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
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Old Francois Luong: Voices in Utter Dark
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MiPOradio
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Mark Lamoreaux: [[[0{:}0]]]
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louder
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a New Word Placements
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|||AS/IS2|||
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Jill Jones: Ruby Street
Geoffrey Gatza's BlazeVox
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GoldenRuleJones
Poetry_Heat
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As-Is !
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kari edwards: transdada
Fluss
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Michelle Bautista
Ironic Cinema
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Farewell Tonio!
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Stephen Vincent
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poetry for the people: canwehaveourballback?
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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

---

chris at 11:33 PM |

 

Heart Like a Wheel: could there ever have been a better title for what it IS?

chris at 11:31 PM |

 

Let's Play!

Oh Meta!--You are all Wet-a!

I just re-read what I wrote in the two posts just previous to this.

Umm.
& Hmmmm.

Well, let it be.

Am not retracting, revising, editing, deleting.

Kind of past that tonight.

Nice patter of rain out here, sliding glass door open on screen: pleasant.

Nothing--a la Sarte-- could ever be
sexual in the way of layered wit.
Yes, I'm not so
not meta nor sure.

Hey, what to make of all these antitheses?

YaY!! NaY!!

chris at 11:21 PM |

 

but then, everything devolves to pattern in one way or another, even if only to say it has no predictability: that element can be predicted, too. alas. there is nothing dry under the wet.

chris at 11:09 PM |

 

devising/singing, a la limmericky rhythms: there once was a Ferlinghetti
poem called "Underwear" tho it wasn't of cotton, nor silk--But oh yes, it was of
black whorls, and world, eyelets of lace ... --a favorite poem of mine, that... um, heard one limmerick, heard 'em all... & oh gosh, how I do not like a predictable pattern, even if it's a lively, fun, comic, witty one. Which is not to say Ferlinghetti's poem is a problem. It's one of my favorites, all time, and it works on patterns of expectancy and prior/cultural knowledge. Yet it eludes predictability. That is what I like. That ability to run with and yet counter...

chris at 10:58 PM |

 

Ya kno--I had a really, really, trying and overfull week at work--not the teaching, that's always adorable, full steam ahead stuff--no, it was the administrative stuff for the Writing Center that I direct. Lotsa bureaucracy!--Not YaY!!

Thus, am behind on everything-bloggo, but enjoying catching up this evening. Here is something that when I landed on it made me say aloud, Oh, Yeah!--this is definitely IT!

"... please
the photo is nothing
more than you staring at nothing
a collection of invented yous
stretched in a tenuous neck
lace around
the project
or words
blown..."--Clayton Couch! You rock!

chris at 10:49 PM |

 

"... Still, light finds a dance floor against this field of abandoned stones... "-- Crucial Bliss Epilogues, so beautiful!

Congratulations, Eileen--the samba of your work, emerging in so many places at once, must truly have wings!

chris at 9:40 PM |

 

My uta email is out this weekend. To contact me, use

cmurray88@yahoo.com

thanks!

chris at 6:31 PM |

 

from Ai


Hangman *


In the fields, the silos open their mouths
and let the grain dribble down their sides,
for they are overflowing.
The farmers swing their scythes, brows dripping blood.
They have had the passion ripped out of their chests
and share no brotherhood with the wheat,

while far across the open land,
the Hangman mounts an empty scaffold.
He slides his hands over the coarse-grained cedar
and smells the whole Lebanese coast
in the upraised arms of Kansas.
The rope's stiff bristles prick his fingers,
as he holds it and lifts himself above the trap door.

He touches the wood again.
This will be his last hanging
and anyway he has seen other fields,
workmen nailing brass spikes into the scaffolds
and rope which coiled and uncoiled
in the laps of farm women.
He places his foot on the step going down
and nearby, a scarecrow explodes,
sending tiny slivers of straw into his eyes.

(12)


*Ai, Vice: New and Selected Poems. New York: Norton, 1999.

chris at 5:58 PM |

 

time for green tea and maria's biscuits.
& listening: Pink
maybe warm up some

chris at 5:29 PM |

 

raining here. cold, a chill, again.

chris at 4:59 PM |

 

My uta dot edu email has been down since last night. If you are trying to reach me, please use this address:

cmurray88@yahoo.com

chris at 9:43 AM |

Friday, March 12, 2004

 

Say, I just spent some lovely time reading Andrew Lundwall's blog for Poetic Inhalation. Great blog, Andrew!

