========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 21:08:40 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yep! Me, too. Aviva99999 wrote: > In a message dated 3/31/98 1:42:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, > SSSCHAEFER@AOL.COM writes: > > << But Helene Cixous's theories on a female language are > interesting when applied to experimental syntax. >> > > I'd love to hear more about this... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 23:06:07 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Guns, gender, children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT (katy -- thx. for posting the notley essay) (sss pls see p.s.) katy sed > This doesn't mean that all of the history of poetry is "by nature" > male or masculinist, but it does seem to present some historical > problems such as "no babies" "no pregnancies" "no physical births"-- (snip) > > The traditional model seems to privelege the wandering poet--the > unattached poet--the drunken poet? > > I think that being a female writer, at least for me, has forced me > to call this model into question. i agree wholeheartedly (you sound as though you're familair with Rachel Blau DuPlessis _Pink Guitar_)-- though i think if i were a male writer i'd call them into question too (i hope) -- but women are in a particular position, i believe, to do the questioning, to cite Joan Retallack so in answer to SSScheafer, then, i do feel myself peculiarly positioned visavis "history" "tradition" -- i AM doing things inconceivable to women of generations before me (i'm not sure what those things are, & i like to think that if i were of another generation i'd be doing those things. . .) But i DO write with the awareness of how quiet my apt is, my life is, as i've chosen thus far not to reproduce (my mother had 4 babies at my age) -- or to take on many "nurturing" activities -- this isn't necessarily a gender-particular experience (history hangs heavy) -- but as katy points out those male loner-lady's man-drunk-etc &c narratives (descendents of what alice jardine calls master narratives) have been written, re-written. & i scour the library looking for MY (postmodern in the chronological sense) role models . . . it's the being "other" thing, in a variety of implications, that i sense. p.s. to sss -- seems as though i may have made you the target of my latest obsession (narrative); i'm sorry > Linda: > > Yes, if you spoke to me of how being a woman effects your poetry you would be > answering my questions. As for your various successes in finding my > "narratives" I can only say that while I agree whole-heartedly that I used > that language, I was doing so because I think those narratives are practiced, > played out. Is all. Perhaps not by anyone on this list. But I certainly > wasn't trying to accuse everyone of having an agenda. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 23:55:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: frank sinatra Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bella was a beauty one of a kind "the people's bully' she served us all, "equality's champion"! i hope you americans got to hear her talk in beijing where she called the assault on welfare on immigration on the poor on the era on affirmative action an assault on america, a true poem performed on a world stage she was a better orator than abe lincoln almost as good as fidel castro and that beautiful accent she could have played the lead in the Tyne Daley Story, she never called shit elimination You can't win no matter what you say i hear from the sinatra lovers damned if you do dammed if you don't from the john waynettes, the soon to be womanless this is a preface to the notion that we might as well be as bad as they assume we are, just remember, you never saw me hear tonight and i never saw you hear good looking. just don't go near my sister or i'll kill you. Sam Kiniston died for their sins. a tardy goose flaps in the moonlight squawks a lingering sea lion arfarfs in response in the dark the seals slap the surface of the sea scaring the herring into fillets stuns the tender morsels with the amplitude the archimedes of the ocean maybe the salmon or the wails leap clear of the vibes maybe they don't, maybe they're happy to become part of the seal that's eaten by the shark that's eaten by the innu so they could rub noses with Anthony Quinn. from baka washi's, swivelization ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 01:33:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: shall we agree to boycott B&N? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit another anecdote (from PW): Charlottesville Shutting: Williams Corner Bookstore to Close Michael Williams has one word when asked abut the superstore competition that he says put Williams Corner Bookstore, his Charlottesville, Va., independent, out of business. "Gangsters," he says coolly. "That's all there is to it." Williams, who is otherwise soft-spoken and has owned his 2900- sq.-ft. store since it opened in 1977, will close as early as April 20, pending a lease signing by a new tenant. Only six years ago, Williams had expanded the store, hoping this would protect it against the impending arrival of a cross-town Barnes & Noble. Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, supports a thriving bookselling community. But that has also meant more competition for Williams. Apart from the usual suspects, he has had to contend with New Dominion, another independent a block-and-a-half away that he describes as "a good bookstore." (In fact, Williams plans no blowout sale because he doesn't want to undercut New Dominion's business.) He also points out a catch-22 in Charlottesville bookselling: "Our best customers are the ones who have personal computers, and they're the ones who are going to be entranced by Amazon."--Steven M. Zeitchik MAYHEW wrote: > > I was in Barnes and Nobles and came up with a great book concept: > "Ice-berg Lettuce for the Soul: Insipid Anecdotes for a Superficial Age." > I welcome all your contributions; we can make a million bucks off this. > > Jonathan Mayhew > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > University of Kansas > jmayhew@ukans.edu > (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:02:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: shall we agree to boycott B&N? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Michael Williams has one word when asked abut the superstore >competition that he says put Williams Corner Bookstore, his >Charlottesville, Va., independent, out of business. "Gangsters," >he says coolly. "That's all there is to it." Of course the supermarket bookstores do little good as to small press, limited run, and self published, and it is those that tend to really matter. The big supermarket bookstores could potentially create a better market niche for some speciality shops, gourmet bookshops as it were. The biggest difficulty is that the prices tend to go up to cover the overhead and relatively low sales volume, putting gourmet literary fare out of reach of many who once were its major customers. Then again, the prices at the supermarket are often no bargain, as they have to pay for all that marketing and promotion, and the rent is not cheap either. However, I did note one thing when I was in a book supermarket recently. (Which one will remain unnamed.) That is that the shelves had to have cost at least $600 a short section, if not more, and the displays that went with them, hundreds more. The cost to furnish the place had to be astronomical, and it takes a lot of book sales, with hefty markups to recover that capital investment. Even the checkout counter was far from the ordinary, but would have suited very fussy hardwood tastes. If they economized the way supermarkets do, with simple metal shelving, and a minimum of fancy decor, and simple rubber belt checkout stands, imagine how much money the book buying public would have saved ! M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:38:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: god 44 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I just talk about God because it's so politically gauche on this list, >where the main thing is to impress with your left critique in various ways. >It's fun to slam & annoy people. Bumper cars. Of course...though I saw some terrorists removing the rubber bumbers to enhance the effects the other day....They wanted to add some realism to it. Laughing. >- but the thought of God is >like the thought of Nature & Purpose & all those aboriginal things - >sometimes when nobody's around (like in the Frost poem) that's all that's >left. (I'm just giving you the barest minimum.) Or that is when the opposite happens and one realizes there is nothing there. If you are thirsty, I will give you the idea of a glass of water. Go ahead, drink it, and get rid of that thirst. What ? You cannot ? Why cannot you ? Must be something wrong with you then. Try it again. You'll eventually get the hang of it. The idea of a glass of water is all you really needed wasn't it ? ....etc.....ad infinitum...... Of course, someone could give you bread, and no water, and tell you to smile and be happy, and enjoy it, or they will take that away too. Soon you are choking on the dry bread, thirstier for water than ever, but attempting to use it to remain alive, the Eros still stronger than the Thanatos. The lack of water is your gift from "god". Or is it that the dry bread you are choking on and forced to smile as you force it in, or you get no more, is your gift from "god" ? Does not matter, as there is a tendency towards that analogy in the system. The system is a human creation. The use of the word "god" does nothing, in my mind, to dignify it, and again what really happens tends to make me think there is no such being, thing, whatnot, whodat, as "god", supreme commander of the armed forces of the whole damn universe, doctor-president-for-life-dada....or whatever HE is supposed to ultimately be..... Even the arguments from design, in cosmology, fail to be convincing, unless one is willing to believe that "god" exists and was and is _insane_. After all it is a creature eat creature, violent forces of mass destruction nature, species competing against species, struggle to exist, kind of place. No kind, loving, caring, thoughtful, considerate, deity would ever create that kind of hell would they ? As for humans, the pinnacle of creation, created to make war on one another for millenia upon millenia.....No, of course not. It must be all the work of one supreme, omniscient, omnipotent deity.... Bullshit. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:51:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: god 44 In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:38:52 -0500 from On Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:38:52 -0500 morpheal said: > >Even the arguments from design, in cosmology, fail to be convincing, unless >one is willing to believe that "god" exists and was and is _insane_. After >all it is a creature eat creature, violent forces of mass destruction >nature, species competing against species, struggle to exist, kind of place. >No kind, loving, caring, thoughtful, considerate, deity would ever create >that kind of hell would they ? As for humans, the pinnacle of creation, >created to make war on one another for millenia upon millenia.....No, of >course not. It must be all the work of one supreme, omniscient, omnipotent >deity.... Bullshit. This is not the place to get into this, as Tom Mandel & I agreed about it last time on a different facet of the subject, so this is my final statement on the thread. I think the universe not only has design but emanates a moral reality in a "dramatic" form. Humanity is a theater for turning away from dog-eat-dog to a kind of shepherding role. I see this as a long-term species "act". And the universe emanates more than cold violence. It emanates meaning, awe, beauty, and wonder. It's a mistake to judge too quickly from a human scale - though Job did so pretty effectively a long time ago. But God is love, as the short canonical sentence has it. Charles Peirce has some likeable writings on the sense of truth as a shared outcome of long-term consensus - of reality not so much as a "given" but a goal. While I'm at it, down with postmodernism, reality is out there, peanut butter and pickles IS a good sandwich. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 09:36:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Of Notley's first disobedience... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In light of Robert Hale's recent post I recommend the essay "Words are not Language" from the Notley issue of _Talisman_. (Vol. 1 no. 1). Now you'll have to excuse me while I go off and "literalize the gap between saying and doing" for a few hours. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 11:09:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcing the publication of: SMOKES Susan Wheeler ISBN 1884800-19-X 72 pages Four Way Books Available through SPD shortly, or from Four Way Books, POB 607, Marshfield, Massachusetts 02050 -- send a check for $12.95 + $3 shipping first book, 50 cents additional. They will also bill with a call or fax to 781-837-4887. In light of the list's recent topics (which I haven't yet caught up with, re-entering a few days ago after a hiatus), Smokes' opener: He or She That's Got the Limb, That Holds Me Out on It The girls are drifting in their ponytails and their pig iron boat. So much for Sunday. The dodo birds are making a racket to beat the band. You could have come too. The girls wave and throw their garters from their pig iron boat. Why is this charming? Where they were nailed on their knees the garters all rip. You were expected. The youngest sees a Fury in a Sentra in a cloud. This is her intimation and she balks. The boat begins rocking from the scourge of the sunset. The youngest starts the song. Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 12:08:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Shoemaker Subject: Re: shall we agree to boycott B&N? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm really saddened, from this distance, to hear of the closing of Williams Corner Bookstore. It was a truly marvelous place (with a conspicuous devotion to poetry) that meant a lot to me during the nine years I lived in Charlottesville. By all means, folks shld stay away from Barnes & Noble and Borders and the rest if there's a "Williams Corner" near them that they could be supporting instead. Steve At 01:33 AM 4/1/98 -0700, you wrote: >another anecdote (from PW): > >Charlottesville Shutting: Williams Corner Bookstore to Close > >Michael Williams has one word when asked abut the superstore >competition that he says put Williams Corner Bookstore, his >Charlottesville, Va., independent, out of business. "Gangsters," >he says coolly. "That's all there is to it." > >Williams, who is otherwise soft-spoken and has owned his 2900- >sq.-ft. store since it opened in 1977, will close as early as April 20, >pending a lease signing by a new tenant. Only six years ago, Williams >had expanded the store, hoping this would protect it against the >impending arrival of a cross-town Barnes & Noble. > >Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, supports a thriving >bookselling community. But that has also meant more competition for >Williams. Apart from the usual suspects, he has had to contend with >New Dominion, another independent a block-and-a-half away that >he describes as "a good bookstore." (In fact, Williams plans no >blowout sale because he doesn't want to undercut New Dominion's >business.) He also points out a catch-22 in Charlottesville >bookselling: "Our best customers are the ones who have >personal computers, and they're the ones who are going to be >entranced by Amazon."--Steven M. Zeitchik > > >MAYHEW wrote: >> >> I was in Barnes and Nobles and came up with a great book concept: >> "Ice-berg Lettuce for the Soul: Insipid Anecdotes for a Superficial Age." >> I welcome all your contributions; we can make a million bucks off this. >> >> Jonathan Mayhew >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese >> University of Kansas >> jmayhew@ukans.edu >> (785) 864-3851 > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 13:07:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Garrett Kalleberg Subject: The Friend, Issue No. 2 Comments: To: Poetics List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wednesday, April 1, 1998 Announcing Issue No. 2 of The Transcendental Friend http:www.morningred.com/friend The second entry into our Critical Dictionary is an article on "Vocation" by the remarkable Henry Gould. This month The Bestiary, edited by Laird Hunt, features work by Anselm Berrigan, Jordan Davis, and an extraordinary lyric by an anonymous Middle English poet. Translation, excavation, research, reportage, Report from Afield will present works from some distance of space or time (being oriented at the moment to present-day New York). Our first Report brings back an interpretation of a text of Antonin Artaud by Jonathan Skinner. Inspired in part by the Spanish form of response-in-verse, mote or glosa, and in part by the visible stratification of Talmudic form in which time is flattened and the argument exposed on one plane, Mote takes an existing text as a ground for layers of response by subsequent authors. The current primary text, an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, will accrete four layers of commentary over the course of the next four issues. The first layer is by Leonard Schwartz. Review will present critical works that aspire to their own form--a condensation of writerly thought in response to a work, perhaps including the time-honored traditions of praise and/or blame, etc., but not necessarily. This month's Review, by Daniel Machlin, encounters the work of Richard Tuttle. This issue's Project is by Garrett Kalleberg and features texts from Ronald Johnson's Ark, published in 1996 by Living Batch Press, Albuquerque (available from Small Press Distribution and amazon.com). The first issue of the Friend is available from the Files page. (With our third issue, some archival & other materials will also be made available from this page.) For news, announcements, &c., you may subscribe to the Friend at http:www.morningred.com/friend/1998/04/pages/contact/subscribe.html (it's free). Garrett Kalleberg mailto:editor@morningred.com The Transcendental Friend can be found at: http://www.morningred.com/friend ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 13:51:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: XMAs (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 10:12:02 PST From: Tod Thilleman To: mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu Subject: Re: XMAs Mark, please post this on the UB Poetics list as my address has changed and I haven't any access at my new address: POETRY NEW YORK announces its first Pamphlet (microbook, chapbook) by MARK WALLACE, entitled MY CHRISTMAS POEM (SIXTEEN INCHES OF SNOW AND A VOID). This Pamphlet inaugurates a subscription based series of about 4 per year, one of which will be a contest-winning ms. Queries, submissions, SUBSCRIPTIONS, and guidelines plus ten years of back issues and other relevant material is available at the PNY website: http://members.tripod.com/~PNY_journal or you can e-mail me at pny33@hotmail.com. Mark's work is particularly strong in this first number. Ted Enslin's CONVERSATIONS is second, then Laura Moriarty's SPICER'S CITY. Hope to hear from you soon! Tod Thilleman Editor poetry new york PO Box 3184 Church Street Station NYC 10008 http://members.tripod.com/~PNY_journal/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 11:46:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Thomas A. Vogler" Subject: WEBSITES In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Wednesday, April 1, 1998 > > >Announcing Issue No. 2 of The Transcendental Friend >http:www.morningred.com/friend > > > >The second entry into our Critical Dictionary is an article on "Vocation" >by the remarkable Henry Gould. > >This month The Bestiary, edited by Laird Hunt, features work by Anselm >Berrigan, Jordan Davis, and an extraordinary lyric by an anonymous Middle >English poet. > >Translation, excavation, research, reportage, Report from Afield will >present works from some distance of space or time (being oriented at the >moment to present-day New York). Our first Report brings back an >interpretation of a text of Antonin Artaud by Jonathan Skinner. > >Inspired in part by the Spanish form of response-in-verse, mote or glosa, >and in part by the visible stratification of Talmudic form in which time is >flattened and the argument exposed on one plane, Mote takes an existing >text as a ground for layers of response by subsequent authors. The current >primary text, an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, will accrete >four layers of commentary over the course of the next four issues. The >first layer is by Leonard Schwartz. > >Review will present critical works that aspire to their own form--a >condensation of writerly thought in response to a work, perhaps including >the time-honored traditions of praise and/or blame, etc., but not >necessarily. This month's Review, by Daniel Machlin, encounters the work of >Richard Tuttle. > >This issue's Project is by Garrett Kalleberg and features texts from Ronald >Johnson's Ark, published in 1996 by Living Batch Press, Albuquerque >(available from Small Press Distribution and amazon.com). > >The first issue of the Friend is available from the Files page. (With our >third issue, some archival & other materials will also be made available >from this page.) > >For news, announcements, &c., you may subscribe to the Friend at >http:www.morningred.com/friend/1998/04/pages/contact/subscribe.html (it's >free). > > > > > > >Garrett Kalleberg >mailto:editor@morningred.com > >The Transcendental Friend can be found at: >http://www.morningred.com/friend ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 14:56:55 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ctfarmr Subject: correction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The name of the Tannen book is actually _You Just Don't Understand_. Sorry about the mistake -- it's been years since I read it. Bobbie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 13:04:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: shall we agree to boycott B&N? In-Reply-To: <3521FBE6.3945@ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i still have a bookmark from WCB from about 13 years ago -- a good store / does B&N distribute free bookmarks? / B&N's 20% discount to teachers might draw those among us in, and probably was part of their strategy / order class sets (if you teach) from inde stores, yes, and also from small presses (meow chapbooks instead of Prentice Hall textbooks, for ex) which also get lost in the deal bill >another anecdote (from PW): > >Charlottesville Shutting: Williams Corner Bookstore to Close > >Michael Williams has one word when asked abut the superstore >competition that he says put Williams Corner Bookstore, his >Charlottesville, Va., independent, out of business. "Gangsters," >he says coolly. "That's all there is to it." > >Williams, who is otherwise soft-spoken and has owned his 2900- >sq.-ft. store since it opened in 1977, will close as early as April 20, >pending a lease signing by a new tenant. Only six years ago, Williams >had expanded the store, hoping this would protect it against the >impending arrival of a cross-town Barnes & Noble. > >Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, supports a thriving >bookselling community. But that has also meant more competition for >Williams. Apart from the usual suspects, he has had to contend with >New Dominion, another independent a block-and-a-half away that >he describes as "a good bookstore." (In fact, Williams plans no >blowout sale because he doesn't want to undercut New Dominion's >business.) He also points out a catch-22 in Charlottesville >bookselling: "Our best customers are the ones who have >personal computers, and they're the ones who are going to be >entranced by Amazon."--Steven M. Zeitchik > > >MAYHEW wrote: >> >> I was in Barnes and Nobles and came up with a great book concept: >> "Ice-berg Lettuce for the Soul: Insipid Anecdotes for a Superficial Age." >> I welcome all your contributions; we can make a million bucks off this. >> >> Jonathan Mayhew >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese >> University of Kansas >> jmayhew@ukans.edu >> (785) 864-3851 > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh http://bmarsh.dtai.com PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com/PBrain/pbrain.html Voice & Range Community Arts http://bmarsh.dtai.com/V&R/vrmain.html National University http://www.nu.edu/index.html wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 16:33:46 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Talisman House (Ed Foster has asked me to forward the below to the List) From: MX%"efoster@stevens-tech.edu" 1-APR-1998 14:51:21.19 To: MX%"kimmelman@admin.njit.edu" CC: Subj: RE: talisman Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 14:51:12 -0500 (EST) From: Edward Foster To: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: RE: talisman In-Reply-To: <009C3D0B.6B004A06.53@admin.njit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII here's the data, burt. THANK YOU!!! NEW TALISMAN TITLES: Mary Margaret Sloan, ed., _Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women_; 768 pages, 65 poets, plus book-length selection of essays on poetics. ISBN: 1-883689-47-3, $29.95 "A major anthology . . . an impeccable selection of poets, poetry, and poetics." --Charles Bernstein. "In its range, breadth, discrimination, and selectivity, as well as its profound knowledge of the 'state of the art,' _Moving Borders_ bears witness to the very real revolution that has occurred in the poetry of North American women over the past three decades." --Marjorie Perloff. "Demanding and challenging" --Library Journal. Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz, and Chris Stroffolino, eds., _An Anthology of New (American) Poets_ 35 poets, 368 pages. ISBN: 1-883689-61-9, $21.95. "Read. It's the language of our future" --Rosmarie Waldrop. "Represents a new opening of the field for American poetry." --Paul Hoover. "A boon to the ongoing struggle to keep the world safe for poetry." --Anne Waldman. "Helps solidify the emerging contribution of a promising generation. --Publishers Weekly Lyman Gilmore, _Don't Touch the Poet: The Life and Times of Joel Oppenheimer_ Cloth, photos/illustrations, 260 pages. ISBN: 1-883689-64-3, $21.95. "A necessary book, and also a delightful one." --Hayden Carruth. Oppenheimer "has found in Lyman Gilmore a superb biographical narrator and best of all, the reader who gives him his rightful place in American letters." --Andrei Codrescu. "A fine literary biography." --Boston Globe. William Bronk, _All of What We Loved_. 144 pages. ISBN: 1-883689-65-1, $13.95. New collection of work by the poet described in the _Dictioary of Literary Biography_ as "one of our most intimate, haunting, and important poets." "Arguably the most metaphysical poet of his generation." --Hungry Mind Review. "One of our modern masters." --Michael Heller. "A poet of great distinction." --Small Press Review. "He is brilliant." --Southwest Review. Talisman books are available in good bookstores and can be ordered through SPD and LPC/InBook. Phone orders (Visa/MasterCard): 1-800-243-0138. For a complete catalogue, write to Talisman, P.O. Box 3157, Jersey City, NJ 07303-3157. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 16:48:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: A poem by Alice Notley In-Reply-To: <009C4114.67CB86A4.200@admin.njit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think the following poem is interesting vis-a-vis the very basic notion that babies and other "womanly" things aren't taken seriously as "poetic" subject matter. In my view such a notion is only a starting point and in no sense relfects the entire scope of what one might talk about vis-a-vis "women/poetry"-- Anyway--my ambivalence stated, I wanted to type in the following poem by Notley. I think it is certainly relevant to the discussion at hand--but I also just love it-- *** JANUARY Mommy what's the fork doing? What? It's being Donald Duck. What could I eat this? Eat what? This cookie. What do you mean? What could I eat it? Does he bite people? The fish is dead. That fish got dead today. That fish gets dead today, right? These are my silver mittens Mommy No, it's gold, they're gold mittens On myself I put my black hat and my mit- tens, myself. Edmund. Edmund. Edmund. Maaaah. Lodle Lodle Lodle Daddy, the doctor did put that wart on you, right? I touch the purple petals She says Hey! The flower says, we are purple, together they touch purple it keeps purple purple means us, here. The air moved a person. I like people because they are as serious as I am. Being purple is very serious. It's dense and still. It's a matter of fact but light seems it. I seem the light makes me feel purple. A petal is crumpling I've done before I sleep in the bulb. Being purple is long. Crumpling is not as serious as being purple (I may disagree.) I'm not serious not smiling. I'm smiling as crumpling only a little now. I'm mostly staying seriously purple now. Do you remember when you were like Edmund? Yeah. What did you do? crawled with him. Do you remember last year? Yeah, Mommy what did you do when you be Anselm? The jacket is furniture. I have to fix, Mommy. I have to fix all the tools. I'm in the snow and my feet go in the footprints. I'll look up "love" in the dictionary. They're beautiful. Bodily they're incomprehensible. I can't tell if they're me or not. They think I'm their facility. We're all about as incomprehensible as the crocuses. In myself I'm like a color except not in the sense of a particular one. That's impossible. That's under what I keep trying out. With which I can practically pass for an adult to myself. Some of it is pretty useful, like when I say to them "Now will I take you for a walk in the snow to the store" and prettily and usefully we go. Mommy, the lovely creature, You should have seen how I looked last night, Bob Dylan Bob Creeley Bob Rosenthal Bob On Sesame Street. Oh I can't think of any other Bobs right now, garbage. It perks. Thy tiger, thy night are magnificent, it's ten below zero deep deep down deep in my abdomen. It pulls me up and leads me about the house. It's got the sun in the morning and the moon at night. It does anything careless love sees that everything goes, minds. The melody was upsidedown, now the melody turns over. One note: my feet go. 30 years old and married 4 years 2 children is the same little girl in the yard until dusk and into night in air with myself, others has a mother and father nature (courage) smiles frankly at the camera don't blot your anonymity your littleness child you are is the source of all honestly bliss at dusk in Chicago is face you've ever been and almost before duky the child air you are handsome you're head-to-toe It's too early. It's too dark. If I can't watch tv I'll turn on the light and look at stars. I see 2 full moons. I walk. I am big. I can say what they say. It's fun to sound. I walk. I am big. I finally get the blue and red container of... sneezes! the trees have no leaves they lean like her over the snow and green wire fence of the school the sky is white low low low Greegy Ruthy and Jill are there Daddy tomorrow we'll have donuts and chocolate soda and my birthday party and eat snow and throw snow and make snowmen. He'll take off your wart tomorrow and you won't be sick. My armpits smell like chicken soup. But really I hate them because of their tacky and unchanging book collection. My head weighs too much on the pillow. I have to sweat. I'm crying free water don't worry. Under your tongue looks like pussy. You seem to bloom. The colors are brighter but I think I'm deaf. I'm remembering all my dogs. One was taken away because he howled too much and my parents said he wanted to fight in World War II and so joined the army. All things considered there's nothing to say for Chicago. I dreamed you lead an army of empty pieplates against another one. I dreamed you had a baby. I despise someone. I have to sweat. I need you to stop this train. I didn't lose any weight today I had clean hair but I drove Ted nuts and spanked Anselm on the arm and wouldn't converse with him about the letter C. And didn't take Edmund out or change the way the house smells or not drink and take a pill and had to watch John Adams on tv and fantasized about powers of esp when on lsd-- there is no room for fantasy in the head except as she speaks. The Holy Ghost is the definitive renegade like in the white falling-out chair stuffing, 2 chairs asking me if I liked my life and said how could you dislike being a poet? and having children is only human but she meant my chairs. The trouble is the children distribute the stuffing to the wind. It's soft and pliant and they can do it intimately together. There are 4 green sunbursts on the curtain. Oh it is cold at night but the jade plant will handle it. Came in from the snow and melted on the floor. There's Glistening where Jill and Ruthy's feet Sat Ruthy with braids and colored Yarn in her hair, a girl Beauty cars go by to hitch Away on is it their rumble That comforts? Or this room full Of everyone who's sat making Stuffing appear from the Chairs, and flowers too last years They just want to do their yoga too. I guess so. I try to call up Casey Gold. Some money comes by anyway; the day brightens, Casey Gold. I don't appreciate the simple war of nerves my courtesy rewarded with a goring is it boring the toro rhymes, what else do children have to think about? well if the cape is all wet it won't blow in the wind but I have to check something You're still in no condition to fight a bull But he's found his own... What a glistening golden baby! Enough to make one woozy. Matador, I am with the wind and unwinding as wonderfully useless to you. [HOW SPRING COMES, The toothpaste Press, 1981) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 17:22:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat In-Reply-To: <9e4557c7.35214838@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Standard, You ask a couple of questions that interest me: 1. Is it possible, and if so, how, to analyze formal aspects of poetry through a lens of gender identification? Of course it is. In the "mainstream" one need only look at some of the more popular female writers to see that gender allows one (in that milieu) to "get away" with a lot more formal deviation-- (cf. Graham, Hillman, Fulton etc...). I think it is also entirely possible to do individual readings of various "experimental" female writers through a lens of gender identificiation-- One might argue that Scalapino's very strange descriptions of sex in Front Matter, Dead Souls have a lot to do with her gender position-- I find Howe's work as it relates to her critical work on Dickinson clearly "gendered" in various ways. Howe's arguments vis-a-vis Dickinson and A. Hutchinson--her exploration of antinomianisms as they seem bound up with a feminine or feminist politics certainly show through in her poetry-- Formally one might argue that her scattering of phrases and words is not onlly a visual statement, but a political one as well--a formal enactment of antinomianism--a formal enactment of the evasion of official identity. Carla Harryman's recent work (There Never Was a Rose Without Thorn) is extremely resonant with the conversation that's been going on here. In a number of her pieces she plays with and trespasses upon various gender categories-- One piece that I remember fairly vividly deals with a "person" who's in an art gallery. It is never clear whether this person in a man or a woman. We see the person in question move through the gallery--he/she thinks all sorts of sexual thoughts, attempts to masturbate with a telephone, and even converses with the gallery owner--but we are left none the wiser re: his/her gender identity. In other words, he/she gets into all sorts of narrative situations that would normally warrent a pretty clear knowledge of the character's gender. Harrayman has to jump through some pretty lofty narrative hoops to achieve the desired effect of what feels like a strange sort of gender-related vertigo. And so on.... it is actually pretty easy to go through various female authors (as one might do the same for men, ostensibly--Watten's stereotypically masculine obsession with history, Bernstein's stereotypically male interest in the formalities of the rant and so on...)-- But the danger here seems to be that such formal trends will be chalked up to gender and nothing more. I mean, it's not always clear how much of a given poet's writing is determined by gender-related tendencies and how much is related to the person's individual personality. As in, maybe Scalapino is just a quiet writer--Watten a loud one (witness the typography in his new book out on the terrific Atelos Press, Bad History...) 2. How do I or anyone else on this list further my theoretical ideas about gender in my poetic work..... The most glaring example I can think of here in my work would be my use of the dash. In some of my work I employ the dash more than liberally. Once a woman who didn't like me called my work "super-model poetry"--primarily because of my use of the dash (she used it too and seemed to feel that I was trespassing on her poetic turf by using it)-- I would argue that the dash is probably the single most feminized formal aspect of poetry being employed right now-- We see it associated with female writers as diverse as Graham, Scalapino, Hillman, Dickinson, and Notley-- We do not often see it associated with guys. Some thoughts, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 18:46:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laura and jeff Subject: Re: shall we agree to boycott B&N? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" and borders (and the companies they own: waldenbooks, coles, brentano's [sp?]). what i do is: i go to borders, etc. and get the isbn numbers, exact title, author, and publisher for the books i want and can't find at my local indy book store (the isbn number is one of the easiest ways to find books), and then take these to the local and place my order. around a week later i have my book, and a small buisness is not undercut. jeff. >another anecdote (from PW): > >Charlottesville Shutting: Williams Corner Bookstore to Close > >Michael Williams has one word when asked abut the superstore >competition that he says put Williams Corner Bookstore, his >Charlottesville, Va., independent, out of business. "Gangsters," >he says coolly. "That's all there is to it." > >Williams, who is otherwise soft-spoken and has owned his 2900- >sq.-ft. store since it opened in 1977, will close as early as April 20, >pending a lease signing by a new tenant. Only six years ago, Williams >had expanded the store, hoping this would protect it against the >impending arrival of a cross-town Barnes & Noble. > >Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, supports a thriving >bookselling community. But that has also meant more competition for >Williams. Apart from the usual suspects, he has had to contend with >New Dominion, another independent a block-and-a-half away that >he describes as "a good bookstore." (In fact, Williams plans no >blowout sale because he doesn't want to undercut New Dominion's >business.) He also points out a catch-22 in Charlottesville >bookselling: "Our best customers are the ones who have >personal computers, and they're the ones who are going to be >entranced by Amazon."--Steven M. Zeitchik > > >MAYHEW wrote: >> >> I was in Barnes and Nobles and came up with a great book concept: >> "Ice-berg Lettuce for the Soul: Insipid Anecdotes for a Superficial Age." >> I welcome all your contributions; we can make a million bucks off this. >> >> Jonathan Mayhew >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese >> University of Kansas >> jmayhew@ukans.edu >> (785) 864-3851 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if the stars are lit it means there is someone who needs it. It means it is essential that every evening at least one star should ascend over the crest of the building. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 20:06:45 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: SSSCHAEFER Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Katy: As usual, lots to chew on and thanks plus I feel smarter now having read your thorough post. So thanks. First off, for the record, no one has given me as editor more trouble about dashes than Ray DiPalma who is very specific about the SIZE of dash he likes and so what does that say about his gender identity? Second, what on earth is "super model poetry" and why am I so excited? Please send some. Third, Leslie Scalapino just read some "sex" poems from WAY, I believe, here in town yesterday, and I was struck about how at least in that manuscript, it seemed a bit more like reading phenomenology. Plus a little particle physics. But detached, I mean in big way. FRONT MATTER, DEAD SOULS I can't recall too clearly here, but Leslie was telling me that she felt that a large part of her work resists the idea of a reader who can "identify" with the work. This I find really interesting. How does a male-constructed-subject identify with a poem that is "gendered" female? And vica versa, of course. In some partial way? In some alienated fashion? No idea. Does this resistance to the notion of "identification" have anything to do with gender-- Bernstein, as you say, does the male rant and so I often feel there is a "voice" (definitely in recent work that he read here in LA) that can be "identified" with (for me as a male-constructed-ranter). Best, Standard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 17:39:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 14:47:03 EST >From: SSSCHAEFER >Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat > >One thing I=EDm noticing is that exactly what I feared would happen, is >happening. I=EDm =EBworrying=ED people simply by trying to get "women" to= tell me >exactly what the relevance of a gender conversation is to the act of writin= g >poetry. If we gals can scare you, Standard, then it's all been worth it. Dodie implies, I think, that as to the degree that she is a "woman," >it effect the content of her writing. Have not heard anyone address the fo= rm >or technique issue. Here, I am reminded of John Shoptaw=EDs interesting= book on >Ashbery wherein he outlines how Ashbery=EDs "homosexuality" effected the= way he >wrote. Does not in any way imply that all homosexuals are "homotextual" >writers, etc. Why don't you try reading my writing and the writing of the rest of the women on the list and then you'll see how much of it is all about technique. And the notion of a female form has been kicked around ad nauseum since when--the 70s, the 80s? It's essentialist gaga. Why should we have to kick it around again to conform to your idea of a serious discussion? Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 18:08:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Katy, with all due respect, you're mostly talking about subject matter. And if scattering words on a page is antinomian, then a lot of us are antinomians--and, _pace_ Hutchinson, most of the antinomians in her day were male. The dash, too, is pretty thin. For a long time the available editions of Dickinson eliminated them, by the way, making her usage unavailable as role model. Williams was very fond of dashes, as am I--but I've written a fair number of poems invoving children, which may disqualify me as an exemplar. On that last subject, here's a few from _Questions, Short Poems, Water & Air_, by Ira Beryl Brukner, which will appear from Junction Press this summer. special delivery our love our new-born baby has a dimple in his right cheek and the longest brown eyelashes part polliwog-hummingbird going from breast to breast with kisses all over his inches those little hands and feet that rose-petal mouth moving from a smile to a scowl in a heartbeat two days old bundled up and snuggled against my chest is our half-asleep boy I walk through town stopping now and then to introduce him to falling flowers of ice and adults wowed by his nose he cries and coos massaging my ribs with his pea-pod toes raphael rubbing my calf with his head under the desk rubbing my head with his calf under the desk rocking his rocker after standing on his horse I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a feminine poetic, as opposed to areas of concern that are not exclusive to but more common among/important for women, and viewpoints that are more nearly gender-exclusive, and I'm also not sure why it's important that there be one. I also like to remember that two of the earliest poems we have, the songs of Deborah and Miriam, don't much conform to the stereotypes of women that have developed in the west since the troubadours, when the Jewish concept of the Woman of Valor got lost. At 05:22 PM 4/1/98 -0600, you wrote: >Standard, > >You ask a couple of questions that interest me: > >1. Is it possible, and if so, how, to analyze formal aspects of poetry >through a lens of gender identification? > >Of course it is. In the "mainstream" one need only look at some of the >more popular female writers to see that gender allows one (in that >milieu) to "get away" with a lot more formal deviation-- (cf. Graham, >Hillman, Fulton etc...). > >I think it is also entirely possible to do individual readings of various >"experimental" female writers through a lens of gender identificiation-- > >One might argue that Scalapino's very strange descriptions of sex in Front >Matter, Dead Souls have a lot to do with her gender position-- > >I find Howe's work as it relates to her critical work on Dickinson clearly >"gendered" in various ways. Howe's arguments vis-a-vis Dickinson and A. >Hutchinson--her exploration of antinomianisms as they seem bound up with a >feminine or feminist politics certainly show through in her poetry-- > >Formally one might argue that her scattering of phrases and words is not >onlly a visual statement, but a political one as well--a formal >enactment of antinomianism--a formal enactment of the evasion of official >identity. > >Carla Harryman's recent work (There Never Was a Rose Without Thorn) is >extremely resonant with the conversation that's been going on here. In a >number of her pieces she plays with and trespasses upon >various gender categories-- > >One piece that I remember fairly vividly deals with a "person" who's in an >art gallery. It is never clear whether this person in a man or a woman. We >see the person in question move through the gallery--he/she thinks all >sorts of sexual thoughts, attempts to masturbate with a telephone, and >even converses with the gallery owner--but we are left none the >wiser re: his/her gender identity. > >In other words, he/she gets into all sorts of narrative situations that >would normally warrent a pretty clear knowledge of the character's gender. >Harrayman has to jump through some pretty lofty narrative hoops to achieve >the desired effect of what feels like a strange sort of >gender-related vertigo. > >And so on.... it is actually pretty easy to go through various female >authors (as one might do the same for men, ostensibly--Watten's >stereotypically masculine obsession with history, Bernstein's >stereotypically male interest in the formalities of the rant and so >on...)-- > >But the danger here seems to be that such formal trends will be chalked up >to gender and nothing more. I mean, it's not always clear how much of a >given poet's writing is determined by gender-related tendencies and how >much is related to the person's individual personality. As in, maybe >Scalapino is just a quiet writer--Watten a loud one (witness the >typography in his new book out on the terrific Atelos Press, Bad >History...) > >2. How do I or anyone else on this list further my theoretical ideas about >gender in my poetic work..... > > >The most glaring example I can think of here in my work would be my use of >the dash. In some of my work I employ the dash more than liberally. > >Once a woman who didn't like me called my work "super-model >poetry"--primarily because of my use of the dash (she used it too and >seemed to feel that I was trespassing on her poetic turf by using it)-- > >I would argue that the dash is probably the single most feminized formal >aspect of poetry being employed right now-- > >We see it associated with female writers as diverse as Graham, Scalapino, >Hillman, Dickinson, and Notley-- > >We do not often see it associated with guys. > >Some thoughts, >Katy > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 16:43:22 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Balestrieri Subject: Berkeley Bookstore Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, Can someone help me with the name of the bookstore in Berkeley that has the great poetry collection? I can't remember who mentioned it recently but I'd very much like to visit. Please back channel. Thanks, Pete Balestrieri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 18:06:46 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: screening process/feminism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 18:07:21 -0700 >From: Rachel Levitsky >Subject: Re: screening process/feminism > >Dodie--I think that is an excellent screening process and am not >surprised that it works as a filter. > >I was curious about your comment about no longer being a feminist. I >often feel like a bad feminist myself but I don't think anything to >drastic has changed in me--I'm just more willing to be vocal about all >of me, pervert and feminist. Can you enlighten?? Actually, Rachel, when I said that about no longer being a feminist (that's a hard word to spell) I was being light-hearted about no longer being in the preciousness of the Feminist Writer's Guild. I don't like to align myself with any group at this point--even feminist--the ugly specter of political correctness raises its head--and self-censorship is close behind. I've been reading feminist theory for like 20 years and at least 90% of the books I read are by women. I think an important thing that was covered in Kathleen Fraser's project, and which I've really taken to heart, is that women do not have to engage language in a manner privileged by male poets and thinkers. Her ideas, for instance, of "and/but" (female) as opposed to "either/or" (male). I'm leary of making rules about this or generalizing. Ecriture feminine was interesting and radical when it came out, but now I think lots of people find it problematic. I think that one shouldn't feel a compulsion to use male forms in writing, but also one shouldn't feel pressured into speaking about writing in the current cliches of the intelligencia. I've been thinking about something Katy said a few days ago--something about how she'd read her Derrida and Foucault--like she'd done her homework--and now she has a right to talk about women. I think this points up the sickness--not of Katy--but of the comically elitist poetic avant-garde in which many of us are involved. Why does Katy have to have read Derrida and Foucault--or feel that she should have--in order to validate her speaking? If D and F feed her writing, that's one thing, but the compulsion that everybody who's intelligent and writing poetry must read them is bunk. I look forward to the day when a younger version of Katy will say, "I've read Catherine Clement and Jacqueline Rose . . ." Or even Laura Mulvey . . . That's when feminism will have really made a dent. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 18:16:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Let me add that no one rants better than Rochelle Owens. Even Charles might agree. For a great male rant see Armand Schwerner's _The Tablets_. Can't find my copy of its last incarnation, so I can't cite the specific one. Anybody help me out there? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 21:06:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: Berkeley Bookstore In-Reply-To: <00241E0C.1826@intuit.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" small press distribution? 1341 7th st., berkeley 94710; 510-524-1668 > Hello, > Can someone help me with the name of the bookstore in Berkeley that > has the great poetry collection? I can't remember who mentioned it > recently but I'd very much like to visit. Please back channel. > Thanks, > Pete Balestrieri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 20:09:40 -0600 Reply-To: "k. lederer" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Interesting chit-chat In-Reply-To: <951edb3e.3522e4a6@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Standard-- It has been raining all day here after a week of beautiful summer weather-- But somehow I am not disappointed as I know this is the spring that should have happened in between. I find your use of "identification" or lack thereof interesting. The first thought that popped into my mind while reading your take on Scalapino was that, at least, for me, the space of "non-identification" she opens up is exactly what draws me in. As in, in a world where, perhaps, I feel "kept out" of those spaces (including various poetry books) that might be gendered male, Scalapino's nearly neutral gender spaces seem inviting-- Particularly in regards to her depiction of sex I feel as if I'm watching an act that is not so much genderless as animal? Often when I read her work I feel as if I'm regarding various almost science fictional beings-- They are perhaps gendered, but only in so far as, let's say, Octavia Butler's characters in her sci-fi materpiece XENOGENESIS are gendered. In other words, perhaps it is Scalapino's uncanny ability to create "negative" gender spaces that allows the likes of me to "identify" with her work. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 20:14:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980401180809.006d9a3c@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I never said--or meant to imply--that ALL dashes=feminine. Nor did I say that ALL poems that included babies etc. were written by women. Nor did I say that one might associate the dash with a "feminine" subjectivity because Emily Dickinson was a role model per se-- What I am trying to address is the way in which form and subject-matter (as they might be extricated from one another) might embody or otherwise buttress certain political goals that women as a "subjectivity category" might wish to accomplish. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:04:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: screening process/feminism In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >>>"either/or" (male). I'm leary of making rule ^^^^^ OK, have been accused of sarcasm in recent days, but I've seen this typo on a great many mailing lists, and I'm not hallucinating. I am trying to restrain my acid remarks, and will say merely: this whole discussion is a real trip. Gwyn "No, he's outside" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 19:08:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Standard, Please explain more about DiPalma's specificities about the dash. Are you saying that he insisted that the dashes be exactly the same size and spacing that he'd used/written in his original manuscript and that you thought that picky in some way. I suspect you're not saying this--i.e., wanting the dashes done exactly as submitted was picky, as you'd certainly want to get such particulars done accurately, but I'm curious. And about the reference to gender identity, you're kidding, I gotta suspect, right? In response to the subjectivity stuff. My own hunch, which is probably not a terribly new thought, is that women (and by extension gay and lesbian writers) are in a unprecedented position to handle, especially, _pronouns_ in very new ways. The "I" and "we" uses in conventionally referential poeties have certainly taken (for good and necessary reasons, I think) a backseat in most of the experimental/innovative poetries I've been reading in my lifetime. I think males have most often used these ironically, self-reflexively, and most especially as "objects(?)," all by themselves--i.e., they become more the subject matter, or the content, or whatever, in poetries that include them; not "a subject" speaks from them; rather, they are more a part of the formal issues the poetry is actually "about" ("is a preposition. It takes a verb. It takes a verb to know one" [possibly poorly misquoted but always for me hilarious quote from someone in _The L=Book_). I've digressed--sorry. Again, if anything left after the digression, I believe females and non-male gendered and/or identified poets will especially handle pronouns, employ them, very differently, and do already, to be sure. I'm particularly interested in what will be done and what has been done with the second person. I believe close examination of the male experimentalists will show "you" employed very seldom as "an other" presumably outside of the Self of the poet. More often, I believe, the male experimentalist's "you" will be a projection of some part of the male's "Self" or some part of the "matter" the poetry is addressing or made out of. Non-males, I think, have a novel opportunity (or even responsibility) to use the second person and let it speak "for" and "to" and "about" and "from" and _____ in ways that address or contact another "repressed element" in poetry, a materiality not of "language," but of "Self" a male overemphasis on "individuality" as means to "individuation" cannot fully perceive, actualize or contact. In other words, such Self can only be illuminated when other "others" are heard from. This post is a mass of confusion for the writer and probably will be for most list-readers, too, but I can't articulate these thoughts clearly yet and want to send the post anyway. I do hope that some others will at least think about ways of handling/employing pronouns, though. I regret that I haven't taken the time to closely analyze, say, ten prototypical male and ten prototypical non-male poetries including various employment of the second person pronoun. I do think such an analysis would prove fruitful. Me, I'm afraid. SSSCHAEFER wrote: > Katy: > > As usual, lots to chew on and thanks plus I feel smarter now having read your > thorough post. So thanks. > > First off, for the record, no one has given me as editor more trouble about > dashes than Ray DiPalma who is very specific about the SIZE of dash he likes > and so what does that say about his gender identity? > > Second, what on earth is "super model poetry" and why am I so excited? Please > send some. > > Third, Leslie Scalapino just read some "sex" poems from WAY, I believe, here > in town yesterday, and I was struck about how at least in that manuscript, it > seemed a bit more like reading phenomenology. Plus a little particle physics. > But detached, I mean in big way. FRONT MATTER, DEAD SOULS I can't recall too > clearly here, but Leslie was telling me that she felt that a large part of her > work resists the idea of a reader who can "identify" with the work. > > This I find really interesting. How does a male-constructed-subject identify > with a poem that is "gendered" female? And vica versa, of course. In some > partial way? In some alienated fashion? No idea. Does this resistance to > the notion of "identification" have anything to do with gender-- Bernstein, as > you say, does the male rant and so I often feel there is a "voice" (definitely > in recent work that he read here in LA) that can be "identified" with (for me > as a male-constructed-ranter). > > Best, > > Standard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:05:37 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Enigma Variations Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear Poetica, Those of you interested in non-fixated notions of gender have not much time. Copies of Alex Smith's Enigma Variations are running out. Please support the arts. Make checks out to 'a'a arts. Send $5 to: Bill Luoma 3029 Lowrey Ave #A-1102 Honolulu, HI 96822 In your order please indicate you endorse fluxing notions of gender! Say YES! I too am a gender bender. In return Chapman Billy guarantees you will receive a smart little letter press chapbook you can take to bed: "Landing on the moon she thought, Only a man could get where I am and stay. She was a waiter, a red, a cage of again and again. She said she could wait and did, and now came in outer space" --Alex Smith Thanks you for your support. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 23:09:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: Re: more boring chit-chat Comments: To: "k. lederer" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Katy, Re: Of course it is. In the "mainstream" one need only look at some of the more popular female writers to see that gender allows one (in that milieu) to "get away" with a lot more formal deviation-- (cf. Graham, Hillman, Fulton etc...). I guess I am wondering how, and in what "mainstream" gender makes this allowance. Explicate? And the dash? Obviously in Dickenson, but how is this gendered, as a technique? The dash in Pound, I would add, is crucial. Guess I find these remarks a little confusing. Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:29:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Tired chit-chat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Just got back from a reading by Renee Gladman & Diane di Prima at the = Poetry Project--oddly related to some of the issues about here--so I'm = tired and may not make complete sense. However, would like to respond in part to some of Standard's and Marc's = thoughts: I do agree deep down that gender personality is a societal = construct, and find any attempts to trace personality to physique = ultimately limiting and depressing. However, that societal construction = goes back so deep that it is hard to analyze and understand completely = (if at all). But I do find some important areas in which experimental = women poets are working to overcome that Silence that so many women = function (or perceive they function) within. And one of these areas is = on the level of syntax. I do remember reading Stein when a callow = student, and just finding the basic structure of her sentences = incredibly alluring compared to many of the traditional, which, sorry, = included mostly male writers I was also reading. Toward the end of "A = Room of One's Own," Woolf refers to this difference in structure that = she was finding between women and men writers. Now, I completely regard = this as gender nonspecific and feel that since modernist women writers, = and even early women writers working in the late 1800s, opened up a = certain syntactical and structural space that may have been due to the = impact of being "silenced"--silenced in intention and content which then = found its way into structure and syntax--that many male writers found = interesting and inspiring as well. (I know that I'm entering a certain = radicality here, by implying that the whole shift of the early 20th = century was due to women writers, but hey, it's late and I've got that = foolhardiness granted by tiredness).=20 Anyway, Cixous (this is also going back to college, and I should re-read = some of this myself) postulates that in language there is a male kind of = syntax that is perceived as "better": that is, subject-verb-object, = linear, logical, introduction, body, conclusion, etc. "Female" writing = is cyclical (of course), non-linear, I think you can guess the rest. But = her ideas are interesting when applied to someone like, say, Stein, or = even Susan Howe, who is taking a traditionally linear topic, history, = and writing about it in such a way that makes you re-think the syntaxes = in which you read history. Good night, Marcella. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 21:57:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Scalapino and Ward Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Anyone in the Los Angeles area--heads up: Leslie Scalapino Diane Ward Reading at Cafe Balcony 12431 Rochester Avenue (corner of Santa Monica & Centinela) Sunday April 5, 1998 4:00 p.m. $5 admission (all proceeds go to readers) Sponsored by L.A. Books http://www.litpress.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 01:30:39 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: alligators, dense fog and Scala piano Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit "Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho HOOOO my Poooooor siiides I I Should die if I were to live here said Scopprell Ho Ho HO HO HO" -never though Senor Blake could be such fun-so how is it out there in poetical land- When the dust settles out, the clouds lift and people start sifting and sorting thru the remains of this century -people are going to remember some great thinkers of the 20th century. Teenagers everywhere are going to carry copies of Leslie Scalapino's Defoe under there arms and read together in groups on stage and in alleys. --"In the reality which is created by a writing, to narrow to the outlines of its form is utter scrutiny, is real. It's the interior relation of experience." Scalapino I'm trying to work my way thru Alfred North Whitehead now, and holy vectors, Olson really knew what he was talking about. Scalapino is one of the best writers we have out there, I wish somebody would send me some info on that reading Anselm Berrigan is doing at HERE this weekend, I'm taking a trip down the Hudson to NY-seaty to see my hermana and would like to stop by and see the reading, thanks erik ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:29:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: <01BD5DCE.7B773CE0@ad05-120.arl.compuserve.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I've been hearing about putative distinctions about the way men and women write (as opposed to the subject of their writing) for maybe 30 years, and I've yet to see them demonstrated. Laurence Sterne wasn't the first man to write in the manner that Cixous describes as female, and the Brontes got away with pretending to be male. Their writing wasn't obviously female to anyone until it was revealed to be so. Somebody a long time ago decided that rhymes ending with an unstressed syllable were "female." The designation was certainly applied by a male, and while the designation is rich with suggestion about attitudes about gender, it's prosodically nonsensical. Men and women have been more-or-less communicating with language for a long time, and men and women have been unselfconsciously enjoying each other's writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and usually without the need of a translator. So the differences must be relatively superficial. I don't know that the suggested gender difference, however slight or major, is important to any agenda, but I would be intrigued if it exists. Rather than quoting theorists why not present a text and explain convincingly why it has to be by a member of one or another gender? >Anyway, Cixous (this is also going back to college, and I should re-read some of this myself) postulates that in language there is a male kind of syntax that is perceived as "better": that is, subject-verb-object, linear, logical, introduction, body, conclusion, etc. "Female" writing is cyclical (of course), non-linear, I think you can guess the rest. But her ideas are interesting when applied to someone like, say, Stein, or even Susan Howe, who is taking a traditionally linear topic, history, and writing about it in such a way that makes you re-think the syntaxes in which you read history. > >Good night, >Marcella. > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 08:28:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: dis-appointment... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (((please read through to the end))) just back in town from a memorable conference at suny/stony brook... much to report, but i'll keep this as brief as i can: first, to thank all of those who visited my website for the conference, and gave me feedback of any sort---pro con whatever... this helped immeasurably in my presenting something worth listening to, and in giving me *confidence* to stand before a group of talented and committed scholars and artists, and say what all i said... second: to say, again, that i find the discussion of feminist and gender issues on this list vital and refreshing... and to thank nada gordon for such a fascinating post, which just happens to include a nice reference to past posts of mine... thanx nada, and i almost wish you hadn't mentioned me, b/c it now may appear as though i'm saying this in part b/c you mentioned me!... third, to voice a minor disagreement with katy and keston (and katy---i just love your posts, and keston---please continue to post your poetry!): while i do think we need to think through simplistic binaries ("mainstream" vs. "experimental") i do at the same time believe in concentrated power centers, and in the relative disregard for (primarily and by my definition, non-mainstream) poetries in academe and in our public domain (which i continue to believe we have here in the states, though perhaps i'm hallucinating)... that is, i do think poetry and poetics is in general neglected, and that this is best gauged by having a look at what goes on in the less prestigious institutions... call me an ambitious guy, as i've said before... but we learn much by looking at the (english) and other student (grad AND undergrad) bodies, and by considering how these bodies have become increasingly the (often uncontested, sadly) site of corporate appeals and public relations strategies... which is to say, bodies that know little and often care little of political action, thanx in large part to the way our educational systems work, current economic realities, etc... please not to read this as an appeal to "conservative values" or some such... fourth, bill l., *titanic* is one weird flick, for sure, for lotsa reasons that i haven't entirely figured out... i like the wall street allegory, but think in fact that love and death in that item may become a cultural event more b/c film technology intersects with appeal to doomed romance (not so much populist-class-conflicted, but driven by the drifting (visual) artist whose artistic vision literally refrains from exploiting his "true" love); the spectacle of panoramic techo-disaster via flashback which itself contains a viewing audience (presumably to coach actual viewers as to proper response); the ubiquitous use of the filmic eye/i as a narrative device that ends up reflecting the past through photographic as well as cinematic images (all of those mock-sepia feminist-ic photos of wimslet next to an airplane, etc., the colorized visual of that final death dream, the underwater robot-eye, the computer-aided narrative graphic, or graphic narrative, and such like)... digital as contemporary site of melancholy?---a sort of inverse or submersed sublime?... i am not a cynic, believe me, but found this particular film most troubling... and perhaps most important, it's all upgraded and packaged for digital consumption (think of the use in that film of digital stuntmen and women)... there's something decidely *not* old-fashioned about *titanic*... oh and hey: as you might deduce from this, bill, that i'm myopic as hell, really, can't see w/o my contacts to save my life... and am *not* a good swimmer... and fifth (i save the worst for last), and along the lines of power: to report here, publicly, that ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in chicago has just denied me tenure (along with another colleague here in humanities)... which issue, though as don byrd (my dear dear friend and diss. chair) suggests, is surely an example of a person beating a very personal and public drum, i hope fortifies some of my other comments on this list over the past few years... thanx to all those who've voiced their support for me over the past year during this (what else but?) ordeal... but in any case, i post here with the hope, self-serving though it may be, that folks will drop me a line backchannel if they hear of any institution looking for a poet who knows a bit about critical theory and emedia, and (if i may) who speaks his mind now and again... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:30:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: dis-appointment... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" joe,this is most distressing. you've got a well-received book out from a respectable press --what could possibly be the problem? At 8:28 AM -0600 4/2/98, Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher wrote:and fifth (i save the worst for last), and along the lines of power: to >report here, publicly, that ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in chicago has >just denied me tenure (along with another colleague here in humanities)... >which issue, though as don byrd (my dear dear friend and diss. chair) >suggests, is surely an example of a person beating a very personal and >public drum, i hope fortifies some of my other comments on this list over >the past few years... thanx to all those who've voiced their support for me >over the past year during this (what else but?) ordeal... but in any case, >i post here with the hope, self-serving though it may be, that folks will >drop me a line backchannel if they hear of any institution looking for a >poet who knows a bit about critical theory and emedia, and (if i may) who >speaks his mind now and again... > >best, > >joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:38:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: theses on poetics and feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 1. The more interesting currents in poetry practice, in the last 25 years, shake up form. (The "excesses" of S. Howe or Scalapino, e.g.) 2. A response to the buried twists and injuries of gender polarity, and patriarchal power, requires (or leads to) shaking things up at a number of fundemental levels. That's why the formally explosive and unlooked-for approaches of a Howe, a Scalapino, a Harryman, are startlingly effective at bringing uneasy and buried political constrictions to our attention. 3. These tensions and constrictions exist mainly as lived stresses; social stuff is constituative of who we are. So, although one person has spoken of ideological policing, and another has (half-seriously) suggested she is post-feminist because otherwise she will experience "political correctness and self-censorship," the feminism inherent in the work of the poets mentioned above (and others like 'em) emerges from deep within our social tumult and roil.. It isn't imposed (whether externally or through some improbable "self-censorship") 4. Political correctness is a right-wing slogan, whose basic function is to try to convince us that social dissensions and disputes are artificial and externally-imposed constructions. But often the strife being dismissed as "PC" is real and is rooted in disequilibria of power that are real, and painful on a highly personal level. 5. Form cannot be disentangled from politics. Poetry make everything (or at least anything) happen. mark p. @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:36:41 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: SSSCHAEFER Subject: Dodie chat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dodie: In a message dated 98-04-01 20:58:18 EST, you write: << Why don't you try reading my writing and the writing of the rest of the women on the list and then you'll see how much of it is all about technique. And the notion of a female form has been kicked around ad nauseum since when--the 70s, the 80s? It's essentialist gaga. Why should we have to kick it around again to conform to your idea of a serious discussion? >> I have read your writing and much of the rest of the writing on this list and many others. Nice condescension, though. Excellent technique. And of course all writing is about technique at some point. Not sure why you're so hostile to my questions. I thought I was sincerely trying to get someone to help me think about these issues and I think it is happening. I'm not exactly sure why reference to "serious" discussion type things like Shoptaw's book should be attacked here when books, theorists, etc. are mentioned constantly in order to direct a conversation. I'm a little offended by the tone of your post and wonder if I offended you. However, the fact that the female form has been kicked around ad nauseum seems obvious to me. Simply restating it doesn't help. And is why serious conversation should occur. So many of your posts have been interesting and informative. Never thought you'd be the type to grind an axe. Was there some humor in your post that I missed? Standard ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 11:05:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: dis-appointment... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe! They are fools, fools -- >and fifth (i save the worst for last), and along the lines of power: to >report here, publicly, that ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in chicago has >just denied me tenure Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:55:12 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: theses on poetics and feminism In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:38:48 -0500 from On Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:38:48 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: > >5. Form cannot be disentangled from politics. Poetry make everything (or >at least anything) happen. The paper said today that some Sicilian fisherman (aboard the Capitano Ciccio, or "Captain Fatso") netted a 2000 or so year old bronze statue of a dancing satyr out of the Mediterranean, in pretty good shape though missing a couple limbs. First they caught a leg & then went back later & fished up the rest. They could have sold it on the market themselves, but they decided to give it to a local museum. Poetry makes things happen when it realizes the world is inherently poetic. "the poetry doesn't matter" [t.s. eliot, very p.c.] Now of course the satyr is a loaded artypolymorphous whatever. at least the boat was loaded. the article said some of the fisherman said why don't we toss the leg overboard & just keep the rest, it was so heavy. Ahab fortunately said "no, fellas". - Henry Gould, a.k.a Captain Fatso, trying hard to cause trouble as usual in his complacent a-political way ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:40:01 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Berkeley Bookstore In-Reply-To: <00241E0C.1826@intuit.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Can someone help me with the name of the bookstore in Berkeley peter - you probably want Small Press Distribution: 1341 Seventh Street, Berkeley, CA 94710-1407. un- fortunately, they're only open 10-5 M-F. I've also had good luck finding used poetry @ Moe's. if you get to SPD, check out Jed Rasula's Tabula Rasula. best, chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 11:07:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980402002917.00bae7d0@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: > I've been hearing about putative distinctions about the way mainstream and experimental writers write (as opposed to the subject of their writing) for maybe 30 years, and I've yet to see them demonstrated. Laurence Sterne wasn't the first man to write in the manner that Cixous describes as experimental, and the Brontes got away with pretending to be mainstream. Their writing wasn't obviously brilliant to anyone until it was revealed to be so. Somebody a long time ago decided that rhymes ending with an unstressed syllable were "wierd" and "experimental." The designation was certainly applied by a mainstream writer and while the designation is rich with suggestion about attitudes about aesthetic camp, it's prosodically nonsensical. Mainstream and "experimental" writers have been more-or-less communicating with language for a long time, and mainstream and "experimental" writers have been unselfconsciously enjoying each other's writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and usually without the need of a translator. So the differences must be relatively superficial. I don't know that the suggested aesthetic difference, however slight or major, is important to any agenda, but I would be intrigued if it exists. Rather than quoting theorists why not present a text and explain convincingly why it has to be by a member of one or another aesthetic camp? > (Just a little tinkering--I think the results are interesting....) Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:28:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: springtime in nowhere Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the forsythia ablaze and JAB9 in my mailbox, whoever sent me the Journal of Artists Books thank you very much, i plan on subscribing, this issue has a rich feature centrefold of Keith and Rosemarie Waldrop, long may they thrive igniting our intellect. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 11:49:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: dis-appointment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm disgusted when brilliant people I know (if only from the list and reading their books) are denied tenure at colleges that are lucky to have them in the first place. Viva la mediocridad! Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:55:47 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RJRVE Subject: Re: theses on poetics and feminism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Must pipe in my agreement with Henry, that the world is inherently poetic, not poetry driving the world. (thanks for the satyric image!) When Olson wrote "I have an ability..." it has always been my take that he strained to allow his eye-view to see things in their autonomous reality (a stance that was greatly aided by Jung's view of Psyce as autonomous). Richard Reeve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:44:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: TIM MILLER'S REPORT FROM THE SUPREME COURT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thought some of you might find this interesting. Dodie >TIM'S REPORT FROM THE SUPREME COURT- April 1, 1998 > >I am back from my day in court, the SUPREME COURT that is. It was a crazy >journey to go to DC for two days to be at the oral argument for the last >driblets of the NEA 4 case but I am glad that I made the effort and schlepp= ed >to see the spectacle of the Supremes finally taking on the Culture War. I t= ook >a late flight to DC, spent the night at my brother's house in McLean, VA >around the corner from Ken Starr's house, and was woken up the next mornin= g >at 6:30 AM by my two fabulous nephews bouncing up and down on my bed sayin= g >"Uncle Tim! Uncle Tim!" (Interesting to have my adventure in court as a que= er >artist begin in the lap of the heterosexual family unit! So noisy! So early= ! >So cute Devin and Jason are!) This was the equivalent of 3:30 AM LA time,= so I >was not at my prettiest as the boys pummeled me with pillows. I managed to >coffee up and make the morning commute with my brother Greg to Arlington wh= ere >I hopped on the Metro. For once in my life I am early for something! I meet= my >great friend photographer Dona McAdams at Union Station and we stroll down = to >the court. The camera piranhas are already gathered waiting for fresh meat. >Skirting the long line (I know we are on a list with the US Marshall) I wal= k >up the long steep marble stairs of the Supreme Court and all at once it fee= ls >like a sword and sandals epic from the 50's! Dona and I go through many lay= ers >of security as we run into Karen Finley and Holly Hughes & Esther Newton al= so >waiting in line. Other familiar faces from the last years of this controver= sy: >ACLU lawyers, journalists. Willem Dafoe and other Wooster Group folk. For a >moment it feels strangely like a high school reunion to me. Finally we get = in >and take our seats. I am sitting next to a woman from the NEA who seems to >think we should be buddies even though we are on opposite sides in this cas= e >and I happen to believe it is shameful that not a single one of these NEA >bureaucrats ever resigned in protest. Dona is on my right and Karen next t= o >her, Holly and Esther further down. The room is high and pillared with big >faggy swags of bordello-red fabric between. (Justice Souter's decorating ti= ps, >I imagine!) The tall ceiling is covered with the usual marble bas reliefs = of >humpy workers and wise men passing judgement. Directly above where the Supr= eme >Court Justices sit is a marble carving of two men with excellent abdominals >sitting in thrones side by side. One is bearded (Steve Reeves as Hercules) = the >other smooth shaven, boyish but built. These carvings will be the perfect >backdrop for the day in that not too distant (I hope) future when this Cour= t >will finally pass judgment on Lesbian and Gay marriage. I would like to be >there on that day! > > Oye! Oye! Oye! The judges come in. The Big Daddies (even though two are >women). Every disciplinary visit to the Principal's office in elementary >school comes back to me as the Justices take their seats. Once in 4th Grade >Principal Lambas made me fill a dixie cup up with my own spit in his office >after I had spit on another boy in my class. This was Principal Lambas' ide= a >of a just punishment. It takes a very long time to fill a big dixie cup wit= h >your own saliva. This was what I remembered at the Supreme Court took their >seats. > >The oral (was this why I remembered that afternoon in Principal Lambas' >office?) arguments begin. They earlier had distributed a pamphlet which >instructs us "How to Behave at an Oral Argument". The Justices, who rock a = lot >in their comfy recliner chairs, seem to me to be quite surly with the >Solicitor General (Seth Waxman) presenting the Government's case. I start t= o >think the Court is leaning our way. The Solicitor General tries to pitch th= at >the "standards of decency" language is not really censoring speech. "We don= 't >think there is a any constitutional problem here". Justice Kennedy seemed t= o >reject this and sensibly responds that all art inevitable carries with it >"viewpoint" and is by nature vulnerable to such curtailment by vague notion= s >of "decency". Clarence Thomas, as usual, says nothing throughout all the >proceedings. Our lawyer David Cole gets up and I think does very well, thou= gh >the Justices are on his butt too and will hardly let him finish a sentence. >The Court seems annoyed that they are having to deal with this matter. Davi= d >boldly spins the argument that the speech of artists needs to be protected = by >the same standard of freedom of speech even when the government has support= ed >it with a grant. The decency rule "singles out art which has a nonconformin= g >or disrespectful viewpoint. Government can't impose an ideological screen " >without abridging the 1st Amendment, David said. The Justices seemed skepti= cal >of this notion or that any "Chilling Effect" had really happened on account= of >this language. (You'll have to read the stuff in the papers for more detail= s.) > >Time's up! Suddenly the oral argument is argumentative no more and is done! > >It had taken an hour. After eight years of drama and hate mail and blabbing >and death threats and demonstrations it all ended up with the Supreme Court >spending an hour on this subject. I felt quite dazed. We were ushered out a= nd >the next case was already on. Walking back down the marble stairs, which fe= lt >a little more now like I was leaving Principal Lambas' office than the Foru= m >in Rome, Holly, Karen and I made our way to a garden of microphones for the >press conference. I was dreading having to say something. The part of me th= at >is Mr. Sound Bite was nowhere to be found. It all felt too overwhelming and= on >the spot. We lined up. Lawyer David Cole was articulate and upbeat. Karen s= aid >she felt like she had been in an abusive relationship with Jesse Helms and >that he had been sexually harassing her at her workplace. Holly made the >crucial point that the reason we even were at the Supreme Court was because= of >yet another betrayal by Clinton who could have let stand the lower court >decision that "standards of decency" were an unconstitutional criterion for >the funding of the arts. I tried to make the point that younger artists all >over the country have received the signal loud and clear that work about >sexuality, politics or gender gets in a mess of trouble. I brought up my >students at Cal State who struggle through all this censoring shit to try t= o >claim their expression. I wanted to remember that it is the emerging artist= s >that are really getting fucked with by this "chilling" limiting of creative >speech. That felt like a sensible message to speak to the cameras in front = of >the Court. It was the best I could manage amid my jet lag in any case. > >We walked across the street for a little reception and post-game huddle. I >felt really tired. My usual excitement about Democracy in Action (Civics cl= ass >had been one of my favorites!) was pretty depleted at this point. Fittingly= , >as the reception wound down, a bunch of us went and had lunch at the >restaurant "America" in Union Station to debrief the day. General thoughts:= I >think the court will probably kick the case out and not make decision. I am >pissed off that Clinton challenged the Ninth Circuit decision. I am convinc= ed >that though this business with the Supreme Court is a big battle, there are= a >zillion little struggles that are really where my work needs to be done: > >Like continuing to dismantle that censor in my head that got put in there >through a thousand experiences in my life=D6including that time when Princi= pal >Lambas made me fill up a dixie cup with my own spit. Clearly Principal Lamb= as >had the imagination of a performance artist! > >Like making sure we keep Highways, the most attacked performance space in a= ll >this fuss, open and thriving and training a bunch of new and fierce artists= =2E >This goes for all the other arts centers in the country that have been >hassled, especially Out North in Anchorage who are currently under the gun = in >Alaska. > >Like encouraging my students at Cal State (and everywhere else I teach) to = do >our wildest and most truthful work including the ensemble piece called I AM >NOT YOU which we showed at Highways the night before I flew to DC. I saw my >gang of students sift through their own issues of identity and come up with >powerful and specific statements of self. Their skin and their history and >their voices alive in the room! > >Like continuing to dig deep into my life as a queer citizen and trying to >figure out what the stories are that I need to bring forward as an artist f= or >myself and for my community. > >Your Court Reporter signing off, > >Tim Miller > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 14:15:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: naming and power MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks Dodie. All of what you say resonates. It always gets back to naming, on one hand, certain purist or mainstream "Ms" feminists might find us awfully distasteful, or male identified even, certainly dangerous in our purveys into pornography, on the other hand (I had this experience in Mexico) other groups would think we were oppressive, married to political correctness, bourgeois, oppressive to peoples of color. Still, I always err on the side of claiming my names and get irritated beyond belief by the (prevalent here at Naropa) "why do you have to name (implying limit) yourself" attitude. Poetry and Identity rely on the power of naming. So yes, an unobservant, anti-zionist jew, a make-up wearing feminist, a lesbian who sleeps with whoever I want to, etc etc etc. Another note on power. I don't subscribe to a notion of scarcity, but the capitalist economy operates on a hoard/lack model so that the dominant groups end up having 'extra'. I think it is valid to skim off this extra by any means necessary, i.e. guilt (shaming), theft, graffiti, boycotts of barnes and noble, public humilitation etc etc etc. Hence, I feel absolutely just in saying that all editors of political consciousness are morally bound to strive for inclusion of women and peoples of color parity in their publications UNLESS they are will to justify the limitations. mesmerized by the furious snow fall, Rachel Democracy dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: > > >Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 18:07:21 -0700 > >From: Rachel Levitsky > >Subject: Re: screening process/feminism > > > >Dodie--I think that is an excellent screening process and am not > >surprised that it works as a filter. > > > >I was curious about your comment about no longer being a feminist. I > >often feel like a bad feminist myself but I don't think anything to > >drastic has changed in me--I'm just more willing to be vocal about all > >of me, pervert and feminist. Can you enlighten?? > > Actually, Rachel, when I said that about no longer being a feminist (that's > a hard word to spell) I was being light-hearted about no longer being in > the preciousness of the Feminist Writer's Guild. I don't like to align > myself with any group at this point--even feminist--the ugly specter of > political correctness raises its head--and self-censorship is close behind. > I've been reading feminist theory for like 20 years and at least 90% of the > books I read are by women. I think an important thing that was covered in > Kathleen Fraser's project, and which I've really taken to heart, is that > women do not have to engage language in a manner privileged by male poets > and thinkers. Her ideas, for instance, of "and/but" (female) as opposed to > "either/or" (male). I'm leary of making rules about this or generalizing. > Ecriture feminine was interesting and radical when it came out, but now I > think lots of people find it problematic. I think that one shouldn't feel > a compulsion to use male forms in writing, but also one shouldn't feel > pressured into speaking about writing in the current cliches of the > intelligencia. I've been thinking about something Katy said a few days > ago--something about how she'd read her Derrida and Foucault--like she'd > done her homework--and now she has a right to talk about women. I think > this points up the sickness--not of Katy--but of the comically elitist > poetic avant-garde in which many of us are involved. Why does Katy have to > have read Derrida and Foucault--or feel that she should have--in order to > validate her speaking? If D and F feed her writing, that's one thing, but > the compulsion that everybody who's intelligent and writing poetry must > read them is bunk. > > I look forward to the day when a younger version of Katy will say, "I've > read Catherine Clement and Jacqueline Rose . . ." Or even Laura Mulvey . . > . That's when feminism will have really made a dent. > > Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 14:18:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Left Hand Reading Series MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thursday, April 16, 1998--8:30 P.M. LEFT HAND READING SERIES---Boulder, Colorado Anselm Hollo Cole Swenson David Bromige Open Reading 1825 Pearl above Wild Oats. Free, donations accepted, refreshments provided. For info call (303)443-8252, 402-0375. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:24:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: "publicly thanking Dodie" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dodie, Thanks for posting Tim Miller's travel/reading report on the NEA Supreme Court case. I started out interested in the matter, and I wound up interested in his style. As you know, I am demonically parochial in my reading; who is Tim Miller? A performance artist? An artist? A writer? Or if that kind of categorization seems as silly to you as it sounds to me now, would you help me out and tell me a little about him? He seems, well, interesting! Again, thank you, and good night, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 15:16:59 -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" I have a bunch of very slightly ding'd copies of Rochelle Owens' _New and Selected Poems 1961-1996_ (192 pp. pb) and Argentine poet Luisa Futoransky's _The Duration of the Voyage_ (Spanish-English facing-page, translated by Jason Weiss, 96 pp. pb) available at half-price, $10.00 for the Owens and $5.50 for the Futoransky. Shipping is $2.00 for one to three books in any combination. Reviews being a very slow tide, only a few are in, including raves from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly for both books, and they're already selling rather well--54 copies of Rochelle's ordered this morning, in fact. Here are two quotes from the back cover of _New and Selected_. Maureen Owen: "Owens goes cold turkey on the agony and delight of living in this century. She is the Shaman-genius exploring deeper realities in the psychic realm. She reaches down into the living, breathing mythical core and pulls up the forces of chaos spitting and kicking; she gives us back the hungry power of our own imaginations." Marjorie Perloff: "In its uncompromising savagery, its passionate rejection of sentimentality, Rochelle Owens' lyric voice is unique among contemporary poets. An astonishing body of work." You can find commentary on Rochelle's work by, among others, Toby Olson, Jackson Mac Low, Jane Augustine, Maureen Owen and Susan Smith Nash, at www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/owens/lro-cont.htm, where there are links to generous selections of her poetry. Luisa Futoransky's book is her first major representation in English, so there are fewer resources. Her latest book was recently released in Mexico in an edition of 15,000 (yup, and they expect to sell them). Maybe we should all publish in Spanish. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:26:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: announcing books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ANNOUNCING NEW BOOKS Chax Press last spring produced one small book which combined desktop publishing technology with hand bookmaking processes. That was THE MASQUE OF RHYME, by Bob Perelman. This winter/spring, we decided to really explore some bookmaking in this way which is new to us, and now have some books to announce -- books which were first made available at readings by their authors here in Tucson in February or March 1998, or are about to be made available at readings here. They are: Tom Raworth and Charles Alexander Three Poems and Pushing Water (part seven) This one is a dos-a-dos book, meaning it can be read from either side to the middle, one such reading being Tom Raworth's Three Poems, the other being Charles Alexander's Pushing Water (part seven). The text pages of the book are produced on the desktop. The covers are letterpress printed, and two color images (one by Tom Raworth and one by Cynthia Miller) have been placed on the covers via color inkjet printing. Cover papers are Arches cover paper. Endsheets are Japanese chiri paper; middle-sheet dividing the work by the two poets is an Indian decorative paper. The book is hand sewn with Irish linen thread. Numbered and signed by the authors. Rae Armantrout Writing The Plot About Sets Four poems by Armantrout, whose titles are "Writing," "The Plot," "About," and "Sets." The poems are designed and printed on the desktop. Covers are Arches cover paper which has been painted in various colors by mixing acrylic paint and water in a spritzer bottle and spraying the pages, a process which was accomplished by Cynthia Miller. A title label, printed on Asian decorative red paper, is pasted onto the cover. The book has been hand sewn with Irish linen thread. Numbered and signed by the author. Tenney Nathanson One Block Over A single long poem by Nathanson, this book's text was produced on the desktop. The cover paper is a strong, blue denim-colored fine art paper, and the title has been rubber stamped on the cover. At 44 pages, the book was too long for the single-signature sewing of most other books in this series, so we sewed the book by hand with a coptic stitching which remains exposed on the spine. Signed by the author Lydia Davis Blind Date The only book of fiction in this series, this is an until-this-moment unpublished story by Davis. This book is larger than the others, at 11 inches tall by 5.5 inches wide. It is not sewn, rather contains sheets pasted together and folded to form an accordion structure which is pasted into boards covered with decorative paper. This book is currently in progress in our studios and will be ready by April 22. It will be numbered and signed by the author. Lisa Cooper Tilt Rail A set of poems by Cooper written on the occasion of the performance by the Rob Blakeslee Quartet in Tucson. This book has not yet been made, but is in the works and will be ready by April 22. We are currently choosing the papers for covers. It will be hand sewn, numbered, and signed by the author. All books have been produced in small editions, ranging from 100 to 120. We prefer to sell these books as a set of 5, and require that at least 3 books be ordered together. Each book sells for $8. Buying a set of three (your choice)for $24 gets you free shipping and handling. Buying all five gets you a ten per cent discount as well as free shipping and handling. We also have just a few copies available of Perelman's The Masque of Rhyme. If anyone would like to begin a standing order for all books published by Chax Press, please send us a request as to how you may do so. Also send us a request for a list of available books and prices, or visit our web site: http://personal.riverusers.com/~chax/ Please send reservations for books directly to Chax Press via email at chax@theriver.com We will process/mail your order as soon as payment is received. If you are a library we will take your order, ship books, and send you an invoice. Checks may be sent to: Chax Press 101 W. Sixth St., no. 6 Tucson, AZ 85701-1000 Our most recent trade literary books (not handmade edition) are THE TONGUE MOVES TALK, by Karen Mac Cormack, and 3 OF 10, by Hank Lazer. Forthcoming in June 1998 are Chromatic Defacement, by Phillip Foss, and & Calling It Home, by Lisa Cooper. We are also at work on a deluxe handmade edition of Chartings, by Ray DiPalma and Lyn Hejinian. charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://personal.riverusers.com/~chax/ :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:15:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Angela Szeto Subject: Re: springtime in nowhere Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi i'm new (my name is also angela) a centerfold of the waldrops (is that keith's last name)? where can i get a copy >the forsythia ablaze and JAB9 in my mailbox, whoever sent me the Journal of >Artists Books thank you very much, i plan on subscribing, this issue has a >rich feature centrefold of Keith and Rosemarie Waldrop, long may they >thrive igniting our intellect. > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 19:43:42 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: PBS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Since when did PBS get commercials? where have I been, I was watching some show about a time-traveling dog that talked and then all of a sudden a commercial for 7-11? Strange, I'm used to all of those telethons So I am intersted in the Sense of time that Scalapino plays with in her work. In Defoe especially, there is this sense of travel when you read the text, It is one of the first texts that I have read where literally the time feels warped and shifted, no sense of direction in a non-patronizing way- I love it- What's next for Scalapino, what comes out next?titles?> Presses? I'll be at the Anselm Berrigan reading this weekend come up and say hi to me y'all Ill be the one in the pants, shirt and shoes erik ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:11:01 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Nicoll Subject: Gertrude Stein Online Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The following announcement may be of general interest. Articles in the inaugural issue will also be of interest re: the gendered discourse threads of recent days. NOW AVAILABLE: ***time-sense: a quarterly on the art of Gertrude Stein*** Volume 1 No.1 at http://www.tenderbuttons.com/review.html Sonja Streuber, Editor Sarah Kornfeld and Stafford, Co-editors Recent Stein criticism has addressed such issues as her postmodern disjunctive style, representation and the body, exile and bio/geography, and Stein's connection with the other arts. Some criticism has tried to reconstruct her texts, reading them from the point of view of queer, ethnic, and theological studies. Artists have set her words to other words, to visual art, to music, and to performance. In other words, the vastly expanding field of Stein studies today ranges from textual and psychoanalytic observations to cultural studies and artistic experiments. Time-Sense hopes to provide a forum for the ongoing examination of how we make sense of Stein in our time. Contents of Volume 1 No. 1: Beginning Again Editor's Note Rubery, Annette, "The Mother of Postmodernism? Gertrude Stein On-Line" Moramarco, Fred, "Grr truth's tie-in" (poem) Jarraway, David, "'Absence of More': The Struggle for Queer Self-Authorization in Gertrude Stein" Kimball, Jack, "Gertrude Stein and the Natural World" Logsdon, Denise, "A Listening to Gertrude Stein. A Writer's Preface" time-sense is currently soliciting written submissions from all theoretical, critical, and creative approaches, and artistic submissions in all reproducible media for its upcoming issues and also welcomes conference-listings, panel abstracts, and inquiries for book reviews: June: Gertrude Stein and her Audience (Deadline: May 1) "The thing that is fundamental about plays," writes Stein in her essay, "Plays," "is that the scene as depicted on the stage is more often than not one might say it is almost always in syncopated time in relation to the emotion of anybody in the audience." Submissions are invited that investigate Stein's relationship to her audience/"readience": How citational/ performative is this relationship? How/ Does Stein address audience at all? (How) Do we understand Stein's writing as performative? How do we perform reading Stein? How does reading Stein perform us? This issue will encompass a forum on the teaching of Stein's work in the undergraduate classroom, for which all sorts of submissions (narratives, lesson plans, pedagogical strategies, reading questions, etc.) are being sought. September: Gertrude Stein and the Question(ing) of Politics (Deadline: August 1) In her writing Stein often distinguishes between americans and Americans, between french and French, or germans and Germans. While some critics maintain that Stein was a pacifist, one researcher recently uncovered in the Stein-archive a celebratory piece about Petain's Vichy-government. Submissions are invited that address questions of Stein and nationhood and Stein and politics, such as: What are the implications of Stein's assigning such distinctive (trans)national labels in the context of her (and our) understanding of gender, ethnicity, or sexuality? How have other modernist and postmodernist scribes commented on Stein's (re)vision of nationhood? Is it possible, at all, to read Stein as a political artist? December: Gertrude, Alice and their Seasons (Deadline: November 1) Stein's understanding of time and /as geography has been widely explored, but not the use, representation, and significance of seasons and seasonal events, or Jewish religious events, in Stein's and Toklas' writing. We know much about Stein's love for the bright summer sun, about her winter and summer residences, and we know what Alice used to cook at certain times in the year, but the body of criticism and art on these issues is rather small. For submission format, please refer to the submission guidelines at http://www.tenderbuttons.com/review3.html or write to the editor at shstreuber@ucdavis.edu. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Sonja H. Streuber shstreuber@ucdavis.edu Dept. of English * U of California * One Shields Ave. * Davis, CA 95616 Hugh Nicoll, Miyazaki Municipal University, Funatsuka 1-1-2, Miyazaki-shi 880-8520 JAPAN vox: 81-985-20-2000, ext 1306, fax: 81-985-20-4807 email: hnicoll@miyazaki-mu.ac.jp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 20:09:21 -0800 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: (four/four) theses on poetics and feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit henry gould wrote: > > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:38:48 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: > > > >5. Form cannot be disentangled from politics. Poetry make everything (or > >at least anything) happen. > > Poetry makes things happen when it realizes the world . . . Its a strange church. An 'Episcopal' 'cathedral'; gothic and something about the nation-state. A washington national cathedral. Last sunday evening I sat in on the performance. It was Bach. The Matthew Passion. Tuneful Erbauliche Gedanken au den Gruen Donnerstag und Charfreitag. Probably the bestest realization of the holy-ghost since I saw the Reverend Al Green in that Memphis church. amen. A friend and I followed the score we brought lookin for that Augustinian numerology and Bach's playful representation of notes and hopes and 'meaning'. Coretta King, in memorium, made an unannounced appearance and said a few words before the passion. She said, even today, she believes in something like the beloved community. All things heretofore nothwithstanding. don'yt even have to do poetry. 30 years before sunday. To the day. MLK was in washington. Stirring it up for the 'Poor Peoples March on Washington'. Johnson already felt the double-cross on vietnam. after you give up the 'voting-rightss' you expect quid pro quo. So that nigger was was up for grabs. Particularly coming to washington talking trash. His sermon, 30 years ago sunday at the same pulpit: "On Not Sleeping Through a Great Revolution". Bach could tax those Lutherans. St. Matthew is a gorgeous 4-hour possibility. Nothing much else like it (western civilization and all that). good singers in the right hall. amen. performance poetry. particularly from the tenor this night. man, boy-friend had some lungs. endurance, remembering. 30 years ago they had a plan, these music people in this cathedral, to do this same piece of music. It was to be the sunday that followed april fourth. It was both the national guard and the various policing apparatus that imposed the curfew after the city started burning. When sunday came they cancelled the passion. Because it was after curfew time. Armored personnel carriers in the street. and shit like that. They never played it again. Until last sunday. something about '98. Not that its, even, the absence of redemption. But whether it is the absence of the possibility of even remembering. Sometimes even in that forgetting-poetics. Da ging hin der Zwolfen einer, mit Namen Judas Ischarioth, zu den Hohenpriestern und sprach: "Was wolit ihr mir geben? Ich will ihn euch verraten." Und sie boten ihm dreisig Silberlinge. ok, done, merica mc ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:00:50 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, k. lederer wrote: > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: > > Mainstream and "experimental" writers have > been more-or-less communicating with language for a long time, and > mainstream and "experimental" writers have been unselfconsciously enjoying > each other's writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and > usually without the need of a translator. So the differences must be > relatively superficial. > > > (Just a little tinkering--I think the results are interesting....) > > Best, > Katy > I would argue that this "tinkering" with Mark's post producing the above sentence produces statements which are demonstrably inaccurate, at least the sentences above are demonstrably inaccurate. Was it your view that the prior, unmodified statements were equally untrue? I'm kind of slow about things like this, just trying to figure out what it is you are contesting, as mainstream writer heavily influenced by Alice Notley. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 21:18:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Kramer Organization: none Subject: samuel delany MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was sorry to miss samuel delany's visit to buffalo's wednesdays at four. could people fill me in on what y'all discussed/heard? appreciated, a fan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 18:16:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" at the end of the war some higher rank(colonel/general) friend of stein's from the us army came to visit and near the end of a pleasant visit asked what do you think gert how can we bring democracy to these germans, she didn't hesitate a second responding, "teach them disobediance!" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:15:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age Comments: To: Billy Little In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >how can we bring democracy to these germans, she didn't hesitate a second >responding, "teach them disobediance!" well, she was wrong, wasn't she? Nietzsche tried to teach 'them' exactly that, and became a textbook in the Third Reich. The nsdap were pretty disobedient, all things considered (versailles, Munich putsch etc). "how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age": it isn't. Maybe she should have hesitated. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:24:04 -0500 Reply-To: soaring@ma.ultranet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Wellman Subject: Re: (four/four) theses on poetics and feminism Comments: To: mcx@bellatlantic.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This post from Michael Corbin referencing Bach's Matthaus Passion, makes me long for an anti-poetics. MC is is right -- nothing matches this work for beauty of form , for poetry of atonement/remberance/desiring: mache dich mein herzen rein I feel his post deeply. I feel his memories and I think his desires amidst the history he retells, personal and national, grieving really. Droplets of blood in the triplets of the printed score as the heart breaks. I remember also being stunned watching a film. "heimat"--fascinating film, hours and hours of footage putting me there in the Germany of the Hitler time, a cynical lyrical film. At one point some of the "lead" characters were in a movie theater watching a filmed performance of the Matthau's Passion and there were tears at the strains of the aria, "lord, make my heart pure" tears on the faces of the uniformed Nazi's in the theater, bitter, bitter irony -- that such music could lend itself to such purposes of Nationalism ... I think it best to disentangle poetry from politics. I am only following Benjamin here. I am not claiming an independent judgment on the value of aesthetic form. I think that the thesis that mc mediates on, > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:38:48 -0500 Mark Prejsnar said: > > > >5. Form cannot be disentangled from politics. Poetry make everything (or > >at least anything) happen. > > Poetry makes things happen when it realizes the world . . . is a dangerous thesis. Maybe what is needed on the gender thread is an anti-poetics of gender too. I think that is what I am hearing some women say on the gender thread, lets disentangle those constructions from what we write ... There is no pure point of view, no certainty of gender if we get down to telling our own stories ... no certainty that our poetics contribute to the "good" cause ... every reason to write then from where you are as I think many on this last have been attempting to do recently. Don Wellman I offer some links in case anyone wants to know where I am writing from http://www.postypographika.com/catalog/lightdst/wellman.htm http://www.dwc.edu/users/wellman/OARS.HTM ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 19:48:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: JAB in Nowhere Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the Journal of Artist's Books 324 Yale Ave. New Haven, CT. 06515 (203)387-6735 send a cheque or money order $9us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:57:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Rose's mourning MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII there seem to have been a fair few posts, recently, making mention of National Socialist Germany - can I recommend Gillian Rose's excellent book _Mourning Becomes the Law_ (Cambridge University Press), as a refreshed and perfectly considerate address of many of the questions and attitudes that are often taken for granted? Her term "holocaust piety" (her family were Jewish exiles) has made me think -- k ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:41:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm "mainstream writer heavily influenced by A Notley" or you are? I don't know what I think about the statements that were produced by the tinkering--just thought it was interesting to note how interchangeable the discourses seem to be here-- Best, Katy On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Schuchat Simon wrote: > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, k. lederer wrote: > > > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: > > > > Mainstream and "experimental" writers have > > been more-or-less communicating with language for a long time, and > > mainstream and "experimental" writers have been unselfconsciously enjoying > > each other's writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and > > usually without the need of a translator. So the differences must be > > relatively superficial. > > > > > (Just a little tinkering--I think the results are interesting....) > > > > Best, > > Katy > > > I would argue that this "tinkering" with Mark's post producing the above > sentence produces statements which are demonstrably inaccurate, at least > the sentences above are demonstrably inaccurate. Was it > your view that the prior, unmodified statements were equally untrue? I'm > kind of slow about things like this, just trying to figure out what it is > you are contesting, as mainstream writer heavily influenced by Alice Notley. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 21:00:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: obediance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" keston the germans were the most obediant citizenry that was why auschwitz begen belsen dachau himmel / you're not proposing teach the germnans obediance is what stein should have said are you? she threatens you, that's obvious or is the message of keston and harvard OBEY, keston sutherland the anti-Notely, if you want to be a bully please wait until i put on my yellow star, you are wrong, you couldn't shine her shoes ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 23:20:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: address query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Might anyone have an e-mail for Paul Naylor? Thanks in advance... Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 02:01:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Katy: I didn't intend to say anything about your tinkering because I thought it was silly on its face. Because of syntax with a little tinkering--in this case primarily replacing nouns--all discourses are in this sense interchangeable. Tinkering, at any rate, is easier than an analysis of language-use as gendered. At 10:41 PM 4/2/98 -0600, you wrote: >I'm "mainstream writer heavily influenced by A Notley" or you are? > >I don't know what I think about the statements that were produced by the >tinkering--just thought it was interesting to note how interchangeable the >discourses seem to be here-- > >Best, >Katy > >On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Schuchat Simon wrote: > >> On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, k. lederer wrote: >> >> > On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: >> > >> > Mainstream and "experimental" writers have >> > been more-or-less communicating with language for a long time, and >> > mainstream and "experimental" writers have been unselfconsciously enjoying >> > each other's writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and >> > usually without the need of a translator. So the differences must be >> > relatively superficial. >> > > >> > (Just a little tinkering--I think the results are interesting....) >> > >> > Best, >> > Katy >> > >> I would argue that this "tinkering" with Mark's post producing the above >> sentence produces statements which are demonstrably inaccurate, at least >> the sentences above are demonstrably inaccurate. Was it >> your view that the prior, unmodified statements were equally untrue? I'm >> kind of slow about things like this, just trying to figure out what it is >> you are contesting, as mainstream writer heavily influenced by Alice Notley. >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 07:22:42 -0500 Reply-To: simon@home2.mysolution.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beth lee simon Subject: Re: dis-appointment... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher wrote: > > and fifth (i save the worst for last), and along the lines of power: to > report here, publicly, that ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in chicago has > just denied me tenure (along with another colleague here in humanities)... > which issue, though as don byrd (my dear dear friend and diss. chair) > suggests, is surely an example of a person beating a very personal and > public drum, i hope fortifies some of my other comments on this list over > the past few years... thanx to all those who've voiced their support for me > over the past year during this (what else but?) ordeal... but in any case, > i post here with the hope, self-serving though it may be, that folks will > drop me a line backchannel if they hear of any institution looking for a > poet who knows a bit about critical theory and emedia, and (if i may) who > speaks his mind now and again... > > best, > > joe Joe, I'm an admirer of your work and thought. Very sorry to hear about the d of tenure. We may well be hiring, tho not for this fall. We've JUST filled (or rather are about to make an offer) for a one-yr Visiting position, but that will be redefined and then (we hope) approved. Best wishes! beth simon assistant professor, linguistics and english department of english and linguistics indiana university purdue university simon@home2.mysolution.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 05:00:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: a poem by Hilda Morley MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forwarded from Halvard Johnson, of another list, who comments that "It's interesting how, when a poet dies, the *New Yorker* often manages to find something in its files to publish . . . The Apr. 6 issue has this by Hilda Morley (1916-1998)." Had they ever published her work before, I wonder-- Your Color More in some ways than when you were alive, I try to please you, to find I am of your way of thinking, as with these red carnations: they're your color. For myself I'd always chosen white, saying-- that red's too strong for thinking in a room, too much. But now I love these flowers, having grown, these years ("mourning" they said), more into what you wished: a clearer form now, seeing this redness (suspended) above green stems as thumbprints of Mediterranean earth that you belong to, crop of a heart's blood on this city's grayness, this room's whiteness. --Hilda Morley ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 07:31:52 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: dis-appointment... a sad, dumb decision. my condolences, Joe. Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:31:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Anselm B reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Anselm Berrigan is reading this Saturday with Tonya Foster (whom I knew = in school and am very curious, after not seeing her for many years, at = what her work is now) at HERE, which is on Sixth Avenue between Spring = and Broome, kind of a gallery-looking place with big street-level = windows. The reading is at 3, admission is $5, and it should be a fun = reading. I'll be there anyway with my big sunglasses, flip-flops, beach = towel and sunscreen to protect me from the glare and rays. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 07:11:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: From the "Adventures of Yaya and Grace" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Yaya’s Rapture for Carla Harryman "The things you think are funny" In a crowded room. Chaos. Books and flies. Books fly. Pastels, flourescents, named after birds and Disney movies as far back. The city, until. Berlin. Kruschev wants it. Now! In the west, feeding their addiction for metaphor, they watch as closely as they can. They believe. They make it religion, craving a national pastime to which they’ll all know the tune. Humming as mediation. Familial. Fat. Flat-chested androgyne amazonians. Spandex, then lycra, more washable, evaporates your sweat. AT$T destroys the last real phone booths on West End Ave. The beginning of a new century. Fortuitous. Premonitory. Still trying to make friends. There we were. Grace loved all the different houses, imagined them as names for her identity. She was incorrect. She couldn’t take them along, in or outside her skin, then fading, the pores becoming too large. Drilling holes into her various parts. By now conventional. It was the beginning of a new century. “Djuna, you still alive in there?” “Do I look like someone with a Driver’s License?” I wanted to touch her, I was sure she could have been the driver and would let her drive me anywhere. I’d parallel park for her whenever she got nervous. Instead, I forgot she was there and continued window shopping. Impulse spending. You could argue I don’t need another bottle of perfume. Perhaps Djuna watched, she was known to time travel, and was expert at being several places at once. Here the speakers of the language have the hardest time. What to call it, in, on, at, or near. I know I’m fantasizing and it’s not nice to metamorphose an esteemed and ancient women of modernist letters into a voyeur solely for the sake my sexual pleasure. Yet, how would she know unless it is true this is what happened? I could see both the horse drawn buggies and the helicopters, shipping water from anywhere, desalinated as a contrived plea, forgive us please for dumping all that toxic waste. The shit still smells. Every Jew will tell you that in great detail and I can say this because I am one. No reason to hide here, you’d question me either way. Even if she didn’t have an issue with Jews, I don’t think she’d go for me in any of my stages. She might say my difference was attractive, most certainly in the wee hours. They say if the hand fits. Well, it fit and that mattered. It wasn’t the chaos we minded, it was his beauty got us. We no longer needed to argue about the forms. They made attractive envelopes. Returned to senders. Instructions included. instructions: there is one cunt for every penis, those manufactured in the latter day. a lump for every breast. post mammogram. post paid. united we post. the heart dripping. the bleeding heart. someone said that. duh, this is a game, I made it up though have little to do with the rules. they keep changing. pick a city any city. no, pop. at least 100 thousand. ok, so you have this city in mind. find the main road. where the pedestrians cross and by what means they know it is their turn. if it’s a lit up little white man you lose. two. pick a city any city. no, at least 49 languages spoken. no divisions for doggerel. three. pick a moon. any moon. wait, there has to be a neighbor and a dog. no french. four. pick a woman. any woman. air travel. rules: free miles are earned. if you are a woman, by each penis. if you are a man, you fly free until you contract a venereal disease. if it’s HIV, it’s you who has to find the cause, you get three women’s bodies free--for your experiments. the fourth is of a goat. and a strict vegetarian diet but for once a year when you will bathe in a pool of pork. if you contract trichinoses you go to b.f. skinner. he’ll put you in a box. next. pamplona with ernest hemingway. brett will serve the drinks. the first human to grab her ass will turn into a tower of babel. the second will speak every language. the third spills her words over the mast. when the church bells ring, there is a race to the beginnings. the first one who gets there dies. all the points are divided in the manner of paint-by-number. if you are the first to run out of pink you must lie about everything you’ve understood about your character up until that moment. the trick is that everyone will believe you though with a piercing cackle you tell them it’s a ruse. in this game there is no need for the truth. it goes underappreciated and has nothing to do with your salary. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:09:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: O B D Ants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Keston, I think you will have an easier time posting to the UberList once you get out of Cambridge (Mass) and back to original Cambridge. After all, you've been indicted twice here for your e-mail address. I mean, I can see how people may presume things if a listee's address was johndoe@naziparty.org but you've been trashed, or attempted to be trashed, because your intelligence and diligence have landed you a temporary association with a well-known, well-stereotyped university. Anyway, although it's interesting what Stein said about Germany, I'm not interested. Or, is it: interested, not interesting? This is from BREWSIE & WILLIE, after the second war resulting from the first war: "And it's all because everybody just greedy wants to manufacture more than anybody can buy, well than you know what happened after the last war we cut off immigration, we hoped to sell enough to foreign countries, foreign countries didn't want to buy and we had the depression. My God yes, said Jo, we did have the depression. Yes and then we had to fight, and yes we won but we used up a hell of a lot of raw material and now we got to make a club to make those foreign countries buy from us, and we all got to go home to make some more of those things that use up the raw material and that nobody but our own little population wants to buy. Oh dear, said Brewsie." Now that's interesting. But as interesting as the following from Walt Whitman (who is known to be naked on a Website somewhere)?: Resist much, obey little; Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; Perhaps this is the spirit Stein sought to convey to the American officer? later, daniel bouchard <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:12:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: Passages 5: Eigner Issue Comments: cc: Chris Funkhouser Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Biog. hard to repeat many times. Inconclusive and= gusty=20 as it's likely to be. The Descent Beckons. The sky is= =20 still right and left. Born palsied, I have prosthetic= =20 hands when it comes to mail etc. wired through rube-= =20 goldberg brains. Dont know wht prt of biog shd be= booked.=20 =97Larry Eigner, Contributor's Note in Poems Now,= =20 ed. Hettie Jones (Kulchur Press, 1966) Announcing PASSAGES 5: the Larry Eigner Issue, edited by Benjamin Friedlander and Christopher Funkhouser. This great issue of PASSAGES filled with tremendous work. Now available as the "Selected Resource" at the Electronic Poetry Center. http://writing.upenn.edu/epc A limited # of printed copies are also available @ $5 each from Passages. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:19:25 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Tired chit-chat In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980403020152.00aaad1c@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark-- I disagree. All discourses are NOT interchangeable in this way-- I'm not talking about mad libs here--I'm talking about discourses that require binary and oppositional structures--with one of the binaries marked and one of them unmarked ("normal"). Also: as per your apparent accusation that I haven't "proved" my points, or that I have otherwise shied away from discussing my views.... what? I think I've said a lot about my feelings as a women (among other things) in the world of poetry. I have not been making claims for anyone else-- And I never said anything that ever ever implied that men needed "translators" (or v.v.) for women's writing. I think you're crazy if you think the social context within which poetry is written has NO analyzable effect on actual poetry. Why must I say that women's writing is "different" across the board for it to be valid that perhaps some writing by women could be analyzed in part through a gender lens? Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:24:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: More than one sender was specified. Second and following senders discarded. From: nyu.edu@IS2.NYU.EDU Subject: NYC Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Michael Heller Reading at NO MORE Monday, April 6th 6:30 PM NO MORE is at 234 W. Broadway (Sponsored by The Mad Alex Foundation) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:29:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: no she was right MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Gee Billy, what a strange rejoinder. If I'm threatened I'd not noticed but hey that'd of course explain my remarks, historically grounded though they are. Your belief that the Germans were incredibly obedient however - well, I don't know; are you under the impression that the Germans voted for Auschwitz, or is there some other less concrete teleology that took the quick route from Germanness to genocide? Why would I want to shine her shoes? YOU seem pretty obedient to me, to the usual default inflation of an obvious sentiment: "TEACH THEM blah blah". And it would have been an American to say so, naturlich. Were the world that simple. And not ANOTHER resentful gripe about Harvard? I've just got here - what is it with poeple on this list and Harvard? Maybe you could consider how your note, though making the usual groaning and slavering noises re: Stein (whom I actually love), might be seriously offensive to Germans? Or is that irrelevant? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:47:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: no she was right Comments: To: daniel bouchard In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980403144411.00704818@po7.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dan thanks for helping out re: the ol' Harvard "kick me" sign that seems to be cut and pasted to my inbox, what is it with some of these people, I didn't insult Billy Little - just disagreed with him - and then I get this message basically telling me to fuck off. Not sure how to. k ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:04:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: 4/4/theses Don, who's thesis is dangers, Mark's or mine? I couldn't tell. They are 2 sides of the same coin. Poetry is didactic. Mark's concern for justice/utopia is the flip side of the idea of the world being inherently poetic - i.e. the concern for "reading" the world as it is. By inherently poetic I'm not talking about Pollyanna lala-land - poetry is epic/tragic as well as joyful/beautiful. I thought that was what Michael Corbin was saying too - as well as what you said. I just think sometimes as talkers- about-poetry we don't give poetry enough credit. We're always saying stuff like experiment is liberating, dashes are masco-feminine, blah blah. Poetry when it hits the fan is a correlated turbine turbulence - don't get in its way. It's almost as powerful as reality. Maybe this is what you meant by "telling stories". and what Rachel Democracy meant when she picked up Ishmael off Q's coffin, or something like that. - henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:05:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: perhaps from Alan (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Do I live in Japan? Have I lived anywhere? Do I wander in a desert? Is this Shumer, Akkadia? In Akkadia I have seen ghosts; in Japan as well. I am inundated by ghosts. I am inundated by ghosts. They do not speak to me; I do not hear voices. They are invisible to me; I do not see wraiths, uncanny shadows, the glimpse of drawn faces, in the middle of a howling night. They push and pull at my body. They pull it apart. They pull at the mind leg arm penis. I do not know if they have eyes or mouths. Shall there be more? Their limbs form breasts on my body. Their lips form cavities against my throat. They break my back with swollen flesh. My back has been broken in many places. I am told my eyes have bright red light, one can see for meters around my skin. They take my skin. I think they say "This is JNJ," over and over again, I understand them. They sway on my knees; my nipples are hard with inner curves of other fingers. Their lips ____________________________________________________________________ (this is not good either; there's no broken conceptualism. don't I worry about the limbs, they might not fit on. but that shouldn't affect the list, these limb problems, but then again there's just writing.) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:31:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: address request} MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If anyone has a contact for Kimberly Reifel, please back-chan.thnx Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:36:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: O B D Ants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This is from BREWSIE & WILLIE, after the second war resulting from the first >war: > >"And it's all because everybody just greedy wants to manufacture more than >anybody can buy, well than you know what happened after the last war we cut >off immigration, we hoped to sell enough to foreign countries, foreign >countries didn't want to buy and we had the depression. My God yes, said >Jo, we did have the depression. Yes and then we had to fight, and yes we >won but we used up a hell of a lot of raw material and now we got to make a >club to make those foreign countries buy from us, and we all got to go home >to make some more of those things that use up the raw material and that >nobody but our own little population wants to buy. Oh dear, said Brewsie." Alright, I will bite on this one....and be the devil's advocate.... WWII was initially a result of industrialists, not a political party led by the tragic-comic figure of Hitler. Hitler was as silly figure-head, chosen because he was extremely brain washable and controllable. Look to who profited from armaments manufacture and you have the answer as to what it was about. Even the part about having a scapegoat to blame for all the financial blood sucking that went on. I think we do have to wonder how much foreign influence spurred on Germany such that it led to the ultimate chain of events....including the diminishing of Stalinist Russia's ability to present any really strong competition for a long while after the exhaustion brought on by the war against Germany's exhausting and misdirected efforts to conquer Russia. Now there is not much chance of a depression, or even a significant recession, in Europe for years ahead from now...... 1). Eastern Europe, former Warsaw Pact and Russia, are very needy and greedy. 2). Europe does not want America to be the ONLY significant military power. The E.C. definitely does NOT want a "one empire" world and to be a colony of that one empire. So we can now expect Europe arming itself to the teeth. Deja-vu, but for very different reasons than before. >Now that's interesting. But as interesting as the following from Walt >Whitman (who is known to be naked on a Website somewhere)?: > Resist much, obey little; > Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; The electric rule is that resistors burn out, eventually, every time they revolt, though it consumes a lot of voltage to do it..... Though I do tend to agree with Whitman on that....in terms of following any totalistic ideology. There that comment is definitely appropriate. I wonder that quote says about Whitman's time period, around the time of the Civil War and living in the North ? Lincoln as the figure head of a tending towards tyranny or totalism nation ? Interesting possibility. After all, the North saw the South becoming more powerful, more industrialized, and decided to put a stop to it. They wanted cheap slave labour for their own factories, except that they paid "subsistence" wages rather than providing shacks and plots of land on plantations. Also, what is the difference between a slave and a domestic servant ? Often, in those days, no difference whatsoever, except that many a servant could not afford a home to go to, and slaves all had somewhere to refer to as their home. Odd that the southern slave owner was expected to take good care of his property and not abuse it. It was essentially expected of him by his society and most complied to the standards of that time period. Slaves were too essentially too costly to abuse. Servants in the north were inexpensive. There was only a very small wage to be paid, and if one servant sickened or did not perform as expected of them, they were simply gotten rid of and replaced without capital loss. In the north the northern factory owner did not have that kind of requirement placed upon him as to caring for his slaves, either. The abuses upon coloured workers, and others, including child labour, in Northern factories certainly rival anything the southern owners of slaves ever did. So what was the civil war about ? Emancipation ? Not likely. More slaves for the north, except double speak did not allow that word to be used anymore, and industrial supremacy, wiping out the growing southern competition. When we place Whitman in that scenario, it looks a lot different. I think we need to read Whitman's words in that light, and see what they then tell us about that time period in which he lived. Peace. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:27:48 -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" Katy: Yes, I'd be crazy, etc., but I was talking about a particular claim, that the language itself, not the concerns, is somehow gender-marked (whether the markers are male or female--there, I've marked both poles now). It might be informative to investigate how various female writers have indicated gender when using a male as mouthpiece (the aforementioned Brontes, Willa Cather, etc.) and vice versa. Maybe this has been done? At 08:19 AM 4/3/98 -0600, you wrote: >Mark-- > >I disagree. All discourses are NOT interchangeable in this way-- > >I'm not talking about mad libs here--I'm talking about discourses that >require binary and oppositional structures--with one of the binaries >marked and one of them unmarked ("normal"). > >Also: as per your apparent accusation that I haven't "proved" my points, >or that I have otherwise shied away from discussing my views.... what? > >I think I've said a lot about my feelings as a women (among other things) >in the world of poetry. > >I have not been making claims for anyone else-- > >And I never said anything that ever ever implied that men needed >"translators" (or v.v.) for women's writing. > >I think you're crazy if you think the social context within which poetry >is written has NO analyzable effect on actual poetry. > >Why must I say that women's writing is "different" across the board for it >to be valid that perhaps some writing by women could be analyzed in part >through a gender lens? > >Best, >Katy > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:58:38 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Standard's standards Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >From: SSSCHAEFER >Subject: Dodie chat > >I have read your writing and much of the rest of the writing on this list and >many others. Nice condescension, though. Excellent technique. And of >course all writing is about technique at some point. Not sure why you're so >hostile to my questions. I thought I was sincerely trying to get someone to >help me think about these issues and I think it is happening. Standard, As I read your post you were saying that your fears were coming true, that we were talking about content instead of form, and then you brought me up as an example of a content-monger. I felt this was very condescending--if you'd used someone else as the bad example, I'd surely had not gotten so invested. This is different than just bringing up the issue of form and asking a question. I don't believe in this big division of content and form anyway, as if form were the holy spirit and content the corrupt rotting flesh that needs to be powdered and perfumed . . . Remember the old word logocentrism, maybe we should revive it here. If I misunderstood you I am sorry, but I just read bell hooks latest book when I had stomach flu. She's infected me. Even though I have lots of problems with the Wounds of Passion (and want to send Nate Mackey a bouquet of roses in sympathy), it does make one think about the gaze, the white gaze, the male gaze. I keep thinking about her incessant (and irritating from my perspective) cataloguing of people--everybody is introduced as a type: racial, gender, professional, class, judgements of attractiveness, personality flaws in these long lists of adjectives. It all sounds so reductive, but by doing this she's breaking down the idea of a "norm." No one gets by without a list of adjectives clinging to them, no one is the norm. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 14:01:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: O B D Ants Comments: To: morpheal In-Reply-To: <199804031736.MAA06515@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII M says: WWII was initially a result of industrialists, not a political party led by the tragic-comic figure of Hitler. Hitler was as silly figure-head, chosen because he was extremely brain washable and controllable. Look to who profited from armaments manufacture and you have the answer as to what it was about. I don't think this is true at all. Industrialists (some) may have believed themselves to have made this choice up until about 1933-4, but it rapidly became clear thereafter that their role in a fully integrated state would be entirely dictated by the government (as was in fact the case). Funk and then Speer directed all industrial production, even ordering that many factories abandon their regular output and concentrate exclusively on the production of a single item. Industry in Germany was centralized and improved -in order that- the war effort could be sustained, and not the reverse. k ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 14:05:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: your mail Comments: To: Mark Weiss In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980403102748.00aa9ec0@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII but I was talking about a particular claim, that the language itself, not the concerns, is somehow gender-marked It might be interesting to compile a list of neologisms coined by women and to compare that to those coined by men? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 14:19:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: a poem by Andrea Brady MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Vanish Peace where the wound is, flapping like a burnt egg, loose with bubbles whose odour bursts to spread gold over fawn spikes of ambition. It makes nothing of me, nor of the face frozen in wood. Process, relished, washed carefully in tide, fasting at corners with ceaselessness. Wish to seep gaping into that burst flesh and be cell of its kite-like body, but patently do not. Instead, to feast on saw grass, as a slim hope that all curricular indications and graded projects do not stop. But that ceaselessness seems different, a cut to limp the bright open flow. In hoping proof, it's mentioned, and when the sun turns collapses like atoms of an open flower, wrecking all solar provisions. Peace which drew me to its bright flesh pulps and pulses without verge or entry. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:35:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It might be, at that. I'm getting a little annoyed at this game. Anybody's message can be treated with substitutions, which would quickly turn this list into a five-year-old's shouting match. My own preference when not dealing with issues raised or slighting the sender is silence, into which I retreat. At 02:05 PM 4/3/98 -0500, you wrote: > but I was talking about a particular claim, >that the language itself, not the concerns, is somehow gender-marked > > > > >It might be interesting to compile a list of neologisms coined by women >and to compare that to those coined by men? > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 14:16:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: agacE de ce long bavardage inutile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A thought experiment: Refer to women poets simply as poets and call male poets "men poets." Teach a course on American poetry reading H.D. Stein, Howe, Plath, etc... include a few men poets as tokens if you get complaints from the male students. Spend some time earnestly discussing the masculinism of the token men poets, then return to the more universal concerns of the "poets." In other words, treat the masculine as the linguistically marked gender. Try it for just a day. I wrote an article in which I used the terms "poet" and "male poet"--it was not all that difficult. (I missed something--why are all the gender posts listing their subject as "idle chitchat"? The title of my post, a line from Roussel, is an ironic reference to this.) Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 15:24:42 EST Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: agacE de ce long bavardage inutile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Where could I find this "male poet" article? -- sounds interesting E. Hatmaker ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 16:01:44 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hzinnes Subject: announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit 3 April l998 Harriet Zinnes reads her poetry for the Spoken Word Program celebrating National Poetry Month at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on Saturday, April l8, at 5 p m. 2nd Floor: The Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Gallery. (200 Eastern Parkway) Free with Museum admission. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 15:06:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Nathaniel Mackey's Mpls Visit Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" april 2 nathaniel mackey read from his prose and poetry at the university of minnesota, to a full house of students, faculty and community folks. he started w/ a section of one of the letters from his epistolary novel Djbot Baghostus's Run, describing the performance of the fictional band the Mystic Horn Society, which reaches apotheosis in a blend of paganini's caprice #9 and albert ayler's ghosts that takes off and becomes its own thing. then he read poems from School of Udhra and not-yet-published work. it was exciting, rhythmically jazz, very complex syntactically (and of course semantically) meditations around absence, art, aspiration (yeah, lots of alliteration). then today he lectured my class, American Poetry Since 1940, on HD's influence on his work. It was terrific. I guess he'll be giving the same paper in chicago in a coupla weeks. highly recommended; dense, duncan-mediated, cecil taylor thrown in as well as kamau brathwaite and oceanic consciousness ("tidalectics"), good info for those of us in the midwest. tonight he reads again, at the Nomad Gallery in St Paul, to "the community," i.e. not the university, though of course there will be overlap. it's been a pleasure to have him here and in case there is anyone on the list who has not yet had the reading or cd-listening pleasure (though there are probably very few of you who now fall into that category), by all means check out his titles. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:13:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: O B D Ants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I don't think this is true at all. Industrialists (some) may have >believed themselves to have made this choice up until about 1933-4, but it >rapidly became clear thereafter that their role in a fully integrated >state would be entirely dictated by the government (as was in fact the >case). Funk and then Speer directed all industrial production, even >ordering that many factories abandon their regular output and concentrate >exclusively on the production of a single item. Industry in Germany was >centralized and improved -in order that- the war effort could be >sustained, and not the reverse. I responded backchannel to this. Whitman is the poetics thread. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 16:33:04 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: For Juliana Spahr MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry, all, but the email address I have is wrong, so: Hi Juliana, I just mentioned chain on a list I'm on & people want more info: is the info at EPC correct? annual, $10 per issue payable: UB Foundation Jena/you @ 215 Ashland Ave Buffalo, NY 14222 Hope you're well. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 00:20:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: agacE de ce long bavardage inutile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jon-- Gee--I always thought it'd be so excellent to put together an anthology with exactly that idea. I guess the cats out of the bag now. --RDL P.S. Just coming back from Harry Mathew lecture/reading at DU where he discussed the possibilities of translation vis a vis Oulipo models and said that the pleasure in the random applications with rules was the same as a child's (I heard 'boy's') love for "hard games with tough rules." (I never did like those much as I'm sure many of the boys out there did not, I don't know if I believe it's a gender thing but it certainly comes in handy as a graceful way out.) Later read a bunch of oulipo-inspired works, very vast, global, temporal (Cronogram for 1997, 1997 words--all roman numeral letters translated into number, but for I, of which there were a specific/relevant amount, I forget how many). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 10:43:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: alligators, dense fog and Scala piano Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >-never though Senor Blake could be such fun-so how is it out there in poetical >land- >When the dust settles out, the clouds lift and people start sifting and >sorting thru the remains of this century -people are going to remember some >great thinkers of the 20th century. >Teenagers everywhere are going to carry copies of Leslie Scalapino's Defoe >under there arms and read together in groups on stage and in alleys. One possible alternative scenario is that they might be forbidden to read anything other than technical and business journals. Those who can afford it might be able to purchase bootleg copies of 20th century poets, from underground sources, but the penalties might be extremely harsh..... M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 12:05:38 -0800 Reply-To: ttheatre@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen and Trevor Organization: Tea Theatre Subject: mei-mei & elizabeth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kelsey St Press presents a reading: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge & Elizabeth Robinson Tuesday April 7 @ Canessa Park Gallery San Francisco ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 19:01:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ellay Phillips Subject: Re: a poem by Andrea Brady In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thank you for posting the poem by Andrea Brady. It is a lush, sensuous and smart piece of work. Ellay Phillips ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 20:52:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: a poem by Andrea Brady Comments: To: Ellay Phillips In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 4 Apr 1998, Ellay Phillips wrote: > Thank you for posting the poem by Andrea Brady. It is a lush, > sensuous and smart piece of work. > > Ellay Phillips > Thanks for reading it - I'll post a few more. I do think that she is an important and distinct writer, whose work is not merely thoughtful but is real -thought-, and whose new work is a mediation and a reengineering of the possibility of several kinds of expression, and of several kinds of sentiment. Hopefully the other poems I post will bear this out! Her new book is to be published by John Kinsella's SALT press this month. yrs, k ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 20:53:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Another by Andrea Brady MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII lying low in pusillanimity of fear Wagons decked with excuse drew past in a quick three-frame slide. Air, moist, drifted to my window, shut, and without rumbling at its ignominious discharge, we lay white sheets on our Bermudan bed. How we think of slashing flags of a perfect tense. Crisp after the token fever seated on that vast prospect of flatness, my corpse wills itself upward in honest parody. In objectiveness of denser gas, racked across a few hundred metres it anticipated a penultimate lecture of regret. Lay me on a hard board. So if I might reckon the total silence of will; but, a panic of it unable to trim me yet, back through the hazard zone under its orange circles, regret and pointedness inflating till I verge in the bed's contracting pupil. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 14:49:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: booksbyab MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A few poems by Andrea Brady available: open bond (Barque 96) $3.00 Of Sere Fold (Barque 97) $3.00 Cranked Foil (Poetical Histories 97) $3.00 The Poetical Histories piece is a lovely letterpress long poem. I have these books here with me (I am Barque), and can send them pronto. E- me. More of her poetry can be found at jacket.zip.com.au (#4) Good week to all, k ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 14:51:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: ab's verses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII sorry, I meant jacket ---#3--- k ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 10:29:10 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Fw: Thunder Failover/Hail Shutdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is a message from our sysadmin: it looks almost like one of those Oulipo word-substitution games. Since we're in the weather business, all of our servers have meteorological-sounding names, which can result in approximate surrealism when read by outsiders. > It has become necessary to restart Hail. We will be shutting Hail down > on Tuesday Evening (7th of April), at 5:00pm. This means that Thunder > will failover to Rain. (PCs may notice a failure, and then carry on as > usual - Macs will be able to access files by connecting to Rain rather > than Hail.) Hail will be up and running by 5:30ish. I remember when the web was young, and many universities here seemed to have Tolkein-derived names for their servers: gandalf.otago.ac.nz amd so forth. This probably reflected the reading habits of Comp Sci students more than anything else, but resulted in some odd moments. I was wondering whether anyone else had any examples of the poetics of computing nomenclature? Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 19:18:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: possible part 5 of on the occasion a repast MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 5. Right then as a shredded root lacking information it all set to glow up, put tran quil as a case to evade foraging re: slash-up and active regret by a stream of burns and wood-gas, there is no time everything fails at her prop er acid spoof rate not shrunk now, graced with acquittal and the occasion is blind as a knife to split or jog back, former sun light bracing her loth to surmise and permitted and she's dis- charged just so that she may cor- rupt on a breeze and line, then as it sped pre-taxed over my skin / torched lacquer driven by each of these softened lights into service, flutter of frayed re dress-hopes pay day brick in the eye of her, scrape her new say-so sickened and wild from that pigment wait there is time, trilled and fact stuffed bales of it and the gentle love backlog's doused all over in abated danger, she can always kiss at my throat cement and row out arm in arm, on our splinter-trial as a riftless proof of choice. What does she care. Spare her, lay her down, case by case. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 16:33:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re : Thunder Failover/Hail Shutdown Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tom Beard's header until I read his message was going to be, I expected, an explanation mock or authentic of the Silence of the List--that either due to bad weather or Passover, people werent posting, and whats more, Tom Beard ("Hail, Shutdown!") was either pleased or pretending-pleased about this. So his actual message, while interesting, made me feel a sense of anti-climate.. Bowering, generally as well-informed as he is modest, b-c'd me & said the List was this quiet because everybody was reading his new book, _Piccolo Mondo_ , which is up on the web at Coach House Books. Perhaps. All I know is that I mourn the effusions of the distant past, the maelstrom surrounding the worth of Tom Clark's poetry & morality, the high tides of love-poetics abutting St. Valentine's Day, the lightning-bolts of Kent Johnson's persecution--twas an Age of Gold, is this an Age of Lead?-- A Swain. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 21:27:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Kramer Organization: none Subject: tired chit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit or, this tired lady, if you prefer... going to work, and lurking, and generally corresponding take energies, as well as give 'em, i s'pose, but so much of interest to comment on: 1. to whomever posted about fatimah tuggar a big thank you!! you've recruited a new fan. went to see those two exhibits in nyc you posted about, and then today (couple weeks later) went to see her talk at the exhibit "keeping track of the joneses." some things i found inneresting: that she collages her collages digitally --oops, i mean on the computer, not digitally like fingers. but also that many of her pieces use "real" objects--a metal box with photos; cushions with photos of family members on them, around a digital-image round collage of an eating mat filled with products centrifugally (cant spell that) shooting; one collage was slide-projected onto a bath of yoghurt in a clay pot! you could barely make out the women holding pots collage in it, but once you made it out, you couldnt not see it! 2. in response to the "how can you tell?" gender thread, well, i have to say that i dunno what you kin tell a woman or a man by what her/his writing/artwork looks and sounds like (naw!), but i _can_ say, for example, that when i first saw that post about tuggar i didnt know she was a woman, and when i visited the website and somehow found out, well it made a big 'ol adrenalin difference to little chit me. not sure all of why, but it's a sexual feeling, & too a role-model thing. not that i'm not turned on by poetry by men, and shit yeah, many men are also my role models, but...there it is. some kinda excitement. and relief and green-light GO! You TOO could do... like dodie (i think it was) said but in diffrent context thank god for kathy acker. it's been important for me to be able to see people about whom i could say yeah, "what SHE said" or "i wanna grow up to be like HER." i mean, i woulda loved gertrude stein no matter what her plumbing, but her being a lesbian made me--a late-teen-kid then-- her loving-faithful. 3. oh yeah, one more thing. in the basement floor of the new museum gallery where we saw fatimah tuggar, we saw also a flea circus exhibit by another woman, Maria Fernanda Cardoso--complete with video performance of said circus, wherein the artist reigned Queen, along with related banners, placards, and glassed-in preserved fleas in progress of death-defying feats, such as tightrope-walking and getting shot outta cannonballs! o marvelous mayhem! amusement! what technical skill! flea circus-ing has a whole history (as do fleas in human society) about which i hadnt ('til now) hadda clue. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 19:51:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: re : Thunder Failover/Hail Shutdown In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Unlike Mr Bromige, author of the Web novel Piccolo Mondo, I am not bothered by a silent net. It gives me a chance to (1) answer some of the e-mail from last October, and (2) make dinner for my wife Angela. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:43:54 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: The Age of Plastic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David Bromige in a recent post posed the query: "All I know is that I mourn the effusions of the distant past, the "maelstrom surrounding the worth of Tom Clark's poetry & morality, "the high tides of love-poetics abutting St. Valentine's Day, "the lightning-bolts of Kent Johnson's persecution-- "twas an Age of Gold, is this an Age of Lead?-- " No, David; the Age of Plastic. My friend the late John Forbes put it thus: "The Age of Plastic" (copyright the Estate of John Forbes 1998) after Ovid The dictionary definition of change means your face looks different in the water & even tho'you'd feel at home down there each moment spent at one remove, anywhere between the mammal & the sponge, you know you'd miss a particular cassette idle tears or a glass of gin & be irked by the serious options a changeless life presents e.g. 'Minor poet, conspicuously dishonest' would look funny on a plaque screwed to a tree while the blue trace of your former life suggests an exception generations will end up chanting; for them the parts of speech will need explaining not lakes or sleep or sex, or the dumb poets of the past who, being lyrical, missed out on this. =========================== from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 22:49:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re the age of plastic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to John Tranter for posting this nifty poem by the late John Forbes. "Minor poet, conspicuously dishonest" indeed would look funny, even screwed into a brick wall--the brick wall of the building I was born in, for instance. And it doesnt stop there. It's been amusing imagining which friends and enemies' birthplaces a like plaque could be attached to--who would be able to take it in fun, and who wouldnt. It is the case I am too often flippant. "Plastique", which ours is also the Age of, is nothing to laugh at. Persons undone by credit card debt likewise. Then there's the difficulty we have disposing of plastic once we've had enough of it. But Forbes' poem had more than that sentence to it. The "parts of speech" bit for instance. Who was John Forbes and why havent I heard of him? John Tranter, are you the man who played my ukelele 25 years ago? David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 22:04:27 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: The Age of Plastic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Wanna second the "nifty" DB writes about the John Forbes poem John Tranter posted. Wish I had the Ovid to flesh out even more pleasure from it. S. John Tranter wrote: > David Bromige in a recent post posed the query: > > "All I know is that I mourn the effusions of the distant past, the > "maelstrom surrounding the worth of Tom Clark's poetry & morality, > "the high tides of love-poetics abutting St. Valentine's Day, > "the lightning-bolts of Kent Johnson's persecution-- > "twas an Age of Gold, is this an Age of Lead?-- " > > No, David; the Age of Plastic. My friend the late John Forbes put it thus: > > "The Age of Plastic" (copyright the Estate of John Forbes 1998) > > after Ovid > > The dictionary definition of change > means your face looks different in the water > & even tho'you'd feel at home down there > each moment spent at one remove, anywhere > between the mammal & the sponge, > you know you'd miss a particular cassette > idle tears or a glass of gin > & be irked by the serious options > a changeless life presents e.g. 'Minor > poet, conspicuously dishonest' would look funny > on a plaque screwed to a tree > while the blue trace of your former life > suggests an exception > generations will end up chanting; for them > the parts of speech will need explaining > not lakes or sleep or sex, > or the dumb poets of the past > who, being lyrical, missed out on this. > > =========================== > from > John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia > tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 > http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html > Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 06:31:43 -0700 Reply-To: arenal@bc.sympatico.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wolsak Organization: Arenal Resorts Subject: query to poetics list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I need help finding ground and/or e-addresses for the following people: Fanny Howe Susan Wheeler Marjorie Welish Elaine Equi Lydia Davis Brenda Hillman Any assistance you can lend in this matter will be very helpful. Thanks. Tom Beckett TBeck131@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 10:07:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: SPD Anyone have an 800 number for Small Press Distribution? Thanks. Burt Kimmelman kimmelman@admin.njit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 10:40:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: SPD In-Reply-To: <009C44CC.49150C60.368@admin.njit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 800-869-7553 >Anyone have an 800 number for Small Press Distribution? > >Thanks. > >Burt Kimmelman >kimmelman@admin.njit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 11:38:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: "open bond" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Keston's posting Andrea Brady's poems' sent me back to her '96 chapbook, _Open Bond_. Here are some lines: so this mesh hardly horoscopes me and cell line. still don't say, sallow chatter of where it is and will be. a doppelganger's a room for breachborn. here I and you touch every ugly atom of the day, like our first suckling, each hand-cell tender as our share. you weaves our neural net for me: a metro remedy of the catholic announcement, yes to the haunt you under another heading. and in case you thought she was not of _this world_: Snagged on chocolate donuts he stares down the hearts of trees where isohedron ice tandems branch to branch to chest. If the list were not a "dry state" I am certain I would post her poem "Migration." Ay! how strange a time that one misses another fifty beautiful poems if the one on watch is asleep. break through bureaucratic resis- tance to take bold action. Gunter permanent international war crimes unlikely to produce concrete Black is the beauty of the brightest day ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 12:12:20 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cadaly Subject: Server and/or Printer Names Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A floor of Goldman Sachs had Disney characters. Bankers Trust had mostly Greek, Roman, and Nordic gods. I HAVE seen writers' names, but I don't remember where. You could tell which business managers were alive by the names. They're pretty much all numbers now. Rgds, Catherine Daly ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 10:49:54 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Server and/or Printer Names In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT we used to have a scheme based on the Wizard of Oz, though the only ones I remember were EmeraldCity & Toto... the servers I work with now seem to have no scheme whatsoever, or only the remains of one - Choengmon (a beach in Vietnam), Alexandria, Alex, Chronos, Digilib... somewhere on campus is a set of servers named for Swedish foods. Cadaly says: > You could tell which business managers were alive by the names. > They're pretty much all numbers now. as opposed to dust, presumably. what could be more appropriate? chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 11:21:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Server and/or Printer Names MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Catharine, I like your email nick name, Cadaly. Whenever I look at it, I see, Calalily. Despite the D. best, Rachel Levitsky ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 11:24:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Oops! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit please scuze the last post. it was intended as backchannel. RDL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 13:32:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: Harryette Mullen Author Page Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A Harryette Mullen author page is now available at the EPC. It is featured on the EPC home page http://writing.upenn.edu/epc If anyone knows of material that should be linked to this page, or has essays, etc. you might want me to add to the page, please let me know at glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 13:55:50 -0400 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: SPD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT wrote: > > Anyone have an 800 number for Small Press Distribution? > > Thanks. > > Burt Kimmelman > kimmelman@admin.njit.edu 800.869.7553 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:10:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: SPD R. Drake, David K. et al. Thanks for you help. got it! burt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:49:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Re: Time changes (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII expand the hours perhaps 22 will do in which case you can slide the rest around those two won't be missed you can have your time and beat it to the punch clock which doesn't mind putting out for a minute or 120 of them keep it running past a couple of hours on the road let's go slide around ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:58:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Frank Kuensler reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Friends of the late poet Frank Kuensler read their own poetry and his Tuesday, April 28, 8pm Chez Albert at Clemente Soto Velez 107 Suffolk Street (F train: Delancy) info: 212-615-6840 If you are interested in participating give Emily Kuensler a call at the number above. Further details will be posted at a later time. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 15:07:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: a l y r i c m a i l e r 3 Comments: To: "core-l@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------EF66E0AF8854734C6A459BC3" --------------EF66E0AF8854734C6A459BC3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Attention Poets and Friends! a l y r i c m a i l e r NUMBER 3 featuring: Color (An Essay) by Eleni Sikelianos is up and running at: http//writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/alyricmailer/alyric.htm Eleni Sikelianos is currently the co-curator with Lisa Jarnot of the wednesday night reading series at St. Mark's. Her recent publications include _Poetics of the X_ (1995) _A Book of Ease/Unease_ (with artist Peter Cole) and _The Book of Tendons_ (Post-Apollo Press 1997). Forthcoming titles include _The Blue Coat_ (Trembling Ladders) and _The Lover's Numbers_ (Seeing Eye Books). She currently lives on the Isle Of Manhottoes where she co-edits Psalm 151. Upcoming issues include an alyric prose issue featuring 1000's by Laird Hunt, to be followed by work from Heather Fuller, a sound file and text poem for three voices by Carrie Tocci, a critical isssue on the work of Ben Friedlander (critical submissions and queries welcome at the above e-mail address), and work by Heather Ramsdell. Enjoy. Mike --------------EF66E0AF8854734C6A459BC3 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Attention Poets and Friends!

