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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, November 13, 2004
I'm just being so convenience store, so supermarket, so conglomerate nursery!--eh? I couldn't resist how lovely this gif is. So, here it is. Silly old image that it is, the rose.
chris at
11:23 PM
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Hurry on over and you can read it: Chris Vitiello posted my Big Red Rectangles poem on The Delay--Hey, Thanks, Chris!
chris at
7:00 PM
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A Saturday Poem Series: # 52
Prosey Red Dawn
who thought up red, epic & need-for? the phone, shining three dots in plastic numerals, a coil together in one red form, the unasked-for appointment. we talked about it, sure. notices fell into a pile, here a death beneficiary, there a vehicle recall, the postcard from the colorist. reddish tint & insurance & voices of sliding scale carrying. traveling less—hair dryer whine in noonlight & we the first cumulus cloud. the event will be sponsored by rising cost. completely freaked out by death or theorists in thick frames. audience on a pin. thousand angels on about dancing. and the eyes of inquiry over everyday organics, tomato and olive oil, even salt, pepper, vinegar in long drops from the stopper. opening of a mouth (who would suffuse this with sexual referentiality and how, why?). anyway. how are you? a red horse. what it means to be the one who would say “owned”? roan. owl faced. hand hewn corral nose itch. skittish. shoenails bent into & forelock. saddlesoap. exemplary blanket weave of more than red, blue, brown, yellow: an over-under-garment, so to speak. violin bowing imagined out of long expressive. tails. shhhhh, it’s okay girl, okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright chris murray~~~~~~~ o~o/
chris at
2:19 PM
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Friday, November 12, 2004
from Wanda Phipps' Wake - Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems (Soft Skull, 2004) :
Morning Poem # 32
lights out--bruise
on my thigh--balancing
heavy weights--a
weighty move from sector
to sector--from Orion
to superstores--from
Habib's to the Big Cup
from solitary to dual plan
tomorrow: aching back
& more objects to make orderly
(42)
*
Morning Poem #17
phone rings
wake up
"were you sleeping"
"no"
lie
"yes"
truth
"I see Sigourney Weaver
on the cover not you
--I'll look again"
"yeah, look again"
(22)
*
Morning Poem #16
eyes' language
as crazed god
not the art
but the nouveau
happy park
awful foreign
reason tired
tour unlearned
(21)
~~~~~~~~~poems copyright of Wanda Phipps (who rocks!)~~~~ o~o/
:)--cm--
chris at
10:03 PM
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--Kasimir Malevich (Russian, 1878-1935), "Eight Red Rectangles" (1915), via Geometry .net
YaY!! Big Red Rectangle Poems!
Catching up on some blog reading, and I found this coolest of calls for poems, from Chris Vitiello, at The Delay blog: as consolation and blowing off steam, write "as many Big Red Rectangle poems as you want," and send them to Chris, who will post them, or if you like, send a link. Anyway: write! I did, but of course mine turned out long (I have that tendency in poems)--I was trying to see what would happen if I put it all into one sentence. But hey: do this thing!
--cm-- o~o/
chris at
4:47 PM
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 A friend sent me this today. Yum! 
chris at
2:10 PM
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Announcing, from The Writer's Garret:
Dallas Poetry Reading Tonight!
** Joe Ahearn, Cyrus Cassells, and Kay Barnes**
Friday, November 12th, 7:30 p.m.
Paperbacks Plus in Dallas
Word of Mouth Reading & Publishing Party: Join Texas poets Cyrus Cassells, Joe Ahearn, and Kay Barnes, in partnership with new arts magazine Milk Vitamin D, as they read from their upcoming books. Event is free, and will be held upstairs at Paperbacks Plus, 6115 La Vista.
chris at
1:06 PM
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Good News: rockin'-ay---Some extra fine po-blog-folk are winning the top prizes:
Congrat-U-ululations, Shanna! So good to hear this, especially right now, when we could all use more good news...
& Hey, Y'all, here's a link to the short piece I wrote here on texfiles last summer about Shanna's fine books, Big Confetti and Down Spooky.
chris at
1:32 AM
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Thursday, November 11, 2004
Rest In Peace, Iris Chang (1968-2004)
--ah, so bright with energy, champion
of those otherwise lost without a word...
