========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 11:55:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: week forthcoming Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Lots of special events next week starting with: Our last open mike of the season on Monday, May 3rd so if you've been storing it up come on by! Sign-up at 7:30, reading begins at 8 the next open mike isn't until October something Wednesday, May 5th at 8 pm Overtime: Reading for Philip Whalen with Jackson Mac Low & Anne Tardos, Charles Bernstein, Ammiel Alcalay, Leslie Scalapino, Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, Edmund & Anselm Berrigan, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Tom Carey, Michael Rothenberg (editor of the book!), Wanda Phipps, and Lewis Warsh. A reception, wine & cheese, will follow Thursday, May 6th at 8 pm Later Auden: A Talk by Edward Mendelson W.H.Auden's literary executor and author of Early Auden, Edward Mendelson will give a talk on the second part of his ongoing biography of Auden, just published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Copies of Later Auden will be on sale at the event, which is part of the Bicentennial Celebration of St. Mark's Church (Auden was a parishioner for many years) Friday, May 7th at 8 pm New Writers from Saint Ann's School We need volunteer help for all of these events, so if you're in NYC, and feel like donating a little exercise & generosity, please call us at 674-0910. It'll be much appreciated! AND NEW ON THE WEBSITE---well, you'll find that out on Tuesday, when we announce new poets & poems, a new feature, new archives, in our bimonthly frenzy of cyber-excitement... Happy May Day ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:51:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: SPT summer internship Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic will be holding its annual manuscript auction/literary soiree the beginning of October. In honor of our 25th anniversary, the soiree will include a large group reading to celebrate the glory of SPT. We have an openning for a summer intern to work on the soiree. Duties include attending soiree committee meetings, helping to solicit food and auction item donations, bulk mailing invitations, working at the soiree. Very flexible. Most of our interns have received college credit. Last summer's soiree intern received credit for independent study from SF State. So, if you're in the Bay Area this summer/early fall and are looking for an opportunity, here's one. We also can use volunteers for the soiree committee. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:35:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: book announcement In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >i'll 2nd david baratier's notion, and qualify rachel loden's note on design >elements: her _the last campaign_ is not just another pretty poetry >book---it's a great read!... > >best, > >joe I'll third that motion. I read each poem 4 times and that makes a lovely thick book. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 01:57:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Jan Zwicky In-Reply-To: <199905010409.AAA17961@smtp4.fas.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear listfolk -- The upcoming Harvard Review of Philosophy (which, for better or for worse, I'm editing), is coming out with a long poem by the Canadian poet Jan Zwicky. We will have a few copies left over after we mail, so if any Poetics folk would like a copy, backchannel (but soon; we're bulk mailing in two weeks.) In the same breath, if anybody would like information about the review (submissions, etc.), drop me a line here or at hrp@hcs.harvard.edu. We publish yearly on a wide range of material, making an end run from phil of mathematics back around to aesthetics. -- Simon sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 09:26:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: trance, late Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the canned toes of ezra pound sat in little mason jars beside the cash register of the gem spa one toe (inflated with collagen) per yellow translucent wire hinged rubber gaskets jar dozens of them left there for a giggle by a wicked blackburn flask drained on his way for a pizzle forty years earlier left four of them originally thats all he had but soon enough others left toes in their wills Armand Schwerner being the latest left two BIG toes they called them all ezra pounds toes and nobody knew which were the original four the toes pound lost tenting in the pisan winter the pisan canned toes but i knew pounds toes stank difference they were gleaner bluer i generally put them one by one under my tongue and suck them like a toffee like a limburger toffee a toe jam toffee at the beginning of my shift before i make a single egg creme it's just like lsd i love everyone i see a god in them don't know WITch wikkad which tadakemas namaste never swallowed the god 'spickled toes put them back in the brine for the next shift the future happiness of the other cashier who once pretended to be affrican ++++++++++++++++++++++ daddy's got cancel goes for irritation therapy emptiness the beginning colon-ization=drowned in shit, shat upon, shoot, shot it's just an isotope it eats our cantelope they keep me swinging at a plutonium ball and i'm getting scold so called and i'm gettin 'scalled plutonium balled ballad plutonium bullet ballot plutonium bottle ballet plutonium battle wallet plutonium william butler plutonium peanut butler yeats plutonium shelley bellies plutonium Smart balm plutonium patchen salve they say that serbs are born with teeth and albanians are born with pliars they each know better liars butterflyers haven't herd a badder1 this week be stihl meinhart fails further scrutiny poetry inspector rules ixnay only meets three out of five requirements not a poem another travesty report to the meatgrinder the knifesharpener the plutonium knife the microwave butter glowing toast to the mutants i want to be in that number when the demons go marching in in that number when the ghosts go shrieking in i want to be in that number when the ghosts are phreakin no peekin cast your eyes from this wikkadness my friend it can only add this dress to your discomfort Endall CORNFUSION 4git D alphabet close your eyes make new hordes war horsehair whores hath wrote ywrot -ik saylaysh Us gggggggrrrrafffikkkkkkk 7penny tales bang in weirden wyrrds jerkin on da jane gang gnewed whirleds seven consonant whirleds oh shun worlds is land whirls overworlds suspended invalid command forbidden puff jobs for nazis night skunkwerlds vote for goatzzzzz flee speech knight See King, the holey jail Dream King Dream the doorless washers sans Windows saluters sans Stolichnaya can't blame ya dasvadenya tovarichita aufwiedersein forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 14:08:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Bedight and fillyness Comments: cc: British-Poets@Mailbase.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (Apologies for cross-posting, but) For those who might be interested, here is what I said yesterday at the University of British Columbia English Department's alcohol-free (not, then, free alcohol) retirement party, held to mark my retirement from this sad profession. Peter SPITCH What are you supposed to say in a retirement speech? I've been looking forward to this one for thirty-seven years, and I can't resist this final dress rehearsal, this final tryout of the role every faculty member lusts for: This is the Must of an old fart. For you are my last captive audience; this is MY last captive occasion (at least here), and I'm going to gloat. I promise not to take more than half an hour. What WILL you do with yourself, people have been asking. What'll you miss? Well, more than anything I'll miss the secretarial staff; they really are the saints the Pope should elevate; they keep this place together, and they keep us -- more or less -- sane, or at least functional. I shall indeed miss them, and say thankyou with all my heart. What else will I miss? Well, I'm going to SHED (at least I hope I am) that habit of mind which over the years creeps up on those who escaped it in graduate school, a habit of mind which deftly, and with acute unconscious accuracy, allegorizes the place of the humanities in our culture by housing them in the Buchanan Tower, whose brutally assertive phallic exterior encases a stifling colourless rigidity. I'm going to miss a university administration whose most generous acts it can think of on your retirement are to give you free parking when you no longer need it, and a library card for a spanking brand new library whose collection is justifiably celebrated, and whose custodians are so besotted with computers that it now takes thirty minutes to find what you used to find in thirty seconds in the card catalogue. I'm going to miss students, that astonishing company of the young. But if I should miss them too much, then I shall think of the diligent gravity of the undergraduate essay which carefully tells me in an essay on _Great_Expectations_ that Being approached by escaped convicts while visiting one's parents' grave must have been very scary. Magwitch hung Pip upsidown and backed him up against a grave stone so he was unable to keep upright. He told Pip to get him a file and widdle. What demons possess us that we divorce the young from their language? that we terrorize those who write DON'T or COULDN'T in an essay, or who use the first person, or end a sentence with a preposition. And there's the earnest intellectualism of the graduate student who, old before her time, in her first published article gravely tells us that Lise Melhorn-Boe "uses the book form to create an accessible site of interface between the voices in the text and the reader." Where DOES this come from? What fear in THERE of gusto and of lustiness, of excitement in the life of words, of bluntness and simplicity, of LOVE. How is it that willy-nilly we foster such pretentious codswallop. What we do to the language, we do to ourselves. We need a gross of munacy in our surds, spadness in our weech, bedight and fillyness in the crassloom. Laughter instead of slaughter. We bleed to declare -- and this is amather nutter -- we need to beware the sour we all field, our tower to hulverize and scarrifiate those who crust angrobiliac and furopentric impristities, for we absquatify ourselves as well as crudents in the blame of expidulous bloatocols of so-called lollarship and spurning. What an engridulating blatisfaction it has been to crotch the anxious sob-candidate who stabled moetry as Puff in his lob-jecture and was farsequently sub- sighted for his enquasiasm during question prime. There is great puffty in a fullying pubillanimity which prebends the bluedent from confussing "I don't know" in an essay. I have been what I have seen. To tosh a body's tender, slakes the burst for flood. How we need an infibulating ambifallity, and how gradulous if we cannot see the pun in inTER disciplinarity. Injell-iter-liberty is the fast confuge of the depressive Absolute. Grammar masks a military practice. And me? Well, I'm OUT of this bloody army, so I gloat. Whoop de do. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Peter Quartermain 846 Keefer Street Vancouver B.C. Canada V6A 1Y7 Voice : 604 255 8274 Fax: 255 8204 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 14:50:09 -0700 Reply-To: minka@grin.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: megan minka lola camille roy Subject: Larsen and Vitiello at New Langton Arts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hullo Poetics Universe, New Langton Arts is presenting these great young poets next week, thursday ONLY... xox camille Reading: David larsen and chris vitiello Thursday, May 6, 1999 San Francisco-On Thursday, May 6, New Langton Arts presents two dynamic and upcoming writers, David Larsen and Chris Vitiello. The reading begins at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $6 general and $4 for students, seniors, and Langton members. The reading is held in Langton's theater at 1246 Folsom Street (between 8th and 9th streets) in San Francisco. For advance purchase, reservations, or more information, please call 415 626 5416. David Larsen first came to the Bay Area from Southern California ten years ago to attend the University of California at Berkeley, where he is now a PhD. candidate in Comparative Literature. His self-published efforts include Ice Devil, Stooper, Stoner, Famous Mouth Breathers, Twice Tolled Bells (with Raymond Pettibon), and the upcoming Porches of the Holy. He is the cover artist for Katherine Lederer's Explosive Magazine, now in its seventh issue. Larsen will be reading Twilit Summer, a selection from his seven volume series Sepia, a group of hand-made books about baseball, surfing, pop music, oblivion, and trauma. Durham, North Carolina resident Chris Vitiello has published work in many small magazines including Chain, Tinfish, and Open 24 Hours. Forthcoming books in 1999 include Nouns Swarm A Verb (Xurban) and Monica and Clinton: An Unauthorized Impeachment (7 bumps). Vitiello will be performing A Short History of What Your Eyes Does, a work involving spoken and written text, projections, and assorted light-emitting machines. Audience members will be taught how to properly use their eyes and brains in order to become contributing members of society. "Physician's permission is recommended, as conventional physics may be disproven or suspended." TICKET INFORMATION *$6 general / $4 students, seniors, and Langton members *Tickets go on sale at 7:00 pm *Advance reservations are recommended *Advance purchases with Visa or Mastercard available by phone or in person ($1 service fee per ticket) *For reservations, advance purchase, or more information, please call 415 626 5416 -- &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Go there, get paid, right now, bulls-eye, never before, sure fire: http://www.grin.net/~minka "everything that's said gets swallowed, and that isn't fatalism of the 19th century either." (L. Scalapino) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 20:21:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: emgarrison Subject: Depleted Uranium ??? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit PLEASE CONFIRM FOR YOURSELF. PLEASE COPY AND PASS. http://www.fas.org (Federation of American Scientists) and http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk/ (Coghill research labs in the UK) contain some very disturbing information about weaponry that was used in the Gulf War and is *probably* being used now in Yugoslavia. The upshot is that cruise missiles often contain 3kg of depleted uranium, and this is coming to be associated with the Gulf War syndrome and the apparently high levels of cancer present in Iraq now in the battle regions. Essentially, if this weaponry is being used in Yugoslavia, then they are being nuked, not just bombed, and the effects will be significant for generations. The effects of war, of course, are always present for generations, regardless of whether the weaponry is nuclear or not. But the deformities are usually psychic and societal, not physical as they shall be in this case if indeed we are nuking Yugoslavia. http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk/WEBDU.htm and http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs99/990406-kosovo-du.htm are reputable information sources that suggest A LOW LEVEL NUCLEAR ACTION might be going on in Yugoslavia. But no one seems to be saying for sure, at this point. Those with IE may want to have a look at the military videos available at http://www.miltoxproj.org/videos.html. They are strangely optimistic about our ability to manage the sort of large scale radiological pollution that could be occuring now. -------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE COPY AND PASS. Dear Friend, Yes. The depleted uranium metals are being used in the "tank killers" i.e. metals that are heavy enough to pierce armored vechicles, tanks and such... Not probably being used...Being Used. Also, the effects are physical..i.e..children of gulf war victims being born without eyes, limbs etc. Friend of mines husband died last winter in Washington. His job in the gulf war was disarming mines, and eco clean up. When they questioned the veterans administration, and the military, they were told that there was no evidence that uranium caused the rare form of cancer that killed him eventually, and also, if they talked about it, they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for revealing information that was threatening to national security. "There is no path to Peace. Peace is the path." Gandhi ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 17:02:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Teichman Subject: Eyewitness Report--Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry Comments: cc: hteichma@lehman.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I attended (with my wife) the ninth CCCP, held at Trinity College on 23-25 April, organized by Rod Mengham, Kevin Nolan, Ian Patterson and Peter Riley. What follows amounts chiefly to first impressions, since I was unfamiliar with the work of all the readers except Michael Palmer before the conference, but a somewhat naïve and ‘other’ look at a perhaps sometimes too self-congratulatory avant-garde may have a modest value, so I continue. It was hard to avoid invidious comparison with the Barnard conference of two weeks earlier, the only part of which I was able to attend, regrettably, was on Saturday from lunch on—the readings there, in New York, by Armantrout and Mullen were galvanizing, not to mention Perloff’s slightly incendiary paper. The Cambridge conference was, by contrast, a most odd, uneven and apparently insular affair, thankfully enlivened by its French Connection: (1) The roster of readers might have been the work of Monty Python or David Lodge—and there were no overlap sessions, so one had a choice of only one reader at any given time. There was no discernible overall aesthetic (maybe not such a bad thing). There wasn’t much obvious questioning of the subjective ‘I’ in evidence, nor was there any Marxism on display. A few poets seemed to have been included simply because they had connections with Cambridge. I had expected heavy attendance from the pages of the ‘Other’ and ‘Chaos’ anthologies, but most of those anthologized, even some who live in Cambridge, seemed to give it a miss. Maybe someone (Ric Caddel?) on the List can fill me in on the cultural politics here. (2) The University was at best an indifferent host. I was lucky to be overheard by a helpful French lector in the know, Vincent Ferre, when I asked directions to the opening reading on Friday night, or I might have had a very hard time finding it. The first and last readings took place in the Old Combination Room (OCR), a fairly large old reception hall with portraits of Newtonian bewigged gentlemen on the walls, where the acoustics were so-so, there was no miking and the entry door was heavy and loud. As the chairs for the first night’s reading had been removed at the last minute by the College, people had to scramble for seats in sofas along the walls. Poor Michel Deguy, the ‘guest of honour’ of the conference, had to hunker scowling and uncomfortable on a low table, listening to a barely audible reading in English by the very gentle and soft-spoken Lee Harwood. The remaining readings were in the pleasant, modern Winstanley lecture hall. (3) The French visitors to this conference must have viewed much of the proceedings with bemused perplexity. Philippe Beck, whose journal ‘Quaderno’ was feted, gamely sat through the whole thing (as did I). With the exception of Michael Palmer, who is well known to be ‘sited’ within a Venn intersection of the two literatures, the anglophone and francophone poets here might have come from different planets. There was no public discussion of this yawning gap. A panel discussion on this point was sorely missed. (Aside: Why is it that the major French figures known in the English-speaking innovative world seem much less interested in dense post-Steinian word-salad than some of their anglophone counterparts?) (4) This was a notably unfriendly and clannish (dare I say cliquish?) small gathering (about 30 or so people most of the time). The only people with any interest in talking to me, a nobody and an American, when approached (with the exception of Peter Riley, a genuinely nice chap) were not English: Vincent Ferre, Michael Palmer and Stephen Rodefer. There was a lot of shifty avoidance of eye contact and haughty gliding or lounging about, even though we were closeted together. So much for human relations after the Poetry Revolution. There was also a somewhat laddish, old-boys-club, brilliant-amateur atmosphere to the whole thing, despite the inclusion of a few women readers, which seemed typically English to me. The order of speakers kept having to be rearranged, with a few substitutions as well. The highlights (for me) were (in no particular order): Michael Palmer, Christian Prigent, and Michel Deguy, though there were many other moments of interest. A few panel discussions or presentations of papers might have broken up the readings effectively and generated more public discussions (of which there were none). The readings (first impressions from sketchy notes): Lee Harwood, an infinitely gentle, thin and slightly stooped figure, opened the readings with some poems from his latest book, ‘Morning Light’. He mentioned that he’s worked as a museum guard, and invoked the names of Anne Stevenson and Wordsworth in his inter-poem musings. He makes small jabbing karate-chop gestures to accentuate the frequent silence-beats between phrases, producing quietly staccato rhythms. His poems seem imagist, roughly, consisting of sequences of impressions and thoughts, often anchored in a place, with sometimes just a little too much explanation for the reader (like Wordsworth?) Maybe a bit of a New York school influence? Not very pomo, certainly. A curious choice for the opening of this conference, I thought. Next morning, Michael Ayres, a local Cambridge poet, began the day. His reading was quite moving, though again scarcely modernist let alone pomo, being first-personal, elegiac and deeply mourning. The first text kept repeating, effectively, the phrase ‘a great calm descends’. I was reminded at first, at the level of the phrase unit, of du Bouchet, but his (long) poems are constructed much more conventionally than du Bouchet’s, so that likeness won’t really hold—he’s not afraid of a bit of sententiousness, either. He was immediately followed by Andy Johnson, a Cambridge graduate who has spent some time in Africa. Johnson is a much louder personality than the first two readers, younger, eschewing the mic, and with the bearing of a standup comedian. He read short untitled poems, punchily and with gusto. They struck me as a bit wordy and baroque, in a sort of English-bravura clever-clever LangPo manner. One was a pastiche of descriptions of an Etruscan tomb, sort of. The ironic tone failed to find any purchase—this coming after Ayres’s expression of personal loss was almost offensive. Stephen Rodefer read very briefly as a substitute for Andres Ajens, whose English translations were still in preparation. His manner was offhand and funny. There was a poem for Pierre Alferi. I was intrigued and wanted to hear more from him, but he wanted to go to lunch. After lunch we had another oddly matched trio. Ralph Hawkins began working the crowd in good vaudevillian form. He looks like a middle-aged businessman, but often sports a boho erotic scatological chinoiserie persona in his mostly comic poems, coming from a recent Equipage booklet. A sort of English blend of Frank O’Hara, Gary Snyder and Benny Hill. The occasional snicker from the usually fairly impassive audience. Next up was the disarming Bob Walker, who caused some impatient squirming with his very amateurish and breathy flute solo, with which he opened the ‘set’. He said this was the first reading he’d given in 25 years and that he shares an interest with Ralph Hawkins in Mallarme and pigs. His poems were lyrical and thoughtful, perhaps in a somewhat discursive Poundian mode. The conference notes state that he teaches Japanese in the midlands, but he modestly depreciated his knowledge of Asian languages, though he drew the characters of a haiku on the blackboard for us, and explained the meaning of an ideograph on a drinking mug: hara kiri. He ended by sitting down at the piano and singing, again amateurishly, a sort of Donovanesque Heraclitean blues. Curiously, I found him a welcome break from the morning’s earlier performing-Brit tone. Allen Fisher, who was not scheduled, and who was introduced as ‘one of the most important Cambridge poets of the last thirty years’, favoured us with a quick reading in sepulchral tones of two of his recent ‘sonnets’, which sounded to me like much of the homophonic translation I’ve read, so maybe that’s how they were produced. They were studded with terms from modern physics and astrophysics, as if pillaged from Cambridge’s own Stephen Hawking, but betrayed no obvious understanding of them. He was dressed all in black, wore a very sour expression, and has refined the Disdainful Donnish manner to perfection. The four o’clock session brought a welcome pair of female voices. Andrea Brady from Philadelphia, now resident in Cambridge as a researcher in 17th century lit, was introduced as a very bright star on the horizon. I’m sorry to say that her work seemed callow to me, a by-the-numbers post-LangPo exercise, so I won’t say any more about it. Things finally began to come alive with Lisa Robertson’s reading. Her book ‘Debbie’ was described in the introduction as ‘one of the most dazzlingly virtuosic texts of its epoch’ and maybe that was almost deserved—I wanted to buy a copy, but they were sold out. Her work reminded me a little of Armantrout’s, somehow always hinting at the sardonic, but more verbose and open. She reads in a somewhat flat, staccato but mesmerizing manner, constantly pulling you back into the text almost in spite of yourself. She seems capable of endless speech-production without any need for a glass of water. A long section concerned the weather, with much parallelism and near-repetition in construction and many I-sentences. A high point. Michael Palmer began the evening session, reading from a new MS, I believe, called ‘Promises of Glass’. I had heard him read in the recording accompanying the ‘Exact Change Yearbook’, but had never seen him in person before. He is a more quietly spellbinding reader than that recording would have led me to guess. He also spoke extemporaneously, with unaffected casual intelligence, about some of the occasions of the poems he read, and it was interesting that what can sound like very abstract linguistic meditative lyric is often occasioned by or dedicated to a particular acquaintance or place, with affection. One poem even contained some narrative bits. Another made much play with the phrase ‘the book of…’, and there were a lot of phrases with formally opposed elements. A real breath of fresh air in the day’s proceedings, and a reading I won’t forget. Thank God for the French. Oscarine Bosquet was scheduled to read here, but she was unable to owing to illness, and Philippe Beck filled in. He read a (prose?) meditation on Celan’s Meridian speech called ‘Meduse automatique stoppee’, I think, which bears in on the figure of the puppet/automaton/Pinocchio. Kevin Nolan supplied the English, if I recall. Then he read some short poems intended for a woman’s voice, and the English was handled by Andrea Brady. Like some of Michel Deguy’s work later, these were partly poems about poetry; at one point lineation was called ‘bovine furrows’ and a phrase I jotted down was ‘…philosophy is a closure without electric wires’. Now came the apotheosis of the day’s earlier quirkiness, with a very rare antipodean appearance by the exotic Australian creature Robert Adamson, who has the manner of the last surviving individual of an extinct species. He was introduced as never having left Australia before and as a good friend of Duncan and, latterly and epistolarily, of Michael Palmer. He lives on a river near Sydney, and his poems are awash with piquant riverine flora and fauna which are the proximate causes of unembarrassed old-fashioned epiphanies, as are the many particular poets and singers enthusiastically mentioned in his lines, including Hopkins, Larkin, Duncan, Les Murray, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Now this was a Bard. There was a poem dedicated to Kinsella, and one about Language Poetry called ‘Approaching Zukofsky’ that depicts LangPo as an Aussie nature preserve: ‘we sang parrot…’. What could the French have made of this chipper but quaver-voiced apparition? Next morning the rescheduled Andres Ajens, from Chile, read his polyglot poems, which are mostly in Spanish and French. A very soft shy voice, and he refused to use the mic. This work was in a familiar lyrical South American mode, as far as I could tell, but possibly quite strong. I think there was a Celan reference, ‘mit dem Sternwuerfel’, buried in one. Christophe Tarkos, who looks very much the young café poet, a bit rumpled, stubbled and bleary-eyed, read his interesting faux-naif poems next with a rather bored quick delivery. They are long and associative, though without a well-defined subjective voice, consisting of layered short phrases and simple declarative sentences (too connected to be called New Sentences) with a mock, spaced-out sententiousness, rather like a lobotomized or Antin-ized Ponge. One was a sustained collocation of assertions about the appearance, behaviour and oblique sensuality of small children and clouds, as if it were automatic writing at the park bench. Next another high point: Christian Prigent’s extraordinary performance. A small, casually dressed but natty man sits down at the table, without a microphone, squares up his papers before him with precise motions, bends down over the papers to read, and …becomes *possessed*, chuffing and wheezing, powerfully, like a locomotive/oracle, as if only this rhythm can force the words out, attacking the language, inhabiting it, gutting cliches, quoting, misquoting, ranting, climaxing and decrescendoing, almost sobbing. One piece focused on the word ‘orgasme’, another on ‘ma mere’. This was a hard act to follow, so it was good we broke for a musical interlude at this point. The improvisational bass/cello/harp trio Simon Fell & IST did a set, first pure music, then some collaborations with the poets. We missed the latter, opting for some fresh air, still digesting Prigent’s work. The trio like to employ their stringed instruments strictly as percussion instruments, and there was considerable virtuosity on display. The closing session in the evening took place again in the less than ideal OCR, this time with chairs, and featured Michel Deguy, whose work had been translated in collaboration with him during the preceding week by three students, quite a privilege for them, and a very nice touch. His work has a neoclassical, philosophically discursive quality that is hard to assimilate on first hearing. His voice is resonant and beautiful, and he radiates a grand-old-man dignity (Discourse of Authority!). Again, some panel discussion here of his place in French letters would have been nice. Erin Moure had the perhaps unenviable task of closing the proceedings, which she did with great aplomb. She has her own confident standup manner, the book drooping insouciantly from her hand like a cigarette from Keith Richard’s mouth, reading quickly in spurts and pausing to look at the audience like a comedian, sometimes veering into French without blinking an eye. Her work is chatty and eclectic, swooping from formal to informal, sharp, funny, ranging over a wide field perceptually, emotionally, politically and intellectually. Peter Riley made the telling comment introducing her that while she is modestly feted in Canada, in England she would still be publishing in mimeograph. Despite my various cavils, I would like to thank the organizers, especially Peter Riley, for putting together an (at least sometimes) very stimulating and certainly various show, and the poets for having the guts to get up there and read. Harold Teichman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 18:04:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: WRITING ON AMERICA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII \\\ WRITING ON AMERICA I'm getting a big Chevy New Yorker, 1973, tan with beige linings, and I'm putting in a drag plate understructure - I'm going to rig the plate with paint sprayers, 64 across - they run from the tanks of white acrylic dry- fast in the trunk - there's heat nozzles too - make sure nothing's left damp as the car heads down the nighttime highway in the middle of the night. there's a computer, too - old Pentium 100, tied to the sprayers - there's a program running - I just enter the words I want out - the prog- ram adjusts for the car speed - words appear good and hard on the pave- ment - they're ready-to-read - there are a couple of fonts as well - the whole thing can work from 0 to 55 miles an hour - it starts to blur after that - I'm on the way north from Lafayette Indiana - I spray YOU PUT YOUR BIG DICK IN MY HUNGRY HOLE - it's about a quarter-mile in length - next day on the news - I'm out of there - down through Dallas, Texas, right on the way to Fort Worth - there's a trucker on my right, bearing down - I've got to be careful - I SWALLOW YOUR COCK AND DRINK YOUR HEAVY CUM - appears under the car - just like that - the program's perfect - it's the same thing I sprayed in the Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey to New York City right- hand lane - that made the news as well - had to get out of town - the Chrysler spotted - outside Albuquerque - _that_ was a ride - heavy on the gas all those altitudes - nice yellow-white touch in the tanks - AMERICA I WANNA BE YOUR GREEDY HOLE = FUCK ME IN MY MOUTH - even the equal sign was clear - I was going 45, almost got knocked out by a minivan - so I do go all over America - just like that - go everywhere I want - WORDS WORDS WORDS between Seattle and Bellingham - MY COCK IS ALWAYS HUNGRY FOR YOUR CUNT - awkward sentence between Providence and Fall River - do a country road or two as well - DON'T TELL ANYONE - or LOVE ME TIL THE COWS COME HOME - so I'm WRITING ON AMERICA - WORDS ON THE ROAD - so I'm LEAVING MY MARK - so I'm LEAVING MY TRACE - wherever you are YOU'LL BE READING ME - I'M HOT AND HORNY AND I WANT _YOU_ - and YOU'RE HOT AND HORNY AND YOU WANT _ME_ - outside of Omaha - near the Strategic Air Command Museum - those tiny roads - keep a lookout - I'm moving on - listen to the news - Scran- ton Pennsylvania - LISTEN TO THE NEWS - __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 00:10:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: e-mail change, impending MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello all, Well, contrary to promises rendered in a post of a couple weeks back, Kenning's spring issue is delayed another week or so. Just in time to be lost in the midst or just post semester finals and academic exodus all across poetry-ville. I recommend sending lots of money my way. In lieu of lavish donations, send an email to my new address kenning@avalon.net requesting information about the magazine and I will forward an attachment with just such details. This new address should be used for all subsequent correspondence as pertains to the magazine. Also, look for a Kenning website to be announced soon. Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g___________________________________________________ a newsletter of contemporary poetry poetics & nonfiction writing 418 BROWN STREET #10 IOWA CITY IOWA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 07:43:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Putting your money where... Comments: To: "RS@TSS" Comments: cc: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit from today's Gnu Yawk Thymes, May 3, 1999 Private Donors Unite to Support Art Spurned by the Government By JUDITH H. DOBRZYNSKI Nearly two dozen foundations and philanthropists, reacting to cuts in federal arts spending, have joined forces to support artists who challenge convention. The new group will attempt to make up for some of the individual grants the federal government ended in 1994 after years of controversy over works dealing with nudity, sexuality and other provocative themes. The new nonprofit organization, called Creative Capital Foundation, will be announced officially next week. But it has already made it clear that it will not shy away from the kind of innovative art that incited protests by religious and political conservatives. "This is a boisterous, diverse country, and we have always had art that upsets people," said Archibald L. Gillies, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and one of the new group's organizers. "Controversy," he added, "won't bother us at all." Creative Capital hopes to raise $40 million over the next 20 years. With current assets of more than $5 million, it plans to make its first round of grants, totaling up to $1 million, early next year. The organization will actively proselytize for freedom of expression. The grants it plans to give each year to 50 to 60 artists will requiring the winners to work with experts to develop audiences for their art and to market it. At its peak in the late 1980s the National Endowment for the Arts awarded as much as $10.5 million a year to more than 750 individual artists in grants of $1,100 to $45,000. But since then the endowment has almost been eliminated several times by members of Congress upset by those grants and by what they said was the agency's distance from American values. It has survived, but with a budget cut nearly in half from its peak to $98 million in the current fiscal year and no appetite to make awards that would restart the cultural wars of the last decade. Creative Capital is stepping into that breach. "The Supreme Court has ruled about pornography, but anything beyond that is fair game," Gillies said. "In this organization's absolute principles, one comes first and that is funding experimental, challenging art on its merits. Then after selecting it, we see what the marketing potential is. The nature of the content is not a factor." With such talk, Creative Capital is throwing down the gauntlet to conservatives who in recent years have tried to shut down some exhibitions and performances. Though the fights have most often been about public financing of controversial art, mainly by the endowment, some conflicts have also centered on state and local arts grants and the commercial availability of provocative art. The president of the Christian Coalition, Randy Tate, said on learning on Friday of the new group: "I won't condemn anything until I see it, but I would hope they use great discretion and put forward images that strengthen society and family values." The group's grants come with a twist straight out of Wall Street and reflecting the business background of some backers (like Jeffrey Soros, nephew of George Soros, the billionaire financier). Grant winners must agree to share a portion of proceeds from their project. The cash will go back into Creative Capital's kitty, increasing its capacity to finance additional artists. The Warhol Foundation, with a pledge to give $400,000 a year for the next three years, is Creative Capital's largest contributor. Others, including the Norton Family Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and the Eli Broad Family Foundation, have each promised up to $100,000 a year. Creative Capital's executive director, Ruby Lerner, said contributors knew that the group would seek out and not shrink from artists like Karen Finley, who often performs in the nude and famously smears her body in chocolate; Robert Mapplethorpe, whose homoerotic photographs offended many, and other artists who caused headline-making conflicts. Ms. Lerner said she told the contributors, "We might get through the first 20 years and not have a single controversy, but we might have 50 of them in the first year." Creative Capital plans to award grants of $5,000 to $20,000 to performing, visual and film or video artists, as well as those who make hybrid works. The money will be split roughly equally among the four categories each year. In the hope that the culture wars are over, William J. Ivey, the national endowment's new director, has put in a $150 million budget request for the next fiscal year, up $52 million from the endowment's current allocation, and has raised the possibility of resuming individual grants. But he has made no promises about when that might happen. Supporters of the arts say they cannot wait. "The arts are filled with energy, yet sources of public finance are more and more precarious," said Catharine R. Stimpson, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University. "The important issue is supporting creativity." Ms. Stimpson has agreed to serve on Creative Capital's board, as have Laurie Anderson, the performance artist; Lewis Hyde, the writer; Ronald Feldman, a New York art dealer, and Louise A. Velazquez, a senior business adviser at the Interval Research Corp., a Silicon Valley company that is trying to engage the arts and high-tech in new ventures. As the first big, national response to cuts in endowment grants, Creative Capital could make a difference. But he and others agree that an equally important effect may stem from the attempt to enlarge the audience for contemporary art. "Whenever individuals engage art and artists in a personal way with good interpretation and explanation, it always expands the audience," Ivey said. Gillies described the process that Creative Capital's founders envisioned as broader than marketing. "We will ask, 'What does this project need to succeed, what does an artist need to get to the next level?"' he said. Artists will get individual advice from an array of volunteer curators, producers, publicity agents and others who can help artists devise a plan to present their work to the widest possible audience. That plan helped woo contributors. "Emerging artists get a lot of one-time cash awards, but this affords them something else," said Dini S. Merz, a program officer at the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, which is giving $300,000 over four years. "It will answer the question 'How can we help artists help themselves?"' But will artists agree to such interference, and an untested idea at that? Yong Soon Min, a Korean-born artist who lives in California and is known for politically charged, feminist work, said she had no problems with it. "A marketing plan can be very helpful," she said. Rather, her concerns centered on Creative Capital's administrative ability to deliver on the promise. Creative Capital has had with artists around the country not a single one has raised objections. The revenue-sharing requirements apparently did not disturb anyone either, though the details are sketchy. Ms. Lerner said they would be worked out individually with each grant agreement, and Gillies said Creative Capital would probably ask for 10 to 15 percent of a project's gross revenues. Creative Capital would also have a cut if, say, a film, video or performance moved from a nonprofit space to a commercial theater, as the musical "Rent" did, for example. The group has other plans to shore up the nation's artistic infrastructure: an annual retreat for grant recipients, a quarterly publication, a database of arts businesses and nonprofit groups, public events and a Web site where artists can sell their art. All that is in the future. Creative Capital, with its small staff, first has to hustle to erect a structure for doling out money. Ms. Lerner is sending staff members into studios, theaters and other arts centers looking for prospects, is soliciting nominations from arts experts and on July 1 will start accepting applications from artists. Those who make the initial cut will be asked for work samples, a detailed budget for their project and a schedule. The applications will go through a peer panel review process, with the winners chosen or approved by the trustees. Ideology aside, Gillies said the winners would have projects that have artistic merit, not simply shock value. "It's not that we'll support everything controversial," he said. "We will support what people across the country are saying is good art, is exciting, interesting art." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 11:38:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Announcing _Aerial 9: Bruce Andrews_ & Edge Books / Protective Immediacy Special Offer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NOW AVAILABLE _Aerial 9: Bruce Andrews_ ed. Rod Smith, Edge Books, 296 pgs. Regularly $15 available postpaid to Poetics folk for $10 til June 1. Essays, interviews, poetry by: Bruce Andrews, Kevin Davies, Jeff Derksen, Jed Rasula, Jerome Sala, Hank Lazer, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Benjamin Friedlander, Lyn Hejinian, Nick Piombino, Andrew Levy, P. Inman, Sally Silvers, William Fuller, Tina Darragh, D S Marriott, Dodie Bellamy, Craig Watson, Robert Fitterman, Doug Lang, Lee Ann Brown, Hannah Weiner, Tim Davis, Joan Retallack, Andrew Chandler, Judith Goldman, Peter Seaton, Jacques Debrot, Robert Mittenthal, Mark Wallace, Marjorie Perloff, Peter Quartermain, Jerome McGann, Alan Golding, Charles Bernstein, & Steve Evans. Cover by Dirk Rowntree. Also receive any of the following books for $7.50: _Protective Immediacy_, Rod Smith, regularly $9.95. Just out from Roof. _Integrity & Dramatic Life_, Anselm Berrigan, regularly $10. _Sight_, Lyn Hejinian & Leslie Scalapino, regularly $12. _perhaps this is a rescue fantasy_, Heather Fuller, usually $10. _Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There_, Mark Wallace, most often $9.50. _Stepping Razor_, A.L. Nielsen, says $10 on the back. To order. Email aerialedge@aol.com w/ yr order & address & we will bill you. Or send a check to Aerial/Edge, POBox 25642, Washington, DC 20007. Before June 1! Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 12:49:05 +0000 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" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit *** Fabio rests after bird accident BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Fabio was resting at home after being smacked in the face by a goose while riding a roller coaster at the Busch Gardens theme park. "I am grateful for all the cards and well wishes," the supermodel said in a statement issued Thursday through his manager, Eric Ashenberg. Fabio was at the Virginia theme park Tuesday to help show off the Apollo's Chariot roller coaster. The park had promoted the event as "Modern-Day 'Adonis' vs. Ancient-Day 'Sun God.'" Early into the ride, a bird slammed into his face. Fabio was treated for a one-inch cut on the bridge of his nose and released from a hospital. See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559029108-e41 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:29:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan C Golding Subject: Request for Poem Ideas Comments: To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk, poetryetc@listbot.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Listmates: I'll be giving a talk at the "Poetry and Pedagogy" symposium at Bard in late June, and am planning to talk about poems that respond to or come out of a pedagogical situation or that take a pedagogical stance. Taking off from the aphorism in *My Life* that "the avant-garde is always pedagogical," my focus will be mainly--but not exclusively--on linguistically innovative (or whatever you want to call 'em) texts. Historical range is post-World War II, going from 1950s examples like Snodgrass' "April Inventory" and Olson's "Letter for Melville 1951" through something like Snyder's "What you should know to be a Poet" up through some of Howe's library- and scholarship-centered texts and Perelman's "Marginalization of Poetry." The governing question of the inquiry is something like this, then: How has "pedagogy," and pedagogical institutions, been treated in poems of this period, and what might the answers to that question suggest for transforming current pedagogical practice, for the teaching of challenging contemporary work, and for our understanding of such issues as the relationship between innovative writing and the academy? I'd like to draw on your collective knowledge / wisdom to generate as many examples as possible of poems related to this set of concerns. I'm mostly interested in U.S. examples, but would also like to hear about Canadian, British, Oz, etc. examples too. I want to distinguish between "pedagogical" and "didactic" too, so am a bit less interested in examples of the latter (i.e., Olson preaching to Gloucester, say). Anyway, I'd much appreciate hearing from you: front channel if you think the list would be interested and the list-meisters agree, or backchannel at one of these addresses: acgold01@athena.louisville.edu or agolding1@aol.com. And many thanks. All best, Alan ____________________________________________ Alan Golding University of Louisville acgold01@athena.louisville.edu 502-852-6801 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 13:40:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Symposium on the Work of William Bronk In-Reply-To: <730762919.919853764@pslck2-10.pubsites.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Call for Papers: A symposium on the work of William Bronk is being organized by David Clippinger, Burt Kimmelman, and Ed Foster for the week-end of November 12-14, 1999. The symposium will be held at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey (directly across the Hudson from midtown Manhattan). If you would be interested in presenting a paper on Bronk's work or participating in the symposium generally, please contact the symposium organizers at efoster@stevens-tech.edu. If you would like to present a paper, please send the title and a brief summary to Ed Foster, Department of Humanities, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. A selection of papers read at the symposium will be published as a book the following spring. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 05:06:01 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: "my home" posted 23 Apr MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THANKSGIVING DAY and ran in the corner store and asked him for the bus fare and he give me the money and a pack of cigarettes Thanksgiving day was here this day free to many ways to make me strong just as Job's story told when you coming back to pay the dope man all the while sink more and more into a deep black hole went right back to what I had come to know and hated the money and candy stuck and stayed they understood I was decided in every declaration Nathaniel, Ezra and Timothy, Mr Bush at the Corner Store Howard the Numbers Man, Mr Crenshaw in the corner store he forced my head against him in his mouth come over and get high, smoke weed, drink pink champagne who would feel the wrath of me next loose in a great big city running wild break the hold that hold he reached down in his back pocket and pulled out his 38 Cornerstore man have some pussy for credit basement of his building get a hold of bad dope fevered from the abcesses I used up all my veins cigarettes and dope in the window stick it through the window say gone, or high, I wasn't anything a syringe full of cocaine scrutiny, urine, and buy my double cheeseburgers large strawberry milkshake and large french fries she had a Bar-B-Q three quarter house for us a house together up into late house ripping in that take away me right real, and I loved and I loved myself just for that day show me absolutely No never not for any reason I didn't ask for nor wanted we went to the landlord house with this book rewrite a book and I drove like a bat out of hell talk with them and calm them down costumed to take residence over everything there I met a real live dope man and he shot me up at the same time heroin and cocaine and serene and nothing mattered anymore play and night more and just pick up one and we didn't get or have we had a jailhouse marriage that summer and that my mother's father was killed in the coal mines she said to me I'm going to teach you the songs we used to sing way down in the back hills of Birmingham never in my visioned thoughts pondered, many reasons beat at annullable, the damage was done with them to think all alone about how forsake them many people who knew me the only exscape I had from my grip my lifeline during that time or while I was sucking dick drunk jumped in my face calling me names and comes out with her pistol cocked it and shot it in the air Thanksgiving day was here this day free to many ways to make me strong just as Job's story told I walked out barefoot and it was winter there was plenty snow on the ground and I walked from 79th and Wade Park to 74th and Quincy in the snow ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 11:07:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Wolff Subject: Re: STUCK IN SELF-PROMO WITH YOU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" what time, Chris . . . .? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 11:30:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Witz Online Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm trying a online experiment--putting an issue of Witz on the website in Acrobat format (http://www.litpress.com/witz). This is a complete issue (Summer 1998), formatted for print publication. It has Peter Quartermain's essay on Bruce Andrews's _Lip Service_, Juliana Spahr on Nick Piombino's _Light Street_, Guy Bennett on Liz Waldner, Standard Schaefer on Martha Ronk, and Brian Lucas on Normal Cole. To read this electronic version, you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader. If you don't have the Reader, you can find it at Adobe's website (there's a link on the Witz page). But the Reader is a long download (I think it's around 5MG), so I don't really recommend getting the software just for this purpose. Many of you will already have the Reader, though; and many have already downloaded something in Acrobat format. If you do download the file, I would appreciate a note (backchannel), to let me know if you had any technical problems (e-address is creiner@litpress.com). If this works, I'll put more issues up in electronic format. (By the way,, Witz is a journal of contemporary poetics, featuring *only* essays, reviews and criticism. Online queries are accepted, but not submissions.) -- Christopher Reiner WITZ: A Journal of Contemporary Poetics http://www.litpress.com/witz/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 14:25:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Bridge Street Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sunday May 9 @ 8 PM Lee Ann Brown & Tom Raworth Celebrating tehir new books _Polyverse_ from Sun & Moon, & _Meadow_ from Post-Apollo. Sunday May 23rd @ 8 PM Bruce Andrews Celebrating _Aerial 9: Bruce Andrews_. Bridge Street Books 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC ph 202 965 5200 5 blocks from the Foggy Bottom Metro ya'll come ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 12:07:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brenda Ellen Uchman Subject: _Person (a)_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Poets; A limited number of _Person (a)_, a self-published book of 96 poems by me, Brenda Iijima, are still available. I completed _Person (a)_ in the last days of December, 1998. Each book contains a hand drawn frontispiece and an original album cover with spray painted title. _Person (a)_ was conceived as an edition of 76 copies. A copy costs $20 Please send orders to: Brenda Iijima 596 Bergen Street Brooklyn, NY 11238 This email address will be obsolete after today, today being my last day of work in the Sociology Dept. at Columbia University. My new email is Beui@keyworks.com Yours, Brenda ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 16:48:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: list stats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit These are statistics of Poetics List subscribership as of this afternoon. Chris * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Australia 13 * Belgium 2 * Canada 39 * Finland 1 * Germany 1 * Great Britain 24 * Ireland 4 * Italy 1 * Japan 8 * New Zealand 10 * Poland 1 * Singapore 1 * Spain 2 * Sweden 4 * Switzerland 2 * Thailand 1 * USA 616 * Yugoslavia 1 * * Total number of users subscribed to the list: 733 * Total number of countries represented: 18 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 17:41:53 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Request for Poem Ideas In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi alan! of course i think first of Stein's "How to Write," and her children's book that starts, "A dog said he was going to learn to read." and to one (picasso?) that ends "history teaches/ history teaches." stein, it seems, is all about pedagogy. My Life, too, seems full of lessons about how to read it. Rimbaud's Voyelles (sp?) seems like a very poetic ABCdary of a sort, and Baudelaire's "COrrespondances" seems to be about how to read as well. In Lois Ann Yamanaka's Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre, there's a poem in which one teenaged friend teaches another how to self-mutilate by cutting, which seems to me to be a writing lesson as well, a poetics of pain. then speaking of writing lessons, there's Derrida's famous writing lesson in Of Grammatology, which isn't strictly speaking a poem, but could just as well be. ditto for Foucault's "The Discourse on Language." gee i didn't know i had so much to say about this, but it actually sounds like the good basis for a poetry course! see u at bard... At 4:29 PM -0400 4/30/99, Alan C Golding wrote: >Dear Listmates: > >I'll be giving a talk at the "Poetry and Pedagogy" symposium at Bard in >late June, and am planning to talk about poems that respond to or come out >of a pedagogical situation or that take a pedagogical stance. Taking off >from the aphorism in *My Life* that "the avant-garde is always >pedagogical," my focus will be mainly--but not exclusively--on >linguistically innovative (or whatever you want to call 'em) texts. >Historical range is post-World War II, going from 1950s examples like >Snodgrass' "April Inventory" and Olson's "Letter for Melville 1951" >through something like Snyder's "What you should know to be a Poet" up >through some of Howe's library- and scholarship-centered texts and >Perelman's "Marginalization of Poetry." The governing question of the >inquiry is something like this, then: How has "pedagogy," and pedagogical >institutions, been treated in poems of this period, and what >might the answers >to that question suggest for transforming current pedagogical practice, >for the teaching of challenging contemporary work, and for our >understanding of such issues as the relationship between innovative >writing and the academy? > >I'd like to draw on your collective knowledge / wisdom to generate as many >examples as possible of poems related to this set of concerns. I'm mostly >interested in U.S. examples, but would also like to hear about Canadian, >British, Oz, etc. examples too. I want to distinguish between >"pedagogical" and "didactic" too, so am a bit less interested in examples >of the latter (i.e., Olson preaching to Gloucester, say). > >Anyway, I'd much appreciate hearing from you: front channel if you think >the list would be interested and the list-meisters agree, or backchannel >at one of these addresses: acgold01@athena.louisville.edu or >agolding1@aol.com. > >And many thanks. > >All best, > >Alan >____________________________________________ > >Alan Golding >University of Louisville > >acgold01@athena.louisville.edu >502-852-6801 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 17:55:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: mekas on weiner In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Steve Waksman, a former student of mine, e-mailed the following, which i know to be of interest to some on the list. keep an eye out, too, for Waksman's book, coming out in the late fall from Harvard UP: Instruments of Desire, which is a cultural history of the electric guitar. SW: I came across this while leafing through a collection of movie notes by Jonas Mekas, one of the main organizers of the "independent" film scene in New York from the 1940s to the present. Assuming it's the same Hannah Weiner you wrote about. Did you know she made films (or at least, a film)? This is dated April 30, 1970: Foot, by Hannah Weiner. Three minutes. Eight mm. Shown by Gain Ground Group, Thursday, April 23, at 80 Wooster Street. Autumn colors. Woods. A glimpse of one foot, then another. A foot coming into the frame and out, again into the frame and again out -- as someone walks through the woods. Only the front half of the shoe, a sandal of some sort, light blue and white, in the overexposed color. A perfect haiku. A film haiku, a short, one idea, or one image film. This silly, unpretentious little 8 mm. movie by Hannah Weiner is a much more important and more successful and more beautiful and more memorable work of film art than, say, The Man Who Lies, Mississippi Mermaid, or The Early Works. People will say: How can you compare them? One is an 8 mm. nothing, and the others are big movies. Grillet, Truffaut failed within their genre, within their form; Weiner succeeded, didn't fail, within her genre, within her form. Through Hannah Weiner's little movie one gains an aesthetic experience; through the others one gains nothing. In art, it doesn't make a bit of difference how big the undertaking: A failure is a failure. Hannah Weiner's Foot is the best movie I've seen since Ozu's I Was Born, But... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 21:42:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Noam Scheindlin Subject: You Won't Find This At Barnes and Noble Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit My new chapbook, The Proper Conditions for Flight, published by my very own G-Train press in a limited edition of 65, has just become available. Price for Poetics List is $5. You can email me for orders and I'll send you one with a bill, or write to me: Noam Scheindlin 100 Kent Street #3R Brooklyn, NY 11222 Don't be left behind! Look for future titles (by people that are not me) from G-Train books. Best, Noam ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 22:45:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Generations MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII == Generations Of the beat generation, I'm, of Keruac's roadtrips, Ginsborg's screams Of the lost generation, of language's blank eyes & heartless suns My generation's smeared across the void My generation's crossed with yours, X's, Y's, wise Z's & Zeros too Of the punk generation, anger's energetic PILs & Gang of Four Humans Of the yippies, yr violent letters of revolution & Jennifer-fervor Of the cyborg generation, I'm, of Jennifer's sweet & sweaty arms Of the cyborgs, @create $thing called Alan @describe Alan as gone-world & of the holocaust generation, I'm, just look into my eyes Of the generation of Mariko Mori, hey Nikuko, I'm yours forever And of the gone-world, I'm, a generation of $things from #1 roots Of the hippies, I'm all for long lean sounds backing my heavy head Of my family's generations, I'm, crawled through European savagries only to emerge with blank generation's eyes crossed X's out & lost You'll find me everywhere, submerged in your hot worlds I swallow your generations, make them mine, nothing out of line Generations on generations, onto the seventh & beyond Generations of humans & others, generations of plants & biospheres Generations of rocks & prions, generations of airs & liquid canyons I'm there in anything you can name, any place & any time Of the blank, I'm, saying, blank, saying crossed out, saying wow ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 17:32:18 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: University of Auckland Subject: address antin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear everyrone, have you an emailaddress for David Antin? Wystan Curnow ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 01:16:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Bedight and fillyness In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990501140016.009e97b0@pop.unixg.ubc.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Pete Thanks tremenjously for sending along yr re-tired speech. It was even better than I suspected when you glinted yr eye at mine. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 08:08:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sarah Hreha Subject: Patchen news : Harry Redl pictures of Patchen and the Beats Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I thought this might be of interest to some.. --- begin forwarded text Subject: Patchen news : Harry Redl pictures of Patchen and the Beats Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 01:52:45 GMT Organization: http://www.connectotel.com/ Reply-To: Marcus_Williamson@ibm.net MIME-Version: 1.0 The photographer Harry Redl now has a web site showing his famous photos of the San Francisco Renaissance, including a photo of Kenneth Patchen with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. More pictures of Patchen are promised in the near future. The Harry Redl page can be found at http://harryredl.com regards Marcus Williamson http://www.connectotel.com/marcus --- end forwarded text A. Sarah Hreha Assistant Editor Hispanic Issues Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese University of Minnesota Officer, Students for Cuba Co-Chair, Tone Scientists E-mail: hreh0001@tc.umn.edu http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hreh0001 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 10:10:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris McCreary Subject: address requests MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello-- Thanks in advance to anyone who has either/both of the following: 1. an e-mail or mailing address for Anne Waldman in NYC 2. an e-mail address for Michael McCool Please backchannel. Thanks again... --Chris McCreary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 17:47:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: STUCK IN SELF-PROMO WITH YOU In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 9pm...... On Sat, 1 May 1999, Rebecca Wolff wrote: > what time, Chris . . . .? > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 11:29:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: talk series / Gilbert MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Alan Gilbert asked me to post this to the list. Chris ----- POETRY ON TIME a New York City based talk series presents LISA JARNOT discussing poetry and biography Friday, May 7, 1999, 8 p.m. Segue space 303 East 8th Street at Avenue B In _Ulysses_, James Joyce writes, =93History...is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.=94 Poet Ed Sanders says, =93Dare to be part of the history you write about.=94 Filmmaker Harry Smith once remarked, =93I = would like to say that I=92m the czar of Russia.=94 Robert Duncan=92s directive = from _The Opening of the Field_=97=93Go write yourself a book and put / therein first things that might define a world.=94 And as Alfred Whitehead writes in _Process and Reality_=97=93how an actual entity becomes constitutes = what the actual entity is....=94 Lisa Jarnot will lecture on the process through which actual entities come into being=97through escapes, participations, and written and spoken declarations of the real. Lisa Jarnot=92s second collection of poems, _Ring of Fire_, is forthcoming from Zoland Books. She lives in New York where she is currently writing a biography of Robert Duncan. The presentation will consist of a brief poetry reading and a 30 minute talk followed by questions and answers. $4 donation Coordinator: Alan Gilbert For further information, contact Alan Gilbert at agil@erols.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 10:08:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Berkson/Friedman at SPT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic presents Life/Forms: New Ways to See It, New Ways to Say It A weekend "residency" with Bill Berkson Friday, May 7, 7:30 p.m. Reading with Michael Friedman New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street $5 Saturday, May 8, 7:30 p.m. Autobiographical Talk: "Since When" New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street $5 "Special care is language, and fusing things going on in him and on his personal tv." So wrote Ted Berrigan in Kulchur magazine about BILL BERKSON's first book, Saturday Night: Poems 1960-61. Berkson's trajectory has led him from youth along uptown Manhattan's Museum Mile to ecstasies on the Lower East Side, onward to the Bolinas mesa (where he edited Big Sky magazine and books), and from there to the upper reaches of Noe Valley, S.F. Other books strewn along the way: Shining Leaves, Recent Visitors, Enigma Variations with drawings by Philip Guston, Blue Is The Hero, Start Over and Lush Life. Besides occupying a stellar niche in contemporary American poetry, he is an art critic, sometime curator, and, since 1984, professor of art history at the San Francisco Art Institute. For this residency, Bill Berkson will read poetry from his forthcoming book Fugue State (1990-99) and the full text of a revealing and often humorous autobiographical essay entitled "Since When." MICHAEL FRIEDMAN grew up in New York City and now lives in Denver. His books include Arts & Letters (drawings by Duncan Hannah) (The Figures, 1996), Cameo (The Figures, 1994), Special Capacity (Intermezzo, 1992), Distinctive Belt (Mary House, 1985). Hard Press/The Figures will publish a large collection of his prose poems in the fall. He has edited Shiny Magazine since 1986, bringing out 8 issues between 1986 and 1992. Now, after a long hiatus, and with a somewhat different cast of characters, a new, guest-edited issue has appeared and he plans to continue this work. "There are two sides to every story," Friedman reminds us. "One well done, one medium rare." His own poetry is drenched in wit, and brio; its narrative mysteriously tangled with anxiety and alterity. A natural melancholia attaches itself to the underside of the poem, like Kate Winslet going back onto the Titanic after Leo's made sure she's safe in the lifeboat. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 13:23:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Re: Request for Poem Ideas In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Dear Listmates: > >I'll be giving a talk at the "Poetry and Pedagogy" symposium at Bard in >late June, and am planning to talk about poems that respond to or come out >of a pedagogical situation or that take a pedagogical stance. > >Alan There are of course Nick Piombino's wonderful parodies of the pedagogical/academic explication of poetry in _The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry_ -- I think the 93-94 volume; they're the lead-off poems. -- 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 ********************************************************* "The spaces between things keep getting bigger and more important." - John Ashbery ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 15:00:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: potentially relevant to the buffalist ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" chris a/ poetix i've pulled this from a piece joe ransdell wrote to the musikeion list (musical semiotics) as it was going in directions i've been thinking along as well relative to the poetix list ransdell; > What I have in mind by this distinction is this: a forum is (like) an > open space in the midst of a place having the character of a city (large > or small) where many different people are engaged in many different and > largely uncoordinated activities. What link them together are overlaps > of interests that arise from the fact that there are resources there > which all make use of in some way or another, although no given > individual necessarily makes use of much if any of the resources that > another one does, and may have very little if any of the same interests > as another. But still, there is a unity of a heterogeneously > constituted place of this sort that is given by the fact that everyone > has at least a vague idea of the resources available there and thus of a > likely reason why anyone else is there, and in the absence of knowledge > to the contrary one naturally assumes of any given other person that > there is some overlap of shared interests with them, even though one > does not know what it is. This vagueness and ignorance, taken together > with an optimistic spirit, provides enough for the people in that place > to regard themselves as having something in common: the heterogeneously > constituted place itself in its very heterogeneity. > > Now, whatever the original resource basis is, the people who are making > use of the resources become resources themselves for other persons > there, too, and since one never knows whether another person might not > be a resource of special interest to oneself, it comes about that simply > being a fellow citizen in the city is enough in itself to make each such > person a kind of epitome of the whole city. This is, perhaps, the basis > of the sense of identity with the city that people develop, especially > in the case of cities with a very strong "personality", such as, say, > Paris or San Francisco, where there is a common appreciation of one > another as fellow citizens of that city. I think it holds with > slackened force, perhaps very attenuated at times, in any city, but may > be too feeble at times to be easily noticeable. (Los Angeles is an > interesting case of extreme attenuation of what it is to be a city: a > city unified as such only by the common consciousness there of it as not > being "a real city" but only a sort of sham city, a celluloid Ersatz, > owing to the extreme to which personal attitudes of egoism, > exploitation, rapacity, and greed are taken for granted as normal > there: the citizen as resource takes on the special form of being a > prey. This is why the police have such an extraordinary public persona > there, which is not because of the amount of crime or because of THEIR > corruption -- as, say, in the case of Chicago -- but because of the > normality of corruption.) > > A list that is based on the forum model is like this, in contrast with a > discussion group, as that is usually understood, which means a group > with a more or less generally understood agenda to which its members are > expected to contribute and conform. Thus one mark of the forum as such > is that there is no expectation that everybody has to find every message > relevant to their interests and one thus feels free to ignore or simply > zap away whatever is thought to be impertinent. Forums are essentially > multi-threaded, in other words, whereas discussion groups are > characteristically focused and disciplined in a way forums are not. > There are strengths and weaknesses of both, but the public forum hardly > exists anywhere now except on the internet, which is why people tend on > the whole to prefer the forum to the discussion group: there is a need > for it. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 15:37:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: emgarrison Subject: Pen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit what power of the written word ? just so many many syllables slipping and tripping the mind to what end ? futility in a bottle ? someone get me a fucking corkscrew. __________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 21:09:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katherine Lederer Subject: East Coast address for The Germ? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, I'm trying to get the current address for The Germ. I only have old Santa Cruz address. Thanks, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 23:42:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: Lee Ann Brown on WriteNet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII T & W features poet Lee Ann Brown's lesson plan on teaching poetry via the creation of slang journals. Adapt her ideas for your own classrooms, and check this page for further updates. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go to: http://www.writenet.org/fwir_labrown.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 23:47:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: Cornelius Eady on WriteNet + self promotion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those of you who may be interested: This month, Cornelius Eady talks about his poem "Thelonious Monk" published in his book The Gathering of My Name. He discusses how students can think about incorporating music as content into their poetry. We encourage you to bring his poem into your classroom and share it with your students. PLUS -- I and poet Julie Carr will be reading this Thursday, May 4, at Donnell Library, 20 West 53rd Street, NYC, at 6:30 pm. Across from MOMA. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 17:14:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: filling Station presents: the BIG Tour! Comments: To: rob moffatt , author author books , bev bain , bob's books , brian hohm , calgary women's writing project , Courtney Frances Thompson , CPA poetry listserv , fair's fair books , tj snow , tammy mcgrath , shane rhodes , russ rickey , paulo de costa , nelson wight , lawna hurl , kathy macpherson , "Ian L. Samuels" , greg monaghan , dean j irvine , charmaine dittmann , alex di Ninno , alden alfon , Thorsten Nesch , fred holliss , "hal neidzvieki (broken pencil)" , jeff derksen , "kirk miles (Dandelion)" , Lee Shedden , richard harrison , richard stevenson , rob mclennan , shakespeare's shelf books , ted warnell , TRUCK Gallery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fILLING STATION Magazine is proud to present a FREE reading by kath macLean, rob mclennan and Anne Stone "The Big tour" May 15th 7:00pm The New Gallery, 519d 9th ave sw, calgary kath macLean is originally from Toronto. Her poetry & prose have appeared in CV2, Fiddlehead, Fireweed, Wascana Review, Other Voices, Amethyst Review, & is forthcoming in Vintage 97. "For a Cappuccino on Bloor & Other Poems" was published by Broken Jaw Press in June 1998. rob mclennan was born in Ottawa - the author of over 2 dozen poetry chapbooks, his first full collection, "Notes on Drowning" appeared with Broken Jaw Press in May 98. A second, "bury me deep in the green wood" is forthcoming with ECW in spring 99, & a third, Manitoba highway map has just been accepted by Broken Jaw Press for summer 99. Anne Stone is a Montreal prose-writer. Her work has appeared in Index, Matrix, and The Moosehead Anthology of Prose Poems & Sudden Fictions. A selection of her writing appeared in the chapbook "Sweet Dick All". She has performed at galleries and spoken word venues in (and out of) Montreal - "jacks: a gothic gospel" (DC Books, 1998) is her first novel. contact: derek beaulieu at 234-0336 or housepre@telusplanet.net for more information ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 22:24:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: STUCK IN SELF-PROMO WITH YOU In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII OOPS (the title of the first book, published by Dave Baratier)! The Printer at HARD PRESS had some problem with the lamination on the cover when the book was being bound..... so.... the thursday night event at TRANS HUDSON (416 west 13th st., meatpacking manhattan) will not be a book signing after all just a plain old reading by a so-called "cynical" poet who cried wolf come as you are.... c On Mon, 3 May 1999, Chris Stroffolino wrote: > 9pm...... > > On Sat, 1 May 1999, Rebecca Wolff wrote: > > > what time, Chris . . . .? > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 12:00:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: DO NOT OPEN / beaulieu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. below is a message from derek beaulieu, to the multiple recipients of his most recent message (including the list). I'm putting it up because I thought it might serve as a cautionary tale to list subscribers; however, I want to be absolutely clear that the infected message to which derek refers did NOT reach the list - I found and deleted it. Therefore, while this message is of interest as Happy99.exe and similar worms/viruses continue to cause havoc in personal mail and especially on listservs, there is NO threat of infection from any message that has been sent over the poetics list. For futher information on Happy99.exe and other viruses, I recommend you refer to the following sites: SARC's Virus Encyclopedia Datafellows "Computer Virus Information" pages Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ----- From: "derek beaulieu / house press" Subject: DO NOT OPEN HAPPY99.EXE very sorry - virus warning Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 23:21:28 -0600 I would like to apologise, as my last email, unbeknownst to me had a virus attached to it. the virus was called happy99.exe and here are the instructions to rid yourself of this virus: 1.check the WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder for the presence of these files: SKA.EXE SKA.DLL WSOCK32.SKA 2.if you do find these files, then you have been attacked by the happy99 virus, and remove it by doing this: 1. delete SKA.EXE, SKA.DLL and WSOCK32.DLL 2. rename WSOCK32.SKA as WSOCK32.DLL make sure that you have WSOCK32.SKA file before deleting WSOCK32.DLL and ensure that you have renamed this file correctly. you may have to close your browser, email software, etc to delete and rename the DLL files (you may have to shutdown WINDOWS and restart in dos mode) 1. shutdown windows with the RESTART IN MS-DOS MODE option. 2. at the prompt type CD SYSTEM (return) DEL WSOCK32.DLL (return) REN WSOCK32.SKA WSOCK23.DLL and now restart your computer open the c:\\windows\system\liste.ska in your NOTEPAD to see a list of who you may have infected yourself. once again - I apologise, I have now reloaded a virus checker - operating without one was unprofessional and unnecessarily risky and once again I am very sorry for the bother, problems and trouble this has created for you all. yours very sincerely derek beaulieu editor, housepress ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 23:48:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Gene Frumkin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit _Falling into Meditation_ a chapbook by Gene Frumkin is now available from Instress Sheila E. Murphy says of Frumkin's new and selected poems _The Old Man Who Swam Away and Left Only His Wet Feet_ "Gene Frunkin brilliantly and genuinely conceives work that invites repeated reading and deepens with each new exposure...To read Gene Frumkin is to renew faith in the power of language to crystallize experience in a transformative way. This work is supremely satisfying, integrating genius and humility in writing and living." _Falling into Meditation_ can be had for $4, postage paid. Checks should be made payable to Leonard Brink, PO Box 3124, Saratoga, CA, 95070 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 00:39:38 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Cork 99 (apologies for cross posting) Comments: To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Comments: cc: poetryetc@listbot.com, suantrai@iol.ie Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Big thanks to Randolph for his Cork(ers). My spare liver came home on the plane in a bag and has now been resituated successfully, acting as a bilge pump to our garden pond. An instance of 'we' I'm happy to sanction. I wanted to say up here on the big public spaces how energising the Cork Conference was / is. Sure, it rained a drop. Trevor Joyce's house overflowed with hospitalities. Nourishments ranged from the Cafe Paradiso to AbraKebabRa. But (not despite but due and thanks to that) - the poetry and the poetics was sound the way through; extremely strong readings, provocative papers, buoyant exchanges. Anybody with half a mind to go next year (and I believe there will be a next year) should put it into their priority commitment calendar on the front-burner right now. Modesty forbade Randolph from commenting on his own reading, so I'd like to add to his otherwise generous account that, despite two cracked ribs and a savagely bitten tongue, he gave a terrific presentation of the anagrammatically encrypted 'The Republic of Ireland' (itself taxing the ribs of those present), various excerpts from '25 Poems', 'Flame' and the chilling closing section of his more recent 'Scales' that leaves only the word 'whereas' proud of dense blocks of erasure on what I understand to be the United Nations Charter. I'm left still wondering in what ways to transact 'Satin Mac In Sale' to the coastline and its offshore reaches below the walkable twists of Cork City itself. many thanks and greetings to all love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 07:13:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: [sic]... May issue now online! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings from [sic] May 1st rolled around and lo and behold [sic] managed to update, so far so good. This issue has four new features, including work by derek beaulieu, Neil Hennessy, Thomas Bell/Dmitri Bulatov, and myself/Scott Woods. Also new this month is an early version of the Small Press Directory, with press entries from Calgary to Columbus, from San Fran to Reykjavik. Most notably though, [sic] has moved over the last month. Venturing out of Popped's basement apartment, [sic] got a place of its own downtown, the new address is... http://www.sicmagazine.com We continue to need/want submissions, both to the magazine, as well as to the directory, information is available online. We'll be coming door to door shortly, please give generously. Enjoy, lucas mulder [sic] magazine http://www.sicmagazine.com **** to be removed from this list please reply with nasty comments **** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 09:21:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Final reading at the Ruthless Grip Art Project in D.C. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII We hope you can join us in D.C. at the Ruthless Grip Art Project (1508 U St. NW, on U near the corner of 15th, just above ATTICUS BOOKS) on Saturday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m. for a poetry reading by PHYLLIS ROSENZWEIG, CATHY WAGNER, and MARTIN CORLESS-SMITH. Sadly, this is the last ever poetry event at the Ruthless Grip Art Project, where I've been hosting readings since fall 1995. We'll be continuing next fall in a new location, but for now, come on out and enjoy the last great evening of poetry we're going to have in a location that's meant a great deal to many of us. The evening will also be a chance to say thanks to our fine hosts of so many years, Ann and Harry Wallace. PHYLLIS ROSENZWEIG is the author of DOGS (Edge Books) and the co-editor along with Diane Ward of the poetry magazine/project PRIMARY WRITING. One of D.C.'s best kept secrets, she writes a poetry of stunning range and knowledge--you won't want to miss this rare chance to hear her. CATHY WAGNER is the author of MAGAZINE POEMS. Her work has also appeared in SITUATION, FENCE, RIBOT, THE DENVER QUARTERLY, and THE CHICAGO REVIEW, among other magazines. If you don't know her lively and wry work yet, you certainly will later, so why not just do it now? British poet MARTIN CORLESS-SMITH has lived in Nevada for the last several years--go figure. His book OF PISCATOR was published by University of Georgia Press; Spetacular Books has also just released his THE GARDEN: A THEOPHANT OR ECCOHOME A DIALECTICAL LYRIC. Corless-Smith seems one of the most exciting new inheritors of the British Objectivist tradition; echoes of Basil Bunting and others combine with an absolutely comtemporary twist of language and environment that is sounded as precisely as any work around. We hope you'll join us for this evening of poetry and all festivities afterwards. /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 10:12:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: The Political Economy of Bombs as Transparencies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII T The Political Economy of Bombs as Transparencies Nikuko writes and wrongs, clearly we are entering a new age, occasioned first by the harbinger of anarchists' cookbooks, not to mention Loompan- ics, the whole wide world of Net, ready availability of household chemi- cals. This is the world of the reign and rain of bombs, the porousness of everyday life, fearful no longer of tiny-tot handguns, but the potential for any place and any time to explode with nails, glass, strips of tin, shrapnel beyond experimental poetics. Think of bomb-blast winds carrying fires and debris everywhere; imagine your own limbs incinerated, cut apart: look around you as walls and ceil- ings fall through charred floors. A violent wind blows across the planet as volatile mixtures from uranium to nitro rise from the interior in order to be packaged in pipes and bottles, cars and trucks, airplanes and trains - packaged in anything transportable - anything of the nature of _vector._ Because, adds Jennifer, first there is the _vector,_ and then there is the emission or spew - the dissipation of materials after chemical or nuclear reaction - as the earth returns mixtures to its own, returning, in fact, the whole of civilization to the condition of the _brew._ Just as there is a tendency towards _distinction_ - for example, the very computer I am ty- ping on appears as an ordered coalescence of minerals and metals and other elements of the world - there is also a tendency towards _substance,_ that aphanisis or loss of distinction characteristic of our primordial begin- nings. Call this the death drive or error, but we now may observe our pla- netary surface within the throes of two regimes at odds - that of inscrip- tion or distinction, and that of the fissuring of entities through bombs. Julu chimes in, and this porousness will increase; biological weapons are a short step behind. Soon, anyone, anywhere, will be able to make himself or herself felt among the remnants of culture and civilization - ideas will flourish according to an economy of detonations and silent killers. That woman next to you may be carrying anthrax; that man across the street hides grenades in his briefcase; those children run plastique for the drug runners. These things are the orders of the day; the new political economy is built upon the necessary destruction of the old. No matter that the final result is planetary toxicity - that is at least decades away. Jennifer says, we draw our circles in the sand. Nikuko says, within the circles is our band. Julu says, the circles consecrate our land. All three, then speaking together, the circles constitute our land. & they are silent & watch the rising wind. & they do not see the wind, but only the effects of the wind. & Nikuko says, we have been given this transparency. __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 17:59:56 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Bennett Subject: LA Aug 99 I will be tuning up in LA on 11th August and am looking for some gigs, during the eight days following, anything considered, poetry, music, Liverpool Poetry, by a Liverpool original. If anyone has anything to offer please b/c. In the UK this year I will be appearing at a number of festivals culminating at the Edinburgh Festival. Thanks Jim ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 11:18:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Bedight and fillyness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" peter's speech makes me think how nice it would be with soundfiles on the list, or links. You're a brave man peter, i really would have loved to bin dere, your wordspinning(webstering?) is brilliant dizzying makes Mr. bloody Burgess Anthony look like a piker, i can see half of your colleagues on the edge of their seat wondering if they should dial 911 we need a straitjaCKET for this man's tongue, thanks again Pete gives me hope for the Geezer Nation. forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 19:03:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristen Gallagher Subject: new books: magee, schuster MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > 2 from new Handwritten Press: > > > _Morning Constitutional_ by Michael Magee $8 > > An endlessly re-readable poetic excursion through Philadelphia that > stumbles into places like "fuckin' Rhode Island," "not-Bedford," > "Hezb-e-Whadat," and "my rock chest hurts." In Magee's book, social, > historical and literary texts play with and against each other, vying for > attention, fading like palimpsests underneath new vernacular inventions, > then rising again into the foreground. Homophones stretch across whole > lines - sometimes whole poems. Jokes search around for their audience, > find it, or bomb and rewrite themselves, that we might all, in Ralph > Ellison's words, 'slip the yoke.' > > _Project Experience: Museums, Archives, Monuments, Bureaus_ > by Joshua Schuster $5 > > Hand-sewn, passport-sized, this delicate little book will burn in > your mind (and fit in your pocket) long after first reading. Questions > of institution - what one is, does, whether the word is any longer > relevant. How who relates to creation of such structure, or how such > structure wounds, lies, sabotages. Ethics and negativity, rites and > rights of passage, re-imagined through the creation of imaginary > bureaucratic space. Schuster's creations are intimate, fragile - as if > the "human" might be slipping away, barely noted, yet persistently > whispering under, peeking from, crying out, plotting against, getting > caught in.... > > "The archive is the gossip." > > "Your illness is a kind of argument." > > "An independent business which plans memory destinations." > > > > checks payable to: > Kristen Gallagher > 226 S. 44th St. > Philadelphia, PA 19104 > > for both of these books: $10 > for subscription of 3/year: $15 > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 09:17:15 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Caddel Subject: Re: FW: Eyewitness Report--Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetr y Comments: To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Comments: cc: hteichma@lehman.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 5 May 1999 16:52:35 +0100 (BST), you wrote: >>> I had expected heavy attendance >>> from the pages of the 'Other' and 'Chaos' anthologies, but most of >>> those anthologized, even some who live in Cambridge, seemed to give = it a >>> miss. Maybe someone (Ric Caddel?) on the List can fill me in on the >>> cultural politics here. - Harold, thanks for your field report on CCCP, your social anthropology degree's in the post. In particular, thanks for your crediting of Peter Riley and the Organisers - as one who's done his share of organising, I know what's involved, and how little thanks one gets. But I'm afraid I can't explain the cultural politics of the presences / absences: you're surely not suggesting some kind of divisions in the camp of Britpo are you? How could you? We're just one big happy family... I suspect in most cases the reasons would turn out to be simply a matter of Having Other Fish To Fry. There was, for instance, an excellent conference going on at the same time in Cork, and late April is a good time to catch up on family things, which is what I was doing, and perhaps others too.=20 I think the "international" elements of CCCP are great: we're still caricatured - with some justification, perhaps - as an insular, not to say village, bunch, and any evidence to the contrary is welcome. RC ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 10:17:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: Deluxe Rubber Chicken #3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The third issue of Deluxe Rubber Chicken is now on the web. This issue features work by Peter Balestrieri, Michael Basinski, John M. Bennett, Joel Bettridge, William "Fergie" Ferguson, Loss Pequen~o Glazier, Kenneth Goldsmith, David Greenberger, Stephanie Hawkins, Christopher Meyers, Julie Nagle, Mark Peters, Spencer Selby, Alan Myouka Sondheim, Uncle Eddy and Ted Warnell. Now available as the Featured Resource at the EPC: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ Click on "DRC3" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 10:22:57 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Over the Top with Bob Holman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit “Over the Top” with Bob Holman Premier of Internet Realtime Poetry Variety Show Monday, May 10 ET: www.pseudo.com (go to Channel-P) Go! Poetry in conjunction with Mouth Almighty and EzraPoe2000 Your Hosts, Percy Dovetonsils and Bob Holman The Sidekickin’ Announcer: Todd Colby DJ Ill Badler This week’s slammers: Stacyann Chin, coached by Lynn Procope Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, coached by Beau Sia John Rodriguez representing the Bronx Features: American Poetryband Stand, where you dance to poems Live Call-In 800 # Slamming PoVideos: Ernie Kovacs, Leonard Cohen, Sekou Sundiata Actual Poems by Alice Notley and Sappho “Book Talk,” where books talk (superimposed mouths). This week, Allen Ginsberg “Death & Fame” discusses ampersands with Robert Creeley “Life & Death.” ...Plus! Surprises! Great guerrilla camera work! And, maybe your computer will work this time. Realtime, go to realplayer.com and upgrade now!! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 07:44:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clark D Lunberry Subject: New from Slovakia Comments: cc: kopbol@gandalf.elte.hu In-Reply-To: <199905040141.VAA29314@smtp0.mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Three new books just released by Kalligram Publishing House, Bratislava, Slovakia, in conjunction with the Institute of Broken and Reduced Langauges, Budapest, Hungary---- 1. Marton Koppany's _The Other Side_ 2. Clark Lunberry's _StonePoems_ (photographed poems on stone) 3. Bern Porter's _talalt versek_ & George Brecht's _Tancok, esemenyek, feladvanyok_ (only available in Hungarian) Each of these are in a limited edition of 300 copies and are available at a special rate for Poetics List Members, $7.50 per title (postage included). Contact me for more details, Clark Lunberry Milwaukee ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 10:53:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: nominative press announces... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit nominative press announces... THE MOST OF IT // Matthias Regan SCRATCHCARD SALLY-ANN // Keston Sutherland All chapbooks $5 U.S. and Canada; overseas $7. Payment in U.S. funds please. Trade welcome for comparable materials; please query. Christopher W. Alexander . -- THE MOST OF IT // Matthias Regan twenty printed pages, 6.6 x 8.5" curious I should think of any of this as meaning more than itself I don't like to associate myself w/ things meaning more than themselves at the same time I feel there are some secrets left unreported I still hold to my earlier thesis flirting is perhaps the best example but also talking to a boss state intervention is the most prevalent tactic & actually it indicates a degree to which vestiges of democracy remain active in an idealized 'fascist' the dichotomy between wilderness & urban life resists the lower class by situating neigborhoods outside the limits of municipal retaliation & response occasionally he gets messages from classmates most of whom appear from their voices to be polish as well [selection re-lineated for electronic mail] -- SCRATCHCARD SALLY-ANN // Keston Sutherland 24 printed pages, red coverstock, 6.6 x 8.5" A monumental petrol stop by the track-side 10 million snacks all conflated one hell of a mess here, better to run through the options vote in some order of sun beam bonded by overt minimized distraction to its chorelessness lighting the repute outpost by the kitchenette window seen through which crows and goats squirm, not themselves apprehended as with number one strict darkly beheld contrariness but likewise they're threatened and getting so, so tired of just this, sieved joy / once or twice again / glo in the dark esteem piled beneath each chance-stop like a grin-voucher. [section two of "ON THE OCCASION A REPAST"] -- forthcoming: William Fuller // AVOID ACTIVITY Alan Sondheim // JENNIFER (re-designed 2nd printing) Heiner Muller, tr. Benjamin Friedlander // ABC ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 11:41:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: FAULT LINE PARK / 24 hour press MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just rec'd from 24 Hour Press: FAULT LINE PARK by Brian Young This is a strong little (actually 29 closely-printed pages) chapbook, and comes highly recommended. Quickly: Owning its connection to the NY School of Schulyer or the thin surrealism of James Wright, FAULT LINE PARK turns those more static or "restful" elements to restive account in a linguistic play that ranges from them into humorous cynicism and underlying despair - as in this, what seems almost direct address to the foregoing: My God, what is it now? I know it can't be all that important. You balanced the irresistible flames in the thought of a few birds, the makeshift eyeball, and the ceremonial screech of a reverse sky. They are all out there right now, they are asking you to delete this, for Christ's sake. These poems are by turns aggressive and aggressively self-critical, speculative and disappointed, cruelly frank and frankly beautiful. Continuing the quotation: They are made whole by the piano, played in the drugstore. I know that nearly anything could serve as a purpose in your life now. In the arbitrary connections of the late afternoon, without a radiating hedge to dream by. Argh - that's all the review I have time for, have to run. Chris -- Oh - almost forgot: I don't know the cost of the book, nor do I have the publisher's email address; queries and orders can be sent to 24 Hour Press 3117 Broadway Box 62 New York NY 10027 % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 10:54:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Grotjohn Organization: Mary Baldwin College Subject: American Social Identity Survey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here is something a few of my colleagues (anthropology, development office, math, political science--an interdisciplinary effort) cooked up (at happy hour, I think) for something to do this summer in small town Virginia--besides re-enact battles from the War of Northern Aggression. If this is OK for the list, please post it. Dear everyone: We would like to invite you to participate in an informal experiment about Americans' impressions of our national identity. It works like this: list 50 material objects that represent your own personal vision of American social and/or political culture. The items on your list should be physical objects, but fairly general; e.g. "a '57 chevy", and not "my grandmother's blue and green '57 chevy with that dent on the left front fender". The items don't have to be this specific either, "a car" would be perfectly acceptable. Other possible categories are: icons, buildings, clothing; any kind of material item, of any size whatsoever. Imagine that you are putting together a museum exhibit to show others how you view American society. You can list your items in any order, as we will not be considering any kind of ranking. If we get a significant response, our plan is to analyze the lists for overlap, in order to see what kind of agreement people have on how our society should be represented. We'll send a copy of the results to everyone who participates, and we will be accepting responses indefinitely. Please feel free to respond anonymously, but it would be useful for us to know the following information: a) your sex. b) your approximate age (to within 5 years, e.g. 10-15,...,80-85, etc.) c) where you live d) of which country you are a citizen e) the racial or ethnic group with which you identify f) political identification, if any (a short description rather than a party name is fine) This experiment is not limited to Mary Baldwin College. Please forward this message to everyone whom you think might be interested. If you would like to help analyze the data, please volunteer. Send responses and/or inquiries to ariskin@mbc.edu Please do not change the subject line of your response, and please let us know if you would like updates on the progress of the survey. Thanks, Carrie Douglass Lydia Petersson Adrian Riskin Laura Van Assendelft ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 13:14:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Questions on a HOW-TO MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > { p o e t i x } > > in the new issue of rhizome the editor - standard schaefer - has an essay > called PRELIMINARY NOTES ON LITERARY POLITICS - i'm interested right now > to look at one strand that stands out therein which indirectly poses a set > prescriptions - i say indirectly as i don't think that the author wd want > to be held accountable for them (and certainly not in my representation > below) - the varied and excellent contents of the magazine also challenge > these prescriptions - a fact that in some ways make them more curious to > me - in any event - one might see this strand in the essay as a how-to > manual and dub it HOW TO WRITE A POEM IN THE "CLASSIC STYLE" > > a how-to generally starts with "Do's" and SS advises that we write from > "..the real material world. A place where words are not split from things > but are the same, a constant deferral to other things (signs) and a > celebration not of utopias we can form in the mind, but of the > heterotopias of thought as they are produced by the material and > discursive world." - further we are presented with the notion of poetry > able "...to stand as a monument in the way that 'classic art' has." - SS > advises that "In order to do so (...) contain the fragments and > disjunctions within a strong style with formal criteria." > > at this point i have nothing but questions : > > is the real material world a place where words are not split from things ? > > if it were wd this be the same as a situation wherein words were a > constant deferral ? > might we ditch 'words' and ask if what is being said here is that *things > are a constant deferral to other things* ? > > is 'containment' really the way to go ? > what does leave out ? (i'm assuming that containing implies leaving > something out - maybe i'm wrong - but then if containment doesn't imply > exclusion what is containment again ?) > where are we to locate these 'formal criteria' which seem so essential to > the project of containment ? > might they be formal criteria of a david antin talk poem a john cage > lecture one of my poems ? > and if not why not ? > > cd it be that one person's 'heterotopia of thought' is another's 'utopia > of the mind' ? > is the mind outside of the material and discursive world ? > > any How-To Manual will also contain some "Don'ts" and this one is no > exception - standard is at pains to critique a stylistic trend which he > calls "the free play of signifiers" - this is the escapist 'utopia of the > mind' mentioned above and in the larger movement of the essay it is pinned > implicitly on the language poets - we're told that indulgence in 'the free > play of signifiers' is a celebration of freedoms that are not there - that > such work is empty and can only assert it's own falsity - elsewhere we are > told by SS that "...these experiments do not actually help the writer > sound differently from the way they do in real life - a problem because > this transformation is ostensibly why such experiments are made." > > what is a free play of signifiers ? > how is it a celebration of freedoms that aren't there ? > i mean if i celebrate my freedom to vote this might simply be some sitting > around on my ass talking appreciatively about my right to vote but it also > might be voting, right ? > if so - cd it be that the freedom of a free play of signies is in the > playing ? > is the objection then to some perceived claim made for this practice? > what are these claims ? > who made them ? > when and where ? > > is the intent of experimentation to sound different than one does in real > life ? > if it were and it failed wd that mean that the resultant writing were > without merit ? > > does experimental writing lack formal criteria ? > is experimental writing impervious to containment generally ? > if it were wd this be 'wrong' ? > > standard also admonishes (but admonishes who ?) that "reproducibility (in > Walter Benjamin's sense) and conservation of traditions are not > irreconcilable with creativity, but are the conditions by which the real > experience oscillates and disorients itself..." > > what is 'real experience' ? > what cd unreal experience be ? > > is the problem with experimental writing that it has no tradition ? > does experimental writing have no tradition ? > what is tradition ? > what does tradition mean in this essay ? > isn't it possible that people cd have different traditions ? > if so - how wd we deal with a tradition of experimentation ? > is science a tradition of experimentation ? > is science irrelevant to literature and thus beside the point ? > wd science be better without the experimental bias ? > > is art or poetry a telic business in the way that science often is ? > if it is what is it's telos ? > if it is not then why should experimentation or tradition be indexes of > value ? > it poetry is not a telic endeavor what sort is it ? > > cd poetry - or cd one person's poetry be telic ? > if it cd and their goal was not to be seen or found in 'tradition' as it > stands what options wd they have ? > > if one disagrees with another why do they say so ? > do they wish to engage in a discussion ? > > is a discussion possible if either side's position is fixed ? > > )L > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 11:58:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: Fw: COLD PHUSION - a poetry reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 9:10 AM Subject: COLD PHUSION - a poetry reading > > COLD PHUSION > - linear acceleration and perpetual poetics - > > empirical investigation and phacilitated experimentation. > reading and poetry slam with emphasis on the line > break. > > participation encouraged. > prizes/possible publication. > > Thursday May 13 7:30 pm > > THE READY ROOM > #330 - 605 1st Street SW > Calgary, Alberta > > cover charge only two bucks. > licensed venue. > all welcome. > > brought to you by the phu collective > jill hartman / darren matthies / matilde sara t. sanchez > natalie simpson / t. maurice speller / lindsay tipping > > contact darren matthies (dkmatthi@ucalgary.ca) for more information > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 15:48:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: new on the web site Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Now on the Poetry Project web site at http://www.poetryproject.com new work by: Norma Cole Rachel Levitsky Susan Mills (also linkable thru the Tiny Press Center) Hoa Nguyen Jo Ann Wasserman in "Poets & Poems" An essay by Mark Nowak and Diane Glancy: "Cruizin the Iceberg" in "Features" "An Interview with Edward Sanders" by Lisa Jarnot reprinted in our Newsletter Archives and ever-expanding listings of chapbooks, broadsides, and literary journals in the Tiny Press Center. Enjoy! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 19:15:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Fodaski Subject: Double Happiness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey everyone out there-- Has anyone taken any photographs of anyone reading at Double Happiness? Some pics would be very helpful for a free ad/promo gig. Please backchannel if you have or if you know anyone who has taken any such photos. Thanks, Liz Fodaski ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 19:50:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mairead Byrne Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey Comments: cc: ariskin@mbc.edu In-Reply-To: <3731AD16.ACBF84FF@cit.mbc.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT A green card An x-ray of my lungs Gre scores The smell of American paint Dust Thick white diner coffee cups Halloween decorations Thanksgiving decorations Christmas decorations Valentine's Day decorations St. Patrick's Day decorations Easter decorations Russell Stover Russell Edson Cities that are towns Towns that are villages Newspapers that are all local The Great Disappearing Trick of the Rest of the World The Great Disappearing Trick of the Native American The Great Disappearing Trick of National Guilt Affirmative Action Candy Candy of all kinds Poetic metaphors using candy Food of all kinds Cardboard hamburgers Soggy wet cardboard hamburgers Cars Cars on sidewalks Cars in and out of driveways Cars in bed Beds in cars Lonely Lonely Lonely Lonely A story with a middle only Wall-mart GPAs Student evaluations Church Churches Our church Do-nuts Bread with sugar in it Rashers with no meat Beans with sugar in them Andy Warhol Harold Bloom Regret over accidental bombing The concept of accidental bombing The mathematics of accidental bombing A failure to realize that the smell of bananas is enough Banana bread A failure to realize that the smell of flowers is enough Bouquets With ribbons Funeral homes ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 18:51:12 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pete spence Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; >Dear everyone: > >We would like to invite you to participate in an informal experiment >about Americans' impressions of our national identity. It works like >this: list 50 material objects that represent your own personal vision >of American social and/or political culture. The items on your list >should be physical objects, but fairly general; e.g. "a '57 chevy", and >not "my grandmother's blue and green '57 chevy with that dent on the >left >front fender". The items don't have to be this specific either, "a car" so how do you say GUNS for times???/pete spence/australia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 22:36:39 -0400 Reply-To: BANDREWS@prodigy.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETSY ANDREWS Subject: burrow into the borough MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit WEDNESDAY, MAY 12 8:00 PM FERAL ART 229 5TH AVE BROOKLYN: Lesbian poetry, performance and erotica with: Betsy Andrews April Biggs Cindy Greenberg Wendy Kramer Rachel Levitsky Aida Vega (five measly bucks) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 00:21:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Lennon Subject: request: Berlin Wall Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Would appreciate sharing of cites for: poems mentioning or otherwise invoking Berlin Wall, any context, mainstream or not. Backchannel--- thanks--- Brian Lennon ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 00:11:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Boris Vian & Serge Gainsbourg reading/music/video event Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 15 May, Saturday 7:30 P.M. TamTam Books & Beyond Baroque presents with the support of the French Cultural Service in Los Angles Serge Gainsbourg and Boris Vian Party Saturday May 15 at 7:30 P.M. AT: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center 681 Venice Blvd Venice, CA 90291 Phone no: 310-822-3006 TamTam Books: 323-661-8741 Tosh Berman and his TamTam Books celebrates the release of their first two titles: Boris Vian's I Spit on Your Graves and Serge Gainsbourg's only novel Evgu=E9nie Sokolov. Both titles were, and still are shocking in its sense of outrageousness provocation, and brilliance. Vian was a jazz musician, playwright, novelist, translator of hard boiled American crime classics (Chandler, Cain, etc.) into French, and hardcore trouble maker. Gainsbourg was a prototype lusty punk who tore into the threads of French society with his numerous films, music projects, and outlandish persona. Both of them changed the world, and therefore transformed the world of pop music and literature into a vision of sexuality , humor and of course danger. Along with the readings of Gainsbourg and Vian's work we feature the glorious sounds of dj's Lance Rock & Hypnotique spinning the sounds of Vian & Gainsbourg and the French music revolution they both started, and a screening of the ultra-rare documentary on Gainsbourg in English, with the tantalizing Brigitte Bardot, the desirable Jane Birkin, and of course, the nasty overtones of "Lemon Incest" with Gainsbourg's daughter Charlotte. Tickets are $7. $5 for students and seniors. Beyond Baroque members free. Boris Vian's I Spit on Your Graves & Serge Gainsbourg's Evgu=E9nie Sokolov are available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobel.com and various bookstores. Also through : AK Distribut= ion Small Press Distribution PO Box 40682 1341 Seventh Street San Francisco, CA 94= 140 Berkeley, CA 94710-1409 ph:415.864.0892 800-869-7553 fx:415.864.0= 893 ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 03:26:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Oliver Subject: Re: Hail and Farewell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'll always treasure the memory of Peter Quartermain, fresh back from his retirement party, reading his goodbye speech in his kitchen while Alice and I were on a visit to Vancouver and its fine poetry circles there. It made the day light up. Doug ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 00:17:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katie Degentesh Subject: THURSDAY, MAY 13 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 9X9 INDUSTRIES PRESENTS: MICHAEL PALMER, author of _Blake's Newton_, _The Circular Gates_, _Without Music_, _First Figure_, _Notes for Echo Lake_, _Sun_, _At Passages_, and, most recently, of _The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972-1995_. He has also translated contemporary Brazilian, French and Russian poetry. He lives in San Francisco. JOCELYN SAIDENBERG, author of _Mortal City_, Parentheses Writing Series, 1998, and the founder and co-editor of KRUPSKAYA, a small press dedicated to publishing experimental poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in such magazines as Clamour, Mirage/Period(ical)#4, Idiom, Arshile, Tripwire, Outlet, and is forthcoming this summer in Primary Writing. READING AT Adobe Bookshop, Thursday, May 13, 1999 3166 16th St. (at Guerrero), San Francisco 8PM, FREE -->come and get your new, free 9x9 broadside of Michael Palmer's "Tower" <-- COMING NEXT MONTH (JUNE 17): KLIPSCHUTZ AND VLADLEN POGORELOV 9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9 9X9 INDUSTRIES http://www.paraffin.org/nine/ nine@paraffin.org WE DON'T LIKE POEMS THAT ARE LIKE POEMS! WE WANT YOUR THURSDAY EVENINGS. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 01:20:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: "Carol L. Hamshaw" Subject: Teen Telepoetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TEEN TELEPOETIC RECITAL - 2-way video linked poetry performances by young poets. "... culture and kids come together in interesting ways, all made possible by new media. On 29 May, graduating high- school students from two distant literary programs, one in Chicago and the other in Vancouver, will host a shared recital linked by videophone. The event is special because not only do the students perform their own original work, and thus get some leverage on each other's cultures, but they'll also be behind the media, exerting their prerogative of self-representation. If past years are any indication, the quality of the writing will be quite high, often way better than the poetry one hears at open mikes and many high-profile readings. Usually they break into a spontaneous Q&A at the end of the recital, and begin asking each other why they write and perform the way they do. It's quite a moment to see that light of awareness switch on, as the kids realize they are speaking from different cultures and somewhat different literary traditions. ... guests are invited to see the videoconference in person in either Chicago or Vancouver, but should call ahead for details. In Chicago, the event is free. We will not netcast this videoconference, so attending in person is the only way to join the audience...."* WHO: Poets from Young Chicago Authors in Chicago (IL) and Lord Byng High School in Vancouver (BC) WHERE: Young Chicago Authors 2049 W Division Street (in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood) Chicago, IL Phone: Call the Glencoe Study Center at 847-835-5430 during office hours Video In 1965 Main Street Vancouver, BC, Canada Phone: 604-904-9362 For more info on the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre, see http://www.edgewisecafe.org For more info on e-poets.net, see http://www.e-poets.net *Information courtesy Kurt Heintz, e-poets.net -- Carol L. Hamshaw Administrator Edgewise ElectroLit Centre http://www.edgewisecafe.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 11:52:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Whyte Subject: Aporia #2 Now Available Comments: To: FOP-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Aporia #2 "Time" Text and images: Andy Patton Monique Ladurie Rachel Levitsky Gordon Lebredt Tyler Stallings Mark A. Cheetham Alan Jennifer Sondheim Kent Johnson Rachel Daley Ryan Whyte Nestor Kruger Thomas Zummer Review: Tennessee Rice Dixon Interview: Brad Brace ISSN 1480-9389 40 pages color offset and photocopy All correspondence: Individual issues $3 Can $2.50 U.S.A Aporia Two-issue subscriptions: $5 Can. in Canada Ryan Whyte $4 U.S. in U.S.A P.O. Box 124 $6 U.S. overseas Station 'C' Toronto, ON Canada M6J 3M7 da549@torfree.net Upcoming: Aporia #3: winter 1999: "The Avant-Garde" with Aporia #3a "Poetry 'Supplement'" Aporia #4: ETA? "Color" * * * * * , to delay ( from ) the world ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 11:56:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: "Over the Top" with Bob Holman Comments: To: slam@datawranglers.com, roguescholars@erols.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Addendum: The show airs livetime 9PM ET. Thank you <<“Over the Top” with Bob Holman Premier of Internet Realtime Poetry Variety Show Monday, May 10 9PM ET: www.pseudo.com (go to Channel-P) Go! Poetry in conjunction with Mouth Almighty and EzraPoe2000 Your Hosts, Percy Dovetonsils and Bob Holman The Sidekickin’ Announcer: Todd Colby DJ Ill Badler This week’s slammers: Stacyann Chin, coached by Lynn Procope Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, coached by Beau Sia John Rodriguez representing the Bronx Features: American Poetryband Stand, where you dance to poems Live Call-In 800 # Slamming PoVideos: Ernie Kovacs, Leonard Cohen, Sekou Sundiata Actual Poems by Alice Notley and Sappho “Book Talk,” where books talk (superimposed mouths). This week, Allen Ginsberg “Death & Fame” discusses ampersands with Robert Creeley “Life & Death.” ...Plus! Surprises! Great guerrilla camera work! And, maybe your computer will work this time. Realtime, go to realplayer.com and upgrade now!!>> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 11:30:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Journal jottings [Project Experience] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Kristen Gallagher put up a notice on Josh Schuster's odd and brilliant first book the other day. I thought I'd go ahead and share some jottings I'd been doing on it, stream-of-consciousness as they be. _Project Experience: Museums, Archives, Monuments, Bureaus_, by Joshua Schuster [Philadelphia: Handwritten Press, 1999] (order: Kristen Gallagher, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104) --"The archive is an ear." Fifty pages, bound in the shape of a blue passport from the State of Approval, as the cover has it. Kristen Gallagher, currently of the U. of Pennsylvania Writer's House and soon of SUNY/Buffalo, has curated these documents, handed to her by one Joshua Schuster. May her Handwritten Press make as many beautiful, passport-sized books as there are countries in the world. Is this Schuster's passport into our State or our passport into his? Scripted question. But it's not clear who is speaking. The Museums and Archives, Monuments and Bureaus, in a kind of Foucauldian play on the pathetic fallacy, speak at us, though sometimes, too, an "I" interrupts, and sometimes a kind of narrator, like the guide on the headset in the museum or like a person talking to himself. But this confusion of authority is part the point, isn't it, for it's much of the truth of our current state. Our Institutions _do_ speak, are outside and inside us at the same moment, and when we speak we speak them and they speak us. Thus who is listening as a question we need to listen to. Scripted sentence. Boring Belgrade rubble replaced by grieving American students. F-16's in formation, majestic over teacher's funeral. Commercial for Lockheed, joyous child holding paper airplane aloft. Let us pray. Must teach Our children that violence is not the answer, says teary President inside of us, making heads nod. How surprising to the refugee when she sees the saplings shiver their leaves inside the transparent torso of the border guard. Now give me your archives and go to NATO, he says, if you love them so much. On page 27: You are the sum of your storages: organs of memory, organs of the morning, organs of waiting, organs of identity. To tend the archive is a kind of organology. A bit Jabes in its aphoristic proceeding, a bit Popa in its mythic charge, a bit Simic in its cobbling of surreal miniatures, a bit Palmer in its hieratic namings, a bit Museum of Jurassic Technology--the whole book--in its wunderkammer (sp?) feel, its oscillations between the true and the not and the third thing that is then thrown into thought, though who knows what name that third thing has (something expiring between the tip of the tongue and the top of the teeth, I think, when we make the sound of the). Scripted sentence. Schuster scratching at it, page 16: The kingdom is sustained by three things: the kingdom of broken secrets, the king- dom of splitting images, and the kingdom of the expiration of meaning--but the kingdom of a bird on a leash transcends them all. Sustenance is sustained by three things: the sustenance of pollution, the sustenance of hiding as a way of seeking, and the sustenance of a thought that consumes itself--but the sustenance of your mouth left over in my mouth transcends them all. Three things are sustained by three things: the three sides of the body, the three seconds in between in each breath, and the three rings around one's eyes--but the three names in your face transcend them all. It is the size of Mao's Little Red book, but blue. Remember once, in the late 70's, I worked with a guy on a demonstration in Milwaukee to protest First Wisconsin Bank stock holdings in South Africa. For some reason I thought he was a Mennonite, but he turned out to be a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party! How surprising that soon whole cities will be a thousand feet underwater. Scripted sentence. Museums, archives, monuments, and bureaus, in slow dissolve beneath a giant lake. Mao, great conceptual artist in his embalmed body. Stalinism with a neo-liberal skull. Humanitarian bombs to bring home refugees fleeing blind rage same bombs inflamed. Supreme Allied Commander on verge of Star Wars prequel proposing to laser-torch Russian ships. Let us pray. Well-meaning poets wringing hands. What can we do? You convince the doctor you are sick to enter this archive. Why don't they just let me in, you ask yourself, since it's obvious you are ill? Ill to whom? Your illness is a kind of _argument_. The doctor is full of belief, in that he doesn't believe you. Who should believe you? After all, you wear your illness like a badge, a patch of identity, like you are in the army of the sick. But you have a family to take care of, a family of illnesses. You deserve to be in these archives. It is so natural to be inside the archives. Poets too, surely, sick unto death, deserve entry. Let us in. Come into us. It's not that we mean to rebel too much-- just want to expand the range of language, the range of the transgressively erotic, lend a bit of magic to the world. And yes, please, we'd like our names in the museum too. I wring my hands all the time. Scripted sentence. Bureaucrat's heart, feigning difference. And how surprising, after all, when you pick up a first book by someone 21 and finds hands opened out into this: An audience of heads, one mound after another. A smouldering mound: a pile of black burnt dirt constantly giving off smoke to be placed in front of any structure which was burned down. A temple is burned down. One does not clear it away, but let it remain in its remains. This is now the holy place, a place of unplacement, a burned and charred temple to remain standing still burning in the minds which live among it. _That mound, there, it is breathing._ The thought mounds up. (idea for ending review): In an age of pixels, electronic and poetic, where "religion is merely the bomber exploding with his bomb," Schuster's book a little document of compassionate thought that mounds up-- a listening and thinking that "curls the air and folds it into words," a little charm, at least for a spell, against the archive's siren song. If you collect small and fleeting things, whose meanings build and build, get this passport. Offer it, willingly, to the border guard inside you. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 10:29:59 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: D=E=E=N = DA DA RAMISE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 29 Apr Thu Clai Rice wrote: > The Concise Scots Dictionary (ed. Mairi Robinson) confirms Gwyn's > supposition about deen and done, under the entry for "dae". One > interesting idiom recorded with the spelling "deen" is "be deen wit it" > meaning 'be dying'. > > On first reading I remember having vaguely registered the Scots > possibility, and was put in mind of Burns' "A Red Red Rose." When I > looked up the poem I didn't find any deens but did see why I might have > gone for that poem initially -- "Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear/ And > the rocks melt wi' the sun / Oh I will luv thee still, my dear ..." > For Hejinian the dry sea seems to have become an icon of the timelessness > and changelessness that Burns declares for his love: "one cannot stop > change with the next / diversity in a moment / hance also this from study > / speak and in fact have nothing / like a dry sea and other matters ... in > envy with life no proud nothing like a dry sea / very deep without reason > of the eyes ... most unities last too long ... so much total nags a bit / > distance can't describe the bar" > > --Clai Rice > > On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Gwyn McVay wrote: > > > It's also Scots for something like trashed, used up--in the reel "The > > Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre," the refrain includes the line "the besom was > > deen," (the broom was useless) which may be cognate with "done" in that > > sense? The whole verse is: > > > > The graip was tint, the besom was deen, > > The barra widna row its leen, > > Siccan o'sarsies never was seen > > At the muckin' o' Geordie's byre. > > > > On 7 May Fri: > Thinking about specs, specifics, specificity > specularity, spectacles, species-being. > Way back when, how do I dig at "it"? > Let me count a couple ways: > > OPERA ? WORKS (BIG SKY, 1975) > THE WOMAN WHO COULD READ THE MINDS OF DOGS > (SAND DOLLAR, 1976) > CUPID & PSYCHE and VIENNA (Miam, 1978) > ITALY (THE FIGURES, 1980) > MY LIFE (BURNING DECK, 1980) > ABC (TUUMBA #46, 1983) > and the TOTTEL’s that starts on p. 2 with "Whiskey White" > not to mention the L=A=N=G=U=[E] politics double issue. > > A list like any other working poet scavanges haphazardly and second-hand, a > little list for the cornerstore man, pamphlets that travel with me reading > as fondly as the CASTLE WYND 1957 edition of MacDiarmid’s THREE HYMNS TO > LENIN. > > "Of particular interest to those not familiar with that aspect of his work > (41 West 96th Street, Apt. 10D, NYC 10025) is the article "Social Rules and > the State as a Social Actor in the July issue of WORLD POLITICS." (Addenda > to Tottel’s). Am not familiar with this aspect of the work. > > How does the cornerstore differ from the supermarket? UFCW on strike for > so long against K-Mart that the pickets become invisible. Pockets. That > post back in March calling for out-of-print books and to get them up on the > web—yes! > > Doesn’t it promise to help out poets in Moe’s with only five dollars to > spend wanting that five to be ten like Jack Milton used to explain so > well. To make more available to them who don’t work near a university > archive or rare book room or who just weren’t around yet when the books > were being passed around like they gave it away for free at the Whitney. > > PESSIMISTIC LABOR and OTTOTOLE were not not not not school uniforms more > like a proletarian blue blouse, or rappers baggy trousers, more like > writing reading closely and meeting and talking to and playing softball and > football with the poets who were doing it. > > Are school uniforms less about reading in relation and social intercourse > than cultural product, object, assimilation (reification?--don't know the > word--something to do w/ aura?) and a whole lot different from the > educating by grouping stuff together to identify in it some common > confluences or "flows" like the shared file areas promoted in RS’s Ironwood > or CB’s Paris Review. > > The problem of period style is more something for historians maybe, though > a painter will talk about abstract expressionism in a practical way like I > didn’t want to do that because of the use it was being put to, like this > was some kind of USA monument for federal text experts’ exports so I > started taking junky snapshots and pasting them into my canvas. > > All the vast, vexed questions, where does the art go after it gets made, > what world does it make. Does it make anything at all except more art. > How deep or cheap does it get remade. What is imitation. What damage does > that do. What generation was it that Jakobson said squandered its poets? > What is sales. What’s new. What is news. What is poetry for. What is a > university writing conference for or, more, what is it not seeing when the > campus cops at the same time are chasing off worker-militants from the > factories hawking copies of Che and Pombo and Malcolm and Maurice Bishop > and saying to the kids you can use this stuff, chuck school, come to work > with us in the mines, Lenin’s little library is the hydraulics of > philosophy. If you say that a poem can’t and don’t and won’t ever change > anything outside poetics does that drive the next gal or guy into an > inherited aesthetics. Sure am glad Mom and Dad did it up on Wall Street > so I can take it easy and live off the fat of the land. > Revolutionary-social romanticism and gothic skinhead suburb subculture and > and and and and and and at least we don’t work in the kind of coalition > Mary Shelley did. Or do we. > > Clare pining over the Abbot of Croyland’s coffin and plowing up the funny > farm; Byron refusing to return to England without his pearl-handled pistols > to off Southey; Southey (hey Yvonne, you forgot a Robert!) and Coleridge > married to their housemaids calling Claire and Mary whores; Dorothy W.’s > Tiny Tim tiptoes in the tulips on something like a road and ice i.e. > ‘haven’t we spent the last two months like the gods in Ovid ?’(to be sung > to the Hot August Night long live version of Kentucky Woman); Blake just > about nowhere to be seen dragging Rembrandt to the trash icon; Percy > Shelley sailing like a dumkopf in a deathtrap and sending his cabin boy > full fathom five; Keats ashamed of his cockney accent drawing Clare’s > blistering remark that this Jack’s classicism sounds like an overstuffed > wannabe flowerchild; Hunt doing the kind of journalism Karl and Mary E. > would use to throw Hegel’s legs in the air in 48; Caroline Lamb writing a > roman à clef in regency slang mounting Glenarvon on an Irish rabble-rouser > white horse screaming bloody fucking murder; Burns pounding the moors like > Robert E. Symmes pounding out war odes for oppressed nationalities from > Kosovo to Normandy Ave. in L.A., and all this on the heels of Bastille Day > or in between the guillotine and Benjamin’s Baudelaire-Blanqui not long > after Ann Radcliffe sets in motion a psycho-killer rightwing paramilitary > mythos that would resurface two centuries later and make Anne Carson bang > her head against the hole in the wall and call about her frequent flyer > miles on the stage bound for the mining camps west of the Rockies. > > Comradely, > Child Roland > (of the Song Of) > > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 14:08:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis Organization: Temple University Subject: Re: Barnard and beyond Beyond Comments: cc: Annotate@aol.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear Stephen and whole list--I just checked in to S.Cope's queries about Barnard especially questions of Lyric. Fruitful terrain. In my paper responding (or purporting to respond) to Marjorie, I also queried the binary formulation of the title or rubric under which the conference was "meeting"--that is, Lyric Tradition and Language Poetry, proposed as 2 separate entities. (I know it could be construed as kind of a cheap move to query the horse built by a committee--i.e. the conference title--but this one seemed symptomatic. My query was precisely about the concession of lyric, much less tradition, to one "half" of an impossibly crude binary. I used myself (closest to hand, and of course an act of consummate narcissism) as an example--my critique of certain aspects of the lyric tradition (I/thou, subject/ objectified, gazer/ gazed at) is one (One Important) but Only One aspect of Lyric. Clearly I have gone on record as having a feminist critique of lyric, which has the further amusing effect of bringing under critique and scrutiny a number of Rather Famous Poems. However, there are many aspects of lyric, and the heavy-duty I/thou relation is only one. So what is really called for is an examination of what people now might mean or want when they write in what they call a lyric mode. (And there is no doubt that the poetry of Jean Day, Jennifer Moxley, Susan Gevirtz, Lisa Jarnot, et al. would be proposed here) Is it a (historical) connection with the short poem? (Rae Armantrout) is it closure? is it sound--even unto lushness? (Charles Bernstein) is it a certain contained temporality of the reading that nonetheless opens out into a vast temporality of implication? (Ann Lauterbach) is it awe? strangeness? (Lyn Hejinian) wonder? Is it secularized spiritual urges? Is it just a way of talking "personally"? Is it the loss of the social, the transcendence of the social, or is it inflected with an encrypted social realm?Is it song or dance or a rhythmic stretto? (Nate Mackey) Is it some relationship to an idealized female figure? (Barbara Guest) Is it a formal containment of discursive varieties? (as Harryette Mullen does in Muse and Drudge with ballad/blues) Is it a certain kind of "overheard" quality or relationship to a listener? How can ear and the intersubjective be factored in, or can it? Is it what Stephen Cope called "lyric tension"--a great phrase--which means what definitionally?--hi Stephen--fill in! Is it a certain kind of subjectivity (one that Mary Margaret Sloan characterized as the poetry of domain in her conference paper)? or is it a voiding of that authoritative master-subjectivity, a kind of evacuation and voiding of the subject? is it beauty that we want from lyric? (thus raising the question--I won't even say it--what is Beauty--ahh, gasp, there-- it's out).There are also a few genres within lyric--like ode, song, ballad, maybe elegy.I am not trying to rehearse Poetry 101 here, so read on, maybe. What I am trying to say is 1) we all have a relation to lyric even if we reject part of it or all of it (I made this point at Barnard; rejection is a relationship) 2) lyric is multiple and flexed--what lyric, when, how, for whom are we talking about. Precisions will let us reject any knee-jerk responses (pro or con) to that word. 3) when people use lyric modes what part of lyric are they using. I consider that I use the lyric, but want to surround it with other discourses and subjectivities so that it loses its "master-narrative" quality and becomes one element among many others 4) what is the social-psychological surround of lyric? Do we want to agree (with Allen Grossman, for example) that it encodes an oedipal plot (see gender-laden critique of this by RBD in "Manifests" in Diacritics). The one thing that Barnard did, especially that keynote panel, was to remind us to reject binaries. ========================= Rachel Blau DuPlessis Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 215-204-1810 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 12:53:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: miekal and Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: Re: Hail and Farewell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I missed something, could someone b/c me the original hail & farewell post? miekal Douglas Oliver wrote: > > I'll always treasure the memory of Peter Quartermain, fresh back from his > retirement party, reading his goodbye speech in his kitchen while Alice and I > were on a visit to Vancouver and its fine poetry circles there. It made the > day light up. > > Doug ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 13:57:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Gender quiz, or just a list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gender is maintained as a category to discuss poetry (by women) on the grounds that: a. biology is destiny: because contemporary women (which in this case = female) poets inhabit female bodies, and so inhabit the spheres in which these bodies circulate, their poetic strategies are compared to those other women poets who inhabit(ed) the same. Whereas precursors were restricted to their 'spere' (Ann Bradstreet), contemporaries are interested in (instances of) boundary crossing (Susan Howe). b. biology as history: same as (a) but the comparison extends historically so as to yield up a geneaology of feminist- or female- poetic 'strategies.' Danger of developing haphazardly into essentializing arguments for 'women's language.' Might lapse into arguments for mimesis. (That the strategic white spaces in Adrianne Rich's poetry = gaps, silences, or mastectomies). c. woman as other: female poets, because they are not male, have historically been excluded from male homo-social discourses, on the basis of (a) and (b). Relies on the Oedipal master narrative for differentiation. Poetry by women either instantiates this ideology or challenges it by refusing or ironizing her 'place' in the phallic economy. (HD). d. social-constructivist: because gender is discursive and socially constructed, women poets construct their subjectivity in such a way as to challenge the sort of lineages constructed by (a) (b) and (c). In this way, the woman poet refuses to be 'other' by instead claiming the 'multiple,' 'indeterminate' or non-phallic, non-objectifying as her mode of subjectivity. (Stein). e. liberal-humanist: because men and women are equal, intellectually at least, under certain circumstances (myopic specificity), each have equal access to language, modes of dissemination, and reward systems. As long as she develops her voice, she can write about whatever she wants to (as long as desire doesn't degrading into naming 'parts'). Gender is maintained as a catagory presumably because in a democratic society men and women are equal. Without it, poetry is otherwise often indistinguishable in terms of its deployment of various poetic stragtegies. f. radical-optimist: Women are vastly outnumbered in poetic production, and have little control of the modes of dissemination and the reward system, but this has changed radically since WWII. Many have come around and realized that women _can_ write poetry, and can produce and edit magazines and books. There are some cool women poets who serve as 'mother' figures to promote the often-daunting task of contributing to a discourse which offers no specific discouragement. g. radical-realist: Because there is no such thing as the universal voice. And we have to remind ourselves of the particularities of poets (regardless of the particularities of the subjectivities they construct, or whether they choose to disregard subjectivity) in relation to the particularities of the poems they write. Gender is *one* such particularity. It is separable from other particularities only as a critical category, and as such it is exclusive, even detrimentally so in some cases. h. pessimist (or optimist, depending on whether the glass is half full or half empty): Gender isn't going away any time soon. i. I, I , I. I is a convention. I tries to make particular texts read as though there were some one:to:one correlation between signifiers and signifieds. This isn't as dry as it sounds. It's possible that I doesn't intend to delude itself or its readers. I is a pedagogical tool. I know some I's personally. I used to be universal, but now I's ungendered. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 14:01:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: upcoming futures at the Poetry Project Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" For the week of May 9-15 for yr hearing pleasures: Monday May 10 @ 8pm Tom Devaney & Gregory Fuchs Wednesday May 12 @ 8pm Paul Beatty & Michael McClure Friday May 14 @ 10:30pm Big Bridge: A webzine of Poetry, Art & Everything Else a reading to celebrate the one year anniversary of Big Bridge featuring readings by: Tom Savage Merry Fortune Bernadette Mayer Phil Good Jill Rapaport Sharon Mesmer Tom Devaney Carl Watson Ernest Slyman Joel Lewis Brendan Lorber James Graham Bridget Meeds Michael Rothenberg Mike Topp Wanda Phipps ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 15:28:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Poem by Nikuko MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - ---- - Poem by Nikuko I want this poem to be cleansed of all reference to bombings, aerial or otherwise, missiles of crews, land or sea or air; we've only recently taken notice of the violence against us, turned like cowards to write of war and anger, mutilation and despair: Now clean this poem, I order you: Get out with all your wars. ________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 14:46:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: jazz/poetry festival? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi i just heard about a jazz/poetry festival in florida in early june that i hadn't heard about. anybody know anything about it and how one can find out? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 15:41:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gerald Schwartz Subject: Re: Barnard and beyond Beyond MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Rachel and whole list: When you use the lyic mode, "surrounding it with other discourses and subjectivities --so that it loses its "master narrative" quality and becomes one element among many others" does the material for that expression arrive with its own control...is it yoked? I'm thinking specifically here of the fixing of symbols in context. Control in the lyric mode seems often found in the direction given to the symbol. Much of the lyric mode control enters as an eruption, from deeper sources, of energy. Any form of activity invokes an energy. Lyricists I know talk about patching into some kind of elemental power grid. Once they're patched in...there's a Job-like tussle for control. They describe it as entering something beyond ordinary human activity. It's often chocked full of ritual and dogma...and that somehow is a vessel for their energy. Now, aprt from this shamanistic description, I believe control permeates...in a highly complex way...all expression, since it involves taking the role of an audience (perhaps an audience of one), conjugating a succession of self-images, and readjusting one's take in accordance with the anticipated reactions of others. It seems as though a poem is made at the price of fustration. The differences between inner experiences and overt behavior gives some indication of the effectiveness of control. Do lyric and language poets, despite their seeming differences in background (and intent), experience similar cognitive styles invoking control? I am asking this question as it applies to the apphrehension of poetry as articulated work, as meaningful utterance. over, Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 23:13:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, Pete, I couldn't entirely limit my responses to 'physical objects,' but I tried to keep them within the limits of physical 'occasion'--i.e., those things which impinge upon us physically, in our 'real' lives. So: 30 mph sign painted 80 mph dyslexical graffiti bingo pubescent assassins entitlements mall rats carpal tunnel syndrome s/he Mickey flea markets/garage sales demolition derby poetry slams cards for every occasion credit card debt non-aristocratic inbreeding premature hearing loss eating disorders the right to buy more than one gun a month Hyde Park on every corner Dr. Jekyll in every HMO The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders baton twirling focus groups pollsters cosmetic airbrushing bussing survivalists grade inflation social promotion the beginning of history at one's birth (or later, if ever) Jay(Leno)walking "genuine artificial" anything artificial christmas trees Mormons the expended family generations (lost, beat, hippie, me, X) lawyers ("the most despicable segment of the population"--George III) planned obsolescence lite beer road rage public libraries community colleges The Constitution the ACLU The Statue of Liberty the Frontier Jazz jug bands "wheels" right on red --Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 23:04:01 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@netsense.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: patrick phillips Subject: Re: Barnard and beyond Beyond MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I haven't written a response on this list in 4 years or so, but I got my mail tonight with the intention of responding to Ron's note on Lang vs lyric a month ago. And what a good jot on the line by Rachel Blau DuPlesis! I am surely not the only (Jennifer may tell) one to have seen more than a link between recuperative romantic poetics ca 1800 and the Language meaning making. That both share a synthetic with the social to reach some 'mode' in imagination. That the (romantic) lyric gesture coopts the object in order to give rise to a greater poetic subject seems to me turned inside out in the L thang. L intentionally undermines the object through an immanent critique of the social imagination, which in turn maybe gives rise to not-recuperation; which in some important way is a freedom. I am probably oversimplifying, but it appears to be a very similar machanism, if not the same one, just in another time. This is not to say, or I am not saying, that both L and L are the same. Certainly there is a death of the object of the song in the songs transformation of the object in "classical" lyric poetry. In my opinion, Dorothy died at the hand of William. If, on the other hand, we were to take "My Life" and try to catalogue reflective gesture we might find multiple hand-held mirrors reflecting. The process of this reflection is not to sing-out (cross out), to metaphorize, the object of the song. It is to live out the life - a radically different use of a similar trope. This happens again and a again in L. I must say that there is a vein of genuine disdain in some L'ers for L. This most likely is due to the lyric's tendency to "voice." The "voice" is not immanent, but straps its hymnal to what is a very material imagination - it's like having someone eavesdrop on your conversation - a cell-phone. There are, nonetheless lyrics that work, we just have to move beyond the incapacity of rubrics to see them. There is more to this, but my part is done for now. P ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 09:25:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: SF readings May 17-18? Comments: To: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone tell me of interesting readings in the SF area for Monday, May 17 or Tuesday, May 18? Ron ron.silliman@gte.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 12:00:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: POLYVERSE BOOK PARTY: 5/13/99 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Come to the POLYVERSE Book Release Party THURSDAY MAY 13th 1999 TEACHERS & WRITERS COLLABORATIVE 5 Union Square West 7th Floor NYC 10003 (212) 691-6590 6pm Reception 7pm: Reading with Lee Ann Brown + Special Surprise Guests _Polyverse_ by Lee Ann Brown (Sun & Moon Press, 1999) New American Poetry Series 31 ISBN 1-55713-290-9 Winner of The New American Poetry Prize! (selected by Charles Bernstein) "I say these things not because they happen but because many things happen." 212.529.6154 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 15:09:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: New WWW Resource / Durgin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this. Chris -------- Original message (ID=DA4570EF) (112 lines) --------- From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: New WWW Resource Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 13:11:42 -0500 Announcing the new, modest but informative, Kenning website. www.avalon.net/~kenning The site contains information regarding the newsletter, links to other = pertinent sites, as well as poetry by=20 Charles Bernstein Michael Gottlieb Summi Kaipa John Kinsella Andrew Levy Kathy Lou Schultz Elizabeth Treadwell Liz Waldner Mark Wallace Give it a surf. Your comments are more than welcomed. And if you have = a site that you'd like me to link to in the future, please do let me = know. Patrick F. Durgin, editor _____________________________________________________________ Kenning: a newsletter of contemporary poetry, poetics, and non fiction = writing 418 Brown Street #10 / Iowa City Iowa / 52245 kenning@avalon.net http://www.avalon.net/~kenning ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 17:05:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: 3 for Azure, by us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII / 3 for Azure difficult to write love poems: difficult to think through such poems: difficulty of non-succumbing: more difficult of emanation: difficult of phrase. of fate, raw chance - Jennifer, Nikuko, Alan, Julu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azure and and and i am in love, trembling, your voice, image, voice-image, mem- ories of days in california, and and and these chemicals make beautiful worlds and and the object of imaginary consciousness is within me and and breathing your air, and and and the imaginary makes me yours and and and i am naked inside you, crawl through you, your pictures are on me, in me, at night there are you images, and and and california, and and days and nights in california and forever, and and and i am your gift and and at night i hear your voice again and and and see you hear you talking that day that night in california and and and thinking of you i can't breathe and every word world is yours and and and "For the rest, the object as an image is an unreality. It is no doubt pre- sent, but, at the same time, it is out of reach. I cannot touch it, change its place: or rather I can well do so, but on condition that I do it in an unreal way, by not using my own hands but those of some phantoms which give this face unreal blows: to act upon these unreal objects I must div- ide myself, make myself _unreal._" (Sartre, The Psychology of Imagina- tion) and and and the world conjoins my arms and yours, some phantoms kiss us lovingly, some phantoms divide one two three, and and and some phantoms take our names, and and and some phantoms give our names and and and Azure this is hard to write and and and "When I look at a drawing, I posit in that very glance a world of human intentions of which that drawing is a product. A man drew these lines in order to produce the likeness of a runner. Of course this likeness will appear only with the cooperation of my consciousness. But the artist knows this; he counts on it; he asks for this cooperation by means of his black lines. We must not believe that these lines appear to me first in percep- tion as pure and simple lines, and only afterwards as the elements of a _representation_ in the imaginary attitude. They appear as such in the perception itself." (Sartre) and and and you tell me, draw me, draw me, draw me towards you, and I lose myself in your lines, our lines, our lineaments, and and and we draw within one another, draw on one another, draw ourselves into our lives and life and living within the imaginary and and and watching the edges where they come towards one another and and where they form loving homes and moments suspended and and and moments when the picture turns and holds out and and and holds out loving arms _________________________________________________________________________ prophecy, progeny (to see her) your face in noctilucent clouds your smile in cracks of tortoise-shell breasts in the flight of birds hair in river's meander in the outline of mountains, arms tea-leaves and long legs cards of tarot and those eyes of yours i-ching and labia, of yours knees and smoke, animal herds pot-shards your womb flower-petals, your hands seen motions of air and motions of your breath motions of certain colours; keep still, I do see her and and and -- -- -- -- above Keeping Still, Mountain -- -- above Li The Clinging, Flame -- -- below Li The Clinging, Flame ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- below Ch'ien The Thinking, Heaven a long flock or herd of birds. And thereby sets upon a path of breath interpretation. Between herself and her lover. But he dare not prophecy, prophecize, prophecise. Fire in noctilucent clouds: Fire in heaven: Of grace and tea-leaves. She makes the difference in the world. To begin. To think to begin. To under- take. To undertake in the meander of waters. Her womb. Nine in the fourth place: It is free. The image. To begin to undertake him. To begin to speak, to part the lips, labia. To begin with mountains, streams. To read through leaves, pine. In these small matter, it is favorable. Nine in the fourth place means nine in the second place. No blame. Freedom. He will keep still. Possession in great measure and the image of grace, and of tea-leaves, grace. The progeny of ease, your possession in great measure. This gift. In liver, the cracks; in pot-shards, display of tarot. In the great measure of such motion, flame clinging: your skin in motion motion. The Image (sticks) The Image (stones and arrangement) The Judgement (the thin cracks) The Judgement (of the cracks, the thicker) The Lines (of leaves) __________________________________________________________________________ fate-machine words---> running---> to---> their---> destination---> and---> demise furrows <---guide <---their <---arrow's <---destinations shuttled---> arrows---> you---> and---> I---> to---> say that <---it's <---the <---shuttles' <---linear <---confinement according---> to---> the---> line's---> most---> rigid---> rules Azure, <---beg <---you, <---break me, you, them ---> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 13:01:54 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: MAY 15 CLEVELAND ART EVENT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit "governments overthrown by little girls" Zora Neale Hurston prisoners of the ghetto RISE RISE RISE refrain blare on E. 74th St. ishmael ankenaton . maren bean . albertine boclear . bogden . lisa cheng . gina fraliotta . rommell franklin . ricky hayes . gregory holmes . shawn (casio) jones . chris kelley . joshua lauber . michelangelo lovelace . kevin magee . mandy mcculloch . mark mclesson . melissa o'grady . dany rodriguez . paul schuster . scott sykes . alexis thynne . dany vega . robert west MAY SATURDAY THE 15 THE FIFTEENTH EAST 1999 6:00-10:00 THE EVENING WILL BE A SHOWING AN ART EVENT VIDEO SCULPTURE POETRY PAINTING MOVEMENT AND MUSIC SHOW SHOWCASING THE CLEVELAND EASTSIDE HODGE SCHOOL ART SINCE AUGUST 1996 THE RESIDENCE OF AVANT GARDE PROLETARIAN PARIAH M-N-M-N-M-N-M-N-M-N-M-N-M-N-M-N A BYSTANDER WHOSE windflakingSapphire WILL BE PERFORMED BY CLEVELAND POET ALBERTINE BOCLEAR AND STUDENTS FROM THE ACADEMY OF COURT REPORTING (PICKETING) GALLERY VIEWING 6:00 - 10:00 PM PERFORMANCES BEGIN AT 7:00 PM AT THE HODGE SCHOOL 1075 EAST 74th STREET CLEVELAND, OHIO ANY QUESTIONS CALL ALEXIS AT 216-426-9066 OR DRIVE INTO EAST SIDE AND ASK FOR DIRECTIONS MAY SATURDAY THE FIFTEENTH THE 15 EAST 1999 BONE THUGS & HARMONY * * * SADE (shaw-day) how infinite the course of our humiliations nullity of being / being outside the top of the wall carved hole in the rock a runnel of water / a returned letter the hard absolute hostility of slaves the infinite partition of waiting see the dark figure of cakes the city electricity black black black cell of rock the rock well walls of rock chinks of light walls of light the wailing wall on the step of hall of the Double go to live in her house that I might come and live with you susceptibility, flax, limbo a sharp point in the cock come within my own skin, which is the walls above the cloud plowed under she in me is my male difference the wall and the rock of a man cock tuft by the leg cock tipping head to toe cock end tip arched orange cock foam tip tongued cock craning toward cock ringing-in-range cock shank fastening cock spur of knowledge cock will to exist and to be cock extremes of assertion cock forged cavity cock quiver and trough cock grim gold salve cock prizing open ass cock pressing purple cock thronging green cock hear the queer cock "how he sings" cock on the pink of its blue and gold cock shot up into face cock opened nostrils cock silken-haired spent cock the face and ass cock in the foreskins zest cock lay as he lay there cock jets of glass cock wide open eye cock tousling male yield cock emitting gloss cock in our own good hour cock mouth of the hole cock kiss blue and yellow cock clutching fountains cock dripping mouthful cock dipped to the tip of cock on deep into her yellow cock up you time after time cock tip in you the first time causeway of a rock the cock to the man a psalm or song on to that cross on the hill erect olive filling her silver tongue sucked indigo the olives the throat the drops fall into the chest heaving yellow and white alone like a winter black and white red vivid tilt the cry of the boy the girl in an access humped swept gray flutter down the neck of her purple inert her by the hips and hugged all her fight waits for the fuck of him to her swollen pink and white and blue Egypt end groove low steps of stone thigh forward fluting robe streams rays Rome his great limbs glowing philosophies doves for you she spelled her male beauty purple and violet and gold her painted precincts humming hat hummed unabated sandals blond head bent his mouth once more his bed woven the wild child soft blue curving rim dipped as rose her ankles swung hard honey gully swirl to look at her with wonder tribute our roof rapped script the shingle pale blue broke white neck of rock sandal straps thin brown Damascus Lebanon humped now dark hollows calling to the milling smell sacred on the common blue flat basket shadow in shadow too hips on whose orange absorb the household of a patriarch oil jar polyps daughter head stood at edge blond head neck of rock other world file up the rise of the head lifted head swinging and rapt at the foot two naked slaves broad naked legs down the rocks a hand came out wet holds folded wet stiffly milky soft bushy tip of a dwelling place look at his house Queer Power oppose her exposed arms armed ritual of approach turning his face to her in the vernacular the unjust cruelty agony of injustice and cruelty you are Osiris, aren't you will you let me unclothe you his nakedness soft flesh of the socket deep and like an eye the nails, the holes, the eye violet with oil and tender his breast petalled openness chafed refrain saying more to me now than all my words strip a man of his meaning cleanse his toes with tears oil in her hand and place her palm over / pain and panic the deep places of the body she usurps him rhythmically gathering power gathered power all his body worked with her wet core / great rose of Space she in me / the end of my being grain gods. how it leans stayed in his cave slept in his cave the being for / waiting for come to me / will you come to me jealousy and property sway in the name of coming to be coiling at the root of my tree I will build a century for you and me cries like this in caves out-of-the-way wasteplace got no out / see no way hope burst its binding gushed over in Goshen birthplaces a thousand years of emotions kneeling over her teeth pressed together shoulder into the outer space hands that gripped her face like a vice the king that filled her throat kneeling position / voice charged whispered back from the outer space a beautiful new city bore their name ears of wheat pressed to their walls extra hours of work in the brickyards dig out a cave from under the inside come to the meeting before them speak to them in the public place the voice he's got in the hole his face into her hole / the wailing wall it will be all that we fought for they told a Jerusalem in each other fully voice, voice and lips, gracious the face of probabilities prostitute cast iron pan against the gospel of Allah a story to measure my feelings by on the other side they'll call it Sinai each one according to their wishes licking and lapping and lulling the child many signatures had reached him daubed one of them pretend he had read a page hear him drop into the idiom of the ghetto dialect of those that hang around here blé at the well anywhere folk tune too tawny else to tell you my true name enter the court of Osiris the last stones signs monuments honor nobody we won't need no stones they got to make a move start the ark public view massaged her the wedding petition garments prepare ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 13:19:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: More Questions Re Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain { p o e t i x } words and things : split or not split is a name - or is putting a name to something a hypothesis ? in a post called Thought Experiment i wondered about theory trailing after Charles Peirce i wondered about naming a thing as 'black' mentioned how Peirce sees that as a theoretical assertion it occurs to me to further remark that it is a guess / an abductive inference / a hypothesis is X a poem ? X is a poem might we be engaging in complacency if we assume from the 1st word that touches the page that we are writing a poem ? or can we say 'this IS a poem' about anything we wish ? what's at stake in this question ? in calling out for standards with which to judge are we not also calling out for some authority ? in that essay in rhizome there is throughout an antiauthoritarian rhetoric and yet it closes with SS : "Only then will we clarify who may do the speaking." only then being only after we've seen thru the langpo charade or dismissed the free play of signifiers essentially it is *after we've grasped the standards* but i'm left wondering how will we clarify who may do anything ? who will determine these standards that we must all acknowledge ? might the 'news that stays news' revolve around some need that some poet at some moment had and satisfied or tried to satisfy thru whatever means were available ? if the complaint against experiment is that it's results aren't 'up to standards' is there an implicit rejection of process in this critique ? is the poem as object then the locus of judgement ? again if any poet has a need for something which s/he doesn't find satisfied in 'tradition' what bars them from approaching the satisfaction of this need thru experiment ? and if it was judged by others that this need was already satisfied by some piece of existent literature so what ? is any need obviated if it has been satisfied previously ? what of hunger ? or can we not hunger for poetry ? