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"A note to Pound in heaven: Only one mistake, Ezra! You should have talked to women"
--George Oppen, _Twenty Six Fragments_
Archives:
xoxo Hey, E-Mail Me! xoxo
ManY PoETiKaL HaTs LisT:
Holly's Pirate-girl Hat,
chrismurray in a straw hat,
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern NOLA Fedora.
Duchamp's Rrose Selavy's flirting hat.
Max Ernst's Hats of The Hat Makes the Man.
Jordan Davis' The Hat!
poetry. hks' smelly head baseball cap.
Samuel Beckett's Lucky's
Black bowler hat,
giving his oration
on what's questionable in mankind,
in *Waiting for 'God-ot'*.
my friend John Phillips's 1969
dove gray fedora w/ wild feather.
Bob Dylan's mystery lover's Panama Hat.
Bob Creeley's Black Mountain Felt Boater Hat.
Duke Ellington's Satin
Top Hat. Acorn Hats of Tree.
Freud's 1950 City Fedora.
Joseph Brodsky's Sailor Cap.
Harry K Stammer's Copper Hat
Hell. Lewis LaCook's bowler hat(s).
Tom Beckett's Bad Hair Day
Furry Pimp Hat. Daughter Holly's black beret.
harry k stammer's fez. Cat
in the Hat's Hat & best
hat, Googling Texfiles:
crocheted hat with flames.
Harry K Stammer's tinseled berets.
Tex's 10 gallon Gary Cooper felt Stetson cowboy hat.
Jordan Davis's fedora.
Dali's High-heel Shoe Hat. Harry K Stammer's en-blog LAPD Hat
& aluminum baseball cap. cap'n caps. NY-Yankees caps. the HKS-in-person-caps
are blue or green no logos nor captions.
Ma Skanky Possum 10's nighttime cap.
moose antler hat. propeller beenie hat.
doo rag. knit face mask hat. Bob Dylan's & photographer Laziz
Hamani's panama hats. Mark Weiss's Publisher's Hat.
Rebecca Loudon's Seattle-TX-Hats'n'boots.
Ever-Evolving Links:
Silliman's Links
Dominic Rivron
Unidentified
Br Tom @ One & Plainer
Dan Waber: ars poetica anthology
Dan Waber: altered books anthology
chris daniels: Notes to a Fellow Traveller
Chris Daniels: Toward an Anti-Capitalist Poetry
David Daniels: The Gates Of Paradise
subterranean poets: Beijing Poetry Group
Charles Alexander/Chax Press: Chaxblog
Headlines Poetry: the latest weblog entries
Henry Gould's AlephoeBooks
Julie Choffel's Understory
Tom Murphy's former one
Jean Vengua's New Okir
Roger Pao's Asian-American Poetry
Tom Lisk: Oilcloth and Linoleum
Kevin Doran
Reb Livingston's Cackling Jackal Blog
Janet Holmes: Humanophone
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Mark Young's gamma ways
Brian Campbell: Out of the Woodwork
Shanna's DIY Publishing Blog
Galatea Resurrects: a Poetry Review
Tom Beckett
John Sakkis: BOTH BOTH
New Francois Luong:Voices in Utter Dark, KaBlow!sm is...
Old Francois Luong: Voices in Utter Dark
Margin Walker: Andrew Lundwall
Free Space Comix: the latest BK Stefans blog
Adam Lockhart, Experimentalist Composer
Antic View: Alan Bramhall & Jeff Harrison
lookouchblog: Jessica Smith
MiPOradio
Web Log -- Charles Bernstein
Google Poem Generator: Leevi Lehto
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Feral Scholar: Stan Goff
worderos: Tom Beckett
In Galatea's Purse
Japundit
Quiet Desperation: Jim Ryal
Luca Antara: Martin Edmond
Brief Epigrams: Ryan Alexander MacDonald
Radio My Vocabulary: 4 pm Sunday Poetry Streams
Mark Lamoreaux: [[[0{:}0]]]
Hot Whiskey Blog
louder
Nick Bruno: They Shoot Poets Don't They?
Joe Massey: Rooted Fool
Kate Greenstreet: every other day
heuriskein: Tom Orange
Chiaroscuro Metropoli: Tom Beckett
Behrle's latest spout!
Fluffy Dollars: Michelle Detorie
Jane Dark's Sugar High!
The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
(Charles) Olson Now: Michael Kellaher & Ammiel Alcalay
kari edwards' TranssubMUTATION
Notes on the Revival: Jeremy Hawkins
PurPur: Petrus Pokus
Snapper Missives: Scott Pierce
A Sad Day for Sad Birds II: Gina Meyers
Great Works: Peter Philpot
zafusy: experimental poetry journal
Writeboard: a collaborative writing tool
John Latta: Rue Hazard
KP Harris: Croissant Factory
Stephanie Young's New Site
Stephen Vincent's New Site
Portable Press@Yo~Yo Labs
Square America
Amy King's blog
Robert: Peyoetry Hut
Muisti Kirja: Karri Kokko
Karri Kokko's Blonde on Blonde
Yummeee Blog (recipes)
Nice Guy Syndrome: Tim Botta
Left Hook
Del Ray Cross: anachronizms
Juan Cole: Informed Comment
BuzzFlash - Daily Headlines, Breaking News, Links
Aaron McCollough
Chris Lott's Cosmopoetica
Chad Parenteau
Little Emerson
Fever, Light--by Sawako Nakayasu
Second Wish
Nomadics
Alison Croggon
Radical Druid
Ron is Ron: the Ron Silliman Cartoon by Jim Behrle
Dagzine: Positions, Poetics, Populations: Gary Norris
Shadows within Shadows: Tom Beckett
Self Similar Writing: Jukka Pekka Kervinen
The Little Workshop: Cassie Lewis
Sky Bright: Jay Rosevear
Poesy Galore: Emily Lloyd
Lisa Jarnot's Blog
Poetry Hut: Jilly Dybka (has moved here)
Pornfeld: Michael Hoerman
Seven Apples: Justin Ulmer
Hi Spirits: Andrew Burke
Bacon Bargain!: Joe Massey
Ivy is here: Ivy Alvarez
Whimsy Speaks: Jeff Bahr
Umbrella: Jeff Wietor
Chicanas! (Susana L. Gallardo)
Masters of Photography
Blog of Disquiet: Gary Norris' Teaching Blog
Suzanna Gig Jig
Bad with Titles: Jay Thomas
Spaceship Tumblers! Tony Tost
Desert City: Ken Rumble
E-Po
Zotz!