a l y r i c m a i l e r   NUMBER 3 featuring:

Color

(An Essay)

by Eleni Sikelianos

is up and running at:

http//writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/alyricmailer/alyric.htm

Eleni Sikelianos is currently the co-curator with Lisa Jarnot of the wednesday night reading series at St. Mark's. Her recent publications include _Poetics of the X_ (1995) _A Book of Ease/Unease_ (with artist Peter Cole) and _The Book of Tendons_ (Post-Apollo Press 1997). Forthcoming titles include _The Blue Coat_ (Trembling Ladders) and _The Lover's Numbers_ (Seeing Eye Books). She currently lives on the Isle Of Manhottoes where she co-edits Psalm 151.

Upcoming issues include an alyric prose issue featuring 1000's by Laird Hunt, to be followed by work from Heather Fuller, a sound file and text poem for three voices by Carrie Tocci, a critical isssue on the work of Ben Friedlander (critical submissions and queries welcome at the above e-mail address), and work by Heather Ramsdell.

Enjoy.

Mike --------------EF66E0AF8854734C6A459BC3-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 13:53:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Server and/or Printer Names Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:21 AM 4/6/98, Rachel Levitsky wrote: >Catharine, > >I like your email nick name, Cadaly. Whenever I look at it, I see, >Calalily. Despite the D. > >best, >Rachel Levitsky i see Kodaly, or rather hear it. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 16:37:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ellay Phillips Subject: Re: Another by Andrea Brady In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks Keston Sutherland for the info about the work of Andrea Brady. Eye don't often encounter work that strikes me so on first experience-- the last time was a year ago when eye first saw/heard/ read the polymorphous stylings of Wendy Kramer, whose work is the most synaesthetic eye think eye have ever encountered in that it not only must be read but also viewed and heard in order to experience its full effect. Brady's work might not be visual, but it strikes more of the sensory imagination which eye am all for! Thanks again. Ellay Phillips ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 18:15:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laura and jeff Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" oh dear... poor nietzche again getting the blame that isn't his... kinda like blamming the bible (which speaks out agsint violence, and for tolerance) for the crusades. it's the people interpreting who are to blame. i guess we should note that if it wasn't for nietzsche there also wouldn't be modern art (including our beloved poetics) in the way we know it. individuality... nihilistic questioning... etc. these are nietzche. so: no. she was right (as she so often is). too bad so few listen. jeff. >>how can we bring democracy to these germans, she didn't hesitate a second >>responding, "teach them disobediance!" > > > >well, she was wrong, wasn't she? Nietzsche tried to teach 'them' exactly >that, and became a textbook in the Third Reich. The nsdap were pretty >disobedient, all things considered (versailles, Munich putsch etc). "how >is it that a woman is the only genius of our age": it isn't. Maybe she >should have hesitated. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if the stars are lit it means there is someone who needs it. It means it is essential that every evening at least one star should ascend over the crest of the building. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 16:42:46 -0700 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: Rose's mourning MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Keston Sutherland wrote: > can I recommend Gillian Rose's excellent book > _Mourning Becomes the Law_ (Cambridge University Press), as a refreshed > and perfectly considerate address of many of the questions and attitudes > that are often taken for granted? Her term "holocaust piety" (her family > were Jewish exiles) has made me think -- > I agree, provocative. Even though I don't share her hegelian hopes, she dissimulates not at all the darkness one can give over to without them hopes. I was haunted for a while by the books companion volume, _Love's Work: A Reckoning with Life_ when a friend, like Rose, faced their untimely death. Facing squarely, (a geometric truth? triangularly?), I guess. I do think we try and live in that city between Athens and Jerusalem. Perambulating Potter's Field. More, I was wondering (maybe needing, wanting to write) what is our Trauerspiel? mc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:07:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age Comments: To: laura and jeff In-Reply-To: <01IVK43M6A268WXKE0@ACS.WOOSTER.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII wasn't blaming nietzsche for anything, besides the question of Stein's right/wrongness turns neither on his repute nor on his achievement, regarding which I agree with you. Still, I believe that so offhand a remark, despite its obvious expandability and the circumstances of its occurrence, can hardly be 'right' given the complexity and significance of what it hopes to address. So we far western europeans and americans just 'teach them' to be disobedient, do we? What an arrogant confidence, what charmless and laconic esprit. Maybe she's right for the lover of politically sonorous epigrams, but for a nation of people? For the Germans? How the fuck can she be 'right'? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 17:20:04 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to us philosophically/psychologically? Karen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 19:34:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Comments: To: Karen Kelley In-Reply-To: <35297133.3CEDBC81@bayarea.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I love the way Juliana Spahr depicts the effects of "alien" beings on our beings in her book RESPONSE (Sun & Moon, 1996). Notley has some new poems that deal with aliens (I think I saw them in GARE du NORD #2). There are some scary books by Whitley Streiber--one of them is called COMMUNION and is very scary. I'm still afraid of the dark! (The most scary thing is that his aliens can "get you" even if someone else is in your bed--or even if there's a cat or dog around... They can put others into trances and stop time and stuff like that...). The movie version, which stars Christopher Walken,is very scary--but also surprisingly philosophical in its approach and in its implications... I highly recommend it..... Best, Katy On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Karen Kelley wrote: > Hi all, > > This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about > before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that > I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials > must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not > particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, > perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > us philosophically/psychologically? > > Karen > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:23:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age Comments: To: laura and jeff In-Reply-To: <01IVK43M6A268WXKE0@ACS.WOOSTER.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII besides, N. explicitly condemns "nihilistic" thinking as a sickness - it's one of the few things he's unequivocal about. To think that he gave us that as a gift is, surely, to misinterpret. Wouldn't the blameworthy interpretors have misinterpreted Stein's comment also? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:53:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laura and jeff Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well the arrogence lies with the silly person who asked the question. but the answer is a good one. how do you get people to think? teach them to disobey, question, etc. but we're all agreeing here i think, so this is basically fruitless. been defeding nietzche to my wife so much lately that i guess i'm just in the habit. =) jeff. >wasn't blaming nietzsche for anything, besides the question of Stein's >right/wrongness turns neither on his repute nor on his achievement, >regarding which I agree with you. Still, I believe that so offhand a >remark, despite its obvious expandability and the circumstances of its >occurrence, can hardly be 'right' given the complexity and significance of >what it hopes to address. So we far western europeans and americans just >'teach them' to be disobedient, do we? What an arrogant confidence, what >charmless and laconic esprit. Maybe she's right for the lover of >politically sonorous epigrams, but for a nation of people? For the >Germans? How the fuck can she be 'right'? > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if the stars are lit it means there is someone who needs it. It means it is essential that every evening at least one star should ascend over the crest of the building. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:59:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laura and jeff Subject: Re: disobey: how is it that a woman is the only genius of our age MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i meant "nihilism" as a means to destroy in order to rebuid, which nietzche did support. this thinking eventually turned into existentialism, etc. etc. blah blah. =) jeff. >besides, N. explicitly condemns "nihilistic" thinking as a sickness - it's >one of the few things he's unequivocal about. To think that he >gave us that as a gift is, surely, to misinterpret. Wouldn't the >blameworthy interpretors have misinterpreted Stein's comment also? > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if the stars are lit it means there is someone who needs it. It means it is essential that every evening at least one star should ascend over the crest of the building. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 23:10:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Server and/or Printer Names In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Maria Damon (Maria Damon) wrote: > At 11:21 AM 4/6/98, Rachel Levitsky wrote: > >Catharine, > > > >I like your email nick name, Cadaly. Whenever I look at it, I see, > >Calalily. Despite the D. > > > >best, > >Rachel Levitsky > > i see Kodaly, or rather hear it. > i see Caddy. The car? or the little girl in The Sound and the Fury? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 23:23:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Try _Broken Images, Broken Selves: Dissociative Narratives in Clinical Practice_ (Brunner/Mazel), edited by Stanley Krippner and Susan Marie Powers. My friend, Susan, has an essay in it on Alien Abduction Narratives. you might also want to try that controversial Harvard prof who counsels alien abductees. Can't remember his name. And i'm not picking on harvard. best, Steven > > On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Karen Kelley wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > > dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about > > before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that > > I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials > > must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not > > particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, > > perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > > us philosophically/psychologically? > > > > Karen > > > __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 14:30:22 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: John Forbes and ukeleles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David Bromige wrote: "But Forbes' poem had more than that sentence to it. "The "parts of speech" bit for instance. "Who was John Forbes and why havent I heard of him? "John Tranter, are you the man who played my ukelele "25 years ago? David" John Forbes was a brilliant Australian poet and a friend of mine who died in late January, basically from living too fast. He reminded me of Ted Berrigan in too many ways. The line "Minor poet, conspicuously dishonest" is I believe a deliberate midquote of a line of Basil Bunting's, who said that he wanted as his epitaph the phrase"Minor poet, conspicuously honest." To an Australian ear, a phrase like that needed the piss taken out of it. You can read more about John Forbes in the special memorial issue of my free Internet magazine Jacket, Issue Number 3, at the address below. No, I've never played the ukelele. There is an Australian poet, Richard Tipping, who is noted for his gift of entertaining roomfulls of people on that instrument. Perhaps you're thinking of him. best, JT from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:03:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Karen Kelley wrote . . . >This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable >dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about >before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that >I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials >must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not >particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, >perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to >us philosophically/psychologically? Katy's already suggested Spahr's book "Response" which is a good one. Let me recommend a novel "Mysterious Skin" by a young New Yorker Scott Heim, it is really terrific and is totally about the psychological appeal of aliens, why we need them, etc. When I was almost 30 I came to "realize" that I had been abducted by aliens briefly in childhood, and I drew upon this experience to write a memoir "Santa," which now appears in my book "Little Men" (which of course you don't want to miss in any case). I got some of it right, but Scott and Juliana get more of it. --Kevin Killian <---- space "cadet" fanboy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:51:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Avec Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Posting this for Avec Books: ----------------------------- Avec Books congratulates Keith Waldrop, winner of the America Award in Literature (poetry category) for _Silhouette of the Bridge_ (Avec Books 1997). New from Avec Books: _Jackknife & Light_ by Michelle Murphy The poems of _Jackknife & Light_ (which was a finalist in the National Poetry Series of 1996) give their meanings up slowly, with a languorous precision and care. They aspire to-and demand-what Murphy defines as a unique "method of looking" and reading...and thinking. Murphy's writings have appeared in a wide range of publications, from literary journals such as ZYZZYVA and Five Fingers Review to the cyber-mag, Hot-Wired. Her poem, "13 Versions of Surrender" (included in Jackknife & Light) has served as the basis of a song cycle by Bay Area composer Erling Wold, produced in Germany in 1997. Paperback. 95 pages. List price: $10; ISBN: 1-880713-11-X. Distributed by Ingram Book Company (titles unlimited program); Baker & Taylor; Small Press Distribution and (as of mid-April ) www.amazon.com Advance praise for _Jackknife & Light_: "Mouthed, Michelle Murphy's poems are mouthed onto the page. They're wet with the pears, apples, mangoes of an indeterminate landscape, part myth, part memory, "smoke on everything." The great tenderness of her sensibility! In Jackknife & Light's insistently meditative prose poems, where past and present overturn each other, and narrative skin is peeled into fragments and run-ons, Murphy brightlines human intimacies-between lovers, parents and children, the dead and the surviving-with a remarkable formal inventiveness. "If I had just one story," she writes, "I'd rather starve than have to live by it." Fortunately, she has enough imagination, strangeness, and verve to nourish us all. --Forrest Gander "...Michelle Murphy's lucid chord-clusters ("mornings of straight edged white sky, the strict angles of a harpsichord") are instilled with the hush of ardor: a passion caught in the act of knowing itself." --Andrew Joron "Tread carefully here," Michelle Murphy warns us, for "all is not exactly what it seems." Murphy's primary subject in this, her brilliant first book, is the beauty that becomes delicate "when suddenly & endlessly gone." Yet her poems, through their graceful confusions of secular and spiritual languages, are prayers that would take "our legacy of doubt" and somehow "make faith durable." Murphy provides us with "a method of looking" and listening that is intensely subjective and attuned to silence, as well as to the vagaries of a language that can "grow more feral than imagined." Her finales of seem describe a lost yet sayable past, and promise "the original shape of our future . . . a wilderness we never outgrow." -Susan Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 22:09:53 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have _Santa_ right here on my desk (the Leave Books version). It's killer! dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: > Karen Kelley wrote . . . > > >This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > >dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about > >before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that > >I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials > >must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not > >particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, > >perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > >us philosophically/psychologically? > > Katy's already suggested Spahr's book "Response" which is a good one. Let > me recommend a novel "Mysterious Skin" by a young New Yorker Scott Heim, it > is really terrific and is totally about the psychological appeal of aliens, > why we need them, etc. When I was almost 30 I came to "realize" that I had > been abducted by aliens briefly in childhood, and I drew upon this > experience to write a memoir "Santa," which now appears in my book "Little > Men" (which of course you don't want to miss in any case). I got some of > it right, but Scott and Juliana get more of it. > > --Kevin Killian <---- space "cadet" fanboy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 15:42:03 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "d.j. huppatz" Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Comments: To: kkel736@bayarea.net In-Reply-To: <35297133.3CEDBC81@bayarea.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi karen i've just started doing some research for a lecture i said i'd give about ufo design. my take is this: if ufos travel in space & time differently to our human craft, why do they need to be streamlined? given ufos jump between dimensions or whatever it is they're supposed to do, they don't really need to be streamlined. given the aliens, being so technologically advanced, could build their spaceships in an infinite number of ways (say, an art nouveau ship with a late victorian hatch patterning) why choose a design that is specifically american 1930s/40s? answer goes something like this: because that's when ufo sightings really took off - the late 1940s. so the design of their spaceships is modelled on the latest most "technologically advanced" design we can think of, streamlining. from what little i know, in those days (the 40s), aliens were a lot friendlier. a typical abduction would be thus: farmer bob stops his pickup in the middle of nowhere one dark & stormy night when two tall blonde (hmmm!) venusians called him over for a ride in their spaceship. after a quick tour of the planet/solarsystem/galaxy, they'd lecture farmer bob about the dangers of nuclear energy, the environmental crisis and issues about world peace before dropping him off at the pickup again (hoping of course he would spread the word about these impt issues, after all someone has to do it now that god's dead). it was generally not until the 80's that the aliens became nasty. interestingly, in the 1950s/60s/70s as rockets & telescopes reached out further into our solar system & beyond, so the aliens came from further afield. i guess it's no longer possible to claim to meet farmer bob's venusians. pity ... danny melbourne At 05:20 PM 4/6/98 -0700, Karen Kelley wrote: >Hi all, > >This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable >dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about >before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that >I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials >must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not >particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, >perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to >us philosophically/psychologically? > >Karen > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 08:19:14 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 7 Apr 1998 15:42:03 +1000 from Aliens were even friendlier in Biblical times. They helped this obscure tribe of nomads escape from enslavement in Pharaoh land and gave them lots of advice on keeping their act together while they wandered around in the desert eating "manna" (space flakes?). They gave them a little model of their ship called the "ark of the covenant" which was dangerous to touch (for humans, anyway) and sent out light rays and so on. But, as a card-carrying Martian myself, who gets his information from the other side of a singularity horizon, take it from me: ALIENS R US. Reporting in from East Atlantis, I remain... - Henry "Captain Fatso" Gould [fat for a martian, that is] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:35:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: John Forbes and ukeleles Comments: To: John Tranter In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980407143022.00845bd0@mail.zip.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bunting actually wrote (for an encyclopaedia-of-writers entry) "minor poet, not conspicuously dishonest" I too admired John Forbes, he's sadly missed k ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:47:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Reading Announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reading Thursday, May 9 at 8:00: Susan Wheeler Ann Lauterbach Tom Disch Richard Howard George Bradley David Lehman (for publication of The Best of the Best American Poetry) NYU Main Building 100 Washington Square East Room 703 Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:14:18 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Subject: VATICAN ADMITS ON NATIONAL TELEVISION THAT EXTRATERRESTRIAL >CONTACT IS REAL > > Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a Vatican theologian insider close to the >P--e has gone on national Italian television five times in recent months >to proclaim that extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon. The >prelate announced that the Vatican is receiving much information about >extraterrestrials and their contacts with humans from its Nuncios >(embassies) in various countries, such as Mexico, Chile and Venezuela. >Monsignor Balducci said that he is on a Vatican commission looking into >extraterrestrial encounters, and how to cope with the emerging general >realization of extraterrestrial contact. > Balducci provided the Cat--lic Church's analysis of extraterrestrials, >emphasizing that extraterrestrial encounters "are NOT demonic, they are >NOT due to psychological impairment, they are NOT a case of entity >attachment, but these encounters deserve to be studied carefully." > Since Monsignor Balducci is a Vatican expert exorcist, and since the >Cathol-- Church has historically demonized many new phenomena that were >poorly understood, his proclaiming the Vatican's non-censure of these >encounters is all the more remarkable. > Balducci revealed to a visiting American clinical professional from >the Academy of Clinical Close Encounter Therapists, that the Vatican is >closely following this phenomenon. Parallel information from MJ-12 >scientist Dr. Michael Wolf suggests that the Vatican is concerned that >it will have a major doctrinal updating situation on its hands when >extraterrestrial contact becomes authoritatively announced by world >governments over the next several years. > Forwarded by Richard Boylan, >Ph.D. >Richard Boylan, Ph.D., LLC 2826 O Street, Suite 2, Sacramento, CA 95816, >USA. (916) 455-0120 E-mail: rich.boylan@24stex.com ; Primary website: >http://www.ufonetwork.com/boylan/ Author: Close Extraterrestrial >Encounters, Labored Journey To The Stars and Project Epiphany. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:46:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Anyone else got Atlantis poems?? --Rachel Democracy Atlantis The radio would have me believe the Draconians are the source of trouble but action becomes understood as escaping in space ships from nuclear warheads they mark change, which may once have been understood as catastrophe, and will later mark crop circles into corn fields of South America. The Atlanteans and the Draconians are equally to blame for the disaster but somehow the Draconians fade and the Atlanteans rise. They survive though their descendents. (The Europeans here get a bad rap.) Everyone wants to feel good so we speak symbolically. “COW!” Speaking from the car. Speaking in the car, she refered to black and white, light and dark. I remembered my etiquette and bounced back to “defining terms.” The city is now a well-lit surburbia and the grass its hairy tentacles. The other way to see grass, is as a subject for research focused on width and length. *** As a feminist I don’t insist on speaking about Nature, that is the job of the men in space ships. I don’t say that as a manhater, but I did not invent nuclear fission, that was done on the computer. I was busy in the bathroom. Defining terms. *** It was dark under hazy stars. I told them, grasping at the breast has nothing to do with genetics. They gasped at the logic, rolling backwards onto the grass. What was grabbing them? They feared it might be me so, defined their terms. *** You would not believe the squeals it could make I mean it could really squeal. *** Seriously, it was a ploy. I was trying to avoid being arrested because her questioning is exhausting. I am not above being driven to drink or into realms of unrecoverable fantasy, & can made to believe almost anything at the S/M bar where I dream of climbing the stage for the light of it. I might be tempted to cry in front of my torturer or piss into the mainstream. All that explaining for one whose imagination is a polymer sponge, a mean machine of plasticene, a freight train roiling Lemur variegatus. We are back to black. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 08:38:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: NYC in May Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear list i'll be in the NYC area the week of May 16-23 / wondering if anyone has advance warning of events, readings, parties, etc. / much appreciate the help bill marsh - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh http://bmarsh.dtai.com National University http://www.nu.edu/index.html snailmail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:33:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Rain Taxi Vol. 3 No. 1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Everyone: The latest issue of Rain Taxi (Carolyn Kuebler, Randall Heath & Eric Lorber, eds.) is out. This issue's contents include: Interview with Lynne Tillman (by Nikki Dillon), Robert Kelly on Charles Olson, essays on Bertolt Brecht's poetry & stories (by William Waltz), Patrick McGrath's fiction (by Kelly Everding), Doug Rice's essay "The Spirit of Ignorance (an open response to the United States Senate)," S.P. Healey's essay "Poets on Poetry," the next installment of the serialized cartoon "The New Life" (by yours truly), and reviews of dozens of books & graphic novels including Charles Alexander on Mei-mei Berssenbrugge & Kiki Smith's _Endocrinology_, Rickki Ducornet on Rosamond Purcell's _Special Cases_, David Matlin on Carolee Schneemann's _More Than Meat Joy_, Brian Evanson on Jim Jarmusch, John Yau & Harold Schechter's _Original Sin: the Visionary Art of Joe Coleman_ . . . and much, much more. If your local bookstore carries this exceptional quarterly review, it's free. If not, you can subscribe (one year/4 issues $10, domestic, $20 international): Rain Taxi P.O. Box 3840 Minneapolis, MN 55403 http://www.raintaxi.com/ If you've made it to the bottom of this e-mail, & you'd like this latest issue, backchannel me your address & I'll be happy to send one along. Be well, Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:10:15 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: <35297133.3CEDBC81@bayarea.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Karen wrote: > This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > dream about extraterrestrials jeez, I saw Network-whatever in the header, and I thought this was coming over our network/micro- computing listserv - I just about had a heart attack! I don't have any reading to suggest that directly treats the concept of extra-terrestrials (was going to mention KK's "Santa", but...), but re > what they might represent to us philosophically/psychologically? I'm thinking it might be useful to read Pynchon's V., which, no, doesn't involve lizard-skinned ETs that devour human and animal life - but I think it cld be taken as indicative what they *can* represent to us, that in order to make sense of the novel (with all it's beautiful obsessing about the quotidian Outside), American television had to turn it into a story about such... Of course, that read (i.e., novel as against tv movie/series) is also a story about ratings, the horrid state of art in public discourse, and a Reagan-era "cold war"-ish rhetoric of containment carried over &/or revived from the preceeding decades (War of the Worlds, good-guy State Department versus big bad Soviets, Star Wars, etc.). Anyway, I think it cld be useful... you cld look at this against Enemy Mine - what year was that? or, at the (very far) other extreme, Alien and Alien 2 (I didn't get past 2...) - interest ing that the first one is quite shadowy and spooky, whereas the 2nd is much more action-oriented, and both of a kind of bodily fear, bodily malfunction - it's all gotten so bodily/sexual (and sometimes BDSM-sexy) in the 80s and 90s... I was always rather fond of In Search Of, with Leonard Nemoy. of course if you really wanted to think about it you might h [it's at this point the writing breaks off - the only clue as to subject's whereabouts being 3 evenly- spaced circles burnt in the grass outside his office & a note that says "back after lunch"...] chris - a damsel in "eustress" .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:07:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: NYC in May Comments: To: William Marsh In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980407083827.007df9d0@nunic.nu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - I think I'm reading there on the 17th, at Zinc Bar [?] On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, William Marsh wrote: > dear list > > i'll be in the NYC area the week of May 16-23 / wondering if anyone has > advance warning of events, readings, parties, etc. / much appreciate the help > > bill marsh > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > William Marsh > http://bmarsh.dtai.com > National University > http://www.nu.edu/index.html > > snailmail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 > San Diego, CA 92109 > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:12:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: NYC in May Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:07 PM 4/7/98 -0400, Keston Sutherland wrote: > - I think I'm reading there on the 17th, at Zinc Bar [?] > It's not a "zinc bar," it's an opium den. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:24:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Comments: To: "Christopher W. Alexander" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Re: the "Aliens" films, Kelly Hurley - a professor of mine here at CU - has a very good piece on the polymorphous sexuality of the monsters in _Posthuman Bodies_. And of course, Jung's _Flying Saucers: A Myth of Things Seen in the Skies_. His analysis of the UFO visions of an Italian chap named, improbably enough, Angelo Orfeo, are interesting and make for a fun read, too. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Christopher W. Alexander To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Date: Tuesday, April 07, 1998 5:10AM you cld look at this against Enemy Mine - what year was that? or, at the (very far) other extreme, Alien and Alien 2 (I didn't get past 2...) - interest ing that the first one is quite shadowy and spooky, whereas the 2nd is much more action-oriented, and both of a kind of bodily fear, bodily malfunction - it's all gotten so bodily/sexual (and sometimes BDSM-sexy) in the 80s and 90s... Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:30:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: monsters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I wonder if we might trace 'alien' semiology back to say Mandeville's Travels and beyond, back to Ralegh's journals also, that time when myths particularly of Indian and Chinese monsters (headless men etc) were abundant - have we run out of monsters on earth? A thought, k ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:32:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Reading Announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Oh hells' bells -- it's APRIL 9, very sorry -- Reading Thursday, April 9 at 8:00: Susan Wheeler Ann Lauterbach Tom Disch Richard Howard George Bradley David Lehman (for publication of The Best of the Best American Poetry) NYU Main Building 100 Washington Square East Room 703 Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:43:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Re: monsters In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Oh you can go back to the Greeks or the Romans' Lucan, there are such things everywhere you look I think - I'm glad someone brought up Mandeville - I used the Travels at an Ohio conf. on narrratology - relating it to cyberspace... Alan On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Keston Sutherland wrote: > I wonder if we might trace 'alien' semiology back to say Mandeville's > Travels and beyond, back to Ralegh's journals also, that time when myths > particularly of Indian and Chinese monsters (headless men etc) were > abundant - have we run out of monsters on earth? A thought, k > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:06:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cadaly Subject: thanks: userids and names Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thanks! Actually, I have been thinking of it as abara-cadaly. So calalily, kodaly, and caddy are welcome changes. I have a friend with a corporate-rule id named mallard (seven letters: first letters of first two names, five letters from your last name OR five letters from your last name followed by ... although one must add letters if people with similar names are at the same company). Maybe this will have a lasting effect on naming children. Naming so they have good userids. Maybe it's just another opportunity for renaming onesself (or being renamed). Well, there is a superstition that a child is better off with initials that spell something (why my parents thought, "cad -- yes! it's a word"?), there is a lot of numerology related to names, and then one must always consider a monogram for all your shetland sweaters and custom made shirts and whatever else gets monogrammed -- towels? There is a regular newspaper article that runs the popular names for that year. It seems the female names are more subject to changing taste than male names (even though we live longer -- Hmm). My sister and I change our names all the time. My grandmother changed her name to "Estelle" in the 20s and has stuck by it for 70 years. When I got to college, there was a group of people who tried to rename everybody. Oddly, these were not folk who ended up with much power. College on the east coast -- different world -- friends named Cheese, Bells, Wheels, Spoon. Rgds, Catherine Daly cadaly@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:08:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: monsters Comments: To: Keston Sutherland MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain In _Order of Things_, Foucault writes about "monsters," i.e. evolutionary variants vis-a-vis the fossil record, as signifiers of difference. Alien semiology, as you put it, is, I guess, a discourse concerned with identifying the distinctions that make (and keep) the Same the Same - much like the discourse of xenophobia. (I love Mandeville's Travels. One of those books, like Pliny's Natural History, that one can read over and over for its liveliness and delightfulness of invention). Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Keston Sutherland To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: monsters Date: Tuesday, April 07, 1998 11:30AM I wonder if we might trace 'alien' semiology back to say Mandeville's Travels and beyond, back to Ralegh's journals also, that time when myths particularly of Indian and Chinese monsters (headless men etc) were abundant - have we run out of monsters on earth? A thought, k ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:51:12 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: monsters In-Reply-To: <01IVL60V1UQO9LUY55@iix.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Patrick wrote: > Alien semiology, as you put it, is, I guess, a discourse concerned with > identifying the distinctions that make (and keep) the Same the Same - much > like the discourse of xenophobia. that's definitely one way of looking at it, e.g., my earlier remarks on containment vis-a-vis the cold war... on the other hand, especially with respect to Alien and the Streiber thing, there's definitely another sort of invasion/ containment thing happening, specifically with regard to the body and bodily function... so it could be understood in relation to the enduring attack on Roe v. Wade, or AIDS, or even the advent of the body as a site of power/contestation in poststruct. theory... (all of which wld be partial responses) now stop talking about this as you're only adding to my lengthy reading list!! chris - etcetera .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:51:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: alineanalien Comments: cc: wr-eye-tings@sfu.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A L I E N A L I N E A N A - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:03:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: data quest Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" last week the email system I use at school crashed -- I'm back on-line now, but have lost several people's addresses and messages regarding a variety of things I was supposed to be sendning to a number of people -- If I have told you in the poast few weeks that I would mail you something, please email me again with your address and a reminder (Cabri: I think you're in this group!) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 14:04:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: alineanalien In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980407105108.007e2390@nunic.nu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII if i have a child i wonder if they'll let me name her ALIENA? c On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, William Marsh wrote: > A L I N E A N A L I E N A > L I N E A N A L I E N A L > I N E A N A L I E N A L I > N E A N A L I E N A L I N > E A N A L I E N A L I N E > A N A L I E N A L I N E A > N A L I E N A L I N E A N > A L I E N A L I N E A N A > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > William Marsh | PaperBrainPress > http://bmarsh.dtai.com > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:45:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: monsters, aliens, angels In-Reply-To: <01IVL60V1UQO9LUY55@iix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i remember a discussion on the list a coupla years ago (geez, i really am a veteran at this point) about gay writing and outer space --wm burroughs, jack spicer, etc. for those of you who will now hunt thru old epc files, i think the header was "boys in space." At 12:08 PM -0500 4/7/98, Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume wrote: >In _Order of Things_, Foucault writes about "monsters," i.e. evolutionary >variants vis-a-vis the fossil record, as signifiers of difference. Alien >semiology, as you put it, is, I guess, a discourse concerned with >identifying the distinctions that make (and keep) the Same the Same - much >like the discourse of xenophobia. (I love Mandeville's Travels. One of those >books, like Pliny's Natural History, that one can read over and over for its >liveliness and delightfulness of invention). > >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- >From: Keston Sutherland >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: monsters >Date: Tuesday, April 07, 1998 11:30AM > >I wonder if we might trace 'alien' semiology back to say Mandeville's >Travels and beyond, back to Ralegh's journals also, that time when myths >particularly of Indian and Chinese monsters (headless men etc) were >abundant - have we run out of monsters on earth? A thought, k ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:49:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Karen et al - An interesting book on this subject - which has maybe been posted already - I haven't read the whole thread yet - is Alien Zone edited by Annette Kuhn - about sci fi movies - As an inveterate fan I found it amusing - Here also (what the hell) is part of a piece I wrote a while ago and have published in I think an old Avec - The Thing is sexual but apart. It is uncreated because there is no space. Or it fills the space with a sense of danger that is not like life. Though it is alive. It will fight to save itself and can be remade. There can always be a new version of the thing with contemporary actors and their attendant dangers. Just as a statue glorifies marble or wax or butter, rubber is stretched over the thin. Ours is the language of lovers. It is shaped into resemblance. We get it from everything. We get more than that. Reading, repeating always inaccurately what the other has thought with what intent is made clear only always later. But the substance isn't clear. There is no transparency possible at the beginning of life. We are the blind ones. One thing is not like the other. Our relief is no less inexpressable for being premature. At times it is more written than spoken. Like the lines in a play before they are committed to memory. Actors can remember anything. Their cooperation reminds you that time is going by. The thing undermines the image in order to be an object. Gently he bends me to abstraction. I urge him back. The thing hides is each of us. This is what it's like. We realize in the midst of the occupation that victory is a fact. An old story is seen differently. The parts as plain as day. As if there were something beyond suspicion. There is a test. It has to do with what was said. A trick is played. The needle is off the scale. The actors are in bed. They need a pretext. Theirs is an organized game. We are tied together but only briefly. Understanding spreads over his face like blood under the skin. We let it out. "We abondon ourselves to what we see." The thing is insatiable. It takes the shape of a wolf. You hold up your end of the conversation. An exchange of fire occurs. There is an echo of another animal. Thought becomes visible like a trail. A comprehensive examination proves to be just another in the chain of events. We are in the heart of the thing. We touch this is our talking. We feel a melting at room temperature. Something gives. Compromised by the obvious will to continue. An airless room on top of the world. Or the shape of a bird. Nothing can bring back that pattern. We have this to say about each other. You are fixed here. Thoughts can be read or only a dog simple sense of fear is left. A song puts it in me. They are alive but don't know what is going on. Someone saves it for them. They call it the world. A character lies down in the snow before blowing up. The thing watches from the shadows where we are. But we don't know. Eyes that stay open. No one has them. Things are not black and white. We are not here anymore. Or it was and you did. And we are. Laura moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:54:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: damn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "It's a tough world out there and even tougher when I write about it." --Joe Amato, _Bookend_ Scrolling through the email that came in after our system demolished my mailbox, and now I come to this sad news. -- I had been keeping up with the progress of Joe's journey through the minefields,,,, had naively hoped, after he'd passed safely through the first levels, that all would be well -- as it happens, my small band of grad. students are reading Joe's book this semester -- they think it's great -- IIT == Illin' Institute of Torpidity ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:55:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Take DMT. > Hi all, > > This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about > before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that > I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials > must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not > particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, > perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > us philosophically/psychologically? > > Karen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:10:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I have _Santa_ right here on my desk (the Leave Books version). It's killer! >> why we need them, etc. When I was almost 30 I came to "realize" that I had >> been abducted by aliens briefly in childhood, and I drew upon this >> experience to write a memoir "Santa," which now appears in my book "Little >> Men" (which of course you don't want to miss in any case). I got some of >> it right, but Scott and Juliana get more of it. >> --Kevin Killian <---- space "cadet" fanboy One of the interesting books on the subject of alien intelligences is Colin Wilson's _The Mind Parasites_. Well worth reading if anyone is seriously interested in "aliens" and the correlative possibilities as to so called psi-warfare. Wilson rightfully refers to Husserl's phenomenological method as of importance when dealing with those kinds of subjects. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:16:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: <3e9a86f3.352aa0c5@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ps when i first saw this heading i thot it sd Allen thots, and was reminded that it's just about his first yahrtzeit ? yortzite (sp)? such thots i have of you tonite, old allen-pie, with your frail limbs and petulance, with your expansive numen and sweetness, with your eyes of death and life. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:42:08 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maz881 wrote: > > Take DMT. > > Karen wrote: perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > > us philosophically/psychologically? the world inhabited by crystalline machine elves is simultaneous with myth, ufo sitings, biblical miracles etc, ghost dance, ayahuasca ceremony, Don Juan fabrications..... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:58:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CharSSmith Subject: new Gustaf Sobin chapbook -- Arcturus Editions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit announcing the publication of: Gustaf Sobin, A WORLD OF LETTERS Arcturus Editions ISBN 0-9661505-1-1 $8.00, 16 pp., 6 3/8 x 9, letterpress on Mohawk, sewn Canson wrappers $20.00 lettered & signed edition, printed on Rives lightweight Five new poems, including "Transparent Itineraries: 1996" An American poet, novelist, and essayist, Gustaf Sobin resides in the south of France. Recent volumes include _Breaths' Burials_ (New Directions, 1995), _By the Bias of Sound/Selected Poems1974-1994_ (Talisman, 1995) & the forthcoming _Towards the Blanched Alphabets_ (Talisman, 1998). ... laying, within a plethora of shadows, those hard sparks: ‘phonemes,’ you’d called them, what hissed, needle- thin, through the very depths of that dark air. Available from Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Street, Berkeley, CA 94710; 800-869-7553; spd@igc.apc.org or from the press, checks payable to: Charles Smith CA residents, please add 7.25% sales tax Arcturus Editions 2135 Irvin Way Sacramento, CA 95822 charssmith@aol.com *** apologies to all who receive this announcement more than once *** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 19:32:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I love the way Juliana Spahr depicts the effects of "alien" beings on our >beings in her book RESPONSE (Sun & Moon, 1996). Notley has some new poems >that deal with aliens (I think I saw them in GARE du NORD #2). I guess, if the aliens are there, we had better learn to defend against them and make sure they do not invade any further...into our world. After all how do we know who the aliens are in league with ? Could be anyone, or only in it for themselves, couldn't it ? We do not trust foreign governments. We do not even trust our own governments. Why would we trust "aliens" ? Something is very very wrong with this scenario...... >There are some scary books by Whitley Streiber--one of them is called >COMMUNION and is very scary. I'm still afraid of the dark! (The most scary >thing is that his aliens can "get you" even if someone else is in your >bed--or even if there's a cat or dog around... They can put others into >trances and stop time and stuff like that...). I do not take Streiber seriously. Streiber has an overactive imagination. His ideas about remote viewing are absolutely silly, but the silliness does not stop there,...Most of what people believe about aliens is silly. Most of what is written about them is silly and completely conjectural. >The movie version, which stars Christopher Walken,is very scary--but also >surprisingly philosophical in its approach and in its implications... I >highly recommend it..... I think it all boils down to this: Rule 1: NEVER OBEY ALIENS, NO MATTER HOW NICE THEY SEEM TO BE, OR HOW NASTY. Rule 2: If you do not know who they are, with certainty, then assume that they are hostile, no matter what they say to attempt to sell you on some wild idea. You have to know, for sure, whom you are dealing with, or you are likely to get taken in, and in a big way. Rule 3: Know your own mind from whatever is the of the minds of others. That rule is difficult to follow, and very important. Rule 4: Imagine a foreign country that wants to undermine the ability of our countries to defend themselves, and wants to convert the citizens of our countries to ways of thinking that will overthrow the political system we live within so that that other political power can take this part of the world over for their own purposes. Would they decide NOT to use angels, aliens, and anything else they could recruit, conjure up, and use for that purpose ? Shades of Stalin and Hitler ! We might be being had, not by aliens in the truest sense of it, but by a foreign power that has developed a technology in excess of our own. Could be any competing foreign power couldn't it ? And we are going to sell this out to them ? No way.... After all they are aliens and we are the resistance. If they exist then we are the resistance against an uninvited invasion force, that does not seem to believe in proper diplomatic channels....Definitely not nice...Not nice at all. Now, where are those plans for that new device that shoots aliens dead.....They must be somewhere around here..... Repeat after me.... We are human beings who absolutely refuse to be taken over, bossed around, brain washed, programmed, manipulated, used or abused by aliens. We will fight to defend our kind against their kind, using every means we have, with the aim of protecting our freedoms, our species, and its unimpeded evolution. Now, why is no one saying that about aliens ? Do they want to be taken over by hostiles ? Gee.....something is wrong. (Are we paranoid enough...yet.... That's it, I have had my fun with this thread.....) M. (Decisively NOT an alien.) PS. Accounts of extraterrestrial encounters and anomalous experiences are of great interest to me, and if anyone has had any and wants to enter a serious analytical discussion on that subject, welcome to write and describe your experience. It is far from being something to be laughed away, but "everything is what it isn't" when it comes to such things and a critical skepticism is necessary for understanding even if not always for survival. Though it can be important for the latter purpose also. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 19:54:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >it was generally not until the 80's that the aliens became nasty. >interestingly, in the 1950s/60s/70s as rockets & telescopes reached out >further into our solar system & beyond, so the aliens came from further >afield. i guess it's no longer possible to claim to meet farmer bob's >venusians. pity ... The "aliens" became nasty when the "Cold War" heated up. No further comment. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:14:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:54 PM 4/7/98 -0400, you wrote: >>it was generally not until the 80's that the aliens became nasty. >>interestingly, in the 1950s/60s/70s as rockets & telescopes reached out >>further into our solar system & beyond, so the aliens came from further >>afield. i guess it's no longer possible to claim to meet farmer bob's >>venusians. pity ... > >The "aliens" became nasty when the "Cold War" heated up. > >No further comment. > >M. > I recall a certain degree of nastiness in WAR OF THE WORLDS -- things have changed now, certainly -- pods have taken control of all tenure decisions -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 20:05:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Re: the "Aliens" films, Kelly Hurley - a professor of mine here at CU - has >a very good piece on the polymorphous sexuality of the monsters in >_Posthuman Bodies_. And of course, Jung's _Flying Saucers: A Myth of Things >Seen in the Skies_. His analysis of the UFO visions of an Italian chap >named, improbably enough, Angelo Orfeo, are interesting and make for a fun >read, too. > >Patrick Pritchett This I like much better than the other threads in that fabric. This thread leads to the idea of the poetic body as the body of flesh transformed by whatever means, to increase human diversity to new breadths rather than using science to constrain human diversity. Humans could become their own demons, angels, aliens of all kinds, and even monsters of nearly any description, within a wholly transhuman context. All kinds of symbiosis, modification, and implantations, would become increasingly possible and available. In that there would be new possibilities, that some would choose to explore, as to creativity. New symbols, new meanings, a new non verbal language of metaphors that say something that could not be said before and define new kinds of human relationships that perhaps, in some ways, did not exist before. I think that can be something very positive. Even in its more unusual forms, as long as it is something that individuals freely choose to express, as part of their own self expressions, their own particular body poetic, that they share communicatively with others. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 20:22:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >the world inhabited by crystalline machine elves is simultaneous with >myth, ufo sitings, biblical miracles etc, ghost dance, ayahuasca >ceremony, Don Juan fabrications..... Gurdjief said it happens when you remove the "kunundabuffer". Remember the alien spaceship is involvede in that story also. And that was quite a long while ago.... M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:57:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: announcing 2(1X1) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit my book _2(1X1) originally published as a potepoettext --http://www.burningpress.org/va/pote/potet08.html-- has now been published by Baksun Books, with a lovely letterpress cover (by Michael Smoler), msword drawings, and some nice hand-made paper on the inside. If you'd like a copy, I'll swap you a book for a book or take $5.00. My address is: Rachel Levitsky P.O. Box 1771 Boulder, CO 80306-1771 It just started snowing like crazy outside. It's so pretty I can understand the obsession. Wee. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:54:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Antenym 15 is published Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (Apologies to anyone who receives this message more than once.) Antenym 15 is now available for $3.00 plus $1.50 postage payable to Steve Carll. Antenym 15 features the complete text of Eric Selland's chapbook THE CONDITION OF MUSIC, 28 lyrical, thoughtful prose poems, plus work from: Stephen Collis (Vancouver) Norman Fischer (Sausolito, CA) Ann Erickson (Santa Rosa, CA) Celestine Frost (NYC) Jim Leftwich (Charlottesville, VA) Patrick Pritchett (Boulder) Elizabeth Robinson (Berkeley) Joe Ross (San Diego) Standard Schaefer (Pasadena) Paul Silvia (Lawrence, KS) Perrin Wright (Brooklyn) and two front covers (!) designed by Spencer Selby and Steve Carll. The magazine is going on indefinite hiatus after this issue. I'm moving to Honolulu, Hawaii in August for a year and pursuing other projects. Until then, correspondence may be emailed to me at , regular mailed to 106 Fair Oaks St. #1, San Francisco, CA 94110-2951, or you can phone me at 415-824-5883. Also available: Antenym 13 and 14: parts one and two of the "Ontological Activism" theme issue. Each issue is 50 pages long and costs the same as the new issue ($3 plus another $1.50 to mail). SINCERITY LOOPS by Steve Carll. I printed up another 60 copies of this chapbook, which takes pop song lyrics and rearranges them one-for-one into my own syntax. It's $5 (postage included), but I'll consider trade offers too (same goes for the magazine, for that matter.) BRUSHSTROKES by Steve Carll. Published by black fire white fire in Berkeley, this tract-sized chapbook is available for the asking if you order one of the above, or send me a #10 regular (4 and a half by 9 and a half inch) SASE. ********************************** 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: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 20:57:41 -0400 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit morpheal wrote: > > >it was generally not until the 80's that the aliens became nasty. > >interestingly, in the 1950s/60s/70s as rockets & telescopes reached out > >further into our solar system & beyond, so the aliens came from further > >afield. i guess it's no longer possible to claim to meet farmer bob's > >venusians. pity ... > > The "aliens" became nasty when the "Cold War" heated up. > > No further comment. > > M. Remember the classic Forbidden Planet of 1954 [?], which followed Pogo's view that "we have met the enemy and they is us" -- "creatures from the Id!" Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:18:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: alien is beautiful/alienated @birth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" skiprope logic (for gino couer de Lion) martians are beautiful , voluptuous, seductive Marilyn Monroe was a martian she turned on the red light at every intersection in Saskatchewan and every foyer on Knob Hill could smell her coming from Vista del Mar everyone whose name begins with the first three letters of Mars, it's their recognition code, like Mac for Scots, Mary even, the mother of god was a martian, every Martin you know 's a martian, all of the Maryknoll priests are martians, Mark whatshis name who killed John Lennon was a martian friend of George Bush, Bob Marley , a rastamartian, Peter Pan played by a red planet actress, Mary Martian, Martha Stewart is not living on marzipan the state of Maryland, next to Clinton's capitol, is an interplanetary landing/launch platform of Mars, a marshmallow roast is the martian sacrament, years ago at the oscars everybody knew Marlon Brando was a martian, marinating aids the martian digestion of Mary Tyler Moore, a martini is a martian transfusion martinis are preshaken on Mars, when people say marvelous simply MAHvulis they usually are talking about MAHtians like Marilyn Monroe who never wore underwear and slept with other martians like Artie Miller and Groucho Marx and like Marky Mark who wore underwear only Marvy Marky part of the same martian family as the Marquis de Sade and Don Marquis the red planet's their home by yiminy Marnie left the teethmarks of a Martian in my shoulder 'd emptied my watergun in her face lost his marbles, claims to come from Marpole an imposter from Marseille overdosed on marmelade, Lee Marvin, Martin Buber, Dean Martin and Martina Navritalova all spell their real names in the same martian alphabet Karl Marx translated his indecipherable marsterpieces from. Marshall Dillonand all of the married, the marines and the marijuana smokers tied up at the marina drinking margaritas once frequented the bars on mars like Marcels Proust and Duchamp reading cette bicyclette in the gaslight and all the martyrs, St Valentine, St. Thomas, Norma Jeanne d'arc, Giordano Bruno, Albert Anastasia, my favourite martians, crucified, burnt at the steak sauce. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:31:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: <352A4A40.6508@ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Anyone else got Atlantis poems?? > >--Rachel Democracy Well, about 30 yeaers ago Louis Dudek published a booklength poem called _Atlantis_ George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 18:35:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Alien thoughts In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >ps when i first saw this heading i thot it sd Allen thots, Wasnt it an Alien who said "First thought best thought"? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 20:35:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Aliens? There's the novels of Octavia Butler, especially the first of that amazing series of which perhaps someone can remember the name. Very much into the psychology of alien-ation. So too perhaps the work of Phillip Mann _Eye_of_the_Queen_ ((Australian, I see to recall). Science fiction is of course full of a lot of junk, but there's a bunch of stuff in there: LeGuin _Left_Hand_of_Darkness_ comes to mind. PQ At 09:03 PM 4/6/98 -0800, you wrote: >Karen Kelley wrote . . . > >>This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable >>dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about >>before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that >>I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials >>must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not >>particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, >>perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to >>us philosophically/psychologically? > >Katy's already suggested Spahr's book "Response" which is a good one. Let >me recommend a novel "Mysterious Skin" by a young New Yorker Scott Heim, it >is really terrific and is totally about the psychological appeal of aliens, >why we need them, etc. When I was almost 30 I came to "realize" that I had >been abducted by aliens briefly in childhood, and I drew upon this >experience to write a memoir "Santa," which now appears in my book "Little >Men" (which of course you don't want to miss in any case). I got some of >it right, but Scott and Juliana get more of it. > >--Kevin Killian <---- space "cadet" fanboy > + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Peter Quartermain 846 Keefer Street Vancouver B.C. Canada V6A 1Y7 Voice : 604 255 8274 Fax: 255 8204 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 20:59:33 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Aliens among us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Of course everywhere I look now there are references to aliens, including this from sculptor John McCracken in my latest Art in America: "Aliens are elusive and hard to pin down because of their other-dimensionality. I think there are actually thousands of extraterrestrials--and other entities that you wouldn't call extra-terrestrials--flying and running around, looking at us, studying us. While they may think we're kind of cool in some ways, even brilliant, I think they wonder how we can be so opaque, why we don't see them more than we do. It's amazing that we don't really see what's going on." An interesting reminder that maybe our perception of multi-dimensionality is weak. I'm going to go back & take a new look at some of my brother's Seth books. Thanks to everyone who sent recommendations. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:57:57 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > So too perhaps the work of Phillip Mann _Eye_of_the_Queen_ ((Australian, I > see to recall). New Zealander, actually (teaches drama at Victoria University), but Yorkshire born. I haven't read much SF since puberty, but Mann's books go far beyond the strictures of the genre. I'd recommend "Wulfsyarn" - not so much for the aliens, though they are interesting, as for the approach to human and machine psychology (the book is narrated by an 'autoscribe') and the fascinating take on the (possible) future of religion ('The Church of St Francis Dionysus'). Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 23:29:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: notsotired chit Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I also had a look at tuggar's works (per our electronic miracle here), and wondered, were one inclinined to stretch the limits of poetry, would her works be considered poems? Or is this too conceptual, tom bell At 09:27 PM 4/4/98 -0500, Wendy Kramer wrote: >or, this tired lady, if you prefer... going to work, and lurking, and >generally corresponding take energies, as well as give 'em, i >s'pose, but so much of interest to comment on: > >1. to whomever posted about fatimah tuggar a big thank you!! you've >recruited a new fan. went to see those two exhibits in nyc you posted >about, and then today (couple weeks later) went to see her talk at the >exhibit "keeping track of the joneses." > some things i found inneresting: > >that she collages her collages digitally --oops, i mean on the computer, >not digitally like fingers. but also that many of her pieces use "real" >objects--a metal box with photos; cushions with photos of family members >on them, around a digital-image round collage of an eating mat filled >with products centrifugally (cant spell that) shooting; one collage was >slide-projected onto a bath of yoghurt in a clay pot! you could barely >make out the women holding pots collage in it, but once you made it out, >you couldnt not see it! > > >2. in response to the "how can you tell?" gender thread, well, i have to >say that i dunno what you kin tell a woman or a man by what her/his >writing/artwork looks and sounds like (naw!), but i _can_ say, for >example, that when i first saw that post about tuggar i didnt know she >was a woman, and when i visited the website and somehow found out, well >it made a big 'ol adrenalin difference to little chit me. >not sure all of why, but it's a sexual feeling, & too a role-model >thing. not that i'm not turned on by poetry by men, and shit yeah, many >men are also my role models, but...there it is. some kinda excitement. >and relief and green-light GO! You TOO could do... >like dodie (i think it was) said but in diffrent context thank god for >kathy acker. it's been important for me to be able to see people about >whom i could say yeah, "what SHE said" or "i wanna grow up to be like >HER." i mean, i woulda loved gertrude stein no matter what her >plumbing, but her being a lesbian made me--a late-teen-kid then-- her >loving-faithful. > >3. oh yeah, one more thing. in the basement floor of the new museum >gallery where we saw fatimah tuggar, we saw also a flea circus exhibit >by another woman, Maria Fernanda Cardoso--complete with video >performance of said circus, wherein the artist reigned Queen, along with >related banners, placards, and glassed-in preserved fleas in progress of >death-defying feats, such as tightrope-walking and getting shot outta >cannonballs! o marvelous mayhem! amusement! what technical skill! flea >circus-ing has a whole history (as do fleas in human society) about >which i hadnt ('til now) hadda clue. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 22:47:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Alien Dreams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" One woman's vivid dream of aliens could be another person's abduction experience. I have heard descriptions of alien encounters all along the axis from one to the other. One night when living in a remote place there came a knock at the door. My wife always said she wasnt afraid because he was an angel, she knew it right away. He was a well-mannered if somewhat familiar (with us, in his speech) angel, if so. All he asked for was a drink of water. A,l,e,n (g=i). Manifestations are often in remote sites. Perhaps it takes silence and loneness to render aliens visible & audible. When it comes to UFOs, however, I now hear the one we saw might have been only a hologram : "We have long had that capability," a government spokesperson said. "Mah fellow-americans, people of the world, aliens have their weapons of mass destruction trained on our largest cities. We must comply with their requests. Starting today, the minimum wage will be lowered to 30 cents a day. All civil liberties will be suspended. Homeless people will be shot." On a lighter note, our own George Bowering is the author of a novel called _Parents From Outer Space_ . Imagine! You're a teenager, you get home after school and you have two sets of parents! Come to think of it, there's something a bit eerie about George Bowering . . . . ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:01:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: ally ally in free Jack Spandrift has never been abducted by aliens. But, as he was narratolating to me the other evening at Hokey's 2-Bit here in Pedalfast, Michigan, he did have what he called a 'counter. It was on the range. He had just settled into a deep cup of insta-joe, leanin against along beside his cow-chip campfire, when he thought he heard a faint buzzing sound. "Gotcha!" he muttered, slapping the left side of the back of his stringy neck. But the buzzing continued, ineluctably, indelibly, indubitably, in his ear, so he peered out into the rangy darkness. There it was. A rusted can of Folger's - BUT IT WAS GLOWING. Sighing, he picked up his trusty 22 (a sawed-off 44) & limped unevenly toward the caffeine apparition. IT meanwhile was rolling toward HIM. They both came to an abrupt halt about 3 feet apart, the can glowing a bright fuchsia, shaking and buzzing. Jack figgered a prairie dog musta gotten stuck in there, and become extremely decussed from his proper ectoplasm, emitting alienated squeaks of volatile perturbation which set his tin prison in motion in so remarkable a fashion, etc. Imagine our hero's consternation when the decayed lid popped open smoothly - and WHAT did he SEE - but a little... a little... SPACE CRITTER!! Yes, it was an intelligent being of vaguely humanoid proportions - shrunk, as you can imagine, to coffee-can dimensions!! The little fella seemed without warlike intent as he marched formally toward Jack & presented him with a salute with one of his 3 arms. Jack - bones shaking, as you might guess, like an old tin can - squatted down slowly at critter level. A little beam of ruby light came on over the mini's head - and suddenly a nasal voice emitted these words: "Jack, have you been keeping up with the poetics list?" Jack scratched his head under his cowboy hat. "Well, no, lil feller - I been herdin earth cows since March." "Well, get with it, baby. WE'VE GOT A MESSAGE FOR EARTH. And you'll find it on the list." "Say... why don't you relay it to somebody else, okay? I got work t'do out here an them eastern media people give me the snuckers." "Jack - tell me - what on earth do you mean by the phrase 'get the snuckers'?" "Somethin between the jutters an the shickers, I guess." "Dubious, Jack, dubious - & I think everybody here on Folger 12-B will agree. But let that pass for now. Just get back to your email, if you know what's good for you." "Listen here, lil spacefella, I don't take orders from nobody but the trail boss, an you can - " But before Jack could finish his expostulation, the Folger's can swept up his interlocutor and began spinning at a tremendous velocity, throwing off sparks at a G-rate of 2,000,000 to the f/x plus cream. Jack backed off as the cylinder dissolved in a precipitation of coffee fumes. As he recounted his 'counter over a shot of Old Great-Great-Great-Granddad, Jack's voice quavered ever so slightly, and he shook his head. But when I asked him whether he had taken the creature's advice and checked the poetics list lately, all he said was - "Hyinree, why, I gave up on tryin to get them cowgal quatrains to rhyme a long time ago. Now I just sing the old Pecos melodies - an I'm happy as a donut in a red shift." - Eric Blarnes ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:18:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: found poem: "failure notice" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Hi. This is the qmail-send program at hardly.hotwired.com. >I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. >This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. > >: >Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >Sorry, I couldn't find any host by that name. (#4.1.2) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >208.210.190.41 does not like recipient. >Remote host said: 550 ... User unknown >Giving up. > >: >Connected to 195.180.229.162 but greeting failed. >Remote host said: 421 permission denied >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >Sorry, I couldn't find any host by that name. (#4.1.2) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >: >Sorry, I couldn't find any host by that name. (#4.1.2) >I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long. > >--- Below this line is a copy of the message. >*********************** > >(This message has been generated automatically.) > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:27:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dean Taciuch Subject: Re: Alien Dreams In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII One the subject of alien encounters in literature: Listen to Patti Smith's "Birdland" on her first album (Horses). "They/you/I/we are not human" Dean ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:29:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien thoughts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I recall a certain degree of nastiness in WAR OF THE WORLDS -- Similar to War of the Words....but the latter was largely ignored because of insufficient special effects technology at the time when it was faught. >things have changed now, certainly -- pods have taken control of all tenure >decisions -- You sure of that ? The pods....shades of Wyndenham....the pods again.... I thought that the next step was to make professors obsolete. They first create symbiots, comprised of human to machine interfaces such that the artificial intelligence program learns to think like tenured professor. In essence to create "expert systems" within all the areas of study. So far, no success, with that approach. You perhaps know about Plato, an early artificial machine, drove its creator, programmer, insane, such that he committed suicide ? True story. Well, in this instance the computers all went insane and had to be disassembled and scrapped. The professors still have their tenure. Maybe someday things will change.... By the way, are they using remote viewing to invigilate examinations yet in American colleges ? I heard a rumour somewhere.... M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:42:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Poetics of collage? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Tom and Wendy: I'm writing about Fatimah's work right now to introduce her series, "Village Spells," on the Plexus site (http://www.plexus.org/tuggar/) . . . relating her work to poetry. I don't think it's too much of a conceptual leap. Anyway, I'm not done with the essay, but this will give you an idea of its direction: If magic is that which changes properties by persuasive gesture, Fatimah Tuggar's Village Spells are acts of genuine magic. The village itself--admixture of western and African properties--is virtual, a product of seeing the world in a particular way--say, Marshall McLuhan's Global Village. Essential to the magus, the late U.S. poet Gerald Burns once said, is the creation of a field in which magic can be said to work. I like his description, even if it's necessarily vague. He was relating the task of magician to that of poet, saying something about the poet's relationship to language. Some visual artists, especially those who consistently generate visual collage work--I think here of the German Hannah Hoch and Americans Joseph Cornell and Jess Collins--work with images, things given, in the way poets do with words. The collage artist, I want to say, might have as much or more in common with the poet as with, say, the painter. Tuggar is no exception. The image-to-word puns in her work are lively and frequent enough to engage the viewer who likes to read as well as to look. While looking is hardly a passive act, reading requires conscious viewer participation, and Tuggar's collage work, I've found, rewards the curious reader. * * * I'm supposed to finish this essay by today (good luck, especially since I wanna do some close readings of her stuff) and in the next couple of days it'll be up at the site accompanying Fatimah's pieces . . . I'll let you know when it's there. Anyway, yeah, her work's great. And, again, anyone in NYC can see it "live" at the New Museum (B'way just south of Houston) and the Jack Tilton Gallery (er rrr, Greene street, I think, near Broome). She's still homeless, btw, staying with a friend of a friend in Queens . . . if anyone in NYC knows of a place she can live, backchannel me ASAP, por favor . . . Thanks, Gary On Wednesday, April 08, 1998 12:29 AM, Thomas Bell [SMTP:trbell@POP.USIT.NET] wrote: > I also had a look at tuggar's works (per our electronic miracle here), and > wondered, were one inclinined to stretch the limits of poetry, would > her works be considered poems? Or is this too conceptual, > tom bell > > At 09:27 PM 4/4/98 -0500, Wendy Kramer wrote: > to whomever posted about fatimah tuggar a big thank you!! you've > >recruited a new fan. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 10:05:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gleason Subject: Re: damn In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980407125405.006ace38@popmail.lmu.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" when joe told me the news it was very sad, frustrating, infuriating. my initial reply to joe was not as strong, i think i didn't know what to think. i was a student of his at iit for a couple years, i rode along with him for a while as they started steering that school into the ground. we had more phrases that went along with I I T, but none of them used words as cool as torpidity. joe's book *is* fantastic. i've owned it for months now, picking through a random page hear and there as i get a break from all other reading to be done this semester. i think there were more ideas in his introductory pages than in whole novels i've read lately! eryque >"It's a tough world >out there >and even tougher >when I write about it." >--Joe Amato, _Bookend_ > > >Scrolling through the email that came in after our system demolished my >mailbox, and now I come to this sad news. -- I had been keeping up with the >progress of Joe's journey through the minefields,,,, had naively hoped, >after he'd passed safely through the first levels, that all would be well -- > >as it happens, my small band of grad. students are reading Joe's book this >semester -- they think it's great -- > >IIT == Illin' Institute of Torpidity ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:15:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: thanx... In-Reply-To: <01BD62D2.AED99070@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" just a note of thanx to all of those who've expressed support and concern, on this list and backchannel, re my tenure situation... for the record: it was a politics-as-usual decision, and not based on my being a poet, exactly (not that being a poet *helped* any)... had i been a 19th century american lit scholar, i would still be s-o-l... that my colleague who was denied is our african-american studies scholar should speak to this directly (and neither of us has any publication problems)... the politics to which i refer have to do with the privatization of colleges and universities, re which, as many of you are aware, i'm an outspoken opponent... i think this latter development should be of concern to all of you, simply b/c i think education is such an important aspect of our public domain... in any case, whatever happens, i'll be ok (and hey, things could always be worse)... thanx again for your support and encouragement, means much to me... xxxx, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 10:19:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: Poetics of collage? In-Reply-To: <01BD62D2.AED99070@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tom Wendy Gary et al: if yr not already onto it, you might check out _Collage_, edited by Jeanine Plottel, vol. #10/11 of the New York Literary Forum series, 1983. essays by marjorie perloff, mary ann caws, jean-jaccques thomas, leroy breuning, david rosand, jon green, tom conley, renee hubert, & bert leefmans... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:07:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: aliens (in SF) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Peter Quartermain (Hi Peter, welcome back!) said: <> Butler's trilogy is _Xenogenesis_ & is indeed terrific. Best alien encounter trilogy in a long time, however, & a wonderful study in gender politics to boot, is Gwyneth Jones's "Aleutian Trilogy" (_White Queen_, _North Wind_, & _Phoenix Cafe_): wonderful post-colonial etc readings of culture, with great characterization & a terrific style. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the year the old ones, the old great ones leave us alone on the road. Denise Levertov ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 11:05:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Poetics of collage? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey, Luigi-Bob! Thanks for the teep . . . I'll check eet oot . . . Anything you remember from the essays, relative to Tom's question? If so, post 'em . . . would be interested to read & consider . . . Many kind thanks, Gary On Wednesday, April 08, 1998 10:20 AM, r. drake [SMTP:r.drake@CSU-E.CSUOHIO.EDU] wrote: > Tom Wendy Gary et al: > > if yr not already onto it, you might check out _Collage_, edited by > Jeanine Plottel, vol. #10/11 of the New York Literary Forum series, 1983. > essays by marjorie perloff, mary ann caws, jean-jaccques thomas, leroy > breuning, david rosand, jon green, tom conley, renee hubert, & bert > leefmans... > > lbd ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 11:17:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: aliens (in SF) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wherein lies the alien attraction? Is it in the kitsch? sayeth thus the resident alien Is it in the angle of the angel that's the apex of the n? Is it in the monica myth lewinsky tv suck up culture? Is it in the repressive america censorship (the need for conspiracy theories without having to rock any corporate boat)? What need does this trendy obsession fulfill? What findeth you there that you don't find in the church of your choice? sayeth the bell of the rusty void waiting for a bell bottom comeback in frankenstein shoes (dreamt I was abducted by Mr. ED)......... oh fashion fashion fashion! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:22:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Was: aliens (in SF) Now: Censorship and Belief Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Is it in the repressive america censorship Does that exist more because a significant portion of people BELIEVE that it exists, or because there are censors actually censoring ? Does it exist more because some significant portion of the people who believe it exists are intimidated, because they believe something nasty will happen to them if they cease to believe in it ? Kind of similar to the concept of burning in hellfire if you do not believe in an idea that someone else says you must believe in. Not only believe, but actually become unquestioningly congruent with ? That would be true belief rather than going through the motions kinds of belief. So, what will happen, if some believe that there are no censors and that freedoms of expression, and association, are truly in existence and vouchsafed ? Will those then exist, in a manner that they did not exist while the belief was contrary ? Would be an interesting experiment, wouldn't it ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:35:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: Frank O'Hara MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all. I'm writing something on Frank O'Hara/the Kantian sublime and was wondering if anyone had any relevant suggestions regarding critical material on either. Please backchannel if you can help. Thanks. Truly, Mike ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 12:59:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: The last book MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The book is dead! Long live the book! Interesting article in today's NY Times on a technology being developed by MIT media labs that will combine digital and print technologies in really interesting new ways. http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/040898book.html More technical description available at http://www.almaden.ibm.com/journal/sj/363/jacobson.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 13:18:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: WAS: Alien thoughts NOW: A Short Quiz On the Whole Alphabet Comments: cc: daniel7@IDT.NET Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >morpheal wrote: >> >> >it was generally not until the 80's that the aliens became nasty. >> >interestingly, in the 1950s/60s/70s as rockets & telescopes reached out >> >further into our solar system & beyond, so the aliens came from further >> >afield. i guess it's no longer possible to claim to meet farmer bob's >> >venusians. pity ... >> >> The "aliens" became nasty when the "Cold War" heated up. >> >> No further comment. >> >> M. > >Remember the classic Forbidden Planet of 1954 [?], which followed Pogo's >view that "we have met the enemy and they is us" -- "creatures from the >Id!" > >Dan Zimmerman You are forgetting a very basic Machiavelian principle of warfare. That is that "we have met the enemy and the enemy is pretending to be.... a). self (monsters from one's own mind, it is all in one's mind) b). a loved one or spouse c). one's own family, offspring, or blood relatives d). one's "best" friends or peer group e). a political leader (the president or prime minister) f). any specific religious group g). any specific political party or affiliation h). the opposite gender i). one's co-workers j). the CIA, FBI, KGB, CSIS or any similar group k). the military of one's own country l). any allied military m). aliens from outer space n). competitors in any endeavour one is involved in o). any psychiatrist or psychologist (guise of therapeutics) p). other professionas (particularly lawyers and doctors) q). any government agency (particularly the revenuers, taxation) r). scientists conducting experiments on human subjects s). wealthier people t). poorer people u). the mafia (and any similar organization) v). charities and similar institutions w). an employer, or corporation that one works for x). any other identifiable organization or institution y). THE ENEMY IS ANY OF THE ABOVE. z). THE ENEMY SEEMS TO BE ANY OF THE ABOVE, BUT IN THIS GAME EVERY ENEMY IS WHO THEY IS NOT. THE ENEMY OFTEN APPEARS TO EMULATE ANOTHER GROUP OR INDIVIDUAL WHOM THEY ARE NOT. SOMETIMES THE ENEMY APPEARS TO EMULATE THEMSELVES, HOPING THAT THE BELIEF THAT THEY WOULD NEVER REVEAL / APPEAR AS THEMSELVES WILL FOOL THOSE WHOM THE ENEMY HAS ATTACKED / ATTEMPTED TO SUBVERT, CONVERT OR OTHERWISE INFLUENCE AND USE. If you answered any of (a) to (x) score NEGATIVE ten for each answer. If you answered (y) score 1 point for being so naive. If you answered (z) score 100 points. Perfect score. Very rudimentary psi-warfare. Also epidemic in anything that is even remotely connected with intelligence work. Sadly few people are properly trained and it affects a lot of very peripheral areas to what we would consider areas of stratetic and intelligence interests. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:50:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Sembrar la memoria Tammy Wynette In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980328163400.00aee354@pop.usit.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sembrar la memoria Tammy Wynette --dbc ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:00:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: main Subject: sontag/godot/bosnia In-Reply-To: <01bd630f$bd5ba100$49cc0398@DKellogg.Dukeedu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII several years ago i saw a documentary on the war in bosnia ("saravejo: ground zero"), which included a brief interview w susan sontag. she was working with local actors to put on a stage production of "waiting for godot," using the bombed-out streets of sarajevo as "stage". does anyone know if this production was recorded on film? "sarajevo: ground zero" was never released commercially in the u.s. any information, please backchannel. thanks, dan featherston ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 20:09:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Alien Dreams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >One woman's vivid dream of aliens could be another person's abduction >experience. I have heard descriptions of alien encounters all along the >axis from one to the other. Thomas De Quincy in "Confessions of an English Opium Eater", published in 1886, includes an account of what seems to be an abduction experience. Simply read the "Analects from Richter: Dream Upon The Universe" p260 and following, and you will quickly see what I am referring to. The account describes a "dream" in which an alien being who travels the universe commanding motion by means of thought, takes the author to the far reaches of the universe and beyond it, traveling in space and time. It is as if the traveller goes into warp drive or hyper drive, with all the predicted visual effects. It really is a quite typical account, even if expressed in the language of the previous century. Then again, so is Ezekiel, and the Apocrypha even more so. >Manifestations are often in remote sites. Perhaps it takes silence and >loneness to render aliens visible & audible. Sure, the kinds of places where trespassers are shot first, no questions asked. I remember a story told by a UFO type, about such places. There was one such place where a diner stood by a roadside, run by a man and his wife. The sideroad nearby had a gate and fence, further down it. A typical guard post at the gate. A visitor asked the fellow who ran the diner: "can you tell me what they do over there, down that road, beyond that gate ?" The fellow in the diner answered: "sure, I can tell ya, but if I tell you, I would then have to shoot you". >When it comes to UFOs, however, I now hear the one we saw might have been >only a hologram : "We have long had that capability," a government >spokesperson said. I like the idea about the electromagnetic field generators, similar to the Philadelphia experiment story, that bent minds, light, radar, and every other kind of electromagnetic waveform a lot more than I like the idea of holograms. It is kind of like the difference between magick and magic. Those experiments go back to the 1940s. Even in Canada they flew large magnetos" (motor-generators) in transport planes to test the wave bending effects of the fields. Unlike the Philadelphia experiment, it was written up in the newspapers of that era. If the Klingon Empire can have "cloaking devices" so can we. Then again we thought we would never have supersonic flight, as the g forces would crush the pilot or render unconscious. The boffins proved to Truman that it could be done, using a V2 rocket modified with a titanium alloy compartment to carry a simian cargo. The simian monitored for consciousness by having to push on a button when a light came on at periodic intervals. A simple enough monkey trick, but it proved the point and a supersonic jet program, that led to the U2 followed quickly thereafter. Those aliens ought to have a heroic burial in Arlington, despite being simian rather than human. (The Roswell autopsy film is a blatent fake.) Without their sacrifice there would never have been appropriation for supersonic jets, and the U2 would never have been built in America. That would have likely meant the Cold War would have gone the other way around and we would be flying red flags over Washington and Ottawa. As a futurist I am still predicting faster than light space travel, to distant solar systems, within this coming century. That, and one way time travel, into the past, but no return tickets once the traveller gets there, and very infinitismally little power to cause any significant changes beneath the burden of quantum histories. That would mean that observation of our barbaric ancestors will be possible. History, as we know it, will be a dead discipline, and the works of famous historians increasingly regarded as no more than curiosities of poetic fiction. (Those two ideas are connected. Same energy fields used for propulsion.) A pot shard does not tell us as much as some seem to think that it does. Besides that, most science fiction tends to be silly, very fanciful, stuff. William Gibson's writings, and a little of Michael Moorechock's writing (particularly The Cornelius Chronicles) seems more impressive. The latter is about parallel universes, strange loops, and such. The former about the more ominous side of cyber technology. >"Mah fellow-americans, people of the world, aliens have their weapons of >mass destruction trained on our largest cities. We must comply with their >requests...." Who is to say that some day they might not arrive at this planet, if they have not already, and find it inadequately defended. This planet having been too busy fighting faction against faction among its own, and neglecting defence against rival technological species from beyond. They might not want to share the universe with us. What then ? In fact we can almost bet that they will not want to share it. I say we should point some guns into space. In case THEY come to take over, conquer, enslave, harvest, or species compete, with US ! That should keep the high tech economy going for at least a few decades. Why does that attitude remind me of Heinlein's view of the universe. I think he likely understood it better than most of the other SF writers have understood it. There is no reason whatever to believe in "friendly" or "benevolent" aliens, and much less reason to believe that "advanced species" in terms of technological ability and intelligence are inevitably more benevolent and "civilized" than the primitive, warlike, sometimes brutal, humans tend to be. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 20:52:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Aliens at Zinc Bar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dan, that opium pipe was actually a SPACE PHASER and you are now en route to PLANET POME, (which involves Jim Beam & lots of construction). Great reading last Sunday and don't forget to return April 12th for Robbert Pinnsky & Oppen Mike, $75. See you at the symp id et inven titty tion osium. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 18:16:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: Aliens at Zinc Bar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim Beam? Is he still around? First reading I ever went to ('78, I think, was about 20) and it was Beam (or maybe James Dickey, actually) in Jacksonville, Fla. Beam was totally sloshed and ya couldn't understand a word of his slur, but met someone gorgeous, with whom __________ (that first night--it was college in the seventies...). In a sense, it was a great reading! Thanks Marcella Durand for the fond memories of that evening and the few months that followed it. S. T. Dewars Marcella Durand wrote: > Dan, that opium pipe was actually a SPACE PHASER > and you are now en route to > PLANET POME, > (which involves Jim Beam & lots of construction). > > Great reading last Sunday > and don't forget to return April 12th > for Robbert Pinnsky & Oppen Mike, $75. > > See you at the symp id et inven titty tion osium. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 22:23:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: The last book Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The book is dead! Long live the book! >Interesting article in today's NY Times on a technology being developed by >MIT media labs that will combine digital and print technologies in really >interesting new ways. >http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/040898book.html >More technical description available at >http://www.almaden.ibm.com/journal/sj/363/jacobson.html >he horizon is the advent of giant and colossal magnetoresistance (GMR and CMR), >[10] soon to be commercialized, which holds the prospect for extremely dense >magnetic media. GMR should realize between 3.5 and 35 gigabytes (GB) in a >PCMCIA format--already more books than the average individual reads in a >lifetime. CMR holds the prospect of 10 times this capacity, or 350 GB in the >same format. In the longer term, atomic force microscope drives hold the >prospect of truly gargantuan storage. To date such a drive has been >demonstrated with an information density capable of holding 10 terabytes (TB) >in a PCMCIA-size device with data rates of 1.2 megabits per second >(Mb/s). [11] Such a capacity is able to hold (using only modest compression) >the entire United States Library of Congress, whose holdings number some 20 >million volumes. Such a device is in effect a single-volume library. Factual and terrific,.... Electronic data of that kind is infinitely mutatable and thus mtuable. Consider how anyone would ever know what had changed, been revised, been edited. What does one check the electronic copy against to verify that it is a bona-fide, accurate, reproduction of the original ? Thus, the words of Thomas Jefferson, or John Fitzgerald Kennedy, that we might have read, or our predecessors might have read, and which were the same, might no longer be the same for our successors. Worse yet, they would never know, never be certain, of that having happened. Potentially, the potential of this new technology, if it were to become _the_ mode of conveyance of the "written" word, makes King James and his revisionist efforts look Mickey Mouse in comparison to what could happen as regards revision of any author's works. Taken to extremes even the electronic Bill Shakespeare of a century from now might have no resemblance to the hard copy William Shakespeare of today. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 22:02:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I also enjoyed _Mysterious Skin_ by Scott Heim, especially the memories of sticking his arm into the guts of a goat? all vaguery, Rachel Levitsky dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: > > Karen Kelley wrote . . . > > >This is perhaps a strange request: last night I had the most remarkable > >dream about extraterrestrials (something I've never dreamed about > >before) perhaps masquerading as god figures, but it occurs to me that > >I've always been too cynical to do more than assume extraterrestrials > >must exist. Does anyone have any reading to suggest? I'm not > >particularly interested in "proof" stories or "scary alien" stories, > >perhaps something more along the lines of what they might represent to > >us philosophically/psychologically? > > Katy's already suggested Spahr's book "Response" which is a good one. Let > me recommend a novel "Mysterious Skin" by a young New Yorker Scott Heim, it > is really terrific and is totally about the psychological appeal of aliens, > why we need them, etc. When I was almost 30 I came to "realize" that I had > been abducted by aliens briefly in childhood, and I drew upon this > experience to write a memoir "Santa," which now appears in my book "Little > Men" (which of course you don't want to miss in any case). I got some of > it right, but Scott and Juliana get more of it. > > --Kevin Killian <---- space "cadet" fanboy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 22:08:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Alien thoughts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Laura, I loved _The Thing_. Thanks for posting it. RDL ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 21:46:07 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: TINFISH 6 is now available In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII _Tinfish_ 6 is now available. Contributors, from Hawai`i, Australia, California and other places, include Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, Joe Balaz, Normie Salvador, Bill Marsh, John Kinsella, Mary Burger, Daniel A. Kelin, II, Zhang Er (translated by Arpine Konyalian Grenier), Gwyn McVay, Gabrielle Welford, Michael Robbins, Kamaka Kanekoa, Ida Yoshinaga, Elizabeth Treadwell, Bobbie West, John Tranter, G. Tracy Grinnell, Pam Brown, Liz Waldner, Karen Kelley, Brian Carpenter, Bill Luoma, Joe Ross, with a review of Albert Saijo's _Outspeaks: A Rhapsody_, by Juliana Spahr. Issues are $5 each; subscriptions to three issues are $13. Chapbooks still available by Kathy Dee Kaleokealoha Kaloloahilani Banggo, _4-evaz, Anna_ ($4) and by Susan M. Schultz and John Kinsella, _voice-overs_ ($4), from Tinfish Network. Write checks to _Tinfish_ and send to Susan M. Schultz, editor; 47-391 Hui Iwa Street #3, Kaneohe, HI 96744. Thanks, Susan ______________________________________________ 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, 9 Apr 1998 01:37:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re : Alien Dreams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to Morpheal for his rich response to this thread. I would like to know more about the Philadephia experiment. And about the electro-magnetic bending of waves, time and minds. My imagined Presidential address ("Mah fellow americans", etc) might also be fronting for a corporate takeover of the world. In this scenario, there are no aliens, only a President saying so; only a simulation of alien invasion, in order to clamp down on humanity in an entirely exploitative fascism. In this scenario, all the arranged "visitations" and "sightings" had been intented, all along, to lead to this clampdown. Our minds were being softened up. When will *that* movie be made? David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:05:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: matzoh poetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" a friend sent me this, and it did awaken many possibilities. Onomatzohpoeia. >A Jewish man took his Passover lunch to eat outside in the park. He sat >down on a park bench and began eating. A little while later a blind man >came by and sat down next to him. Feeling neighborly, the Jewish man >passed a sheet of matzoh to the blind man. The blind man handled the >matzoh for a few minutes, looked puzzled, and finally exclaimed: "Who >wrote this shit?" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:36:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: matzoh placards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 's different from the matzoh placards protecting Commander Papend's duplicate Venice from the killer bees in _The Duplications_ .. thanks, Sylvester, gud yantov, shalom .. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 10:42:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: re : Alien Dreams Now: EMRadiation and New Cosmologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Thanks to Morpheal for his rich response to this thread. I would like to >know more about the Philadephia experiment. And about the electro-magnetic >bending of waves, time and minds. Let's say that in theory strong and directed electromagnetic fields could cause sensory aberations, as well as disorders of perception and cognition, including disorders as to internal time consciousness. The latter is not "time" as such, (the successive flow of events, including cause and effect chains of events), but only the perception of time internal to the mind. (That ITC distortion could occur in any species, not only in humans.) Strong EMR of some kinds can also have considerable effects on the nervous system such that the sense of body and its spatial orientation would be peripherally effected along with perhaps some physical functions (coordination, etc.) The movie was very silly, as was the story it was based upon. Electromagnetic fields of the kind that would have been used to cloak ships at sea could NEVER result in "time travel", in any circumstances. Distortion of internal time consciousness, of time perception, could never even result in an _apparent_ but not real, displacement of objects within the temporal stream of from past to future. Simply not possible. This apparent distortion would be simply distortions of quantum events in the brain. Displacements of electrons and alterations of electron spin, would be enough, if enough were affected, to cause hallucinations, and extremely disordered thinking, including loss of sense of place and time. That is only a loss of the mental sense of where and when, but not actual physical, spatial-temporal, displacement. (If time travel is possible, and I believe that it is possible, it is an entirely different phenomenon, and requiring generation of a different kind of field. Likely tachyons, rather than tardyons, meaning faster than light quanta. That is not, I tend to believe, a question concerning an Einsteinian 4 dimensional universe anymore, but leads to new paradigms. Had a somewhat long discussion on that in Internet's sci.physics conference some years ago, as to the possibility of at least a 5 dimensional universe, with a tachyonic mirror image to the tardyonic one we live in, and all those luxons popping in and out at the boundary. The Philadelphia experiment would most probably have bent the paths of luxons (light and electrons, mostly). The electromagnetic fields, if as strong as the stories indicate, having effects on radio, radar, and sonar, making the ships apparently "invisible".) >My imagined Presidential address ("Mah fellow americans", etc) might also >be fronting for a corporate takeover of the world. In this scenario, there >are no aliens, only a President saying so; only a simulation of alien >invasion, in order to clamp down on humanity in an entirely exploitative >fascism. In this scenario, all the arranged "visitations" and "sightings" >had been intented, all along, to lead to this clampdown. Our minds were >being softened up. > >When will *that* movie be made? David Good question. The interesting thing is that if the universe is non Einsteinian, and a new paradigm evolves, making Einstein's universe as obsolete a model as is Newton's (though nevertheless continuing to be useful in its own ways), then inter dimensional aliens could be a reality. They could be mostly tachyonic (faster than light) quanta, whereas we are mostly tardyonic (slower the light) quanta. That would account for inter-dimensionals being seen as shimmers of light. That would be Chernkov radiation, which would be luxons emitted by tachyons that are slowed down when involved in densities of tardyons and some luxons where more collisions occur. The Kirlian aura of human forms might also be our tachyonic "souls" and seen only when electrons interfere with tachyons such that Cherenkov-like radiation (as light) is emitted. Makes for interesting speculation. What it has to do with poetics....I won't hazard a guess. Though I sometimes allude to cosmology in some of my poems. So did Gregory Corso, and some others. "Mind Field" I think is the title of one of Corso's pieces. I do not have a complete copy, but have read some of it on the net. QUESTION: Does anyone know of poetry about the new physics, about quanta, anomalies and new cosmological ideas ? Would be interested in author, title, publication, info, if you know of any. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 10:05:34 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: the fetish of psychotronics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit morpheal wrote: > QUESTION: Does anyone know of poetry about the new physics, about quanta, > anomalies and new cosmological ideas ? > > Would be interested in author, title, publication, info, if you know of any. who needs poetry when you have Charles Hoy Fort, Book of the Damned. & would highly recommend the Holographic Universe, whose author escapes me this morning because my mind has escaped me...but its premise, one which seems in vogue with a lot of new physics & psychotronics studies is that the brain is a 3-D decoder for a holographic universe. which goes far measures to explain madness from the viewpoint of the mad, the presence & onmiscience of the navaho language, & even some of the experiments with ketamine users accessing the same shared tripping space & being able to navigate thru a consensus other reality. & of course the classic from the 20th century poetry of edge is Alfred Jarry's How to construct a time machine. whose title Im probably also screwing up cuz I dont have it in front of me. on beyond miekal ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 10:02:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: re : Alien Dreams Now: EMRadiation and New Cosmologies MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Gee, all this time I thought the "Philadelphia Experiment" was a reference to Ron Silliman living in PA while still rooting for the Giants. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 09:20:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: the fetish of psychotronics In-Reply-To: <352C9D6D.464C@mwt.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >& would highly recommend the Holographic Universe, whose author escapes >me this morning because my mind has escaped me...but its premise, one >which seems in vogue with a lot of new physics & psychotronics studies >is that the brain is a 3-D decoder for a holographic universe. which >goes far measures to explain madness from the viewpoint of the mad, the >presence & onmiscience of the navaho language, & even some of the >experiments with ketamine users accessing the same shared tripping space >& being able to navigate thru a consensus other reality. authored by Michael Talbot - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 13:14:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Noble Subject: "Here" and Zinc Bar Query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Does anyone out there know how I can get on a mailing list for "Here" and Zinc Bar readings or how I can find out who's reading there this month. They're not listed in this month's NYC poetry calendar. Please either backchannel me at or post the info on the list - maybe others on the list would like to know? Thanks much. Joseph Noble ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 14:01:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Was: Censorship and Belief NOW: Something of great constancy In-Reply-To: <199804081622.MAA13509@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Such tricks hath strong imagination! well, morpheus, i wanna see that bromige movie too, yours, the alien formerly known as egeus...... c On Wed, 8 Apr 1998, morpheal wrote: > > Is it in the repressive america censorship > > Does that exist more because a significant portion of people BELIEVE > that it exists, or because there are censors actually censoring ? > > Does it exist more because some significant portion of the people who > believe it exists are intimidated, because they believe something nasty > will happen to them if they cease to believe in it ? Kind of similar > to the concept of burning in hellfire if you do not believe in an idea > that someone else says you must believe in. Not only believe, but actually > become unquestioningly congruent with ? That would be true belief rather > than going through the motions kinds of belief. > > So, what will happen, if some believe that there are no censors and that > freedoms of expression, and association, are truly in existence and > vouchsafed ? Will those then exist, in a manner that they did not exist > while the belief was contrary ? > > Would be an interesting experiment, wouldn't it ? > > M. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:52:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Was: Censorship and Belief NOW: Something of great constancy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Such tricks hath strong imagination! > well, morpheus, i wanna see that bromige movie too, > yours, > the alien formerly known as egeus...... > c I am able, and at times have necessarily had to suspend all assumptions, all beliefs, and all imagination. Otherwise those cloud and colour perception with falsification as to what is sensed. (Phenomenological methods again.) Also able to almost totally resist hypnotic suggestion. Trust me, it is possible. Regardless of what some say about it being impossible. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 17:03:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the fetish of psychotronics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>& would highly recommend the Holographic Universe, whose author escapes >>me this morning because my mind has escaped me...but its premise, one >>which seems in vogue with a lot of new physics & psychotronics studies >>is that the brain is a 3-D decoder for a holographic universe. which >>goes far measures to explain madness from the viewpoint of the mad, the >>presence & onmiscience of the navaho language, & even some of the >>experiments with ketamine users accessing the same shared tripping space >>& being able to navigate thru a consensus other reality. >authored by Michael Talbot Chuckle....that recent.....Let's go back a ways, to the turn of the previous century and Nikolas Tesla...... Found at http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqs1209/tower.htm What seems most interesting is that the Wardenclyffe facility was completed BEFORE 1906. So this quote is prior to 1906. "As soon as [the Wardenclyffe plant is] completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place..." - Nikola Tesla M. > > > > > > >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >William Marsh | PaperBrainPress > http://bmarsh.dtai.com >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:27:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: April archives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Aproximately 100 people have posted to the list this month (9 days old): Morpheal leads the pack with 18 messages, Keston Sutherland a close second with 17, Rachel Levitsky a distant 3rd with 11. Perpetual favorites Gould and Damon don't seem to be in the running this month, though they may make a surge later in the month. Favorite topics is aliens, with over thirty postings--a distant 2nd is "boring chitchat." I have no conclusion to draw from this--just thought you'd like to know. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 14:53:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: the Wright Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Last night Jay Wright appeared at the California Institute of Arts (having read the previous day at Occidental College). He read portions of plays written over the past two decades (including portions of the play for Nicolas Guillen that appeared in the special Guillen issue of Callaloo [10.2 -- 1987 if you want to look it up]) -- One surprise was when he broke into song, in Spanish. I'd known that he was fluent in Spanish (he also read passages in Yoruba with no discernable American accent), but I hadn't known that he could sing. (also plays upright bass, though not at readings) -- Some of the work was from a recently completed ms. titled _Transformations_, which, if all goes well, will appear in a volume of collected poems soon. Watch the Cambridge Univ. Press listings next year for a book by Carole Doreski that includes a substantial, and GOOD, chapter on Jay Wright's poetry. Cigarettes in my mouth to puncture blisters in my brain. My bass a fine piece of furniture. My fingers soft, too soft to rattle rafters in second-rate halls. The harmonies I could never learn stick in Ayler's screams. (from "The End of an Ethnic Dream" -- Jay Wright) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 17:15:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: Poetics of collage? In-Reply-To: <01BD62DE.45BDA480@gps12@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII best thing is to go library and check out listings under COLLAGE--too many books to name at once-- might start with Kurt Schwitters--collage poetry leading to sound poetry, environments (Merzbau) and performance (Ur Sonate)-- Rbt Motherwell (pretty good collage poet ) edited Dada Painters & Poets-- Hans Richter (old Dada fella) very good on this in Dada Art and Anti Art many collections in many languages works of Heartfield for ex--political photomontage later--many works of Burroughs and Gysin influenced by principles of collage--cutup etc-- hope this of help --dave baptiste chirot ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:44:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: re : unsubscribe poetics In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII this is a personal squawk, my partner, aka dbc had difficulty subscribing to poetics so ended up subscribing under my address. after few years I figure y'all could let him in on his address. I tried to unsub, have written requesting directions on onsubbing w/no response. am tired of wading thru all this stuff to get my mail (do I really care what the servers are called at SUNY buffalo? I DON'T THINK SO - now apparently is as hard to get off this list as get on so understand the crisppee's or whatever its name was' desperation signed despairing ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 19:40:45 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Poetics of collage? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit poetics of collage = xerolage ___________________________________ http://net22.com/neologisms/xe.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 20:40:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: Was: Censorship and Belief NOW: Something of great constancy Comments: To: morpheal In-Reply-To: <199804092052.QAA27216@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >I am able, and at times have necessarily had to suspend all assumptions, >all beliefs, and all imagination. it's rather a droll retort and basically unnecessary, but did you know yourself to be doing this because you assumed so, believed so or imagined so? whatever ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 20:44:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: April archives Comments: To: MAYHEW In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII yeah so what - I resent, very slightly, being hoisted in this sample of wryness: the messages I've posted to the list were on serious issues or they were poems by myself or by others. I have made a particular effort to post pieces by Andrea Brady in the past week, that accounts for a good slice of my input. Nothing to say about aliens, except to mention Mandeville etc. What have you said? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:29:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Robeson, H.D., Bryher Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" According to my TV guide, the American Movie Classics cable ch. is showing the seldom-seen silent film _Borderline_ tonight, which features Paul Robeson, H.D., Bryher, Kenneth MacPherson etc. If true, this is not-to-be-missed -- check your local listings -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:01:00 -0700 Reply-To: clarkd@sfu.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Clark Organization: A Use for Poets (Editing) Company Subject: Lindsay Hill address anyone? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, does anyone have a recent address for Lindsay Hill; a Memphis address I have doesn't work and it has come back with "no forward order on file" thanks for any hints, Susan Susan Clark RADDLE MOON clarkd@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 20:27:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: the Wright Reading In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980409145327.006b0f90@popmail.lmu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wright read at UCSD this evening and reads at the Porter Troupe Gallery in San Diego tomorrow evening. A consummate craftsman and a poet of deep intelligence in three languages and several dialects. I'm embarassed to admit that I didn't know his work till this evening. He read a stunning longish poem the central imagery of which was derived from the Virgin of Guadeloupe. Copper Canyon is putting out a generous selected poems next year. At 02:53 PM 4/9/98 -0700, you wrote: >Last night Jay Wright appeared at the California Institute of Arts (having >read the previous day at Occidental College). He read portions of plays >written over the past two decades (including portions of the play for >Nicolas Guillen that appeared in the special Guillen issue of Callaloo >[10.2 -- 1987 if you want to look it up]) -- One surprise was when he broke >into song, in Spanish. I'd known that he was fluent in Spanish (he also >read passages in Yoruba with no discernable American accent), but I hadn't >known that he could sing. (also plays upright bass, though not at >readings) -- > >Some of the work was from a recently completed ms. titled >_Transformations_, which, if all goes well, will appear in a volume of >collected poems soon. > >Watch the Cambridge Univ. Press listings next year for a book by Carole >Doreski that includes a substantial, and GOOD, chapter on Jay Wright's poetry. > > >Cigarettes in my mouth >to puncture blisters in my brain. >My bass a fine piece of furniture. >My fingers soft, too soft to rattle >rafters in second-rate halls. >The harmonies I could never learn >stick in Ayler's screams. > > (from "The End of an Ethnic Dream" -- Jay Wright) > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:08:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rprunty Subject: Raworth's appeal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm relatively new to the list and thought I'd try again to stir up some discussion. I have been reading Tom Raworth's book Eternal Sections and just keep coming back to it. So far, however, I haven't really been able to articulate much what I like about it. It doesn't seem flashy in its form, and only occasionally does a single line or phrase jump out at me as terrific, but the cumulative experience of reading several pages in a sitting is quite satisfying. No, more than that...exciting. It encourages me to write, but I don't know why. In a Perloff article called Sentence, Not Sentence she mentions the variety of Rawoth's lines. Meaning, that in his blocks of verse, no two lines of the same sentence structure are next to each other. This is interesting to me, and I'm sure the variety in the syntatical structure as well as the variety of the way it looks on the page is part of the appeal. But... that still doesn't seem to be enough to explain why it seems like such great stuff to me. Maybe that's why they call it poetry. Any thoughts from other Raworth fans? Randy Prunty ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:43:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: to see -- once more -- the stars. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For those of you still on line on the East Coast, try to look the window around 4am this morning (still Thursday for me) and look at the stars, if it's clear, of course. That view and time is vaguely in accordance with the narrative action of Dante's Inferno, where at the end of the first part of the Divine Comedy (presumably, the pre-dawn Friday after Maundy Thursday -- I'd say about 4am), "I" emerges out of "the despondent kingdom" "to see --once more-- the stars." E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle. You also may want to read the rest of Dante's great poem, concluding with Paradisio on Easter Sunday. Now, 9:30pm here in California, would be about the time to begin reading the Inferno out loud. You'd finish around 4am (including coffee breaks) and walk outside to see the stars. Unfortunately, it's partly cloudy here in SF tonight and who knows when the fog will roll in. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:52:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Whyte Subject: Letter (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Schiller What will you make of my blotted scrawls, my backtrackings, my marble powderings, my breathless cries? What will you think, what will you say? What airs will hover abating silence in the valleys of your homelands, your lips pressed tight -- I fell in the sublime you wrote me of, because I cannot call your existence into question, I cannot wipe away the grounds. You, springing out of that which you have written me so many times in the past. For it is the unreasonableness of that ground which accords - as in the only condition which unreasonableness is in accord, namely, with itself - for it is your scaffolding which you have inherited, your "nobilities," your "grandeurs," as if somehow coursing, as you wrote, in your skies, your rivers. The ramparts of your homelands. What goes unseen in you? What would you say of this purest of loving, spilt in the gorge? How would I love you, Schiller - dare I say, with these sublime tremblings? I give myself to your chasms, your untended plains, your deserts crisscrossed, your senseless woods, your terrors, your sleeplessness: the peaks of your glacial S, your R eternally flaming. (Forgiveness: what is more natural, then, of nature's nature, than _the persistence of the letter_? That _is_ what you seek, no?) This is how you find me. How do you find me? It is not to ask of drive, fulfillments, celestial mechanics, traces of which we are party to in your cosmology. To elevate is to stand next to the hole. This I have learned. I ask for your altitudes, I pay homage to scraped lands I don't know, I pummel French gardens for you, I raze cities. I would win your heart - not wishing, lamely, for a lover's arrival, but instead superimposing with absolute moral force, without the investment *du couer*, the usury *du sang*; disinterestedly, distractedly.... Naturally I would turn my back on you if you came, what unfathomable travesty to see your face.... Schiller, my impossible, my ten thousand lapis washes. What would you make of my ceaseless mutterings, my Freud, my Marcuse? What would you _do_, with my burned letters, my false starts, my fevers, my inexplicable clutter across these cities? I can't very well give these manifestations, my persons in wartime and in peacetime, the one and the other, so incommensurable; I can't seep into the page, drawing across the ink without, once, blushing.... This envelope is white. That you can see. R ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 01:46:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: John Granger's Organs Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Folks familiar with John Granger or the San Diego scene may want to know that this week's issue of the San Diego Reader has a big cover story by John on the topic of the city's more than 100 pipe organs. The reader can be accessed at www.sdreader.com Ron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 01:53:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Mondegreens Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A piece in the NY Times today on Mondegreens, with links to sites such as The Ants Are My Friends and Kiss This Guy: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/articles/09song.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 17:36:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "DANIEL L. COLLIER" Subject: Re: Poetics of collage? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Three years ago I was a temp for a consulting firm that had just lost its main client, NASA. To burn off budgeted funds, they stuck me in a room with three other temps and no assignment except to sit, wait, and listen to a daily lecture about how big work was a-comin' our way. Aside from two-hour lunches at the Smithsonian, I passed the time cutting panels out of the daily comics and reorganizing them so they made new comics. I still have this habit, and whenever I show them to people they say "gee you must have time on your hands." Not really. But I'm attentive to a poetics of the comics page (maybe I should've made a new subject header) that is verbal, visual, narrative, repetitive, and occasionally perverse. Try it. Or just try reading the page for individual panels. Mark Trail and the soaps are particularly wondrous, though Spiderman is probably the best with its days & days of absolutely nothing happening. Kind of like being a temp... and like the three jobs I've had since. Danny --------------------------- phone 7-503-268-8895 --- fax 7-503-956-3936 "I missed an appointment. Now they're going to smash my face." -- Kirpichi Tizhuli ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 08:06:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: local issue: byrkit performance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Here's from the electronic version of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. I was not at the performance, but I have heard people who were at it say it was great, and that it was awful (both in terms of the issue of sexually explicit poetry in a performance involving young children; and in terms of the quality of the work). I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised to hear months ago that the Festival had invited Byrkit, but my surprise was not based on the explicit nature of her work. I don't think the Festival should have been at all surprised at the kind of poetry Becky was reading, and although it's clear she didn't give much clue to her young performers or their parents, I also think the Festival might have been just a little more on top of the issue in advance, knowing Becky's work. charles ____________________________________ Poet `ambushes' kids in choir [photo of Byrkit] Becky Byrkit, an award-winning poet and adjunct instructor at the University of Arizona's English Department, invited the Vail choir to sing while she read her poetry.=20 Sexually explicit verses stun Vail singers, parents at reading By Monica Mendoza=20 The Arizona Daily Star=20 Parents say Old Vail Middle School choir members were betrayed by a local poet when they unwittingly became part of her erotic poetry reading.=20 Choir members agreed to sing on stage for Becky Byrkit while she performed before a crowd of more than 200 at last weekend's 16th annual Tucson Poetry Festival.=20 They had practiced the words of the song ``Roam'' by the rock group B-52s and showed up on stage Friday evening in blue jeans, plain shirts and barefoot - just as Byrkit requested. They were told the theme of the festival was geography.=20 But Byrkit launched into smoldering erotic poetry that turned their little faces red and sent parents into a fit of anger.=20 ``She began reciting in explicit detail about oral sex, gay sex and sex in the back seat of a car,'' said parent Larry Williams, whose daughter and niece, both 12, were in the choir.=20 ``She talked about God in a negative way,'' said Rita Lake, mother of 12-year-old Daniel. ``My son was crying as he walked off the stage.''=20 Daniel, whose family is very religious, was confused and hurt by Byrkit, Lake said.=20 Minutes into Byrkit's reading, the 18 children were herded off stage by the Vail choir instructor. After her one-hour performance, parents demanded to know why Byrkit ``ambushed'' their kids.=20 According to parents, Byrkit never apologized for the explicit poetry - only that she was sorry the children didn't get to sing their song.=20 Two parents filed complaints early this week with the Pima County Attorney's Office saying Byrkit violated decency laws by exposing them to obscene material. An investigator has been assigned to the case.=20 Parents also wrote angry letters to the Tucson Poetry Festival and its sponsors voicing their disgust. Festival organizers, who said they were just as shocked at Byrkit's choice of reading with the children present, said this is an unfair black eye on their otherwise successful event.=20 ``This is an issue between Becky, the parents and the teacher,'' said John Hudak, president of the board that oversees the festival. ``We feel victimized in our own right.''=20 Byrkit did not use vulgarity in her performance, said Scott Stanley, publisher of the bimonthly magazine Tucson Poet. The language was sexually laced without being explicit, he said.=20 ``It was over the heads of 13-year-olds - I don't think they had a clue,'' Stanley said. ``It was clear to the parents what she was saying.''=20 Byrkit would not comment on the situation under the advisement of her attorney.=20 ``I'll give you a call as soon as counsel says it is advisable to speak to you,'' she said in a telephone message. ``In the meantime, if you could, just chill.''=20 Byrkit, an award-winning poet and adjunct instructor at the University of Arizona's English Department, invited the Vail choir to sing while she read her poetry at the festival, which was at the Tucson Center for Performing Arts, 408 S. Sixth Ave.=20 The two had paired in the past for a Christmas poetry reading at The Voice and Range, a poetry consulting service Byrkit runs out of her home.=20 That performance was tasteful, said Vail Superintendent Calvin Baker.=20 No one knew Byrkit planned to read poems about sex in this second meeting. The children, ages 11-13, rehearsed with Byrkit the previous Thursday afternoon, Baker said. But ``she didn't read her part,'' he said.=20 The teacher and the children didn't ask for details about her reading because ``they had worked with her and trusted her,'' Baker said.=20 ``The children's trust was violated,'' Baker said. ``They were embarrassed by it and upset.''=20 Byrkit is known for her steamy poetry, said local poet Dave Mitchell. In 1995 she published her first book, ``Zealand'' - a collection of poems that one critic said ``resuscitates . . . language in a phantasmagoria of erotic encounters.'' She has been a featured poet in the Bisbee Poetry Festival and is a 1993 winner of a statewide poetry contest.=20 ``The erotic content is her vehicle to be deconstructionist with her style,'' Mitchell said. ``If eating a cheeseburger was taboo in polite circles, she would be writing about cheeseburgers.''=20 Byrkit was invited as one of the six featured poets in this year's festival because ``she is an up-and-coming poet,'' said Hudak, president of the board that oversees the festival. ``She has been controversial - we have not been afraid of that.''=20 But Hudak said festival organizers were surprised to find out that Byrkit had not informed the Vail teacher or students of her complete program.=20 ``As far as we knew, she had worked with the teacher and the kids,'' he said. ``There were parent permission slips and there were rehearsals.''=20 Poets are not asked in advance for their material, he said. And many create new pieces for the festival.=20 Byrkit's piece was called: ``Suite: Cowpunk R=E9al.'' In a pamphlet for the show she described the three-part reading as a compilation composed with three other poets. One part was improvisational and the third part was titled, ``Roam'' - that is where the children were to sing.=20 Neither the county attorney nor the festival committee has a copy of the poem. However, the show was videotaped and that tape will be given to the county attorney for its investigation.=20 Meanwhile, the festival committee will send letters of apology to all the parents and children involved, Hudak said.=20 ``We feel badly for the parents,'' he said. ``We feel and have expressed to Becky that she didn't handle this well.''=20 In the future, the festival committee will take more precautions, Hudak said. The committee will make sure that all parties performing in the show are aware of each other's part in the show. No surprises, he said.=20 Williams questioned whether the children's reaction was meant to be part of Byrkit's performance. He wants her to publicly apologize to the children.=20 ``I think she needs to be punished,'' he said. ``No children should be subjected to something like this.''=20 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 11:10:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: Raworth's appeal In-Reply-To: <18ceee10.352d9b5b@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm relatively new to the list and thought I'd try again to stir up some >discussion. I have been reading Tom Raworth's book Eternal Sections and just >keep coming back to it. So far, however, I haven't really been able to >articulate much what I like about it. It doesn't seem flashy in its form, >and only occasionally does a single line or phrase jump out at me as terrific, >but the cumulative experience of reading several pages in a sitting is quite >satisfying. No, more than that...exciting. It encourages me to write, but I >don't know why. In a Perloff article called Sentence, Not Sentence she >mentions the variety of Rawoth's lines. Meaning, that in his blocks of verse, >no two lines of the same sentence structure are next to each other. This is >interesting to me, and I'm sure the variety in the syntatical structure as >well as the variety of the way it looks on the page is part of the appeal. >But... that still doesn't seem to be enough to explain why it seems like such >great stuff to me. Maybe that's why they call it poetry. Any thoughts from >other Raworth fans? > >Randy Prunty 113 reasons subject to typos. The notion of working in fourteen line chunks. Periodically what unfolds mimics the shape of a sentence, periodically. Or not. Simply put of infinite complexity. Disjunction is a cliche. More solid than that, meaty fibers, modular but fertilizer too. Oh but yes the details. Of phrase: "on an eight-minute nudge." Of observation, as if ordinarily awed: "brilliance of the orange lily" As if descriptively banal: "whistling near the river" As if propositional: "such division into subjects/consequences of a failure" Of detached affect, in media res: "fear that increases" Of anger in stress and spondees: "most of the nation ignored/in droves during/ two hours of prime time" Of unabashed despair: "we are now cut off" Of performativity, blundering exact process constructed: "meaning is fluid" Of devastated textbooks: "emphasising the purely decorative/ history repeats itself" Speed speed speed, conceptual speed. As if one more phrase would resolve the matter and you were in the middle of it. Already started, humming along. "two small cakes and one tart" Of torque and juxtaposition: "attitudes do not necessarily change/arson, murders and assualts/in the three biggest economies/nurtured from the start/in a climate/of smelters" Of aliens separating the metallic constituents. "Smelt." Of narrative: of narratoology. "a kind of delight/ which pluralises the meaning/demanded by gesture/but conserves it in the present" "shadows made of wood" "terrified whines pulsed" "his brain refused to work" Look ma, no hands. That's not 113. Back to work earning a living. Hi Tom! Milo, 3 months, 28 pounds. Amut/Tuma. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 12:49:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: COMMA to perform at Ruthless Grip (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:18:27 -0400 (EDT) >From: Tom Bickley >Subject: COMMA to perform at Ruthless Grip > >Comma is a vocal trio consisting of Joe Zitt, Matt Davis and Tom Bickley. >We'd be pleased to have you at our performance. Please pass this >information along to others. Thanks! -Tom > >You are invited to come experience life as art on Saturday, April 18th in >the final evening of performance in conjunction with: > > Cooks Smell Time > at > R u t h l e s s G r i p > > "A Sub-Neocortal Non-Logic Exhibition/Performance with Precision" > (an installation running March 13 through April 18) > >Featured on this evening will be the vocal trio, Comma. Starting at 7:30, >they will inhabit a sonic dimension of the exhibit, improvising and >interpreting both space and time, interacting with the installations. >Vision, language, sound, movement, body and time combine into an experience >within which we can live and enjoy. It is a circus of possibility and >conversation. > >Participating artists include Nicola Bastian, Alex Bay, Reginald Crump, >Perreaoult Daniels, Jason Ditzian, Bev Donnenfeld Chello, Harvey Fry, >Heather Fuller, Michael Gessner, Stuart Greenwell, Amherick Hall, Dawn >Hannaham, Isabel Hon, Joanne Kent, Rogelio Maxwell, Marc Millene, Jane >Schloss Phelan, Gabriela Pohl, Joan Retallack, Kathy Satterlee, Jerry >Smith, Michael Sprouse, David Valentine, Ann Wallace, Mark Wallace, Maida >Withers. > >WHO: Comma in performance >WHAT: 'Cooks Smell Time' >WHEN: Saturday, April 18, 7:30 PM >WHERE: Ruthless Grip Art Project > 1508 U Street, NW > Washington, DC 20009 > 202-462-3754 > >Contact information for Comma: >PHONE: 301-441-4603 >EMAIL: comma@artswire.org >URL: http://www.artswire.org/comma > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 13:03:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >``She talked about God in a negative way,'' said Rita Lake, mother of >12-year-old Daniel. ``My son was crying as he walked off the stage.'' burroughs is alive and well and writing in Tucson, this made me laugh in loud ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 14:35:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: in honor of nat'l poetry mnth/ only 20 days left Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "She talked about God in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel was crying as he walked off the stage." "She talked about God in a negative no way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel was crying as he was talked off the stage." "Two dogs humped on the grass in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel was curious as he walked off the stage." "She read poems about God in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel wrote a chapbook as he was led off the stage." "She talked about negative ways in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel pierced his penis as he walked off the stage." "She talked about Language Poetry in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel unsubscribed desparately as he signed off the stage." "She crucified God in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel highlighted his prayer book as he walked off the stage." "She wrote a thesis about God in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel began a poetry slam as he walked on stage." "She talked about the Poetics List in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel deleted her as he walked off the stage." "She does anything she wants, she's an artist, she don't look back," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel's guitar kills fascists as he walks off the stage." "She walks with a swagger in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel zoned out as he turned the next page." "She talked about Rikki Lake in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel was on stage crying as he staged walking off the stage." "She drank Jim Beam from a hip flask in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel corroborated on a poem as he lay down on the stage." "She looked for a subway or a record shop or some sign that people do not totally regret life in a negative way," said Rita Lake. "My son Daniel was crying as he set fire to the stage." <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 14:53:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980410080656.007af650@theriver.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wow!! **punishing poets** for their work......[I'm quoting the last sentence of the fascinating news account from Charles A.] It isn't often we're treated as important enough to *punish*!! (Other than with nasty reviews..) I'll leave it to the wittier Listfolk to ask the obvious questions about whether her interests include discipline... I'll simply note the amazing quotation about how she "spoke negatively about God"!!! (this of course is said to have reduced a child to tears!) Yup, this is certainly the good ol' USA. amazed in atlanta, m ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 15:28:03 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Talisman Hegemony at Last! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So there I was in downtown Lake Forest, IL on my way to grab what passes for a bagel around here when I see a stack of the Jarnot/Schwartz/Stroffolino Talisman "Anthology of New (American) Poets" gleaming in the window display of the local B. Dalton's. Given the sort of books they normally carry, this is an occurence on par with seeing a cardboard cutout of Tom Raworth in the window of the local hardware store. Whoever is handling distribution at Talisman House has my eternal admiration. Today B. Dalton, tomorrow the world! By the way -- anyone else find Rosmarie Waldrop's cover blurb -- "it's the language of the future" a little ominous? Will the second edition say "We will bury you"? Best, Bob -- Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College Lake Forest, IL 60045 http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ " on the end of each decision stands a heretic" --Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 16:29:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: to see -- once more -- the stars. In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:43:42 -0700 from Thanks, Robert. Interesting. At 2 pm today (Good Friday) I finished bk 2 of STUBBORN GREW THE ROSE. Bk2 is sort of a purgey (turgid?) oratorio called "Fox Point". I was up late on Maundy Thursday (approx. 1:30 am) working on it. Here's some stanzas I wrote at that hour: Catch us the little foxes, Solomon, that spoil our vineyard. Lucky, true love's the cardinal pt (sd Bluejay). A monde, almond. All made. I thirsty, mon. Upon a Roman rood was fixt clay lips gone underground. Still through the pinedoor, drifted sound. Her calling me. A morning rose. Finixt. 