I especially enjoyed reading one of Andrew's poems: "time drips it doesn't work... "

chris at 6:39 PM |

 

WhooooWheeeeee!! Gay marriage legalized in one of Brazil's states!
Chris Daniels just sent me this article:

from Yahoo News: "Brazil State First to Allow Same-Sex Unions"

thanks, chris!

chris at 2:29 PM |

 

AMERIKaHAS--FAILED --kari edwards.

chris at 12:16 AM |

Thursday, March 11, 2004

 

This was forwarded to me by Mark Weiss (poet, translator, editor of Junction Press)

If you would like to sign this letter, please send me an email at cmurray88 at yahoo dot com, and I will forward it to you.

February 21, 2004

Mexico City

Open Letter



On February 12, 2004 at around 3:00 a.m., Gerardo Sifuentes Marín
(writer and current recipient of a grant from the National Fund for
Culture and the Arts [FONCA, Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las
Artes]) and Epigmenio León Martínez (writer and head of the Distribution
Offices of Tierra Adentro [a project of CONACULTA, the National Council
for Culture and the Arts]) were arrested by two officers of the Mexico
City Municipal Police, approximately 30 feet from Sifuentes’ home. With
no justification other than the smell of alcohol on their breaths, León
and Sifuentes were illegally taken to Delegación Cuauhtémoc Precinct
Headquarters #3. A few hours later, the same officers accused them of
having stolen two rear-view mirrors.

Since November 2003, the crime of stealing auto parts is a non-bailable
offense; therefore, Sifuentes and León were “automatically” taken into
custody. Accordingly, they were detained at Precinct Headquarters for
close to 48 hours, until the night of Friday February 13, when they were
moved to the Reclusorio Norte (North Prison). On Friday February 20,
Judge Julia Ortiz Leandro of Reclusorio Norte Court 42, despite the fact
that she had access to evidence of the writers’ innocence provided by
witnesses who were present when this outrage occurred, formally filed a
bench warrant against them for aggravated robbery.

The impunity and corruption of the municiapal police is the only
reasonable way to explain this injustice; it is well known that there is
a reward system whereby police officers are offered $2500 pesos (just
under $250 U.S.) for each “transient” they capture. Gerardo and
Epigmenio both have stable, respectable jobs that have nothing
whatsoever to do with the auto parts business. They both occupy
“privileged” positions in our extremely impoverished, battered society.
No one who knows them could possibly believe that they even have the
necessary skills to perform a mechanical operation like the one alleged
against them, much less that they woud be stupid enough to do such a
thing in front of one of their houses.


This disgrace, perpetrated by servants of “justice” and “peace”
officers, illuminates the mechanisms of corruption that function to
create the illusion of a diminishing crime index, and indicates what
might well be the fate of anyone who is imprudent enough to commit the
“crime” of walking at night in a city where the police are able not only
to illegally and with impunity detain, accuse and implicate anyone in a
criminal act, but also actually receive remuneration for doing so.
Beginning this year, the Department of Public Safety, under the
leadership of Marcelo Ebrard, has as its injunction “to prevent any
premature liberation of individuals arrested in the criminal area
comprised of fifty dangerous neighborhoods and so-called crime-ridden
zones, given that the index of recurrence is very high.” The
neighborhood where Sifuentes and León were arrested is within that area.


Given all of the above, we demand that Gerardo and Epigmenio’s case be
resolved immediately, that they be released from their imprisonment as
soon as possible, and that immoral policies that institutionalize
corruption be summarily eliminated.

signed
(115 so far, including me)


***************************cm******O~O/ ******

chris at 1:34 PM |

 

Calling all beach-goers!

chris at 12:27 PM |

 

Dale Smith and Alan Gilbert discuss the Apex of the M

chris at 12:24 PM |

 

Via Transdada:

Some in L.A. saying San Francisco only registers as a "pleasant backwater"? (scroll down some to see it)

What is up with that? And what is up with Massachusettes: all that show, but no resolution?


Via Rubystreet:

But hey, here's a good prospect : Jill Jones emailed me to say many in Australia are watching all this closely, and thinking about the situation there--thinking about how it will affect things there... Go Australia!--Get rAdiCaL for gay marriage...

chris at 11:38 AM |

 

the song is left. the striving, the memorable thingness pouring into, weathering the absolute no, strata. denying the song. yet the striving. the wonder. to get to the song. the song is there. the song is left. the song with its risk across time. the long legs, the yes, the work. the song. what is left. the work of the song. --thinking on your recent loss--chris murray

chris at 2:12 AM |

 

11:23 a.m.

chris at 1:18 AM |

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

 

Also: do not miss Jill catching a great snippet from James-My-Only-My-Very-MahBest-Maaaannnn...

chris at 11:02 PM |

 

from Jill Jones, Texfiles Poet of the Week :


The weight


Press where wind fixes into falling cold.
Imagine suddenly what you may fear
cracks in your decade
where cold chases you.
Explain to the judge your old story.
Even the boys laugh.
This is no time for sirens though.

