upcoming performances

friday december 12 in toledo, ohio


saturday december 13 in buffalo, ny

---------------
UPDATE: more notices of the buffalo performance coming in...

from the soundlab myspace page

from buffalo's weekly artvoice a nice little writeup (scroll down)

Language Foundry / Suite 440

Saturday (Dec. 13) Big Orbit’s Soundlab unites two multi-media collectives: Cleveland, Ohio’s Language Foundry (“A Forward Movement of Non-Idiomatic Expressions”) and Buffalo’s Suite 440 (“Sonic, Visual, and Written Craftsmanship”) will present (In)proper Words With(in)proper Borders: An Evening of Non-idiomatic Sound and Language. The performance features poets J.S. Makkos and Tom Orange, with guest musicians from the Language Foundry, and the Reactionary Ensemble (from Buffalo), featuring KG Price and Brian Milbrand. This will be an event that brings together experimental poets, musicians, and artists from both cities to highlight the community goal to find new and forward-thinking forms of expression and creativity. Visit www.languagefoundry.org or www.suite440.net to get a better idea (or any idea at all) of what we’re talking about. There will be small press books and CD-Rs for sale to help promote and develop the relationship and hopefully bring about future events between the two cities.

9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (www.bigorbitgallery.org/soundlab)

collected poems of barbara guest

after a long wait, it's finally here. i picked up my copy of the collected poems of barbara guest this past weekend from rod smith at bridge street books.

and it's indeed a lovely book from cover to cover and all 525 pages in between. the dust jacket image is a 1951 collage by guest herself entitled "wheel." the text is edited by guest's daughter hadley, and contains all the poems previously published in guest's trade and limited edition artist books, along with a handful of poems composed after her final volume (the red gaze, published in 2005 when guest was 85 years old). no other uncollected or previously unpublished material is included. the volume also contains an intro by peter gizzi, a timeline of guest's life, a bibliography of her works, and an index of titles and first lines.

guest was born barbara ann pinson in 1920 in wilmington, north carolina. she spent much of her childhood traveling and being shuttled between various relatives as her father looked for work as a probation officer. education was prized: she could read by age 3 and largely grew up in los angeles so she could attend better schools. she took a year off from undergrad at ucla -- where she met her first husband, painter and sculptor john dudley -- to go to a junior college where she thought the teachers knew more about modern poetry. she eventually graduated from uc berkeley and worked in los angeles as a social worker, helping air force pilots recover from WWII bombing missions.

she and dudley moved to greenwich village in the late 1940s, which provided her entry into the world of visual artists and the company of poets who would eventually be known as the new york school poets: john ashbery, edwin denby, kenward elmslie, kenneth koch, frank o'hara and james schuyler. from there on out, her chronology is largely a list of book publications and literary awards: she truly led a life in literature.

the world of literature, however, was often slow and on occasion downright failed to recognize her. she was one of only four women among the 44 poets donald allen included in his watershed anthology the new american poetry: 1945-1960 and was omitted altogether from the anthology of new york poets edited in 1970 by ron padgett and david shapiro.

the 1980s were seemingly a fallow period for guest's poetry (discounting herself defined, the biography of the poet h.d. she published in 1984), until fair realism appeared in 1989, showing her at the peak of her powers and beginning -- again, at nearly 70 years of age -- a remarkable period of productivity that saw her double the number of book titles published previously in her life.

i won't offer anything like a critical assessment here, as i plan instead to sit down for a long slow read of these poems. instead i'll offer just a few initial impressions that strike me.

• there are two of guest's books here that i've never owned and possibly never even seen, so i'm psyched now finally to read them: the location of things / archaics / the open skies (1962) and moscow mansions (1973)
  
  
• the timeline lists the following plays written by guest: the ladies choice [sic?], 1953; the office: a one act play in three scenes, 1963; port: a murder in one act, 1965; the diving board, 1966; chinese ghost restaurant, 1967; the swimming pool, 1975; three of these were published in the recent special issue of the chicago review, and kevin killian staged a number of them at small press traffic in san francisco in 2000; i wonder if/when we will ever get to read or see the rest?
  
  
• the timeline also makes frequent references to guest's own works of visual art: is there enough of these to mount an exhibit?
  