This is terribly hard to wrap a heart's-mind around but here's what I've cobbled together from a post to my department's listserv at UTA and some news I read earlier today:
Iris Chang, author of historical non-fiction whose works include _Rape of Nanking_, _The Chinese in America_, and _Thread of the Silkworm_ was found dead yesterday.
The writer was discovered in her car just off highway 17 near Los Gatos, California, and had a gunshot wound to her head. Authorities believe the injury was self-inflicted. Chang had recently been treated in hospital after suffering from depression.
Chang is best known for her study, _Rape of Nanking_ (1997), an international bestseller--a tremendous work studying wartime brutality--which describes the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during their occupation of the former Chinese capital in the 1930s. Iris Chang's subsequent work tracks, analyzes and comments on the history of Chinese immigrants in the US.
For additional information, try these sources/resources:
from Chang's website
and from the BBC, the report of her demise: "Best-selling US author Iris Chang has been found dead [of gunshot wound to the head] at the age of 36".
--I dunno: for one thing, I'd feel better if I didn't have to go over to BBC first, to hear about this most prominent investigative author's odd death. And for another thing, I wish I knew more certainly what goes with this supposed "authorities believe" kind of cause, give its an investigative writer's death. Ya kno?--I mean, yes, people *recently hospitalized for depression* sometimes can't get out of the horrendous slump of such, but I submit, humbly, that these are very odd circumstances, given Chang's dogged studies of what today would have to be public corruption fed by the worst brand of misogyny in history, committed on the widest scales, thus: ack!-- I want to hear more about this death, if our corporate-determined news in the US will attend to this so to let us know... --cm
~~~~~awwww, so gawd-awful-sad: hey, peace-out, Y'all & Iris: Keep On!~~~~ o~o/
chris at
11:13 PM
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Dare to be *Real* Smart:
Looking for more than the usual blahblah-woe-is-hype about Alberto Gonzales, Bushbag's nominee for Attorney General?--as in, What, exactly, has this guy, Gonzales, said and done on issues of import to everyday folks?--or how about the questions and issues surrounding the unchecked torture of political prisoners by the U.S., as read through the terms of the Geneva Convention?
Dare to be smart *and* real, *real clear* : Check out Tim Morris' Optative Mood--have a good think on what Tim's put together in response to the urge to rampant Bushbag-style ignorance.
chris at
10:50 PM
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 Sidewalk Art, NYC: "Just One of the Guyrls" (title by chris murray for use on texfiles blog)
chris at
9:43 PM
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YaY!! kooooool po-stuff being said over at Steve Tills' Black Spring bloooogg, one of my favorite blog-reads. Check out the Steve-Tills-morphed-to-Adrienne-Rich post, the result of taking a poetry quiz and finding himself reborn as Adrienne (ummm, how did that happen?--Steve: your poetry is way too much fun to be likened to hers! Anyway, she can't even play golf! :)
On Steve's observation that Rich's poetry is depressing, I couldn't agree more, she did have some bad news to deliver, it's true. But one big complaint I have always had about the poetry (though of course I have a lot of respect for her as activists-poet) is that it is so relentless in its lack of a sense of humor, or even of hints of irony. I mean, can't people read dire messages just as well via the ironic-humoresque as they can with relentless litanies of evil-doing?
Steve mentions life not being a bowl of cherries: alas, so true!--Rich's poetry certainly bears witness to that. But, speaking of that aphorism, I feel compelled to reveal this: decorating my office door at UTA Writing Center is a little plaque from a Mary Englebritt (yeah, kitschy, I know...) piece that simply says it this way: Life is just a chair of bowlies Yikes: sorry, Adrienne!
Steve, I just had to add that to the mix...
chris at
5:57 PM
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-- Acorn Records label, via Nugrape .net
About my Acorn poem posted below (hey isn't this image of a record label just grand?--I love it!):
harry k stammer wrote an especially appreciative comment-response (thanks, harry!), and a few other folk have also let me know how much they liked the poem, Steve Vincent, for one (Hi Steve!--many thanks for your kind words in email about my poem), and I'm grateful to others, as well, for taking the time to read and to let me know the poem is well liked. I hadn't been writing much poetry, for several months now, so it's good to hear that, when poetry decided to land on my page again recently, what developed is so well read and appreciated.