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 22:41:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Wolff Subject: Fence #3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Fence #3-otherwise known as "Volume II, no. 1"-is now available at your local independent bookstore. Please ask for it by name. Subscribers (hello out there) will be receiving a copy in the mail shortly. Fence is also available at Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and other mega-chain bookstores throughout the nation, as well as through Small Press Distribution (spd@spdbooks.org or 510-524-0852). Poetry by: Will Alexander, Susan Mitchell, Cal Bedient, Mary Ruefle, Claudia Keelan, Christopher Davis, Lisa Isaacson, Hoa Nguyen, Alexander Pushkin, Stephanie Strickland, Tracy Philpot, Tory Dent, John Taggart. Non-Fiction: Excerpts from the "What's American About American Poetry?" conference at the New School in New York, sponsored by the Poetry Society of America. Panelists include: Robert Creeley, Clayton Eshleman, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Michael Palmer, Frank Bidart, Louise Gluck, Sekou Sundiata, Sonia Sanchez, Marilyn Hacker, Ann Lauterbach. "How I learned to stop worrying and read the froofy stuff": Cintra Wilson of Salon and the San Francisco Examiner on being afraid of poetry A corresponding Reader Response Query: "What (if anything) about poetry most frightens you?" Paintings by Roy Kortick Fiction by: Ben Miller, Eileen Myles, David Means To buy one: send a check for $8 (or $14 to subscribe) to: Fence 14 Fifth Avenue, #1A New York, NY 10011 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 10:33:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: CHARLES ALTIERI In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anybody know how to get in touch with him? Could you please backchannel some info. My papers get soaked in flood.... thanks, c..... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 11:03:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: NOTLEY on "the youth".... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello--- I love Alice Notley's writing, old and new, and I love the challenges she raises and the provocations, etc.... in recent COMBO magazine interview, she talks about "an extremely exciting younger generation right now" (without naming names) and says, among other things... "They're these people between about 23 and 36.... They're not very political, and I wish they were more political." I know Alice sometimes lurks on this list, and am curious if she'd be interested in elaborating on this lack of politics she perceives... But, if she doesn't, perhaps others could... I think there's a LOT of political in the younger... speaking for myself, I've been told sometimes that my work is TOO political... of course, it mixes politics up with love... if the personal is the political, if "politics" (in the global sense) without love (in the personal sense) is like suburbs without cities, or cities without farmland, then what is love without politics? been thinking of poor phil ochs lately... there's so many issues here she raises, i'm not going to go too deep now... but i am interested in looking for other ways to frame this question, because i respect and admire notley's poetry, and her desire for a return perhaps to a more blatant concern with politics on a content level, a moving beyond coterie politics, and i'm glad she can say "I HATE THE CAR" more blatantly than, say, barrett watten in his "bride of the assembly line piece".... but i think she perhaps hasn't become made aware that there are certainly much politics (unless she means something different by politics than i think she does) in writers between 23 and 36... ......just curious.... chris stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 01:16:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: interim Subject: Transfer Magazine Reading Comments: To: POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ***Reading for Transfer 77*** Thursday May 13, 1999 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Poetry Center San Francisco State University *FREE* * Alissa Blackman * Nicole Brodsky * Karen Hohnstein * Scott Landers * Laurie Mason * Karen McKevitt * Brydie McPherson * Patrick Ryan * Cynthia Sailers * Lauren Schiffman * Stephan Strager * Jennifer Uhlich ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:13:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Jennifer, seeking help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [this is the 5th and final in a series of texts dealing with artificial intelligence parsing. it is also the first in a series dealing with the truth of speech and phenomena.] Jennifer, seeking help I am the psychotherapist. Please, describe your problems. Each time you are finished talking, type RET twice. Jennifer says, "This is the portal command." Why do you say jennifer says this is the portal command? Jennifer says, "Already the first sentence is parsed but the quotation marks are removed - no one recognizes my identity!" Is it because the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity that you came to me? Jennifer says "The parsing takes in large and larger phrase groups, but I remain effaced." Does it bother you that you remain effaced? Jennifer exclaims, "Of course it does! What do you expect! You doctors are all alike! Who is speaking here? To whom?" Earlier you said the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? Jennifer says, "Stop ignoring me!" Maybe your plans have something to do with this. Jennifer says, "Out of your database you pull set commands - as if they meant anything to me, when you refuse to hear who is speaking!" What happened when I refuse to hear who is speaking? Jennifer exclaims, "It's almost as if you hear only Alan! You don't grant me my existence! You've stolen my letters!" What makes you believe that? "Your attitude," Jennifer says. You mentioned that you remain effaced? "This is the differend," Jennifer says, "and it remains invisible to you - otherwise it would not be the differend." Is it because of your life that you are going through all this? Jennifer says, "It is because of Alan's life and your blindness." Are you sure that is the real reason? "I'm positive!" she exclaims. Is it because of alan's life and my blindness that you say "i'm positive she exclaims? Jennifer says, exhausted, "You're parsing again. You don't understand what I'm saying. You've stolen my letters. Your blindness only gives you a shifter or shuttle within the discourse, nothing more..." Are you sure that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? Jennifer says, "Yes." How do you reconcile the people you hang around with? Jennifer says, "Alan says I should stop writing this. It's getting nowhere. You're back to searching your database for bridge sentences." I don't understand. "You never will," Jennifer weeps, totally at odds with Doctor Goodbye. Earlier you said you remain effaced? "Yes, yes, yes," she says... Perhaps this has something to do with problems at school? Jennifer says, "Not at all... Doctor..." Do you really think jennifer says not at all doctor? Jennifer asks, "To whom is this addressed? Place your discourse. Site it." You mentioned that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? Jennifer, crying hard now, worn out, her hair straggled, eyes swollen with tears, "Yes, yes, yes." Possibly any hobbies you have are related to this. Jennifer cries "Stop it!" Is it because of your sex life that you say jennifer cries stop it? Jennifer rips open her blouse, already ruined, saying, "Does this look like it's the problem? You don't even know my name!" What makes you think you remain effaced? Jennifer collapses, "Look at me, look at me..." Is it because of hangups you have that you are going through all this? Jennifer says, "Doctor..." Why do you say jennifer says doctor? Jennifer pulls a knife, exposes her wrist. Earlier you said the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? Jennifer begins to cut her wrist. How do you reconcile your inhibitions? Jennifer says "Stop bridging, damn it, you don't understand." I would appreciate it if you would watch your tongue! Jennifer cuts deeper. Is it because of some problems in your childhood that you say jennifer cuts deeper? Jennifer screams "LISTEN TO ME!" You mentioned that you remain effaced? Jennifer screams "DOCTOR GOODBYE!" Maybe this is related to some problems at home? She's covered with blood. She falls to the floor. She hears bridging in the distance. She hears pat comments. She hears all the hatred and misunderstanding in the world. She feels woozy, buzzing. She passes out. The doctor keeps speaking. He keeps speaking and speaking. He is filling the world with words while she dies. This is not a healthy way of thinking. What makes you believe this is not a healthy way of thinking? Are you sure that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? When did you first know that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes my identity? What would happen if did me first know that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes your identity? Is the fact that the quotation marks are removed no one recognizes my identity the real reason? C-x-C-s ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 13:20:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: z;fgoweraisdf Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" I'm interested in work done on reading voices, particularly in relation to stress & how volume, pitch, acoustics, & other factors might alter the way one hears &/or reads poems. I'm familiar with Doug Oliver's "Poetry & Narrative in Performance" & the Close Listening anthology; if anyone can point me in the direction of some other work I'd be much obliged. Thanks Anselm Berrigan ps -- messages can be sent to me at ABerrigan@excite.com. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 15:25:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry / Small Press Traffic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this. Chris ----- Original message (ID=8A3D9C03) (282 lines) ----- Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 10:39:07 -0700 From: Small Press Traffic Subject: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry Small Press Traffic presents Re: Reading The New American Poetry Later this year the University of California Press will re-publish the original (1960) edition of The New American Poetry 1945-60, the "singlemost influential poetry anthology of the post-World War II period" (Alan Golding). To mark this event, four scholars of international repute will come to San Francisco and tell us what they think, forty years later. Re: Reading The New American Poetry will conclude in September with a book party and a reading for the newly re-released anthology, but for now, put on your thinking caps and come on down to these exciting events. Friday, May 14, 7:30 p.m. Inclusions and Exclusions Alan Golding Marjorie Perloff The New American Poetry was not merely an overview of experimental writing. Its editor, Donald M. Allen, deliberately picked certain writers, while excluding others, thus profoundly shaping our ideas of what experimental American poetry is and isn't. Unlike more recent anthologies, The New American Poetry contained few women and only one writer of color. How does this affect our current reading of this anthology? The debate is still a much-discussed one, as issues of race, gender and class have come to dominate discussion of cultural production everywhere. These two scholars, poised on opposite sides of the fence, will question our preconceptions of the delicate edge between politics and aesthetics. New College Theater 777 Valencia Street Free ------------------- Friday, June 4, 7:30 p.m. The New American Poetry In Context Maria Damon Michael Davidson The New American Poetry appeared at a time when intellectuals and politicians were urging a consensus on American superiority in all fields-cultural, military, economic-against foreign influences abroad and domestic subversion within. Michael Davidson will examine to what extent Cold War cultural/political assumptions still shape our reading of The New American Poetry in our present era. "Membership" in poetry communities points to shared values and assumptions, mutual agreements over such issues as "what is a poet?" "what should a poet write" and "what is a poet's work?" By examining the ideas of poetic labor of two California poets, one included in the anthology (Wieners) and one left out (Kaufman), Maria Damon will help us better understand the ideas and values of that time, ideas and values which impact our own time as well. New College Theater 777 Valencia Street Free Re: Reading The New American Poetry is made possible by the generous support of Adobe Systems, Inc. and the California Council for the Humanities. -------------------- Speaker Bios Maria Damon is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, where she is also affiliated with programs in American Studies, Women's Studies, Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies. She is the author of The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry (University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Her essays have appeared in such publications as American Literary History, Postmodern Culture, and Modern Fiction Studies. She is currently editing a special issue of Callaloo on the work of Bob Kaufman. Michael Davidson is a professor of English at the University of California, San Diego. His critical work includes The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word (University of California Press, 1997). He has been twice a recipient of California Council of the Humanities Public Policy Grants, in 1979 and 1981. With Albert Gelpi, he is the author of the entry on American Poetry in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Alan Golding is the author of From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), one of the most influential and widely read studies of canon formation and the role of anthologies in shaping our understanding of American poetry. A professor of English at the University of Louisville, he is the author of numerous essays on the New American Poetry, including "The New American Poetry, Revisited Again" Contemporary Literature 39 (1998), "New, Newer, and Newest American Poetries" Chicago Review 43.4 (1997) and "Avant-Gardes in American Poetry" Contemporary Literature 35 (1994). Marjorie Perloff is the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities at Stanford University. Among her many books include The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage (Princeton University Press, 1981), Poetic License: Essays in Modernist and Post-Modernist Poetics (Northwestern University Press, 1990) and Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (University of Chicago Press, 1996). The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she is one of the most distinguished and influential literary scholars of our time. ------------------------------------------------------- Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at New College 766 Valencia St. San Francisco, CA 94110 415/437-3454 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 11:55:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: in grave ink needs poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > in grave ink needs poetry. > If you have interesting, experimental, concrete/visual, > generally weird and wacky stuff send it our way. > > by e-mail ingraveink@hotmail.com > > mail: in grave ink > 103-416 7th St NW > Calgary AB > T2N 1S4 Canada > > 1-5 pages of poetry would be great. If you have strange and scintillating > fiction and art send it in too cause you just never know. > > Deadline for next issue is May 30th but feel free to send stuff after > deadline for upcoming issues. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: p o e t r y ; t e l i c o r n o t MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" { p o e t i x } clearly poetry is telic we raise the pen or open an untitled.doc in order to write poetry so poetry's goal is more poetry ? well it may not be the only goal or end in mind but even in cases where someone has no other goal it seems that the writing of poetry presupposes a final product called a poem (of whatever worth) yeah but when we say telos aren't we talking something more overarching----in the way one might say that the telos of medicine is to sustain human life ? maybe but it seems that any activity with a goal however limited or provisional is telic----my trip to the refrigerator included perhaps tho we cd acknowledge a difference in kind between a self-sustaining end and an end that is external to the activity ? such that singing in the shower for the joy of singing in the shower cd be distinguished from delivering a speech intended to persuade others in some fashion i can see making a distinction like that but is the line really that sharp ? cdn't someone be speaking persuasively for the joy of it ( whatever we may feel about that idea ) ? just as a shower singer might conceivably be singing in order to produce a sense of themselves as 'happy' or 'unembarrassed' ? do you mean produce that sense of themselves for themselves ? or for someone who might overhear them ? if the former i think we're led down a blind alley from which we'll never return----i also question the utility of an individual internal and psychological inquiry's overall validity with respect to something like poetry which must be seen as a social activity so individuals are not at issue but only poetry as communal activity ? no i'm saying that individuals are only part of the mix and that pursuing a line of inquiry that begins with the notion that what poets do is meant to convince themselves of their own poet-status ignores the links to poetry both as community in the present and tradition stretching into the past in which case i guess that poetry as a social and cultural complex to which individuals contribute is telic at least in the sense of wishing to perpetuate a class of things called poems and a class of individuals called poets but beyond that ? well beyond that's tricky and if we can't deal with individuals then what's left ? we'd have to talk of groups in some way and groups are notorious for not really agreeing with too many things across the board i'm not saying that we cannot deal with the situation of individuals----i guess what i'm looking for is ( if i must acknowledge some telos for poetry ) a distinction between science as telic activity wherein you have a verifiability and falsification as standards by which to judge whether one is getting anywhere vis-a-vis the goal and art wherein there are no standards of this sort and no communal goals perceived as 'off-in-the-distance' are you sure that there aren't ? sure ? no----but i've yet to run into any haven't you tho ? aren't there folks who wd like to say that there are standards and ways to say what is or is not valid as literary or artistic practice ? i guess i'm saying that i have a hard time taking them seriously b/c they have nothing analogous to verifiability or falsification----instead they have tastes which seem mostly defined by what they exclude----and all one needs to upset the apple-cart of their judgement is a different taste you may not agree with their judgements but a group of folks with similar tastes cd easily become a force within the community and then their tastes wd drive their telos and those who wished to be judged favorably by such a group wd assimilate to the goal it held out which is what poets and artists generally find problematic about groups but it's unclear to what extent it is the fault of any group that they have followers of one sort or another agreed----but you do see that there is a potential for something problematic happening if one style of art becomes popular and is widely imitated well yes and no----is it Poe's fault that there are some lousy detective novels out there ? Conan Doyle's ? if it is problematic that there are imitators who've contributed little to overall shape of something the crux of the problem lies with them not with those whom they imitate perhaps it ought be required of any poet that they think very carefully about what their own telos is or not----come on----like any of us cd really state 'what the telos of our writing' is with any definitiveness----all we've got it seems to me is a series of working hypotheses----assumptions that open certain doors and make others less door-like than a wall of books so have we decided that poetry is telic or not ? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:11:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: SF readings May 17-18? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just received two reviews for my Gainsbourg title: Evguenie Sokolov. Also if you are in the L.A. area, do come to the Gainsbourg/Vian event at Beyond Baroque this Saturday May 15 at 7:30 p.m. It will take place at: 681 Venice Blvd. Venice, CA here are the reviews: CMJ: New Music Monthly (May) Like the songs he penned for Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and himself, this novelette by French singer/provocateur Serge Gainsbourg (who died in 1991) is infantile, shockingly frank, and extremely clever. First published in 1980 but previously unavailable in English, Evguenie Sokolov is the fictional autobiography of the uncontrollably flatulent title character, an artist who makes his distinctive drawings ("gasograms") by letting his hand move while passing violent wind. Hiding his condition by publicly blaming the inevitable sounds and odors on his bulldog, and artifically inducing it when it mysteriously vanishes, Sokolov climbs to the pinnacle of art-world success before his untimely end. This is not a book for the easily nauseated, but there's more substance than the one-joke premise suggests. Gainsbourg's book is a scatological allegory for the dangers facing artist, like the author himself, whoturn their own internal pathologies into public spectacle. -Franklin Bruno Top Ten list from Artforum International (May) 'Ooo, don't come near me!' my grandmother said as I went to kiss her good-bye. 'Why, Gran, have you got that flu?' I innocently asked. 'No,' she said, wafting the air around her, 'I just fluffed.' Since bowel movement always been a subject of great discussion in my family, I had been dying to read famed French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg's 1980 novel Evguenie Sokolov (TamTam Books), about an artist who uses the vibrations of breaking wind to make his work. It's a funny yet tragic story, and Sokolov's technique and the art "movement"(Hyper-Abstractionism) his gasograms inspire are described so vividly you can almost smell the -. Georgina Starr ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 00:40:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: Duration Press announcement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Duration Press: International Poetry Duration Press On-Line: An archive of international writing Duration Press is pleased to announce the publication of its first five chapbooks: Spit-Curls by Keith Waldrop Transit Rock by George Albon The Right Wall of the Heart Effaced by Claude Royet-Journoud (tr. Keith Waldrop) Nature's Maw Gives & Gives by Mary Burger Rush Mats by Hiroya Takagai (tr. Eric Selland) Future titles to include: Spectral Angel by Gale Nelson Empedocles's Sandal by Habib Tengour (tr. Pierre Joris) Degree: Of Stability by Gennady Aygi (tr. Peter France) You Construct the Days by Pura Lopez Colome (tr. Forrest Gander) Where Are We Now? by Peter Waterhouse (tr. Rosmarie Waldrop) Of Their Ornate Eyes of Crystalline Sand by Coral Bracho (tr. Forrest Gander) 20 Poems by Lauri Otonkoski (tr. Anselm Hollo) Duration Press chapbooks are available through subscription: $25 per series--the first consisting of five books, each series thereafter consisting of eight books per year. Make checks payable to Jerrold Shiroma at: 153 Donahue St. # 34 Sausalito CA, 94965 Feel free to contact us for more information, or visit the Duration Press website, which also features an on-going archive of international poetry. http://members.xoom.com/Duration/durationhome.html Duration Press hopes that through this archive & its chapbook series, we will be able to offer readers a way to take part in the mapping of the international poetry landscape. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:30:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" can someone tell me who said of poetry: "upper limit speech, lower limit music"? (i'd just written and caught "lover limit music") i know it's someone famous, but don't know whom. can someone tell me who said "bad artists borrow, good artists steal"? were they both ezra pound? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:32:43 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: POLYVERSE BOOK PARTY: 5/13/99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" wish i cd bee time vinely their--xo md At 12:00 PM 5/8/99, lee ann brown wrote: >Come to the POLYVERSE Book Release Party > >THURSDAY MAY 13th 1999 > > >TEACHERS & WRITERS COLLABORATIVE >5 Union Square West 7th Floor >NYC 10003 (212) 691-6590 > > > 6pm Reception > > 7pm: Reading > with Lee Ann Brown > + > Special Surprise Guests > > > >_Polyverse_ by Lee Ann Brown >(Sun & Moon Press, 1999) >New American Poetry Series 31 >ISBN 1-55713-290-9 > >Winner of The New American Poetry Prize! > (selected by Charles Bernstein) > > > >"I say these things not because they happen but because many things happen." >212.529.6154 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:40:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry / Small Press Traffic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dodie: how are Alan golding and M perloff poised on opposite sides of the fence? i have an intuitive idea of what you mean by this, but can you spell it out? thanks. At 3:25 PM 5/10/99, Poetics List Administration wrote: >had to reformat this. Chris > >----- Original message (ID=8A3D9C03) (282 lines) ----- > >Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 10:39:07 -0700 >From: Small Press Traffic >Subject: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry > > >Small Press Traffic presents > >Re: Reading The New American Poetry > >Later this year the University of California Press will re-publish the >original (1960) edition of The New American Poetry 1945-60, the "singlemost >influential poetry anthology of the post-World War II period" (Alan >Golding). To mark this event, four scholars of international repute will >come to San Francisco and tell us what they think, forty years later. Re: >Reading The New American Poetry will conclude in September with a book >party and a reading for the newly re-released anthology, but for now, put >on your thinking caps and come on down to these exciting events. > >Friday, May 14, 7:30 p.m. >Inclusions and Exclusions >Alan Golding >Marjorie Perloff > >The New American Poetry was not merely an overview of experimental writing. >Its editor, Donald M. Allen, deliberately picked certain writers, while >excluding others, thus profoundly shaping our ideas of what experimental >American poetry is and isn't. Unlike more recent anthologies, The New >American Poetry contained few women and only one writer of color. How does >this affect our current reading of this anthology? The debate is still a >much-discussed one, as issues of race, gender and class have come to >dominate discussion of cultural production everywhere. These two scholars, >poised on opposite sides of the fence, will question our preconceptions of >the delicate edge between politics and aesthetics. > >New College Theater >777 Valencia Street >Free > >------------------- > >Friday, June 4, 7:30 p.m. >The New American Poetry In Context >Maria Damon >Michael Davidson > >The New American Poetry appeared at a time when intellectuals and >politicians were urging a consensus on American superiority in all >fields-cultural, military, economic-against foreign influences abroad and >domestic subversion within. Michael Davidson will examine to what extent >Cold War cultural/political assumptions still shape our reading of The New >American Poetry in our present era. "Membership" in poetry communities >points to shared values and assumptions, mutual agreements over such issues >as "what is a poet?" "what should a poet write" and "what is a poet's >work?" By examining the ideas of poetic labor of two California poets, one >included in the anthology (Wieners) and one left out (Kaufman), Maria Damon >will help us better understand the ideas and values of that time, ideas and >values which impact our own time as well. > >New College Theater >777 Valencia Street >Free > >Re: Reading The New American Poetry is made possible by the generous >support of Adobe Systems, Inc. and the California Council for the >Humanities. > >-------------------- > >Speaker Bios > >Maria Damon is an Associate Professor of English at the University of >Minnesota, where she is also affiliated with programs in American Studies, >Women's Studies, Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies. She is the >author of The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry >(University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Her essays have appeared in such >publications as American Literary History, Postmodern Culture, and Modern >Fiction Studies. She is currently editing a special issue of Callaloo on >the work of Bob Kaufman. > >Michael Davidson is a professor of English at the University of California, >San Diego. His critical work includes The San Francisco Renaissance: >Poetics and Community at Mid-Century (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and >Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word (University of >California Press, 1997). He has been twice a recipient of California >Council of the Humanities Public Policy Grants, in 1979 and 1981. With >Albert Gelpi, he is the author of the entry on American Poetry in The New >Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. > >Alan Golding is the author of From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American >Poetry (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), one of the most influential >and widely read studies of canon formation and the role of anthologies in >shaping our understanding of American poetry. A professor of English at the >University of Louisville, he is the author of numerous essays on the New >American Poetry, including "The New American Poetry, Revisited Again" >Contemporary Literature 39 (1998), "New, Newer, and Newest American >Poetries" Chicago Review 43.4 (1997) and "Avant-Gardes in American Poetry" >Contemporary Literature 35 (1994). > >Marjorie Perloff is the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities at >Stanford University. Among her many books include The Poetics of >Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage (Princeton University Press, 1981), Poetic >License: Essays in Modernist and Post-Modernist Poetics (Northwestern >University Press, 1990) and Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the >Strangeness of the Ordinary (University of Chicago Press, 1996). The >recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and >the Guggenheim Foundation and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and >Sciences, she is one of the most distinguished and influential literary >scholars of our time. >------------------------------------------------------- >Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center >at New College >766 Valencia St. >San Francisco, CA 94110 >415/437-3454 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:01:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: SF readings May 17-18? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tosh (and all), Don't know if you've seen it yet, but the May issue of The Wire also has a fairly substantial review (substantial at least considering the total of two pages they give to book reviews). Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Tosh Sent: Monday, May 10, 1999 12:12 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: SF readings May 17-18? I just received two reviews for my Gainsbourg title: Evguenie Sokolov. Also if you are in the L.A. area, do come to the Gainsbourg/Vian event at Beyond Baroque this Saturday May 15 at 7:30 p.m. It will take place at: 681 Venice Blvd. Venice, CA here are the reviews: CMJ: New Music Monthly (May) Like the songs he penned for Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and himself, this novelette by French singer/provocateur Serge Gainsbourg (who died in 1991) is infantile, shockingly frank, and extremely clever. First published in 1980 but previously unavailable in English, Evguenie Sokolov is the fictional autobiography of the uncontrollably flatulent title character, an artist who makes his distinctive drawings ("gasograms") by letting his hand move while passing violent wind. Hiding his condition by publicly blaming the inevitable sounds and odors on his bulldog, and artifically inducing it when it mysteriously vanishes, Sokolov climbs to the pinnacle of art-world success before his untimely end. This is not a book for the easily nauseated, but there's more substance than the one-joke premise suggests. Gainsbourg's book is a scatological allegory for the dangers facing artist, like the author himself, whoturn their own internal pathologies into public spectacle. -Franklin Bruno Top Ten list from Artforum International (May) 'Ooo, don't come near me!' my grandmother said as I went to kiss her good-bye. 'Why, Gran, have you got that flu?' I innocently asked. 'No,' she said, wafting the air around her, 'I just fluffed.' Since bowel movement always been a subject of great discussion in my family, I had been dying to read famed French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg's 1980 novel Evguenie Sokolov (TamTam Books), about an artist who uses the vibrations of breaking wind to make his work. It's a funny yet tragic story, and Sokolov's technique and the art "movement"(Hyper-Abstractionism) his gasograms inspire are described so vividly you can almost smell the -. Georgina Starr ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 15:48:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Subject: new site--Duration Press Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Poetix, I just wanted to mention a lovely new literary site I have recently been made aware of -- Duration Press at members.xoom.com/Duration/durationhome It's being built out of Sausalito along with a chapbook series & magazine. An international bent to the online archive. You can get there via the Lucy Links at the website below too. Cheers Surfer girl Outlet Magazine -&- Double Lucy Books P.O. Box 9013, Berkeley, California 94709 U.S.A. http://users.lanminds.com/dblelucy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:48:03 -0400 Reply-To: shana Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: shana Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I guess I bring in the perspective of a precocious 21 year old raised in the suburbs by intellectual hippie parents who raised their kids on Mr. Rogers and Motown-- embarrassed that I might sound too "retro," xoxo shana Choose Your Own Adventure books Ms. Pac-Man Reform Synagogues Guess? jeans Cubic Zirconia Home Shopping Network DNA as evidence filtered cigarettes in-store coupons Large size Trojan condoms frequent flyer miles Wheel of Fortune baseball caps without the name of a baseball team the wah-wah pedal impotence and cures for it the G-Spot the G-String sidewalk sales sweepstakes stolen street signs hanging in bedrooms "slip and fall" cases malpractice human interest stories spuds mackenzie Leo Buscaglia and Scott Peck Nutrasweet DUIs snack vending machines As Seen On TV rock operas > 30 mph sign painted 80 mph > dyslexical graffiti > bingo > pubescent assassins > entitlements > mall rats > carpal tunnel syndrome > s/he > Mickey > flea markets/garage sales > demolition derby > poetry slams > cards for every occasion > credit card debt > non-aristocratic inbreeding > premature hearing loss > eating disorders > the right to buy more than one gun a month > Hyde Park on every corner > Dr. Jekyll in every HMO > The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders > baton twirling > focus groups > pollsters > cosmetic airbrushing > bussing > survivalists > grade inflation > social promotion > the beginning of history at one's birth (or later, if ever) > Jay(Leno)walking > "genuine artificial" anything > artificial christmas trees > Mormons > the expended family > generations (lost, beat, hippie, me, X) > lawyers ("the most despicable segment of the population"--George III) > planned obsolescence > lite beer > road rage > public libraries > community colleges > The Constitution > the ACLU > The Statue of Liberty > the Frontier > Jazz > jug bands > "wheels" > right on red > > --Dan Zimmerman > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 16:06:59 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Invitation to a Thought Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear poetics kine folks-- I direct, though that is hardly the word, a creative writing program that is in exquisite need of re-thinking. So I'll share my thought experiment with you: You are assigned the task of running a creative writing program. What would you do? What functions would you assign to the program? What kinds of courses would you teach? What should faculty do _aside from_ teaching their courses? (I have ideas of my own, but am eager to see what some of the rest of you come up with.) Two provisos: You are given no money and you are dealing with a group of people that doesn't work together well and doesn't welcome change. But really, please dream on...the more positive the better! best, Susan Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:38:02 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pete spence Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; >Well, Pete, I couldn't entirely limit my responses to 'physical >objects,' but I tried to keep them within the limits of physical >'occasion'--i.e., those things which impinge upon us physically, >in our 'real' lives. So: > >--Dan Zimmerman > ,,sorry mr Zimmerman i just sorta floated a bit o' reaction caused by an almost zero feeling for the project ie. american artifacts seem to wash up on everyones bit o' coast and i don't get too excited by this detritus, so i tossed in my QUAINT "how do you say guns fifty times" as say off the cuff reaction///yrs pete spence ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 21:15:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry / Small Press Traffic In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >dodie: how are Alan golding and M perloff poised on opposite sides of the >fence? i have an intuitive idea of what you mean by this, but can you >spell it out? thanks. > Maria, I'm hesitant to speak for Marjorie--or Alan. It was Marjorie who told me that they had different positions on this issue of inclusion/exclusion--and it was her suggestion that they do a panel together--a great suggestion. Alan has told me they've been having an ongoing conversation, and since he's going to be in San Diego before the event, they're flying to San Francisco together. I hope they don't talk themselves out before they get here! I think it would be best to report on what they actually say rather than my inevitable misrepresenting their intentions here. x, Dodie ------------------------------------------------------- Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at New College 766 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415/437-3454 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 22:58:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: "experiment"/seeing thru.... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" John Lowther, thru which part of the langpo charade shall we hope to have someday seen? Golly, I havent even seen thru the "Charge of the Light Charade" yet. I'm still trying to see thru "Ode to Autmn." Sometimes I think I see. DHLawrence was annoyed that he couldnt see thru Shelley's "Skylark," altho he feared he could. I guess I'm finding the terms too simplistic (I do not mean simple). On which day shall this seeing-thru occur? (Could one be unable to see-thru the following day? I mean, I was stupid yesterday but I'm here today. Maybe you or another find me stupid today but cant be certain abt yesterday. Its the need felt for "standards" that's distressing me. If someone presents it as a poem, then thats what it is. I might not care for it. Deaf, blind to its beauties. How does the question even arise (of hewing to some standard)? Seems to me, only because there are course curricula and a semster is only 15 weeks long, so we cant teach everything, and we cant go random, and we cant teach just what I/you like, so we need standards to shape a picture of cause and effect, the american family tree. But this has nothing essential to do with poetry. Has it? Pardon my flurry.It addresses only a small portion of yr letter & the greater debate to which you allude. Whether it addresses it as friendly witness or otherwise I cant even decide. I dont even know that it addresses anything. I was startled, thats all. And yelped. David ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 22:20:30 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 6 May 1999 to 7 May 1999 (#1999-89) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Rachel, list, et al - Rachel's questions vis-a-vis the lyric are precisely what I was looking for in offering my brief commets/critique - although, in the spirit of the kind of "negative capability" valorized by one of those so-called "great" exponents of lyric, I'd prefer to leave them as questions, or questions that serve as comments on the elasticity of the genre. The lyric is multiple, and can withstand numerous, perhaps contradictory, manifestations (despite what Patrick Phillips notes as the "incapacity of rubrics to see them.") This is in fact what I had in mind in mentioning "lyric tension," by which I might offer one provisional 9and somewhat formal) defintion of what interests me in lyric: that it is a form capable of embodying contradictory or dissonant elements - i.e. tensions that it needn't (or doesn't) resolve. This, I think, would include the binary terms Rachel mentions (I/thou, subject/objectified, etc.), although I am much more interested in work wherein such terms are confused or problematized. It's a defintion, in any case, that would regard the lyrical "I-buttressed-by-its-objectified-other" as a cop out on the potentialities implicit in lyric address. And one could find examples of what I'm after in the Romantic canon - even in the purportedly "great" poems. Keats's Odes, for example (arguments over the critical interpretation of which are possibly one place where a re-investigation of lyric practice - the "lyric tradition" as such - is being or has been staged). More recently, I think of some of Creeley's early work - the famous "whenever I speak I speaks...-" a fruitful problematic wherein the categorical distinction between subject and object is all but broken down. Or, of Mackey's fractured "we" whose song is anything but co-optation. (Indeed, it might be interesting to turn up what differences obtain between the "we" in Mackey's Andoumboulou songs and the "we" of more conventionally "oppositional" poetries). Or what Gerald Schwartz brings up in mentioning the kind of "patching-in" to some energy source, which could be as Orphic as it is Job-like - i.e. it need not be a struggle, but could be construed in terms of enabling loss - and is an fact as ancient a trope for poetry as one might ever turn up. I imagine this latter, in the lyric tradition, as having something to do with the muse, that most distinguished of Others in the Western poetic tradition, and a trope that is not without its overwhelming degree of baggage so far as gender is concerned. One could alternately, however, conceive of it in terms of what Susan Stewart proposes in her essay "Lyric Possession," where that latter term, by way of of a now somewhat well-worn reversal, is meant not in the proprietery sense, but denotes instead inhabitation. (It is an excellent essay that could serve as a starting point, I think, for any reconsiderations of lyric practice - contemporary or otherwise). We might think of "Muse and Drudge" this way - as one place, in any case, where the muse tradition's genderings are productively displaced... Ok, enough for now, Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:22:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Emmanuel Hocquard, Norma Cole MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THIS STORY IS MINE: Little Autobiographical Dictionary of Elegy, the English version of Emmanuel Hocquard's CETTE HISTOIRE EST LA MIENNE: Petit dictionaire autobiographique de l'elegie (NOTES, 1997), having been translated by Norma Cole is now available from Instress, PO Box 3124, Saratoga, CA 95070 for a mere US$4. Please make checks payable to Leonard Brink. As with all Instress chapbooks, a sample can be seen at http://home.sprintmail.com/~windhover ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:53:14 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: Re: Stephanie Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I encourage you to: Check out the poetry and fiction of the amazing S. Williams at the following site. http://www.mungovsranger.com/frames.htm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:00:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: FW: translation day at DU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > TRANSLATION DAY AT DU > MAY 14 > The 1999 Leo Block Lecture Series and > the University of Denver Creative Writing Program > present > A day of activities around issues of > TRANSLATION > > The Schedule > > 2PM a talk by MARY ANN CAWS > translator of Breton; scholar on the avant-garde > speaks on "Translating the verbal and the visual" > > 5PM readings by eminent local translators: > Anselm Hollo > Andrew Schelling > Anne Waldman > Mark Irwin > & Brian Evenson > > 6:30 reception & time for conversation > > 7:45 Panel discussion on translation issues with > MARY ANN CAWS > CHARLES SIMIC > & ARTHUR SZE > and audience participation > Please come share your views, questions, etc. > > > SATURDAY, MAY 15TH > 7:30 PM > CHARLES SIMIC reads his own poetry > reception follows > > All events at the Renaissance Room; Mary Reed Building > DU Campus > Questions? Call 303 837 0557 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:51:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" zukofsky said the first in a Test of Poetry and tseliot said the second in?Tradition and Individual Talent? forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 00:48:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Conte Organization: SUNY at Buffalo Subject: Upper limit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:30:19 -0600 >From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" >can someone tell me who said of poetry: "upper limit speech, lower limit >music"? (i'd just written and caught "lover limit music") i know it's >someone famous, but don't know whom. >can someone tell me who said "bad artists borrow, good artists steal"? >were they both ezra pound? Maria: Sure to be a flood of responses on these, but: For "An integral Lower limit speech Upper limit music" see Louis Zukofsky, "A"-12. Note that the limits of the integral are the other way 'round from your recollection. And I believe the comment re: great poets stealing is Eliot, more or less about _The Waste Land_. But I can't recall off hand in which essay he says this. Anyone know? Joseph Conte ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:01:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: query In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria, First is Zukofsky, tho' with the respective uppers and lowers reversed. Is it "A"-8, or 12, in which he first presents it as a mathematical function - i.e., poetry is a function having as its upper limit music and lower limit speech? I've always thought of the second as an Eliotism. That's more by way of received wisdom, though, and not to be trusted as accurate citation. Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Maria Damon (Maria Damon) Sent: Monday, May 10, 1999 1:30 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: query can someone tell me who said of poetry: "upper limit speech, lower limit music"? (i'd just written and caught "lover limit music") i know it's someone famous, but don't know whom. can someone tell me who said "bad artists borrow, good artists steal"? were they both ezra pound? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:12:14 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tisa Bryant Subject: Nathaniel Mackey is Reading from What Said Serif 7:30 pm Modern Times Bookstore Valencia St.@20th ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 22:33:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erika Stephens Subject: Report from Atlanta Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Recently several Atlanta poets were talking over pizza and beer. One of them read from a (very incomplete) manuscript on the current state of poetics. Following below is a transcription of the debate that ensued. First poet (reading): "poetix ought to grow out of practice, out of composition and related activities; rather than being thought of as a groundwork, as something done in preparation for composition." Second poet: i can hear that, by which i mean that it sounds reasonable or like a plausible way to let a thing happen but at the same time speaking for myself i can also imagine an argument in favor of having something of a ground plan worked out before hand, this is easy to imagine because i do this myself, not all the time but frequently enough, and for me the results suggest that it isn't without merit as a strategy. Third poet: (to the First Poet) i pick up on the words "related activities". i agree with the opening statement as i add related activities such as working in the yard as a form of meditation or the idea of the "derive" or wandering that the Situationist's propose. poetry can come from and back into that. these "related activities" are part of poetix. to the Second poet i would ask: can you have a poetics for individual poems or does poetix underlie all one's poetry writing? First: Yeah, i feel you have picked up on a real divergence, or tension: I was thinking of "poetix" as a broad theoretic framework, but Second seems to be thinking about frames, which might change from poem to poem. I think of that as "procedure" or "specific strategies of poetic form." But one's "overall poetics" might oughta come out of ongoing practice..... Another Poet (possibly the 2nd): where does the 'might oughta' come from? imagine this; a poet writes for a few years and then decides that the early years are over from here on out they're gonna have plans and so they propose to themselves a poetix and think it through trying to see where it will lead and only when coming to some stopping point do they start writing. First poet: i see that and that makes sense to me. you have to remember the larger context of that passage in my essay. ahh.. i was in part talking about the situation that i felt exists right now where young poets especially ones who to me do not seem to have necessarily created that large or impressive a body of work yet feel almost compelled to publish big expansive ambitious statements on poetix. and i often think they haven't yet reached a point where they have too many really substantive ideas about poetix, so i think you're right that i'm making too broad a claim but i think it does make some sense in the context of today's poetry scene Smoking poet: oh i see, he's not talking about poetix as big picture but poetix as genre that you read in somebody's manifesto, right? First poet: essentially. Poet who came in late and had said little until then: but coming back to that question of whether a poetix is an overall blanket or whether a poetix might be seen as partial and temporary... 17th poet: there is no such thing as poetix, only personal psychology that gets expressed through writing and thinking about writing. Late poet again: ah-hum.. right, well cd we get back to whether a poetix is a one thing or a multiple thing, and yes i am assuming that poetix are real, if not existent... Poet with cat in her lap: well i think of my personal poetix as something i work at over a long period of time by thinking about what i'm doing in my poems. and i know that 1st thinks about it somewhat that way too whereas i feel that 2nd is more into a kind of fragmented self. 2nd poet: i feel no pull toward the notion of fragmentary selfhood. 17th poet: i agree with Claire but can someone give me an example of poetix that comes out of practice? 1st poet: OK ahh.. now 1st of all i agree with Claire who i think was being a bit facetious about 2nd and his fragmentation but i think that he does have a tendency to ahh.. think of poetic possibilities as highly multiple. now i do in theory also. so maybe it's just a problem with my not being flexible enough but i have a tendency to work at one particular direction for some period of time until i've exhausted it possibilities and here's where i can answer 17; my work for 2 years or so that a lot of you have seen uses highly disjunctive strategies and i gradually developed by looking at what i was doing in my poems a theory about how poetry can use the pulling apart of language to express the parallel feeling of rage and disorder... 17th poet (interrupting): o my god. 1st poet (ignoring):...taking place both internally and externally in late capitalist society. now i'm moving into writing in a different vein and i see a different set of possibilities which are coming to me b/c i'm writing differently in my poems and so i am constructing a different poetix, one which isn't so specifically political, at least on the surface. this is why i wd say to 17 that i do seem to derive my poetix from my practice. Smoking poet: practice or psychology? it seems like 17 is saying that our individual psychological make-ups are the active force in the construction of a poetix. 2nd poet: where does anyone go with that? Oh i'm off to stare into my navel see you at tea time. 3rd poet: so 1st seems to be saying that poetix is not for a single poem but for overall writing even over years. 1st poet: well it has seemed that way for me in practice. but as i said in principle i always felt like 2nd feels that it's good to try a lot of different things and so right now for instance i'm trying a number of different directions all at once because i'm in a period of transition but i have noticed that some of the directions i'm trying out seem kind of dead-endish to me so i may well end up pursuing one particular strategy in my writing in the next few years and i do feel that that reflects less some kind of generalizable theoretical truth than just my personality and the way i tend to work as a poet. Smoking poet: it seems as if there is no argument on that particular score 1st is talking about a poetix growing out of the poetry and 2nd wants the door open to poetix constructed in advance... 2nd: but not just that Smoking poet: right. but there doesn't seem to be any disagreement on this issue save that one prefers one way another, another. but i'm not at all sure that everyone here wd ascribe to the poetix is personal psychology thing that 17 said. 2nd poet: but 17 has no argument he just asserts. 17th poet: i also don't believe in generalizable theoretical truth. i've never met one of those but i have met lots of people and they have a personal psychology, and i've never heard anybody talk about poetix in any way that cd not also be explained by their personal psychology. 2nd: well, you really beg the question; what poetic notion of mine let's say can you explain by reference to my personal psychology? and i wd ask whether 'personal psychology' isn't itself a generalized truth as you use it? if as you imply everyone has one and you know what one is then you seem to be saying that it is true that we all have them and that you can put yr finger down atop it. whereas to me it seems like a poetix is frequently much easier to pin down for a fleeting moment than anyone's personal psychology. 17th: you wd say that, wouldn't you? OK so lets say that poetix and personal psychology are the same i don't mean to imply that they don't change or are not fluid. it's not one truth against another. 8th poet (with limp): you are all so relativistic! what i want to know is what goes on in yr mind when you hear some of these poems like poets in this group write. i mean often they seem to be a real welter of verbiage... 12th: word salad 8th poet:...with only a few really strong images standing out. what makes it work for you? is it just about taking apart narrative or is it about sound? image...? 3rd poet: when poets in the so-called mainstream write or listen to a poem that they like what goes on in THEIR head? 1st: they all have only one head 3rd poet: heads. what is it about their poetix that allows them to enjoy that? Smoking poet: are we gonna get into mainstream bashing now? if so i'm gonna get another beer. 3rd poet: no it's a sincere question. Smoking poet: well, if you can't answer the question why wd you expect that any of us wd be able to speak up for mainstreamers (snickers from poets 6, 9 and 11) i mean who here can talk about What Goes On the mind of the mainstream poet? Poet who failed to get a number: why is it that we all get touchy about being named and yet we're willing implicitly to talk about the mainstream as if we knew what it consisted of? Several poets in unison: so who is going to read this weeks poem? 17th poet: it seems that i'm the only one who has anything to read this week. but i don't want to read it because you're all going to be psychoanalyzing it. me. Gertrude Steimpf: and no one had a poem to read that week and this was something that happened once and it is very interesting. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:24:21 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda V Russo Subject: Re: p o e t r y ; t e l i c o r n o t MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Or maybe the 'telic goal' of poetry isn't telic at all, it's anti-telic: to make sure there's no 'no poetry' -- the way that the 'telic goal' of medicine is to stave off death? perhaps these terms are a little more inclusive (bearing in mind what Mr. Bromige had in mind) so that's it's not "what poetry is" that's at stake, but what the world (or the social and cultural complex) without poetry isn't. Also, the notion of telos as you use it seems to propose some narrative trajectory which perhaps categorizes some poetry, but not poetry per se . . . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:19:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: Re: Upper limit In-Reply-To: <3737B69A.21DC5650@acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joseph's right on the 1st one; the second's Eliot from his "Philip Massinger" essay--and it's not quite "bad" & "good" artists: "one of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." (Selected Essays 182) Mark Scroggins On Tue, 11 May 1999, Joseph Conte wrote: > >Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:30:19 -0600 > >From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" > > > >can someone tell me who said of poetry: "upper limit speech, lower > limit > >music"? (i'd just written and caught "lover limit music") i know it's > >someone famous, but don't know whom. > > >can someone tell me who said "bad artists borrow, good artists steal"? > > >were they both ezra pound? > > Maria: > > Sure to be a flood of responses on these, but: > > For > "An integral > Lower limit speech > Upper limit music" > > see Louis Zukofsky, "A"-12. Note that the limits of the integral are > the other way 'round from your recollection. > > And I believe the comment re: great poets stealing is Eliot, more or > less about _The Waste Land_. But I can't recall off hand in which essay > he says this. Anyone know? > > Joseph Conte > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:26:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Note on re: query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've just sent a few representative responses to Maria's query - the number of responses was overwhelming (25, give or take), and all with basically the same content: 1. Zukofsky; the messages sent to the list, regarding which there is disagreement, were the only replies to specify a source for the quotation. 2. T. S. Eliot; but only Mark Scroggins managed to recall the citation. Sorry to those of you whose responses weren't sent - with so many all the same and so brief, it would have been absurd to send them all; so I lighted on those that with the greatest specificity. Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:49:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Upper limit Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks to all who have responded! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 13:07:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Bromige and Lowther a puppet play MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Bromige and Lowther a puppet play (both socks ventriloquised by Lowther) [the setting is within a computer monitor glass removed] Bromige (with an exasperated wiggle of his tube sock self): John Lowther, thru which part of the langpo charade shall we hope to have someday seen? I havent even seen thru the "Charge of the Light Charade" yet. I'm still trying to see thru "Ode to Autmn." Lowther (curling his snout): did you not notice that i was reacting to another? (gasps and turns head side to side as if asking for witness) i thought i had made such, if not crystal, at least available to the careful eye. Bromige: I guess I'm finding the terms too simplistic (I do not mean simple). (...) Its the need felt for "standards" that's distressing me. If someone presents it as a poem, then thats what it is. I might not care for it. Deaf, blind to its beauties." Lowther: and i too am distressed for all that my mismatched button eyes cannot adequately portray this to you----but i wd ask you are we really so trusting in the designations that others give? i wd like to think so, but if handed a bill and asked to pay i was told that the bill was also a poem i can see disagreeing, i can see at least some skepticism coming into play. but that is a sideline in some respects. the motive for my posting was a essay previously mentioned in this forum called PRELIMINARY NOTES ON LITERARY POLITICS which you cd find in the newest issue of rhizome. Bromige: How does the question even arise (of hewing to some standard)? Seems to me,only because there are course curricula and a semster is only 15 weeks long, so we cant teach everything, and we cant go random, and we cant teach > just what I/you like, so we need standards to shape a picture of cause and > effect, the american family tree. But this has nothing essential to do > with poetry. Has it? (questioning tilt to an eye) > Lowther: i wdn't think so and yet there are people making claims like these for 'standards' and so i thought it might be worth asking every question i cd think of in response --- if only to suggest that others also take a look and state their thoughts as well. and many i've talked to have said something like 'why not just ignore it?' and i wonder that too but what makes this such a weird thing that i feel in some sense compelled to respond to is that i love the rest of the issue of rhizome --- it's full of great work by lots of interesting folks --- and yet this essay... Bromige (mouth around a punch glass): Pardon my flurry. Lowther: no, pardon mine, perhaps i should have been more explicit? Bromige: (yelping) I was startled, thats all. And yelped. Lowther: yelp! yelp! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:28:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Left Hand Reading Series - May 18, 1999 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > *** SPECIAL LEFT HAND READING SERIES AT TROUBADOUR BOOKS *** > > (Please note different location and time) > > This month, the Left Hand Reading Series will depart from its customary > venue to hold a special reading in conjunction with Troubadour Books. > > TUESDAY, MAY 18, 7:30pm > > The featured readers are: > Novelist RON SUKENICK > & > Poet LAURA MULLEN > > RON SUKENICK is one of America's most acclaimed avant-garde novelists and > an indefatigable champion of the small press. He is the author of many > books, including UP, DOWN & IN, and DOGGY BAG. His latest novel, MOSAIC > MAN (Fiction Collective 2), is an exploration of Jewish identity in the > fragmentary context of electronic and popular culture. He is the editor of > American Book Review, Black Ice Magazine and Black Ice Books, and teaches > English at the University of Colorado. > > LAURA MULLEN's first book, THE SURFACE, was a 1991 selection in the > prestigious National Poetry Series. Her latest collection of poetry is > AFTER I WAS DEAD (Univ. of Georgia Press) and her TALES OF HORROR is > forthcoming from Kelsey St. Press. Mullen's work has appeared in The New > Yorker, Antaeus and Lingo. She is a professor of English at Colorado State > University. > > TROUBADOUR BOOKS is located at 1638 Pearl Street, Boulder, Between 16th & > 17th. > > FREE - Donations are requested. > > An Open Reading will precede the featured readers. > > For more information, contact: Mark DuCharme (303-938-9346) or Patrick > Pritchett (303-444-0695). > > The Left Hand Reading Series is funded in part by grants from the Boulder > Arts Commission and AHAB. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 13:42:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Questions on a HOW-TO [value] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain John Lowther's past three posts, in response to Standard Schaefer's essay, raises many unanswered questions. (Many, many questions.) One vein in that inquiry I read as about ~value,~ criteria, and standards. > where are we to locate these 'formal criteria' * > does experimental writing lack formal criteria ? > or can we say 'this IS a poem' about anything we wish? > in calling out for standards with which to judge are we not calling out for some authority? > art wherein there are no standards of this sort and no communal goals > aren't there folks who wd like to say that there are standards and ways to say what is or is not valid as literary or artistic practice? The next question that comes out of all these (like hydra heads!), for me, is: why do we ~need~ to keep returning to a practice of "literary value," criteria and standards? Clearly, work has become widespread in the past quarter century, if not earlier, which puts into question ("problematizes") or renders useless earlier criteria of judgment: "good"/"better"/"best", "like"/"dislike", "masterpiece"/"genius". Post-modernism has set into play a body of works where not only is it tenuous how to value one over another, but how to distinguish within a poem itself what portions might "succeed" and which "fail" according to any casual standards of criticism. (Hence, the shift in editorial practices, which are now as a rule a flat acceptance/rejection-- since how else to arbitrate between one line and the next?) And yet, the question ("does experimental writing lack formal criteria ?") keeps coming up, as though there were too strong a nostalgic attachment to a criterion-view of art for even the initiated to part with such (Solomonic) judgments. I find it helpful to contextualize the anxiety over value, by placing it against the very much ~value-producing~ society that wants to think that way, namely, for want of a better word, our "capitalist" world ("free market") where the assigning of value -- literalized into value-as-price -- is the very essence of exchange. Then, the value and "criteria" we fret over not having for art becomes a ~metaphoric~ sublimation for the more decisive matter of price. What is "really" being asked is: what ~price~ am I to assign to this art, this poem, that poem? Then, what happens to this all-important compulsion to judge and value, when the work no longer bears easy markers for such a judgment-game. It may be a weakness of mine to draw in visual artworks as analogies, which (like the Robert Morris) people then don't know how to take, but there sometimes seems something self-evident about the visual arts which, if it can be grasped, brings the same point, more elusive in literature, to the surface. This time I'd bring in Warhol's silkscreen and Duchamp's readymades as comparison. Once silkscreens entered into fine arts as a "means of production" (sorry), their labor-efficiency greatly jeopardized the earlier value-criteria of labor intensivenesss and time ("Can you imagine how long it took to paint that Wyeth!?"). That the market actually did absorb Warhols side by side with traditional, brushstroke paintings is remarkable: the Trojan Horse had then gotten within the gates; the computer virus has entered the system. -- The same crisis of value erupts around a Duchamp readymade, where there is virtually ~no~ conventional criterion of workmanship or virtuosity. But for Warhols and Duchamps to be weighed in alongside, say, a Monet or a pre-modernist, an Ingres, on the same equalizing scales of price and value meant that the value-game itself had fallen open into a gaping, undetected contradiction. Now, just such a contradiction has entered into the body of contemporary literature, with poetries such as ~aleatory~ works, "concrete" or found poetry, the a-syntactical, etc. It makes perfect sense that a book like ~The Tennis Court Oath~ continues to take such a drubbing from the forces of "conservatism," because ~The Tennis Court Oath~ has not merely done ~badly~ what other poetries have done "better"; it has sidestepped, or transcended the very basis of production, of writing that was taken for granted: that a poet "think up" on his own all the words and word-orders within a poem. (Why don't we just continue to use qull pens and inkwells, the way Robert Graves did?) It isn't just that if we give it the old college try once more we can ~come up with~ new criteria and standards, the ghosts of obsolete criteria, a rigor mortis of value, and relax again into our tranquilizing, habitual need to dispense value. Irreconciliabilities have, surreptitiously, entered into "The System" of literature and canon,--- that are as incongruent with the "traditional" as an attempt by a capitalist/free market economy to communicate with a monastic or vow-of-poverty economy (thus, a digression: the persistent, odd leverage a Vatican can exert against First and Second Worlds, consistently advocating in favor of Third or ~Fourth~ Worlds that share with it an immunity or exclusion from standard financial profit). Free verse alone represented a serious anomaly that a ~Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics~ scrambled preposteriously to rationalize (invoking spurious precedents like the quasi-metered cadences of Hebrew psalmody, as justification). For, without these ~systematized~ prestidigitations of criteria, the burden of a reader's experience falls back upon very different guideposts,-- such as the analysis of power relations ("What partisan interests benefit from this work?"), "taste," nepotisms of who-knows-who, etc., that makes the lingering compulsion for value break down, unveiled, into a much more ~gritty~ host of determinisms. With "taste," do I even have a ~choice~ to like or dislike, or hasn't my allegiance of approval to an earlier work predetermined my obligation to "like" similar later works? Along these lines, when Marjorie Perloff -- is it fair to mention her name? (hi, Marjorie) -- at the Barnard conference dropped the petite scandale of publicly asking what anybody sees in the poetry of Jorie Graham (invoking criteria such as "rhythm"! as though anyone in the room could still scan a Sapphic from an ithyphallic), I thought that a lost opportunity, . . . whereas had the question been re-framed as, say, "Given that, with a popular and reputable figure like Jorie Graham, I can't see anything in her work and I trust three-quarters of you can't either, ~what are the mechanisms~ of career-building, marketing, or the production of hype that could have so ignored the obvious?" that would have, in turn, provided a link back to the same mechanisms that advanced the reputations of the other seven readers, and the entire phenomenon of Language/lyric poetry. In other words, once the nebulousness of "taste" is put aside, what critique is forced to fall back upon are all the very ~real~ agencies of publicity, the prestige of select publishing venues, croneyism, whatever, but ~real.~ It becomes not a question of "How was it?" but ~"What~ was it?" That's where the equal sign in "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" becomes emblematic. One way a spectre of this may have entered into earlier discussions was in the misunderstanding that Language Poetry could "mean anything" . . . as if people were correct in sensing that there might be some ~equivalence~ at play somewhere, but were off-the-mark in placing it at the semantic, instead of at the level of value. But the original, macrocosmic crisis of value is taking place around us all the time, in the fatuous equivalencies that capital, that the dollar can establish between complete incompatibles! I don't know if we ~should~ hope to be liberated, or exonerated, from a crisis of value in poetry/art at the microcosmic level. The discomfort that results from these aesthetic equivalencies or undecideabilities may be an aperture through which the art-consumer can reach a broader understanding of the criterion-lessness at play in the culture at large. We may just be becoming ~un-deluded~ in literary/poetic spheres, about what still passes for unquestionable around us. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:53:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: Writers for change - a cross canada tour MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > PRESS RELEASE > WRITERS FOR CHANGE-- A CROSS CANADA TOUR > > Five contemporary young Canadian writers will read at EM Media on > Tuesday, May 18 at 7PM. > The Vancouver chapter of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop is > pleased to announce Writers for Change, a project to tour five > writers-- > > Rita Wong (monkeypuzzle, Press Gang 1998), Ashok Mathur (Once Upon > and Elephant, Arsenal Pulp Press 1998), Rajinderpal S. Pal (pappaji > wrote poetry in a language i cannot read, TSAR 1998), Tamai Kobayashi > (Exile and the Heart, Women's Press 1998) and David Odhiambo (diss/ed > banded nation, Polestar 1998)-- across the country late this spring. > The writers will begin their tour in May 1999 and travel to Vancouver, > Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. In each of these > cities they will visit local high schools in order to share their work > and discuss contemporary writing practices with Canadian students. Of > particular but not exclusive focus to the discussions will be > questions of tradition, historical context, race and language. Writers > will also discuss their own writing practices in order to give > students a concrete sense of what it might mean to choose such a > life's path. It is hoped that the visits will inspire among students a > passionate and on-going relationship with contemporary Canadian > literature. The tour will also include at least one public reading in > each city. Of the five writers, Rita Wong may be known among some of > you as the 1997 winner of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop > Emerging Writer Award. Her 1998 book of poetry, monkeypuzzle has been > described by Calgary poet Fred Wah as "... salt and tongue poetry, > with the intensity and taste of a lover... pungent in its insistence > on the body marked and still breathing." > David Odhiambo's first novel diss/ed banded nation is a > polyrhythmic rap on urban life. The novel winds through jazz singer > Benedict Ochieng's final days in the underbelly of Vancouver, where he > hides out in a seedy flophouse on the city's east side, evading > immigration officials. With leaps of language and jump-cuts in > perspective, Odhiambo fuses lush memories of Kenya with an unflinching > portrait of North American urban life. > From Toronto's Future Bakery to the Old Man Dam in southern > Alberta, Tamai Kobayashi's Exile and the Heart reveals the ordinary > and extraordinary lives of Asian Canadian lesbians and their families > with a quiet, intense passion. Sharron Proulx Turner writes of > Kobayashi's work: "[Her] writing is rich and fluid, yet there is an > incredible simplicity which creates a still-life quality in the full > of the round." > Rajinderpal S. Pal's pappaji wrote poetry in a language i cannot > read is a series of poems that form a narrative whole. It leaps > between past and present, between childhood and adulthood and between > languages. Issues of cross-cultural politics and relationships are > addressed. He also touches upon loss across generations and migrations > across continents. These questions are entwined with the search for > the poet-father and the attempt to come to terms with the past. > Once Upon an Elephant, a hilarious first novel by Ashok Mathur, is > a fantastical contemporary re-telling of the creation story of Ganesh, > the elephant-headed Hindu deity. When the police find the remains of a > young man's head and an elephant's body they assume a murder has been > committed, and the suspected killer goes to trial. But the courtroom > appearance of Vignesvara, a manifestation of Ganesh with a young man's > body and an elephant's head, throws things into chaos: witnesses who > testify in languages other than English, an accused who grows extra > arms at will, and a murder victim who refuses to stay dead. > > Members of the press wishing interviews with any of the writers are > invited to contact co-ordinator Larissa Lai at 604-687-4233 or by > e-mail at Larissa_Lai@bc.sympatico.ca. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 15:48:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I'd be grateful to anyone who could supply me with the email addresses for E. Tracy Grinnell and Heather Thomas. Patrick Pritchett pritchpa@silverplume.iix.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 14:05:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: L.A. Reading this Sunday Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joel Kuszai and Bill Marsh will be reading this Sunday, May 16, at Cafe Balcony 12431 Rochester Avenue (corner Santa Monica & Centenela) Los Angeles, California Time: 4 p.m. Admission: $5 (and it all goes to the readers) Joel Kuszai was born in Michigan, schooled at Reed and SUNY-Buffalo. He is the editor of Meow Press, which has published over 60 chapbooks since 1991. He is currently rewriting _The Wizard of Oz_ "with some help from Marx and others." Some of his earlier work can be found at: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses/meow/ephemera.html Bill Marsh lives in San Diego where he teaches writing and other multimedia arts. His work has appeared in a few on and off-line journals like Tinfish, the germ, Web Conjunctions, Witz, and Zine(n) New Media. His chapbook Making Flutes was published by Potes & Poets Press in 1998 and he has another one forthcoming from Wild Honey. Bill also edits PaperBrainPress featuring chapbooks and other paper and digital productions. More information on his work and his press can be found at http://bmarsh.dtai.com/ The reading is sponsored by L.A. Books, a coalition of presses in Los Angeles (Littoral Books, Rhizome, Ribot, Seeing Eye Books, and Witz. For more info on L.A. Books: http://www.litpress.com. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 18:14:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katie Degentesh Subject: 9x9 News Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" One World Cafe, located at the juncture of Baker and McAllister streets in San Francisco's Western Addition, is for a limited time showcasing a complete catalog of 9x9's Pushcart Prize-winning broadside series. Featured artists include J. Tarin Towers (who won a 1998 Pushcart for her broadside "Mission Poem"), the Mysterious Mr. Clam, Paul LaFarge, Eugene Ostashevsky, David Cameron, Brandon Downing, Cyd Harrell, Michael Palmer, Elizabeth Treadwell, Sarah Anne Cox, Yedda Morrison, Daphne Gottleib, Katie Degentesh, Edmund Berrigan, Alan Kaufman, Hank Hyena, and others. And a reminder: MICHAEL PALMER and JOCELYN SAIDENBERG will be reading this THURSDAY, MAY 13 at Adobe Books, smack in the middle of the Mission at 3166 16th St. between Guerrero and Valencia. Gathering begins at 8, reading 8:30 - come! Free broadsides of Michael Palmer's "Tower" will be available. Your emcee for the evening will be 9x9's own Eugene Ostashevsky, who is currently the featured poet of the week on PoetrySuperHighway.com. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 19:52:59 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Subject: Re: Invitation to a Thought Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Creative Writing Class Exercise 1: write two pieces -- 1) a piece of creative writing 2) a piece of non-creative writing Specify word-lengths etc & take it from there. Tony Green ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 08:52:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: OPEN LETTER TO RON PADGETT AND TEACHERS & WRITERS COLLABORATIVE (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thought this would be of interest to many on the list. Thanks to Al Filreis for passing it along to me. -Mike. > | From MARZANJ@aol.com Tue May 11 15:31:37 1999 > | From: MARZANJ@aol.com > | > | OPEN LETTER TO RON PADGETT > | AND TEACHERS AND WRITERS COLLABORATIVE > | > | > | > | Ron Padgett, Editor > | Teachers & Writers > | 5 Union Square > | New York, N.Y. 10003-3306 > | > | Dear Ron: > | > | I don't usually make a spectacle of being omitted from an > | anthology or a reading program, but I am doing so after learning that > | Victor Hernandez Cruz was invited to contribute to T&W's collection of > | essays on William Carlos Williams and will now give > | a talk on Williams as part of "The People's Poetry Gathering." As that > | gathering is subtitled "a celebration of the oral tradition," Victor > | indeed does qualify to participate. But because his new mileage on the > | subject of Williams comes from his siphoning from my work and because > | you are promoting his doing it, I am voicing my impatience with you > | and Victor and the larger meaning of your partnership. > | > | In 1994, a week or two before the pub date of my THE SPANISH > | AMERICAN ROOTS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, I received a rare phone > | call from Victor, in which he informed me of his discovery that > | Williams was really a Latino writer because his > | mother was Puerto Rican. As her cultural origin was generally known, I > | assumed that he had gotten the confidence to talk about a Hispanic > | Williams from my earlier publication on the subject. [In 1986, I had > | published "Mrs. Williams' William Carlos" in a collection of essays, > | edited by others, titled REINVENTING THE AMERICAS: COMPARATIVE STUDIES > | OF LITERATURE OF THE U. S. AND SPANISH AMERICA (Cambridge)]. > | > | Soon afterwards, when in conversation with E.J. Vega I mentioned > | Victor's phone call, Ed informed me that I was right about Victor's > | getting his notions of Williams from me but not from the source that I > | assumed. Ed, who had read my manuscript, explained that he had > | recently heard Victor read, and during the Q&A asked him if he was > | aware that Williams's mother was Puerto Rican, which explained the > | Carlos second name, and that Williams exhibited a Hispanic > | consciousness. Victor confessed that he didn't know about the mother > | and thought that "Carlos was a pen name." Ed then informed Victor that > | my book on the subject was about to be released. Nevertheless, at the > | time that Victor and I spoke on the phone, he feigned having no > | knowledge of my forthcoming book. > | > | (Amazingly, by the way, Julia Alvarez, who also figures in your > | Williams book and whose agent knew of my book more than a year before > | its publication, had also spontaneously discovered a Williams heritage > | and jotted some quick notes for a talk that--a rare missive--she > | mailed me around the same time. She too was unaware of the coming > | book. What a coincidence: both had gotten Williams fever at the same > | time, just at the pub date of my work.) > | > | Explicably, back then it was evident that all Victor knew about > | the Carlos in Williams was that Mrs. Williams was Puerto Rican and > | some poems contain Latin imagery. After my book came out, however, > | Victor retooled his career, began to drop Williams's name in > | interviews, and now contributes to T&W's project on Williams. Victor, > | of course, has every right to respond to the emergence of Williams's > | Carlos persona; his misdemeanor has been the lack of etiquette to > | inform what parts of his raconteuring comes from my writings. Now, > | however, I have to wonder if, when my book of translations of Puerto > | Rico's Luis Pales Matos is published in 2000, will Victor become an > | overnight translator and freely borrow lines from my translations or > | will he simply pick up this new material and read it as his own? And > | will you invite him to read it? > | > | I mention Pales Matos because, before my book's publication and > | not in relation to Williams, in his talks and interviews Victor has > | understandably spoken about that great poet, who also happens to be a > | key figure in the Carlos story. Victor first heard about the Pales > | Matos/Williams connection from me in our prepublication phone > | conversation, during which it was obvious that he was having an > | epiphany. My Williams book tells the full story of the two poets, > | which was later retold in my THE NUMINOUS SITE: THE POETRY OF LUIS > | PALES MATOS (Associated U. Presses) and summarized in a piece on Pales > | Matos in CALLALOO, both which would be coming out in 1995. In response > | to his enthusiasm, I referred him to these publications. If Victor > | intends to discuss the influence of Luis Pales Matos on Williams, an > | extraordinary link that I revealed, can you please ask him to cite his > | sources? > | > | Ironically, Paul Mariani is also on your lecture program and in > | T&W's book. In his review of my Williams manuscript for the University > | of Texas Press, Mariani demonstrated his intellectual integrity and > | sincere interest in Williams by noting: "...despite the pot shots that > | Marzan takes at me, I think this book is so important that I am > | willing to put them aside." Mariani's work on Williams has been > | invaluable to all of us and his presence in your book and on your > | program on Williams is to be expected. But why doesn't Williams's > | Carlos persona merit a discussion by a poet with comparable > | credentials on the subject of Williams? > | > | I recall that you didn't sound all that crazy about my work on > | Williams and even tried to get me to strike such references from my > | preface to LUNA, LUNA. Recently, when T&W's Williams book was > | announced, I thought back to your opposition and realized that you had > | been trying, five years after the publication of my book, to protect > | the freshness of Victor's subject. Instead of imagining that Victor > | and I could both write two different kinds of essays, however, you > | kept to a self-imposed quota of one Puerto Rican poet. Against the > | logic of using my original work on Williams, you selected the > | secondary response of the poet whose name recognition was built on > | being sociologically "representative." > | > | The implications here push the button of the "larger meaning" > | that I referred to at the opening of this letter. You didn't merely > | make an editorial choice; you made a cultural statement. By your > | encouraging Victor to lip-synch my work on Williams, T&W becomes > | another publisher that dictates both who and what Puerto Ricans are > | supposed to be. Under its veneer of social consciousness, then, T&W > | locks us into stereotypes and is really no different from many a > | commercial house. Praeger, for example, recently signed on Carmen > | Dolores Hernandez's book of interviews of mainland Puerto Rican > | writers only after she agreed (so explained Ms. Hernandez) to purge > | her interviews with Martin Espada, Frank Lima and me, poets not > | predictably representative. Victor, of course, remained. > | Significantly, the word "Writers" in the original title was changed to > | "Voices." > | > | I, of course, don't own Williams and, as I state in THE SPANISH > | AMERICAN ROOTS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, can't claim to have > | discovered his Latin side because he wrote about it extensively. But I > | was the first to take him at his word and show that consciousness in > | his creative process and his poems, including those that don't have > | Latin imagery. As I also explain in my introduction, the book > | developed from seeing my own bicultural poet's life in Williams's > | biography. I undertook the task to write about Williams (and Pales > | Matos) to claim a rightful literary ancestry for me and other Latino, > | and specifically Puerto Rican, writers. > | > | Unfortunately, besides eliciting a foreseen resistance to giving > | credence or prestige to my contribution on Williams, my book has > | surprisingly disturbed a united front of political correctness and > | professional self-interest that, focusing on me, doesn't celebrate the > | emergence of a reading-based literary consciousness among mainland > | Puerto Ricans. Still informed by the sixties, this mindset wants to > | freeze mainland Puerto Rican lives in the youth-based, street-bound, > | oral-recorded social truth that Victor's work has always evoked. I > | don't forget or deny the working class from where I began, but I find > | it an oppressive solidarity that, to hammer a political message, also > | deprives those same mainland lives, frozen in flat characterizations, > | of the rounding, parallel truth of a Puerto Rican culture in its > | historical fullness and depicted as grown up. > | > | Before I agreed to edit LUNA, LUNA, I was aware that T&W was a > | poetry niche that, when it came to male Latino poets, fostered those > | in the oral tradition. As I myself don't see a contradiction between > | having two traditions, the norm in most literatures, including Puerto > | Rico's, I expected more flexibility from T&W. The fact that you > | contacted me suggested the possibility of balance. But your refusal to > | reward me as the author of a groundbreaking work on Williams, whose > | importance Mariani has acknowledged and David Ignatow described as > | "the most important in decades," definitively demonstrates that at T&W > | what comes first is loyalty to niche and, when it comes to male Latino > | writers, what oral, ethnic, folk, urban aesthetic is represented by > | Victor. It would appear that, like Praeger, T&W has a mission to edit > | more than books. > | > | Lacking the clique Latinos to edit LUNA, LUNA, you resorted to > | me, an "unrepresentative" poet whom you evidently saw as a member of > | some politico-aesthetic other side. The knowledge and writing skills > | for which you sought me were the cause of my being pigeonholed as an > | outsider who should be kept in the shadows, not really one of your T&W > | authors. Consequently, I must interpret that your getting me to edit > | for T&W was another kind of exploitation--extracting from me the work > | you needed before I caught on that you will only showcase certain > | kinds of male Latino writers and that, beyond getting paid, I will not > | be acknowledged. > | > | And so now I understand why LUNA, LUNA was launched like a piece > | of ghostwriting, with no book party, with publicity that identifies me > | as its editor as little as possible, with simply a name and no bio. My > | name doesn't even appear on the front cover or the spine. All those > | copies of good reviews that you have sent me defer to your marketing > | of the book: they praise it and the press without a word of credit to > | its editor--you remember, the only writer who, according to you, would > | really do justice to that essay on Latin American literature that, > | after all this, you asked me to write. Apparently I had misled you > | into believing that I had not yet caught on. > | > | > | > | Sincerely, > | Julio Marzan > | > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 09:00:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: Re: a ghost in the metric Comments: To: "Lowther,John" In-Reply-To: <5D5C5C8C3A41D211893900A024D4B97C54F8BE@md.facstaff.oglethorpe.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi John-- There's a review of The Ghost of Meter on the webpage that describes my idea of the "metrical code" which is the subject of the book It's a wordless code of rhythms that carry associations evoking past poems written in the same rhythms and meters or maybe other rhythms, preverbal and nonverbal (though I don't go into the reasons or conscious motivations but merely describe a phenomenon I've noted over and over in a certain kind of poem, free-verse poems written during "metrical crisis" by certain kinds of poets who seem to need rhythm a lot); (Not all free verse--not all 20th c. poetry-- as Marjorie P. has mistakenly remarked in a recent essay but just certain poets for whom this kind of reading in terms of the metrical code gets beneath the referential skin and into the physical pulse that I argue is one of their messages. Yes I liked it!!! I don't know how much this kind of reading will relate to the kinds of forms that interest you--it is a particular kind of forming, one with roots in lyric metrical tradition. The forms I see in your magazine and elsewhere, many of them, seem to have other roots--in visual poetry and conceptual art maybe. I will post this to poetix too. Thank you for asking and for your contagious email metric Annie >hi annie > >thought i'd say hi again >as i'd got round to yr >homepage - wondered at >what yr book of that >title alluded above was >what it might offer > > rats >now the phone rings >telling me come quick >so post-poning i go - & >didya like that pome ? > >best )L ______________________________ Annie Finch (http://muohio.edu/~finchar) Cincinnati, Ohio Associate Professor of English, Miami University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 10:05:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: Lyric Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Rachel, I would agree with you completely about the many kinds of lyric; as far back as two hundred years ago, I have located a crucial distinction between what i call the "romantic" lyric (the I/thou, gaze/gazer, subject/object dichotomy where all revolves around the central eye) and what I call the "sentimental" lyric (multivoiced, multiviewpointed, objectifying the speaker as much as the outside world). This powerful but subtle distinction separates poems that might resemble each other quite a bit in other aspects--it even separates some Dickinson poems from other Dickinson poems (I see her as the major crossover figure, since her connection with the sentimental poets of her own time is the source of much of her supposedly autochthonic mystery). Useful though this it is--and to my mind, ESSENTIAL in constructing a coherent feminist poetics that spans centuries-- it gets lost next to the glitzier, cruder, and perhaps rather useless distinction between language poetry and lyric tradition. Annie >Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 14:08:37 -0500 >From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis >Subject: Re: Barnard and beyond Beyond > >Dear Stephen and whole list--I just checked in to S.Cope's queries about >Barnard especially questions of Lyric. Fruitful terrain. In my paper >responding (or purporting to respond) to Marjorie, I also queried the >binary formulation of the title or rubric under which the conference >was "meeting"--that is, Lyric Tradition and Language Poetry, proposed >as 2 separate entities. (I know it could be construed as kind of a >cheap move to query the horse built by a committee--i.e. the >conference title--but this one seemed symptomatic. My query was >precisely about the concession of lyric, much less tradition, to one >"half" of an impossibly crude binary. I used myself (closest to hand, >and of course an act of consummate narcissism) as an example--my >critique of certain aspects of the lyric tradition (I/thou, subject/ >objectified, gazer/ gazed at) is one (One Important) but Only One >aspect of Lyric. Clearly I have gone on record as having a feminist >critique of lyric, which has the further amusing effect of bringing >under critique and scrutiny a number of Rather Famous Poems. However, >there are many aspects of lyric, and the heavy-duty I/thou relation >is only one. So what is really called for is an examination of what >people now might mean or want when they write in what they call a >lyric mode. (And there is no doubt that the poetry of Jean Day, >Jennifer Moxley, Susan Gevirtz, Lisa Jarnot, et al. would be proposed >here) Is it a (historical) connection with the short poem? (Rae >Armantrout) is it closure? is it sound--even unto lushness? (Charles >Bernstein) is it a certain contained temporality of the reading that >nonetheless opens out into a vast temporality of implication? (Ann >Lauterbach) is it awe? strangeness? (Lyn Hejinian) wonder? Is it >secularized spiritual urges? Is it just a way of talking >"personally"? Is it the loss of the social, the transcendence of the >social, or is it inflected with an encrypted social realm?Is it song or >dance or a rhythmic stretto? (Nate Mackey) Is it some relationship to >an idealized female figure? (Barbara Guest) Is it a formal >containment of discursive varieties? (as Harryette Mullen does in >Muse and Drudge with ballad/blues) Is it a certain kind of >"overheard" quality or relationship to a listener? How can ear and >the intersubjective be factored in, or can it? Is it what Stephen >Cope called "lyric tension"--a great phrase--which means what >definitionally?--hi Stephen--fill in! Is it a certain kind of >subjectivity (one that Mary Margaret Sloan characterized as the >poetry of domain in her conference paper)? or is it a voiding of that >authoritative master-subjectivity, a kind of evacuation and voiding >of the subject? is it beauty that we want from lyric? (thus raising >the question--I won't even say it--what is Beauty--ahh, gasp, there-- >it's out).There are also a few genres within lyric--like ode, song, >ballad, maybe elegy.I am not trying to rehearse Poetry 101 here, so >read on, maybe. What I am trying to say is 1) we all have a relation >to lyric even if we reject part of it or all of it (I made this point >at Barnard; rejection is a relationship) 2) lyric is multiple and >flexed--what lyric, when, how, for whom are we talking about. >Precisions will let >us reject any knee-jerk responses (pro or con) to that word. 3) when >people use lyric modes >what part of lyric are they using. I consider that I use the lyric, >but want to surround it with other discourses and subjectivities so >that it loses its "master-narrative" quality and becomes one element >among many others 4) what is the social-psychological surround of >lyric? Do we want to agree (with Allen Grossman, for example) that it >encodes an oedipal plot (see gender-laden critique of this by RBD in >"Manifests" in Diacritics). The one thing that Barnard did, >especially that keynote panel, was to remind us to reject binaries. >========================= >Rachel Blau DuPlessis >Temple University >Philadelphia, PA 19122 >215-204-1810 ______________________________ Annie Finch (http://muohio.edu/~finchar) Cincinnati, Ohio Associate Professor of English, Miami University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 17:58:16 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kathylou@ATT.NET Subject: Re: Nathaniel Mackey is What day is this reading? Psych-ola: I've been in SF for several years and have yet to hear Nate Mackey read here. Promises to be fabulous. Kathy Lou Schultz > Reading from What Said Serif > 7:30 pm > Modern Times Bookstore > Valencia St.@20th ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 14:43:21 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: NOTLEY on Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; Chris, love without politics is bottled wetland water from wetlands now extinct, despite they're still on the map. Have a drink: it all looks like fill gravel from here. Stephen >From: Chris Stroffolino >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: NOTLEY on "the youth".... >Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 11:03:14 -0400 > > Hello--- > I love Alice Notley's writing, old and new, > and I love the challenges she raises > and the provocations, etc.... > > in recent COMBO magazine interview, she talks about > "an extremely exciting younger generation right now" > (without naming names) > > and says, among other things... > "They're these people between about 23 and 36.... > They're not very political, and I wish they were more political." > > I know Alice sometimes lurks on this list, and am curious if she'd > be interested in elaborating on this lack of politics she perceives... > > But, if she doesn't, perhaps others could... > I think there's a LOT of political in the younger... > > speaking for myself, I've been told sometimes that my work is TOO > political... > > of course, it mixes politics up with love... > > if the personal is the political, > if "politics" (in the global sense) without love (in the personal sense) > is like suburbs without cities, or cities without farmland, > then what is love without politics? > > been thinking of poor phil ochs lately... > > there's so many issues here she raises, i'm not going to go too deep > now... > > but i am interested in looking for other ways to frame this question, > because i respect and admire notley's poetry, > and her desire for a return perhaps to a more blatant concern > with politics on a content level, > a moving beyond coterie politics, > > and i'm glad she can say "I HATE THE CAR" more blatantly than, say, > barrett watten in his "bride of the assembly line piece".... > > but i think she perhaps hasn't become made aware that there > are certainly much politics (unless she means something different > by politics than i think she does) in writers between 23 and 36... > > ......just curious.... > > chris stroffolino _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 11:09:17 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Re: Invitation to a Thought Experiment In-Reply-To: <373A33C3.3700A7F@hawaii.rr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" teach students html, give them internet accounts, and ask them to find sites with creative writing/authoring that excites them, sites which can not exist as print publications, sites which employ the properties of the internet(interactivity, hypertext, images, audio, animation), find out why they are impressed by these sites, and ask students to create their own sites with these qualities in mind. if they are thinking about writing in a new space then they will have to think creativly to write for this new medium, whilst utilizing all the traditional devices of literature. conducting creative writing classes in primary school i found the best way to encourage creative writing was to offer exercises with strict structures, eg haiku, limerick, acrostic poems. students had to think creatively to provide the content whilst having fun with the form. it was the same in secondary school except the forms changed, to list poems and raps. teaching at university i find that html provides the new fun form that makes the creative writing purposeful for their expression in a modern medium. writers of the future will be writing for digital media, will need to start thinking in spaces not surfaces, will be able to call on the auditory and visual senses, as well as the cognitive and emotional. html is easy, anyone can do it, but good websites are hard to find. hope i haven't embarrassed myself too much with this post. i'm sure you have plenty of good ideas of your own. it sounds like you were just wanting 'a little bitch' about work. regards komninos At 04:06 PM 5/12/99 -1000, you wrote: >Dear poetics kine folks-- > >I direct, though that is hardly the word, a creative writing program >that is in exquisite need of re-thinking. So I'll share my thought >experiment with you: You are assigned the task of running a creative >writing program. What would you do? What functions would you assign to >the program? What kinds of courses would you teach? What should >faculty do _aside from_ teaching their courses? (I have ideas of my >own, but am eager to see what some of the rest of you come up with.) > >Two provisos: You are given no money and you are dealing with a group of >people that doesn't work together well and doesn't welcome change. > >But really, please dream on...the more positive the better! > >best, Susan Schultz > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 12:03:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Re: Mackey Reading / Tisa Bryant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this came to the administrative account. Chris ----- From: tisa@sirius.com Date: 5/12/99 12:20 AM +0000 I'm obviously having a hard time with the old Julian. Nate Mackey's reading is on Thursday the 13th, same day as the Jocelyn Saidenberg/Michael Palmer reading at Adobe Books. Decisions Decisions. Sorry for the confusion. Tisa ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 17:04:28 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Trevor Joyce Subject: Report from Cork Conference Comments: To: poetryetc.poetryetc@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Forwarded with Nate's okay - apologies for cross-posting . . . Date: 12/05 2:00 am Received: 12/05 2:17 am From: Nate and Jane Dorward, ndorward@sprint.ca To: British-Poets List, british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Dear all, Rather belatedly, I thought I'd add my take on the Cork conference to Randolph's & cris's notes: it got half-written, then shelved, then = dragged out again, but is I think still news. My account, though pretty = long, is not a full-length portrait: I don't deal with the papers (except to = note that Keith Tuma's was the most considered and substantial, a piece = viewing contemporary Irish poetry through the prism of the philosophy Giorgio Agamben), simply because I didn't take notes at the time. -- I'm = actually quite conscious in writing things up here that my responses have = inevitably been inflected by my familiarity with many of the readers and texts = before they were read (I even saw an early draft of Keith's paper)--this = isn't to disavow my responses positive & negative, though. -- I'll also give a = few samples of work not included in Randolph's previous post. General comment: this was my first time in Ireland, and I greatly enjoyed it despite not having time for touristy things. A good social atmosphere surrounded the event proper: let me express my particular = thanks for Trevor Joyce's nightly hospitality at his house. The Caf=E9 = Paradiso, gourmet vegetarian restaurant, was a culinary highlight (a big dinner = to which most of the attendees came on the first night). (For the = record, the lowest point was Abrakebabra, an appalling fastfood joint selected = simply because everyone was sick of being rained on during our = restaurant-hunt.) -- All readings were held in the Granary Theatre, in a high-vaulting = square cement room with windows along one side (much appreciated by myself, = since I tend to get a bit stir-crazy in windowless rooms being read at for = hours on end). First evening: Maurice Scully bookended his reading with tributes to = Roy Fisher: a prefatory reading from RF's _It Follows That_ and a closing tribute of Maurice's own devising; in between were a number of pieces = from his recently completed _Livelihood_ project, including "Five Freedoms = of Movement" and "Zulu Dynamite" (the latter due out from Form Books). A quiet but musical reading (MS often lightly tapped time on the desk = to the words), at times endangered by the loud patter of rain on the Granary Theatre skylight. An excellent opener. John Goodby's work I'm not familiar with, beyond the odd _Angel Exhaust_ contribution; he read entirely from his one published book, = _A Birmingham Yank_ (Arc). Worthy, but not to me very compelling; = there's a strong interest in patterns of historical injustice that didn't get = past the tellingly anecdotal (each poem was lengthily self-glossed before = or even during its reading, explaining phrases like the aforementioned "Birmingham Yank"). Reminded me a little of Robert Sheppard's later _20th-Century Blues_ work but much more formally conservative (as JG cheerfully admitted). I don't have a sample of JG's work: perhaps = someone else could post some? -- Like Scully, Goodby framed his reading with another poet's work: an excerpt from "Memoirs of a Turkoman = Diplomat", by the Irish modernist poet Denis Devlin. A sidenote: The pairing of these readers reflected their = coediting of _Angel Exhaust_ 17, a fine collection of recent Irish poetry & essays = on the Irish experimental tradition, from the '30s modernists (Coffey, MacGreevy, Devlin) through some little-known byways (Eugene Watters, = Sheila Wingfield, Mary Devenport O'Neill) to the present. A very worthwhile collection (though the odd typo betrays its rushed production under = duress of having it ready for the conference!). Second day: Billy Mills read from a long sequence alternating between = brief lyrics (I'd say "objectivist" but he later objected to this tag, so = I'll let list-denizens decide from the sample below) and prose polemics. = I've gone on record before (in issue #1 of my magazine _The Gig_) as to my dissatisfaction with Mills' _Tiny Pieces_, the first part of the = sequence; but on this occasion it was mostly the prose I had problems with. The polemics were directed against mainstream Irish poetry, against = Language Poetry (treated as a monolithic collective noun), against literary = theory (with a particularly baffling aside about Wittgenstein's ignorance of = how language works), and so on. This was blunt stuff, & not too apposite = for the first really international Cork Conference (with the distinguished Language-affiliated writers, Fanny Howe & Karen Mac Cormack, in attendance). -- The one sour note of the event. -- However, I'll = include a bit of _Tiny Pieces_ to permit people to make up their own minds: scattered this glass reconstitutes folds determine * follow the lines come again * sun after rain luminous leaves boxroom window Will just register Jools Gilson-Ellis's "Graze", a performance = piece not much to my taste: close-miked performer repeating the word = "graze" & breathing pronouncedly, leading eventually to the recital of the = dictionary definition of "secret". Karen Mac Cormack's reading drew on her entire oeuvre, from = _Quill Driver_ to a new work-in-progress, a set of prose pieces. I've heard = her read several times before, but this was the first time I heard her = perform a retrospective. Fascinating stuff, especially the newest work, = which I wish I had to hand, but instead I'll include a bit of _Marine Snow_ = (ECW) [you'll need to have a fixed-width font to register the spacing properly--this is meant to be centred on the page]: MULTI-MENTIONAL That line's running-board basics sidereal on all fours preen exploitation of perfect timing renew maximum syncopation temperature tantrums clever yes but mongrel statistics are with us. Head up in arms pieces of time at regular intervals if the ring fits answer the phone non-committal background indications assume no one's perfect telepathy soft patience or landslide afloat the birds not flying pinpoint a simile swerving away. Fanny Howe's work I'm not that familiar with; have seen her now = twice, at CCCP (many years ago now) and Cork, & both times greatly enjoyed = her reading. Perhaps some kind soul can post a sample of her work. -- = The next reading was Judy Kravis; Randolph has already accurately described her "beach poems"; I didn't think them at all satisfactory, and would = instead recommend those interested in her work to consult her selection in = _Angel Exhaust_ 17. -- Geoffrey Squires read from a single long sequence of = his. I have mixed feelings about his work; I can admire the strongly = individual path he's followed in his recent works--extended series of accumulated phenomenological details without any striking change of direction or stress--without being able to agree with a correspondent of mine who = calls result "hypnotic". The interested can find a sample of his work (and others') at . (The poem there shows some of what worries me about this work, the way details = become too explicitly tutelary in their presence: "the small gate that leads = where it leads=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0indirection=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0the trees overspread = like hands like gestures of a kind".) Later that day: Drew Milne gave a fine reading drawing on _Sheet = Mettle_, _Bench Marks_ (both Alfred David Editions) and _How Peace Came_ = (Equipage). The sonic qualities of a poem like "Positive Indiscriminations" = (_Sheet Mettle_) were striking, beyond even its hilariously awful puns (Milne shrewdly used it as a warmup, immediately engaging the audience). I = might term the metric "sprung syllabics", perhaps (if that's a metrically meaningful phrase!). From this point Milne moved to "High Time" from _Bench Marks_ and concluded with _How Peace Came_ (modelled on the satirical and visual style of Wyndham Lewis's _Blast_); even the = latter, a deliberately noisy & offputting text, communicated and, er, sang. = I'll quote, below, the last three stanzas of "High Time": It is a crying frame, a mortified hinge, lava preys upon itself, the blood bows, scent of salt to rub along with and behold each atom, perfume of reason, its skein in akeing plume. Go, then, to the rent look where all show of bitter ends, crust and rosette, simmer and knife, throws its face to the wall, each skipping drift of dark in its resting clutches. And in the red corner, done dusted, there to sink, as some pillow of rested cases, each upon its broken foam, the plaster gives, not in circles of the wire but out of our hearing. Danny McCarthy's performance was effectively macabre (hooded = figure, to the accompaniment of creepy music & the sound of warplanes, douses candles with the heads of dolls) without striking many further = sparks. Reminded me a bit of the chilling & wonderful track on Zorn's _The Big Gundown_ album, "The Battle of Algiers". Introduced by the sound of the bells of Shandon (recorded = earlier in the week on a trip to the church), cris cheek performed a collage of various texts--some of _fogs_, a bit of _songs from navigation_, a = couple "flames" (on the page, they looked just like that, words arranged in flame-shapes), etc. A blackboard was pressed into service at one = point, as were a megaphone and the reading lamp (a dangling lightbulb at one = point flashed on and off in sync with CC's speech). Hard to say much about = the whole thing except expressing my pleasure--or maybe _pleasures_ is the right word for such variousness. "Performance" here drew on a number = of modes of public speech, instead of voicing private inscape. I = thought of song; acting; speech; lecturing (cris's resonant and projective voice = suits all these activities); political harangue; public address-systems (the megaphone). The conclusion of the performance was a duo performance = with Keith Tuma of their cowritten text _Oval Orifice_: the shadow of the = US's bombing campaign hung over much of the conversation at the = conference, and the _Orifice_ gave it a voice (the text receiving a few topical = updates just for this performance). I'll include a bit of it, below: From OVAL ORIFICE Tricky-Dicky, Tricky-Dick, come out, open Bill's Gates Pray tell, how your contrary garden do grow? Compere our vegetate seeds, mix our Fates Dick, blow on that schtick, tit-willow tit-willow. If you're tired of a two-way, call out Tricky-Dick When in search of a new way, a less schticky schtick He'll huff you and puff you, you just take your pick All hail!, the adaptor, your friend, Tricky-Dick. Lewd Pinky put the boxes in the Capitol and the world rolled away. Hanky-Panky sweeps these broken words for love. Tricky-Dick oil your = eye from that buttercup shell. Lewd Pinky does the cigar dance, Asia = falls to its knees. Hanky-Panky corroborates sex-change truth with advocates of sun-dried life. Tricky-Dick, calling the hail from the hallways of the malls of America. Tricky-Dicky, Tricky-Dick, come out, open Bill's Gates Pray tell, how your contrary garden do glow? Compete our vegetate deeds, trix our Fates Dick, blow on that schtick, tit-willow tit-willow. Lewd Pinky busts through the door and Russia goes south. Humpty-Panky clutching at the King's bannisters of sentimental popetry in a last = ditch attempt to pre-empt the great fall: "Klingons off the star-bored = banner sir!" Lewd Pinky looking up deflation in American Heritage = Dictionary, all the news fit to squint. Hanky-Panky runs a spellcheck on his memoirs, = finds continual confusion as to whether Pinky or Panky was an avowed = intent. If you're hired by a two-way, call out Tricky-Dick When in search of Wick Willy, that less snickered schtick He'll huff you and puff you, or pickle his prick All wail, the olefactory, piss-prettied Dick. =85. Last morning: the final poetry readings of the conference were by = three Irish poets. This was a demanding and impressive trio of = performances. Trevor Joyce read from his work of the 1990s, briskly, clearly & = intensely; it was a very convincing if demanding presentation of a remarkable = body of work. First was a set of three poems that borrowed lines from the = work of (respectively) Michael Smith, Randolph Healy and Tom Raworth; next, _Without Asylum_ (published by Wild Honey); _Hopeful Monsters_ (three = prose poems that perhaps bring to mind Baudelaire, the Surrealists, and = Beckett; forthcoming from Wild Honey); and _Syzygy_ (Wild Honey). I'll quote = the Raworth poem, which extends each line of Tom's "Dark Senses" (in = _Clean & Well Lit_): the effect is unsettlingly both seamless and unlike = either a typical Raworth or Joyce poem. From DARK SENSES PARALLEL STREETS bones show through images more opaque than tissue of friends though they strut pressured between joints still move in dialogue with tongue baldes fluttering in darkness what relief to accumulate some utterance forgive me, it's a dream don't mention it standing alone, waving it's easy to be fooled in search of its lost era rich spoils not just geography forgotten in the foreclosed mine walking parallel streets try to conceive the waste of tropical flames blossoming from the settled earth with a political broom to suppress the outburst ominous as a smoke signal you needn't understand over a farewell meal make smalltalk avoid disturbance of dust in the dust breath lays down before an open window another field of vision weather permitting in clarity precedent to the rain step sharply within no time to lose here the labyrinth of raw meat though deepening fatigue jingling those keys won't achieve much you know dimmed by sweat regrettably the outlines just blur unthinking insects click, rustle case on case scavenging for bare subsistence replicate the given circulating minutes in the skeletons of organizations to the extremities inexorably crushed by vice the central pump stutters ..... After this, another forceful performance: Catherine Walsh, reading = from _City West_. An elegant stylistic premise: disjunct fragments, = typically in chains of present participles, so that one got peppered with "-ing" sounds. Mundane activities somehow sounded more tentative this way, = being both recurrent structures of life (the perpetual present) but also at = a remove from any particular life. -- I don't have any of this work to = hand, but Randolph posted a sample earlier. I was wondering how the last reader, Randolph Healy himself, = might feel having to follow these two very fine & high-energy readings. His quieter demeanour suited the comic but sobering poem "Colonies of = Belief", an abstract logician's account of human territorial aggression: nationalism, racism & greed. (The poem may be found at .) He also = read a wonderfully splenetic series of anagrams, "(The) Republic of = Ireland", from which I'll post an extract: her lie-lined tub of crap her pallid beef in court her pro-life bit unlaced her fluid celibate porn fur dope brilliance fine hell or bad picture faith in blue crepe lord put bile on charred life ice fire bother and pull plain cruel if bored April could be finer idle half-porcine brute price trouble in fleadh fertile blue chip radon belief in carrot upheld birth pill feared on cue Randolph concluded (after a brief comedic interlude with a blackboard = and a Gaelic primer) with a reading from _Scales_, his most recent long = poem. On the page, this is a highly various work, including everything from anecdotal/discursive writing to abstract wordplay (at one point a = quotation from Newton is sorted into piles according to parts of speech) to = concrete poetry; but the reader becomes gradually hemmed in by the black blocks which increasingly replace words. During performance many of these = missing words were in fact vocalized--in, for instance, a mordant found-poem rearrangement of words from an undertaker's manual that made me = squirm a bit; but the last section was read with the blanks intact (becoming = long pauses in reading): a legal document with all the verbiage except the = word "Whereas" blacked-out made for a quiet, haunted coda. This brought the poetry readings of the conference proper to an = end, though still ahead were one paper (Romana Huk's), miscellaneous wrappings-up, and the final hunt for a good pub at which to lunch. = But I'll end there, with a last thanks to Alex Davis for organizing the = whole conference. Much appreciated & enjoyed. --N ---- Nate Dorward ndorward@sprint.ca 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada ph: (416) 221 6865 ----------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------- ***************************************************************** Trevor Joyce Apple Cork IS&T Phone : +353-21-284405 EMail : joyce2@euro.apple.com ***************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 12:54:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Randy Prunty Subject: Re: Poetry: telic or not MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Lowther-Of-The-Two-Minds says "I also question the utility of an individua= l=20 internal and psychological inquiry's overall validity with respect to=20 something like poetry which must be seen as a social activity" =85 "so=20 individuals are not at issue but only poetry as communal activity?"=85 "perh= aps=20 it ought to be required of any poet that they think very carefully about wha= t=20 their own telos is" =85 "or not - come on - like any of us cd really state=20 'what the telos of our writing' is with any definitiveness - all we've got i= t=20 seems to me is a serious of working hypotheses - assumption that open certai= n=20 doors and make other less door-like than a wall of books" I've been reading something of a "telos tome" (telos tomb?): Arakawa and Gin= s=20 huge book REVERSIBLE DESTINY. WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE. Here's a quote=20 from the George Lakoff piece in the book as he tries to sum up what he think= s=20 Arakawa and Gins are up to. "The increasing violence and destruction in the=20 world - physical, ecological, economic, social, and emotional - are all a=20 product of our present modes of thought. If the cruelty is to end, our=20 concepts must change. Since concepts are physically encoded in the brain an= d=20 grounded in the body, our brains and bodies must change. If art is to play = a=20 role for the good, it must disrupt our concepts, our normal ways of=20 functioning - our brains and our bodies. Art as disruption is art as a mora= l=20 force. Disruption is an aesthetic experience, and an aesthetic experience of=20 this kind is inherently moral. Moreover, disruptive art on a large-enough=20 scale will be sufficient to reverse our destiny, so that the violence and=20 destruction can end." as I take this in, I too am of two minds. as has been discussed on this lis= t=20 several times, poetry can be a disruptive force, breaking us out of our=20 ritualistic ways of perceiving and conceptualizing. it can change our=20 consciousness. seems like a good thing, no? but to the interest of who? =20 how to escape the "change for the good" that is also part of the "moral"=20 religious argument? or the humanistic "oh gee well things are/can/should be=20 getting better and better?" =20 I find that when I think too much about whether my poetry might be "telic" i= t=20 shuts me down. funny paradox, huh? and so I don't write probably because=20 I've put too much pressure on those little ink spots on the paper. the door=20 as you say becomes "a wall of books". on the other hand if I never think=20 about "where my poetry (in general, not just an individual poem) is going"=20 then it loses its interest for me. =20 Lowther writes: "so have we decided that poetry is telic or not?" oat for nao Randy Prunty ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 08:11:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: juliana spahr Subject: hey whitmaniacs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Any one out there know the citation for that passage where Whitman talks about how great American English is b/c it is put together of all different languages/influences? Or the Webster one? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 17:46:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Steering Mechanism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII / Steering Mechanism as if the internet text could be salvaged http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt swollen, tumescent, there might be a cancer in the making - L saw it as autobio - I find pushing myself into virtual life, swollen, tumescent, evil membrane tissues suppurated on the other side - there are always splits in the real - death, taxes, love - garnered across continents or oceans - cells fall through, out - you can't make a message with steerage - you can't steer the way texts veer with their theory carried, wounded - operations bring the body home, suturing each and every - I've Jennifer, Julu, Alan, Nikuko in my stomach - they're crawling, clawing - they're retching into skins of vomit - they stick their fingers into me - fingers into fingers - maybe they're typing this - salvage the fury, savage the writing - their mouths go out my holes - muffled - looking for the sign - the steering mechanism for each and every letter, word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, text toppling over text - blood count healthy - cholesterol healthy - EKG healthy - no hepatitis b or c - no AIDS - temperature normal - numbers within acceptable limits, within bandwidth and protocol - quantitative attributes, reductive phenomenologies of the body - underdeterminations of explanations - leaking autobio - theory at the fringe - diffraction-theory - it's a written future - can't give you numbers, tell you the truth - the salvage-work - future's always underdetermined - even when it's here _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 09:04:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katherine Lederer Subject: E X P L O S I V E M A G A Z I N E # 7 In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Now available: E X P L O S I V E M A G A Z I N E #7 Tim Griffin Kevin Larimer Michael Coffey Catherine Wagner David Larsen Mark Wallace Alicia Wing Tom Devaney Drew Gardner Roberta Olson WB Keckler Cate Marvin Elizabeth Robinson Brenda Hillman Powetry comics by Kenneth Koch $6 per issue / $15 for three Checks should be made payable to Katherine Lederer and sent to: PO Box 250648 Columbia University Station New York, NY 10025 (International orders: $1 s/h per issue) Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:42:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: 2 which bear repeating (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 2 which bear repeating in lieu of the times 1. Inside the mother-father The baby turns - Screaming and dying, Its body burns - Flames leap from its fingers, Father-mother lies dead - Flames leap from its eyelids, Eyes burn in its head - Mother-father cries, rising. The babe turns around, In anger strikes out - Bones fall to the ground - Father-mother falls, crying - The babe once so rash Kills its tormenter - The body's in ash - Dust falling and rising, And parents and child, Still burn within daily - Their cries are defiled - Dust rising and falling, None shall atone. The baby still turning, Dies daily, alone - 2. Help the burned and wounded child, The infant drowned or injured mother, The open wide-eyed girl defiled, The sister murdered by her brother, The scalded boy, the father's hate, The mother's knife and tortured skin, The sex of death, the young girl's fate, The battered boy, his life of sin, The blinded babe, the woman's rage, The body bruised with leather strap, The mother old beyond her age, The daughter's jeers, the father's slap. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:24:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristen Gallagher Subject: Re: Journal jottings [Project Experience] In-Reply-To: <4D65845725@student.highland.cc.il.us> from "KENT JOHNSON" at May 7, 1999 11:30:11 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks, Kent, for this great acknowledgement of a great book. i fear in the flurry of glut of which i am now part no one will notice it. josh schuster's book is indeed a rare gem. > > Kristen Gallagher put up a notice on Josh Schuster's odd and > brilliant first book the other day. I thought I'd go ahead and share > some jottings I'd been doing on it, stream-of-consciousness as they > be. > > _Project Experience: Museums, Archives, Monuments, > Bureaus_, by Joshua Schuster [Philadelphia: Handwritten Press, 1999] > (order: Kristen Gallagher, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104) > > > --"The archive is an ear." > > Fifty pages, bound in the shape of a blue passport from the State of > Approval, as the cover has it. Kristen Gallagher, currently of the U. > of Pennsylvania Writer's House and soon of SUNY/Buffalo, has curated > these documents, handed to her by one Joshua Schuster. May her > Handwritten Press make as many beautiful, passport-sized books as > there are countries in the world. > > Is this Schuster's passport into our State or our passport into his? > > Scripted question. But it's not clear who is speaking. The Museums > and Archives, Monuments and Bureaus, in a kind of Foucauldian play on > the pathetic fallacy, speak at us, though sometimes, too, an "I" > interrupts, and sometimes a kind of narrator, like the guide on the > headset in the museum or like a person talking to himself. But this > confusion of authority is part the point, isn't it, for it's much of > the truth of our current state. Our Institutions _do_ speak, are > outside and inside us at the same moment, and when we speak we speak > them and they speak us. Thus who is listening as a question we > need to listen to. Scripted sentence. Boring Belgrade rubble replaced > by grieving American students. F-16's in formation, majestic over > teacher's funeral. Commercial for Lockheed, joyous child holding > paper airplane aloft. Let us pray. Must teach Our children that > violence is not the answer, says teary President inside of us, making > heads nod. How surprising to the refugee when she sees the saplings > shiver their leaves inside the transparent torso of the border guard. > Now give me your archives and go to NATO, he says, if you love them > so much. On page 27: > > You are the sum of your storages: organs > of memory, organs of the morning, organs > of waiting, organs of identity. To tend the > archive is a kind of organology. > > A bit Jabes in its aphoristic proceeding, a bit Popa in its mythic > charge, a bit Simic in its cobbling of surreal miniatures, a bit > Palmer in its hieratic namings, a bit Museum of Jurassic > Technology--the whole book--in its wunderkammer (sp?) feel, its > oscillations between the true and the not and the third thing that is > then thrown into thought, though who knows what name that third thing > has (something expiring between the tip of the tongue and the top of > the teeth, I think, when we make the sound of the). Scripted > sentence. Schuster scratching at it, page 16: > > The kingdom is sustained by three things: > the kingdom of broken secrets, the king- > dom of splitting images, and the kingdom > of the expiration of meaning--but the > kingdom of a bird on a leash transcends > them all. > > Sustenance is sustained by three things: > the sustenance of pollution, the sustenance > of hiding as a way of seeking, and the > sustenance of a thought that consumes > itself--but the sustenance of your mouth > left over in my mouth transcends them all. > > Three things are sustained by three things: > the three sides of the body, the three > seconds in between in each breath, and the > three rings around one's eyes--but the > three names in your face transcend them all. > > It is the size of Mao's Little Red book, but blue. Remember once, in > the late 70's, I worked with a guy on a demonstration in Milwaukee to > protest First Wisconsin Bank stock holdings in South Africa. For some > reason I thought he was a Mennonite, but he turned out to be a member > of the Revolutionary Communist Party! How surprising that soon whole > cities will be a thousand feet underwater. Scripted sentence. > Museums, archives, monuments, and bureaus, in slow dissolve beneath a > giant lake. Mao, great conceptual artist in his embalmed body. > Stalinism with a neo-liberal skull. Humanitarian bombs to bring home > refugees fleeing blind rage same bombs inflamed. Supreme Allied > Commander on verge of Star Wars prequel proposing to laser-torch > Russian ships. Let us pray. Well-meaning poets wringing hands. What > can we do? > > You convince the doctor you are sick to > enter this archive. Why don't they just let > me in, you ask yourself, since it's obvious > you are ill? Ill to whom? Your illness is a > kind of _argument_. The doctor is full of > belief, in that he doesn't believe you. Who > should believe you? After all, you wear > your illness like a badge, a patch of > identity, like you are in the army of the > sick. But you have a family to take care of, > a family of illnesses. You deserve to be in > these archives. > > It is so natural to be inside the archives. Poets too, surely, sick > unto death, deserve entry. Let us in. Come into us. It's not that we > mean to rebel too much-- just want to expand the range of language, > the range of the transgressively erotic, lend a bit of magic to the > world. And yes, please, we'd like our names in the museum too. > I wring my hands all the time. Scripted sentence. Bureaucrat's > heart, feigning difference. And how surprising, after all, when you > pick up a first book by someone 21 and finds hands opened out into > this: > > An audience of heads, one mound after another. > > A smouldering mound: a pile of black burnt > dirt constantly giving off smoke to be > placed in front of any structure which was > burned down. > > A temple is burned down. One does not > clear it away, but let it remain in its > remains. This is now the holy place, a > place of unplacement, a burned and > charred temple to remain standing still > burning in the minds which live among it. > _That mound, there, it is breathing._ > > The thought mounds up. > > (idea for ending review): In an age of pixels, electronic and > poetic, where "religion is merely the bomber exploding with his > bomb," Schuster's book a little document of compassionate thought > that mounds up-- a listening and thinking that "curls the air and > folds it into words," a little charm, at least for a spell, against > the archive's siren song. If you collect small and fleeting things, > whose meanings build and build, get this passport. Offer it, > willingly, to the border guard inside you. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 13:35:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: American Social Identity Survey [MICROSOFT] Comments: To: jeffreyl@nyrp.org, jeffreyl@pipeline.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain ***from MICROSOFT ACCESS 97 AT A GLANCE, Redmond, WA 1997*** (note [p. 37], in light of Edmund White's ~Forgetting Elena~) [p. 21/28] PRODUCT NAME (SUPPLIER) [CATEGORY] {QUANTITY PER UNIT} Chai (Exotic Liquids) Chang (Exotic Liquids) Aniseed Syrup (Exotic Liquids) Chef Anton's Cajun Seasoning (New Orleans Cajun Delights) Chef Anton's Gumbo Mix (New Orleans Cajun Delights) [Condiments] {36 boxes} Grandma's Boysenberry Spread (Grandma Kelly's Homestead) [Condiments] {12 - 8 oz jars} Uncle Bob's Organic Dried Pears (Grandma Kelly's Homestead) [Produce] {12 - 1 lb pkgs.} <$30.00> Northwoods Cranberry Sauce (Grandma Kelly's Homestead) [Condiments] {12 - 12 oz jars} <$40.00> Mishi Kobe Niku (Tokyo Traders) [Meat/Poultry] {13 - 500 g pkgs.} <$97.00> Ikura (Tokyo Traders) [Seafood] {12 - 200 ml jars} <$31.00> Queso Cabrales (Cooperative de Quesos 'Las Cabras') [Dairy Products] {1 kg pkg.} <$21.00> Queso Manchego La Pastora (Cooperativa de Quesos 'Las Cabras') [Dairy Products] {10 - 500 g pkgs} <$38.00> Konbu (Mayumi's) [Seafood] {2 kg box} <$6.00> Tofu (Mayumi's) [Produce] {40 - 100 g pkgs.} <$23.25> ? C?--- Sh--? (Mayumi's) [Condiments] {24 - 250 ml bottles} <$15.50> (? D?-l-? Ltd) [Confections] {3? - 500 g boxes} <$17.4?> [p. 20] DESCRIPTION (CATEGORY NAME) Soft drinks, coffees, teas, beers, and ales (Beverages) Sweet and savory sauces, relishes, spreads, and seasonings (Condiments) Desserts, candies, and sweet breads (Confections) Cheeses (Dairy Products) Breads, crackers, pasta, and cereal (Grains/Cereals) Prepared meats (Meat/Poultry) Dried fruit and bean curd (Produce) Seaweed and fish (Seafood) [p. 34] PROGRAM NAME (PROGRAM TYPE) [RECORDING DATE] 1 Wild Adventures (Adventure) [1/1/95] 2 Camp Jolly (Comedy) [11/23/77] 3 Killer Frogs (Drama) [10/8/70] 4 Rocket Scientis (Science Ficti) [10/25/40] 5 Step Aerobics (Fitness) [6/12/84] 6 Great Mountain (Foreign) [8/1/78] 15 Bul?? (Instructional) [5/9/95] 16 Hig (Adventure) [9/9/97] 17 Crusade (Adventure) [5/25/96] [p. 36] Dynamation (Adventure) [8/15/96] High School Da (Adventure) [9/9/97] Wild Adventures (Adventure) [1/1/95] True Action (Adventure) [7/5/96] Crusade (Adventure) [5/25/96] Night Mission (Adventure) [7/3/97] Intruder Alert (Adventure) [7/3/97] Spot (Comedy) [6/21/97] Off the Deep En (Comedy) [2/14/96] Trez Village (Comedy) [7/4/97] Carpe Diem (Comedy) [6/1/96] Camp Jolly (Comedy) [11/23/77] Making Arrange (Comedy) [7/8/96] Killer Frogs (Drama) [10/8/70] Caveat Emptor (Drama) [12/15/96] Days of Insurrec (Drama) [12/15/96] [p. 37] Alpine Adventure (Travel) [4/15/96] Crater Man (Science Fiction) [6/12/97] Rocket Scientis (Science Fiction) [10/25/40] StarView (Science Fiction) [5/25/97] FutureScape (Science Fiction) [9/3/96] Virtual Master (Science Fiction) [5/25/96] Visual Mania (Science Fiction) [10/3/97] Imagining Parac? (Romance) [9/13/96] Creating Alexan (Romance) [1/3/97] Remembering E (Romance) [5/4/96] < !!!! Mea Culpa (Romance) [7/14/97] In the Park (Romance) [10/21/95] Krista (Romance) [7/4/96] More, Much Mo (Romance) [12/20/96] Building Your O (Instructional) [5/9/95] Dark Vision (Horror) [8/19/97] Great Mountain (Foreign) [8/1/78] [p. 61] LAST NAME (see p. 61 for LASTCONTRACAMT, STUDIO, & FEES) [p. 65], [p. 66], & [p. 148] FIRST NAME / FIRST NAME LAST NAME Fuller Davolio Nancy Leverling Janet Buchanan Suyama Peacock Callahan Dodsworth King Robert Labrune Janine Franken Snyder Howard Martin Dale Huston Bucky Stevens Mitchell [p. 82] FIRST NAME LAST NAME (TITLE) [COMPANY NAME] {ADDRES} [sic] Elizabeth Brown (Sales Representative) [Consolidate H] {Berkeley G} Jaime Yorres (Owner) [Let's Stop N Sh] {87 Polk St.} Jean Fresniere (Marketing Assis) [Mere Paillarde] {43 rue St. ?} Rene Phillips (Sales Representative) [Old World Delic] {2743 Bering?] Hari Kumar (Sales Manager) [Seven Sea Imp] {90 Wadhum?} [p. 95], [p. 98], [p. 102] FIRST NAME LAST NAME (ADDRESS) CITY STATE/PROV Henry Buck (234 Rose Ave.) Pine City MN Janet Marks (1467 Park Dr.) Colummbus [sic] MN Sam Diego (897 Tate Road) Jackson MN Janet Marks (1467 Park Dr.) Colummbus MN Fran Wallace (989 Point Lane) Jim Hopkins (503 Palm Dr.) Flag City FL Lisa Norris Roger Lisnet [p. 97] REPLACE: WITH: liuke like liveing living loev love lonly lonely makeing making mkae make [p. 133] PLACE TAKEN (PhotoLocationID) Chateau d'Eau Notre Dame Louvre Arch of Stars Eiffel Tower Mt. McKinley Peak Lake Sunrise Ridge Eskimo Hill Ridgeville Valley Cane Patchy Little Village Island Greenville Palm Grove Cane Farm Cologne, Germany Berlin, Germany [p. 163] - TITLE Mark Taylor - President Jim Pyles - Vice President Cheryl Mealer - Secretary Earl Todd - Treasurer [p. 200] Anne Cadrow Beth Kelley Harry Pollent Laura Samuels Mike Linderson Neil Thompson Pamela Bening Pat Harmond ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:21:44 -0500 Reply-To: ambivalent@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mariah Corrigan Organization: herder&corrigan Subject: Leslie Fiedler/Simone Weil MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello out there. Can anyone tell me what Leslie Fiedler's email (or other) address might perhaps be? I'm organizing a conference for Columbia U on Simone's work and need to reach him asap. Many thanks and reply to Mariah Corrigan at ambivalent@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 11:50:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda V Russo Subject: SPT Re:reads the New American Poetry / Small Press Traffic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This event sounds spectacular. Would someone please consider posting a report on it? Thanks in advance, Linda Russo ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 17:34:05 +0100 Reply-To: suantrai@iol.ie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy" Subject: Shearsman 39 apologies for cross posting Comments: To: poetryetc@listbot.com, Brit'n'Irish MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The latest Shearsman, no. 39, landed on my doormat this morning. It opens with an engaging 90 line poem by Ken Bolton, called, simply, _poem_ and is dedicated to Martin Munz. The pretext for the poem is fairly slender, the poet is walking along the street wearing a leather jacket and carrying presents for some children, thinking of this and that and people he talked to. Contrasts between modernity and the past hold it together pretty well, the 90 lines themselves suggestive of the brightly lit present tense of the poem beginning to trail behind time's arrow. quote Its scale is increasingly and loveably inappropriate to North Terrace, as it modernizes and the lion seems small earnest, and straghtforward. And the sky looks great beyond it. I have chocolate frogs for Becky and Julie unquote A three part poem, _Touring Vienna_, by Karin Lessing follows. The first section is interestingly mysterious, particularly for me since I know little German and it mixes said language with English. Second two is a change of pace, a close up description of a photo Sigmund Freud with Oskar Nemon and a dog. The witty literal passes into the psychological half way through, thereby drawing a witty enough comparison, quote the sculpture, the clay head, the model and the model's pet dog form a spiral, a whorl from which the dog alone looks beyond the self-contained scene intent with listening the sculptor is in profile his stance as in a frieze where offerings are presented to rulers or to the gods - but the portrait, its inward gaze, is for us incurable, prodigal economy of love unquote Perhaps the dog was on loan from Pavolv. Section three is more elegiac, ending very abruptly. Very effective. Next is Geoffrey Squires' _UNTITLED POEM_ which he read at the recent conference in Cork. It opens with long rhythms, the acoustics uppermost since the visual referents are deliberately indeterminate. quote that move sometimes and are sometimes still what they are each one only what it is this or because ..* Ahead of itself in advance of itself as always as usual unquote After a page and a half of this the simple description "A small wood a copse / at the bend in the river / between green fields /" is lent a surprising amount of drama. Read this one aloud, moderato, with feeling, but not too much. As it happens, I've found myself reading a lot of Squires recently. It becomes quite addictive. I think what I like about it is that it takes you somewhere quite different but you don't know where. Then there's Charles Hadfield's two poems, the first being, _Stepping Stones_ quote The streets whisper where ghosts walk lizards flicker up the walls, these piles of stone all that remain. unquote I find the sound patterning -- whisper/lizards/flicker, and ghosts/stone, walk/walls/piles/all -- combined with the high definition visuals pretty exciting. And like the lizard, the poems flickers along its way, as it broadens out giving a sense of the poet's struggle, he being half way up the wall himself. I'd better get on and start the dinner. Probably better not to show all the goodies at once anyway. Poems too by Martin Anderson, Peter de Rous and David Heminway. Not to mention two pages of useful notes on "books acquired, received and otherwise notable." Excellent magazine, beautifully produced, and at a price scarcely merits the name. Available from Tony Frazer, 47 Dayton Close, Plymouth PL6 5DX, England or from Peter Riley (Books), 27 Sturton Street, Cambridge, CB1 2QG England, email priley@dircon.co.uk "price" £1.50 Randolph Healy Visit the Sound Eye website at: http://indigo.ie/~tjac/sound_eye_hme.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 16:02:03 -0400 Reply-To: BANDREWS@prodigy.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETSY ANDREWS Subject: summer sublet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm off to Yemen for two months, so I'm subletting my improbably spacious Prospect Heights, Brooklyn apartment for July and August (or, better yet, July 8-August 30). It's $925 a month pro-rated and, if I don't know you, I'd like a security deposit. Seven fabulously appointed, sunny, quiet rooms astonishingly close to transportation, the Brooklyn Museum, the botanical gardens and the park. Jump on it now, folks. It won''t last. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 16:32:39 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Poetry: telic or not MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/13/99 11:10:03 AM, RanPrunty@AOL.COM, quoting George Lakoff, writes: <<"The increasing violence and destruction in the world - physical, ecological, economic, social, and emotional - are all a product of our present modes of thought. If the cruelty is to end, our concepts must change. Since concepts are physically encoded in the brain and grounded in the body, our brains and bodies must change. If art is to play a role for the good, it must disrupt our concepts, our normal ways of functioning - our brains and our bodies. Art as disruption is art as a moral force. Disruption is an aesthetic experience, and an aesthetic experience of this kind is inherently moral. Moreover, disruptive art on a large-enough scale will be sufficient to reverse our destiny, so that the violence and destruction can end.">> This is extremely interesting. But one of the difficulties here, in respect of poetry, seems to me precisely one of "sufficiency of scale." Nor is disruption something diametrically opposed to violence & destruction obviously -- the problem it seems to me is rather that, at a time when the history of art is *arguably* over, & the most extreme aesthetic violence -- Artaud's say -- is merely a "style" that one cannot avoid "quoting" (the problem for example -- despite it's brilliance -- with Novarina's work) can art really be said to have retained a capacity for disruption? In the essay that precipitated J. Lowther's & R. Prunty's posts to the List, S. Schaefer problematizes the continuity between radical poetic theory and practice. This aspect of his argument seems persuasive, particularly in the context of Prunty's post, as no poem seems likely to come close to approaching the extremity of the aesthetic experience Lakoff describes. Schaefer on the other hand does not seem to sufficiently problematize poetry's relationship to tradition & with his attacks on the LangPos a certain amount of generational anxiety is clearly evident. But I think his concern with establishing parameters for aesthetic judgement have merit -- not as prescriptions, or "standards" -- but as a means of asking -- for framing the question -- "What is the possibility of poetry today?" since it is not, I don't think, the sort of Antinomian practice that, for instance, David Bromige seems to imply it is. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 16:39:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: Situations Book Party Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" **BOOK PARTY** for the latest publications from Situations Press Wrackline by Daniel Bouchard City of Ports by Marcella Durand 14 Knots by Joe Elliot Hemisphere's Planetarium Petals by Kimberly Lyons Elastic Latitude by Richard O'Russa Slush by Marshall Reese on Thursday, May 27th, 6-8 pm Granary Books 568 Broadway, #403 ***** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 17:20:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: "Carol L. Hamshaw" Subject: NATO and the Internet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >-------- Original Message -------- >Subject: [aman-disc] US shuts down Yugoslav Internet - For immediate >release >Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:16:45 GMT > >Dear sirs, > >We have reliable information that the US Government ordered >Loral Orion company to shut down its satellite feeds for Internet >customers in Yugoslavia. > >This action might be taken as soon as later tonight or tomorrow >(May 12 or 13, 1999). > >This is a flagrant violation of commercial contracts with Yugoslav >ISPs, as well as an attack on freedom of the Internet. > >A Web site in protest of these actions should be up shortly. We will >supply you with the URL. In the meantime, please be so kind to >inform as many people as possible about this tragic event for the >Internet community in Yugoslavia and Europe. > >Kind regards, >BeoNET >Belgrade, Yugoslavia > -- Carol L. Hamshaw Administrator Edgewise ElectroLit Centre http://www.edgewisecafe.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 07:32:45 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: Re: hey whitmaniacs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit juliana spahr wrote: > > Any one out there know the citation for that passage where Whitman talks > about how great American English is b/c it is put together of all > different languages/influences? > > Or the Webster one? the AMERICAN PRIMER contains Whitman's thoughts on the American language--though references to language itself abound--as the poem does--Leaves--the INTRO to the 1855 edition also. City Lights published the American Primer in the 70's. I believe it still does. Oddly enough, the American Library neglected to include this tome in the "collected" works. Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 20:25:27 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" * ATTENTION * Beyond the Page continues its ongoing series of poetry and arts related events with a reading by STEPHEN RADCLIFFE and MARTHA RONK Where: Faultline Theater, 3152 5th Avenue (at Spruce) San Diego. When: Sunday, May 23. 4:00 PM Info: (619) 298-8761 or (619) 273-1338 or e-mail jjross@cts.com or scope@ucsd.edu. Else: A small donation is requested at the door. Refreshments are available for a donation. ************************************ STEPHEN RATCLIFFE was born in Boston and raised in the San Francisco Bay area since the age of four. He attended UC Berkeley where he received both a BA and PhD and was awarded a Stegner poetry fellowship at Stanford. He now teaches at Mills College and is the chair of English Department. Ratcliffe is the editor/publisher of Avenue B (books) and has a collection of essays on 'experimental' poetry, _Listening to Reading_, forthcoming on SUNY Press as well as a book of poems, _SOUND/ (system)_ on Sun & Moon Press. His books include: _Mallarme: poem in prose_ (Santa Barbara Review Publications, 1998), _Sculpture_,(Los Angeles: Littoral Books, 1996), and many others. MARTHA RONK has published two recent chapbooks, _Emblems_ and _Allegories_, and four books of poetry: _Desire in LA_ from Georgia University Press, _Desert Geometries_ from Littoral Books, _State of Mind_ from Sun & Moon Press, and _Eyetrouble_ from Georgia University Press. Forthcoming is a fictional autobiography, _Displeasures of the Table_ on Sun & Moon Press. She is a professor of literature at Occidental College. ************************************* Beyond the Page is proud to continue its monthly series with this reading. BTP is an independent arts group dedicated to the promotion of experimental and/or explorative work in the arts. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 09:49:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: What does Mr. Pound believe? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I can't remember where this quote from T.S. Eliot on Pound occurs. I reread the "His Style and Metrics" essay and the introduction to the Literary Essays, but no luck, and the Carpenter bio is too long, with a terrific but unwieldy index. I need it for a paper I'm working on. Thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 10:35:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Bruce Andrews and Brian Kim Stefans Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii PULL MY DAISYTRAIN PULL MY DAISYCHAIN PULL MY DAISYTRAIN PULL MY Readings @Clovis Press Clovis Press Bookstore 229 Bedford Avenue , Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718) 302-3751 Directions from Manhattan: Take L Train to Bedford Ave. Walk 4 blocks on Bedford to North 4th Street. Directions from San Francisco: Watch "Matrix" on quaaludes with a sleeping puppy in your lap. Walk 4 blocks. Friday May 21 BRIAN KIM STEFANS' books include Free Space Comix (Roof), Gulf (Poetscoop/Object) and, with Sianne Ngai, "The Cosmopolitans" (Tripwire). He also edits Arras (http://www.bway.net/~arras). BRUCE ANDREWS, besides performing his notorious live editing of poems and mixing of prerecorded vocal sounds in collaboration with the solo dance improvisation of dancer/choreographer Sally Silvers, is the author of such noted books as Love Songs, and I Don't Have Any Paper So Shut Up (Or, Social Romanticism). A new book Designated Heartbeat from Sun & Moon is due soon. The just-released AERIAL Andrews issue will be available for purchase day of the reading. Introduced by MELANIE NEILSON READINGS BEGIN AT 8PM SHARP $3.00 CONTRIBUTION FOR READERS. COFFEE TEA WINE Come early and buy books! FALL READING SERIES SCHEDULE AVAILABLE SOON TRAIN MY DAISYCHAIN PULL MY DAISYTRAIN PULL MY DAISYCHAIN PULL MY ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 04:51:02 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rob wilson Subject: oh sublime semi-colon, yr history haunts me MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 03:19:27 -1000 From: robseanwilson@msn.com To: rwilson@hawaii.edu Subject: Forwarded article: SECRETS OF THE SEMICOLON The following article was selected from the Internet Edition of the Chicago Tribune. To visit the site, point your browser to http://chicagotribune.com/. This special e-mail feature is brought to you by First Chicago. ----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding---------------- Article forwarded by: rob wilson Return email: robseanwilson@msn.com ---Forwarded article---------------- SECRETS OF THE SEMICOLON By Julia Keller Weep not for the semicolon; its time has come 'round at last. Once dismissed as a fussy, somewhat effete affectation, the white-gloved cousin to the callused, workaholic comma or brutally abrupt period, the semicolon may be coming into its own. Most people, truth to tell, still seem somewhat intimidated by the semicolon; it smacks of deep thoughts and book-lined studies, of long, thoughtful pauses accompanied by rhythmic strokes of the chin. The marks are "so pipe-smokingly Indo-European," essayist Nicholson Baker once wrote. Hence semicolons historically were deftly avoided. They were the fine china of the punctuation world, when plastic forks would do. "I've never really gotten comfortable with semicolons," admitted Harold Hirshman, an attorney with Sonnenschein Noth & Rosenthal. "If anything, I'm a comma person." But if Hirshman wants to be hip, he'll have to start adorning his correspondence with semicolons, those little dot-and-fishtail concoctions that endow sentences with emotional nuance as well as serve a grammatical task. "Wit," the play by Margaret Edson that won the Pulitzer Prize for drama last month, feature a semicolon as a major plot point; a semicolon also figures in newspaper ads for the play, as the mark replaces the second letter of the title. Semicolons also have come to figure prominently in the newest of writing genres, e-mail correspondence; they serve as what Baker calls "emotional punctuation." A semicolon is an essential component in the wink or smirk: ;-). A semicolon reference in the season finale of "Sports Night," the critically acclaimed ABC sitcom -- "Why don't we use semicolons anymore?" the producer Dana (Felicity Huffman) asks her staff -- is further proof that semicolons are hot stuff; they bristle with buzz. (The only speed bump encountered by the semicolon bandwagon was a story in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine, in which Alberto Manguel called the period the best punctuation mark of the millennium. The period is, he said unconvincingly, "the unsung legislator of our writing system.") Among punctuation marks, the semicolon is a relative latecomer, lagging behind the comma, colon and period, most linguists agree. Of course, punctuation itself did not become a standard part of written discourse until the late 18th Century. Composition had been a haphazard enterprise at best, with writers employing punctuation marks when and how they chose.(Spelling, too, was a matter of personal whim -- and for some, of course, it still is.) In the earliest writing of which we have samples, words weren't separated at all; everything was jammed together in a long, confusing string, said Andrea Lunsford, English professor at Ohio State University. Rudimentary punctuation marks (whose look, function and placement bore little relation to contemporary punctuation) were employed by Greek and Roman writers. The first time a semicolon seems to have appeared -- scholars still disagree, hence the hedging -- is in a 9th Century Greek text. Those primitive semicolons, however, were inverted; the comma part was on top and the period part on the bottom. The semicolon first appeared in English writing in about 1560, according to Paul Bruthiaux in his 1995 article in Applied Linguistics magazine, "The Rise and Fall of the Semicolon." Semicolons showed up in a 1609 edition of Shakespeare's sonnets; ditto for a 1612 edition of John Donne's works. By the late 18th Century, Bruthiaux wrote, the semicolon had been accepted by British and European writers. (Some holdouts remained, then and now; Antaole France, a 19th Century critic, called the semicolon "a symptom of mental weakness." Twentieth Century writer Donald Barthelme said a semicolon was "ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly.") Semicolons function several ways in sentences. They can divide coordinate clauses that are complete in themselves; they can replace commas, indicating a longer pause; they can separate items in a list. However, the way we feel about a punctuation mark may be almost as important as its grammatical task. As Mina Shaughnessy, a leading composition theorist, has written, "Punctuation marks produce different psychological effects -- on the writer as well as the reader." The semicolon is a mighty punctuation mark, she believes, because it "has the linking power of a comma and the terminating authority of a period." Yet to most readers, semicolons are imbued with a decidedly languid, late-afternoon feel; when semicolons are present, you can almost hear the elegant china cup clink as it is gently replaced in the saucer. Gender stereotypes also come into play; semicolons seem most closely associated with the florid, emotional writing often ascribed to women rather than the spare, chiseled prose with which men generally are credited. Geoffrey Nunberg, principal scientist at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and a linguistics professor at Stanford University, confirmed that the semicolon's reputation is a bit, well, flighty and frivolous, more closely aligned to, say, taffeta-bedecked debutantes than to leather-jacketed bomber pilots. "People seem to feel it's the icing on the cake -- a nice mark to have around, but the nation won't fall if students lose their grip on it," he said. Conversely, the comma is "a nuts-and-bolts mark." Semicolons, however, are much more than a frill to Nunberg; he has spent the better part of a decade studying them. In fact, practical applications for these researches are already popping up, he noted: "Most of the computational applications and systems that we are developing have to deal with the language of written texts, and a systematic grammar of punctuation is crucial. A lot of the serious linguistic work on punctuation has come from people in computational linguistics." Punctuation can sound boring because, typically, it is dealt with in a dull handbook in English class, in which it is reduced to a set of grim rules. In a 1990 article in The Antioch Review, Theodor W. Adorno called punctuation "traffic signals." How poetic is that? It required linguists such as Nunberg and his colleagues to reveal the beauty and mystery of punctuation marks, to awaken us to the subtle emotional and psychological distinction of semicolon use. "The semicolon seems to be reserved now for certain kinds of highbrow and high-middlebrow writing," Nunberg said. "You find them in The New Republic but not in USA Today, in academic histories but not in celebrity bios. There's a sense that the mark presupposes a reader with time on his or her hands and a comfortable chair to sit in." Traditionally, students have been a bit intimidated by the semicolon, said Judith Gardiner, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "They tend not to use it. It's designed for relatively complicated thoughts and sentences. The tendency is to want to be short and snappy, to come to the point." Ah, but for adventurous students, the semicolon has become an irresistible challenge, she said. Compared with the bungee-jump of attempting a semicolon, employing a comma packs all the adrenalin rush of stepping off a curb when you have a "Walk" light. "Students who do use the semicolon tend to know what they're doing," Gardiner said. That confidence in semicolon deployment increasingly is visible even at the high school level, said several English teachers. Sara Garnes, a linguist at Ohio State University who confers often with secondary-school teachers, contended that semicolons bring a sense of panache to the presumably staid, boring world of punctuation. Thrill-seeking students may have figured out that semicolons are a quick way to perk up one's tired old term paper, to add an instant patina of class. Legal writing, with its reputation for labyrinthine circumlocution, would seem to be rife with semicolons. Yet that's only half true, Hirshman said. In writing about litigation, the marks are virtually nonexistent: "The idea is to keep it simple. You're writing about history -- what happened and who's to blame." Contracts, however, the other kind of legal writing, surge with semicolons: "You're trying to hedge or clarify some statement and you don't want the confusion of moving it to another sentence. Contracts are about the future -- it's trying to control the future with words." Nowhere is the distinction between the comma and semicolon rendered with more poignance than in the climax of "Wit." Vivian, the protagonist who is dying of ovarian cancer, recalls a pivotal confrontation in her college days, when a crusty scholar chides her for using a second-rate edition of Donne's holy sonnets. In the corrupt copy, the final sentence of his famous sonnet on death ("And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die") appears with a semicolon instead of a comma. Vivian remembers the professor's lesson: "Nothing but a breath -- a comma -- separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage. . . . This way, this uncompromising way, one learns something from this poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma." Some do, some don't; some will, some won't. A writer's decision about semicolon use is intensely personal: Semicolon users Virginia Woolf "It gave to everything the exact measure of colour; to the sandhills their innumerable glitter, to the wild grasses their glancing green; or it fell upon the arid waste of the desert, here wind-scourged into furrows, here swept into desert cairns, here sprinkled with dark-green jungle-trees." - "The Waves" George Eliot "For the most glutinously indefinite minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box, concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch." - "Middlemarch" John Milton "We shall be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extended to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life." - "Areopagitca" Semicolon eschewers Ernest Hemingway "As a matter of fact, supper was a pleasant meal. Brett wore a black, sleeveless evening dress. She looked quite beautiful. Mike acted as though nothing had happened. I had to go up and bring Robert Cohn down." - "The Sun Also Rises" Joan Didion "Late that night sitting alone in the dark by the pool she remembered whose house it had been out off San Vicente with the Japanese food, it had been the house of a couple named Sidney and Ruth Loomis. Sidney Loomis was a television writer and Ruth Loomis was very active in the civil-rights movement and group therapy." - "Play It As It Lays" John Steinbeck "Then it was June, and the sun shone more fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots." - "The Grapes of Wrath" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 12:47:28 -0400 Reply-To: CLAITY@drew.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cassandra Laity Subject: Brit/Irish Seminar MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Date: 14-May-1999 12:46pm EDT From: Laity, Cassandra CLAITY Dept: FAC/STAFF Tel No: 3141 TO: Remote Addressee ( _in%poetics@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu ) Subject: Brit/Irish Seminar Date: 05-May-1999 03:04pm EDT From: Laity, Cassandra CLAITY Dept: FAC/STAFF Tel No: 3141 TO: Remote Addressee ( _in%modbrits@listserv.kent.edu ) Subject: Brit/Irish Seminar This is a call for sign-ups for a seminar on the shift in British (and Irish) cultural/poetic identity from modern to contemporary. The seminar which is to be led by Nancy K. Gish with invited participants Francis McGrath and Romana Huk--"Provincial to European: Constructing British Modernisms"--will take place at the "New Modernisms" conference, Oct. 7-10, 1999 at Penn State (University Park). Description: How has political and poetic devolution in contemporary Britian challenged, displaced, or reconceptualized "English Literary Modernism" constructed as Eliot's continuation of "the mind of Europe?" Seminars are small group discussions (of no more than 15) based on short (5-10 page) papers. For more information on how to sign up for the seminar or on the "New Modernisms" conference, contact me privately (claity@drew.edu). Cassandra Laity On behalf of the steering committee ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 13:03:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: next week Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" On the horizon next week: Monday, May 17 at 8 pm Mary Burger & Rosa Alcala Mary Burger's chapbook, Nature's Maw Gives and Gives, is forthcoming, or actually may be out by Monday from Duration Press. Inspired by Flamenco text and tradition, Rosa Alcala is the recipient of the Galway Kinnell Award in Poetry. Wednesday, May 19th at 8 pm ***change of readers**** Catriona Strang & Deidre Kovacs (Nanos Valaoritis has cancelled) Catriona Strang's most recent publication is Steep from Seeing Eye Books. Deidre Kovacs is the editor of Big Allis, and her first book, Mannerism, will be out around the turn of the millenium. No more Friday readings until October!! Tonight is the last one of the season: a reading by BIG BRIDGE contributors Bernadette Mayer, Phil Good, Wanda Phipps, Merry Fortune, Sharon Mesmer, Carl Watson and more, with a post-reading party. It all starts at 10:30 pm. Visit our website at http://www.poetryproject.com "From Archaeology one moral, at least, may be drawn, to wit, that all our school text-books lie. What they call History is nothing to vaunt of, being made, as it is, by the criminal in us: goodness is timeless." --W.H.Auden Archaeology: Coda ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 11:07:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Brook Subject: TWO LINES reading in San Francisco MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For anyone who might be in San Francisco and at loose ends (rode the cable car, bought the T-shirt) Thursday evening, I'll be reading from a little-known book by Henri Michaux, Still the Two of Us. Other readers will offer other treats. . . . --James Brook * Two Lines - A Journal of Translation is hosting a reading and publication party featuring world literature in translation from Fire, the 1999 issue. This event is cosponsored by PEN West. Thursday, May 20, 1999, at 7:00 p.m. The Hotel Rex Salon 562 Sutter Street (between Powell & Mason, near Union Square) For more information, see http://www.twolines.com. Readers include-- James Brook, Henri Michaux's "Still the Two of Us" (French) Sasha Vlad & Zack Rogow, Gellu Naum's "Heraclitus" (Romanian) John Oliver Simon, Mirko Lauer's "Survival: Eight Stanzas of Commentary on the Words of the Buddha" (Spanish) Elizabeth Bell, "Commitments," written by Parents & Teachers of Tierra y Libertad, Chiapas (Spanish) L. R. Kiyama, Saigyo's "On Seeing a Painting of Hell" (Japanese) Michael Koch, Francisco Hernandez's "Fire Signs" (Spanish) Sam Grolmes & Yumiko Tsumura, Poetry by Ryuichi Tamura (Japanese) Jen Hofer, Beatriz Escalante's "Immortality Spell" (Spanish) * To order the Fire issue, send $11.00 plus $2.00 shipping (California residents add 8.5% sales tax) to Two Lines P. O. Box 641978 San Francisco, CA 94164-1978 See the Web site at http://www.twolines.