A single voice of sex pierces
your vacant minute.
It too is colder
in the bushes, in rows of brick and iron
gums and maples, dusty firs.
Banning it from your plans will not help.

You are expected to receive eyes
to bare your breasts to public rain
and not weep for what is stolen.
They are like vacant suns.
Even children are expected at the coldest.

Press where the measure hurts
waking like demons covering you with sugar
licking you clean of skin.
You are distilled.
The light of your bones is blind
and happy but where the flesh went.
The load is on.

Carry it past the gate where it could endure.
Shake off limits and mists, load
and love the weight.
It is like music beaten with falling cold.




On the Rottnest ferry


Sky far leaving land
sprayful veer past
the leaving harbour wake shot

sea miles aren’t near
nor are they endless
white road, blue shoulders

old hills and city grey heat
light’s green flack
in rocky passing

coast content, rusted hulls
peripheries don’t figure
each wave different

sea jolting to where
land finally thins
to its long dream

tern formations back up blue


88888888888888 copyright of Jill Jones 8888888888888
Jill, What-Hey to Ya & Many Thanks!

chris at 10:58 PM |

 

Oh, nah--it's an old flick, that's what it is. Invisible Woman. A great comedy. shit ,no!--it's actually a plural: Invisible Women. Just a thought. tote it up to the Passive-aggressive-Passive-resistance-anger-management-[watch for falling cliches:]- can't we all just get along? or the oh-please-gimme-a-break-versions, ya kno? yeah. interesting versions, all. Thought we were getting past all that. Yeah. Thought. Past tense. How about had thought. up the tense of the past as ante? Hence. And all that, Y'all?

chris at 10:08 PM |

 

Anyone ever read a novel called the Invisible Woman?--just a thought.
Some things are just so predictable, hence (tho remarkable), not a problem.

chris at 9:46 PM |

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

 

Scroll to Ron's post from Monday. I'm admiring this playful yet problematic (in good ways) learning experience.

The lost "I" ! & its lost "You"? Martin Buber with no names!

I have to ask this, then: What if we were all to respond , too, anonymously,
on this wonderful test on poetry?

chris at 12:09 PM |

 

YaY!! Chris Lott is back, and with a WOW post on social networking, technology, and repercussions in blogging. Great to see Ruminate back!

chris at 10:40 AM |

Monday, March 08, 2004

 

(W)Fizzdom: a "... grotesque version of democracy..." ?

Emailing with chris daniels regarding an interview i am doing with him, Chris Chen, and Susan Maxwell, and chris, always deeply interested in the Latin American political scene because of his commitments to shared community and translation work, offered these insightful links on the current problems in Venezuela and Haiti :

Kurt Nimmo, via Counterpunch, offering some critical thoughts on the current situation of some vying American countries:

"But what really rankles Bush and Big Oil
is the fact their CIA-engineered coup d'etat
on April 12, 2002 did not stick.
Unlike the seemingly effortless removal
of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti,
getting rid of Chavez will not be easy."-- Kurt Nimmo,
"Mission Accomplished in Haiti, Onward to Venezuela"--Counterpunch, Mar 6-7, 2004

And from Alan Cisco, a U.S. journalist based in Caracas, also writing in Counterpunch :

"... leaders linked the Bush administration to the local 'rebellion.' Chavez also challenged Bush to a bet to see who would remain in the presidency longer. "--Alan Cisco, "Venezuela Equals Haiti?"--Counterpunch, Mar 6-7, 2004

Thanks, chris daniels!

chris at 10:17 PM |

 

I also have an odd story about my wristwatch, that I intended to post this weekend but instead I got to running around in the great red-bud weather here and so...

Hoping to post it tonight.
cheers!
xo
c

chris at 12:04 PM |

 

from Jill Jones, Texfiles Poet of the Week :


her translation of:


* Li Qingzhao 1084-c.1151 *


Red lips lightly rouged


Lonesome in my deepest boudoir
my tender heart entangled
in ten thousand sadnesses.