So, after reading what harry wrote about his liking of streets generally, I wanted to say a little more about the particular street in the poem. I walk for an hour everyday (beyond the usual going to work & etc), and part of my walk takes me down this street and back again on return. So, it's very much a real and a lively street I know well, and is near where I now live (though I also lived in one section of this street for a number of years when I first came to Texas in 1996). I guess a lot of people would consider it a ghetto-ish street--mostly poor folk on welfare live there. But that information seems misleading and overladen especially when the rest of the picture is revealed. Acorns and poor folk are not the only abundance on this street: rich pecans are also ripening and falling these last few weeks, plopping on rooftops or ground, where at dusk the residents can be seen gathering pecans off sidewalks and the scrawny bit of green belt between buildings and street. Upon which observation, I imagine the luscious.
The street is lovely-lined with cottonwood, pecan, live oak and plentiful tall traditional oaks, so there are abundant acorns this time of year. It stretches into a graceful curve but with entire blocks-full of brick apartment buildings that seem to me when walking, to lean into either side of the street, creating something of a canyon effect. And the sidewalk on the side of street I stroll actually does lean, it slopes, as my poem attempts to show. The acorns really do flood the sloping sidewalk, especially after rain, when they have a sodden feel underfoot, and not much of a sharp crack. Yet amazingly, the acorns only seem soggy for a day before they go right back to being their talkative-kind-of-crackily-selves, so that when stepping on them ones feet roll over or crunch across their surface, creating a whole new sidewalk, basically, and then this loud sound that echoes off all the walls, while also being buffered by the overhanging branches of the all the trees, which still have leaves on here. It's a very unique kind of music. Then, all together this creates a sort of choral tunnel of natural sounds (add to that on daytime walks the sounds of birds and squirrels), right in the middle of the poorest part of this mostly suburbanite city. Anyway, as you can tell, I am ever-fascinated by sound, often moreso than by visual imagery--sound really does hold primacy for me.
There are existential reasons for my fascination with sound: one, my father was a jazz musician--so, music, rhythm, and long-drawn meanderings of melody (really the dialogues of melodious intertwinings) were omnipresent in my formative years, thus, I love sound that speaks, as it were, or maybe I just conceptualize it that way always. The other reason I am particularly focused on sound now is that I am losing my hearing on one side, and that is very frustrating for someone who loves music and the textures of sound. I mean, there are hearing aids, sure, but the quality of things like birdsong or acorn crunch, or pecans falling on brick, I think hearing aids are not so well tuned for, but I may find out differently, who knows? Anyway, increasingly, I will not be able to experience sound the way I like, so now I intentionally focus on it more than ever, preserving it, committing as much to memory as I can. That way I can call it up anytime, out of a poem or out of a thick description like this.
In all, though, the paradox that really gets to me regarding acorn sounds here, is this: I'm just simply amazed at what large volume tiny things like acorns or birds can contain and then burst loose, eh? The people always amaze me, too, keeping this street active, welcoming (though always wary), and sometimes liking to chat. This street?--well, I guess all this is what makes it definitely a writer's kind of street. Thanks, Y'all, for reading.
:)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of chris murray~~~~~~~~~~ o~o/~~
chris at
1:33 PM
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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
chris murray:
Night Walk
must be a flood of hundreds here (in no way Biblical: vulgar, that would be husbands of thousands) so to put out the urge to intertext of a mind I
tell myself along sidewalk : s l o p e on the pull of seasons of this Texas oily street runoff red sand of almost
well, Emily comes to mind but to the physical world a skid across the roll of ripe acorns -- things shiny as animal eyes though hard & loud, congenial as ancients, beetles (hey,
they mutter: wanna little antenna? sure, I say: you can’t be spam must be in with the stars so generous you are!)
each given its hat of tree threads woven tighter than door mats to perfect melded caps, oh: machine beings would love to ego such replicants
who, alas, have fallen off, turning to dust my night eyes say-- unadorned the acorns send up mere shells with resounding crrrrraaaaccckkksss
~~ o~o/ copyright chris murray ~~
chris at
10:34 PM
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 Sidewalk Art
chris at
12:03 PM
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On the image posted above: a new art thing goin' on in cities: Sidewalk Art: paintings or chalk drawings depicting mirage-like scenes using the sidewalk as platform and that seem super real-- I'm wondering, then: 'surreal of the everyday'?-- amidst the everyday passings and passersby. I'll post some more tomorrow--they are very compelling.