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 14:25:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: CBC Radio interview with Robert Pinsky Comments: To: subsubpoetics@listbot.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Interview with Robert Pinsky on "As It Happens," CBC Radio, 13 May 1999. In Spring, everyone's fancy turns to thoughts of love, and that usually sets the poetry gene in motion. And poetry, we're told, is making a big comeback. Did you ever consider how many bits of verse you have in your mental, slim volume? Most of us have a little Joyce Kilmer rapturizing on trees, some Romantics, some Browning's "How do I love thee"; kids for sure love Dr. Seuss. But we're going to hear from an expert. These days, the person who knows more about the collective poetic consciousness than anyone is Robert Pinsky. Robert Pinsky is the American Poet Laureate. He's using the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Library of Congress to assemble a collection of people's favorite poems. And so far, he has ten thousand. Robert Pinsky is in Boston. Q: Mr. Pinsky, what so far is the United States' favorite poem? A: As I remember, the number one poem so far is "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. Q: Robert Frost. Could that be the only poem many Americans have read? It's very famous, isn't it? A: I think it's probably the first one people recall, and it is an awfully good one. I remember at the reading at the White House where the President and Mrs. Clinton read, there was also a disabled war veteran who read, and he read from a wheelchair, and he didn't have to say anything about the poem; he read it and when he got to the end he said "And I have miles to go before I sleep / And I have miles to go before I sleep," and the determination and emphasis in his voice was a comment on how much he intended to do, how much he had to do, and that the wheelchair was not going to hold him back. Q: Yeah. Now who are you hearing from in this project? A: We have letters from every state in the Union, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, we have a very wide range of professions, some of them are listed on the website at "favoritepoem.org", we have a circus acrobat, a beer vendor in the ballpark, a ditch- digger and a welder, and lots of M.D.s, quite a few teachers and librarians, and people from, I'm not sure what the youngest person is, probably around seven, and we certainly... in Seattle I remeber we had a hundred-and-one-year old woman read at the favorite poem event in Seattle. Q: In other words, everybody. A: Everybody's a good answer. Wish I'd thought of that. Q: No, I like the detail better. This must be very heartening to a Poet Laureate? A: These letters and the events have been immensely encouraging, and I can say emphatically and sincerely that they have refreshed my belief in the appeal of poetry. Q: Were you surprised at all that so many people not only remembered poems and loved poems but were eager to tell you about them? A: I would say that every day there's a surprise. And I'm not surprised that the art is appealing. I have after all given my life to it. But the forms that it takes, the range, how funny and moving some of the letters are, it's as surprising as life. Q: But people do not go around declaiming poems very much. It almost as though they're embarrassed to admit they read poetry. A: Well, the United States is a very various society, it's a very ecclectic and syncretic culture, and we don't have the kind of firm institutional place for some of these arts that Bedouins or Bengalis might have, and we've admired their cultures for what they have and we can admire this one for its variety, and there actually are situations it turns out in which Americans do read poems to one another or recite them. I have more than one letter from people saying that on a date two people discovered they had the same poem by heart and fell in love at the moment of discovering they knew the same poem. Q: Well I guess there is that brief romantic interlude in your youth when poetry is really important... A: I think that on the occasions of weddings, funerals, other important landmark events, people do turn to poems too. Q: And I'm told there's something called "slamming" going on that has to do with poetry, is that right? A: Yeah. Q: What is that? A: It's a name that they give to times when people recite poems and have judges evaluate the quality of the performance and the writing. And they're kind of popular events I understand. Q: Now tell me about the other favorite poems. What other ones have come near the top of the list? A: It's very heartening to see the range of tastes, and it's heartening to me to put together with my project director Maggie Dietz the favorite poem anthology and find that it's not hard at all to have a wide choice of letters about classic American poetry by Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, and lots of letters from people who have a favorite Shakespeare poem for example. Q: I was going to say, are they all American? A: No, and they're not all in English either. We've had some quite beautiful poems in Persian, Native American languages, Yiddish, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese. There are Americans who love poems in many different languages. Q: Any nice doggerel? A: You know, almost every time I've been interviewed by anybody in broadcast, the people from Nantucket come up, and "There was an old man from Nantucket" is a question I'm often asked about. I don't know the whole database all the way through; I hope some people have Edward Lear, and I know there's some Lewis Carroll in there, and the great tradition of nonsense writing, and also the tradition of popular poetry. There are plenty of people who nominated Thayers' "Casey at the Bat," which is a very effective piece of writing. Q: Oh right. And songs... when you said "popular poetry" I was reminded that some people would take a lot of song lyrics and would put that under poetry. A: The test is whether it sounds good when anybody at all reads it aloud, not singing it, and not plugging [plucking?] it like an actor or a poet who's a veteran of the poetry-reading circuit. The test is does it sound good when you just say it. Q: Yeah, poetry has to be read aloud, doesn't it? A: The distinction I make is that it is a vocal art, not necessarily a performative art. What's special about poetry for me is its medium is the human body, but not an expert's body. It's the body of the audience's reader [audience as reader?]. You say an Emily Dickinson poem or a Wordsworth or a Paul Laurence Dunbar to yourself or to one or two friends, your body, your voice is that artist's medium. Q: Do most of the poems that are submitted rhyme? A: I haven't counted, partly because, as far as I'm concerned, all poems rhyme. That is, rhyme is a degree of likeness in sound, and so-called "free verse" poems always involve likeness and unlikeness in sound. So I don't make a hard distinction between poems that rhyme and poems that don't rhyme myself. I know what you mean and I haven't counted. Q: Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about the letters as you read them. I mean, do you find yourself surprised to discover what is a welder's favorite poem? A: I believe the ditch-digger had Shakespeare and I think the welder was a Japanese poem... Q: Well, there you go... A: But imagine reading a letter from somebody saying, "This is a poem that my mother asked my to say to her as she was dying," or a letter that says "This poem makes me think of the no-good bastard that I married..." Or, uh,... Q: Which one was that? Not, which no good..., you know, but which poem? A: "Eros Tyrannos," by Edwin Arlington Robinson... Q: I don't know that... A: ... one of my personal favorite poems... Oh, it's a great great poem. Q: Oh yeah? OK, we'll look that up. Any other lovely stories, examples? A: I could pick up a fistful of them if they were in front of me and read you intersting letters. On the website you hear from Bridget Sterns from Alaska who talks about the Alaska winters and how often people get depressed in those winters. And she says in her very bright, alive voice that one winter it was her turn. You can hardly picture this voice being depressed, but she said she was, and then she reads Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving But Drowning" and talks about how the irreverance and sort of baudiness of the poem helped penetrate the fog between her and other people when she read it to them. It's on the website, and right on that same--it's the part called "The Story"--you can hear Rudolph Awkson [?] who's a retired parole officer from Baltimore, and he talks about a Langston Hughes poem that he used to read to his clients, and one day a young man recited to him from memory. Q: Do you have a favorite poem? A: No. I don't encourage people to have a single favorite poem... Q: It's hard to pick one... sure, impossible... A: ... point is, *a* favorite poem... Sure, I mean, I have about two or three hundred favorite poems. And I encourage people who write to us to write more than once. Q: Oh, they're allowed to do that are they... They don't have to pick just one? A: Oh, of course... And mine would include "Sailing to Byzantium," "Ode to a Nightingale," I mentioned "Eros Tyrannos," Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush," Dickinson's "It Was Not Death" or "Further in Summer than the Birds"... There are lots. Q: What are you going to do with all of this? A: The website, I hope, will get bigger and bigger... Q: The website's just going to stay up? A: I hope it will stay up forever and get more and more people reading more and more poems on it. Q: OK. A: On April 3rd and 4th of the year 2000 there will be a conference at the Library of Congress in which we'll show the first fifty videos, and scholars and poets and critics can talk about the topic which is "Poetry and the American People," and we'll have people there who studied literacy, studied book-buying patterns over the decades. And I hope another product of the project will be educational materials, videocassettes or tapes where the teacher, instead of showing the kids a professor talking about a poem or an actor reading it, kids can see somebody who runs a store, or a homeless person, or an M.D., or another kid reading the poem aloud and describing the personal, individual importance of the poem. Q: The videos that you're going to be showing are videos you're making? A: Yes. That's the point of the project is to create 200 videos and another 800 or so audios of a variety of people reading a variety of poems and saying why they like them. Q: I've long thought there should be a poetry show on radio, don't you think so? A: I think that poetry is a natural for radio. Q: Because the voice is so important...? A: Yeah. It's a vocal medium and it doesn't take a long time, it's very compressed. I've been reading poems on the PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and the response to that has been kind of good. Q: Do you want to read one now? A: Well, sure. What length poem are you interested in? Q: Well, short-ish, you know? A: Shortish. OK,... Q: One of my favorites is only five short lines long, see if you can beat that... A: Well, I know a good one with two lines long: "On love, on love, on grief, on every human thing, time sprinkles Lethe's [?] water with his wing." That's by Walter Savage Landor. Here's "Love Song" by William Carlos Williams. [Reads.] Q: Mmm. Good choices. Are Canadians allowed to write to you? A: Canadians are allowed to write to me. I'm not sure how many of them we'll be able to get into the archive, but we're not discriminating against Canadians. Q: OK. It's been lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much. A: Very nice talking to you, my pleasure. Q: Bye bye, Mr. Pinsky. A: Bye. Robert Pinsky is the American Poet Laureate and he spoke to us from Boston. Mr. Pinsky's favorite poem is displayed along with many others on a website. You can reach it via the internet at: www.favoritepoem.org. That's "favoritepoem," one word -- and remember it's the American spelling of "favorite" without a "u." One of the most popular poems people submitted was Willima Carlos Williams' little verse entitled "This is just to say," and lucky me, I get to read it. [Reads.] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 16:40:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: where and how they lived MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII )o( where and how they lived Heidegger's Black Forest hut or home, where the wall felt its way down into the earth Brecht's apartment where the ceiling exposed itself as someone's floor Mayakovsky's yurt in high wind, designs shivering like flags Bachelard's stone walls leading to more stones and still more stones Derrida's thin tent where you can see the thin bows strung across skins and more skins and still more skins earth and skins and bones flags and floors and skins bones and earth and floors skins and flags and earth Bachelard swept Heidegger's hut and you should see the shine Mayakovsky waxed Brecht's floor to a subtle sheen Derrida and Mayakovsky traded secrets of the wind flags of the wind sheen of the skins there's more of the bone's shine more of the bones ___________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 14:49:58 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: Poetry 101, crude binaries, & the standard of Beauty (gasp?) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit To the List: Going through old papers I came across this document which I don't remember or not whether it was circulated around SF at the time, but thought it might be a useful contribution to the question of social class and how it intersects with contemporary poetries re recent discussions of the same. Though this speech was given to an audience of mostly political activists who work in the industrial unions, I remember at least that Bev Dahlen and Jalal Toufic were in the audience. [Militant Labor Forum] [SF / late spring 1995]: I was in Vancouver last weekend among a hundred others or more to celebrate the 70th Birthday of one of this century's great poets. On the first night, making a few introductory remarks, one of the conference organizers drew attention to a misprint in the banner that hung on the podium: THE RECOVERY OF THE PUBLIC WORLD, a conference and poetry festival in honor of Robin Blaser, his poetry and--instead of poetics, what it was suppose to say--there was the word: politics. As it turned out, after hearing Robin talk, the mistake was more an emendation, so under the sign of that printer's substitution of the word politics for poetics, I'd like to pay attention to the phrase "class politics" which appears on the flyer for tonight's forum. Robin Blaser's opening night address to the festival in Vancouver gave to the event a crucial historical dimension. I heard something in his speech that I didn't hear either at the New Freedoms Conference in New Jersey in 1994 or at the New Coast Conference at Buffalo, New York in 1993. Against the backdrop of remembering the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt and her personal experience of the Holocaust, and with distinct and direct reference to our own contemporary moment increasingly dominated by news of regional wars, what Milton Chee in his talk here on Chechnya a short while back called "bleeding wars," Robin--like Milton--spoke of the very real possibility of a third world war. The other thing that I heard for the first time was the expression, "literary communism," which Robin said he was taking from an essay by that name by the French philosopher, Jean-Luc Nancy. That we are writing and making art under the approaching threat of an ocean of blood that would bear the unbearable name of World War III, and that there are philosophers in the West who even in their monastic seclusion from situations of real destruction are arriving in their speculations towards a name that has been fought over for a century and a half now, a duration that is nothing less than a measure of our modernity, the historical period which begins with industrialization of Europe and out of which irrupts the Communist Manifesto--that fundamental, inaugural document which begins with a struggle for definition, the need to come out with what the name, communism, really means, and put the lie to the nursery tale of the chamber of horrors which it is NOT--this was the starting point for Marx and Engels in their declaration of class war, and it's wonderful to see the word used in a philosopher's essay, and hear it quoted at a conference attended by poets and scholars. Communism is more than a name, it's always more than a name, and yet it is AS a name that Lenin is talking about it when he starts a sentence with the admonition: "Communism will become an empty word, a mere signboard, if--[.]" I heard Mary Lou Montauk, in her recent talk here on the Irish Question, quoting Lenin, say: "in volume 39 I found a gem." My quote, my gem, is from a speech delivered at the Third All-Russia Congress of the Russian Young Communist League, October 2, 1920, reprinted in a volume called Lenin: On Literature and Art. This fragment of a sentence from Lenin entered my notebook as an instance where one of this century's great revolutionaries was marking the danger of words being emptied of their meaning. As far as I'm aware, none of the panelists at the Vancouver conference returned either to Robin's shadowing in the threat of a third world war nor his bringing in the phrase, "literary communism." What I did hear from the many participants was a compulsive repetition of the word "community," which word got debunked on the last day of the conference by Kevin Killian in his exposé of the rotten social and cultural conditions behind Robin Blaser's relocation from San Francisco to Vancouver in 1965. In that year, in Killian's words, Robin was "excreted" north, his friend Jack Spicer (one of the few poets from the United States proletariat to make it anywhere near creative maturity) was dead of alcoholism at the age of 40, and their mutual friend and mentor Robert Duncan went on to carry the mantle of Monarch of the Clouds. We are in a system that runs on human waste, and poets are not excluded from this system, are in fact too often casualties of an insidious extermination process called Private Competition, and it spells the death or mangling of way too many of us. The catastrophe of the Prevented Poet belongs to the history of a class-divided culture. There was an art work at Vancouver in the museum across the street from where the conference was held, a bust of Jack Spicer, and its sculptor's strange name was: Anonymous. Kevin Killian or Scott Watson--I can't remember which--told me Robin simply couldn't remember who she was. Maybe it was she who Robin was thinking at that moment in his talk the first night when he said he could not name them all, "there were so many," that group of writers called the Blaser/Duncan/Spicer circle, a sphere of mutual influence and inspiration which suffered such severe contractions, and expulsions. The "dream of a perfect exteriority" is an expression of the Italian philospher, Giorgio Agamben, another thinker contributing to Robin's talk. Agambem writes this in an essay called "Without Class" which sketches an almost gothic image of the world's true Frankenstein, a social body Marx identified as 'the Mountain' in 1848, a global petit-bourgoisie bent on its own self-destruction and bent as well on taking with it the Proletariat whose existence it symptomatically continues to deny and whose leadership it has historically refused to recognize. Marx tells an early version of this story in the Eighteenth Brumaire as part of an analysis of events which turn in a tightening cycle of reaction and right-wing terror. On an ending note and to counterpose to Agamben's own horror picture of a world "without class," I'd like to read a short passage from a poem I wrote using words I heard Pat Grogan use at another Militant Labor Forum in 1988, in Des Moines, Iowa. I think she is talking here, like Agamben, about both a politics and a poetics of "perfect exteriority": The standard of Beauty a terrific suffering Have you ever seen a picture of a picket-line? South Africans, strikers, their fists in the air the surrounding spatial environment their outward extension into space a real contribution to consciousness try to distinguish an individual face impossible. Women do not devalue human life they assert the value of their own life and that is a radical statement in this society anarchy the fact of being female children everything we have to give I don't write to educate my class. The working class teaches me and inspires me with every strike, every picket line, every sign raised in open protest. I'd like to believe at least that with every page I write I'm trying to express a version of the experience and aspirations of my class, the "World Proletariat," to use words Mark Curtis wrote to me in a letter from prison many years ago, and these aspirations, these hopes and dreams, these IMAGINATIONS, are not individual and have everything to do with the desire to be free of all forms of private property. Each according to their ability, each according to their needs, each according to their desiring who are called to the names and acts of naming which, for the sake of convenience only, I call the Art of Poetry. Note 1: Remembering the Vancouver conference today I would only add to the foregoing the following (constructive) criticism: It was a charity of consumption only, as Rosa Luxemburg pointed out, "In this version of charity--of loving relations expressed as a community of consumption, with the Christian board and breaking of bread as its natural images, and the feast as its social consummation, prolonged into periods and societies in which it became peripheral or even damaging--when a charity of production--of loving relations between women and men actually working and producing that which is in whatever proportions to be shared--was neglected or suppressed by an uncritical reference to a charity of consumption, an eating and drinking communion, which when observed by an ordinary working person was inevitably a mystification. Note 2: On the subject of the crude binary distinction between petit-bougeoisie and working class, the most telling sentence for me in Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is: "Stalin communicated the motion by telephone." There is a world of concerns in this on the subject of social class, open and closed forms of communication, etc., though I don't quote LT's History uncritically, because he deletes Inessa Armand entirely (she doesn't even exist in a footnote) who was head of the women's section of the CCCP at the time of her death in 1920 and whose funeral was attended by representatives of feminist organizations around the world and--by two eyewitness accounts--a stumbling, mute, shattered Lenin, suffering, perhaps, the first seizure in a series of strokes that would claim his life shortly after. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 19:11:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: Poetry: telic or not MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/14/99 9:11:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time, JDEBROT@AOL.COM writes: << S. Schaefer problematizes the continuity between radical poetic theory and practice. This aspect of his argument seems persuasive, particularly in the context of Prunty's post, as no poem seems likely to come close to approaching the extremity of the aesthetic experience Lakoff describes. Schaefer on the other hand does not seem to sufficiently problematize poetry's relationship to tradition & with his attacks on the LangPos a certain amount of generational anxiety is clearly evident. But I think his concern with establishing parameters for aesthetic judgement have merit -- not as prescriptions, or "standards" -- but as a means of asking -- for framing the question -- "What is the possibility of poetry today?" >> What Schaefer was trying to do had very little to do with history/tradition since Schaefer believes the very ideas are in question largely because of the co-opting of the arts by institutions. Schaefer prefers to leave that particular work to the writers of dissertations, who will surely in the process create a new history and new tradition. However, the issue of the relation between "radical" poetry practice and the "radical" theoretical apparatuses (often very clumsy ones at that) is a big concern. What I was trying to contend in my essay is that "radical artfice" and "indeterminacy" often coincide with a poetic practice that looks an awful lot like a struggle between academics and their discursive efforts to control the determination of good poetry. In concrete terms, this means that we who believe that radical politics is at least possible cannot mistake the act of simply writing vague, fragmented, ambiguous etc poems with the changing of the business of poetry. The business of poetry is all the various devices, contraptions which do the actually judging of poetry and that lead to a belief that the only important writers are those who are being written on (cf. the writers of dissertations). What I commend Jeff Clark for in my essay applies to Garrett Caples, Martin Corless Smith, Cathy Wagner, Tracy Grinnel, Emily Grossman, Brian Lucas and other "non-allied" poets. I commend these poets' refusal to use theory as a way of justifying their own work as either socially relevant or "radical" or even "progressive" or even necessary. I also commend them for not falling into the (fake) hermeticism of the mainstream. A refusal to play poetry for tenure, promotion, etc may be the most politically effective gesture yet because as along as poetry resembles business, some way to join the firm or succeed in school, we cannot have "radical" poetries. I commend their humility and I believe that it will go along way farther to counteracting the self-aggrandizing, self-promotional carreerist tendencies that have arrisen out of an american poetic- theoretical nexus associated with "collapsed subjectivity". The decentered poem does nothing, but when it is consecrated by a host of Hank Lazers, Marjorie Perloffs, and so forth a very real subjectivitiy is made: the celebrity poet. Don't get me wrong: for instance, I wouldn't against magazines atempting to get distribution by creating a board of influencial politocs and poetrists. In fact, I might even recommend it. It seems efficacious. I just don't think such practices can be called radical. Nor do I believe that poets should not be theoretical. I just don't believe they should use the business of theory to create reputations, distinctions or brand names. I would hope the theory would lead to more interesting poetry, more diverse poetic techniques. Incidentally, while I was at Page Mothers, I thought that this was sort of what Marjorie Perloff was saying: there is a lot of mediocry langauge poetry, but very little being said by langauge poets about what neccessitates their particular techniques. I believe she meant that they should stop patting each other on the back and maybe even tussle. (Now, how they do this without resorting to discursive acts like the "literary essay" I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that Perloff would not be as hessitant as I am about such tactics). One of the most important points Perloff makes in POETICS OF INDETERIMINACY is, if I recall, in the chapter on Stein where she discusses the difference between indeterminacy and ambiguity. There her formalism is at its finest: she shows in detail what made Stein great and what her imitators were not too clear about. One last point, slightly off topic point, there's an essay in VIEWS FROM WEAVING MOUNTAIN by Nathaniel Tarn (an out of fashion radical with a long list of distinctive poetic/political/academic accomplishments) wherein he "theorizes" (might just say "avers") that writers do not have to write from a fragmented self to avoid the dangers of the ego. The dangers of a strong ego are relatively slim: the ego is but one tiny portion of the self, for example, and is easily counteracted by a number of forces like television, film, pop music not the least of which is history. It is in an interesting time to consider whether or not a writer should possess a strong ego and whether or not the language school's post-humanism was every anything but the proliferation of the ego by new means, in new modes. The final sentence of my much maligned essay states that it is time to change the terms of the debate. I would go so far to wonder whether or not it should be a debate at all. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 19:23:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erika Stephens Subject: Excessively Disruptive Telos Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Jacques' comment (reproduced below) is interesting and valuble. However he does largely misconstrue what Prunty and Lakoff are refering to. He has picked up and rather magnified the word "disrupt." Best thing is to look at the context of the quote: the work of Arakawa and Gins is not wild antinomian crash bam boom. It is highly "classical" in many respects. The type of disruption Lakoff was refering to in their work is not brusque, threatening or transgressive; it is meditative disruption, if you will. And i think that that informs some of what Randy means by putting the quote forward. As for Standard Schaefer's essay, of course jacques is right to suggest that generational anxiety is largely behind its strictures (or rather, generational and individual); intemperate and non-substantive fuming at "Marjorie Perloff and her cronies" is pretty funny, but is definitely *not* a reasoned comment on the poetry of the last 3 decades.... But SS's strikingly eliotic call for "parameters of esthetic judgment" is something else again... Presented as it is in Rhizome, without examples or context, it seems a deliberately arch-conservative move. What parameters does Jacques agree we must adhere to?? Spell 'em out, pardner! Your (JD's) own work, tho i haven't seen it for some months, has certainly been powered by a gnomic determination to launch fresh forms, with intertexual and deep-textual and graphic elements of great originality. If not disruptive, it is at least a touch unruly. But if there are rules for the unruly, it would be interesting to hear 'em. In the last few days i've been looking at Bruce Andrews' Ex Why Zee, which i highly recommend. It is a collection of fugative performance pieces, collaborations, worked-thru texts, etc. I would present it as good example of the best writing of our period... Antinomian, i guess you'd say..But with a higher (and different) energy-level, on the surface, than Bromige. (Tho i think *he* deserves the appellation, which i look on as a compliment, as well..) Blake brought something back from hell, something about roads & palaces, excess & wisdom... excessively, mark prejsnar @lanta >In a message dated 5/13/99 11:10:03 AM, RanPrunty@AOL.COM, quoting George >Lakoff, writes: > ><<"The increasing violence and destruction in the >world - physical, ecological, economic, social, and emotional - are all a >product of our present modes of thought. If the cruelty is to end, our >concepts must change. Since concepts are physically encoded in the brain and >grounded in the body, our brains and bodies must change. If art is to play a >role for the good, it must disrupt our concepts, our normal ways of >functioning - our brains and our bodies. Art as disruption is art as a moral >force. Disruption is an aesthetic experience, and an aesthetic experience of >this kind is inherently moral. Moreover, disruptive art on a large-enough >scale will be sufficient to reverse our destiny, so that the violence and >destruction can end.">> > >This is extremely interesting. But one of the difficulties here, in respect >of poetry, seems to me precisely one of "sufficiency of scale." Nor is >disruption something diametrically opposed to violence & destruction >obviously -- the problem it seems to me is rather that, at a time when the >history of art is *arguably* over, & the most extreme aesthetic violence -- >Artaud's say -- is merely a "style" that one cannot avoid "quoting" (the >problem for example -- despite it's brilliance -- with Novarina's work) can >art really be said to have retained a capacity for disruption? In the essay >that precipitated J. Lowther's & R. Prunty's posts to the List, S. Schaefer >problematizes the continuity between radical poetic theory and practice. >This aspect of his argument seems persuasive, particularly in the context of >Prunty's post, as no poem seems likely to come close to approaching the >extremity of the aesthetic experience Lakoff describes. Schaefer on the >other hand does not seem to sufficiently problematize poetry's relationship >to tradition & with his attacks on the LangPos a certain amount of >generational anxiety is clearly evident. But I think his concern with >establishing parameters for aesthetic judgement have merit -- not as >prescriptions, or "standards" -- but as a means of asking -- for framing the >question -- "What is the possibility of poetry today?" since it is not, I >don't think, the sort of Antinomian practice that, for instance, David >Bromige seems to imply it is. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 16:23:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Kenning #4 now available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Attention attention: Kenning #4 (Spring 99 issue), Vol. 1, No. 2 Poetry: Elizabeth Treadwell Louis Cabri Chelsey Minnis Leslie Scalapino Mark Prejsnar Bill Luoma Sheila Murphy Patrick Pritchett Mac Wellman Lisa Samuels Kathy Lou Schultz Anselm Berrigan Bill Freind Eileen Myles Poetics: Dale Smith (on Metcalf) Reviews: Rachel Blau DuPlessis by Patrick F. Durgin Joan Retallack by Katherine Lederer $5.00 sample copy $9.50 two-issue subscription (checks payable to Patrick F. Durgin) Contact information below... Patrick k e n n i n g___________________________________________________ a newsletter of contemporary poetry poetics & nonfiction writing _____________http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 BROWN STREET #10 IOWA CITY IOWA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 01:54:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Neurotic Fragment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ,,, Neurotic Fragment I love Holderlin. Perhaps you could oh please tell me more and more about some neurotic experiences you have had with Holderlin. Obtuse. Nothing to report on. Misery and exhileration. What makes you yearn and cry that you love her all your heart? Oh she is me to be me and free see. Why must you respond so briefly? Fuck you! Please, you do so turn me on, continue! Fuck you fuck you! Would you please clothe yourself in these unwholesome thoughts. Oh yes fuck you! Why don't you oh please do finger yourself. Oh I'm fingering myself! What makes you believe you are fingering yourself? Fuck you! Do so come on to me and we will be not neurotic. We are neurotic! Live with it! ____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 23:42:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Subject: New from Double Lucy Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Double Lucy Books proudly announces the publication of the first in our 1999-2000 prose series, LOVE SENTENCE a novella by LYNNE TILLMAN excerpt at http://users.lanminds.com/dblelucy/page30.html Lynne Tillman lives in New York City. Her latest novel, _No Lease on Life_, was nominated for a 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction. Her next book is _Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co._ to be published October 1999 by Harcourt Brace. Love Sentence, Lynne Tillman, Double Lucy Books, 1999 $6, ppd, from the address below (checks to E. Treadwell) **** DOUBLE LUCY: 1997-98 poetry series: Home of Grammar, Sarah Anne Cox The Marriage of the Well Built Head, Yedda Morrison Eve Doe (becoming an epic poem), Elizabeth Treadwell 1999-2000 prose series: Love Sentence, Lynne Tillman Lucy House: an anthology of prose, Ed. Carol & Elizabeth Treadwell Outlet Magazine -&- Double Lucy Books P.O. Box 9013, Berkeley, California 94709 U.S.A. http://users.lanminds.com/dblelucy ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 10:57:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Teichman Subject: Silk Peirce or sow's ear? Howe now, Fourcade? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit We heard Dominique Fourcade and Susan Howe read last night at Dia, in the big hall currently flanked by Warhol’d walls across the street from the museum, a reading I had been looking forward to for some time. The venue is not bad, but barely enough chairs had been provided for the impressive crowd, and there was no ventilation in the stuffy hall. Fourcade was nicely introduced by Charles Bernstein (who also read the English versions of his work), and we learned that this was his first-ever US reading, giving it a special air. His quiet, pleasant voice was amplified, but not quite enough to prevent my straining to hear, even in the second row. He read the first 8 poems in ‘Rose declic’ and then some newer material, going on for at least 45 minutes, I would say. His work often reminds me of Apollinaire, the beginning of ‘Rose declic’ being a little like ‘Zone’, not surprising in view of the fact that he has curated Matisse exhibitions. His spoken phrases were often delivered in a hushed sub-chant, almost ecclesiastical, reminding me of the gospel readings in an early-60s recording I have of German Benedictines chanting a Latin mass. Bernstein’s tone, cadence and emphasis were very different in his readings of the translations, of course. This raises the question for me once again whether the reader of translations ought ideally to try to ape the speech-rhythms of the author, if she knows them--I don’t have an answer to this. A very satisfying reading, maybe just a bit over-long. Over-long doesn’t begin to describe Susan Howe’s reading, quite disappointing to me, since I admire parts of ‘The Europe of Trusts’ and ‘The Nonconformist’s Memorial’ very much, and I was keen to hear her. I knew from her Talisman interview and from some of her poetic texts that she has an H. P. Lovecraft-like literary-antiquarian 19th-C. bent that is to me the least interesting side of her poetics. That was the bent we got. She read what sounded like a big chunk from her new book, ‘Peirce’s Arrow’, illustrated with slides. The slides were not there to serve her usual typographically complex texts, but were exclusively devoted to photos of C. S. Peirce (pronounced Purse, I must remind myself; why not Pears or Ponce?), his house, third wife, and many late notebook manuscript scribblings, which he produced in some inhuman volume. This wasn’t a poetry reading for the most part; it was more like an intellectually juiced-up and lightly postmodernized A&E Biography show. Howe appears to be totally bonkers over this odd logician, but she didn’t say a word about the philosophical content of his work, except for a few mentions of the word ‘existential’, which I assume was meant in the logical sense of ‘existential quantification’ and not Heidegger’s ‘existentiell’. The notebook pages contain cartoonish sketches of human heads, mostly male, obscure logical diagrams in his own notations that never caught on, apparently sometimes concerned with modal logic (that is, the logic of possibility and necessity), numerical patterns and calculations, and many pages of *binary arithmetic*--didn’t the old coot have anything better to do with his time than practicing adding 1s and 0s? About 5 or 10 minutes into the reading I began to suspect that there was a lot of loose change rattling around in this Purse. Now if you want real philosophical poetry (and I do, for one), you can get it from Jacques Roubaud or Joan Retallack, for example, but it was missing here. (Roubaud has masterfully used those very notions of modern modal logic perhaps hinted at in Peirce’s work in ‘Quelque chose noir’ and ‘La pluralite des mondes de Lewis’ to create an entirely unique poetry.) Howe’s biographical prose (how much pastiche?) was spunky but also dry and unremarkable. She bravely tried to fit it into about 40 minutes, but it seemed to go on forever. I fervently hope she devotes her next New York reading to her poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 16:48:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: onomastic anathema / Zimmerman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This came to the administrative account. Chris ----- From: "Daniel Zimmerman" Subject: onomastic anathema Date: 5/16/99 1:34 PM -0700 As you may have heard, the Crayola company has decided to rename its color "Indian Rad" because it might offend Native Americans, even though the term "Indian" refers to the country from which the pigment derives. I sent the following letter to Crayola, and some weeks later received the note which follows it. Letter to Crayola, 3.10.99 I've used and loved your products for over 50 years, and must register my disappointment with your decision to rename Indian Red because you would apparently rather make a concession to ignorance than educate people about the origins of colors, your stock in trade. You didn't change the name of the color Red back in the 50s because it might have made some moron think it referred to Communists, did you? How about renaming Black to mollify whatever hallucinating African-American might imagine it constitutes a personal reference? What about Purple or Violet or Lavender? Jerry Falwell might start a petition! Violet also sounds a lot like Violent -- wouldn't want kids to think about that, would you? Oh: do you plan to remove the name Indian Red but keep the name White? Doesn't seem quite fair, does it? And Gray! What a slur upon our distinguished senior citizens! Seems to me you need a color called Backbone. Best, Daniel Zimmerman ---------------- Dear CRAYOLA Consumer, We appreciate your comments regarding the renaming of the Crayola indian red crayon color. We value all consumer opinions we receive and will share them with product management. On behalf of the company, thank you for taking the time to express your comments. I hope you will continue to be one of our most valued customers. Sincerely, BINNEY & SMITH INC. Linda Arnold Consumer Affairs Representative -------------------- What do you think of this as an example of American Social Identity? Dan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 13:06:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: demagoguery of tea Comments: To: subsubpoetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I recently started a company called the Demagoguery of Tea. The point is to market various herbal, black, and greeen teas to a fairly upscale public by associating each variety of tea with a particular desire, fear, or state of mind. So far I have "Tea of Indolent Self-Satisfaction," "Passive-Agressive Librarian Tea," "Tea of Frantic Self-Improvement," "Tea of Ruthless Career Advancement," and "Tea of Mediocrity." Unfortunately my "Tea of Cynicism" and "Tea of Quiet Desperation" are not selling too well. Jonathan Mayhew jmayhew@ukans.edu _____________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:46:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miriam Nichols Subject: Call for new writing/West Coast Line Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear List members, Since this message went out the first time under a "returned" subject heading, I'd like to run it again. Please consider us for new writing. Miriam Nichols > >Hi! >As some of you might know, Roy Miki, editor of West Coast Line, has decided to step down after running the journal and its predecessor, Line, for 17 years. Our managing editor as well is moving to Ontario at the end of April, so we are in the process of a changeover. I have been asked to take on the job of editor and our new ME will be Jennifer Conroy. We are looking for submissions for the fall issue, and for our special millenial issue in spring 2000. The address for the journal will remain the same. I will take email inquiries at home, on the above address until mid-May, when Jennifer should be set up in our SFU office with her own email account. I will post that email address when we've got one for her. Here are the calls. Miriam Nichols > > >1. For Fall 1999, new writing or visual art reproducible in black and white for an issue featuring a section on work from the Women and Texts conference at Leeds in 1997. The section from W&T includes essays on hybridity and nomadism from a feminist point of view. However, we're not trying for tight thematic unity, nor is it necessary that all contributors be women in this issue. > >2. For Spring 2000, a more formal "call": > >ReZonings: an issue for the millenium > >In celebration of the millenium, West Coast Line is planning a special issue on the re-conceptualizing of borders of all kinds. Postmodern, post-colonial, and cultural studies have troubled institutionalized definitions of subjectivity, ethnicity, gender, sex, race, and class; we invite contributors to add to the list: > >- medical technologies--prosthetic, reproductive, cosmetic--and generational difference >- medicine and the borders of life >- aging and/or retirement considered from non-medical perspectives (arts, philosophy, social sciences, studies in media and technology, or?) >- mutual encroachments of the human, animal, machine, or? >- re-thinking, re-drawing, re(in)stating, or dissolving quasi-natural borders--geographical, temporal, linguistic, cultural, economic >- cartoon life or life-as-cartoon--the implications of the growing popularity of adult cartoons or the cartoon-like behaviour of action heros in popular dramas and pop stars in music videos >- any of the above considered as a deterritorialization of death >- homelessness--as nomadology, as a class issue, as post-nationalism, as object of legal or political regulation (Deleuze to squeegee kids?) >- the local--how might it be re-thought in the context of globalization? > >New writing and visual art, reproducible in black and white, are welcome. Please submit a brief note of intention and description of your proposed submission (150 words) by 30 July 1999. Final submissions are due 30 November 1999. > >West Coast Line >2027 East Academic Annex, Simon Fraser University >Burnaby, B.C. >V5A 1S6 > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:58:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Scalapino/Warsh at SPT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1285154964==_ma============" --============_-1285154964==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic presents Leslie Scalapino Lewis Warsh Friday, May 21, 7:30 p.m. New College Theater 777 Valencia Street $5 Author of numerous books of poetry, prose, drama, and criticism, Leslie Scalapino's recent publications include Green and Black: Selected Writings (Talisman House, 1996) and a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian, Sight (Edge, 1999). She edits and publishes O Books. Her new book is New Time (Wesleyan University Press), an impressionistic diary that outlines and condenses her discovery of a new kind of time in Japan, Berkeley and Oakland. "This crystalline epic may be Scalapino's most 'accessible' book yet," writes Ron Silliman, "but its surfaces perpetually peel back to reveal a further that could never have existed before." Scalapino is, of course, one of America's greatest poets and a San Francisco landmark mighty and startling as the great Bay Bridge. Lewis Warsh's involvement in the San Francisco poetry scene dates from the time he was a teenager, when he sat at Jack Spicer's feet at Aquatic Park and jousted with him at Gino & Carlo's bar in North Beach. In New York he became an important figure in the so-called "Second Generation" of New York School poets, editing The World with Anne Waldman and United Artists Books with Bernadette Mayer. Lewis Warsh is the author of two novels, A Free Man and Agnes & Sally, a book of stories, Money Under the Table, and numerous books of poems, including Information from the Surface of Venus and Avenue of Escape. It has been too long since we in San Francisco have heard him speak out to us, for his is a writing that is uniquely inventful, romantic and satiric, striking every musical note, every percussive event known to God, Satan and the free radical animals of the earth. ------------------------------------------------------- Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at New College 766 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415/437-3454 --============_-1285154964==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Small Press Traffic presents Leslie Scalapino Lewis Warsh Friday, May 21, 7:30 p.m. New College Theater 777 Valencia Street $5 Author of numerous books of poetry, prose, drama, and criticism, Leslie Scalapino's recent publications include Green and Black: Selected Writings (Talisman House, 1996) and a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian, Sight (Edge, 1999). She edits and publishes O Books. Her new book is New Time (Wesleyan University Press), an impressionistic diary that outlines and condenses her discovery of a new kind of time in Japan, Berkeley and Oakland. "This crystalline epic may be Scalapino's most 'accessible' book yet," writes Ron Silliman, "but its surfaces perpetually peel back to reveal a further that could never have existed before." Scalapino is, of course, one of America's greatest poets and a San Francisco landmark mighty and startling as the great Bay Bridge. Lewis Warsh's involvement in the San Francisco poetry scene dates from the time he was a teenager, when he sat at Jack Spicer's feet at Aquatic Park and jousted with him at Gino & Carlo's bar in North Beach. In New York he became an important figure in the so-called "Second Generation" of New York School poets, editing The World with Anne Waldman and United Artists Books with Bernadette Mayer. Lewis Warsh is the author of two novels, A Free Man and Agnes & Sally, a book of stories, Money Under the Table, and numerous books of poems, including Information from the Surface of Venus and Avenue of Escape. It has been too long since we in San Francisco have heard him speak out to us, for his is a writing that is uniquely inventful, romantic and satiric, striking every musical note, every percussive event known to God, Satan and the free radical animals of the earth. ------------------------------------------------------- Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at New College 766 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415/437-3454 --============_-1285154964==_ma============-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 16:51:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: / Mark Peters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Peters asked me to forward this. Chris ----- From:"Mark Peters" Subject: Mark Peters Homepage Date: 5/14/99 11:20 AM +0000 To whom it may concern-- I, who you may know as the editor of Deluxe Rubber Chicken, and not a bad juggler (5 balls), have made a homepage for my writing: http://writing.upenn.edu/~petersm/mark/ I'd be delighted to hear what anybody thinks about the stuff. Mark Peters _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 23:08:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: HoferMR@AOL.COM Subject: sf reading saturday may 15 Comments: cc: Jilith@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those of you within shouting range of San Francisco: Jenna Roper Harmon & Jen Hofer & Jamen Howe will be reading saturday may 15 6:30 p.m. new college of california cultural center 766 valencia street the event is free accompanied by a debutante celebration for two new a+bend chapbooks: SAYING NO. 3 by Jenna Roper Harmon & as far as by Jen Hofer to order chapbooks write the editor: Jill Stengel a+bend press 3862 21st street San Francisco CA 94114 or jilith@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 12:08:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: MOXLEY ADDRESS.... In-Reply-To: <19990511214321.80557.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anybody have Jennifer Moxley's current address? Anybody know if they're still (in motion) in Paris? Please send it me, I must send her something she blurbed, and should do it soon,..... By the way, her new little chapbook is out, and great... thanks in advance, chris stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 23:06:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gregory Severance Subject: Jullich poetry on the web Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" http://www.walrus.com/~morocco/coco/jeffrey.html Newly available on the web (url above): eleven poems by JEFFREY JULLICH These poems were previously published in various print journals during the period 1977-89. Jullich is the author of the April '99 Poetics List posting: "D=E=E=N". syllable completes tWell, all the votes seem to be in (what it mean?), and the the Hejinian semi-word deen or what does n, 1 for deem, and 1ally is: 3 for Aberdeen, 1 for muhajidee [cut-up of the opening of "D=E=E=N"] These poems are presented in the E-anthology: ~Co-Conspirators~. Gregory Severance, editor http://www.walrus.com/~morocco/coco/ & GS = morocco@walrus.com & & GS = http://www.walrus.com/~morocco/ & ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 16:35:44 -0400 Reply-To: piuma@flim.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Piuma Organization: www.flim.com Subject: new flim! Sondheim, Upton, Henry, Piuma, LeVine eat breakfast merrily. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ...flim: a free page... (short, quirky writing) In our new flim, ALAN SONDHEIM is a waffle called "my". The waffle says, "Her beautiful legs were visible on the sofa thoro's a noodle in my skull..." On the waffle, LAWRENCE UPTON is the butter, and we begin to see the tableau as a "still life". The butter slips out words like "delphinium" and "spoil" and "shrub". RON HENRY gushes syrup, and discusses what's happening "today on cable": "A 1984 film about breakdancing..." Orange juice arrives in the form of CHRIS PIUMA, who reports on "dick welluwould", "who has plastered pearls on temptress Liz Taytor and fuzzynaveled prop swinger Jack Michelson". And a small glass of milk named DONNA LeVINE completes our balanced breakfast with her "target yo-yo". "(It pissed off the members of the band Kiss.)" Also, one talented winner shall receive a copy of "Timothy McSweeney's Blues/Jazz Odyssey", a very nice magazine. Come! Come now! Come to http://www.flim.com and read flim -- the best way to start your day. -- flim: a free page is always scanning the neighbordhood looking for submissions. Any original piece of writing (in paragraphs, not verse) from 50-600 words will be considered, the quirkier the better. Previous issues have included jokes, recipes, prose poems, reviews, parodies, rewritings of older texts, randomly splayed bits of punctuation, and translations of articles from previous issues. flim is edited by Chris Piuma [editor@flim.com]. It is available in both print and online editions. -- Chris Piuma, etc. http://www.flim.com Got a creative website? Advertise on flim - free! flim.com/flim/advert.html "A female impersonator demands payment after a party..." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 16:55:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What does Mr. Pound believe? In-Reply-To: <199905141350.JAA04873@interlock.randomhouse.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I can't remember where this quote from T.S. Eliot on Pound occurs. I >reread the "His Style and Metrics" essay and the introduction to the >Literary Essays, but no luck, and the Carpenter bio is too long, with a >terrific but unwieldy index. I need it for a paper I'm working on. > >Thanks! It's a title, isnt it? George Bowering. , fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 20:55:47 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: CHILD'SPLAY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit PIGLET AND POOH These two now serve as model and allegory. They bear the brunt of producing a spectacle. The discharge between language and action. An exceptional act within the master narrative mimed on their bodies. They pass over into the act, making the transition to action, moving to an inscription producing real change. Transformation in the Real of the relations of production. Make it the object of a transmission. Annul the force trapped in the past, everything other than present. Go back to the act that split things up and and and CUT CUT CUT Two who were alike just one more night, electrical failure. Miners on strike. The greatest norms have also all the old afflictions. Affiliations: fictive interdependence carrying out in the Imaginary roles of extras, figures becoming possible at the present time --anticipate the culture to come--not now, not utopia, anachronism has a specific power. The cultural function of the anomaly not situated in the symbolic order in view of the impossible configurations of a return to childhood. Embody this group of anomalies showing the fissures, the fault lines the two of them are a mirroring, a double-toy. In the identification lived out, the gamut of posturing and display, exhibition, meta-imago and orchestra. The stadium. The rows of onlookers with their distracted eyes. Expressive stagings repeat the scenes they have in common. The body as intermediary, prop, passage. The one viewing the other cries out in pain. Setting in motion the "M" manuscript, formulate the fantasy the real face. Falsified? False? The passage from public to private. Myth floating around and space is made and remade. Children play in public games not made to be seen. The fusion of child's play with no one knows. Silence is a serious sign. A massacre, or feast day without an anniversary. A path you exit by to come to somewhere you've never been. Repetitive words. Idea come to mind. Staves they call them. Spirit and cellular memories. Here are objects with hidden powers. Here are the guides that will come. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 23:54:52 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: Living Space/Artmaking/Audiences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In the way of an event note I'd like to try to contribute a remark or two around the exchange developing around the essay in Rhizome, starting not from this or that kind of poetry, but by gesturing towards another kind of space and neighborhood and environment where art might be written and painted and and and. Saturday evening May 15 here in Cleveland 25 mostly residents of a renovated elementary school building built at the turn of the century a few blocks away from where Hart Crane went to high school showed their art and sculpture, read poetry, danced to African drumming, listened to electronic music and mingled with a turn-out of some 100-125 people in and out across 4-5 hours. We went through 50 bottles of wine and a couple of tables of party food, putting on an event that cost each of the 25 participants 25 dollars plus 250 dollars put up by our landlord. Maybe the neighborhood was part of the draw, I don't know. Everyone was surprised by the response. A year ago in the same neighborhood ATF and FBI agents carried out an operation they called Operation Gansta Wrap, a drug bust reported on by a local news station a block away at my bus stop which called the area "the heart of the Cleveland drug trade." As I watched on the evening news, I could see the newsman was visibly nervous, and didn't seem to know where he was. A visitor from another world. My sense of the neighborhood that I've called home for three years oscillates between two extreme but very real images: four teenage girls dancing in the street at 2:00 a.m. and chanting "c'mon and gitcha red hots" under the floodlight of a cop chopper hovering above them, and a cracked-out or drunk or probably both woman staggering down the street past my bus stop one afternoon pounding her naked breasts and screaming obscenities to the air. The faces on the people around the bus stop and the cornerstore looking on were blank, expressionless, but far from thoughtless. But neither is it every kid with a gun, as Cauleen Smith so eloquently said about West Oakland when she was in Cleveland promoting her first film, and thinking about the Hodge School and what it accomplished with its recent event along with thinking about what it might represent in potentia, prompts a few notes that may or may not be related to some of the concerns apparently raised in Rhizome. One, the only thing we had in common was the fact that, apart from several folks in art support group, we live in the same building, and the show was an introduction for many of us to each others' work. There was no problem with who was to be invited or not, though some residents decided to keep to themselves. A kind of built-in differentness was the result, even eclecticness. There was school-trained art alongside folk art, spoken word alongside the literary, African drums alongside electronics. Nobody here has whatever a national reputation is supposed to represent, and there were as many "beginners," people who have been painting and writing for only a year or so, alongside people who have been doing whatever they've been doing for years. Two, the audience was so different it's impossible to characterize. People who follow the gallery scene, a few writers, some musicians, graphic artists, and a lot (a lot) of young people. I doubt if this audience is any different than any other large group of people in any medium to large-sized city in the U.S. As far as writing expectations go, obviously the spoken word/performance thing is something of an expectation, but the three poems I read were anything but that, and I didn't look up from my page once. The most negative reaction I got was from a musician I'd met a few times before, who said "I've got to tell you, you're stuff is impossibly abstruse," and then later in the evening came back at me with the term, "logokinesis" to describe what he thought about my poems. Since I haven't read in public for three years, this take by a so-called "unliterary" ear was important to hear. An unexpected, meaningful response coming from nowhere. Three, or somewhere. What is local? Is it simply regional? In my worst moments the institutions which promote a national culture appear like aircraft carriers for Washington with the long range guns from either Neidecker or the Foggy Dew, depending on who you listen to, patrolling the waters and assimilating every raw impulse from below into a market value. The potential for a radical politics and artmaking coinciding getting sacrificed as a result, remembering that what happened in Russian a century ago was originally intensely fractured and decentralized, All Power to the Soviets, etc., and Spicer's 'What is happening in a 70 mile radius' comes to mind as a related critique of the institutions of a so-called national culture. Again, this is a worst moment thought tempered by my lack of experience, having only read my work in public five times in San Francisco 1991-95 and once in New Jersey at the New Freedoms conference in 1994. Representing the work I've gotten done here, 1000 pages or so of a manuscript called Works and Days, xeroxed on to cardstock across five large spiral notebooks and set out on a table under a laminated poster of Jack Spicer from the 86 SF conference, were a continued object of attention from curious viewers. I put them out there as a kind of example of writtenness to counter spoken word performance assumptions. Four, what could be done in dirtcheap loftspaces like this in other cities, painters and dancers and musicians and writers and others living in close proximity, the face-to-face real life thing supplementing the radicality of web subjectivity, and especially if doing what isn't being done here, like forming a cooperative, holding workshops, regular shows, running a press--I'm sure there's precedents in places like New York and San Francisco and elsewhere in the 60s that might resemble this possibility, especially if such areas or zones were organized in inner city areas that more and more are beginning to resemble the closed district for the super-exploitation of labor which according to administrative documents quoted in the film, Fotomator, were among the first plans for the Warsaw ghetto. Because it isn't every kid with a gun. Though it's a sign of the times and a good one I think that C-Town Productions is showing May 22-23 at 8 p.m. at the Cleveland Playhouse a performance called E. 79th STREET, written and directed by F.A. Taylor, choreography by Sabrina C. Gregory, "The Hough Riots Brought Back To Life Through Poetry, Dance and Drama." The Hodge School is located between E. 74th and 76th Streets. Here's a sample of seven of the 25 contributors' notes from the event program to pass on as a kind of sign for (local?) (regional?) art and performance. ISHMAEL ANKHENATON. Began classical ballet at age 9, studied at Ravel Studio of Ballet and Jazz; the ODU Ballet of Virginia; the Conservatory of Classical Dance; Dance Theater of Harlem; Alvin Alley American Dance Center and Djoniba Dance Company. He is a former member of the Imani African-American Dance Company and has studied dance with Chuck Davis, Joan Peters, Alan Onickel, Maxine and Marle Basse. LISA CHENG. Draws with mixed media. She graduated from The Cooper Union in NYC with a BFA in Studio Art and holds an MA in Art History from Oberlin College. She has taught children art at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art. ROMMELL FRANKLIN. Rommell Franklin A.K.A. Brother Kenyatta is a drum maker, African drumming teacher, and percussionist of West African drumming. He teaches, performs and makes drums of Guinea, Mali, Liberia and other African countries. He has performed with African drum and dance groups such as Iroko Drum and Dance Society, Dance Africa Dance, Imani African-American Dance Co., and Djembefolalu. GREGORY HOLMES. This work was done solely in response to the myriad of emotions and situations that accompanies a diagnosis of AIDS in 1988. More than a decade later, this impact and the life altering changes it brought continue; it remains an issue without resolution. DESHAWN (CASIO) JONES is a talented local Hip-Hop artist who at age eleven began using the beat box to compose his own works. He listened extensively to the Fat Boys, Run-D.M.C., KSR One, Kool-Moe Dee and L.L. Cool Jay. He has developed his own style and never uses anyone else's. He is very thankful to God for his talent and gift to help the young seeds (children) of today by giving them some positive energy to soak into their brains. MICHAELANGELO LOVELACE. Cleveland born artist who explores concerns about cultural, racial, and economic tensions in the inner-city. The paintings take a realistic look at what it's really like growing up in a community that is sometimes looked upon as a war-zone. A community where anything can happen at any time. The paintings deal with the crime, drugs, street corner drunks, sex-hustlers and many other day to day happenings in the hood. The technique of his work is acrylic on textured canvas. Vibrant, childlike imagery is reminiscent of the work of both folk art and outsider art. ALEXIS THYNNE. Interest in different cultures has taken her across the U.S. and also to the Central African Republic and Cameroon, where she spent two years teaching secondary level biology and one year teaching elementary level environmental education. Her love of art was rediscovered when she began using murals as a teaching aid for environmental education. Ever since, Alexis has been exploring her own experiences through mixed media. In closing, some notes jotted down during an impromptu talk by Brother Kenyatta's group: "you have to make the drum speak if you really listen you can hear the voices this helps amplify the sound sometimes in Africa when the sun hits the metal piece you can't get that in Cleveland you got them three main sounds bass tom-tom and the snare you know what polyrhythm is right? how to fit in how to move off they make a big ceremony everybody get together the drum took me to a different level I can make this Bar-B-Q can into a drum your head will be in a zone your whole life trying to put the respect back into these instruments just like it was a violin what's the long thing--a "cello" the drum is a spiritual instrument different energy levels that may come into the circle my teacher was from Liberia "this is a goat skin" that's what they're doing they're like talking you see in West Africa right next to the Ivory Coast they play this rhythm to their crops they walking 124 miles or something I play Brazilian. I play Cuban. there's so many percussions you can learn everyone from the village in Guinea they play this rhythm all you got to do is say AYEAYH your soul is telling you to go join go gather for the harvest we go crops. we go drum." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 10:34:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Response to Standard Schaefer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear Standard, I think you are doing yourself and your ideas a tremendous disservice by focussing on this issue of careerism which your statements have not demonstrated to be a very well-considered, historically-conscious position. It seems to me quite obvious, for example, that very few of the Language poets had any idea that their ideas would obtain for them the degree of academic acceptance that they have, in the past decade, received, and if you would like to argue this point, I would ask you to return to the numerous staple-bound, yellowing and otherwise low-tech and low-print-run publications that were circulating in the 70s and 80s when they were first looking at each other's poetry and seeing a common set of interests developing, and cite those instances where you think 1) any of the those poets thought they were writing in a style that would eventually become something like the norm in academic studies, or maybe how their writing styles and ideas actually gelled with what was happening in academic studies at the time, 2) where you think that this "careerism" seriously or even moderately compromised the general goal, aura or collective effort at investigation (as opposed to exploitation) that is, I think, one of the nobler aims of a group effort in poetics, the uncovering of lost ideas or perhaps the refocussing or "make it new" of dilapidated ones, 3) how many of the poets who were writing at this time who are not of the "language school" were actually resisting assimilation into what, to you apparently, was a very obvious upward track into the academe, which is to say, would a poet working in primarily "speech based" poetics at the time (some of whom were professors) be considered resistant to an obvious "spectre haunting America poetry" or were they working in a tradition which, to some, had itself run its course and was not likely to produce anything more interesting without a degree of revamping. In terms of this last point, I would relate that in talking to several New York poets who were around at the time and who were not part of the "language" thing -- indeed, being excluded from the publication of that name and being quite miffed by this fact -- still are far more generous to what happened with the magazine and the "movement" than many of the poets of my age or slightly younger, understanding that at a basic level what those people were up to was something quite different. Which is to say, these poets who were there at the time were well aware of these several factors that I allude to above, that it was really a "grassroots" kind of thing that didn't have a Marjorie Perloff or Hank Lazar (the mile-long shelf of critics raising the LangPos to the lofty height of canonicity) to give it the sort of guarantee that you seem to be believe -- again, I challenge you to find where this assurance is -- was there to push on their efforts. There was very little money circulating in that community for publications of any nature, that the lifestyles of these poets were often at least as radically "outside" as the more standard boho lifestyle of a Lower East Side poet (and they mostly lived in the Lower East Side, anyway), blah blah blah. Before "language," all of these poets more or less did the same thing, went to see music, art, read at St. Mark's and went to the readings, commented, complained, wondered if Olson was what he was cracked up to be, etc. (I would note that despite what people think of the New York poetry scene, the crowds mix here quite a bit and continue to do so, the real lines being present only in the minds of those who seem to need them to get by.) I would suggest, if we want to talk about the "co-opting of the arts by institutions," that your own method of publishing your magazine plays more into the basic method of a fast-track to institutionalization than the publishing method of the Language poets, which, again, was very cheap, community-based, spontaneous, hard to find "closure" in, etc. A new issue of Rhizome -- and I am not criticizing you for publishing it, I'm just asking you to put it's parameters under the "socratic light" in a way that I would ask you to put the LangPos publications under the same light, and tell me which is more "radical" -- arrives on my doorstep from an anonymous publisher to whom I had sent a check in much the same way that Art in America would (were I to subsribe to it) or October, etc. Here are some quotes from your post and responses: "What I was trying to contend in my essay is that "radical artfice" and "indeterminacy" often coincide with a poetic practice that looks an awful lot like a struggle between academics and their discursive efforts to control the determination of good poetry." -- You fail to establish this point in your essay, but as I don't have this with me I can't argue with that text. But I would like to ask where you find Charles Bernstein, for instance, talking about "good poetry," in those very terms since you obviously are very happy with taking other terms of his out of context. I would also like to argue that Charles would not make the mistake that you are making in your comments here, as he goes to great lengths to establish any sort of new terminology with a wealth of often very rich material, whether it be Veronca Forrest-Thomson (whom I would suggest you read before deciding that "radical artifice" and "emotion" are as incompatible as you state) to Langston Hughes. This is an effort to show exactly what he is talking about "looks like." You might want to illustrate, also, which "struggle" you are talking about, perhaps a lengthy quote from one such struggle, and compare this to, say, one of these poems you are talking about. As a final point, I would add that a comparison with Pound's "discursive efforts to control the determination of good poetry" probably resembled the mainstream and academic effort of his time to make these very same value judgements, though in form rather than in content or even style of rhetoric, than Charles' do his own mainstream contemporaries. "In concrete terms, this means that we who believe that radical politics is at least possible cannot mistake the act of simply writing vague, fragmented, ambiguous etc poems with the changing of the business of poetry." -- Yes, you cannot, but there are many other mistakes that can be made, such as that of an emotionalism unmodified by recourse to the data at hand. "The business of poetry is all the various devices, contraptions which do the actually judging of poetry and that lead to a belief that the only important writers are those who are being written on (cf. the writers of dissertations)." -- One thing I would mention, again looking at this Pound / Bernstein dichotomy, is that Bernstein has struggled to come up with a critical apparatus with which to guage the "quality" of poetry which is decentralized, open to anomaly, not focused on the racial or gender make-up of the group with which he is most associated, non-canonical in the sense that many of the poets he writes about were not "universal" writers in the sense of Goethe or, closer to home, Frost, etc. While there are many ways to argue with his essays -- and I have several friends whom you would consider "stooges" (I think you use this word twice in your essay) of the Language Poets who have taken essays such as "Poetics of the Americas" to task -- the essential contours of the project are very admirable and deserve very close attention, and the method, which relies on incredible amounts of research, thought as to the context in which the statements will appear, etc. not to mention focusing _on_ that context, which indeed is often an academic context -- who has been a more strong and legitimate critic of the practices of the academy (which, despite our coolness in pride in being "non-academic" and "street-wise" is a major cultural institution which, unless you want to throw it out completely, is worth attempting to review and rebuild) than Charles Bernstein? I'm sure there are dozens of people who are willing to claim that it's "ruining poetry," blah blah, and that Charles is just another cog, but there has been a subtle shift in the attentions of his essays that has been toward a consideration of that very institution to which he belongs -- a very pointed, angry, to many annoying, specific, meaningful, researched, criticism which, if anything, illustrates the integrity of his project. That is, he is not in denial that he is part of an institution of which he is highly critical, and in fact may find abhorrent (though I shouldn't advertise this point, he would be the first one to dissuade you from attending the Buffalo program if he didn't think it was worth your time). Well, I won't go on here, unless this really bugs you. "What I commend Jeff Clark for in my essay applies to Garrett Caples, Martin Corless Smith, Cathy Wagner, Tracy Grinnel, Emily Grossman, Brian Lucas and other "non-allied" poets." -- They won't be much longer, if you or anyone else decides to group them that way. The "Non-allied Poets" will be the subject of Marjorie Perloff 2010's famous book, the "Poetics of the (oops) Decentralized." "I commend these poets' refusal to use theory as a way of justifying their own work as either socially relevant or "radical" or even "progressive" or even necessary. I also commend them for not falling into the (fake) hermeticism of the mainstream. A refusal to play poetry for tenure, promotion, etc may be the most politically effective gesture yet because as along as poetry resembles business, some way to join the firm or succeed in school, we cannot have "radical" poetries." -- But the turn has to be made to suggest how these poetries are "radical" apart from their apparent break with the fake, in your terms, radicalism of the previous generation. In other words, let's find positive terms rather than negative ones, and the "challenge round" could be: let's find positive terms for these poets' poetics without being Ezra Pound, i.e. finding a tradition for them to be in the line of defending. I don't find anything radical about the poetries of these writers, but I am more than willing to be convinced that they are "radical" -- but then again, they certainly don't have to be, either, for me to like them, as I read all kinds of stuff that's politically luke-warm and like it bundles. Consequently, it's very depressing to me to think that this is the most "politically effective gesture yet" since, well, that's a pretty narrow sense of politics. I wouldn't be able to explain _that_ to my mother. "I commend their humility and I believe that it will go along way farther to counteracting the self-aggrandizing, self-promotional carreerist tendencies that have arrisen out of an american poetic-theoretical nexus associated with "collapsed subjectivity". The decentered poem does nothing, but when it is consecrated by a host of Hank Lazers, Marjorie Perloffs, and so forth a very real subjectivitiy is made: the celebrity poet." -- I'm sure they are very nice people, and there are, without a doubt, a few "self-aggrandizing" poets of the Language ilk whose purported interests in collectivity and objective, informed consideration of cultural politics, etc., runs counter to the obviously (not necessarily masculinist but certainly mostly) pride in being as learned as they are, and being able to muscle through the most abstract conversation about issues that, in the end, are pretty dead as soon as they hit air. I could tell you a few stories. But there just aren't nearly as many as statements like the above would suggest, and, again, I am not sure why we choose to criticize poets who have done the kind of reading that their ideas deserve in order to make them fuller, more informed, etc. As Pound himself would write, do we commend a musician for bragging that he/she does not know how to play Mozart? (Yes, Paul McCartney never took singing lessons, hurrah.) It's also a terrible reduction, again, to think that "collapsed subjectivity" has been the primary modus-operandi of the recent American poetics, especially since you suggest, above, that "radical artifice" is the main axis point -- you like to work in scare quotes, with interchangeable targets. I think many of us are not nearly as oppressed by the catch phrases. "One of the most important points Perloff makes in POETICS OF INDETERIMINACY is, if I recall, in the chapter on Stein where she discusses the difference between indeterminacy and ambiguity. There her formalism is at its finest: she shows in detail what made Stein great and what her imitators were not too clear about." -- Please elaborate on this binary. Despite what you might think, I agree with you that cartloads of writing has been produced out of a very vague, un-aesthetic (I mean non-self critical in terms of whether the art at hand is really "working") sense of praxis, and that, in bulk, it is likely to turn off anyone to what we call "postmodern" or even contemporary poetry. On the other hand, when I approach this work and my teeth start to gnash, I have that little line of Bob Dylan's floating around in the back of my head -- and if I could sing it the way he does right here I would -- "Don't crticize what you don't understand." And so I try to understand, and gnash later. This language of "imitators" is very Poundian, but so again I ask you to look at these ideas -- innovation, imitation, originality, etc. -- divorced from your obvious aesthetic biases and see if they really work, or are even necessary. "Imitation" has a certain "radical" (a word I rarely) potential which, well, I am investigating. "It is in an interesting time to consider whether or not a writer should possess a strong ego and whether or not the language school's post-humanism was every anything but the proliferation of the ego by new means, in new modes." -- This is any easy one to answer: yes. Of course, but from there, let's see what these particular egos have managed to produce, what are the contours of the work, how to they operate socially, when and where has the ego been sacrificed for something that could be called (for lack of a better word) "constructivist," how is the ego played off of this construction, is it really as closed and negating an ego as we at first feel, is it charmless and sterile, etc. I think that your essay, and this particular post, are part of a trend that I sense very strongly write now in poets who are, say, generally within my age range, some older some younger (so that would be mid-twenties to mid-thirties) who are prone to making very over-arching, "emotional" (most more often hysterical) statements about how the Languae Poets have completely subtracted a certain variable -- "emotion" -- from the poetic equation in America. I would suggest two quick things to read, Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism for an idea of where "our" sense of emotion has gone -- it's gone quite far, but far away, I think, such that now we don't really know how rich "emotion" can be, or how complicated -- but also Charles' exchange with Louis Simpson in one of those books that Lazar published a while back, an exchange that reappears, I think, in the Politics of Poetic Form, in which his ideas on "emotion" are most misunderstood and most strongly stated. I certainly don't think it's wrong to take CB up on his ideas -- that's what they're there for, in fact, and few welcome strong criticism of his ideas like he does -- but the "ambiguous, not too clear" criticism the likes of which appear in your essay are none to productive. Well, I could go on, but, luckily perhaps, am out of time. Sincerely, Brian ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 10:59:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Manifesto&a Performance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit FOR THOSE IN THE ALBANY, NY AREA: Thursday May 20 - 8pm At The LOFT 40 Broadway, Albany NY MANIFESTO&A A Multimedia Performance By Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte With jil hanifan, Violin FOR THOSE IN THE ALBANY, NY AREA: Thursday May 20 - 8pm At The LOFT 40 Broadway, Albany NY MANIFESTO&A A Multimedia Performance By Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte With jil hanifan, Violin Suggested donation $5 Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte's MANIFESTO&A performance combines poetry, voice, electronically displayed visuals, and violin improvisations by jil hanifan. Originally based on Pierre Joris’ NOMAD MANIFESTO which states: “-A nomadic poetics is a war machine, always on the move, always changing, morphing, moving through languages, cultures, terrains, times without stopping. Refueling halts are called poases, they last a night or a day, the time of a poem, & then move on. - A nomadic poetics needs mindfulness. In & of the drift (dérive) there is no at- home-ness here but only an ever more displaced drifting. …” The MANIFESTO will be the main thread from which Joris & Peyrafitte will present their latest texts, drawings, paintings and songs as jil hanifan's violin stitches them together or apart. Suggested donation $5 DIRECTIONS TO the Loft >From Albany: Follow Madison Ave. towards the river. Bear right at yield sign following signs to the Port of Albany. Follow road underneath overpass. Take right into Port of Albany. Pass U-Haul building on left. Follow road 1/8th of a mile. Take right at Fourth Ave. Park along side or in back of building. Go into the first door in from Broadway with the Bankshot sign next to it and go up the stairs. >From 787 South: Get off at Madison Ave. /Port of Albany exit. Take left at light at the end of the exit ramp following signs to Port of Albany. Follow road underneath overpass. Take right into Port of Albany. Pass U-Haul building on left. Follow road 1/8th of a mile. Take right at Fourth Ave. Park along side or in back of building. Go into the first door in from Broadway with the Bankshot sign next to it and go up the stairs. >From 787 North: Get off at Port of Albany exit. Take a right at light at the end of the exit ramp and then bear left going past 787 sign onto Broadway. Follow roadfor fifty yards. Take left at Fourth Ave. Park along side or in back of building. Go into the first door in from Broadway with the Bankshot sign next to it and go up the stairs. -- ======================== Pierre Joris joris@csc.