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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, February 21, 2004
YaY!! Coffee Haus poetry group meeting tonight! 7 pm @ Mesquite St.
See y'all there!
chris at
4:36 PM
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Thanks to Tonio for this one!
You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!
by Lewis Carroll
After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind
opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser,
you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming
to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that
it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile too much,
and just avoid hat shops altogether.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
chris at
4:08 PM
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More YaY !! Best Wishes for a Very Happy Birthday, going out to Michael Snider !
chris at
3:46 PM
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from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week :
A Tapered Outline
fumbling for
striving in a streamline
d-v-/jing or the baroque vision of orchestrated music
underground or red-velvet opera fauteuils
(Still Life with Madame Cezanne dans un Fauteuil Rouge)
zigzagging in and out of a methodical attempt at being
more
to be done
for a tapered outline
......................................
not tired .....................................
the forced pressured feed is lubricating cognitive systems
synapses opening and closing with their medusa-like info sent in combination
with the collection of what towns emit
by a specular eye it gets through
to provide
more
information
(action of the directive starting from the EU for small series Dutch vehicles)
- but the shamanic force needed to bring tribes to their catharsis
is opposed to the one to one relationship requested by a poetic act
collaboration or detachment in defense of her strength
new possible essay waiting for the Time
when it struck an inverted imminent turn
to a Subliminal Kid,
Spooky
(from Daily Poems )
**************copyright of anny ballardini********************
chris at
2:31 PM
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Tomorrow? YaY!! Violin concert in Ft. Worth. Famous Chinese violinist performing. I'm invited to go with my good friend, Fei ! For those of you who've been reading here since last spring, you probably recall Fei, I think--I've posted about shopping at the Hong Kong Marketplace here with Fei, and I've posted about the wonderful meals she and her family here have prepared and shared with me. For those reading more recently, Fei is a former tutor at the Writing Center I direct, and she now has her MBA in accounting and is married with her lovely husband, Geoff. They were married two summers ago in Beijing--fabulous wedding, I was privileged to hear all about, as they showed me lovely photos and a video of the entire day: just amazing.
And then next week: more shopping with Fei ! So nice. Looking forward to the concert tomorrow--thanks, Fei !
chris at
1:05 PM
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Happy Saturday! It is gorgeous here today. I want to go fishing (but can't). Spring popping out all over: daffodils and pansy petal confetti hovering over the planted places, green buzz covering the rest of the ground, many trees sitting back waiting for their coming moment. Admittedly I do not prefer Texas climate, but I do wonder at this moment each year. Not so dramatic here as it is elsewhere, but nonetheless something of a quiet bursting going on just below the surface--that poised, drawing of excitement over life. & birds!sparrow, robin--prolific & plural, their notes of auditory mosaic. A week ago, snow, and now: instant spring. The stronger sun, a shining a live oak branch in shiver. The contradictory every of the magical and terribly driven loving of life.
chris at
12:59 PM
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Friday, February 20, 2004
from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week :
SATURDAY SHOPPING
At the big supermarket in the Urbe
I got lost among the shelves
holding my money tight which got all spent
I picked down a yogurt with strawberries, picked up a laptop
Rilke’s poems, a phone call to my mother
your sweet smile, a card game, a two hour movie that made me cry
a steamer, some pots of flowers, a couple of stars
cold weather to send to an Aussie friend
a piece of a tropical island for another in Iceland
Zufowsky and Maendelstam to remember to send a letter on Monday
some ocean to put on the windowsill to remember my town
red bricks for the balcony – cityscape of New York
a crystal bouncing shield to set against my bad neighbors
and an open veranda door for my good ones with candies
56 candles to lead me through winter
six artichokes, two bottles of milk, a can of cream
a kilo of coffee of the golden brand, bread to toast
and cigarettes to smoke
a dustbin for our manipulators and a driller for a new passage
to let us breathe some art
I packed it all in my bag, and rode my bike back home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of anny ballardini~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
4:27 PM
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Whew! Hard to keep up with this Maximus Dialogichronos FlexFlux, so beautiFULL, I think,
I'd never really had a reason to think on this, but hey: a report on drama at Berkeley High School Blog !
