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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, October 09, 2004
Adios, Jacques Derrida...
 --c. 1984, via hedbergska.sundsvall .se
on love: ... love means an affirmative desire towards the Other - to respect the Other, to pay attention to the Other, not to destroy the otherness of the Other - and this is the preliminary affirmation, even if afterwards because of this love, you ask questions. There is some negativity in deconstruction. I wouldn't deny this. You have to criticise, to ask questions, to challenge and sometimes to oppose. What I have said is that in the final instance, deconstruction is not negative although negativity is no doubt at work. Now, in order to criticise, to negate, to deny, you have first to say "yes". When you address the Other, even if it is to oppose the Other, you make a sort of promise - that is, to address the Other as Other, not to reduce the otherness of the Other, and to take into account the singularity of the Other. That's an irreducible affirmation, its the original ethics if you want. So from that point of view, there is an ethics of deconstruction. Not in the usual sense, but there is an affirmation. You know, I often use a quote from Rosensweig or even from Levinas which says that the "yes" is not a word like others, that even if you do not pronounce the word, there is a "yes" implicit in every language, even if you multiply the "no", there is a "yes". And this is even the case with Heidegger. You know Heidegger, for a long time, for years and years kept saying that thinking started with questioning, that questioning (fragen) is the dignity of thinking. And then one day, without contradicting this statement, he said "yes, but there is something even more originary than questioning, than this piety of thinking," and it is what he called zusage which means to acquiesce, to accept, to say "yes", to affirm. So this zusage is not only prior to questioning, but it is supposed by any questioning. To ask a question, you must first tell the Other that I am speaking to you. Even to oppose or challenge the Other, you must say "at least I speak to you", "I say yes to our being in common together". So this is what I meant by love, this reaffirmation of the affirmation. --Interview with Nikhil Padgaonkar
with poet Francis Ponge:  --Francis Ponge and Jacques Derrida, Cerisy-la-Salle Seminars given by Derrida in dedication to Ponge, "SignsPonge," 1974-1975
& on mourning, from Critical Inquiry: One cannot hold a discourse on the "work of mourning" without taking part in it, without announcing or partaking in [se faire part de] death, and first of all in one's own death. In the announcement of one's own death, which says, in short, "I am dead," "I died"--such as this book lets it be heard--one should be able to say, and I have tried to say this in the past, that all work is also the work of mourning. All work in general works at mourning. In and of itself. Even when it has the power to give birth, even and especially when it plans to bring something to light and let it be seen. The work of mourning is not one kind of work among other possible kinds; an activity of the kind "work" is by no means a specific figure for production in general. --Jacques Derrida, "By Force of Mourning," in Critical Inquiry, Winter 1996.
& on Derrida's work and theories: ... [Derrida's] work intrigues me because of how it can account for the resilience of literary and other texts--their ability to adapt to new readers and contexts. As someone who did undergraduate work in creative writing, I also appreciate the way his writing refuses to accept a distinction between "literature" and "criticism." --"Derrida and Deconstruction: Key Points," Warren Hedges, Southern Oregon University
& from Wikipedia
& on Derrida the Movie
& to listen: Theory Radio: mp3s of/on Derrida (though, only one, with autobiographer and friend, Geoffrey Bennington, is in English)
& much more at WOODS LOT
& in French, from Le Monde
& this, I was grateful to happen upon, from the reflective literary/philosophic blog, Spurious,
Alas, adios, Jacques Derrida...
chris at
1:46 PM
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Poetry International
chris at
1:15 PM
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Friday, October 08, 2004
 -- genome image, bu.edu
Hey!--Do check out Hal Johnson's new e-book, G(e)nome, out from Jukka's (YaY!!) xPressed works-site. I'm having students read it next week. Nice work, Hal and Jukka!
chris at
6:52 PM
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on Sandy McIntosh's exquisite prose poem, "With Ignatow":
I want to say how very much I like the Sandy McIntosh work in the latest issue (# 2) of Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics. To my mind, it's a highly provocative piece for student writers of all genres, so I want to post some of it here and at my current poetry course-blog, E-Po.
I'm also very happy to note here for Y'all that Sandy McIntosh and Eileen Tabios will be here to read for my Poetry_Heat series in UTA's Spring Semester, Mar 3-6, as well as to give a presentation on publishing, at the UTA Writing Center. We're also planning a road trip to Austin, so stay tuned on all that...