Dottir Holly (i love that Icelandic term!) keeps finding koool stuff online. Today she sent me this image with a few others--& mind you, she's not emailing to me from halfway across the city, but from her room, ten paces away, though we hardly speak about these things, which have become online only matters... : )
chris at
11:42 AM
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from Kim Dorman's kerala
Last time I was in Austin, reading for Skanky Possum (Sept.21, with Dale Smith), I got to talking afterward with a lovely person who attended the reading (this was at 12th Street Books--Hi, Luke!). He is Kim Dorman (Hi Kim!) a poet who had lived for some years in India. Kim has a fine way with the poetics of haiku and traditional western lyric. He sent me his beautiful folder/broadsheet of poems just out from Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers of Green River, Vermont, kerala (2004), so I'd like to share a few with Y'all, here, even if this venue is far less tangible than the thick and finely textured vanilla cardstock of the folder Longhouse printed the poems on, and even if I can't reproduce the lining out on the page that also speaks in and to the poetic effect. Nonetheless, just so Y'all can have some sense of the calm yet vivid pieces of life elucidated so well by Kim, here are a few of his haiku-like lyrics :
hot afternoon
coconuts rattle
in the oxcart
humid night
the tobacco stall's
hissing lamp
cool morning
a folded hibiscus
drips rain
moonless night--
a single lamp
deep in the temple
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~poetry copyright of Kim Dorman~~~~~~~ o~o/
ZaZen, Y'all!
chris at
9:58 AM
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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Patrick Herron tonight emailed this link leading to news coverage by Keith Olberman, an MSNBC columnist, in his continuing investigation of the voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida (see post below of Patrick's reasoned call for investigation on this--also, see my posts just before voting day: should anyone be surprised that Florida--governor of which is Bushbag's brother--does not seem in the last 4 years to have adjusted anything in procedure, nor to care at all about accountability on voting matters?)
Perfectly dramatic:
Hamlet,
Oh, Hamlet, do forget
the castle
& ghost
man
kind: something
did not drown there
or differs to a rotten
again
in Florida,
eh, Hamlet--ballots...
But hey, in case you were wondering
what this has to do with poetry--
oh, nothing.
And everything:
How 'bout all that Bob Dylan stuff way back when it was okay to have poetry, politics and music happen all at the same time? Look into that--think on it.
Then, Okay, so think about this world Bushbags are marketing (they are not describing the world as we live it--rather they are describing an imaginary world they would like us all to live in--basically, their fantasy, for everyone, every chance availed. Karl Rove grins & gets: something tells me in its ideal conceptualization, it might have affinity with our favorite Hallmark verses, but worse: we all know, as dottir Holly kindly sent me a reminder of today, that such generic and abstract sentimentality is not exactly what we mean when we say *freedom* and *speech,* together in the same sequence of lived breath, yes?
Ah, hey: if you want to keep on selling out your freedom now and ultimately, the freedom you might still have the earned privilege to later, then just keep sleeping through this stuffed animal, wind-up ignorance that is today the Bushbag stuffing.
So, I hope those smug sounding Texas and Other Republicans will: hey, y'all, wouldja just tighten yr oily belts on this one:Bob Harris Feels Like Screaming, which only begins to describe how real folks are feeling right now?
Of course, if you don't get what I'm saying right now and you also happen to be feelin' all comfy and shit: well, hey, WAKE the F-UP, right? People like you and me, or no, let's get very real: people mostly between the ages of 18 and 25 are dying in droves on both ends of this Bushbag bullshit. But Hey!--Be Patriotic!--ain't it grand?
o~o/
chris at
11:07 PM
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Malcolm Davidson's Zotz blog has a great response-piece up about Kenward Elmslie's BAP 2004 poem. As in, *so much depends on a ...*
damned good ear! Thanks Malcolm, I enjoyed reading this.