4.9.98 (Maundy Thirsty) look for it in black holes everywhere. - Henry ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 12:37:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Having known Becky Byrkit and her work for many years, having also worked for the Tucson Poetry Festival for a number of years, and having been at Becky's performance that night, I feel obliged to comment on the growing fiasco. I've always admired Becky's work, but the performance that night was just humiliatingly awful, not because of Becky's writing but because of all the performance stuff she put around it. Frankly, children don't really have a place around Becky's work. Her work is often explicit and erotic and dwells in those dark regions your typical parent of a fourteen year old just does not want to think about. The song and dance performance was amateurish in the worst way (if she wanted song and dance, there are plenty of adult companies in Tucson she could have collaberated with). At many points during the reading, I caught her deliberately censoring herself onstage, removing the more graphic elements from her work. Those compromises weakened her work. She was clearly aware of the growing disaster that surrounded her that evening, and it showed in the growing awkwardness of her reading. The kids seemed to be having a good time however. I suspect the kid was crying because his mom had just embarassed him in front of everyone by yanking him offstage. Lots of parents were pissed: the front three rows were emptied in such a fashion with angry parents and bewildered kids storming out. One of the reasons I suspect Becky got trapped in this fiasco is because of an arts organization she heads, called "Voice and Range." The organization acts as a sort of networking group, connecting different artistic talents together for eductional and collaborative purposes. I suspect that much of the performances that night were set up through her organization. To be blunt, however, Becky should never have included children in her performance if she was going to read what she usually reads, especially if it hadn't been vetted through the parents of the kids. As for the Tucson Poetry Festival's role in this, my impression was that they were basically ambushed (although this is not the first time this has happened: a similar event occurred several years ago when the theme of the festival was love poetry and the winner of a statewide poetry contest (who traditionally reads first on a Saturday night) brought her grandchildren to hear her read, only to be followed by some rather explicit homoerotic love poetry by Boyer Rickel and Marilyn Hacker). It's not the responsibility of a literary arts organization to oversee the work of readers. The Festival has a number of constituencies and has made a concerted effort to be as open and inclusive as possible. The Festival deliberately targets people who have never been to a poetry reading. Presenting the work of children has been an important part of this: a specific reading was set aside on a saturday afternoon of the festival in which children read their poetry. This event was very well attended, I doubt if any of the participants were at Becky's reading the night before. The dilemma is not how to present poetry without offending anyone, the problem is making sure audiences have some idea of what they are getting so they don't feel ambushed. There's a lot of great poetry out there that some parents might feel is not appropriate for kids. At the same time, it would be absolutely dreadful if this was used as an excuse to keep kids away from all poetry. It would be equally dreadful if this was used as an excuse to shut down the Tucson Poetry Festival. I'd like to hear from other people involved with literary arts organizations and reading series: how do you handle this issue, of kids and parents at readings, of presenting explicit work in a public forum? Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 17:10:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rprunty Subject: Re: Raworth's appeal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Keith/HtieK Tuma/Amut, Thanks for the response. Several of your "shots" give some language to my RaworthRumblings...."infinite complexity", "the details", "descriptively banal", "detached affect", especially contrasting with "unabashed despair". Don't know what "conceptual speed" is, but its got me intrigued. What I liked best was "As if one more phrase would resolve the matter and you were in the middle of it." Here's one of my favorite "14 chunks" from Raworth... just in case you don't have Eternal Sections at hand. we could turn to get his message a few words phonetically achieving escape velocity dancing towards me near dawn as if by accident missing pieces of information synchronise its release on a conscious basis animals always saw in the most economical fashion it makes no difference we are now cut off Randy Prunty ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 18:35:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Re: anomalies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit also the morpheus asked a <> Anything by Khlebnikov. Also a Chapbook by Me called Swoon Rocket published by the Figures available from small press distribution (800-869-7553). This work mostly "about" gravitational lensing. You can also find this book at Club by Me on King and Isenberg in Honolulu. Bill Luoma also, recent qm tunneling experiments claim to prove superluminal velocites. on the notion that the tunneling time (the "time" when the particle is "inside" the barrier) is virtually zero. http://www.uni-koeln.de/~abb11/workshop/announce.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 18:39:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: San Francisco Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bill Luoma / Juliana Spahr Saturday April 18th, 8:00pm @ New Langton Arts which is at 1246 Folsom, between 8th and 9th streets. 415-626-5416 for info. hope to see you california heads there. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:06:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: anomalies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Anything by Khlebnikov. Also a Chapbook by Me called Swoon Rocket published >by the Figures available from small press distribution (800-869-7553). This >work mostly "about" gravitational lensing. You can also find this book at >Club by Me on King and Isenberg in Honolulu. >Bill Luoma Thanks. For what little such things are worth, except as interesting science fiction, I had a lucid dream not long ago about what I believe is to be a launch facility for space vehicles that might be loosely termed "gravitational lensed" lensed" type propulsion systems. Gravity is inextricably linked with the superluminal, and a superluminal field, if contained/focused electromagetically to keep it from destroying the vehicle it is propelling and the lauch structure, could, I believe, in theory, be used instead of traditional rocket engines. The dream was of a very huge concrete structure built into the earth. The walls were massive pourings, with a huge diameter hollow cylindrical shaped center. The walls had orifices or short protruberances (field generator outputs ?) located equidistant inside the cylinder. The upper surface indicated the pouring was at least fifty or more feet thick. The depth was undiscernable, but the visible portion was more than a hundred feet before the other side blocked vision into the hole in the middle. The surrounding terrain was blackened rock, very rough, weathered rock, foothills type rock, maybe slate or shale or something similarly coloured and nothing growing or living as far as I could see to the southwest of the structure. Nothing comparable in my experiences. Might be a chanced on remote view. If I am right, the superluminal field would be generated under the vehicle and the vehicle would be propelled upwards surrounded by a force field resembling a magnetic crucible force field from the sides and perhaps the bottom of the launch facility. If so, it would be out of there, once accelerated up to full tachyonic field strength, in less than a quick blink of an eye, and off into space.....The payload would be larger than the space shuttle. Much larger. >also, recent qm tunneling experiments claim to prove superluminal velocites. >on the notion that the tunneling time (the "time" when the particle is >"inside" the barrier) is virtually zero. There was in fact a scientific report of the time between point of entry and point of exit being negative, rather than positive. I cannot remember the name of the researchers, but it jives with Dr. Sarfatti's contentions regarding the "back reaction" enabled by subliminals such that information is conveyed from the future to the past, making precognition possible even if exceptional. You can find Jack Sarfatti and his organization on the world wide web. He is a mathematical physicist. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:15:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RJRVE Subject: Re: Was: Censorship and Belief NOW: Something of great constancy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-09 17:21:18 EDT, you write: Morpheal wrote: << I am able, and at times have necessarily had to suspend all assumptions, all beliefs, and all imagination. Otherwise those cloud and colour perception with falsification as to what is sensed. (Phenomenological methods again.) Also able to almost totally resist hypnotic suggestion. Trust me, it is possible. Regardless of what some say about it being impossible. >> Now just where does such an experiment take one? If you succeed, you can not possibly answer my question, no? Richard Reeve ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:20:33 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Re: re : Alien Dreams Now: EMRadiation and New Cosmologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bob Ez. is this what you mean by Cherenkov radiation (see definition below)? Can you provide a better definition than the one below? Can you provide an explanation why Cherenkov radiation is important to your argument or I guess I don't really understand tachyons and how they would emit light and what speeds that light would travel at? Best, Bill Luoma definition of Cherenkov radiation from some web site: "it is also possible to use these same heliostats at night to collect the quick flashes of blue Cherenkov light that result from gamma ray air showers. These gamma rays originate from astrophysical sources at galactic and extragalactic distances. When they enter the earth's atmosphere, the gamma rays interact with air molecules, creating an extensive shower of high-energy particles. These particles go faster than the speed of light in air, and thus emit light, or Cherenkov radiation. This radiation (at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths) is beamed to the ground, where it is readily collected by the heliostat mirrors." Morpheal wrote: <> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:46:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Poetics of comic strips Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ever seen the stuff Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard have done with comics? At the current display at the NY public library sits is one of their originals. Comics sit side by side with poetry in my mind some of my favorites 1 Daredevil 2 Mighty Mouse (yeah he was a superhero) 3 The Invisible Woman 4. Iron Fist and Power Man 5. Hawkeye and yours.. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:28:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ``I think she needs to be punished,'' he said. ``No children should be subjected to something like this.'' Do listlings agree with this, that the erotic is 'bad' for children? " a similar event occurred several years ago when the theme of the festival was love poetry and the winner of a statewide poetry contest (who traditionally reads first on a Saturday night) brought her grandchildren to hear her read, only to be followed by some rather explicit homoerotic love poetry by Boyer Rickel and Marilyn Hacker)." --from Hugh's post I wasn't there and don't know the work. Certianly, it is bad faith to include in your performance, a group who you think might be alienated by/from the work. However, there is nothing inherently damaging to children about sexual or homoerotic material. Children, need I remind, are "subjected to" and "ambushed by" an abundance of what I would call inappropriate imagery of starving women made to look sexy on buses, and the obvious violence bla bla bla, we all know this. And Marilyn Hacker's poetry is offensive because of a piece of phallic plastic????? In a session devoted to love poetry?? What'd they think? A personal experience: A young poet wanted to read at Left Hand and sent me work. I was trying to encourage just this thing and felt I needed to honor his effort, despite my reservations about the person. The week before his scheduled reading, I heard him read, and was so offended that I walked out (this, as far as I recall has only happened to me one other time, I think it was Richard Hell--what da ya think a that?) He, a 20yr old Jew from phily, was "channeling" black slaves on plantations, and young women being sexually abused, and another I didn't hear because I left. His depictions were stereotypical, narrow, extremely flawed vis a vis bad acting, and violent/screaming. So much for the subject matter being the problem. Obviously both of those subjects could be handled in many sensible, sensitive and textured ways. Still, as awful as I found it, he has his fans who love his work, see it as cutting edge. I flipped. Safety, respect between reader & audience are critical to the Left Hand Reading Series. I wanted to ban him, or read his work in advance or tell him he couldn't read that shit in our space. I felt righteous and justified when I called a meeting between him and the organizers. We'd decided the most we could do was ask him not to channel. But as soon as we were done speaking with him, we knew, we had to take it back. So we told him he knew our feelings and could read whatever he wanted. Thus sprouted the creation of a mission statement, which is explicit about the values of its organizers. In general, I agree that one can't 'censor' or oversee a writer, not without being appropriating and paternalistic. However, one can create a tone and atmosphere that encourage sensitivity and discretion. Our young poet read different work in the end. I don't know if that addresses your question Hugh. Chag Samiach, RDL ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 18:19:29 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Byrkit Performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Charles, Where can I see some of Becky Byrkit's work? Any on the web? You know, I remember a woman asking me about a reading I was going to do & she wondered if it'd be "appropriate" to bring her daughter. I thought is was kind of an odd question, and now it occurs to me that it was probably in Tucson or Phoenix. What are you guys up to down there?!?! I am curious to see the work: I usually see parents tripping over things their kids would handle calmly, if not for the ensuing drama. If her work is violent, that's one thing; if it's just erotic... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:42:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: for my sederless Boulder Passover MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit a poem from June Jordan's _haruko/love poems_: Why I became a pacifist and then How I became a warrior again: Because nothing I could do or say turned out okay I figured I should just sit still and chill except to maybe mumble ‘Baby, Baby: Stop!’ AND Because turning that other cheek holding my tongue refusing to retaliate when the deal got ugly And because not throwing whoever calls me _bitch_ out the goddamn window And because swallowing my pride saying I’m sorry when whoever don’t like one single thing about me and don’t never take a break from counting up the 65,899 ways I talk wrong I act wrong And because sitting on my fist neglecting to enumerate every incoherent rigid/raggedy-ass/disrespectful/killer cold and self-infatuated crime against love committed by some loudmouth don’t know nothing about it takes 2 to fuck and it takes 2 to fuck things up And because making apologies that nobody gives a shit about And because failing to sing my song finally finally got on my absolute last nerve I pick up my sword I lift up my shield And I stay ready for war Because now I live ready for a whole lot more than that ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 19:52:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: for my sederless Boulder Passover MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit so it'll be me, the cats, the mouse and CYBER SEDER!! http://www.jewmu.com/cyberseder/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 18:47:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Here's one of Becky Bykitt's poems, which was read that night (read underline signs for italics): The Only Dance There Is Oh no! He's going to _show_ it to me -- This gelatinous spore burst like a shot bird's foot -- Splayed, in the nest of his own little egg cup are. God! Is it he, or is it I, in my white spikes and levis, Peeling sweaty red labels off Buds, who becomes Slowly exposed, a pornographic snap developing At a While-U-Wate Shak? Is it my turquoise lighter holder, Or my voice, full of coins and strangulations, That compels the alcoholics, the men I literally live for, To repeatedly ask what I want? _Hey! What do you want?_ I know girls who dance in bars and marry, like, firemen. This man here is so unemployed I could talk to him All night. I'm saddled on a teetering labrador of lust, drunk And ready to fill up a station wagon. It is the _degringolade_ of the species of woman I am -- The curl of my big leg and the smell of that sweat, Redolent and in that Terrible Vicinity. Here _let me buy that,_ I am transmigrating in the _def leppard_ of my "desire" And it has happened before, is happening, will happen again, All of it. It's the old lovemaking in the cemetary routine, Johnny. The last beauty I fell for drank me AND fucked me Under the table. He said, "Hey there you little redheaded sweetiepie, you. Perfection, my life is an open casket funeral; darling, Our love is the visitation hour." You heard what he did next. Frankly I still admire him. I have nevernever touched myself so well, Nor could I observe a man jerk off in a sock with such joy. At times I swear the sex of the earth is the sponge and bedwash for Jesus. At times I swear I could live with a man I'll call "Tom" forever: when we met he bound me with Venetian blind cord And went down on me for roughly nine hours. He delivered His own daughters' sons. You know how it must be for me. Drunk in bars, I feel the righteous _ness_ of humidity and cherry, Initials carved in tequila-drenched grains with "surgical precision." We are listing toward the primordial wind and I talk about men To men. (Once, my hair caught fire in a tavern. The man who set it horsewhipped my head, singeing His shavebrush Stetson.) An absolute glance. Tufts of botched permanent wave. O, You drunk and fucked-up munificence. O, Unshaven, Midnight, Kindly lubricate my introduction to the unspeakable ring of chaos You understand to be your life. You will surely pull the coil out of my car. Oh no! He's going to show it to me -- God save the two of us, supernova. The poem is from her book "Zealand," and can be found in "Best American Poetry 1994." Frankly we've all heard worse, the problem was audience. I think Becky Byrkit clearly screwed up big. The Tucson Poetry Festival got smeared in the process. Rachel writes "there is nothing inherently damaging to children about sexual or homoerotic material." I agree with this one hundred percent, but there are plenty of parents who disagree with this vehemently and who certainly do not want their kids performing on stage while such material is being presented. The question is: do you screen those people out of your event, or do you program your event around those people? I suspect most organizations do a little of both. Rachel, what if the young "channeler" you mentioned in your previous post was on the same bill as someone who read children's poetry, or who brought a lot of kids and their parents into the audience? Wouldn't your cringe factor be multiplied? What if these same parents then went to the local newpaper, and through this your reading series receives the only media publicity it has ever received in the local newsmedia? So, do you tell the "channeler" to censor himself, or do you tell the other reader they might not want to bring their kids to the reading? I find both alternatives somewhat distasteful, but I'm still not quite sure how I would handle it myself. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 20:10:29 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for the poem, Hugh. As the mother of a 10 year old, I know that the word "fuck" would cause quite a stir among the children, but my response to that is kind of humorous, because the kids I know don't use swear words in common discourse, but get a HUGE kick out of them, and especially love to watch their parents respond to them. As for "jerking off in socks," I suspect that'd be a difficult line for a 13 year old to experience in a group of peers. I can't imagine what response Becky was going for. And with (is it Barnes & Noble or B. Dalton?) fighting to keep Jock Sturges' book on their shelves, the whole question of what children should be exposed to flares up again. A good book: _The Body in Question_. Photography & questions of trangression (includes Jock Sturges, Mapplethorpe, the woman who photographs transvetites/transexuals). And for a GREAT essay, check out Dave Hickey on Mapplethorpe in Hickey's _The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty_. I have a Robert Morris book with an image of Morris naked on the cover. All of the kids in the neighborhood are aware of this book, because my daughter, who insists it be turned cover-down in her presence, MUST show it to everyone. And then she explains that we have lots of naked covers on our books, because they're art. I also think of Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc," the gorgeous sculpture that was removed from a public space because at least part of the "public" hated having to walk around it to get to their places of business, etc. It caused quite an argument between two of my friends: one a curator, one a sculptor who often makes public pieces. I don't know the answer to this; but it's a great subject. Hugh Steinberg wrote: > Frankly we've all heard worse, the problem was audience. I think Becky > Byrkit clearly screwed up big. The Tucson Poetry Festival got smeared in > the process. > > Rachel writes "there is nothing inherently damaging to children about > sexual or homoerotic material." > > I agree with this one hundred percent, but there are plenty of parents who > disagree with this vehemently and who certainly do not want their kids > performing on stage while such material is being presented. > > The question is: do you screen those people out of your event, or do you > program your event around those people? I suspect most organizations do a > little of both. > > Rachel, what if the young "channeler" you mentioned in your previous post > was on the same bill as someone who read children's poetry, or who brought > a lot of kids and their parents into the audience? Wouldn't your cringe > factor be multiplied? What if these same parents then went to the local > newpaper, and through this your reading series receives the only media > publicity it has ever received in the local newsmedia? > > So, do you tell the "channeler" to censor himself, or do you tell the other > reader they might not want to bring their kids to the reading? I find both > alternatives somewhat distasteful, but I'm still not quite sure how I would > handle it myself. > > Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 19:42:27 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hugh, I'm so glad to hear/read this note of yours on Charles' post about the Becky Byrkit performance. I feel very much the same way as you (though, for fear of going overboard about something I didn't even witness, I was reluctant to say anything). But this was going through my head: It's one thing to knock the mainstream for not being hip or open to a lot of "our" formal innovations and "radically open" politics; it's another thing altogether to foist that kind of performance on kids and their parents, subject them to a captured audience thing like that (and for what? Shock the bourgeois Equals art?). If art's not supposed to be a commodity, then, I don't know, it just sounds like a disgustingly arrogant (or very regretfully mistaken) gesture, that evening's performance. Then, too, I wasn't there, and some of these feelings of mine come from a considerable bad mood too much poetic theatrics continually and perennially set off in me. Also, I'd hate to sound "conservative," but this just sounds like an awful night and I believe the parents have every right to be angry. Again, Hugh, thanks for your level-headed response, and Charles, too, for bringing up this issue. Steve Tills Hugh Steinberg wrote: > Having known Becky Byrkit and her work for many years, having also worked > for the Tucson Poetry Festival for a number of years, and having been at > Becky's performance that night, I feel obliged to comment on the growing > fiasco. > > I've always admired Becky's work, but the performance that night was just > humiliatingly awful, not because of Becky's writing but because of all the > performance stuff she put around it. Frankly, children don't really have a > place around Becky's work. Her work is often explicit and erotic and > dwells in those dark regions your typical parent of a fourteen year old > just does not want to think about. The song and dance performance was > amateurish in the worst way (if she wanted song and dance, there are plenty > of adult companies in Tucson she could have collaberated with). At many > points during the reading, I caught her deliberately censoring herself > onstage, removing the more graphic elements from her work. Those > compromises weakened her work. She was clearly aware of the growing > disaster that surrounded her that evening, and it showed in the growing > awkwardness of her reading. > > The kids seemed to be having a good time however. I suspect the kid was > crying because his mom had just embarassed him in front of everyone by > yanking him offstage. Lots of parents were pissed: the front three rows > were emptied in such a fashion with angry parents and bewildered kids > storming out. > > One of the reasons I suspect Becky got trapped in this fiasco is because of > an arts organization she heads, called "Voice and Range." The organization > acts as a sort of networking group, connecting different artistic talents > together for eductional and collaborative purposes. I suspect that much of > the performances that night were set up through her organization. To be > blunt, however, Becky should never have included children in her > performance if she was going to read what she usually reads, especially if > it hadn't been vetted through the parents of the kids. > > As for the Tucson Poetry Festival's role in this, my impression was that > they were basically ambushed (although this is not the first time this has > happened: a similar event occurred several years ago when the theme of the > festival was love poetry and the winner of a statewide poetry contest (who > traditionally reads first on a Saturday night) brought her grandchildren to > hear her read, only to be followed by some rather explicit homoerotic love > poetry by Boyer Rickel and Marilyn Hacker). It's not the responsibility of > a literary arts organization to oversee the work of readers. The Festival > has a number of constituencies and has made a concerted effort to be as > open and inclusive as possible. The Festival deliberately targets people > who have never been to a poetry reading. Presenting the work of children > has been an important part of this: a specific reading was set aside on a > saturday afternoon of the festival in which children read their poetry. > This event was very well attended, I doubt if any of the participants were > at Becky's reading the night before. > > The dilemma is not how to present poetry without offending anyone, the > problem is making sure audiences have some idea of what they are getting so > they don't feel ambushed. There's a lot of great poetry out there that > some parents might feel is not appropriate for kids. At the same time, it > would be absolutely dreadful if this was used as an excuse to keep kids > away from all poetry. It would be equally dreadful if this was used as an > excuse to shut down the Tucson Poetry Festival. > > I'd like to hear from other people involved with literary arts > organizations and reading series: how do you handle this issue, of kids > and parents at readings, of presenting explicit work in a public forum? > > Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 20:01:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yeah, this is just SENSATIONALism. Best American Poetry, too? I dunno... Anyway, Hugh, I agree with you even more now that I've seen this, too. I'll see if I can't just shut up now, though. Steve Hugh Steinberg wrote: > Here's one of Becky Bykitt's poems, which was read that night (read > underline signs for italics): > > The Only Dance There Is > > Oh no! He's going to _show_ it to me -- > This gelatinous spore burst like a shot bird's foot -- > Splayed, in the nest of his own little egg cup are. God! > Is it he, or is it I, in my white spikes and levis, > Peeling sweaty red labels off Buds, who becomes > Slowly exposed, a pornographic snap developing > At a While-U-Wate Shak? Is it my turquoise lighter holder, > Or my voice, full of coins and strangulations, > That compels the alcoholics, the men I literally live for, > To repeatedly ask what I want? _Hey! What do you want?_ > I know girls who dance in bars and marry, like, firemen. > This man here is so unemployed I could talk to him > All night. I'm saddled on a teetering labrador of lust, drunk > And ready to fill up a station wagon. It is > > the _degringolade_ of the species of woman I am -- > The curl of my big leg and the smell of that sweat, > Redolent and in that Terrible Vicinity. Here _let me buy that,_ > I am transmigrating in the _def leppard_ of my "desire" > And it has happened before, is happening, will happen again, > All of it. It's the old lovemaking in the cemetary routine, > Johnny. > The last beauty I fell for drank me AND fucked me > Under the table. He said, "Hey there you little redheaded > sweetiepie, you. > Perfection, my life is an open casket funeral; darling, > Our love is the visitation hour." You heard what he did next. > Frankly I still admire him. > I have nevernever touched myself so well, > Nor could I observe a man jerk off in a sock with such joy. > At times I swear the sex of the earth is the sponge and bedwash for Jesus. > At times I swear I could live with a man I'll call "Tom" > forever: when we met he bound me with Venetian blind cord > And went down on me for roughly nine hours. He delivered > His own daughters' sons. You know how it must be for me. > Drunk in bars, I feel the righteous _ness_ of humidity and cherry, > Initials carved in tequila-drenched grains with "surgical > precision." > We are listing toward the primordial wind and I talk about men > To men. (Once, my hair caught fire in a tavern. > The man who set it horsewhipped my head, singeing > His shavebrush Stetson.) > An absolute glance. Tufts of botched permanent wave. O, > You drunk and fucked-up munificence. O, Unshaven, Midnight, > Kindly lubricate my introduction to the unspeakable ring of chaos > You understand to be your life. You will surely pull the coil > out of my car. > Oh no! He's going to show it to me -- > God save the two of us, supernova. > > The poem is from her book "Zealand," and can be found in "Best American > Poetry 1994." > > Frankly we've all heard worse, the problem was audience. I think Becky > Byrkit clearly screwed up big. The Tucson Poetry Festival got smeared in > the process. > > Rachel writes "there is nothing inherently damaging to children about > sexual or homoerotic material." > > I agree with this one hundred percent, but there are plenty of parents who > disagree with this vehemently and who certainly do not want their kids > performing on stage while such material is being presented. > > The question is: do you screen those people out of your event, or do you > program your event around those people? I suspect most organizations do a > little of both. > > Rachel, what if the young "channeler" you mentioned in your previous post > was on the same bill as someone who read children's poetry, or who brought > a lot of kids and their parents into the audience? Wouldn't your cringe > factor be multiplied? What if these same parents then went to the local > newpaper, and through this your reading series receives the only media > publicity it has ever received in the local newsmedia? > > So, do you tell the "channeler" to censor himself, or do you tell the other > reader they might not want to bring their kids to the reading? I find both > alternatives somewhat distasteful, but I'm still not quite sure how I would > handle it myself. > > Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 21:11:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance In-Reply-To: <3521B7A2.F3F610BE@vom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The Byrkit issue is a tough one. I do fault Becky Byrkit for getting children involved in a performance they didn't know, and their parents didn't know, would have the kind of content it had. I also don't think children need to be saved from the erotic, not at all. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here. More about a poet who didn't let children or parents (not in the audience, but IN her performance) know what that performance was about. Should they have asked? Probably so. But that doesn't excuse Byrkit. As far as what she read or performed, I have no problem with it, nor with it being available to audiences of all ages. I'm not enthused about her work at all, but I would never censor it or try to limit its audience. I do think the newspaper article was ridiculous, although not AS ridiculous as some community responses to it. If you want to see the online version of the article, I believe you can find it at http://www.azstarnet.com or at least you can today, I don't know what they do there when the next day's issue of the online paper comes out. But the online version has responses from the community linked to it. While one I read this morning supports the poet, others do not, and even invoke more strangeness than the newspaper quote about speaking "negatively about god." One respondent decries the foibles of liberals and ends with the question, "Where is Joe McCarthy when we need him?" We can laugh at that, but it's also scary. And of course, the sad thing to me is, after all the 16 years of this poetry festival, years which have featured people like bp Nichol, Robert Creeley, Daphne Marlatt, Kamau Brathwaite, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Nathaniel Tarn, Ron Silliman, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, Rosmarie Waldrop, Jerome Rothenberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nathaniel Mackey, and many many more -- THIS is what commands the newspaper's front page attention. It (the Byrkit event) wasn't good poetry, and it's not good news. charles ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 20:12:12 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rachel, I don't think the erotic is bad. For children? I can't decide that for them or their parents/guardians. "She needs to be punished"? Well, of course not. But it's quite possible she showed exceptionally bad taste or simply (quite possibly) made some regretful choices that evening. Steve Tills Rachel Levitsky wrote: > ``I think she needs to be punished,'' he said. ``No children should be > subjected to something like this.'' > > Do listlings agree with this, that the erotic is 'bad' for children? > > " a similar event occurred several years ago when the theme of the > festival was love poetry and the winner of a statewide poetry contest > (who > traditionally reads first on a Saturday night) brought her grandchildren > to > hear her read, only to be followed by some rather explicit homoerotic > love > poetry by Boyer Rickel and Marilyn Hacker)." --from Hugh's post > > I wasn't there and don't know the work. Certianly, it is bad faith to > include in your performance, a group who you think might be alienated > by/from the work. However, there is nothing inherently damaging to > children about sexual or homoerotic material. Children, need I > remind, are "subjected to" and "ambushed by" an abundance of what I > would call inappropriate imagery of starving women made to look sexy on > buses, and the obvious violence bla bla bla, we all know this. And > Marilyn Hacker's poetry is offensive because of a piece of phallic > plastic????? In a session devoted to love poetry?? What'd they think? > > A personal experience: > > A young poet wanted to read at Left Hand and sent me work. I was trying > to encourage just this thing and felt I needed to honor his effort, > despite my reservations about the person. The week before his > scheduled reading, I heard him read, and was so offended that I walked > out (this, as far as I recall has only happened to me one other time, I > think it was Richard Hell--what da ya think a that?) He, a 20yr old Jew > from phily, was "channeling" black slaves on plantations, and young > women being sexually abused, and another I didn't hear because I left. > His depictions were stereotypical, narrow, extremely flawed vis a vis > bad acting, and violent/screaming. So much for the subject matter being > the problem. Obviously both of those subjects could be handled in many > sensible, sensitive and textured ways. Still, as awful as I found it, he > has his fans who love his work, see it as cutting edge. > > I flipped. Safety, respect between reader & audience are critical to > the Left Hand Reading Series. I wanted to ban him, or read his work in > advance or tell him he couldn't read that shit in our space. I felt > righteous and justified when I called a meeting between him and the > organizers. We'd decided the most we could do was ask him not to > channel. But as soon as we were done speaking with him, we knew, we had > to take it back. So we told him he knew our feelings and could read > whatever he wanted. Thus sprouted the creation of a mission statement, > which is explicit about the values of its organizers. In general, I > agree that one can't 'censor' or oversee a writer, not without being > appropriating and paternalistic. However, one can create a tone and > atmosphere that encourage sensitivity and discretion. Our young poet > read different work in the end. > > I don't know if that addresses your question Hugh. > > Chag Samiach, > RDL ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 01:36:42 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: MOVING BORDER/MM KIM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------ Message Follows ------- help!! my copy of Moving Borders went to Oregon by mistake & I have to wait another week . . . what agony! Was wondering if any would be so kind as to share -- I'd love a peak at the table of contents . . . maybe someone can fax me a photocopy? of give a quick rundown here or backchannel? thx. also, am looking for the e or s mail of Myunk Mi Kim. . . thx. again ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 01:23:22 -0700 Reply-To: ttheatre@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen and Trevor Organization: Tea Theatre Subject: Re: MOVING BORDER/MM KIM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Myung Kim can be reached at Department of Creative Writing San Francisco State Univ 1600 Holloway Ave San Francisco, CA 94132 linda russo wrote: > > ------ Message Follows ------- > > help!! > > my copy of Moving Borders went to Oregon by mistake & I have to wait > another week . . . what agony! Was wondering if any would be so kind > as to share -- I'd love a peak at the table of contents . . . maybe > someone can fax me a photocopy? of give a quick rundown here or > backchannel? thx. > > also, am looking for the e or s mail of Myunk Mi Kim. . . thx. again ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 01:25:41 -0700 Reply-To: ttheatre@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen and Trevor Organization: Tea Theatre Subject: Re: Poetics of comic strips MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ScoutEW wrote: > > Ever seen the stuff Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard have done with comics? > At the current display at the NY public library sits is one of their > originals. > Comics sit side by side with poetry in my mind > some of my favorites > 1 Daredevil > 2 Mighty Mouse (yeah he was a superhero) > 3 The Invisible Woman > 4. Iron Fist and Power Man > 5. Hawkeye > and yours.. Sandman Books of Magic House of Secrets Various mini series along these lines usually involving Gaiman and/or McKean I'm interested in selling some Vertigo titles as well--anyone can backchannel if interested Karen McKevitt ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 01:18:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Poetics of comic strips In-Reply-To: <973d948e.352eaf49@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Comics sit side by side with poetry in my mind >some of my favorites >1 Daredevil Do you mean the original one in (I think) EC Comics, or the more recent one in the red outfit , the blind guy for Marvel? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 07:42:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Robert J. Tiess" Subject: Spring 1998 Poetfest Anthology ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ P O E T F E S T P R E S S R E L E A S E The Spring 1998 Poetfest Anthology, Seasons, is officially available for your enjoyment at the Poetfest site. Over 100 pages of poets of all ages and levels of poetic experience from all over the world. The URL to Poetfest is http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7101 Join us today. Poetfest is a free series of poetry collections I publish quarterly on the Internet. You are all invite to participate in this worldwide event. Thank you for your time, and take care. Robert J. Tiess rjtiess@juno.com ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ - _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 08:37:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Poetry Comics Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The Shakespeare of the comic-collage = poem genre has to be Jess (aka Jess Collins, nee Burgess Collins), Robert Duncan's longtime partner. In a rather different vein, Dave Morice has turned many classic poems into comics of various sorts. One of Tom Raworth's books has an orange rectangle image on the cover which is credited on the verso as Mercator's Orange. My 6-year-olds have been loving A Humament with a directness that makes me realize exactly what a "picture book" it really is (tho, frankly, there are a few pages we mumble through so as to avoid the Arizona ambush problem ourselves). Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 10:39:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: A. Berrigan/Y. Morrison at Canessa Park Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic and Canessa Park Reading Series present: Anselm Berrigan Yedda Morrison Tuesday, April 14, 7:30 p.m. at Canessa Park 708 Montgomery at Columbus San Francisco $5 I remember going to a reading way back in the 1990s when Anselm Berrigan was introduced as "the sexiest poet in San Francisco." Well, he's grayed and matured now (and moved to Brooklyn) but the former It Boy still knows how to pack a poem with wit, touch, a shimmering irony and plenty of U-turns between sense and bafflement. Berrigan is a vortex, a nexus, a weather system all to himself. Wherever he goes he catalyzes atmospheres, scenes, admirers, and this fine new work. Words--the right words--spin his way like darts. Berrigan is the author of On The Premises (Gas Editions) and They Beat Me Over the Head with a Sack (Edge Books). He currently teaches at Brooklyn College. This event marks a happy return for us. We celebrate with Yedda Morrison the publication of her first book, Her Knife, Fork & Spoon: A Book of Etiquette (Double Lucy Press), and the first issue of Tripwire, the magazine of youth poetics she edits with David Buuck. She was born in San Francisco, lived in a free store in the Haight Ashbury, and spent her childhood "on communes, attending anti-nuclear power rallies, etc." She was the assistant editor for Moving Border_ and a former intern at Small Press Traffic. In Morrison's writing distinctions disappear between person and object, object and subject, tense and waistcoat. On this shifting ground of raw, burnt satin, an uneasily female perspective emerges, evoking the claustrophobic sensuality of Eva Hesse, Gloria Grahame, Jean Rhys. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:47:51 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Talisman Announcements Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu From: MX%"efoster@stevens-tech.edu" 11-APR-1998 11:15:04.08 To: MX%"kimmelman@admin.njit.edu" CC: Subj: Re: see below Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 11:15:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Edward Foster To: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: see below In-Reply-To: <009BA3A9.EA520F5C.7@admin.njit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII burt: could you please forward this to the buffalo chat line? GRAND OCCASIONS FOR WONDER AND JOY. POETRY LIVES! (1) A GREAT AND WONDERFUL EVENING OF CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION: with Vitaly Chernevsky, Alex Cigale, Thomas Epstein, Vladimir Gandelsman, Henry Gould, John High, Bob Holman, Lisa Jarnot, Julia Kunina, Mark Lipovetsky, Yaroslav Magutin, Kristin Prevellet, Vadim Mesyats, Leonard Schwartz, Eleni Sikelianos, Tod Thilleman, Sam Truitt, Lewis Warsh, and others Tuesday, April 14th; 7:00 P.M Bissinger Room, Stevens Center, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. -- Convenient to PATH -- Please call (201) 216-5398 for directions and further information. FREE! (2) PLEASE JOIN US TO CELEBRATE THE PUBLICATION OF: _MOVING BORDERS: THREE DECADES OF INNOVATIVE WRITING BY WOMEN_, edited by Mary Margaret Sloan. Readings from the anthology by Abby Child, Jessica Grim, Erica Hunt, Maureen Owen, Julia Patton, Mary Margaret Sloan, Rosmarie Waldrop, Marjorie Welish, and others. Friday, April 17, 1998; 7:30 P.M. CERES GALLERY, Suite 306, 584/588 Broadway (nr. Spring Street, Soho), New York City. FREE! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:39:54 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RaeA100900 Subject: Moving Borders Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I haven't gotten my copy of Moving Borders either - and I'm a contributor! I wonder if this is typical or if I have a unique situation which I should take up with "the proper authorities." Rae Armantrout ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:11:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Talisman Hegemony at Last! Comments: To: ARCHAMBEAU@lfc.edu In-Reply-To: <352E3A81.34BE@LFC.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" just had a chance to look at this book, courtesy of mark nowak, one of its inmates...it's a lovely book, quite satisfying, and aroused the admiration of several of my guests at last night's anti-seder party (there was some leavened bread served and no haggadahs available until after desert). At 3:28 PM +0000 4/10/98, Robert Archambeau wrote: >So there I was in downtown Lake Forest, IL on my way to grab what passes >for a bagel around here when I see a stack of the >Jarnot/Schwartz/Stroffolino Talisman "Anthology of New (American) Poets" >gleaming in the window display of the local B. Dalton's. > >Given the sort of books they normally carry, this is an occurence on par >with seeing a cardboard cutout of Tom Raworth in the window of the local >hardware store. Whoever is handling distribution at Talisman House has >my eternal admiration. Today B. Dalton, tomorrow the world! > >By the way -- anyone else find Rosmarie Waldrop's cover blurb -- "it's >the language of the future" a little ominous? Will the second edition >say "We will bury you"? > >Best, > >Bob > > >-- >Robert Archambeau >Department of English >Lake Forest College >Lake Forest, IL 60045 >http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ > >" on the end >of each decision stands a heretic" >--Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:16:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: SF catsitting gig Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, this is Kevin Killian in San Francisco. Dodie Bellamy and I will be out of town from April 24th through May 3, and I'm looking for someone who can come and stay in our apartment while we're away. If you're coming to San Francisco during this period and looking for a place to stay let me know. Basically I need someone to feed our two cats and take in all the mail. The cats, Blanche and Stanley, are quite friendly and love having visitors. The apartment is close to downtown San Francisco and right in the middle of everything. For those of you who have never been here it was featured in Feb 1995 issue of ARTFORUM and believe me has not changed much in the intervening years. So, let me know if you can help me out here. Even if you are not staying long or just for a weekend or whatever it would still help me. Back channel please, although all would be interested I'm sure in how I'm solving this common problem. Thanks Kevin K. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:37:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: comics page collage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" one aspect of this was used quite effectively by the situationists, including guy debord, and was known as detournement. Primarily the panels remained, the dialogue was all rewritten to support political mayhem, Rex Organ, was early american one by Jess? http://www.nothingness.org/SI/fullindex.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 21:49:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: re : Alien Dreams Now: EMRadiation and New Cosmologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Bob Ez. is this what you mean by Cherenkov radiation (see definition below)? >Can you provide a better definition than the one below? Can you provide an >explanation why Cherenkov radiation is important to your argument or I guess I >don't really understand tachyons and how they would emit light and what speeds >that light would travel at? I backchanneled the grisly details. >quick flashes of blue Cherenkov light that result from gamma ray air showers. >These gamma rays originate from astrophysical sources at galactic and >extragalactic distances. When they enter the earth's atmosphere, the gamma >rays interact with air molecules, creating an extensive shower of high-energy >particles. These particles go faster than the speed of light in air, and thus >emit light, or Cherenkov radiation. This radiation (at optical and ultraviolet >wavelengths) is beamed to the ground, where it is readily collected by the >heliostat mirrors." Actually it is the blue light emitting aliens that I would worry about most. The ones that emit a a blue glow might cook you with the likes of high energy gammas much more easily than the green glow aliens. The green glow aliens are nothing nice, to take home to dinner, either. They could cook you almost as easily. This is why I always laugh about the friendly green glowing men from Mars. They are anything but friendly. More alike to walking into an xray machine without any lead shielding ? Possibly. The yellowish scintillating glow aliens, and the orange yellow glow and reddish glow aliens are relatively safe in comparison. Might be a little warm settling down to dinner with a reddish glow alien, but it should be safe enough unless spontaneous combustion happens. The yellowish scintillations are most common of all, and safest of all. Some ghost stories include those. That is what the ghosts appear to be. They are sensed as yellowish or yellowish orange scintillations. I myself have had some experiences of that kind. The first when I was a an early teen. It was a battlefield of the war of 1812 - 14, in Stoney Creek Ontario and while in the park I "bumped into" something. It was perceivable as a human form of yellowish scintillation to orange scintillation like the profile of a person from head to foot. Stronger at the head and about five feet roughly in height. I am sure it was a dead soldier. At least the energetic imprint of one that might have died there, leaving some emanations as information locked into the local matrix of material stuff that had persisted from that time period. Inter dimensionals also manifest as yellowish and yellowish orange scintillations sometimes. Lots of stories to that effect, so I tend to believe there is a basic natural phenomenon in common to all of that, and in common to what is at the basis of Cherenkov radiation. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 20:01:19 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Treaded chit-chat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT i really fell out of the loop on this thread; i hope it's not too late . . . the conversation has gone many places & it's been fun catching up -- & in light of the quiteness of this (apostate?) list time i'll jump right in. . . so here i am, "womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and the mop" (Hawthorne) but mostly i want to respond to Mark Weiss' post: > Somebody a long time ago decided that rhymes ending with an unstressed > syllable were "female." The designation was certainly applied by a male, > and while the designation is rich with suggestion about attitudes about > gender, it's prosodically nonsensical. isn't it also, though, prosidically _sensical_ -- one way to make sense, which happens to be mapped onto another sense-making system (gender)? > Men and women have been more-or-less communicating with language for a long > time, and men and women have been unselfconsciously enjoying each other's > writing for almost as long as there's been writing, and usually without the > need of a translator. So the differences must be relatively superficial. Or rather, men have been "communicating" to women . . . not to forget that we're also talking about a power relation. But this thread has, i think, moved beyond that -- i agree with you, more or less about the genders understanding eachother -- only it's not that the differences are superficial, but that they're so widespread & undetectable; i mean to stake difference between two genders is just one way of mapping, delimiting & so discussing, "difference"; just as cixous & irigaray map gender onto writing to talk abt. it. Of course women don't write differently from men as a gender -- but women relate to the whole set of relationships, of which language is but one, "differently" (in a set which includes innumerable differentlies). So as reductive as French feminisms is in places, I can understand the use, however temporal/ary in making that reduction. When Irigaray & Kristeva try to get at a different understanding of time, of narrative, of logic, they want nothing less than to rewrite (or at least irrupt) the whole of western metaphysics -- & they see possessing a body marked "other" as being capable in some ways of accomplishing that; they see the text as one thing that can be a marker of that different set of relations, in this case in text's opacity, rather than in its transparency (to pull out a whole other set of binaries that are often dispute) > I don't know that the suggested gender difference, however slight or major, > is important to any agenda, but I would be intrigued if it exists. Rather > than quoting theorists why not present a text and explain convincingly why > it has to be by a member of one or another gender? I don't think this is what Katy was after -- rather she saw certain formal/syntactic qualities as having been employed by women writers to perhaps mark or "gender" a text. (hence katy's words: >I think it is also entirely possible to do individual readings of > various "experimental" female writers through a lens of gender > identificiation i.e. a lense that sees gender -- am i right, katy?) I'd like to talk a little more about the gendering though -- if we're trying (as an intellectual socius) to think beyond binaries then we have to allow that texts can be multiply marked "others" with the understanding that there is no "self" (in the self/other equation) -- & by singling out women writers we undermine that effort -- though i'd feel pretty comfortable saying texts can be marked "other" than hegemonic, i.e. antinomian, thereby relating "otherness" to a whole set of operations (in some places denoted as patriarchy -- though what does that really mean anymore?) rather than to a particular "gender" (o great now i have to put that in scare quotes) Of course women aren't more prone to dashes or rupture or hypotaxis. But according to Irigaray, until we find a "female" language that women can't exist as other than "other"; now if you're a lacanian this makes perfect sense!! -- but this is just the sexier version of the "dream of a common language" -- it doesn't exist & there's no reason why men can't go searching for it as well! I think a lot of what goes on in contemporary women's poetry is the refusal to be "othered" & a claiming of language as a material to explore all sorts of difference -- while still being a "feminist" (in Howe's antinomian sense of the word, or Dodie's sense of it not being a valid word). But that just might be my sense of my ill-fraught intentionalism which doesn't make it through my texts anyway. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 22:18:29 -0400 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: re : Alien Dreams Now: EMRadiation and New Cosmologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit morpheal wrote: > > >Bob Ez. is this what you mean by Cherenkov radiation (see definition below)? > >Can you provide a better definition than the one below? Can you provide an > >explanation why Cherenkov radiation is important to your argument or I guess I > >don't really understand tachyons and how they would emit light and what speeds > >that light would travel at? > > I backchanneled the grisly details. > > >quick flashes of blue Cherenkov light that result from gamma ray air showers. > >These gamma rays originate from astrophysical sources at galactic and > >extragalactic distances. When they enter the earth's atmosphere, the gamma > >rays interact with air molecules, creating an extensive shower of high-energy > >particles. These particles go faster than the speed of light in air, and thus > >emit light, or Cherenkov radiation. This radiation (at optical and ultraviolet > >wavelengths) is beamed to the ground, where it is readily collected by the > >heliostat mirrors." > > Actually it is the blue light emitting aliens that I would worry about most. > The ones that emit a a blue glow might cook you with the likes of high energy > gammas much more easily than the green glow aliens. The green glow aliens are > nothing nice, to take home to dinner, either. They could cook you almost as > easily. This is why I always laugh about the friendly green glowing men from > Mars. They are anything but friendly. More alike to walking into an xray > machine without any lead shielding ? Possibly. > > The yellowish scintillating glow aliens, and the orange yellow glow and > reddish glow aliens are relatively safe in comparison. Might be a little > warm settling down to dinner with a reddish glow alien, but it should be > safe enough unless > spontaneous combustion happens. > > The yellowish scintillations are most common of all, and safest of all. > > Some ghost stories include those. That is what the ghosts appear to be. They > are sensed as yellowish or yellowish orange scintillations. > > I myself have had some experiences of that kind. The first when I was a > an early teen. It was a battlefield of the war of 1812 - 14, in Stoney Creek > Ontario and while in the park I "bumped into" something. It was perceivable > as a human form of yellowish scintillation to orange scintillation like the > profile > of a person from head to foot. Stronger at the head and about five feet > roughly in height. I am sure it was a dead soldier. At least the energetic > imprint of one that might have died there, leaving some emanations as > information locked into the local matrix of material stuff that had > persisted from that time period. > > Inter dimensionals also manifest as yellowish and yellowish orange > scintillations sometimes. Lots of stories to that effect, so I tend to > believe there is a basic natural phenomenon in common to all of that, and in > common to what is at the basis of Cherenkov radiation. > > M. "Cherenkov [Cerenkov] radiation (P.A. Cherenkov) Radiation emitted by a massive particle which is moving faster than light in the medium through which it is travelling. No particle can travel faster than light in vacuum, but the speed of light in other media, such as water, glass, etc., are considerably lower. Cherenkov radiation is the electromagnetic analogue of the sonic boom, though Cherenkov radiation is a shockwave set up in the electromagnetic field." This comes from http://www.goto.com/p/resultframes.mp?rawq=Cherenkov+radiation&canon=%28cherenkov%26radiation%29&index=0&urllist=eD%2f%2bdQ02Q2Im5iRX5uelglXnJlboF2RUFmcmF%2bvnJJYX6ydjak3MyU2sAqvOy09KzYGrRzZftzg5Uy8nM0mvFEiD3BLsGgBVmJhjDDUTAJpKL9E%3d&type=search Obviously, this doesn't [didn't? won't? -- I guess it depends on how quick you are...] help. Help! Does the Cherenkov radiation derive [proceed? precede?] only from tachyons? & even if so [ Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Daredevil, Diane Wakowski Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I am pretty sure that Daredevil aka MATT Murdock has been around in comic form before anyone on this poetics list was born, who knows? like 1920s.. What say someone backchannel me with Sean Killian (of Catskill fame)'s phone numbers so I can tell him about the Tortoise show in NYC _On the Poetics of collage, I see some of Scalapino as collage, Dead Souls possibly but what I enjoy the most is some of Ezra Pound's Cantos...it depends.. When growing up my favorite thing to say around the late 70s was "Wondertwins Power ACTIVATE" touching invisible rings to my sister Tanya's hand. "Form of a Bucket of water" and then throwing myself down on the ground headache county! So somebody explain something to me about Diane Wakowski, in some of her earlier poems she talks about a twin brother who commits suicide, in a later interview I read that this brother possibly never existed.. and when people asked her about it she would look away. So what's the deal with this, did she make him up or what? I know it shouldn't matter but it doesn't make sense to make up a twin suicide, if it is real that is truly horrible....my nightmare.. "Form of a mouse astronaut!" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 21:25:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Antenym 15 celebration in Golden Gate Park Comments: To: galbon@planeteria.net, jaukee@slip.net, batshyra@aol.com, npop3@aol.com, marott@aol.com, windhover@sprintmail.com, dcmb@metro.net, cburket@sfsu.edu, mburger@adobe.com, kristinb@wired.com, aburns@calfed.com, cchadwick@metro.net, cah@sonic.net, vent@sirius.com, normacole@aol.com, idiom@dnai.com, acornford@igc.org, christopher.daniels@bender.com, Leslie_Davis-PLE@peoplesoft.com, jday@uclink.berkeley.edu, jelike@slip.net, cyanosis@slip.net, jasfoley@aol.com, kfraser@sfsu.edu, efrost1973@aol.com, gach@uclink.berkeley.edu, peter_gizzi@macmail.ucsc.edu, rgladman@sfaids.ucsf.edu, chrisko@sirius.com, hale@etak.com, 70550.654@compuserve.com, BHerb23679@aol.com, jhigh54184@aol.com, glenning@juno.com, andrew_joron@sfbg.com, dbkk@sirius.com, zorlook@aol.com, tlovell@sfsu.edu, lucasb@alpha.usfca.edu, 75323.740@compuserve.com, macleod@dnai.com, dmelt@ccnet.com, ruralwanab@aol.com, moriarty@sfsu.edu, murphym@earthlink.com, peacock99@aol.com, anielsen@popmail.lmu.edu, doug@herring.com, 103730.2033@compuserve.com, kit_robinson@peoplesoft.com, walterblue@bigbridge.org, sikona@aol.com, openedend@aol.com, jays@sirius.com, selby@slip.net, 75477.2255@compuserve.com, ashurin@sfsu.edu, charssmith@aol.com, bstrang@sfsu.edu, 102573.414@compuserve.com, stills@vom.com, rod4rigo@aol.com, xerxes999@aol.com, josephine@sfaquarium.org, juliaw@babcockbrown.com, switt@sirius.com, evrick@aol.com, mbaker@sfsu.edu, mariabrown@aol.com, tubesox@sirius.com, celeste@slip.net, eve@tippett.com, janine@makeacircus.org, spd@igc.apc.org, ovenman@slip.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (Apologies to anyone who receives this message more than once) announcing A CELEBRATION OF THE PUBLICATION OF *Antenym* 15 Sunday, April 26th 2:00 PM $3 donation Redwood Trail, Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park featuring a reading by Eric Selland Improved directions to reading: 1. Enter Strybing Arboretum through its main entrance gate, located adjacent to the Golden Gate Park Entrance at the intersection of 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way. 2. After entering Strybing Arboretum gate, look for the paved path heading south towards Lincoln Way (sign marked "California Natives"). 3. Follow this paved path, staying roughly parallel to Lincoln Way until you reach the nursery buildings. 4. After passing the nursery buildings, bear right (north) on the paved path and look for the Redwood Trail sign. The Redwood Trail is an unpaved path. 5. Follow the Redwood Trail and look for markers #17 and #18. Nearby is a tree-ringed clearing with benches and a tree-stump podium. The reading is here. For more information or a map, call Steve Carll at 415-824-5883, or email sjcarll@slip.net, or write 106 Fair Oaks St. #1, San Francisco, CA 94110-2951. Antenym 15 features the complete text of Eric Selland's *The Condition of Music*, as well as work by: Stephen Collis (Burnaby, B.C.), Ann Erickson (Santa Rosa, CA), Norman Fischer (Sausalito, CA), Celestine Frost (New York City), Jim Leftwich (Charlottesville, VA), Patrick Pritchett (Boulder, CO), Elizabeth Robinson (Berkeley), Joe Ross (San Diego), Standard Schaefer (Pasadena, CA), Paul Silvia (Lawrence, KS), and Perrin Wright (Brooklyn) and two front covers designed by Spencer Selby and Steve Carll. ********************************** 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: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 00:02:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Moving Borders Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:39:54 EDT From: RaeA100900 Subject: Moving Borders I haven't gotten my copy of Moving Borders either - and I'm a contributor! I wonder if this is typical or if I have a unique situation which I should take up with "the proper authorities." Rae Armantrout Rae, Nobody's gotten their contributors copy. The book's only been in print for like two weeks. We had two cases of them at the reading at SPT and we sold out. We could have easily sold another case. 120 people came. The readers kept saying what a "moving" experience it was. Though I don't have time to print out the entire table of contents, here are Rae's poems: Grace, Dusk, Single Most, Admission, Home Federal, Mechanism, The Book, Attention, Covers, The Daffodils, A Pulse, Kinds, and The Plot. A great selection and we're looking forward to your new book from Atelos, *True*. You're sandwiched between Abigail Child and Kathy Acker. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 00:15:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: local issue: byrkit performance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is Kevin Killian, thinking anecdotally about the issue of children and how they're affected by the performance of the erotic on stage.... Dodie remembers seeing Asa Watten placidly and studiously coloring and drawing on the floor of some of the most bizarre poetry events in Bay Area history. Nothing fazed Asa, he always had a new picture to draw. And he could sit through the lo-n-n-g-est poetry marathons too, he had the incredible, grave, patience of a Buddha. I remember putting on Raymond Pettibon's play "Horror Tape Script" at New Langton Arts last year, or two years ago, and for the first time worrying, wow, what if kids come to this. [Those of you who have read the script will know it's a text originally written for videotape about 3 high school football players and their cheerleader girlfriends. Spending a weekend at a deserted, spooky mountain lake.] The other actors and I had to simulate all kinds of sex on stage, as well as mouth some raw language of the Pettibon kind. None of us were actually teens, though Edmund Berrigan came close.] I told the box office, don't sell any seats to kids. I didn't want their little faces staring in shock. I don't like them anyhow and don't think they bring much to the party. Hopefully the choir children in Becky Byrkit's performance will tonight be looking at their socks in a new way, etc. Dear Charles (Alexander), I'm coming to Tucson next month and plan to behave as decorously as possible! When I was a little boy Ann-Margret came to our school and sang and danced dressed up as one of Santa's helpers and I was terrified, she was so sexy, I started crying and crying and haven't stopped since. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 09:51:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gleason Subject: Re: catsitting gig MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" even though i've been fairly silent for a few months now, i thought it would be worth it to break my silence for kevin and dodie's cats. both these cats are real sweethearts. if blanche likes you, your lap becomes her new favorite seat. stanley used to spook me, he just looks at you with some weird calm gaze. this cat *knows* something. but i think he comes to respect you if you act like you know something too. and they don't even make me sneeze much. eryque ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 10:49:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: women poets from Ireland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A little help here: My wife got hooked into participating in an event at a local used bookstore wherein she (and about a dozen others) are going to read Irish poets. She's fairly certain the usual suspects will be well represented, and would like to read some women poets. The problem: I'm either drawing a blank on women poets from Ireland (except Eaven Boland), or I'm thoroughly ignorant on this topic (I'm casting the first vote for the latter). So as I said, a little help, please... The reading will by saturday, april 18. And all help, however little, will be appreciated. Backchannel if you prefer... David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago to belong to whatever moves us outward into the wideness, for journeying... --Hilda Morley ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 08:25:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" eilleen ni cuchulain medb mcgucken(sp?) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 11:37:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I saw Medb read a few years ago.... she was super excellent. I think that a lot of her work (or a portion of it) was in some pretty heavy dialect... but some of it was also in standard (readable/pronouncable) English... Katy *** On Sun, 12 Apr 1998, Billy Little wrote: > eilleen ni cuchulain > medb mcgucken(sp?) > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 13:03:09 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rprunty Subject: Re: Antenym, improved directions to reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Improved directions for reading enter Probing. arboretum through its nonmain entrance. gate located adjacent to. Golden Gate sPark at the intersection. of 9th hA-venue and Langpo Way. after entering Stray, bing the Arboretum gate, palooking paved path for all others heading south. towards (sign marked "California Natives"). follow this paved path, straying roughly. parallax L'way until you hear the screech, the nursery buildings. children ambushed by erotica. after pasting the nursery buildings, bare (its your right) (north) on the paved path and look for the Assonance enTrail sign. this is an unpaved path. follow the Reading sWay and look for markers… #17…. #18. three-ring bound clearing with benches and a tree-stump podium. the reading is here. R Prunty ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 13:42:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Not to be missed: Catherine Walsh They'll especially like the opening of _Pitch_ (Pig Press) maybe Si yo pudiera tocar la luna Si yo pudiera colgarlo desde mi ventana como una nina tonta con su afan de verle las tripas de toda (Don't know how to make those irish diacritical marks on the computer) See also _idir eatortha and making tents_ (invisible books) These and earlier books available SPD and elsewhere Work in _Out of Everywhere_ as well Other stuff forthcoming in Talisman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 17:28:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Not to be missed: Catherine Walsh > >Work in _Out of Everywhere_ as well Whoops, misremumbled, no Walsh there, no Ireland, lots of other everywhere ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 19:43:58 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: after emmett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit after emmett a dispersion of ninetiles a typofantastic epic voyage by Miekal And http://net22.com/qazingulaza/joglars/afteremmett/bonvoyage.html after emmett was created during april 1998 using selected letters from the following fonts: albatross, arial, attic, avant garde, bodoni, cochin, contraband, cooper black, courier, exocet heavy, friz quadrata, georgia, gilligans island, goudy heavy, goudy oldstyle, goudy thin, harlequin, harrington, helvetica, impact, kronk, lemiesz, lubalin graph, milano, oakwood, OPTIflare, optima, poster bodoni, potsdam, premium truetype, rocky, stonecutter, stiletto, thunderbird, trajan, ultrablack, university roman, ursa serif , utopia, vedome, verdana. animations rendered using adobe photoshop & the nifty shareware gifbuilder. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 20:51:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 12 Apr 1998, Billy Little wrote: > eilleen ni cuchulain > medb mcgucken(sp?) spellcheck: Eilean Ni Chuilleannain Medbh McGuckian (pron. "mave") Others: Nuala Ni Dhomnhaill (she writes in Irish; very good translations available from Wake Forest/Gallery Press) Paula Meehan Catherine Walsh Sara Berkley Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 20:54:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Was: Censorship and Belief NOW: Something of great constancy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Now just where does such an experiment take one? >If you succeed, you can not possibly answer my question, no? > >Richard Reeve I have no idea where the experiment actually takes one. That is the part I have not the slightest clue about..... M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 01:00:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Scavenger hunt suggestions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'll be teaching a poetry class to middle school students this quarter and I want to focus on collage. My idea is to have the students make up scrapbooks, and what I'm looking for are short, simple, scavenger hunt type instructions/exercises to provide them with tools for extracting possible poetic material out of text. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 04:57:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laura and jeff Subject: goodbye MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" it's been fun and interesting, but i've got to sign off for a bit. too much going on. thanks. jeff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if the stars are lit it means there is someone who needs it. It means it is essential that every evening at least one star should ascend over the crest of the building. -mayakovsky, from "listen" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 08:06:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: fwd: Arguelles/Foley reading, & interview Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >From: JASFOLEY >Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 01:07:15 EDT >Subject: reading > >For those of you who can attend the reading, please do. Everyone else might be >interested in the interview. > >Book Release Celebration > >for New Poetry from California: Dead / Requiem > >Ivan Arguelles & Jack Foley >Introduced by Neeli Cherkovski > >Sunday, April 19 >4 - 6 PM >City Lights Books >261 Columbus Avenue >San Francisco > >* > >The online magazine, CitySearch, interviewed Jack Foley for National Poetry >Month. Foley talked about the literary history of the San Francisco Bay Area >from the 1940's to the present. CitySearch is also featuring a time line in >which significant literary events of that time period are cited. The interview >and time line will be posted April 13th. > >Look for: > >http://www.citysearch.com > >Then click on "San Francisco." > >Click on "Feature Stories" (NOT "Arts & Entertainment"). > >Click on "Local Howlers." > > >Alternative method: > >If you want to go to "Local Howlers" directly, the address is: > >http://www.citysearch7.com/E/F/SFOCA/0000/07/92/ > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 16:10:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "DANIEL L. COLLIER" Subject: Poetry Comics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Thanks to Ron, "ScoutEW" and Billy Little for the references. I'm a little far from New York, and will be until at least September, so I'm pretty sure I'll miss the Padgett/Brainard piece. Are there any interesting examples of misappropriation of comic strip panels in books or journals which I can look up when I get back to the US? I'm particularly interested in Jess/Jess/Burgess' purported Shakespearian range. Thanks again. Danny ------------------- "Ivanov reads his book until the controller gives him a fine; on Monday morning, life is a bit hard." -- Aquarium, "Ivanov" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:27:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Hey, Kids! Comics! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Erik & Others: Thought you might be interested in exploring some of these non-mainstream & self-published "poetic" comic-artist heroes of mine . . . Dame Darcy's _Meat Cake_ . . . cartoon renderings of original gothic/Helen Adamesque tales . . . spine chilling! . . . poetic! . . . super groovy! . . . _The Fascist_ . . . Marxist rhetoric cut & pasted into the speech balloons of Archie Comics characters . . . I don't know who the Minneapolis-based creator of this is, or if s/he's still producing this magazine, but it was one of maybe three things I actually *liked* about the Midwest . . . Chester Brown's _Yummy Fur_ and _Underwater_ . . . bizarre retellings of Bible stories, "Ed the Happy Clown," surreal, "silent" "movies," cartoon-essays on schizophrenia interweave with autobiography . . . Lynda Barry's "Ernie Pook's Comeek" . . . her intensely realized and plainly told remembrances of childhood, which subtly address things often ignored in comics like racism, class, misogyny, etc., have been a big influence on my own poetry comics ("The New Life") . . . my personal fave of all comics artists working today . . . Bill Griffith's "Zippy the Pinhead" . . . chains of non-sequitors, skewed pop-culture references, quotidian settings . . . If Zippy isn't poetry, well, like, "whatever" . . . you can access Zippy's Active Filter (which turns the usually boring language of any web-page into poetic Pinheadisms) at: http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/ Nancy Bonnell-Kangas's _Nancy's Magazine_ . . . I have Dan Davidson to thank for turning me on, nearly 10 years ago, to my all-time favorite magazine . . . poet/librarian/mom, NB-K publishes her always hilarious theme-issue collections of opinions, cartoons, poetry, & "facts" very irregularly, but the mag's cheap ($7 for two issues) and always worth the wait: N's M, P.O. Box 02108, Columbus, OH 43202 Julie Doucet's _Dirty Plotte_ . . . often violent . . . take-no-prisoners feminist . . . occasionally quotidian/anecdotal . . . Joe Matt's _Peep Show_ . . . Crumb-inspired autobiography . . . revealing & hilarious . . . Seth's _Palookaville_ . . . Seth's autobiographically-based comics-obsessed narrator tracks down Kalo, a real-life, one-time _New Yorker_ cartoonist of the 40s . . . beautifully rendered . . . see review of Seth's _It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken_ in this month's _Rain Taxi_ . . . _Very Vicky_ . . . I don't remember the Boston-based team who does this, but it's a great comic . . . plot largely stolen from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" . . . Vicky is a hip, young, snotty, New York alcoholic stuck for the summer in a North Carolina beach town . . . Dan Clowes's _Eightball_ . . . an exceptional comic . . . poetic satire . . . horrific dream-narratives . . . Rick Veitch's _Rarebit Fiends_ . . . that's not the exact title . . . Veitch illustrates his own and others's dreams . . . OTHERS OF SIMILAR INTEREST: Jessica Abel, Chris Ware, Mary Fleener, Jim Woodring, Gary Panter . . . well . . . there's lots . . . & I gotta get back to, barf, "work" . . . Have fun, Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 10:22:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Dodie chat In-Reply-To: <10c32358.3523b08b@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII reply On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, SSSCHAEFER wrote: > Dodie: > > In a message dated 98-04-01 20:58:18 EST, you write: > > << Why don't you try reading my writing and the writing of the rest of the > women on the list and then you'll see how much of it is all about > technique. And the notion of a female form has been kicked around ad > nauseum since when--the 70s, the 80s? It's essentialist gaga. Why should > we have to kick it around again to conform to your idea of a serious > discussion? >> > > I have read your writing and much of the rest of the writing on this list and > many others. Nice condescension, though. Excellent technique. And of > course all writing is about technique at some point. Not sure why you're so > hostile to my questions. I thought I was sincerely trying to get someone to > help me think about these issues and I think it is happening. I'm not exactly > sure why reference to "serious" discussion type things like Shoptaw's book > should be attacked here when books, theorists, etc. are mentioned constantly > in order to direct a conversation. I'm a little offended by the tone of your > post and wonder if I offended you. However, the fact that the female form has > been kicked around ad nauseum seems obvious to me. Simply restating it > doesn't help. And is why serious conversation should occur. > > So many of your posts have been interesting and informative. Never thought > you'd be the type to grind an axe. Was there some humor in your post that I > missed? > > Standard > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:22:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Mackey Reading in Chicago In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For listmembers in the Chicago area this week: Nathaniel Mackey will be reading on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago on April 15 and 16. Here's the more specific schedule: Wednesday, April 15 at 3:00 p.m.: A Reading of Poetry and Prose. (at the African-American Cultural Center, 2nd Floor, Adams Hall) Thursday, April 16th, at 11 a.m.: "On the Influence of H.D. on My Poetry." (at the Humanities Institute, Basement, Stevenson Hall) Both events are free and open to the public. However, the University of Illinois at Chicago is not the easiest place to find your way around, and these aren't the most convenient of times for those who lead non-academic lives, but it'll be worthwhile if you can make it. In fact, says one list member of Mackey's visit to her campus, "It was terrific... highly recommended; dense duncan-mediated, cecil taylor thrown in as well as Kamau Brathwaite as well as oceanic consciousness ("tidalectics"), good for those of us in the midwest." -- Maria Damon, University of Minnesota Any further questions or for directions contact me backchannel. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:59:40 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Scavenger hunt suggestions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bern Porter has produced 10s of books & 100s of pages from the trash can at the post office & the copy shop, they tend toward a very demographic diversity of materials... also would highly recommend showing the kids a copy of one of his big found books like Books of Dos or Book of Donts which need no explanation & a quickflip thru can be a delightful way to worm thru a student's self-conscious hesitations. one of my personal favorites (for collage writing) is scanning the spines of books in bookstores & libraries. likewise a hologram of the writerly impulse. also this is oftrack of your request, but far & away the most success Ive had working with kids is with creating neologisms, defining them & using them in sentences. its also very revealing of where each kid is at, one's words will be body sounds & swear words & another might all be about friends, & another about mosh pits. miekal ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 11:38:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Kramer Organization: none Subject: thy cables breathe the bell atlantic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <352F9AF4.567F@erols.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 11:32:33 -0500 From: Wendy Kramer Organization: none X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-DH397 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: UB Poetics discussion group Subject: thy cables breathe the bell atlantic References: <199804120400.AAA26786@mx04.erols.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit swill! took the walk across the brooklyn bridge yesterday and there threw the choiring strings rang said trademark. (this is the view crossing from brooklyn to manhattan). my poetic sentiment quickly switched to poetic hilarity amidst sunny skies and the steady streams of tourists. i hadnt known the promenade would be dead center, with car traffic running both sides below. it was like walking a boardwalk, like walking down the champs elysee, like the biggest most permissive guiliani jaywalk ever invented! one more amusement park enclave, and pleasant. those cables amazing; it really is like walking threw a harp. on collage: there's an exhibit at Krispy Kreme donuts hear near nyu of a man named michael albert: the brochure reads: "The Serial Artist. Serialism: Cerealism + Sir Realism." he's made puzzle-like collages out of cereal boxes, POST cereals (for post-cerealism get it). And too, innerestingly has been at both ends of appropriation of product labels-- said cereal box collages and other collages made of food labels (man afta my own heart) , but also some of his artwork has been made _into_ product labels, for his self start company Tri-State Natural Foods. whose fruit juices are avail. "here at Krispy Kreme." a quote from the brochure agin: "Though some question the practicality of art as a thing in general, no one can deny the necessity of the label for product packaging, and what a dream for any young American to combine the joy of creating unique and beautiful designs and images within the framework of reality in this busy, moving, ever-evolving world of commerce in which we live." hmmm...reality dream indeed... eye stickin my "patent name on a signboard brother" wendy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:50:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: Hey, Kids! Comics! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit hey gary, comics and poetry! In the book on Jess Collins that the Albright-Knox art museum put out there are some great pictures in color of the "Tricky Cad" series Jess did And yes for a while now I have read Peepshow which is absolutely hilarious, Dame D'Arcy, (Hate, EightBall) both which have become stupid. There is a good one, StraY BULLETS AND Billy Corgan the Smartest Kid on earth- I really like the search for Kato in Palookaville but I was raised on corner store comics like Spiderman and even the Archies(lame huh) but my sister and I had to find titles we could both like, i think she likes fantastic four anyways check out those tricky cad drawings everyone, a play on dick tracy Flame On!PS i wrote a letter on behalf of Steve McCafferey and got a lame letter back saying he was never formally hired so it shouldn't matter if he isn't working there now, it was a "form" letter i'd be interested to see how many people got the same one. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:39:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.tcj.com/ (_Comics Journal_ . . . great place to begin exploration beyond always-invoked DC, Marvel, Jess, Brainard & Morice . . .) http://ism.opal.de/ (Rick Veitch's _Rare Bit Fiends_ and John Mitchell and Jana Christy's _Very Vicky_, etc.) http://www.kitchensink.com/ (R. Crumb, etc.) http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (Dame Darcy, etc.) http://www.hardboiledegg.com/quarterly/ (Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Seth, D. Clowes, etc.) http://deepseacomics.at.org/deepsea2.html (_Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman_) http://www.chivian.com/chivian/Comics.html#Independents (_Cerebus_, _Freak Brothers_, _Fat Freddy's Cat_, etc.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:26:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Tricky Cad, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Erik! First saw Tricky Cad long, long ago on a faraway planet (Berkeley, 1980-something) in the "Made in the USA" show at the UCB Museum . . . my intro to Jess, been a fan since . . . also, roughly same time, read volumes of _C Comics_ at whatever the rare book room is called there . . . Me & Dan D. used to get kicked out for uncontrollable laughing . . . haven't yet read _Stray Bullets_ and didn't know of _Billy Corgan_, so thanks for those . . . Eightball has become stupid? Or Darcy & Matt? I admit I haven't looked into Darcy's world in a while . . . but still love Eightball . . . I was raised on _Creem_ magazine, myself . . . Lester Bangs, et al. . . . and, speaking of comics & _Creem_, do you remember The Mad Peck?!? . . . YEE-haw . . . cartoon-rendered record reviews . . . & whatever happened to Futsy Nutzle? . . . BIG fan, too, of Roz Chast . . . blah blah blah . . . anyway, of DC/Marvel I must admit to devouring ANYTHING by Jack Kirby . . . anyway, some MORE sites & then I'll shut up . . . http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2770/LyndaBarry.html (Lynda! Can't . . . breathe . . . thinking about . . . how . . . GREAT . . . she is . . . ! . . . dizziness . . . gasp! . . . etc. . . .) http://www.cloudnet.com/~hamlinck/spz.htm (The Small Press Zone . . . comics reviews, catalogues & how-to-publish/distribute info . . .) http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~epk93002/ComicsScholarship/ (General comics info) All for now, yours . . . Gary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:57:12 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Futher to Catherine Walsh: The most reliable, and probably the fastest, way to get your hands on her work is to go through the distribution service set up by hardPressed Poetry in Ireland (hardPressed is run by Walsh and Billy Mills, another wonderful Irish experimental poet, but one whose X/Y ratio excludes him from the reading in question). hardPressed Poetry 37 Grosvenor Court Templeville Road Templeogue Dublin 6W Irleand Note that hardPressed will have a new journal of the same name coming out this fall -- write for info. Bob -- Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College Lake Forest, IL 60045 http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ " on the end of each decision stands a heretic" --Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:35:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carolyn Guertin Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net In-Reply-To: <01BD66D0.C93ADA30@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wow. Thanks for these. Don't forget: Patricia Seaman's _New Motor Queen City_ : Ron Mann's _Comic Book Confidential_: and _Poetry in Motion I_ and _II_ bpNichol's electro-poetics (none of his comics, alas): And a query: is Debbie Drechsler Canadian? Cheers, Carolyn >http://www.tcj.com/ (_Comics Journal_ . . . great place to begin exploration >beyond always-invoked DC, Marvel, Jess, Brainard & Morice . . .) > >http://ism.opal.de/ (Rick Veitch's _Rare Bit Fiends_ and John Mitchell and >Jana >Christy's _Very Vicky_, etc.) > >http://www.kitchensink.com/ (R. Crumb, etc.) > >http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (Dame Darcy, etc.) > >http://www.hardboiledegg.com/quarterly/ (Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Seth, D. >Clowes, etc.) > >http://deepseacomics.at.org/deepsea2.html (_Reid Fleming, World's Toughest >Milkman_) > >http://www.chivian.com/chivian/Comics.html#Independents (_Cerebus_, _Freak >Brothers_, _Fat Freddy's Cat_, etc.) ________________________________________________ Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 Website: "Language is a virus." -- Laurie Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:53:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dorn's La Gran Apacheria was initially issued as a comic book. I imagine it's hard to find. At 12:35 PM 4/13/98 -0600, you wrote: >Wow. Thanks for these. > >Don't forget: > >Patricia Seaman's _New Motor Queen City_ : > > >Ron Mann's _Comic Book Confidential_: > >and _Poetry in Motion I_ and _II_ > > >bpNichol's electro-poetics (none of his comics, alas): > > >And a query: is Debbie Drechsler Canadian? > >Cheers, >Carolyn > >>http://www.tcj.com/ (_Comics Journal_ . . . great place to begin exploration >>beyond always-invoked DC, Marvel, Jess, Brainard & Morice . . .) >> >>http://ism.opal.de/ (Rick Veitch's _Rare Bit Fiends_ and John Mitchell and >>Jana >>Christy's _Very Vicky_, etc.) >> >>http://www.kitchensink.com/ (R. Crumb, etc.) >> >>http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (Dame Darcy, etc.) >> >>http://www.hardboiledegg.com/quarterly/ (Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Seth, D. >>Clowes, etc.) >> >>http://deepseacomics.at.org/deepsea2.html (_Reid Fleming, World's Toughest >>Milkman_) >> >>http://www.chivian.com/chivian/Comics.html#Independents (_Cerebus_, _Freak >>Brothers_, _Fat Freddy's Cat_, etc.) > > >________________________________________________ >Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta >E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 >Website: > >"Language is a virus." >-- Laurie Anderson > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:57:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" my system doesn't recognize the bpnichol site. are u sure it's right? At 12:35 PM 4/13/98, Carolyn Guertin wrote: >Wow. Thanks for these. > >Don't forget: > >Patricia Seaman's _New Motor Queen City_ : > > >Ron Mann's _Comic Book Confidential_: > >and _Poetry in Motion I_ and _II_ > > >bpNichol's electro-poetics (none of his comics, alas): > > >And a query: is Debbie Drechsler Canadian? > >Cheers, >Carolyn > >>http://www.tcj.com/ (_Comics Journal_ . . . great place to begin exploration >>beyond always-invoked DC, Marvel, Jess, Brainard & Morice . . .) >> >>http://ism.opal.de/ (Rick Veitch's _Rare Bit Fiends_ and John Mitchell and >>Jana >>Christy's _Very Vicky_, etc.) >> >>http://www.kitchensink.com/ (R. Crumb, etc.) >> >>http://www.fantagraphics.com/ (Dame Darcy, etc.) >> >>http://www.hardboiledegg.com/quarterly/ (Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Seth, D. >>Clowes, etc.) >> >>http://deepseacomics.at.org/deepsea2.html (_Reid Fleming, World's Toughest >>Milkman_) >> >>http://www.chivian.com/chivian/Comics.html#Independents (_Cerebus_, _Freak >>Brothers_, _Fat Freddy's Cat_, etc.) > > >________________________________________________ >Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta >E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 >Website: > >"Language is a virus." >-- Laurie Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:07:16 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Mackey Reading in Chicago Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" zauhar's post reminds me that i didn't cover the final Mackey-in-Twin-Cities event in my previous post (because it hadn't happened yet). he read at the Nomad Gallery, a new place run by the brother of the guy who runs the Khyber Pass Afghani restaurant in St Paul. It was their inaugural reading, and Habib the proprietor said it was an honor to be able to host Mackey. The space was really lovely, nicely lit, and NM sat w/ his back to a big window. There were Afghani rugs covering the space behind him, and he sat at a table likewise draped w/ rugs, a beautiful effect, and on the table was a vase with a single rose. he sat behind the table as he read. he started w/ the Jimi Hendrix poem from "Eroding Witness," in response to a request from me (i forgot to thank him afterwards). then he read mostly from the forthcoming Atet:A.D. and some, as i recall, but maybe i'm wrong, from Udhra. Very responsive audience and a good feeling. An aesthetically satisfying experience, especially on top of the wonderful meal we'd just enjoyed at the Khyber Pass. Highly recommended to all traveling thru the TCs. At times during the reading, sitar music floated over from the restaurant, a thin wall away, and heavy treads above from the folks in the apartment upstairs. those sound effects "haunted" the space appropriately. i think it was NM's favorite "event" of his visit, and small wonder, it was really a fine evening, organized by Mark Nowak of XCP fame. At 9:22 AM 4/13/98, David Zauhar wrote: >For listmembers in the Chicago area this week: >Nathaniel Mackey will be reading on the campus of the University of >Illinois at Chicago on April 15 and 16. Here's the more specific schedule: > >Wednesday, April 15 at 3:00 p.m.: A Reading of Poetry and Prose. >(at the African-American Cultural Center, 2nd Floor, Adams Hall) > > >Thursday, April 16th, at 11 a.m.: "On the Influence of H.D. on My Poetry." >(at the Humanities Institute, Basement, Stevenson Hall) > >Both events are free and open to the public. However, the University of >Illinois at Chicago is not the easiest place to find your way around, and >these aren't the most convenient of times for those who lead non-academic >lives, but it'll be worthwhile if you can make it. > >In fact, says one list member of Mackey's visit to her campus, "It was >terrific... highly recommended; dense duncan-mediated, cecil taylor thrown >in as well as Kamau Brathwaite as well as oceanic consciousness >("tidalectics"), good for those of us in the midwest." > >-- Maria Damon, University of Minnesota > >Any further questions or for directions contact me backchannel. > >David Zauhar >University of Illinois at Chicago ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 14:07:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net Comments: To: Mark Weiss MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain I recently found a copy. It features a comic book cover. The poems, however, while printed on cheap comic book paper, are straight text - no illustrations. Tom Peters, owner of the Beat Book Shop here in Boulder, had a handful of these comics three months ago when I bought mine. Whether he has any left, I don't know. You can contact him, though, at: BeaTomBoCo@aol.com Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Mark Weiss To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net Date: Monday, April 13, 1998 1:53PM Dorn's La Gran Apacheria was initially issued as a comic book. I imagine it's hard to find. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 14:14:21 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Scavenger hunt suggestions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > My idea is to have the students make up scrapbooks, and what I'm looking > for are short, simple, scavenger hunt type instructions/exercises to > provide them with tools for extracting possible poetic material out of > text. one (possibly collaborative) game the surrealists used was to take an existing text with a recurring word - product labels are good for this - and substitute another. Alternately, you can treat an existing text as a mad-lib (everyone remembers these, right?): remove selected words in favor or their parts of speech (noun, adj., verb), of which you make a separate list noun adj. verb etc. without having seen the original or the text with which they are playing, the other participants supply words that match the categories, re-assembling the text by substitution. It might be especially useful if you employ either a text familiar to yr students, or a text that carries some authority - e.g., Clinton's inaugural speech or a Frost poem. another variation is to limit the possible responses to, say words associated with the "peace talks" in Northern Ireland. Often, the players responsible for "filling in the blanks" take up a narrative or associative thread of their own, which is fully disr8upted by its distribution within the prior text. so, for instance: PropertySheetHandlers and {3EA48300...: Here, the key structure does not directly reveal the purpose of the {3EA48300... key, but if that subkey is opened under the CLSID key (not shown in the figure), its Contents Pane identifies it as an "OLE Docfile Property Page." [noun] and [noun]: Here, the [noun] does not directly [verb] the [noun] of the {3EA48300 key, but if that [noun] is opened [prep] the [adj] key (not [verb] in the figure), its [noun] [trans. verb] it as an "[adj] Property Page." where noun=breakfast noun=artifice noun=tree frog verb=ruin noun=the President of the United States noun=cheese preposition=within adj=admirable verb=disgust noun=Senator John Glenn transitive verb=revile adj=unpleasant yields Breakfast and artifice: Here, the tree frog does not directly ruin the the President of the United States of the {3EA48300 key, but if that cheese is opened within the admirable key (not disgusted in the figure), its Senator John Glenn reviles it as an "unpleasant Property Page." chris - etcetera .. Christopher Alexander calexand@library.utah.edu Marriott Library Instruction 581-8323 (lv. msg.) http://www.lib.utah.edu/instruction/mltech.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 21:35:05 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L.MacMahon and T.R.Healy" Subject: Re: women poets from Ireland Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I can but add my voice to those who have recommended Catherine Walsh's work. Not to be missed. The Irish writer Philip Casey has a web site called "The Fabulists" which contains a dictionary of Irish writers. Any search engine should find it for you. It contains information on a variety of Irish women poets. Randolph Healy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 16:59:43 -0400 Reply-To: simon@home2.mysolution.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beth lee simon Subject: Re: Mackey Reading in Chicago MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those of you a bit more east, Nathaniel Mackey will be reading here (deictically speaking), in Fort Wayne, April 14, at 7:30. Great venue--the auditorium of Art Link. beth simon assistant professor, linguistics and english indiana university purdue university ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 17:20:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Robeson, H.D., Bryher MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain So Aldon (and others) was it on or not? I had a Seder to attend that night, but I could have taped it. Speaking of which, yesterday was a real good day on cable -- I taped, in order, part of "The Fifties" (documentary on the History Channel), then the Thelonious Monk "Straight No Chaser" (on IFC), followed by a Bravo profile on Kerouac! After all that I was wondering what decade I was in (a problem which the folks in Arizona seemed to have as well) -- recommended viewing for those who have already had too much of the millennium! Duncan McNaughton has an interview in the latest _Mike and Dale's_ that, in effect, repeats what I think Jack Spicer said -- namely, the Fifties were the real revolutionary decade, until the Beatles killed it all off in 1964 (thus starting "the Sixties") -- whaddya think, listees? _____________ > According to my TV guide, the American Movie Classics cable ch. is showing > the seldom-seen silent film _Borderline_ tonight, which features Paul > Robeson, H.D., Bryher, Kenneth MacPherson etc. > > If true, this is not-to-be-missed -- check your local listings -- > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 18:27:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Dorn comics In-Reply-To: <01IVTNC9I3M89OEW3P@iix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I recently found a copy. It features a comic book cover. The poems, however, >while printed on cheap comic book paper, are straight text - no >illustrations. >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- You got a defective copy. There should be a drawing of a bunch of TV antennae and paddleboards with the poem "Fifteen Hundred Tons of Hay @ 1c per Pound" and a crucifix picture a few pages before the end. Pictures by Michael Myers. I had students handle this text in a course this spring. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 21:59:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Poems for the Millennium VOL II MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit We -- Pierre Joris & Jerome Rothenberg -- would like to announce our anthology _Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry_ (Vol 2: From Postwar to Millennium), just out from University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20864-1 $24.95 paper 850 pages, 6 x 9", b/willustrations For those interested, you may view the cover via the EPC homepage or directly : http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses/mill/2mill.html. The Table of Contents and the Introduction to the book will be available on the same site in another week. -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld “All my life I’ve heard one makes many” — Charles Olson ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 22:33:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Dear Joe Brainard, MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I recently saw you mentioned in an old poem, I can't remember its title, by your friend Jimmy Schuyler, whom I call James because he never was anyone I knew, and he knew a lot of people, a lot them people who also knew and liked you, all of them people I don't know, though I know what I like when I see it, like your art, which I also saw recently in an article in Art in America. You seemed to have loved, besides guys, flowers and the Sunday funnies, and you found ways to draw from them icons for your various and sundry beatitudes. Like Nancy, the girl from the strip of the same name, whom you transmorgrified lovingly in a couple of paintings and collages even though she could never reciprocate your attentions in her own world by lifting up her skirt to show a penis. That would have been as crazy as having Sluggo throw a brick to the back of her head the way Ignatz would do for Krazy Kat with his brick trailing its quiet -ZIP- though it could also go -ZIZ- same as a comet does as it comes and goes from perigee to apogee (actually they're called "perihelion" and "aphelion" but I prefer "perigee to apogee") and back again, unless it gets drawn into the Sun or bumps into something else or has its ellipse perturbed into a parabola of no return, its tail gone out, the next nearest star a ways away, if it's lucky, though typically it's not. Bye for now, see you soon, if not, then eventually. Yours, Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 22:37:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: Tricky Cad, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit the smell of fried chicken from the downstairs apartment is driving me crazy, I should go downstairs and demand a taste seeing as that the girl downstairs keeps me up all the time with doors slamming and woofy dogs ruf ruf. -So I think i mean the jimmy corrigan the smartest kid on earth comic, it is really funny...so could someone fill me in on how michael mcClure was at UB seeing is that i couldn't make it to my hometiown to see him. "whay are you staring at me i'm not a flower" so did anyone care to respond about diane wakowski's twin brother story.. anyways whats on tap in old Buffalo anyways, any conferences coming up like that great Zukofsky one of last year..Don't ever dance on the chairs at the Tralfamadore Cafe to James Brown downtown or they will politey ask you to get down..if anyone ever sees David Landrey around the Queen city tell him Erik Sweet says hi, he was one of the greatest teachers I ever had. So for now, lets hear more about comics and poetry, what about the great comic "Berrigan" with joe brainard I think with Ted Berrigan as a poet/detective any poet/magnum P.I.'s out there what about T.C....? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 23:07:04 -0400 Reply-To: Ryan Whyte Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Whyte Subject: letter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII April 12 Dear Schiller ... I am a painter; I put out my eyes for you. Tell me, again, the bleeding darkness, of the things in me I cannot see, I will never see. Tell me, there are cities beneath the grasses of the plains of Sicily; tell me of the impenetrable lead. Of the Roman earth. These come back to me in a woodcut.... I am naive, love me thus -- is it, then, of humility to be at one with your nature? Is it humility? What is the propriety, the patrimony of these states.... Waste me in a wanton hour, turn of the pen; no, it is the distance which destroys me, the haze of an idyll. I ask you to defeat me even before I've opened my mouth. You have seen your end in me. You've written as much. The city, since you asked, spills along the shore forever eastward. Always in spring and summer: hot, humid and hazy. It is the stuff of New York and Boston that wafts across the lake. The cities jostle, shoulder to shoulder. The ladies here have a curious habit. They will, in small or large groups, swim and bathe along the public shores of the lake; they are indifferent to passers-by, and do not scream at the approach of men. Indeed, they are a pleasant sight: grouped on the large rocks, submerged to their faces and bathing caps, and often holding their children. This tedious example resonates, I believe, with something of the beautiful, those things which you have written me. Strange that a foreign practice should find accord with some more primary thing in man. And yet this is to a certain split. Ah, since you asked I will write of love only in white ink ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:32:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: nyc secondhand bookshops In-Reply-To: <199804140404.AAA23606@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hey new yorkers, planning a trip to the big city and would appreciate hearing about yr fave used bookstores, specially ones with lotsa good poetix stuff. already know about the strand and east village books but need help adding to my itinerary. backchannel is fine. thanks, t. _________________________________________________________ | The ground acknowledges my every step as the road's own | | scrawl in eyesight's hand | | -- Andre du Bouchet -- | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:40:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joshua N Schuster Subject: CFP: Other Voices (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Once again I'm forwarding a call for papers for an on-line journal a friend edits. He wanted his next issue to be on comics (even tried to get a Chris Ware interview), but couldn't gather enough material. Perhaps everyone talking this stuff up might want to send him some work (calling Gary Sullivan). -js Vance Bell wrote: > > CFP: Other Voices "Image-Text" (5/1; journal issue) > > The editors of the electronic journal Other Voices are seeking papers > dealing with contemporary overlaps between print and visual culture > for a forthcoming issue of the journal. We are interested in critical > analysis of a variety of events, relations and artifacts relevant to this > cultural nexus. Papers may employ a number of critical methods; > philosophical, psychoanalytic, art historical, literary theoretical, etc. > We especially encourage submissions dealing with the following areas: > > * comics, comix (alternative comics) and graphic novels > * mail art and correspondence art > * hypermedia art > * assembling art > * artists' books > * concrete poetry > * advertising, counter-advertising, and "culture-jamming" > productions > * zines > * reviews of secondary literature devoted the above topics > > Traditional academic essays should generally fall between 3500 and 7000 > words. We are also seeking non-traditional submissions, interviews, > hypertext/multimedia projects and book reviews. > > All submissions are due May 1, 1998. Please mail one hard copy and > one electronic copy (floppy disc), or email the electronic text (as an > attachment) to: > > Other Voices > Attn: Vance Bell > P.O. Box 31907 > Philadelphia, PA 19104 > vbell@dept.english.upenn.edu > > Please direct all questions/comments to the same. > > -- > +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ > Vance E. Bell, Jr. | Other Voices > University of Pennsylvania | P.O. Box 31907 > vbell@dept.english.upenn.edu | Philadelphia, PA 19104 > > http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~ov > > +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ > > > =============================================== > From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List > CFP@english.upenn.edu > Full Information at > http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ > or write Jack Lynch: jlynch@english.upenn.edu > =============================================== > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 05:34:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Where are they now? Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A poet whose work I liked quite a bit during the late 60s, early 70s, was Tom Veitch, a NYC school (gen 3) poet with a strong spiritual undercurrent. He was in SF for awhile around the early to mid-70s and then moved, up to Sonoma or beyond I think. Does anyone know what the man is up to these days? In a very similar vein, Victoria Rathbun? I had heard that she was sick about a decade ago, but nothing since. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:15:21 -0500 Reply-To: kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: nyc secondhand bookshops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hey tom of orange and all of those who reside in New Yorka, you're not by chance going to the Dan Farrell reading are you? i think some of the Niagara frontiersmen will be there, incl. myself and Scott Pound. please advise of other fun activities. And please dont backchannel used bookstore lists... jk Tom Orange wrote: > > hey new yorkers, > > planning a trip to the big city and would appreciate hearing about yr fave > used bookstores, specially ones with lotsa good poetix stuff. already > know about the strand and east village books but need help adding to my > itinerary. backchannel is fine. > > thanks, > t. > _________________________________________________________ > | The ground acknowledges my every step as the road's own | > | scrawl in eyesight's hand | > | -- Andre du Bouchet -- | > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:33:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: nyc secondhand bookshops Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Had back-channeled at first; re-post for JK: The Academy bookstore on W.18th Also, the one right across the street. Inexpensive goldmines. Ask Jordan, who works around the corner. Saw The Hotel Wentley Poems at the Academy, signed by the author to one Leroi Jones. This item however was not inexpensive (about $100). Picked up first cloth edition of MAXIMUS pretty cheap. Also Zukofsky's LITTLE, John Wiener's NERVES, some New Directions Poet of the Month chapbooks from early 40s for a couple bucks a piece. The Academy also has Folocroft reprints with library bindings for 3 or 4 dollars a pop. I found Thoreau's LETTERS thus; collected Hazlitt writings, Whitman's journalism. And cheap, 2nd hand poetry: CIVIL NOIR, I DON'T HAVE ANY MORE PAPER SO I BETTER SHUT UP, among others. Also, I believe Keston Sutherland is reading in NYC this weekend. At the Zinc Bar. W.Houston and LaGuardia. A great reading series-- go go go go go go go go daniel bouchard - db > >hey new yorkers, > >planning a trip to the big city and would appreciate hearing about yr fave >used bookstores, specially ones with lotsa good poetix stuff. already >know about the strand and east village books but need help adding to my >itinerary. backchannel is fine. > >thanks, >t. > _________________________________________________________ > | The ground acknowledges my every step as the road's own | > | scrawl in eyesight's hand | > | -- Andre du Bouchet -- | > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 08:43:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: report on Bromige reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Approximately fifty people heard poet David Bromige read selections from his work last night (Monday, April 13) at the Canterbury House near the campus of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The audience responded warmly to Bromige's unprepossessing manner and witty, serious poems. Speaking only for myself... I had not been to a poetry reading in a couple of years and felt invigorated afterwards. Thanks to Maryrose Larkin and everyone else who brought Bromige to Lawrence. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:51:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: nyc secondhand bookshops Comments: To: daniel bouchard In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980414133357.00681a04@po7.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Also, I believe Keston Sutherland is reading in NYC this weekend. At the >Zinc Bar. Thanks for mentioning it Dan, but actually I'm not. Not that is until May 17th. But are there other readings, anyone else be around, anyone want to meet, k ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 10:00:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: nyc firstrate readings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:51 AM 4/14/98 -0400, Keston Sutherland wrote: >Thanks for mentioning it Dan, but actually I'm not. Not that is until >May 17th. But are there other readings, anyone else be around, anyone >want to meet, > >k > well, SOMEONE is, goddammit! And frontiers-people, Niagra and otherwise, would do well to attend. Perhaps Marcella Durand will post a reminder of the readers if she can, as Anselm is away and Douglas not on the list. - db <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 10:38:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: nyc secondhand bookshops In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980414133357.00681a04@po7.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, daniel bouchard wrote: > Whitman's journalism. And cheap, 2nd hand poetry: CIVIL NOIR, I DON'T HAVE > ANY MORE PAPER SO I BETTER SHUT UP, among others. > Dan, that's a fascinating re-writing of Andrews' title..........Kind of reverses its emotional polarities!! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:58:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carolyn Guertin Subject: Re: "Art/Poetry" Comics Sites on the Net In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >my system doesn't recognize the bpnichol site. are u sure it's right? Urgh. Well, it works for me. Try the main url for the >>>iceflow>> site: http://www.interaccess.org/iceflow/index.html and then select Tim McLaughlin's 'Threw the Read Window'. The bpNichol section is called 'possible saviours. Good luck, Carolyn ________________________________________________ Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 Website: "Language is a virus." -- Laurie Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:44:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: stanza/paragraph (new non) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" new non at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ In working on the latest non additions I've been lead to wonder about writers' use of the paragraph and/or stanza. Debrot's new stuff in non seems like desiccated paragraphs to me - not surprisingly as it is in relation to Tender Buttons - but he calls it 'songs.' Shaw's work seems more stanzaic, Scalapino's is mostly prose and Davis is of course all over the map. In general, the stanza seems more song-like, the paragraph to relate more back to prose. I find I am currently using both in different combinations. Wondered how others relate to using these sub-forms - Laura moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:51:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: Tax Relief Reading Comments: To: writenet@twc.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please Come! Lee Ann Brown Heather Ramsdell Wednesday, April 15th 8pm The Poetry Project @ St. Mark's Church 2nd Avenue & 10th Street New York City ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 12:46:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Tax Relief Reading In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" wish i could. knock 'em dead. At 12:51 PM -0400 4/14/98, lee ann brown wrote: >Please Come! > >Lee Ann Brown >Heather Ramsdell > >Wednesday, April 15th >8pm > >The Poetry Project >@ St. Mark's Church >2nd Avenue & 10th Street >New York City ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 13:52:02 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE Subject: Moving Borders Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sunday, April 19th @ 8 PM a publication celebration for the Talisman House anthology _Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women_ Readers will include the editor, Mary Margaret Sloan, Tina Darragh, Lynne Dreyer, Joan Retallack, and Fiona Templeton. Bridge Street Books 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC ph 202 965 5200 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:22:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: place(less Place) gathering Comments: To: Buffalo Small Press Collective List , "core-l@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the Buffalo Small Press Collective announces: place(less Place) a gathering of poets born after the Six Gallery reading of "Howl" (1956) "Place there is none; we go forward and backward and there is no place..." Augustine date: June 19-21, 1998 place: Buffalo, NY "a placeless space a) is active and does not issue from a lack b) involves writing and c) engages community." -Scott Pound all are invited to come and participate in a weekend of symposia, poetry, rants, manifestos, papers and talks on the subject of poetics, Placelessness and place schedule: friday, June 19 at 8 pm: symposia on poetics, place and Placelessness saturday, June 20 at 6: Book display, fair, and exchange. Bring your own books or books you have published for an evening of print exchanges. at 8: reading. all poets who come to buffalo and want to read will be given time to do so. there are no featured readers sunday, June 21: farewell brunch place(less Place) will primarily be a gathering of young poets from different places in this here place to read and discuss poetry and poetics, place and the Placeless, with one another. no funding is being provided by any institution or person. if you would like to come, please contact one of the following people by may 15th and we will try to fnd you a place to stay and/or give you the numbers of local hotels, etc. michael kelleher: mjk@acsu.buffalo.edu graham foust: foust@acsu.buffalo.edu scott pound: spound@interlog.com taylor brady ltbrady@acsu.buffalo.edu "The only work is moonlighting and clandestine...a capture...an assymetrical block, an a-parallel evolution...always 'outside', always 'between'" -Gilles Deleuze ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 15:55:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: fuer Alle und Keine von Andrea Brady MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII CHICKEN BREASTS He flushed my shirtwaist over this bubble-drain that clenches under the floor a nocturne of the peril maxim: break the skin of pain, soft implosion-notes on jellied fruit driving up to the teeth of his lust. Crawfish eyes sucked, popped, reft of beauty, my waste merges with positivity of loss: we used to patter enraged towards what now glows as much as anything else, lil patriots permanently out on the town. The dried bounty of my loss has been burnt on drying wrecks senseless of the larger bounty, and gives, dying the blankets over which it is cooled in the amber bedroom of pleasant sojourns and diurnal rest. I'm a wreck of fashion, becoming precisely a wraith of lassitude up to the grease-trap where face slathered as if with remorse in hair, tallow, frying muck, splits asunder or is chorefully drained. So much for shunning the torches of panic: clutching my ragged skin for another ride, board up for the work-district, flick distention into the token box. Such that we are no longer niggardly with our shameful supplies, but blow out the ear of taste with munchies and burnt recipes he corrects, he ladels, in the pine forest I picnic on nipples if there's nil else and gaze radiantly from a bared rock sun or no sun. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 16:28:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Charles Wright wins Pulitzer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles Wright won the Pulitzer for poetry today for his collection _Black Zodiac_. I happen to have read this book one afternoon last week, not having read much of Wright's work in several years. He writes a beatiful phrase, but I can't see what was behind the decision. It seems like the same old thing for him. Does anybody know who were the other nominees? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 16:27:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Charles Wright wins Pulitzer Comments: To: David Kellogg MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Agreed, David. This volume is neither more nor less distinguished than his previous _Chickamauga_ or the one before that - or the one before that. He does have a lapidary way with a line, as they say,and I've often enjoyed him. But adventuresome he's not. Once again - and in vain - the cry goes up: what about Susan Howe? What about Charles Bernstein? Etc. Oh funky day. This is from www.pulitizer.org: Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Desire" by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and "The Vigil" by C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). There's also a list of the judges. ---------- From: David Kellogg To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Charles Wright wins Pulitzer Date: Tuesday, April 14, 1998 3:28PM Charles Wright won the Pulitzer for poetry today for his collection _Black Zodiac_. I happen to have read this book one afternoon last week, not having read much of Wright's work in several years. He writes a beatiful phrase, but I can't see what was behind the decision. It seems like the same old thing for him. Does anybody know who were the other nominees? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 17:49:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Melnicove Subject: Bern Porter In-Reply-To: <3531E206.35AD@mwt.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Miekal's posting about Bern Porter prompts me to announce that I distribute all of Bern's books still in-print and some out-of-print. I can send a catalog (a glorified word for what is really a two-page listing) to anyone that's interested via snail or e-mail. I'm also working on a Bern Porter website, but this is still a ways off. By the way--I saw the Secret Location on the Lower East Side show at NYPL when I was in NYC last month and I loved it. Spent hours gazing into the display cases. However, I was disappointed not to find any mention or presentation of books that Bern has published or authored. His work would have fit perfectly into the area of the show devoted to publishers from other parts of the country who were active before 1960. Along with Ferlinghetti, J. Williams, Laughlin, et al, Bern was one of the most important small press publishers of the post-war era. Unfortunately, just about all of the histories and exhibits of that era don't give him the sort of credit he deserves. James Schevill's WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHEN YOU ARE BERN PORTER: A PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY (Tilbury House, 1992) is an excellent read into all that Bern has accomplished. It's out-of-print, but I have a few copies left. Mark Melnicove 216 Cedar Grove Road Dresden, ME 04342 Melnicove@mail.caps.maine.edu >Bern Porter has produced 10s of books & 100s of pages from the trash can >at the post office & the copy shop, they tend toward a very demographic >diversity of materials... > >also would highly recommend showing the kids a copy of one of his big >found books like Books of Dos or Book of Donts which need no explanation >& a quickflip thru can be a delightful way to worm thru a student's >self-conscious hesitations. > >miekal ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 17:58:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: place(less Place) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Correction: the six gallery reading happened in October 1955. Thus, all born after this date, are welcome. Thanks to Karen MacCormack for the correction. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 17:15:45 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: place(less Place) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michael J. Kelleher wrote: > > Correction: > > the six gallery reading happened in October 1955. Thus, all born after > this date, are welcome. Thanks to Karen MacCormack for the correction. > > Mike that would include even oldtimers like me, to bad buf is so far away, maybe I could holler into a phone.. miekal ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 13:10:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: America Awards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Since America Awards (the "Ferns," instituted in honor of Anna Fahrni) were begun in 1994 to counter the boredom and meaninglessness of the National Book Awards and Pulitzer Prizes, etc. I think this might be as good a day as any to announce to the poetics list the 1997 awards. International Award (awarded to a living writer of international stature for a body of literary writing) Friederike Mayrocker (Austria) [previous winners are Aimé Césaire (1994); Harold Pinter (1995) and José Donoso (1996)] FICTION Echoes, by Dennis Barone [Potes & Poets] [judges: Carla Harryman, Tom La Farge, and Robert Steiner] POETRY The Silhouette of the Bridge, by Keith Waldrop [Avice Books] [judges: Charles Bernstein, Norma Cole, and Marjorie Welish] DRAMA Throwin' Bones, by Matthew Maguire (La Mama/Creation Production Company, New York) [judges: John Jesurun, Susan Mosakowski, Ronald Tavel) BELLES LETTRES AND SELECTED OR COLLECTED WORKS Collected Works, Vols I-III (Coffee House Press) [judges: Joan Retallack, Jerome Rothenberg, Wendy Walker] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 17:21:59 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Bern Porter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit mark welcome to the list, is there a dog ear website up yet? miekal ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:20:41 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: Charles Wright wins Pulitzer In-Reply-To: <01bd67e3$d95c8bc0$49cc0398@DKellogg.Dukeedu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Charles Wright won the Pulitzer for poetry today for his collection _Black >Zodiac_. I happen to have read this book one afternoon last week, not >having read much of Wright's work in several years. He writes a beatiful >phrase, but I can't see what was behind the decision. It seems like the >same old thing for him. Does anybody know who were the other nominees? >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >David Kellogg Don't know for sure what it was for but I caught a few minutes of Wright reading at some stodgy NY venue on a cable station last week. Nominees for something or other, maybe the Pulitzer. The other poet I happened to flip onto before eventually a Jefferson biographer put me into high snooze was Frank Bidart, reading from _Desire_. Wright read a poem about Hopkins, I think, and seemed at home in tweed but not behind that podium, and who can blame him? Nothing really against Wright but the cadence still seems rife with echoes of Pound and might suffer in that comparison. But then I haven't engaged the book beyond what he mumbled and so can't really offer an opinion. Peering at the tube I judged it a TKO for Bidart, though the applause was appropriately chipper for all. There probably were still other nominees, no? Is it that if one hangs around in certain quarters of po-biz long enough sooner or later Dick and Ed come around with an oversized letter and a cameraman? KT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:53:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: place(less Place) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit i think i'll return to the queen city for this, where is the reading or meeting going to take place on that friday or when will you have a list of where the events are going to be? I was born at Children's Hospital on Bryant Street, 1971 any other 71'ers out there? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:56:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Melnicove Subject: Re: Bern Porter In-Reply-To: <35339B35.5969@mwt.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" no dog ear site, no other sites, not yet, though I'm also working for National Poetry Foundation, whose website is www.ume.maine.edu/~npf/ can you email me an up-to-date price list for your Bern books that you still want me to distribute to check against mine to make sure I'm accurate as of this minute? Thanks, Mark >mark > >welcome to the list, is there a dog ear website up yet? > >miekal ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:18:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: Charles Wright wins Pulitzer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Must have been the National Book Critics Circle Awards nominees reading at the National Arts Club a few weeks back here -- Wright took that prize, too. At 06:20 PM 4/14/98 -0600, you wrote: >>Charles Wright won the Pulitzer for poetry today for his collection _Black >>Zodiac_. I happen to have read this book one afternoon last week, not >>having read much of Wright's work in several years. He writes a beatiful >>phrase, but I can't see what was behind the decision. It seems like the >>same old thing for him. Does anybody know who were the other nominees? >>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>David Kellogg > > >Don't know for sure what it was for but I caught a few minutes of Wright >reading at some stodgy NY venue on a cable station last week. Nominees for >something or other, maybe the Pulitzer. The other poet I happened to flip >onto before eventually a Jefferson biographer put me into high snooze was >Frank Bidart, reading from _Desire_. Wright read a poem about Hopkins, I >think, and seemed at home in tweed but not behind that podium, and who can >blame him? Nothing really against Wright but the cadence still seems rife >with echoes of Pound and might suffer in that comparison. But then I >haven't engaged the book beyond what he mumbled and so can't really offer >an opinion. Peering at the tube I judged it a TKO for Bidart, though the >applause was appropriately chipper for all. There probably were still other >nominees, no? Is it that if one hangs around in certain quarters of po-biz >long enough sooner or later Dick and Ed come around with an oversized >letter and a cameraman? > >KT > > Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:06:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > PW Daily for Booksellers from Publishers Weekly > The First Daily E-Mail Service for Booksellers > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > Contents for Thursday, April 9, 1998: > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Dropping Out: Shepherds Book Center, Ne Little Professor, to Close > > Bob Shepherd changed his store's name from Little Professor to > the more personal Shepherds Book Centers, but this didn't save > his 4500-sq.-ft. bookstore. The State College, Pa., bookseller > announced this week that he will close his doors as early as the > end of the month. > > With a Penn State campus nearby, State College is rife with > readers. (Unfortunately, he said, this is probably also what > attracted superstore competition there.) So six years ago, > Shepherd, a former engineer, decided to make a foray into > bookselling. He thought that "Little Professor had some good > ideas" and became a franchisee. But things began to deteriorate > with the arrival of Encore in State College in 1994 and further > with a B&N in 1996. Still, Shepherd says he was in denial. "I > should have given up right when the superstores moved in, > but I didn't want to believe it," he said. > > In January, Shepherd thought that removing the Little Professor > name would help, as have other recent franchisee defectors > such as Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Little Professor does > not recognize that as a system they have become irrelevant," > Shepherd charged. "Their approach to running a bookstore and > the assistance they give is totally inadequate to compete with > superstores." > > Non-college bookselling in State College consists of the two > chains and Svoboda's Technical books.--Steven M. Zeitchik > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Amazon's New 'Man on the Street' Marketing Ploy? > > Is this where some of that multi-million-dollar marketing budget is > going? > > At least one Amazon representative has been spotted this week > handing out $3 coupons advertising the online bookseller's > services in front of independent bookstores in San Francisco, > several local booksellers report. > > The man distributed coupons that read: "Can't find your book? > Try Amazon.com with this $3 Gift Certificate. 2.5 million Titles, > up to 40% off." > > One bookseller commented, "A suggestion for other independents > out there who have been targeted: It's 'never' a bad time to hose > down your sidewalk." > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:07:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: America Awards Comments: To: Douglas In-Reply-To: <3533C2CD.74AF@cinenet.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Douglas wrote: > Since America Awards (the "Ferns," instituted in honor > of Anna Fahrni) were begun in 1994 to counter the boredom > and meaninglessness of the National Book Awards and > Pulitzer Prizes, etc. I think this might be as good a > day as any to announce to the poetics list the 1997 awards. > > BELLES LETTRES AND SELECTED OR COLLECTED WORKS > > Collected Works, Vols I-III (Coffee House Press) > > [judges: Joan Retallack, Jerome Rothenberg, Wendy Walker] I assume this is Paul Metcalf's Collected works, which is incredible and deserving of wider honors than it's going to get. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago to belong to whatever moves us outward into the wideness, for journeying... --Hilda Morley, 1919-1998 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:23:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <3533F9F9.27B6@ibm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Rachel Levitsky wrote: > > > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > Dropping Out: Shepherds Book Center, Ne Little Professor, to Close > > Non-college bookselling in State College consists of the two > > chains and Svoboda's Technical books.--Steven M. Zeitchik Thanks for the posting, Rachel, but... As a part-time resident of Pennsylvania who looks forward to summer weekend visits to State College, PA, I have to issue a brief, though major objection: Svoboda's is NOT a "technical" bookstore, it's the best kind of independent bookstore, the ideal college-town bookstore, located close to campus and near coffeehouses, etc. "The Little Professor" store, I'm afraid to say, was (and I'm deliberately going for understatement here) not very good. The kind of store, basically, that makes me long for a Borders or a Barnes and igNoble's If you're ever in State College, be sure to check out Svoboda's And there's a good used bookstore there, too, called Seven Mountains, where, last time I was there, found _Sounds that Arouse Me_ by Bern Porter. I won't miss the Little Professor as long as Svoboda's and 7 Mountains are around. Dave Zauhar > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > Amazon's New 'Man on the Street' Marketing Ploy? > > > > Is this where some of that multi-million-dollar marketing budget is > > going? > > > > At least one Amazon representative has been spotted this week > > handing out $3 coupons advertising the online bookseller's > > services in front of independent bookstores in San Francisco, > > several local booksellers report. > > > > The man distributed coupons that read: "Can't find your book? > > Try Amazon.com with this $3 Gift Certificate. 2.5 million Titles, > > up to 40% off." > > > > One bookseller commented, "A suggestion for other independents > > out there who have been targeted: It's 'never' a bad time to hose > > down your sidewalk." > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 19:27:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: more closings Comments: To: Rachel Levitsky MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Caught a piece on C-SPAN two or three nights ago where Andre Schiffren - formerly of Random House, but now founder of The New Press - said that there have been 300 closings of independent bookstores over the past decade. Since publishing has become part of other industries (see The Nation conglomerate chart), the 4% annual profit margin that was traditional in the industry has been pushed to become 15 or 20%. Even so, Schiffrin estimates that presses like his can flourish in the 10% of the market the Big Companies either ignore, concede or fail to dominate. And yet, and yet - when I go to Barnes & Noble, they have every critical theory title I could ask for and then some. And Boulder Books has - squat. In addition, the owner of BB is by all accounts a colossally conceited individual who badgers and intimidates the used bookstore owners of the area - I won't go into all that here. But it makes me not want to support Boulder Books. My real affection and devotion goes to these used stores and their counterparts everywhere - these are where the pages of dream unfold in the rimefrost of dust. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Rachel Levitsky To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: more closings Date: Tuesday, April 14, 1998 7:06PM > > PW Daily for Booksellers from Publishers Weekly > The First Daily E-Mail Service for Booksellers > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > Contents for Thursday, April 9, 1998: > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Dropping Out: Shepherds Book Center, Ne Little Professor, to Close > > Bob Shepherd changed his store's name from Little Professor to > the more personal Shepherds Book Centers, but this didn't save > his 4500-sq.-ft. bookstore. The State College, Pa., bookseller > announced this week that he will close his doors as early as the > end of the month. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 16:35:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: place(less Place) gathering Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" how about a conference of poets in pre-school? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 21:25:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <01IVVCQPLDWU9OFTJT@iix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" apparently one ploy of the chain bookstores is to haunt independents looking for titles --in Cambridge, for inst, they'll go to Grolier's for poetry titles and Harvard books for theory and cult studs, stock up on those and put those sections in prominent places in their own chain store, then, after they've driven the indies out of business, phase out the poetry and the cult studs. so, i try not to buy books there no matter what, even if it means special ordering from an independent. but yes, my faves are the used bookstores, long may they thrive around the edges of commerce. At 7:27 PM -0500 4/14/98, Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume wrote: >Caught a piece on C-SPAN two or three nights ago where Andre Schiffren - >formerly of Random House, but now founder of The New Press - said that there >have been 300 closings of independent bookstores over the past decade. Since >publishing has become part of other industries (see The Nation conglomerate >chart), the 4% annual profit margin that was traditional in the industry has >been pushed to become 15 or 20%. Even so, Schiffrin estimates that presses >like his can flourish in the 10% of the market the Big Companies either >ignore, concede or fail to dominate. > >And yet, and yet - when I go to Barnes & Noble, they have every critical >theory title I could ask for and then some. And Boulder Books has - squat. >In addition, the owner of BB is by all accounts a colossally conceited >individual who badgers and intimidates the used bookstore owners of the area >- I won't go into all that here. But it makes me not want to support Boulder >Books. My real affection and devotion goes to these used stores and their >counterparts everywhere - these are where the pages of dream unfold in the >rimefrost of dust. > >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:45:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Bern Porter In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The latest issue of American Book Review has a piece, "New Poetry and its Technology Anchorage," by Lee Ballentine in which there is mention of a site about Bern Porter. The URL is: www.henrymiller.org/newsletter/html/porter.html Haven't taken a look myself, so I'm not sure what's there. Steven On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Mark Melnicove wrote: > no dog ear site, no other sites, not yet, though I'm also working for > National Poetry Foundation, whose website is www.ume.maine.edu/~npf/ > > can you email me an up-to-date price list for your Bern books that you > still want me to distribute to check against mine to make sure I'm accurate > as of this minute? > > Thanks, > Mark > > >mark > > > >welcome to the list, is there a dog ear website up yet? > > > >miekal > __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 00:23:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: a l y r i c m a i l e r 4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------D5A71E6FB488BFA583E6F99B" --------------D5A71E6FB488BFA583E6F99B Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Attention Poets and Friends! a l y r i c m a i l e r NUMBER 4 alyric prose issue featuring: Thousands by Laird Hunt is up and running at: http//writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/alyricmailer/alyric.htm Laird Hunt works as a Press Officer at the United Nations. He has published work in Grand Street, Sulfur, Talisman et al.and has work forthcoming from No Trees, The World, & City Lights Review. Also forthcoming is a chapbook, Dear Sweetheart, from Talisman House Publishers. He lives in Manhattan, owns two ornery cats & co-edits the journal Psalm 151. Upcoming issues include work from Heather Fuller, a sound file and text poem for three voices by Carrie Tocci, a critical isssue on the work of Ben Friedlander (critical submissions and queries welcome at the above e-mail address), and work by Heather Ramsdell. Enjoy. Mike --------------D5A71E6FB488BFA583E6F99B Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Attention Poets and Friends!