Sandy's poem, "With Ignatow," is about various encounters with North American poet, David Ignatow (1913-1998), a few of whose poems can be found at this link on Webdelsol. Ignatow was known to be very definitely a unique thinker and writer, one who called it as he saw it and settled for no less along with commanding not only great respect, but great affection, as well. Sandy's poem shines with this problematic (not in the sense of problem but in the sense of conundrum, sets of contradictions that may not be resolveable, and may not need to be).
An excerpt follows here, but I hope Y'all will seek out your copy of Sentence and read the entire piece, as well as the rest of this outstanding issue. I confess I have been reading it non-stop for several days now--the variety, the range, the quality of work is outstanding in this issue. I'm honored to have my review of Eileen's fine book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, in such an excellent mix that is representative of some of the best of contemporary prose poetry and criticism.
Here is the excerpt from Sandy's much longer Sentence work, each section crisp and exquisite--ultimately an epideictic tribute to David Ignatow--"With Ignatow" :
*
I stopped off at his house with a new poem I wanted him to see.
“He’s teaching today,” said his wife. “But come sit at the typewriter in my studio and wait for him.”
In the next room I could hear a radio announcing the death of General Eisenhower. She was surprised. “I thought he’d been dead for years.”
We listened together as the announcer read off a complex list of funerary events. She remarked on how chilling it all was. “They couldn’t wait for him to drop dead.”
That gave me an idea. She encouraged me to use her typewriter. “Go ahead,” she said. “Type all you want.”
My father had admired Eisenhower and always voted Republican. At his death I’d been fascinated with the preparations for the funeral, especially the process of embalming the corpse. I was thinking as much of my own father’s funeral as of Eisenhower’s while I worked at the typewriter.
He returned from teaching in an acrimonious mood. After supper (canned salmon on dry lettuce, water), he motioned me to hand him the poem.
I gave him the one I’d arrived with something I’d worked on for weeks. This, I wanted him to know, was finally the real thing.
He made chomping sounds, cleaning his teeth with his tongue as he read. When he looked up it was with a sour expression. “This is crap,” he pronounced. “Why are you wasting your time with this garbage? You can write better than that.”
I was devastated. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if he’d shoved me backwards through the wall; that I was being pinned somewhere within the airless beams of the house.
“Come on,” he chided. “You can talk. You’re not going to die.”
But I couldn’t talk, his condemnation so forceful, unexpected. To play for time, I opened my notebook and offered up the new poem I’d written about Eisenhower. It wasn’t much. I’d just been having fun with it. But that’s all I had.
He grabbed it. His expression softened and he looked up from the typewritten sheet. “Now, this is something,” he said. “This should be published. Why didn’t you show me this the first time?
*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~prose poem copyright of Sandy McIntosh~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
2:43 PM
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via transdada:
Gay National Boycott Begins
by Beth Shapiro
365Gay.com Newscenter
(New York City) A one-day national work stoppage and economic boycott
called by a gay marriage advocacy group began Friday morning.
The Boycott for Equality called on gays and lesbians across the nation
to drop out of the U.S. economy for the day by staying home from work,
not shopping and not using cell phones.
The boycott also asks people to withdraw $80 from their bank accounts
and hold onto the money to symbolize the average daily contribution of
gay and lesbian people to the economy.
Estimates indicate that America's lesbian and gay population spends an
average of $1.4 billion each day, totaling $500 billion a year. But,
the effect the grassroots effort to show the clout of the gay dollar
will have may not be fully known for several months when major
companies release financial reports.
Boycott for Equality
chris at
1:57 PM
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 --
via Steve Evans’ Third Factory, link to the Propaganda Remix Project.