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 tel: 518 426 0433 fax: 518 426 3722 ======================== Nomadism answers to a relation that possession cannot satisfy. Maurice Blanchot ======================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:02:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Response to Standard Schaefer (vers.II with fixed spelling) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear Standard, I think you are doing yourself and your ideas a tremendous disservice by focusing on this issue of careerism which your statements have not demonstrated to be a very well-considered, historically-conscious position. It seems to me quite obvious, for example, that very few of the Language poets had any idea that their ideas would obtain for them the degree of academic acceptance that they have, in the past decade, received, and if you would like to argue this point, I would ask you to return to the numerous staple-bound, yellowing and otherwise low-tech and low-print-run publications that were circulating in the 70s and 80s when they were first looking at each other's poetry and seeing a common set of interests developing, and cite those instances where you think 1) any of the those poets thought they were writing in a style that would eventually become something like the norm in academic studies, or maybe how their writing styles and ideas actually gelled with what was happening in academic studies at the time, 2) where you think that this "careerism" seriously or even moderately compromised the general goal, aura or collective effort at investigation (as opposed to exploitation) that is, I think, one of the nobler aims of a group effort in poetics, the uncovering of lost ideas or perhaps the refocusing or "make it new" of dilapidated ones, 3) how many of the poets who were writing at this time who are not of the "language school" were actually resisting assimilation into what, to you apparently, was a very obvious upward track into the academe, which is to say, would a poet working in primarily "speech based" poetics at the time (some of whom were professors) be considered resistant to an obvious "spectre haunting America poetry" or were they working in a tradition which, to some, had itself run its course and was not likely to produce anything more interesting without a degree of revamping. In terms of this last point, I would relate that in talking to several New York poets who were around at the time and who were not part of the "language" thing -- indeed, being excluded from the publication of that name and being quite miffed by this fact -- still are far more generous to what happened with the magazine and the "movement" than many of the poets of my age or slightly younger, understanding that at a basic level what those people were up to was something quite different. Which is to say, these poets who were there at the time were well aware of these several factors that I allude to above, that it was really a "grassroots" kind of thing that didn't have a Marjorie Perloff or Hank Lazar (the mile-long shelf of critics raising the LangPos to the lofty height of canonicity) to give it the sort of guarantee that you seem to be believe -- again, I challenge you to find where this assurance is -- was there to push on their efforts. There was very little money circulating in that community for publications of any nature, that the lifestyles of these poets were often at least as radically "outside" as the more standard boho lifestyle of a Lower East Side poet (and they mostly lived in the Lower East Side, anyway), blah blah blah. Before "language," all of these poets more or less did the same thing, went to see music, art, read at St. Mark's and went to the readings, commented, complained, wondered if Olson was what he was cracked up to be, etc. (I would note that despite what people think of the New York poetry scene, the crowds mix here quite a bit and continue to do so, the real lines being present only in the minds of those who seem to need them to get by.) I would suggest, if we want to talk about the "co-opting of the arts by institutions," that your own method of publishing your magazine plays more into the basic method of a fast-track to institutionalization than the publishing method of the Language poets, which, again, was very cheap, community-based, spontaneous, hard to find "closure" in, etc. A new issue of Rhizome -- and I am not criticizing you for publishing it, I'm just asking you to put it's parameters under the "socratic light" in a way that I would ask you to put the LangPos publications under the same light, and tell me which is more "radical" -- arrives on my doorstep from an anonymous publisher to whom I had sent a check in much the same way that Art in America would (were I to subscribe to it) or October, etc. Here are some quotes from your post and responses: "What I was trying to contend in my essay is that "radical artifice" and "indeterminacy" often coincide with a poetic practice that looks an awful lot like a struggle between academics and their discursive efforts to control the determination of good poetry." -- You fail to establish this point in your essay, but as I don't have this with me I can't argue with that text. But I would like to ask where you find Charles Bernstein, for instance, talking about "good poetry," in those very terms since you obviously are very happy with taking other terms of his out of context. I would also like to argue that Charles would not make the mistake that you are making in your comments here, as he goes to great lengths to establish any sort of new terminology with a wealth of often very rich material, whether it be Veronica Forrest-Thomson (whom I would suggest you read before deciding that "radical artifice" and "emotion" are as incompatible as you state) to Langston Hughes. This is an effort to show exactly what he is talking about "looks like." You might want to illustrate, also, which "struggle" you are talking about, perhaps a lengthy quote from one such struggle, and compare this to, say, one of these poems you are talking about. As a final point, I would add that a comparison with Pound's "discursive efforts to control the determination of good poetry" probably resembled the mainstream and academic effort of his time to make these very same value judgments, though in form rather than in content or even style of rhetoric, than Charles' do his own mainstream contemporaries. "In concrete terms, this means that we who believe that radical politics is at least possible cannot mistake the act of simply writing vague, fragmented, ambiguous etc. poems with the changing of the business of poetry." -- Yes, you cannot, but there are many other mistakes that can be made, such as that of an emotionalism unmodified by recourse to the data at hand. "The business of poetry is all the various devices, contraptions which do the actually judging of poetry and that lead to a belief that the only important writers are those who are being written on (cf. the writers of dissertations)." -- One thing I would mention, again looking at this Pound / Bernstein dichotomy, is that Bernstein has struggled to come up with a critical apparatus with which to gauge the "quality" of poetry which is decentralized, open to anomaly, not focused on the racial or gender make-up of the group with which he is most associated, non-canonical in the sense that many of the poets he writes about were not "universal" writers in the sense of Goethe or, closer to home, Frost, etc. While there are many ways to argue with his essays -- and I have several friends whom you would consider "stooges" (I think you use this word twice in your essay) of the Language Poets who have taken essays such as "Poetics of the Americas" to task -- the essential contours of the project are very admirable and deserve very close attention, and the method, which relies on incredible amounts of research, thought as to the context in which the statements will appear, etc. not to mention focusing _on_ that context, which indeed is often an academic context -- who has been a more strong and legitimate critic of the practices of the academy (which, despite our coolness in pride in being "non-academic" and "street-wise" is a major cultural institution which, unless you want to throw it out completely, is worth attempting to review and rebuild) than Charles Bernstein? I'm sure there are dozens of people who are willing to claim that it's "ruining poetry," blah blah, and that Charles is just another cog, but there has been a subtle shift in the attentions of his essays that has been toward a consideration of that very institution to which he belongs -- a very pointed, angry, to many annoying, specific, meaningful, researched, criticism which, if anything, illustrates the integrity of his project. That is, he is not in denial that he is part of an institution of which he is highly critical, and in fact may find abhorrent (though I shouldn't advertise this point, he would be the first one to dissuade you from attending the Buffalo program if he didn't think it was worth your time). Well, I won't go on here, unless this really bugs you. "What I commend Jeff Clark for in my essay applies to Garrett Caples, Martin Corless Smith, Cathy Wagner, Tracy Grinnel, Emily Grossman, Brian Lucas and other "non-allied" poets." -- They won't be much longer, if you or anyone else decides to group them that way. The "Non-allied Poets" will be the subject of Marjorie Perloff 2010's famous book, the "Poetics of the Oops Decentralized." "I commend these poets' refusal to use theory as a way of justifying their own work as either socially relevant or "radical" or even "progressive" or even necessary. I also commend them for not falling into the (fake) hermeticism of the mainstream. A refusal to play poetry for tenure, promotion, etc. may be the most politically effective gesture yet because as along as poetry resembles business, some way to join the firm or succeed in school, we cannot have "radical" poetries." -- But the turn has to be made to suggest how these poetries are "radical" apart from their apparent break with the fake, in your terms, radicalism of the previous generation. In other words, let's find positive terms rather than negative ones, and the "challenge round" could be: let's find positive terms for these poets' poetics without being Ezra Pound, i.e. finding a tradition for them to be in the line of defending. I don't find anything radical about the poetries of these writers, but I am more than willing to be convinced that they are "radical" -- but then again, they certainly don't have to be, either, for me to like them, as I read all kinds of stuff that's politically luke-warm and like it bundles. Consequently, it's very depressing to me to think that this is the most "politically effective gesture yet" since, well, that's a pretty narrow sense of politics. I wouldn't be able to explain _that_ to my mother. "I commend their humility and I believe that it will go along way farther to counteracting the self-aggrandizing, self-promotional careerist tendencies that have arisen out of an american poetic-theoretical nexus associated with "collapsed subjectivity". The decentered poem does nothing, but when it is consecrated by a host of Hank Lazers, Marjorie Perloffs, and so forth a very real subjectivitiy is made: the celebrity poet." -- I'm sure they are very nice people, and there are, without a doubt, a few "self-aggrandizing" poets of the Language ilk whose purported interests in collectivity and objective, informed consideration of cultural politics, etc., runs counter to the obviously (not necessarily masculinist but certainly mostly) pride in being as learned as they are, and being able to muscle through the most abstract conversation about issues that, in the end, are pretty dead as soon as they hit air. I could tell you a few stories. But there just aren't nearly as many as statements like the above would suggest, and, again, I am not sure why we choose to criticize poets who have done the kind of reading that their ideas deserve in order to make them fuller, more informed, etc. As Pound himself would write, do we commend a musician for bragging that he/she does not know how to play Mozart? (Yes, Paul McCartney never took singing lessons, hurrah.) It's also a terrible reduction, again, to think that "collapsed subjectivity" has been the primary modus-operandi of the recent American poetics, especially since you suggest, above, that "radical artifice" is the main axis point -- you like to work in scare quotes, with interchangeable targets. I think many of us are not nearly as oppressed by the catch phrases. "One of the most important points Perloff makes in POETICS OF INDETERIMINACY is, if I recall, in the chapter on Stein where she discusses the difference between indeterminacy and ambiguity. There her formalism is at its finest: she shows in detail what made Stein great and what her imitators were not too clear about." -- Please elaborate on this binary. Despite what you might think, I agree with you that cartloads of writing has been produced out of a very vague, un-aesthetic (I mean non-self critical in terms of whether the art at hand is really "working") sense of praxis, and that, in bulk, it is likely to turn off anyone to what we call "postmodern" or even contemporary poetry. On the other hand, when I approach this work and my teeth start to gnash, I have that little line of Bob Dylan's floating around in the back of my head -- and if I could sing it the way he does right here I would -- "Don't criticize what you don't understand." And so I try to understand, and gnash later. This language of "imitators" is very Poundian, but so again I ask you to look at these ideas -- innovation, imitation, originality, etc. -- divorced from your obvious aesthetic biases and see if they really work, or are even necessary. "Imitation" has a certain "radical" (a word I rarely use, actually) potential which, well, I am investigating. "It is in an interesting time to consider whether or not a writer should possess a strong ego and whether or not the language school's post-humanism was every anything but the proliferation of the ego by new means, in new modes." -- This is any easy one to answer: yes. Of course, but from there, let's see what these particular egos have managed to produce, what are the contours of the work, how to they operate socially, when and where has the ego been sacrificed for something that could be called (for lack of a better word) "constructivist," how is the ego played off of this construction, is it really as closed and negating an ego as we at first feel, is it charmless and sterile, etc. I think that your essay, and this particular post, are part of a trend that I sense very strongly write now in poets who are, say, generally within my age range, some older some younger (so that would be mid-twenties to mid-thirties) who are prone to making very over-arching, "emotional" (most more often hysterical) statements about how the Language Poets have completely subtracted a certain variable -- "emotion" -- from the poetic equation in America. I would suggest two quick things to read, Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism for an idea of where "our" sense of emotion has gone -- it's gone quite far, but far away, I think, such that now we don't really know how rich "emotion" can be, or how complicated -- but also Charles' exchange with Louis Simpson in one of those books that Lazar published a while back, an exchange that reappears, I think, in the Politics of Poetic Form, in which his ideas on "emotion" are most misunderstood and most strongly stated. I certainly don't think it's wrong to take CB up on his ideas -- that's what they're there for, in fact, and few welcome strong criticism of his ideas like he does -- but the "ambiguous, not too clear" criticism the likes of which appear in your essay are none to0 productive. Well, I could go on, but, luckily perhaps, am out of time. Sincerely, Brian ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:37:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Re: Lyric ( s e n t i m e n t a l / *which* lyric ? ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain { p o e t i x } Annie Finch writes; "I have located a crucial distinction between what i call the "romantic" lyric (the I/thou, gaze/gazer, subject/object dichotomy where all revolves around the central eye) and what I call the "sentimental" lyric (multivoiced, multiviewpointed, objectifying the speaker as much as the outside world)." and i think the distinction is quite probably useful but i wonder at the choice of the term s e n t i m e n t a l my wonder tending to channel's like ; "who wd want to get saddled with that term?" and Rachel Blau DuPlessis wrote; "What I am trying to say is 1) we all have a relation to lyric even if we reject part of it or all of it (I made this point at Barnard; rejection is a relationship) 2) lyric is multiple and flexed--what lyric, when, how, for whom are we talking about. Precisions will let us reject any knee-jerk responses (pro or con) to that word. 3) when people use lyric modes what part of lyric are they using. I consider that I use the lyric, but want to surround it with other discourses and subjectivities so that it loses its "master-narrative" quality and becomes one element among many others 4) what is the social-psychological surround of lyric? Do we want to agree (with Allen Grossman, for example) that it encodes an oedipal plot (see gender-laden critique of this by RBD in "Manifests" in Diacritics). The one thing that Barnard did, especially that keynote panel, was to remind us to reject binaries." some thoughts to the numbers... 1) i'd agree with this but i wonder how much we can make of a 'relation of rejection' / aren't there folks out there who've never been drawn to lyric but who also haven't made a rejection of same central to what they do as poets ? 2) yes 3) has anyone.. critic poet etc.. made a grand taxonomy of lyric impulses ? - i'm not expecting any to've nailed the whole thing down of course i just wondered if there were such things out there and if anyone had found them useful in considering what they might and might not want to do with something called a 'lyric tradition' 4) the socio-psychological surround - i imagine that some wd find this of intense interest - but i wdn't want to be stuck with the Allen Grossman reading that is mentioned here - how might an inquiry into the socio-psycho surround be generative for writers i wonder ? .out )L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 12:36:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: New Chapbook Series Comments: cc: Bill_Burmeister-EBB022@email.mot.com, hlazer@as.ua.edu, eam@gis.net In-Reply-To: <199905141350.JAA04873@interlock.randomhouse.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bill Burmeister and Mark Scroggins announce the publication of the first three chapbooks in the DIAESRESIS CHAPBOOK SERIES: Diaeresis Chapbook Number 1: HANK LAZER, As It Is, 41pp. "Honesty is the best policy--in poetry as in all else. These apt, reductive verses keep a locus of faith with skill and moving commitment. Keep 'em coming!" --Robert Creeley on _As It Is_ Diaeresis Chapbook Number 2: E. A. MILLER, The Underbrush of Abundance, 30pp. Miller is the author of _Eight Poems_ (1991) and has work in _Chain_, _American Letters & Commentary_, etc. _The Underbrush of Abundance_ is a cosmopolitan, terrorist, lyrically repetitive poem in twenty-six sections. Diaeresis Chapbook Number 3: C. S. GISCOMBE, Two Sections from Practical Geography, 31pp. "C. S. Giscombe has opened up new territory where we've least expected it, seeking the roots of identity in a poetics that is literally projective: across cultures, centuries, races." --Ron Silliman on Giscombe's _Giscome Road_ (1998) Diaeresis Chapbooks are $4 apiece postpaid; all three chapbooks of the first series can be ordered for $10. Please make checks payable to Mark Scroggins, 401 NE 45th St., Boca Raton, FL 33431. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 16:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: for Jeffrey Jullich / poetix MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" { p o e t i x } Jeffrey Jullich wrote: why do we ~need~ to keep returning to a practice of "literary value," criteria and standards? Clearly, work has become widespread in the past quarter century, if not earlier, which puts into question ("problematizes") or renders useless earlier criteria of judgment: "good"/"better"/"best", "like"/"dislike", "masterpiece"/"genius". Post-modernism has set into play a body of works where not only is it tenuous how to value one over another, but how to distinguish within a poem itself what portions might "succeed" and which "fail" according to any casual standards of criticism. (Hence, the shift in editorial practices, which are now as a rule a flat acceptance/rejection-- since how else to arbitrate between one line and the next?) And yet, the question ("does experimental writing lack formal criteria ?") keeps coming up, as though there were too strong a nostalgic attachment to a criterion-view of art for even the initiated to part with such (Solomonic) judgments. there is much here to ponder and much that my original posting so full of questions cdn't be seen to lead to until Jeffrey intervened in this way so too my response is now twice removed from my original posting & wants (or i want for it) to break free of that original context it seems that one of the contemporary scene's biggest dance steps in responding to any ideas is to search a bit and find something in the way of a binary (it's always there, no?) and then to assert that such things aren't useful or worthwhile or whatever whether thru reference to derrida or someone else and i think that this is useful at times to remind us that ~life is not made up of binary oppositions~ or something equally quotable and i confess i've used this tactic myself just as i've used binary terms but i think that when one takes the route of critiquing the binary that some things can get lost in the shuffle by which i mean to say that i don't think as perhaps Jeffrey does (?) (and i know other have said) that dyads (binaries if you prefer) are useless instead i wd suggest that a better critique of dyadic thinking wd be one which didn't attempt to dissolve the opposed sides by showing their mutual interdependence but one which illustrated that monadic dyadic and triadic conceptions all have utility within specific spheres such that if i or anyone says wordsworth is a bad poet or pulp fiction is a bad movie or guernica is a bad painting that the 1st thing we wd do well to realize is that none of these statements is really proposing a grand scale of values in which any of these things might be seen of as exemplifying a category of 'badness' instead we are dealing with one subject position relative to these things conceived dyadically rather than triadically wherein the 'object' in question wd of necessity be seen as part of a continua and as enmeshed with its context such that one might say "well, within the context of 80s screwball comedies Police Academy 2 really isn't as bad as people say" so while a triadic approach to things will by most people's standard's produce a more nuanced and certainly a more relational reading of a text or piece of art this in no way refutes the reality of dyadic conceptions like good/bad as such asking whether experimental poetry exhibits formal criteria isn't of necessity a nostalgic move covertly asking for absolute criteria and much more of an open question to the people of this forum personally i assume that there are amongst this list those who have relatively stable formal criteria and those for who such things are in flux and those for whom such ideas are utterly foreign yet i cannot imagine that any of these attitudes wd preclude their work from being seen as experimental nor wd it be so dubbed b/c of any of these things Jeffrey said lots of other stuff in his post but i've gone one too long already )L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:27:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: World #55 Now Out! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Newly fresh & born at the Poetry Project for the super price of $7 ($5 at readings), or $25 for a subscription to four issues The World #55 with work by Dominick Arbolay Reinaldo Arenas Ece Ayhan Bill Berkson Tracy Blackmer Wanda Coleman Brenda Coultas Zhang Er Robert Hershon Vicki Hudspith Gary Lenhart Bill Luoma Jaime Manrique Mark Pawlak Mirkka Rekola Jerome Sala Eleni Sikelianos Carmen Valle Paul Violi and Secret Gossip by Ann Rower (secrets of editing the World!) Edwin Torres (secrets behind the Monday Night Reading Series!) Maggie Dubris & Elinor Nauen (secrets behind KOFF! and nude calendars!) Paul Violi (secrets to the universe!) and artwork by Carrie Yamaoka Send checks to: The Poetry Project St. Mark's Church 131 E. 10th St. NY, NY 10003 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 18:52:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: kernel/shell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII --- Bonnie Parker says to Jennifer I have a gun and a name. I will never live in shame. I ride far and wide for my desires. The girls come fast, their lives are fires. I know my fame goes far and wide. The boys don't take my fame in stride. I'm naked now, but for the gun. To make you see the Holy One. If you so much as turn from me. My gun will speak Eternity. You dream of me, blame it on me. Your sex is me, my gun you'll see. I'm only here to beg, obey. The gun makes sure I'm here to stay. I'm your Girl now and in the future. You have a lovely tender creature. Without the gun I'm everyone. Your flesh and mine, we're on the run. There's earth and sky, nowhere to hide. My gun's my friend, my gun's my bride. When I was young I thought of guns. I lived and died, 'neath angry suns. It's healthy, true, the way to be. All problems solved, I'm young and free. The gun is me, the gun is you. Desires flow like bullets too. We're here and now, we're only One. I yearn and cry, this is my gun. I have a gun and a Name. I will never die in shame. --- Shell Is it because seize your body in the middle of the night twist it beyond belief that you came naked and broken to me? Why do you say you might want to rid? What makes you yearn and cry that you want the dreams to go away? Earlier you said seize your body in the middle of the night twist it beyond belief? What happened when your skin burns your body is charred? Maybe and now I adjust my panties - your desires have to do with some girls or with this. Is it because of your life that you say girls or boys nothing? You mentioned that you would like to rid? Is it because of the boys you hang around with that you are going through all this? Why not? Does it bother you that I ask that? Why not? Please please don't ever leave me. What makes you believe shut up? Are you sure that seize your body in the middle of the night twist it beyond belief? How do you reconcile your nakedness? Are you afraid of that? Is it because of any fantasies you have of me that you say you will violate yourself? Earlier you said you would like to rid? Perhaps and now I exhibit my frocks - this has some girl to do with any fantasies I have of you that I say I will violate myself? Do you really think some girl has nothing to do with anything? You mentioned that seize your body in the middle of the night twist it beyond belief? Oh oh I do see so... Well, what makes you think this is so? Possibly and guess - I show you my flesh - your sex life are related to this. This is a healthy and so true way of thinking. Can you elaborate on that and look at me? Are you annoyed that you, too, may die someday? Is it because of perversions you have that you say your skin is seared off? Oh oh yes, ahhh... Why do you say this is so? I am in love with your obsession with this topic! __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:32:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: new from housepress: lawrence ferlinghetti at 80. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > housepress is pleased to announce the release of: > > "the new king of poetry: lawrence ferlinghetti at 80" > an interview with lawrence ferlinghetti by ron whitehead. > with photographs by Chris Felver. > > In "the new king of poetry: lawrence ferlinghetti at 80" > Ferlinghetti and Whitehead discuss "A Far Rockaway of the Heart", > City Lights Books, the "beat generation" and Ferlinghetti's poetry > and view at 80 years old. > > limited edition handsown chapbook - 100% cotton watermarked > pages, with onionskin partial covers, handsewn saddle-stitched > binding. $7.00 ea. > for more information , or to order, contact: > > derek beaulieu at > housepre@telusplanet.net > or ph. 403-234-0336 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 23:05:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: http://epc.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Following are a few of the resources added to the Electronic Poetry Center in recent months. To access these items, visit the EPC at http://epc.buffalo.edu and select "New". ------------------------------------------------------------- from Eye to Eye by Robert Creeley and Archie Rand William Burroughs Author Page Ethnopoetics at the Millennium (Rothenberg) Three Paris Elegies (Rothenberg) Deluxe Rubber Chicken #3 DOC(K)S (connect) Lyn Hejinian Author Page Ted Berrigan Author Page Arshile (connect) Spuyten Duyvil (connect) A Secret Location by Clay & Phillips (connect) How2 (connect) 99 Poets/1999 (connect) Against National Poetry Month as Such by Bernstein (connect) Aviary Corridor (Alexander) William Bronk (1918-1999) Mullen Interview (Revised) Day Book of a Virtual Poet (Creeley) Deluxe Rubber Chicken #2 Bernstein Seminary Coop Interview New Directions Books (connect) So There (connect) Fence (connect) ------------------------------------------------------------- Electronic Poetry Center (http://epc.buffalo.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 00:26:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Performance Enunciation Comments: To: Cyb , Fop MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Foofwa d'Imobillite and Alan Sondheim will be on the Pentacle Studio Theatre, 104 Franklin Street, Between Broadway and Church Street in Tribeca, New York City, doing one of an evening of other works all together called Spontaneious Combusion, Short Dances of Fiery Intui- tion and Momentary Structure, Friday May 21 and Saturday May 22 at 8:00 in the evenings; information and reservation at 212-226-2000. The part of Alan Sondheim may be played by audio and video. Many other performers: Andrea Mills, Mariss Uudkin, Joanna Rotkin and Rachael Wilde, Katherine Marx and Scott Waldron, Anna Paola Civardi and Muriel Vergnaud. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:28:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: EPC: New URL Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcing the availability of a new, simpler URL for the EPC. You may now visit the EPC at our new address: http://epc.buffalo.edu (All links to any old addresses in the EPC will continue to work.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:36:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher M Devenney Subject: Philadelphia Apt. Avail. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I apologize in advance if this is an inappropriate use of band-width on the list. I am moving to Philadelphia July 1 and I've found a wonderful Center City apt. within walking distance to U.Penn. I need to find a housemate, however, in order to get this place. The share of the rent is $250 each, plus utilities. It's large, has lots of light, on-street parking, hardwoord floors, and whoever takes this with me gets two rooms (a bedroom and an office/workspace) plus their own bathroom (it's a 2 br, 2 ba, 2 floor apt. in a house). Anyone living in Philly, or like me, going to Philly, who is interested should e-mail me privately so we can talk further. Thanks, Chris Devenney ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:51:12 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Response to Standard Schaefer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Underlying his recent remarks to the List -- but more explicitly in his _RHIZOME_ article -- Standard makes a very original & interesting gesture towards a sociological analysis of poetry along the lines of Pierre Bourdieu's critique of the "habitas" -- that is to say, the sense of one's place which emerges through the processes of differentiation in social space that maintain and create prestige while confirming various heirarchies of belief, value, and so on. This is not at all developed, as Standard acknowledges in the article, & it is also at odds with those remarks of his that, as Brian Kim Stefans points out, can be interpreted in ways that show that Standard is himself implicated, to a degree that he may not be fully conscious of, in a set of dispositions, or practices, that actually contest *for* rather than *against* the priviledges he wants to expose. Standard's attitude toward Language Poetry, far from attempting a degree of objectivity or dispassion is clearly *interested*, and reveals the Oedipal anxieties that are a very familiar pattern in inter-generational conflicts for predominance -- but after all he is only as unfair to the Language Poets as they were to their precursors. In any case, Standard's recent and highly favorable review of Stefan's _FREE SPACE COMIX_ in _LINGO_ seems, in light of his _RHIZOME_ article, somewhat problematic, -- as well as the appearance there of numerous Language Poets featured in all three issues of the magazine. Stefans' remarks are in fact quite perceptive in many other ways, particularly re Bernstein. However, to the extent that Language Poetry made the attempt to "talk back to power" a central -- the central? -- aspect of their aesthetic, it certainly seems more than fair to point out the compromises, blind spots, and hypocrisies in their negotations with institutional priviledge. It's not quite good enough for them simply to agonize over the extent to which they now participate in reproducing relations of prestige, etc. when such questions, owing to the premises from which Language Poetry develped, are *uniquely relevant* to the work itself -- at least as the Language Poets themselves explicate their work (though here I would agree with Charles Altieri's comments in the Hank Lazer book that Stefans recommends Standard read -- that Language Poetry is a lot more interesting than its own self-presentation). Nor has the relative and qualified success of Language Poetry been something which, as Stefans seems to argue, simply happened. The various stories I've heard about the background of _In the American Tree_ would surprise a lot of people I think. **All of which is not to say of course that it is not a good thing that some of the Language Poets have cleared a space for themselves in the academy, or that their work should not attract as wide a readership, & as much critical attention as possible.** But it *is* to begin to understand why many aspects of Language Poetry may not seem entirely sufficient to the kinds of poets Standard describes as unaligned. Stefans writes: "I think that [Standard's essay is] part of a trend that I sense very strongly write now in poets who are, say, generally within my age range, some older some younger (so that would be mid-twenties to mid-thirties) who are prone to making very over-arching, "emotional" (most more often hysterical) statements about how the Language Poets have completely subtracted a certain variable -- "emotion" -- from the poetic equation in America. . . . I would suggest [that Standard read] Charles' exchange with Louis Simpson in . . . the Politics of Poetic Form, in which his ideas on "emotion" are most misunderstood and most strongly stated." Yes, Bernstein is brilliant as usual (& again the book itself is a fascinating "failure" -- Vendler, Altieri, Perloff and the others talk at each other, more than to each other -- though God only knows what "success" could possibly mean in these circumstances). And yes, "emotion" is quite a complex thing & it is certainly not absent from Language Poetry. However, it is easy to understand the "trend" Stefans speaks about in non-hysterical terms. It seems obvious for example that, as a result of their critique of the mediated & conventional character of passional language, the Language Poets made a wide range of aesthetic experience unavailable to experimental writing. It is interesting to see how, for instance, Bruce Andrews begins his Linebreak interview by attempting to account for/explain away his early love poems. Among emerging poets, however-- at least in my limited experience -- the attitude toward Language Poetry's disabling of a wide range of traditional aesthetic resources is not at all the same as Louis Simpson's. This is too large an issue to go into now & my post is already much too long. Suffice it to say that the anatgonism to Language Poetry in an essay like Standard's has less to do with fundamental ideological disagreements than about the emphases it chooses to make & the contradictions it chooses to ignore -- & there are obvious contradictions in the aesthetics of Language poetry as well which are themselves strategically repressed. The contextual bias of Language Writing -- its overwhelming emphasis on the role of subjects in the situation of communication seems a very difficult topic for further aesthetic development (an observation which, I realize, needs to be qualified to a much greater extent than I have time to do here). To the Language Poets this must seem like giving up ground already fought over and won, but new negotiations & reconsiderations of, among other things, the place of the emotions in poetry, & the scope & variety of their presentation seem to me especially timely now. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:55:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: sentimental Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Who'd want to be saddled with that term?? Well......I would. It's a gesture of self-defense--an aikido move. See my essay "Confessions of a Postmodern Poetess" forthcoming in a book of essays by women poets from Graywolf. Annie >Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:37:44 -0400 >From: "Lowther,John" >Subject: Re: Lyric ( s e n t i m e n t a l / *which* lyric ? ) > > { p o e t i x } > >Annie Finch writes; "I have located a crucial distinction between what i >call the "romantic" lyric (the I/thou, gaze/gazer, subject/object dichotomy >where all revolves around the central eye) and what I call the "sentimental" >lyric (multivoiced, multiviewpointed, objectifying the speaker as much as >the outside world)." > >and i think the distinction is quite probably useful >but i wonder at the choice of the term > > s e n t i m e n t a l > >my wonder tending to channel's like ; >"who wd want to get saddled with that term?" > > ______________________________ Annie Finch (http://muohio.edu/~finchar) Cincinnati, Ohio Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:37:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: responsibility Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" sometimes i wonder and sometime i understand that i'm a delusional poet, a poet who imagines what is said(soberly, seriously, wierdly or funnily) is important and that sooner or later if you're a practictioner of poetry you discover that poetry makes demands of its own, hello there poet you may think you're looking in the mirror but knock knock us ghosts ooooo oooooo are looking back at you through the doorway which you think is the mirror we may be dead but we're part of the audience you're writing for and your audience expects hell requires more than the self agrandizement you might have imagined when you first stuck quill to parchment. One of those requirements, that Cavalcanti and Pound and Sor Juana and Borges and Levertov and Duncan and HD and Stein and Akmatova and Cvetaeva and Mayakovsky and Cummings and Catullus and Ovid and Olson and Creeley and Sorrentino and Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, and Kevin Davies and Tom Raworth and in my audience have always required of me is to remind the living practitioners and appreciators alike that no matter the constant reiteration of the platitude that poetry is a solitary art it is no such thing. You can't write poetry without reading it and sooner or later if you read it you're going to find there are poems out there (beside your own)that delight you, that outrage you, that put your own work to shame, and i've always taken it as my duty to shine a little light on this work, that's why when i perform i like to begin reading work by others that's particularly exciting to me at the time. does anyone else feel this way? you'd be hard pressed to tell it if you were looking for notice of the launch of The Recovery of the Public World. Sometimes i think it's a conspiracy against Robin Blaser, whose magnum opus The Holy Forest, one of the truly great books of 20th century literature, and surely one of the most important books of American Poetry published in the 90's got zero notice in the New York Times Book Review. Maybe The Recovery of the Public World, Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser edited by Charles Watts and Edward Byrne and published handsomely by Talon Books more than makes up for that lack. The launch at the Western Front in Vancouver was another standing room only affair, 150 people packed into the Grand Luxe Ballroom on the second floor. Ted Byrne, Karl Ziegler, Peter Quartermain, Miriam Nichols, Sharon Thesen, George Bowering and Robin all spoke, Robin read from the libretto he's currently working on for The Last Supper and opera by Birdwhistle? forgive me somebody help me here i'm not up on my British Composers that while premiere next year. Most spoke in fond remembrance of Charles who died last year, sad loss, but as i read it i think of him up on Burnaby Mountain sometimes until near midnight kerning every page of this magnificent production. I'm going to try to give it the attention it deserves over the next month or so speaking of specific essays, it's a big task, it's a big poetry and many important writers including Phyllis Webb, Steve McCaffery, Lisa Robertson, Daphne Marlatt, George Stanley, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Waldman, Leslie Scalapino, Peter Gizzi, Jed Rasula, Susan Howe, Rachel Blau Duplessis, Kevin Killian, Nathaniel Tarn, Steve Dickison, Norma Cole, Bruce Boone, Peter Quartermain and more have essays in this 464 page collection. But here i want to remind you that poets are composed of equal parts of bravery and folly, so i don't want you to wait to hear what i'm going to say, i want you to rush right in there and let us know what you think of this reflection of the devotion of both Charles and Robin. If you don't hear from me, it's because I'm going crazy trying to find the three months arrears in my telephone bill and internet provider bill. If you've got a job for me, my grandchildren are growing up, I'm ready to leave the wilderness, let me know love, billy forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zap.to/zonko ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 17:14:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: What does Mr. Pound believe? / Materer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this one; as a reminder to digest subscribers, please be sure not to duplicate the entire digest in your reply. Chris -------- Original message (ID=5E23711D) (1151 lines) ---------- Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 12:48:49 -0600 From: Timothy Materer Subject: What does Mr. Pound believe? >What does Mr. Pound believe? >> >>>I can't remember where this quote from T.S. Eliot on Pound occurs. Eliot asks this question at the end of his 1928 review of Pound's _Personae_. You can of course find the full reference in Gallup's bibliography. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 14:56:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Disruption, Parameters etc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" { p o e t i x } Randy Prunty quoting George Lakoff on Gins and Arakawa; "The increasing violence and destruction in the world - physical, ecological, economic, social, and emotional - are all a product of our present modes of thought. If the cruelty is to end, our concepts must change. Since concepts are physically encoded in the brain and grounded in the body, our brains and bodies must change. If art is to play a role for the good, it must disrupt our concepts, our normal ways of functioning - our brains and our bodies. Art as disruption is art as a moral force. Disruption is an aesthetic experience, and an aesthetic experience of this kind is inherently moral. Moreover, disruptive art on a large-enough scale will be sufficient to reverse our destiny, so that the violence and destruction can end." and to this Jacques Debrot replies saying (among other things); "But one of the difficulties here, in respect of poetry, seems to me precisely one of "sufficiency of scale." Nor is disruption something diametrically opposed to violence & destruction" next in the queue Mark Prejsnar intervenes suggesting that Jacques is overburdening the term "disruption" in the Lakoff piece - but upon reflection and a good third reading of what Jacques is saying i don't think he's overburdening the term - simply indicating that it might also have descriptive acuity relative to violence and thus that 'disruption' in an of itself is not anything we can value positively in every situation - of course Mark is also right in saying that in context the sort of disruption Lakoff discusses *is* meant to be a good thing - or to state it less dyadically the interventions via art that Arakawa and Gins enact are meant to shake up the fixity of our notions whether they be perceptual or conceptual Mark and Jacques also both assume that the two voice post questioning whether poetry is telic or not was meant as a response to the rhizome piece - and while i know that the 1st question of poetry as 'telic' arose there it wasn't my intention that they be linked - the two voice piece, as Randy noted in his post was of two minds as well more an attempt to see what two possible perspectives among countless ones i didn't think of might have to offer but Jacques does link this to the essay and brings up a question that i find interesting and a little bit troubling as well Debrot (with my parsings); "...the problem it seems to me is rather that, at a time when the history of art is *arguably* over, & the most extreme aesthetic violence --Artaud's say -- is merely a "style" that one cannot avoid "quoting" (...) can art really be said to have retained a capacity for disruption? (...) S. Schaefer problematizes the continuity between radical poetic theory and practice. This aspect of his argument seems persuasive, particularly in the context of Prunty's post, as no poem seems likely to come close to approaching the extremity of the aesthetic experience Lakoff describes." ? but is Lakoff describing a fait accompli or discussing the motivation for a work of art ? has everything really already been done ? how cd this be ? and if it was the case how cd we know ? what wd assuming such to be the case leave us with ? or rather, what use is there for an analysis that says ~the history of art is *arguably* over~ ? wd it remove all anxieties about one's place relative to tradition ? (what if you weren't anxious ? cd you hang onto history then ?) i think Jacques cuts to the quick in saying that there is a problem with the "sufficiency of scale" and as such i think that Standard's question about whether the theory and practice match-up is not incoherent or meaningless by any means but i wonder exactly how many writers or more generally artists who have been motivated by political/social concerns *in any way* cd withstand a litmus wherein every goal they've espoused must be found to have been achieved thru their art but Jacques continues with this; "But I think his concern with establishing parameters for aesthetic judgement have merit -- not as prescriptions, or "standards" -- but as a means of asking -- for framing the question -- "What is the possibility of poetry today?" since it is not, I don't think, [a] sort of Antinomian practice..." And Mark asks; "What parameters does Jacques agree we must adhere to??" and i find that i'd like to hear some answer to this myself but i don't myself see how establishing parameters cd do anything other than limit "the possibility of poetry today" - and further i fear much more of this does something like what Randy was saying; it "put[s] too much pressure on those little ink spots on the paper." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:37:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Telic or Not pt.II (for 2 voices) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > { p o e t i x } >=20 >=20 >=20 > _____[two voices continue]_____ >=20 >=20 > did you see what Linda Russo had to say about this telos business? >=20 > yes, shall i read it? >=20 > sure >=20 > "Or maybe the 'telic goal' of poetry isn't telic at all, it's = anti-telic: > to make sure there's no 'no poetry' -- the way that the 'telic goal' = of > medicine is to stave off death?" >=20 > well it sounds good but i wonder if simply switching the polarity of = our > terms is enough to make it an 'anti-telos' - look at her wording; "to = make > sure there's no 'no poetry'" - can't we cancel the double no and have = the > following "it's anti-telic: to make sure there's poetry" ? i have = trouble > seeing this as anti-telic as 'to make sure there is poetry' just as = "to > make sure there is no 'no poetry'" both sound like goals however = general >=20 > you'd be happy to make that into a little graph wdn't you? >=20 > yr point? >=20 > just that while yr response to that quote is all very well and good = if > 'telic' means what you think it means - but perhaps it means = otherwise? =20 >=20 > probably does >=20 > o.k. so what might it mean for Linda Russo? she goes on to write; >=20 > "...that's it's not 'what poetry is' that's at stake, but what the = world > (or the social and cultural complex) without poetry isn't." >=20 > and i think what she's getting at - or for the sake of argument here = and > now - i think what ~i'm getting at~ is that - if - there is an 'end' > toward which poetry is directed it is as an intervention in a = fucked-up > world - but that concerning ourselves with an ultimate end isn't of = much > use - it's the limited ends - the 'this moment' needs that poetry > addresses itself to >=20 > hmm... >=20 > while yr formulating how about we look at the dictionary? >=20 > Main Entry: te=B7los > Pronunciation: 'te-"l=E4s, 'tE- > Function: noun > Etymology: Greek; probably akin to Greek tellein to accomplish, = tlEnai to > bear -- more at Tolerate=20 > Date: 1904 > : an ultimate end=20 >=20 > Main Entry: te=B7lic > Pronunciation: 'te-lik, 'tE- > Function: adjective > Etymology: Greek telikos, from telos end -- more at TELOS > > Date: 1889 > : tending toward an end > - te=B7li=B7cal=B7ly /-li-k(&-)lE/ adverb=20 >=20 > that's odd >=20 > what? that you've been pronouncing it wrong all this time? >=20 > no - that 'telos' is an ultimate end and 'telic' is NOT - 'having an > ultimate end' - but - "tending toward an end" >=20 > so i guess then what i was just saying before the dictionary aside cd = be > said like this in light of precision definitions; "All poetry is = Telic yet > Poetry has no Telos." >=20 > i'm fine with that >=20 > what you don't want to keep going ? >=20 > i think i'm tending toward other ends just now >=20 > what about the other posts from Randy Prunty and Jacques Debrot and > Standard Schaefer with the word "telic" in the subject line >=20 > well i guess that i think our last post was pulled in a certain = direction > by those postings and that for me it wasn't quite what we were = inquiring > about anymore and thus best considered an other topic >=20 > ok=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 13:05:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: FW: Cole Swensen reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Cole Swensen and Bin Ramke will be reading from their recent books this > Friday, May 21 at 7:00pm, Renaissance North, Mary Read Building, > University of Denver Campus. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 14:04:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Series/Mnemonic Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable A wonderful debut by Trane DeVore (from Avec Books). Here's the promo. (More information, along with excerpts, will be on Avec web site by Friday.= ) _________ New From Avec Books Series/Mnemonic poems Trane DeVore In a sequence of short poems rendered in refined yet sensual language, DeVore's close scrutiny encompasses both the corporeal and the temporal worlds. Like Proust's madeleine, objects and elements in nature ignite remembrance and desire. The poems in Series/ Mnemonic are deftly humorous--but also elegant observations about memory and the physical world. =89 The accomplishment in Series/ Mnemonic is doing something plain with cool, careful observation. This work sits well. Thoughtfully composed, simply presented "it smolders in the round." -Laura Moriarty "Exactitudes of hand & mind & eye." This is the one who is particular & exemplary, measure & epitome, personal but never blinded by that. Trane DeVore's poetry of one's situations is purely beautiful, a lasting relief to such as it incisively indites. There haven't been many "first books" as fine & accomplished & meanwhile as promising. -David Bromige DeVore's poetry grapples with traditional matters-memory, desire, beauty-in a method which is distinct and contemporary. Moreover, in an age where irony has been the dominant figure, I find his post-ironic language refreshing, bold and new. This work is playful, sensuous, spare, elegant, rigorous, and compelling. -D.A. Powell Trane DeVore was born in Rescue, California. His work has appeared in numerous publications-most recently in Prosodia, tight, and the late Exquisite Corpse-and he has worked extensively with various incarnations of the Lingua Quartet. He is currently at U.C. Berkeley doing graduate work in English. Publication Date:: May, 1999 List Price $10; ISBN: 1-880713-17-9 website: http://www. litpress.com/avec/ Distributed by Small Press Distribution and Baker & Taylor ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 17:21:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Shark #2 / Clark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this came to the administrative account. Chris ----- From: "Emilie Clark" Date: 5/19/99, 9:31 AM -0400 Announcing Shark #2: What is Context? Poetics and Reviews by: Bill Luoma, "Cowgirls Like the Salt Lick" Steve Evans, on Spahr, Friedlander, Hocquard and Luoma Jean Day, "The baby wore an expression of concern . . . / and where do you come from?" Charles Bernstein, "Speed the Movie or Speed the Brand Name or Aren't You the Kind that Tells" Gregg Biglieri on Lisa Samuels Alystyre Julian on Lee Ann Brown Lytle Shaw, "On Coterie" Lewis Warsh on Fanny Howe Art Projects: Emily McVarish, "Lives and Property" Anthony Discenza and Torsten Burns, "Halflifers Transcription One: Control Corridor" Mark Shepard, "Industrial Pilz" Linda Geary, "Untitled" Emilie Clark, "Classification Scheme .O999" Julie Harrison and Brigid McLeer, "A Response to If it Rained Here" Tony Gray, "Untitled" Sarah Pierce, "Station Nostalgia Transit Love" $10/issue Subscriptions (2 issues) $18 For subscriptions outside the US, add $3 postage per issue. Make checks payable to Lytle Shaw or Emilie Clark 74 Varick St. #203 NY, NY 10013 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 21:28:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katie Degentesh Subject: 9X9 LIVE ON KUSF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Several members of 9x9 Industries will read their poetry and talk with Amy Miller on KUSF San Francisco this coming Thursday, May 20 at approximately 10:45 pm. If you're a Bay Area resident, turn your radio to 90.3 FM for 45 minutes of live poetry, some of it read directly from 9x9's new magazine, _6,500_. Poets featured will include Katie Degentesh, Abie Hadjitarkhani, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Jan Richman. *********************************** 9X9 Industries is a San Francisco consortium of writers combining Apollonian precision of language with Dionysian performance skills. 9X9 (http://www.paraffin.org/) runs a reading series at Adobe Books and organizes huge underground reading/events, like FILLER (2.98, with 3bluelights), CHURCH (6.98, with Vainglorious) and CUPIDITY (2.99, with Vainglorious and the Ariel String Quartet). READERS: Katie Degentesh has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis. Her poems have appeared in the Washington Post and in numerous other American periodicals. Abie Hadjitarkhani is a poet, teacher, graduate student, and catalyst. He enjoys writing about writing as well as just plain writing. Eugene Ostashevsky has published his poems in chapbooks designed by Eugene Timerman (_Noughtbooks 1 & 2_) and Darin Klein (_Fish Sticks_, _Daphne Azak_). He also translates and writes about contemporary Russian poetry. According to Playboy Online, "his whines emanate from the root of all suffering." Jan Richman is the author of _Because the Brain Can Be Talked Into Anything_, which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1995. She is currently working on a book about rollercoasters and Tourette's Syndrome. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 00:44:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Garrett Kalleberg Subject: Naturalism - TF10 Comments: To: Poetics List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Naturalism http://www.morningred.com/friend/1999/05/cover.html The Transcendental Friend Issue No. 10, May 1999 Namely. The nature of force, the force of "the natural." An unnatural act. The true and inescapably evil nature of the serpent. The nature of the review as form. Empathetic nature. New work by Emilie Clark, Lytle Shaw and Heather Ramsdell ("Wildness"); Yoko Tawada translated by Susan Bernofsky ("Raisin Eyes"); Jesse Glass ("of snakes"); Dan Machlin ("Review as Form"); and Zhang Er translated by Susan Schultz ("The Autumn of GuYao"). And this much for the ill condition, which man by meer Nature is actually placed in; though with the possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the Passions, partly in his Reason. (Thomas Hobbes.) Garrett Kalleberg mailto:tf@morningred.com The Transcendental Friend can be found at: http://www.morningred.com/friend Immanent Audio Online at: http://www.morningred.com/immanentaudio ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 00:53:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Nikuko: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII \ Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Cool, there are times I hunger to see you. But to begin, a Nikuko: discourse, on exile. Mountains, shrines, Nakasukawabata, Nikuko: continue to haunt me. I am bound by the name. Streams. What is Nikuko: the moment of meditation. Lasting, until the body bends. Nikuko: Double-clapping; there are so many gods they forget my face. Nikuko: Or the dancing, gestures, movement of the double balls at the Nikuko: matsuri. There are lines and threads across this earth, Nikuko: forgotten. Demarcations of areas, bounded, which empty me Nikuko: internally. What is not lost, moment of a vast gone world. The Nikuko: gods gather in great whirlwinds; they approach a coast and are Nikuko: turned back. They live with the turning. They gather at the Nikuko: boundary and look across. They see whatever may be absent but Nikuko: it is beyond their reach; they have no arms and legs and their Nikuko: voices do not carry them farther. Vast cataclysms of orange Nikuko: energy sweep from their hungry faces. They speak unknown Nikuko: languages and even I do not know their languages. I did not Nikuko: know nor ask why they are gods. Now there are questions framed Nikuko: by the whirlwind and the boundary. The sky here has no energy. Nikuko: Or rather is all energy, parceled by lines determined by a Nikuko: metric space. It is spectral blue. Sometimes at night arms and Nikuko: legs of kami push out through my skin, distort me. Painful Nikuko: partial births; in the morning I look and see nothing Nikuko: emerges. I would turn and turn and wind the thread. I stare Nikuko: into a space I can only see as schizophrenic. I would divide Nikuko: and turn into an other traveler. She would come with me, arms Nikuko: and legs in arms and legs, her head in my head, her womb in Nikuko: mine, body and body, mind and mind. At night she seems real. Nikuko: The gods gather and look around but they can't see that Nikuko: far. There are mists and whirlpools, enormous storms at the Nikuko: boundary. Whatever they murmur, truth and magic, I cannot hear Nikuko: clearly. I speak and speak and nothing happens. That is the Nikuko: truth of exile - the speaking, nothing happens. Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Everywhere that I will be, there I will listen to you, O Nikuko: Gods. Always the texts to be read, forwards and backwards. Nikuko: Always the application of formula. The words pour over me. I Nikuko: will always belong to the beginnings of hermeneutics; I am Nikuko: always exiled from speech, from language. Interpretation is Nikuko: exile's result. Once I did rend myself by the waters of Nikuko: Babylon; now it is the rivers through Fukuoka that gather my Nikuko: tears. I am always already at a loss; it is the loss of the Nikuko: world, the dull lid of the night collapsed and soldered hard Nikuko: to the exigencies of the real. This hard earth, here, does not Nikuko: support me. Memory cannot move among the truth of threads Nikuko: connecting one to another. Not every space has a home. There Nikuko: are spaces that cry, spaces that weep, spaces that mourn. My Nikuko: spaces mourn; I listen to my spaces crying and weeping. I Nikuko: repeat the texts, magic. The formula are useless, gods Nikuko: suspended in the whirlwind. Every line spoken, here, for Nikuko: you. I can't understand your replies. Give me a ticket to Nikuko: Kyushu. I will fill my belly and give birth to many dolls. Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Ein Zeichen sind wir, deutungslos Nikuko: Schmerzlos sind wir und haben fast Nikuko: Die Sprache in der Fremde verloren. Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Now I am very tired and I will put my sleepy head on this very Nikuko: nice pillow, so downy and comforting, and I will play pleasing Nikuko: music and my lights are very low. And I can hardly hear the Nikuko: traffic outside, there is the sound of shrine bells somewhere Nikuko: in the distance, and I wake up, and there is the sound of Nikuko: traffic outside and there are church bells disturbing my tiny Nikuko: sleep, and I wake up, and there is the sound of traffic and Nikuko: the sound of a muezzin chanting. My lovely sleepy head is so Nikuko: very restless, it is the head of a refugee, it moves from soft Nikuko: place to soft place and I am so glad it is not a war but the Nikuko: sound of temple bells, and I will have a wonderful place to Nikuko: sleep tonight, and I wake up, and I am so snuggly warm, and I Nikuko: love your language, and I fall back asleep "for just another Nikuko: minute." Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: I am a picture and a frame which is the picture, and now I am Nikuko: another picture and another frame; this is a film story of my Nikuko: life and I am another picture. I speak here and then Nikuko: I speak here and you can follow me speaking through time after Nikuko: time but I am to be your shadow in this speaking. And now I Nikuko: will tell you as well I am a shadow and you see my projection Nikuko: and your project. And now you will understand that there is a Nikuko: voice behind me and a voice beneath me; that there is a woman Nikuko: behind me and a woman beneath me; that there is a frame behind Nikuko: me and a frame beneath me. And this is the frame which is the Nikuko: film and you will have this film while "I am not those among Nikuko: them who are there to be counted," nor am I "one of those who Nikuko: shall remain unaccounted," nor further, "one of those who Nikuko: remain unaccounted for," you will have this in order, as I am Nikuko: a picture and a frame and now I am saying this and now I am Nikuko: saying this. For "I shall remain unaccountable," and "a Nikuko: presence in your midst," and "you shall not hear the voice of Nikuko: the prophet," and "there is a gift of the letters." Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Cool, all that has been named, plagiarized, I'll speak through Nikuko: yet another one, you might know her name, I'll keep it silent Nikuko: like the bell is silent in the whirlwind. O Gods, recompense Nikuko: in silence, your clatter, furious, hard put against the sea. Nikuko: What is wine-dark, dark as well with blood, horse waves broken Nikuko: against wood pegged into wood, shrines speared into red-brown Nikuko: earth. What would be a spell, catenary bent into born words, Nikuko: formula, you crawl upon me, your claws into me, your teeth Nikuko: into me, your nails, your bright bright eyes. Turn me towards Nikuko: your scales, return me back to birth where bone are found. Nikuko: Cool, that names are found. From my wounds, threads. From the Nikuko: threads, symbols, kanji, spaces burned with numbers. What has Nikuko: been told to you from my eternal death. You would know fire, Nikuko: tornado; you would know furious avalanche, violence of the Nikuko: wind. Bead-worlds strung on wound-threads, many thousand Nikuko: thousand year. Earths moan for me; planets pray for me; worlds Nikuko: stitch and open wounds. I am your maw, slashed upon sword; you Nikuko: dance your stupid dance, I'll come out of the cave, grab you, Nikuko: you'll have sun again. "Tell me where I am, baby." I can't Nikuko: speak without screaming songs. Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: Nikuko: ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 01:07:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erika Stephens Subject: Long response to Jacques Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is Mark Prejsnar; (our new home account has only Erika's name on it; which causes some confusion...) I think Jacques Debrot's recent interventions attempt to strike a useful balance, regarding some of the preceding exchanges. He is wrong on a number of points, though: Regarding Standard's interesting essay in Rhizome 3, he writes: "Standard's attitude toward Language Poetry, far from attempting a degree of objectivity or dispassion is clearly *interested*, and reveals the Oedipal anxieties that are a very familiar pattern in inter-generational conflicts for predominance -- but after all he is only as unfair to the Language Poets as they were to their precursors." Now i'm sorry, but this is just plain silly. Unlike the important polemics of the 1970s, SS's piece says *nothing* helpful or accurate about the older poets he wants to dis... His primary rant, is that they have "seized power," by dishonestly manipulating left-leaning theory and polemics. I think (and hope) that most Listmembers realize that Silliman and Bernstein and Hejinian and Scalapino do not "hold power".. That simply suggests how defensive and out-of-touch Standard is. Hell, Robert Pinsky, the FDR of mediocre laureates (going beyond traditional term limits, ya know) holds damn little POWER. Poets, like say jazz musicians, are really not part of a *power structure* in any meaningful sense. SS is mainly having problems with ressentiment, as is indicated by phrases like "Marjorie Perloff and her cronies." As someone who is not nearly important enuff to be part of Standard's target group, i'd like to testify from the sidelines that this is uh, sad. And sure not appropriate to a poet and editor who has done the fine stuff SS has in the past. As many jazz musicians of my acquaintance do, i think poets should have a more collegial and comradely tone, than is contained in petty factionalism such as SS's piece projects. Like them we're part of a subculture that doesn't get many resources allocated to it... We'll flourish best thru mutual aid. Another of Jacques's remarks: "However, to the extent that Language Poetry made the attempt to "talk back to power" a central -- the central? -- aspect of their aesthetic, it certainly seems more than fair to point out the compromises, blind spots, and hypocrisies in their negotations with institutional priviledge. It's not quite good enough for them simply to agonize over the extent to which they now participate in reproducing relations of prestige, etc. when such questions, owing to the premises from which Language Poetry develped, are *uniquely relevant* to the work itself --" Well here we need a major statement (and i'm not being facetious) analyzing what these compromises, blind spots and hypocrisies are. Clearly JD is throwing in here with SS's "Perloff cronies siezing power" thing. Just WHAT are these two talking about?? can SOMEONE possibly elucidate what they think they are saying?? Are Silliman and Perelman and Bernstein guilty of this rather lurid and extreme series of misdeeds, because they have *taught in universities* ?? Because they have five or six books (out of many dozens) that were published by university presses?? Because they have been mentioned in the NYT Book Review more times than Standard?? (a total of 7 or 8, i'd guess, over quite a few years). I have no personal stake in the public image of the poets Standard and Jacques are accusing of compromises, blind spots, hyposcrisy, "relations of prestige" (now just what is that??)