Optative Mood: Tim Morris
ecritures bleues: Laura Carter
The Ingredient: Alli Warren
Skanky Possum Pouch
Slight Publications
Jewishy-Irishy: Laurel Snyder
Sea-Camel: Alberto Romero Bermo
Growing Nations: Jordan Stempleman
Tom Raworth
Entropy and Me: Hal Johnson
Scott Pierce: Snapper's Junk
Chicano Poet: Reyes Cardenas
Semio-Karl M&M
Stephen Vincent
Hoa Nguyen/Teacher's & Writers
a New Word Placements
Narcissus Works: Anny Ballardini
Richard Lopez
Tributary: Allen Bramhall
The_Delay: Chris Vitiello
Jukka Pekka Kervinen: Nonlinear Poetry
Lanny Quarles: Phaneronoemikon
Clifford Duffy: Fictions of Deleuze & Guattari
DagZine
Carrboro Poetry Festival
Steve Evans: Third Factory
DEBORAH PATILLO
SKANKY POSSUM PRESS
Tim Peterson: Mappemunde
WOOD'S LOT
Geof Huth: DBQP
Ann Marie Eldon
Jim Behrle: The Jim Side
Ray Bianchi:Postmodern Collage Poetry
Never Mind the Beasts
Diaryo
New Broom
Flingdump Scattershot
Tony Tost: Unquiet Grave
Grapez
SB POET
Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming
|||AS/IS2|||
Li's A Private Studio
Anny Ballardini's Poet's Corner
Tom Beckett: Vanishing Points
Dumbfoundry
BadGurrrlNest
Jean Vengua's Okir
Hear-it dot org: info on hearing problems
Tim Yu's Tympan
James Yeager's Modern Lives
Tony Robinson: Geneva Convention
Daniel Nestor's Unpleasant Event
Ex-Lion Tamer
Carlos Arribas: Scriptorium
David Nemeth
Ela's Incertain Plume
Mairead Byrne's Heaven
Catherine Daly
Black Spring
Br.Tom's Finish Yr Phrase
Shin Yu Pai: makura-no-soshi
Harry K. Stammer: Downtown LA
Corina's Fledgling Wordsmith
Jilly Dybka's Poetry Hut
Ben Basan's Luminations
Katey: Chewing on Pencils
YaY!! Eileen Tabios: Chatelaine Poetics !
Jill Jones: Ruby Street
Geoffrey Gatza's BlazeVox
Bill Allegrezza's P-Ramblings
Gary Sullivan's Elsewhere
GoldenRuleJones
Poetry_Heat
Bookslut
Chickee's SuperDeluxeGoodPoems
As-Is !
John Latta's Hotel Point
Sawako Nakayasu's Ongoing Show
Shanna Compton's Brand New Insects
Crag Hill
kari edwards: transdada
Fluss
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern
Word Placement
Bogue's Blog
Jordan Davis: Equanimity
Robert Flach's Unadulterated Text
Michelle Bautista
Ironic Cinema
Mike Snider
Farewell Tonio!
In Through the Out Door
The Blonde Brunette
Awake at Dawn on Someone's Couch is Toast
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen:Non-Linear
Xpress(ed) !
Chris Lott's Ruminate
Venepoetics
Laura: Yellowslip
Stick Poet Super Hero
Mighty Jens!
Radio UTA: Toni's Thursday Poetry Show
Tim Morris: Lection
Gabe Gudding
Constant Critic
Sappho's Breathing
Waves of Reading
Jhananin's Insite
Fanaticus
AdvExpo
Stephen Vincent
Stephanie Young: New Well Nourished Moon
Kasey Silem Mohammad's Newest Limetree
Lanny Quarles: (solipsis)//:phaneronoemikon
States Writes
Rebecca's Pocket
Simulacro
Braincase Links
Sentence
Sor Juana
73 Urban Bus Journeys
Poeta Empirica
poetry for the people: canwehaveourballback?
Ernesto Priego's Never Neutral
Nick Piombino's Fait Accompli
Weekly Incite blogresearch
Jim Behrle's first monkey
Jim Behrle's Monkey's Gone to Heaven
David Kirschenbaum's Boog City
Not Nick Moudry
Laurable
David Hess Heathens in Heat
Jack Kimball's Pantaloons
Li Bloom's Abolone
Ron Silliman
Chris Sullivan's Bloggchaff
Chris Sullivan's Slight Publications
Chris Sullivan's Department of Culture
Kasey S. Mohammad's Old-New Limetree
Kasey's Old Limetree
James Meetze: Brutal Kittens
Cassie Lewis: The Jetty
Joseph Mosconi's Harlequin Knights
Nada Gordon's Ululate
ultimate: Stephanie Young's First Well Nourished Moon
Steve Evans: Third Factory
Noah Eli Gordon's Human Verb
Jean Vengua's Blue Kangaroo
Sawako Nakayasu: Texture Notes
Free Space Comix: BK Stefans
Crosfader
Malcolm Davidson's eeksy peeksy
Marsh Hawk Press group
Catherine Meng's Porthole Redux
Josh Corey's Cahiers de Corey
Very Nice! Shampoopoetry
UTA's Lit Mag: ZNine
Wild Honey Press
Jacket
JFK's Poetinresidence
Malcolm Davidson's Tram Spark poems
HYepez: RealiTi
HYpez: Mexperimental
Aimee Nez's Gila Monster
BestMaX: Jim Behrle's jismblog
Cori Copp's Littleshirleybean
Jordan Davis: Million Poems
Eileen Tabios: Corpsepoetics [see Chatelaine above]
YaY! Liz's Thirdwish
Ultra Linking
Henry Gould's HG Poetics
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Saturday, December 13, 2003
Daughter Holly Listening * : Sade--who (still--what is this?--third generation of listeners?--amazing) sounds soooooo sexy--that incurable affection for body. Rhythms infinity. Nice. I love it. Music. Poetry. Music. Poetry. How the 'Smooth Operator' goes on and on in these modes. Music. Music. Poetry. Music...
[Post-edit, a little later:] Now Daughter Holly's onto Boy Hits Car : I love them. "Animal" and "Man without Skin" rock as music and as poetry. conscious effort to be poetry in there, too, I believe.