chris at
3:22 AM
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On The Impermanence Agent
Nana Futures: Check this Out, Regarding The Impermanence Agent--[I don't know much about its range of influence yet, but hey : ] I Love It! In spring semester here, I'm teaching a special topics course on the history of short story writing: from Poe to Prose Poem, and so right now scrambling around to look into stuff, and found this particular tekkie tie-in very productive for thinking things over and seeing where technology segues into this challenging trajectory of narrative and poetics (though, admittedly, I'm no accomplished nerd in the tekkie end of stuff). But this looks VeryKoooolShoes to me:
Noah: Nana was my grandmother. After she died, in 1993, I began working on an essay about media, particularly hypermedia, and dreams of permanence. It was in her house that I'd first read Ted Nelson's 1974 Computer Lib / Dream Machines, while on a school holiday (Nelson 1974). In that book, and later more fully in his 1981 Literary Machines, Nelson lays out what has become a common vision, decades later, of the future Internet/Web (Nelson 1981). In this vision, in a not-so-distant future, we will read and write (view and draw, hear and compose) almost everything from and to a world-spanning computer network. Everyone will have the ability to produce their own documents and connect them to any other public documents. The author may constantly create new versions of her or his own document, and individuals may create their own versions of any public document; public connections made between one version of one document and another version of another will usually automatically place themselves in all the extant versions. Historical backtrack and degradation-proof storage will allow us to visit any version, any moment in the network's history. To have the ultimate archive, and yet have each element of this archive constantly in process. Dynamism without loss. Impermanence enfolded within permanence.
At Nana's house, in the summer of 1993, we were left with her letters, photographs, collections of news clippings. Already, for many pictures, no one knew the people in sepia tones and odd-shaped haircuts. The letters were those that belonged to her, not the ones she wrote. A lousy way to try to know someone, the paper trail, the box of letters and photos. But I was drawn to it, and not alone in that. It seemed she must be in there somewhere, in the possessions, in the records, in the writing.
...
This seems to me very cutting edge mind engagement with cultural trend and technology. Very happy to see/read it, and then to offer to students here.
Oh, very many thanks to Anny Ballardini !--for many insights always, but here especially for offering commentary and links to this very fine project on her excellent blog, *Narcissus Works*.
chris at
1:39 AM
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Thursday, October 07, 2004
--photo via katalog.jpc-verzeich
Announcement: Poetry Reading
from Skanky Possum's Dale Smith and Hoa Nguyen :
Susan Briante and Joe Doerr
7:00 p.m. Friday, Oct 8
12th Street Books
Austin, Texas
* * *
a poem from Susan Briante:
The Groom Stripped Bare*
The hero flies through the air
on a steed; on a raptor; in the form of a falcon; on an '88 Harley-Davidson; on the board
of a flying schooner; on her flying carpet; on the shoulders of a giant; in the wheel
casing of a 747
He travels on the ground or over water
on the back of a horse or wolf; on the over pass; through the underbridge; in a green
Volkswagen taxi with the meter whirling; in a stifling boxcar over the Rio Grande;
a handless soldier carries a legless one
He is led
a coyote ushers the hero through a desert; red cotton thread unwinds like a clock from
his lady's hem
He makes use of stationary means of communication
he climbs a stairway; he finds a subway passage; he walks across the back of an enormous
pike as across a suspension bridge
He follows bloody tracks
to the cougar's lair; to a rusty tin; to the pulpit; to the villain; to one cardinal flame
burning above the charred door of her hermitage
The Groom Stripped Bare, in Shearsman 54
~~~~~~~~~~~~~poem copyright of Susan Briante~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
11:29 AM
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On the New Sentence!
When I met with my class today I passed around the second issue of Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, which I had (so happily!) received yesterday in the mail.
An observant student, David Humes, remarked on the cover artwork, per effect: Oh! Look at the tiny details here: they are words, the things wrapped in the design. (Thank you for noticing, David!) A design of a web. A highly scripted or formalized web. Then full of tiny pencilled words such as "RAGE," "ANGER," & "_ESTRUCTION"--especially interesting, that missing (D): creating an effect in the word, destruction, since actually enacting itself as '_estruction'...
Exactly: words wrapped in design: words in a web. A web(de)sign. What a fantastically good visual pun, then, from Dallas artist, Michael Carris.
The intricate red/gold swirls framed in black cracks and arcs, geometrically somethig of a maze, ofcompartmentalized spacings and surface cracking, to reveal something yet not quite, though nonethe less (a)(mazing). The remarkable cover art Michael Carris is only the beginning of a provocative adventure in textuality. The term *amazing* covers the entire issue. The artwork is called Sweet Violence 9b, and I wish I knew more about it now, but will try to find out and let y'all know.
