
> bolts and wrenches of poesy.  How terrible, how truly decadent that we
> should do so now.  Give me a break.  Speaking as somebody with intimate
> knowledge of what it's like to be on the receiving end of heavy state
> power, I pick my own battles and I pick them carefully.  So I'm sure do
> others here.  I don't feel the need to be harangued from some heroic
> ramparts.
>
> Tell us about what's going on, Kent, but please don't imagine you can
> stand in judgment of our "silence."
>
> Rachel L.
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 07:36:37 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         dbkk@SIRIUS.COM
Subject:      Killian/Spicer and an appeal
In-Reply-To:  
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Dear Simon Schuchat, it's Kevin Killian, thanks for your remarks about my
talk printed in the Church Newsletter.  >I just want to say that Kevin
Killian's piece "Faggot Vomit: Jack Spicer
>vs. 'the Maidens'" in the most recent issue of the Poetry Project
>newsletter is great.
>
>When will the Spicer bio be available?

I'm supposed to finish it by June 15th then send it in to Wesleyan.  Lew
Ellingham and I are racing against time as usual.  The death in 1996 of the
Canadian modernist Dorothy Livesay underlines this vividly (Livesay was
very helpful to me and Lew at the very end of her extraordinary life.)
Now, as so often in the past, I need the help of poetics list members.  I'm
writing now about the San Francisco events of November and December 1958
when Spicer, along with other San Francisco and Berkeley intellectuals and
bohemians, joined the fight against the administration of San Francisco
State to protest its refusal to let Langston Hughes read at the SF State
Poetry Center, where he had been invited by its founder (Ruth
Witt-Diamant), because of his "Communist" past.  I'm sure I can't be the
only one to have covered this episode, which has so many resonances (Cold
War politics, black/white relations in avant-garde poetry, homosexuality
and the left, San Francisco as nexus for radical/conservative politics,
etc., etc.) but I've looked in all the likely places and can't find much
coverage of it at all.  Even the Hughes biographies I've looked at don't
mention his visit to San Francisco.  [To cut to the chase, Hughes was not
allowed to read on campus by Dumke, president of State, but eventually
wound up reading on a houseboat--oh the irony!--provided by sympathetic
admirers and anti-anti-Communists]  Can anyone suggest any material on this
outside of contemporary newspaper coverage?  If so thanks very much.

I'm always thanking you all and you always come through.

Kevin K.
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Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 11:11:41 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Maz881@AOL.COM
Subject:      re;  name gap

nico,  could you make that re : n a little longer so we can scroll it up &
down more.  i like the animation.  like in Rocky 1, where he & pauli are in
the meat locker and he starts hitting the carcass saying there's   gaps.
bill

Date:    Sat, 29 Mar 1997 23:17:41 -0800
From:    nico vassilakis 
Subject: Re: name gap

                                    r e:namegapageman:e r
                                    re :namegapageman: er
                                    re: namegapageman :er
                                    re:namegapage ma n:er
                                    re:na megapage man:er
                                    re:namega pageman :er
                                    re:name gapag eman:er
                                    re:nameg a pageman:er
                                    re:namega p ageman:er
                                    re:namegap ageman :er
                                    re:namegapa geman: er
                                    re:namegapag eman:e r
                                    re:namega page man:er
                                    re:namegapagem an:e r
                                    re:namegapa gem an:er
                                    re:namegapage man :er
                                    re:namegapageman:  er
                                    re:namegapageman  :er
                                    re:namegapagema   :er
                                    re:namegapagem     er
                                    re:namegapag        r
                                    re:name           :er
                                    re:na            n:er
                                    re:n            an:er
                                    re:            man:er
                                    re:nam        eman:er
                                    re:na        geman:er
                                    re:nam      ageman:er
                                    re:name    pageman:er
                                    re:namega  pageman:er
                                    re:namegap  ageman:er
                                    renamegapag e  man:er
                                    re:namegapag  eman:er
                                    re:name gap ageman:er
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 12:51:00 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Prejsnar 
Subject:      Re: Getting Binoche / don't Sokohl
In-Reply-To:  <199703301745.JAA04608@norway.it.earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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re Mark W's point about boycott...