a l y r i c m a i l e r   NUMBER 4

alyric prose issue

featuring:

Thousands

by Laird Hunt

is up and running at:

http//writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/alyricmailer/alyric.htm

Laird Hunt works as a Press Officer at the United Nations. He has published work in Grand Street, Sulfur, Talisman et al.and has work forthcoming from No Trees, The World, & City Lights Review. Also forthcoming is a chapbook, Dear Sweetheart, from Talisman House Publishers. He lives in Manhattan, owns two ornery cats & co-edits the journal Psalm 151.

Upcoming issues include work from Heather Fuller, a sound file and text poem for three voices by Carrie Tocci, a critical isssue on the work of Ben Friedlander (critical submissions and queries welcome at the above e-mail address), and work by Heather Ramsdell.

Enjoy.

Mike
 
  --------------D5A71E6FB488BFA583E6F99B-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 00:46:57 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: nyc books reading In-Reply-To: <199804150406.AAA00727@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII yes joel not by chance but by design i'm going for the farrell/andrews reading. more the merrier. further plotting ensues... thanks dan, keston, mark s for suggestions. keep 'em comin. where's jordan davis hiding? t. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 00:00:05 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: when visiting maine do as the mainelanders do MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this from captain D's online tour guide of belfast, maine. For a memorable experience, check out the Institute of Advanced Thinking on Salmond Street in Belfast. Open daily year round, the Institute features outdoor sculpture shows, indoor art shows, festivals and readings. Admission is free. The Institute is the brainchild of Bern Porter, who has been variously described as a "maverick publisher, rebel physicist, master of found art," and "The da Vinci of the Atomic Age." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 02:38:50 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE Subject: New New New @ Bridge Street Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit It's a BIG list. Ordering & discount information at the end of the list. Thanks for your support. 1. _Towards the Primeval Lightning Field_, Will Alexander, O Books, $10.50. A work of "vertical philosophy", including "Within the Scope of the Post-Mortem Imam," "Ratio as Wealth by Nomadic Lemur," and "The Whirling King in the Runic Psychic Theatre." 2. _Wakefulness_, John Ashbery, FSG, $20. "What good are rules anyway / They apply only to themselves and other rules" "go get a job in the monument industry." 3. _Hegel After Derrida_, Stuart Barnett ed., Routledge, $25.99. Robert Bernasconi, John H. Smith, Jean-Luc Nancy, Werner Hamacher, Stuart Barnet, Suzanne Gearhart, Andrzej Warminski, Simon Critchley, Heinz Kimmerle, Kevin Thompson, Henry Sussman. "A number of things need to be pointed out here." 4. _Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word_, Charles Bernstein ed., Oxford, $24.95. Susan Stewart, Nick Piombino, Bruce Andrews, Marjorie Perloff, Susan Howe, Joanna Drucker, Steve McCaffery, Dennis Tedlock, Bob Perleman, Peter Quartermain, Jed Rasula, Peter Middleton, Lorenzo Thomas, Maria Damon, Susan M. Schultz, Ron Silliman. "What is the relation of sound to meaning?" 5. _Chloroform: An Aesthetics of Critical Writing_, Nick Lawrence & Alisa Messer ed, $10. Fiona Templeton, Jena Osman, Abby C., Amy Nestor, Lisa Lucenti, Beth Gerwin, William Howe, Scott Pound, Paul Auster, Benjamin Friedlander, Sheri Weinstein, Charles Bernstein, Micahel Basinski, Michael Stancliff, Cynthia Kimball, Carla Billiteri, Bruce Andrews, Loss Glazier, Martin Spinelli, Ken Sherwood, Ted Pearson, Taylor Brady, Jack Clarke, Kristin Prevallet. 6. _The Little Door Slides Back_, Jeff Clark, Sun & Moon, $10.95. "Fathoming his pomatum." 7. _Life & Death_, Robert Creeley, New Directions, $19.95. "Whatever the hope, / here it is lost. // Because we coveted our difference, here is the cost." The three sections of the book: "Histoire de Florida," "Old Poems, Etc." & "Life & Death / There / Inside My Head." 8. _Explosive Magazine_, fourth issue, ed Katy Lederer, $5. Lisa Lubasch, Prageeta Scharma, Rod Smith, Michael Basinski, Eleni Sikelianos, Darin De Stefano, Gillian Kiley, Albert Flynn DeSilver, Mark Salerno, Travis Ortiz, Leslie Scalapino, and poetry comics by Dave Morice. 9. _The Tel Quel Reader_, Patrick ffrench and Roland-Francois Lack ed, Routledge, $24.99. Julia Kristeva, Jean-Joseph Goux, Jean-Louis Baudry, Michel Foucault, Michelin Pleynet, Philippe Sollers, Marc Devade, Guy Scarpeta, Roland Barthes. There are 3 pieces by Pleynet, 2 each by Kristeva & Sollers, as well as a chronological history of Tel Quel. 10. _Aether_, William Fuller, Gaz, $10. "What exhausts the circuit signifies its revival, without surplus or deficit. Gold is fire, the dialectical solvent, substratum and act: its vacant murmurings vest the appetites; crooked and straight, it kindles and extinguishes the mind." 11. _The Germ #1_, ed MacGregor Card and Andrew Maxwell, $6. Guest, Godfrey, P Gizzi, Coolidge, Prevallet, K Waldrop, Ramke, Hejinian, Rehm, F Howe, Osman, Spahr, Mac Low, Champion, Zurawski, Joron, R Waldrop, Ducornet, many others. 12. _Shi: A Radical Reading of Chinese Poetry_, Yunte Huang, Roof, $9.95. "In acknowledging the foreigness of its source texts, this collection reimagines the task of translation and the possibilities for cross-cultural points of contacts, in the process changing the way we view Chinese poetry." --Charles Bernstein 13. _An Anthology of New (American) Poets_, Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz, and Chris Stroffolino ed, Talisman, $21.95. Beth Anderson, Lee Ann Brown, Mary Burger, Brenda Coultas, Jordan Davis, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Benjamin Friedlander, Drew Gardner, Peter Gizzi, Renee Gladman, Judith Goldman, Yuri (Riq) Hospodar, Garrett Kalleberg, Candace Kaucher, Bill Luoma, Kimberly Lyons, Jeffrey McDaniel, Mark McMorris, Jennifer Moxley, Claire Needell, Hoa Nguyen, Mark Nowak, Heather Ramsdell, Pam Rehm, Elio Schneeman, Susan M. Schultz, Eleni Sikelianos, Rod Smith, Juliana Spahr, Edwin Torres, Mark Wallace, Elizabeth Willis, Thad Ziolkowski. "I wake up and turn again to poetry" 14. _Lost Wax_, Heather Ramsdell, U Illonois, $11.95. "To welcome the fateful crumb, press 2" 15. _Rhizome 2_, ed Standard Schaefer & Evan Calbi, $10. Contributors include Barbara Guest, Scott Katano, Jacques Debrot, Tan Lin, Joe Ross, Graham Foust, Nick Piombino, Laynie Browne, Ted Greenwald, Patrick Pritchett, W.B. Keckler, Bruce Andrews, Eugenia Butler, Norma Cole, David Bromige, Mark Wallace, & a generous section of reviews. 16. _Real Love: In Pursuit of Cultural Justice_, Andrew Ross, NYU, $17.95. The essays included: "Jobs in Cyberspace," "Mr. Reggae DJ, Meet the International Monetary Fund," "The Gangsta and the Diva," "The Private Parts of Justice," "If the Genes Fit, How Do You Acqit? _O.J. and Science_," "The Great Un- American Numbers Game," "What the People Want from Art?," "The Lonely Hour of Scarcity," and "Claims for Cultural Justice." 17. _Poems for the Millenium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Volume Two_, ed Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris, $24.95. 871 pages, too many contributors to list. As with the first volume the scope is truly international & the editorial commentary is actually informational. "Put war away with time, come into space." 18. _The Situationist City_, Simon Sadler, MIT, $29.95. "We are not attached to the charm of ruins" 19. _Poems_, Sappho, translated w/ intro by Willis Barnstone, Sun & Moon, $10.95. "Don't stir up / small heaps / of beach refuse." 20. _Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women_, ed. Mary Margaret Sloan, Talisman, $27.95. Niedecker, Guest, Fraser, Mayer, Waldrop, Brossard,Waldman, Weiner, F Howe, Hejinian, Lauterbach, Notley, Owen, Dahlen, Berssenbrugge, Child, Armantrout, Acker, S Howe, Drucker, Dreyer, Scalapino, Moriarty, DuPlessis, Dientsfry, Cha, Darragh, Harryman, Welish, Retallack, Templeton, Swensen, Myles, Moure, Ward, Day, Mac Cormack, Scott, Mullen, Hunt, Patton, Cole, Sloan, Bellamy, Grim, Roy, Gevirtz, Kim, Robertson, Neilson, & wow. Plus 150 pages of poetics. 21. _Writings 1903-1932_, Gertrude Stein, Library of America, $35. Includes Q.E.D., Three Lives, Portraits and Other Short Works, & The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The Portraits and Other Short Works covers 375 pages and includes Tender Buttons, Yet Dish, Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It, Lifting Belly, Marry Nettie, Acscents in Alsace, An Instant Answer or A Hundred Prominent Men, A Book Concluding With as a Wife Has a Cow, Composition as Explanation, An Acquaintance with Description, Patriarchal Poetry, Four Saints in Three Acts, and much else. 21. _Writings 1932-1946_, Gertrude Stein, Library of America, $35. Stanzas in Meditation, Henry James, Lectures in America, Narration: Lecture 3, What are Masterpieces and Why are There So Few of Them, Geographical History of America, What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes, Picasso, The World is Round, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Ida, Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, Brewsie and Willie, The Mother of Us All, Reflection on the Atomic Bomb. 22. _Free Space Comix_, Brian Kim Steffans, Roof, $9.95. "Hello! broken / "Grease!" cast throwing lots at the / Leprechaun / II -- fast as they could say "Sheena / Easton," / a lung collapsed. Where / is the teeming / parlor?" 23. _Tripwire: a journal of poetics_, ed Yedda Morrison & David Buuck, $6. Noah de Lissovoy, Eleni Sikelianos, Kathy Lou Schultz, Carolyn Castano, Rodrigo Toscano, Sarah Anne Cox, Elizabeth Robinson, Tan Lin, Sarah Rosenthal, Robert Hale, Jocelyn Saidenberg & Brian Strang, Tim Davis, Michelle Rollman, Elizabeth Treadwell, Myung Mi Kim, Dana Lomax, Molly Hankwitz, Poetry Center Archives at SF State, Thiagarajah Selvanithy, Mark Wallace, Sherry Brennan. 24. _The Movement of the Free Spirit_, Raoul Vaneigem, Zone, $12.50. Vaneigem examines the heretical and millenarian movements that challenged social and ecclesiastical authority in Europe from the 1200s into the 1500s. "What needs to be sought out is the kind of fullfillment that comes when the heart learns to extract from the uncertain or the unknown a quintessence of love that allows these circumstances to seem somehow favorable." 25. _WellWellReality [collaborations]_, Rosmarie & Keith Waldrop, Post-Apollo, $10. "body al- / together too / sophisticated / for the soul if sun / relentless burns crying _I_ its / image on our retina bit / by bit another" 26. _My Christmas Poem (Sixteen Inches of Snow and a Void)_, Mark Wallace, PNY/MEB, $5. "I write the day / my own special way-- / bring me as well your drifting gift." Some Bestsellas: _Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustic Technologies_, ed A. Morris, $24.95. _Debbie: An Epic_, Lisa Robertson, $14. _Artificial Heart_, Peter Gizzi, $10. _A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History_, Manuel De Landa, $24.50. _Ancestral Cave_, Tom Mandel, $7.50. _The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book_, ed Andrews & Berstein, $18.95. _The Mooring of Starting Out: The First Five Books_, John Ashbery, $25. _Some Other Kind of Mission_, Lisa Jarnot, Burning Deck, $11. _Some of the Dharma_, Jack Kerouac, Viking, $32.50. _Continuous Discontinuous_, Andrew Levy, Potes & Poets, $13.50. _Another Language: Selected Poems_, Rosmarie Waldrop, Talisman, $10.50. _Frame (1971-1991)_, Barrett Watten, Sun & Moon, $13.95. _On the Level Everyday: Selected Takes on Poetry and the Art of Living_, Ted Berrigan, Talisman, $12.95. _The Psychic Life of Power_, Judith Butler, Stanford, $15.95. _The Politics of Truth_, Michel Foucault, Autonomedia, $8. _The Lost Lunar Baedeker_, Mina Loy, FSG, $13. _Imagination Verses_, Jennifer Moxley, $8.95. _I-VI_, John Cage, $24.95. _MUSICAGE: Cage Muses on Words. Art. Music._, Joan Retallack, $19.95. _Chain 4_, $10. _Crayon Premier Issue: Jackson Mac Low Festschrift_, $20. _Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material World_, Michael Davidson, $35. _In Memory of My Theories_, Rod Smith, $10.50. _Guy Debord--Revolutionary: A Critical Biography_, Len Bracken, $14.95. _Essays Clinical & Critical_, Guy Deleuze, $17.95. _il cuore : the heart, Selected Poems_ Katthleen Fraser, $12.95 _Perhaps this is a rescue fantasy_, Heather Fuller, $10. _Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There_, Mark Wallace, $9.50. 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: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 03:03:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Julu and Jennifer and Nikuko and Julu and Jennifer Visit Nikuko You'll get tired of seeing the shrines, Jennifer. But, Julu, they fascinate me. When you've been here six years like I have, they'll exhaust you. We all go through the same things. We all have been there before. But, Julu, we're all different. That's what I thought as well. But you'll think differently. Oh, it's Nikuko, hello. Hello, Nikuko. We're talking about shrines. Ah yes, they fascinate me. We Japanese people do not believe in anything. We are very homogeneous in our one identity. Ah, Nikuko, you always speak like you are reading Soseki. Ah, that is true, Jennifer, I get all my thoughts from I am a Cat. Yes, that is his most wonderful book. You will get tired of reading books, Julu. Ah, although I have read many books, I am already getting tired. Books can be very tiring, especially after reading for six years. You are making fun of me, Jennifer, but I have been here longer. How long have you been here. I have been in Fukuoka for six years and before that twenty in Tokyo. Do you love Tokyo, Nikuko. Yes, Julu, I do. I love the old shrines which continue to fascinate me. Shrines can be fascinating for many years. There are so many to see and so many customs. There are wonderful stories which readers of Gon will enjoy. Ah, Jennifer, you will soon tire of manga, everyone does. But Nikuko, I love manga for the wonderful graphics and high-powered sex. The sex is very simple, but a lot of parts are cut out, Nikuko. Do you think so, Julu. Yes, I do, for example, the dildos and labia are now cut out. Were they cut out before. Yes they were cut out before. There are so many men and women in manga. I love the enormous breasts wet to the bursting point. I love the big eyes and high cheekbones and spiky hair. Everyone passes through that stage, Jennifer. Do you think I am just passing through a stage, Nikuko. Yes I do, Julu because you have just been here six months. I have been here nine months, Julu. I thought you were here six years, Nikuko. I have been here all my life, Jennifer, because it is very beautiful. I especially love the old shrines and the manga which are my favorite. Perhaps you could be teasingly photographed for a manga. Yes, that would be wonderful, to be teasingly photographed. Perhaps I could pose in front of a wonderful old shrine. I would be very religious in front of the shrine with bursting breasts. Hello, Julu, welcome back. I am very sorry but I had to leave for a moment. I just had to look at some manga and walk around for good air. Did you find the air very much to your liking. Yes, the air around these shrines is very pleasant. You will think otherwise, perhaps, when you are here longer. Perhaps, since we gaijin are very homogeneous in our identity. Do you think we think alike. Yes, perhaps it becomes clear that we think alike, Julu. Jennifer, do you have anything to say to this point. Certainly, Nikuko, since for example we love Japanese food. Julu, do you love Japanese food because you are here for six years. Jennifer, I agree that it is a very short time and maybe it is otherwise. Nikuko, that may be an answer to your thoughts on this matter. Julu, I would have thought so, when I first arrived. Everyone said, Jennifer, that I would pass through this. Nikuko, you are more than correct, you are exact. Yes, I do love shrines and my photographed breasts. Everyone has homogeneous identities when they first arrive. Bursting-manga wet my dreaming face and appetite for food. There are times when Japanese books are loved the best by everyone. Goodbye, Jennifer. Goodbye, Julu. Goodbye, Nikuko. Goodbye, Jennifer. Goodbye, Julu. Goodbye, Nikuko. _____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:07:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My god! here I am in Cambridge helping people fight evictions and landlord harassment, and all the while the Real Evil is taking place at the quaint book shops down the street in Harvard Square (aka The Outdoor Mall). Maria, how are these "ploys" of the chains apparent? I worked at three different Borders stores for a total (combined) of 3 years. I still have many friends who work at Borders as assistant managers (all over the country). Deploying staff to carry out ploys against independent bookstores must be a secret only you are in on. I know a lot of stories of how employees are treated poorly (at best, like children), how they don't make a living wage, are intimidated for a variety of reasons, and so on. But the conspiracy you outline below is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong: I hate Borders and Barnes & Noble too. To be fair, I also hate Grolier, but that's another story. The "chain" bookstores are demonized, no doubt about it. Fuck 'em, they deserve it. That doesn't give people leave however to spread war stories about the atrocities. daniel bouchard At 09:25 PM 4/14/98 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: >apparently one ploy of the chain bookstores is to haunt independents >looking for titles --in Cambridge, for inst, they'll go to Grolier's for >poetry titles and Harvard books for theory and cult studs, stock up on >those and put those sections in prominent places in their own chain store, >then, after they've driven the indies out of business, phase out the poetry >and the cult studs. so, i try not to buy books there no matter what, even >if it means special ordering from an independent. but yes, my faves are >the used bookstores, long may they thrive around the edges of commerce. > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:22:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If Maria's conspiracy theory is sheer paranoia, it is shared by most well-informed indie book people. Reports on Barnes & Noble in particular show that it has targeted specific book markets wherever it has perceived a vulnerable indie, and it has gone in to complete the kill at every opportunity. This is not esoteric knowledge. Even PBS and CNN have done takes on the story. The latest rumor is that they are now planning to move into the used book market. You will soon be watching your favorite used bookstores going under. Borders may not be as ugly about this, but there is no doubt that B & N is. Daniel, I would urge your friends to treat B & N and Borders like their landlords: tell them to watch their backs. GT. >My god! here I am in Cambridge helping people fight evictions and landlord >harassment, and all the while the Real Evil is taking place at the quaint >book shops down the street in Harvard Square (aka The Outdoor Mall). > >Maria, how are these "ploys" of the chains apparent? I worked at three >different Borders stores for a total (combined) of 3 years. I still have >many friends who work at Borders as assistant managers (all over the >country). Deploying staff to carry out ploys against independent bookstores >must be a secret only you are in on. > >I know a lot of stories of how employees are treated poorly (at best, like >children), how they don't make a living wage, are intimidated for a variety >of reasons, and so on. >But the conspiracy you outline below is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong: I >hate Borders and Barnes & Noble too. To be fair, I also hate Grolier, but >that's another story. > >The "chain" bookstores are demonized, no doubt about it. Fuck 'em, they >deserve it. That doesn't give people leave however to spread war stories >about the atrocities. > > >daniel bouchard > > > >At 09:25 PM 4/14/98 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: >>apparently one ploy of the chain bookstores is to haunt independents >>looking for titles --in Cambridge, for inst, they'll go to Grolier's for >>poetry titles and Harvard books for theory and cult studs, stock up on >>those and put those sections in prominent places in their own chain store, >>then, after they've driven the indies out of business, phase out the poetry >>and the cult studs. so, i try not to buy books there no matter what, even >>if it means special ordering from an independent. but yes, my faves are >>the used bookstores, long may they thrive around the edges of commerce. >> ><<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Daniel Bouchard >The MIT Press Journals >Five Cambridge Center >Cambridge, MA 02142 > >bouchard@mit.edu >phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:38:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:22 AM 4/15/98 -0400, George Thompson wrote: >Daniel, I would urge your friends to treat B & N and Borders like their >landlords: tell them to watch their backs. They don't need me to tell them. This is a job axiom we all share: booksellers, teachers, paper-shufflers. I don't watch the news programs you mention, and have no experience with BarnsNoble. - db <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:35:52 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Although I'm mostly a library person, in my secret nonpoet identity, I have had some contact with book retail; and I've worked there some. George Thompson and Maria are right: the basic strategy Maria outlines is a very ordinary marketing tactic, from the capitalist point of view and *is indeed* something that goes on. Dan Bouchard is more than a little naive about this; and just why is he so het up (as well as wrong??) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:43:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:35 AM 4/15/98 -0400, Mark Prejsnar wrote: >Dan Bouchard is more than a little naive about this; and just why is he so >het up (as well as wrong??) > Because it is easier to be naive and wrong than it is to be Mark Prejsnar. daniel bouchard <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:32:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel: There was a senate hearing on B&N's practices several years back . . . you can find it in the library . . . Maria's not at all paranoid . . . Borders totally fucked Dan Odegaard out of a bookstore maybe 5 years ago in MPLS . . . a couple of their coprorate heads came & met with Dan . . . told him if he didn't sell to them, they'd move in anyway & screw his business . . . He declined their offer . . . they're now sitting in the space where his bookstore used to be . . . I worked for Legal Aid while in MPLS . . . helped tenants go up against the worst slimeball landlords there . . . and researched & wrote about Barnes & Noble at the same time . . . not sure why you priviledge one concern over the other . . . it might surprise you to know that a group of concerned MPLS citizens actually stopped a Starbucks from moving in, once . . . Starbucks uses similar practices . . . make deals with landlords to ensure exclusivity . . . always move in near independents, ultimate goal being to drive them out of business . . . Again, this is all stuff well-documented . . . look into it before accusing others of being paranoid . . . "a courtesy thing" . . . Thanks, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:57:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980415130709.006b77f8@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" perhaps this is a paranoid fantasy on the part of the person i heard it from; it was told to me by the proprietor of one of the independent bookstores in harvard square. keep up the good fight. At 9:07 AM -0400 4/15/98, daniel bouchard wrote: >My god! here I am in Cambridge helping people fight evictions and landlord >harassment, and all the while the Real Evil is taking place at the quaint >book shops down the street in Harvard Square (aka The Outdoor Mall). > >Maria, how are these "ploys" of the chains apparent? I worked at three >different Borders stores for a total (combined) of 3 years. I still have >many friends who work at Borders as assistant managers (all over the >country). Deploying staff to carry out ploys against independent bookstores >must be a secret only you are in on. > >I know a lot of stories of how employees are treated poorly (at best, like >children), how they don't make a living wage, are intimidated for a variety >of reasons, and so on. >But the conspiracy you outline below is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong: I >hate Borders and Barnes & Noble too. To be fair, I also hate Grolier, but >that's another story. > >The "chain" bookstores are demonized, no doubt about it. Fuck 'em, they >deserve it. That doesn't give people leave however to spread war stories >about the atrocities. > > >daniel bouchard > > > >At 09:25 PM 4/14/98 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: >>apparently one ploy of the chain bookstores is to haunt independents >>looking for titles --in Cambridge, for inst, they'll go to Grolier's for >>poetry titles and Harvard books for theory and cult studs, stock up on >>those and put those sections in prominent places in their own chain store, >>then, after they've driven the indies out of business, phase out the poetry >>and the cult studs. so, i try not to buy books there no matter what, even >>if it means special ordering from an independent. but yes, my faves are >>the used bookstores, long may they thrive around the edges of commerce. >> ><<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Daniel Bouchard >The MIT Press Journals >Five Cambridge Center >Cambridge, MA 02142 > >bouchard@mit.edu >phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:09:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" All this and Maria hasn't even cyber-slapped me yet. Here is what I know: my experiences at Borders (and subsequent information from people who have stayed with the company). From this framework, I stand by my original reply to Maria. The idea that Borders would consider it worth their time to infiltrate small shops like Grolier and Harvard to copy their title stock AS A MEANS of driving them out of business continues to strike me as pretty stupid. But my naivete is apparent. My credibility to speak of capitalist business practices, marketing strategies, and so forth wanes in the face of B&N's business practices and Starbuck's real estate deals. Why do I privelege one concern (organizing tenants) over another (defending small bookstores)? Well, why do people defend a particular for-profit small bookstore when it's vulnerable to a bigger for-profit bookstore? Finally--especially to you Gary--go back and read the three messages I posted this morning. You will not find the word "paranoid" in them, nevermind my accusing someone of being paranoid. Please read what is right before your eyes before replying, "a courtesy thing." At 09:32 AM 4/15/98 -0400, Gary Sullivan wrote: >Again, this is all stuff well-documented . . . look into it before accusing >others of being paranoid . . . "a courtesy thing" . . . - db <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:11:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If it was the proprietor of the Grolier, then "paranoid" is the right word. At 08:57 AM 4/15/98 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: >perhaps this is a paranoid fantasy on the part of the person i heard it >from; it was told to me by the proprietor of one of the independent >bookstores in harvard square. keep up the good fight. > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:13:06 EDT Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dan, I'll bite: What's the problem with Groliers? (other then they don't have enough room and I keep tripping over stuff when I go in) E. Hatmaker ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:48:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Daniel: I've gone back over your words. You tell Maria "Deploying staff to carry out ploys against independent bookstores must be a secret only you are in on" and "the conspiracy you outline below is ludicrous." It seems obvious to me that, as well as being dismissive and condescending here, you're accusing Maria of being paranoid. Why I wouldn't privilege one concern over the other: in both instances what we're talking about are unscrupulous & often totally illegal abuses of real estate. I'm equally concerned about smaller, single-owner businesses participating in similar abuse, as & when it happens. But, maybe more to the point: as well as being aware of individual instances like these . . . well, I think it helps to have as good a sense as you can as to how these things, generally, can take place . . . some cognizance of the social/economic system(s) that allow for these sorts of manifestations. Yours, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:31:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: More Closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII St. Louis book chronicles: A couple of years ago I walked into an independent bookstore in St. Louis looking for Ishiguro's _The Unconsoled_ which had been published a few weeks before--a present for a family member. No luck, so I had to go to a still independent, but larger store (since purchased by Border's). I was sorry when the smaller independent store went out of business, since they had a great poetry section, yet I understood. They were forcing customers like me to go the stores where I was assured of finding so obvious a book--a new novel by a well-known novelist published by a major commercial press. I was sorry when the local independent mega-store was bought out by Border's also. Yet this "independent" store was already, in their own business practices, fairly ruthless, engaging in some of the same tactics mentioned in relation to B&B and B's. Trying to out-border borders, they ended up being swallowed up anyway. Luckily, Left Bank books is still open in the Central West End. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:42:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" with respect to harvard square, it was barnes and nobles, not borders, that was the bookstore in question. though the borders gary speaks of, that took over odegaards, is right next to myhouse. occasionally i do buy books there, but after all this info, will be even more reluctant in the future. At 10:09 AM 4/15/98, daniel bouchard wrote: >All this and Maria hasn't even cyber-slapped me yet. Here is what I know: my >experiences at Borders (and subsequent information from people who have >stayed with the company). From this framework, I stand by my original reply >to Maria. The idea that Borders would consider it worth their time to >infiltrate small shops like Grolier and Harvard to copy their title stock AS >A MEANS of driving them out of business continues to strike me as pretty >stupid. > >But my naivete is apparent. My credibility to speak of capitalist business >practices, marketing strategies, and so forth wanes in the face of B&N's >business practices and Starbuck's real estate deals. > >Why do I privelege one concern (organizing tenants) over another (defending >small bookstores)? Well, why do people defend a particular for-profit small >bookstore when it's vulnerable to a bigger for-profit bookstore? > >Finally--especially to you Gary--go back and read the three messages I >posted this morning. You will not find the word "paranoid" in them, >nevermind my accusing someone of being paranoid. Please read what is right >before your eyes before replying, "a courtesy thing." > > >At 09:32 AM 4/15/98 -0400, Gary Sullivan wrote: >>Again, this is all stuff well-documented . . . look into it before accusing >>others of being paranoid . . . "a courtesy thing" . . . > > >- db > > ><<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Daniel Bouchard >The MIT Press Journals >Five Cambridge Center >Cambridge, MA 02142 > >bouchard@mit.edu >phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:47:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: report on Bromige reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" cd we get some reports on the Mackey extravaganzas in chicago and indiana? thanks guyzies At 8:43 AM 4/14/98, MAYHEW wrote: >Approximately fifty people heard poet David Bromige read selections from >his work last night (Monday, April 13) at the Canterbury House near the >campus of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The audience responded >warmly to Bromige's unprepossessing manner and witty, serious poems. > >Speaking only for myself... I had not been to a poetry reading in a >couple of years and felt invigorated afterwards. Thanks to Maryrose Larkin >and everyone else who brought Bromige to Lawrence. > >Jonathan Mayhew >Department of Spanish and Portuguese >University of Kansas >jmayhew@ukans.edu >(785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:46:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >My god! here I am in Cambridge helping people fight evictions and landlord >harassment, and all the while the Real Evil is taking place at the quaint >book shops down the street in Harvard Square (aka The Outdoor Mall). As the effective size of corporations grows, and lesser economic entities find it harder and harder to compete effectively with those that are growing, amalgamating, joint venturing, and consolidating....this reflects into the book trade as well as everywhere else.... In the book trade one of the biggest problems has been the difficulty small presses, and self published authors, have in obtaining any meaningful distribution and promotion. This leads to a few getting most of the market share and the others not even recouping costs,....With fewer and fewer independent dealers, there will be even less opportunity for many individuals. Fewer will have any chance to be known, even in lesser ways, and more shall have their work perish, at an ever faster pace. The wierdest part about it is that it is also reflecting into little known affinity and interest groups, where a similar attitude is happening as occurs in big business and big distribution. Fewer and fewer individuals are having any real chance of any success, even in terms of getting meaningful readings as to their writing. A smaller and smaller group tend to get the good gigs, paid or unpaid, where they can get significant, meaningful, exposure and a chance at any kind of hope of any success. In past years one such organization allowed every member who attended their spring meeting to read something of their work. It was an afternoon of sharing new creative efforts by all, where anyone could participate. Now this has changed, to a big publisher sponsored reading by four or five of the better established, better known, names, from within the organization. They are now the Barnes and Nobles, Chapters, or whatever chain congolomerate equivalent, while everyone is merely a "consumer". Is this to be the current and future trend ? A trend of more and more silenced voices in the arts ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:02:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: more closings (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:18:11 -0400 From: daniel bouchard To: kmsuther@fas.harvard.edu Subject: Re: more closings Keston, I've exceeded my posting limit for the diem (5). Can you please forward this to the UberList? This is it for me today. Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:14:01 -0400 To: buff post From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: more closings What "seems obvious" to you Gary is not obvious to everyone. Or, if I am speaking again beyond my naive realm of knowledge, it is not obvious to me. I would rather be quoted than interpreted, especially in a tricky medium such as e-mail. Anyway, we now know that the person who IS in on the secret ploys of the big bookstores is "the proprietor of one of the independent bookstores in harvard square." - db At 10:48 AM 4/15/98 -0400, Gary Sullivan wrote: I've gone back over your words. You tell Maria "Deploying staff to carry out ploys against independent bookstores must be a secret only you are in on" and "the conspiracy you outline below is ludicrous." It seems obvious to me that, as well as being dismissive and condescending here, you're accusing Maria of being paranoid. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:06:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <199804151546.LAA27078@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Re: Morph et al's worries.... It seems to me that the greatest hope for the avaialability of lots and lots of writers would be something like this list. I mean Rod just got to post a list of new books to a pretty big chunk of the poetry readers who would purchase such books. I also think that Amazon and other electronic "bookstores" will have a pronounced and really positive effect on the book industry. I mean, it's not like B & N has any real interest in keeping us all from, say, HD. They just don't have the space or the inclination to necessarily purvey her books. I think a much larger issue in this instance (re: availability) would be the buying practices of libraries. I like to browse around in a used bookstore as much as the next guy...but I don't really mind the idea of buying my books over the net. I understand that one of the issues here regards the owners of these small stores. But (as someone has already pointed out, I believe) why are these owners any "nicer" than other owners? Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:08:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <01BD6851.76659390@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Daniel: > >There was a senate hearing on B&N's practices several years back . . . you can >find it in the library . . . Maria's not at all paranoid . . . Borders totally >fucked Dan Odegaard out of a bookstore maybe 5 years ago in MPLS . . . a >couple >of their coprorate heads came & met with Dan . . . told him if he didn't sell >to them, they'd move in anyway & screw his business . . . He declined their >offer . . . they're now sitting in the space where his bookstore used to >be . . >. > >I worked for Legal Aid while in MPLS . . . helped tenants go up against the >worst slimeball landlords there . . . and researched & wrote about Barnes & >Noble at the same time . . . not sure why you priviledge one concern over the >other . . . it might surprise you to know that a group of concerned MPLS >citizens actually stopped a Starbucks from moving in, once . . . Starbucks >uses >similar practices . . . make deals with landlords to ensure exclusivity . . . >always move in near independents, ultimate goal being to drive them out of >business . . . > >Again, this is all stuff well-documented . . . look into it before accusing >others of being paranoid . . . "a courtesy thing" . . . > >Thanks, > >Gary The natural food chains use similar tactics. Here in Lawrence KS we drove one (Wild Oats) out of town. That the new Borders is indeed only a half a block away from the one remaining semi-serious indie bookstore makes it easier to park when going to the indie, but unfortunately the indie is quite small and necessarily has large gaps. Luckily the local Borders hasn't figured out the market (I will drop no hints here) and therefore is not more attractive. Unluckily before it opened the two other semi-serious indies closed in anticipation of bankruptcy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:12:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980415140955.006d38d8@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Why do I privelege one concern (organizing tenants) over another (defending >small bookstores)? Well, why do people defend a particular for-profit small >bookstore when it's vulnerable to a bigger for-profit bookstore? > This is easy to answer. Small bookstores make independent judgements when buying books, and the existence many small bookstores makes the existence of many publishers possible. Just try getting your local micro-press, or any press not on the master list, into Borders or B & N. Books by local authors occasionally manage to get in (shelved in the local interest section, no matter what sort of book it is), and other books absolutely cannot. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:31:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: more closings Comments: To: Judy Roitman In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Just try getting your local micro-press, or any press not on the master >list, into Borders or B & N. Books by local authors occasionally manage >to get in (shelved in the local interest section, no matter what sort of >book it is), and other books absolutely cannot. I was pleased to find books by Ange Mlinko, Lisa Jarnot, Peter Gizzi and several other young writers at Waterstone's on Newbury St. in Boston. It's a massive store, and a massive chain (in the UK particularly). This is, though, as you say rare; but maybe the beginning of a trend? It doesn't sound as if anybody here wouldn't -want- their book to be in Borders, or would refuse to have it there -- should the big co.s decide to patronise books relatively marginal to money, how would they be stopped? Why do so many 'small press' books in the US have ISBNs? Doesn't everyone quite plainly WANT to be less benooked? Follow your own logic.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:44:42 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Barnes & Noble & Social Darwinian MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I haven't been following the discussion about Barnes & Noble and the demise of the small independent bookstore; I've been too busy running my own bookstore here in Washington DC, the country's county seat of corruption. No one should equate what Barnes & Noble or what any other corporation does with the natural order. Here in Washington we stay acutely aware of how the Big Boys manipulate the system to their advantage. They write legislation that is favorable to their industry. They litter my pseudo-intellectual landscape with think-tank whores whose sole purpose is to influence legislation and sell anti-democratic ideas to a gullible populace e.g. the privatization of Social Security or the natural efficacy of markets. They offer political appointees, regulators, elected officials and members of the military lucrative positions, de facto bribes, for supporting government spending for their particular products and services. They have off-shore bank accounts that are beyond U.S.tax laws. They run their operations in the red, borrowing from cronies in the banking industry, in order to drive weaker competitors out of business. Then they cut back services and employees in the name of greater efficiency. I could go on, but the point is if it was just a matter of competition, especially with books, knowledge should be king. Further, with books a knowledge of their content can be detrimental to your business if you let that knowledge cloud your 'business sense' as I so often do. Indeed, books like any other commodity is subject to market forces. But with outfits like Barnes & Noble and Borders you reach a new threshold where capital concerns eliminate all others. You may have your backlist today but what about when all the independents have been squeezed out. My shop is used and out-of-print. Norman Kemp Smith's Commentary on Critique of Pure Reason is Out-Of-Print! That's the market at work. A few years ago before the new edition of Yeat's collected poetry had been published, MacMillan almost dropped the title from its list because their computerized sales system showed that not enough copies had been sold that year to justify continuing publication. A junior editor perusing the print-out discovered this abomination and the Yeat's title was restored. This is what we are moving toward. The price I pay daily for rescuing some of the best our culture and other cultures have produced is eighty hour work weeks, near poverty, and the ridicule and derision of a society that largely because of material excess has discarded its instinct and empathetic regard for life.---Carlo Parcelli ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:51:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Just try getting your local micro-press, or any press not on the master >>list, into Borders or B & N. Books by local authors occasionally manage >>to get in (shelved in the local interest section, no matter what sort of >>book it is), and other books absolutely cannot. > > >I was pleased to find books by Ange Mlinko, Lisa Jarnot, Peter Gizzi and >several other young writers at Waterstone's on Newbury St. in Boston. >It's a massive store, and a massive chain (in the UK particularly). This >is, though, as you say rare; but maybe the beginning of a trend? It >doesn't sound as if anybody here wouldn't -want- their book to be in >Borders, or would refuse to have it there -- should the big co.s decide to >patronise books relatively marginal to money, how would they be stopped? >Why do so many 'small press' books in the US have ISBNs? Doesn't everyone >quite plainly WANT to be less benooked? Follow your own logic.. If the big companies decided to give local managers local control and let a thousand thousand small publishers bloom, who would complain? But Borders and B&N don't do that. They do something much more subtle, picking up a small number of small presses that have shown some base of loyal readers, but not encouraging others. If you go to the Barnes and Noble in the Plaza in Kansas City you might get all excited because as a matter of course they do carry, say, books by Susan Howe. But if you look closely at the publisher you'll discover that what most of us consider interesting books on their shelves are coming from a very small number of presses, most of them university presses. Other presses need not apply. They also put pressure on publishers to cut them deals. Marginal presses can't do that. I have also known them to tell people that in-print books from publishers not on their master list were out of print and could not be ordered. I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories, so suspect this might just be incompetent local staff. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:45:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: more closings (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Daniel: I wholly understand your concern not to be misinterpreted. Anyway, I did quote you, & others can decide for themselves whether or not an accusation of paranoia seemed likely in your words. I apologize for my own response if you indeed didn't mean it. I'll quote you again: "we now know that the person who IS in on the secret ploys of the big bookstores is 'the proprietor of one of the independent bookstores in harvard square.'" I feel compelled to remind you that many, many others are on to them as well. Just because you don't have firsthand knowledge of this doesn't mean it's not true, & I'm at a loss to understand why you're so dismissive of those of us who've looked into the subject at any length. If "dismissive" is a misinterpretation of your words, I apologize again. That's how you're coming across. To me, at least. As Jonathan Mayhew points out, some chain-bookstore practices ultimately have consequences further-reaching than who will make money from what. I don't think he'd be surprised to hear that the senate subcommittee hearings I mentioned earlier were undertaken to determine whether or not chain bookstores were in collusion with the largest NYC presses as regards pricing and returns policies that, in effect, destroyed chances for smaller publishers to participate. The hearings were labeled "anti-trust" hearings. Again, some understanding of how monopolies are created & maintained in this culture, and what the consequences tend to be, is necessary, I think, in being able to determine the value of resistance. Not to mention specific options open to those genuinely wanting to resist. To offer one answer Katy's question here: "why are these [independent] owners any 'nicer' than other owners?" -- the point isn't niceness, but diversity. Again, chain bookstores, in proven collaboration with the larger presses, have different, and much more rigid book-buying policies than independent bookstores. B&N's return policy alone has really hurt Coffee House Press (one of the larger nonprofits in the country), to the point where they were--at the time I worked there, four years ago or so--reconsidering dealing with the chains at all. And CHP has an annual budget of over a million dollars a year (or did then). Long ago on this list, I posted a sort of mini-history of Bookslinger's demise . . . in great part the result of Consortium's business practices. I won't repost that here, but you can find it, early 95, in the archives, if you're at all interested in this sort of thing. Bookslinger, by the way, was comparable to SPD. Consortium isn't. I'm not angry with you, Daniel, and I hope that I'm not coming across that way. But I have to say, I'm surprised--having seen you read recently at Zinc--that someone as dedicated to Olson's art as you are (or seemed to be, to me) is unsympathetic to some of the more general social concerns addressed in his _Maximus Poems_. Anyway . . . my dimes have been spent, too . . . I'm glad to see others with some experience/knowledge w/respect to this subject piping in . . . people DO care about this, Daniel . . . Yours, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:18:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As a publisher my experience with the chains has been marginal--mostly special orders and occasional large orders, almost entirely returned, of books by readers at a given store. My understanding is that they operate by assigning a value per inch or foot of shelf space--the given space must produce x amount of sales per unit of time, otherwise the stock is reshuffled. This requires a lot of traffic, which in turn requires a high-rent loaction, which in turn requires optimum sales per shelf unit, etc. It does work within their criteria--they make a lot of money. So they're not going to carry a lot of my books. The system also requires that customers not linger--that slows the traffic. Poetry customers linger--we taste a lot before we decide. A low-traffic indie, which provides the time to linger, usually has a lower profit-per-shelf-unit expectation, so books that don't sell can stay on the shelves longer. On the down side, they rarely buy more than one or two copies, they often pay grudgingly, and when they agree to take a book from a small press publisher it's usually in a face-to-face encounter in which this publisher, at least, is made to feel like a pauper at the gate, hat in hand. Labor-intensive and unrewarding. And the books usually sit on the shelves until they are covered with dust or dog-eared beyond recognition. And what are we talking about nation-wide, 40 stores? Mailorder can sell books, but you can't browse, which means only books already known to the reader get ordered. Hard to make a surprise discovery at Amazon.com. Witness my recent offering of half-priced copies of two Junction titles to the list. Only a very few ordered (thank you), even at give-away prices. I sell, one way or another, a fair number of books to individuals, but library sales via wholesalers are what keep this press afloat, and I do hope those copies get read. Wholesalers, like bookstores, require ISBNs (and barcodes), as do the major journals that review books for the library trade. That's why we have ISBNs. It >doesn't sound as if anybody here wouldn't -want- their book to be in >Borders, or would refuse to have it there -- should the big co.s decide to >patronise books relatively marginal to money, how would they be stopped? >Why do so many 'small press' books in the US have ISBNs? Doesn't everyone >quite plainly WANT to be less benooked? Follow your own logic.. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:49:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think Gary Sullivan might have given me credit for insights made by others; I have relatively little expertise in this question compared to those who have more experience working in bookstores and in publishing or who've followed the news reports more assiduously. I bought some books from Amazon and they've helpfully suggested other books that might interest me: "Hello, Jonathan Mayhew, Based on the items you've bought at Amazon.com we think you'll like these. Please check back often as the list changes daily": The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt Tales from Ovid (trans. Ted Hughes) Glare (Ammons) Wittgenstein's Ladder (Perloff) [a good suggestion but of course I already have it] Collected Works of Yeats Collected Poetry and Prose (W. Stevens) The Odes of Horace Sonnets (Shakespeare) Sonnets (Stephen Booth edition) Complete Poems of Anna Akhmovota Alive Together (Lisel Mueller) Bryne (A. Burgess) Desire (Bidart not Bromige) Nietzsche in Turin Passing Through (Kunitz) War Music (Logue The Work of Poetry (John Hollander) The Elgin Affair The Best American Poetry 1997 (ed. J. TATE) A Day with Picasso Collected fiction of Spackmann Otherwise (J. Kenyon, ed. by donald hall) The Iron Tracks (Green) The Norton Shakespeare This would be frightening if it weren't so far off base. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:28:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: New New New @ Bridge Street Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" rod rites: 9. _The Tel Quel Reader_, Patrick ffrench and Roland-Francois Lack ed, Routledge, $24.99. Julia Kristeva, Jean-Joseph Goux, Jean-Louis Baudry, Michel Foucault, Michelin Pleynet, Philippe Sollers, Marc Devade, Guy Scarpeta, Roland Barthes. There are 3 pieces by Pleynet, 2 each by Kristeva & Sollers, as well as a chronological history of Tel Quel. is this the real editors' names? too good to be true! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:37:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: after emmett Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" just chect this out it's cool At 1:43 PM 4/12/98, Miekal And wrote: >after emmett > >a >dispersion >of >ninetiles > > >a typofantastic epic voyage by Miekal And > >http://net22.com/qazingulaza/joglars/afteremmett/bonvoyage.html > > >after emmett was created during april 1998 using selected letters from >the following fonts: albatross, arial, attic, avant garde, bodoni, >cochin, contraband, cooper black, courier, exocet heavy, friz quadrata, >georgia, gilligans island, goudy heavy, goudy oldstyle, goudy thin, >harlequin, harrington, helvetica, impact, kronk, lemiesz, lubalin graph, >milano, oakwood, OPTIflare, optima, poster bodoni, potsdam, premium >truetype, rocky, stonecutter, stiletto, thunderbird, trajan, ultrablack, >university roman, ursa serif , utopia, vedome, verdana. animations >rendered using adobe photoshop & the nifty shareware gifbuilder. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:45:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ctfarmr Subject: addresses needed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Anyone with this information -- a backchannel would be greatly appreciated >>>>>>> Forward from Tom Beckett: Subj: addresses Date: 98-04-15 05:40:11 EDT From: TBeck131@aol.com To: Ctfarmr@aol.com Bobbie-- Could you, for our project, do a query to the poetics list? I need addresses both ground and electronic for-- Carla Harryman & Steve Evans (he's apparently somewhere in France now) Thanks. tom TBeck131@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 05:14:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I have also known them to tell people that in-print books from publishers >not on their master list were out of print and could not be ordered. I >tend not to believe in conspiracy theories, so suspect this might just be >incompetent local staff. Could this have anything to do with amazon.com getting information about lots of small press books that those books were "out of print." Someone alerted me that a Chax book listed with Amazon had that "out of print" status according to amazon, when in fact it was most definitely in print. I checked, and they had virtually all Chax books as out of print, which was false. I did contact someone there, and they corrected this information with some help from me. Others have told me that other small press books with Amazon are falsely listed as out of print. The Amazon person I talked with said "that was just the information as we received it" -- but didn't tell me where they received it from. I know that after the information was corrected, Chax started receiving a few orders from amazin (not a lot), whereas before that we had received no such orders from them. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://personal.riverusers.com/~chax/ :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:24:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Varrone Subject: Reading Announcement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those in the Philadelphia area: 5 Corners Poetry Series Presents: Jennifer McCreary & Rod Smith Thursday, April 23rd, 8 p.m. @George's 5th Street Cafe (Corner of 5th and Gaskill, between Lombard & South Streets) Call Kevin @ 215/238-8511 for info. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 18:10:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Nathaniel Mackey reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In an under-air conditioned room, in front of about 90 people (most of them decidedly not there to earn extra credit), Nathaniel Mackey read from 3 volumes of his poetry today at UIC. He opened with 3 poems from Eroding Witness (his Jimi Hendrix poem called "Black Snake Visitation," his Coltrane poem entitled "Ohnedaruth's Day Begun" (not sure of the spelling there), and Passing Through, dedicated to the Ghanian scholar Ivan Van Sertima). These are poems that at times can be difficult to get off the page, but NM offered enough background to give attentive listeners something to latch on to (between that, and the fact he has one of the greatest reading voices I ever heard, he did a great job holding the audience in what could have been sleep-inducing conditions). Mackey then moved on to work from School of Udhra, including "Amma Seru's Hammer's Heated Fall," (dedicated to the sculptor Ed Love. And I didn't know this, but Amma Seru is a blacksmith figure from Dogon Mythology) and "Slipped Quadrant." Mackey closed with three parts of the _Song of the Andoumboulou_ (18, 19,20), which will be in the forthcoming _Whatsaid Serif_. I knew that the "Andoumboulou" refers to a funeral song of the Dogon, but I didn't know that, as Mackey pointed out that he just learned, Dogon lore sees the Andoumboulou as earlier versions of humanity that just didn't work out, sort of like "first drafts" of us, in Dogon cosmology. He also pointed out that the "Whatsaid" refers to a figure called the Whatsayer, whose job is to interrupt the story teller by asking questions, interrupting, heckling, or as Mackey put it, "to roughen the weave of the story." (especially interesting in light of Tom Becket's questions awhile back about "stoppage" in poetry). These poems, too, rocked. After reading for about an hour in a stuffy room, Mackey very generously took questions from the audience for 30 additional minutes. Among the many highlights was a response to some very ParisReview-type questions: when asked if he envisioned a particular response in his audience -- say an intellectual response or a particular political act, etc -- when he writes, NM said no, that as a poet he is the "instigator of meaning" and then proceeded to tell of some of the responses he gets via letters, including two ARCHITECTS(!) who have found inspiration in his work. NM pointed out that, if he had set out w/ a pre-established audience response in his mind, there's no way he would ever be surprised like he is in such cases. Tomorrow, NM will lecture here on HD's influence, which I won't post about unless he goes over different ground than he did when Maria heard him two weeks ago. By the way, Whatsaid Serif will be published by City Lights, and should be out in June. So if you're in Chicago, and you didn't come to UIC, catch Mackey tomorrow at Columbia College on Michigan Avenue. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago to belong to whatever moves us outward into the wideness, for journeying... --Hilda Morley, 1919-1998 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 20:23:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Barnes & Noble & Social Darwinian Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >continuing publication. A junior editor perusing the print-out >discovered this abomination and the Yeat's title was restored. This is >what we are moving toward. The price I pay daily for rescuing some of >the best our culture and other cultures have produced is eighty hour >work weeks, near poverty, and the ridicule and derision of a society >that largely because of material excess has discarded its instinct and >empathetic regard for life.---Carlo Parcelli I agree with you fully about the plight of the small book seller, and in fact the hopeless plight of the small business entrepreneur, who finds he/she must become a bigger and bigger business simply to survive as a business, with less and less hope of making what can be deemed a livelihood. The economics, and the tendency towards higher and higher costs applied to cost of doing business in that mode, are very complicated. Beyond the scope and subject of this listserv. Disagree most strongly about the latter part as to "instinct and empathic". The latter "instinct" does not exist anywhere in nature. Nature is brutal. When human beings sink down too near to their natural origins they become brutal. They become the same as the beasts. That is what separates human beings from beasts. The faculty of reason and the ability to learn what potentiallty distinguishes them from the absolute natural violence that they spring from. Empathy is a combination of emotion and reason. Without the ability to reason there is no empathy. (I do not mean the ability to simply find causal connections, reasons, in explication of events. I mean the whole complexity of cognitive processes that human beings are potentially capable of. That is "Reason" rather than only "reasons". Human beings can descend down to behaving the same as insects do towards one another. If you have ever observed, closely, and objectively, enough, with enough detachement,...then you know. Compare the evolution of warfare, and its mechanisms, to the development/evolution of insect life and its natural instincts and machinations and you will quickly understand how, for instance, Nazi Germany (for example) descended down to the level of insect life, rather than ascending to the "ubermensch" (above-man). I think it would do well to some to read more William Seward Burroughs. The insect and the human are a constant theme. I do not know if he ever alluded to the historical instance of Nazi Germany, but that isn't the point I am making. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 20:29:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: more closings (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I wholly understand your concern not to be misinterpreted. Anyway, I did quote >you, & others can decide for themselves whether or not an accusation of >paranoia seemed likely in your words. I apologize for my own response if you >indeed didn't mean it. Actually, to intrude a little dark wit into this apparently stray from the backchannels conversation.... ...the phrase that used to plague would be writers, allegedly from Uncle Sam originations was..... "Anything you write can and will be used against you in a court of anything at all." There are variants, but that particular variant is the most obvious as to its intentions. Of course, it must certainly come from those who believe that anything that a writer writes is not a true and lordly writ, but is in some ways or others "twisted" use of the languish....I mean...language. Ah well, we cannot ever be write, or is it rite, promptly having at that very moment to avoid any Freemasons, so we might as well ex-press what we have on our mineds....I mean...minds.... M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:41:37 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII re this bookstore thread: two principles of economics are involved, one is "Hoteling's paradox" which says that sellers always aim for the center of the market, geographically and otherwise, in order to reach the largest number of buyers. second principle is from Maoist critique of capitalism: big fish eat the little fish and the little fish eat the shrimps. however, when I returned to the U.S. after living overseas for seven years I was appalled at the poor selection of poetry & other literature at most of the bookstores in the DC area. (this is 1992 we are talking about) one decent independent store near where I lived was going out of business slowly and had no new stock. the main local chain in dc, which had at earlier times been pretty good, had next to nothing. the main local discount chain had less than nothing. there were two small independent bookstores with excellent poetry stock (Rod Smith knows which ones they were) but I didn't find them immediately, one has since gone out of business and I think in fact the stock from one moved to the other. however I remember the first time I went to borders, again in 1992 (or early '93) and was amazed to find so much stuff, including poetry. I don't doubt that the big superstores want to put the small stores out of business, but I don't understand the logic that the big stores will no longer stock the poetry, cultural studies, etc, that they now stock once the independents are out of business. they still have all that shelf space to fill and inch for inch there is not such a high cost in keeping it on the shelf, at least until it sells. (they may not reorder that title, its true, but will the title still be available to be reordered anyway?) admittedly, I have been outside of the U.S. again for three years and don't know what has happened in the interval, certainly the megastore chains have a bigger presence now than five years ago when they were first coming in. I can understand privileging the petit bourgeois small proprietor in this discourse, over the bureaucratic large scale corporate entity, but that's all we're really talking about. neither of them are in business for their health, right? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 19:46:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A friend opened a tiny progressive/gay/lesbian bookstore. Having witnessed it first as a dream, the barn-raising style of its beginnings, the effort put toward the first bank loan approved so the stock could be broadened, and the decline when Barnes & Noble came to the neighborhood, though the problem may also be the lesbian bar next door--those girls were more committed to spending money on social drinking than in going home with the latest Dorothy Allison or they want to apply their 20% Barnes and Noble discount to the next pint of beer. Anyway, it never struck me she expected to get rich from this but alas, some idealistic dream to live surrounded by books and in the hood. Carlo Parcelli's post is eloquent enough here. I am romantic about Adrienne Monier's project and I do see this as political, not at all unrelated to Daniel Bouchard's work with evicted tenants, because it is how things are spread around. At some point we must figure out a way to get together and refuse to pay higher and higher rent for smaller and smaller dumps. And we must refuse to give more and more of our money to fewer and fewer giants. I have just as much trouble as the next person. Everytime I buy underwear and look for the union label and can't find it and buy the underwear anyway because who has the time to search for a union label. I find it really insulting that they write 'assembled in Dominican Republic' like we wouldn't want our panties 'made' there or suggesting that parts are shipped from the U.S. so perhaps it's almost like being made in the U.S. So I was buying Oscar de la Renta bras for a while just cause they had the union label but they no longer exist, can't compete I bet with the cheaper labor. The ABA via several bookstores in California is suing Barnes and Noble. There is an article about it on their website: http://www.bookweb.org/special/19980318/story.html one little quote: "According to figures from the NPD Group and the ABA research department, the independent booksellers' market share of adult titles fell 42 percent between 1991 and 1996, from 32 percent to 18.6 percent." Call me spooked or woowoo but I wont even enter a Barnes and Noble, the energy just reeks like hell. And the coffee upstairs reeks of unsavory practices on the backs of South American coffee growers. For a while I was ordering from Amazon but now I'm trying to go more directly to distributors like Small Press. I was thinking about ways we as readers could work with our small bookstores to get our need better met. Any ideas? One thing that worked really well for the Left Hand Book Collective this year was soliciting left profs at CU to have us sell their books. Pat Pritchett--I think the Left Hand is better than Boulder Bookstore about individual orders--is my own experience. =rdl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 18:40:51 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I worked in independent bookstores for twelve years, four of those years at an independent Harvard Square bookstore: Reading International. I had carte blanche for ordering for the poetry section, and had a blast: my manager didn't even point out the obvious--that the Grolier was right up the street. Reading International was a union shop, as was Harvard Bookstore, so the employees had been there a long time--usually ten or more years--and made a decent living. Most of us were pre-computerized bookstore people, so we had to know our specific sections pretty well. I don't think the indies are going down due to conspiracies: it's mostly a case of the computerized inventory system making bookstore owners feel comfortable hiring people who really know very little about books & publishing & paying them very poorly--they figure any idiot can read a computer screen that says: YES we have the book, or NO we don't. AS far as special ordering goes, it's a bit labor intensive, and you pay shipping on an individual book, often get less of a discount from the publisher, and basically no one wants to bother. The bookstore business used to be a trade. Now it's just a crappy job that no one really wants to have. The profit margins are poor, so intense volume is the only way for an owner to get rich on it. daniel bouchard wrote: > If it was the proprietor of the Grolier, then "paranoid" is the right word. > > At 08:57 AM 4/15/98 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: > >perhaps this is a paranoid fantasy on the part of the person i heard it > >from; it was told to me by the proprietor of one of the independent > >bookstores in harvard square. keep up the good fight. > > > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > Daniel Bouchard > The MIT Press Journals > Five Cambridge Center > Cambridge, MA 02142 > > bouchard@mit.edu > phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 > >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:04:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: Barnes & Noble & Social Darwinian Comments: To: morpheal In-Reply-To: <199804160023.UAA17543@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Nazi Germany (for example) descended down to the level of insect life ACH further holocaust ethnography I know that neither bee nor bonnet avails, but it DOES seem quite important, to me at least, that we of all vapid interlopers speak with some precision and care about something so incredibly significant, stop -scapegoating-, maybe I'll implode ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:37:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Zinc bar readings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable All right, all right, here I am with some Zinc Bar readings ... Although belatedly, as I've been away from the computer for a few days. Anyway, for the next couple of weeks (don't have full list in front of = me, sorry) April 19th: Simon Pettet and Dawn someone (sorry again) April 26th: Kristen Prevallet and Ted Greenwald. I'll post May as soon as I filch the list from work. Also, I remember someone asking about HERE, well HERE are the readings: April 18th: Julie Patton, Chris Mann and after that reading, same day... Poetry Reading in Praise of Forces of Nature, Space Untitled, 137 = Greene Street, 6-8 pm, featuring: me, Ted Greenwald, Carter Ratcliff, = Vincent Katz, Star Black and Ilka Scobie. April 25th: Elizabeth Walder and (change in schedule) Camille Roy May 2nd: Bruce Andrews, Dan Farrell May 9th: Heather Fuller, Heather Ramsdell (who just gave a great reading = at the Poetry Project tonight) May 16th: Deirdre Kovac, Rod Smith May 23rd: Jean Day, Andrew Levy and then zip until fall. And finally, regarding used bookstores, my personal favorite is the = Mercer Street Bookshop on Mercer between Houston and Bleecker. = Otherwise, pickings are slim in Megastore-dominated NYC. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 00:06:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Barnes & Noble & Social Darwinian Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Nazi Germany (for example) descended down to the level of insect life > >ACH > >further holocaust ethnography > >I know that neither bee nor bonnet avails, but it DOES seem quite >important, to me at least, that we of all vapid interlopers speak with >some precision and care about something so incredibly significant, stop >-scapegoating-, maybe I'll implode Best recent example we have available. Cannot think of a better one. However, I think the allusion to Burroughs and his use of insect metaphors was more interesting. The part insect, part human. The thing transformed to insect. What is the causality that transforms in that manner, and manifests in that manner, becomes so very intriguing. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:48:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: where is David Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- anyway Dave thank you for olding your breat you silver tongue devil you ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 00:15:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: Scavenger hunt suggestions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks everyone for all your suggestions. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 00:35:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: stanza/paragraph (new non) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Laura writes: >In working on the latest non additions I've been lead to wonder about >writers' use of the paragraph and/or stanza. Debrot's new stuff in non seems >like desiccated paragraphs to me - not surprisingly as it is in relation to >Tender Buttons - but he calls it 'songs.' Shaw's work seems more stanzaic, >Scalapino's is mostly prose and Davis is of course all over the map. > >In general, the stanza seems more song-like, the paragraph to relate more >back to prose. I find I am currently using both in different combinations. > >Wondered how others relate to using these sub-forms - > As a very basic rule of thumb, if the poem is lineated (linebreaks matter, are deliberate, etc.), then groups of lines are stanzas. If the poem is unlineated, then the blocks are paragraphs. There are probably exceptions, of course. Hugh Steinberg PS: new non looks great! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 05:57:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Melnicove Subject: Publication reading In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980415111839.00e6d5f4@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" P U B L I C A T I O N P A R T Y on Saturday, April 18 at 3 p.m. there will be a Reading by John Tagliabue from his NEW AND SELECTED POEMS: 1942-1997 (National Poetry Foundation, 388 pp., 19.95 pbk, $49.95 cl) at Gulf of Maine Books (founded 1979--one of Maine's oldest independent stores--run by poet/publisher Gary Lawless and his partner Beth Leonard) 134 Maine Street Brunswick, Maine 207-729-5083 Mark Melnicove National Poetry Foundation http://www.ume.maine.edu/~npf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 07:31:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: sf reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear Poetics List, Here is a reminder to come to hear Juliana Spahr & Bill Luoma read poetry at New Langton Arts in San Francisco. It's this Saturday April 18 at 8pm. New Langton Arts is located at 1246 Fulsom St between 8th & 9th. Also note that you will be able to pick of copies of Juliana's Response from Sun & Moon which if you haven't read you should & it won the National Poetry Award. Plus advanced copies of my new collection Works & Days will be available at the reading. Works & Days . . . * is co-published by Hard Press and The Figures. * is 148 pages. * is 6 x 9. * sports a color image by James Siena. * is blurbed by Eileen Myles, Benjamin Friedlander and Alice Notley. * is not ironic. * contains misspellings, typos, incorrect usages of capitalization plus many instances of awkward phrasing because Douglass has trouble with these & Helena died. * also contains My Trip to New York City, 12 Peanuts & an Easton, Astrophysics & You, we were in burrito, Asheville, The Replacements, The Annotated Trip to NYC, plus a number of reading reports that first appeared here on the Poetics Channel. * will be available from Rod & Small Press Distribution in a few weeks. * does not contain any french-influenced or otherwise bland abstract lyrics. * describes the world in local place type & travel narratives that are allegorical maps for thinking & writing. * doesn't really tell you how to plant crops like in Hesiod's verison. * is really a love poem. * is really poetics. Hope to see you in SF. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:13:09 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maryrose11 Subject: Re: where is David Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Billy: David was in Kansas (where he did a wonderful reading) until yesterday....He is in Boulder (where he will do a wonderful reading at the left hand) today. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:26:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: more closings In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:41:37 +0800 from > >I can understand privileging the petit bourgeois small proprietor in this >discourse, over the bureaucratic large scale corporate entity, but that's >all we're really talking about. neither of them are in business for >their health, right? I think Rachel Levitsky's last post addressed this pretty well. Some supposedly leftist "discourse" is just as abstracted and distanced from local realities on an intellectual level as big corporations are on a political-economic level. (Follow that?) All politics is local and utopia will be local as well, when we learn how to get along without letting greed and profit sharks rule the roost. Where is the happy mean between vegetable socialism and ruthless greed - a healthy respect for money and enterprise and careful business practices along with an independence from totalizing effects of mega-capitalism? It's gotta be out there somewhere in the 8th dimension... is it possible that poetry & literature carry the germs of that consciousness within the shark-body of the chains? Not necessarily (most of it is pure sell- yourself). But there is something to be said for INDEPENDENCE, DIVERSITY, COMMUNITY-BASED ENTERPRISE that that reducto-marxism quoted above tends to miss. In the ghetto grows the rose. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:30:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think Rachel Levitsky's last post addressed this pretty well. Some >supposedly leftist "discourse" is just as abstracted and distanced from >local realities on an intellectual level as big corporations are on >a political-economic level. (Follow that?) All politics is local and >utopia will be local as well, when we learn how to get along without >letting greed and profit sharks rule the roost. Where is the happy >mean between vegetable socialism and ruthless greed - a healthy respect >for money and enterprise and careful business practices along with an >independence from totalizing effects of mega-capitalism? It's gotta >be out there somewhere in the 8th dimension... is it possible that >poetry & literature carry the germs of that consciousness within the >shark-body of the chains? Essentially, yes, that makes perfect sense. The only real difficulties tend to be education of those you desire to be careful, and regulation such that they are not hog-tied and unable to function in the real world beyond dealing with various departments, agencies, beaurocracies, administrations, at so many levels, in so many areas, in such complicated legislation and formalities, that it takes a skyscraper full of legal eagles, not the average legal beagle (such as the average entrepreneur MIGHT be able to call on (on rare occassion of desparate and dire need) to unravel, deal with, and otherwise survive it. Not to mention the army of accountants. This is another reason why multi-branch chains tend to win in terms of their being a truly solid investment option as opposed to independent small busienss. It is impossible for the average person, even the exceptional person, to wade through the quagmire. It is impossible to do anything else than wade through the quagmire, and then it is not really a "living", is it ? >Not necessarily (most of it is pure sell-yourself). No, it is not. No one in fact can self sell, though some _believe_ differently. This is, in most ways, the world of the "middle man". To do otherwise than to use the middle man, the agent, the promoter, the distributor, the representative, the professional salesman, is to fail to recognize the necessity, in this culture, of a messiah. The whole tradition, even in its purely secular side, is build wholly of and from that concept. It is a mediated culture. The immediate relation is most often rendered impossible, ineffective, disempowered, to preserve the role of the middle-man. Of course not everyone can be a middle-man, because if everyone could then everyone would be. Effective representation is the carefully guarded preserve of the few, and not of the many. That is how they keep themselves in business, and are kept in business by those who support the system in terms of status-quo. In turn the middle-man works for those who support the concept and empower it, as well as for whom the middle-man represents as producer of product. That relation maintains the middle-man's borrowed power. In essence the messianic "license" to effectively sell, represent, promote, is granted by a power-elite. Surely you know that the Marxists recognized this as being a fact ? That does not necessarily make it an "evil". I am not value judging the concept, but only stating that that is how it is. Some people have the illusion that they are their own benefactors, their own best promoters, their own sales people, but in every instance I know of, they are deluded and nothing of the sort. They are always promoted, represented, made effective, by someone else. That they do not recognize who their messiah is does not obviate the fact that there is one. They do not have to recognize that fact, but only to live it. >But there is something to be said for INDEPENDENCE, >DIVERSITY, COMMUNITY-BASED ENTERPRISE that that reducto-marxism >quoted above tends to miss. In the ghetto grows the rose. - Henry Gould Very funny...... M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:32:45 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: tusc reading Poetry Reading Charles Bernstein April 16 7:30 p.m. Morgan Auditorium University of Alabama A talk by Charles Bernstein April 17 noon 301 Morgan University of Alabama ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:21:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: where is David In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Billy: > >David was in Kansas (where he did a wonderful reading) until yesterday....He >is in Boulder (where he will do a wonderful reading at the left hand) today. And while he is travelling his e-mail is off. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:50:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: k e n n i n g Subject: how to find? Comments: To: Steven Marks In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Has anyone got a current e-mail address for Taylor Brady? The one I'd been using is suddenly bouncing back, this is the same as listed on his website, etc. Thanks -- Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 02:19:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: moved site Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I was shocked to find out my local ISP, in a system configuration changed, lost about half of the web sites located there, including the one for Chax Press. So Chax has a new site, albeit only a very slightly updated bit of information, with more to come over the next two months. The site is now located at http://alexwritdespub.com/chax but if you happen to go to the old site at http://personal.riverusers.com/~chax it should take you to the new URL in about 6 seconds, or there's a link to click to get to the new URL, too. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:05:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Noble Subject: Zinc Bar Readings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii For anyone interested, Anselm Berrigan sent me the schedule of readings for the Zinc Bar for April and May. He's not on the list, so I thought I'd post them. Here they are: April 19 - Dawn Baude & Simon Pettet April 26 - Ted Greenwald & Kristen Prevallet May 3 - Elaine Equi & Joseph Lease May 10 - Mark Salerno & Magdalena Zurawski May 17 - Keston Sutherland & Marco Villalobos May 24 - Sherry Brennan & Maureen Owen May 31 - Tim Davis & Brian Kim Stefans Enjoy! Joseph Noble ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:15:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: other readings you won't want to miss Comments: To: galbon@planeteria.net, jaukee@slip.net, batshyra@aol.com, npop3@aol.com, marott@aol.com, windhover@sprintmail.com, dcmb@metro.net, cburket@sfsu.edu, mburger@adobe.com, kristinb@wired.com, aburns@calfed.com, cchadwick@metro.net, cah@sonic.net, vent@sirius.com, normacole@aol.com, idiom@dnai.com, acornford@igc.org, christopher.daniels@bender.com, Leslie_Davis-PLE@peoplesoft.com, jday@uclink.berkeley.edu, jelike@slip.net, cyanosis@slip.net, jasfoley@aol.com, kfraser@sfsu.edu, efrost1973@aol.com, gach@uclink.berkeley.edu, peter_gizzi@macmail.ucsc.edu, rgladman@sfaids.ucsf.edu, chrisko@sirius.com, hale@etak.com, 70550.654@compuserve.com, BHerb23679@aol.com, jhigh54184@aol.com, glenning@juno.com, andrew_joron@sfbg.com, dbkk@sirius.com, zorlook@aol.com, tlovell@sfsu.edu, lucasb@alpha.usfca.edu, 75323.740@compuserve.com, macleod@dnai.com, dmelt@ccnet.com, ruralwanab@aol.com, moriarty@lanminds.com, murphym@earthlink.com, peacock99@aol.com, anielsen@popmail.lmu.edu, doug@herring.com, 103730.2033@compuserve.com, kit_robinson@peoplesoft.com, walterblue@bigbridge.org, sikona@aol.com, openedend@aol.com, jays@sirius.com, selby@slip.net, 75477.2255@compuserve.com, ashurin@sfsu.edu, charssmith@aol.com, bstrang@sfsu.edu, 102573.414@compuserve.com, stills@vom.com, rod4rigo@aol.com, xerxes999@aol.com, josephine@sfaquarium.org, juliaw@babcockbrown.com, toomany@sirius.com, evrick@aol.com, mbaker@sfsu.edu, mariabrown@aol.com, tubesox@sirius.com, celeste@slip.net, eve@tippett.com, janine@makeacircus.org, ovenman@slip.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Friday night, April 17th: Anselm Berrigan Edmund Berrigan at Adobe Books (16th St. @ Guerrero) 7:30 PM (don't know if there's an admission fee for this) **************** &&& Saturday, April 18th: Juliana Spahr Bill Luoma at New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom St. between 8th and 9th Sts. 8:00 PM $5-$7 *********** &&&& Sunday, April 19th: Guy Bennett Standard Schaefer at Canessa Park Gallery, 708 Montgomery @ Columbus 3:00 PM $5 ********************************** 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, 16 Apr 1998 17:10:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Re: how to find? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ltbrady@acsu.buffalo.edu is current, least I got mail from Taylor from that address today Scott Pound > Has anyone got a current e-mail address for Taylor Brady? The one >I'd been using is suddenly bouncing back, this is the same as listed on >his website, etc. Thanks -- Patrick F. Durgin > > | > | >k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` >a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing > |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:28:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: Scavenger hunt suggestions& comix poetix In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII There are many simple ways to do collage-- for example--just pick up anything close to hand, give a time limit and quickly cut it up and rearrange tear/scissors & glue for this you could study for example books like The Third Mind by William S Burroughs--as well his various interviews in say The Job- or works by Brion Gysin--who influenced Burroughs- also--another way to think of it is as editing, following examples from comic books and movies--just make or take a series of words and images, cut up and arrange in sequences, series--make little books or zines as "journals" collect materials from hither and yon and keep by bedside--good time to work is first thing in morning, when dreams collide with waking and before dross of the day has settled in on "conscious" mind-- materials can be anything--scraps from street, old magazines, comic books books (dictionaries and encylopedias work great)-- can use paint and ink on top of junk found in street as stencils and stamp into the pages with the images and or words-- work fast, practise daily and each maker will find that over time their own themes obsessions images begin to move, repeat, play and form rhythms and patterns-- many books in libraries students wd like--on collage, Dada etc--Burroughs is cool with lot of kids-- also check out the book on comics/art that Scott MeCloud did--great book! lot of written poetry work is collage--in "modern poetry"--check out Pound, Paul Metcalf, Olson-- (even old USA trilogy by John Dos Passos) for movies a good one to check out for some great ideas is (you can get on video) for eample Dziga Vertov's MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA all best --& a great time! dave baptiste chirot ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:21:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: other readings you won't want to miss addendum Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The three readings mentioned previously are all taking place in San Francisco, in case my omission of that fact led to any confusion. ********************************** 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, 16 Apr 1998 19:09:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Women poets from Ireland In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I had no idea how little I knew about the great stuff that was out there. I'd like to single people out, but I can't find the list on which I kept names. Still, my wife now has plenty of material to chose from. Thank you all again. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago to belong to whatever moves us outward into the wideness, for journeying... --Hilda Morley, 1919-1998 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 21:24:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: For Mark Melnicove In-Reply-To: <01IVVMOBXI908XK5V1@po.muohio.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mark Melnicove, Will you please backchannel me? I've misplaced your e-ddress--- Thanks! Annie ____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ________________________ Annie Finch http://muohio.edu/~finchar Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45220 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:08:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Whyte Subject: letter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ... Ah exhaustion, seize of the engine. I think: someday the letters stop. Then it is the concrete interval between letters, velvet of time, the page has been, now the fog rolling in off the lake. I think: one day I live again, as, if, not on nails. But this is not to betray you. I am this way not out of *compulsion* but of *inner necessity* -- It is a *temperment*. Then some will claim that my temperment tends toward *caprice*. But is it not a *moral* relationship, that to one's own temperment? And yet I can not say to you: I am 'naive', naive, as you would write. Naive never lets you write naive: why you face up to your own lack in the face of genius. (Indeed, here I am like you.) I am 'naive' (then love me) -- For is it not the apostrophe which chases away the last shreds of naivete: fatality of that canny decorative typography.... Schiller, this explication of those tempers of art, your dissection of my economies, my psychological trade-routes: it is so much unbroken rail, the shuddering planes, thousand miles of night. I can not even say it. In the dark you can see the lines of my back. I think of such things, in the dark. It is something that nature would allow: it would spring out of the lake-air. In such a climate the knife-edge of shame crumbles. There are other things the centuries maintain; those are the things which interest me. The dyes which persist. For example, blue. And red. The dyes are not ghosts, they are not writing which furrows the surface, they are not painting. You understand: I dream of writing which dyes, sinks into the cloth, marking beyond question and irrevocably. Then I could not write words. You might understand this. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 23:32:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Shoemaker Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just dropping in on this, but, sure, it's not that the owners of small stores *have* to be nicer, it's just that sometimes they *are*. Because they got into the biz in the first place for the love of books, and maybe even more generally for a love of "art." Lots of stuff bound up together here. I know thinking back to that old now-closing fave of mine in C-ville, Williams Corner, that in addition to having a great poetry section Mike Williams also employed a fair number of poor young potes and grad students over the years, and sold books by local writers, and sponsored readings etc etc. That can all add up to a contribution to the community in a way that B&N or Borders just will not....or will only perhaps simulate for as long as it is profitable or useful to them...certainly not out of love. s At 11:06 AM 4/15/98 -0500, you wrote: >I understand that one of the issues here regards the owners of these >small stores. But (as someone has already pointed out, I >believe) why are these owners any "nicer" than other owners? > >Best, >Katy > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 07:58:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: more closings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Just dropping in on this, but, sure, it's not that the owners of small >stores *have* to be nicer, it's just that sometimes they *are*. Because >they got into the biz in the first place for the love of books, and maybe >even more generally for a love of "art." Lots of stuff bound up together >here. I know thinking back to that old now-closing fave of mine in C-ville, >Williams Corner, that in addition to having a great poetry section Mike >Williams also employed a fair number of poor young potes and grad students >over the years, and sold books by local writers, and sponsored readings >etc etc. That can all add up to a contribution to the community in a way >that B&N or Borders just will not....or will only perhaps simulate for as >long as it is profitable or useful to them...certainly not out of love. At least small book shop proprietors are _REAL_ people. Not the zombified staff of a large chain who live in paranoia of those dreaded "mystery shoppers" hired by the store management. I hate dealing with large chain stores. The simulated people androids that staff them are the main reason. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:40:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Bromige Does Boulder Comments: To: Rachel Levitsky MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain My dear Rachel - I stand properly chastised! In other news: David Bromige, Cole Swensen and Anselm Hollo read last night to a crowd of 60+ poetry lovers at Left Hand Books, not Barnes & Noble. It was SRO and a bravura reading by all. Even the fire marshall who descended on us for code violations was stilled in his zeal by the Orphean strains of "T as in Tether." I hope to assemble a more coherent report later but right now I'm hungover and short of sleep. Bromige seemed to spend most of his time flirting with my wife. But I'm not entirely sure since I was so preoccupied flirting with his. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:14:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: letter Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit maybe not ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:25:03 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Winston Break MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:05:49 EDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: henry gould Comments: Originally-From: "Christopher W. Alexander" From: henry gould Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Winston Break MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT It's clear he inherited his mother's sense of good timing. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:53:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: more closings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit morpheal wrote: >Not necessarily (most of it is pure sell-yourself).No, it is not. No one in fact can self sell, though some _believe_ differently. This is, in most ways, the world of the "middle man". To do otherwise than to use the middle man, the agent, the promoter, the distributor, the representative, the professional salesman, is to fail to recognize the necessity, in this culture, of a messiah. The whole tradition,even in its purely secular side, is build wholly of and from that concept. It is a mediated culture. The immediate relation is most often rendered impossible, ineffective, disempowered, to preserve the role of the middle-man. Of course not everyone can be a middle-man, because if everyone could then everyone would be. Effective representation is the carefully guarded preserve of the few, and not of the many. That is how they keep themselves in business, and are kept in business by those who support the system in terms of status-quo. In turn the middle-man works for those who support the concept and empower it, as well as for whom the middle-man represents as producer of product. That relation maintains the middle-man's borrowed power. In essence the messianic "license" to effectively sell, represent, promote, is granted by a power-elite. Surely you know that the Marxists recognized this as being a fact ? That does not necessarily make it an "evil". I am not value judging the concept, but only stating that that is how it is. Some people have the illusion that they are their own benefactors, their own best promoters, their own sales people, but in every instance I know of, they are deluded and nothing of the sort. They are always promoted, represented, made effective, by someone else. That they do not recognize who their messiah is does not obviate the fact that there is one. They do not have to recognize that fact, but only to live it. -- Thanks Morph! This is perfectly stated, and a good thing for us to remember as we apply for our grants, send to mags etc etc RDL ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:15:14 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod4rigo Subject: Query: Andrew Levy's Address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit If anyone has Andy's address, could you please backchannel me. Much appreciated.... RT ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:50:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: other readings you won't want to miss addendum In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980416162140.007d8100@pop.slip.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The three readings mentioned previously are all taking place in San >Francisco, in case my omission of that fact led to any confusion. > > > >********************************** >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 >********************************** It would be nice if translators were mentioned in citations. Cheers, The Translator's Wife --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 12:02:04 -0700 Reply-To: minka@grin.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: megan minka lola camille roy Subject: nyc: a reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A reading: Melissa Ragona & Camille Roy---reading from her new book SWARM amongst other stuff HERE Center for Independent Arts 145 6th Avenue (cross Spring & Broom) Saturday April 25th 3 pm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:51:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: bookstore sagas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From a local newspaper (St. Louis) "Left Bank Books sues Borders, Barnes and Noble Among the alleged illegal practices are price discounts, special breaks on small orders, free shippping, promotional allowances and favorable retrun policies. The suit states these are not available to independent stores." Inotherwords: the chains demand special deals for themselves from publishers. an independent store has no leveragre to get such deals, creating an uneven "playing field." Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 15:15:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Bromige reading MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain I really have nothing further to add about David Bromige's reading here in Boulder last night except to say that every community should put on a rummage sale and bring him out to read. You'll have a great time and you'll be a better person for it. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:59:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: bookstore sagas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>From a local newspaper (St. Louis) > >"Left Bank Books sues Borders, Barnes and Noble > >Among the alleged illegal practices are price discounts, special breaks on >small orders, free shippping, promotional allowances and favorable retrun >policies. The suit states these are not available to independent >stores." Tto me that does seem ludicrous. (Though I strongly empathize with those making suit against the giants, in an attempt to survive as small independents.) The fact is that the buying power of a larger customer has always favoured such customers in every kind of business. The more you buy the bigger the discount and the more favourable the terms of sale are from the supplier. The biggest customers have _always_ been given the biggest discounts. The biggest customers in every kind of business have also enjoyed special terms not available to lesser entities. Some small customers, in some areas of business (such as manufacturing) have to pay list price for one off or for buying a few items, to their supplier, when larger competitors get substantial discounts from the same supplier. This, believe it or not, is common practice. (I speak from direct fact and not from the fiction section. It is perfectly acceptable business practice.) Their larger competitor, who buys either a dozen or a hundred or spends a certain dollar amount per year with the supplier, gets a discount, of anywhere from as little as 5 to as much as 60 percent or more. There are no limits to that discounting. It could be any amount that the supplier chooses. That is the essence of "free enterprise". Each business sets its own prices and decides what its discounting is to be. Some of that discounting in relation to list price is unbelievable in terms of how wide the spread of values is. The only pertinent factor beyond that fact is that a supplier could get into trouble if they are not equitable. For instance if Joe's Garage buys 100,000 in oil and gas and Fritz's Auto buys 100,000 in the same product mix, for the exactly same kinds of oil and gas, then Luigi's Garage Supply Inc. will likely have to give Joe and Fritz the same 20% off for being a customer of 100,000 or up. Note same product mix. Particularly if that offer of discount is part of a price list. If one buys more oil and less gas this factor might not apply. Product mix and volume of sales in dollars both usually matter as profit margins vary as to mix. Also, it is not uncommon for a supplier to make a special offer to a customer who buys more than the others, and is beyond the levels specified in a list. It is justified on reduced margin, but maintenance of total profits, due to the volume of business provided by that specific customer. It adds another pricing tier to the list, albeit an unwritten on. This sometimes attracts another large customer to the same supplier. Word gets around. Some suppliers discount different products differently, but also expect a certain total dollar volume based on last year's purchases, or sometimes allow the discount when a certain total is achieved by a new customer. A few even credit it. The practices are very, very, variable. Again, "free enterprise". Likely, IMHO, for a small independent to go up against the giants of standardized fair play towards competition and suppliers, ie. ethical equitable practices, is a suicide leap......... That skyscraper full of legal eagles again will eat the independent alive. The independent cannot expect to find a David to slingshot that Goliath. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:33:02 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Has anyone heard of this magazine... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm looking for some information about a poetry magazine called "Samizdat," published in California in, I think, the late 70s and early 80s. If anyone could backchannel me information about the publisher, the dates of publication, etc., I'd appreciate it. Best, Bob -- Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College Lake Forest, IL 60045 http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ " on the end of each decision stands a heretic" --Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 18:28:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Has anyone heard of this magazine... Comments: To: Robert Archambeau In-Reply-To: <35378438.6D9F@LFC.