This second issue of Sentence is larger than the first, this one at some 240+ pages, which is nice to see, since it speaks of abundance, and every bit of it quality, too. There are two special features, one of Susan Briante introducing the prose poem and poetics in Spanish ("Hybrid Cultures..."), including work from Neruda, Odio, Mistral. Also, a feature in the form of a colloquium on the prose poem, with short essays by Barry Silesky, Deanna Kern Ludwin, and John Bradley (love this title: "Shapeshifting: Slipping Into and Out of the Skin of the Prose Poem").
Among the contributors of poetry are Linh Dinh, Sandy McIntosh, Tia Black, Tom Whalen, Christine Boyka Kluge, Anthony Tognazzini, Rachel Loden, Sally Ashton, Gian Lombardo, Michel Delville, Daryl Scroggins, Brooke Horvath.
Sentencealso devotes a large section to reviewing and commentary on poetics. This issue includes work by Dale Smith, kari edwards, Gloria Frym, Rebecca Spears, Brian Clements (editor of the journal), Michel Delville, Gian Lombardo, and yours truly: my review of Eileen Tabios' Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (Marsh Hawk, 2003)-- also currently posted to the Marsh Hawk blogsite(scroll down).--Thanks for the honor of your kind words, Eileen, and Y'all good folks at Marsh Hawk!
(to be continued...)
chris at
1:33 AM
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Slow Steady Rain: Makes me wish:
Makes me wish I still lived in an Airstream at Grand Canyon, South Rim, heca-history-bunches-and-human hugs back, when I found out what it was like to have a tin roof in rain, people were doing lots of things I had no clue about but we all made blue grass music around pinon tree hill whirls and pots of pinto beans and cows. Yeah. Sounds unkickass to folks movin' in urban fastrack, maybe, but hey
all that was after I lived in my father's 250 year old house on the Erie Canal-- hand hewn beams there (I wanted to know: whose hands?), and whose barges docked at the landing and the bridge, who kept it going?
Just a tent. Or: just nuthin' but-yer-own skin,
yeah.
I was learnin' Now, it's no big thing for folks to do such, so yeah, an amazing thing.
Have I mentioned before how much I like these nice slow rains here?--at end of September, into October (check archive last year, k?), even lapping up into November & even, sometimes, Decemeber? Yeah.
Things here once in a while at certain times of year can be very congenial. As now. Gentle little rain thing goin' on.
I just like the Rod McKuen effect in all that. Thanks, Rod!
chris at
1:00 AM
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
YaY!! going out to Halvard Johnson, who forwarded the following poem from the depths of internet flarf ** (see note below). I think it's a very nice poem from the bushbag school of stupitude:
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
--Donald Rumsfeld
Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey, Y'all, check out Hal's website, and his blog:
Halvard Johnson's website
Entropy and Me: Hal's blog!
** An added note: "depths of internet flarf" is my hyperbole. Since I wrote that earlier today, Hal--who is not the originator, nor the original finder of any of the Rumsfeld poems--emailed to offer the following link to the NPR website that thoroughly explains this Rumsfeld-poetry connection, which apparently has evolved into a (much deserved) parodic genre in its own right.
Here's the link which is to an NPR page on which you'll find not only more on the
provenance of that poem, but also a sound file of a musical setting of it (!) and other Rumsfeld works.
NPR story on the Rumsfeld poetry phenomenon
Enjoy!
chris at
9:18 AM
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Stay Tuned...
Eating teensy dark chocolate chips, one at a itty-bitty time. They are very good--some San Fran kind. But hey, the report on Sentence # 2 has been bumped up!--to Wednesday evening--got lots of live life (huh?) going on here right now, folks--but much good stuff to tell ya, too, about this latest, Sentence, the kooliest.
chris at
2:35 AM
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Tuesday, October 05, 2004
 -- Crusty Old Joe's Kodiak Military History Museum, Kodiak, Alaska
Hey, it's voting season, & for me
a crowd of loud brownout
humming in its finer
Or the too-smiley find its own
haired semiosis--sort of a rank
with all those rows-of-beans
questions on standardized tests & self
citations! something about how
we all got cultural
history & gendered sleves as typo
selves, Oh!--with a bubble
over the smiling
womanish
figure's head full
of a stupendous need
to stop posing
so to, yes: let's
vote
Bushbag outta here.
[Brought to you by *Evolving Janis Objects*, c. 2004]
& ZaZen, Y'all...
chris at
10:40 PM
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Received: the new Sentence! --more on that later this evening--but for now, hey it's lookin' great! Includes my review of Eileen's Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole and lots of facinating prose poetry, and mucho *prose poetics*: hang in there, Brian!--the phrase makes exacting sense for its object.