  
• most of the poems here that are surprises because i've never heard of before are from artist book collaborations, for example i ching: poems and lithographs with sheila isham (1969): these are wonderful little permutation poems that border on sound and visual poems when reprinted here. (one wonders what they looked like in the original!) likewise biography (1980), which was apparently a chapbook by burning deck and contains nine short lyrics. somehow also stripped tales (1995), a kelsey street book with anne dunn, escaped my notice, and these are substantive prose and prose-like pieces
  
  
• i wonder too if there will be any attempt to do a biography, edit some letters and the previously uncollected and/or unpublished poems. i've heard that there are quite a bit of the latter, cathy wagner's selection for the above-mentioned chicago review being just a drop in the bucket. the barbara guest papers reside at yale's beinecke library: read an overview of the holdings (36 boxes apparently, at least in the initial accession), detailed acquisition lists here and here (which put the most recent count at 42 boxes). let's get to work, scholars!

geraldine monk

reading from "mary through the looking glass" at the district of columbia arts center, washington dc, 16 november 2008



regrettably i stopped shooting before she completed her lovely gloss on the noun "tuckle." other images from my recent travels here.

view the full set of photos from my recent excursions in ohio and DC here.

issue 1 anthology (part one)

over the past week, an intriguing experiment has taken place in the poetry community. a week ago today, on october 3 -- a friday, typically the day for the release of bad news that public relations operatives hope will be ignored by the mainstream media -- kenneth goldsmith posted to the poetry foundation's harriet blog an announcement of a "3,785 Page Pirated Poetry Anthology" and proceeded with a list of 3164 poets whose work the anthology, entitled issue 1, purportedly included. "Completely unpermissioned and unauthorized," the announcement proudly declared, "pissing off the entire poetry community. Either you're in or you're not." (download the 3.9MB PDF file here.)

the provocative taunting is part and parcel of the pitch that often sells the latest poetry movement du jour, with goldsmith* as conceptual writing's most visible brand name. and although the issues such taunting raises -- regarding authority, ownership, permission, exclusivity and poetry wars -- warrant both some tongue-in-cheek levity and some serious consideration in their own right, these i think are among the least interesting aspects of the project. that is, the significance of the issue 1 anthology far and away exceeds its conceptualist brand name.

think about it for a moment. visualize a 3785-page poetry anthology: even with the thinnest, norton-style cigarette paper or telephone directory oversized pages, this beast would still need to be bound in multiple volumes. practically speaking, it can only exist in digital format and makes an utter mockery of print and codex technologies.

and besides, who could possibly read the thing? the list of contributors alone is so formidable that a number have already claimed frustration at the difficulty of searching for their names to determine if they've even been included (even though searching a digital text is relatively easy once you know how).

so the first implication i draw from the simple fact of the issue 1 anthology as object -- and it obtains regardless of whether 3000+ individuals wrote the poems in question (they didn't) or a single computer program or programmer "wrote" them (it/he did) -- can be phrased as follows:

1) we are living in a moment of poetic production so abundant that attempts to document it and consume it have approached if not fully arrived at the patently absurd.

[to be continued]

*personally i like kenny quite a bit and find his writing at its best to be some of the most interesting and thought-provoking out there today.

positions pix

pictures from the held by the kootenay school of writing in vancouver a few weeks ago

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmorange/sets/72157606978180144

samples...


lorraine graham, darren wershler-henry


juliana spahr, clint burnham


jules boykoff, kaia sand


rodrigo toscano


dorothy trujilo lusk


jeff derksen


catriona strang


mark wallace

full set here

links to orono photos

my flickr photoset
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmorange/sets/72157605643590948/

ben friedlander's photoset
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mongibeddu/sets/72157605574002837/

kaplan harris' photoset
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kpharris/sets/72157605640463750/

also some short videos...

clark coolidge reading his recent poetry


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3qhaXZOxro

kit robinson reading from ted greenwald's book-length poem You Bet


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cacCpad801g

Jonathan Williams (1929-2008)