& thanks for those interesting glimpses, Ex Lion Tamer (also edging upwards of maximus ecriture enblogee, so nice, and I love the blog name) !
chris at
4:01 PM
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History 101
of Blog !
Thanks for the good
ha-ha-hahz,
Ela !
chris at
3:39 PM
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I'll sure miss your insight and perspectives, Chris Lott !
Good Luck & Hurry Back with another great site!
chris at
2:45 PM
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Xena ! Not Even * Ha Ha
Funny * via Michael Bogue--yeah, that is so not cool. Thanks for sayin', Michael.
chris at
2:15 PM
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"... History Knows the Difference, Swaying like a Train... " **
Maxine Chernoff posts Paul Hoover's response to recent _questions_ of what has happened at the MFA program at Columbia College and to the journal, Columbia Poetry Review.
_And here's an article from the Columbia College Chronicle_ via Jilly Dybka's posted link of yesterday, at
Poetry Hut*
Seems that the very successful and highly respected CPR, formerly (very well) edited by undgrad students as a learning experience for their major in writing at Columbia, has now been taken over instead by faculty editors.
What a crock!--Hierarchy Hell, sounds like: faculty there acting as if to say: Hey, students: buzz off: we are infinitely more important than you, but even more important than that, we are more powerful. Carry on you undergrad slugs...
~~~~~~~~~~~~In honor of all the good work Paul Hoover has done, and in honor of the undergrad students fired from their editorial jobs in a faculty power play, here is one of Hoover's poems :
Poems We Can Understand **
If a monkey drives a car
down the colonnade facing the sea
and the palm trees to the left are tin
we don't understand it.
We want poems we can understand.
We want a god to lead us,
renaming the flowers and trees,
color-coding the scene,
doing bird calls for guests.
We want poems we can understand,
no sullen drunks making passes
next to an armadillo, no complex nothingness
amounting to a song,
no running in and out of walls
on the dry tongue of a mouse,
no bludgeoness, no girl, no sea that moves
with all deliberate speed, beside itself
and blue as water, inside itself and still,
no lizards on the table becoming absolute hands.
We want poetry we can understand,
the fingerprints on mother's dress,
pain of martyr's, scientists.
Please, no rabbit taking a rabbit
out of a yellow hat, no tattooed back
facing miles of desert, no wind.
We don't understand it.
(486)
** Paul Hoover, the poem, "Poems We Can Understand," and the line, "History... (p. 488)," in the poem, "Desire," from Postmodern American Poetry. Ed. Paul Hoover. New York: Norton, 1994.
chris at
4:50 AM
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Black Spring Online is Now officially Online:
Steve Tills has officially announced the release of the first issue of Black Spring Online! Now, that is a big YaY!!
since there's lot's of outstanding work in this Black Spring Online issue, including poems from kari edwards, Catherine Daly, Jim McCrary & a feature on Steve Ellis, as well as a tiny little 13 part jambalaya-donut box from yours truly, Chris Murray.
Go Steve !--who not only works out there in the bigger biz world writing and editing there all day, and edits Black Spring Online, but who also started a very fine blog, Black Spring blog, recently, one that is full of in-depth analysis of contemporary poetry. Thanks, Steve Tills, for all this new "Spring" energy in the mix.
chris at
3:53 AM
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YaY!! A big fave: the new Jacket Magazine (#22)just
came out, with all kinds of good stuff:
including a feature on David Bromige,
another on contemporary women's writing,
and two reviews by cool possum, Dale Smith :
"Evidence of the Paranormal," by Ron Padgett et al,
and "Under the Sun" by Rachel Levitsky.
chris at
3:11 AM
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The Perils of Textually Mediated Love:
Well, I am sorry--but ever since the indigo-
turtleneck-spandex academics
brought their version of super-textual-love
to that underwater dirty-dancing,
nineties-damsel-gets-punished
happy-go-lucky-martyr-guy-gets-off-
flick, The Piano (or, the Pain-o?),
so many images of New Zealand--check out the photo--
have had a distinctly different wide-angle-lens-kind-of-ethos.