* Daughter Holly is listening in her room (sanctuary) and it is **cranked up**--
Strange parent that I am, I do not mind the volume unless under a lot of stress pressure & etc. In fact: I often just borrow off thru the walls, their listening; or when I do play stuff out here in the living room, they sometimes have to tell me to turn mine down. Sorry to say: someone (me! *grin*) didn't follow the usual growing up patterns (missed some of those patterns completely?). But yeah: role reversals: bless every one of 'em, I say. It's one way to begin to learn dialogue.
chris at
11:23 PM
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To Corina: Muchas Gracias ! Sending a very warm Thank You to Corina, student at Oberlin * !!
What a fine honor para mi y mi blog, chris murray's Texfiles :
Corina has put together a blog --Fledgling Wordsmith-- specifically to research, contextualize, and respond to what blogging does for writers in terms of community. (alas: unfortunately, there is no contact info for Corina at her blog--if there were, I would send her an email of thanks!--so I hope she sees this post, and if so, that she will send me an email to say hello.)
This is Corina's second research paper on the topic (the first paper is also posted at Fledgling Wordsmith, but you have to scroll down to the first few posts for it). She investigates, describes, and defines a series of blogs based on several kinds of appeal. Literary appeal is a top priority, and eclectic samplings from contemporary writing and writers.
This is an honor for Texfiles because Corina made it a centerpiece for her paper, which explores two other blogs in depth, then concluding that the kind of blog Texfiles is expands the genre and the feel of blogging. Gosh! I blush, feeling humble, but am so very pleased to hear this!
Corina writes,
"Murray posts his [sic] own poetry as well as works by poets like Stephen Vincent, Jack Myers (the Poet Laureate of Texas), and Diane di Prima. The blog also includes book reviews and news about Texas poetry and literary events. In true blogger fashion, Tex Files has a lengthy list of links: the personal blogs of other poets and writers as well as online literary journals (some of these journals such as Skanky Possum and Bookslut also have their own blogs). This is an online community but it is distinct from the type of community that Megnut is a part of. Blogs give Tex Files a venue to create a literary (primarily Texan) community that links poets and readers together by their love of literature.
"Blogger.com calls itself 'Push-button Publishing For the People' (Blogger). This diction is significant. Most people would not think of having a blog as being published. But blogs are a tool to get your ideas or work out and noticed and maybe even commented on or blogged. And Blogger is 'for the people.' Anyone can get 'published.' Anyone anywhere can say nearly anything online and someone can read it. And comment. And then the person who posted it could respond to the comment. Blogs are a new way to share ideas and artistic work and are being utilized especially by many individuals and groups interested in literature. Weblogs are portals to poetry."
Corina also mentions that the blogger advertising sucks (it is stated far more eloquently by Corina). And I guess my name can evoke some gender assumptions--that is interesting and not the first time an online correspondent refered to me via male pronouns, but it is not as interesting as the rest of what is mentioned about blogging and community. That's really where it's at!
Thanks very much once again, Corina: and let me say that if you are in Dallas and want to talk poetry or anything literary just get in touch with me:
cmurray@uta.edu
YaY!! Poetry and poetry blogs: For the people--24/7
*On the sitemeter, I did notice a repeating pattern of visits daily over the span of a week or so, from an Oberlin url recently, and I wondered about it. But of course you cannot really identify anything about such from sitemetering and I am not always in favor of following its siren call--it's a waste of time, mostly, except to give you a rough idea of some demographics and peak reading hours by which to project an idea of audience, but sitemeter certainly cannot and should not be used to try to identify who is reading--!--there is a question of sanctity in the relation between readers and PR or marketing dictums: readers should be able to retain their sense of privacy, I think. So that is where I differ over the question of value in sitemeter. Thus in this situation of noticing the Oberlin url, I figured it to be another one of those little mysteries in life that will never be solved, until I found the technorati links the other day, and am very pleasantly surprised to conclude that the Oberlin url visits were probably Corine and to find this paper she wrote (and wanted it to be found: if she will contact me and give permission, I will post the entire paper here, if she so desires. )
chris at
4:54 PM
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On Caracas: an update on recent political events: Venepoetics--thanks, Guillermo.
chris at
4:20 PM
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from Susan Howe, My Emily Dickinson* :
My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun
In Corners--till a Day
The Owner passed--identified--
And carried Me away--
My and me. In this unsettling New England lexical landscape nothing is sure. In a shorter space (woman's quick voice) Dickinson went further than Browning, coding and erasing--deciphering the idea of herself, dissimulation in revelation. Really alone at a real frontier, dwelling in Possibility was what she had brilliantly learned to do.
POSSIBILITIES:
My Life: A Soul finding God.
My Life: A Soul finding herself.
My Life: A poet's admiring heart born into voice by idealizing a precursor poet's song.
My Life: Dickinson herself, waiting in corners of neglect for Higginson to recognize her ability and help her to join the ranks of other published American poets.
My Life: The American continent and its westward moving frontier. Two centuries of pioneer literature and myth had insistently compared thre land to a virgin woman (bride and queen). Exploration and settlement were pictured in terms of masculine erotic discovery and domination of alluring / threatening feminine territory.
My Life: The savage source of American myth.
My Life: The United States in the grip of violence that threatened to break apart its original Union.
My Life: A white woman taken captive by Indians.
My Life: A slave.
My Life: An unmarried woman (Emily Bronte's Catherine Earnshaw) waiting to be chosen (identified) by her Lover-husband-Owner (Edgar Linton).
My Life: A frontiersman's gun.
The emblematical
chris at
3:53 PM
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some days all one can do is recognize iterations and, well, just iterate, ya kno?
chris at
3:44 PM
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from Samuel Beckett's The Unnameable* :
"… These notions of forbears, of houses where lamps are lit at night, and other such, where do they come to me from? And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric. These lights for instance, which I do not require to mean anything, what is there so strange about them, so wrong?"
(7)
* Beckett, Samuel, The Unnameable. New York: Grove Press, 1958.
chris at
3:42 PM
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I did not wake up with a linguist.
I woke up with the same old poet.
me.
happy for that, too.
chris at
1:45 PM
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I just love this latest one of Hannah's posted just below:
"Awake with the Linguist"
Some part of that I that I'm given to lug around just has to say,
Ahem... um... well, me too--I want a linguist !
Or, no, hey, forget that! Maybe I don't want a linguist...
Yeah, wow, my friend, you sure do know how to write a poem!--keep on : )
chris at
12:04 AM
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Friday, December 12, 2003
from Texfiles Poet of the Week, Hannah Craig :
Awake with the Linguist
The windows are glazed with ice; he marks
one with the nail of his thumb. This hieroglyph
means something like tiger, means
he’d like to. Or there, that’s me. Tethering rope-Girl-Water.