The most interesting noun yanked into being a verb, for me is: Barbados.
This was the practice of sending "criminals" (in fact a large number
political prisoners) to what were then rather harsh living conditions, in
permenent exile on Barbados.  Most infamous for this was that Lenin avant
la lettre, Oliver Cromwell, who barbadosed thousands of rebelling Irish
and militants of the factions to his left in the English revolution
(levellers, diggers etc.)  I love this word for its demonstration of the
encoding of historical violence into language, the violative way the
contingent facts of cultural history show us poets how to do poetry.  (I
wrote a fairly long poem which attempts to consist entirely of verbs,
though there's lots of pitching on the black--a poem I still rather like;
and of course barbados gets slipped in).

Mark P.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:26:02 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         David Bromige 
Subject:      explication du texte, revised
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Revised definition of "bowering":

(1) Whether by Mr.Bowering or others, the scouring in a bowering-like
manner of
    the mind, in the hope that something like Bowering at his best (pithy,
amusing, unforgettable), will form in words;

(2) The attempt, failed, to do this.

db.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:40:11 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Rachel Loden 
Subject:      Binoched, bowered and bewildered
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Interesting, Mark P, about barbadosing.  And I suppose we should not
forget that it is possible, in this world, to be "Borked," however
deservedly.

Rachel
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Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 13:44:44 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Stephen Vincent 
Subject:      Re: explication du texte, revised

Dear David,

Neither a Bowerer nor a Pithbender
once my Muse said unto me...

O well, I'm sure you need
no such 'pure' advice!

Cheers,
Stephen Vincent
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 14:03:55 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Mark Prejsnar 
Subject:      Re: Binoched, bowered and bewildered
In-Reply-To:  <3340050B.499E@concentric.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I forgot to add at the end of that post...
the credit for info. on barbados as a verb, is to my favorite historian,
Christopher Hill; an English socialist who has published about 12 or 14
brilliant books on the English revolution and civil war.  His work is
groundbreaking about the intersections of utopian consciousness and
revolutionary fervor in that period, among the radical protestant
sectaries, and others; and in general about the structure of social
revolution in history.  (Right-wing historians publish much these days
about having "proven" him wrong, re his marxian interpretation of the
Egnlish revolution as having to do with class and economics in addition to
ideology and consciousness; they are dead dead wrong but that's another
issue..)  EP Thompson's great last book, Witness Against the Beast, about
Blake, is a kind of homage to Hill's influence. All the above strongly
recommended to anyone interested in politics, who doesn't know it..



On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Rachel Loden wrote:

> Interesting, Mark P, about barbadosing.  And I suppose we should not
> forget that it is possible, in this world, to be "Borked," however
> deservedly.
>
> Rachel
>
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 14:00:32 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Henry Gould 
Subject:      Re: explication du texte, revised
In-Reply-To:  Message of Mon, 31 Mar 1997 13:44:44 -0500 from
              

the bower-bird is an exotic species habitationed somewhere in the South
Pacific.  The male builds an enormous cathedral-like "bower" out of
trash, sea-drift, etc. & then does a little dance in front of it
(long before this method was "invented" by modernists, collagists,
etc.) in order to attract mates.  The female often turns him down, &
the immense bower of babel is abandoned.
     Some of us could learn a lesson in composition here.
- (this is not Eric Blarnes)

TAR AIRS A RAT OR 2

this is a    ravine
that    is a navire
drydocked   (severe
reverse) in  Erivan
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 14:16:26 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         amato@CHARLIE.CNS.IIT.EDU
Subject:      denver conference...
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just to say that i'll be on my way in a few days to the upcoming denver
conference on "the marriage of writers and critics," and i hope to see/meet
some of you there...