Stay tuned for more later...
chris at
4:19 PM
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the new Bookslut's out
chris at
9:18 AM
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"Silence creates vulnerability. You, members of the Commission on Human Rights, can break the silence. You can acknowledge that we exist, throughout Africa and on every continent, and that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are committed every day. You can help us combat those violations and achieve our full rights and freedoms, in every society, including my beloved Sierra Leone." --Fannyann Eddy, of Sierra Leone, in her address to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, 60th Session, April 2004. Article found via the activism of the incomparable kari edwards, who has dedicated *transdada* to getting the word out--thank you, kari for all you do.
Note to self: Light some candles, send godspeed and prayer for this wonderful, generous soul.
Then try not to break vows of nonviolence to go find these murderous jerks & kick ass, for,
this fine soul, Fannyann Eddy, was found brutally murdered in her home last week.
Bless you, Fannyann.
chris at
1:42 AM
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Monday, October 04, 2004
from Anny Ballardini, a Dante Gabriel Rosetti poem for the little bird who stopped by here last week for a couple days. My thanks going out to Jill Jones, Joe Ahearn, and to Anny for the helpful comments (see below) about the situation.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882) :
SEPTEMBER [from The Works (1911)]
And in September, O what keen delight!
Falcons and astors, merlins, sparrowhawks;
Decoy-birds that shall lure your game in flocks;
And hounds with bells: and gauntlets stout and tight;
Wide pouches; crossbows shooting out of sight;
Arblasts and javelins; balls and ball-cases;
All birds the best to fly at; moulting these,
Those reared by hand; with finches mean and slight;
And for their chase, all birds the best to fly;
And each to each of you be lavish still
In gifts; and robbery find no gainsaying;
And if you meet with travellers going by,
Their purses from your purse's flow shall fill;
And avarice be the only outcast thing.
chris at
9:49 AM
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Welcome to the bloggies, Jim Ryals, of Lawyer-Novelist blog! I applaud what you are doing by focusing on problems in American Special Education. A tough road, legally, educationally.
I have some personal experience that way: Many years ago, when one of my own children needed advocacy, no one was around to help or advise on it. I figured it out the hard way, which is not to say we didn't find what we needed, only that it was a whole lot harder to find workable solutions when running up against a hard-walled administration and inflexible policies, because there was no advocate for the student/student's family. Basically I just made myself a pain in their arse until they got tired of hearing/seeing me coming, so the changes my child needed were accomplished.
Ours was not a radical-needs-situation, either, so that helped us along. It was workable from a shrewd parental perspective. If it had been any more complicated, then a parent could not have done it. Increasingly, these conflicts with systems are more than parents can manage, yet the system does not care or accommodate them (or the students for that is the matter, no?). In many ways, the public education system in the US is worse than the church in middle ages Europe, in how people are made to enter and live through it, with little recourse--and this is not feudal Europe, but a (supposed) democracy! Which means, many people who just do not have the resources cannot deal with the system. So their children have no chance of getting through in a workable, reasonable way. That is unacceptable.
I'm so glad to hear you are out there for folks to ask or to rely on. Please: Keep On.
chris at
1:16 AM
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Sunday, October 03, 2004
--"turbulence" via plus maths .org--
Wave Layering & Mo(o)re (For(e))telling: on turbulence one
I'm having a look at David Nemeth's remarkable 1993 journal, turbulence one. First off, its presentation (design by Peter Ganick and Michael Ayling, of Graphic Reproductions, Inc.) appears not to be trying to shout itself into any one kind of existence or literary-artsy politic-consciousness, through any kind of textual antic or imagistic tease: it's a very modest staple-bound presentation, made from materials and text that are not elaborate or fancy, beginning with the plain card stock cover. This is a simple 4.5 x 8.5 (a regular page that has been halved), light-washed-blue with a band of black lettering running about one fifth the width of page, up the right-hand length, from bottom to top.