Which means I pretend to be asleep,
which means I only come alive when it rains.
Outside, the bells keep the world flat,
off tone by thirds, the city
hunkered into fog. Inside, his breath
jerks predictably. And mine like a rudder,
running the white sails north-by-northeast,
into the sharp air of the room, the wintery
blast cutting past radiator heat. I draw
on the night-gown; into the small cloud
of breath, the soul exhaled, hanging there
on a customary thread.
I draw the boy from the rodeo, his bony
awkwardness and the crack of his wrist
as the frightened mare jolts past, past.
I draw the green waters of Wawasee,
a tornado hanging overhead like a fist,
big and purple, punching the world
flat, flatter. And last, the horizon
we’ve woken up to, feeling guilty
about what we’ve done, how the wet
of the world holds us, and the cold,
and the coffee steaming, and the blue blue
flowers spread out across the table
like every wish we’ve ever made.
I draw these things so he can scratch them away,
so we can lie there thinking nothing
as the light brings the city to us,
and us to the city. At the same time,
language walks away; it will never return.
chris at
11:55 PM
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rain 4
rain goes on, matured--
splatters, frantic-paced--
for my walk two hours
ago it looked on
the larger puddles,
perfect streetlamp pools,
as yellowish, old
newsprint, yellowish
just like ponds look on
august's melt of days:
too many airy
water spiders, knats
atomizing fast:
all over you can't
even see their mote
bodies, just their light,
impossibly minute
landings as curved trails,
multiplicity,
uncountable trace.
cm
chris at
11:29 PM
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still raining wild
like a beast here--
the roar above
chris at
7:44 PM
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end of semester grades are due Monday:
a little overwhelmed here with readings from student papers, and then giving some kind of closure to some of my own formal writing projects (whatever that means!).
chris at
7:34 PM
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Hey! I am probably the last one to figure this out, but Eileen has a new blog!
and, a Chatelaine, no less... Happy New BLogging, Eileen Tabios!
chris at
5:46 PM
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from Grace Cavalieri, "The Liberation of Music" * :
When someone brought
Anthony Braxton flowers
He didn't frown and
He didn't ask if
They were
Picked off a tree.
Like this tear
On my eye
Becoming a circle
Which I flick off my cheek
Just like that
With my nail
Removing the last flaw
Which holds my life together.
(32-33)
*Grace Cavalieri, "The Liberation of Music," in The Jazz Poetry Anthology. Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa, Eds. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
chris at
3:39 PM
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Weather Report
Thunder here. The bible-belt kind.
And lightning, cloud to cloud.
Next, cold rain, then cold.
Not any warmer than some
but also not as cold as some
either. Cold the way bathtub porcelain
is that bluish white cold to the touch
of shoulder or ribcage just toward the back,
porcelain's wide stiff lip cold
under surface, something almost
dark with metal even when it contains
something warm. A reminder.
A shiver of cold. Then to move on.
That sort of passing
through without renaissance.
chris at
1:37 PM
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from Rimbaud:
...
--O buffet du vieux temps, tu sais bien des histoires,
Et tu voudrais conter tes contes, et tu bruis
Quand s'ouvrent lentement tes grandes portes noires.
"Le Buffet" *
as translated by Walter Fowlie:
...
--O cupboard of old times, you know many stories,
And you would like to tell your stories, and you murmur
When your big black doors slowly open.
[This, too, put me in mind of Dali's painting of his sister, where her torso--really her back--is a window, cf. some musings below... ]
* Rimbaud, "Le Buffet" in Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters. Walter Fowlie, transl. Chicago: UC Press, 1966. pp. 62-63.
chris at
4:22 AM
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Congratulations to Stephanie Young: her adios to the cigarette habit: one year ago today !
Keep on, Stephanie, and
cheers to Cassie, too--who is also now off the cigs for over a year ...
chris at
3:37 AM
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Dale Smith has a new review up at Bookslut :
"In Cahoots"
It's a fascinating piece, opening by delving into one of my favorite philosophers, Walter Benjamin, then moving to consider the latest books of John Latta (Breeze) whose blog is Hotel Point, and Peter Gizzi ( Some Values of Landscape and Weather ).
At the Possum Pouch, too, Dale has posted a fine journal of his recent trip to Illinois and an in-depth discussion of Kent Johnson's work and influence.
Dale, keep on rockin' !
chris at
3:07 AM
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Ray Bianchi's New Blog: Postmodern Collage Poetry
I've been catching up on emails this evening/morning. Ray Bianchi sent me one the other day that I am just now reading--he has started a blog! I have read quite a bit of Ray's work in draft form, and many of his poems, especially the fusion and collage works, are simply spectacular.
He writes prose forms, mostly (or at least that I've seen) and has a devastating eye for lyric detail and the estranging paradoxes of popular culture. He's published in many places but my publishing acquaintance with him is through the poems he gave us for the last issue of our online UTA journal, Znine, Spring 03 issue.
Since then he's been busy up in Chicago with new family business responsibilities and with poetry--Ray is very dedicated to writing, and to being an active part of local communities of poetry--as he was here in Dallas when he lived here, and in Princeton, NJ when he lived there.
So, do have a look and a link in the launching of Ray Bianchi's new blog:
Postmodern Collage Poetry
There are already some fascinating ideas afloat and percolating there at the Collage Blog.
Ray, Good Luck with the launch, and have fun blogging!
chris at
2:32 AM
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Thursday, December 11, 2003
There is *mumbling* and there are words. There are walls, and then there "appear" the "walls of DNA." Made me think of Dali, the early painting of his sister in a beautiful landscape--we know it is beautiful because we see it through a window-square of her torso... Dali, where have you gone?
" ... all the taboos stand there day in and day out mumbling, *shit happens like words.* at midnight, after the chickens have gone home, names appear and write personalities on the walls of DNA... "
Thanks for this one.
chris at
10:40 PM
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&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Check this out!
"The Palms in Dolores Park,
their fan-shaped fronds make louver patterned
shadows - pushed open and shut in the winter breeze--
to offer illuminated saw-toothed laths of light
that scale downward across the eastern side of the Park’s
shiny... "
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
chris at
3:27 PM
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and then from Texfiles Poet of the Week, Hannah Craig, two poems :
*
Champignon
Little der Kampf, little stump
of death. Little shoe, little bulb
brimmed from the detritus of gold days,
from the champagne glaze
over fields. The trees have not turned.