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Samizdat: I think it was published by Merritt Clifton who now publishes (last I knew) a magazine called "Animal People." Address is PO Box 960, Clinton, WA 98236. More info re that mag in 32nd ed. of Int'l Directory of Little Magazines.. Hope this helps. On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Robert Archambeau wrote: > I'm looking for some information about a poetry magazine called > "Samizdat," published in California in, I think, the late 70s and early > 80s. If anyone could backchannel me information about the publisher, > the dates of publication, etc., I'd appreciate it. > > Best, > > Bob > -- > Robert Archambeau > Department of English > Lake Forest College > Lake Forest, IL 60045 > http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ > > " on the end > of each decision stands a heretic" > --Michael Barrett > __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 18:29:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Noble Subject: Zinc Bar Addendum Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii All, I neglected to add the time and place for Zinc Bar readings. The Zinc Bar is at 90 W. Houston St., NYC. Readings begin at 6:30, & they ask for a $3 donation for the readers. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 09:37:10 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Cambridge UK Poetry Conference Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The list may like to know about the following:=20 THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE OF CONTEMPORARY POETRY FRIDAY 25TH -SUNDAY 27TH APRIL AT KINGS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE (KEYNES HALL) TIMETABLE FRI 8pm. Bob Perelman. + Reception. SAT 11am Michelle Grangaud, Roger Langley, Helen Macdonald 2pm Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg: films by Colin Still 4pm John Forbes memorial reading 8pm Roy Fisher, Peter Gizzi, Gig Ryan SUN 2pm Olivier Cadiot, Lisa Jarnot 4pm Peter Blegvad. 7pm Lee Ann Brown, Philippe Beck, Keston Sutherland Exhibition of art and craft works by and associated with Tom Raworth will run concurrently with the Conference, in the Chetwynd Room, Kings College (open only during conference events) Week-end ticket: =A322 concession =A312 Per reading: =A34 / =A32.50 Bookings, enquiries: Ian Patterson King's College, Cambridge CB2 1ST tel 01223-331196 email ikp1000@cam.ac.uk Inquiries: Peter Riley 27, Sturton Street, Cambridge CB1 2QG tel/fax: 01223 576422 email: priley@dircon.co.uk from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 20:44:57 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Geocities MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Anyone had any dealings with Geocities? I'm thinking about taking them up on their free site to put up some literary material. Is this another case of "no free lunch"? As I understand it, they let space on their server if you'll place a banner somewhere on your page. Any insights will be appreciated. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 00:18:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ctfarmr Subject: Dain Olsen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I recently came across a slightly water-warped & somewhat mildewed copy of _Desert Expansion Texts, Book 2_ by Dain Olsen (Penumbra Press 1985), and it followed me home. The text is not what I'd call innovative, but still surrealistic enough to be interesting. And the drawings are wonderfully bizarre. Can anyone tell me more about Dain Olsen and/or Penumbra Press? Bobbie West ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:31:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Really, how pessimistic and upholding of the status quo (its always been done this way, it always will be done this way) you sounded in your last post. Some other ways of looking at the law suits: 1)you never know until you try 2)by any means necessary 3)perhaps there is evidence that stated policies of distribution discounts are in fact violated, I dunno but all these independent bookish sorts are probably not stupid and suicidal 4)publicity will favor the little guy in this case 5)you gave us that brilliant schpiel on the middle man, well, why not challenge how this is being mediated, at least rhetorically? This "culture"'s epic is being penned in the courts. 6)Legal means should not be the only means of challenging those big smelly giants but the probable means for a network of indies. Its up to us patrons to go in and slip "don't buy from Barnes & Noble" sheets into their books. 7)Not that this is my cause, but I never thought, nor did most, that the legal challenges to cigarette giants would ever get so far as they've gotten. I think the logic of most of these lawsuits is flawed, but I like very much that the free range power of the corporation is being fucked with. Marketing strategies become more transparent--thus consumers have more choice as to whether their going to buy into it. (Though one need only open a _Rolling Stone_ magazine to see jazz greats modeling for designers, to feel like everyone's getting in on the corporate thang) 8)I'm also thinking of the Christic (sp?) Institute's legal challenge to the CIA, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, which was the means by which many people learned of it's involvement in the drug trade. They never won that case but the newspaper coverage of something that would have otherwise been ignored was absolutely worth their work. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:26:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" right on rachel, nothing ventured, nothing gained to a twenty year old it may seem that the corporation has had the stranglehold forever, perestroika may have come first to the Kremlin but the laws of physics are older than capitalism or communism, the equal and opposite reaction will be felt on the potomac, ain't gonna let no policeman turn me round, turn me round, aint gonna let no policeman turn me round, gonna keep on walking, keep on talking, walking down to freedomland ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 01:06:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Bromige Does Boulder In-Reply-To: <01IVYZ6GQYSE9VVXHZ@iix.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Bromige seemed to spend most of his >time flirting with my wife. But I'm not entirely sure since I was so >preoccupied flirting with his. > >Patrick Pritchett Yeah? Well, years and years ago Bromige flirted with my wife, then girlfriend,, with a poem. The bastard! George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 10:00:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >1)you never know until you try Sound Reasoning will often tell you, long before you leap into the abyss. Such things are often launched not in the spirit of Reasoning, but from a basis of emotion. The latter is how many a small business has perished to doing no good other than increasing its overhead to where it cannot carry it anymore, in addition to its other sometimes overwhelming challenges. >2)by any means necessary Decidedly uncivilized. The emphasis on _any_. Tooth and claw, kill or be killed, etc., is not civilized. >3)perhaps there is evidence that stated policies of distribution >discounts are in fact violated, I dunno but all these independent >bookish sorts are probably not stupid and suicidal Perhaps, but unlikely. Even then, it would be on very weak grounds, as a supplier has the right to amend any list of prices and discounts, such that a customer gets a special discount and terms, upon some argument or other. For instance, projected business volume rather than historic actual. A rationale is a rationale, for exceptions.....and is quite a common business practice. Besides, those giants are the biggest customers. No argument possible. Therefore, within the capitalist system, the largest get the best terms and the best prices. There is no socialism from suppliers to smaller businesses, and no commissary from where they can request their needs according to their abilities to pay. System simply does not work that way. The small dealers commisar has not been apppointed yet. The commissary has not been built yet.... >4)publicity will favor the little guy in this case Not necessarily. Spin is owned by the large, not the small. Spin doctors do not work solely for politicians. They work for corporations. >5)you gave us that brilliant schpiel on the middle man, well, why not >challenge how this is being mediated, at least rhetorically? This >"culture"'s epic is being penned in the courts. The small cannot afford to be there, in most instances. I do agree that some system of mediation, rather than litigation, for commercial disagreements is necessary. I do believe that some states have a "commercial code" allowing such things as mediation. Pennsylvania, is one of those, but I do not know if mediation would apply in the instance we are discussing. The costs of mediation are not the same as litigation. The lesser entity then has a chance.....of survival, even if the loser on the particular question. The loser has no chance in litigation because a counter suit is inevitable and that would involve damages (bad publicity, loss of business) and the huge costs incurred by the larger entity. The can sue for everything they spent, and can spend essentially as much as they choose. >6)Legal means should not be the only means of challenging those big >smelly giants but the probable means for a network of indies. Its up to >us patrons to go in and slip "don't buy from Barnes & Noble" sheets into >their books. They are not necessarily "big smelly giants", but they are losing some consumers because they are not always passing on a true cost saving to the customer. They are simply putting more profits into their own pockets. That does cause intelligent consumers to go elsewhere. Then they are likely to drop their prices somewhat to regain those consumers..... Another fact of business. >7)Not that this is my cause, but I never thought, nor did most, that the >legal challenges to cigarette giants would ever get so far as they've >gotten. I think the logic of most of these lawsuits is flawed, but I >like very much that the free range power of the corporation is being >fucked with. Marketing strategies become more transparent--thus >consumers have more choice as to whether their going to buy into it. >(Though one need only open a _Rolling Stone_ magazine to see jazz greats >modeling for designers, to feel like everyone's getting in on the >corporate thang) At the risk of sounding too flippant...poetry books will have to have warning labels on them saying "The Psychiatrist General has determined that Reading this material may be hazardous to your psyche"..... Sure....some would go for that. Well, when the poetry giants are flooding the market with dangerous poetry publications, perhaps a lobby group, a class action suit, etc., will have some effect on stopping that growing flood of subversive evil verse.... before it destroys the whole country and damages the well being of millions..... >8)I'm also thinking of the Christic (sp?) Institute's legal challenge to >the CIA, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, which was the means by which >many people learned of it's involvement in the drug trade. They never >won that case but the newspaper coverage of something that would have >otherwise been ignored was absolutely worth their work. That is funny. The truth will set them free.... Don Quixote and his windmills made more sense than that story. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 10:03:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >right on rachel, nothing ventured, nothing gained >to a twenty year old it may seem that the corporation has had the stranglehold >forever, perestroika may have come first to the Kremlin but the laws of >physics are older than capitalism or communism, the equal and opposite >reaction will be felt on the potomac, ain't gonna let no policeman turn me >round, turn me round, aint gonna let no policeman turn me round, gonna keep >on walking, keep on talking, walking down to freedomland Buy your own printing press, set type, and print them in your basement, distributing them yourself on street corners....if you can afford to do it. There magic has happened, little black marks on the page, saying.... you are free, I am free, we are free together....googoogachoo.... We have proven that to be an indisputable fact. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 11:14:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: JBCM2 Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-18 00:19:45 EDT, you write: << 8)I'm also thinking of the Christic (sp?) Institute's legal challenge to the CIA, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, which was the means by which many people learned of it's involvement in the drug trade. They never won that case but the newspaper coverage of something that would have otherwise been ignored was absolutely worth their work. >> rachael, you're certainly right on about the Christic Institute's attempt to expose a continuing criminal operation/conspiracy perpetrated by former & current cia operatives. not only does it document the drug trafficking sanctioned by these operatives, the complaint also points out the earlier activities of these same operatives in southeast asia, the middle east, africa and central america -- very bloody activities. when carlo parcelli, rosalie gancie and myself were producing Print News Report, a weekly alternative news program on public access chanels (washington, dc & northern va) we read the entire complaint, all 300 pages, verbatim. unfortunately the Christic Institute paid a heavy price for this action; several days before the complaint was to be heard in the federal courts, judge king dismissed the complaint and ordered the Christic Institute to pay the legal fees of these operatives, which totaled more than a million dollars. unable to do so the institute went out of existence. joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 09:38:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: bookstore sagas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Morpheal replies: <<>"Left Bank Books sues Borders, Barnes and Noble > >Among the alleged illegal practices are price discounts, special breaks on >small orders, free shippping, promotional allowances and favorable retrun >policies. The suit states these are not available to independent >stores." Tto me that does seem ludicrous. (Though I strongly empathize with those making suit against the giants, in an attempt to survive as small independents.) The fact is that the buying power of a larger customer has always favoured such customers in every kind of business. The more you buy the bigger the discount and the more favourable the terms of sale are from the supplier. The biggest customers have _always_ been given the biggest discounts.>> But this seems to do exactly what the monsters want: place literature as commodity on the same terms as widgets & wadgets. Even if we say there's no way to save the little stores in this world of social darwinism, it might pay wo wonder what happens to the small presses where, due to these very pressures on the big ones, almost the only innovative, etc. writing gets published. They too are suddenly forced to give discounts they simply cant handle, & if they dont perhaps they cant sell any books because the independent stores they depended on for their sales have all been driven out. Oops. Now Mark seems to be managing with library sales, but still. A hard road has been made much harder. For whom? For what? At what cost to culture as a whole (& I speak as someone who very much enjoys various aspects of popular culture too)? Maybe the small press world will be an electronic village hidden among the giant 'trees' of the web/forest? Maybe...(but I still really like going into a small bookstore & soaking up the ambience of the books I can look at, check out, etc. not to mention those readings -- like the one Patrick Pritchettjust reported to us...). ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the year the old ones, the old great ones leave us alone on the road. Denise Levertov ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 11:58:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Chris [Steve] Piuma" Subject: Re: Geocities Comments: To: kkel736@bayarea.net In-Reply-To: <353821B8.37BA1002@bayarea.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Karen Kelley showed great grace and sensitivity to write on 98.04.17: > Anyone had any dealings with Geocities? I'm thinking about taking them > up on their free site to put up some literary material. Is this another > case of "no free lunch"? As I understand it, they let space on their > server if you'll place a banner somewhere on your page. > > Any insights will be appreciated. Check out Ron Henry's web lit mag "Aught" at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8789/aught.htm As far as the "free lunch" goes -- since I used a somewhat dated web browser on my somewhat dated home computer, I'm incapable of seeing the banner ads that occasionally pop on GeoCities web pages. Drat. You can email Ron at eviscerate@geocities.com and ask him more about the GeoCities experience. -- Chris [Steve] Piuma, etc. Nothing is at: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard flim: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard/flim/index.html from the current issue: These feelings are real--only the memes have been changed to protect the guilty. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:44:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: oy vey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Miracle Fair The commonplace miracle: that so many common miracles take place. The usual miracle: invisible dogs barking in the dead of night One of many miracles: a small and airy cloud is able to upstage the massive moon Several miracles in one: an alder is reflected in the water and is reversed from left to right and grows from crown to root and neve hits bottom though the water isn't deep. A run-of-the-mill miracle: winds mild to moderate turning gusty in storms. A miracle in the first place: cows will be cows. Next but not least: just this cherry orchard from just this cherry pit. A miracle minus top hat and tails: fluttering white doves A miracle(what else can you call it): the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m. and will set tonight at one past eight. A miracle that's lost on us: the hand actually has fewer than six fingers but still it's got more than four. A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth. An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA english translation copyrite 1995 by Harcourt, Brace & Company ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 09:20:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: tucson activities Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I've only been back receiving poetics messages for a few weeks, and haven't seen anybody reporting on Tucson activities, so thought I'd summarize. The POG series which started a year ago with readings and/or talks by David Bromige, Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Tom Mandel, Bob Perelman, Jim Waid, Margaret Bailey Doogan,and others -- continued this year with sometimes monthly and sometimes more-than-monthly readings or presentations by a mixture of poets, visual artists, video artists, music composers. These have included Leslie Scalapino, Roberto Tejada, Cynthia Miller, Robert Hogg, Sheila Murphy, Rae Armantrout, A.C. Huerta, Victor Masayesva, Tom Raworth, Charles Alexander, Jerome Rothenberg, Alex Garza, Clayton Eshleman, Michael Davidson, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Larry Solomon, Lisa Cooper, and Lydia Davis (and I'm sure I've left something out). The latest of these readings were the Michael Davidson one about three weeks ago, and the Lisa Cooper/Lydia Davis reading one week ago today. When possible, Chax Press has made chapbooks by visiting and/or local writers to accompany these events (books by Davis, Cooper, Armantrout, Raworth/Alexander, one by POG co-founder Tenney Nathanson who read in a university-sponsored series, and one last spring by Perelman). The literary readings have been energetically complemented by artistic presentations in the case of Cynthia Miller (painting), A.C. Huerta (painting/photography), Alex Garza (sculpture), Larry Solomon (musician/composer), and Victor Masayesva (video/photography). The events have included visiting and local artists and writers; they have also shifted locations purposefully, including events at three locations in downtown Tucson, on the far west side at Pima Community College, and in predominantly Hispanic South Tucson. More informal talks in the series have been at an older stucco former-home which is an annex to the Poetry Center of the U of Arizona. Besides POG, which is a collective of about 15 people including Jill McCartney, Tenney Nathanson, Dan Featherston, Kali Tal, Charles Alexander, Lisa Bowden (all of those on the organizing committee for the group), and others; a couple of the events have had co-sponsorship from the Writing Works/Extended University program at U of Arizona, or from the Poetry Center at the U of Arizona. The events have also had support from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Still, financially, it's been a struggle in which several people have stuck their necks and wallets out, and we're counting a lot on an upcoming fundraising dinner (May 4 -- please send me a direct email if anyone wants more information about this, wants to come or reserve/buy a seat we can donate to someone who can't afford it) to help us break even and continue doing this next year. The final event in the series this year is Saturday, May 9, at 7pm. It is a reading by Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy, and a performance by artist Ned Schaper, at the Mat Bevel Institute, 530 N. Stone Ave., in Tucson. Free & open to all. if you're near, please come. charles chax@theriver.com charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing NOTE NEW URL FOR CHAX PRESS http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:15:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Institute paid a heavy price for this action; several days before the >complaint was to be heard in the federal courts, judge king dismissed the >complaint and ordered the Christic Institute to pay the legal fees of these >operatives, which totaled more than a million dollars. unable to do so the >institute went out of existence. >joe brennan The Little Fish --------------- The little fish dreamt it was a huge white shark. It imagined its teeth and jaws powerful. It imagined it was ferocious. It dreamt this many times and it eventually _believed_ that this was the truth. The little fish then attacked another fish....and the little fish was immediately eaten. In being eaten it found its freedom. That is the end of the story of the little fish. The little fish perhaps exists somewhere in another parallel universe, in a kind of afterlife, or perhaps it reincarnated in another time period as a great white shark. I shall remain agnostic to what happens to fish after they are eaten. Now how does that apply to Little Book Shop versus Huge Bookselling Chainstore ? Big fish eat little fish. Sometimes little fish forget that fact. Then they are eaten, even faster, than they otherwise would have been. That is all there is to it. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 13:32:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: MILLENNIUM VOLUME II EVENTS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII We would like to announce two events in connection with the publication of the 2nd volume of POEMS FOR THE MILLENNIUM: -- For those in the San Diego area: On Sunday 19 April at 3p.m. in the Seuss Room of the Geisel (Central) Library at UCSD: Readings and performances by Pierre Joris, Jerome Rothenberg, David Antin, Rae Armantrout, John Cayley, Michael Davidson, Hiromi Ito, George Lewis, Quincy Troupe, Bertram Turetsky and Pasquale Verdicchio. -- For those in the Bay Area: On Monday 20 April at 7p.m. at Diesel Books (5433 College Avenue in the Rockbridge section of Oakland): readings by Pierre Joris, Jerome Rothenberg, Lyn Hejinian, Nathaniel Mackey, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Michael Palmer, Carl Rakosi and Eric Selland. For information call: (510) 653 9965. Pierre Joris & Jerome Rothenberg ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Poetic knowledge...is the knowledge of finitude, Dept. of English | of words and things that happen once and SUNY Albany | once only, measurable but not repeatable, the Albany NY 12222 | intuitions of _nonstatistical_ probabilities tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | that are _creative_, not merely re-creative email: | (or recreational)." -- Don Byrd joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:53:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: more on tucson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just a couple of more notes to round out recent and tonight's Tucson activities. Yesterday afternoon Robert Kaufmann gave a talk at the U of Arizona on Adorno and Michael Palmer -- I couldn't be there but would appreciate a report from anyone who was there. Last night, Susan Aiken and co-editors of the new book, MAKING WORLD: Gender, Metaphor, and Materiality, gave a presentation at Antigone Books, talking about, taking questions and reading from that book which comes out of a conference here on the topic, really about space and metaphors about space and how they work, effect us, and otherwise operate. An attempt to approach the topics cross-discipline, with contributions from art, poetry, queer theory, Nortena gardening, and more. The book was published by Univ. of Arizona Press. And tonight, there's an event sponsored by Kore Press, and I am forwarding their notice of this event, which appears below: April 18 A BOOK OPENING for Sylvia Um's THE ROOTED HEART, published by Kore Press 6-8pm at 402 N Main St, the Franklin House. :::::::::::::::::: I live in the desert where everything touches the ground I am either fluid or menacing silhouettes strange buds branches gold-leafed anthropomorphic forms quiet fracas I see movement find the door dear heart take a breath greater than yours (from "A schematic drawing of eternal love") ::::::::::::::::::: Sylvia was a student (of Barbara Cully and Susan Aiken among others--and Tenney too, I believe she and I were in your American Lit class years ago) during her undergraduate career in creative and critical writing at the U of A. She was in her second year of the MFA/poetry program at U of Maryland when she died of heart failure as a result of treatments for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in November of '96. Her poems will be read by Boyer Rickel and Barbara Cully. Since Sylvia was an accomplished violinist (playing with AZ Opera Co and UA Symphony Orchestra) there will be a string quartet (comprised of musicians from Tucson Symphony and Tucson Chamber Orchestra) playing from 7-8pm. Music and food and books will follow readings. There will be several members of Sylvia's family there, a few who will be flying in from out of state. Please spread the word and join us if you can. cheers, Lisa Bowden Kore Press all for now, charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 13:41:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Nowak Subject: Mpls. events Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Upcoming _Xcp/Cross Cultural Poetics_ & related events in Mpls: 1.)Kirin Narayan, anthropologist/novelist, author of _Storytellers, Saints & Scoundrels_ (U Penn), co-editor of _Creativity/Anthropology_ (Cornell), and a new collection of Hindi folktales from Oxford. Reading--Friday, April 24th, College of St. Catherine-Mpls, Room 250 (Old Main), noon Talk @ University of MN, 207 A Lind Hall, 3:15pm, also April 24th 2.) LitLink Festival panel on the State of Publishing, w/ Mikeil And, Allan Kornblum, Mark Nowak, Bill Truesdale, & others, Maria Damon moderator. Sunday, April 26th, Calhoun Square (also displays from dozens of small press publishers, reading stages, open mikes, etc.) 11:00am-4:00pm 3.) _Xcp no. 2_ publication reading, Saturday May 2nd, 7:00pm, Hungry Mind Bookstore (w/ Lise Erdrich McCloud, Diane Glancy, Chung Na Yei, Rita Chakrabarti, Carolyn Erler, & Mark Nowak (also, Arthur Sze will be in town for the Rain Taxi reading series on Sunday, May 3d: time & location to follow). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 17:15:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! In-Reply-To: <34dc75a0.3538c357@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" wow this is heavy. thanks for letting us (we who didn't know, or knew but forgot) know about it. At 11:14 AM -0400 4/18/98, JBCM2 wrote: >In a message dated 98-04-18 00:19:45 EDT, you write: > ><< > 8)I'm also thinking of the Christic (sp?) Institute's legal challenge to > the CIA, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, which was the means by which > many people learned of it's involvement in the drug trade. They never > won that case but the newspaper coverage of something that would have > otherwise been ignored was absolutely worth their work. > >> > >rachael, you're certainly right on about the Christic Institute's attempt to >expose a continuing criminal operation/conspiracy perpetrated by former & >current cia operatives. not only does it document the drug trafficking >sanctioned by these operatives, the complaint also points out the earlier >activities of these same operatives in southeast asia, the middle east, africa >and central america -- very bloody activities. when carlo parcelli, rosalie >gancie and myself were producing Print News Report, a weekly alternative news >program on public access chanels (washington, dc & northern va) we read the >entire complaint, all 300 pages, verbatim. unfortunately the Christic >Institute paid a heavy price for this action; several days before the >complaint was to be heard in the federal courts, judge king dismissed the >complaint and ordered the Christic Institute to pay the legal fees of these >operatives, which totaled more than a million dollars. unable to do so the >institute went out of existence. > > >joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 17:29:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Mpls. events In-Reply-To: <862565EA.00658BCD.00@internotes.stkate.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" minor amendment: the talk at the U of MN will be at 3:00, rather than at 3:15. At 1:41 PM -0500 4/18/98, Mark Nowak wrote: >Upcoming _Xcp/Cross Cultural Poetics_ & related events in Mpls: > >1.)Kirin Narayan, anthropologist/novelist, author of _Storytellers, Saints >& Scoundrels_ (U Penn), co-editor of _Creativity/Anthropology_ (Cornell), >and a new collection of Hindi folktales from Oxford. > Reading--Friday, April 24th, College of St. Catherine-Mpls, Room 250 >(Old Main), noon > Talk @ University of MN, 207 A Lind Hall, 3:15pm, also April 24th > >2.) LitLink Festival panel on the State of Publishing, w/ Mikeil And, Allan >Kornblum, Mark Nowak, Bill Truesdale, & others, Maria Damon moderator. >Sunday, April 26th, Calhoun Square (also displays from dozens of small >press publishers, reading stages, open mikes, etc.) 11:00am-4:00pm > >3.) _Xcp no. 2_ publication reading, Saturday May 2nd, 7:00pm, Hungry Mind >Bookstore (w/ Lise Erdrich McCloud, Diane Glancy, Chung Na Yei, Rita >Chakrabarti, Carolyn Erler, & Mark Nowak > >(also, Arthur Sze will be in town for the Rain Taxi reading series on >Sunday, May 3d: time & location to follow). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 19:35:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan or Orion Raphael Dlugonski Subject: Re: bookstore sagas In-Reply-To: <199804180409.VAA26449@jumping-spider.aracnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Although a micro press publisher as well as a poet, here in Portland (with great independent bookstores like Powells, Looking Glass & Boradway), i have an ongoing relationship with one of the local Borders. i should say that i also consider myself in the progressive-radical range in politics, as well as a strong union supporter. but about 3 years ago when the first borders came to town, a person from the store came up to me at local book fair, where we both had tables (well, they had several tables, i had a 1/2), and said i'd been pointed out as a person who has organized readings. while porland has tons of writers/poets, there arent many venues for reading--3-5 (changing every couple months) regular open readings; occasional 1-3 person readings at above mentioned bookstores; & the ocaisonal traveling poet at one of the local schools. as a reader and reading organizer i like the 3 at 15 minutes each format. the readings are generally great, almost always local, averages around 18 people. i continually get flack for working with borders. i figure theyre the ones giving in this without getting much back (dont know how big a pr impact these readings, or any local poetry, could have), other than some stolen books. readers geta place to read around triple the standard open reading slot, get an attentive audience & a small gift certificate. who's co-opting whom. and relating to anothe entry on this topic, the people i deal with at borders are nice folks, if not always totally present, but ive never encountered any rudeness or paranoia. dan raphael ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 00:13:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Shoemaker Subject: George Oppen wins Pulitzer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mention of the Pulitzer makes me think of something I've always wondered about--anyone know how the hell George Oppen managed to win one back in the sixties? Just seems so unlikely--but then, it was the sixties. s ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 23:37:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Bookstore sagas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I should clarify that this lawsuit is brought by the ABA; it is not one local bookstore against the chains. And it is quite possible that some of their practices ARE illegal. Antitrust is a quite complicated area of the law. So I will await the results with a great deal of interest. It may be quixotic but I wouldn't term it "ludicrous." (I believe it is the American Booksellers Association; various ind. stores in diff. locations are joining in) Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 00:00:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Big fish eat little fish. And AIDS and cancer kill. Still, we on the losing end who have some style like to have some say how we will die. Which for some means giving on over to the doctor, for others blue crystals and for others still it is screaming like hell so the silence doesn't get us before the killer cells do. > > That is all there is to it. > Now, is that so so. > --RDL ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 02:07:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: George Oppen wins Pulitzer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is a good question which I should, though don't, have a good answer for. There is little in the letters to suggest that Oppen actively sought the award (indeed, he seems fairly ambivalent about it). Anyone know who might have been responsible? Stephen Cope RE: >Mention of the Pulitzer makes me think of something I've always wondered >about--anyone know how the hell George Oppen managed to win one back in >the sixties? Just seems so unlikely--but then, it was the sixties. s ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 02:23:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: George Oppen wins Pulitzer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Steve Shoemaker writes: >Mention of the Pulitzer makes me think of something I've always wondered >about--anyone know how the hell George Oppen managed to win one back in >the sixties? Just seems so unlikely--but then, it was the sixties. The list of writers who did or did not get Pulitzers is an interesting (or disheartening) one. Among the non-winners are: T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Louis Zukovsky, Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich, C.K. Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Mark Strand and lots of others. A biography of Louise Bogan has won a Pulitzer, Bogan has not. On the other hand such giants as Audrey Wurdemann, Mark Van Doren, Leonard Bacon, Peter Viereck, & Phyllis McGinley have won (the 20's through the 40's are particularly lean years as far as good choices made by the selection committee). Since 1922, only three African-Americans have won, no other writers of color have ever won a Pulitzer prize in poetry. About 77% of the winners are male. The list of winners is quintessentially mainstream (I think that's the role of the Pulitzer, to valorize the mainstream). A number of recipients have a sort of "wait your turn" feel to them, a twenty to thirty year gap between achievement and recognition, such as William Carlos Williams in 1963, Wallace Stevens in 1955 and Marianne Moore in 1952. I think Oppen winning in 1969 falls under this rule (and also because _Of Being Numerous_ is a darn good book). My hunch is this wait your turn rule applies to Charles Wright and most of the other winners in the nineties (such as James Tate and Philip Levine), much of whose work defined the mainstream of the seventies. Creeley, Strand and Rich are probably all due within the next few years, especially if they release books of collected poems. And who knows, maybe the collected poems of Susan Howe or Michael Palmer will win the Pulitzer in 2010 (which is possible if the mainstream moves in their direction). It's a dead certainty however that the collected works of Robert Hass will win a Pulitzer long before they do. Personally, I don't lose much sleep over who wins or doesn't win Pulitzer prizes, any more than I'm going to buy an album because it won a Grammy. Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 10:04:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: oy vey morpheal! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Big fish eat little fish. And AIDS and cancer kill. Still, we on the losing >end who have some >style like to have some say how we will die. Which for some means >giving on over to the doctor, for others blue crystals and for others >still it is screaming like hell so the silence doesn't get us before the >killer cells do. > >That is all there is to it. >Now, is that so so. >--RDL Do we ever really get to say how we shall live ? Or with whom ? Now that is an even more painful cry for some freedom _to_ rather than freedom _from_. It is so easy for others to set one free from almost all that one loves. Then they call themselves saviours and pat one another upon their shoulders as though they have all done good. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 10:14:34 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: George Oppen wins Pulitzer Louis Simpson was the judge responsible for Oppen's Pulitzer--that is, as far as I know, based on a breakfast conversation with Simpson and Armand Schwerner who would know more about this. Armand? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 08:00:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: oy vey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" you poor sad man loving slavery, resignation, acquiescence, collaboration, ask your mother to open the door and let you out, there's a world beyond the computer screen and you know what if you put these tiny little seeds in the dirt sometimes flowers come out and melons, never platitudes, take some time out to read a book, i recommend toni morrison's paradise, her best yet, maybe you'll have some new ideas and give us a chance to discuss poetics ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 11:55:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: oy vey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >you poor sad man loving slavery, resignation, acquiescence, collaboration, I have met many who are exactly that, and would never want it any different. It is alright if they are truly happy being that. Then do not disturb them, is perhaps as good an option as any. As for me, I agree, as to the recoil in abject horror from such dismal circumstances becoming the given or the chosen lot in life. Worse if it is the sum and average of the given to. Then again, some kinds of committed relation, and enthusiastic involvement, courageous communicative interaction, and collaborations, are to be hoped for, wanted, sought after, invited, responded to,.... Of course one person's slavery is in fact another person's freedom, is something we must keep in mind. That has to do with trading some of one's so called freedom for the sake of having something else that oneself truly wants to have, even if that is a loving relationship with a specific other human being. Though that fact of human existence, of human lives, goes too often without saying. In that too there is individuality, and potentially, freedom of association, freedom of communicative interaction, freedom of personal expression, and so the relation then is in some ways poetic, but invariably something has to be sacrificed for the sake of that having. Exactly what is sacrificed, and how much is sacrificed, is variable, as to different situations. That is itself slavery, and oppressive, only if what is gained is not wanted, or the sacrifice does not achieve its purpose. Then it is sad sacrifice without celebrations. Anyway, in my approximately 42nd year, a few years ago I wrote this poem about something somewhat related to what Billy Little refers to: WE'VE GOT CLASS --------------- Today they draped another pauper's coffin with a dollar bill, and there was a silent salute for another victim of money forbid. The wealthy save their own bodies for this life, too often telling the poor to save their souls for the afterlife. Those in between supposed to make coffins, print dollar bills, serve the wealthy, give to the poor, and preach sermons. From: "Before and After" ------------------------ By: Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 17:06:55 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: oy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A Wanton Elegy Marxists! Oh Messiah! treading their failed steps on the other side of the free market when they see you coming Or should we just buy more guns, 'cause consuming and defensiveness are always the next best things Reasoning's spirit was seen with Elvis at the 7-11, they were reading each other questions from the Cosmo democracy quiz Posturing, or is it "preening," for peanuts--ten bad analogies wins you a free Enterprise Decoder Ring--don't tell sis! Home-spun hyperbole just like mamma used to make with confidence smelling like those ooey-gooey chocolate chips Economics lessons for adolescents stain the windows like a 50 percent gas and oil mix A fact is a fact is a fact, "fact" in fact makes it so, just ask your anchorman when thinking tires Legal eagling may free your mind but who do you think _really_ wants deregualtion, it ain't the little fishies Literally, Martin _________________________________________ Martin Spinelli SUNY Buffalo English Department Granolithic Productions spinelli@pavilion.co.uk LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak ENGAGED http://www.engaged.demon.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 10:27:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: underdog wins MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks Joe for the memory refresher. Yes I now recall this and that the case actually planted a seed of hope that some truth might be set on the record. The sad outcome doesn't negate the importance of the work. The history of struggle is a history of mainly losses and that occasional win that makes all the rest possible. The successful, though not victimless (deaths and beatings of activists, plus three still in jail--on AMNESTY's prisoner of conscience list) blockage by the people Tepotzlan, Mexico, 1995, of the construction of a Jack Nicklaus golf course that would have destroyed their entire eco system. Or that George Oppen did get the Pulitzer. Or UNITE's exposure of child labor in a GAP factory in El Salvador. Or _Howl_. --RDL JBCM2 wrote: > > In a message dated 98-04-18 00:19:45 EDT, you write: > > << > 8)I'm also thinking of the Christic (sp?) Institute's legal challenge to > the CIA, I hope I'm not getting this wrong, which was the means by which > many people learned of it's involvement in the drug trade. They never > won that case but the newspaper coverage of something that would have > otherwise been ignored was absolutely worth their work. > >> > > rachael, you're certainly right on about the Christic Institute's attempt to > expose a continuing criminal operation/conspiracy perpetrated by former & > current cia operatives. not only does it document the drug trafficking > sanctioned by these operatives, the complaint also points out the earlier > activities of these same operatives in southeast asia, the middle east, africa > and central america -- very bloody activities. when carlo parcelli, rosalie > gancie and myself were producing Print News Report, a weekly alternative news > program on public access chanels (washington, dc & northern va) we read the > entire complaint, all 300 pages, verbatim. unfortunately the Christic > Institute paid a heavy price for this action; several days before the > complaint was to be heard in the federal courts, judge king dismissed the > complaint and ordered the Christic Institute to pay the legal fees of these > operatives, which totaled more than a million dollars. unable to do so the > institute went out of existence. > > joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 19:08:50 -0700 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: bookstore sagas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit late to this: I think someone mentioned warehouses. They are a particular kind of tyranny. In the calculus of 'production' and 'distribution'. there are 'independent' booksellers that cannot obtain escape velocity from Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Koen etc. Can't get that publisher discount so you play the time and usury game with the wholesaler. the chains know its all about margin not the fucking books yous selling/. And then the remainder houses play an interesting game. better than pulping those books I guess. but no returning those remainders. Used seller marks *up* the 'remainder'. Amazon has operated at a loss since its inception. What bookseller could do that? I been trying to operate at a loss for years. I gave up having a 'check-book'. But they don't take my loss at the grocery store. Gotta have the right specie. I don't even try that shit with my landlord. cash-money. I-S-B-N group identifier (i.e., 0=NorthAmerica)-Publisher Identifier (the so-called 'vendor' number)-title identifer (or 'edition' identity)-single digit check (an interesting truth value quotient of the first nine digits). _Poems for the Millennium II_= 0-5202-0864-1 hAS anyone read 0-226-10672-1? bookstore sagas? fugitive publication w/o a ISBN often gets a SKU. (a stock keeping unit) barcodes= three types: UPC-A (12-digit), UPC-E (6-digit) massy-markets etc. gets E's., and bookland EAN (Not just an Universal Product Code, but a European Article Number.) Sometimes you get EAN's that are ISBN's and somethimes yous gets EAN's that more: EAN_8's and EAN_13's. but them folks ain't americans anyway. mc ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 22:47:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: UbuWeb Visual, Concrete, & Sound Poetry: April 1998 Updates Comments: To: info@ubu.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" U B U W E B : VISUAL, CONCRETE, & SOUND POETRY http://www.ubu.com APRIL 1998 UPDATES + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + HISTORICAL: Augusto de Campos, Brazil, PDF files and New Animations Decio Pignitari, Brazil, Organismo Animation (1960) SOUND : Jaap Blonk, Holland, "Flux de Bouche" Lars-Gunnar Bodin, Sweden Augusto de Campos, Brazil "Sound Poems 1956-1974" Ilmar Laaban, Sweden Sten Hanson, Sweden Ake Hodell, Sweden Bengt Emil Johnson, Sweden Edwin Torres, USA, "Holy Kid" CONTEMPORARY: Laurel Beckman, USA "Polysemous Unit Hovering Over Love & Respect" Craig Dworkin, USA, "Soundpoem (for Tom Raworth)" Elson Froes, Brazil "Animations" Neil Hennessy, Canada, "vOw(h)e(e)ls 1 & 2" Bill Luoma, USA, "New Visual Poems" William Marsh, USA, "4 c's in Season" Juliet Ann Martin, USA, "oooxxxooo" Brian Stefans, USA, "New Visual Poems" Irving Weiss, USA, "New Visual Poems" Darren Wershler-Henry, Canada, "Grain: a prairie poem" Doc Wright, Australia, "Nixon" TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + H I S T O R I C A L Guillaume Apollinaire Carlo Belloli Max Bense Wallace Berman Jean Francois Bory Claus Bremer Jose A. Caceres John Cage Julio Campal Henri Chopin Augusto de Campos Haroldo de Campos Paul de Vree Early Visual Poetry 1506-1726 Ian Hamilton Finlay Carl Fernbach Flarsheim John Furnival Heinz Gappmayr Jochen Gerz Mathais Goeritz Eugen Gomringer Corrado Govoni Philip Guston's Poem-Pictures Vaclav Havel Dom Sylvester Houedard Ronald Johnson Jiri Kolar Ferdinard Kriwet Lilian Lijn Duda Machado Armando Mazza Franz Mon b.p. Nichol Clemente Padin Decio Pignatari Antonio Riserio Aram Saroyan Kurt Schwitters Gino Severini Takahashi Shohachiro Mary Ellen Solt Vagn Steen Salette Tavares Arrigo Lora Totino Ivo Vroom Emmett Williams Pedro Xisto Louis Zukofsky C O N T E M P O R A R Y Bruce Andrews Connie Beckley Susan Bee Laurel Beckman Felix Bernstein Charles Bernstein Jake Berry John Cayley Cheryl Donegan Johanna Drucker Craig Dworkin Elson Froes Loss Peque~no Glazier Kenneth Goldsmith Kenneth Goldsmith & Joan La Barbara Neil Hennessy Dick Higgins Peter Jaeger Alison Knowles Bill Luoma William Marsh Juliet Ann Martin John Reeves Dirk Rowntree Blair Seagram Spencer Selby Linda Smukler Alan Sondheim Brian Stefans Ward Tietz Nico Vassilakis Ron Wakkary Irving Weiss Darren Wershler-Henry Doc Wright Jody Zellen Komninos Zervos Janet Zweig R E A L A U D I O S O U N D P O E T R Y Guillaume Apollinaire Jaap Blonk Lars-Gunnar Bodin William S. Burroughs John Cage Henri Chopin Jean Cocteau Augusto de Campos Marcel Duchamp Brion Gysin Sten Hanson Ake Hodell Bengt Emil Johnson Ilmar Laaban Wyndham Lewis Jackson Mac Low F.T. Marinetti David Moss Kurt Schwitters Cecil Taylor Edwin Torres Gregory Whitehead P A P E R S Laurel Beckman Sergio Bessa Roland Greene Roland Greene & Harvard Students Peter Jaeger Clemente Padin Charles A. Perrone Ward Tietz F O U N D / I N S A N E The Orion Series The Free Jack Ads Series Assorted Found/Insane Poems + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + U B U W E B : VISUAL, CONCRETE, & SOUND POETRY http://www.ubu.com + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 23:40:25 -700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Speaking of George Oppen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit My copy of the video recording of the 1983 George Oppen Tribute arrived here (in Vancouver) last week, after being manhandled and taxed by customs agents. What a disappointment! I have the sense that the tape must have cut-out mid-way, after Burton Hatlen. Neither the recordings played nor the projected images come through. And it's hard to believe it was only an hour long. Was anyone here (on this list) there? What really puzzles me is the emotional ambiguity of the speakers. There's a weird coldness throughout. And a related matter. I've been brooding over a remark in one of Oppen's letters to Robert Duncan. It's the part where he says, "a landscape appears between our extremes." Has anyone written on the topic? Sketched that landscape? Aaron Vidaver ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 00:01:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > At V I S P O, you'll find my work in graphical, animated, pop-up, and other poetry, short > story/poem morphs, essays on technologies of the word and Web art, intriguing visual work by Ted > Warnell (Poems By Nari) and Nico Vassilakis, links to Mocambopo, a literary venue in Victoria > B.C., and a fine collection of literary links. If you have not visited it, I doubt that you will have read/seen anything like it. The most recent piece at V I S P O, "The Pen," is in Gallery Ã2 at http://www.speakeasy.org/~jandrews/vispo/jimvisp1_1.htm. "The Pen" traces through eight graphics and the letters P O E M a visual lyricism mentioned by Apollinaire but quite different from concrete. The site is my 'book,' is the centre of my writing. Regards, Jim Andrews -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E The main door: http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 06:20:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Octavio Paz Comments: To: cap-l@virginia.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From today's NY Times, April 20, 1998 Octavio Paz, Mexico's Foremost Poet, Dies at 84 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MEXICO CITY -- Octavio Paz, Mexico's foremost literary figure and the winner of a Nobel Prize for poetry and essays mapping the labyrinths of the Mexican mind, has died. He was 84. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo announced Paz's death early Monday aboard his airplane while returning from the Summit of the Americas in Chile, Mexican news media reported. Zedillo did not give a cause of death or say when the author died. Soft-spoken and at times aloof, Paz could be harsh. But he was so precise and clear that he changed the very way Mexicans express themselves. Like most Mexican writers, Paz was preoccupied with his country's many paradoxes and contradictions, the contrasts between its ancient Indian past and a more recent Spanish heritage. That combination has given rise to a culture often baffling even to Mexicans. Even Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes -- a rival who was one of Paz's sharpest critics -- conceded that Paz has "forever changed the face of Mexican literature." Phones rang unanswered early Monday at Paz's home. At the prestigious literary magazine Vuelta, which Paz founded, a security guard said he hadn't heard the news and that no one was available to confirm it. In 1982, Paz won the Miguel Cervantes Prize, Spain's most prestigious award. In 1987, he took the T.S. Eliot Award in Chicago. Three years later, he captured the Nobel Prize for literature. Paz still is best known for two of his earlier works: the book-length essay "The Labyrinth of Solitude" and the poem "Sun Stone." "Labyrinth," published in 1950, described Mexican history as a search -- "for our own selves, deformed or masked by strange institutions," he later explained to a friend. Many friends stopped speaking to him after the book's publication. "Sun Stone" was a harsh critique of what he said was a proud apathy common among Mexicans. Again, many colleagues reacted with shock, but he picked up a number of fans as well. Paz considered poetry the most noble form of literature. "Poetry comes from the very depths of one's being. It corresponds to experiences that are more profound" than prose, he told the Spanish literary magazine La Vanguardia in 1987. "Good prose is invisible," he said. "In poetry, it is not. In a poem, each word carries weight." The clarity of his writing inspired many other authors to abandon the convoluted style long common in Mexico. Paz was born on March 31, 1914, and grew up on the edge of Mexico City. His grandfather, a strongly anti-clerical army general, playwright, lawyer, journalist and sometime revolutionary was an ally of dictator Porfirio Diaz. Paz's father and namesake, who called himself an anarco-socialist, was secretary to Emiliano Zapata, a peasant leader of Mexico's 1910-1920 revolution. He later became the diplomatic representative of Zapata's revolutionary forces in Washington. When Zapata was murdered in 1919, the Paz family went into brief exile in Los Angeles. Back in Mexico, the family fell on hard times. When Paz was a teen-ager, the family was selling pieces of furniture -- and then the entire house -- to make ends meet. Paz published his first poem when he was 16 and his first essay a year later. He later went to law school at Mexico City's National Autonomous University, where he joined a Marxist student group. He married a young writer, Elena Garro, and continued to write poems. In his early 20s, Paz sent a manuscript to the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who also would go on to win a Nobel Prize. Neruda was so impressed with Paz that he wrote a favorable review and suggested the young Mexican go to a congress of anti-fascist writers in Spain. In Madrid, Paz met other leftist writers including Andre Malraux, Andre Gide, Stephen Spender, Antonio Machado and the Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg. Paz stayed in Spain after the congress and joined the leftist-dominated Republican forces fighting rightist Gen. Francisco Franco. He insisted on going to the front. He was sent to a brigade commanded by a Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros but was never given a rifle and, apparently because some doubted his leftist credentials, was sent back to Mexico on a vague mission "to divulge the Spanish cause." After returning to Mexico City, he later accepted a scholarship to study at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked in New York translating Hollywood scripts into Spanish. A diplomat impressed with his writing in the Mexican magazine Manana offered him a job as cultural attache to the embassy in Paris in 1946. He went on to work in the diplomatic service in Japan and the United States. In 1968, Paz resigned as ambassador to India when troops quashed student protests in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square, killing hundreds of people. "It would be difficult to represent a government under these circumstances," he told reporters in New Delhi. Paz had frequent disagreements with the leftist movement, equating Cuban President Fidel Castro with right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and calling Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista revolution inconsequential. But he also was a fierce critic of the government, denouncing the long- ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party as corrupt and distanced from the Mexican people. Paz's marriage to Elena Garro ended angrily after two decades, and in 1966 he married Marie-Jose Tramini. In 1976, Paz founded Vuelta, which would become one of Latin America's most prestigious literary magazines. He remained the magazine's director. Paz lived in a spacious and quiet apartment in a high-rise off one of Mexico City's busiest avenues, surrounded by thousands of books, mementos, pre- Columbian ceramics and art objects. Despite the pollution and noise, Paz refused to seek calmer surroundings in the suburbs. "I'm Mexican," he said. "I have to live like the Mexicans. I adore my city. ... It was beautiful, and it's going to be beautiful again someday." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:26:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Burt Hatlen Organization: University of Maine Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I was there. There were tributes by me, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jerome Rothenberg--all printed in Sagetrieb 3.1 (Spring 1984). Also, as I recall by Michael Palmer--anyway I remember him being there. Perhaps also by Michael Davidson? Perhaps some people simply read a poem. I don't know about the tone of the occasion. George came in with Mary, sat in the back, said nothing. I think we were all a little uncertain about what that meant. Burt Hatlen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:48:50 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I was at the Oppen tribute and spoke; there was a kind of heightened feeling. Not coldness. Photographs of his poems made into slides (by Charles Amirkanian I think) were projected on the white wall. Gave it a kind of "meeting" feel as in Quaker meeting--austere, noble, and poignant. George was pretty far along with Alzheimer's and he was (probably) not a full listener or full player at this event. If there's more to say after I keep reading the posts I will try to say it. Rachel (Blau DuPlessis) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:17:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Brit visiting Cleveland Ohio and NY seeks gigs (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The Poetics Office was closed over the weekend. This arrived here by mistake. Sorry if it was already posted to the list... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:34:51 +0000 From: Alaric Sumner To: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu Subject: Brit visiting Cleveland Ohio and NY seeks gigs TO THE POETICS LIST An excruciating british distaste for self promotion. Shameless. Necessary. I am a lecturer on the PERFORMANCE WRITING degree course at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, UK (Subject Director: Caroline Bergvall). I am visiting the US to present a performance of The Unspeakable Rooms at the CLEVELAND PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL on 20th May. Rory McDermott (movement/voice) has devised an event from my text using video, audio tape and live performance which has been funded by the Arts Council of England and which will tour in Britain in the Fall. I am seeking gigs to talk to people who want to know more about the Performance Writing course, in particular potential undergraduate students, students considering joining the postgraduate taught courses planned for 1999, students considering applying to do research at Dartington. These would not be formal information sessions organised by the college, but chats from my perspective as a member of staff. I am also seeking poetry reading gigs. I was resident writer at the TATE GALLERY in ST IVES, CORNWALL (book: Waves on Porthmeor Beach (illustrated by Sandra Blow RA), a diary of precise descriptions of the waves on the beach during the six months combined with brief image poems and texts discussing the process of writing and the nature of the collaboration with Sandra Blow). My performance piece for 9 voices speaking at the same time (Voices (for 9)) was performed at the Royal Court in London in 1994. Other works have been presented at the Tate St Ives, Dartington Arts, Ferens Gallery in Hull, at the Edinburgh Fringe etc etc. I edit/publish words worth language arts (writers include: Carlyle Reedy, C Bergvall, J Mac Low, Mac Wellman, H Chopin, dsh, Ken Edwards, cris cheek, Ernst Jandl etc). I have edited a section of PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL on Performance Writing which should be coming out fairly soon. Publishers: Stride, Spectacular Diseases, Lobby, Talus, RWC, SubVoicive, Arts Council etc. I am in the States for only a week or two but I would appreciate any suggestions/offers. Texts can be emailed to any who want to see the sort of stuff I write. It ranges from multi-voice work aiming at the condition of music through the overlapping of many speaking voices and texts without apparent coherence or meaning to comparatively coherent and comprehensible poems and patches of prose. backchannel on a.sumner@dartington.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:12:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Drucker, Rodefer, etc. Reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit FREE READING IN NYC Johanna Drucker Stephen Rodefer Gary Sullivan Lewis Warsh Thad Ziolkowski will read at 6:00 p.m. this Thursday, April 23 at Kenny Schachter Gallery 534 La Guardia New York, NY (212) 807-6669 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:05:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Reading in PA Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For anyone near Harrisburg, Camp Hill etc. this week -- Susan Wheeler Public Reading & Reception Thursday, April 23, 8:00 p.m. Messiah College, Grentham PA for specific location: 717-796-5378 Susan Wheeler wheeler@is.nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 08:10:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Octavio Paz dies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On the CBC as I read: the death of Octavio Paz, another great one gone. At least, Canada's national radio notices, with a major story on what he meant & stood for. Too many such losses these years, yet they are to be expected. I remember how long ago I first read _Sunstone_, that amazing book (& another New Directions gift to us all). And the essays, too. My colleague, Bert Almon, did some translations: here's one: RHETORIC Octavio Paz 1 The birds sing, and sing not knowing what they sing: they know only their throats. 2 Form that adjusts itself to movement is not thought's fetter but its skin. 3 Clarity of crystal isn't clear enough for me: clear water is running water. trans. Bert Almon, Seneca Review IV.1 (May 1973) We mourn. And we write on... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the year the old ones, the old great ones leave us alone on the road. Denise Levertov ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:24:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: bkstrs for tom orange MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Tom -- been hiding in the flmth dump -- distributing my work by the logic of peepers -- some advices re: new york bookstores -- east village books (101 st marks) is good for paperback fiction but otherwise overpriced -- tompkins sq books on 7th btw 1 & a a lot better -- dishevel thy hair! -- marcella's right re: mercer, (mercer btw bleecker & houston) worth looking into for poetry -- bookstore row (18th btw 5 & 6) is kinda thin now but academy and skyline usually have two or three good books -- some people like alabaster (around the corner from the strand, 4th ave btw 12 & 13) -- the argosy is worth a touristy trip (58th or 59th betw 5 & park) but not for recent stuff -- overpriced but terrific is pomander (by appt only) say hi to Suzanne Zavrian for me if you go uptown -- if you do go uptown there's Ideal (110 betw bway & amsterdam) and (not used) Labyrinth (112 btw bwy & amst) and there used to be one called No Real Specialty (amst (btw 118 & 119) but they've probably changed into something less interesting -- tho I did pick up a Grove Press version of the Sonnets there for four bucks once -- anyway am jotting preciously because back at work and needing to work -- more complete listings somewhere at www.papermag.com (look for the bookstore guide) -- the real place to go for used books is Cambridge MA (SF CA was about like NY when I stopped thru -- haven't yet regretted not getting the Muqaddimah) -- and the noplace to go of course is www.bibliofind.com -- hey drop me a line and let me know when you're due in town, they let me out for lunch now and again -- all best -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 05:42:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: Re: kanji Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John, If I understand correctly, you and Yang Lian will be reading on 21st or 22nd of May in San Diego. Could you possibly come up to Los Angeles on that Sunday morning. Because then we could have a late (4:00) salon, and you could meet the sizeable poetic community of LA. And I'd take you two to dinner...etc. I would be able to find a bed for the two of you, or put you up at a local hotel, near my offices. Otherwise, the next weekend might also be available, although being a holiday, it might be more difficult. I do want to see Yang. Douglas John Cayley wrote: > > On the Mac, it is not enough just to set document encoding to one of the > Japanese standards in your browser, you must also have at least one > Japanese font installed on your system and also the latest Worldscript > extensions and also (I think, although maybe the font and worldscript are > enough) the 'Japanese Language Kit' (you'd definitely need the latter for > *inputting/editing* Japanese. > > The situation is basically the same for Chinese (excepty you need Chinese > fonts, etc.) on the Mac, which is where I have direct experience. > > I am not so clear about how Wintel copes. > > Bests, > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > 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: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 15:01:39 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alaric Sumner Subject: Alaric Sumner visiting Cleveland Ohio and NY seeks gigs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" An excruciating british distaste for self promotion. Shameless. Necessary. I am a lecturer on the PERFORMANCE WRITING degree course at Dartington College of Arts http://www.dartington.ac.uk/ in Devon, UK (Subject Director: Caroline Bergvall). I am visiting the US to present a performance of The Unspeakable Rooms at the CLEVELAND PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL (last years info at http://www.performance-art.org/perfcore.html) at the Cleveland Public Theatre http://www.en.com/cpt/on on 20th May (despite what it says on the website!). Rory McDermott (movement/voice) has devised an event from my text (using video, audio tape and live performance) which has been funded by the Arts Council of England and which will tour in Britain in the Fall. I am seeking gigs between 17th and 31th May to talk to people who want to know more about the Performance Writing course, in particular potential undergraduate students, students considering joining the postgraduate taught courses planned for 1999, students considering applying to do research at Dartington. These would not be formal information sessions organised by the college, but chats from my perspective as a member of staff. I am also seeking poetry reading gigs. I was resident writer at the TATE GALLERY in ST IVES, CORNWALL (their site is at http://www.tate.org.uk/menu.htm ). (Text and images from my book Waves on Porthmeor Beach (illustrated by Sandra Blow RA) were displayed on the walls of the Gallery amongst the paintings during the exhibition 'Porthmeor Beach: A Century of Images' (1995/6). The book is a diary of precise descriptions of the waves on the beach during the six months combined with brief image poems and texts discussing the process of writing and the nature of the collaboration with Sandra Blow). My performance piece for 9 voices speaking at the same time (Voices (for 9)) was performed at the Royal Court in London in 1994. Other works have been presented at the Tate St Ives, Dartington Arts, Ferens Gallery in Hull, at the Edinburgh Fringe etc etc. I edit/publish words worth language arts (writers include: Carlyle Reedy, C Bergvall, J Mac Low, Mac Wellman, H Chopin, dsh, Ken Edwards, cris cheek, Ernst Jandl etc). I have edited a section on Performance Writing for PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL (their site is at http://128.220.50.88/journals/performing_arts_journal/) which should be coming out fairly soon. I've been publishered by: Stride, Spectacular Diseases, Lobby, Talus, RWC http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6753/rwcmain.html, Arts Council etc. I am in the States for only a week or two but I would appreciate any suggestions/offers. Texts can be emailed to any who want to see the sort of stuff I write. It ranges from multi-voice work aiming at the condition of music through the overlapping of many speaking voices and texts without apparent coherence or meaning to comparatively coherent and comprehensible poems and patches of prose. I have a postgraduate degree from the University of Leeds and am doing research for a PhD at Dartington. What else might be of use... er... backchannel on mailto:a.sumner@dartington.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 07:56:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Octavio Paz dies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Poetry does not attempt to discover what there is at the end of the road; it conceives of the text as a series of transparent strata within which the various parts--the different verbal and semantic currents--produce momentary configurations as they intertwine or break apart as they reflect each other or efface each other. Poetry contemplates itself, fuses with itself, and obliterates itself in the crystallizations of language. Apparitions, metamorphoses, volatilizations, precipitations of presences. These configurations are crystallized time: although they are perpetually in motion, they always point to the same hour--the hour of change. Each one of them contains all the others, each one is inside the others: change is only the oft-repeated and ever different metaphor of identity. The vision of poetry is that of the convergence of every point. The end of the road. Octavio Paz The Monkey Grammarian ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:05:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Has anyone heard of this magazine... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Merritt Clifton definitely edited a magazine called SAMIZDAT in the late 80's from the border of Ontario/Vermont..... It had been around awhile, because I think it was issue #216 around then.....so it's possible he also edited the magazine about which Achembeau speaks. But that was "before my time"-- I know that CLifton was a VERY interesting man, moved around a lot, both geographically as well as in terms of jobs, etc.... good to hear (from Steven Marks) that he's still at it..... Chris Stroffolino On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Steven Marks wrote: > Samizdat: I think it was published by Merritt Clifton who now publishes > (last I knew) a magazine called "Animal People." Address is PO Box 960, > Clinton, WA 98236. More info re that mag in 32nd ed. of Int'l Directory of > Little Magazines.. > Hope this helps. > > > On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Robert Archambeau wrote: > > > I'm looking for some information about a poetry magazine called > > "Samizdat," published in California in, I think, the late 70s and early > > 80s. If anyone could backchannel me information about the publisher, > > the dates of publication, etc., I'd appreciate it. > > > > Best, > > > > Bob > > -- > > Robert Archambeau > > Department of English > > Lake Forest College > > Lake Forest, IL 60045 > > http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ > > > > " on the end > > of each decision stands a heretic" > > --Michael Barrett > > > > __________________________________________________ > Steven Marks > > http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html > __________________________________________________ > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:27:27 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: Has anyone heard of this magazine... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to everyone who replied to my post, backchannel & otherwise. For those of you who were wondering, it turns out Merritt Clifton edited a quarterly magazine called "Samisdat" (with an s, not a z) from 1973-1990, and also published books and chapbooks under the imprint "Samisdat Associates" -- some of these are still available. Fortunately, Merritt tells me that he has no problem with the title "Samizdat" (with a z, not an s) being used for a new journal with which I'm involved. First issue in August, several listees to be included. More info later, and my thanks to those who helped me track Merritt Clifton down in the wilds of Washington State. Bob -- Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College Lake Forest, IL 60045 http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ " on the end of each decision stands a heretic" --Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:09:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r.drake" Subject: _Certainty Series_ by Dean Taciuch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Burning Press is pleased to announce our latest release: _Certainty Series_, a book of poems by Dean Taciuch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- certainty leaves trails. The way back, though, may be through. Less certain, uncertain. You said no one ever came by, but the bicyclist disagreed- there were other roads, lesser known paths into questions. Or around the answers as though they were trees. Such shade they cast fell to us, covering us in cool demonstrations. No need, no need. We have not returned. Blankets, the chill of evening, the blue light fading into black. The fringes are a comfort, marking the transition from wool to skin. leaves it open, allows air to breathe through. Into the question, where leaves trail less certain, un- stable elements beyond a sense that can or can't be seen there the cyclist's broken spokes spoken answers as though they were leaves cool demarcations no need for the blanket blue fading into fringes of comfort wood to skin leaves they open into steady questions of relative ease study questions in the quiet uncertainty of bookish introductions looking at instructions not reading them a stream of information just this side of breaking through into sense. Give it a break, break it off, listen: what sound? the fingers rake across a blank expanse of leaves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Taciuch live in Burke VA, just outside of Fairfax, but "I retreat to the hills of WVa every chance I get." Having attended Kent State, Ohio University, and University of Southwestern Louisiana, he is now Visiting Assistant Professor at George Mason University, teaching Composition, Creative Writing, Literature courses. Dynamic Ribbon Device published his chapbook _( )box ( )set_ in 1996; his work has also appeard in Die Young, Texture, Mirage/Period(ical), Articulate (DC Arts journal), Situation, and Antenym. Two of his Java based visual poems are available at the Wr-Eye-Tings Scratchpad site: http://www.burningpress.org/wreyeting/ . _Certainty Series_, poems by Dean Taciuch; $7.50 ppd from Burning Press PO Box 585 Lakewood OH 44107 Feel free to contact Burning Press for additional information: au462@cleveland.freenet.edu www.burningpress.org/bphome.html luigi-bob drake, editor ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:43:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT a further note RE: Oppen. If Adam could indicate which letter it was, I should be glad to try and intepret it as best I can or to contextualize it. I probably could have identified every word in that book soon after it was published, but at a distance of 8 years, I need a little date or something to help out. Or page number. Rachel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:45:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT sorry--Aaron, not Adam. (no indication of accuracy of my editing job) Rachel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:48:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael J Kelleher Subject: mayday97mayday98 (fwd) Comments: cc: core-l@listserv.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII day Thursday ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:35:30 +0100 From: cris cheek To: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: mayday97mayday98 Hi, Mike, hope you're well. Thinking stuff out for your mailer. Do visit the following site on May 1st, and make responses. Hope that you'll be interested in news of this forthcoming web site and be inspired to contribute an observation from your everyday of May 1st 1998 PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED and apologies if you've received this message twice! mayday97mayday98 http://www.mayday.var.org (hosted by var e-zine) a web site re-evaluating one year on since the 'sea-change' General Election through observations of everyday life The site goes on-line at 00.01hrs (BST) May 1st 1998 unfolding over the day on an hourly basis until 23.59 hrs (BST). It presents selected extracts from a project, initiated by poet / publisher cris cheek, as a homage to Mass Observation, which generated a wide range of texts and images from the everyday lives of people around Britain, on Mayday 97. cris cheek (Sound & Language), together with Var editor, Kirsten Lavers invite responses throughout mayday 98 to be uploaded as they come in. Not another Mass Observation project surely! No. This is not about one person snooping on their neighbour, or their community. These are those details of their own everyday lives, that people have a desire to register. 'mayday97mayday98' begins to map what people make a 'note' of, what strikes them, what catches their attention. What is important to them, in that place and at that time, however mundane or ephemeral that may appear to be. Why this site, now? Contributions to mayday97 inevitably included a lot of references to the General Election. We thought that, one year on, some reconsiderations were called for. The contributions invited to this site on May 1st this year form part of that process. What results will remain on-line for the foreseeable future, hosted by var e-zine, at this URL. There will be other onward developments from this project, including a planned book publication. - - - How to take part this year - - - Everyone is encouraged to contribute to mayday98. Either in response to something seen or read on the site OR an observation that YOU make on May 1st this year. When we get your observation it will be loaded up, asap. And your name (unless you ask otherwise), will be added onto the growing list of contributors. You can contribute texts and images of all kinds (photos, drawings, scans, photocopies, writing), shorter, pithier, things are best. We might make a selection. NB. (Please do it on May 1st only!) - here's how 1. fax on 01223 576082 2. e-mail kirsten@everyday.demon.co.uk 3. send an attachment with your e-mail message (we can accept rtf, text, j.peg formats) 4. telephone a message to 01223 576082 we will check the answer machine every half an hour and transcribe your message direct onto the site Things to include (optional) - your location (or the location of the observation) - your name (names will not be attached to individual contributions on the site) - how we can contact you (a book is in the planning stages, and other developments are likely from this site) ### Mass Observation Mass Observation was founded, sixty years ago, in 1937, by Tom Harrison, a self trained anthropologist, Charles Madge, poet and journalist, and Humphrey Jennings, painter, poet, writer and film-maker. Mass Observation challenged the claim of the press to represent the views of ordinary people. Despite the male grouping that mobilised it, Mass Observation archived an extraordinary and incomparably rich body of writing by women. The Mass Observation Day Survey of May 12th 1937 exploded simplistic notions of collective identity. It compiled reports, written on that day by hundreds of people in all 'walks of life'. The result stands as an interrogation of the construction of meta-narrative. However, Mass Observation did contribute to the sense that 'big brother was watching you', and resulted in some prurient 'othering'. May 12th 1937 was the Coronation day of George VI - a day that was claimed to represent a 'sea-change' for the British people. 'mayday 97' marked another such defining moment. we look forward to receiving your observation cris cheek and Kirsten Lavers mayday97mayday98 http://www.mayday.var.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:53:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Donahue, Roberson at SPT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Small Press Traffic presents Joseph Donahue Ed Roberson Thursday, April 23, 7:30 p.m. New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street, San Francisco $5 Joseph Donahue's new chapbook will be out in time for this event . . . Terra Lucida (Heaven Bone Press). Though he spent many years in New York, he comes to us now from Seattle. He's the author of World Well Broken (Talisman House, 1995), Monitions of the Approach (Red Dust, 1991) and Before Creation (Central Park Editions, 1989). He was one of the editors of Primary Trouble: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Donahue=B9s poetry is devotional, dark, always on the edge--Bataille meets The Song of Bernadette. Its panoramic energy is harnessed by a stunning prosody, but still the margins of his poems look awfully vulnerable, like something's bound to burst out. Ed Roberson is the celebrated author of Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In, winner of the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize, as well as several earlier books including When Thy King Is a Boy, Etai-Eken, and Lucid Interval as Integral Music. His selected poems (Just In/Word of Navigational Challenges) will appear in the fall, and you heard it here first! Roberson has been compared to such masters as Ornette Coleman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Romare Bearden in his complexity and dedication to experiment. This formal bravura and elasticity explores as has no other poetry the mysteries of the African-American experience, seen and heard backwards and forwards in time and space. Ed Roberson is assistant director of special programs at Cook College, Rutgers University. This is a rare San Francisco appearance by one of the great poets of our time. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:00:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Small Press Traffic webpage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Though still very much under construction, the Small Press Traffic webpage is up: http://www.sptraffic.org Be our guinea pigs--check it out! Any suggestions, comments, or corrections would be appreciated. The website includes upcoming events, bio blurbs from past authors, as well as book reviews from our last two newsletter. Soon the never-before-seen reviews from the overdue SPT newsletter will also be posted. Many thanks to Diana Cage and Pamela Lu for all their hard work on this project. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 14:59:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Octavio Paz 1914-1998 In-Reply-To: Rachel Blau DuPlessis "Re: Speaking of George Oppen" (Apr 20, 1:45pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Adios maestro, capitan mi capitan. - un miembro de su sociedad secreta. O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, - Walt Whitman William Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 20:00:55 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L.MacMahon and T.R.Healy" Subject: Re: Small Press Traffic webpage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Still under construction but no need for hard hats or much ducking here. It looks very well. Attractively laid out, simple to use and already substantial. I had no idea that spt had published so many authors. The review page is particularly good. A site capable of carrying a great deal of stuff while still having a nice airy feel. Well worth bookmarking. Randolph Healy At 11:00 20/04/98 -0700, you wrote: >Though still very much under construction, the Small Press Traffic webpage >is up: > >http://www.sptraffic.org > >Be our guinea pigs--check it out! Any suggestions, comments, or >corrections would be appreciated. > >The website includes upcoming events, bio blurbs from past authors, as well >as book reviews from our last two newsletter. > >Soon the never-before-seen reviews from the overdue SPT newsletter will >also be posted. > >Many thanks to Diana Cage and Pamela Lu for all their hard work on this >project. > >Dodie Bellamy > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 19:54:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Poetry Project Symposium MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The Poetry Project's 1998 Symposium: Invention & Identity, is taking = place May 7-10th, St. Mark's Church, 2nd Ave & 10th St in Manhattan. Thursday May 7th 8 pm Reading with Tim Atkins, Mark Nowak, Julie Patton, Wang Ping. reception to follow Friday May 8th 1 pm Panel Discussion: Writers & Judaism: Personal Diaspora with Jane Delynn, = Hettie Jones, Elinor Nauen, Douglas Rothschild & Bob Rosenthal, = moderator. 3:30 pm Panel Discussion: Tongue-less or Double-Tongued: The Experience of Latin = American Poetry in the U.S. with Ernesto L. Grosman, Jaime Manrique, = Mercedes Roffe, Carmen Valle & Cecilia Vicuna, moderator 8 pm Reading: Brenda Coultas, Maggie Estep, John S. Hall & Sharan Strange reception to follow Saturday, May 9th 11 am Panel Discussion: Blues & Hip-Hop Identity with Steve Cannon, Beth = Coleman, Tracy Sherrod, Christopher Stackhouse & David Henderson, = moderator. 1 pm Panel Discussion: The Invention of Class with Patricia Spears Jones, = Sharon Mesmer, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Rod Smith & Gary Lenhart, moderator 3 pm Short Takes on Identity & Invention: Eddie Bell, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, = Lee Ann Brown, Regie Cabico, Ava Chin, Jordan Davis, Tim Davis, Zhang = Er, Chris Funkhouser, Lisa Jarnot, Kimberly Lyons, Mark McMorris, Ange = Mlinko, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Sianne Ngai, Leonard Schwartz, Prageeta = Sharma, Sparrow, Sharan Strange, Chris Stroffolino & more. 8 pm Reading/Performance: Todd Colby & the Yogurt Boys, Darius James, Edwin = Torres with Gina Bonati & Ladislav Czerneck & Vole. reception to follow Sunday, May 10th 2 pm Short Takes Part II: Rosa Alcala, Meena Alexander, Bruce Benderson, = Anselm Berrigan, Tracy Blackmer, Daniel Bouchard, Jorge Clar, Todd = Colby, Jeffery Conway, Brenda Coultas, Marcella Durand, Merry Fortune, = C.S. Giscombe, Kimiko Hahn, Marcella Harb, Darius James, Julia Kunina, = Jocelyn Lieu, Gillian McCain, Josie McKee, Ed Morales, Mark Nowak, Julie = Patton, Wang Ping, Keith Roach, Mark Salerno, Eleni Sikelianos, Pamela = Sneed, Brian Kim Stefans, Edwin Torres, John Yau and more. Individual events are $7, $4, free to members. All-day Saturday pass is = $20 ($15 students & members). Passes to all events are $40, $30 = students, $25 members. Sponsors' passes are $100 (includes 1-year = membership to the Project). For more information/answers/questions, call (212) 674-0910.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 19:29:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" do you find all your mistakes that quickly, the navaho disrupt their geometric patterns, build an error in because only god is perfect or so i've been told, so the perfect pattern would be the mistake, the forgery, the insincere prayer. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 22:20:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: Donahue, Roberson at SPT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ed Roberson will also, for those closer to this end of the state, be reading at UCSD (San Diego) on April 29, 4:30PM at the Visual Arts Performance Space. Stephen >Small Press Traffic presents > >Joseph Donahue >Ed Roberson > >Thursday, April 23, 7:30 p.m. >New College Cultural Center >766 Valencia Street, San Francisco >$5 > >Joseph Donahue's new chapbook will be out in time for this event . . . >Terra Lucida (Heaven Bone Press). Though he spent many years in New York, >he comes to us now from Seattle. He's the author of World Well Broken >(Talisman House, 1995), Monitions of the Approach (Red Dust, 1991) and >Before Creation (Central Park Editions, 1989). He was one of the editors >of Primary Trouble: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. >Donahue's poetry is devotional, dark, always on the edge--Bataille meets >The Song of Bernadette. Its panoramic energy is harnessed by a stunning >prosody, but still the margins of his poems look awfully vulnerable, like >something's bound to burst out. > >Ed Roberson is the celebrated author of Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In, >winner of the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize, as well as several earlier books >including When Thy King Is a Boy, Etai-Eken, and Lucid Interval as Integral >Music. His selected poems (Just In/Word of Navigational Challenges) will >appear in the fall, and you heard it here first! Roberson has been >compared to such masters as Ornette Coleman, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Romare >Bearden in his complexity and dedication to experiment. This formal >bravura and elasticity explores as has no other poetry the mysteries of the >African-American experience, seen and heard backwards and forwards in time >and space. Ed Roberson is assistant director of special programs at Cook >College, Rutgers University. This is a rare San Francisco appearance by >one of the great poets of our time. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 23:14:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: more readings you don't want to miss Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi everyone, it's Kevin Killian. Thanks to all who replied to my plea for someone to come stay in my apartment while I'm out of town next week. Yes, we have several winners who will arrive in shifts, to take care of our two cats, Blanche and Stanley. I'm sure you all have heard the story about how I inserted their names "Blanche and Stanley" into the popular anagram program on the web and the first thing that came up was "Channeled by Satan" (!!!) but that is a calumny of the alphabet, they are sweet and timid, like field mice or lilies. Anyhow while I'm there, back east, at my brother's wedding in the Bronx, Dodie Bellamy and I will also be reading at the Poetry Project at St Marks on Wednesday April 29th (2nd Avenue at East 10th Street). Dodie=B9s novel "The Letters of Mina Harker" will be hot off the presses by then (Hard Press) and she will be reading from it. "The Letters of Mina Harker is a great book in every respect," says Dennis Cooper. "Mesmerisingly secretive, yet huge and generous in scope, it's a dazzling stylistic and intellectual feat down to its tiniest syllables and asides, and almost sure to be one of the touchstones of contemporary fiction. Mark my words." Then the intermission and then I come on with my short play "Cut," the Alfred Hitchcock story, staged reading with a cast of NY poets, painters, and novelists: D-L Alvarez, Bruce Andrews, Lee Ann Brown, Tim Davis, Kenward Elmslie, Eileen Myles, Sianne Ngai, Michelle Rollman, Eleni Sikelianos, Lynne Tillman, Laurie Weeks and Joe Westmoreland; and myself. A discontented faculty wife (Myles) embarks on a sultry affair with a young cub reporter (Davis), while her husband (Elmslie), director of the Berkeley =46ilm Commission, plans a theory-heavy salute to the films of Alfred Hitchcock (also played by Davis). In another plot line, couture king Karl Lagerfeld (Andrews) descends onto Berkeley to dethrone Lancome spokesmodel Isabella Rossellini (Tillman) and replace her with the younger, Bard-educated Chita du Sumatra (Rollman). Then onto Washington D.C. where we will read again on Saturday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ruthless Grip Art Project, 1508 U Street NW, near the corner of U and 15th. Dodie will again read from her cornerstone of contemporary fiction, and I will be reading from my own work, and also first reading of the newly discovered "=B3Fix Poems" of Jack Spicer, discovered in November 1997 and soon to be published as a book by Steven Clay of Granary Books (with pictures by Fran Herndon). Sure to cause a stir on the Beltway and we are inviting Monica Lewinsky too. Sorry to make this post so long--you can see I don't get out much. Kevin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 17:12:50 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Jacket # 3 is complete, and awaits your attention Comments: To: p.minter@nepean.uws.edu.au, ozlit@netspace.net.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable JACKET magazine -=20 fast-loading, international, FREE=20 quarterly in January, April, July and October =20 full of stylish writing - on the Internet, at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au Announcement from Jacket editor John Tranter:=20 Jacket # 3 is now complete. Issue # 3 is dedicated to the memory of the Australian poet JOHN FORBES, who died unexpectedly on 23 January at the age of 47 at his home in Melbourne. It contains his stylish and laconic ode to drugs titled "Speed: A Pastoral", and poems by many of his friends, including Gig Ryan, Karlein van den Beukel, Rae Desmond Jones, Tracy Ryan, Keston Sutherland, John Kinsella, Ken Bolton, Hugh Tolhurst, John Tranter, and a portrait painting by Ken Searle of Mr Forbes as the god Zeus wearing a towel and holding a barbecue fork.=20 As well:=20 Special article: Eliot Weinberger on the lost Chilean poet Omar C=E1ceres= .=20 Interview: Russell Chatham, artist and publisher from Clark City Press, interviewed in the wilds of Montana.=20 Reviews: Charles Nicholl's enlightening biography "Somebody Else - Rimbaud in Africa", and Drew Milne on John Wilkinson's "Sarn Helen".=20 Poems by Andrea Brady, Tom Clark, Johanna Drucker, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Mark Ford, Peter Gizzi, Kris Hemensley, Michele Leggott, Joel Lewis, Harry Mathews' thought-provoking and Oulipian "Chronogram for 1998", Drew Milne, Ron Padgett, Hugh Tolhurst, John Wilkinson . . .=20 Plus many photographs and quirky works of art, the article "Thank God for the Bourgeoisie", Jacket's Photo Tips, Great Moments in Literature (metamorphic diathermal annealing, 1943), etc.=20 Plus Jacket's growing illustrated list of links to Literary Sites on the Internet, bookstores around the world (many with direct e-mail and Internet links!), and links to sites offering tips and resources for designing your own Web pages.=20 Q: Golly! Tell me more about Jacket!=20 A: Well, since you ask . . .=20 In November 1997, Jacket was the featured Internet site on the Electronic Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo.=20 In December 1997, Jacket was among the top recommended sites and the subject of an extended review on Web Del Sol, a major literary arts Internet conglomerate site in the US. In December 1997, Jacket won the "Best of the Web" award from the Poetry Mining Company, an Internet site in New York.=20 In April 1998 Jacket was "Featured Site" on the Booksmith Bookstore's "Literary Links" site in San Francisco at= http://www.booksmith.com/links.html=20 Q: Tell me about the rich treasure trove of back issues -=20 are they always available?=20 A: Absolutely!=20 JACKET # 1 - a piece on cyber-poetry in the age of the Internet, interviews with English poet Roy Fisher and Australian aboriginal poet Lionel Fogarty, a look at the 1943 hoax poet Ern Malley (including rare childhood photos!), work by Charles Bernstein, Elaine Equi, Pamela Brown, Alfred Corn, Joanne Burns, Tracy Ryan, Carl Rakosi, Beth Spencer, Peter Minter, Susan Schultz and Paul Hoover, together with reviews, other prose and poetry pieces and plentiful photos and art work. Jacket # 1 was complete in October 1997. JACKET # 2 - John Ashbery : two interviews (1985 and 1988), and a new Ashbery poem / Marjorie Perloff on "Normalizing John Ashbery" / John Tranter : 3 John Ashberys / Eliot Weinberger on James Laughlin (1914-1997) / David Lehman - more on the Ern Malley hoax / Bob Perelman's "The Marginalization of Poetry" discussed by Ron Silliman, Anne Lauterbach, Juliana Spahr, Steve Evans and Kate Lilley ... and Bob Perelman! / Yasusada - Hoax, deception, or work of art? Johnson-Nagahata letters / poems by Peter Riley, Lee Ann Brown, John Kinsella, Eileen Myles, August Kleinzahler, Jennifer Moxley, Robert Adamson, Forrest Gander, Tim Davis, Michael Heller, Denis Gallagher / Eliot Weinberger's "Letter from New York: Vomit" / and other poems and articles. Jacket # 2 was complete in January 1998.=20 Q: And just how much does this glittering jewel of the Internet cost?=20 A: Nix!=20 Nowt!=20 Nil!=20 Zilch!=20 Jacket is FREE, and (thus) is at present unable to pay contributors. Also, I don't have the time yet to deal with unsolicited submissions. Sorry. My e-mail address is jtranter@jacket.zip.com.au Please tell your friends about Jacket, whose motto is "bop till you drop!" END from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9818 8569 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:09:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE Subject: Philadelphia Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thursday April 23rd, 8 PM Jennifer McCreary & Rod Smith at George's 5th St Cafe corner of 5th & Gaskill (1/2 block north of South St) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:15:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Small Press Traffic webpage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 20:00:55 +0100 >From: "L.MacMahon and T.R.Healy" >Subject: Re: Small Press Traffic webpage > >Still under construction but no need for hard hats or much ducking here. It >looks very well. Attractively laid out, simple to use and already >substantial. I had no idea that spt had published so many authors. The >review page is particularly good. A site capable of carrying a great deal >of stuff while still having a nice airy feel. Well worth bookmarking. > >Randolph Healy Randolph, Thanks for the encouragement. We purposely kept the webpage simple--and the simplicity and elegance of Laura Moriarty's *non* inspired us to go through with the project. We used PageMill because a trained monkey could do a website with PageMill--and because Pam Lu works for Adobe and therefore could purchase a copy for Small Press Traffic for pennies. Also, it's available at the computer labs of San Francisco State and New College, where much of the work on the page took place--as well as on people's home computers. Small Press Traffic's computers, god bless their micro hearts, are not powerful enough to run PageMill. Pam and Diana Cage, both of whom had some previous experience (unlike me who had to go through the PageMill tutorial just to be able to talk to them) also did some hand coding. Originally Diana, who is a creative writing student at SF State, designed a version with frames, but the computer lab guy at SF State recommended against it, saying that many of the types of people who would access our site wouldn't have computers powerful enough for frames. The autho bios section is Pam's brainchild. The project was/is fun, very grassroots, with the SPT board putting in input as well, and myself and SPT intern Sonia Greenfield acting as assistants to Diana and Pam. A photo section is soon to be added. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:22:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: hannah weiner queries In-Reply-To: <01BD6C96.1DBA8860@ad62-093.arl.compuserve.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" in weiner's Clairvoyant Journal, who is "Rhys?" is "charlemagne" Charles Bernstein? what was jackson mac low's name before he changed it? thanks, all respondents, in advance--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:45:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Thompson Subject: D.A. Powell, NYC Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For any in the New York environs, the lovely and spectacularly talented Doug Powell is in town from San Francisco to read from his new book TEA. 4PM Saturday, April 25 LABYRINTH BOOKS 536 W. 112 Street (btw bwy & amst) [he'd make my bed jumble and squeak. a parrot must have lit inside. potty mouthed] a song of Regan MacNeil he'd make my bed jumble and squeak. a parrot must have lit inside. potty mouthed I wouldn't have said, "quaquaquaquaqua" but his fingers pushed the dark: sores raised like letters he wanted to gather all the air: buzzarding. cold air flaps against the back of my skull perched upon as a child bride: I felt my abdomen surge. captain howdy is kicking me hurt red pulp of a melon. I bless the beak the tiny beak. he has long black lashes like wings. --from TEA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:24:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Small Press Traffic webpage In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: > We purposely kept the webpage simple--and > the simplicity and elegance of Laura Moriarty's *non* inspired us to go > through with the project. An excellent webzine to model. > Originally Diana, who is a creative writing student at SF State, designed a > version with frames, but the computer lab guy at SF State recommended > against it, saying that many of the types of people who would access our > site wouldn't have computers powerful enough for frames. Thank you, thank you, to the unknown computer lab guy. I wish I had frames. There must be a lot of good stuff I'm missing because I don't. But that dude's right. And now I'm going to go take a look at the SPT site myself. With Netscape 1.0. Steven __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:44:47 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Homi Bhabha MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello I have and am using an essay called "The Commitment to Theory" by Homi K. Bhabha, paginated 111-131. But the person who gave it to me doesn't have the reference, nor does the person who gave it to her. I'd like to site it. Does anyone know where this comes from?????? Also, would anyone be interested in me posting who will be at Naropa this summer (June 15-July 12) and when? best, RAchel D. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:48:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Speaking of George Oppen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 23:40:25 -700 >From: Aaron Vidaver >Subject: Speaking of George Oppen > >My copy of the video recording of the 1983 George Oppen Tribute arrived >here (in Vancouver) last week, after being manhandled and taxed by customs >agents. >What a disappointment! I have the sense that the tape must have cut-out >mid-way, after Burton Hatlen. I'm curious about this too. Was this event held in San Francisco, because if it was, I think I was there. I remember an auditorium and Rachel at the podium speaking, and George Oppen sitting in the back of the auditorium, and a tape being played of Oppen speaking or reading because he was too ill to do so in person. My knowledge of the poetry world was quite fuzzy back then--and I went to everything, an anything. I was eager. Did this really happen? Was I really there? Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:52:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: PAZ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This morning's LA TIMES carries a front page story on Paz, as does the NY TIMES -- then also has an editorial, a reprint of a Paz essay (in the "LIVING" section interestingly enough) and Mario Vargas Llosa's tribute -- the couple of times that I met him he was a friendly and encouraging man -- i was deeply saddened by the political feuds of his later years, but continue to find his poetry and essays inspiring -- a word I don't often use -- his RENGA remain a delight -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:58:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Bromige and Davidson in Los Angeles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tired of reading about Bromige's readings in Kansas and Colorado? Fly into L.A. this week and see for yourself -- Thursday, April 23 David Bromige and Michael Davidson Poetry reading 7:30 PM Loyola Marymount University Hilton #300B & C Los Angeles Friday, April 24 Noon Michael Davidson and David Bromige open discussion of poetry Loyola Marymount University Hilton #300B & C Los Angeles Directions: From the 405, take Manchester towards the ocean -- Turn right on Loyola Blvd., which leads directly into the campus Stop at guard's booth for parking info. and directions ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:16:23 -0400 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: Homi Bhabha MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rachel Levitsky wrote: > Rachel, Homi K. Bhabha: an Overview Benjamin Graves '98, Brown University In "The Commitment to Theory," an essay collected in The Location of Culture (1994), Homi K. Bhabha foregrounds the unfortunate and perhaps false opposition of theory and politics that some critics have framed in order to question the elitism and Eurocentrism of prevailing postcolonial debates... from: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/post/poldiscourse/bhabha/bhabha1.html The Location of Culture by Homi K. Bhabha List: $20.99 Our Price: $16.79 You Save: $4.20 (20%) Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days. Paperback, 285 pages Published by Routledge Publication date: February 1994 Dimensions (in inches): 0.91 x 9.20 x 6.14 ISBN: 0415054060 Perhaps? Dan Z Hello > > I have and am using an essay called "The Commitment to Theory" by Homi > K. Bhabha, paginated 111-131. But the person who gave it to me doesn't > have the reference, nor does the person who gave it to her. I'd like to > site it. Does anyone know where this comes from?????? > > Also, would anyone be interested in me posting who will be at Naropa > this summer (June 15-July 12) and when? > > best, > RAchel D. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:39:58 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT forever in search of women editors, i'd appreciate EMAiL addresses for -- Jessica Grim Liz Fodaski Melanie Nielson Susan Smith Nash Thanks Kindly ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:44:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: PAZ In-Reply-To: Aldon Nielsen "PAZ" (Apr 21, 12:52pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Apr 21, 12:52pm, Aldon Nielsen wrote: > Subject: PAZ > This morning's LA TIMES carries a front page story on Paz, as does the NY > TIMES -- then also has an editorial, a reprint of a Paz essay (in the > "LIVING" section interestingly enough) and Mario Vargas Llosa's tribute -- > > the couple of times that I met him he was a friendly and encouraging man -- > i was deeply saddened by the political feuds of his later years, but > continue to find his poetry and essays inspiring -- a word I don't often > use -- > > his RENGA remain a delight -- >-- End of excerpt from Aldon Nielsen When Octavio Paz was here in S.Fla two years ago he was kind and generous to all of those who sought him for autographs even while Derek Walcott and Ceslaw Milosz stood off somewhat neglected. I do remember hearing that in the same trip, a conservative Cuban-American managed to snag him for a talk on Castro and Cuba, which surprised me because of his earlier stand against ideological involvement. What was the nature of his political feuds in Mexico in his later years? William Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:22:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Guerra y paz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Paz was never politically unengaged, to the best of my knowledge. And of course he was virulently anti-castro, anti-communist. He had notorious feuds with Neruda, who was an unrepentant Stalinist to the end. Paz was also a sort of literary dictator in Mexico. His magazine Vuelta published the same writers over and over. An extremely powerful man. His essays on modern poetry are worth reading, especially Children of the Mire. He can be somewhat facile at times, almost glib; yet even when he is glib he has more to say than many other writers at their most profound. His knowledge of modern poetry was both broad and deep. He knew cummings, Pound, French poetry, as well as Spanish language poetry. There are very few of the original modernists of the 1920s and 1930s still alive now. Paz was a little younger (b. 1914) but lived much of this history beginning with the Spanish civil war. His poetry often leaves me unimpressed; this may be just me, though I've found similar reactions among many other people I've known, many of them specialists in Latin American poetry. Can he be compared to Neruda, Vallejo, or Lezama Lima? I have my doubts. He often seems to be "willing" himself into avant-garde postures in a way that doesn't convince me totally (somewhat like Huidobro the generation before). I feel an epoch has come to a close with his death. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:37:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: Paz Dispenser Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My own feeling (underscore -- no time to back it up with actual thought, for god's sake) is that Paz can compare favorably with Neruda -- but I would agree that Lezama Lima and Vallejo are considerably more interesting (to me) -- here again, though, the circumstances of career affect (and effect) what we have of each poet to read -- Further on the "feuds" -- much of the battle was a proxy war, with Krause (sp?) advancing the Paz line against Fuentes et al -- it was ugly -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:46:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Naropa info-- In-Reply-To: <353CF72F.5BFA@ibm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yes, Rachel... I'd like to know about Naropa summer stuff... Thanks, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 16:48:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Paz dispenser MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII You are right, Aldon, Paz can be compared to Neruda, in that Neruda wrote so much and of so variable a quality. He was a "gran poeta malo" as someone once called him. I was thinking of the Neruda of Residencia en la tierra, not of the various mediocre and awful Nerudas. The feuds were ugly and often carried out by proxy, as you indicate. I have very little interest in them beyond their obvious interest as pure gossip. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 18:17:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: movin' to providence - advice? In-Reply-To: from "david bromige" at Mar 6, 98 01:10:28 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, sorry for the personal note but I just found out recently that my wife & I are moving to Providence in June & I know there are a few Providence lurkers on the list - so, good used bookstores? bars, cafes, poetry-reading spots, jazz closer than Cambridge, other things a young man like meself should know about? Thanks for any helpful hints. -Mike. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 18:35:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r.drake" Subject: Re: Homi Bhabha Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" check: http://www.naropa.edu/sum97/swriting.htm > >Also, would anyone be interested in me posting who will be at Naropa >this summer (June 15-July 12) and when? > >best, >RAchel D. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 07:38:14 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: hannah weiner queries In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I believe "rhys" is "Rhys Chatham" a musician active in NY in 70s 80s, played with Peter Gordon, the Lovely Music Orchestra, various others that used to perform at the Kitchen not 100 percent sure though ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 18:39:36 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: hannah weiner queries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Schuchat Simon wrote: > > I believe "rhys" is "Rhys Chatham" a musician active in NY in 70s 80s, > played with Peter Gordon, the Lovely Music Orchestra, various others that > used to perform at the Kitchen > > not 100 percent sure though in that vein, perhaps charlemagne would be charlemagne palanstine, the pianist? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:34:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: hannah weiner queries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >in weiner's Clairvoyant Journal, who is "Rhys?" This is Rhys Chatham, a friend of Hannah's, a composer/new music person, who was active around The Kitchen (NY) in the 70s, may have even have been the music director. Quick web search found http://www.goddard.edu/wgdr/kalvos/chatham.html http://www.trouserpress.com/bandpages/RHYS_CHATHAM.html "charlemagne" This is (Brooklyn born) Charlemagne Palestine, a fabulous pianist/composer, also active in New York in the 70s, who I believe has stopped performing, and I think also stayed away from recordings of his work as well. He gave mesmerizing performnaces of work somewhat in the area of Young or Riley or Reich or Glass but more idiosyncratically expressive, more driven. He is also a visual artist and continues to show his work, mostly in Europe as far as I know. Found this item, a 1989 "interview"/phone call with Charlemaigne Palestine: http://home.cdsnet.net:80/~michaelm/death/ch_int.html It's quite interesting -- Both were quite well-known on the Downtown new music/performance scene of the mid-70s. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:15:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Guerra y paz In-Reply-To: MAYHEW "Guerra y paz" (Apr 21, 4:22pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii True Paz was never politically unengaged, but he did advise against the dangers of confusing poetry and ideology (as I meant) such as he accused Neruda and Louis Aragon of doing. This was the man who adopted Gide's saying "The writer must know how to swim against the tide." Paz was an individualist. For Paz, liberalism, positivism, and Marxism-Leninism were enthusiastically embraced by Latin America intellectuals as "abstract formulas" without being thoroughly reexamined "by and for Latin Americans." Paz the politically involved said that "we must cultivate and defend particularity, and irregularity--life. Human beings do not have a future in the collectivism of bureaucratic states or in the mass society created by capitalism." To be fair, it must also be remembered that Paz said the dangers attendant upon discord are irresponsible song OR silence. It is unfavorable to compare Paz with Vallejo,and other innovators like him. And this is not because his poetry doesn't stand up to theirs, but rather because Paz and Vallejo came from vastly different backgrounds and took quite different approaches to the way they handled their spanish. Paz and Neruda at least shared a sense of clarity in their language, but Vallejo sought to destroy and then rebuild, or reinvent spanish in a way more reminiscent of Celan. Vallejo's poetry being like the "war machine" of Celan's (to borrow a phrase from Pierre Joris whose it is). Paz seemed more to parallel Machado and Guillen in their form and language. He didn't appear to try to be the incessant innovator type, at least not after the 50's. And rather than will himself into any particular avant-garde posture, he advanced the strong influence of Andre Breton and the surrealists, personal friends of his, as did Rene Char, another dear friend of his. Paz came to live a most enviable life of poetry in his many travels, associations and friendships with some of the most famous writing figures, poets, and philosophers of this century many of whom were the avant-garde of their day. He was witness to the literature and events of almost the entire 20th century. I just think that many of the objections to Paz's poetry have stemmed from what was perhaps seen as a perpetuation of an already traditional spanish surrealism over and against a call for an overt populist poetry in his country and in Latin America. Then of course there was the critical backlash here too against a revised (and I believe improved) surrealism in the 60's and 70's. Paz's poetry will be for Mexico as monolithic and timeless as he meant for it to be in a country of contradiction and influence. William Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 17:54:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: Guerra y paz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Guillen? i would guess that's Jorge, and not Nicolas? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:41:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: hannah weiner queries In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980421193438.006b7a8c@bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks to all who answered, like, thanks a lot. At 7:34 PM -0400 4/21/98, Charles Bernstein wrote: >>in weiner's Clairvoyant Journal, who is "Rhys?" > >This is Rhys Chatham, a friend of Hannah's, a composer/new music person, >who was active around The Kitchen (NY) in the 70s, may have even have been >the music director. Quick web search found >http://www.goddard.edu/wgdr/kalvos/chatham.html >http://www.trouserpress.com/bandpages/RHYS_CHATHAM.html > >"charlemagne" >This is (Brooklyn born) Charlemagne Palestine, a fabulous pianist/composer, >also active in New York in the 70s, who I believe has stopped performing, >and I think also stayed away from recordings of his work as well. He gave >mesmerizing performnaces of work somewhat in the area of Young or Riley or >Reich or Glass but more idiosyncratically expressive, more driven. He is >also a visual artist and continues to show his work, mostly in Europe as >far as I know. >Found this item, a 1989 "interview"/phone call with Charlemaigne Palestine: >http://home.cdsnet.net:80/~michaelm/death/ch_int.html >It's quite interesting -- > >Both were quite well-known on the Downtown new music/performance scene of >the mid-70s. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:38:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Keeney Subject: Re: Where are they now? On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 05:34:37 -0500 rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM writes: >A poet whose work I liked quite a bit during the late 60s, early 70s, >was Tom >Veitch, a NYC school (gen 3) poet with a strong spiritual >undercurrent. He was >in SF for awhile around the early to mid-70s and then moved, up to >Sonoma or >beyond I think. Does anyone know what the man is up to these days? > > >Ron Silliman > Just waded through the past few daysworth of messages, disappointed not to see an answer posted. Veitch's bio-part in Padgett/Shapiro _Anthology of NY Poets_ has got to be one of the all-time best contributor's notes, between the tongue-out-eyes-up pic and that "awaiting the painful emergence of god in his flesh" bit, well. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of that book they want to unload for a few hundred pennies, but probably not.) Anyway, anyone know if Sotere Torregian is still alive? & while I'm here, if he published anything after _The Wounded Mattress_, which I was surprised to see is still listed in Books in Print? Scott _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:54:32 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pam Brown Subject: *overland* bits, call for submissions & launch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >*overland* has passed the 150 mark, and is celebrating. >``//``'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''``\\`` > >And it's just been overhauled. Less orthodox social realism, more >social commentary. New editorial team. Complete redesign. New >sections for new writing. Same ratbag attitude and radical politics, >of course. Still committed to incisive and practical engagement >with contemporary culture. > >To celebrate we've got a full facsimile reprint of our first issue. >Readers can trace, and reflect on, changes within both overland and >Australian society since 1954. > >AND in this anniversary issue: > Stuart Macintyre leads off with a timely analysis > of the wharfies'dispute. > Janine Little Nyoongah takes a satirical look at > the Constitutional Convention. > Stephen Gray reveals the story of Charles Priest, rape > and racism in the Northern Territory in the 1930s. > Linda Westphalen trenchantly revisits the Wanda > Koolmatrie hoax. > Gwen Kelly, a long-time contributor, looks back over > her several careers. > >NEW in this issue: the innovative 'Shorts', in which we > showcase fast fiction by new and emerging writers. > >PLUS another superb batch of poetry, spirited dialogue, > and reviews of *bodyjamming*,*The Virtual Republic* > and recent Australian fiction. > >OH AND from issue 151 we welcome on board Dean Kiley as > Fiction Editor and Pam Brown as Poetry Editor. >____________________________________________ > >CALLS: > >[1] We're wanting risky fiction, the SHORTS section (300-1600 > words) is set up for you to play in and we'll soon have > *overland extra!*, a web journal, as another innovative venue. > >[2] Looking for, before 30 November 1998,essays, poetry, fiction, >graphics, comics or hybrid work dealing with issues around > (a) privacy, censorship and media control; or > (b) crime writing (all genres and modes, from detective > thriller to tabloid reportage). >_____________________________________________ > >LAUNCH: *overland* Issue 150 will be launched at > Melbourne Trades Hall > 9 May 1998 at 7.30 pm > with food and entertainment and > Big Wharfie Defence. > ALL WELCOME: waged $5; unwaged/student $4. > > >Queries: Ian Syson @ overland@vut.edu.au > >http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~arts/cals/overland/overland.html >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 22:54:34 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Re: Small Press Traffic webpage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-21 15:24:49 EDT, you write: << Thank you, thank you, to the unknown computer lab guy. I wish I had frames. There must be a lot of good stuff I'm missing because I don't. But that dude's right. >> I have frames, but hey! you're not missing anything, to my way of thinking. I hate frames. I find them unnecessarily fussy, and a physically unpleasant way to view a web page. Too many small compartments -- no need for them -- would rather go to these "sections" or "compartments" via old-fashioned links. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 22:57:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Guerra y paz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Human beings do not have a future in the collectivism of bureaucratic states or in the mass society created by capitalism." To be fair, it must also be remembered that Paz said the dangers attendant upon discord are irresponsible song OR silence.> The die hard Marxists give a powerful push in the direction towards more and more amorphous and unindividuated mass society capitalism. The die hard Capitalists give a powerful push in the direction towards more and more amorphous and unindividuated mass state collectivism. Soon either everyone becomes dehumanized or something breaks....in the middle. That was more obvious during the overt Cold War when two (to each other's points of view) evil empires faced off against one another. Not so obvious now when it is all mostly covert rather than overt. So, in a way, Paz is not wrong. There is some truth to that, if that refers to the preservation of the individual, and of humanity as creative individuality rather than one or another kind of mass collectivization. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:18:57 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Still seeking free web server MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to all for the Geocities responses. No go with them, though, as they won't allow me to list subscription information (I want to put up some material & point readers to the print mag). Does anyone know of a free service? Surely someone must provide this for the arts... And if the service doesn't include garish banners and pop up windows, all the better! Karen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:49:36 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Homi Bhabha/Naropa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks all of you who sent me the info. on Bhabha. Below I leave the Naropa webside that r.drake posted. I checked it out and it seems its all there. later, rdl. Also for those of you in the area of Boulder: May 14, 8:30 pm Bobbie Louise Hawkins Lindsay Hill Laura Wright The Left Hand Book Collective 1825 Pearl Street Boulder CO 80302 (303) 443-8252 r.drake wrote: > > check: http://www.naropa.edu/sum97/swriting.htm > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:16:50 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: movin' to providence - advice? In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Apr 1998 18:17:57 -0400 from Dear Mike, I don't get around much, but here are a few places: used bks - Cellar Stories, downtown, is the biggest; Myopic Books, in Wayland Square has a good selection. jazz: there's CAV, an interesting bar/restaurant/antique store/music venue, run by this eccentric grande dame poet-lady from Egypt named Sylvia Moubayed. There's Chan's, in Woonsocket, a half hour drive north, a huge Chinese restauarnt whose owner loves jazz & books big names. probably some other places. AS220 downtown is a kind of punk gallery dada poetry/art music place. pick up a copy of the Providence NewPaper, a weekly - it covers most of what's going on & will give you a lot of info. You'll learn fast, RI is a small place but with a lot of layers. Enjoy! - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:35:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: sorry shdv bkchnld sorry list, should have backchanneled to M. Magee. but while I'm at it, Mike, you might want to check the Providence website: www.providenceri.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:22:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Guerra y paz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The phrase "war machine," attributed on this list to Pierre Joris, is also found in an essay by Monique Wittig collected in _The Straight Mind__. She compares Proust to a "Trojan horse." I know that Joris knows Wittig's work. The clarifications about the differences between Paz and Vallejo, offered by Wm. Burmeister, are completely on the mark. I too understood him to be talking about Jorge Guillen, not Nicolas. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:23:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client mothost.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Guerra y paz In-Reply-To: Aldon Nielsen "Re: Guerra y paz" (Apr 21, 5:54pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Apr 21, 5:54pm, Aldon Nielsen wrote: > Subject: Re: Guerra y paz > Guillen? > > > i would guess that's Jorge, and not Nicolas? >-- End of excerpt from Aldon Nielsen I should've specified. Yes, Jorge of Cantico fame. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:32:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: NYC APARTMENT SHARE POSSIBILITY In-Reply-To: <01BD6C96.1DBA8860@ad62-093.arl.compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For anybody moving to NYC, or thinking of moving IN NYC, there is an apartment share available starting June 1st in Brklyn. It's a "room with a view" in which one may have "a room of ones own"--or maybe even "two" (Not that one has to be a british modernist). Backchannel for more information..... Thanks, chris stroffolino P.S.---the wfmu station is playing van morrison's "it's all over now baby blue"--so nice to hear that riff without beck's soulless overdubbing....... c ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:31:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Where are they now? In-Reply-To: <19980421.213943.9287.2.cento@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Scott Keeney wrote: > Anyway, anyone know if Sotere Torregian is still alive? & while I'm > here, if he published anything after _The Wounded Mattress_, which I was > surprised to see is still listed in Books in Print? > > Scott > I checked into Torregian recently for the first time, Scott...Almost certainly because someone dropped his name on the List. Anyway I encountered it somewhere... My local library has The Wounded Mattress (which is 1970) and one other book: The age of gold : poems. New York : Kulcher Foundation, 1976. 128 p. It would indeed be interesting to hear from someone on the list what background there is to tell, about Torregian. The books supply nothing about the poet; ....a total obsurity, to me, just a name I overheard somewhere. The two books are worth checking out, for an intriguing instance of surrealist poetry in the U.S. Mark P. @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:49:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Guerra y paz In-Reply-To: MAYHEW "Guerra y paz" (Apr 22, 9:22am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thanks to Jonathan Mayhew for the "war machine" reference. The one time I heard the interesting phrase was when I was at the New Hampshire conference in aug '96. I had just met the gracious Susan Schultz and had mentioned my reading of _Breathturn_ to her when Pierre Joris suddenly turns up and takes a moment between panel discussions to talk about Celan and his translations vs Hamburger's. Out comes this phrase. William Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:07:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Where are they now? In-Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar "Re: Where are they now?" (Apr 22, 11:31am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii His name certainly sounds Armenian to me. For those interested, there is also (according to Amazon.com) a book called "Amtrak Trek: being poems and prose written cross-country from California to New York." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:27:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: New versification mailing list Comments: To: dmb9f@unix.mail.virginia.edu, MUCW@listserv.listserv.muohio.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >X-Confirm-reading-to: "Steven J. Willett" > >X-PMrqc: 1 >Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:22:14 +0000 >From: "Steven J. Willett" >Subject: New versification mailing list >To: Annie Finch >MIME-version: 1.0 >Priority: normal > >Dear Annie, > >I've started a new mailing list dedicated to prosody and >versification. It is to replace the existing Prosody list, which is >dedicated to the technical side of speech processing and analysis. >If you'd like to subscribe, send the command "subscribe" (not case >sensitive but be sure to omit the quotes) in the subject line, not >in the message body, to > >versification@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp > >Be sure to send it in the subject line, since the list serve software >I'm using reads commands from there, not the message body. > >Following is the original message I sent Prosody about the new list. > >Yours, > >Steve > >-------------------- >Dear Prosody List, > >I am happy to announce the start of a new mailing list dedicated >to literary prosody and versification. The list is called >Versification, and should answer to the needs of those who >are not interested in speech processing or other highly >specialized, nonpoetic areas of linguistics. > >Over the past five years, it's become clear that the split between >speech processing linguists and all others interested in poetry, >poetics, versification, metrics and literary prosody is too broad to >bridge. The rash of departures the past week testifies to that quite >understandable fact. It is also clear that the list is, for long >stretches--sometimes months in length--quite moribund. Since the >list was not originally founded for literary prosody, the time is now >ripe for a new list to serve those with literary interests. > >The list will be operated from the same server that publishes the >Versification web page, and will utilize the SVList3.0 software >system for list maintenance. All the normal mailing list functions >found in listproc, listserv and majordomo are available with >SVList3.0. > >To subscribe to the Versification list, please send the command >"subscribe" (which is NOT case sensitive, but be sure to omit the >quotation marks) in the SUBJECT LINE of an email to > >versification@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp > >Unlike some other list processing software, you need not send >anything in the message body of the email. If you include your name >or other information in the message body, the server will ignore it. >On validation of your email address, the server will forward a >welcome message with a list of of server commands. Please note: the >command "subscribe" (in any combination of upper and lower case >letters but without quotes) must be sent in the SUBJECT LINE and not >in the message body of your email. That's all there is to it. > >To start the ball rolling, I would like to propose two innocuous >topics: > >(1) What are the ten most important books of prosody published this >century without regard to language, and why? > >(2) What are the most pressing tasks now facing prosody if we are >to make it an accepted part of formal literary studies? Conversely, >ought we try to make prosody an accepted part of formal literary >studies? > >If you have any questions or problems with subscribing, please feel >free to write me. > >Steven J. Willett >Versification list owner > >================================================ >Steven J. Willett >University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus >Voice: (053) 457-4514, Fax: (053) 4555 >Japan email: steven@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp >US email: sjwillett@earthlink.net > > > ____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ________________________ Annie Finch http://muohio.edu/~finchar Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45220 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:30:16 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Afghanistan Comments: cc: REALEX MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT this pertains to the tacit issue of womens' rights in the current negotiations in Afghanistan; I'm sure it has something to do with poetry. please read the following and if you are in agreement, 'help' President Clinton do right by mailing a copy of this message to . All of these facts are taken from the current iss. of Women Leaders Online (WOC Alert - 4/23/98), a free e-newsletter pertaining to u.s. and internat'l womens' issues. for more information, visit their www site @ . thanks, chris ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Mr. President - the Afghanistan peace effort spearheaded by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson is welcome news, and the success of that mission would be cause for joy. However, I'm greatly concerned that the rights of Afghanistani women be addressed at the negotiating table, and I'm not sure that's happening now. As you may know, women in the regions of Afghanistan under Taliban control are: * banned from working outside the home; * banned from attending university; * banned from going to school; * prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a husband, father, brother, or son; * required when leaving their homes to be covered from head to toe in a 'burqa,' with only a mesh opening to see and breathe through; * banned from wearing shoes that make noise; in addition, * homes with women are required to paint their windows opaque so the women inside cannot be seen. Such conditions are tantamount to a life in solitary confinement, comparable to the worst of prison conditions here in the U.S. The penalty for defying any of these commands is stoning and death. As a citizen of the United States, represented in these peace talks by Ambassador Richardson, I insist these issues be addressed. It is imperative that Ambassador Richardson bring a non-negotiable initiative for womens' rights to these talks. thank you, [ *** YOUR SIGNATURE HERE *** ] P.S., more information on the situation of women in Afghanistan is available at the Feminist Majority's website http://www.feminist.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:39:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Fw: lyotard's death (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----Original Message----- From: mnunes@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu To: lyotard@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Date: Tuesday, April 21, 1998 2:51 PM Subject: lyotard's death >Jean-Franois Lyotard, auteur de "La condition postmoderne", est >mort dans la nuit de lundi mardi l'ge de 73 ans des suites d'une >longue maladie, a annonc sa famille. N en 1924 Versailles, il avait >milit au sein du groupe Socialisme ou Barbarie au ct de >Cornlius Castoriadis et Claude Lefort jusqu'en 1966. Il tait l'auteur >de "Discours, Figure" (1971), "Economie libidinale" (1974), "la >condition postmoderne" (1979), "Le diffrend" (1984). >-- >N. B. - La Republique des Lettres >Site Web : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/republique.des.lettres/ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:03:38 EDT Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: Where are they now? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii According to my Armenian connections, Sotere Torregian is alive (is in his sixties) and lives in the Philadelphia area. --Elizabeth Hatmaker ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:40:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Where are they now? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >>>obsurity, I like this word and am going to muse it to mean "obscure absurdity" in the sense that it is absurd that a given poet should be so obscure... Gwyn "I'm both" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:46:16 -0400 Reply-To: BANDREWS@prodigy.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETSY ANDREWS Subject: Re: Where are they now? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yo, Gwyn. What's up? bets(bandrews@prodigy.net) ---------- > From: Gwyn McVay > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Where are they now? > Date: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 1:40 PM > > >>>obsurity, > > I like this word and am going to muse it to mean "obscure absurdity" in > the sense that it is absurd that a given poet should be so obscure... > > > Gwyn "I'm both" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:42:48 -0400 Reply-To: BANDREWS@prodigy.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETSY ANDREWS Subject: Re: NYC APARTMENT SHARE POSSIBILITY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey, Chris. We met at Cary Nation with Rachel, remember? Tell me more about the apt. I've got a friend who's coming back here in June from SF... betsy (bandrews@prodigy.net) ---------- > From: louis stroffolino > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: NYC APARTMENT SHARE POSSIBILITY > Date: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 10:32 AM > > For anybody moving to NYC, or thinking of moving IN NYC, > there is an apartment share available starting June 1st in Brklyn. > It's a "room with a view" in which one may have "a room of ones > own"--or maybe even "two" (Not that one has to be a british > modernist). Backchannel for more information..... > Thanks, chris stroffolino > > P.S.---the wfmu station is playing van morrison's > "it's all over now baby blue"--so nice to hear that > riff without beck's soulless overdubbing....... > c ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:44:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: the "audience" . . ./ Comments: To: Miekal And , wr-eye-tings@sfu.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Saved this until the info i was seeking surfaced inmy bookpile. I think your reply about 'reading' is worth expanding on, particularly in re visual poetry. When I am 'reading' a visual poem i am 'reading' a painting and my response is a kinetic body response as well as visual. Does someone who sees a visual poem out there without a body response really read it or is it just seen. might explain some peoples' less than enthusiastic responses to vispo? info i whose surfacing i was awaiting is 2 books _Voice_ by David Appelbaum and _Reclaiming the Tacit Dimension_ by George Kalamaras, both of which have some interesting things to offer about noncognitive poetic processes. "Voicing existence is directed, not to the Cartesian ego, but to the membrane capable of perceiving existence; the propriceptive film upon which human conscious is based." - Appelbaum tom bell At 09:07 AM 3/10/98 +0000, Miekal And wrote: >Nuyopoman wrote: > > >> A poem is not written until you read it. > > >so what of all those visual poems which defy reading/performance, the >ones that the "audience" absorbs thru internal & often non-cognitive >processes. for instance, clemente padin's signographics, when I spend >time with it, there is a "reading" involved, but for me its the semiotic >gestures I cue on, & the reading of it would be similar to "reading" a >rothko painting which seems to me separate from the mouth & its >spectacular affections. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:53:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Afghanistan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >this pertains to the tacit issue of womens' rights in the current >negotiations in Afghanistan; I'm sure it has something to do >with poetry. >However, I'm greatly concerned that the rights of Afghanistani >women be addressed at the negotiating table, and I'm not sure >that's happening now. As you may know, women in the regions >of Afghanistan under Taliban control are: >* banned from working outside the home; >* banned from attending university; >* banned from going to school; >* prohibited from leaving their homes unless > accompanied by a husband, father, brother, > or son; >* required when leaving their homes to be covered > from head to toe in a 'burqa,' with only a mesh > opening to see and breathe through; > * banned from wearing shoes that make noise; > in addition, >* homes with women are required to paint their windows > opaque so the women inside cannot be seen. >Such conditions are tantamount to a life in solitary confinement, >comparable to the worst of prison conditions here in the U.S. The >penalty for defying any of these commands is stoning and death. FIRST OF ALL - so there are no wrong interpretations - I AGREE that that is horrible. That ought not to happen to human beings. However..... That is actually indicative of Islamic fundamentalism. You must realize that Islamic fundamentalists argue that such women choose freely, and consider themselves liberated by the tradition. Not only that, but they typically say if asked why they do it that they do it because they _like_ it. The latter creates a terribly thorny problem in speaking for persons who themselves argue that they are choosing something that they themselves want to choose. While I agree with the sentiments, from a Western and modern North American standpoint, it is abhorrent, horrible, unthinkable that people would live in that manner, or be forced to conform to those kinds of standards, I am still perplexed as to how we, as foreigners, can in fact speak for a different culture ? Any ideas as to that ? It is a different culture. It has different values. Values _we_ do not agree with and would fight to the death to keep from being imposed on _us_, but they would fight to the death to have those values, as different as they are from our's. So, what do we do ? How do we reconcile our concepts of freedom with the their claiming that their differences from us are their expressions of freedom ? Big problem. Do we in fact have a petition or some other claim by Afghanistani people alleging oppression and asking for foreign assistance to liberate them from that oppression ? Is there a request before the UN from a significant portion of the peoples of Afghanistan asking for intervention and liberation ? Bigger problem if there is not. Of course, I was one of the few who felt that the Soviet action in Afghanistan, as an attempt to prevent Islamic takeover of the region was justified, and that it is a tragedy that it became their Vietnam, rather than a victory for human rights and freedoms. Sadly the United States sided with the anti Soviet mostly Islamic rebels and so here we are today....asking the United States government to reverse its previous intentions and oppose the regime it helped put into power, even if covertly, in its supply of weapons to that regime against the Soviet army during the Afghan war ? That too seems strange.... I have this odd feeling that world politics has become more and more of a "here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush...." M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:38:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: for Aram Saroyan from Nikuko Daishin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - fulllly skin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:55:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Fwd: Amazon.com Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part0_893292938_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_893292938_boundary Content-ID: <0_893292938@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated 98-04-22 14:54:00 EDT, catalog-dept@amazon.com writes: << Subj: Amazon.com Books Date: 98-04-22 14:54:00 EDT From: catalog-dept@amazon.com To: Aviva99999@aol.com (Aviva99999) Greetings! We receive regular electronic updates to our online catalog from a variety of different sources including distributors, publishers, and independents. Many of these sources make this information available to retailers across the country. It is likely we obtained information on many of small press titles from one or more of these sources. Please know that we in the catalog department are always trying to improve the quality of our catalogs listings. We work with many small presses each day. We actively help them add books to our catalog, update existing listings, and add descriptive materials. If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! Best Regards, Hannah Burke >> --part0_893292938_boundary Content-ID: <0_893292938@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from relay21.mx.aol.com (relay21.mail.aol.com [172.31.106.67]) by air09.mail.aol.com (vx) with SMTP; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:54:00 -0400 Received: from amazon.com (154-31.amazon.com [204.177.154.31]) by relay21.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id OAA00859 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:53:57 -0400 (EDT) From: catalog-dept@amazon.com Received: from zephyr.amazon.com (zephyr.amazon.com [204.177.154.23]) by amazon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA31523 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:53:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: by zephyr.amazon.com id LAA27705; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:53:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from hburke@localhost) by barracuda.amazon.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id LAA31680; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:29:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:29:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804221829.LAA31680@barracuda.amazon.com> X-Authentication-Warning: barracuda.amazon.com: hburke set sender to catalog-dept@amazon.com using -f To: Aviva99999 Subject: Amazon.com Books from-address: catalog-dept@amazon.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Greetings! We receive regular electronic updates to our online catalog from a variety of different sources including distributors, publishers, and independents. Many of these sources make this information available to retailers across the country. It is likely we obtained information on many of small press titles from one or more of these sources. Please know that we in the catalog department are always trying to improve the quality of our catalogs listings. We work with many small presses each day. We actively help them add books to our catalog, update existing listings, and add descriptive materials. If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! Best Regards, Hannah Burke Catalog Department Amazon.com Books http://www.amazon.com >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 64 >Subject: small press listings may be wrong?!? >To: feedback@amazon.com >Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:31:42 EDT >From: Aviva99999 > >I have some concerns about the following post I found online. I order (or try >to order) quite a few books which are published by small presses, and I have >been disappointed often by the dread "out of print." However, I assumed the >information was accurate. Now, I'm not so sure. Is there any efficient way >for amazon.com to check the accuracy of their database, perhaps by contacting >small presses with a letter advising them to check their booklistings' >accuracy on amazon.com's database? I mean, it would be in the presses' best >interests to be proactive. It would be in amazon.com's best interests to be >proactive as well. > >EXCERPT: > >Could this have anything to do with amazon.com getting information about >lots of small press books that those books were "out of print." Someone >alerted me that a Chax book listed with Amazon had that "out of print" >status according to amazon, when in fact it was most definitely in print. I >checked, and they had virtually all Chax books as out of print, which was >false. [This has been corrected by amazon.com] > >Others have told me that other small press books >with Amazon are falsely listed as out of print. > >Chax started receiving a few orders from amazon.com >whereas before that we had received no such orders from them. > > --part0_893292938_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:16:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Afghanistan In-Reply-To: <199804222253.SAA12631@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Morpheal, It seems to me that there is a big difference between the exercise of religious rights and freedoms... and being stoned to death for not practicing them! How can you say that these people (women) "like" it? If they liked it so much, then why would the prohibitions need to be backed up by such horrible sanctions? Katy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:21:40 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Margie Cronin Subject: Re: *overland* bits, call for submissions & launch In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear pam, hi! margie cronin here. just a query: overland accepted a couple of my poems last year some time. may i just check if they're still using them (or have already) as i'm getting an acknowledgments page ready for a book and hadn't heard from overland in a while. thanks margie cronin ps. i publish under mtc cronin At 11:54 22/04/98 +1100, you wrote: >>*overland* has passed the 150 mark, and is celebrating. >>``//``'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''``\\`` >> >>And it's just been overhauled. Less orthodox social realism, more >>social commentary. New editorial team. Complete redesign. New >>sections for new writing. Same ratbag attitude and radical politics, >>of course. Still committed to incisive and practical engagement >>with contemporary culture. >> >>To celebrate we've got a full facsimile reprint of our first issue. >>Readers can trace, and reflect on, changes within both overland and >>Australian society since 1954. >> >>AND in this anniversary issue: >> Stuart Macintyre leads off with a timely analysis >> of the wharfies'dispute. >> Janine Little Nyoongah takes a satirical look at >> the Constitutional Convention. >> Stephen Gray reveals the story of Charles Priest, rape >> and racism in the Northern Territory in the 1930s. >> Linda Westphalen trenchantly revisits the Wanda >> Koolmatrie hoax. >> Gwen Kelly, a long-time contributor, looks back over >> her several careers. >> >>NEW in this issue: the innovative 'Shorts', in which we >> showcase fast fiction by new and emerging writers. >> >>PLUS another superb batch of poetry, spirited dialogue, >> and reviews of *bodyjamming*,*The Virtual Republic* >> and recent Australian fiction. >> >>OH AND from issue 151 we welcome on board Dean Kiley as >> Fiction Editor and Pam Brown as Poetry Editor. >>____________________________________________ >> >>CALLS: >> >>[1] We're wanting risky fiction, the SHORTS section (300-1600 >> words) is set up for you to play in and we'll soon have >> *overland extra!*, a web journal, as another innovative venue. >> >>[2] Looking for, before 30 November 1998,essays, poetry, fiction, >>graphics, comics or hybrid work dealing with issues around >> (a) privacy, censorship and media control; or >> (b) crime writing (all genres and modes, from detective >> thriller to tabloid reportage). >>_____________________________________________ >> >>LAUNCH: *overland* Issue 150 will be launched at >> Melbourne Trades Hall >> 9 May 1998 at 7.30 pm >> with food and entertainment and >> Big Wharfie Defence. >> ALL WELCOME: waged $5; unwaged/student $4. >> >> >>Queries: Ian Syson @ overland@vut.edu.au >> >>http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~arts/cals/overland/overland.html >>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ > >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:17:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Shoemaker Subject: Re: Fwd: Amazon.com Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I don't know about the accuracy of the Amazon letter below, but it definitely seems to have been written by a droid, or possibly a bot. s At 08:55 PM 4/22/98 EDT, you wrote: >Content-ID: <0_893292938@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> >Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >In a message dated 98-04-22 14:54:00 EDT, catalog-dept@amazon.com writes: > ><< Subj: Amazon.com Books > Date: 98-04-22 14:54:00 EDT > From: catalog-dept@amazon.com > To: Aviva99999@aol.com (Aviva99999) > > > Greetings! > > We receive regular electronic updates to our online catalog from a > variety of different sources including distributors, publishers, and > independents. Many of these sources make this information available to > retailers across the country. It is likely we obtained information on > many of small press titles from one or more of these sources. > > Please know that we in the catalog department are always trying to > improve the quality of our catalogs listings. We work with many small > presses each day. We actively help them add books to our catalog, update > existing listings, and add descriptive materials. > > If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not > hesitate to contact us. Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! > > > Best Regards, > > Hannah Burke >> > >Content-ID: <0_893292938@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> >Content-type: message/rfc822 >Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >Content-disposition: inline > >Return-Path: >Received: from relay21.mx.aol.com (relay21.mail.aol.com [172.31.106.67]) by > air09.mail.aol.com (vx) with SMTP; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:54:00 -0400 >Received: from amazon.com (154-31.amazon.com [204.177.154.31]) > by relay21.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) > with ESMTP id OAA00859 for ; > Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:53:57 -0400 (EDT) >From: catalog-dept@amazon.com >Received: from zephyr.amazon.com (zephyr.amazon.com [204.177.154.23]) > by amazon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA31523 > for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:53:57 -0700 (PDT) >Received: by zephyr.amazon.com id LAA27705; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:53:55 -0700 > (PDT) >Received: (from hburke@localhost) by barracuda.amazon.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id > LAA31680; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:29:54 -0700 (PDT) >Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:29:54 -0700 (PDT) >Message-Id: <199804221829.LAA31680@barracuda.amazon.com> >X-Authentication-Warning: barracuda.amazon.com: hburke set sender to > catalog-dept@amazon.com using -f >To: Aviva99999 >Subject: Amazon.com Books >from-address: catalog-dept@amazon.com >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > > >Greetings! > >We receive regular electronic updates to our online catalog from a >variety of different sources including distributors, publishers, and >independents. Many of these sources make this information available to >retailers across the country. It is likely we obtained information on >many of small press titles from one or more of these sources. > >Please know that we in the catalog department are always trying to >improve the quality of our catalogs listings. We work with many small >presses each day. We actively help them add books to our catalog, update >existing listings, and add descriptive materials. > >If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not >hesitate to contact us. Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! > > >Best Regards, > >Hannah Burke >Catalog Department >Amazon.com Books >http://www.amazon.com > > > >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 64 > >Subject: small press listings may be wrong?!? > >To: feedback@amazon.com > >Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:31:42 EDT > >From: Aviva99999 > > > >I have some concerns about the following post I found online. I order (or >try > >to order) quite a few books which are published by small presses, and I >have > >been disappointed often by the dread "out of print." However, I assumed >the > >information was accurate. Now, I'm not so sure. Is there any efficient >way > >for amazon.com to check the accuracy of their database, perhaps by >contacting > >small presses with a letter advising them to check their booklistings' > >accuracy on amazon.com's database? I mean, it would be in the presses' >best > >interests to be proactive. It would be in amazon.com's best interests to >be > >proactive as well. > > > >EXCERPT: > > > >Could this have anything to do with amazon.com getting information about > >lots of small press books that those books were "out of print." Someone > >alerted me that a Chax book listed with Amazon had that "out of print" > >status according to amazon, when in fact it was most definitely in print. I > >checked, and they had virtually all Chax books as out of print, which was > >false. [This has been corrected by amazon.com] > > > >Others have told me that other small press books > >with Amazon are falsely listed as out of print. > > > >Chax started receiving a few orders from amazon.com > >whereas before that we had received no such orders from them. > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:20:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: veitch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Scott, Ron, Last I heard, Tom Veitch was doing comics for marvel up in Varmint. I like his work a lot: death collage and a novel the title of which i'm blanking on but was published by z or sun. haven't seen any of the comics he's done. lewis warsh might know more about this as he if memory serves is the one to have told me about Veitch's recent whereabouts. Hey. Gary Lenhart lives in Varmint. Gary, what's up with mr. Veitch? Bill Luoma ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:38:46 EDT From: Scott Keeney Subject: Re: Where are they now? On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 05:34:37 -0500 rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM writes: >A poet whose work I liked quite a bit during the late 60s, early 70s, >was Tom >Veitch, a NYC school (gen 3) poet with a strong spiritual >undercurrent. He was >in SF for awhile around the early to mid-70s and then moved, up to >Sonoma or >beyond I think. Does anyone know what the man is up to these days? > > >Ron Silliman > Just waded through the past few daysworth of messages, disappointed not to see an answer posted. Veitch's bio-part in Padgett/Shapiro _Anthology of NY Poets_ has got to be one of the all-time best contributor's notes, between the tongue-out-eyes-up pic and that "awaiting the painful emergence of god in his flesh" bit, well. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of that book they want to unload for a few hundred pennies, but probably not.) Anyway, anyone know if Sotere Torregian is still alive? & while I'm here, if he published anything after _The Wounded Mattress_, which I was surprised to see is still listed in Books in Print? Scott +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:57:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: for Aram Saroyan from Nikuko Daishin Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit crickets crickets crickets crickets triscuits triscuits tricksters "lighghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghgghtning" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 04:35:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: Where are they now? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > According to my Armenian connections, Sotere Torregian is alive (is in his > sixties) and lives in the Philadelphia area. What was it W.C. Fields wanted for his epitaph, "On the whole I'd rather be in Philadelphia"? Sotere Torregian reports that he is alive, 57 years old, and living (for thirty years) in California, currently Redwood City. He regrets that he has never been to Philadelphia. Has published many books since THE WOUNDED MATTRESS, all out of print (although a few copies may be available at the Stanford Bookstore), and is working on new poems and a collected. His circumstances don't permit access to the internet, so he asks that anyone interested in his work or the work of Joe Ceravolo contact him at PO Box 169 San Carlos, CA 94070-0169 He believes he has all of Ceravolo's poems, including many never published. Phone number available by backchannel. Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:25:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Some queries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Is it unhappy or happy families that are all alike? Does anyone have e-mail addresses for the following poets: William Carlos William? Raymond Roussel Yogi Berra Jack Spicer? Why is Spicer's ghost not present in _Poems for the Millenium_? Who is "John" in Robert Creeley's "I know a man." Is his name really not John? What kind of car was it? Who is Guillame Apollinaire in Berrigan's line "Guillame Apollinaire is dead"? What is "The Code of the West"? What is the poetic significance of the ampersand in contemporary poetry? Should it be pronounced "and" or &? How about the quotation marks in _The Descent of Alette_--how are they pronounced and what do they mean? Why are paragraphs emotional and sentences not? What is Chinese about "The Chinese Notebook"? Is it better to be vile or vile esteemed? Is it "Imaginary qualities of actual things" of "Actual qualities of imaginary things"? What is the difference? Thanks in advance. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:06:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: the "audience" . . ./ In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980422224459.00b3308c@pop.usit.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Saved this until the info i was seeking surfaced inmy bookpile. I think >your reply about 'reading' is worth expanding on, particularly in re visual >poetry. When I am 'reading' a visual poem i am 'reading' a painting and >my response is a kinetic body response as well as visual. Does someone >who sees a visual poem out there without a body response really read it >or is it just seen. might explain some peoples' less than enthusiastic >responses to vispo? > >tom bell kinetic body response, yes. To everything. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:08:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Afghanistan In-Reply-To: <199804222253.SAA12631@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" . > >You must realize that Islamic fundamentalists argue that such women >choose freely In Afghanistan the women are not choosing freely, they are forced to give up daily activities that they chose, inasmuch as anyone chooses, freely. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:08:34 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: PRAPRA Subject: define terms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi everyone, I'm wondering if you could help me with some terminology. I just read an interesting essay which used the terms "supermodernity," and "non- place." While I understand the terms in relation to the essay, I want to use them more freely but am unclear as to how proper the context is for them. i.e. how do these terms relate to post-colonial theory? I apologize if this is a bit unclear but I don't have the article in front of me which basically discusses these terms in relation to airports,atms, technology, and identity. Basically, I am just asking you to associate what you know about these terms because I want to talk about them in relation to experimental theater. I want to discuss "non-place" as a point of departure for the artist but I may be just liking the term. Anyway, I just value some thoughts as well as the academics here who understand the contexts and will set me straight if I need to be. thank you, Prageeta Sharma. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:15:29 EDT Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: Afghanistan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Morpheal, It sucks that we live in a time when every motivation can be used by "those in power" to control the lives of others. Indeed, to suggest that fundamental Islam is somehow an unreasonable choice for women is to remove their agency (a human right by most people's standards) and I suspect westoxification is one of the main reasons that fundamental Islam has had a resurgence. And I see/fear how demanding "agency" is more cynically used (not that you seem to be doing this in your post) to condone both apathy and exploitation: "poor people like to live in the slums," "those people working in sweatshops make a decent living by third world standards and they took the job." "We should be taking care of people in this country before we worry about other countries" And, of course, Pol Pot dies piecefully in his sleep --rhetorical hammer to the head that that statement is. Can I think of who might gain by refraining from intervention in women's rights in Afghanistan? Might it be, creepily enough, the same people who might benefit by intervening in a different culture? If this is the case, what agency do these women have, both on an individual level and on a cultural level? -- oh and apologies for my misinformation on Sotere Torrigian. As it is cold and rainy on the East Coast, living in California sounds much better than Philly. Elizabeth Hatmaker ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:32:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: define terms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Hi everyone, I'm wondering if you could help me with some terminology. I just >read an interesting essay which used the terms "supermodernity," I am not at all sure that I could seriously assist with that...but.... Supermodernity must be new ? Never seen the term in philosophical usage before, though I was quite familiar with postmodern in that sense of it. Supermodernity comes after postmodernity ? Seems that we would then end up at Postsupermodernity ? What then ? Supersupermodernity ? Postsupersupermodernity ? Ad infinitum ? >them more freely but am unclear as to how proper the context is for them. i.e. >how do these terms relate to post-colonial theory? What post-colonial theory ? Is someone referring to post British colonialism ? That came BEFORE modernity and post-modernism. American colonialism ? That is only beginning in this latter 25 years of the 20th century. The zenith of American colonialism, whether for good or ill remains to be seen, shall be in the 21st century. There are other colonialisms currently in the world. Islamic colonialism is the major one, exerting its influence mostly in Southern and Southeast Asia and in Africa. Though not exclusively there. There are Islamic colonies in America, today, mostly amongst black muslims. Similarly Islamic colonies in Europe and Britain. Those are the two major colonial powers today and into the next century, the American, meaning the United States of America, and the Islamic (which is a looser but not necessarily more free association of states having common intentiosn and ideology).... Marxist colonialism is dead as a doornail. >to discuss "non-place" as a point of departure for the artist but I may be >just liking the term. Anyway, I just value some thoughts as well as the >academics here who understand the contexts and will set me straight if I need >to be. Is "non place" something essentially political ? Claims of geographic control are replaced by "non geographic" or "non place" economic and socio-political colonialism where control and influence do not have physical geographic boundaries. Art then would be tending to reflect that very tendency towards socio-political "non place" would it not ? Though I know I have diverged from the original intentions, I think it is nevertheless relevant. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:40:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Afghanistan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>You must realize that Islamic fundamentalists argue that such women >>choose freely > >In Afghanistan the women are not choosing freely, they are forced to give >up daily activities that they chose, inasmuch as anyone chooses, freely. I see it that way too...as an outsider. I also understand what psychological warfare and brain washing is about. The element of a psychological "jihad" (holy war) is increasingly prevalent, and we get some of the mild backwash from the massive waves out there, that we hardly notice here in our sheltered harbours. They are absolutely swamped with it. Their minds become saturated. What then ? Has anyone taken the matter to the United Nations ? That is the appropriate forum for international debate on that subject. Would you go so far as to empower a United Nations force, with sufficient military muscle, to effectively change the situation that you, and others, feel needs to be changed, if negotiated and mediated settlements fail to resolve the matter ? After all, mediation in political matters, is worthless without backing it up with military might sufficient to enforce. Ultimately, as a last resort, to save and protect the freedoms of those people, in terms of safeguarding them from the jeopardies you see inflicted upon them, to end the physical and mental (brain washing) violence that imposes what you see as such harsh conditions, is it what you would choose to spill blood over ? Do you see any viable alternatives ? I agree that it is horrible. Definitely absolutely horrible. I am simply asking, how far are you willing to go, or do you suggest going, in terms of effective action ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:15:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Cheney Subject: Re: veitch In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" bill it's EAT THIS! and THE LUIS ARMED STORY and ANTLERS IN THE TREETOPS (w/ron padgett) don >Scott, Ron, > >Last I heard, Tom Veitch was doing comics for marvel up in Varmint. I like >his work a lot: death collage and a novel the title of which i'm blanking on >but was published by z or sun. haven't seen any of the comics he's done. >lewis warsh might know more about this as he if memory serves is the one to >have told me about Veitch's recent whereabouts. > >Hey. Gary Lenhart lives in Varmint. Gary, what's up with mr. Veitch? > >Bill Luoma >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:38:46 EDT >From: Scott Keeney >Subject: Re: Where are they now? > >On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 05:34:37 -0500 rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM writes: >>A poet whose work I liked quite a bit during the late 60s, early 70s, >>was Tom >>Veitch, a NYC school (gen 3) poet with a strong spiritual >>undercurrent. He was >>in SF for awhile around the early to mid-70s and then moved, up to >>Sonoma or >>beyond I think. Does anyone know what the man is up to these days? >> >> >>Ron Silliman >> > >Just waded through the past few daysworth of messages, disappointed not >to see an answer posted. Veitch's bio-part in Padgett/Shapiro _Anthology >of NY Poets_ has got to be one of the all-time best contributor's notes, >between the tongue-out-eyes-up pic and that "awaiting the painful >emergence of god in his flesh" bit, well. (BTW, if anyone has a copy of >that book they want to unload for a few hundred pennies, but probably >not.) > Anyway, anyone know if Sotere Torregian is still alive? & while I'm >here, if he published anything after _The Wounded Mattress_, which I was >surprised to see is still listed in Books in Print? > >Scott >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:27:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Jeff Conant Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anselm Berrigan asked me to forward this to the list. > > As you probably know by now, Jeff & eleven others were banned for >life from Mexico last week & also accused of violating the Mexican >constitution. Jeff had been in touch with Greg Fuchs via e-mail & had told >Greg he thought something like this would happen soon, as the army had been >cracking down on zapatista-sympathetic villages around Chiapas for some >time. According to Jeff, they were rousted by about 1,000 soldiers in the >middle of the night. They were not officially arrested, but were taken from >the village forcibly & prevented from contacting anyone until a certain >point when they were allowed to contact the American consulate in order to >be deported. Jeff said they were punched, slapped & prodded with M-16s ("not >too hard") by soldiers, some of whom covered their faces. They were bruised >but not severely hurt, tho' Jeff's friend Michael had only stopped urinating >blood by this past Thursday. > Jeff seemed pretty composed on Fri. night, but he's worried about >the Mexicans in the village where he'd been staying; reports were coming to >him that villagers were disappearing in large numbers & the village had been >mostly burned down. Jeff & his friends were working during the week at >finding out what was happening & also relaying this information to the >Mexican press, which apparently doesn't cover or doesn't have access to what >seems to be happening. None of the foreigners were allowed to take any of >their belongings with them; Jeff has been trying to figure out how to get >his laptop with all his writings back, but it didn't sound very likely. > Apparently the crackdown came not too long after a Zapatista >ceremony during which a piece of land in Chiapas was declared autonomous. >Jeff & the others claimed to be witnesses, to have been present at the >ceremony only as witnesses. They were, at least Jeff & the other two >Americans, part of an organization whose name escapes me but whose work is >that of agricultural development in the Indian regions of south Mexico. A >week or two before these events a friend of Jeff's, a Mexican in one of the >villages (possibly the village Jeff was staying in) was killed by a >soldier(s) who took a machete to his skull. > Jeff is in Washington DC right now, having been flown along with >Michael & the other American, a woman named Travis, to DC for a conference >on Chiapas that had been previously scheduled. Jeff always said Chiapas was >in a state of undeclared war, & he was saying Fri. night that he thought a >full-fledged war was likely to break out in the coming weeks. According to >Jeff there has been no fighting on the part of the Zapatistas since the >initial uprising in 1994. He also said the Mexican govt. doesn't realize >that the number of Zapatista supporters (& I'm not sure if he meant chiapas >exclusively or the whole of Mexico) is in the range 0f 100,000. But he >doesn't think the Zapatistas themselves are well-equipped for any kind of >prolonged fighting. I suspect there will be more information forthcoming on >the whole situation. I may have some of the details slightly wrong, but I >think Jeff wants the information to be circulated as widely as possible. > > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:07:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Afghanistan - Some prophecies....for the millenium Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >It sucks that we live in a time when every motivation can be used by "those >in power" to control the lives of others. Indeed, to suggest that >fundamental Islam is somehow an unreasonable choice for women is to remove >their agency (a human right by most people's standards) and I suspect >westoxification is one of the main reasons that fundamental Islam has had a >resurgence. The availability of hard and soft science, technology in effect, has furthered the conflict, mostly by providing the means of influence, and external control. Even highly educated people, if without very specialized experience and training, tend to be mere dupes to the systems in effect. Systems that are in effect even in the most "primitive" locations, such as Afghanistan. A lot of the tech is long range and hard to track down as to origins, and most of it is quite accessible "off the shelf" to those with the know how to build and use it. I suppose the equivalent of Radio Free Europe is Radio Free Afghanistan, courtesty of a different source and different concepts of freedom. Tehran has strong interests in the whole region, so we can expect their support for Islamic fundamentalist broadcasting. Of course that is only one piece of the ideological pie, and there is a lot more to the covert and the overt activity than that. Of course, American believed in RFE, and those who broadcast Islamic broadcasts and messages, by whatever means they happen to use, believe in that. There is the unresolvable conflict. They are willing to die for their beliefs and the rightness of what they do. You can see where that leads. They get a different poem, the Koran, running through their heads, over and over again, until they completely mesmerized by it and the accompanying message as to what is right, what one ought to do, how one ought to live..... What poem would we replace their poem with ? Replacing it with the Bible ? That is as bad as what they do. Though some would argue otherwise. What then ? The constitution of the USA or the Declaration of Independence ? That's a different poem. They would not understand a word of it, even in translation. They would only resent the strange, foreign, and to them essentially irrelevant, verses. This is not the same world as in the year 900, but some hold to the same aggenda, using the new methods of conquest over human minds, customs, beliefs, ways of life. Heretics shall be stigmatized, persecuted, and put to death by means that will frighten others away from any dissent and heresy. Conquest of the human mind and conquest of the population are very much a part of any program towards hegemony in that region by those who empower selves by technology and force of arms, to impose their will upon it. Iran, as do other Islamic states, has great ambitions and sees itself as having a special mission in this world. Does that sound familiar as regards other would be or actual great powers ? Rome, Spain, Britain, America,...It is our history. They are no different, really. Another would be empire. Our history is the bloody and violent history of power against power, and empire against empire. It began as tribe against tribe. Nothing really poetic in that, or is there ? The Soviets attempted to counter force with force, brain washing with brain washing,...and failed, suffering severe casualties and experiencing a political, economic and human wound the likes of which they had not seen since WWII. Many soldiers returned half insane, as well as physically the victims, of the conflict. It was a conflict on two levels. The mental and the physical. The Soviet effort had no European and American overt support, only criticism. That is all indicative. Worse that those areas least able to provide sustenance in the long term, are encouraged to rapid population growth. Why, we might ask ? The old principle of fodder for the guns. The machinery of conquest still involves highly brain washed, die hard, believers in an ideology who are willing to enter into imposition of their beliefs upon others by means of force of arms. If a power lacks enough guns and sophisticated weaponry, they choose force of numbers. They gamble that any opposition will flinch away from leaving a heap of dead bodies on the battle field of high principles. A million men wielding pitchforks is a formidable political weapon, no matter how we look at it. It is hard to send in the marines to kill them off, without suffering extreme political damage at home and abroad. So it is a dual force of numbers, as deterent and the planet can scrace afford such rapid population growth in its most fragile and least sustaining regions before something explodes violently. That is what we are faced with into the next century. That explosion of over population in regions encouraged to it by the ideological opposition to what we hold true. If we do the same, as to our beliefs, there is always the argument that "might does not make right", and that "one is as bad as the other", or "two wrongs" to discourage the backing of intervention with effective power. And if nothing is done then what does it say ? On the other hand pacifism local to the violence, as a reaction to violence, leaves the pacifist dead. That is victory for those who choose violence against pacifism. Mahatma Gandhi today is nothing more than a man who would sit in front of a tank and be crushed under its treads. More like a man attempting to stop a freight train. Gandhi would not have been spared in today's violent world. Thus is it that all that is left are the principles, the basic beliefs, concerning human freedoms of belief, expression, the press, association, democratic institutions,....that we might be willing to use violence to uphold and safeguard as well as promote to other parts of the world in hope of some kind of salvation there before the kettle boils over and becomes that sea of deliberately overpopulated anger turned to a sea of blood. that is in part the legacy of Catholicism, Marxism and now Islamization of those parts of the world? What are those who believe those human freedoms willing to put on the line ? There is that or isolationism. I do not know any other answer. I wish I did know another answer, but I cannot find any. In that sense George Bush was more right about the dangers than those who foresaw a less perilous course for the planet. Remember too that economic embargos are very violent actions, and require military force to effectively impose and maintain them. They are a weapon of war in the cloak of diplomacy. They occur after diplomacy has already failed. >And I see/fear how demanding "agency" is more cynically used (not that you >seem to be doing this in your post) to condone both apathy and exploitation: >"poor people like to live in the slums," "those people working in >sweatshops make a decent living by third world standards and they took the >job." "We should be taking care of people in this country before we worry >about other countries" It is horrible...what happens. There are no easy answers. Sometimes there are no answers of any kind. >And, of course, Pol Pot dies piecefully in his sleep --rhetorical hammer to >the head that that statement is. What stirred up the Khmer Rouge to their orgy of blood and death ? I assure you it was NOT Pol Pot. Believe in such leaders if you want to, but they are only pawns in the larger scenario. It was, I have every reason to believe, Sino-Soviet involvement in the region, taking advantage of the local beliefs and conditions, that ultimately led to that bloodbath. Pol Pot was merely a dupe of a foreign power. Little more than that. A manipulated figurehead in that largest deadliest and most dangerous game. Should a western, American led, force have gone in and occupied and pacified the region, returning it to sanity and democratic norms ? At what cost ? Apply that same question to Afghanistan or anywhere else. >Can I think of who might gain by refraining from intervention in women's >rights in Afghanistan? Might it be, creepily enough, the same people who >might benefit by intervening in a different culture? If this is the case, >what agency do these women have, both on an individual level and on a >cultural level? I do not believe for a moment that women are the only sufferers. All people there are the sufferers. The men, the women, and the children all suffer and shall suffer from it. Too much emphasis on what women suffer means that the difficulties there have not been well enough understood. >-- oh and apologies for my misinformation on Sotere Torrigian. As it is cold >and rainy on the East Coast, living in California sounds much better than >Philly.>Elizabeth Hatmaker I gave up listening to weather reports, long ago. Contrary to getting all the news I need on the weather report, there was far too much news on the weather reports...(apologies to Paul Simon) Anyway, I like the weather in Canada, and apart from some instances of natural grandeur and architectural fascination, there is nothing that really attracts my interest south of the border. I am too poverty stricken to travel in the USA anyway, as much as I would like to see the sights someday. Being a visual artist, amongst other things, that is particularly difficult to accept as something I cannot really do anything about. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:38:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: He regrets that he has never been to Philadelphia. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" he never saw the final duchamp, why fields would rather be there and Camden across the river for Whitmaniacs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:04:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Bachelard's take MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Morpheal-- I came across this and thought of our bookstore dx: "A man is a man insofar as he is a superman. A man must be defined by the tendencies which impel him to go beyond the _human condition_. Any psychology of the mid in action is automatically the psychology of an exceptional midn, one tempted by the excetion of a new image grapfted upon an old one. The imagination invents more thatn things and actions, it invents new life, new spirit;it opens eyes to new types of vision. The imagination will see only if it has _visions_." (_On Poetic Imagination and Reverie_, p. 16) I doubt I agree that such a mind has to be exceptional, perhaps it is such a spirit that is so in our Prozac nation. I always thought the great irony about activists is that they who are accused of being so cynical and sour are the most innocent really, always trying and trying again, in the manner of wiley coyote? I think in the situation of women in Afganistan, like the situation of female genital mutilation, is one of conscience. If you are watching it and it strikes you it is torture, mustn't you reach out to stop it? I would just caution that before judging the tortures of other cultures we make sure we are vigilant of what is happening in our own. How many of us grew up in homes where there existed a conspiracy of silence around sexual, verbal or physical abuse? rdl ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:26:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: a more serious query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca Variations_. 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? 2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this might be of interest to others as well. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 13:27:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: EXPLOSIVE #5 BENEFIT In-Reply-To: <353F82C6.3DFF@ibm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The EXPLOSIVE #5 benefit has been scheduled! Mark your calenders: Saturday, May 30th 8:00 pm Segue Performance Space NYC EXPLOSIVE #5 will be featuring work by: Emily Wilson, Martin Corless-Smith, Ishmael Klein, DA Powell, Josh May, Alex Cory, Tan Lin, Pam Lu, and Juliana Spahr The benefit will feature readings by: Jen Hofer, Max Winter, Anselm Berrigan.... and many many as yet unscheduled readers..... COME! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:47:44 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L.MacMahon and T.R.Healy" Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It would be a shame not to mention _EVOBA_ by Steve McCaffery an exhilarating and subtle remodelling of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations published by The Coach House Press Toronto in 1987. Randolph Healy A quote from EVOBA: The writer enters with a sign around his neck that reads: TAKE YOURSELF SERIOUSLY there is a blank space where the faces of the audience should be he writes in that space about the spaces used to fill it: _under the pen is a fish-mouth inside the mouth is a stone in the stone runs a river entering a porch by a pebble fence by the fence is another way which leads to a lake over the lake a green parrot is made to fly low and close to the level of a different lake it is made to observe itself but it disappears beneath the surface of the word_ water _the water in this space disappears_ a reader enters. At 13:26 23/04/98 -0500, you wrote: >My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues >are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). > >I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in >which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book >or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" >various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca >Variations_. > >1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? >2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > >You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this >might be of interest to others as well. > >Jonathan Mayhew >Department of Spanish and Portuguese >University of Kansas >jmayhew@ukans.edu >(785) 864-3851 > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:03:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" michael Ondaatje collected billy the kid sharon thesen's confabulations ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 20:31:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: a more serious query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MAYHEW wrote: > > > I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in > which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. > > 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? Ron Johnson's _Rad i os_ (which is made by erasing pieces from Pa(radi)se L(os)t Robert Kelly's _Mont Blanc_ And, of course, Mac Low's many homages There are also Duncan's early setting to new meters of Shelley and Milton, a good chunk of the Cantos, writing through many different texts... I just got an amazing book manuscript from Jed Rasula that includes a long poem (30 pages or more, that is selected words and phrases from James's _The Ambassadors_ in the order they appear in the original text). In fact, I should add, in case some of the publishers on the list are listening, this is one of the most important collections of poems I have seen in ten years. As to genre, I am not sure this particular device constitutes a unified genre. Often they might be thought of as belonging to the homage, but that is not always the case, at least in any very direct sense, of _Radi os_. Perhaps the back-handed homage. In a note to "The Ambassadors," Rasula says that he feels that in a work as gloriously multitudinous as James's, there are any number of other works waiting for someone to release them. Actually, I see that he says it much better than that: "The poem enacts a longstanding conviction that James's syntax, cadences and analogies subtly conspire to germinate works within his works which merit emanicpation to another order of events." And, I see no reason why works, thus emancipated, should belong to a particular genre. It is perhaps not generic but an order of translation. db ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 17:47:13 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: the situation of women in Afganistan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Okay, this may sound/be politically incorrect, but here goes: Rachel Levitsky wrote: > If you are watching it > and it strikes you it is torture, mustn't you reach out to stop it? I > would just caution that before judging the tortures of other cultures we > make sure we are vigilant of what is happening in our own. I think we also have to admit & be aware of our lack of understanding of other cultures, for one thing. Perhaps a hallmark of our own culture is the need to intervene. The Islamic culture is deep and deeply foreign, at least to me, and it seems...well, American, to have this impulse to "fix" it. No doubt there is pain and oppression in Afganistan, but to think we can/should judge &/or "fix" it seems, I dunno...patriarchal?....presumptuous? Anyone who really feels MOVED by this issue ought to do some serious research into the LONG history that culminates in this situation we're so cavalier about dismissing as wrong wrong wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 17:51:32 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: oops, AfgHanistan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit See, I said I didn't know enough to challenge their culture! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:25:18 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: <354007A7.8BDDC77B@nycap.rr.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII as for "writing through" Ted Berrigan's THE COMPLETE PRELUDE is put together from Wordsworth's The Prelude in a manner similar to Johnson's RA D I OS etc, as is Berrigan's novel CLEAR THE RANGE which is a re-visioning of Max Brand. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:26:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: He regrets that he has never been to Philadelphia. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >he never saw the final duchamp, why fields would rather be there and Camden >across the river for Whitmaniacs I was there and did see the Duchamp. Museum of Art. Definitely worth seeing. Camden, though, is one of the most squalid places on Earth. Almost a ruin of boarded up and falling down buildings. Street after street of them. People living in there. A quick turn around and back across the bridge into civilization.... M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:42:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: "writing through" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII another example--has anyone already posted this? my server is out of order--if so I'll just have to blush--is Jackson Mac Low's /Words Nd Ends From Ez/, if I have that spelling right. Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 20:08:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: "writing through" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" John Cage's works clearly fit into this genre, and as for more recent examples, there's Joel Kuzsai's ongoing work with Elizabethan materials (Meow's done some). Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:22:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jonathon Mayhew writes: >I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in >which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book >or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" >various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca >Variations_. > >1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? >2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > I think there are two categories at work here: imitations/translations/ reenactments such as Stephen Berg's "With Akhmatova at the Black Gates" or Robert Lowell's "Imitations" and writing through or overwriting, where a poet takes a text and creates a new text by erasing portions of it. My two favorite examples of this genre are Ronald Johnson's "Radi Os" and Tom Phillips's "A Humument." Has any critical work been done on or about erasure-type poems? Hugh Steinberg ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 08:37:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Chiapas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dan & Anselm--thanks for posting what's going on. It's important to be = made aware of it. Jeff & friends sound amazingly courageous in the face = of "urinating blood" and being prodded with rifles, as well as losing = writings. Keep us posted. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:49:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: The Book of Absences Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Jonathon Mahew's question about the lack of Spicer in Poems for the Millenium (vol. 2) is a good one, given that if you reduced the last 50 years of English language poetry to just, say, 20 people, Spicer would have to be among them. Maybe even to 10 people. Maybe even to five. It's really devastating for the book's credibility, even more than the inclusion of anyone who ever attended a Fluxus event (or the inclusion of songwriters a la Tom Waits, Robert Johnson and Dizzy Gillespie, all of which makes them seem like doofuses, which none ever were [not to mention the thereby curious absence of Jim Morrison or Leonard Cohen or Nanci Griffith or Public Enemy or Lennon & McCartney or the Glimmer Twins or Bob Dylan, if one is seriously trying to include the antipoetics of song]). But Spicer's absence, even tho it's on a scale of missing Stein or Pound, isn't alone. I note the following omissions: Benson, Brautigan, Bromige, Bronk, Ceravolo, Thomas A. Clark, Corbett, Curnow [father & son], Dahlen, Darragh, Davey, Davidson, Dewdney, Dudek, Estrin, Fraser, Grahn, Grenier, Guest, Hickman, Hocquard, F. Howe, Inman, Ron Johnson, Jonas, Koch, Kulik, Kyger, Lansing, Mandel, Marlatt, Melnick, Moriarty, Mullen, Natambu, Padgett, Parshchikov, Pearson, Pickard, Pleynet, Prigov, Robinson, Roche, Roubaud, Schuyler, Scott, Stanford, Stanley, Thomas, Tomlinson, Tysh (either one), Wah, Welch, Jonathon Williams, Zhdanov.... And that's just a one-time perusal of the index and the glaringly obvious omissions from traditions I have some feel for. One can probably make the argument that the book is also amazingly Americo-centric, tho the roster above wouldn't particularly solve that problem. This really isn't a Pierre & Jerry issue, tho the Spicerlessness of it all is a "gotcha" that foregrounds the problem. In the American Tree is certainly vulnerable to the question of why McCaffery or Dahlen or Scalapino, say, are not there. And the absence of Joanne Kyger, easily the most influential progressive woman poet of the 1960s and '70s, from Moving Borders is every bit as much a boggler as Spicer's lacuna here. Anthologies are, in this sense, impossible. Everyone is going to have a blind spot, since the last I checked everyone was still human and full of such frailty. It's why I used such a sociological definition for determining inclusion in the Tree. Tho, of the poets who met the formal terms I used, I still managed to miss Abby Child, which looks really dumb from the hindsight of 14 years. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:01:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: "writing through" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Robert Kelly's _Mont Blanc_ (a writing-through of Shelley's poem of the same title). My own _Reading/Writing_ sequences in _Breccia_. & many many others. -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld “All my life I’ve heard one makes many” — Charles Olson ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:44:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Re: "writing through" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII What about a poem such as Zukofsky's sestina "Mantis" and its companion poem "An Interpretation"? If one thinks that it is a good idea to consider "writing-through" poems as part of a genre, then these two poems along with many other examples of intertextual poetics should complicate or at least make more interesting the task of defining the rules of selection for such a genre. Is writing-through different than quotation or allusion? What about Zuk's uses of Marx's Capital? Gary R. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 08:57:56 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: "writing through" see also "H's Journal" (in my _3 of 10_, Chax Press) -- autobiography, journal, poem via Henry David Thoreau's Journal and the writings of various other H's... Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 08:13:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jonathan Mayhew asks: <> 1. Something similar is going on in the work of bpNichol or Steve Mccaffery when they 'translate' writing already in English, as in McCaffery's wonderful _Intimate Distortions: a displacement of Sappho_ which rewrote Mary Barnard's translations of Sappho. 2. The term for this is 'homolinguistic translation,' which Stephen Scobie & I also used in our collection of same, _The Pirates of Pen's Chance_. Others have tried various forms of same. It is both homage & inheritence, a new poem made out of, somehow, an older one. Homolinguistic translation is not the only way this is done, but it is great fun. There's also George Bowering's _Kerrisdale Elegies_, a re/vision from contemporary Vancouver of Rilke's great poem. If I had time I'm sure I could think of more...Zukofsky's Catullus work, for example, surely set an example for some of what I'm pointing to here... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ APARICION APPARATION Si el hombre es polvo I man is dust Esos que andan por el llano Thos who go through the plain Son hombres Are men Octavio Paz (trans. Charles Tomlinson) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:23:18 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alaric Sumner Subject: UK research seminar Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tuesday 28th April 1998 Dartington College of Arts, Devon, UK LITTORAL EXPLORATIONS >OUT OF IMAGE<: convergences of sound, speech and the seen Alaric Sumner (words/voice) and John Levack Drever (electroacoustic soundscapes) talk about 'out of image (sandra blow)', their site specific collaboration created in response to, and perfomed with, the paintings/collages of Sandra Blow RA during her exhibition at the New Millennium, St. Ives on 25 July 1997. A St Ives Quality of Light (Peninsula Project) event. 5pm PTC, Control Room 1: Complete CD will be played 6pm Higher Close M.R.: Seminar (with selections from CD) mailto:a.sumner@dartington.ac.uk Performance Writing Dartington College of Arts Totnes Devon TQ9 5SQ http://www.dartington.ac.uk/prospectus/pw.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:37:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Poetry/Jazz event Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tonight in Bangor, Maine, 8:00. Kathleen Lignell Ellis, Terrell Hunter, John Burns, Sylvester Pollet, reading their own stuff & work of others with music of Dr. Jay Bregman & his Neoboppers--Welch Everman, trumpet, Jim Frick , guitar & congas, Dr. Jay, alto, and Bart-the-bass. I'm going to read two poems of Stuart Z. Perkoff in the first set:" Bird, an elegy for charles parker, musician," and "Blues for Billie Holiday." Second set a new piece of mine, "First Will & Testament." The Perkoff pieces come from his forthcoming book Voices of the Lady: Collected Poems. National Poetry Foundation, 1998. It's a terrific book, 475 pages, foreword by Creeley. We just received advance review copies--the book will be out officially in July. To respond belatedly on the "what to do with 'bad' words in a kid-laden environment" thread: I'm muting two words in the Bird poem--cock to joint, and fucking to humping. Normally I'm a total purist on such matters, but in this instance a lot of parents & kids will be hearing it, miked, by accident--not by having chosen to go to an arts event. Stuart-in-heaven, I apologize. Welch will be muting his horn, too. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:37:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Jonathan Mayhew asks: > ><which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book >or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" >various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca >Variations_. > >1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? >2. What would be a good name for this "genre"?>> > >1. Something similar is going on in the work of bpNichol or Steve Mccaffery >when they 'translate' writing already in English, as in McCaffery's >wonderful _Intimate Distortions: a displacement of Sappho_ which rewrote >Mary Barnard's translations of Sappho. > >2. The term for this is 'homolinguistic translation,' which Stephen Scobie >& I also used in our collection of same, _The Pirates of Pen's Chance_. >Others have tried various forms of same. It is both homage & inheritence, a >new poem made out of, somehow, an older one. > >Homolinguistic translation is not the only way this is done, but it is >great fun. > >There's also George Bowering's _Kerrisdale Elegies_, a re/vision from >contemporary Vancouver of Rilke's great poem. > >If I had time I'm sure I could think of more...Zukofsky's Catullus work, >for example, surely set an example for some of what I'm pointing to here... > >============================================================================== >Douglas Barbour I think we may have slipped into another category, but Anne Carson's translations of whoever begin to fit. (Not sure how many have appeared in books, over the years have appeared in print.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:58:05 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: codex "writing through" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit my book RAW.SWAY.ALOUD is reconstructed from the Modoc-English dictionary of 1909. my book 21 Refrains from Body Laws was channelled (ala Hannah some years before I met her) from the OED. Xexoxial publishes Crag Hill's book Dict which likewise is a very pristine rereading of dictionary fragments. back to planting miekal ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:14:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm a little startled that only one response has so far mentioned Mac Low...(and then just one of his pieces that writes through); to myself and a number of acquaintances, Mac Low is the exemplary instance of really interesting writing-through strategies... There is an interesting difference between basing a work of poetry on a "privileged text," such as Virgina Woolf, and a humble text...Different implied weights, attitudes, different tonalities about the democracy or otherwise of writing. An example of using a humble text (and it is an astonishing, very exciting poem) is Sentences, by Charles O. Hartman and Hugh Kenner, which is based on a nineteenth-century elementary school usage primer, manipulated using two computer programs written by the poets. The Atlanta poet John Lowther frequently uses writing-through techniques, and some of his work, derived from secondary texts on Duchamp (and part of a large work-in-progress related to Duchamp) will be appearing Misc. Proj. These utilize the "stoppage" forms Duchamp used in his work, and are a complex, jazzy sequence of lyrics called Stoppages. Finally, I may be about to shock Bill Freind a bit as he may not have quite received my reply, but I'd mention some recent work of his, utilizing synonymic parallel structures to manipulate well-know anthology pieces (Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur) as some of the funniest and lovliest writing I've seen in a while; some will appear in Misc. Proj, and hopefully others will show up elsewhere.... Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:28:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions then go edit your own anthology.. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:28:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: a more serious query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------01682A7B320A15A797591EE2" --------------01682A7B320A15A797591EE2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The list might include, off the top of my head and allowing for rather permeable boundaries between "writing-through" and criticism; poetry and fiction; homages to single authors and works that, cento-like, string together quotes from / readings of multiple sources: Kathy Acker -- prominent placement of Genet and William Gibson texts in Empire of the Senseless, Faulkner in In Memoriam to Identity Bruce Andrews' Dante project (title escapes me at present) Dodie Bellamy -- The Letters of Mina Harker (ok, based on what I've read so far, Dracula is more a jumping-off point than a constant reference -- but it ain't Mina Harker for nothing) Robin Blaser -- most of the Image-Nations poems, "Great Companions," the Nerval translations my own Is Placed / Leaves Clark Coolidge -- The Rova Improvisations and liner notes to ROVA's album The Crowd (do musicians count in this?) Samuel R. Delany -- Atlantis: Model 1924 Rachel Blau DuPlessis -- most any of the Drafts Dan Farrell's writing-through of Bucky Fuller ( http://www.erols.com/dfar -- I think that's right) Bill Griffiths -- Rousseau and the Wicked Alan Halsey -- A Robin Hood Book and The Text of Shelley's Death Lyn Hejinian -- Oxota: A Short Russian Novel (shades of Evgeny Onegin) Joel Kuszai's recent work with the various Renaissance anthologies, which I believe someone else here mentioned Alice Notley -- Homer's Art and the subsequent epic writing in White Phosphorus and The Descent of Alette Stephen Ratcliffe -- Campion On Song Charles Reznikoff's Biblical adaptations Viktor Shklovsky -- the Cervantes and Laurence Sterne chapters in Theory of Prose Jalal Toufic -- Over-Sensitivity (if film might be counted as a "source text") Rosmarie Waldrop -- The Reproduction of Profiles and Lawn of Excluded Middle (Wittgenstein) Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop -- "Words Worth Less" (well, you know . . .) Louis Zukofsky -- Bottom: On Shakespeare For most of these, I would wholly agree with Don Byrd that the attempt to assign a genre seems a shaky proposition at best. One might instead look at the ways such work seeks to reconfigure and destabilize genre. One of the projects of the writing-through / adaptation / homage as practiced by these writers would seem to be the elaboration of a poetics of reading which avoids, on the one hand, an historically-naive voluntarism of the creative act (these are derivative works in Duncan's sense of that term), and, on the other, a fatalistic relation to the sedimented detritus of that history -- genre, tradition, etc. For many of these writers, I see this happening by a dispersal and relocation of genre from the level of structure (the already-achieved within which one writes) to that of construction (the still-contested with which one writes). -- Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti (a publication of the Small Press Collective) http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc MAYHEW wrote: > My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues > are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). > > I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in > which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book > or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" > various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca > Variations_. > > 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? > 2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > > You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this > might be of interest to others as well. > > Jonathan Mayhew > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > University of Kansas > jmayhew@ukans.edu > (785) 864-3851 --------------01682A7B320A15A797591EE2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The list might include, off the top of my head and allowing for rather permeable boundaries between "writing-through" and criticism; poetry and fiction; homages to single authors and works that, cento-like, string together quotes from / readings of multiple sources:

Kathy Acker -- prominent placement of Genet and William Gibson texts in Empire of the Senseless, Faulkner in In Memoriam to Identity

Bruce Andrews' Dante project (title escapes me at present)

Dodie Bellamy -- The Letters of Mina Harker (ok, based on what I've read so far, Dracula is more a jumping-off point than a constant reference -- but it ain't Mina Harker for nothing)

Robin Blaser -- most of the Image-Nations poems, "Great Companions," the Nerval translations

my own Is Placed / Leaves

Clark Coolidge -- The Rova Improvisations and liner notes to ROVA's album The Crowd (do musicians count in this?)

Samuel R. Delany -- Atlantis: Model 1924

Rachel Blau DuPlessis -- most any of the Drafts

Dan Farrell's writing-through of Bucky Fuller ( http://www.erols.com/dfar -- I think that's right)

Bill Griffiths -- Rousseau and the Wicked

Alan Halsey -- A Robin Hood Book and The Text of Shelley's Death

Lyn Hejinian -- Oxota: A Short Russian Novel (shades of Evgeny Onegin)

Joel Kuszai's recent work with the various Renaissance anthologies, which I believe someone else here mentioned

Alice Notley -- Homer's Art and the subsequent epic writing in White Phosphorus and The Descent of Alette

Stephen Ratcliffe -- Campion On Song

Charles Reznikoff's Biblical adaptations

Viktor Shklovsky -- the Cervantes and Laurence Sterne chapters in Theory of Prose

Jalal Toufic -- Over-Sensitivity (if film might be counted as a "source text")

Rosmarie Waldrop -- The Reproduction of Profiles and Lawn of Excluded Middle (Wittgenstein)

Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop -- "Words Worth Less" (well, you know . . .)

Louis Zukofsky -- Bottom: On Shakespeare

For most of these, I would wholly agree with Don Byrd that the attempt to assign a genre seems a shaky proposition at best. One might instead look at the ways such work seeks to reconfigure and destabilize genre. One of the projects of the writing-through / adaptation / homage as practiced by these writers would seem to be the elaboration of a poetics of reading which avoids, on the one hand, an historically-naive voluntarism of the creative act (these are derivative works in Duncan's sense of that term), and, on the other, a fatalistic relation to the sedimented detritus of that history -- genre, tradition, etc. For many of these writers, I see this happening by a dispersal and relocation of genre from the level of structure (the already-achieved within which one writes) to that of construction (the still-contested with which one writes).

-- Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti

(a publication of the Small Press Collective)
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc

MAYHEW wrote:

My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues
are at the fore  (sorry for those mixed metaphors).

I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in
which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book
or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through"
various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca
Variations_.

1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you?
2. What would be a good name for this "genre"?

You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this
might be of interest to others as well.

Jonathan Mayhew
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
University of Kansas
jmayhew@ukans.edu
(785) 864-3851

  --------------01682A7B320A15A797591EE2-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 08:53:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: The Book of Absences In-Reply-To: <33df4c64.3540afa9@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'd agree that anthologizing (and editing anything, for that matter) is very personal, as Silliman's list, also full of exclusions, indicates. Maxine Chernoff On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, ScoutEW wrote: > Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions > then go edit your own anthology.. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 08:55:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: <3540BDA2.D5A368DA@acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII More writing through in Paul Hoover's Viridian where "South of X" is written from his own Viet Nam novel, Saigon, Illinois, and several other pieces are written through Duras "The Lover" and James M. Cain's "Postman Always Rings Twice." Maxine Chernoff On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Taylor Brady wrote: > The list might include, off the top of my head and allowing for rather > permeable boundaries between "writing-through" and criticism; poetry and > fiction; homages to single authors and works that, cento-like, string > together quotes from / readings of multiple sources: > > Kathy Acker -- prominent placement of Genet and William Gibson texts in > Empire of the Senseless, Faulkner in In Memoriam to Identity > > Bruce Andrews' Dante project (title escapes me at present) > > Dodie Bellamy -- The Letters of Mina Harker (ok, based on what I've read so > far, Dracula is more a jumping-off point than a constant reference -- but it > ain't Mina Harker for nothing) > > Robin Blaser -- most of the Image-Nations poems, "Great Companions," the > Nerval translations > > my own Is Placed / Leaves > > Clark Coolidge -- The Rova Improvisations and liner notes to ROVA's album The > Crowd (do musicians count in this?) > > Samuel R. Delany -- Atlantis: Model 1924 > > Rachel Blau DuPlessis -- most any of the Drafts > > Dan Farrell's writing-through of Bucky Fuller ( http://www.erols.com/dfar -- > I think that's right) > > Bill Griffiths -- Rousseau and the Wicked > > Alan Halsey -- A Robin Hood Book and The Text of Shelley's Death > > Lyn Hejinian -- Oxota: A Short Russian Novel (shades of Evgeny Onegin) > > Joel Kuszai's recent work with the various Renaissance anthologies, which I > believe someone else here mentioned > > Alice Notley -- Homer's Art and the subsequent epic writing in White > Phosphorus and The Descent of Alette > > Stephen Ratcliffe -- Campion On Song > > Charles Reznikoff's Biblical adaptations > > Viktor Shklovsky -- the Cervantes and Laurence Sterne chapters in Theory of > Prose > > Jalal Toufic -- Over-Sensitivity (if film might be counted as a "source > text") > > Rosmarie Waldrop -- The Reproduction of Profiles and Lawn of Excluded Middle > (Wittgenstein) > > Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop -- "Words Worth Less" (well, you know . . .) > > Louis Zukofsky -- Bottom: On Shakespeare > > For most of these, I would wholly agree with Don Byrd that the attempt to > assign a genre seems a shaky proposition at best. One might instead look at > the ways such work seeks to reconfigure and destabilize genre. One of the > projects of the writing-through / adaptation / homage as practiced by these > writers would seem to be the elaboration of a poetics of reading which > avoids, on the one hand, an historically-naive voluntarism of the creative > act (these are derivative works in Duncan's sense of that term), and, on the > other, a fatalistic relation to the sedimented detritus of that history -- > genre, tradition, etc. For many of these writers, I see this happening by a > dispersal and relocation of genre from the level of structure (the > already-achieved within which one writes) to that of construction (the > still-contested with which one writes). > > -- Taylor Brady > editor, Cartograffiti > http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti > > (a publication of the Small Press Collective) > http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc > > MAYHEW wrote: > > > My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues > > are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). > > > > I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in > > which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book > > or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" > > various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca > > Variations_. > > > > 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? > > 2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > > > > You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this > > might be of interest to others as well. > > > > Jonathan Mayhew > > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > > University of Kansas > > jmayhew@ukans.edu > > (785) 864-3851 > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:01:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" seems like we're talking intertextuality by now; jonathan, i assume u had something more specific in mind? At 11:28 AM 4/24/98, Taylor Brady wrote: >The list might include, off the top of my head and allowing for rather >permeable boundaries between "writing-through" and criticism; poetry and >fiction; homages to single authors and works that, cento-like, string >together quotes from / readings of multiple sources: > >Kathy Acker -- prominent placement of Genet and William Gibson texts in >Empire of the Senseless, Faulkner in In Memoriam to Identity > >Bruce Andrews' Dante project (title escapes me at present) > >Dodie Bellamy -- The Letters of Mina Harker (ok, based on what I've read so >far, Dracula is more a jumping-off point than a constant reference -- but it >ain't Mina Harker for nothing) > >Robin Blaser -- most of the Image-Nations poems, "Great Companions," the >Nerval translations > >my own Is Placed / Leaves > >Clark Coolidge -- The Rova Improvisations and liner notes to ROVA's album The >Crowd (do musicians count in this?) > >Samuel R. Delany -- Atlantis: Model 1924 > >Rachel Blau DuPlessis -- most any of the Drafts > >Dan Farrell's writing-through of Bucky Fuller ( http://www.erols.com/dfar -- >I think that's right) > >Bill Griffiths -- Rousseau and the Wicked > >Alan Halsey -- A Robin Hood Book and The Text of Shelley's Death > >Lyn Hejinian -- Oxota: A Short Russian Novel (shades of Evgeny Onegin) > >Joel Kuszai's recent work with the various Renaissance anthologies, which I >believe someone else here mentioned > >Alice Notley -- Homer's Art and the subsequent epic writing in White >Phosphorus and The Descent of Alette > >Stephen Ratcliffe -- Campion On Song > >Charles Reznikoff's Biblical adaptations > >Viktor Shklovsky -- the Cervantes and Laurence Sterne chapters in Theory of >Prose > >Jalal Toufic -- Over-Sensitivity (if film might be counted as a "source >text") > >Rosmarie Waldrop -- The Reproduction of Profiles and Lawn of Excluded Middle >(Wittgenstein) > >Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop -- "Words Worth Less" (well, you know . . .) > >Louis Zukofsky -- Bottom: On Shakespeare > >For most of these, I would wholly agree with Don Byrd that the attempt to >assign a genre seems a shaky proposition at best. One might instead look at >the ways such work seeks to reconfigure and destabilize genre. One of the >projects of the writing-through / adaptation / homage as practiced by these >writers would seem to be the elaboration of a poetics of reading which >avoids, on the one hand, an historically-naive voluntarism of the creative >act (these are derivative works in Duncan's sense of that term), and, on the >other, a fatalistic relation to the sedimented detritus of that history -- >genre, tradition, etc. For many of these writers, I see this happening by a >dispersal and relocation of genre from the level of structure (the >already-achieved within which one writes) to that of construction (the >still-contested with which one writes). > >-- Taylor Brady >editor, Cartograffiti > http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti > >(a publication of the Small Press Collective) > http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc > >MAYHEW wrote: > >> My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues >> are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). >> >> I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in >> which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book >> or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" >> various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca >> Variations_. >> >> 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? >> 2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? >> >> You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this >> might be of interest to others as well. >> >> Jonathan Mayhew >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese >> University of Kansas >> jmayhew@ukans.edu >> (785) 864-3851 > > > > >ALINK="#FF0000"> >The list might include, off the top of my head and allowing for rather >permeable boundaries between "writing-through" and criticism; poetry and >fiction; homages to single authors and works that, cento-like, string together >quotes from / readings of multiple sources: > >

Kathy Acker -- prominent placement of Genet and William Gibson texts >in Empire of the Senseless, Faulkner in In Memoriam to >Identity > >

Bruce Andrews' Dante project (title escapes me at present) > >

Dodie Bellamy -- The Letters of Mina Harker (ok, based on what >I've read so far, Dracula is more a jumping-off point than a constant >reference -- but it ain't Mina Harker for nothing) > >

Robin Blaser -- most of the Image-Nations poems, "Great Companions," >the Nerval translations > >

my own Is Placed / Leaves > >

Clark Coolidge -- The Rova Improvisations and liner notes to >ROVA's album The Crowd (do musicians count in this?) > >

Samuel R. Delany -- Atlantis: Model 1924 > >

Rachel Blau DuPlessis -- most any of the Drafts > >

Dan Farrell's writing-through of Bucky Fuller ( HREF="http://www.erols.com/dfar">http://www.erols.com/dfar >-- I think that's right) > >

Bill Griffiths -- Rousseau and the Wicked > >

Alan Halsey -- A Robin Hood Book and The Text of Shelley's >Death > >

Lyn Hejinian -- Oxota: A Short Russian Novel (shades of Evgeny >Onegin) > >

Joel Kuszai's recent work with the various Renaissance anthologies, >which I believe someone else here mentioned > >

Alice Notley -- Homer's Art and the subsequent epic writing in >White Phosphorus and The Descent of Alette > >

Stephen Ratcliffe -- Campion On Song > >

Charles Reznikoff's Biblical adaptations > >

Viktor Shklovsky -- the Cervantes and Laurence Sterne chapters in Theory >of Prose > >

Jalal Toufic -- Over-Sensitivity (if film might be counted as >a "source text") > >

Rosmarie Waldrop -- The Reproduction of Profiles and Lawn >of Excluded Middle (Wittgenstein) > >

Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop -- "Words Worth Less" (well, you know . . >.) > >

Louis Zukofsky -- Bottom: On Shakespeare > >

For most of these, I would wholly agree with Don Byrd that the attempt >to assign a genre seems a shaky proposition at best. One might instead >look at the ways such work seeks to reconfigure and destabilize genre. >One of the projects of the writing-through / adaptation / homage as practiced >by these writers would seem to be the elaboration of a poetics of reading >which avoids, on the one hand, an historically-naive voluntarism of the >creative act (these are derivative works in Duncan's sense of that term), >and, on the other, a fatalistic relation to the sedimented detritus of >that history -- genre, tradition, etc. For many of these writers, I see >this happening by a dispersal and relocation of genre from the level of >structure (the already-achieved within which one writes) to that >of construction (the still-contested with which one writes). > >

-- Taylor Brady >
editor, Cartograffiti >
 HREF="http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti">http:/ >/writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti > >

(a publication of the Small Press Collective) >
 HREF="http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc">http://wings.buffalo >.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc > >

MAYHEW wrote: >

My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at >a time more sombre issues >
are at the fore  (sorry for those mixed metaphors). > >

I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre >in >
which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. >book >
or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" >
various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca >
Variations_. > >

1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? >
2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > >

You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this >
might be of interest to others as well. > >

Jonathan Mayhew >
Department of Spanish and Portuguese >
University of Kansas >
jmayhew@ukans.edu >
(785) 864-3851

>  > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:40:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If it's "very personal", then I'm afraid it's VERY POLITICAL as well. I haven't read the Millennium II, but I did give a glowing review (in the St. Mark's News Letter) to the first volume, precisely because of its contents. I have to admit, from my perspective, Silliman's list does not bode well for Vol.2. Preconceptions aside, I guess I'd better get a copy and review it, as well. At 08:53 AM 4/24/98 -0700, you wrote: >I'd agree that anthologizing (and editing anything, for that matter) is >very personal, as Silliman's list, also full of exclusions, indicates. > >Maxine Chernoff > >On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, ScoutEW wrote: > >> Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions >> then go edit your own anthology.. >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:48:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerome Rothenberg Organization: @Home Network Subject: Re: The Book of Absences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oh, Ron ... do you think the best first response to what Pierre and I have attempted is to draw up a list of omissions that the two of us could as well have done (and didn't) if we wanted to follow your example in In the American Tree - something approaching a hundred names listed in your intro (and only three or four of them owned up to in the present note). It is all only too obvious and has the feeling of a cheap shot, which we're all capable of but which makes little sense to me on a first perusal of what you've written. The book tries to be inclusive of the kinds of openings that happened during the time in question - or at least to give a sense of them - and to reduce it without further comment to a question of who's in and who's out is to similarly reduce our lives as poets. But if you think a gathering like this is inevitably a collection of names, then obviously we will have failed (at least for you) in one aspect of what we were after. By the same token In the American Tree will have failed on that point alone (& even more so), and that is also something that I won't concede. Affectionately (for all of that), JERRY ScoutEW wrote: > > Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions > then go edit your own anthology.. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:12:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: a more serious query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It seems like there is difference between being in some way "possessed" by another writer as Spicer with Lorca and using a text to actually generate the lines as MacLow is more inclined to do - I sense that most writers "write through" in some sense a lot of the time - Lately I've been working with Blake and the I have done much work with Spicer - Do the New York School influenced among you feel less inclined to be textually inspired as opposed to being in relation to experience? Is there such a thing as being more direct? I remember reading about Sylvia Plath writing with a dictionary on one knee and a thesaurus on the other - Many current writers seem to write with a favorite (or popular or simply found) text on both knees - BTW - new non - an homage/lament for Kathy Acker by Robin Tremblay-McGaw Laura moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:09:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eric Blarnes Subject: Re: The Book of Absences In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:48:40 -0700 from I want to alert everyone to the new Madagascar anthology of poetry in English, SWIMMING WITH THE BUTTERFLIES, just out from Sveeshalm Press. Over 4500 pp of 20th century innovative poetries ranging from Aalso Aarnhem's crypto-hic-haiku, via such names as Beauregard Plasm, Chanella Teems, Leffto Marganato, all the way to Zina Zharlovsky's amazing proto-epic in reverse phonetics, "Llems Rewolf". Indispensable. This book CREATES TIME - as you read! Unusual phenomenon - you open it up at 4 pm (eastern standard, let's say) - and when you finish an hour later it's 2 PM - same day, same time zone!! So delve into this one - AT YOUR LEISURE!! I'm getting younger every day myself! - Eric Blarnes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:21:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Re: The Book of Absences MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII It's funny that the contents of this anthology are defended on "very personal" grounds (granted, not by its editors), but that some other anthology with a different editor, or focus, or purpose, might be attacked on ideological grounds, e. g. Weinberger's anthology of a few years back, or anything put together by "official verse culturists." I may be reasonable to assume that all anthologists have some combination of personal and "x" (ideological, poetic, critical, historical, etc.) reasons for what they do and do not include. I may be reasonable to expect that poems and not names are driving the fame train. I also may be reasonable to think that we need a more subtle conversation about this than "personal vs. political" arguments would suggest. Gary R. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:28:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client mothost.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: Laura Moriarty "Re: a more serious query" (Apr 24, 10:12am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >It seems like there is difference between being in some way "possessed" by >another writer as Spicer with Lorca and using a text to actually generate >the lines as MacLow is more inclined to do - I sense that most writers >"write through" in some sense a lot of the time Viva la difference! As old T.S. Elliot once said (in the "Phillip Massinger" essay), "goode poets make it into something better, or at least different." Don't shoot the Massinger! - Harold Bloom Laura, could you flash the non URL onto the list? Thanks Willaim Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:26:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "]||kenning||[" Subject: Re: a more serious query Comments: To: Laura Moriarty In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980424171237.006aef88@pop.lmi.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Laura, I think that's an important distinction. I wouldn't say that Waldrop, for instance in The Reproduction of Profiles, is "writing through" Witt. More coming to or bringing him to terms. As for the NYSchool influenced among us: It's too problematic for me to say that "direct" experience, instead of mediated (literary -- "writing through") experience, inspires me moreso. I'd say that Schuyler's "Morning of the Poem" is a typical NYS example of being "possesed" (Baudelaire's skull) which may serve as his sort of writing through. Would your distinction be that between influence and inspiration? My reading serves the former, my living serves the latter. Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Laura Moriarty wrote: > It seems like there is difference between being in some way "possessed" by > another writer as Spicer with Lorca and using a text to actually generate > the lines as MacLow is more inclined to do - I sense that most writers > "write through" in some sense a lot of the time - Lately I've been working > with Blake and the I have done much work with Spicer - > Do the New York School influenced among you feel less inclined to be > textually inspired as opposed to being in relation to experience? Is there > such a thing as being more direct? > > I remember reading about Sylvia Plath writing with a dictionary on one knee > and a thesaurus on the other - Many current writers seem to write with a > favorite (or popular or simply found) text on both knees - > > BTW - new non - an homage/lament for Kathy Acker by Robin Tremblay-McGaw > > Laura > > > > > moriarty@lanminds.com > http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:40:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit uh hello, yeah I read all of Silliman's post , don't presume pal-o...? I know Silliman edited his own anthology but lets face it, Rothenberg and Joris at least attempted (and this volume is thick enough for a good doorstop) to include different "galleries" of poets and I think they did a great job. Silliman's post seemed strange , I mean who cares if they included Robert Johnson instead of Jim Morrison, Public Enemy got the first page in Norton's Anthology of African-American Literature and if you want to include MC's as poets then people like Kool Keith -Gang Starr- Method Man and the RZA, just to name a few could fill an anthology with their rhymes themselves..that is a whole nother story..sorry if this seems mean because i have no personal gripes with anyone, I only react to what comes into my mailbox and if we are going to complain about anthologies then we could complain forever..Anthologies are basically an editors choice thing.. You can't please all of the people all of the time so why complain about people left out..Silliman if you were trying to say you could do a better job, then why not out and say it? don't squabble about who was left out, it is useless... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:47:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: a more serious query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------B2C3F24079A6B27FEC38E6D9" --------------B2C3F24079A6B27FEC38E6D9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria Damon wrote: seems like we're talking intertextuality by now; jonathan, i assume u had something more specific in mind? Looking over my list again, it does seem to me there's a fairly broad definition of "writing-through" at work. This breadth, though, is something I find in the post which started this thread: surely, any definition of writing-through which might include both Word nd Ends from Ez and The H.D. Book begs a bit of latitude in the application. I agree with you that we're talking about intertextuality here -- but not just any intertextuality. The works I've cited all involve in some measure a sustained engagement with the features of another's work -- whether they be character, narrative arc, or the "actual" words in the "actual" order -- as a means of elaborating a writer's "own" poetics. In other words, this is a far different intertextuality from the mere distribution of cultural markers across the surface of a text. I wouldn't make so much of this -- especially since, fine points aside, I'm basically in agreement with you about the unwieldiness of what this "writing-through" category has become -- if it weren't for the positioning of intertextuality as the postmodern device par excellence, and the assumption, in much recent literary study, of a kind of default progressive valence for it. I'd claim, rather, that it's entirely possible to operate within the confines of a reactionary historical narrative of fate while producing even the most thoroughly intertextual work. This is surely the message of much poetic work which seeks to revive, rather than to rewrite or reinhabit, some sense of "tradition" held in stasis through an obligatory repertoire of citations, forms, and allusions -- the purely negative sense that Romanticism, or high Modernism, or whatever, is still writing our texts for us. Compare the conservative side of the American university's reception of deconstruction, whose credo might run, "We'll get around to changing the world only after we've finally settled our accounts with the Phaedrus." Intertextuality in these cases is simply an index of the writer's residence in the "prison-house of language" -- and nary a plan for jailbreak in sight. To put it another way: intertextuality is the status of the archive before anyone does any work on it one way or the other. The works I've cited as instances of a broadly interpreted "writing-through," by contrast, are invested in an interventionist or constructivist relation to the archive -- the imagination that one might use the cinderblock and rebar of the prison-house to build apartments, or roller derby rinks. All in all, I'd say you're right that the list might not have been precisely what Jonathan was looking for (though I think The H.D. Book bear some of the responsibility for that category-confusion), but I'd like to avoid collapsing the whole thing onto a catch-all notion of intertextuality. Maybe the distinction is one between the citational and the polemical intertext? Just a thought. All best, -- Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti (a publication of the Small Press Collective) http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc --------------B2C3F24079A6B27FEC38E6D9 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria Damon wrote:

seems like we're talking intertextuality by now; jonathan, i assume u had
something more specific in mind?
 

Looking over my list again, it does seem to me there's a fairly broad definition of "writing-through" at work. This breadth, though, is something I find in the post which started this thread: surely, any definition of writing-through which might include both Word nd Ends from Ez and The H.D. Book begs a bit of latitude in the application. I agree with you that we're talking about intertextuality here -- but not just any intertextuality. The works I've cited all involve in some measure a sustained engagement with the features of another's work -- whether they be character, narrative arc, or the "actual" words in the "actual" order -- as a means of elaborating a writer's "own" poetics. In other words, this is a far different intertextuality from the mere distribution of cultural markers across the surface of a text.

I wouldn't make so much of this -- especially since, fine points aside, I'm basically in agreement with you about the unwieldiness of what this "writing-through" category has become -- if it weren't for the positioning of intertextuality as the postmodern device par excellence, and the assumption, in much recent literary study, of a kind of default progressive valence for it. I'd claim, rather, that it's entirely possible to operate within the confines of a reactionary historical narrative of fate while producing even the most thoroughly intertextual work.

This is surely the message of much poetic work which seeks to revive, rather than to rewrite or reinhabit, some sense of "tradition" held in stasis through an obligatory repertoire of citations, forms, and allusions -- the purely negative sense that Romanticism, or high Modernism, or whatever, is still writing our texts for us. Compare the conservative side of the American university's reception of deconstruction, whose credo might run, "We'll get around to changing the world only after we've finally settled our accounts with the Phaedrus." Intertextuality in these cases is simply an index of the writer's residence in the "prison-house of language" -- and nary a plan for jailbreak in sight. To put it another way: intertextuality is the status of the archive before anyone does any work on it one way or the other.

The works I've cited as instances of a broadly interpreted "writing-through," by contrast, are invested in an interventionist or constructivist relation to the archive -- the imagination that one might use the cinderblock and rebar of the prison-house to build apartments, or roller derby rinks. All in all, I'd say you're right that the list might not have been precisely what Jonathan was looking for (though I think The H.D. Book bear some of the responsibility for that category-confusion), but I'd like to avoid collapsing the whole thing onto a catch-all notion of intertextuality. Maybe the distinction is one between the citational and the polemical intertext? Just a thought.

All best,

-- Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti

(a publication of the Small Press Collective)
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc   --------------B2C3F24079A6B27FEC38E6D9-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:48:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: a more serious anthology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" About anthologies - There clearly is no one anthology - as we tend to imagine there was with the famous ones of the past - many of which however also don't include key people (Zukovsky, Niedecker etc) - Any reader needs a pile of them and that at least is good - It is hard on writers to be excluded (I've been both in and out) though of course it helps when the writers you are crazy about are also ignored - and rage can be honorable - And it isn't just career but needing to feel recognized as being part of a community that one has worked to be part of - >Laura, could you flash the non URL onto the list? Thanks > > >Willaim Burmeister > > Sorry - I try to have it planted in my signature but am not sure it occurs each time - http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:44:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I thought the personal was the political. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:46:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: The Book of Visibility Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks for posting that reminder Ron, the who is less important than the breadth of the ommission in one of the best anthologies available, digging poetry requires digging nobody's going to give it to you in one click even Jerry Rothenberg who has served poetry all his life and given us so much of what we need these past three decades and the who IS very important for those starting out as pointers poetry makes demands on its practitioners Duncan taught us Spicer put it: you'll be punished for your visibility. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:59:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: writing through others--Ronell and Corless-Smith In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Speaking of writing through other texts--through the voices and tonalities of other writers.... Mortin Corless-Smith gave a wonderful reading last night at Prairie Lights. He read primarily from his new book OF PISCATOR--but also read some selections from a new (so far) chapbook-length series entitled Worcestershire, Mass. In much of his work Martin writes through such 'archaic' voices as Dorothy Wordsworth, Basil Bunting, and others... Martin doesn't footnote his sources. It struck me last night that there was a big difference between what in OF PISCATOR seems like a resuscitation of 'sincerity' through the medium of archaism (I would argue that Moxley in her IMAGINATION VERSES makes similar moves...) and a more canonically oriented poetics of citation (something along the lines of Jorie Graham's MATERIALISM in which the speaker doesn't take on the voices of precursors, but rather dialogues with them).... It seems to me that a major aspect of writing through (and maybe this is a matter of what someone else here deemed the sub-genre of the homage) other writers and voices is that of citation. Best, Katy Some poems by Martin Corless-Smith: Day beats breathes bye derkenesse is I'l from the light take up the flamy branch to shadow-wise let me behind your trolley word after passes word we dreamt community ------- noon-glass under water watch yr st eyes, dreams, lips and the night goes brode, Queen, black gown jug jug jug jug rush down to the death death death cries or blood blood ------- and in lowly accents he says the rest trut in words per you may catch this on the hill Epsom, Capitol in hevyn on hight stern--o value stern of heven all briht in boure (Space of one line) Section XI (end of section, shace of 5 lines) I'm try to pleas with swords like leaves and horses wear coats feastal in valley previous the fish we choke I choke responsible random the last quarter So Sargus the fish quit the sea to lie with the she-goat in her pasture ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:14:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Olivier Cadiot NY reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" forwarded From: Christophe Ippolito It is our pleasure to announce the lecture of Olivier Cadiot at Columbia University French House, Tuesday April 28 1998 at 8pm. Olivier Cadiot is a French poet and novelist. He is also the general editor of the Revue de Litterature Generale in Paris, France. He will read from his work and comment on the situation of French poetry today, including the perspectives for translations. Currently working with the publisher P.O.L. along with Pierre Alferi, he has been instrumental in helping to develop new trends in French literature in recent years. The lecture will be moderated by Chet Wiener, Columbia University. The French House is located on Columbia University Main Campus, Bway and 116 Street, in Buell Hall (a small red-bricked house in the middle of the campus, near the chapel), first floor, East Gallery. Again, the date is April 28, 1998 at 8:00 p.m. For the Poetry Discussion Group and its members. For more information please contact: Chester Wiener (212) 222-2782 Christophe Ippolito, French House (212) 854-4482 A wine and cheese reception will be held after the lecture. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:40:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "]||kenning||[" Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Comments: To: ScoutEW In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It is not useless to draw one's attention to the gaps. I don't read Ron Silliman's post as a squabble but as an alert. Sure, the nature of anthologizing demands that we raise these alerts, since I think we all might agree these tomes are frequently mis-construed as a "shelf" in of themselves. The anthologies in question, by the way, are structured in such a way as to preclude such mishandling . . . although perhaps the title is a bit ambitious. -- Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, ScoutEW wrote: > uh hello, yeah I read all of Silliman's post , don't presume pal-o...? I know > Silliman edited his own anthology but lets face it, Rothenberg and Joris at > least attempted (and this volume is thick enough for a good doorstop) to > include different "galleries" of poets and I think they did a great job. > Silliman's post seemed strange , I mean who cares if they included Robert > Johnson instead of Jim Morrison, Public Enemy got the first page in Norton's > Anthology of African-American Literature and if you want to include MC's as > poets then people like Kool Keith -Gang Starr- Method Man and the RZA, just to > name a few could fill an anthology with their rhymes themselves..that is a > whole nother story..sorry if this seems mean because i have no personal gripes > with anyone, I only react to what comes into my mailbox and if we are going to > complain about anthologies then we could complain forever..Anthologies are > basically an editors choice thing.. > You can't please all of the people all of the time so why complain about > people left out..Silliman if you were trying to say you could do a better job, > then why not out and say it? don't squabble about who was left out, it is > useless... > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:46:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: EXPLOSIVE benefit--IOWA In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980424164038.00ac9ed0@pop1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Announcing: A benefit event to celebrate the publication of EXPLOSIVE MAGAZINE #5 Monday, May 4th @ Jen Hofer's house Iowa City: 714 Kirkwood Avenue 8:00 pm Lots of food, drink, and readings by Emily Wilson, Tina Celona, Josh Bell, Joe Milford, Nick Twemlow, Sathosh Daniel and others.... COME! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:09:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Re: The Book of Absences In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Poor Bronk -- Hoover skipped him (and Oppen!) in the Norton Postmod, too. Like Ron Silliman, I also get annoyed with omissions (moreso than with inclusions), especially when the anthologists are acknowledged experts who know what they're doing, but I also know that some exlusions are attributable to nasty permissions offices, greedy estate executors, untraceable heirs, and other agents beyond the anthologist's control. If anything, Ron's star-studded list proves just how much worthy stuff is out there, in spite of those depressing moments when it seems like it's all just contempo Wordsworth. -- Fred M. ******************************************************** Fred Muratori (fmm1@cornell.edu) Reference Services Division Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html ********************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:28:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: New at the EPC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Pages recently added or updated at the EPC: Close Listening edited by Bernstein Creeley: Life & Death Poems for the Millennium, Vol. Two Creeley Cortland Interview Harryette Mullen Author Page Passages: Eigner Issue Hilda Morley, 1919-1998 Nick Piombino Author Page Rachel Blau DuPlessis Author Page EPC Statistics You can find links to these under "New" from the EPC Home Page http://writing.upenn.edu/epc ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 17:38:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Re: Bachelard's take Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit <> yes that is the question. or questions Rachel. thank you for stating it that way. in addtion to sexual and other forms of abuse, we should think about "our" own genital mutilation that is often rendered on peoples born with "ambiguous genitalia" or so-called intersexuals. one american doctor was recently quoted like this when asked about why he cuts: "I don't think it's an option for nothing to be done. I don't think parents can be told this is a normal girl, and then have to be faced with what looks like an enlarged clitoris, or a penis, every time they change the diaper. We try to normalize the genitalia to the gender to reduce psychosocial and functional problems later in life." You all can read more about this on the Intersex Society of North America Web Site: http://www.isna.org/ Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 17:40:53 -0400 Reply-To: soaring@ma.ultranet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Wellman Subject: Re: "writing through" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the model of writing through that seems most relevant to me --and germane to most of the examples offered -- is H.D.'s use of palimpsest .... which perhaps also points not so much toward a conception of genre as one of method ... Don Wellman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 16:57:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Women/culture/torture In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bill and Rachel, It seems to me that women's situation in Afghanistan is not readily comparable to genital mutilation for religious reasons NOR to the genital mutilation of ambiguously sexed newborns. To choose to be mutilated for religious reasons (even if this "choice" seems to be the product of coercion),or to have your genitals mutilated at birth without your consent--these do seem comparable to Afghani women "choosing" to wear veils or to stay indoors.... But these examples are not (in my mind) comparable to being STONED TO DEATH for not "choosing"... It seems to me that the cultural directive in these examples (staying indoors, being unambiguously sexed, having your clitoris removed) is quite distinct from the punishments that are doled out for refusing to comply. Katy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:34:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Did anyone hear the NPR report yesterday about the Millenium night at the White House Wednesday night featuring American poets? It was a different list of attendees than either Jerry and Pierre's or Ron's (of course?) -- but Merwin, Ashbery, Hass, Pinsky, Dove, Forche (who I always associate with the ears on the general's table in El Salvador) were there, along with other, largely predictable, names who swim in the main stream -- (is Stanley Kunitz still alive? Donald Justice?) Anyway, there was one mild bit of frisson in the report when the report mentioned that some poets had been invited but chose not to attend -- one was Hayden Carruth, who was then asked "Are you saying that poets like Haas and Pinsky are hypocrites, then?" There was a long pause, and Carruth then said "I'd really rather not comment." I'm sure 95% of folks listening had no idea of whom he was talking about, but it was enough to make me go "whoa"! Adrienne Rich's refusal of a big poetry prize last year was also mentioned at about that time . . . I bring up the report not because anyone on this list would envy those present, or want to shoot the shit with Bill (who was actually quite funny, saying that memorizing a hundred lines from _Macbeth_ taught him that political fame was fleeting), but to raise more generally the question of political action (viz Afghanistan) and what it has to do with poetry. "Poetry makes nothing happen," said Auden, famously, and Ashbery, in this report, agreed: "Poetry is poetry, and social action is social action, and never the twain shall meet." Forche agreed. But they were there Wednesday night. Wasn't that a political act? I think of the answer given by Ed Dorn in an interview, when someone asked him what the function of the poet was in "today's society," and he said something like, "surely the function of the poet is to stay away from all permanent associations with power." Easy enough to do, most of us would say! Maybe . . . but what is this questioning of the inclusion list of anthologies ABOUT, really? Is it really about a high-minded attempt to shape the literary tastes of a generation, or is it about the anxiety of career and one's place in the canon? (I mean, I'm still pissed that Andrei left me out of _Staying Up Late_, and that was ten years ago!) I applaud Laura's comment, to the effect, that we should just let a thousand flowers bloom, and the more anthologies published with different people in them the better. Is it really as simple as that? Or does arguing about the people selected for the latest big anthology really just planning the White House dinner party for the year 2020? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 13:29:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: Re: a more serious query Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jonathan, My new book of poetry, AFTER, will be published in a few weeks. It's completely about these issues and is a true example of the genre. I even have one poem after Spicer after Lorca. Douglas Messerli MAYHEW wrote: > > My tongue in cheek inadvertently hit the list at a time more sombre issues > are at the fore (sorry for those mixed metaphors). > > I do have a more serious poetics question. I am thinking about genre in > which a poet "writes through" the work of a precursor. Duncan's H.D. book > or his homage to Stein, Spicer's _After Lorca_, Cage's "writing through" > various authors (Pound, Joyce, etc...), Rothenberg's _The Lorca > Variations_. > > 1. Any other good examples of this occur to any of you? > 2. What would be a good name for this "genre"? > > You may "British Columbia" me-- or post to the list if you think this > might be of interest to others as well. > > Jonathan Mayhew > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > University of Kansas > jmayhew@ukans.edu > (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:36:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I did hear the NPR story you mentioned, and have mixed feelings both about those attending and those who refused to attend, which I will not bore the list with. Interesting post, however, Safdie. And yes, Kunitz is still alive. At 03:34 PM 4/24/98 -0700, you wrote: >Did anyone hear the NPR report yesterday about the Millenium night at the >White House Wednesday night featuring American poets? It was a different >list of attendees than either Jerry and Pierre's or Ron's (of course?) -- >but Merwin, Ashbery, Hass, Pinsky, Dove, Forche (who I always associate with >the ears on the general's table in El Salvador) were there, along with >other, largely predictable, names who swim in the main stream -- (is Stanley >Kunitz still alive? Donald Justice?) Anyway, there was one mild bit of >frisson in the report when the report mentioned that some poets had been >invited but chose not to attend -- one was Hayden Carruth, who was then >asked "Are you saying that poets like Haas and Pinsky are hypocrites, then?" >There was a long pause, and Carruth then said "I'd really rather not >comment." I'm sure 95% of folks listening had no idea of whom he was talking >about, but it was enough to make me go "whoa"! Adrienne Rich's refusal of a >big poetry prize last year was also mentioned at about that time . . . > >I bring up the report not because anyone on this list would envy those >present, or want to shoot the shit with Bill (who was actually quite funny, >saying that memorizing a hundred lines from _Macbeth_ taught him that >political fame was fleeting), but to raise more generally the question of >political action (viz Afghanistan) and what it has to do with poetry. >"Poetry makes nothing happen," said Auden, famously, and Ashbery, in this >report, agreed: "Poetry is poetry, and social action is social action, and >never the twain shall meet." Forche agreed. But they were there Wednesday >night. Wasn't that a political act? I think of the answer given by Ed Dorn >in an interview, when someone asked him what the function of the poet was in >"today's society," and he said something like, "surely the function of the >poet is to stay away from all permanent associations with power." > >Easy enough to do, most of us would say! Maybe . . . but what is this >questioning of the inclusion list of anthologies ABOUT, really? Is it really >about a high-minded attempt to shape the literary tastes of a generation, or >is it about the anxiety of career and one's place in the canon? (I mean, I'm >still pissed that Andrei left me out of _Staying Up Late_, and that was ten >years ago!) I applaud Laura's comment, to the effect, that we should just >let a thousand flowers bloom, and the more anthologies published with >different people in them the better. Is it really as simple as that? Or does >arguing about the people selected for the latest big anthology really just >planning the White House dinner party for the year 2020? > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:46:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Women/culture/torture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >But these examples are not (in my mind) comparable to being STONED TO >DEATH for not "choosing"... Or those who fail to choose being driven insane and / or driven to suicide ? In the latter, most common, instances is there any difference from being murdered ? Somewhat aside to the discussion of Afghanistan, the current Pope of the Catholic church has condoned suicide for those who cannot take the pressure any more. In other words, the Pope, has condoned murder. Pressure them until they kill themselves since we can no longer stone them, torture by means of the Inquisition, or burn them at the stake. Oh, the world has come a long way from the burning of witches. Now a religious leader says what is essentially: "have them kill themselves". What wonderful progress. Civilization at last ! A truly Socratic tradition. As for other traditions having the same tendencies....I am sure they do. >It seems to me that the cultural directive in these examples (staying >indoors, being unambiguously sexed, having your clitoris removed) is quite >distinct from the punishments that are doled out for refusing to comply. The very common, but foreign to North America, practice of removing the clitoris is to destroy a woman's sexual enjoyment. Some people, quietly, believe that that is _necessary_ or a woman will be likely to be unfaithful to her husband. Also that she would want too much from her husband so the removal of the clitoris means that she will not marry on the basis of gaining sexual satisfaction. At least that is how much I have gleaned as to that particular practice. As far as I can determine it is common in many Islamic countries, but is more ancient in origins and more widespread as to origins than that particular tradition. Coincidence in a lot of instances, that both traditions happen in the same locations among the same peoples. The world is not a civilized place. Do not dream for an instant that the primitive, brutal, cruel, practices of the past, including religious and secular practices, have been driven from this world as the true demons that they in fact are. If there are any demons then they surely are the demons incarnate. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:39:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: writing through Ronald Johnson erases parts of PARADISE LOST in order to produce RADI OS. Was it necessary in order to write ARK? There are serious poets who can't take poetry seriously in an uneraserious era. Or perhaps this was a serious endeavor and I'm being obtuse again. Pope writes an epic about cutting a lock of hair. To "rewrite" so obviously seems so conflictedly serious/ unserious. And then came the Glorious Revolution(s)... Intertextuality is progressive or reactionary? Cheese smells no matter what. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:55:49 -0400 Reply-To: gmcvay1@osf1.gmu.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Organization: Inkstone Press Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Safdie Joseph wrote: > > but Merwin, Ashbery, Hass, Pinsky, Dove, Forche (who I always associate with the ears on the general's table in El Salvador) were there, Yep yep yep, and WCW is that wheelbarrow guy. Astute bit of reader-response, eh. along with other, largely predictable, names who swim in the main stream -- (is Stanley Kunitz still alive? Donald Justice?) << Yes, both. Neither one makes my most-frequently-bookmarked list, but is mainstream equivalent to actual decease? Do people die of writing sonnets? Please advise. Gwyn "I'd rather drink expensive shots" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:57:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Invalid RFC822 field - "V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 7281; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:52:43 -0400". Rest of header flushed. Comments: Resent-From: Henry Gould From: Henry Gould Yes, both. Neither one makes my most-frequently-bookmarked list, but is mainstream equivalent to actual decease? Do people die of writing sonnets? Please advise. Gwyn "I'd rather drink expensive shots" McVay Yes, Gwyn, but it's only a little death. - "Henry" Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 19:00:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-24 13:28:08 EDT, you write: << I may be reasonable to expect that poems and not names are driving the fame train. >> Yes! and Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 19:00:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-24 11:55:47 EDT, you write: << On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, ScoutEW wrote: > Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions > then go edit your own anthology.. >> While I am not interested in arguing with, nor supporting, Silliman's ideas for the poets that should have been included in this Rothenberg/Joris "Poems for the Millenium II" anthology...I find Silliman's tone unnecessarily "blaming." There's room for another anthology by Silliman, or anyone else. The misconception that anthologies can inclusively and comprehensively "represent" a period, a genre, etc., has been around long enough, and has been lamented over long enough, that I think we should retire it. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 19:04:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:34:41 -0700 from On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:34:41 -0700 Safdie Joseph said: >"Poetry makes nothing happen," said Auden, famously, and Ashbery, in this >report, agreed: "Poetry is poetry, and social action is social action, and >never the twain shall meet." Forche agreed. But they were there Wednesday >night. Wasn't that a political act? I think of the answer given by Ed Dorn >in an interview, when someone asked him what the function of the poet was in >"today's society," and he said something like, "surely the function of the >poet is to stay away from all permanent associations with power." Poetry is a social action. This story is a parable. Power corrupts... language. Hurray for Carruth & Dorn (& Joe Safdie). Nevertheless: poetry is not a subculture. The poet inhabits a confrontation by default. I.e. the truth will out... - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 19:05:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-24 14:42:43 EDT, you write: << Sure, the nature of anthologizing demands that we raise these alerts, >> What, in your view, IS "the nature of anthologizing," and what, specifically, would these "alerts" serve to accomplish? I'm interested in understanding your viewpoint. I'm especially interested in understanding what you, and other folks, expect from anthologies, and I'm further interested in examining whether our expectations might be changed, or whether anthologizers need to conform more to such expectations, or...? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 07:50:23 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: a more serious query In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII another instance of writing through or translations from English would be manymany poems by Gerard Malanga, e.g., take "To a young heiress" and "To the Harbormaster" (Frank O'Hara) and see how the former is a demetaphoricized, etc, version of the latter. There's an anecdote I vaguely remember about O'Hara and somebody else listening to a Malanga reading and picking out their own (and others) poems as the models/originals for everything. is Gerard about to be revived? I saw a photo of his of Andrew Wylie in a recent New Yorker and journal excerpts were published somewheres (can't remember where). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 16:50:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Vase of Fresh Language Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On Thursday evening Michael Davidson and David Bromige teamed up for a reading at Loyola Marymount University's campus -- spotted in the audience were Chris Reiner, Will Alexander and Marjorie Perloff. Thanks to United Airlines, Bromige had an unexpected opportunity to entertain audiences at the San Francisco airport in a rare three hour show, while Maera Schreiber and Davidson spoke of Zukofsky over dinner. But Bromige abrupted upon the scene at last, and the reading was on. "You Were Saying," Davidson read, from new work in progress, followed immediately by its shadow poem, echoing voice, rewrite, "Footnote: Enthymeme." (footnote to self: remember to explain to students next week what an "enthymeme" is) to please good men is unfortunate given a square of which the novel thing is not proportion but the action performed there that proves its opposite "Henry James in Hoboken" was a personal favorite. New Davidson book en route soon. Bromige read, among his newer works, "2 from T as in Tether," and yes, that does amount to two for T. "The other has been ingested / I stand in the safeway and smile." Not content to read from just ONE not-yet-printed volume, Bromige also read from the most timely NOT SANE ENOUGH FOR THE DEATH PENALTY. I do not believe in psychology What did it ever do for me Except provide a living For doctors who cared less But were polite to me As one form of domination A state I appear to prefer Leastwise in my dreams Davidson and Bromige, who do not appear in _Poetry for the Millennium_ but you can xerox their poems and lay them into your copy of that or any other anthology, re materialized on Friday at noon to regale a small audience of students and friends with their bemused and astute assessments of one another. It all went swimmingly, as Bromige splashed off to his weekend and Davidson picked up a double-expresso before heading down the 405. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:57:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: a more serious query(Gerard M.) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 25 Apr 1998, Schuchat Simon wrote: > > is Gerard about to be revived? I saw a photo of his of Andrew Wylie in > a recent New Yorker and journal excerpts were published somewheres (can't > remember where). I started wondering about that, too: in Reva Wolf's book, _Andy Warhol, Poetry and Gossip in the 1960s_ (1996 or 97, U of Chicago Press), he gets more attention than any other NY poet, including Ashbery, Berrigan, and even O'Hara. Obviously, it's because of his proximity to The Factory compared to those others, but it was interesting (and at times disturbing) to see his poems get such close attention in that company. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago "I believe that the devil is in these poets. They destroy all universities. And I heard from an old master of Leipsic who had been Magister for 36 years that when he was a young men then did the university stand firm, for there was not a poet within 20 miles." _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, ii.46. Quoted in Helen Waddell's _The Wandering Scholars_ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:04:50 -0400 Reply-To: Gwyn McVay Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies] (fwd) Comments: To: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I asked, and got this answer: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:00:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "CAROLYN L. FORCHE-MATTISON" To: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies] Dear Gwyn, The White House event went very well. I was a bit disappointed that the only avant poet there was Charles Bernstein. But the invitee lists were drawn from organizations, primarily...The Academy of American Poets, the NEA, etc. People there included Ashbery, Levine, Merwin, Dove, Pinsky, Hass, C.K. Williams, James Tate, William Meredith, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Jorie Graham, David Mura, Garrett Hongo, Kate Daniels, C.D. Wright, Forrest Gander, Heather McHugh, Frank Bidart, Yusef K., Lucille Clifton, Anthony Hecht, Stanley Plumly, Michael Collier, Susan Shreve, Alan Cheuse, Mark Doty, Carol Muske...more, but I can't think of them. The Clintons were both there, and didn't leave until 11:30 or so. It started at 6:30 p.m. It was a celebration, really, of the history of American poetry. Readings were from Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Williams, O'Hara, Countee Cullen, Robert Hayden, Elizabeth Bishop...more, but again, I can't think of all. Dove, Pinsky and Hass read, and all read quite well. The reading was broadcast on C-Span, and to 44 satellites and the internet. Then we had dinner. It was all very moving and lovely, and I felt very fortunate to have been part of it. Oh, yes, Galway Kinnell and Louise Gluck were also there. Some I noticed who were not: Creeley, Kunitz, Kumin, Kizer, Olds, and a host of experimental poets. Hayden Carruth was the only person to decline, and did so because he thinks the Clintons are not supportive enough of the arts. I think it is the legislative branch that hasn't been supportive, so I guess I disagree with Hayden. But I respect his decision. I'm not sure that going to the White House for dinner constitutes an association with "permanent power." But I come out of a human rights tradition, and we'll go anywhere and talk to anyone who will listen... Best, Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:38:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Blake Archive's April Update Comments: To: humanist@kcl.ac.uk, H-CLC@msu.edu, H-MMEDIA@h-net.msu.edu, ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu, e-grad@nwe.ufl.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The latest news of work completed here at the Blake Archive. Apologies for cross-posting. Please forward as appropriate. Matt K. -- The editors of the William Blake Archive are pleased to announce the publication of seven new electronic editions of Blake's illuminated books. They are: _The [First] Book of Urizen_ copy G _The Book of Los_ copy A _The Book of Ahania_ copy A _The Song of Los_ copy B _America, a Prophecy_ copy A _Europe, a Prophecy_ copy E _Visions of the Daughters of Albion_ copy F We had announced _Urizen_ copy G as forthcoming two months ago, but formatting the double-columned text diplomatically in SGML for both Netscape and Internet Explorer proved more taxing and time consuming than anticipated. Such are the joys and tribulations of electronic publishing. Solving the problems there, though, ensured diplomatic transcriptions for Blake's other books with double-columned texts, _The Book of Ahania_ and _The Book of Los_. Together, these three works are often referred to as Blake's Bible of Hell or, simply, the Urizen books. _Urizen_, of which there are only seven extant copies, was first produced in 1794, color printed to form copies A, C, D, E (untraced), F, and J. It was printed again in 1795 to form copy B, which was produced as part of a set of illuminated books printed on large paper, and then one last time in c. 1818 to form copy G, which was produced in Blake's late printing and coloring style. The editors are currently working on copies A, B, C, and F and expect to have them in the Archive by the end of the year. _The Book of Ahania_ and _The Book of Los_ exist in unique copies, with only a few proof impressions extant. They were printed in 1795 and executed in intaglio instead of in relief etching, the technique Blake normally used for his illuminated books. Although their texts are printed in intaglio, their frontispieces are beautifully color printed from the surface of the plates. With _The Song of Los_, which consists of two parts entitled "Africa" and "Asia," we complete Blake's other series of illuminated books, sometimes known as the Continental Prophecies, begun in 1793 with _America_ and continued in 1794 with _Europe_. The copy of _The Song of Los_ included here is one of six extant; all were color printed in the same printing session in 1795. With fourteen complete copies extant, _America_ is not as rare as these other illuminated books, but copy A, which was printed and colored in 1795 as part of Blake's large-paper set of books, is, along with copies K, O, and M, one of only four colored copies-- and it was the model for copy K. Moreover, only it and copy O have the last four lines on plate 4, which was masked in the printing of the other copies. The Archive will include copies M and O (c. 1807 and 1818) later this year. Only nine copies of _Europe_ are extant, and only two of those, copies H and O (1795 and 1818), have plate 3, the Preludium. The Archive will include both of these copies by the end of the year. Copy E, included here, was lightly color printed on both sides of the paper in 1794 and joins copy B, color printed more heavily on one side of the paper the same year. _Visions of the Daughters of Albion_ copy F is an exquisitely beautiful copy, heavily color printed (especially its frontispiece) in c. 1794, and never before reproduced. It joins copies C and J (both 1793), and will be joined later this year by copies G and P (1795 and 1818). All of these editions have newly edited texts; all images in the editions were scanned from either 4x5 or 8x10 transparencies, nearly all of which were made specifically for the Archive. Like our other editions, these are all SGML-encoded, fully searchable for both text and images and supported by the unique Inote and ImageSizer applications described in our previous updates. The Archive now contains sixteen copies of ten illuminated books. In the coming months, we will be adding copies of _All Religions are One_, _There is No Natural Religion_, _For the Sexes_, _Milton_, and _Jerusalem_, along with copies of books already in the Archive but from different printings. Our goal is to have the entire illuminated canon online this year. In addition, work continues on the SGML edition of David V. Erdman's _Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake_, which we anticipate releasing sometime this spring. Morris Eaves Robert Essick Joseph Viscomi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:47:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: The Book of Absences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I’m only getting to Silliman's post re MILLENNIUM II now, after too full a day in the saltmines of the U. My irritation at his post has not diminished, however, -- cheap shot is right, as Jerry put it in his reply. Here is someone who put together a large (600+ pages) anthology covering one small neck of the poetic woods in one country (treed, as he is, in these States) during one very limited period -- & included something like a hundred names of those he couldn’t or wouldn’t include. Such a one should know better than to hastily assess a somewhat larger (850 pages) book that tries to cover a much wider period (postwar onward) on as global a scale as possible, by making an insta-list of those (mainly Americans) not included and dismissing the book on those grounds. The point is, an anthology, as any book, needs to be judged by what it is & does , i.e. by the writing that it proposes, and not by what is is not, i.e. does not include and didn’t mean to be. The fact that Silliman’s U.S. TREE omits a great number of those American poets of that period _I_ think very highly of, does _not_ diminish my interest and pleasure in his book. I’m not interested in reading it for what I already know or am familiar with, but to discover what I don’t yet know. Otherwise it’s all done with mirrors. So that the pleasure & instruction Silliman’s book provided was to discover poets I didn’t know or didn’t know well, or rediscovered inside the specific articulation created by his book — & that, I believe, is or should be the aim of any anthology. The bitching about american-centeredness (a question we ourselves address in the introduction, a fact neither mentioned nor discussed by Silliman, who seems to have perused only the index, and even that rather shoddily -- some of the poets he mentions as absent are in fact in the book) is odd when the post itself is deaf & dumb in relation to what, finally, is core to MILLENNIUM, namely its international intent, and the -- at least to Jerry & me -- fascinating and illuminating juxtapositions that happen in the process. Again, the intent of the book is to map & link territories, to foreground areas of experimentation, to point to ongoing possibilities, NOT to do a headcount of the best and brightest canonic or anti-canonic heads. In that sense, Silliman’s critique is Vendleresque (though she would have, obviously, a different list of individual poets not represented). ((There would, in this respect, be another, more intelligent way of looking at “absences” — namely in terms of strategic absences in a quasi ”official anthology” i.e. one published by a major University Press, with a telling subtitle.)) Given the to me surprising shoddiness of Silliman’s response, his critique is not, as he would like to suggest, “devastating for [our] book's credibility” — it is, unhappily, so only for his own critical acumen. Pierre Joris rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote: > Jonathon Mahew's question about the lack of Spicer in Poems for the > Millenium (vol. 2) is a good one, given that if you reduced the last 50 > years of English language poetry to just, say, 20 people, Spicer would have > to be among them. Maybe even to 10 people. Maybe even to five. > > It's really devastating for the book's credibility, even more than the > inclusion of anyone who ever attended a Fluxus event (or the inclusion of > songwriters a la Tom Waits, Robert Johnson and Dizzy Gillespie, all of which > makes them seem like doofuses, which none ever were [not to mention the > thereby curious absence of Jim Morrison or Leonard Cohen or Nanci Griffith > or Public Enemy or Lennon & McCartney or the Glimmer Twins or Bob Dylan, if > one is seriously trying to include the antipoetics of song]). > > But Spicer's absence, even tho it's on a scale of missing Stein or Pound, > isn't alone. I note the following omissions: Benson, Brautigan, Bromige, > Bronk, Ceravolo, Thomas A. Clark, Corbett, Curnow [father & son], Dahlen, > Darragh, Davey, Davidson, Dewdney, Dudek, Estrin, Fraser, Grahn, Grenier, > Guest, Hickman, Hocquard, F. Howe, Inman, Ron Johnson, Jonas, Koch, Kulik, > Kyger, Lansing, Mandel, Marlatt, Melnick, Moriarty, Mullen, Natambu, > Padgett, Parshchikov, Pearson, Pickard, Pleynet, Prigov, Robinson, Roche, > Roubaud, Schuyler, Scott, Stanford, Stanley, Thomas, Tomlinson, Tysh (either > one), Wah, Welch, Jonathon Williams, Zhdanov.... And that's just a one-time > perusal of the index and the glaringly obvious omissions from traditions I > have some feel for. One can probably make the argument that the book is also > amazingly Americo-centric, tho the roster above wouldn't particularly solve > that problem. > > This really isn't a Pierre & Jerry issue, tho the Spicerlessness of it all > is a "gotcha" that foregrounds the problem. In the American Tree is > certainly vulnerable to the question of why McCaffery or Dahlen or > Scalapino, say, are not there. And the absence of Joanne Kyger, easily the > most influential progressive woman poet of the 1960s and '70s, from Moving > Borders is every bit as much a boggler as Spicer's lacuna here. > > Anthologies are, in this sense, impossible. Everyone is going to have a > blind spot, since the last I checked everyone was still human and full of > such frailty. It's why I used such a sociological definition for determining > inclusion in the Tree. Tho, of the poets who met the formal terms I used, I > still managed to miss Abby Child, which looks really dumb from the hindsight > of 14 years. > > Ron Silliman -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld “All my life I’ve heard one makes many” — Charles Olson ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:53:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: writing through MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sat's digest is full of great responses to my query. Thanks to all. I was originally thinking of books that, instead of being surreptitious rewritings of precursors, as Harold Bloom claims about everyone in American poetry stuck on Emerson, do so quite overtly. Don Byrd is right about this not being a genre per se. Interesting list from Sillimon of omissions. Yet this is not after all an anthology of AMERICAN poetry, but claims to represent much more. While I have a hard time seeing justification for Spicer's absence, on the whole American poetry is OVERrepresented--unless we think the 70th most significant American poet is more important than anyone from Spain or Tunisia or numerous other nations. Yet Poems for the Millenium is still a wonderful book, whatever its flaws--what is there is valuable despite what isn't and should be. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:55:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Bachelard's take MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "in addtion to sexual and other forms of abuse, we should think about > "our" own genital mutilation that is often rendered on peoples born with > "ambiguous genitalia" or so-called intersexuals." Bill-- so right. This shit makes me insane. I read a great article in, of all places, Rolling Stone Magazine about John/Joan Case in which after a botched circumcision, the parents of twins agreed to let the murderous "sexologist" John Money turn the baby, not such a baby--18 mos--into a girl. It didn't work, John/Joan always felt he/she was male, and finally forced the truth out of dad, sex changed back to male, was found out in small town, ostracized, suicide attempts, and finally and luckily a happy marriage but a tortured and destroyed psyche and physique. Money published lies about the success of the experiment and is still employed and revered and taught. argh! RDL ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 18:18:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Bachelard's take In-Reply-To: <35425BC5.4AD0@ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"in addtion to sexual and other forms of abuse, we should think about >> "our" own genital mutilation that is often rendered on peoples born with >> "ambiguous genitalia" or so-called intersexuals." > >Bill-- > >so right. This shit makes me insane. I read a great article in, of all >places, Rolling Stone Magazine about John/Joan Case in which after a >botched circumcision, the parents of twins agreed to let the murderous >"sexologist" John Money turn the baby, not such a baby--18 mos--into a >girl. It didn't work, John/Joan always felt he/she was male, and >finally forced the truth out of dad, sex changed back to male, was found >out in small town, ostracized, suicide attempts, and finally and >luckily a happy marriage but a tortured and destroyed psyche and >physique. Money published lies about the success of the experiment and >is still employed and revered and taught. > >argh! > >RDL Anne Fausto-Sterling (a feminist biologist who is well known in women's studies) has done a lot of research on this stuff, I think she might even have a book out. She claims that there are naturally 5 (did I get that number right?) genders, and had some articles about this in popular media a couple or so years ago. She is very passionate and humane and quite wonderful. Anyone interested in this would be well advised to look her stuff up. And what this says about the two standard genders... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:19:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: EXPLOSIVE #5 In-Reply-To: <199804222253.SAA12631@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII E X P L O S I V E M A G A Z I N E # 5 " S p e c t a c u l a r E m o t i o n " Featuring work by: Emily Wilson, Martin Corless-Smith, Ishmael Klein, Josh May, DA Powell, Tan Lin, Pamela Lu, Juliana Spahr and a tape of sound collage/poetry by Alex Cory Subscriptions are: 1 issue=$5 2 issues=$10 3 issues=$15 Issue #4 is still available and features work by: Lisa Lubasch, Rod Smith, Travis Ortiz, Leslie Scalapino, Dave Morice and many others... Future issues will feature work by: Lisa Jarnot, Dale Smith, Anselm Berrigan, Sianne Ngai, Anselm Hollo, Bill Luoma and many many others... Each issue is hand-produced, with hand-painted covers. Checks should be made payable to Katy Lederer and sent to: 420 E Davenport #2, Iowa City, IA 52245 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 03:48:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dougolly Subject: women, torture, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit We have reached the limits of poetry: Western people's ignorance of traditionalist societies is too profound. Like Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar working in West Africa, you could make a courageous film on the subject. Failing that, a poem might yet become a sort of film shot from a distance, an attempt to project on to the air, via a beam of good wishes, an imagined ceremony for the sake of young girls who are infibulated without ceremony by nomad Somalians, almost on the move. The Infibulation Ceremony A Jeep, its shock absorbers gone, thumps across pocks in the level desert scrub faster than the black-faced sheep with fat tails prodded onwards by the nomad women. If we have time and water we stop and let the clan drink; if we have neither we drive on inventing our film about infibulation. We drive up to a low escarpment and look down on a hollow littered with people, livestock scattered among the rocky slopes by a well cairned with boulders. Near this home well on their April journey the women dismantle the hut sticks from the ship slew of camel humps, setting up Nissen huts of mats and skins. Herded then by a man, disburdened camels sigh and settle down in the rubbled hollow of the home well in the northern Somali Republic. Off to the side -- we swivel the camera -- where thorns are piled for the fence the nomads are busy at their camp fastening the huts with bark ropes. One little hut that's new arrived on the coarse grass from the sky. It's the virgin spirit placed there somehow, dazzling the nomads with the sunshine on it. They sew up its door flaps with the ropes so no man may crawl through a tiny slit left at the bottom like a button hole in a Western shirt. Then on dry highlands of Somalia we set their young girls to go dancing in virginity round the sutured hut: this is their sorrow in private places. They dance in a hurt, stiff motion, stick-legged as if avoiding stones blood gleaming on brown thighs tears in expressionless eyes. The mouths of these children are silenced by tradition: that they be made clean, that they not become promiscuous, that they be desirable for marriage with a sewn vagina, stripped of pleasure, crossed with thorns, as if the surgeons had sutured the mouth of a healthy baby leaving the palette uselessly cleft. But this film is fantasy imagined from books and my inability to suffer the thorns that make religions stand erect, or that make a temple's entrance so narrow. We shoot the girls from a distance, telephoto, forgetting the funds we raised in Britain, forgetting the clan-lords warring in Mogadishu, forgetting the entrenchment of Islam into hard-line law, here called Shafi'i; while the West threatens Islam with bombs or rich products bearing our labels, may our Jeeps not insult their culture. We know these illiterates will never see our film; so will the children make their children dance that queer dance in this cinema-wilderness? Our Jeep moves on, its tracks soon blown over. The film is more penetrant than propaganda; for it shows the silence here and the thorny look in the girls' eyes; it shows the male wind, harsh, hot. [Dancing and film imagery influenced by Alice Walker's and Pratibha Parmar's work in West Africa. I have recently learnt that the self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland, whose capital is Hargeisa in the north-west, has been trying to eradicate female circumcision by 2000 and that UNICEF is backing them.] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:02:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dougolly Subject: The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I have always been one of the first to recognise US poetic/artistic achievements and cultural generosity. But it may be helpful to say that, as a Brit living in Paris; I find the tone of much of this anthology squabble absurd. As I've been left out of the very narrow Brit contribution I have no axe to grind when I say that most US poets have been just blind to what the anthology has done. For the first time ever an anthology this size is truly international. So far, the debate reminds me of the closing week of Maastricht Treaty discussions when, with so many Third World countries, especially in Africa, cast into client status by US-European gerrymandered global trading regulations, the US and French delegations hogged nearly all the debating time for snarls over the cinema and soy bean industries. Do we have to have more of this US neo-colonialism about an anthology already dominated by one nation whose denizens seem to want more of the action yet? I can see bias in the selections as easily as anyone else: what did anyone expect with a window on the world this wide -- the anthologist as universal mind? An anthology is always a way-stage, not an eternal inscription on the final peristyle. Fergodssake stop griping, respect what a grind it is for editors both to retrieve so much good poetry from all over, and to hold out, in the teeth of such attitudes, such hope of the more vital internationalism to come. For surely that's the real avant-garde? Greetings, nonetheless. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 07:53:50 -0400 Reply-To: BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grumman Subject: Re: The Book of Absences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I haven't seen the second volume of the new anthology but a reliable source tells me that its introduction emphasizes that it was not intended to be a "best of" collection. Ergo, though it leaves out a lot of poets I would have liked to have seen in it, and has a number of poets in it that seem second-rate to me, I applaud it. It took on an impossible job and seems to have done it about as well as the job could have been done. --Bob G. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:56:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Poetics of Freedom (was women / torture, etc.) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > We have reached the limits of poetry: Western people's ignorance of >traditionalist societies is too profound. Like Alice Walker and Pratibha >Parmar working in West Africa, you could make a courageous film on the >subject. Failing that, a poem might yet become a sort of film shot from a >distance, an attempt to project on to the air, via a beam of good wishes, an >imagined ceremony for the sake of...... I am not at all certain what you are saying. Are you saying that as sarcasm or as fact ? It is not quite clear where you yourself stand on the matter. It seems to me to be a very complicated, but essential, question, verging closely into the question of the very nature of poetics and the functions of poetic expression. I do not want to belabour the matter, but I feel a need to say what I feel needs to be said and then leave it to dispute. First of all, western (meaning western European and North American), ethnography, anthropology, sociology, studies of comparative religions and philosophies, are definitely the best in the world and a large part of those truly attempt and sometimes succeed at being impartial, objective, rigorous and scientific. As to the pragmatic worth, or value, of ANY traditional practice we might also ask about it in terms of evaluation: 1). Does it increase the greatest sustainable freedoms for the greatest number of persons ? (Nothing has ever truly achieved this ideal.) 2). Does it provide a positive, truly wanted, freedom ? For instance even a seemingly silly practice such as the wearing of purple robes with white polka dots on them can be a positive provision of a truly wanted freedom if someone wants to wear such robes within a society. The individual is made free to wear those robes, without incurring harm from others, by means of a social practice that sustains that freedom. That social practice is not immediately obvious, but is the basis for the freedom to wear purple robes with white polka dots, as well as being the basis for other specific expressions of freedom. 3). Does it provide a freedom to some that does not significantly harm the freedoms of others, including the freedom from enduring added psychological and/or physical suffering. For instance the dervish might be free to dance a dervish, but not to force others to do the same. On the other hand, Pythagorean forbidding the eating of beans is unthinkable, as beans are a source of well being to many. The Pythagorean cannot be allowed to force his ways on others, taking away their freedom to eat beans. However, the Pythagorean could be free to not eat beans. 3). Does it impose real psychological and/or physical sufferings that are otherwise avertable, or that would not otherwise occur ? 4). Does it prevent real psychological and/or physical sufferings that are unwanted by the sufferers and are averted by the practice ? If the practice does not provide and/or sustain a positive, truly wanted, freedom, and/or if the practice causes physical and/or psychological sufferings that would otherwise have been averted, then surely the practice cannot claim "right". Likewise if the practice does not truly, effectively, prevent unwanted increase in psychological and/or physical sufferings, as a negative freedom from those unwanted sufferings, then it cannot claim "right". The practice then is surely at best dysfunctional and at worst completely oppressive. (Though we might always fall short of the ideals.) We might examine any practice in a similar kind of manner. I think that we need to realize that traditional practices are often more wrong than right. We still tend to revert to the idea that everything traditional is of value, including every brutal and uncivilized practice derived from ancient ignorance. Simply because something is traditional, cannot make it right, or best, or even good. Neither can the fact that that is how everyone does it. Everyone could be wrong. We have to be more critical of our own institutions, our own customs, our own beliefs, in the name of progress, as well as being objectively critical of the institutions, practices, customs, and beliefs of other cultures. We cannot simply accept them because they are other than our own. We certainly cannot give them more acceptance as if that is the appropriate response to what is more alien rather than objective, critical, evaluation. The practice of female circumcision is a practice of extreme barbarity. There is no way that any justification can be given to it. It is clearly physically and psychologically extremely damaging to those who suffer it and in a number of ways that even the most unbiased science can clearly prove. No amount of ideological argument can overcome that fact, no matter how twisted the use of ideas and language that attempts to maintain and promote the traditional, the customary, it still remains the same ignorance. Do we fail at respect for the sufferings of the sufferers of a barbaric practice when we make light of it, joke about it, revert to sarcasm ? Do we make it less of an issue, and less worthy of discussion ? Depending on how a poem is written, does the poetic medium tend to do that also, in some instances ? Do such methods sometimes add to the linguistic quagmire, and thus ignorance ? The discussion began as a discussion of that ignorance. I began to wonder if we know what freedom is. I began to wonder why we equate freedom with the imposition of suffering, rather than its alleviation, as if belief in freedom essentially ought to be a belief in freeing people to their causing others to suffer unwanted sufferings - such as in the Afghanistani situation, or in the instance of female circumcision. Freedom to oppression, totalism, and barbaric practices, seems as horrible to me as the freedom from food, water, sleep, shelter and love would be. A purely negative and destructive freedom. A poem as to the barbarity of some practice, might make a difference, if those who suffer that practice become aware of that poem, and begin to see the world differently. If it shows them that their suffering is not necessary, and that the arguments to the contrary need not prevail against Reason. If it shows them that their suffering is not an integral part of who they are, contrary to what their tradition and their elders claim against them. If it shows them that there are more humane, gentler, kinder, better ways to love and live.... There are very few such poems. ....but can a poem change a whole culture ? There are perhaps no such poems (in the sense of truly positive changes). Or is there a point where the Reason plus emotion comprising the empathies of the poetic medium, break down as to pragmatism and we must revert to more prosaic means ? Is the poem as liberating as it claims to be, or do we, in such matters need to revert to more liberating means and ways that are more directly and easily understood by those who have no knowledge of poetry as we know it ? I think the answer is obvious as to the limited function of poetry. I wonder what people, or what nation, will in fact achieve the bringing of genuine freedoms, to the understanding and practices of the world, and stand against their own tendencies towards traditionalism as well as against the barbaric, horrific, traditionalisms that encroach upon those freedoms in so many parts of the world. Is the United States of America to become that voice, or the United Nations, or both ? Or some other voice crying in the wilderness of too many archaisms, and traditional barbarities, to even take a count of ? The world is very savage, under its thin veneer of civilization, in part because it does not have a clear idea, poetic or prosaic, of freedom. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:04:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Daniel Kanyandekwe (1963-1997) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII What follows is the text of an invitation, extended over e-mail, to the grad student community at SUNY-Buffalo. forwarded text (from UB grad, Jim O'Loughlin): I would like to invite all English graduate students to attend a celebration of the life and work of Daniel Kanyandekwe, a collegue of ours who passed away last year. The celebration will feature readings from Daniel's novels, remembrances of Daniel, and Rwandan food and music. It begins this Sunday at 2:30 at Hallwalls. $5 for students/$10 gen. ad. All proceeds go to Daniel's estate. I hope all of Daniel's friends will make an effort to attend this event. But even if you didn't know Daniel, please consider attending and learning about this talented author and scholar. His writing was both outrageously funny and poignant. We hope this event will highlight those elements of his work and his life. (end forwarded text) Daniel Kanyandekwe left behind a wife and a young child. His wife had come over to the United States recently from Rwanda (around the time of the genocide) and they had been living in south Florida, where Daniel was teaching at a small college. As far as I know, they lost their entire family and she has no relatives in the U.S. Her immigration status is unclear. Hopefully, this situation will be straightened out, but nothing can make up for the loss of Daniel, in his early 30s, to a sudden stroke. Meow Press has published a chapbook of Daniel's writing, and it will be available today at the memorial. It will also be available, as part of the regular Meow Press series, with all sales to benefit his family. Please, if you can, order this book. Backchannel me if you are interested in contributing to help support this family, now in a precarious position. After today, I should have information about where to send checks, etc. In the meantime, here is the introduction to the chapbook, by Julie Husband and Jim O'Loughlin, who also edited Daniel's work for this publication: "Writer, scholar, husband and father, Daniel Kanyandekwe (1963-1997) was also friend to many in Buffalo during the five years he and his family spent here. Arriving from Rwanda in 1992, Daniel began studying in the UB English Department as a Fulbright fellow. During the five years he spent at UB, Daniel not only completed his Ph. D. dissertation, Dreaming of Africa: American Writers and Africa in the Twentieth Century, but wrote four novels, The Last Writer, The Buttocks of the Almighty, Seasons of the Eternal Grooms Death, and The Chronicles of Melancholy. "This collection offers selections from Daniels last three novels. Influenced by writers including Saul Bellow, Gabriel Garca Mrquez and Ngugi wa Thiongo, Daniel created characters who were both larger than life and devastatingly flawed. An undercurrent of political commentary runs throughout all these novels, which are set in Daniels native Rwanda. In his fiction, Daniel created worlds of magic and great humor; worlds in which anything could, and did, happen." I've cut and pasted this text from quark xpress, so my apologies for the failure of some of the above typography. Ok, here is the first paragraph of the selection from _The Buttocks of the Almighty_: "After the defense of his dissertation, Beatitudinis Philosophiarum Historiae (A Short History of the Philosophies of Happiness), during which defense the greatest Latinist of the Pontifical Gregorian University dies of a heart attack, Father Moses Bazirishuli, S. J., is struck by a severe mental breakdown. Soon, he leaves the Vatican and returns to Kigali, Rwanda, where he settles in a small convent with two other Jesuits, one a Rwandan who is dying of stomach ulcers, the other a Belgian who will eventually die of shame after it has been discovered that the book he reads all night long is not Le Roman de la rose, but the erotic Arabian classic, The Perfumed Garden. After he has lost one testicle to surgery (he has prostate cancer), Moses incurable migraines will finally lead him to a mental asylum. Having been raped by a female patient, he totally loses his mind. Thats when he takes refuge in the prehistoric caves of Mount Kigali with Animus, his faithful dog, whence he will emerge with a mythic phallus on his shoulders, causing the bodyguards of the Patriarch President to shoot the scared mob. Moses (and his dog) will be the only survivors of the civil war that he himself has caused, and from which the United Nations peacekeeping forces, led by the Marines, will flee, only to return when the violence has abated." Please order this lovely little chapbook. Contact me privately and I will indicate where to send donations. The cost will be $5, but please, if you can, send more. Thanks for your help. Joel Kuszai kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~kuszai ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 08:49:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: RADI OS as 'writing through' Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm a bit behind, but Henry Gould wrote the other day: <> Well, I wouldnt know about the last, but I do know that RADI OS struck me as a wonderfully spiritual poem when I first read it & it remains a favorite. I'd say it was a very serious endeavor. I'd agree with Guy Davenport that it makes Milton feel a lot like Rilke, & to me that's a good thing... I was wondering, then, if what we're talking about is a kind of rhizomatic effect (or effort): not a separate genre in any way, as Don Byrd pointed out, but a way, a kind of writing withing many genres that can appear anywhere... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ APARICION APPARATION Si el hombre es polvo I man is dust Esos que andan por el llano Thos who go through the plain Son hombres Are men Octavio Paz (trans. Charles Tomlinson) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:55:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael McColl Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: When the West Finds Fault MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT There's an understandable reflex when the U.S. finds fault in other parts of the world--various infringements on freedom, political prisoners, destructive practices--to point to the faults right here at home: the gun violence, the high rates of incarceration, the economic inequality. And what about the still-widespread practice of circumcision of male infants? The idea is that we should leave others' faults alone and deal with our own, with a suggestion that in criticizing others we make it easier not to face what's happening here. I don't think we should stop protesting what conflicts with our values when we perceive it as an intolerable violation. I think there is quite a bit of evidence that this kind of public condemnation along with political pressures has aided, sometimes, those in other countries working toward a Western ideal of personal freedom in a democracy (for these ideas are not stale and played out for everyone). I do not think that to cease objecting to what we feel are outrages in other parts of the world will focus any more attention on injustices here. On the contrary. I think that when we accuse others, and then in turn are (often rightfully) accused, we see our crimes much better, which had grown so familiar and habitual. It does strike me as ironic sometimes that the Enlightenment self and its ideals, its emphasis on the rights of the individual, are seen by so many contemporary intellectuals as nothing but a self/suit tailored for the alienation of capitalism. In China, the protesters in Tianemen [sic] square were drawing on those very ideals, as they imagined were held and lived in the U.S. Let me insist on that as irony not nostalgia, as I have seen how many tomes can be filled with an attempt to rescue the Enlightenment Project, how many thousands and thousands of pages, and not succeed. I apologize for the kind of musing generalities which can occur while one imagines one is talking only to himself, while outside a cool rain is falling. Mike McColl ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:25:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: When the West Finds Fault Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I apologize for the kind of musing generalities which can occur >while one imagines one is talking only to himself, while outside >a cool rain is falling. >Mike McColl No need to apologize... ...the little sounds disappeared into the noise of the world. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:39:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: RADI OS as 'writing through' Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm a bit behind, but Henry Gould wrote the other day: >< That message was hidden there all those years waiting to be discovered by Ron J. who finally decoded it's true intent warning of immanent spiritual perils. Oh ye, Satanic electronics, what vile perturbations brought forth from electron spirits, emergent from horrid twisted depths of the deepest darkest Silicon Valley abyss, unto fair Albion's once green and pleasant shores....William Blake might have retorted. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 12:08:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: The Anthology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If I had edited _Poems for the Millennium_, I would have included Spicer, and there are other things I would have done differently, but I want to make two quick points to make: 1. If some thing like _Poems for the Millennium_ had been available when I was eighteen, it would have saved me years of work. There was nothing remotely comparable then, and there has not been anything like it until now. 2. One certainly can fault the project for lack of ambition. If it is half successful, it is more than any one could reasonably expect. And by any test, this antholody is more than half successful. For whatever nit-picking I might do, I want to congratulate Jerry and Pierre on a remarkable accomplishment and to thank them for these beautiful books. db -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:39:50 -0500 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Howdy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Howdy. To anyone who might be out there who knows me, I would just like to say that after a long absence I am back on the list. I can be reached at _dave@thewebpeople.com_ David Baratier Also to mention: Pavement Saw Press's next release is _Above the Human Nerve Domain_ by Will Alexander. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:12:49 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Organization: University of Alabama English Dept. Subject: seeking: source of 2 lines MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT dear superior intelligences, ok, so i canNOT locate the source of the following lines: 'And up the rosy pathway to her heart The uncapped pilgrim crept.' it may be that these lines are in fact not sourceable -- ie, that they are made up. their unreliable narrator attributes them to a romantic poet (byron, as it happens), but a search of databases & books & expert brains has exhausted that possibility -- not to mention me. if these lines seem familiar & you can point me to their source, you will have my unfailing gratitude and admiration -- as well as the satisfaction of spreading knowledge like a sinking star, etc. thanks benightedly, lisa samuels ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 17:58:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Charlemagne Palestine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------296D84E9BE19FC078F2B8693" --------------296D84E9BE19FC078F2B8693 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pursuant to the recent discussion of musicians' names in Hannah Weiners' work: In this week's Village Voice, Kyle Gann gives notice that Charlemagne Palestine has apparently returned to musical performance in the U.S. The article, sadly, is not available in the paper's online version -- but there's not much to it anyhow, as it's only a paragraph or two tacked on at the end of a piece on (Buffalo's own) Tony Conrad. Still, there it is, for whatever that may be worth. -- Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti (a publication of the Small Press Collective) http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc --------------296D84E9BE19FC078F2B8693 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pursuant to the recent discussion of musicians' names in Hannah Weiners' work: In this week's Village Voice, Kyle Gann gives notice that Charlemagne Palestine has apparently returned to musical performance in the U.S. The article, sadly, is not available in the paper's online version -- but there's not much to it anyhow, as it's only a paragraph or two tacked on at the end of a piece on (Buffalo's own) Tony Conrad. Still, there it is, for whatever that may be worth.

-- Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti

(a publication of the Small Press Collective)
 http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc   --------------296D84E9BE19FC078F2B8693-- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 18:04:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Cecilia Vicuna in Seattle Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A poetry performance by Cecilia Vicuna at Washington University, Padelford B-202 May 5th at 3.30 PM Seattle ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 18:27:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: NYC Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For those in the environs: Tuesday, April 28 7:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble Astor Place Susan Wheeler reading from SMOKES Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 20:11:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Frank Kuensler reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Friends and admirers of the late poet Frank Kuensler read their own poetry and his -- Nick Piombino Ira Cohen Gerard Melanga Michael O'Brien Serge Gavronsky Tuesday, April 28, 8pm Chez Albert at Clemente Soto Velez 107 Suffolk Street between Delany and Rivington (F train: Delancy, walk two blocks East toward the Williamsburg Bridge, turn left on Suffok) info: 212-615-6840 or 718-768-9079 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 20:30:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Clippinger Subject: Antin Reading In-Reply-To: <199804262227.SAA23112@is.nyu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thought this might be of interest. > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:37:44 EDT >From: BStater >To: cap-l@virginia.edu >Subject: David & Eleanor Antin at SUNY Stony Brook May 7 > > >EVENT ON MAY 7, 1998 >MAKING ART >SUNY STONY BROOK >STONY BROOK, NEW YORK >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >On May 7 the Humanities Institute at SUNY Stony Brook, in conjunction >with the departments of Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Theatre, and >Art, and with additional support from the Dean of the School of Arts & >Sciences will host a lecture, talk-piece, and film-screening presented >by David and Eleanor Antin. > >MUSIC LESSONS, the centerpiece of the event, is a quirky 46 minute >narrative film which tells the story of a girl who is haunted by a >demon. Jeannie Quinn, a beautiful anorexic from a working class Southern >family, dreams of being a model and a violinist. Unable to afford music >lessons, she invokes the glamourous Genevieve, who comes to haunt her >mirror and bring her to the brink of musical virtuosity and physical >annihilation. > >Shot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with grant support from SECCA (the >Southeast Center for Contemporary Art) the Rockefeller Foundation, UCSD, >and with equipment support and a crew hired in large part from the North >Carolina School of the Arts, the work was written, directed, and >produced by the Antins with editing assistance from Ila von Hasperg. > >The event will take place on May 7 in the Humanities Institute seminar >room, Melville Library E4340 following the schedule below: > >11:30: "Making History." Eleanor Antin will deliver a lecture and >documentary slide show concerning her work-- particularly focusing on >the evolution from her early collage style environmental portraits >through her movement into performance art and finally concluding with >her recent gallery situated filmic installations and movies. > >1:45: Break > >3:30: MUSIC LESSONS film screening. > >4:30: "Making Movies." Following the film, poet and art critic David >Antin will provide one of his famous "talk pieces"-- this one described >as a philosophical meditation upon the processes involved in generating >narrative concepts and issues from the essentially collage structured >matter of the filmic medium. > >6:00: Reception > >David Antin is an internationally renowned poet and art critic, and a >sort of amateur philosopher of language, as his three major collections >of talks, TALKING AT THE BOUNDARIES (1976), TUNING (1984), and WHAT IT >MEANS TO BE AVANT-GARDE (1993) demonstrate. His SELECTED POEMS were >published by Sun & Moon press in 1991, and his SELECTED ESSAYS are being >prepared for publication by the University of Chicago Press. He is >Professor Emeritus at the University of California at San Diego where he >teaches Art History, Art Criticism, and Experimental Writing. > >Eleanor Antin is a major figure in the art world. Her various >performance pieces, installations, and films have received critical >attention in Henry Sayre's THE OBJECT OF PERFORMANCE, Broude and >Garrard's massive THE POWER OF FEMINIST ART, and many other scholarly >works. Articles on her film installations VILNA NIGHTS and MINETTA LANE, >A GHOST STORY appear in recent issues of PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL and >MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL. She is also the author of BEING ANTINOVA, >published by Astro Artz, and ELEANORA ANTINOVA PLAYS, published by Sun & >Moon Press. She is a professor at the University of California at San >Diego where she teaches Art History and Performance. > >For more information contact: >Bruce Stater: BStater@aol.com >or Robert Harvey: rharvey@ccmail.sunysb.edu > >For more information about the Humanities Institute go to: >http://www.sunysb.edu/humanities/index.htm > >For more information about SUNY Stony Brook go to: >http://www.sunysb.edu/ > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 20:59:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: writing over Responding to Doug Barbour: not having read Radi Os, my skeptical comments really WERE obtuse. I guess I would have to be convinced that obvious "writing over" is not a sort of cliche of postmodernism. Postmodernism as the willful/despairing prodigal child of modernism. Without the resources to create, only to rewrite and imitate. An era in opposition to the "certainties" of the modernists, whose artists are serious by being unserious. The era of Criticism and Theory which is passing away as we scribble. (cross out?) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 18:30:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: BEYOND THE PAGE Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For those in the greater Southern California area, here is a bit of news. Hope to see you there, and please pass the word... Stephen BEYOND THE PAGE PRESENTS: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: What: Beyond the Page kicks off its series of monthly performance and arts events with a poetry reading featuring Ron Silliman and Rae Armantrout. Where: Faultline Theatre, 3152 5th Avenue (between Thorn and Spruce in Hillcrest), San Diego. When: Sunday, May 3rd. 4:00 PM. Contact: Stephen Cope at (619) 298-8911 or Joe Ross at (619) 291-8984. E-mail at scope@ucsd.edu. RON SILLIMAN , a central figure in the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement, has been writing and publishing poetry and criticism for nearly three decades. In the 1980's, Silliman edited IN THE AMERICAN TREE, a seminal anthology which gathered together close to forty of the most influential American writers of the latter half of this century. For several years, Silliman also served as editor of THE SOCIALIST REVIEW, a major political voice of the American left. David Melnick writes of his work: "Called a 'thraumaturge' ('wonder-worker') by the poet Robert Duncan, Silliman has created a new kind of writing from the simplest materials... The poet confides, describes, extols, remarks, puns, paints domestic scenes, shyly alludes, records minutiae, leaps to large statements, arouses, repeats. Through it all, a friendly, Northern California sort of personality emerges." Of himself, in a wry tone indicative of his poetry, Silliman writes: "Ron Silliman was a member of 'Rupe's troops' back in the anti-glory days of the Pods' '82 season. A left-handed second baseman who wears trifocals, he has had to settle for publishing 21 books of poetry and criticism, and now 'does theory' in the computer industry. He has been writing the same poem for 24 years." Silliman currently lives in the Philadelphia area, and makes only rare appearances on the West Coast. RAE ARMANTROUT needs little introduction in the San Diego poetry community. Raised in San Diego, Armantrout received a degree in writing from San Francisco State before moving back to San Diego, where she currently teaches writing at The University of California, San Diego. To date, she has published six books of poetry, and two more are forthcoming: TRUE (a memoir due out in July from Atelos Press), and THE PRETEXT (due out next year from Sun & Moon). Armantrout's work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including IN THE AMERICAN TREE, THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY OF 1988, and THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF POSTMODERN AMERICAN POETRY. Armantrout's poetry is lyrically concise, often humorous, and always daring and imaginative. As Elaine Equi puts it: "At a time when much experimental writing has lost at least some of its shock value, Rae Armantrout's [work] could startle even the most jaded reader." Armantrout and Silliman are internationally recognized figures in contemporary American poetry, and both are lively and engaging readers. Beyond the Page is proud to inaugurate its ongoing performance and arts series with this major literary event. BEYOND THE PAGE is an independent arts group dedicated to the promotion of experimental and explorative work in contemporary arts. For more information, call: (619) 298-8911, (619) 291-8984, or e-mail: scope@ucsd.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 20:55:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clark D Lunberry Subject: CreeleyReading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Robert Creeley reading at Milwaukee's Woodland Pattern (720 E. Locust St.) Saturday May 2 8 pm $6 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:04:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Re: That Anthology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I too have yet to see the second volume, and at Canadian dollar rates it may be somewhat expensive. But frankly I don't give a damn who might be left out -- there's bound to be a zillion such. What was and is so amazing about the first volume is the sheer range of selection, and, well, its absolutely great instructiveness. It's not simply that the book included so many poets who's work I simply did not know at all, because I'd never heard of it at all -- that's a major accomplishment in my book, and I learned how closed my eyes have been not only to those writing in a language other than my own, but also in the language I somewhat absurdly call my my own. But when I turned to familiar names and voices, lo and behold, the selections were not indeed what I expected or would have chosen, and often I found myself as a result rethinking and hence rereading that particular poet. Add to that the really informative juxtapositions and the book turns into what I'd think of as a PERFECT anthology, because it refused to let me sit inside my own complacent knowing. So I used it as a tectbook in the term just over, to a second-year (sophomore) undergraduate course "Introduction to Poetry" designed for all those poor kids who could not get into the Faculty of Arts elective they wanted -- 56 students, over half of them reluctant and resentful, slouching in their chairs challenging "Teach Me!", made this in many ways the course from hell, since you're trying to teach them, among other things, how to pay attention to their own responses, rather than the institution's imagined ones. Move them off their butts. It was a tough book to teach from, but I enjoyed it, and learned from it. And by the end of the course half those reluctant kids who thought poetry was sissy and a waste of time and nothing to do with the Bottom Line were indeed goggling over the work, talking about it enthusiastically, bringing their favourite poems to the attention of their fellows (rare indeed to do this over Spenser or Wyattor Clare, no matter how great my love of those poets). NO-ONE, and I do mean no-one, by the end of this difficult course -- which is to say, yes, this difficult book -- was fretting over what he or she ought to be saying, or about something called "metrics" which had been drummed into them in high school and freshman English, or worriting that they didn't LIKE all the poems, but instead puzzled over -- and delighted in an awed sort of way -- over Mandelstam, Mallarme, Ullikummi, Miyasawa Kenji and Edith Sodergran and and and. My Japanese Canadian students gave little discourses on how poems might be translated, and the problems attendant on ideograms; the Quebecois discussed linguistic practices in Francis Ponge; someone SANG Kurt Schwitters, etc etc. Need I go on? These anthologies -- cetrtainly the first volume, at any rate -- completely redefine and re-vision the work of this century and what it proposes; the commentaries are superbly unostentatious, and the difficult but finally utterly intense pleasures afforded by teaching it are absolutely without parallel in my what? nearly four decades of teaching this usually rather miserable second-year course. Would we had a dozen such anthologies like this -- it truly rethinks the world we think we know. It made me work, work, work, read read read. If the second volume is a tenth as good then obviously I've got to get it, and I'll go down to the store tomorrow. It doesn't have Spicer? Then I'll xerox an Inuit poem instead. I don't know, Ron: you certainly set a huge elephant among the pigeons with that (rather heavy-dentured tongue in cheek?) caveat. Made us pay attention, hooray, to something worth attending. Thanks. And of course, Pierre, Jerry, awed congratulations. Peter + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Peter Quartermain 846 Keefer Street Vancouver B.C. Canada V6A 1Y7 Voice : 604 255 8274 Fax: 255 8204 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:05:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: That Anthology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" An anthology proposing to be complete would need to embody the cosmos (not to mention any number of elsuive, duplicitous muses). Millenium I and Millenium II propose the next best thing: a range of compelling precedent and the grounds for further research. I've always thought of anthologies as beginnings and not ends, and thus with many on this list I would testify that Jerry's and Pierre's anthology brought more new work to my attention than any comparable endeavor that I have yet encountered. Just a brief note on waters I thought were under the bridge, Stephen ps. Peter: Volume II is as good as Volume I... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:43:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980424104409.006ec9f4@popmail.lmu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I thought the personal was the political. Well, no, it's not. If you have a personal dislike of rhubarb that is not political. If you start a party that favours rhubarb farmers over rhubarb brokers, that is political. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:13:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>I thought the personal was the political. > >Well, no, it's not. If you have a personal dislike of rhubarb that is not >political. If you start a party that favours rhubarb farmers over rhubarb >brokers, that is political. We have legislated today that no rhubarb will be grown, transported, or kept, by any person or organization, and furthermore that no rhubarb is to be prepared, and served in any facility meant for the preparation and serving of foodstuffs. We do not care that you like rhubarb. M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:00:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies] (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > The White House event went very well. I was a bit disappointed >that the only avant poet there was Charles Bernstein. News to me. On Wednesday night I was having dinner with Carolyn Burke, author of the highly recommended Mina Loy biography "Becoming Modern", who gave a lecture on her book the next day for the Poetics Program at UB. Hadn't heard about the White House event till the report surfaced here. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:35:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dougolly Subject: Re: women, torture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit As Morpheal's reading of my 'The Infibulation Ceremony' is such a serious misreading of my poem, I feel bound to reply. To be generous, I think it's sheer depth of concern at such barbaric practices that has created this blindness to what is actually written - the claims that the poem is either complicit with female circumcision or sarcastic dumbfound me. Simply, I am totally against infibulation. The poem arose from my researches into a feminist group of doctors and social workers here in Paris who wrestle with the clandestine infibulation practiced particularly by Francophone West African groups in France. Another group has brought occasional court actions (which I am also in favour of where appropriate), since infibulation is illegal in France. The problem is that it's previously-infibulated mothers who want the operation for their daughters and who think it deeply wrong not to carry it out. The group has to work with incredible tact in clinics to point out infibulation's drawbacks, dangers, and cruelty, hoping by gradual persuasion to change beliefs that have been ingrained for century upon century. As I was doing this research, a friend of my daughter's was working in Somalia to spread anti-infibulation information. There were problems which I should perhaps not publicise here. All this did make it clear to me that insensitivity to local cultures is unproductive in creating social change on this issue. So I do not believe that thinking one's own culture is sort of world-superior is effective either, even though in this respect it clearly is superior. My headnote says that poetry has reached one of its limits. There's no suggestion that attempts actually to get the practice banned have reached their limit at all. But, obviously, no Somalian is going to be affected by my poem, and in any case a Western poem - trapped in its own culture - can't, much as it might like to, penetrate to the heart of the traditional-Islamic beliefs where the problem originates. Since the Western poet is so ineffectual unless he/she becomes an international social worker (or acts courageously like Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar and makes a film) I go on to explore what a mere poem might usefully do. One of poetry's various effective political roles is to make an issue vivid - in this case, the cruelty and robbing of the feminine birthright through male-dominated religious practices are, I would hope, vivid. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:26:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies] (fwd) In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980427090014.006ec7f0@bway.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Charles Bernstein wrote: > > The White House event went very well. I was a bit disappointed > >that the only avant poet there was Charles Bernstein. > > News to me. On Wednesday night I was having dinner with Carolyn Burke, > author of the highly recommended Mina Loy biography "Becoming Modern", who > gave a lecture on her book the next day for the Poetics Program at UB. > Hadn't heard about the White House event till the report surfaced here. Wait a minute! On Wednesday night I saw Charles Bernstein coming out of a 7-11 eating a burrito and talking to Elvis (The latter by the way was doing a credible WH Auden impression). David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago "I believe that the devil is in these poets. They destroy all universities. And I heard from an old master of Leipsic who had been Magister for 36 years that when he was a young men then did the university stand firm, for there was not a poet within 20 miles." _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, ii.46. Quoted in Helen Waddell's _The Wandering Scholars_ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:08:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: The Book of Absences In-Reply-To: <58f1766.3541199b@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Aviva99999 wrote: > In a message dated 98-04-24 11:55:47 EDT, you write: > > << > On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, ScoutEW wrote: > > > Silliman give em a break.. if you think there should be inclusions > > then go edit your own anthology.. >> > > While I am not interested in arguing with, nor supporting, Silliman's ideas > for the poets that should have been included in this Rothenberg/Joris "Poems > for the Millenium II" anthology...I find Silliman's tone unnecessarily > "blaming." There's room for another anthology by Silliman, or anyone else. > > The misconception that anthologies can inclusively and comprehensively > "represent" a period, a genre, etc., has been around long enough, and has been > lamented over long enough, that I think we should retire it. > I have sympathy with this impulse. At the same time, it can't never be that simple....The Millenium represents an enormous output of resources. "There's always room for" many things in the world of poetry. But the *capital* to manufacture and market and distribute, that's something else again, and the understanding that very few endeavors will get the profile and visibility of an anthology like this, has much to do with severity of critical response. That, plus the monumentality of the set's design and tone; it is hard not to judge it as a "pocket canon." As Golding's brilliant book reminds us, an anthology is never just an anthology. But one this ambitious and sweeping is even more about totality than usual! That being said, it is brilliant, astonishing, and gives us an amazingly complex and provocative occasion to think about poetries, about where we stand. And that being said, there is something else: there is less a Will to Canon in this anthology than in most; it is in some respects partisan for a series of tones and missions, and strategies, more than for any slate of poets. That's the significance of the inclusion of the so-called oral poets. In very large part that section "fails" on some very specific level...For reasons I've mentioned before here: like the high school teachers who periodically try to teach lyrics from the likes of Lennon/McCartney or Dylan as on-the-page "poetry" to their classes, the editors have left behind too much of the art and guts of these musician's work; they've fundementally misapprehended what they are doing; they might as well (after all, think of A) have included some Bartok scores. But I wasn't surprised at the "oral" section. It has more meaning for what it is trying to demonstrate about directions, than for the quality of the work, as given on the page. This is always the problem (one of 'em) with ethnopoetix; it is also always its promise (..the promise of very unexpected directions..) Thus, both inclusions and exclusions are in cases flawed; even very very flawed. It is surprising how little difference this makes. In some respects the work relates as much to America a Prophecy as it does to American Tree or Pomo Norton...It is meant to be (and is) visionary. Perloff I think it is, (who else?) who makes the provocative suggestion that A Prophecy is better thought of as parallel to the Cantos, than as an anthology as we normally mean the word. A poem. Some of the same intent is here. Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:33:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: Re: That Anthology In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980427050402.006c8b98@pop.unixg.ubc.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i've been wanting to wait until i had volume two in hand before i posted in on this thread... but peter q's post draws me out early, in part b/c it's clear at this point, from everything posted thus far, that ron's complaint---though i like spicer and lennon & mccartney and (ron too!) and on & on---likely misses the mark (sorry ron)... not having volume two in hand, this is a bit presumptuous on my part... but one way to understand what i'm saying is to have a look at the classroom, as peter has done (don b indicated as much)... when i opened volume one my eyeballs damn near popped out of my head---this was an exercise in humility (you'll forgive me the christian overtones)... and having used this volume as a sort of prompt in my creative writing class this past semester, i can attest to its usefulness with students, most of whom begin with no idea why anyone would even BOTHER toying with words (i have no majors---all of my students this semester are aspiring engineers/science/architecture majors)... mind you: i have to use a text that appeals to white kids, to black kids, to latino kids, to asian kids... to women and to men... to international students... to kids from the upper-classes, middle classes, and working classes... some of you will no doubt find this an all-too-easy nod in directions mulicultural... but hey, guess what?---jerry and pierre's book WORKS in this context... it answers to the *stated* desires, on the part of some of these students anyway, that they read writing from what they identify as their respective cultures/niches... and through its juxtapositions, it illustrates how these various cultural products are both different and similar---a necessary lesson in understanding oneself, locally and globally... but it's not just that the book has been great in the classroom---again, MY eyeballs damn near etc... i found MYself ashamed of MY global illiteracy (as 'twere), and though i am surely no exemplar of cultivation, i think it fair and necessary to observe that, twixt text and commentary, any poet picking up this book is bound to learn a good deal... great work, guyz!... eagerly awaiting volume two/// best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:31:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: juxtaposed-formalist reading in Chicago In-Reply-To: <01IWCE1EIZXS8XQKDM@po.muohio.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Another reading announcement: Wednesday April 29 at 6 PM at the Chicago Art Institute's Poetry Center Debra Bruce will be reading with me, John Frederick Nims, and oral-based performance poet Cin Salach. It's a start--a broader spectrum of formalist poets than is usually included (anywhere). Annie ____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ________________________ Annie Finch http://muohio.edu/~finchar Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45220 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:39:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: women, torture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > My headnote says that poetry has reached one of its limits. There's no >suggestion that attempts actually to get the practice banned have reached >their limit at all. But, obviously, no Somalian is going to be affected by my >poem, and in any case a Western poem - trapped in its own culture - can't, >much as it might like to, penetrate to the heart of the traditional-Islamic >beliefs where the problem originates. Interesting comment and right on target. To traditionalist Islamic believers, as far as I know, your poem is Satanic and would be awoved to have the exact opposite effect that you claim for it. The very use of a western style poem makes your opinion wrong in their viewpoint. Wierd logic, but as far as I know, that logic holds true in their system. M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:50:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: women, torture, tradition, style In-Reply-To: <199804271639.MAA18452@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >To traditionalist Islamic believers, as far as I know, your poem is Satanic >and would be awoved to have the exact opposite effect that you claim for it. >The very use of a western style poem makes your opinion wrong in their >viewpoint. > >Wierd logic, but as far as I know, that logic holds true in their system. > > >M. I think both Islam and tradition are getting a bad rap here. Not every traditionalist Islamic believer believes in female genital mutilation. And _which_ tradition? There is a tendency to pretend that only the most rigid belief/behavior systems have roots in tradition. But many of these represent quite radical shifts from long-standing less rigid traditions --- for example, what is going on in Afghanistan right now is a radical shift from local practice. I also question the interpretation of "the very use of a western style poem," but will leave that to others who know more about cross-cultural borrowings. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:20:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: The Book of Absences Comments: To: Aviva99999 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, to me anthologizing is to trace the history of a genre or genres which will inevitably reflect the ideeological situations and tendencies of those doing the doing of it. The reason for these sorts of "alerts" is to validate these situations to those whose ideological situations don't particularly pertain. A forum such as this list seems a fine place to do this. Another anthology seems inferior. Small magazines might be one place to do this. They are anthologies in a sense whereas they have the advantage of consistently ammending their entries, or at least the opportunity for a more dialogical representation of the history of the genres they present. Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Aviva99999 wrote: > In a message dated 98-04-24 14:42:43 EDT, you write: > > << Sure, the nature > of anthologizing demands that we raise these alerts, >> > > What, in your view, IS "the nature of anthologizing," and what, specifically, > would these "alerts" serve to accomplish? I'm interested in understanding > your viewpoint. I'm especially interested in understanding what you, and > other folks, expect from anthologies, and I'm further interested in examining > whether our expectations might be changed, or whether anthologizers need to > conform more to such expectations, or...? > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 13:25:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: The Book of Spicer MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Since I have not yet popped for Millineum II, the following frivolous thought experiment is tangential at best to the remarks thus far about the anthology. I forget who joked about solving the incompleteness problem by copying some poems of your favorite missing poet and inserting them into your favorite anthology, but after that post, I found myself wondering how I would anthologize Spicer, and spent some time rereading the Collected Books to that end. I give some authority to Spicer's claim, credited to Duncan and restated in the letter to Robin Blaser included in Admonitions, that "a poem is never to be judged by itself alone," meaning in part that the sequences or "books" in which his poems occur are the unit of value that Spicer is judging himself by, in so far as he is concerned that his reading of himself should be of use to another reader. Which in turn means, perhaps, that the anthologist of Spicer does not honor or test this claim unless entire sequences or books are selected. If I take this idea seriously, then I cannot anthologize Spicer by selecting the best bits form this or that sequence. The sequence that I would most want to anthologize is "Homage to Creeley/ Explanatory Notes" especially because it would challenge the formatting skills of the editor: but I assume that this text is too long for an anthology and I would not want to take only one of its three parts and leave the others behind. So what next? I like that Messerli reprints all of "Thing Language" but would have preferred to see all of at least one other sequence included instead of just context-less selected poems. I like the way that "Love Poems" follows upon "Thing Language" but if these two sequences from Language are chosen, then what about the other sequences after that, since the echoes and patterns carry on throughout the entire "book"? Because Language (the book) seems to fall into two parts (as the Intermissions section practically insists), does the anthologist who believes this book to be most praiseworthy choose a section from the first "half" (this word is problematic) and a section from the second half and leave it at that? Or should just a large portion of one half be used? The problem with the second choice is that it distorts too much Spicer's range: for example, Hoover's choice of "Morphemics" and "Phonemics" makes Spicer seem more ponderous than he really is, and what is a selection of Spicer worth with humor or references to baseball? Perhaps using "Four Poems for The St. Louis Sporting News" and throw in "Fifteen False Propositions Against God" might be the most efficient way to anthologize Spicer. But then, the efficiency of the anthologist is not the efficiency of the poet. And my selections are capitulations more than commitments. The thought-experiment, however, has given me a new appreciation for the difficulty of the anthologist's work, most of which is invisible in the final product. Anyone want to propose another Book of Spicer? (sorry, end of penultimate paragraph should read "without humor etc.") Gary R. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:59:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Franklin Bruno Subject: mostly concerning The Book of Absences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 1) Spicer is definitely an hard-to-swallow omission (esp. as Duncan gets to close the vol.), and I woulda thought some selections from Grenier's 'Sentences' would have fit well w/ the visual/materialist tendencies explored in the anthology, as well as counting as a stated precursor of langpo. As for the long list of the (mostly) living that Ron S. gave, I can't see, given the book's global theater of operations and 50-yr time-frame, how one could justify including several more American poets who come from one lineage (the post-langpo diaspora) at the expense of the rest of the world. Inman yes, Moriarty no? How would you ever decide, at relatively little historical distance? I'd also note that the editors' introduction recognizes many of these problems, especially regarding their admission that they are in this case, in contrast w/ Vol. 1, not only witnesses but partisans to the chunk of history at hand. This last fact presumably has much to do with our capacity to carp at what's in and out in the case. Hey, I miss Ron Padgett, but I can close the book and go get one of his from my bookshelf, which I for one cannot do w/ the Cobra poets, or Adonis, or Dib. You can't have everything. 2) Does anyone know what Ron meant (Ron, for example) by "the antipoetics of song"? Isn't it more of a 'parallel' poetics, like that of vizpo? 3) I do have a very minor complaint about the inclusion of the Tom Waits lyric. The lineation of "Swordfishtrombone" in the anthology is taken from the lyric sheet of the same name. As far as I can tell, the line-breaks on this lyric sheet are a design convenience (all the album's lyrics are fit into a certain column length). The point--the line breaks have nothing, so far as I can tell to do with the lyric's metric, much less Waits' vocal phrasing in performance. Given that much attention was evidently paid to how Robt. Johnson's lyric was set on the page (reproduced from -The Blues Line-, I'm assuming), and Waits' lyric is being presented -as an oral poem-, shouldn't the line breaks have had something to do with the sung rhythm? Ron S. may be right here in saying that the presentation makes Waits seem dumber than he is. 4) Speaking of song, with respect to the 'writing through' (anti?)genre, someone mentioned Stephen Ratcliffe's -Campion On Song-. Can someone supply a citation? I don't even know if this was a book or something that appeared in a magazine. Please advise. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:22:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Stop, I did not drag my father past this tree MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have to say that I am more satisfied with Volume I than Volume II (of poems for the Millenium) I have a book review coming out soon, which I will give information about when it has appeared, in which I explain my reasons. In brief, Volume I is amazing because of its juxtapositions and inclusions. It has "high modernism" (Rilke or Yeats) along side of Dada and negritude. It allows for a marvelously complex understanding of literary modernism. Volume II, filled with wonders as it is (Joris' translations of Celan, Beat Poetry, Brazilian concrete poetry, Italian novissimi, Language poets, Frank O'Hara, etc...) does not allow for the same sort of ideological contrasts, because it seem more governed by sectarian interests. You don't get to compare Merrill to Ashbery, or Auden to O'Hara. Pretending that rival traditions simply don't exist creates wierd distortions. In particular, the anthologists prefer a mode that I call the "ethnographic sublime," in a sense betting that this will be THE tradition of postmodern poetry. The bad poetry in the book tends to be written in this particular mode. I prefer a book like Shaking the Pumpkin, more limited in scope, and that doesn't carry around the baggage of being "THE University of California Book of mod. and postmod. poetry." This is too much of a burden for any tome to bear. I tend to hate anthologies anyway. They are basically interventions into literary politics that don't appeal to me as a reader. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:33:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: bad history Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit read this watten line from bad history yesterday that i can't seem to shake: "when they beat you with a flashlight, you make light shine in all directions." i love barrett. he is sick and evil and makes you feel so beaten down. and that line is funny. is it ironic? does the apparatus speak like that? i feel some of the old barrett from mode-z in 1-10 slipping in to this book. or this book is a big mode z. ? Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:54:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881 Subject: Re: Bachelard's take Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Judy, doesn't she teach at brown? i think her fivesome is divided up into boys, girls, ferms (more female hermaphrodite), herms ("true" hermaphrodite), & merms (more male hermaphrodite). not a good idea in my mind. why pin it down? and reportedly not one that makes intersexuals too happy. Bill L << Anne Fausto-Sterling (a feminist biologist who is well known in women's studies) has done a lot of research on this stuff, I think she might even have a book out. She claims that there are naturally 5 (did I get that number right?) genders, and had some articles about this in popular media a couple or so years ago. She is very passionate and humane and quite wonderful. Anyone interested in this would be well advised to look her stuff up. And what this says about the two standard genders... >> ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:29:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: F.Y.I. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 10:06 AM ET 04/27/98 New York Sends Up Red Flag By Jennifer Nix NEW YORK (Variety) - One suspects that Karl Marx will be having quite a chuckle this May Day. Wall Street will be festooned with red flags and banners citing passages from, of all things, ``The Communist Manifesto,'' Marx's political call-to-arms, co-written with Frederick Engels. Marking the 150th anniversary of the original 23-page pamphlet, Verso Books is publishing a special edition, with a brand-new introduction and jacket illustration by the trendy art duo, Komar and Melamid. Given the Commie chic marketing possibilities for the book, Verso publisher Colin Robinson set Intl. Workers Day (May 1) as the official publication date, and has convinced Waldenbooks on Wall Street and Broadway to do some irony-drenched promotion. Copies of the hip new edition will be featured in store windows with red flags and banners quoting the ``Manifesto,'' with bits like, ``The capitalist class has greatly increased the urban population as compared to the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.'' Only in Gotham. Reuters/Variety ^REUTERS@ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:27:46 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Unfortunately, in some circles it's probably politically incorrect to have a personal dislike of rhubarb. An associative anecdote: I edit courseware for a large company. The exercises in the back of the manuals are printed on green or blue or purple paper (I didn't want to specify what color, since, really, who cares?). The online presentation has a little exercise icon & a note that the student should "turn to the colored pages in the back of this manual." Sure enough, someone has come to me because the reference to "colored" pages offended a student. I laughed heartily, but have since been informed that it's better to err on the side of political correctness. Ah well. George Bowering wrote: > >I thought the personal was the political. > > Well, no, it's not. If you have a personal dislike of rhubarb that is not > political. If you start a party that favours rhubarb farmers over rhubarb > brokers, that is political. > > George Bowering. > , > 2499 West 37th Ave., > Vancouver, B.C., > Canada V6M 1P4 > > fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 04:45:50 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: REMAP MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've never sseen an exploding helicopter...but I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way." John Cassavetes ReMap # 6 POLITICS RE*Map #6 POLITICS has just been released Norma Cole Spencer Selby Ray DiPalma Noah De Lissovoy Laura Moriarity Martin Nakell Arron Shurin ed. since 1990 by Todd Baron & Carolyn Kemp subs $10. per 2 To Todd Baron 2860 Exposition Blvd #a Santa Monica Ca 90404 #7 will be ON LOVE ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:57:05 -0600 Reply-To: Linda Russo Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Re: F.Y.I. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII excuse me if i wear my naivete on my sleeve like a red flag for a moment, (i hear "commie chic" is something you can't help but display); you do gotta love NY but re:Marx -- is this sickening anyone else? Am I alone or mistaken in my impression that Marx isn't chuckling?? When i think of how many used copies i've come across in my life (and when penguin classics &c puts out a respectable text &c & pathfinder used to (before they were run out of Salt Lake) give it away . . .) not that this is about supply & demand -- Has Verso has made the CM a _literally_ self-consuming artefact or what? > NEW YORK (Variety) - One suspects that Karl Marx will be > having quite a chuckle this May Day. > Wall Street will be festooned with red flags and banners > citing passages from, of all things, ``The Communist > Manifesto,'' Marx's political call-to-arms, co-written with > Frederick Engels. &c &c ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 23:10:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chicago Review Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I found a poorly prepared transcript of the 4/22 White House reading at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/Millenium/poets.html It's curious to see which poems Hass, Pinsky, and Dove read, and how they choose to talk about them. There's a q & a session at the end. All in all, it gives one some idea of the rhetorical strategies Poets Laureate must have to work out for themselves in order to accomplish anything during their terms. Imagine speaking before Rotary Clubs, as Hass is said to have done many times in 1995-97. I missed seeing Dove when she was in office, but Hass and Pinsky are both good public speakers and readers. Hass in particular is very effective. Anyone interested in the work of these three, as I am, should probably check it out. Andy Rathmann --------------- Andrew Rathmann Editor, Chicago Review 5801 S. Kenwood Ave. Chicago IL 60637-1794 ph/fax 773.702.0887 e-mail org_crev@orgmail.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:57:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Baker Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I found a poorly prepared transcript of the 4/22 White House Thanks. Who was it said the poetry's found in the transcription? I found this superb "writing through" at the White House: "Much madness is the vinest sense to the discerning eye" and, vinously Zukofsky: "The pond at the end of the mine" There's more, including a radical underwriting of lineation. Mark Baker __________________________________________ Chicago Review wrote: > > I found a poorly prepared transcript of the 4/22 White House reading at: > > http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/Millenium/poets.html > > It's curious to see which poems Hass, Pinsky, and Dove read, and how they > choose to talk about them. There's a q & a session at the end. All in > all, it gives one some idea of the rhetorical strategies Poets Laureate > must have to work out for themselves in order to accomplish anything during > their terms. Imagine speaking before Rotary Clubs, as Hass is said to have > done many times in 1995-97. I missed seeing Dove when she was in office, > but Hass and Pinsky are both good public speakers and readers. Hass in > particular is very effective. Anyone interested in the work of these > three, as I am, should probably check it out. > > Andy Rathmann > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 03:10:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Re: F.Y.I. Comments: To: Linda Russo In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It's not sickening me, given the careers of Komar and Melamid who have worked with samizdat and communist-satirical issues rather brilliantly since at least a couple of decades; they've lived thru it, etc. Alan On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Linda Russo wrote: > excuse me if i wear my naivete on my sleeve like a red flag for a moment, > (i hear "commie chic" is something you can't help but display); you do > gotta love NY but > > re:Marx -- is this sickening anyone else? Am I alone or mistaken in my > impression that Marx isn't chuckling?? When i think of how many used > copies i've come across in my life (and when penguin classics &c puts out > a respectable text &c & pathfinder used to (before they were run out of > Salt Lake) give it away . . .) not that this is about supply & > demand -- Has Verso has made the CM a _literally_ self-consuming artefact > or what? > > > NEW YORK (Variety) - One suspects that Karl Marx will be > > having quite a chuckle this May Day. > > Wall Street will be festooned with red flags and banners > > citing passages from, of all things, ``The Communist > > Manifesto,'' Marx's political call-to-arms, co-written with > > Frederick Engels. > > &c &c > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 04:33:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dougolly Subject: Re: women, torture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:39:25 -0400 From: morpheal Subject: Re: women, torture Briefly on "The Infibulation Ceremony" poem. I welcome morpheal's interest and Judy Roitman's point that traditionalism and Islam don't necessarily imply belief in female genital mutilation -- the prose-surround that normally accompanies this poem fully covers this point and cites a beautiful Islamic statement about tolerance. As infibulation is only mentioned in the hadith (traditional sayings of Mohammed), its justification is often regarded as open to scholarly interpretation. I don't think opposing it would be regarded as Satanic, perhaps even by most hard-liners. As for Western poetry, I mainly said that my poem was unlikely to get through to Somali nomads -- given the widespread illiteracy alone, an uncontroversial point. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:22:45 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: Re: F.Y.I. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >From: Linda Russo > >Salt Lake) give it away . . .) not that this is about supply & >demand -- Has Verso has made the CM a _literally_ self-consuming artefac= t >or what? I'm with you Linda. I haven't been so bugged by the commocification of dissent since the Black & Red _Society of the Spectacle_ was replaced on bookstore shelves by that god-awful, easy-to-read/consume translation/version from I can't remeber who. No respect for the project existing in the form of the lingo as well! The Black & Red cost 3 bucks (if that--no copyright) while the new one was wieghing in at $16. Also dissing the project's embodiment in the form of distibution! There was a big spread about the new CM in the Independent over here (UK) a month or so ago. Some prat, tres into "Cool Britania", was talkin= g about opening a shop in Lodon devoted to Commie Chic which would only be open one day a week, staffed by rude, uniformed Russians, and made an effort to understock. No joke! Marx hasn't chuckled since they started charging 8 pounds to visit his = grave in Highgate. What are us girls and boys to do? (I know where there's a hole in the = fence so you can sneek in at night.) Martin _________________________________________ Martin Spinelli SUNY Buffalo English Department Granolithic Productions spinelli@pavilion.co.uk LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak ENGAGED http://www.engaged.demon.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 08:11:28 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: Poetry at the White House MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Imagine speaking before Rotary Clubs, as Hass is said to have > done many times in 1995-97. There ought to be some kind of purple heart award for anyone who survives that (and Hass was pretty worn down by it, too). But the work he did there deserves recognition -- he managed to convince a lot of people who'd never given much thought to literature and literacy to put money into underfunded school libraries and similar organizations. This kind of grass-roots stumping seems to me one of the more positive things that's been done with the laureateship recently, and it accompished more than any amount of grandstanding could have done. -- Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College Lake Forest, IL 60045 http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ " on the end of each decision stands a heretic" --Michael Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:47:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: the flying wedge MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII *One thing occurs, reading the various responses to Ron's slashing critique, and reading Mill.2 itself (thanx to JR or PJ or whoever got U of C Press to send me a review copy: it is in fact gonna get a major review in the Proj.)..... *A strength of the book is its positioning of poetics and practice in relation to groups. Re-emphasis of the fact that poetry is a profoundly collective endeavor. *I found Ron extremely funny (dissing the inclusion of "anyone who ever attended a Fluxus event")...But these framings are interesting and important. The editors mention the Umbra group as one they might have included and didn't. (...anyone out there who has not read Nielsen's Black Chant should *immediately* do so...) One of the tragic things, right now, is that we have in Aldon's book a beginning of a recovery for the poetry community at large, of Umbra and closely related currents...that is a recovery of the memory that they existed; but this doesn't make their work available to most. (I'm lucky to be a wage slave at Emory University, whose library collected many of the group's individual volumes when they were published; they were in some cases low-profile publications then, and are definitely obscure *now*) So I'm very sorry Umbra was not included. *As there's so much talk about the dynamix of anthologies, it does occur that an Umbra anthology *has to be* in our future; just a matter of its editor stepping forward... (listening, Aldon?) *Anyway, the conceptualizing of the period's poetry, as having much to do with collective groupings, is a strength of the whole project. It is handled flexibly, with poets viewed individually in some instances, in groupings at other times. One could argue with details. (All those Fluxus people that worry Ron so, are not presented in their own section, for all that the editors are at pains to emphasize them; which is odd and goes unexplained..) But being both a poet and a communist, I have to say that these are healthy impulses.. Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:59:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Stop, I did not drag my father past this tree In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII *Jonathan Mayhew's critique is badly ill-concieved. The Millenium project is **not** about Auden and Merrill. There are interesting dimensions to those poets. *But the editors specifically address the edgeness of what they are dealing with. Use the term "avant-garde" and such like. Now, I hate that term, but almost everyone I respect uses it (or experimental or innovative) and we can't really get away from the nomenclature problem easily. The point is, there are venues where you can find excessively lionized mainstream icons like Auden and Merrill. *This really and truly is an instance where (as some said to Ron) the critic should do his own anthology...Because what Jonathan has in mind here is not the concept of the Millenium volumes. The concept in his mind sounds interesting. Camps (in the broad sense of mainstream/alterstream) should indeed clash/encounter/dialogue more. And more directly. But the Millenium venture is about something else. *Along these lines, many avant'ers are going to be shaken by the inclusion of poetry and poetix from Adrienne Rich, for instance. There are other instances, but I don't have the volume in front of me... *No, there is definitely breadth and then some, to Mill.2. Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:56:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: the flying wedge In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:47:14 -0400 from I sure hope the NEXT millennial edition includes a sampling of the Islomaniacs, a neglected group of Madagascaran english-writing poets who never knew whether they would appear as authors of their own next poems, nor where their next cup of chai was coming from, much less whether they would be part of the future or even the past. They traded poems on a read-or-burn basis since firewood was(& is) in chronic short etc. Their work is hard to find - especially since it isn't "work". The Univ. of Left Overbie in Great Britain houses most of the extant unpublished ms. and Eric Blarnes could tell you more about it but his comments are very consistently unreliable. There is, however, a dissertation by one Jacqueline Spendroit of the Univ. of Gottagingoin, titled "Islomania in My Mind : the Square Root of a Broken Circle : Madagascar and the Poetics of Exotic Species : How to Tie a Bowline" which you can get through interlibrary loan from Humble Public Library, Humble, TX, if you ask nicely. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:31:12 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: umbra? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit umbra? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:53:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I, for one, do not have a personal dislike of rhubarb that is not political. If I was once involved in a political rhubarb, that was political. On the other comma,,,,, Jack Spicer may be outside the millenial antho., but he's been transmitted into the pages of _Lingua Franca_, an odd landing for my favorite Martian. The current issue carries a short notice of the two new books -- (and THANKS to Kevin and Peter for their valued labors) -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 10:55:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Poetry at the White House, Anthologies] (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ah, so it is true that Charles Bernstein was in two places at the same time. I once saw somebody who identified himself as Norman Finkelstein correct a professor who had taken him for Charles Bernstein, but now I wonder --- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:06:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: the flying wedge Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" just a personal note in response to the many people who have asked if I'm doing an anthology -- block to date has been lack of support for getting permissions, etc. -- I have decided to go ahead with a modest anthology of innovative poetries by African-American authors post WWII,,,, will be a _sample_, not inclusive -- may be followed by a second vol. if first gets around well enough -- as with my critical books, the point will be not "coverage" but instigation -- in hopes that others will follow (LIKE that UMBRA anthology that Mark suggests) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 13:09:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: umbra? In-Reply-To: <3545AFE4.7ADC@mwt.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:31 AM +0000 4/28/98, Miekal And wrote: >umbra? maybe i missed what this q was in relation to, but umbra was a group of mostly African American poets loosely based around a publication of the same name. see aldon nielsen's wonderful Black Chant for an extensive description. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 14:23:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: the flying wedge In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980428110629.006aa984@popmail.lmu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Great, Aldon... We all benefit from (not to mention envy) you weird mutants who seem to have about 5 times the energy of the normal person....... Mark P. On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Aldon Nielsen wrote: > just a personal note in response to the many people who have asked if I'm > doing an anthology -- > > block to date has been lack of support for getting permissions, etc. -- I > have decided to go ahead with a modest anthology of innovative poetries by > African-American authors post WWII,,,, will be a _sample_, not inclusive -- > may be followed by a second vol. if first gets around well enough -- > > as with my critical books, the point will be not "coverage" but instigation > -- in hopes that others will follow (LIKE that UMBRA anthology that Mark > suggests) > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:33:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: the flying wedge MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain So far this morning we've heard of one poetics list member who can be in two places at once -- and now we hear of another who has five times the strength of other mortals! I think we should rename this list the "Poetics League of America" to properly commemorate the super powers of its members. I, for example, know what the next post is going to look like! Joe > ---------- > From: Mark Prejsnar[SMTP:mprejsn@LAW.EMORY.EDU] > Reply To: UB Poetics discussion group > Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 1998 11:23 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: the flying wedge > > Great, Aldon... > > We all benefit from (not to mention envy) you weird mutants who seem to > have about 5 times the energy of the normal person....... > > Mark P. > > > On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Aldon Nielsen wrote: > > > just a personal note in response to the many people who have asked if > I'm > > doing an anthology -- > > > > block to date has been lack of support for getting permissions, etc. -- > I > > have decided to go ahead with a modest anthology of innovative poetries > by > > African-American authors post WWII,,,, will be a _sample_, not inclusive > -- > > may be followed by a second vol. if first gets around well enough -- > > > > as with my critical books, the point will be not "coverage" but > instigation > > -- in hopes that others will follow (LIKE that UMBRA anthology that Mark > > suggests) > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 14:32:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: the flying wedge In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'll make the costumes! (especially those large flowing capes..an obvious sartorial link between the traditions of poetry and those of Marvel superheroes) --Pomo Man On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > So far this morning we've heard of one poetics list member who can be in two > places at once -- and now we hear of another who has five times the strength > of other mortals! I think we should rename this list the "Poetics League of > America" to properly commemorate the super powers of its members. > > I, for example, know what the next post is going to look like! > > Joe > > > > ---------- > > From: Mark Prejsnar[SMTP:mprejsn@LAW.EMORY.EDU] > > Reply To: UB Poetics discussion group > > Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 1998 11:23 AM > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Re: the flying wedge > > > > Great, Aldon... > > > > We all benefit from (not to mention envy) you weird mutants who seem to > > have about 5 times the energy of the normal person....... > > > > Mark P. > > > > > > On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Aldon Nielsen wrote: > > > > > just a personal note in response to the many people who have asked if > > I'm > > > doing an anthology -- > > > > > > block to date has been lack of support for getting permissions, etc. -- > > I > > > have decided to go ahead with a modest anthology of innovative poetries > > by > > > African-American authors post WWII,,,, will be a _sample_, not inclusive > > -- > > > may be followed by a second vol. if first gets around well enough -- > > > > > > as with my critical books, the point will be not "coverage" but > > instigation > > > -- in hopes that others will follow (LIKE that UMBRA anthology that Mark > > > suggests) > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 13:35:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Stop, I did not drag my father MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I know that Poems for the Millenium is *about the avant-garde. My point was that Volume I is richer for its Yeats, Eliot, Rilke, Machado.(Machado hated the avant-garde).The anthologization of more recent poetry seems more affected by purely social groupings and the living memories of the participants. It would have been more *imaginative to include Auden--the striking juxtapositions I value in all of Rothenberg's anthologies would have been enhanced rather than diminished. That Auden is accessible elsewhere is beside the point to me--so are O'Hara and A. Rich's dreadful poem about Beethoven's symphony. By the "get your own anthology" argument all critique is automatically disarmed. If we can praise what's there it seems equally logical to look at what isn't, and perhaps speculate on why. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 14:01:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: review of Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My review of Poems for the Millenium vol. 2 can be accessed at www. ellavon.com/ I have tried to be as fair as possible, within the limits of my own knowledge and sensibility. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 14:37:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: the flying wedge In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" but is that po-mo as in postmodern, po(i)mo as in poetry-(in)-motion, or Pomo as in American Indian. At 2:32 PM -0400 4/28/98, Mark Prejsnar wrote: >I'll make the costumes! (especially those large flowing capes..an obvious >sartorial link between the traditions of poetry and those of Marvel >superheroes) > >--Pomo Man > > > >On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > >> So far this morning we've heard of one poetics list member who can be in two >> places at once -- and now we hear of another who has five times the strength >> of other mortals! I think we should rename this list the "Poetics League of >> America" to properly commemorate the super powers of its members. >> >> I, for example, know what the next post is going to look like! >> >> Joe >> >> >> > ---------- >> > From: Mark Prejsnar[SMTP:mprejsn@LAW.EMORY.EDU] >> > Reply To: UB Poetics discussion group >> > Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 1998 11:23 AM >> > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >> > Subject: Re: the flying wedge >> > >> > Great, Aldon... >> > >> > We all benefit from (not to mention envy) you weird mutants who seem to >> > have about 5 times the energy of the normal person....... >> > >> > Mark P. >> > >> > >> > On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Aldon Nielsen wrote: >> > >> > > just a personal note in response to the many people who have asked if >> > I'm >> > > doing an anthology -- >> > > >> > > block to date has been lack of support for getting permissions, etc. -- >> > I >> > > have decided to go ahead with a modest anthology of innovative poetries >> > by >> > > African-American authors post WWII,,,, will be a _sample_, not inclusive >> > -- >> > > may be followed by a second vol. if first gets around well enough -- >> > > >> > > as with my critical books, the point will be not "coverage" but >> > instigation >> > > -- in hopes that others will follow (LIKE that UMBRA anthology that Mark >> > > suggests) >> > > >> > >> ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 14:43:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: new magazine Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII FYI... >Outlet, a periodical > >Editor: Elizabeth Treadwell >Consulting Editors: Sarah Anne Cox and Grace Lovelace > >Address: Outlet, c/o Double Lucy Books > PO Box 9013 > Berkeley, CA 94709 > USA >Website: http://users.lanminds.com/~dblelucy >Email: dblelucy@lanminds.com (feel free to send up to 3 pp via email) > >Frequency: 2/year >Subscription cost: $10/two issues includes a Double Lucy chapbook. >Checks payable to Elizabeth Treadwell. > > >>Editorial Statement: >Our focus is on innovative poetry and prose. Our editorial trio has various >loves regarding writers: HD, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Paul Celan, >Kathy Acker, Toni Morrison, Fay Weldon, Ezra Pound, Janet Frame -- to name a >few. Our first issue includes poetry by Norma Cole (Contrafact, Potes & >Poets) and fiction by Lily James (The Great Taste of Straight People, >Fiction Collective 2). > >>OUTLET Issues: >>1. The Debutante- available in March 1998, our premiere issue features >writing by Cydney Chadwick, Norma Cole, Jen Hofer, Lily James, Susan Smith >Nash, Kathy Lou Schultz, and OTHERS. Also translations of Friedrich >Holderlin by Phil Jenks. Color cover is a painting by Teresa Moore. > >>2. Fairyland- available in the fall of 1998. Will feature fiction, poetry, >and criticism inhabiting or informed by fairytales, both obscure and >dog-eared. We are accepting submissions of up to five pages for this issue. >Deadline: June 15, 1998. > >>3. Stiletto- Available in the spring of 1999. Will feature writing & >artwork which responds to the narration and technicalities of fashion, both >historical and contemporary. Deadline for submissions December 15, 1998. > >If you would like further guidelines on Outlet 2 or 3, please do not >hesitate to write or email us. > >If you would like a review copy of Outlet 1, please send a 6x9 SASE with $1 >postage. >________________________________________ >Double Lucy Chapbooks: > >1.The Marriage of the Well-Built Head: Book I of Her Knife, Fork & Spoon (a >Book of Etiquette), Yedda Morrison, 1998 ($3) >2.Home of Grammar, Sarah Anne Cox, 1997 ($3) >3.Eve Doe (becoming an epic poem), Elizabeth Treadwell, 1997($3) > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 18:54:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ScoutEW Subject: just a lil something Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I need the email or regular mail addresses of these two people so please backchannel me if possible pleaso! Travis Ortiz Judith Goldman thanks ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 19:19:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: NYC Poetry Calendar Gala (FWD) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Forwarded for the NYC Poetry Calendar: 8 April 1998 CONTACT: MARTIN PADDIO (212) 260-7097 On May 14, the New York City Poetry Calendar hosts a gala benefit reading at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, tickets are $25 (a tax-deductible contribution). The event features nine poets from across the literary spectrum: Charles Bernstein, Billy Collins, Marie Howe, Wayne Koestenbaum, J.D. McClatchy, Donna Masini, Eileen Tabios, Yusef Komunyakaa, and host, David Lehman. The Gala is sponsored by Borders Books and Music, the evening will include a smorgasbord of readings, raffles, hors d'oeuvres and wine, and an opportunity to meet and mix, all to support Poetry Calendar. For advance tickets to the gala, on Thursday, May 14 at 7:30pm, at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, 113 W. 60th Street, 12th floor, call Poetry Calendar (212) 260-7097. Tickets may also be purchased at the door. Established in 1976, Poetry Calendar is the only inclusive poetry listing and magazine in New York City. It is the central resource for information about literary readings, lectures, workshops, broadcasts, and related activities in the Metropolitan area. Over 450 activities at more than 100 venues are listed every month; 10,000 copies are distributed free at bookstores, cafes, libraries, and schools around the city. Poetry Calendar is a not-for-profit organization and is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the New York State Council on the Arts, and private contributions. Subscriptions to Poetry Calendar may be purchased for $20 per year from 611 Broadway, Suite 905, New York NY 10012. Poetry Calendar on the web: http://www.poets.org/cal/po_cal.htm (or via EPC: "sites" then "poetry organizations" then NYC Poetry Calendar) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 20:40:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva99999 Subject: Fwd: Amazon.com Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part0_893810436_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_893810436_boundary Content-ID: <0_893810436@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated 98-04-27 18:42:26 EDT, catalog-dept@amazon.com writes: << Hello! We are responsive to the needs of small presses. Many call in and write each day. Their assistance is crucial to the updating of our catalog. For more information on our work with small publishers please visit our site. On our website, you can visit our special publishers' annex at this URL: http://www.amazon.com/publishers Please don't hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions, and thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! Best Regards, Hannah Burke Catalog Department Amazon.com Books http://www.amazon.com >> --part0_893810436_boundary Content-ID: <0_893810436@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from relay30.mx.aol.com (relay30.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.30]) by air11.mx.aol.com (v42.4) with SMTP; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:42:26 -0400 Received: from amazon.com (154-31.amazon.com [204.177.154.31]) by relay30.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id SAA18261 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:42:24 -0400 (EDT) From: catalog-dept@amazon.com Received: from zephyr.amazon.com (zephyr.amazon.com [204.177.154.23]) by amazon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA09825 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:42:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: by zephyr.amazon.com id PAA24024; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:42:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from hburke@localhost) by barracuda.amazon.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id PAA19181; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:42:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:42:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804272242.PAA19181@barracuda.amazon.com> X-Authentication-Warning: barracuda.amazon.com: hburke set sender to catalog-dept@amazon.com using -f To: Aviva99999 Subject: Re: Amazon.com Books from-address: catalog-dept@amazon.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hello! We are responsive to the needs of small presses. Many call in and write each day. Their assistance is crucial to the updating of our catalog. For more information on our work with small publishers please visit our site. On our website, you can visit our special publishers' annex at this URL: http://www.amazon.com/publishers Please don't hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions, and thanks for your interest in Amazon.com! Best Regards, Hannah Burke Catalog Department Amazon.com Books http://www.amazon.com >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 64 >Subject: Re: Amazon.com Books >To: catalog-dept@amazon.com >Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:54:50 EDT >From: Aviva99999 > >In a message dated 98-04-22 14:54:00 EDT, you write: > ><< We work with many small > presses each day. We actively help them add books to our catalog, update > existing listings, and add descriptive materials. >> > >Sounds to me as though the small presses should be proactive, and seek out >listings from amazon.com. Would your company be responsive, or can it only >process information from compiled sources? > --part0_893810436_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:49:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Paris 1968 uprising recalled in writing on wall PARIS (Reuters) - The fury of France's 1968 student uprising came to life at a Paris auction Tuesday when more than 200 posters from the era went under the hammer. Thirty years later, the stark revolutionary art, most of it crudely painted in red or black, has turned into a pricey collector's item, echoing the rage that spilled out of universities and factories onto the cobble stones of Paris streets which became a symbol of the revolt. While demonstrators declared war on the establishment and consumer society in general, the posters' favorite whipping boys were the aging President Charles de Gaulle and the CRS riot police, whose job was to crack down on the anarchy that virtually shut down the country for May and part of June 1968. ``They were full of talent, and humor too,'' said antique dealer Monique Couturier, who bought a poster of a medicine bottle labeled ``Press: Do Not Swallow.'' She remembers the students who came to her shop to prepare for their marches, tying water-soaked bandannas over their noses and mouths as protection from tear gas. But they were also virulent to the extreme. A poster of Hitler holding a mask of de Gaulle depicts the angry mood of those summer months. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 14:45:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: keemun imp. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Charles North's _No Other Way: Selected Prose_ is just out from Hanging Loose. I read it as the significant counterpoint to _Content's Dream_, more similarities than one might guess. Generating some interest and some uninterest is Sianne Ngai's essay "Raw Matter: A poetics of disgust" in the current number of Open Letter. Philly talkers will remember that this is the piece Jeff Derksen cited in his brave stand against Ron Silliman. Philly talkers will also remember that Derksen, trapped, revealed the source of at least one of his list of expletive percentages. In the essay Ngai calls for a poetics of muffled noises in response to cockroaches ingesting fecal matter. Gestalt me in! Love, Nobody Else ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:10:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: gov't hijinx Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: ACT TODAY *******************************URGENT MESSAGE******************** ******************************************************************************* From: "Temple, Elena" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Elena Temple April 29, 1998 (202) 225-8699 AVISORY! ADVISORY! ADVISORY! * * * S P E C I A L A L E R T ! * * * Washington, D.C. - Congressman Albert R. Wynn (D-MD) is issuing a special alert regarding H.R. 6 - a bill introduced by Rep. Frank Riggs (R-CA), which would prohibit all affirmative action in higher education admissions. This extreme measure, to be considered on the House floor TODAY, (4/29) is a sweeping proposal that would prohibit affirmative action designed to remedy documented and proven history of discrimination against persons on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The bill affects virtually all colleges and universities across the country, public and private, from using affirmative action in their admissions policies - even if the school believes it is necessary to ensure a diverse student body. Because the bill uses the term "preferential treatment" without defining it, the term could be interpreted broadly to cover a wide range of admission policies and practices - including outreach and recruitment. This bill -- to be certain -- will lead to an unprecedented degree of federal regulation of college and university admission activities. Please contact Speaker Newt Gingrich's office to express your opposition to the Riggs Amendment! Speaker Newt Gingrich : phone (202) 225-0600 Fax (202) 225-7733 E-mail georgia@hr.house.gov ### ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:56:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Poets for Choice reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nick Piombino reads with Erica Hunt and Ed Foster at the Ceres Gallery 584 Broadway, Room 306 May 7th Thursday 7:30 p.m. Poets for Choice at Ceres Benefit for Planned Parenthood of NY $7 contribution announcing Nick's new web site! http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/piombino ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:27:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: gov't hijinx Comments: To: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Thanks for the heads up Maria. The e-address for Gingrich is wrong, however. I just spoke with his office and got the correct one. It's: Georgia6@mal.house.gov Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:20:59 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: gov't hijinx In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT just a correction on Maria's post: the Newt's email address is: georgia6@hr.house.gov not > georgia@hr.house.gov folks who want to contact their own representatives (House, in this case) may find this site useful: Voices it contains a full Congressional directory, email addresses, even a form so that you can email your representatives right from the site, tho the latter seems to be down just now. of course, it's no substitute for throwing the bums out, all of 'em... good luck. chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 16:03:06 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Newt's address - finally Comments: cc: Sean Michael Sather-Wagstaff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Patrick says: > Georgia6@mal.house.gov but it's really: Georgia6@mail.house.gov ^^^^ the typo was appropriate, tho. chris .. Christopher Alexander calexand@library.utah.edu Marriott Library Instruction 581-8323 (lv. msg.) http://www.lib.utah.edu/instruction/mltech.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 21:55:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: women, torture, tradition, style Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think both Islam and tradition are getting a bad rap here. Not every >traditionalist Islamic believer believes in female genital mutilation. And >_which_ tradition? There is a tendency to pretend that only the most rigid >belief/behavior systems have roots in tradition. But many of these >represent quite radical shifts from long-standing less rigid traditions --- >for example, what is going on in Afghanistan right now is a radical shift >from local practice. I agree with you on that. I cannot, from my own knowledge, claim that it is a practice that is specifically condoned by that tradition. It is clearly not strongly opposed. I think, without more expertise in that area, that is all we can really say. If it is practiced and not opposed, then similar to what sati (the immolation of wives on their deceased husband's funeral pyres) was to the Hindu tradition before British intervention, the practice is condoned by the cultures / traditions wherein it is practiced. When the spiritual leaders with Islam declare that the practice is forbidden, then the practice will no doubt end among Islamic people. Does the existence of the practice that mean there is a basis for the practice in Islamic tradition ? Not necessarily. Though it might mean that there is no basis for any strong opposition to the practice within the tradition. >I also question the interpretation of "the very use of a western style >poem," but will leave that to others who know more about cross-cultural >borrowings. I think that we have to realize that in fact, no matter what we give lip service to, we do not really respect many of their beliefs and practices (whomever THEY are) and THEY do not in fact respect many of our beliefs and practices. Anything beyond that is simply diplomacy jostling for momentary strategic and economic advantege. While I hate to be so Machiavellian about it, it is the way the world in fact functions. Besides that, the limits of respect as to allowing them their's, if they do not attempt to force their's onto us and make us follow their's, are breached in the instance where there are members of their own group who want to free themselves, or to be freed by means of intervention, from oppressive practices and beliefs that they do not freely choose to accept and follow, but are constrained to by force, and by means of fear and intimidation even unto potential loss of life. Where does respect for alien practices and beliefs end, and intervention against the oppressors become not only acceptable, but necessary ? A difficult but not an impossible question. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:03:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: women, torture Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Briefly on "The Infibulation Ceremony" poem. I welcome morpheal's interest >and Judy Roitman's point that traditionalism and Islam don't necessarily imply >belief in female genital mutilation -- the prose-surround that normally >accompanies this poem fully covers this point and cites a beautiful Islamic >statement about tolerance. As infibulation is only mentioned in the hadith >(traditional sayings of Mohammed), its justification is often regarded as open >to scholarly interpretation. Everything is that way in those kinds of systems. Koran is, I seem to recall, considered the sum total of all human knowledge, all science. So mere mention of something is often considered sufficient. Even vague allusion, of subsequent reading into the text itself what was unknown at the time of writing, is often considered sufficient. Also, the tendency is that if it is mentionned, included, there, and not forbidden explicitly, then it is an accepted practice within the tradition. I doubt, in that case, if you are right about that, that any Islamic leader will strongly oppose the practice. They do not tend to oppose "included" practices that are "mentionned" in the hadith. >I don't think opposing it would be regarded as >Satanic, perhaps even by most hard-liners. As for Western poetry, I mainly >said that my poem was unlikely to get through to Somali nomads -- given the >widespread illiteracy alone, an uncontroversial point. It could, perhaps, but to their worldview it would be unintelligible. That is a huge problem in the attempts to communicate across cultural boundaries. The worldviews are so different, so hard to get one's own head into and understand.....and then too damn easy for whomever gets their head into that space and that space into the head to end up "going native". M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 06:35:12 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: women, torture MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Important to remember ( & know that the first Muslims studied language, history, and science in order to read the Q'uran--interpret--translate--and that THAT is still an ongoing function of Islam --as well as Judaismm and Christianity-- so that the Q'uran was not really considered "the sum total" but rather the book unto which (into which) the sum might be FOUND. I don't believe therfore that a reading into the text--by readers--would have been "unknown" at the time of the intial scribblings began... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:36:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: new books by Davis & Prynne MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Barque Press is looking for subscribers with whose money it can surge ahead into a fatter backlist, and deems fit to propose the following scheme: Barque publishes about 5 books a year. Any subscriber will receive the next 5, two of which will be Jordan Davis's _Poem on a Train_ and JH Prynne's _Red D Gypsum_ (not to be included in the forthcoming collected), at the cut rate of $35 incl. postage. New books will be, otherwise, $10 incl. postage. This is more than I'd like to charge, but cannot persist with present joyous money-flushing attitude. I offer whatever guarantee imaginable that all books will be pretty interesting and nicely produced. The two mentioned, Davis's and Prynne's, will be made with the help of monies received in this way or otherwise but preferably former. Gentle poets, all cashes should be up front naturally. Any profligate souls? Yrs, Keston Sutherland ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:11:26 -0500 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: The Book of Spicer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "a poem is never to be judged by itself alone." This is not a poem. Therefore unjudged by converse logic. Which in turn means, perhaps, that testing the anthologist of Spicer who does not honor Jack's wishes selected with an agenda. If I take this idea too seriously then I might believe anthologies affect the real in the same way that a politician is always adressing his friends or the fact that most americans believe houdini was killed during a magic stunt because of a made for tv movie. Spicer, by selecting the best bits from this or that sequence, for his Collected Poems 1945-1946 (Oyez:White Rabbit) created many moral problems for me like baseball. David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:38:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: sorrel programs are basal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dave! you hall of fame catcher Good to see you on the list again -- I am much interested in this "moral problems like baseball" you say Spicer's oyez selected brought on. Is this the problem of choosing of aesthetics of excluding? Are they problem of reading other people's work, writing your own work, figuring out what work works, what? Or am I lunkheading out because I only really remember Charles DeGaulle and JFK when it comes to moral problems like baseball. As Carol Mirakove says, kids want to know -- Jordan PS computer groups mad about anti-proliferation commerce leaks -- 2000 million theoretical operations per second ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:54:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: James Tate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From a review of James Tate in the "New York Times Book Review," by one Adam Kirsch: "Like the even more nonsensical Language poets, Tate is trying to make words fresh again, to restore the glow that is rubbed away by advertisements and professional jargon and simple day-to-day repetition. Thus the reader discovers these deadpan absurdities: ''Please don't taunt the scrivener. . . . / No muffins permitted in the aviary.'' Or: ''my studies, Retro- / gression and the Requiem Shark, to name but one area.''" The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some insight. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:06:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Golumbia Subject: Re: new books by Davis & Prynne In-Reply-To: from "Keston Sutherland" at Apr 29, 98 10:36:23 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Keston, where should we send money? and to whom should checks be made out? Keston Sutherland wrote: > > Barque Press is looking for subscribers with whose money it can surge > ahead into a fatter backlist, and deems fit to propose the following > scheme: > > Barque publishes about 5 books a year. Any subscriber will receive the > next 5, two of which will be Jordan Davis's _Poem on a Train_ and JH > Prynne's _Red D Gypsum_ (not to be included in the forthcoming collected), > at the cut rate of $35 incl. postage. New books will be, otherwise, $10 > incl. postage. This is more than I'd like to charge, but cannot persist > with present joyous money-flushing attitude. I offer whatever guarantee > imaginable that all books will be pretty interesting and nicely produced. > The two mentioned, Davis's and Prynne's, will be made with the help of > monies received in this way or otherwise but preferably former. Gentle > poets, all cashes should be up front naturally. Any profligate souls? > Yrs, Keston Sutherland > -- dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu David Golumbia ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:11:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Stop, I did not drag my father In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > > By the "get your own anthology" argument all critique is automatically > disarmed. If we can praise what's there it seems equally logical to look > at what isn't, and perhaps speculate on why. > Speculate, but the point stands: what they set out to do is a whole different conceptualization than yours (and, again, yours would be a helpful one to pursue, but it's a different conception) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:55:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Syrian Poet Nizar Qabbani Dies MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain April 30, 1998 By The Associated Press LONDON (AP) -- Nizar Qabbani, the Syrian-born poet admired by generations of Arabs as the master of love verse, died today at his home in London. He was 75. His family said he died of a heart attack. The poet had been in poor health for some months. Syrian President Hafez Assad planned to send a plane to take Qabbani's body back to his native land. In Cairo, Gamal el-Ghitanti, the Egyptian novelist and editor of the weekly News of Literature, described Qabbani as the most popular Arab poet of the 20th century. ``He was by any measure a great Arab poet who made a big effort to make his poetry understandable to all people and not only to the elite,'' he told The Associated Press. In Damascus, the Syrian poet Youssef Karkoutly said Qabbani was ``as necessary to our lives as air.'' Qabbani became popular in 1954 when he published his first volume ``Childhood of A Breast, '' which broke from the conservative traditions of Arab literature. He later wrote poems dealing with social and political issues. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war he lamented in poetry what he saw as a bitter defeat of the Arab states. Qabbani also was a committed Arab nationalist. Two themes dominated his verse: dictatorship and the Arab-Israeli conflict. His later work also criticized the male-dominance of Arab society and its attempts to deprive women of their rights. In his poem ``Drawing with Words'' he wrote: ``When a man wishes a woman he blows a horn,/But when a woman wishes a man she eats the cotton of her pillow.'' He wrote more than two dozen books of poems. He also contributed to the London-based Arabic-language newspaper, al-Hayat. In 1973 he married Balqis al-rawi, an Iraqi teacher whom he had met at a poetry recital in Baghdad. She was killed in a bomb attack by pro-Iranian guerrillas in Beirut in 1981 while working for the Iraqi Embassy's cultural section. He is survived by two daughters and a son. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:52:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Hejinian in Denver MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain For any in the Greater Tri-Tumbleweed area, Lyn Hejinian will be at the University of Denver tomorrow (Friday) to give a talk and a reading. Talk will be from 2-4, reading at 7:30. For info call 303-871-2851. This is part of a Visiting Writers series put on by Cole Swensen, who is really doing a great job bringing in first-rate people. Rachel Levitsky and I will be attending and we couldn't be more excited. I for one hope to bring back a more intelligible report then the one I posted about the Bromige/Hollo/Swensen reading here in Boulder last month. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:29:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: keemun imp. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII "Brave stand against Ron Silliman"?? interesting reading of that encounter... On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, Jordan Davis wrote: > Charles North's _No Other Way: Selected Prose_ is just out from Hanging > Loose. I read it as the significant counterpoint to _Content's Dream_, > more similarities than one might guess. > > Generating some interest and some uninterest is Sianne Ngai's essay "Raw > Matter: A poetics of disgust" in the current number of Open Letter. Philly > talkers will remember that this is the piece Jeff Derksen cited in his > brave stand against Ron Silliman. Philly talkers will also remember that > Derksen, trapped, revealed the source of at least one of his list of > expletive percentages. In the essay Ngai calls for a poetics of muffled > noises in response to cockroaches ingesting fecal matter. Gestalt me in! > > Love, > Nobody Else > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:39:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: fresh In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Now Mayhew has caused Mayhem in the mind i keep by a bar serving coors and is reminding me of that terrible kool and the gong sang (DIGRESSION: i listen to rap when cars pass, and i heard this line "LIKE THE CAT WHO KILLED VERSACE" yesterday, can anybody NAME THAT TUNE) anyway, when i first read this quote i thought it was "Tate is trying to make words FLESH again" ah, the materiality of the word meets the school of disembodied poets --------------------- Well, one could take Mayhew's problem further--- if the avoidance of cliche is now a cliche then everything is permitted (which is a cliche too).... But when we speak of the issue of "making language fresh" (or however you want to express a similar impulse), i guess there's a question involved about WHO you want to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... chris On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > >From a review of James Tate in the "New York Times Book Review," by one > Adam Kirsch: > > "Like the even more nonsensical > Language poets, Tate is trying to make words fresh again, to > restore the glow that is > rubbed away by advertisements and professional jargon and > simple day-to-day > repetition. Thus the reader discovers these deadpan > absurdities: ''Please don't taunt the > scrivener. . . . / No muffins permitted in the aviary.'' Or: > ''my studies, Retro- / > gression and the Requiem Shark, to name but one area.''" > > > The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a > tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical > langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some > insight. > > > Jonathan Mayhew > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > University of Kansas > jmayhew@ukans.edu > (785) 864-3851 > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:42:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: raworth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: tom raworth THings a little confused here, what with no home, and now having to go into hospital (heart) next tuesday. received this as part of a note from tom this morning, anybody closer to the situation, know how we can help? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:57:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: from "louis stroffolino" at Apr 30, 98 11:39:01 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit " But when we speak of the issue of "making language fresh" (or however you want to express a similar impulse), i guess there's a question involved about WHO you want to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... chris" I think there are damn good reasons - social, political, and otherwise - for "keeping the language fresh" or howver you want to twist what that phrase signifies; and I'd say that the insistence that "freshness" as idea is now too commonplace is itself a bit commonplace and overly chic. That fact is that freshness provides absolutely necessary dissonances vis a vis normative usage, dissonaces which the language ultimately has to accomodate by becoming more flexible - the more flexible it becomes the more psossiblities that those who have constructed themselves via uninterpretable or unacceptable vocabularies can impress their vision(s) on larger communities of meaning. Language - as logical space - is open-ended, eh? This, not to mention that freshness is inevitable, generated by our various sub-community vernaculars every milisecond - hence "the cat who waxed Versace" (paraphrasing from memory as the repeater of vernacular expression is wont to do)...So, I'm all for freshness or the word which should be used in its place. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:16:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "trace s. ruggles" Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" And, Kirsch's conclusion is: .. And this, finally, is Tate's message to us: the little .. pleasures of ''pure ordinariness'' make all the pain .. worthwhile. The poems in ''Shroud of the Gnome'' are often .. difficult; but with a message like that, they cannot be a .. challenge. Is Kirsch apologizing for Tate's poetry? Ah, if only the _message_ is good, you can forgive the poet for being _difficult_! And, get this: .. But while poets today may still use modernist techniques -- .. free association, surrealism, complex allusion -- the .. modernist temper is gone; poetry has to a large degree .. resumed its 19th-century role as a comfort and consolation, .. a retreat from the rigors of the world. So, the 20th century was but a little diversion in the grand stream of POETRY which gave the POETS a few neat little tricks to use, but THANK GOD! we're back to comfort and consolation! So, please quit being so diffcult, y'all, and give me some nice little lines I can fall asleep to... --trace-- At 8:39 AM -0700 4/30/98, you wrote: > Now Mayhew has caused Mayhem in the mind > i keep by a bar serving coors > and is reminding me of that terrible kool and the gong sang > (DIGRESSION: i listen to rap when cars pass, and i heard this line > "LIKE THE CAT WHO KILLED VERSACE" yesterday, can anybody > NAME THAT TUNE) > anyway, when i first read this quote i thought it was > "Tate is trying to make words FLESH again" > ah, the materiality of the word meets the > school of disembodied poets > --------------------- > Well, one could take Mayhew's problem further--- > if the avoidance of cliche is now a cliche > then everything is permitted (which is a cliche too).... > > But when we speak of the issue of "making language fresh" > (or however you want to express a similar impulse), > i guess there's a question involved about WHO you want > to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid > the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" > and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- > no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... > chris >On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > >> >From a review of James Tate in the "New York Times Book Review," by one >> Adam Kirsch: >> >> "Like the even more nonsensical >> Language poets, Tate is trying to make words fresh again, to >> restore the glow that is >> rubbed away by advertisements and professional jargon and >> simple day-to-day >> repetition. Thus the reader discovers these deadpan >> absurdities: ''Please don't taunt the >> scrivener. . . . / No muffins permitted in the aviary.'' Or: >> ''my studies, Retro- / >> gression and the Requiem Shark, to name but one area.''" >> >> >> The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a >> tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical >> langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some >> insight. >> >> >> Jonathan Mayhew >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese >> University of Kansas >> jmayhew@ukans.edu >> (785) 864-3851 >> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:18:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: fresh MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain In relation to what Chris says here, I found amusing the latest SPD flyer that arrived at my house, with a blurb from the book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, Patricia Holt (but that's another story) -- something to the effect of "SPD has books by poets who really don't care if you understand them or not!" I thought it was a slightly curious thing to advertise . . . > ---------- > From: louis stroffolino[SMTP:lstroffo@HORNET.LIUNET.EDU] > Sent: Thursday, April 30, 1998 8:39 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: fresh > > Now Mayhew has caused Mayhem in the mind > i keep by a bar serving coors > and is reminding me of that terrible kool and the gong sang > (DIGRESSION: i listen to rap when cars pass, and i heard this line > "LIKE THE CAT WHO KILLED VERSACE" yesterday, can anybody > NAME THAT TUNE) > anyway, when i first read this quote i thought it was > "Tate is trying to make words FLESH again" > ah, the materiality of the word meets the > school of disembodied poets > --------------------- > Well, one could take Mayhew's problem further--- > if the avoidance of cliche is now a cliche > then everything is permitted (which is a cliche too).... > > But when we speak of the issue of "making language fresh" > (or however you want to express a similar impulse), > i guess there's a question involved about WHO you want > to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid > the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" > and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- > no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... > chris > On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > > > >From a review of James Tate in the "New York Times Book Review," by one > > Adam Kirsch: > > > > "Like the even more nonsensical > > Language poets, Tate is trying to make words fresh again, > to > > restore the glow that is > > rubbed away by advertisements and professional jargon and > > simple day-to-day > > repetition. Thus the reader discovers these deadpan > > absurdities: ''Please don't taunt the > > scrivener. . . . / No muffins permitted in the aviary.'' > Or: > > ''my studies, Retro- / > > gression and the Requiem Shark, to name but one area.''" > > > > > > The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a > > tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical > > langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some > > insight. > > > > > > Jonathan Mayhew > > Department of Spanish and Portuguese > > University of Kansas > > jmayhew@ukans.edu > > (785) 864-3851 > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:24:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Fresh MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yes, Louis, let's restore to language its original staleness. We could praise poets for their extreme conventionality. What struck me about the phrase I quoted was, precisely, its conventional formulation. This being said, it is still an unavoidable concept. Tate's poetry, which I have admired at some points of my life, is itself getting extremely formulaic, its zaniness somewhat predictable. The hyperbanality of Raymond Roussel would be the other option, I suppose. Jonathan Mayhem ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:25:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Something I've noticed a lot re: difficulty--- There seems often to be (to continue to be) a real conflation of the poet with the speaker of the poems. Martin Corless-Smith was recently here to read... to my utter surprise people thought his work was extremely difficult (if any of you have seen it....). Judging from the questions people were asking (do you take yourself seriously? How do you figure the theme of 'faith' in your work and its relationship to the lack of 'faith' in narrative that seems also to be an element of your work?...) there was an insistence (on the part of a very educated-about-poetry audience) that the poet and the speaker in the poem were one and the same... That to be 'serious' one must SAY very serious things.... That thematics and direct address are more comprehensible than fomral enactments or mood or tone. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:26:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >In relation to what Chris says here, I found amusing the latest SPD flyer >that arrived at my house, with a blurb from the book editor of the San >Francisco Chronicle, Patricia Holt (but that's another story) -- something >to the effect of "SPD has books by poets who really don't care if you >understand them or not!" I thought it was a slightly curious thing to >advertise . . . > > Geez I'm tired of that tired old saw. In this small poetry community in this small town there are 2 or 3 readings a year which trot out poets of all poetics to audiences varying widely (or is it wildly) in their understandings and by God when those of us who have or should have or wish we had stuff in SPD read invariably we get responses from those who have never heard of SPD or langpo or NYpoets or whatever saying things like "I don't get it but I really like it" or similar variations. Which is a higher sort of understanding, n'est ce pas? (excuse my French) Also, to make things perfectly clear: it isn't "making language FRESH" it's "making language FISH." Let's be careful out there. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:29:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Something I've noticed a lot re: difficulty--- > >There seems often to be (to continue to be) a real conflation of the poet >with the speaker of the poems. > >Martin Corless-Smith was recently here to read... to my utter surprise >people thought his work was extremely difficult (if any of you have seen >it....). > >Judging from the questions people were asking (do you take yourself >seriously? How do you figure the theme of 'faith' in your work and its >relationship to the lack of 'faith' in narrative that seems also to be an >element of your work?...) there was an insistence (on the part of a very >educated-about-poetry audience) Judging from the way I was "educated" about poetry, that probably was the problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:30:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: : fresh trace In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In response to TRACE---I guess I read Kirsch differently (I disagree with his review but for different reasons than trace). I think he's using the word "challenge" positively and lamenting what he sees as a lack of that "challenge" in Tate. Kirsch, as I see it, seems to lament the "19th century role" of poet as consoler and comforter which he detects "beneath" the seemingly modern disjunctive aleatory qualities of the poetry he's discussing..... Now, whether he's ACCURATE about that is one thing (in the first place, I don't quite know what he means about the 19th century poet of comfort and consolation: Baudelaire? Dostoyevski [i know, not a poet] speaks of his writing as "corrective punishment", I see that in much of Dickinson, Shelley, etc. too) Kirsch, of course, poses a reductive dichotomy between "challenge" and "comfort" (but, then, critics and scholars on both sides of the fence have been rewarded for such rhetorical maneuvers for quite some time now....) I also wonder about the phrase "retreat from the rigors of the world". I think Kirsch finds such a stance terrible, and Trace (who thinks Kirsch craves that kind of poetry) also finds it terrible, or ethically unsound. But sometimes the world does not come in the form of RIGORS (rigors unmixed), and then such a "retreat" is not really a retreat.... c On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, trace s. ruggles wrote: > And, Kirsch's conclusion is: > > .. And this, finally, is Tate's message to us: the little > .. pleasures of ''pure ordinariness'' make all the pain > .. worthwhile. The poems in ''Shroud of the Gnome'' are often > .. difficult; but with a message like that, they cannot be a > .. challenge. > > Is Kirsch apologizing for Tate's poetry? Ah, if only the _message_ is > good, you can forgive the poet for being _difficult_! > > And, get this: > > .. But while poets today may still use modernist techniques -- > .. free association, surrealism, complex allusion -- the > .. modernist temper is gone; poetry has to a large degree > .. resumed its 19th-century role as a comfort and consolation, > .. a retreat from the rigors of the world. > > So, the 20th century was but a little diversion in the grand stream of > POETRY which gave the POETS a few neat little tricks to use, but THANK GOD! > we're back to comfort and consolation! So, please quit being so diffcult, > y'all, and give me some nice little lines I can fall asleep to... > > --trace-- > > At 8:39 AM -0700 4/30/98, you wrote: > > Now Mayhew has caused Mayhem in the mind > > i keep by a bar serving coors > > and is reminding me of that terrible kool and the gong sang > > (DIGRESSION: i listen to rap when cars pass, and i heard this line > > "LIKE THE CAT WHO KILLED VERSACE" yesterday, can anybody > > NAME THAT TUNE) > > anyway, when i first read this quote i thought it was > > "Tate is trying to make words FLESH again" > > ah, the materiality of the word meets the > > school of disembodied poets > > --------------------- > > Well, one could take Mayhew's problem further--- > > if the avoidance of cliche is now a cliche > > then everything is permitted (which is a cliche too).... > > > > But when we speak of the issue of "making language fresh" > > (or however you want to express a similar impulse), > > i guess there's a question involved about WHO you want > > to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid > > the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" > > and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- > > no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... > > chris > >On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > > > >> >From a review of James Tate in the "New York Times Book Review," by one > >> Adam Kirsch: > >> > >> "Like the even more nonsensical > >> Language poets, Tate is trying to make words fresh again, to > >> restore the glow that is > >> rubbed away by advertisements and professional jargon and > >> simple day-to-day > >> repetition. Thus the reader discovers these deadpan > >> absurdities: ''Please don't taunt the > >> scrivener. . . . / No muffins permitted in the aviary.'' Or: > >> ''my studies, Retro- / > >> gression and the Requiem Shark, to name but one area.''" > >> > >> > >> The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a > >> tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical > >> langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some > >> insight. > >> > >> > >> Jonathan Mayhew > >> Department of Spanish and Portuguese > >> University of Kansas > >> jmayhew@ukans.edu > >> (785) 864-3851 > >> > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:38:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Fresh In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Re: Chris and Mayhew.... I think of Juliana Spahr's work as in some sense a 'response' to the banalization of language... It seems to me that a major 'argument' or aspect of Spahr's work is a formal and rhetorical insistence that 'drama' or 'emotion' or 'pitch' are not products of semantic zanniness or originality alone... In fact, I would argue that Spahr's work is pretty gosh-darned whacky vis-a-vis her topics and the commercialized and banal language from which a lot of her diction seems to stem.... I don't think her diction or lexicon are banal in the extreme, however. I think that the greatest effect of shocking banality in her work comes from her modulation (or lack thereof) of tone... The difficulty of language (in the form of vocabulary and grammar) is, in my view, one very specific site of 'making it new'-- As in: I think tone and mood and cadence are some of the 'engines' driving a lot of the most original work around by (at least) younger writers... Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:39:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client mothost.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: James Tate In-Reply-To: MAYHEW "James Tate" (Apr 30, 9:54am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >The problem is that this idea of "making words fresh again" is itself a tired commonplace. I also find the phrase "the even more non-sensical langauge poets" hilarious. Apart from this, the review does have some insight. It's not that the idea of making words fresh again is tired commonplace, it is the phrase itself, especially in the context of a review, that is perhaps tired, worn-out. The very idea of "making it new" is hardly Pound's and hardly new; it is inconceivable apart from poetry. __________________________________________________ Argument How can we live without the unknown in front of us? Those of today want the poem to be in the image of their lives, composed of such little consideration, of such little space, and burned with intolerance. Because it is no longer given to them to act supremely, in this fatal preoccupation with self-destruction by their fellows, because their inert wealth holds them back and enslaves them, those of today, their instinct weakened, lose--still keeping alive--even the dust of their names. Born from the summons of becoming, and from the anguish of retention, the poem rising from its well of mud and stars, will bear witness, almost silently, that it contained nothing which did not truly exist elsewhere, in this rebellious and solitary world of contradictions. - Rene Char (trans. by Mary Ann Caws) __________________________________________________ William Burmeister ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:17:05 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: fresh kitten In-Reply-To: <199804301557.LAA23244@dept.english.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT well but the insistence that "the insistence that 'freshness as idea is now too commonplace is itself a bit commonplace and overly chic" is itself a bit commonplace and overly chic. and the trauma of "existence 'in quotes'" Even to say "refreshing/renewing the language" recalls Hobbes' remark on "Cursing, Swearing, Reviling, and the like", viz., that they "do not signifie as Speech; but as the actions of a tongue accustomed". Can someone tell me: whjat does it mean, this re- and tired version of MAKE IT NEW? And where is it this specific formulation comes from? like a graphic novel by Baudrillard. come in, mission control - chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:16:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re freshly stale In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII since culinary metaphors have come up, i think of the stale "raw vs. cooked" debate and wonder if some people mean "cooked" when they say "fresh" (and "raw" when they say "stale")....... it does seem that way at times.......... maybe i should ask frank lima, chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:20:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: poems for the millennium vol. 2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" am embroiled in my own institutional nonsense here, but having just yesterday rec'd vol. two of the jerry/pierre anthology, i wanted to take this opportunity, and the unforgiveable speed of this medium, to toss in a few all-too-hasty remarks by way of reopening this thread: (1) first and foremost: if you simply pick up the book and flip through its contents, it should be clear that this is a vast and in some ways unprecedented effort... my first thought was---no doubt like some of you---that so & so had been excluded, and that so & so had been included... and my list of so & so's on both sides of the exclusion/inclusion coin would have included many more mainstream poets, simply b/c i believe it important to try to bring disparate communities of poets together, if only to squabble (i worry a bit that some may not come to this volume b/c of obvious exclusions)... but there can be no denying that the range of volume two is considerable... and that the editors are to be congratulated once again... (2) that said, i note in flipping through that the book does not seem to offer as clearcut a configuration of 'schools' and 'movements' as did volume one... is this simply an impression?---or is volume two configured more around clusters?... for what it's worth: i had my dozen or so (again, engineering/science major, creative writing) students paw through the volume a bit, and their first observation was that it didn't designate movements (e.g., modernism, surrealism, etc.) as did the first volume... for what it's worth, i say... now, i anticipated that this volume would be, by its very nature, more controversial, in trying to approach the impossible present with an eye or two toward the impossible future... (3) i haven't had a chance to really spend any time with editorial apparatus---i've only skimmed through... but i want to offer here a quick list that i formulated---not a list of exclusions (or omissions), but of inclusions... in fact, of duplications (of a sort)---those authors whose work is reproduced both in volume one and in volume two (not the same work, of course---and apologies for any bean-counting errors): akhmatova artaud breton cesaire duchamp duncan ekelof eshleman h.d. jabes joyce mac low macdiarmid michaux neruda olson oppen ortiz paz pound sabina schwerner g. stein stevens williams zukofsky (22 men, 4 women) what i'd want to know from jerry/pierre, if it isn't already noted in the editorial apparatus, is whether and to what extent this duplication was itself a matter of extended deliberation... well---to be more precise, b/c i'm sure it *was*---what were the terms of this deliberation?... (4) it's true that auden, spicer, and many others have been excluded from volume two... at the same time, i note that spicer and auden and many others DO appear in the commentary sections... and this is in fact significant, not only from a teaching perspective, but in terms of developing historial context... i wonder whether jerry/pierre intend someday to produce an index for the volumes that might include all of those poets mentioned in the commentary sections?... i think this would be extremely useful... (5) given my own specific interests, it was nice to see a section on "cyberpoetry," to see someone like jim rosenberg finally get his due, and to see folks like don byrd and michael joyce credited for their contributions to late 20th century thought... i know of many, many talented folks who might also have been included here, but again i regard the drift of the anthology as not so much to territorialize as to provide a sense of openings... and a sense is just that---a sense, even with u of california backing... in other words, the editors as i see it are using a powerful academic press in order to advance an unorthodox and polemical understanding of poetic possibilities... and like, why the hell not?... i like it, for example, that readers are referred in volume one to seek eliot's _the waste land_ elsewhere... (6) i've had a chance to read over jonathan mayhew's brief review of the anthology, and i do think jonathan's is an even-handed critique, given the brevity of his review---and we all know that no book is beyond critique... i encourage those of you who are interested to have a look at what jonathan is saying... at http://www.ellavon.com/ anyway, again, all too hasty and for what it's worth... and i need to say here, again, that i think jerry and pierre are to be congratulated for another superb volume... all best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:44:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: fresh In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, louis stroffolino wrote: > to do that for? And I wonder if there's a way to avoid > the possibility that someone will find "too obscure" > and "meaningless" what another person finds "too cliche"---- > no matter WHAT kind of poem you write....... > chris No--there is no way. It would be a little like living in an antiseptic bubble. Protected from infection, but cut off from the world. (That is, it would be like that **if** there were a way...but (fortunately) there isn't) Of the making of books (and websites) there is no end, saith the preacher. Disagreement, disagreement, all is disagreement (and on balance that's a good thing, nao e?) The seventh circle of hell (since I'm waxing religoid) would be to write a poem that Helen Vendler admired... (signed) postecclesiastical in @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:50:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: new titles Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Three new titles just out from Sun & Moon Press, and one new work from Green Integer. As usual, we offer folks on the poetics list a 20% discount. Order from djmess@sunmoon.com LAST WORDS, by Guy Bennett The first book of poems by poet/translator Guy Bennett, our own Sun & Moon stalwart, who typesets and designs the typography for all our books. Guy's book uses a collage technique of "writing through" other writers (in this case, poets ranging from Stein to Guest, from Lorca to Mac Low). Bennett fuses together a variety of poetic timbres and stylistic registers into a single lyric voice. The result is a suite of humorous, often enigmatic poems whose potential meanings like somewhere in the the linguistic, yet inevitably human space that separates the reader from the work. New American Poetry Series: 19 $9.95 NOON, by Cole Swensen Cole's seventh book of poetry, chosen through the New American Poetry competition, selected by Rae Armantrout. The poet leaads us into NOON's interior so that we "see the word as a single streak, something built of transparent speed: pure white of the sort they say no one person, unaided, can perceive." New American Poetry Series: 24 $10.95 CHILDREN OF CLAY, by Raymond Queneau The great novel by French OuLiPoian Queneau, a book previously untranslated in English Translated, with an introduction, by Madeleine Velguth. Sun & Moon Classics: 100 $14.95 AN INTERVIEW, by Jean Renoir An Interview represents the last public appearance and some of the last living statements on his films of the great French film director, Jean Renoir. In 1975 Renoir agreed to be interviewed by James Blue, James Silke, and others at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. In this revealing interview Renoir speaks about his relationship with the industry, actors, and his major films. Green Integer 6 $9.95 I look forward to hearing from you. Douglas Messerli ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:58:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: fwd: job opening In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-From_: mn-arts@freedom.mtn.org Thu Apr 30 12:54 CDT 1998 Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:53:06 -0500 Reply-To: mn-arts@freedom.mtn.org Originator: mn-arts Sender: mn-arts@freedom.mtn.org Precedence: bulk =46rom: "Philip Blackburn" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: ACF position opening X-Comment: A Discussion List For MN Arts Groups. AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM LINKING COMMUNITIES WITH COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS... 332 Minnesota Street, Suite E145, St. Paul MN 55101 (612) 228-1407, (612) 291-7978, fax mail@composersforum.org POSITION AVAILABLE Job Title: Project Director (new position) Reports to: Executive Program Director Hours: Exempt, full-time; normal business hours, some evenings and weekends, occasional national travel Compensation Low-mid 30=BCs, paid health insurance, vacation Start date: June 15, 1998 (pending confirmation of funding) The American Composers Forum (ACF) seeks applications for a Project Director. The Project Director will develop and manage a major new national initiative; a collaboration between ACF and a national funder. The project will place composers in residence to work with communities throughout the nation. The Project Director, along with another staff member supervised by the Project Director, will research and contact community and arts organizations nationwide (especially those who have had little exposure to new music or access to composers), solicit project proposals, coordinate a national peer panel to select at least 30 and as many as 50 projects, write job descriptions, issue a call to composers, and connect agencies and composers in residencies that will culminate with premieres of commissioned works in the year 2000. While the duration of the project is three years, it is expected that the position will be continued. ACF, with offices in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a non-profit! service organization with over 1000 professional members in the U.S. and abroad. The mission of the American Composers Forum is to link communities with composers and performers, encouraging the making, playing, and enjoyment of new music. RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE: =C4 Research and contact festivals, presenters, and community arts organizat= ions =C4 Develop and distribute host-site application materials as widely as poss= ible =C4 Develop and manage a panel process for selecting 30-50 projects =C4 Develop and issue a call to composers =C4 Serve as liaison with collaborative funder =C4 Supervise Associate Project Director =C4 Manage budget, process, contracts, and payments =C4 National travel required QUALIFICATIONS: =C4 Ability to plan and administer complex projects to conclusion =C4 Confidence, flexibility, and high level of self-motivation =C4 Knowledge of new music and artist-in the community issues helpful =C4 Effective written and verbal communications skills, including ability to communicate effectively with rural constituencies and composers, ability to handle media attention =C4 B.A. degree (minimum) and/or comparable combination of experience and education in project management or arts administration =C4 Computer experience (Macintosh preferred) HOW TO APPLY: Send a letter of application describing your skills and experience as they relate to the responsibilities and qualifications of the position; a complete r=C8sum=C8; and names, addresses, and phone numbers of three references. SEND TO: Project Director Search American Composers Forum 332 Minnesota Street, Suite E145 St. Paul MN 55101 APPLICATION DEADLINE: Ongoing review. Open until filled. Call Frank Stubbs at (612) 228-1407 with questions or for a full job description. No fax applications will be accepted. The American Composers Forum is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, marital status, national origin, disability, age, public assistance status, veteran status, or sexual orientation. Rev 4/29/98 American Composers Forum 332 Minnesota Street, #E-145 St. Paul, MN 55101, USA Tel: (612) 228-1407 (800) 223-8619 =46ax: (612) 291-7978 After June, 1998 we will be changing our area code from 612 to 651. Please update whatever is necessary. HTTP://WWW.COMPOSERSFORUM.ORG Our e-mail has been known to be imperfect; If you get a message bounced back please try me at: PhilipBla@aol.com "Ask me about my Partch book" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 13:59:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: query asap In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi guyzies i need quick (before tmw a.m.) full bibliographic material for: Out of Everywhere Moving Borders Feminist Measures thanks AAWWWfully ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:23:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Spicer, surrealism, born on date MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Spicer's "Textbook of Poetry" starts out by saying "Surrealism is the business of poets who cannot benefit from surrealism." Does this mean that surrealism was on the right track but got bogged down in a certain routinization? This might be relevant to James Tate. I have always been puzzled by this line; I think I understand it, but perhaps I don't. Your brilliant interpretations are welcome. I have this repeated experience of thinking I am highly interested in surrealism, starting to read it, and then losing interest quickly. Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 15:44:04 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: A fresh fit of ranting about freshness In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Judy Roitman wrote: > > > Geez I'm tired of that tired old saw. In this small poetry community in > this small town there are 2 or 3 readings a year which trot out poets of > all poetics to audiences varying widely (or is it wildly) in their > understandings and by God when those of us who have or should have or wish > we had stuff in SPD read invariably we get responses from those who have > never heard of SPD or langpo or NYpoets or whatever saying things like "I > don't get it but I really like it" or similar variations. Which is a > higher sort of understanding, n'est ce pas? (excuse my French) > > Also, to make things perfectly clear: it isn't "making language FRESH" it's > "making language FISH." > > Let's be careful out there. > *This is a great post..........I believe that everything said above is true and has n'er been so well expressed... *I don't think these things can be stressed too often. Not too long ago, there was an issue of the mag Central Park, with a colloquy on poetix. I believe it was Stephen-Paul Martin, who said a couple of times that "avant-garde" poets *believe* that they are "difficult" and *want to be* (or, I think the phrase "take pride in it" came up); astonishingly, this hopelessly riseable claim was repeated and expanded on by Mark Wallace, another participant. Now you have to understand that both poets were speaking of themselves as among the "A-G" types they were refering to. They were bringing up this subject by way of criticizing (or questioning) a grouping they considered themselves to be to a degree a part of. (and so the intention as I read it was one of tentative self-criticism, in a collective sense) *Now both these guys do very worthwhile work. Mark in particular, as is known to most Listmembers here, is an important and fabulous poet on the contemporary scene. *They were spouting a bunch of nonsense, at least when they made these particular comments. (Most of Wallace's remarks in the symposium however are brilliant, and folks should look 'em up). Why would they go so far astray?? *I can only imagine there is a strong sense of ambivalence and complex self-reflection, going on for these two poets, which reflects some of the pressure felt when one is isolated from the well-funded (however inert or pathological) ruling cultural institutions. Also (and related) there is the pressure of self-doubt that is felt when one's audience is relatively small. *They may take pride in trying to obscure...But actually I don't think they do; they were going a bit overboard with the earnest self-examination stuff.. *In any event (and in line with Judy's comments) I think I can assure them that a very large number of non-mainstream poets know that they are not (in any genuine and absolute sense ) "obscure and difficult"....No matter what the NYT Book Review imagines! What we are doing may not be lifeless and wooden, to the ear or mind, but that doesn't make it obscure, nor is that a *goal*....fa petesake.. (signed) lucid in Atlanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 16:04:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Re: Spicer, surrealism, born on date In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Spicer's "Textbook of Poetry" starts out by saying "Surrealism is the >business of poets who cannot benefit from surrealism." > >Does this mean that surrealism was on the right track but got bogged down >in a certain routinization? This might be relevant to James Tate. > >I have always been puzzled by this line; I think I understand it, but >perhaps I don't. Your brilliant interpretations are welcome. > >I have this repeated experience of thinking I am highly interested in >surrealism, starting to read it, and then losing interest quickly. > >Jonathan Okay, here's a simplistic stab at it. Those who take to surrealism most naturally as a means of poetic expression already are surrealists without consciously meaning to be. Because they are surrealists by nature, the possibility of "benefiting"from surrealism -- in the sense of its adding value to their work -- is moot. On the other hand, for poets who are basically dour, realist types, the appropriation of surrealism's surface characteristics may be more overtly conscious, and may hold the (possibly false) promise of extending their work in more interesting directions. ("I'm clumsy but if I learn to two-step people will love me.") But since Spicer's is really a tautological statement only a surrealist can love, why bother to make it make sense? Poetry is the business of surrealists who cannot benefit from poetry. Now _that_ I understand. -- Fred M. ******************************************************** Fred Muratori (fmm1@cornell.edu) Reference Services Division Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html ********************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:12:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: tusind tak Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thousand thanks to all who asap'd the query. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 17:43:03 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Fresh obscure cliches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aren't these terms entirely relative? "Difficult" is any discourse with which one is not familiar. So the further you go into a particular discourse, the more obscure your cliches become. Which, to the uninitiated to that particular discourse, is perceived as "difficult." Story: Picasso was painting a portrait of some guy's wife. Guy drops by the atelier to check out Picasso's progress & complains: "She doesn't look like THAT!" Picasso asks, "Well, what DOES she look like?" The guy pulls out a photograph and points to it. "She looks like THIS." "Hmm," Picasso says, "small, isn't she?" To someone not familiar with psychoanalysis, a cliche might seem obscure and, yes, "fresh." The discourse of writers is intensely fresh and obscure and cliched. I know people who think anyone who reads (even the most mainstream) poetry is automatically avant-garde. Does arguing these issues among ourselves seem rather funny to anyone else? I want to take this opportunity to officially nominate rational discourse as most banal (as in tedious). latergaters. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 17:46:52 -0700 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Spicer, surrealism, born on date MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I have this repeated experience of thinking I am highly interested in > surrealism, starting to read it, and then losing interest quickly. To borrow from a Jiffy Pop advertisement ("fresh" if you've never heard it, "cliched" if you have, and "obscure" if you think you've heard it but can't quite remember WHERE): Surrealism's more fun to make than it is to eat. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 22:49:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: make your mind MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sparrow read some dinosaur haiku tonight: A pteranadon lands on a brycephalosaurus. That, and then this in today's paper about Chinese airports: only Beijing has radar; the other traffic controllers ask incoming planes where they left from, when, and how fast they've been going. --...But I was talking about the intellect.... --And you say it's getting mechanized, too....But open your eyes, my dear man, never have people evolved such hair-raising theories as now. --Where do you mean? --Everywhere....In writing above all, as is natural...and then in painting. They certainly serve up some horrors--with theories to match.... --Lord, yes....The product has to have directions on the packet. --Paul Valery, Idee Fixe For several seasons now the city, and for that matter the whole country, have enjoyed an attack of balletomania from which, happily, neither shows any sign of recovering. The touring companies are packing in customers from Kansas to California. New York could treat itself to a winter season of ballet, too, if there were a proper theater free and an extra company free to dance in it. Is it too much to ask that New York should have its own ballet with a permanent home here? For such an organization touring would be only a secondary activity. So far, first-class ballet in this country has been leading a hand-to-mouth existence, keeping on the go year in and year out. In constant travel it wears out its strength and brilliance and productivity. Dancers need a home like anyone else. As artists they need to share the natural life of a city, like the people who know they belong there. As professionals they need quiet to practice, to develop, to rehearse. The choreographers need confidence in the schools that train their young dancers, and they need confidence in whatever intellectual life the country has. These are slow things that have to be able to grow unconsciously over a long term of years. They are the things that eventually give ballet a sound and strong character. A racing stable needs sensible attention all year round and needs to plan for it; much more an ensemble of ballet dancers. --Edwin Denby (February 17, 1944), from "Why Not a New York Ballet" in _Dance Writings_ You on the pop? No, I couldn't get on. You using ppp still? Why don't you use open transport? I use dialer. Look at that. Andre's coming back. Open cardboard box on a navajo rug, full of padded mailers. Silver paper wrapped long box shining on a New York Times, who was that? Beck! holding it up. Flowers blowing on the balcony the dorm august white. Flowers still. Okay I'm gonna go. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 23:08:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: obscurity It's nice to think that all obscure poets are for real while all the rest are sellouts. Only it's not true. Obscurity is also a business in the poetry world. It's called obfuscation and it's a cottage industry. Poetry is very strange: if you make an idol out of it it bumps you off. It's like Fortune or the Fates. It's like the Muse. - Henry Gould