I love the spring but spring has gone.
Rain hurries petals to the ground.

To and fro at the balustrade
I’m restless, moody.
Where is he?

The rushes stretch to an endless sky.
I look in vain for his coming home.



Happy International Women's Day!
Best,
Jill

Thanks, Jill!

chris at 12:01 PM |

 

I am happily reminded by my good poet-friends Anny Ballardini and Jill Jones that today is a holiday: YaY!!

Happy International Women's Day! to Y'all!

chris at 11:56 AM |

 

High Powered Praise for Clayton Eshleman's Juniper Fuse :

I am very pleased to be able to share this news:

Check out the March 15 issue of The New Yorker, in the mini-reviews section, for words of praise over Clayton's Juniper Fuse.

The New Yorker, on Clayton Eshleman's Juniper Fuse

Well deserved praise!--Congratulations, Clayton.

Please stay tuned: I will be posting some of Clayton's work here later today.

chris at 11:40 AM |

Sunday, March 07, 2004

 

Poetry_Heat Reading Series: planning 2 readings for April !

Beginning this week to plan the next Poetry_Heat readings at UTA, slated for April, and it looks like we will do one early and one at the last of the month. I hope to have several poets of note from North Texas, and have been talking with Brian Clements, editor of Sentence, about it--I'm really looking forward to your reading, Brian! Also, Wendy Taylor Carlisle will be coming in to do a workshop with my students, and she has accepted the invitation to read, too. Things are lookin' good!

This morning, reading the poetry of Brian Clements, I lingered over two meditative poems (one the title poem of his first full collection) , so thought I'd share them with y'all. Brian was one of the first featured poets for the Texfiles Poet of the Week series. These are from his 1997 collection, Essays Against Ruin, * (Texas Review Press).


Essays Against Ruin


At first you will be guilty of mistakes,
long drives to Afton or Redbud,
fits of house-cleaning, the use of second person.

You may walk across the room and feel responsible
for the weather, fire, or the contempt your friends hold you in.
There is no end to this essay against ruin.

You will try to realize how to live
when you can only live a few years.
Try to tell a few secrets:

Here is your life and here is a beehive.
Here is the river, here is an engine.
You on the jetty, you on the way home.

Something to hold, something to lose.
Form is emptiness, emptiness form.
Now. Write what you know.

(8)

* * *


The Last Poem


Even now, after I've colored each word
With its worldly tint, they all look wrong:
One with hands like peaches and sky-colored
Mountains, huge things turning into something
Like ants spilled on the page, their tiny legs
Nothing; the coral-edged one; one I found
In a river, half dissolved, scooped and dredged
Until its dregs began to gather round
Like the earth's iron hair filed to the root;
The one I said I'd never say, but saw
Whirling like a hummingbird hals a foot
From my hand, almost perfect, every law
Suspended between the parts of its flight;
The one just after it to make things right.

(63)

*Brian Clements, Essays Against Ruin. Huntsville, Texas: Texas Review Press, 1997

****************************** copyright of Brian Clements **************

chris at 3:22 PM |

 

Yes, Poetry Is Made Real at Shampoo by the Gracious Del Ray Cross

* * *

& So: my turn to blush: awww, gee, Steve!-- thanks so much for your good words: and every bit of that passage in the poem is right out of an afternoon in my experience: the rush into, the rush of, an SFO Orthodox Saint Shop!--I have the cards to show for it! (am literally a card carrying saint-shop member, I swear!).

* * *

But now, Y'all, see below:
my sonnet dedicated to Steve Tills (who rocks!)

(but hey tell me, too,
now, ha' ya, er, um didja, um
an' git that thar blog-bongy thingy
brought around to marxian flava use values yet, man?--

jus' askin' ... : )

* * *

here's my sonnet dedicated to Steve Tills-- for all the good springs that you do... YaY!! and btw, I like that cover to the mag--it is lookin good :

* * *

LaLa Ism


ladoremi
babylala
do. dogwood violet hair i say
re. lalala
lafalaughfafa
la. fa. fa.
so fafa lalala. mi.
lalalalala mi o~o/
fafa spring showers a red bud just one fa fa
fafafafa tresses yes
so okay
la cherry bloss-bloss, too
ti y ti
da mi spring is mama given a 15th :
(if sonnet still means little song?)


* * *

Many asterisks of thanks without commas
to Del Ray Cross,
and to Steve Tills.

xoxo
cm

chris at 12:05 AM |