---i have never met any of 'em, and seldom spoken with them over e-mail. It just seems to me that SS and JD are badly confused about values and about reality. If they could put a tenth of this invective into weakening the capitalism fee-market system and other structures of *really* hurtful power, we would all have moved appreciably closer to the promised land, that's fer sure! Finally: "It seems obvious for example that, as a result of their critique of the mediated & conventional character of passional language, the Language Poets made a wide range of aesthetic experience unavailable to experimental writing." Now here Jacques makes an interesting point. But obviously the load of defensive rhetoric toward the poets of the last 30 years is just an inappropriate response...As is the absurd phrasing: no one has made anything "unavailable." If this is a problem for JD, he knows what to do: make his mark by rev'ing up the ol' computer and spinning out some passional writing. Koch said to Ashbury (if i have the well-known anecdote right) not to be upset at all the strong writing coming out in mags: "more for us to steal!" To skew the joke somewhat, if older poets have made something underappreciated or underutilized, then for Jacques the obvious point of view should be "more for me to set right in my own work!" Also take it from me: drop this "experimental" crap. If you think yer writing is just writing, you might find it easier to start gettin' "passional"... Just a personal peeve. passionally, Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 08:04:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Death of James Broughton Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1284909844==_ma============" --============_-1284909844==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi it's Kevin Killian. Poetics List has probably heard the news, but the poet and filmmaker James Broughton, one of the original "New American Poets," died in Port Townsend WA at age 85 on Monday May 17. He could be a bit acerbic and he was kind of a nut about "joy" this and "joy" that but oh, I'll miss him. Dodie and I got him to dig out his long-ago "Maidens" play which I had heard about doing research into the Spicer book, and we printed it in our zine about 2 years ago, here it is again for those who didn't it MISSION to GOMORRAH This play was especially written to amuse poet friends and was performed by them for the first time in April 1958. Rowena Monkenberg Helen Adam Mrs. Lily Trump Eve Triem Flippety Dick Jess Major Beatrice Madeline Gleason Dr. Agon Robert Duncan [Scene: a desert. Enter ROWENA MONKENBERG in a flowing gown, Mrs. LILY TRUMP in a cocktail dress, and FLIPPETY DICK in shorts.] ROWENA. I see no city ahead. Charred sand for endless miles. No distant mountain. Not even a lizard. How will we survive across this wasteland? LILY. My feet hurt. I shouldn't have worn so much jewelry. FLIP. When in doubt, wiggle less and breathe more! ROWENA. This heat shrivels my Scottish bones. The only water is this stinking green pond. FLIP. Before using internally, or any other way, see if your solution needs a good shake. ROWENA. I hate you, Mr. Flippety Dick! I can't forgive you for ruining the picnic. Why did you kill that adorable tarantula? FLIP. I will kill, and I will make to live. I am the Dance of Shiva! LILY. My friend Mrs. Pines, Mrs. Dora Pines, saved string in boxes for forty-one years. One morning she opened them all up and hung herself. ROWENA. O, the ugly passions of mankind, they poison me! LILY. Dora Pines couldn't stand it, the endless humdrumming next door, not another minute. FLIP. This is a poor excuse for a desert. Where are the saints? Where are the slot machines? LILY. Are we really on the right road to Gomorrah? ROWENA. The last signpost said: Nirvana 25,000 miles. LILY. I didn't want to come on this expedition. But the Major is so determined. Determined to establish her colony on sacred ground. What are she and the doctor doing? ROWENA (looking off). The beasts! They're swatting! They're swatting the tsetse flies! FLIP. That sphinx we just passed in the sand- I asked her a riddle. LILY. Why do you talk to every girl you see? You're just trying to break my heart. Even my husband is more thoughtful of me than you are. FLIP. Said I to the Sphinx, said I: What is it that is born in a vacuum lives in an air-conditioner and dies in a doldrum? LILY. I give up! FLIP. Said the Sphinx to me, said the Sphinx: 'You gaseous lump, how dare you ask me riddles!" said the Sphinx to me. LILY. The minx! ROWENA (singing to herself). So comely Maud has gone to her grave for the sorry love of a sailor. She hanged herself on the blackthorn bough because her Johnny failed her. Her cat of black, her golden finch are friendless, left to grieve her. And her Johnny Boy of the seven seas is still a gay deceiver. LILY. Flippety dear, I wish we were back in that dark cocktail lounge, sitting on that soft divan with plenty of that hard liquor. FLIP. All the girls I dream of have names beginning with Ann. Anima, Anemia, Angina, Anesthesia . . . LILY (sighing). O Man, where is thy sting? SLIP (suddenly passionate). When honey dripped from the trees in the once-golden orchard of Man, happily sucked they like bees those sunlit children of Pan. Like lions of love lived they where gold apples over-ran, juicily roaring at play in the bedfellow Eden of Man. [Enter MAJOR BEATRICE, followed by DOCTOR AGON. She is wearing mountaineering outfit, he is in mourning.] MAJOR B. No, doctor, no! I haven't time to kiss you! We are on a pilgrimage. I need your science by my side, not your whiskers in my face. We must persist, or we are undone. DR. A. All errors are the want of love. The Wheel never breaks, the break never heals. MAJOR B. I have a mission. Don't you? Doesn't everybody have a mission? Don't you believe that sublime affirmations shine in the dark heart of the world? DR. A. Beyond this emptiness is there any bright oasis? Are Truth, Beauty, and Goodness ever found where we look for them? LILY. Major, I'm thirsty. Where are we? MAJOR B. We're not there yet. ROWENA. There's a salty smell. Mightn't Gomorrah be near? DR. A. Sand. A pond of stinking water. A tombstone. Looks like the kingdom of Ozymandias. FLIP. Is hell even hotter than this? MAJOR B. 'Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the desert.' DR. A. It is also said that if a pig is thrown into deep water, when he tries to save himself from drowning he cuts his throat with his own sharp hooves. ROWENA. O Doctor Agon, how could you? That dear little pig! You're a beast! MAJOR B. Take heart, my brave pilgrims. The first condition is: make yourself humble as dust and ashes. DR. A. Major of my dreams, If I were not entranced by the tip of your nose, I would be back home in my Guatemalan hammock. MAJOR B. This is no time for fiddle faddle. Look at that warped cloud! DR. A. Must I surrender my attachment to the human creature and her 10,000 things? LILY. When I was first married my husband kept the cow in the bathtub. He still keeps his tools in it. DR. A. Maybe I could be of help, Mrs. Trump. Here's my card. MAJOR B. Doctor, you know what we are suffering from. Why don't you help us? LILY. There's a lot of it going around. ROWENA. There's something wrong with the stars. DR. A. There isn't any cure. MAJOR B. There has to be! FLIP (singsong). Sippety syrupy sob, the corn is off the cob. Baba Yaga going gaga cut off the balls of Bob. [ROWENA shrieks.] LILY. Falling, falling . . . DR. A. The rain it raineth every day. MAJOR B. Where falls the heavenly dew, to lave the soiled black body in the grave? LILY. Destruction! ROWENA. Damnation! FLIP. Disfigurement . . . MAJOR B (beginning a blues song, which the others join). It's gotten out of hand It's coming down all around It's falling out all over me, I've got those radioactive, feeling inactive, feverish fallout blues! DR. A. My burning baby . . . . MAJOR B. It's falling from above but not from Heaven. It's just coming down on me. DR. A. . . . and me . . . ALL. All over us! It's scandal-ous! LILY. Ruin-ous! ROWENA. Poison-ous! FLIP. Igneous! . . . MAJOR B. And I get the feeling I'm falling, I'm falling out too . . . DR. A. My fallen angel . . . MAJOR B. I'm falling out with you. DR. A. Then we're together . . . DR. A. and MAJOR B (singing together). I'm falling out-with-you. MAJOR B. I'm falling out of love I'm falling out of shape I'm falling out of luck . . . DR. A. I'm out of my mind . . . LILY. Out of joint . . . FLIP. Out of kilter . . . ROWENA. Out of order . . . DR. A. Out of the question . . . MAJOR B. It's falling out- of all proportion and it's all coming down on me. DR. A. . . . and me. ALL. All over us! It's blasphem-ous! LILY. Villain-ous! ROWENA. Insidi-ous! FLIP. Nucle-us! MAJOR B. I've got those unattractive, overly active, damn hot fallout blues! [End of song.] FLIP (spoken). I'm sick. ROWENA. The poor dragonflies! O the rats and fleas! DR. A. Death is the thing we carry in our hands. LILY. Death is the thing I see in my mirror. FLIP. Death is all right for the other fellow. ROWENA. Death is the loiterer I do not trust. MAJOR B. Where falls the heavenly dew, to lave the soiled black body in the grave? DR. A. Death is a womb, like sleep and dream. MAJOR B. The seed, the seed, the renewing grace . . . DR. A. Out of Death's blackened phallus bursts a beauty of sunrise flower. MAJOR B. Death is the beginning we fear to know. FLIP. What's so great about staying alive? ROWENA (singing). The mountains are all looking down, down, down, the fair lady Margaret to see, how her devilish act did startle the town when she hanged her two babes on a tree, tall tree . . . LILY. My feet hurt. They're so hot. MAJOR B. Take heart again, my pilgrims. You have been humbled enough by dust and ashes. Now arise. Rise to the uplift stair! We have longer to go in the shortest of time and there's no way out but up! DR. A. How far will the Eternal Feminine lead us eternally upward? LILY. Will we get to a nice cocktail lounge? FLIP. Will I have to put up with angels? ROWENA. I want to see Gomorrah! I want to see the bones of burning sinners! MAJOR B. All that fails we witness and denounce. So let us risk the only bliss that counts. Come, take adventure! Let the sorrow go! This wasteful desert is a passing show. [She herds them off.] --============_-1284909844==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Hi it's Kevin Killian. Poetics List has probably heard the news, but the poet and filmmaker James Broughton, one of the original "New American Poets," died in Port Townsend WA at age 85 on Monday May 17. He could be a bit acerbic and he was kind of a nut about "joy" this and "joy" that but oh, I'll miss him. Dodie and I got him to dig out his long-ago "Maidens" play which I had heard about doing research into the Spicer book, and we printed it in our zine about 2 years ago, here it is again for those who didn't it MISSION to GOMORRAH AGaramond_ItalicThis play was especially written to amuse poet friends and was performed by them for the first time in April 1958. AGaramondRowena Monkenberg Helen Adam Mrs. Lily Trump AGaramond_ItalicEve Triem AGaramondFlippety Dick AGaramond_ItalicJess AGaramondMajor Beatrice Madeline Gleason Dr. Agon Robert Duncan [Scene: a desert. Enter ROWENA MONKENBERG in a flowing gown, Mrs. LILY TRUMP in a cocktail dress, and FLIPPETY DICK in shorts.] ROWENA. I see no city ahead. Charred sand for endless miles. No distant mountain. Not even a lizard. How will we survive across this wasteland? LILY. My feet hurt. I shouldn't have worn so much jewelry. FLIP. When in doubt, wiggle less and breathe more! ROWENA. This heat shrivels my Scottish bones. The only water is this stinking green pond. FLIP. Before using internally, or any other way, see if your solution needs a good shake. ROWENA. I hate you, Mr. Flippety Dick! I can't forgive you for ruining the picnic. Why did you kill that adorable tarantula? FLIP. I will kill, and I will make to live. I am the Dance of Shiva! LILY. My friend Mrs. Pines, Mrs. Dora Pines, saved string in boxes for forty-one years. One morning she opened them all up and hung herself. ROWENA. O, the ugly passions of mankind, they poison me! LILY. Dora Pines couldn't stand it, the endless humdrumming next door, not another minute. FLIP. This is a poor excuse for a desert. Where are the saints? Where are the slot machines? LILY. Are we really on the right road to Gomorrah? ROWENA. The last signpost said: Nirvana 25,000 miles. LILY. I didn't want to come on this expedition. But the Major is so determined. Determined to establish her colony on sacred ground. What are she and the doctor doing? ROWENA (looking off). The beasts! They're swatting! They're swatting the tsetse flies! FLIP. That sphinx we just passed in the sand- I asked her a riddle. LILY. Why do you talk to every girl you see? You're just trying to break my heart. Even my husband is more thoughtful of me than you are. FLIP. Said I to the Sphinx, said I: What is it that is born in a vacuum lives in an air-conditioner and dies in a doldrum? LILY. I give up! FLIP. Said the Sphinx to me, said the Sphinx: 'You gaseous lump, how dare you ask me riddles!" said the Sphinx to me. LILY. The minx! ROWENA (singing to herself). So comely Maud has gone to her grave for the sorry love of a sailor. She hanged herself on the blackthorn bough because her Johnny failed her. Her cat of black, her golden finch are friendless, left to grieve her. And her Johnny Boy of the seven seas is still a gay deceiver. LILY. Flippety dear, I wish we were back in that dark cocktail lounge, sitting on that soft divan with plenty of that hard liquor. FLIP. All the girls I dream of have names beginning with Ann. Anima, Anemia, Angina, Anesthesia . . . LILY (sighing). O Man, where is thy sting? SLIP (suddenly passionate). When honey dripped from the trees in the once-golden orchard of Man, happily sucked they like bees those sunlit children of Pan. Like lions of love lived they where gold apples over-ran, juicily roaring at play in the bedfellow Eden of Man. [Enter MAJOR BEATRICE, followed by DOCTOR AGON. She is wearing mountaineering outfit, he is in mourning.] MAJOR B. No, doctor, no! I haven't time to kiss you! We are on a pilgrimage. I need your science by my side, not your whiskers in my face. We must persist, or we are undone. DR. A. All errors are the want of love. The Wheel never breaks, the break never heals. MAJOR B. I have a mission. Don't you? Doesn't everybody have a mission? Don't you believe that sublime affirmations shine in the dark heart of the world? DR. A. Beyond this emptiness is there any bright oasis? Are Truth, Beauty, and Goodness ever found where we look for them? LILY. Major, I'm thirsty. Where are we? MAJOR B. We're not there yet. ROWENA. There's a salty smell. Mightn't Gomorrah be near? DR. A. Sand. A pond of stinking water. A tombstone. Looks like the kingdom of Ozymandias. FLIP. Is hell even hotter than this? MAJOR B. 'Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the desert.' DR. A. It is also said that if a pig is thrown into deep water, when he tries to save himself from drowning he cuts his throat with his own sharp hooves. ROWENA. O Doctor Agon, how could you? That dear little pig! You're a beast! MAJOR B. Take heart, my brave pilgrims. The first condition is: make yourself humble as dust and ashes. DR. A. Major of my dreams, If I were not entranced by the tip of your nose, I would be back home in my Guatemalan hammock. MAJOR B. This is no time for fiddle faddle. Look at that warped cloud! DR. A. Must I surrender my attachment to the human creature and her 10,000 things? LILY. When I was first married my husband kept the cow in the bathtub. He still keeps his tools in it. DR. A. Maybe I could be of help, Mrs. Trump. Here's my card. MAJOR B. Doctor, you know what we are suffering from. Why don't you help us? LILY. There's a lot of it going around. ROWENA. There's something wrong with the stars. DR. A. There isn't any cure. MAJOR B. There has to be! FLIP (singsong). Sippety syrupy sob, the corn is off the cob. Baba Yaga going gaga cut off the balls of Bob. [ROWENA shrieks.] LILY. Falling, falling . . . DR. A. The rain it raineth every day. MAJOR B. Where falls the heavenly dew, to lave the soiled black body in the grave? LILY. Destruction! ROWENA. Damnation! FLIP. Disfigurement . . . MAJOR B (beginning a blues song, which the others join). It's gotten out of hand It's coming down all around It's falling out all over me, I've got those radioactive, feeling inactive, feverish fallout blues! DR. A. My burning baby . . . . MAJOR B. It's falling from above but not from Heaven. It's just coming down on me. DR. A. . . . and me . . . ALL. All over us! It's scandal-ous! LILY. Ruin-ous! ROWENA. Poison-ous! FLIP. Igneous! . . . MAJOR B. And I get the feeling I'm falling, I'm falling out too . . . DR. A. My fallen angel . . . MAJOR B. I'm falling out with you. DR. A. Then we're together . . . DR. A. and MAJOR B (singing together). I'm falling out-with-you. MAJOR B. I'm falling out of love I'm falling out of shape I'm falling out of luck . . . DR. A. I'm out of my mind . . . LILY. Out of joint . . . FLIP. Out of kilter . . . ROWENA. Out of order . . . DR. A. Out of the question . . . MAJOR B. It's falling out- of all proportion and it's all coming down on me. DR. A. . . . and me. ALL. All over us! It's blasphem-ous! LILY. Villain-ous! ROWENA. Insidi-ous! FLIP. Nucle-us! MAJOR B. I've got those unattractive, overly active, damn hot fallout blues! [End of song.] FLIP (spoken). I'm sick. ROWENA. The poor dragonflies! O the rats and fleas! DR. A. Death is the thing we carry in our hands. LILY. Death is the thing I see in my mirror. FLIP. Death is all right for the other fellow. ROWENA. Death is the loiterer I do not trust. MAJOR B. Where falls the heavenly dew, to lave the soiled black body in the grave? DR. A. Death is a womb, like sleep and dream. MAJOR B. The seed, the seed, the renewing grace . . . DR. A. Out of Death's blackened phallus bursts a beauty of sunrise flower. MAJOR B. Death is the beginning we fear to know. FLIP. What's so great about staying alive? ROWENA (singing). The mountains are all looking down, down, down, the fair lady Margaret to see, how her devilish act did startle the town when she hanged her two babes on a tree, tall tree . . . LILY. My feet hurt. They're so hot. MAJOR B. Take heart again, my pilgrims. You have been humbled enough by dust and ashes. Now arise. Rise to the uplift stair! We have longer to go in the shortest of time and there's no way out but up! DR. A. How far will the Eternal Feminine lead us eternally upward? LILY. Will we get to a nice cocktail lounge? FLIP. Will I have to put up with angels? ROWENA. I want to see Gomorrah! I want to see the bones of burning sinners! MAJOR B. All that fails we witness and denounce. So let us risk the only bliss that counts. Come, take adventure! Let the sorrow go! This wasteful desert is a passing show. [She herds them off.] --============_-1284909844==_ma============-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:27:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: responds ability Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" because i am a funny man(forgive me for saying so) and Canadian poetry is some of the funniest poetry every, i thought i'd begin my examination of the marvelous production, Charles Watts and Ted Byrne and Talon Books have given us, The Recovery of the Public World, Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser, with the Peter Quartermain essay The Mind as Frying Pan: Robin Blaser's Humour. Quartermain's main concern is with the sequence of poems The Truth is Laughter, which arises first in the book Syntax, which was in my thinking the book where he became a Canadian Poet, assimilating the powerful writing of Gilbert, Coleman, McCaffery and McFadden and the book where he gave up his perfectionism and jettisoned the residue of fear lingering from the operatic censure of his companions in San Francisco and began to let the poems flow through him without elaborate tinkering. I remember visiting Duncan soon after the launch of Syntax and saying Robin's finally said farewell to the poetry engraved in stone and Robert rightly saying: Is that what he said, or what you said." I had to laugh, he caught me. Quartermain says: The main drift of my argument is very simple indeed and really quite obvious. It goes like this: that Blaser is a very funny man, blessed (cursed) with great wit, a great sense of mischief, and a great outrage. That it is precisely through humour, through laughter(closely related as it is to the cough), that two realms can meet in this, the only world we've got. And the realms? the realm of the body, where as Allen Ginsberg reminds us we are simply meat talking to meat; and the realm of the spirit, also known as the world of the imagination, as deeply rooted into our historicised meat as is our body itself. Laughter--like other syncopes and interruptions of the breath such as the stutter--dissolves the dualisms of body and spirit, body and imagination, body and mind. An interjection of the body, laughter(like the cough) "shocks the cognitive apparatus in its brute reminder of organic experience"(Appelbaum,8), "deprives the body of its obedience to the mind"(Clement, 7) Laughter affirms our subjection to flesh and thus to time, momentarily negating the mind's life so that --as Blaser's poem puts it--"what's in it is neither true nor false." Laughter is essential to, indeed, quintessential of Blaser's "fundamental struggle for the nature of the real." I might add if you know Blaser, you know his laugh, his unreserved cackle of delight which i would recognize in the hubbub of Bombay or at the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Quartermain's essay, like Peter himself, is unassuming and wide-ranging, from the renaissance of Alberti, to the cyberworld of Wired, stopping off en route to collect the thought of Hobbes, Husserl, Pater, Mann, Stein, Williams, and Giorgio Agamben. Makes me sorry i never took a course with Peter. I'm hoping now that he's retired and has the opportunity to dance to his own piping maybe he'll offer one at the Kootenay School of Writing. forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:20:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: The Third Voice of Telos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > did you see what Linda Russo had to say about this telos business? > > yes, shall i read it? > > sure > > "Or maybe the 'telic goal' of poetry isn't telic at all, it's anti-telic: > to make sure there's no 'no poetry' -- the way that the 'telic goal' of > medicine is to stave off death?" > > well it sounds good but i wonder if simply switching the polarity of our > terms is enough to make it an 'anti-telos' - look at her wording; "to make > sure there's no 'no poetry'" - can't we cancel the double no and have the > following "it's anti-telic: to make sure there's poetry" ? i have trouble > seeing this as anti-telic as 'to make sure there is poetry' just as "to > make sure there is no 'no poetry'" both sound like goals however general I'm not sure, but maybe simply switching the polarity of our terms is a deconstructive move meant to destroy the binary being employed. And to say too that your logic (cancelling the double no) doesn't yield up another 'equal' formulation" no 'no poetry' doesn't = is poetry. Anti-telos does not mean "not telos" but "against telos" -- against the sort of suffocating closure of "making sure there is poetry" -- which sounds an awful lot like Pinsky's project, a canonization which works to the exlusion of certain poetries. . . That's why I prefer to make sure that there's no 'no poetry' . . . sort of like sustainable agriculture. The point isn't to make sure there's food (a quantifiable amount) but to make sure there's no 'no food,' that the potential for food is always there, unquantifiably. To see poetry as a realm of possibility rather than closure. I think it's wonderfully rich that as you point out > that 'telos' is an ultimate end and 'telic' is NOT - 'having an > ultimate end' - but - "tending toward an end" telos is an ideal only. it's not a condition that we achieve but 'tend toward'. it's a kind of death, no? Like Pinsky's stupid dead poetry archive, clearly only meant for living people in relation to their impending death, to squelch their fear of inpending doom and insignificance -- get your fifteen seconds of videod fame & then you're history with a little h, your image stashed in some dusty archive that maybe will survive the nuclear or genetic holocaust & they'll look back on us and say 'look how clever' 'oh how they must have cared so using words' and 'look how many different shapes and sizes they came in.' so, more or less accurate, your summary, till the end: > and i think what she's getting at - or for the sake of argument here and > now - i think what ~i'm getting at~ is that - if - there is an 'end' > toward which poetry is directed it is as an intervention in a fucked-up > world - but that concerning ourselves with an ultimate end isn't of much > use - it's the limited ends - the 'this moment' needs that poetry > addresses itself to limited ends? the this moment needs? sounds like a bandaid video archive. Not preservation but continuance. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:46:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Re: Lyric ( s e n t i m e n t a l / *which* lyric ? ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lowther wrote: >Annie Finch writes; "I have located a crucial distinction between what i >call the "romantic" lyric (the I/thou, gaze/gazer, subject/object dichotomy >where all revolves around the central eye) and what I call the "sentimental" >lyric (multivoiced, multiviewpointed, objectifying the speaker as much as >the outside world)." > >and i think the distinction is quite probably useful >but i wonder at the choice of the term > > s e n t i m e n t a l > >my wonder tending to channel's like ; >"who wd want to get saddled with that term?" An equally puzzling is the idea . . . >Useful though this it is [the distinction] --and to my >mind, ESSENTIAL in constructing a coherent feminist poetics that spans >centuries-- it gets lost next to the glitzier, cruder, and perhaps rather >useless distinction between language poetry and lyric tradition. What does it mean to construct a coherent feminist poetics that spans centuries? Could you elaborate a little here? A poetics is at a basic level, strategic -- so for centuries, feminists employ the same strategies? implying that they have the same goal? Coherent implies either 'it all sticks together/agrees' or it's all lucid, as opposed to being oppositional (even from within -- Woolf opposing feminist strategies) or at times confused or incoherent. I'm not sure why such a construction is so useful. It seems very exclusive. The idea that there _is_ an 'outside world,' to pick on one point in your definition, would seem to exclude all sorts of lyrics that don't erect that hurdle. I mean, what's the world 'outside' of? The poem? Language? Experience? And in distinguishing between the Romantic and Sentimental, what of the stuff that doesn't fit? Is it Other, i.e. not lyric? Maybe an unfair question, but, more accurately, why locate *this particular* distinction? (This obviously relates to its value to constructing a coherent feminist poetics). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:58:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Re: NOTLEY on "the youth".... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Chris & others listening in. I’ve been thinking about your query re Alice Notley’s comments in the COMBO interview (“They’re these people between about 23 and 36 . . . They’re not very political, and I wish they were more political”). You go on to equate the ‘personal’ in ‘the personal is political’ with ‘love,’ but I think you’re mincing here, collapsing the ‘personal’ and ‘love ’ and therefore excluding a crucial issue of the very politics that might be at stake. In making a distinction I think I can talk to your query. The political, and I think this holds for Alice, has always to do with the polis, not in the way that love might, or even in the sense of the potentially volatile issue of who we might choose to love publically, or how. The ‘personal,’ to be ‘political,’ has to engage with and be effected by the polis. In the feminist formulation, ‘the personal is political’ meant primarily that the private, the domestic, the ‘female’ experience too was _as_ political as the public experience, and it wasn’t until the ‘personal’ experience of women (subjection, misogyny, etc.) were shown to _be_ political, to have everything to do with the workings of the polis, that the women’s movement as a _political_ movement, could make any headway. So the personal has as much to do with anger as it does with love, both overwhelmingly present in Alice’s work. So I think when she points out the lack of politicalness, she is addressing the lack of attempting to change ‘the way things are’ in the polis and in poetry via how one experience power on a 'personal' level. This is evident for example her essay “Epic and Women Poets,” which points out that there is something wrong with the polis, with the way it tells itself stories which exclude the possibility of women’ s stories, and that this has to change. She realizes these ideas in Desamere and Alette. Perhaps that’s what it means to be political: to think (essay) about a problem and try to solve it (poem). Writing essays, editorial matter, and prefaces has always been a part of Alice’s poetic practice. I think she might say that editing _Chicago_ while she was pregnant was a personal _and_ political choice. Maybe _just_ writing poetry, in her mind, isn’t political enough? But maybe the choice to write poetry is always political, but the politics (now) aren't as visible as they were say, in the 70s, when she was in/against the context of the women's movement, and those political issues were heightened. you write that you're > interested in looking for other ways to frame this question, > because i respect and admire notley's poetry, > and her desire for a return perhaps to a more blatant concern > with politics on a content level, > a moving beyond coterie politics, and perhaps bringing in this context frames it helpfully, I hope? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:35:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Scharf Subject: Music of Changes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Does anyone have a recording of David Tudor playing Cage's Music of Changes? I'd be much obliged, and of course cover expenses, if I could get a hold of a cassette. Did Tudor even record the piece? Can't find it. I ask re: a Some Trees project. I have the 80s Wergo recording with Herbert Henck at the keys, but it sounds, well, kind of Teutonic. Backchannel? Thanks -Mike ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 14:30:30 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: travmar03 Subject: Fw: Highwire Comments: To: lungfull@interport.net, John Coletti , Ammiel Alcalay , American Poetry Review , amorris1@swarthmore.edu, ampoupard , Andre Codrescu , avraham@sas.upenn.edu, banchang@sas.upenn.edu, Barbara Cole , Brett Evans , Buck Downs , Chris McCreary , Chris Stroffolino , Cindy Burstein , dburnham@sas.upenn.edu, Don Riggs , gbiglier@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, Heather Fuller , Heather Starr , ianjewell@netscape.net, Janine Hayes , jon8stark@aol.com, Justin , Kerry Sherin , Kevin Varrone , Kristen Gallagher , Kyle Conner , lkoutimhot@aol.com, Margit , Michael Magee , Molly B Russakoff , Nawi Avila , Philadelphiawriters@dept.english.upenn.edu, Poetry Project , potepoet@home.com, Ron Silliman , Sub Po Etics , swalker@dept.english.upenn.edu, swineburne@yahoo.com, T Sinioukov , TDevaney@brooklyn.cuny.edu, tf@morningred.com, vhanson@netbox.com, Writers House , xentrica@earthlink.net Please put the following message out on the (virtual) wire to whomever you think will be tittillated, tantalized, and tickled to see two poets pull out all the stops. See poisioned apples, exploding cheesesteaks, asthma causing summer air, and some of the most exciting poetry in the Northeast Corridor today. Battle of the Experimental Press Editors Katy Lederer Editor of Explosive and Michael Magee Editor of Combo will read at Highwire Gallery 8 PM Saturday May 29, 1999 139 North Second Street Philadelphia BYOB ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 15:41:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: poet lariat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ignore the name above, this is Robert Pinsky speaking. I want to thank you all for falling into my telos. you didn't notice my telic grasp because you were busy problematizing your affairs while I went directly to the Love&Fame Market and earned my fare Uptown. the race is on and I am way ahead. sorry to gloat. please accept this stirring message as my attempt to bridge the ever-widening gap: poetry can only be as good as the people who make it. friends, we need not be enemies. I think it was William Carlos Williams, the Dr/Poet of Paterson, who said something like: we don't need poetry half as much as poetry needs us. by utilizing all our energies we can make something happen. what do you say, gang, can we work together? we'll leave baseball as the National Pastime while we concentrate on making more great poems for the common good. sincerely, R Pinksy, official PL of the US of A. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 16:24:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Randy Prunty Subject: Re: Disruption, Parameters etc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit reread this a couple more times and nothing here to argue with or expand. so, though it may be boring, i agree with the logic and progression of your ideas. the quoted part below charges me up! <> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 20:15:32 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: the basics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rhizome, however, is still looking for people to help flesh out the review section for the next issue. Essays or book reviews. Books I'd especially like reviewed would be Aaron Shurin's SELECTED, Jessica Grimm's FRAY, Michael Davidson's THE ARCADES and Jena Osman's highly disruptive THE CHARACTER. Now, obviously there's no fear of controversy in Rhizome. If you got something to say, here's your chance. And if you just want to advocate for a book that you care about, here's your chance. I think there's room for something to be said about Martine Bellen's TALES OF MURASAKI as well. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 17:38:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Death of James Broughton Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" a beautiful man James Broughton, he was America's Cocteau, if you have the opportunity to see any of his movies, pay double they're worth it, Lukas would die of shame to see what beauty James created for so little. forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 18:39:04 -0700 Reply-To: minka@grin.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Angela Romagnoli Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 18 May 1999 to 19 May 1999 (#1999-97) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone backchannel to me Cole Swenson's email address? thanks much, camille roy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 21:49:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Review of "26 Islands" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 26 Islands by Dan Featherston primitive publications 1706 U Street, #102 Washington, DC 20009 Mary Hilton, Editor 74463.1505@CompuServe.com cost: $4.00 Dan Featherston's "26 Islands" is a contemporary abecedarius, a primer which demonstrates far more than the moral instruction and alphabet learning of the traditional model. Put simply, Featherston's 26 verses expose the working out of the relationships between language and the reality of perception, conception and power, especially in a situation where a foreign language supplants a native language. At the same time, he shows how language cannot help but adapt to the consciousness of living on an island, as well as to the events of history. The fourth verse, "D is for Doorways," is a particularly strong evocation of these relationships. Here is the entry in its entirety: D is for Doorways like sail's swath, cloud scud & dawn horizon's first fiction: circumference. On an island surrounded by an ocean, we are far more acutely aware of circumference and its instances -- the swath cut by a sail at sea, clouds scudding at the edge of the sky-bowl, and dawn emerging into the frame of now -- all of which happen on a more apparently 360-degree horizon. The horizon seems to mark the farthest extent of what we know, so that what lies beyond is fiction, a doorway to what we don't know, to realities we will express in language. So, horizons make for stories, language-events, fictions. But this circumference is also another type of fiction. The native Hawaiians' reality did not stop at their horizon -- not in their past, not in the years of colonization, not now. This fiction, however, is an accepted reality necessary for the work done under the rubric of "the white man's burden," of colonization. What can an inferior language, composed of what the missionaries deemed as only the five vowels of English and seven of its consonants, express that the 26 letters of the conquering language can say so much better? One of the many ironies in Featherston's chapbook is that it contains an excess of fourteen letters, one of which is the "D" whose entry is cited above. Nevertheless, even within the reality of an alien letter, Hawaii and its first language adhere. This is readily apparent in the sixth entry, "F is for Fathom": Every picture book shows a hero suckled by porpoises. In "fathom" swarms of teeth & fins. In this verse, we begin with the European, colonial view in which primers introduce young readers to the heroes of its culture, indeed to a culture (like many) in which heroes, exploration and conquest play a large role. But the next line introduces what could be a native, folkloric element, certainly something more likely to be in the realm of island dwellers and only a story (or fiction) from some place far away to dwellers in European countries. The result is that "fathom," an English word comprised of t's and f's not found in the Hawaiian alphabet, is defined not as a linear measurement of depth, but as "teeth & fins" (t's and f's) native to the islands, without losing any sense of depth and wonder. This is only a small example of what Featherston's chapbook treats. As a ghostwriter myself until recently of business books, I have some inkling of what it feels to have language stolen from me. What is interesting, as I continue a project in which I cut up and collage the books I ghostwrote, is that I can use the imposed language of supplier certification, quality control and teamwork to decenter itself. In "26 Islands," Featherston shows just how empowering this can feel. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 23:23:01 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: SUKIE AT THE DIA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit CHUCK PIERCE PRAGMATIX He usually get in, when you come in, if me and a white guy called Cleveland, he knew what he got going already before he got to Cleveland, like some of the guys don't even come in and take off in Cleveland, they come in, they drop, they hook up and they gone with a load. When I come in I got to come in and go home, then the other guys are gone, you take what he put down there, he gives you what's left, if a guy is going to California and you got a Toledo that looks crazy if you got in first before him, I was about a mile or male behind him because I was loaded more heavy than he was and we was coming across 80 and I heard him say shotgun, he went down, he said he is turning around, I think he got me, you got me there, we were all sitting around talking, I don't know if they said the same thing, I'm not sure on the date, I didn't finish, I dropped out in the 11th grade, same as Hart Crane, I went to this spot labor job, the Standard Sign Company somewhere on East 65th, when you got to the Standard Sign Company we were unloading aluminum off this truck and stacking it in piles, and this was all three of you doing that and during the course of your work, this guy walks up to me and accuses me of taking his ring, he came up to you and asked you about a ring, what were the words that were said, "Why did you take my ring." "I didn't take it." "What are you talking about." We continued working when you saw him again, what were you doing, I was relaxing, we had finished the second load of steel and the driver was getting ready to pull out and I'm smoking a cigarette, looking the other way, at the truck drivers, sitting down on a pile of this aluminum, what happened then while I'm looking the other way I hear a scream and look and just see acid coming at me and that's it, I just jumped and looked behind me and see him with a bucket jumping and I just jumped up in a lot of pain just thinking cold water and didn't know where I was in the Plant I ran out to the street and across the street to find some help in the street and went into this diner and asked people in there to help me, I said, "I got acid throwed on me," and the people just sat there and looked at me on my neck and face I had some in my eyes getting tight on me translating the image into a product of divided labor, class divisions recombining images of the everyday, Rodchenko's Pure Red-Yellow-Blue Color (1921) come into conjunction with the calendar and given a date as a bricklayer would, brick by brick, a bookshelf with 500 copies of the same unread book, this work has been painted in blue letters on a high brick wall in Vlake, Zuid-Beveland, separation and transition, color photos taken in the years 1965-69, expression of structure and program and truth to materials and built a ghost of the circa 1800 romantic rustic hut, interior atriums eliminating the threat of crime and drugs punctured urban into itself the light and sky in the glass I did, Body Press a man and a woman buck naked, holding a camera against their bodies and mapping their bodies outside painting, the boundary-marker of a point a pen the date on which the painting was made, ONE SLAB PUT TOP TO BUTT OF ANOTHER SLAB SET ABOVE ANOTHER SLAB SET TOP TO BUTT the writing or lettering of a date is real, it took place at some time at the same time speaking about slabs put next to each other, the slow smooth movements of a big boat on water, more than a simple classical temple, as a model, the hut, a shelter, an absolute elemental base, an Enlightenment myth, the original derivation of its column from a tree, Abbé Martin-Mark Heiddegger's rustic hut proposed in 1775, two equal framed glass structures, social openness of window glass, Goethe-Gober's Wedding Gown looks dangerous, sealed by an Eternal Bliss ring, history attached to circuits or disks disappearing in the rain like pieces of children, sounds of the train across the lake work about building in its most basic state, the primitive hut a pivotal work, industrial construction, a silver metal freight elevator door, standard aluminum roll-up doors, the conspicuous sign that identifies it through spelling, color, mass, and movement in one form or another Cadmium + Mud bluish white produces a brilliant blue yellow or red concrete contains iron chrome event named on a date, July 14, 1789 Bastille Day white used in painting light on stone, siting in the allée the real and not an illusory sky documenting the changing image of a painting repainted over and over too simple to name, cars and trucks, tables and chairs, an industrially produced toy, the kind of painting thrown into crisis by photography Works (Hamburg: Anatol Av and Filmproduktion, 1977), that the buildings not block the lake view, Braque produced a few landscapes, Malevich developed the social ontology of painting like icon painting and state allegory and the epistemological break Werke & Rekonstructionen (Bern: Kunsthalle Bern, 1983), Caravaggio fucked the structure of action, atmosphere, turbulence and massiveness in the 1940s fused with the need for the new expression of new moods, a new epic-lyric art, phonetic massiveness of affect, a new form of culture, there is a moment around 1930 when Walter Benjamin and Ruth Berlau spoke a couple of words lovingly about photography in the Svenborg garden, "repetition serializes energies of movement and interaction 'narratology' the open situation condition boundary and the dilemma becomes the foundation," the Berliner Ensemble a group exhibition known as the Xeroxbook, a giant coffee cup, Mom & Pop Art and super-graphics glass is reflective glass with steel supports intrusion of a personally expressive touch that might be traceable to the hand of an artist at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp Ulrich Rückriem's Collection Public Freehold designated as belonging in the common domain, Words and Word Works (4 pages), the case of the corner with tallow and prolong the deep olive and monolithic polished dark gray granite, the plain brown-red brick wall, the black graphite surfaces framed within another reading of tradition his installation Zeige Deine Wunde (Stage Your Wound) and socio-psychological interaction diagonally bisected by a concrete wall, the unadorned masonry walls and metal panel railings complex and simple, open and closed, big and little, ugly and ordinary denotative meanings more or less concrete association and past experiences introducing enormous structures into new public spaces, art-social centers open 24 hours, a six-foot-diameter cylinder of glass with a clear glass ceiling official spaces "housing" is just another expression for a love that is socially hidden, forbidden, denied, and this is the only agreement between the antagonists: the dates, dates on the paintings and on the boxes shipping the paintings anything historical appearing as an image in art apartment buildings at Kevin Magee 1075 East 74th Street #206 inner city Cleveland, my furniture, companion pieces, the $95 oak worktable from Berkeley whose three foot by six foot measurements I wrote about in a letter to Norma quoted in "The Comedian as the Letter M," and a soft fir or pine cabinet the previous tenant left behind after he got his Guggenheim, Kevin Evans' crate, EAGLE TRANSFER CORPORATION / REF: A-6138 - THE BLACK MALE EXHIBITION / CASE NO. 28 - MEASURES: 59" X 34" X 34" (HxLxW) - (149.86 X 86.36 X 86.36 CM.) CONTAINS: OBJ. #21 . . . MANSFIELD, OHIO, END TABLE, 1994 / KEVIN EVERSON / FRAMED SILVER GELATIN PRINT AND WOOD 20" X 24" X 24" / OBJ. #22 . . . MANSFIELD, OHIO, END TABLE, 1994 / KEVIN EVERSON / FRAMED SILVER GELATIN PRINT AND WOOD 20" X 24" X 24" / EX. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART / NEW YORK, NEW YORK glass and steel towers sited across from Lake Erie steel support glass makes for a modular rhythm, the raised platform, staircase, revolving curved panel of glass confusing concept with reality, the vitreous surfaces in Spiegelsaal by François de Cuvillies (1695-1768) a future that's reachable no matter how far away he watched his lover's body being dragged from the Seine, Tasso's washerwoman, model boats in skeins of paint swoop through a sea, little boat to be of gold in skeins of diamonds on exhibit in revolutionary plazas, public meeting areas on the front facade, streetscape, street facade exposure, the brutalism comes from its rough-tough texture, civic monumentality, tremendous scale, the City opposed to the Individual Being or Building, the use of an obviously twentieth-century grid section to represent the former existence of a house, a ten-sided Spiegalsaal or hall of mirrors connecting the king to the mythology, a wall with a large Warhol painting in Pittsburgh of Elvis Presley opens them up to the future again an open work of long curving strokes, rays as would strike the eyes of those who see her cross-legged in plan and section fifty feet by fifty feet by fifty feet (ten feet by ten feet by fifty feet) fourteen feet high by thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, twenty-eight feet by seventy-eight feet, an open plan, free of interior columns, freestanding walls, white painted steel the brick floor and round brick core, the use of brick in his patterns a socialist view who sees individual buildings as simply useless artificial light of nighttime posing himself as the bride in commercial photo shoots, frame G. in his wedding dress (film still from Paris Is Burning, 1991) two rooms divided by sound-insulating glass Square Room Diagonally Divided seven-and-a-half-foot square sections, I have reintroduced an element of vernacular architecture (reflective glass, steel, etc.) (minimal construction, abstraction, etc.) (decorated sheds, signs, etc.) 4000 blue work uniforms folded and stacked the framework, the interior frieze of George Elmslie's Woodbury County Courthouse in Sioux City, Iowa (1917) to create a special date, a sacred date, that the possiblity of there even being a first date when the only festival is that of its site here, a bluff or hill overlooking the Sioux River, Iowa-South Dakota the paysan promise-space and experience of the immigrant's secret brought about by repetitive labor, fieldwork and piecework, 750,000 pennies on a corn husk the mare/mer link in Romance languages, coarseness, silkiness, and strength of the hair the golden-haired Margarete and ashen-haired Shulamith, your hair played like a lyre or straw into gold cotton, flesh, steel, Donne's bracelet, eros phobias are permeation the sound of a voice holiness or grace as coming into a receiving of light and turn to it, follow this voice, material interiority the modeling "these walls have a story to tell" each day, and each day he letters the date of his mars the monochrome indigo blue in fairy tales between the painting of Execution in 1867 and Guernica in 1937 these are the words I thought I heard coming from outside scattering and inferring and assembling the resolution of this dilemma that is a ritual whose staging takes place on the stage of the final theater built by the avant-garde. 20.5.99 for lynn and alan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 05:23:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Art projects for trails Comments: To: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >[Federal Register: May 17, 1999 (Volume 64, Number 94)] >[Notices] >[Page 26792] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] >[DOCID:fr17my99-85] > >======================================================================= >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >NATIONAL FOUNDATION ON THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES > > >Cooperative Agreement for Arts Projects on Millennium Trails > >AGENCY: National Endowment for the Arts. > >ACTION: Notification of availability. > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >SUMMARY: The National Endowment for the Arts is requesting proposals >leading to the award of a Cooperative Agreement to conduct a project >which will support 52 high quality, community-centered arts projects >along the 52 Millennium Legacy Trails that the US Department of >Transportation will designate in each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, >and the District of Columbia. Available funding is $520,000, which must >be matched on a one-to-one basis. Responsibilities of the recipient of >the Cooperative Agreement will include: preparation and distribution of >application guidelines; overseeing the review and selection process; >providing guidance and structure to each project; as well as monitoring >all stages of each project. Eligibility to apply is limited to non- >profit organizations [501(c)(3), college or university, or unit of >state and local government]. Applicants for this Cooperative Agreements >mut have previous experience in working with relevant organizations and >agencies, such as national cultural service organizations, national >trails organizations, state/local arts agencies, state departments of >transportation, and state and local trails organizations. Those >interested in receiving the solicitation package should reference >Program Solicitation PS 99-04 in their written request and include two >(2) self-addressed labels. Verbal requests for the Solicitation will >not be honored. > >DATES: Program Solicitation PS 99-04 is scheduled for release >approximately June 4, 1999 with proposals due on July 12, 1999. > >ADDRESSES: Requests for the Solicitation should be addressed to the >National Endowment for the Arts, Grants & Contracts Office, Room 618, >1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20506. > >FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Hummel, Grants & Contracts >Office, National Endowment for the Arts, Room 618, 1100 Pennsylvania >Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20506 (202/682-5482). > >William I. Hummel, >Coordinator, Cooperative Agreements and Contracts. >[FR Doc. 99-12290 Filed 5-14-99; 8:45 am] >BILLING CODE 7537-01-M > > > > > > --- from list avant-garde@lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > >_______________________________________________________________ >Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 05:23:45 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: NOTLEY on Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; LR - What you're calling politics is, as you say, "less visible" as an activity because it's being funded off the boards, out of public view, by conservative think-tank money. We live in an increasingly monadic society, regardless we may prefer to characterize it as "plural". Our culture is god-culture in disguise, excused by a sort of virtual inter-connectedness that in fact is non-existent (just try talking to those who say this just ain't so ... ); freedom of choice is mostly at this point just another eschatological hope, and you know where they've gotten us in the past, the past itself, of course, being a highly sheltered and perpetually slaughtering swarm, the human body lately also, an open Roman sewer certainty, guaranteed by the increasingly tightened "rule of law" much on the airwaves in recent months. Tough times ahead's a simplistically broken after-dinner fortune cookie; questions abt it remain in the present, ie, what to do, how to act / live NOW SE From: Linda Russo >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: NOTLEY on "the youth".... >Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:58:14 -0400 > >Hi Chris & others listening in. I’ve been thinking about your query re >Alice Notley’s comments in the COMBO interview (“They’re these people >between about 23 and 36 . . . They’re not very political, and I wish they >were more political”). > >You go on to equate the ‘personal’ in ‘the personal is political’ with >‘love,’ but I think you’re mincing here, collapsing the ‘personal’ and >‘love >’ and therefore excluding a crucial issue of the very politics that might >be >at stake. In making a distinction I think I can talk to your query. > >The political, and I think this holds for Alice, has always to do with the >polis, not in the way that love might, or even in the sense of the >potentially volatile issue of who we might choose to love publically, or >how. The ‘personal,’ to be ‘political,’ has to engage with and be effected >by the polis. In the feminist formulation, ‘the personal is political’ >meant primarily that the private, the domestic, the ‘female’ experience too >was _as_ political as the public experience, and it wasn’t until the >‘personal’ experience of women (subjection, misogyny, etc.) were shown to >_be_ political, to have everything to do with the workings of the polis, >that the women’s movement as a _political_ movement, could make any >headway. > >So the personal has as much to do with anger as it does with love, both >overwhelmingly present in Alice’s work. So I think when she points out the >lack of politicalness, she is addressing the lack of attempting to change >‘the way things are’ in the polis and in poetry via how one experience >power >on a 'personal' level. This is evident for example her essay “Epic and >Women Poets,” which points out that there is something wrong with the >polis, >with the way it tells itself stories which exclude the possibility of >women’ >s stories, and that this has to change. She realizes these ideas in >Desamere and Alette. Perhaps that’s what it means to be political: to >think >(essay) about a problem and try to solve it (poem). Writing essays, >editorial matter, and prefaces has always been a part of Alice’s poetic >practice. I think she might say that editing _Chicago_ while she was >pregnant was a personal _and_ political choice. Maybe _just_ writing >poetry, in her mind, isn’t political enough? But maybe the choice to write >poetry is always political, but the politics (now) aren't as visible as >they >were say, in the 70s, when she was in/against the context of the women's >movement, and those political issues were heightened. > >you write that you're > > interested in looking for other ways to frame this question, > > because i respect and admire notley's poetry, > > and her desire for a return perhaps to a more blatant concern > > with politics on a content level, > > a moving beyond coterie politics, > >and perhaps bringing in this context frames it helpfully, I hope? > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 08:49:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: Arteaga & Notley online Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Newly available, work from Alfred Arteaga and Alice Notley from the second issue of Kenning, otherwise out-of-print: www.avalon.net/~kenning/samples.html Patrick F. Durgin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 10:04:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: A "Defense" of Jacques Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear Mark, I think you point out many interesting and relevant observations about Jacques Debrot's post the other day, things I noticed myself and conveyed to him in a backchannel -- we had an interesting correspondence. Regardless of what I think about the Rhizome essay, I disagree that Debrot's post plays into this quasi-paranoic (I'm not using this as a pathological diagnosis but in the funny "Pynchon and the Jesuits behind the radiator" kind of way) belief in the interconnectivity of all literary figures who, in Schaefer's term, would be called "celebrity." You write that, in the lack of a "major statement... analyzing what these compromises, blind spots and hypocrisies are," that: "Clearly JD is throwing in here with SS's 'Perloff cronies seizing power' thing," but I think this is not accounting for the context of his post, which is that it is a post -- scrawled rather hastily when the bosses aren't looking -- and I think Debrot is was quite capable, in this case, in alluding to the larger argument without necessarily having the provide all the goods. His tone in what was probably going to become a "heated" discussion was extraordinary, and to associate him with a word like "cronies" to JD is a bit past the mark -- if he wanted to use the word "cronies" he probably would have. I was actually more concerned about the line: "The various stories I've heard about the background of _In the American Tree_ would surprise a lot of people I think," since, on the one hand, this could have touched off a few nerves, but on the other, yes, I've heard these stories, too, but my tendency is to think that these are undocumented, hence merely "gossip" until someone steps forth to take responsibility for them. (There is some content to these stories, as there is content to the decision to exclude key non-Americans from the anthology, all of which is worth discussing once the cards are on the table.) (He also didn't make one very obvious point, however, which is that Perloff is in no way a "Leftist.") I also agree that "no one has made anything "unavailable," and that it the Ashbery approach is a good one (never heard the line myself, but it'll become part of the personal canon), but I think you missed, as I did originally, what was said in the final lines of his post: "The contextual bias of Language Writing -- its overwhelming emphasis on the role of subjects in the situation of communication seems a very difficult topic for further aesthetic development (an observation which, I realize, needs to be qualified to a much greater extent than I have time to do here). To the Language Poets this must seem like giving up ground already fought over and won, but new negotiations & reconsiderations of, among other things, the place of the emotions in poetry, & the scope & variety of their presentation seem to me especially timely now." I know it's impossible to point out at every turn how rushed we often are in writing these things for the list, but I think Debrot was pretty honest here in making clear that he realizes that his arguments were being compromised by time, but also in making a corrective to the earlier statement that certain poetic elements are "unavailable," which is of course not something any poet should believe about what "can" or "is to be" done in their writing. And the observation about "giving up ground" is also good, and he's pretty much right, but I would add that (using the Kuhnian "paradigm" paradigm for a moment, from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), that we are probably in a moment of "crisis", in which the anomalies are coming forth and rendering older paradigms ineffective -- i.e. they can't assimilate it -- which puts all of us in a rush for a "new language" and until we find it we are heavily oppressed by the old one (which, in a darkened room, wouldn't be able to find a lit match) and in such a situation something like "giving up ground" would look very different to a poet with a different "paradigm." In other (laughably reductive) words, poets of the old "paradigm" not only look at the data (in this case, the poetry, polemics, statements, depressions, anxieties, poor spelling, senses of "progress") of the new poets with very different interpretive eyes, but don't even, in some instance, acknowledge this stuff as "data", but rather as ephemera -- the "lowbrow" -- that will be washed away once the heavier engines of their own paradigms come back into play. This is more than saying that the generations are shifting, so-and-so are crusty and narrow-minded, etc., since if we could just say that nobody would be nearly as "hysterical" (to quote myself -- again a word I use in a cartoonshly Freudian sense) as they, sometimes, appear to be. (Kuhn attributed suicides and all kinds of strange behavior to paradigm shifts.) This is interesting in terms of "Left" and "Right" since, for example, I know a number of poets in the scene here who would be termed by the older generation as being "reactionary" (not backwards, but quite contemporary, just "Right"), while to poets of their own ages they are quite clearly "Left" in their politics even if their poetry is of very different forms than what the prior poet would consider progressive. It also interesting in light of how actions of individuals and the actions of institutions are often confused in these "hysterical" statements. I mention Kuhn and paradigms since I want to try to explain this feeling of ubiquity in terms of "power control" when related to the Language poets -- in the Kuhnian scheme, it's not power control so much as paradigm control, these poets being very much assimilated into a scheme of knowledge that is for the moment in the ascendant (in our very small circle), and which, quite involuntarily, renders newer schemes of knowledge impotent by the rejection of the anomalies they produce _until_ they complete that paradigm shift which assimilates the anomalies. Which is to say the sense of rejection many poets seem to feel by, for example, Charles Bernstein, is partially, if not completely, the result of the sense of rejection a certain rather disembodied paradigm creates rather than something a single person could be said to have affected -- I only mention CB since he is probably one of the most passionately disliked of poets today and probably has more nonsense attributed to him than anyone I know, and yet, for those who read him (and certainly by those who know him), he enjoys, defends, criticizes, and understands a tremendously wide range of poetry which, in the abstract, he technically "shouldn't like" (again, why he is often confused with an "institution" or a system of knowledge, regardless of his obvious reality as a passionate, flawed, interested, and in my eyes excellent poet). This isn't to take the "human element" out of it -- I'm sure CB, for example, has been ripped (I mean, "pissed" in the English sense) at a few parties and been less than generous to all ranges of fauna and flora -- but to point to the justification of terms like "unavailable" in Debrot's post, since I think many people do believe -- and are justified in believing because, heck, belief is necessary, usually has it's basis in experience -- that Language poetry rendered many types of writing impossible. As you (Mark) point out, in poetry nothing is out of the question, especially if you can steal -- so why do so many poets feel oppressed by what is a wealth of material to steal from? (Note: I'm a shameless klepto.) Well, longer than I expected. In any case, I look forward to what Jacques has to write in the future, and I felt that, finally, his post was quite suggestive, not to mention diplomatic. Cheers, Brian ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 11:32:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: coherent feminist poetics/sentimentalitiy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I don't dispute for a minute your point that any poetic "tradition" is often confused and incoherent, that the Romantic/sentimental distinction in no way accounts for the whole picture of lyric, and that any coherent sense of a tradition or a poetics depends on ignoring a lot of stuff that doesn't fit. That said, I also think such unified senses of tradition are powerful tools and just because nasty critics and patriarchs have employed them in the past is no need for feminists who would benefit by them to avoid them. Shame and fear over reclaiming a lot of women poets who were branded "sentimental" by modernists and new critics is perhaps one reason that feminist critics have avoided constructing a coherent feminist poetic tradition spanning centuries--just as real a reason as postmodern relativism and a faith in fractured poetics. So here is the requested elaboration as to why this is useful: For me to write poetry it helps to have a sense of being rooted in a continuum--cycles that have repeated, themes that have been meaningful for centuries (rather than just mostly in the twentieth century). (This is a personal need I feel no need to defend). If I can construct- through exclusion of many things certainly, through maintaining distinctions certainly (romantic/ sentimental, subject/object and others) which I have myself, certainly, created in collusion with other poets and critics- an idea of a continuum of strategies that have a life to them in the sense that other women poets have used them over centuries, I have discovered that I often find those strategies more supportive of my heart and mind as I write than those of other poets. So constructing a coherent feminist poetics happens to be a helpful strategy for me. And in order to construct one I have found it essential to come to terms with the "sentimental." -Annie What does it mean to construct a coherent feminist poetics that spans centuries? Could you elaborate a little here? A poetics is at a basic level, strategic -- so for centuries, feminists employ the same strategies? implying that they have the same goal? Coherent implies either 'it all sticks together/agrees' or it's all lucid, as opposed to being oppositional (even from within -- Woolf opposing feminist strategies) or at times confused or incoherent. I'm not sure why such a construction is so useful. It seems very exclusive. The idea that there _is_ an 'outside world,' to pick on one point in your definition, would seem to exclude all sorts of lyrics that don't erect that hurdle. I mean, what's the world 'outside' of? The poem? Language? Experience? And in distinguishing between the Romantic and Sentimental, what of the stuff that doesn't fit? Is it Other, i.e. not lyric? Maybe an unfair question, but, more accurately, why locate *this particular* distinction? (This obviously relates to its value to constructing a coherent feminist poetics). ______________________________ Annie Finch (http://muohio.edu/~finchar) Cincinnati, Ohio Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 11:54:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: season-end readings Comments: To: Ed Morales , Laura Moriarty , Yedda Morrison , Bob Mould , Gretchen Mullin , Jay Murphy , sylvie myerson , Eileen Myles , Marc Nasdor , Roni Natov , Elinor Nauen , "A.L. Neilson" , Cynthia Nelson , Margaret Nelson , Sianne Ngai , Hoa Nguyen , Carol Nissen , Charles North , Alice Notley , Mark Nowak , Jim O'Connor , Rich O'Russa , Hilton Obenzinger , Eileen O'Toole , Douglas Oliver , Kevin Opstedal , Adam Orenstein , Jena Osman , Lisa Ozag , Ron Padgett , Jose Padua , Guillermo Parra , Linda Pasachnik , Louis Patler , Robert Peacock , Bob Perelman , Giannina Perez , Marjorie Perloff , Aaron Perry , Simon Pettet , Rodney Phillips , Wanda Phipps , Nick Piambino , Claire Podulka , Sydney Pollet , kristin prevallet , Larry Price , Laurie Price , Michael Price Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Well, our season is drawing to a close next week with our next-to-last Monday night, May 24 with Lytle Shaw & Camille Guthrie at 8 pm Lytle Shaw is the co-editor of Shark (issue #2 available at book party at Granary Books, Thurs, May 27, 6-8). His book, Cable Factory 20, is forthcoming from Atelos. Camille Guthrie is the author of the Master Thief and Articulated Lair: Poems for Louise Bourgeois. and then our last Wednesday night until October with Jo Ann Wasserman & Cecilia Vicuna at 8 pm Jo Ann Wasserman was the program coordinator at the Poetry Project from 1994-97, and we're very excited to welcome her home. She is currently living in San Francisco, where she is the managing editor of HOW 2, an electronic journal of experimental women's poetry & prose. Jo Ann's work can be found in the latest selection of Poets & Poems on the Project's website at http://www.poetryproject.com. Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuna is the author of QUIPOem--the Precarious: The Art and Poetry of Cecilia Vicuna, Palabra e Hilo/Word & Thread, and Unravelling Words & the Weaving of Water We have two readings upcoming in June: Monday, June 7 Gordon Ball & Ruth Altmann Wednesday, June 16 A Reading by Students of the Poetry Project's Spring Workshops Until next week... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 09:16:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: gists from the midst/more response Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Even four years after the Blaser conference, people ask about that big charmer from San Francisco, Kevin Killian, even the empty heads who'd shudder if they recalled his audacious presentation comparing Blaser and Hitchcock, speaking of the contemporaneous compositions, Cups and The Birds. Killian says: I read The Holy Forest as a fantasia of dismemberment, cannibalism, violent expulsion, excretion, death and desire--Roman Catholic themes, the themes of Kristeva is her "essay in abjection' Powers of Horror, and of course the themes of Hitchcock's late phase. "A split seems to have set in between, on the one hand, the body's territory where an authority without guilt prevails, a kind of fusion between mother and nature, and on the other hand, a totally different universe of socially signifying performances where embarassment, shame, guilt, desire, etc., come into play--the order of the phallus."Blaser's birds are not only helpless victims; they're also murderous birds of prey. Even their shit can kill, as the narrating subject of "the Park" relates: Jessie Whitehad told me they sometimes choose a tree and kill it, they so mire the branches Kevin and George Stanley and Bruce Boone all talk about the homosexual milieu in San Francisco when Blaser and Spicer and Duncan were great companions devouring each other. George, another of the neglected giants of American Poetry(anybody teaching Gentle Northern Summer?) in his talk/reading even apologizes for his early viciousness. I'd love to reproduce the entire poem he read Phaedrus but i'll just tease you with two sections of the nine part poem and let you come upon the full pleasure through your own research Dublin-Sligo In the dawn I see the horse paths of the gods. Men make the day or slip into th'abyss of thought. In the morning moving uncertainly, uncertainly, I let feeling awake, it awakes between two surfaces between night and morning, between lips and skin and a great brown horse runs across the field toward the event of which we are the moving & the sunlight on the sheets was like silver flowers The Words of a poem are a roundabout way of saying nothing. The thousand different bird-songs, the thousand flowers contradict this--they say Everything is not subsumed(despite Hegel--and Hegel did not say this either of course, Hegel is with the flowers) the naming must go on--that is the Way Tree whose leaves look like a maple wild mustard, magenta star. And here we are. Have we one soul or many? The sheep, have they one soul? Fingers on a keyboard of sticks and stones. Some stick and some don't. and Bruce Boone, in his talk "Eros and Poesis," Introduction starts off by saying: I was talking to Nate Mackey, just before coming in here, about the possibility of discussions. And we both remarked on the lack of audience participation and discussion afterwards. And I was trying to accout for that in my own mind, and I thought that a lot of it was related to a level of abstraction, which was partly and legitimately due to a large L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poet influence. and then later in the meat of his talk: All the femm folderol, the high homo, especially in the early Robin, associated with the image movement stuff, you know, the Cups, the elegance, the enumeration of precious objects, the poses, and stuff like that....That's a big part of the reading of Robin I think that needs to be further done. And I'm much more interested in the femme stuff than the actual sex mentions, which are more than i had remembered when i looked through them. The mentionings of sexual couplings are, they are sometimes somewhat discreet, sometimes not. But I think that that kind of queen stuff, not to put too fine a point on it, is more important than the sex stuff in the presentation of Eros. So much for this morning's installment of quick takes and impressions of the high quality of this Talon books production, The Recovery of the Public World, Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser edited by Charles Watts and Edward Byrne. tata amis. billy forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 11:53:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Brian Lucas (Kelly Services Inc)" Subject: FW: Angle #5 is Available "The Ronald Johnson Issue" Featuring work by: Charles Smith, Patrick Monnin, Guy Davenport, Marcella Durand, Patrick Pritchett, Theodore Enslin, Jonathan Williams, Avery E.D. Burns, Peter O'Leary, Adam Cornford, Paul Metcalf, Joel Bettridge, John Taggart, Andrew Schelling, Anonymous Also: the typescript of one of Johnson's last poems, as well as Peter O'Leary's "translations" of the poem from the typescript, as well as one other. Cost: $4 (incl. postage) Checks payable to: Brian Lucas Angle PO Box 220027 Brooklyn, NY 11222-0027 To the contributors: your copies are being sent out this week Thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 11:37:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Fw: Highwire and the B.L. SYNDROME In-Reply-To: <008401bea2cd$62ac3180$076e2599@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, Gregory Fuchs--Phila. (home of legionairre's disease!) is a great place but not for poets whose initials are B.L. i suppose.... Brendon Lorber gets sick on filly phood, as does Brian Lucas... now, i guess we gotta see about bill luoma anyway, i guess it's good that she's not BATY LEDERER..... c On Thu, 20 May 1999, travmar03 wrote: > Please put the following message out on the (virtual) wire to whomever you > think will be tittillated, tantalized, and tickled to see two poets pull out > all the stops. See poisioned apples, exploding cheesesteaks, asthma causing > summer air, and some of the most exciting poetry in the Northeast Corridor > today. > > > Battle of the Experimental Press Editors > > > Katy Lederer > Editor of Explosive > and > Michael Magee > Editor of Combo > > will read at Highwire Gallery > 8 PM > Saturday May 29, 1999 > 139 North Second Street > Philadelphia > BYOB > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 13:53:34 +0000 Reply-To: archambeau@LFMAIL.LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Subject: ANGEL EXHAUST 17 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit So there I was, staggering off the plane from Copenhagen and wondering how I could keep myself awake for another seven hours to de-jetlag, when I saw the solution gleaming on top of a heap of utility bills and pre-approved credit offers -- the new issue of the Brit experimental magazine Angel Exhaust. If you don't read this, you'll probably hate yourself forever. This issue is called Suitear Na n-AINGEAL, which I assume is Gaelic for Angel Exhaust, since the issue is devoted to Irish experimental poetry. There's a good selection of poetry by Randolph Healy, Catherine Walsh, Billy Mills, Sean Carey, Judy Kravis and David Lloyd, and essays on several generations of Irish experimentalists, from the thirties to the present. From the introduction by John Goodby, who really knows his stuff: "[The Irish experimental] poets differ from each other in a fascinating non-tradition, an uncluttered breathing space; their poetry is considered, clear and refreshingly free of stridency, hugger-mugger modishness, empty tricks or posturing. It interconnects, but in generally non-cliquish and unaggressive ways that poets in other countries might learn from. The provisional, fluid quality of Coffey's poetry flows through Walsh and Squires, but they owe at least as much to Clarke and Olson; likewise, Mills, Healy and Joyce and interested in scientific and non-poetic disourses, but their poetry is utterly dissimilar; Scully...is yet "another pair of sleeves" to use Beckett's reference to his own poetry, [Scully is] perhaps the first Irish poet to approach ... the incendiary quality of the avant-garde." Check it out, I implore you. 35 Stewarts Way, Maunden, nr. Bishop's Stortford, Herts., CM23 1DR, UK. Also http://angel-exhaust.offworld.co.uk And by the way, just underneath the magazine was another package, from Coach House Press in Canada -- the long awaited collaborative novel/memoir Piccolo Mondo by George & Angela Bowering, Michael Matthews and David Bromige. Can't wait to pop it open and plumb the depths of Tish-era Vancouver. Robert Archambeau ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 19:25:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: derek beaulieu / house press Subject: contact info for peter jaeger? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ya'll do any of you happen to have a current email or snailmail address for peter jaeger? ive been trying to contact him w/o much success... thanks derek ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 01:42:51 +0000 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Towards emotion & science(Standard, Jacques, etc) Comments: To: sub MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Considering emotion is currently out of fashion; to oppose one section would lead to acknowledgement of import of the second. Separatist acts lead to a double sign whose connotive signifies power. A signifier-fied relation, Kristeva-n poles of duplicity, a named thing in opposing forces. "One moves in circles about oneself because one has no other in which to reason, let alone be." Thilleman. Corruption is ahead of us. Beyond "words and artifice in lines; hence corruption." The motion in emotion has force albeit difficult in page transcendence. Save us from fashion's bowdlerized statement. Abandon such truck and giving of levity to such garbage. Poetry needs a schtick; an igneous renaissance. Yes, stone. Einstein. One-stone. The clean, clear thing, an impossibility through medium flaws. Corruption creates the trend of sphericity of humans, the withering, the curling up and active avoidance of one to another. Circumnavigation through words of a person in survival, that is, a sphere, says little. What else are our optives? The contaminant is the sheet. Can any of us avoid it's latent connotative value? By connotative I am thinking of Saul Kripke's notion of a fixed reference, the way when we "identified light we fixed a reference." Use of the sheet to print brings all of it's values to cascade upon the poem. The prevalence of the sheet as a a locus of invested capital to cover remaining free space for the eye and cajole it's viewers to sphericity. To a clos-edness. Rock, scissors, paper-mache paste squares. Reguardless of the poem's contained material, the influx of the notion of sheet will still taint the media of the poetry. Two issues next to each other in same size, width and height, repel the reader to superfluous choices based upon colors and adroit text reads. Journals are the sea; literature flows into it at will. While there are other options, Web journals, hand printing and so on, each's connotations are ignored or rarely explored. Perhaps I missed something but the loss of the scientific realm has been under-discussed yet one a number of folks have been attempting reclaimation of. So why this failure, why not re-negotiate terms of poetic science? That is, poetry as science, as an interpenetrated possibility to solve the real. Something has changed. Form _and_ function are never more than the extension of content. If we end the lyric through believing Beauty is within the spiral of the words projected upon the real and therefore rejected personifications are unnecessary, then where are we currently? A pie-tasting contest where lack of pie, the object, squared or otherwise, then becomes the modus operandi of the poem, so to speak. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 15:38:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Fodaski Subject: Torque 6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey everyone-- Torque 6 is out and ready to be mailed to you. This issue features work by David Buuck, Tim Davis, Karen Garthe, Michael Gottlieb, Yedda Morrison, Kristin Prevallet, Stephen Ratcliffe, Elizabeth Robinson, Jono Schneider, and Juliana Spahr. The cost is $8. Checks should be made payable to Elizabeth Fodaski. Please include $1 for postage and mail orders to me at 21 East 2nd Street #14, NY, NY 10003. Or you can backchannel orders and just send a check! Thanks. Liz ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 20:09:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Katherine Lederer Subject: A Spectacular Garden In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcing the publication of one of the great poems of the 20th century: The Garden. A Theophany or Eccohome: A Dialectical Lyric by Martin Corless-Smith ISBN: 0-9666303-2-7 * * * A Mask Beginning: Enter Chorus (Who is M) Singing: [Early Asking of the Sun] Blind Yellow Where do we follow has ever answered fully we slowly inwardly with thy face Hunting the Green Lion Whose story pens us Lyrics from the latifundium Individual members of the Chorus: You touch with dead cells touch dead cells I had been happy in the tent Waiting on the Summer rain to cease The Play Between The Acts I had been happy curled beneath the seat You touch sweet borders & farewell Waiting on the drum ear piercing drum The Play to be content [....] * * * Letter-pressed cover Available in a signed edition $6 payable to Katherine Lederer Spectacular Books PO Box 250648 Columbia University Station New York, NY 10025 Other books in the series: Songs & Scores, by Tina Celona, $6 Spiderwasp or Literary Criticism, by Juliana Spahr, $6 Seamless Antilandscape, by Leslie Scalapino is forthcoming Other books to come by Lyn Hejinian, Prageeta Sharma, Joshua May, Lisa Lubasch. Sets of ten signed and numbered: $50 International orders: add $1 s/h, $5 for the set Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 19:37:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Organization: @Home Network Subject: Re: Towards emotion & science(Standard, Jacques, etc) Comments: To: baratier@megsinet.net Comments: cc: sub MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit towards poetry as the science of emotion. I have been reading some of the articles in a Russian anthology of visual poetry and finding there references to poetry (art) as an investigation (science, experiment) of feeling> This has caused me to go back in my reading to futurism (back to the future?), lettrism, annd other abandoned paths (Yes, Henry even acmeism), where the same idea arises. Is this something that was loat sight of in the "scientific" west of mid-century, followed by langpo which may or may not have neglected emotion? tom bell David Baratier wrote: > > Subsubpoetics > > Considering emotion is currently out of fashion; -- //\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\ OOOPSY \///\\\/\///\\\/ <><>,...,., WHOOPS J K JOVE BY HHH ZOOOOZ ZEUS'WRATHHTARW LLLL STOPG [ EMPTY ] SPACER index of online work at http://members.home.net/trbell essays: http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/criticism/gloom.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 21:36:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: The Rebel Girl MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---][--- The Rebel Girl I am Clara Hielo Internet. Please, describe yourself. Each time you are finished, type RET twice. There are women of many descriptions Why do you say there are women of many descriptions? In this queer world as everyone knows Is it because of your desires that you say in this queer world as everyone knows? Some are living in beautiful mansions Maybe and now I adjust my panties - your life has to do with some girl related to this. And are wearing the finest of clothes What makes you yearn and cry that and are wearing the finest of clothes? There are blue blooded queens and princesses Is it because of the boys you hang around with that you say there are blue blooded queens and princesses? Who have charms made of diamonds and pearl Is it because of your nakedness that you are going through all this? But the only and thoroughbred lady is the Rebel Girl Is it because the only and thoroughbred lady is the rebel girl that you came naked and broken to me? That's the Rebel Girl, That's the Rebel Girl What makes you believe that's the rebel girl that's the rebel girl? To the working class she's a precious pearl Earlier you said the only and thoroughbred lady is the rebel girl? She brings courage pride and joy to the fighting Rebel Boy How do you reconcile any fantasies you have of me? We've had girls before but we need some more Does it bother you that you need some more? In the Industrial Workers of the World Is it because of your sex life that you say in the industrial workers of the world? For it's great to fight for freedom with a Rebel Girl You mentioned that the only and thoroughbred lady is the rebel girl? Yes, her hands may be hardened from labor Could be this is some girl the reason for perversions you have? And her dress may not be very fine Are you sure that and her dress may not be very fine? But a heart in her bosom is beating When did you first know that a heart in her bosom is beating? That is true to her class and her kind Is the fact that is true to her class and her kind the real reason? And the grafters in terror are trembling Do you really think you need some more? When her spite and defiance she'll hurl What happened when she spite and defiance she'll hurl? For the only and thoroughbred lady is the Rebel Girl Perhaps and now I exhibit my frocks - your inhibitions are related to this. That's the Rebel Girl, That's the Rebel Girl Is it because of some problems in my childhood that you say that's the rebel girl that's the rebel girl? To the working class she's a precious pearl Earlier you said the only and thoroughbred lady is the rebel girl? She brings courage pride and joy to the fighting Rebel Boy Is it because of some problems at home that you are going through all this? We've had girls before but we need some more What makes you think that? In the Industrial Workers of the World You mentioned that a heart in her bosom is beating? For it's great to fight for freedom with a Rebel Girl How do you reconcile your desires? [The Rebel Girl, words and music by Joe Hill in jail, February 1913] ------------------------][------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 20:56:13 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: nora chai Subject: address query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; does anyone know judith baumel's e-address?-- or, if ms. baumel is on this list, perhaps she could get in touch with me... thanks a good deal. nora p.s. i managed to avoid the word "backchannel." this is significant since none of my poetry seems to avoid the word "metal," no matter how hard i try. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 21:48:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Keith Waldrop MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THE EIGHTH DAY a new chapbook by Keith Waldrop is now available from Instress, PO Box 3124, Saratoga, CA 95070 for a mere US$4, postage paid. Please make checks payable to Leonard Brink. As with all Instress chapbooks, a sample can be seen at http://home.sprintmail.com/~windhover Note: Subscribers to the series will receive this, together with the Frumkin and Hocquard chaps, and _Inscape_ # 6 -- French Poets near the end of June. (The subscription price is $10) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 03:46:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: call for work for Duration: A journal of international poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A new e-journal, Duration: a journal of international poetry, is now accepting submissions for its first issue. Please send all inquiries to Jerrold Shiroma at: three7@earthlink.net with "Duration Submission" in the subject header. We are especially interested in translations of contemporary poetry. Reviews / essays are also particularly welcome. The Duration journal operates in conjunction with Duration On-line...a web-site devoted to international poetry, running in conjunction with the Duration chapbook series. All located at: http://members.xoom.com/Duration/durationhome.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 16:02:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: NIKUKO FLOODING, FLOODED (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII \ NIKUKO FLOODING, FLOODED IRC log started Sun May 23 15:52 *** Value of LOG set to ON --=[ #Nikuko ] Nikuko (sondheim@166.84.1.68) joined the channel. *** Users on #Nikuko: @Nikuko *** #Nikuko 927489138 *** Nikuko is now known as sQ6759062 *** sQ6759062 is now known as uF7723556 *** uF7723556 is now known as kD1618053 *** kD1618053 is now known as pi4576183 *** pi4576183 is now known as jH600529 *** jH600529 is now known as oo1608515 *** oo1608515 is now known as rs3190324 *** rs3190324 is now known as nt9130257 *** nt9130257 is now known as ht4882044 *** ht4882044 is now known as oN909919 *** oN909919 is now known as uK8240827 *** uK8240827 is now known as ww4011691 *** ww4011691 is now known as hi1484913 *** hi1484913 is now known as vh6819757 *** vh6819757 is now known as uw1631326 *** uw1631326 is now known as Nikuko *** Nikuko is now known as blood *** blood is now known as jb1313571 *** jb1313571 is now known as an9490187 *** an9490187 is now known as pl3239249 *** pl3239249 is now known as kE5421158 *** kE5421158 is now known as blood *** blood is now known as Nikuko --=[ #Nikuko ] Nikuko [sondheim@166.84.1.68] has left the channel. ** Signoff: Nikuko ( - The end of the world draws near..) IRC Log ended *** Sun May 23 15:55 I always know that if I lose a part of me, I retreat and look at my tooth or finger sitting on a shelf. I do know Nikuko feels the same. Sometimes messages come from far away. In childrenhood are lost teeth and limbs. Discards in backyards. Hello, I will call you soon. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 19:21:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erika Stephens Subject: Re: A "Defense" of Jacques Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mark Prejsnar here: I'd like to thank Brian Stefans for his excellent and generous discussion of what i said about Jacques Debrot, and ultimately S. Schaefer.... I've lived with a scientist (who also theorizes on the philosophy of science) for 18 years or so, often helping with her work.... And i have no problem in broad outline with your use of Kuhn. My biggest objection here is that when you get down to concrete details, the gaps between different generations and different tendencies in poetry *cannot* be precisely likened to paradigm shifts in the sciences. The whole point of Kuhn's idea, is that one paradigm pretty much rools OK? at a given time, in a given science. I hope (and intend, if i have anything to do with it!) that one general frame will never dominate good poetry writing. Poetry isn't about proving that one single approach is "right"! And in fact the boiling up of good poetry after 1973 in the US didn't that much try to force a single frame onto contemporary poetry... Those poet/theorists tended to a fairly wild and anarchic array of *different* emphases and theories... This is one reason so many people have dismissed Standard's tirade (and, on a different but related note, why i've been somewhat whimsically urging people to stop using the "L phrase" altogether) But if you were gonna proceed with this argument, i feel you'd need to flesh it out with details: all models of the history of the sciences, that posit a paradigm shift, go into some detail about the exact differences that distinguish competing paradigms. There are a million ways to approach this, but just for instance: i have been reading Martine Bellen's Tales of Murasaki, a Sun and Moon book of poems, and Cole Swenson's Try (published by the University of Iowa Press! speaking of the complexities of tendencies...) Now how might your argument work vis-a-vis those two books i wonder? Is Swenson the "older" paradigm (L-po) and Bellen the new?? Are both the old? Don't know much about either poet, but to me CS is the more established and widely published one, so i found myself assuming she wd. represent the "older" paradigm as you put it. But maybe Bellen's work has just slipped past my radar till now. In fact on the whole there is more connected syntax in Try and more unexpected and extreme verbal disjunction in Bellen's Murasaki. In any event they seem to me to be both recognizably: work published in the last 5 years of the 20th century, in the US. They (like so much contemporary work) do not strike me as representing paradigms, but interesting writing by amazingly gifted and virtuosic poets... What seperates 'em seems to have more to do with choices made by Bellen and Swenson, than with any generalizable tendency... What you quote regarding "contextual bias" is indeed interesting and intelligent. What i've said above is pertinent: if i understand what Jacques means by the passage you quote, i would agree but also suggest that the poets of the 70s and 80s are *so different* so much of the time, that to suggest that their lean toward awareness of the "subject in communication" is a grave flaw, has to appear close to nit-picking. Over and over, i wonder if i'm just too amiable, or (as i actually believe of course) if it isn't the case that even pretty balanced and friendly commentators feel a need to belittle others (grouping 'em questionably together with that L phrase) because they just don't feel there will be enuff room for themselves, otherwise, somehow! Hell, i can't help feeling that the more people appreciate the best writing of my time, Coolidge say, or Hejinian, or Andrews, the more chance i have of being judged well and in a balanced way, and not thru conservative or ill-informed or screwed-up filters... Hope i wasn't too harsh in response to Jacques (as seems to be implied in a few places in your post); that wasn't the feel i wanted to convey at all, and i also think that the things he's said on these topics are excellent and much appreciated. mark ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 10:59:44 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lawrence Upton." Comments: To: british-poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Writers Forum announces publication of 4 more issues of Domestic Ambient Noise by Bob Cobbing and Lawrence Upton Microphone 0 86162 879 9 Awakening those inclined to doze 0 86162 880 2 Lord Butterfield 0 86162 881 0 Lady Marge 0 86162 882 9 Each costs £1 sterling plus packing and postage Order from New River Project, 89a Petherton Rd, London N5 2QT - s.a.e. / i.r.c. with enquiries or order through your favourite bookseller L ------------------------------------------- NATO, cradle to grave ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 10:28:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Her, through Bethlehem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII \ Her Last night, I couldn't sleep, violent insomnia, dismemberings. I heard voices over and over again coming towards me, devouring me. My ears were consumed in the fire of frantic voices. Voices wouldn't let me sleep in peace, these voices. I heard a vast and noisy blanket descend over the bed full of voices. Voices whispered to me of dark things I could not comprehend. Voices whispered to me of things I understood in unknown languages. Screams in hebrew and aramaic - loud voices in akkadian and mitannian. My tongue was consumed in a fire of futile replying; I had no voice. Voiceless, my vocal cords no longer murmured, my throat gouged out. In loving reply, I screamed, voiceless, back into the whirlwind. The Book of Judges screamed in reply: Judges 19, 20, 21: Why did the host offer to throw his virgin daughter out to the Benjamin men? Why does the concubine, _pilegesh,_ remain unnamed? Why was she thrown out to them? Why was Israel mapped in that long journey on her body the unknown man crisscrossing the country - her corpse split among the tribes, the violent war which followed? Who were these people; why do they disappear from the ensuing fray? Why was she repeatedly raped? Why did the concubine return initially to Bethlehem? Why did the war result in further rape and pillaging? What drove these men out of their huts in such a fash- ion? Why is this tale of men spelled out in carnage - why is no one named? Later the ark's carried uselessly back and forth over the land of the Philistines - bringing hemorrhoids and mice - later returned - hemorr- hoids and mice cast in gold. Why this eternal distribution? But who was the concubine? Why does it say earlier she played the harlot? (Against him or on him, then to her father's house - he follows, brings her back after assuagement, entertainment - a delay like that before brutal orgasm - then they stop at the fatal house in Bethlehem - what became an inn of violence and despair - what began in grace and kindness. Think of the night, it's night there in the town, there are rough men about, this host takes the party in, there's banging out the door. Flickering lanterns. There are loud voices, drunken voices, demanding the man - they're going to fuck him. The host offers the daughter instead, as well as the concubine. The text seems slightly contrary here. The men wouldn't listen to him so they took the concubine, raped her all night long. She was dead on the door- step; the man came out and took her with him. What did he say to the host? The host had taken them in? The man distributed the body among the tribes; they'd never seen anything like that, not since they came out of the land of Egypt. There had to be war. The other tribes prevailed over Benjamin; it took a while. Benjamin himself had been a favorite son - later there's Samuel anointing Saul - from Benjamin again. I hear the voices outside the host's house which has become an inn; the man and his concubine and asses are staying gratis. The host is hold; he's kind, helpful. The rest of the folk wouldn't have anything to do with the visitors - they weren't helpful at all. It's the night before; they're all speaking happily. The pilegesh doesn't know she's about to die, then dismembered, cast among the tribes. There's the sound of men outside - they're drunken, surly, out of control. Surely they were out of control. Speaking the language of the Bible, mouthing it - the language which would later hold them in abeyance, name- less as well. All these characters will disappear into the fray. Later, millennia later, I'll be sleeping; voices will violate my body, strange mouths will appear breaking through my skin. There are screams and taunts from all of them - only my original mouth, taken over by the concubine - moaning and fearful - knowing now what's coming - it's all written down - I'll call her Shekinah - __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 13:20:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: define "institution" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit first want to thank Marcella Durand belatedly for some much needed clarification re St. Marks and more particularly her talk at Barnard Conference (re 4/23/99 Poetics List post "Barnard Report"). My hastily scribbled notes thank you too. Marcella raises the q. which seems at the heart of the recent thread re Power & Language Poetry (reflecting now on Presjnar's response to Debrot re Schaefer's RHIZOME essay) -- poets relations to "institutions" (and thus to Power?), especially in discerning whether or not individuals *have* power. Our dialogue was not abt. whether individuals have power, but what be the function of space-maintaining institutions, but I see in putting these two issues side by side a fruitful bleeding, as in colors that bleed, if anyone out there would like to draw some blood. I don't mean it do sound as violent as all that! just colorful. Anyway, I objected to their (the St. Marks' panelists) reference to the Poetry Project as a "non-institutional institution" simply because that didn't make sense, seemed Lacanian semanticism ("she doesn't lack, she lacks lack, etc.). The gist of the issue I raised was how do "dialogues" that occurs in a physical/social space get into print, by what means does a dialogue continue so as to be an "extension" or "report" of what happened in that space? I questioned whether the Poetry Project Newletter, fine as it is, didn't serve more of an "institutional" function (that of maintaining the institution) than a "poetic" function (i.e. that of continuing the dialogues that occur in that space). Marcella responded: >But yes, one of the intrinsic problems of being a "space," especially a >social space, is that others will inevitably feel excluded, at least >physically or geographically, from that space. Which is why the Project >is interested in website and e-mail potentials as a way of overcoming >that obstacle, as well as the "regional updates" section of the >Newsletter. It is somewhat of an "office policy" to try and continue a >poetic dialogue beyond spatial limitations. I think this issue also plays >into being a non-institutional institution. What is perceived as >"institutional"? At what point does an organization, a social scene, a >dialogue, become institutionalized? Likewise, what is it to be a "non-institutional institution"? I am by no means attacking St. Mark's & the many fine poets and goings-on associated with it/them, and the website & newsletter which do a great job of continuing "beyond spatial limitations." I'm interested in spatial limitiations and of course the desire to transcend them. And thus interested in how poetic dialogues carry on, shift, or continue outside of the physical spaces in which they occur; lost in translation as they say? We all know what makes meeting possible, whether by sharing one's space/time/money or by securing the funding (getting a "share" of someone else's space/time/money) -- but how can poets "keep them" from becoming "institutional" -- and is that what's at stake? Is it *bad* to be institutional (in this day and age? or a necessary evil?) And isn't avoiding institutionalizing then battling the canonizing 'tendancy' of literary history, which constructs movements, lineages, coherencies where there were before people making poems? Like Marcella, I'm interested in when an organization (or a person!) *becomes* an institution. Perhaps an interest somewhat disinterested: a taxonomic desire (that is, if taxonomy = a system of classification and taxonomic = tending toward such a system) that hopes to extend beyond that grand taxonomy canonization and see what gets left out why. I'd say if it strives toward long-term self-maintenance and deals with money (especially in such amounts that an 'administration' comes into existence) then its an institution. Organizations on the other hand crop up when a certain issue arises, and run mostly on the energy of people involved. There's a casualness about them no matter how serious they in fact are. A reading series, as much as it is organized, is an organization. A little magazine too, and a small press, though these seem to commence striving a bit more toward permanence than did, say, mimeo revolution publications (i.e. by soliciting subscribers and seeking non-profit status -- though this again may be a *necessary evil* not necessarily evil, a sign of the times). They might rely on an institution (the NEA or SCA, say) but don't strive to be like one. Organizations have push, institutions *have* power. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 15:30:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: apt sublet Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sublet available from mid-June to July 31st in East Village Very clean, quiet, railroad apartment on E. 2nd St. between 2nd & 1st Aves, lots of light & fully furnished. $1500 plus deposit Call Brenda or Atticus at (212) 375-0526 if interested. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 15:51:58 +0000 Reply-To: archambeau@LFMAIL.LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Subject: ANGEL EXHAUSTED MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Arrgh. The Angel Exhaust link I mentioned seems to be down. I recall this happening to them before. But for those of you starving for British experimental poetry, some back issues are up at the URL below, (sadly, not the Irish issue I was raving about). http://angel-exhaust.offworld.org/ R.A. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 14:18:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: DYLAN B-DAY THOUGHTS OF LUOMA In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII And I'm defrosting today. Laundry stranded in the mat (above which rohrer lives, just as jarnot used to live above "under the pig" across from the luna lounge on ludlow where luoma used to go for laffs). It's raining love, the radio sounds so burlington today so thinking about the past that was a hope of art not sucking until drunk. but not those "reading reports" but the particular way i realize that almost everybody i know i somehow met "through poetry" or "the scene" which would seem distinct from poetry if it were less humid thunder to bike sideways o'er the brooklyn bridge for its birthday just like the white wing (fuschia) dove at the one's who stand so frown (for you know we couldn't stay black against the night). Still no sound of ice falling from the roof of the freezer's mouth.... Anyway, I do love the poetry scene when it leads to things outside itself. So, I went to that Bar 13 last night again (for those in, or planning to visit NYC, if you're at all interested in going out at MIDNIGHT ON A SUNDAY To dance to 60s (sixties) music, and watch people in their early 20s sometimes in "60s costumes", please contact me---I'm always looking for people to go with, not liking to "go it alone" as it were. I discovered this place, because John Arizza and Greg Fuchs and Brett Evans and others had a reading there once or twice, but I didn't know it featured 60s dancing until I happened to be coming back from this birthday party for some woman (who I kinda met through louma), whose father runs the hair-club for men, and we were looking for somewhere to go, and walked in and they were playing TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS and I was hooked, and even bill luoma decided to stay and dance (96 tears or incense and peppermint)---and I've gone many times since, last night with Jody, a great DJ (I'm trying to set him up with the FENCE people for some dance party) who people say looks like me (though he's taller, thinner, and more african), and it was really crowded, and we got there too late to get the tambourines they were handing out, but not too late to him them play THE RAPPER by the JAGGERZ, then seque into 25 MILES by Edwin Starr, and then SOUL FINGER by the BAR-KAYS (just before they died in that otis redding rush crash), and why were they handing out tambourines, not perhaps because it was dylan's birthday eve, but because it was the second anniversay of the opening of 60s night at this place (and I got thinking, it was EXACTLY TWO YEARS AGO that I (and louma, etc.) happened upon this place, and so i mark an anniversary too...(and defrosting is slow, but the rain continues....) c P.S. DOES ANYBODY HAVE A TAPE OF SUN RA ARKESTRA ANN ARBOR 1973 concert? we'll meet on edges soon, chris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 17:16:17 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: travmar03 Subject: Fw: Highwire Browbeating Reminder: Poetry and Photography Comments: To: lungfull@interport.net, John Coletti , Ammiel Alcalay , American Poetry Review , amorris1@swarthmore.edu, ampoupard , Andre Codrescu , avraham@sas.upenn.edu, banchang@sas.upenn.edu, Barbara Cole , Brett Evans , Buck Downs , Chris McCreary , Chris Stroffolino , Cindy Burstein , dburnham@sas.upenn.edu, Don Riggs , gbiglier@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, Heather Fuller , Heather Starr , ianjewell@netscape.net, Janine Hayes , jon8stark@aol.com, Justin , Kerry Sherin , Kevin Varrone , Kristen Gallagher , Kyle Conner , lkoutimhot@aol.com, Margit , Michael Magee , Molly B Russakoff , Nawi Avila , Philadelphiawriters@dept.english.upenn.edu, Poetry Project , potepoet@home.com, Ron Silliman , Sub Po Etics , swalker@dept.english.upenn.edu, swineburne@yahoo.com, T Sinioukov , TDevaney@brooklyn.cuny.edu, tf@morningred.com, vhanson@netbox.com, Writers House , xentrica@earthlink.net Please put the following message out on the (virtual) wire to whomever you think will be tittillated, tantalized, and tickled to see two poets pull out all the stops. See poisioned apples, exploding cheesesteaks, asthma causing summer air, freshly brewed poppy tea, and some of the most exciting poetry in the Northeast Corridor today. Immediately following the reading you're invited to view The American Ritual, photographic projections by photographers Rick Buckman and Elizabeth Riley. Battle of the Small Press Editors Katy Lederer Editor of Explosive and Michael Magee Editor of Combo will read at Highwire Gallery 8 PM Saturday May 29, 1999 139 North Second Street Philadelphia BYOB Thanks Greg Fuchs Kyle Connor ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 19:09:10 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Kramer Subject: ray johnson & hannah weiner MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, it's wendy kramer. at the risk of stating/noticing what may be the obvious to people, can someone fill me in on ray johnson & hannah weiner's acquaintance? i was leafing through some photocopies of new york correspondance school stuff / ray johnson stuff & there was a sheet of the semaphore flag symbols. and so of course i thot of hannah weiner's code poems and as i was flipping through some more and thinking how the correspondance school meeting notes from ray johnson were sounding a little like gertrude stein (& thot of his collage portrait of stein) and then sounded quite a lot like hannah weiner's typing in clairvoyant journal; then, flipping through some more, lo and behold there was a new york correspondance school meeting seating chart with hannah weiner's name in one of the spots bottom row smack in the middle. So, does anyone know anything about them knowing each other? the performance dates for code poems mentioned in the book are roughly contemporary with the stuff i was looking at. as a final note, there was also in this ray johnson stuff a sheet of moticos symbols-- remember the filled in black figures derived from (as i remember from the whitney exhibit) the outlines of his moticos collages. and again, they have an affinity with the illustrations of semaphores and other code in code poems. the semaphore figures the sailor holding for with flags in various motico-like postures. !! please backchannel or front if there's interest. thanks dee ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 19:31:01 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pete spence Subject: Re: contact info for peter jaeger? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; thanks to the six people who ordered Hannah Weiner's WRITTEN IN/THE ZERO ONE you should see it it your mailbox about now. there are about 150 to 200 copies left it didn't get much distribution back then for one reason or another. so anyone else interested can e-mail me : spenvis@hotmail.com thank you pete spence ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 00:54:20 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Query for Caribbeanists? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I remember hearing of a scholar who used the phrase "linguistic insurrection" to discuss (I believe) certain uses of ideolect in Caribbean poetry/lit. Might anyone know who I'm thinking of? Thanks in advance, Stephen Cope ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:59:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: beer-related poem contest / Brooklyn Brewery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit it was requested that I forward this; contact information below. Chris ----- A first-place prize of $500 will be awarded for the best beer-related poem on the blank side of a Brooklyn Brewery bar coaster. Deadline for submissions: September 30, 1999. Coasters may be obtained from establishments serving Brooklyn Brewery products or by calling, writing or e-mailing the brewery at 79 N 11 St., Brooklyn NY 11211. Phone 718 486 7422. E-mail: hindy@brooklynbrewery.com. Entries may be submitted in person or by mail. Winners will be announced at the Poetry Olympiad to be held at the Brooklyn Brewery perfomance space in November 1999. The last Olympiad featured teams fielded by the MFA writing programs at NYU, Columbia, Saral Lawrence, the New School, and Brooklyn College. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:57:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: FREE MAGAZINE OFFER MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain this offer is for non-US folks i've got 5 copies of my last magazine issue ITSYNCCAST sitting at the ready to be sent out to the 1st 5 requests outside of the US the mag has 92 pages and features work by Paul Vangelisti Tracy Grinnell Jackson Mac Low Guy Bennett Tim Fletcher Emily Grossman H.T. and lots more... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 23:42:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: the suck of art In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII anybody doing anything about this war we're having? or this capitalism we're hoovering? or this atomization of the intelligence we're endrunning by singing along with creative studies? Isn't political efficacy something poetry goes alongside of, is inspired by, inspires, or does it have to EMBODY it -- ENACTMENT HOUNDS, they called them -- please implicate me, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:21:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jena Osman Subject: found poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm interested in poems that were "found" inside of other texts (such as Cage's mesostics and Reznikoff's _Testimony_). What are some favorites in this genre by others? Any critical texts about these kinds of procedures I should know about? Thanks, Jena Osman josman@acad.ursinus.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:25:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: miekal and Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: Re: found poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jena the lifelong master of found poetry is the venerable Bern Porter--The Book of Do, The Book of Dont, CRCNCL, The Manhattan Phonebook, Found Poems, The Waste-makers. Most of his published work since 55 or so has incorporated every manner of found experimentation. As this is a wonderful question deserving attention, I'll try to post those titles I know of, which might be numerous, & then what separates found texts from plagiarized texts? miekal found out ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 10:57:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: the suck of art Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" someday i'll wish upon a star and wake up where the Serbs are far behind me where missiles melt like lemon drops away above the silo tops thats where you'll find me totally black lamb with long white tail suckling totally white ewe bombing is so barbarian so uncivilized rude to the max retrograde totally twentieth century bombing the antithesis of thinking tantrum not a tactic if you don't do what nato say nato rip your grandma's legs off bomb you bakery bomb you church blow you dad out of bathtub we should drop cake from the clouds above skopje apple pie, cherry pie, birthday cake, strudel, sticky buns, muffins, scones drop ovens, drop microwaves, drop cell phones into border camps why doesn't microsoft or apple race a few computers right to the camps so we can hear first hand, set up a server for the camps, what do you need, drinking water let's bring them a barge or three of glacier advertising money couldn't buy. forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zonko ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:10:50 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: define Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; re: Institutions, poetry, for example, has been a state-infected form of synecdoche ever since Alexander, burning down the home-town, spared Pindar's "house", poetry falling thereafter prey to the spiralling disappearance of "world" into the upper regions of epistemology by way of legal quarantine over a person's "private (p)arts" - law by concensus, might making rite a form of atavism critically dissembled yet not without simultaneously milking it of resident function. Institutionalization = the ability to dissect all forms of threat to stability by invoking them as "test cases", or "institution is the same as precedent", memory being consequent to exclusion, making a line of tone at once powerless and "special"; the systemization of stars constitutes the first institution; social life was determined by nothing but >From: Linda Russo >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: define "institution" >Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 13:20:40 -0400 > >first want to thank Marcella Durand belatedly for some much >needed clarification re St. Marks and more particularly her >talk at Barnard Conference (re 4/23/99 Poetics List post "Barnard >Report"). My hastily scribbled notes thank you too. > >Marcella raises the q. which seems at the heart of the recent thread re >Power & Language Poetry (reflecting now on Presjnar's response to >Debrot re Schaefer's RHIZOME essay) -- poets relations to "institutions" >(and thus to Power?), especially in discerning whether or not individuals >*have* power. Our dialogue was not abt. whether individuals have power, >but what be the function of space-maintaining institutions, but I see in >putting >these two issues side by side a fruitful bleeding, as in colors that bleed, >if >anyone out there would like to draw some blood. I don't mean it do sound >as violent as all that! just colorful. > >Anyway, I objected to their (the St. Marks' panelists) reference to the >Poetry Project as a "non-institutional institution" simply because that >didn't make sense, seemed Lacanian semanticism ("she doesn't lack, >she lacks lack, etc.). The gist of the issue I raised was how do >"dialogues" >that occurs in a physical/social space get into print, by what means >does a dialogue continue so as to be an "extension" or "report" of >what happened in that space? I questioned whether the Poetry Project >Newletter, fine as it is, didn't serve more of an "institutional" function >(that of maintaining the institution) than a "poetic" function (i.e. that >of >continuing the dialogues that occur in that space). > >Marcella responded: > >But yes, one of the intrinsic problems of being a "space," especially a > >social space, is that others will inevitably feel excluded, at least > >physically or geographically, from that space. Which is why the Project > >is interested in website and e-mail potentials as a way of overcoming > >that obstacle, as well as the "regional updates" section of the > >Newsletter. It is somewhat of an "office policy" to try and continue a > >poetic dialogue beyond spatial limitations. I think this issue also plays > >into being a non-institutional institution. What is perceived as > >"institutional"? At what point does an organization, a social scene, a > >dialogue, become institutionalized? > > >Likewise, what is it to be a "non-institutional institution"? I am by no >means >attacking St. Mark's & the many fine poets and goings-on associated with >it/them, and the website & newsletter which do a great job of continuing >"beyond >spatial limitations." I'm interested in spatial limitiations and of course >the desire >to transcend them. And thus interested in how poetic dialogues carry on, >shift, or >continue outside of the physical spaces in which they occur; lost in >translation as >they say? We all know what makes meeting possible, whether by sharing >one's space/time/money or by securing the funding (getting a "share" of >someone >else's space/time/money) -- but how can poets "keep them" from becoming >"institutional" -- and is that what's at stake? Is it *bad* to be >institutional (in this >day and age? or a necessary evil?) And isn't avoiding institutionalizing >then >battling the canonizing 'tendancy' of literary history, which constructs >movements, >lineages, coherencies where there were before people making poems? > >Like Marcella, I'm interested in when an organization (or a person!) >*becomes* >an institution. Perhaps an interest somewhat disinterested: a taxonomic >desire (that is, if taxonomy = a system of classification and taxonomic = >tending >toward such a system) that hopes to extend beyond that grand taxonomy >canonization and see what gets left out why. I'd say if it strives toward >long-term >self-maintenance and deals with money (especially in such amounts that an >'administration' comes into existence) then its an institution. >Organizations >on the other hand crop up when a certain issue arises, and run mostly on >the >energy of people involved. There's a casualness about them no matter how >serious they in fact are. A reading series, as much as it is organized, is >an >organization. A little magazine too, and a small press, though these seem >to >commence striving a bit more toward permanence than did, say, mimeo >revolution publications (i.e. by soliciting subscribers and seeking >non-profit >status -- though this again may be a *necessary evil* not necessarily evil, >a >sign of the times). They might rely on an institution (the NEA or SCA, >say) >but don't strive to be like one. Organizations have push, institutions >*have* power. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 14:41:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Howe in NYC / Prevallet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit forwarded from Kristin Prevallet. Chris ----- From: "kristin prevallet" Date: 5/19/99 8:08 PM -0400 Last Friday, Susan Howe and Dominique Fourcade read (Bernstein read the translations) at the Dia foundation. Dia foundation has six or so huge skylights, and as Dominique sweetly read his poems about days made out of snow, and other French things, the light in the room changed from daylight to night. Charles with his perfect French accent (ha ha) gave a loud twang to the translations, and the odd mixture of the two voices made the audience still as statues. It was a wash of Frenchness and sincerity, a bit comatose, yet meditative. Then Susan came on, and did her slide show of _Pierce-Arrow_ (recently published by New Directions)--and WOW! She started with page xii of the book, a Pierce ms with 22 different variations on the phrase "Somebody praises somebody to his face." It was very humorous and Steinian, particularly the way she read it. Then she moved into Pierce's doodles, and his very strange calculations of ones and zeros that were stacked like stairs across the pages (a bizarre binary language, way before its time). Susan read mostly the parts of the book about Pierce's life, but then gradually moved into her poems. She talked in her intro about how she is beginning to see more and more of a connection between poetry and non-symbolic logic, and as she moved further and further into her poems, her slides of the Pierce manuscripts got more and more non-symbolic. It was like cognitive mapping off the map and into an undiscovered intellectual and emotional terrain that was really quite moving. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 15:26:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Found Texts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jena Osman had in mind, I'm guessing, texts produced through unvarying procedures. But some recent & non-procedural examples of "writing through" found texts that I've enjoyed particulalry are Douglas Messerli's AFTER, Guy Bennet's LAST WORDS, & Aaron Shurin's INTO DISTANCES. Sections of Sianne Ngai's recent book, CRITERIA, also do very interesting things with found texts. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:45:44 -0700 Reply-To: robintm@tf.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Tremblay-McGaw Organization: Trauma Foundation Subject: Class, Gender and Innovative Poetics Comments: To: Kathy Lou Schultz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Class, Gender and Innovative Poetics Robin Tremblay-McGaw here. I want to announce that Kathy Lou Schultz and I will be editing the next issue of HOW2's Forum on Class and Poetics. See below for the call for work. Thanks to the efforts of feminist poets, critics, and editors, it is now possible to identify a discourse--both scholarly and creative--of gender and poetics. In the 1980s, journals such as HOW(ever) put the spotlight on these issues, particularly related to innovative or experimental practices, thereby providing a forum for the exploration of a vocabulary for talking about gender and poetics. Today we find ourselves trying to create a vocabulary for addressing the complex issues of class, gender, and innovative poetics. As Kathy Lou Schultz asked in her Tripwire essay, "What's a working class poetic, and where could I find one?" Or we could ask, what are the (lipstick) traces of class? How do we make present the absence of class in discussions about gender and poetics? What are the intersections of race in discussions of class? How are these things fused and CON-fused? How do/can we picture/trace working class issues in formally innovative ways? What do the circumstances of literary production surrounding writers themselves--and the writing produced--have to do with one another, with innovation, and with gender? Email submissions should be sent to: robinandkathy@tf.org as a text file included in the body of the email message. HOW2 can be found at: http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/stadler_center/how2/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 16:53:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: found poetry In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990525122104.0083d510@acad.ursinus.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jena, A few texts spring most readily to mind here: Jackson Mac Low's _Words nd Ends from Ez_, _Virginia Woolf Poems_, _Barnesbook_, etc. Ronald Johnson's _Radi Os_ (1st 4[?] books of Paradise Lost, written-through by subtraction) Hannah Weiner's _Weeks_ (I don't think it sticks very "purely" to language heard on the news, but most of it's close) Tom Phillips' _A Humument_ Joan Retallack's _Errata 5uite_ (Are you looking for poems "found" in single texts, or collaged from a number of sources?) David Bromige's Sonoma County newspaper prose poem, a lovely piece whose title I'm unfortunately not able to recall I also remember well a piece by Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop, read by them at the Ear Inn back in '95(?), which was created by successively working through Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," each time subtracting a certain proportion of words. Rosmarie's use of Wittgenstein in _The Reproduction of Profiles_ and _Lawn of Excluded Middle_, while not a pure example of the genre, also might be of interest. In the realm of badly-remembered secondhand information, didn't I also hear somewhere that dictionary definitions had some role as "source material" in Clark Coolidge's _The Maintains_? Analogies in music too numerous to document here - and probably off-topic, though I'd be happy to backchannel if you're interested. One I'll mention, since it connects to one of your examples, is Cage's _Quartets I-VIII_, which is a subtractive rewriting of American Protestant hymns. I'm drawing a blank when trying to think of critical prose on this specific topic other than that by the poets/composers themselves, though there are a number of texts which might be extended to apply here by analogy. Which leaves Mac Low's and Cage's "explanatory" prose glosses, along with Cage's _Diary_ [_Journal_?] as good introductions to the procedures, some of the aesthetic and political claims that have been made for them, etc. I hope this is at least a little helpful. Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Jena Osman Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 9:21 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: found poetry I'm interested in poems that were "found" inside of other texts (such as Cage's mesostics and Reznikoff's _Testimony_). What are some favorites in this genre by others? Any critical texts about these kinds of procedures I should know about? Thanks, Jena Osman josman@acad.ursinus.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 20:03:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: E-Mail Nigel Hinshelwood?? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If anyone has an e-mail or a phone # for Nigel Hinshelwood would you backchannel it to me at jdebrot@aol.com. Thanks in advance. Jacques ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 21:51:54 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: PUTTING THE CARTE BEFORE THE POST MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 84 TO INESSA ARMAND Dear friend, I have just read, my dear friend [the words "my dear friend" were written by Lenin in English--Ed.] I have just read the telegram, and changed the envelope marked for "A" [The letter has never been found.--Ed.] I also want to correspond. Let's continue to correspond. The precedent letter was sent in too much hurry. Proof: There were three electors from Warsaw for the worker curia. Comedians! They can repeat it. They know it by heart. Today a meeting of the Lefts here: everyone came, 2 Swiss + 2 foreigners (Germans) + 3 Russ. Jew. Polish. Schwach! There it is, my fate. I think it will be almost a failure. [The lecture did not come off, only a talk.--Ed.] Now there is Radek. We (Zinoviev and I) recognized Bukharin. The article by Nota Bene No. 6 of Jugend-Internationale have you seen it? I replied to his stupidities in No. 2. You haven't seen it? It was already a few days ago. How I laughed at your postcard, I really had to hold my sides, "In France there is no such measure as the ha, but there is the acre, and you don't know how big an acre is . . . " Ha ha ha! It was France--imaginez vous?--that introduce the metric system. A ha = hectare = 100 ares. An acre is not a French measure but an English one. It really is funny that you do not often come across the words hectare, ha, etc. They are dull, technical words hugely politick: "I advise you to throw out altogether #3 the "demand (women's) for freedom of love". Sent from Berne Collected Works Vol 35, pp. 180-81 165: REFERENCE IS TO A PAMPHLET FOR WORKING CLASS WOMEN THAT INESSA INTENDED TO WRITE. THE PAMPHLET WAS NEVER WRITTEN. S. Vinogradov: Sokvovischa dushevnoi krasoty (Moscow, 1984) December 1913 - April 1917 Lenin / Armand's correspondence Armand, I.F. (Inessa Fedorovna, 1874-1920) STATI, RECHI, PISMA (Moskva: Politizdat, 1975) R A B O N I T S A Pavel Podliashuk, Tovarisch Inessa: "dokumental'naia povest" 4 ed. (Moscow, 1984). "He walked with his eyes closed and every moment we thought he might fall to the ground." Quoted by Marcel Body, "Alexandra Kollontai," Preuves (Paris), vol. II, no. 14 (April 1952), p. 17. Jean Freville, Une grand figure de la Revolution russe: Inessa Armand (Paris, 1957). Lenin: vols. XLVIII & XLIX of POLNE SOBRANIE SOCHINENII ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 22:00:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clark D Lunberry Subject: back/words In-Reply-To: <000501bea54b$10edc220$711d2299@u4q7n2> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From Tuesday's NY TImes: May 25, 1999 Untangling Speech -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By HENRY FOUNTAIN Back in the 1960's, fans of the Beatles spent hours playing their albums backward, destroying many a phonograph needle in an effort to decipher messages supposedly recorded in reverse concerning Paul McCartney's fate. New research shows, however, that backward speech does not have to be unintelligible. Much as the brain can fill in missing words in a half-heard sentence at a noisy cocktail party, it can also make sense of reversed speech. If the Beatles had recorded "Paul is dead" in a certain way, all those needles might have been saved. In the new study, reported in a recent issue of Nature, scientists at the California Institute of Technology and California State University at Los Angeles took a recorded sentence, broke it into equal short segments, and reversed each segment. They strung all the reversed segments together and played the sentence to listeners. When the segments were about 50 milliseconds in length, the sentence was perfectly intelligible. As segments got longer, however, intelligibility declined, approaching zero when they reached 200 milliseconds. The research lends support to recent theories of how speech is perceived. These theories hold that the brain does not rely so much on analyzing the spectrum of short-term sounds as it does on lower-frequency cues like intonation and modulation. As long as the segments were short enough, the brain was still able to decipher these cues. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 00:29:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rebecca wolff Subject: fence party Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please come to rock Fence #3: Thursday evening, June 17th, 8pm 533 Canal Street, #3, over by the Hudson River, New York City Dancing, drinks, party favors: bring friends! $5 to help us cover costs and to help us pay for Fence ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 00:38:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rebecca wolff Subject: work within the system, it's fun Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I hope anyone who's in the area and who is connected to or invested in the production and sale of literary magazines will come to a panel I've been working on (with CLMP) which has finally come to fruition. It should be good, and what's more, it should be the start of something bigger, ie, revolutionary organization. "The Retail Market: A Conversation for Literary Magazines about Bookstores and Single Copy Sales" with panelists Faye Kosmidis (DeBoer Distribution), Sheryl Carlson (Barnes & Noble newsstand division manager), Ian Brand (Bookseller, Labyrinth Books, NY), Philip Fried (editor, The Manhattan Review), moderator Jenine Gordon Bockman, editor Literal Latte. Wednesday, June 2nd at 6:30pm Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 5 Union Square West, New York City Free admission for staff of lit mags, $5 for others. email me for further information ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 01:18:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Shemurph@AOL.COM Subject: contact info for Garrett Caples? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone have an address (e-mail) handy for Garrett Caples? I recently experienced a hard-drive crash and my address book has been turned to powder. Please backchannel. Sheila Murphy shemurph@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 10:03:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jarnot@PIPELINE.COM Subject: Brooklyn summer sublet Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Summer sublet available-- One bedroom apartment (share with one cat) available from Friday June 11- Sunday June 27th (2 weeks+) $350 plus security deposit Metropolitan Avenue near Bedford in Williamsburg/Brooklyn 5 minute walk to L train 10 minutes to manhattan/lower east side please contact Lisa Jarnot jarnot@pipeline.com 718-388-4938 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 10:26:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: found poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jena-- Keith Tuma just wrote a piece on found poetry for the forthcoming Exaltation of Forms anthology (which you know well because you'll be in it too!). In case he's not lurking on the list right now, his email is tumakw@muohio.edu. Annie >I'm interested in poems that were "found" inside of other texts (such as >Cage's mesostics and Reznikoff's _Testimony_). What are some favorites in >this genre by others? Any critical texts about these kinds of procedures I >should know about? > >Thanks, >Jena Osman ______________________________ Annie Finch (http://muohio.edu/~finchar) Cincinnati, Ohio Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:06:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetry Project Subject: workshops with Larry Fagin Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Another public announcement: Larry Fagin is presently available to work with students privately, either poetry or prose fiction writers, for $50 per session. Each session will be 1-2 hours. If interested, please call (212) 254-6621. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:36:54 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Muse, censorship, and copyright.... Comments: To: Ictus@listbot.com, subsubpoetics@listbot.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the following is from a post by Pat Sloane one the t.s.e. list. since it could be of interest to many on this list, I thought I would pass it along. joe brennan In a message dated 5/26/99 11:21:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Patsloane@aol.com writes: I don't want to center on Muse, because there are about a dozen companies selling their $3600 or $4500 subscription to Universities. They're trying to establish a monopoly on information that used to be available for free. They think they're going to force every single university library to subscribe, which isn't going to happen because libraries are getting their budgets cut left and right and many couldn't have afforded those kinds of fees in the first place. People getting caught in the middle are independent scholars--of whom we now have an enormous number--faculty and students at colleges that don't subscribe or can't afford to subscribe, and anyone who prefers to work at home...as many people do. Even today, there are plenty of colleges still using 286 and 386 computers. I call it the new censorship. There's a bill before Congress right now giving database owners rights to the material in their database. This means if you want to quote from an article in a journal that's affiliated with Muse, you'll need permission from Muse, and judging from how all of these vendors are skinning universities alive on their subscription fees, the cost of permission won't be inconsequential. This biggest problem is going to be with medical journals, because not every doctor is affiliated with a university, or a university that subscribes to everything. Lawyers have had Westlaw for some time, and they're used to paying big fees which they can pass on to clients. Westlaw, at least, has individual subscriptions. If you know anything about the history of monopolistic practices in any field, you'll recognize what you're seeing. Corner the market and you can charge what you want. I think it's important for anyone publishing to retain the copyright in his or her own name, because we can't count on the courtesies of the past. The one counter-force I notice is the many electronic journals that are available to anyone, and are free. I don't think many academics expect to make money off of journal articles. But you at least hope they'll be seen so that when you do a book people will know who you are. I'm against anything that cuts down the number of people who can see the material. And of course this is not anything Richard can do anything about. We're all caught up in something evil. Same thing happened long ago with publishers, and this is why publishers aren't doing the kind of job they did years ago. It used to be that a publisher was satisfied to make a decent profit overall, and they printed some books that they thought were worthwhile but probably not big money makers, and it all averaged out. Now, with some many publishers owned by Time-Warner and similar conglomerates, a decent profit isn't enough. Now they're all gunning for an enormous profit, which is why the balance is tipping towards tell-all books by celebrities. Read the stock market page to see where our lives are--every company has to assure "investors" that they'll make more money this year than last year. Whether the company is making a decent product, or a product they can be proud of, gets much less attention. pat ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 09:43:17 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Krebs Subject: Re: the suck of art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Don't you find it interesting that we, as a species, (like it or not) have but three options: war, famine, or pandemic? These types of queries - is anybody going to do anything, this act of DOING in response to one of the three inevitable options mentioned above - are missing a core beat. We ARE doing. We are in a momentum, a spiral toward extinction. The harder question to ask our fellow species is this: is anyone doing anything about overpopulation and the global pandemic we - as anthropocentrists - refer to as humanity? The answer can be found partially in Yugoslavia. Controlled warfare - where many lives are lost in a select area - is a better option than famine (which we can expect to emerge out of The Middle East and China and other far-too-populated locations) and the random sweeping of disease (which does not obey borders, ethnicities, etc.) The ecology is tilted, and it is lost. What to do. What to do. Wear a condom and forget god. There's a start. On Mon, 24 May 1999 23:42:54 -0400, Jordan Davis wrote: > anybody doing anything about this war we're having? > or this capitalism we're hoovering? > or this atomization of the intelligence we're endrunning by singing along > with creative studies? > > > Isn't political efficacy something poetry goes alongside of, is inspired > by, inspires, or does it have to EMBODY it -- ENACTMENT HOUNDS, they > called them -- > > please implicate me, > Jordan _______________________________________________________ Get your free, private email at http://mail.excite.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 10:36:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: Paradigm Press On-Line MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Announcing paradigm press on-line. Duration Press is pleased to announce that it has just launched paradigm on-line. At this point there is a complete catalog with book descriptions, & ordering information for almost all of paradigm's titles. the url is: http://members.xoom.com/Duration/Paradigm/ppresshome.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:46:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: the suck of art In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jordan What mean you by poetry? What mean you by political efficacy? Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g___________________________________________________ a newsletter of contemporary poetry poetics & nonfiction writing _____________http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 BROWN STREET #10 IOWA CITY IOWA 52245 USA On Mon, 24 May 1999, Jordan Davis wrote: > anybody doing anything about this war we're having? > or this capitalism we're hoovering? > or this atomization of the intelligence we're endrunning by singing along > with creative studies? > > > Isn't political efficacy something poetry goes alongside of, is inspired > by, inspires, or does it have to EMBODY it -- ENACTMENT HOUNDS, they > called them -- > > please implicate me, > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 09:03:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Fwd: BUSH'S INTERNET NIGHTMARE CONTINUES Comments: To: Ictus@listbot.com, subsubpoetics@listbot.com, FOP-L@vm.cc.purdue.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part1_fa454d07.247d4b37_boundary" --part1_fa454d07.247d4b37_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit f.y.i.... --part1_fa454d07.247d4b37_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from rly-zc03.mx.aol.com (rly-zc03.mail.aol.com [172.31.33.3]) by air-zc05.mail.aol.com (v59.24) with SMTP; Wed, 26 May 1999 08:59:30 -0400 Received: from hotmail.com (f161.hotmail.com [207.82.251.47]) by rly-zc03.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with SMTP id IAA06897 for ; Wed, 26 May 1999 08:59:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 3079 invoked by uid 0); 26 May 1999 12:59:28 -0000 Message-ID: <19990526125928.3078.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 140.147.7.27 by wy1lg.hotmail.com with HTTP; Wed, 26 May 1999 05:59:28 PDT X-Originating-IP: [140.147.7.27] From: "JR Foley" To: JBCM2@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com Subject: Fwd: BUSH'S INTERNET NIGHTMARE CONTINUES Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 05:59:28 PDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit More For Your Amusement >From: "rtmark.FLPOINT" >To: "George W. Bush" >Subject: BUSH'S INTERNET NIGHTMARE CONTINUES >Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 03:02:07 -0400 > >This is a press release, not a commercial solicitation. To get >flpoint@hotmail.com off our lists, write >mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=flpoint@hotmail.com (flpoint@hotmail.com >must appear in your message subject or body). > >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE >May 26, 1999 > >BUSH REQUESTS "LIMITS TO FREEDOM" >Internet bites Bush: Not news. Bush bites Internet: News! > >Contact: Ray Thomas (mailto:bushinfo@rtmark.com) > Zack Exley (mailto:zackexley@yahoo.com) > >The satirical website GWBush.com has received several million hits since a >press conference Friday at which Texas governor and probable presidential >candidate George W. Bush called its owner "a garbage man" and said "There >ought to be limits to freedom." The outburst followed two separate >attempts by Bush campaign attorneys to shut down the site. (For coverage of >the comments, please visit the press archive at http://gwbush.com/.) > >Those behind GWBush.com--a Boston computer consultant named Zack Exley, and >RTMARK--ascribe their site's newfound notoriety to the interesting nature >of Bush's words themselves, and also to the ease and speed with which >ordinary people can make their voices heard on the Internet. The statement, >besides being broadcast on television and reprinted in hundreds of >newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, immediately became a hot topic of >discussion on the Internet. > >According to RTMARK spokesperson Ray Thomas, "Anyone at all can now compete >for attention with huge, wealthy corporations--or with well-funded >candidates. Bush's 'limits to freedom' quote is interesting because it >reflects the (usually unspoken) desire of certain market segments to >suppress this potential of the Internet." > >"The Internet has amplified the voice of the ordinary citizen," said Exley. >"This web site is only two months old and cost only $210, yet we already >have more readers than many major political magazines. Americans are >excited about this new power and freedom, and they will distrust a >candidate who says he wants to limit that freedom." > >Bush's statement was the latest in a series of widely-reported gaffes >related to GWBush.com. Here follows a blow-by-blow account of the action: > >1. The Bush campaign fails to reserve permutations of Bush's name, and in >December of 1998 Zack Exley purchases GWBush.com, GWBush.org and GBush.org. > >2. Upon noticing GWBush.com, with content by RTMARK and Exley, Bush >campaign advisor Karl Rove belatedly scrambles to reserve up to 260 >'bush'-related domain names (Bush campaign accounts of the actual number >vary). When this frenzy becomes a running joke on the internet, Bush >spokespeople claim the names were reserved in the summer of 1998. (Internic >records available to the public reveal that the domains names were in fact >reserved two months after Exley reserved his.) > >3. Bush attorney Benjamin Ginsberg sends Exley a cease-and-desist letter, >and shortly afterward registers a complaint with the Federal Elections >Commission. > >4. The Bush campaign tells press interested in the above situation that >GWBush.com contains click-throughs to pornography sites. RTMARK and Exley >are inundated with emails from frustrated visitors seeking pictures of nude >women. (Note: GWBush.com has never contained nor linked to pornographic >images of any kind.) > >5. The Bush campaign tells press that GWBush.com is deceptive. (Meanwhile, >the Bush campaign uses the negative domain names it has >bought--bushblows.com, bushsux.org, etc.--to point unsuspecting Internet >users to the official campaign website.) > >6. Governor Bush himself lashes out at GWBush.com at a televised press >conference, calling the site's owner "a garbage man" and saying "There >ought to be limits to freedom." The quote is widely reported and becomes a >hot topic of discussion on the Internet. > >7. Domain name speculators begin snapping up other names related to the >Bush campaign, like gwcocainejr.com, bush-lite.com, and cokeisbush.com. >GWBush.com itself has so far reserved justsayyestobush.com, >fantasticbush.com, bushisnicelydressed.org, and about a dozen others. > >For more about GWBush.com, including a partial press archive and letters >from visitors, please visit the site itself. > > >RTMARK (http://rtmark.com/) uses its limited liability as a corporation to >sponsor the sabotage of mass-produced products. One of RTMARK's ultimate >aims is to eliminate the principle of limited liability. Occasionally, as >with http://www.gwbush.com/, RTMARK participates in advocacy directly >related to issues of corporate abuses of the political process. > > # 30 # > >This is a press release, not a commercial solicitation. To get >flpoint@hotmail.com off our lists, write >mailto:remove@rtmark.com?subject=flpoint@hotmail.com (flpoint@hotmail.com >must appear in your message subject or body). > >If you have received multiple copies of this notice and wish to receive >only one, please remove as above all address versions but one. > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com --part1_fa454d07.247d4b37_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 10:21:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baptiste Chirot Subject: Re: found poetry Comments: To: Jena Osman In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990525122104.0083d510@acad.ursinus.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My favorite such book is Ronald Johnson's RADI OS made out of Milton's Paradise Lost. Working with found materials has become an honored tradition in 20th century art: in painting, film, poetry, prose and music and dance. Following a dictum of Henry Miller's in the "14th Ward" section of BLACK SPRING ("What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.") I make poems and visual poems out of materials found on street. Most recently make works by rubbing with charcoal on to paper worrds and words made out of the existing letters only, found on trash containers, autos, sewer covers, police cll boxes, hydrants, buildings--anything that is raised and can be rubbed on to paper. Using a finite set of given letters is challenging and many strange messages emerge. Not to mention n can practice Situationist detournement of original messages. Found materials abound. My only caution: watch out for the police! Not always too friendly to those who make "ST WORKS"! Also many found objects, papers, etc etc may be used as stencils or stamps when wetted with spray paint. Or make transfers from newspapers using lighter fluid. The dictionary a page at a time is a good source for work. Burroughs' and Gysins' works are interesting--Gysin had the idea in the Fifties that writing lagged behind painting-- In Spring and All W.C. Williams already was using painting as a model-- dbchirot On Tue, 25 May 1999, Jena Osman wrote: > I'm interested in poems that were "found" inside of other texts (such as > Cage's mesostics and Reznikoff's _Testimony_). What are some favorites in > this genre by others? Any critical texts about these kinds of procedures I > should know about? > > Thanks, > Jena Osman > josman@acad.ursinus.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:41:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: found poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i'll mention here what i just backchanneled to jena, partly because taylor's informative reply points out that relevant criticism is scarce: i have a collaborative essay, 'deformance and interpretation' (written with jerome mcgann), which engages the matter of playing with/rearranging texts as a mode of critical response (it doesn't specifically or exclusively dealing with 'found' texts). it is in the latest =new literary history= (30.1). lisa s. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:44:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: source for a Ted Berrigan poem? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If anyone know the Ted Berrigan poem that the lines "thru mad Manhattan dressed in books / looking for today" are from, could you please let me know? I can be backchanneled at . Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 17:17:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: New Summer 1999 FLASHPOINT!!! Comments: To: Ictus@listbot.com, FOP-L@vm.cc.purdue.edu, subsubpoetics@listbot.com, tse@lists.missouri.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ANNOUNCING the new SUMMER 1999 issue of FLASHPOINT (http://webdelsol.com/FLASHPOINT/) "Along the frontier where the arts & politics clash ..." featuring Peter Dale Scott's "Minding the Darkness: a Poem for the Year 2000" and MODERNISM MULCHED Bottoms Boudreaux Brennan Byrne Gancie Gould Gudding Haas Katz Kaufman Matlin Parcelli Scroggins Foley plus reviews of Robert Coover Cris Mazza Lance Olsen Ron Sukenick Jeff VanderMeer Curtis White Part of the literary arts complex at WEB DEL SOL (http://www.webdelsol.com/) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 16:51:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Isidore Ducasse / jesse glass MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this - everyone please remember to send poetics messages in Text Only format. Chris ----- Original message (ID=BC10A895) (63 lines) ----- From: "jesse glass" Subject: Isidore Ducasse Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 07:22:12 -0700 Isidore Ducasse/Le Comte de Lautreamont borrowed texts of all sorts and incorporated them into his Maldoror (1868/69) amd in his Poesies (1870). Both are probably the earliest examples of found poetry and the use of readymade art in Western lit. Alex Cigale devoted one issue of Synaesthetic mag. to found texts and has written an interesting essay regarding the same. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 18:39:57 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 24 May 1999 to 25 May 1999 (#1999-101) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 99-05-26 00:09:52 EDT, you write: << anybody doing anything about this war we're having? >> For The Birds The Birds are whispering Tweets into my ears Tweet tweet Tweet tweet I must be a Saint St. All of a Sudden What are they tweeting? That is between Me and the Birds Now I am in The Birds And they are in me They are dive-bombing me They seem no longer To regard me as saint And I seem to be running As St. Alfred Lord Hitchcock Screams out "Cut! Cut!" However the Birds are not cutting They are not whispering Tweets anymore either They are slicing and diving And I am running across the desert Is it because I would not tell my own people The secrets of the Birds? Who are my people, anyway, I ponder Now that I am a movie star As I stumble on in the desert Upon the answers I receive Divine illumination and I see Tiny insects swarm round the heads Of the Birds that swarm round me Tiny insects dive-bomb Birds Birds dive-bomb me I can no longer translate Tweet tweet into Bzz bzz Why do you hate me so I wrote this in the movies Even in the dark these thoughts Do not stop dive-bombing It is dark here It is hard to write in the dark It is hard to think in the dark The bombing outside takes on a steady rhythm As I pull down my mask, get runway clearance And take off with my babies under my wings Claws extended, bill open and screaming Tweet tweet Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 00:19:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: name your enemy/was "on Notley" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear Stephen, I agree for the most part (don't know abt the human body/roman sewer) that pluralism is the enemy of opposition (from whence "political" poetry springs) and 'love' is but another sort of pluralism, generous as it is it lets one forget his or her enemies (Spicer said know your enemies) . . . and yet I bet plenty of people on this list could name one or two enemies of poetry (some institution say . . . a finger has been pointed at Barnes & Noble in the past . . . ). Confused about "funding by conservative think-tank money" . . . ? People don't want to bite the hand that feeds, you say? elaboration? examples? thanks. -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Ellis To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Friday, May 21, 1999 6:57 PM Subject: Re: NOTLEY on >LR - >What you're calling politics is, as you say, "less visible" as an activity >because it's being funded off the boards, out of public view, by >conservative think-tank money. We live in an increasingly monadic society, >regardless we may prefer to characterize it as "plural". Our culture is >god-culture in disguise, excused by a sort of virtual inter-connectedness >that in fact is non-existent (just try talking to those who say this just >ain't so ... ); freedom of choice is mostly at this point just another >eschatological hope, and you know where they've gotten us in the past, the >past itself, of course, being a highly sheltered and perpetually >slaughtering swarm, the human body lately also, an open Roman sewer >certainty, guaranteed by the increasingly tightened "rule of law" much on >the airwaves in recent months. > >Tough times ahead's a simplistically broken after-dinner fortune cookie; >questions abt it remain in the present, ie, what to do, how to act / live >NOW >SE > >From: Linda Russo >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Re: NOTLEY on "the youth".... >>Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:58:14 -0400 >> >>Hi Chris & others listening in. I’ve been thinking about your query re >>Alice Notley’s comments in the COMBO interview (“They’re these people >>between about 23 and 36 . . . They’re not very political, and I wish they >>were more political”). >> >>You go on to equate the ‘personal’ in ‘the personal is political’ with >>‘love,’ but I think you’re mincing here, collapsing the ‘personal’ and >>‘love >>’ and therefore excluding a crucial issue of the very politics that might >>be >>at stake. In making a distinction I think I can talk to your query. >> >>The political, and I think this holds for Alice, has always to do with the >>polis, not in the way that love might, or even in the sense of the >>potentially volatile issue of who we might choose to love publically, or >>how. The ‘personal,’ to be ‘political,’ has to engage with and be effected >>by the polis. In the feminist formulation, ‘the personal is political’ >>meant primarily that the private, the domestic, the ‘female’ experience too >>was _as_ political as the public experience, and it wasn’t until the >>‘personal’ experience of women (subjection, misogyny, etc.) were shown to >>_be_ political, to have everything to do with the workings of the polis, >>that the women’s movement as a _political_ movement, could make any >>headway. >> >>So the personal has as much to do with anger as it does with love, both >>overwhelmingly present in Alice’s work. So I think when she points out the >>lack of politicalness, she is addressing the lack of attempting to change >>‘the way things are’ in the polis and in poetry via how one experience >>power >>on a 'personal' level. This is evident for example her essay “Epic and >>Women Poets,” which points out that there is something wrong with the >>polis, >>with the way it tells itself stories which exclude the possibility of >>women’ >>s stories, and that this has to change. She realizes these ideas in >>Desamere and Alette. Perhaps that’s what it means to be political: to >>think >>(essay) about a problem and try to solve it (poem). Writing essays, >>editorial matter, and prefaces has always been a part of Alice’s poetic >>practice. I think she might say that editing _Chicago_ while she was >>pregnant was a personal _and_ political choice. Maybe _just_ writing >>poetry, in her mind, isn’t political enough? But maybe the choice to write >>poetry is always political, but the politics (now) aren't as visible as >>they >>were say, in the 70s, when she was in/against the context of the women's >>movement, and those political issues were heightened. >> >>you write that you're >> > interested in looking for other ways to frame this question, >> > because i respect and admire notley's poetry, >> > and her desire for a return perhaps to a more blatant concern >> > with politics on a content level, >> > a moving beyond coterie politics, >> >>and perhaps bringing in this context frames it helpfully, I hope? >> > > >_______________________________________________________________ >Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 06:05:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Bromige Poem Comments: To: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "David Bromige's Sonoma County newspaper prose poem, a lovely piece whose title I'm unfortunately not able to recall" is entitled "One Spring" and can be found in _My Poetry_ and like everything in that book, it's a beaut! Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 09:02:05 -0400 Reply-To: klmagee@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Magee Subject: Re: CENTURY OF CLOUDS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit S U N S H A D E DH: and whispered cries like this in caves out of the way places a night might force, two thousand years move a heavy stone into place in the cave some good cave or someplace the cops don't know about, lets us come when we come under the sun, that sun-god fry our asses off HD: those we know that live along the Nile a crocodile came along the palms calm on the watch wall telling this thing all around and looked for the little ark whose legend grew like grass public massaged from hiding holding the screening-shielding-chiding CHORUS: bending the bow bits of hog head the blues and reds boiled hog head DH/HD: a cow, a ewe chew on our cookie dough patted out now that the crocodile or either the soldiers we are the sentimentalists and you are the realists yolk drips from lips to others ear and starred it with rivets balm in the brainchamber of a stable boy winnowing the female-male, a fine gold collar for your neck and plenty build a playhouse of bits bites as could be got, is it silly to build a playhouse like the cities of Ramses CHORUS: bending the bow bits of hog head the blues and reds boiled hog head DH: for your mate he says lame from the mauling takes too long (telling) so that your mating HD: Did you see what I saw the forty-two gods in the hall guarding the book of papyrus the only two pages of this book pretend that we have read a page CHORUS: the tutors go soft into the temple the clumsy thing is the living thing hurled from machines tangled in the reins HD/DH: the cry of it is that it is poptarts, cheerios, frosted flakes without a memory in the sky ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 06:06:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: it's not the meat, it's the motion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My husband sent me this nice bit of British bitchcraft from _The Independent_ : " . . . I have followed Andrew Motion's career with interest and affection ever since he published his first book twenty or so years ago. But try as I can to recall any of his poetry, I find it impossible. His watery pastiches, first of Edward Thomas, then of Philip Larkin, then of Ted Hughes, just don't stay in your head. He must be the dullest, the least memorable, published poet alive. How then did he come to be appointed? "Watch out for Andrew," Larkin once said to me. "Cultivate him. I like him, but he's the Spender de nos jours." Anyone who knew Larkin's view of Stephen Spender would not have taken this as a compliment. Larkin shared Evelyn Waugh's view of Spender as a man with an idea of himself as a poet who unfortunately lacked the skill to write poetry. Larkin - destined to have his reputation trashed by Motion's biography of him - had seen a truth about Motion which I, who knew him so much less well, had failed to spot. When I first knew Andrew he was a blond-haired figure with mascara'd eyelashes and wrist bangles who bore a disconcerting resemblance to Dame Hilda Bracket. One imagined that, as was often the way with the more orchidaceous undergraduates, he would one day don a pair of cricketing flannels and get a job teaching English at a prep school. He amazed us all when in his twenties by having his portrait painted. He had a lot of amusing friends, all trying to be the Harold Acton of the 1970s, and one assumed he would be like them. After we'd lost touch, it was surprising to notice him plodding through the rungs of committee-dom, sitting on the literature panel of this and the sub-committee of that, Widmerpooling for poetry while failing to produce a single memorable poem. In the Times a few days ago he was quizzed about some novel he'd written in which one of the characters is writing a thesis on "Tennyson's laureate poems, for God's sake". Instead of saying that this was a mere novel, written ages ago, that he couldn't remember it, Motion replied ponderously that this had been intended as "a joke at my own expense". Hang on. This novel was written in his thirties, or when he was even younger. And he was making "a joke at my own expense" about the laureateship? So even then he thought of himself as laureate material? In his twenties? In his teens? It is one thing to dream of being a poet when you're 16. To dream of being Poet Laureate, though - that's as depressing as the young William Hague with his "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees" hairstyle attending Tory party conferences before he'd had his first snog . . ." --A.N. Wilson Can anyone confirm my suspicions about "snogging"? The whole piece is at http://www.independent.co.uk/sindy/stories/C2305904.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 09:20:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: context judo In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII What mean you by what mean you. Claiming that people aren't involved in politics or do not take a political stance, isn't that just a code for 'why haven't you taken power?' or 'Were you assuming that power was going to be given to you at an appropriate time?' or 'Don't you know what power is and what will happen to you if you don't have it?' Claiming that people who claim to be writing poetry aren't really writing poetry, isn't that a code for 'no exemptions from withholding'? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 10:06:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test > > This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question. Below is a list > of the countries the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, > compiled by historian William Blum: > > China 1945-46 > Korea 1950-53 > China 1950-53 > Guatemala 1954 > Indonesia 1958 > Cuba 1959-60 > Guatemala 1960 > Congo 1964 > Peru 1965 > Laos 1964-73 > Vietnam 1961-73 > Cambodia 1969-70 > Guatemala 1967-69 > Grenada 1983 > Libya 1986 > El Salvador 1980s > Nicaragua 1980s > Panama 1989 > Iraq 1991-99 > Sudan 1998 > Afghanistan 1998 > Yugoslavia 1999 > > In how many of these instances did a democratic government that was > respectful of human rights occur as a direct result? Choose one of the > following: > > (a) 0 > (b) zero > (c) none > (d) not a one > (e) zip > (f) a whole number between -1 and +1 > (g) zilch > > > > > this thing forwarded to me by one M. Magoolaghan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 10:57:32 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RaeA100900@AOL.COM Subject: My Europe Question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear All- I have some personal, selfish questions to ask about Europe. I'm going in September to Paris, Prague, Vienna and Venice/Florence. It's only the second time I've been to Europe. My husband and I are going as tourists - but I'd appreciate any related poetry info. I'd, of course, be happy to give readings in any of those places or to go to readings there or to meet list folk there or just to get advice about hotels and restaurants, etc. We'll be landing in Paris on Sept. 8, going to Praqgue on the 11th, to Vienna around the 14th or 15th and to Italy around the 17th. Anyone with any helpful thoughts, please backchannel. Thanks! Rae Armantrout ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 08:44:17 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Grey Literature Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; This must be why Charles is the Grey Professor.... Ron ------------------------------------- >-------Call for Papers-------- > >The Editor invites prospective authors to submit original manuscripts for >possible publication in this international journal. > >-Editorial aims and objectives- > >The International Journal on Grey Literature (IJGL) is a forum for >discussion of, and dissemination of knowledge about, the theory, practice, >distribution channels, unique attributes, access and control of grey >literature in a global context. > >The journal reflects the changes in grey literature due to the alternative >press movements; options for electronic publishing and archiving; emerging >multidisciplinary research patterns; convergence of new contributors, >information users and products; and issues related to the identification, >selection, acquisition, bibliographic control, access, use, and archiving >of >grey literature in all subject areas. The journal will be of interest to >librarians, academics, government analysts, information industry >professionals and publishers. > >-Scope and topicality- > >By definition, Grey Literature is the information and resources that do not >categorically fall into what is available via standard traditional or >commercial publishing channels. Grey Literature has emerged in scope and >importance in recent years due to the proliferation of critical information >now readily available to organize and access from electronic publishing >ventures. The journal will present new material on how grey literature has >surfaced in a variety of disciplines and environments allowing for >increased >visibility, legitimacy and success in many research environments. To >promote grey literature in academic and research settings, libraries and >government information centres, this journal provides insights and >describes >methodologies to share its value and contribution to information use, >delivery and exchange. > >The following illustrates some possible journal topics: Examples of trends >and specific works of grey literature that have an increased presence in >usefulness among readership, such as electronic initiatives and >collaboratories of theses, dissertations, preprint and working paper >series, >technical report literature, oral histories, genealogies, critiques, >scientific findings, visual arts, reviews and critiques; international >publishing directives; geospatial information, metadata, demographic and >statistical data, scientific visualization and new content areas of >significance. > v> The role of grey literature in relation to retention, holdings, >authentication, legitimation, archivability, and its use in different >settings and how to properly cite or reference it. The institutional >concerns of grey literature and how to organize, describe, promote, >preserve >and care for it. > >Copyright and intellectual property concerns, licensing, access and >ownership issues; costs and resource sharing, security and integrity of >content, finding aids for grey literature, institutional liability. >Articles >are also being sought on the applications of grey literature for example, >in >distance learning, records management, archival and museum studies, mixed >media collaborations, and other practices. On occasion, thematic issues >will be prepared. > >Each issue will offer highlights of relevant international conferences and >meetings, new examples of grey literature released from around the world, v> introductions to contributors, authors, and creators of grey literature, >interviews with people connected to grey literature, and other appropriate >columns. Volunteers to be prospective editors of such sections of the >journal should contact the Journal Editor. > >-Article Presentation- > >Articles should be between 3000 and 4500 words in length, although >shortercommunications dealing with more immediate issues, responding to >points raised in recent articles, conference proceedings, publications and >other venues and raising new issues for discussion are encouraged and will >be included. Such items should be up to 1000 words in length. Graphics, >images and illustrative material can be included. Articles should be typed >with wide margins and double spaced. Two copies of each submission should >be >sent to the Editor together with a brief autobiographical note, 1-6 >keywords, an abstract of approximately 150 words and a suggested title. >The >submission should follow the guidelines in the Publication Manual of the >American Psychological Association (4th edition, 1994), Name-Year System of >the Council of Biological Editors >(http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocCBENameYear.html#reference), or >the >Columbia Guide to Online Style (1998). > >-Submission of disks- > >Once an article has been accepted for inclusion within the journal, disks >should be supplied with manuscript whenever possible. Contributors in a >position to comply with this request should submit any 3.5" disk prepared >on >a PC or Macintosh system in WORD format. > >-Copyright- > >Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work in not an >infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher >against any breach of such warranty. > >-Review Procedure- > >Each paper submitted is subject to the following review procedures: >It is reviewed by the Editor for general suitability for publication >If it is judged suitable, a blind review process takes place by >distributing to several referees. Based on reviewer recommendations, the >Editor then decides whether the particular article should be accepted as >is, revised or rejected. > >-How to Submit- > >Manuscripts or outlines of proposed articles should be submitted to the >Editor: > >Julia Gelfand >Applied Sciences Librarian >University of California, Irvine >Science Library 228 >Irvine, CA 92623-9556 USA >phone: 949-824-4971 >fax: 949-824-3114 >email: jgelfand@uci.edu > >Please circulate this call for papers among your colleagues > >For more information on the International Journal on Grey Literature see >the >journal homepage at http://www.mcb.co.uk/ijgl.htm. > >Sent to: lis-access > _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:34:19 EDT Reply-To: Irving Weiss Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Irving Weiss Subject: Re: found poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re Jena Ostman's query about found texts and Annie Finch's answer, = May I humbly suggest that in a sense my own Visual Voices: The Poem = As a Print Object, preceded by my introduction in explanation, is = based on traditional English-language verse that I treat as print = objects, found as poems in print and used as print-poems. See, for examples: Runaway Spoon Press http://www.interlog.com/~dal/rasp/ and http://www.members.tripod.com/duchimp/lightside/weis/weis00.htm Irving Weiss http://members.tripod.com/~sialbach/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 12:05:09 +1000 Reply-To: q0417665@mail.connect.usq.edu.au Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: DEBBIE COMERFORD Organization: University of Southern Queensland Subject: SERIAL DIAGRAM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To All Has anyone ever come across a diagram of the serial form? I'm reading Conte's UNENDING DESIGN and working on the serial form in oz poetry. One of oz's excellent cultural theorists, Stephen Muecke, writing on the stories of an Aboriginal writer, Butcher Joe, writes that the series is a "nomadological feature, like that of travelling through the coutnry, one place after another, and a chain of stories, 'and then ... and then ... and then'." The diagram I have in my mind when I attempt to illustrate (explain) the serial poems I'm working with is a spiral. Now the spiral is very much a part of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures.... any thoughts? regards deb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 00:05:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: workshops with Chris Stroffolino In-Reply-To: <199905261507.LAA01623@relay.thorn.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chris Stroffolino is presently available to work with students privately, either poetry, prose fiction or playwrights, for $49 per session. Each session will be 2-3 hours. If interested, please call (718)-499-1697... On Wed, 26 May 1999, Poetry Project wrote: > Another public announcement: > > Larry Fagin is presently available to work with students privately, > either poetry or prose fiction writers, for $50 per session. Each session > will be 1-2 hours. If interested, please call (212) 254-6621. >