best,

joe
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 15:22:48 -0600
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Joseph Zitt 
Organization: Human Systems
Subject:      Re: Mind the gap
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Gwyn McVay wrote:
>
> The three-em dash is used for intentionally omitted names--you know, "In
> the summer of 18-- we stayed at the Chateau V------." Don't most
> typesetters make those internal line-gaps about three ems?
>
> Gwyn, squinting

Well, I mostly use the 3M dash when I'm diving for a Post-it note to
write down poetic inspirations :-)

Joe, ducking
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 17:40:43 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         William Burmeister Prod 
Subject:      Re: Further Thoughts on the "Interior Indentation"
In-Reply-To:  Steven Marks  "Re: Further Thoughts on the
              "Interior Indentation"" (Mar 29,  3:58pm)
Mime-Version: 1.0
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> Equally fascinating to me is what goes on between the period and
> the capital. And things like the space between being asleep and being
> awake, between day and twilight, twilight and night, night and morning,
> between liquid and gas, solid and liquid and so on....

Equally interesting too is how our minds process whole strings of sentences, or
paragraphs, and so on, with these discontinuities between them. Is this a
process of integration with differentiability defined term-by-term? The whole
being a piecewise linear approximation of something. No doubt something
incomplete. There is an infinity of possiblities in each continuum between
sentences, gaps, etc. The lines/sentences themselves being nothing more than
truncated series of finite number of terms. Serial poems born in the gaps
between lines/sentences, so that rather than a seriality of poems end-to-end
(cascades), there exists any number of multiplicatively propagating trees of
possibilities.

Bill B.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 17:52:02 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         JDHollo@AOL.COM
Subject:      BP's Question / gaps caesurae lacunae

As a veteran user of the device, I vote for Robert Duncan's "articulated
silence" quoted in Dan Featherston's post of 28 March:

"duncan's preface to _ground work: before the war_ figures caesurae as
articulated silences, which is arguably a more varied measure of the _time_
of the poem than standard grammatical indicators (comma, period, etc.)
provide: not the metronome's uniformity, but the body's 'flexible
durations'."

"Non-metrical caesurae" _could_ be another (but even clumsier) term.   Lacuna
and gap do sound too negative, indentation too aggressively mechanical.

"Articulated silence(s)" may also cover the distinction Christopher Middleton
makes in his _Ideas about Voice in Poetry_ (in _Pursuit of the Kingfisher,
Manchester: Carcanet, 1983):

"[Yet] the inner ear is capable of an auditory complexity which exceeds
almost any audible vocalizing: the latter tends to be reductive, if not
falsifying, also it may straighten out shocks and distortions which, to the
inner ear, are part of the real thing that is the voice in the text and the
delight of the text.  ...  In performance, which should be the best instance,
there occurs the falling away of mental entity from linguistic entity, or
vice versa.  The rift appears, gunfire and screams.  ...  The subtle
differential harmonies of the text as voice, are these picked up by the ear
alone?  Possibly not.   *The reader's eyes do part of the listaning, do their
part in identifying and selecting sound-patterns, in the presence or audition
of which a delight is experienced* ... "  (asterisks supplied)

Anselm Hollo
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 18:14:34 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
Subject:      Re: BP's Question / gaps caesurae lacunae
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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JDHollo@AOL.COM wrote:

> As a veteran user of the device, I vote for Robert Duncan's "articulated
> silence" quoted in Dan Featherston's post of 28 March

I, too like, "art
                           iculated sile

                                              nce," but as

                                      in straight English

                                                     , it would seem to
applynot just to what I'm now calling "white caesurae" but other sorts
of silences in poetry such as those made by indentations from left or
right, and by . . . vertical indentations like




this.        --Bob G
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 18:25:19 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
Subject:      A Quick Minor Correction of Preceding Message
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Apologies, but I hit the Send button too soon.  Here's what I meant to
say:

JDHollo@AOL.COM wrote:

 "As a veteran user of the device, I vote for Robert Duncan's
articulated
  silence" quoted in Dan Featherston's post of 28 March."