Even now, in the coldest hand,
the trees have not learned to give
what was asked. So you will take it,
little kite-silk, bridesfoot tan as a pecan,
compagnon in the cleft of big oak. Down in the small
chamber of purpose, a snakehead
with its grandmother skin, russula
cello-deep, crusting. Not decay,
but its opposite, a champion
of death’s last gift,
born from this cracked robin’s egg,
from drying sorrel. That out of even this,
oh you look and there’s a sting of white,
a hurt, reminding you.
*
Gettysburg, in the Gloaming
It’s July he thinks chickens
with their silly rutting, almost invisible
but for the clucking
and the door open laundry white
pinned taut-slack-taut
coitus of the line slapping back
against pole and Maria with her hips
flat, wide, her waist
blue-bonnet wine-roses
skirt celery green it’s July
which is why the storms
are roaring laying the little susans,
flat by their stems oh his heart is
oh my heart is oh the night-grass
on fire and cow-cat-cow,
the rounding of Maria, shoulders milk honey
and the little peony bush, the petal
of petals, the pink, pink, red
July in the wet sense, rain at last,
rain just before the crickets
before tickseed tangled,
coxcomb dangling into thistle,
and Maria, her up-quick, her still, too-still
creeping come on, dear, come
to the gray hill and feel it, the cold
returning, turning, the startled
dullness of a honeybee, sudden buzzy,
last poppies gruesome, spotting
the wheat fields.
*
chris at
2:58 PM
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Busy week here reading & grading & writing & editing & setting up the course for next semester (book list is posted at Poetry_Heat, the blog I set up a few weeks ago especially for the Spring course, senior seminar in creative writing: poetry) & home stuff too. It's so cold out suddenly (for here, anyway). One of these days I might actually get to write a poem again.
chris at
2:46 PM
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Fantastico! El *Antologico,* de Guillermo Para !
Chicha Press & Venepoetics. Muy bien, amigo!--muchas gracias (mi Espanol, no es muy bueno, o, es asi asi solomente... )!
Okay. I know that is just not even close to a good way to say what I mean in Spanish but i hope that my great esteem and admiration for the text and writer can last. [can "last" ?-- seems that is not even a good way to say it in English. What happened here? that must be because it was so late or so early (4:22 a.m.!)--will try that one more time : ]
I have great esteem and admiration for the texts of this writer. Guillermo, congratulations on this, and keep on!
best,
c
chris at
4:22 AM
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Wednesday, December 10, 2003
** Announcing a New Texfiles Poet of the Week Feature: **
I'm very happy to announce the work of Hannah Craig! --of Awake at Dawn on Someone's Couch, a blog that today and yesterday has been especially pertinent here because of the engaging, ongoing discussion of Robert Hayden's poem, "Homage to the Empress of the Blues," which discussion I am enjoying immensely. So I am extra pleased to welcome and feature Hannah's poetry.
A very warm welcome to you, and all your work, Hannah!
I have admired Hannah Craig's poetry for some time now, and am very pleased to be able to bring some of it here for Texfiles readers.
So here is "All This, I Still am Drawn," by Hannah Craig. Enjoy!
All This, I Still am Drawn
I say moth I mean bullet, the eye’s quick retraction.
Albeit the summer, albeit the dawn
with lamps still aflame and the birds
confused, dashing themselves to the ground.
I say harlot, no…harridan…I mean brazen,
fading. Day after bells, the no-headed,
no, no, no. Gold touches gray, the neighbor’s
rooster, chummy, coming up the walk.
My cat, old black. They greet through glass.
I say you and I, we met at the hands
and knees. We were young. Language
fails me at this point. I was so young. I was
so very young. Your mistake, the kiss-karoo,
the chimney of light blanching all recollection. The
kneeling, your fingers hummly through my hair.
Don’t tell me you wanted. That sort of thing
can’t ring true. I made a mistake:
Lord, let me list here the infinity of my ignorance.
But we’re gone from there.
Now chocolate bowl, spoon-suck, the stuck of milk
on tile, drip-click of your sons wrestling with the dog.
Toast crumbs luminous in love. I tell you, I think of our easy
misunderstandings as we wash the breakfast dishes.
Your elbow-my elbow. The rum-tender
sweetness under every word you say. Framed here,
the window-board, the sunlight heaving. Out there your wife,
the warm on her face, laughing.
chris at
1:02 PM
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so now, on to "channel to the sun"
from Stephen Vincent,this past week's Texfiles Poet of the Week, one more poem, "Calistoga Compressed," which will round out this feature week:
Calistoga Compressed
My “pretext” puts me/us at a loss:
Fidelity a belief in inarticulate Guidance,
Our moves up the Mountain – an igneous goal –
Black shiny surfaces – step by stride, spiraling up,
Forest and tree and view up to the bare - lone for
The orange and chartreuse lichen - iconic basalt, multiple faced,
Occasional anthropomorphic, harsh, dark Buttes;
aspiration, a slow glistening, or not, “roof anguish,”
a home in which, day to day, an un-bunkered life:
the eye, the perpetual looking, taking down the shaken “audibles”:
Apprehension, the loomed, threaded, stitched, clean light, fresh peach,
new Madrone limbs; Buckeye seed bulbs (those limb bearing,
gold skinned, grainy white, rained washed, glimmering testicles),
or later, Friday night, in the bar, Calistoga Latinos without women, arms
tucking one another in beg of the nocturnal, not ever going to happen tonight,
straight-up in the sky, split down the middle, white moon, “touch me,” fix.
Meanwhile, back in the morning, hot, wet, black ash – eons, one realizes –
the mud breaks, gathers, swells: the body seethes within,
yet one more small, we still are, circus -
only the body, mine, yours, can raise this to a proposition -
the molten, rising, flame strewn - carry forth – channel to the sun.
Stephen: thanks so much for your patience and for sharing your fine work.
cm
chris at
4:11 AM
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Hello and Some Thanks to Sister Jo in Hatfield, PA
Hello, Jo! Thanks so much for the card and all the good cheer--you rock!
Last week, from a personal perspective, was not one of my best weeks. Oh well: we all have them unbest weeks. And this week is its own traditionally busy engine full of semester's end grading & goodbye-saying to all the good folks who worked hard all semester, so it too offered no respite from the quandaries of last week--added to, is more like. This week, in other words, stacks on. I do realize how lucky I am, tho. A good life situation, one far better than many right now, is what I have, despite its ups and downs. I have to say, however, that although we all have weeks and sequences of weeks like my recent ones, we do not all have Sister Jo.