And here, well, onions, too!--ya kno?
Yikes! Thanks to Poetry Hut for the heads up:
please, all you New Zealanders (and now I, too, will be rethinking every onion I ever meet),
do not eat those contaminated floating
(there was a song my dad used to know, please, please don't eat
the daisies...) no, hey, wait--
I mean don't even touch those sewage-logged Onions,
Folks, Please!
chris at
12:34 AM
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Thursday, February 19, 2004
Dept. of PoetryKat!
Students in my course, UTA Engl. 4330 (and everyone else who might be interested should also check it out),
please check out your co-student/poet Robert Flach's new poems, as well as his experimental gloss poem
(formerly posted to Poetry_Heat).
Robert!--You are purring out some wonderful poetry writing this semester! Rock on!
chris at
6:47 PM
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3 (lovely!) poems from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week :
BACK-THOUGHTS
back-thoughts dark dog
side/sliding thoughts
ripped crippled thoughts
(where’s my face?)
Verga’s concerted nature
(bow lower)
one of my individualities
(on the right-above)
aiming to what: Me in the ad
I’m nice echoed the voice of the
(I’m sure she was) blond little girl
in the dirty under-passage of the
Innsbruck train station:
I’m nice-r
* * *
SLIP
(Pterodactyls, flying reptiles
Archaeopterix, airborne reptile with feathers
Hesperornis regalis
birds come from dinosaurs?)
was walking
it triggered in front of my eyes
was thinking and didn’t notice
went back
similar to a dark brown warm detached flying hand
with the queue of my eye in the distance
I saw it was a big red butterfly
too slow of me to get another glimpse of it
* * *
SATURDAY SHOPPING
At the big supermarket in the Urbe
I got lost among the shelves
holding my money tight which got all spent
I picked down a yogurt with strawberries, picked up a laptop
Rilke’s poems, a phone call to my mother
your sweet smile, a card game, a two hour movie that made me cry
a steamer, some pots of flowers, a couple of stars
cold weather to send to an Aussie friend
a piece of a tropical island for another in Iceland
Zufowsky and Maendelstam to remember to send a letter on Monday
some ocean to put on the windowsill to remember my town
red bricks for the balcony – cityscape of New York
a crystal bouncing shield to set against my bad neighbors
and an open veranda door for my good ones with candies
56 candles to lead me through winter
six artichokes, two bottles of milk, a can of cream
a kilo of coffee of the golden brand, bread to toast
and cigarettes to smoke
a dustbin for our manipulators and a driller for a new passage
to let us breathe some art
I packed it all in my bag, and rode my bike back home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of anny ballardini~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
5:42 PM
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from John Tranter's Crying in Early Infancy * :
71
The Chicago 'Manual of Style' is really neat
when your composure cracks and ghosts
of silly girls come whispering to bother you--
this happens late at night--just kids
out for a bit of fun with a convertible
and a bottle of vodka like in a movie,
and 'Hell,' you think, 'did I do that? Was I
involved with that mad young bitch
the cops were after down at Sunny Point?
Was that me in Dad's truck with the throttle
stuck open, cracking ninety down the beachfront?
With that ... brunette ... uh?' Just about then,
on the edge of love and terror, the Chicago
'Manual of Style' appears and takes you home.
(1590)
John Tranter, "71," Crying in Early Infancy, in Norton Anth. of Modern Poetry. Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair, Eds. New York: Norton, 1988.
chris at
4:12 AM
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Mirror, Mirror, Yadda Blah: Who's the REALest of Us All?
Apparently some struggles are more valuable than others because they are more "real," or so says Massachusettes politician, Barney Frank: "When you're in a real struggle, San Francisco making a symbolic point becomes a diversion... ." ("Barney Frank criticizes S.F. weddings"--Christopher Curtis, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network news, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004/4:58p.m.)
So, let's see where that leads or what assumptions abound in it:
Folks not in San Francisco are more real.
Barney, rhetorically stepping into his own personal "you," is more real than others because he is the one with the authority to size up the situation.
San Francisco is only for play.
San Francisco exists more as symbol than for real, for reality.
Barney's struggle is more important.