  I, too like, "art
                             iculated sile

                                               nce," but

                                        in straight English

                                                      , it would seem to
apply not just to what I'm now calling "white caesurae" but other sorts
of silences in poetry such as those made by indentations from left or
right, and by . . . vertical indentations like




this.        --Bob G
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 15:28:00 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Dodie Bellamy 
Subject:      Small Press Traffic enters the electronic age
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Just a note to let you all know that Small Press Traffic now has
e-mail--and that those of you who have Small Press Traffic business can now
e-mail Small Press Traffic directly at this address (rather than my home
address).

The one BIG exception:  if you're doing a review for the next Traffic
newsletter, please continue to write to my home address since Kevin is
helping me on that project.

SPT also now has a website where Traffic reviews and info on upcoming
events will be available.  I'll notify you all about that once we upload
some information to that site.

Thanks.

Dodie

_____________________________________________
Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center
766 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA  94110                                415/437-3454
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 17:05:31 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Steve Carll 
Subject:      Upcoming Canessa Park Readings
Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Canessa Park Reading Series

April 1997

Monday April 14th @ 8 p.m.

Avery E. D. Burns
San Francisco

&

Ron Silliman
Paoli, PA

(Please Note the Date & Time)

Sunday April 20th @ 3 p.m.

Robert Grenier
Bolinas

&

Fanny Howe
San Diego

Sunday April 27th @ 3 p.m.

Michael Boughn
Toronto, Canada


Brian Lucas
San Francisco


Kristin Prevallet
Buffalo, N.Y.

*
Canessa Park Gallery
708 Montgomery St. (at Columbus)
Admission $5


Avery E. D. Burns s book Differing Senses of Motion came out on lyric& in
1996.  Recent poems appear in First Intensity, Antenym, and Angle.  He
edits the magazine lyric&.

Ron Silliman s newest addition to the alphabet  is Xing (Meow Press).
Recent poems appear in XCurrent, Famous Reporter, and Proliferation.  Ron
feels partly responsible for the publication of Araki Yasusada s book of
poems.


Robert Grenier s most recent  book of poems is What I Believe -
Transcriptions/Transpiring - Minnesota on O Books.  Issue 1:24 of that:
magazine contains recent  poems, also Issue 2:1contains a talk on his
recent work - r h y m m s.

Fanny Howe s recent books are The End (Littoral) and O Clock (Reality
Street Editions).  A new collection is due out from Greywolf in a few
months. Poems appear in Grand Street, Conjunctions and Chain.  She teaches
at U.C. San Diego.


Michael Boughn srecent book is Iterations of the Diagonal on shuffaloff,
also H.D.: A Bibliography 1905-1990 on Univ. Of Virginia.  He has poems in
Hambone, First Intensity, Phoebe, and the recent Gertrude Stein Awards for
Innovative Poetry anthology.

Brian Lucas s samizdat Limber is just out.  His poems have appeared in
Mirage, lyric&, and Angle, a new magazine which he edits.

Kristin Prevallet s new book is Lead Glass and Poppy on Primative
Publications.  She co-edits the magazine apex of the M, a magazine in which
her work appears as well as First Intensity, Mirage, and Sulfur.



**********************************
sjcarll@slip.net        Steve Carll
http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mags/antenym
http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/antenym

In seed-
sense
the sea stars you out, innermost, forever.

                --Paul Celan
**********************************
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 20:38:33 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Dave Zauhar 
Subject:      Re: denver conference...
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Hate to impose on you folks who are going (not just Joe A.), but I'd be
grateful for postings -- however impressionisitc and quirky -- concerning
the proceedings.