My blessed sister (well, she's my little sister), Joanne--also top flight computer main frame prog-woman & group manager, Seimans Corp.
My sister Jo sent me a card when she heard on the phone last week how I was having *one of those* times. I got the card today. What a riot--Hallmark (as a poet I try never to do Hallmark cards [that was made worse when I found out they also have a thriving car insurance business!--damn! but they are unavoidable: they are the right price, so they insure my vehicle!] )!
The card, tho?--a kitten yawning in an abrupt way where you really cannot tell whether it is bored, sleepy, or waking, or panicked, or just saying Yikes! for some reason--on the front (kitten?--this is starting to sound way too Eileen!) caught in a huge yawn, and inside, the admonition: "... Laugh out loud... "
Hallmark reminded me of that? Well, okay, I will take all the good cheer I can find lately.
Anyway: a cat on a card cannot shit on your carpet or your yard. I do believe that sentence manifests unsubltle forms of internal rhyme. Yeah. I like the cat on a card.
But the Sister Jo?--well, no one has one quite the same, I am certain. Luv ya, sweetie! As they say on Jeff Foxworthy CDs, *You're my favorite*
xoxoxoxoxx
chris at
1:19 AM
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Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Just Go For It : Fuck Coke, Fuck Brand Names, Fuck Stalin and Hitler...
Check out this piece, "On Political Visuals and the Decay of Lying," found courtesy of Mark Woods at Woods Lot, one of the keenest, most abundant blogs: do keep on, Mark!
Here's some stinging political bite & resultant itch from that annoying late season Bushwasp, as it can be found in fall, lingering stupid in the attic window, way past its (if it had any) time! Look:
from Wealth Bondage & The Happy Tutor (but here, this unconventional lining-out is mine) :
"Bushvisuals as political theater,
pageant or morality play
(i.e., propaganda).
How to dramatize the truth
in under 60 seconds...
From a Critical Theory standpoint,
below is a piece of smarmy bullshit
from Mary Matalan you could use in class
to teach around words
like real, true, art, propaganda, simulacrum, essence, social construction.
The weakness of Bushsvisual propaganda
is the weakness of Stalin's, or Hitler's,
or Coor's, or Coke's, or any of these
monumental focus-tested art forms. They are
kitsch. They are created for a mass audience
assumed to be easily manipulated,
to have no taste, no mind
of their own,
and no ability to think critically.
Weird line breaks brought to you by yours truly, *grin.*
But I can't decide what phrasing I like the most. "Smarmy bullshit" from the Mary Matalan Bushorgan, or "Bushvisuals... How to dramatize truth in under 60 seconds." I guess I'll let them both sit here till election day next year--we better have a better outcome this time. But be wary it doesn't come wrapped somehow in BdungButhappyO-B-dungeverywhere, BbushBdung,
all the time anyway
me good friends, tsosorrytosayin the already tso tsorry sworld!
Yeah, so as they say on TV, "Do it! Do it Now! Just Go for it : Make the little uplift sign
your sign everywhere:
Fuck Coke--OK:READ:FOUCAULTS:WHAT:IS:AN:AUTHOR:
compare the term "author" to the term "brand" as used here.
Think about it. Thanks.
chris at
11:31 PM
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no no no no no!--girl jus gone sideways does not like all this scrolling around to remember stuff...
silly me: it was not sunday, but saturday! forget that "duh," then,
and insert this one? all this moving back and forth between days and screens on this blogger template sucks. i've got a blog over at typepad that i set up for my course next semester. maybe i should switch out this one too. i need something easier to navigate than this linear, but inside-out, thing. but yeah: see what i wrote a while ago. see how above, i had the dates wrong, or so i see, now that i have the time to flip back and forth. sheesh. i'm going to just do poetry or somethin, ya kno?
well, duh on me!--i should have been doing more blog hopping and reading! there i was wondering on sunday night where eileen had gone to, when there she was, having sent another postcard to stephanie young!
so, then:
hi, stephanie! hi, eileen!--good to hear you are hanging in there with the new kitties.
chris at
5:40 PM
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Gosh, so very good of you to say!
chris at
5:03 PM
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Hannah Craig, over at Awake at Dawn on Someone's Couch (I love that blogname!) has done some very fine, provocative critical work responding to and expanding on my post last night on Robert Hayden's "Homage to the Empress of the Blues." Thanks, for the good words, Hannah! She has made a strong case there for specific matters in the Sandburg poem, especially. And it is important to remember, she eloquently argues, that comparative mode is vital for understanding in all ways. I could not agree more. I am still not satisfied with what is, in essence, a Norton publication's urging of comparison for this particular poem, to Sandburg and Williams. Basically, I just think there is stronger material with which to launch a productive comparative analysis for Hayden's poem. And I have found something that would work well, I think. But please do let me know what more you think on this!
So to read the original post, here, just scroll down to my post last evening, 9 Dec 12:33 a.m.
And as implied above, just to add more torque to the problematics, and by way of adding to Hannah's post, I have expanded a little to the Hayden post, including the addition of a poem this afternoon,
from Djuna Barnes: "To a Cabaret Singer," from her 1915 publication, The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings
(hmmmm... this is fun: starting to feel a little like a battle of the bands!--
which in terms of discourse I say intending it in all the best productive ways.)
: )
chris at
3:44 PM
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I have been saving one more of the new poems from Stephen Vincent, the San Francisco poet who is currently being featured as Texfiles Poet of the Week. I will post it this evening.
Then, tomorrow?--announcing another feature. Another delightful surprise!
chris at
3:02 PM
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Poetry for the People. One of my favorite sayings. Yeah, that's how it should be.
Squatter and Cracky Update: they have really burrowed themselves into the sand today, just as far as they can go. Which is not far: they hit the transparent plastic wall after less than an inch--must've freaked them out, too, not only because there isn't much depth to this beach tho they clamored their claws out on the plastic for about five minutes (don't worry: they are doing okay--I checked), but because just beneath their pink sand is what must seem some very odd visible new surface full of ironic alphabet: "Opening Spaces: Critical Pedagogy and Resistance Theory," which is Joe Marshall Hardin's rhetoric theory book (about the size of a chapbook: chock full of nuts, as they say... alright!--very good nuts!) that came out two years ago. I didn't realize it was the book just under Squatter's and Cracky's see-through terrariam until just now. No "Open Spaces..." for any of their "Resistances," poor devils. And then when they really get into all the wonders of everything texty around them?--they can read The Chicago Manual of Style !--the fascinating second wonder of their world, a tome which comprises their northern view. I wonder if they miss the ocean and its views. I miss it. I guess they do. I haven't seen them burrow in like this before. And it's very windy outside today--weather must be changing, must be for the worse, judging from the hermit crab barometer.