Barney's idea of struggle is more important.
All of the above is a crock of cheesey undermining logic.
Following Barney's logic along with the rest of the statement's faulty reasoning, which is basically used to back up what is apparently a very cowardly scapegoating that suggests/assumes insignificance for some folks and for some locales, while elsewhere folks are of special value (a basic way of othering, then), the recent surge in freedom- couples who are getting married *for real* in San Francisco is merely a "symbolic" event thus not a *real life* event that matters.
Um... not real?--that might be news to the real people involved, who have risked subjecting their relationships to an overall status in ISA (institutional state apparatus), thus a commitment and responsibility to civic sphere and the larger governing state as well as the commitment to each other, and who therefore realize that marriage is not a matter of or for trivial thinking and action, no matter the circumstances of the folks, no?
More useful and certainly more refreshing to consider about the struggle, I think, is this focus on the issue of freedom and rights, from Evan Wolfson, of the civil rights organization, Freedom to Marry:
"These are real marriages and it's wonderful for America to see thousands of couples lining up around city hall... just in order to have the freedom to marry."
To a large degree this is understood to be about rights and freedoms, choices and responsibilties. Being willing to commit to such. Barney has the issue reduced to strategies. That take on the issue completely underestimates the "real" people and the "real" state (in many senses).
Thanks, kari, for passing this story along via Transdada. And for telling it like it is: "Barney Frank needs to be booted out of office."
chris at
12:08 AM
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Yes ! Check out UTA student poet, James Yeager, his sestina, "Sounding Fury," from last week's Poetry_Heat assignments (from my current poetry writing course). Rock on, James!
chris at
6:45 PM
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This gem from *The Shorthorn* which is UTA's student newspaper. This is the lead sentence in a front page story about organizing a Homecoming event :
"Student leaders wearing neck ties and high heels went from person to person in hopes of gaining contacts in an annual Homecoming event... "
I love this metonymy, its pictorial semiotics. But I have to say that wearing high heels can hurt your back. Ties are interesting neck and belly decorations but not necessay for leaders. Hopes and contacts?--always useful. Coming home is always nice but homecoming dances are another matter altogether. Students are wonderful purveyors of person to person wearing. Gains recycle annual hopes for event.
chris at
5:52 PM
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from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week beginning Valentine's Day :
WOLVES
in the land of wolves ice shivers to pieces of moon
instability
a child’s dreamy estate stopped by the crater
detached is the unfastened single blow
like blood, the fierce smell of it
pierces like wind
those heights of the Kings
stepped down for parades
pinnacles unspoken, lances trophies armors
under glass, the room of the couple shut off
by a chain in the right wing, room N°. 7
surrounded by the ruins of the castle
Slovakia, 12.2003
* * *
an oasis
of past memories to project an outlined
near future like the opening of a new spring day
after a sleepless night with its reassuring liquidity
to remind that light is white & permeates it all
with gods in trees & flowers & mountains &
courses of rivers – water & stars
- bref, an artist pirouetting in the perfection of
his daily discipline in the full volume of the air.
chris at
11:31 AM
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004
HaH! Wondering just what Mina Loy would think of her anagram, "alimony," such as it is where ela cleverly says, and we find a new Chicago-bloggie siting:
ela kotkowska @ IncertainPlume
chris at
8:45 PM
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YaY!! Seismographiana of Everyday Life
from L. Moholy-Nagy, "The New Typography," Vision in Motion (1947) * :
The history of printing saw a degeneration of the rich contrastful incunabula, with colored initials and large letters, into the flat gray page of small types without any consideration of visual fundamentals. The ideograms of Apollinaire were a logical answer to this dull typography, to the levelling effects of the gray, inarticulate machine typsetting. He not only printed the words, but through the emphasis of position and size differentiation of the letters, he tried to make them almost "audible." The futurists and dadaists continued these efforts by giving up the rigid horizontal order of typsetting and employing typographical material as a flexible element in pictorial composition.