And: hey, have I said how much I like this new blog, Zotz (well, it's somewhat new to me because I'm way far behind in blog reading: very overwhelmed with other writing and work right now)? Forgive my ignorance, but I have to ask: rhymes with Rocks, (as in rockin'!) right?--or it should, but i dunno about its sound... so i guess i'll get busy with the Babel Translator and find out...
*I linked twice not because I'm feeling exceptionally repetitive or dumb just now, but because the first link will only archive that particular Zotz post for future reference should anyone come looking for it here--so, it is limited only to that post. The second link is, then, just so folks can mosey on over to the whole Zotz scene in its up-to-the-minute state, any time they click on that link. : )
cm's o~o/
chris at
10:23 PM
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on E(c)lection: Tim Morris' Optative Mood (and Lection, Baseball, Emily D ...)
... Reading strategies exist that can convert any amount of discrepant data into a coherent portrait of the artist; obviously, the more discrepant the data becomes (as Dickinson's work steadily became between 1890 and 1945), the more resistant interpretive communities become to such totalizing strategies of reading. ...
--Tim Morris, "Dickinson: Reading the 'Supposed Person'," Becoming Canonical in American Poetry (U of Illinois, 1995) p. 60
It's not about poetry but it is by poetry scholar, Tim Morris: Check out Tim's new site of cultural review focused to U.S. politics and the everday, aiming to investigate the phenomenon and effects of willful ignorance, such as that made fashionable by (the lame-duck, the flocking) Bushbags. Tim's new site is Optative Mood--a rhetorical space giving some much needed insight and clarity to today's political maneuverings.
Do check out Tim's other site, too: Lection, where he reviews contemporary novels of many kinds--not limited to, but with a special emphasis on (really a love for baseball and) baseball novels. The link here is to one of my favorites because it shows Tim's unassuming insightfulness coupled with a clarity in writing that is difficult for most of us to achieve. To my thinking, Tim's perspectives demonstrate and extend what Toni Morrison in her Nobel lectures, _Playing in the Dark_ calls a readerly-writer/writerly-reader (and in her turn, she was also extending: the post-structuralist thought of Roland Barthes, S/Z). That is, Tim reads (I mean that verb in its wider sense, that of interpretive writing) ever with a generous thought intent on opening new perspectives, new ways to look at traditional problems, and discovering what had been overlooked or is just plain newly forming. Generous spirited, that is, with a new book or the history of reading and books in mind, yet also, ever sharp and discerning, always attuned to the rhetorical dynamics of reading as not only a personal matter but a cultural interaction.
Tim's writing and the critical perspectives he forms and asserts are some of the most keen and precise, learned yet unassuming, and highly inquisitive yet not overburdened with archaic value judgements (and often so witty!) that I've ever read--check out his essays in American Scholar. My first readings of Tim's work?--some of his writing on the history of American poetry, its reception and the tendentious politics of privilege at work in the phenomenon of canonization, especially in the American literary history of reception that created the figures of Whitman and Dickinson. Tim's one of the sharpest and most devoted scholars of Emily Dickinson reading/writing today.*
I'm saying too much here of course, so rather than carrying on reading me writing about it, do go have your own read at Optative Mood. I'll just add that in my humble opinion, in all his wonderfully eclectic rhetorical guises, Tim Morris gives readers some of the best readerly-writing I know and enjoy, so I highly recommend his new venture into blogging about culture and politics. Keep on, Tim!
* Check out these titles in cultural studies, reader reception, poetry, sports, and childrens's literature/film, by Tim Morris:
Becoming Canonical in American Poetry: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop (University of Illinois)
Making the Team: the Cultural Work of Baseball (University of Illinois)
You're Only Young Twice: Children's Literature and Film (University of Illinois Press)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~chris murray~~~~~~~~~~~~ o~o/ ~~~~~~
chris at
11:16 AM
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Monday, November 08, 2004
dang, straight up, Reyes, you are cranking out the poems!
Hey, Y'all, check out this work, especially the Mr. Bones poems, eh?
: )
chris at
11:50 PM
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About House Organ, Fall 2004, Issue 48...