Yesterday it was up in the seventies--wz able to go for my walk in shorts and a shirt, tho the day before it was layers, jacket, hat and all. Also had the air back on yesterday afternoon. I don't recall ever having done that here before (in December). Hard to figure December as climate, around here.
Right now I'm working on editing something for our UTA online lit journal, Znine. Issue coming out next week, I think. I'm looking forward to this one--some new great stuff in it.
chris at
2:45 PM
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I should say this YaY!!--
Today is One Year of No Smoking for me.
Good. So far. I say it with reservations--really, two years will be the best self-congrats on this hard task--because I've done it three other times for a year and then went back. Of course those other times were during pregnancy: no one with a conscience can smoke while pregnant, right?--well, I couldn't, anyway. But I do know lots of people who have smoked while pregnant and everyone/everything turned out okay as best as can be figured. I just knew I couldn't do it like that. My mother did, tho. I turned out okay, um... sort of?
chris at
1:03 PM
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Gettin Warm Inside the (Pearl) Collar--Robert Hayden's "Empress of the Blues" * as a Poem of Poems :
I just happened across a (mostly pointless) bunch of Googlie-frivo-lists that hit on texfiles: frivolists=my term for those strange hits on search engines that yield things that seem vacuously related, and trying way too hard to be The Answer. It's the equivalent of your full grown dog that still acts like a puppy, and so, when you tell Spot to please bring the ball back so you two can play, Spot grins and comes back with four socks, insisting, so earnestly, that you must use them instead.
This crop of Googlie-frivo-list is about Robert Haydens's exquisite poem, "Homage to the Empress of the Blues." I have posted this work full of body before, but am doing so again, now--I do love this poem.
So, hey, take a look-see for yourself on something that, in my humbug or humble opinion, really is something like a Ur poem, a Poem of Poems :
Homage to the Empress of the Blues
Because there was a man somewhere in a candystripe silk shirt,
gracile and dangerous as a jaguar and because a woman moaned
for him in sixty-watt gloom and mourned him Faithless Love
Twotiming Love Oh Love Oh Careless Aggravating Love,
She came out on the stage in yards of pearls, emerging like
a favorite scenic view, flashed her golden smile and sang.
Because grey laths began somewhere to show from underneath
torn hurdygurdy lithographs of dollfaced in heaven;
and because there were those who feared alarming fists of snow
on the door and those who feared the riot-squad of statistics,
She came out on the stage in ostrich feathers, beaded satin,
and shone that smile on us and sang.
(81)
I'll be damned (well okay, then!) if one Google frivolisting doesn't say to try teaching this poem by comparing it to Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," or William Carlos Williams's "The Dance." ** Those are fine works, sure, but without getting too shrill here: how can anyone touch that fine-ass, absolutely un-Sandburg and un-WCW poem of Hayden's by trying to layer it through those two? And, if a comparison can be made, why not to something like Djuna Barnes' "To a Cabaret Dancer" *** :
To a Cabaret Dancer
A thousand lights had smitten her
Into this thing;
Life had taken her and given her
One place to sing.
She came with laughter wide and calm;
And splendid grace;
And looked between the lights and wine
For one fine face.
And found life only passion wide
'Twixt mouth and wine.
She ceased to search, and growing wise
Became less fine.
Yet some wondrous thing within the mess
Was held in check:--
Was missing as she groped and clung
About his neck.
One master chord we couldn't sound
For lost the keys,
Yet she hinted of it as she sang
Between our knees.
We watched her come with subtle fire
And learned feet,
Stumbling among the lustful drunk
Yet somehow sweet
We saw the crimson leave her cheeks
Flame in her eyes;
For when a woman lives in awful haste
A woman dies.
The jests that lit our hours by night
And made them gay,
Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul
And fouled its play.
Barriers and heart both broken--dust
Beneath her feet.
You've passed her forty times and sneered
Out in the street.
A thousand jibes had driven her
To this at last;
Till the ruined crimson of her lips
Grew vague and vast.
Until her songless soul admits
Time comes to kill:
You pay her price and wonder why
You need her still.
(31-33)
However fine the Sandburg and WCW works may be, they cannot do justice as comparative paradigms of anything more than a superficial, briefly associative similarity of perspective: they are about difference and struggle, but only Hayden's is about stepping-out by coming out, brought on by difference.
Moreover, if associative figures and themes is the active basis for similarity, then perhaps a closer one is to be found in Barnes's poem (actually her entire book, The Book of Repulsive Women is drenched in similarities of theme and issues of struggle along lines similar to Hayden's poem)
WeLL HeLL, so is almost anything in life about struggle, or can be made to seem so . Certainly the Sandburg and WCW poems are more dissimilar to Hayden's than they are similar (however sympathetic the writers, Sandburg and Williams, might have been to the issues Hayden's poem makes lovingly explicit). I am very partial to both Sandburg and Williams for their poetry and contributions to poetics. But in the crucial matters of their contents and forms, unlike the Sandburg and Williams poems, Hayden's "Homage" **comes out** in at least 4 distinct ways that the others cannot: out of silence in an African-American-racial environment of racist-Anglo America; and in the mode of cross dressing that carries the poem,; gayness, too, is brought out in the poem, to face homophobic America--this is an homage, remember; and finally, being gendered female comes out too: can female strut, or what? Those are the main content and conflicts in this poem. Nothing to do with a gratuitous relation to others such as Sandburg or Williams.
Such a comparison cannot do justice to Hayden's poem, it seems to me. This poem belongs to how the body lives and finally figures out how to be--here by how it struts its living for love, how it risks everything, not just its capacity for labor or its names in a crowd of others: but its very need to live as *being.*
There is torque, but none of a similar epistemological torque, in the Sandburg or Williams, I think. Abundant empathy, maybe, for how people in general struggle, sure! But Hayden is onto making another, antithetical point in that regard, about difference in every possible human and very, very social distinction. Who struts for a living? Only an Empress of the Blues as this poem loves to say and makes clear.
*Robert Hayden, "Homage to the Empress of the Blues," in The Jazz Poetry Anthology. Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa, Eds. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
** Predictably: the Googlie was out of a cheerful-sounding Norton study guide to poetry. Damn!--an avalanche of webpo poetry, or a Niagara of grocery-store/Hallmark story-verse can't possibly wreck poetry for the people as much as what a simple Googlie yields: if anything can wreck poetry, American Norton can, ya kno?