... the artist is not a propagandist but, more than any other person, ** a seismograph ** of his time and its direction, who consciously or unconsciously expresses its substance.
chris at
6:21 PM
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Just now catching up on some blog reading (things are still rockin and rollin for this new semester here) and was glad to find/read this:
a great detailed report on the Lisa Jarnot reading at University of Chicago--many thanks to Tim Yu.
Also, I see congratulations are in order: U of Toronto is a very lucky place, then!
chris at
6:10 PM
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Well, What *is* an author, anyway?"--I'm liking how Ben gets after this resonant question.
chris at
5:25 PM
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from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week, beginning from Valentine's Day :
Ten
[sections 5-6; scroll down for sections 1-4]
ten is ten - one and zero - pragmatic and tangible there is no space for another One - shut in its completeness as silence from afar which takes place even when full of written words words-made-rock rock-made-words, once said once given to them a personal meaning - words cut out polished & sharp in tone to hit none precisely to defend myself, she said, to win, he added
distance made them idealized figures & from there they could write a wrong poetry the one dictated by dream where objects do not follow their actual lives but are projections of your self distorted wish or fear bound inside
the colorful three-dimensional screen
but still of your restricted self
who is the other
you see, it’s all about beauty throbs generated by attraction create energy the lack of it repulsion envies jealousies foment further steam the more I am loved the more I love a vertiginous precipice crater his psyche full of contradictory behaviors she stepped aside and from the cliff of the Portuguese peninsula cried out first to admit her guilt to inevitably recognize absurd mis/understandings devoid of the pure mystical sense of sacrificial love & her need for independence & un-fulfilling wish, trees deprived of personality were confined inside few centimeters of terrain in the fruit industry but I believe in progress - bottles of juice cans of jam hanging from branches glittered in the sun hens made sandwiches with boiled eggs lettuce & anchovies with a slice of a red ripe tomato a siren flew out of the window he was caught in her mania of stardom & disappeared the air was so rarified they fell and turned into mashed potatoes that’s why his first she packed & went to the Niagara falls & fish instead of drops of water were her companions on a train
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of anny ballardini~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
4:01 AM
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from Saint John Perse, Neiges IV *** :
[ texfiles serial, section 5; scroll down to see previous sections of this series]
... Epouse du monde notre patience, epouse du monde notre attente! ... Ah! tout l'hieble du songe a mem notre visage! Et nous ravisse encore, o monde! ta fraiche haleine de mensonge! ... La ou les fleuves encore sont gueables, la ou les neiges encore sont gueables, nous passerons ce soir une ame non gueable ... Et au dela sont les grands les du songe, et tout ce bien fongible ou l'etre engage sa fortune...
------
Desormais cette page ou plus rien ne s'inscrit. **
[as translated by William Rees:]
... Spouse of the world our patience, spouse of the world our expectation! ...Ah! all the dwarf-elder of dream in our very faces! And once again, O world, may your cool breath of deceit ravish us! There where the rivers are still fordable, there where the snows are still fordable, we shall ferry across this night an unfordable soul ... And beyond are the great towpaths* of dream, and all that fungible wealth in which man pledges his fortune...
------
Henceforth this page where nothing more is written.
* [translator's note:] un le also means a breadth of linen.
(654)
** Heh! French escapes from accents (via cm, in a shameless enblogee editorial decision)
*** Saint John Perse, "Neiges IV," in The Penguin Book of French Poetry. William Rees, Transl. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1992.
chris at
12:21 AM
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Monday, February 16, 2004
from Saint-John Perse ** :
Neiges IV
[ texfiles section 3;
scroll to 14 Feb 5:01 p.m., for section 2; scroll to 13 Feb 9:03 p.m. for section 1]
... Et ce fut au matin, sous le plus pur vocable, un beau pays sans haine ni lesine, un lieu de grace et de merci pour la montee des surs presages de l'esprit; et comme un grand Ave de grace sur nos pas, la grande roseraie blanche de toutes neiges a la ronde ... Fraicheur d' ombelles, de corymbes, fraicheur d' arille sous la feve, ha! tant d'azymes encore aux levres de l'errant! ... Quelle flore nouvelle, en lieu plus libre, nous absout de la fleur et du fruit? Quelle navette d'os aux mains des femmes de grand age, quelle amande d'ivoire aux mains des femmes de jeune age nous tissera linge plus frais pour la brulure des vivants? ... *
... And it was in the morning, beneath the purest of word-forms, a beautiful country without hatred or meanness, a place of grace and of mercy for the ascension of the unerring presages of the mind; and like a great Ave of grace on our path, the great white rose-garden of all the encircling snows ... Freshness of umbrels, of corymbs, freshness of aril under the bean, ah! so many unleavened wafers still on the lips of the wanderer! ... What new flora, in a freer place, absolves us from the flower and from the fruit? What bone shuttle in the hands of very aged women, what ivory almond in the hands of very young women will weave us cooler linen for the burn of the living?...