As such, even the lettering seems modest in the extreme, or at the least, equalizing, given what was being done on similar journal covers, aesthetically, in that early to mid-nineties period--where, at university, second wave feminism was being problematized for its privileging of mid-class-Victorian-inspired-white women, and Derrida was finally winding down his dramatics, while po-mo Foucault-inspired new-historicism was on the rise, so that Shakespeare could easily be a filmic and post-colonialist rhetorical text. This was before Harold Bloom made things like the hegemony of English in literary imperialism both more openly ridiculous and more insideous than ever. A little bit like the current trend called neo-con, eh?
This was of time when not since World War II had there been a panic-run on gas masks but the urge to go to Walmart and buy such was strong--whereas now, this is almost a normal behavior, so has become so familiar a marketing strategy that it is seldom questioned, now. This was the ass-end of the first Geo.Bushbag's reign with his fashioning of new wars, new other-worldliness killing. It was just before the advent of canon resistance and multi-culti-self-fashioning, creating a punkish moment where it was tempting for small press journals to give in to urges toward flamboyant break-out statements, at least in the cover graphics/lettering: here I'm comparing with the 1992 cover of the University of Rochester's literary mag, Logos, which we (I was on the editorial committee for that one) had decorated with all kinds of intriguing and intentionally busy clashes of antithetically semiotic images and lettering, from blackflies to Jesus to toaster plug-wires set against black and blue. We did have fun over all that, I recall.
turbulence one, however, doesn't even allow itself caps in the lettering, and then, has barely a space between its two words. So, minimalist in a time of antic excess. Impressively, independent-minded-stylish, in its equalizing modesty (given the moment's intellectual context), or perhaps just plain humble, an effect that is appealing since open, not full of drama-posturing. Basically, then, all this here to say that the emphasis appears to be on the poetry, as it should be.
The contents, 29 unnumberd pages of poetry plus a 2 sided title page and one sided final, blank page, are most impressive. Work from Sheila E. Murphy, Peter Ganick, Dennis Barone, Charles Bernstein, Mark Wallace, Susan Smith Nash, Antonio Calvocressi (translated by Charles Bernstein), John M. Bennett, Judita Vaiciunaite, Deborah Meadows, Robert Brown, luigi, bob lennon, Joe Banford. And one interesting thing here, too, is that where poets have more than one piece published in the issue, they are not all lumped together in consecutive paging. For instance, Sheila E. Murphy's, Deborah Meadows', and Charles Bernstein's poems are scattershot through the issue. I like how that was done. It breaks up a certain readerly expectancy of solid consistency, of seamless authority.
On the other hand, Susan Nash Smith's two poems from a series on Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, "Upon Oz Dorothy Dream Child Narrative Visual," appear in dead center, like two handprints side-by-side on a room of white-wall--gently but none the less riveting. For me this recalls the rhetorical effect of similar structural infolding, a strategy famously of Luce Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman, her talk-back-book to Jaques Lacan's ignorance in interpreting Freud and in turn, Freud's on Plato, regarding the subject of that which is feminine: the book is structured from the center outward rather than in the typical linear, Aristotelian structuration proceeding from beginning at page one to middle to end. Nice work on this subtle yet radicalizing editorial arrangement, David.
As for the poetry: well, you'll have to contact David to see if he still has some of these issues available. For now, for purposes of this review, let me offer a sample from some that I found wonderfully provocative poems. Here is the journal's opening poem, two stanzas of Antonio Calvocressi (1538-1574), from Canti Antiche, as translated by Charles Bernstein:
O! Heart of mine
Is cleaved by your betrayal!
The pigeon engorges its wings
To our exhausted sentiment!
My head is broken on the cement!
O! Heart of mine
In yearning my visage fractures!
We leapt together like matching porcelain doves
Before the curtain ripped
To its predestined hemorrahage!
(I've added the italics to indicate that the poem is quoted out of turbulence one). I love these lines!--taken as a whole, they seem poised on the brink of right now--or, they take the moment of Italian Renaissance and render it prismatic: completely unlike itself, and more baroque than baroque. These stanzas are full of estranged twenty-first century emphatic vocals & fracturing of image with sound (all those exclamation marks, yes!). I will definitely be looking into the work of this poet & in particular, this translation, to see how the rest of the poem plays out.