*** Djuna Barnes, "To a Cabaret Dancer," in The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings (orig. 1915). Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1994.
chris at
12:33 AM
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Monday, December 08, 2003
from Stephen Vincent, Texfiles Poet of the Week, part two
of "Walking, IV" * (see the previous post for part one) :
IV
...
No green dream on their backs. The men
not immune die early. Across the aisle
another and another. The nurse, a waterfall,
a shed, a shedding not they will go.
Walking this pixel blocks the rest.
Courage surrounds the fantasy.
*
A burrow stricken by lavender
*
Walking do not take me into your heart.
His, her, a wanton song shadows a street.
A fever crest, an ocean, the here,
the point blank upon what stage:
a rose/ a rage clearly/ clearly.
*
Walking, some small torture, the moment.
The black hole eats a milky way
a day. Keeps what sleeps. Leaps to tug. The rich
do not. They cut the poor. Talk each
to each. A tongue to the lemon.
The boat lunges. The morning star,
a morning target, a rising wave,
pole to pole, spans the horizon.
Horizon the plex.
*
Walking the dark each shade a mother.
*
Walking, healing clears the chest,
wounds the whale, a breath sought for ended.
To breathe again "we men" at the end.
(54-55)
* Stephen Vincent, Walking. Northampton: Junction Press, 1993.
(junction@earthlink.net)
chris at
7:15 PM
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from Stephen Vincent, Texfiles Poet of the Week, Part IV of the poem, "Walking."
This post is Stephen Vincent's request, his personal selection from his book, Walking. *
I'm going to post it in 2 parts, though, due to some time constraints of mine today.
Here is the first part, from the poem's opening:
IV
Walking full volume. The talk talking.
A dream dreaming. A torn ear.
Plumb the baked plum pie.
Masonic & Geary. The Pub. Marvin
Gaye. A bullet into his
what an argument. Love cross
a silouette in pink. In yellow
flower tubes. Blood tubes. City
Diagnostics. The local immune.
or not. Data: the red cylindrical.
*
Walking I love you, as if another day,
I love you, what way? Which dove?
White light on an orange:
his sense, her sense, the orgasm
a large color a blue.
*
Walking the open thrusting bud.
Walking the open thrusting bud.
*
Not walking, the talk, his, hers.
A gray on the hills, Twin Peaks.
What they, he, she diversify.
The shift here, there, over the
hinge. What sing, swings
the song lips the fingers: he, she
pony green pony grey pony pony
*
Walking full volume down the, sing.
Sing Sally, sing slow, sing hot.
*
No one here by that name.
What's absent remains.
What name father, he, the
lost brother? A thread white across
some country porch; an American prairie,
a driveway, concrete or asphalt,
the porch, brick or concrete.
...
(53-54)
*Stephen Vincent, Walking.Northampton: Junction Press, 1993.
(junction@earthlink.net)
chris at
3:46 PM
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Stephen Vincent, Texfiles Poet of the Week, has requested that I post a certain poem out his book, Walking, a poem that is one of his favorites. I will be putting it up shortly.
I did want to mention here, too, that another Texfiles Poet of the Week will be announced on Wednesday this week, so please stick around for that--It's someone whose work is sharp, physical, fantastic in the best ways. But of course I cannot tell you who it is until the time is right, no?--these things are best when a surprise... : )
chris at
2:45 PM
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Listening: Dirty Vegas
They may just be my absolute. The favorite lately. Out of all genres, and I like all genres. Of course I'm as fickle as any consumer of this stuff, it's shameful. But...
Something new every time I listen. I like that. Of course, that they hail from Pink Floyd helps the appeal. At least for me. If asked about their lyrics, I'd say, yes, finer than many, though not as searing as Pink Floyd--problem is, PF fused the music and lyric so exquisitely that little else can ever come close, including new work of former members.
An outcome that kinda sucks, no?--really! Reach your apex and then, try as you may, nothing can get past that. But it's also alluded to in the Dirty Vegas lyrics:
"I don't know what the future will bring:
leave the past cz it don't mean a thing:
so this is all or nothing.
"There must be a better way,
there must be a way to change--
so this is all or nothing..."
This seems commonplace. That may be the point, and one I greatly respect. We are, really, best when community minded and commonplace. That does rub against the grain of artistic world expectations of ... ta dum ta dum ... exceptionalism: genius. Yeah.
Well in this CD I really love the irresistable instrumentation, especially the percussion--something I grew up with at home, in my house, everyday. So I hear now how they are working it in newly appealing ways on this CD. Likin it, yeah.
chris at
1:03 AM
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Sunday, December 07, 2003
Apology: To Michael Helsem, of Gray Wyvern Blog.
Michael read this afternoon in Dallas, and I had to miss the reading! At the last minute I had some transportation problems, and there was no other way to get there (east Dallas is quite a ways from where I am in Arlington).
So, I am very sorry to have missed what I am certain must have been a great reading--I do enjoy Michael's poetry so much!
Michael, I hope the reading went well, and I will definitely find better transportation in time for your next one.
chris at
6:26 PM
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Odd: Blogger seemed to be down most of this afternoon, or at least from here somehow. First I couldn't get to the main site, got a message saying the server was down even tho I was able to go everywhere else I wanted to go. Then once I got blogger dot com to open, I got error messages evertime I tried to sign in--generic error messages with apologies saying that blogger technicians would be alerted. Weird! Anyone else find this problem for 3 or so hours this afternoon?
chris at
4:23 PM
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Lanny, Hey!--how's everything?
I really like that poem: "Montezuma-Bitch-Cortez-Mainframe (pure water memory)," too.
Lanny Quarles has a great link to/on Clayton Eshleman. Skip down a bit, it's under Friday, 5 Dec. And to put a few more apples in your basket, after reading Lanny's link, skip back and down here at tex just a few streetlights below. You will find green lights to Skanky Possum and Limetree, on similar, recent Eshleman doin's. Thanks for finding and posting that one, Lanny!
But just when I thought I was full, along came another dinner course. I kept sampling, yes! At Lanny's I just kept reading (you cannot ever stop reading once you are at Lanny's!) and discovered that he has also followed the Eshleman post/link with--in admirably true & distinctive Lanny style--a kick-ass poem, titled as per above. Please keep us all rockin, LQ. And in the meantime, I promise to stop using so many mixed metaphors!--oo-la-la...
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