(653-54)
* More French with no accent marks.
** Saint-John Perse, "Neiges IV," in The Penguin Book of French Poetry. Transl. by William Rees. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
chris at
12:44 AM
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Sunday, February 15, 2004
 audio post powered by audblog
O Yeah Baby Wowza!
for Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Texfiles Poet of the Week (beginning 7 February)! Wow!
What beautiful audblog readings of her poems :
* The Other Story (scroll down to texfiles post of Thursday, 12 Feb, 4:25 a.m.)
* This Is What There Is (the text of this poem follows here)
* Tragos (scroll down to texfilesSaturday, 14 Feb, 12:47 p.m.--part of the Valentine's Day Texfiles Poetry Bonanza)
* * *
This Is What There Is
On the day of the eclipse
the houses on the hill adjusted
their rabbit ears, their accordions,
their pawn-shop guitars,
sad, saddled with
the clich? glaze of rain.
They complained,
?the holidays are coming and
my TV gets one blurry channel?
A man can sit in his stone house
and stay dry all winter
that man can lick his lips and keep them wet
because he makes up a song about ferrets.
Here is that man?s mouth
and a moment is all he gets
20 minutes of dark moon,
the hillside glowing and glowing
old roadbed waiting to be paved over.
* * *
Many thanks, Wendy, for such enjoyable and provocative work, and to be able to hear you read it?--well it rocks my world, and I am most grateful to you for doing what you do. Keep On!
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP poetry copyright of Wendy Taylor Carlisle PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
chris at
9:51 PM
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YaY !! Go Steve...
chris at
2:41 PM
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from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week beginning on Valentine's Day:
(section 4 of) Ten *
... common in- ex/teriorized by the state of having descended into a body & residing in it, this house of ours and it is needed, collecting shells as he does or rocks the way she likes - any shape - re/collection of petrified life but life it is set in its neat borders outlined against a different background with defined lines again touch unanticipated thoughts from one sense associate with others born out of casual intuitions & a union comes forth to enlighten conjunctions in a pyramidal moment made intense by its terse third plane of existence when his hand rested on hers soft skin on long fingers open chakras listening to a mute speech, I am now she told herself, will think of it later & she did when things bounce back under other perimeters & even if similar, never the same...
*scroll down to view sections 1-3 of Anny Ballardini's Ten
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of anny ballardini~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
1:59 PM
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from Miyazawa Kenji * :
The Sea Eroded Tableland
After the sun enters the sixth and final zone,
the sky grows totally dull,
the tableland hazy, like the sea of boundless desire
... The sea the color of illusion
sadly yet nostalgically
bites into the chest of the spring of continence...
There the snow remains in a design of wave crests
and the larch woods and valleys
continue their hushed rise and fall
into the feeble smoke in the sky
... It's a sea-eroded tableland
an old marker stone of kalpa...
Climbing an unclear path
a slow band of highlanders
who might be taken for exhausted, self-tormenting Brahmans,
disappears in the smoke of cold air.
6 April 1924
(114)
* Miyazawa Kenji, A Future of Ice. Hiroaki Sato, transl. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989.
chris at
12:33 PM
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Of--
the tongue
forming moment--
the clementine
indeed is all
well for it
makes of need
not a wrestle
with excess
seed
& so is
very
cmcmcmcmcmcmcmcopyrightofchrismurraycmcm o~o\ cmcmcmcmcmcmcmcm
chris at
2:57 AM
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is a word out of time is
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