And, another piece that particularly caught my attention today as I read, this from Sheila E. Murphy, a lang-po wonderment:
What burns east decides a yellow sky or pages
Safely clipped and mute like progeny like buff toned
Photographs respond in matte to blemishes we cover
Kin to yodeling or lung fed kinds of hurt
The urges snuffed like candles charm within
Where we are chiseling no plan at all
A wall instead of weather and a glyph to mark
The book of heaven, anybody's breast stroke
Through the cold brown seams of river see
Through envy and in moderation, tandem
Or appeasement of the luster near remembered flame
Some form of absolution dusts off
Chimes left molten in a closed space
Robbed of light and wind by walls erected
To prepare the heart for how it is out there
In random access war zones hasty with false white veined speech
Now, let me reveal something: I don't do much with media culture, ie., TV and movie-going, so I had not yet seen *Farenheit 911*. Until last night (daughter Holly works in a video rental place and was able to get a preview release--it's not due out for public rental-release until next week). As everyone says, the film is devastatingly well done. I hope it causes a lot of people to wake up and boot the Bushbags out of office. But I have to say, on reading this poem today, certain flashes of the poem's insight, brought about by the image-fracturing poetics at work in the poem, seem to me similarly reflected, via thematics, in Moore's film. Both call on the "heart" (those of you who know my poetry know that the heart is a trope I return to often) to be prepared for "how it is out there/ in random access war zones hasty with false... ". That might be enough right there to confirm a correlation between the film and this poem, for me--the poem could easily be an affective collage-summary of what Moore's protagonist, a mother whose son was killed in the first days of war in Iraq, has to say, framed in the Moore-filmic *flash and burn* mode. But of course there is much more in the poem and it takes a progression to get to our current here-and-now, one that leads into these last lines/images.
Even so, I am drawn nonetheless to its larger critique regarding the rhetorical and the political, the literal "white ... speech" of a White House, or a predominantly anglo or WASPish center dictating this devastating and absurd binary split: an accounting of who goes to war (via the documentation in the film, mostly ghetto kids, mostly African American and poor, who are actively recruited by the armed forces--sound familiar?--it does to me!)? And who does not: via Moore's film, we learn that the priviled anglos, our Senators, have children who do not go to war: one such eminence literally running away from the questions, the sheen of his finely made suit coat swinging in the gray light of day.
And, again in a foretelling moment that ends the poem, we hear/see that this is not just "white" "speech," a rhetorical/political phenomenon, but one sustained through an obvious kind of webbing: veins. This is all at once body, thing, and think, then, a phenomenon made akin to veined marble, something monumental, that is to say--of the kind of historical moment which a Walter Benjamin spends an entire life writing, thinking, actively resisting, via historical materialism. "White veined speech." Speaking statues. Here is a brilliant economy. A compressed critique embedded within this poem's poetry, its poetics. Is this how poetry lives and relives?--within and echoing, resonating, with metonymies of moments? Well, I happen to think, and to hope, so.
Affectively, I had to tell myself to stop shivering after reading this, apparently so telling poem. Or is it just my little readerly, subjective self adding all this into the object, the language of the poem? Probably, that, too, which is fine, since it seems to get the political word out in multiple layers, waves, know what I mean?
So, do have a relook into turbulence one if you are fortunate enough to have a copy handy. And if not, do look forward to David's new publishing enterprise, which, judging from the acumen of this 1993 pub, promises to be unique and significant.
--cm--
~~~~~~~poems copyright of the poets/translators~~~~~~~~~~ o~o/
chris at
1:49 PM
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And now a weird from our sponsor:
Me & My (own) Mom--who, given her readings in philosophy (existentialism, Sartre, the history of rhetoric, de Beauvoir, the religious leaders she followed (I won't name them since to do so would target a certain church which would right now be unfair to that church), and second wave feminism (yeah!--or at least it was *progressive* for that time, and sorry, but of course turns out to be completely useless now), when I was a mere whippersnooper, would love this
or would definitely slap me upside the head for it:
Momoriam: A Mom's Birthday Tautology of Sartres
Today is my Mom's birthday.
Happy Birthday Mom.
I do wish all the time away
& you were just
here. I miss you. I've been
wishing you were here now
for a while.
Only a while--
I should say
aloud that I wish
you were here
to miss me or hear me
say I'm sorry
you're dead
aloud. I'm sorry
this is unadorned,
Mom--I should bring fresh
garlands and money and love
to
you
because you were my mom.
I really feel that.
I hope you understand
anything
(ampersand)
irreverence--
my I is always
irrelevant, thank you
I hope
you do
not
think
I am
ungrateful.
Truly, Mom
I am not.
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