Hope it's as interesting as it should be

DZ

>just to say that i'll be on my way in a few days to the upcoming denver
>conference on "the marriage of writers and critics," and i hope to see/meet
>some of you there...
>
>best,
>
>joe
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 20:57:15 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Jordan Davis 
Subject:      Kenneth Goldsmith / Carl Watson @ Poetry City
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Friday April 4
7 pm

Kenneth Goldsmith
natural-born compiler

and

Carl Watson
ancient boyscout

read from their various recently published works --

it's free --
we'll have their books --
it's at 5 Union Square West, NY on the 7th floor --

hope you can make it --

Jordan
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 21:20:54 -0500
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Steven Marks 
Subject:      Re: A Quick Minor Correction of Preceding Message
Comments: To: Bob Grumman 
In-Reply-To:  <334047DF.6926@nut-n-but.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Bob Grumman wrote:

>
>                                                       , it would seem to
> apply not just to what I'm now calling "white caesurae"
>

white caesurae -- This gets my vote. Indicates both the visual and the
breath gap in a term that seems to suggest a mythological creature.

Beware the white caesurae,
its whooshing nay, its wonky eye.

Steven

__________________________________________________
   Steven Marks

   http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html
__________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 22:44:13 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
Subject:      A Technickal Readjustment
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Steven Marks wrote:

On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Bob Grumman wrote:

> white caesurae -- This gets my vote. Indicates both the visual and the
> breath gap in a term that seems to suggest a mythological creature.
>
> Beware the white caesurae,
> its whooshing nay, its wonky eye.

Thanks much for the vote, Steven--but for some reason your bringing the
mythological creature into it made me decide that the proper term really
is "caesurae albae."  (Just kidding--I think.)
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 22:23:52 EST
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         hernry ghould 
Subject:      Re: A Quick Minor Correction of Preceding Message
In-Reply-To:  Message of Mon, 31 Mar 1997 21:20:54 -0500 from
              

I think   Moby    might   give it the
flukes   down.  How about
"suspension"?

a sonnet with     suspensions
(somewhere between lacunae    caesurae    &    suspirae)

i.e.   flying     mattresses     maitresses
iron
lava

or
ore   (the Name
for this     Fib     relation)

Rib     rire

(Sarah     laughed)   about    J

Just     harmonica Joe
just a     suspension (Je est un    jest uh     )
:)  = suspended +     )     +

- Hale-Bopp (what's    in a name?)
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 22:48:34 -0500
Reply-To:     BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Bob Grumman 
Subject:      Re: A Technickal Readjustment
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Looks like I'll be sending everything twice.  Here's the correct version
of my previous message:

Steven Marks wrote:

> white caesurae -- This gets my vote. Indicates both the visual and the
> breath gap in a term that seems to suggest a mythological creature.
>
> Beware the white caesurae,
> its whooshing nay, its wonky eye.

Thanks much for the vote, Steven--but for some reason your bringing the
mythological creature into it made me decide that the proper term really
is "caesurae albae."  (Just kidding--I think.)
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 1997 23:48:33 -0800
Reply-To:     UB Poetics discussion group 
Sender:       UB Poetics discussion group 
From:         Daniel Zimmerman 
Subject:      Re: A Quick Minor Correction of Preceding Message
MIME-Version: 1.0
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hernry ghould wrote:
>
> I think   Moby    might   give it the
> flukes   down.  How about
> "suspension"?
>
> a sonnet with     suspensions
> (somewhere between lacunae    caesurae    &    suspirae)
>
> i.e.   flying     mattresses     maitresses
> iron
> lava
>
> or
> ore   (the Name
> for this     Fib     relation)
>
> Rib     rire
>
> (Sarah     laughed)   about    J
>
> Just     harmonica Joe
> just a     suspension (Je est un    jest uh     )
> :)  = suspended +     )     +
>
> - Hale-Bopp (what's    in a name?)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

just weight



in these    paces    oh
replaces the    uh

        uh      of
                uh-oh

breathing       space
a birth scene gap       has a big percent

absence?        graph it
                I can't grasp sheep

brain tag speech
                        graphic base ten


_____________________________________________
Daniel Zimmerman