On this print indie, edited and published by Kenneth Warren, I have a few words and then one poem (posted below) out of so many that sparked up from the page while I thoroughly enjoyed myself reading this issue jam-packed with differing voices--truly an orchestration worthy of the instrument, organ, yes--which is clearly the result of editorial love. And no less, a love of poetry: it's a handy-sized treasure (4.5 x 11--full pages halved and stapled, simplest, most efficient way to mail and get the word/work out to folks) let me say, with few frills (a trademark black/white image on the cover, but I've spilled a little green tea on it and so cannot make out what it depicts), but the economy of it is sheer genius: 37 cents of postage begets a lasting lot of mind dialogue. But if you really want to know what I'm sayin', then do not hesitate to send a note of inquiry to Kenneth Warren @ House Organ, 1250 Belle Avenue, Lakewood, OH 44107, and get yourself on the mailing list for House Organ.
This issue, Number 48 Fall 2004, has a fascinating mix of poems and essays, including a sharp and smartly put-together essay from Dale Smith, Line and Rhythm, (and while visiting this link, do check out the poems and commentary Dale's posted from Tom Clark), that takes off from some points made by Ron Silliman a few months ago on that topic. Drawing on Mary Austin's studies, observations, and lived experiences with rhythm in differing cultural/ethnic environments, Dale makes a case for how "rhythms are passed on by our adaptation and close listening within the divers[e]* landscapes of our experience." Rhythm, therefore, as formational to poetic psyche, and as Dale notes, poetic "ear,"--that mysterious passageway to music and ekstasis that has yet to be defined, mostly because it defies separations, divisions, absolution through categorization--that main mode of definition (so a thing or an idea can be said to be named, stablized, reliable, usable & etc) in western culture: also known well in other discourse circles as the proscript to *divide and conquer*. Thank goodness all desirable things may not need to be divided and conquered to be nameable, usable, and reliable, then, eh?
And here is one of the poems--this one by Stephen Lewandowski--that in reading House Organ I have discovered some great fondness for:
C'mon [a poem written by Stephen Lewandowski]
Here, taste this. You're telling
me this raspberry I just picked
isn't sacred but
the strawberries
we picked last month
are? Take another.
Yes, I know the stories
about where
strawberries grow.
I remember how welcome
those first fruit were
when we searched them out
in the grass, how they glowed,
and the sweetness welled
up in our mouths like
clear spring water.
But in July's heat
here in the shade
consider the alloyed
black raspberry tang and
tell me it isn't sacred,
c'mon.
* The text of House Organ has the term, "divers," which is that lovely sounding term used until the 19th century by writers from Chaucer & Shakespeare to DeFoe & Dickens, so to indicate what today we mean when we say "diverse"--as in diversity. "Divers" certainly works here, but for my purposes and to distinguish it from its homonym--that noun referring to the being who puts on a water-tight mask or not, diving into the sea to see what can be seen in a scene... I have added the bracketed e.
~~~~~~~~~~~~poem copyright of Stephen Lewandowski~~~~~ o~o/ ~~~
chris at
9:08 PM
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Check out the new student work up at E-Po--Kittens! Lost in translation by Sarita in translation! Lost kittens, by translation, Sarita!
chris at
2:42 PM
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Received for review in Bill Allegrezza's journal, Moria, :
Todd Colby: Tremble & Shine (Soft Skull, 2004)
Maria Damon and mIEKAL aND: E.n.t.r.a.n.c.e.d (Xexoxial, 2004)
Ilya Kaminsky: dancing in odessa (Tupelo, 2004)
Wanda Phipps: Wake up Calls (Soft Skull, 2004)
William Waltz: Zoo Music (Slope, 2004)
chris at
11:40 AM
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on the weekend's Poetry_Heat:
Three days full of energy, the sharing of poetry--and I mean this heartily, happily--a time I will recall for the rest of my life.
An amazing roundtable on independent publishing and then the reading here at UTA: I am so grateful to the fine poets, Randy Prus, Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen, and Mark Weiss, for sharing expertise on publishing, but moreso for giving, in every way, an absolutely stirring reading of their poetry. Many Thanks to Y'all!
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