A Bibliography

• Garbage Litters the Iron Face of the Sun's Child, engraving by David Ruff, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1951.
• Red/Gray, drawings by Paul Ellsworth, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1951.
• Four Stoppages: A Configuration, drawings by Charles Oscar, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1953.
• The Empire Finals at Verona, collages and drawings by Fielding Dawson, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1959.
• Lord! Lord! Lord!, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1959.
• Amen/Huzza/Selah, preface by Louis Zukofsky, photographs by Williams, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1960.
• Elegies and Celebrations, preface by Robert Duncan, photographs by Aaron Siskind and Williams, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1962.
• Emblems for the Little Dells, & Nooks & Corners of Paradise (includes a reproduction of a page of Samuel Palmer's sketchbook of 1824), Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1962.
• In England's Green & (A Garland & Clyster) (poems), drawings by Philip Van Aver, Auerhahn (San Francisco, CA), 1962.
• LTDG (Lullabies Twisters Gibbers Drags) (poems), covers by R. B. Kitaj, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1963, reprinted with new introduction, Design Department, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), 1967.
• Lines about Hills above Lakes (prose), foreword by John Wain, drawings by Barry Hall, Roman Books (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), 1964.
• Petite Country Concrete Suite (poems), Fenian Head Centre Press, 1965.
• Twelve Jargonelles from the Herbalist's Notebook (poems), graphic design by Ann Wilkinson, Design Department, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), 1965.
• Ten Jargonelles from the Herbalist's Notebook (poems), graphic design by Arthur Korant, Graduate Graphic Design Program, University of Illinois (Champaign, IL), 1966.
• Four Jargonelles from the Herbalist's Notebook (poems), Lowell House Printers, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), 1966.
• Paean to Dvorak, Deemer & McClure (poems), Dave Haselwood, 1966.
• Eight Jargonelles from the Herbalist's Notebook (poems), graphic design by Dave Ahlsted, Design Department, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), 1967.
• Affilati attrezzi per i giardini di Catullo (selected poems in English and Italian), translations by Leda Sartini Mussio, drawings by James McGarrell, Roberto Lerici Editori (Milan, Italy), 1967, published as Sharp Tools for Catullan Gardens, introductory note by Guy Davenport, Fine Arts Department, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), 1968.
• Mahler Becomes Politics . . . Beisbol (poems), silk-screen prints by Kitaj, Marlborough Fine Arts (London, England), 1967, revised and enlarged edition published as Mahler, Grossman (New York, NY), 1969.
• 50! Eplphytes,-taphs,-tomes,-grams,-thets! 50!, Poet & Printer (London, England), 1967.
• Les Six Pak ("disposable six-pak xerox edition"), Aspen Institute (New York, NY), 1967.
• A French 75! (Salut Milhaudious), Dave Haselwood, 1967.
• Futura 15: Polycotyledonous Poems, Edition Hansjoerg Mayer (Stuttgart, Germany), 1967.
• The Lucidities: Sixteen in Visionary Company (poems), drawings by John Furnival, Turret Books (London, England), 1968.
• Descant on Rawthey's Madrigal: Conversations with Basil Bunting, Gnomon Press (Lexington, KY), 1968.
• Ripostes (poems), silk-screen print and design by William Katz, Edition Domberger (Stuttgart, Germany), 1969.
• On Arriving at the Same Age as Jack Benny, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1969.
• An Ear in Bartram's Tree: Selected Poems, 1957-1967, introduction by Davenport, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1969, New Directions (New York, NY), 1972.
• Six Rusticated, Wall-Eyed Poems, graphic realizations by Dana Atchley, Press of the Maryland Institute of Art (Baltimore, MD), 1969.
• The New Architectural Monuments of Baltimore City, lithographs by John Sparks, typography by Robert Gotsch, Press of the Maryland Institute of Art (Baltimore, MD), 1970.
• The Apocryphal, Oracular Yeah-Sayings of the Ersatz Mae West (poems), lithographs by Raoul Middleman, Press of the Maryland Institute of Art, 1970 (not released).
• (Editor) Edward Dahlberg: A Tribute (prose and poetry collection; festschrift for Dahlberg's seventieth birthday), David Lewis, 1970.
• Blues & Roots/Rue & Bluets: A Garland for the Appalachians (poems), photographs by Nicholas Dean, graphic realizations by Atchley, Grossman (New York, NY), 1971.
• (Author of preface) The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1971.
• Strung out with Elgar on a Hill, plates by Peter Bodner, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1971.
• (With Thomas Meyer) Epitaph, typography by Benvensite, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1972.
• (With Thomas Meyer) Fruits Confits, decorations by Gardner, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1972.
• The Loco-Logodaedalist in Situ: Selected Poems, 1968-1970, embellishments by Joe Tilson, Grossman (New York, NY), 1972.
• Pairidaeza, lithographs by Ian Gardner, typography by Ronald Pearson, Blue Funnel Press, 1973.
• Imaginary Postcards (Clints Grikes Gripes Glints), drawings by Tom Phillips, typography by Asa Benvensite, Trigram Press, 1973.
• Much Further out Than You Thought, drawings by Furnival, Turret Books (London, England), 1973.
• (With Thomas Meyer) Gone into When (seven epitaphs), William Katz, 1973.
• Selected Essays (Poeticules Criticasters Kitschdiggers & Just-folks), edited by Herbert Leibowitz, (New York, NY), 1973.
• (Editor and contributor) Epitaphs for Lorine, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1973.
• Adventures with a Twelve-inch Pianist beyond the Blue Horizon, photographs by David Colley, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1973.
• Five from up T'Dale, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1974.
• Who Is Little Enis?, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1974.
• (Editor and author of preface) Lyle Bonge, The Sleep of Reason, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1974.
• Hasidic Exclamation upon Stevie Smith's Poem "Not Waving but Drowning," University of Connecticut Library (Storrs, CT), 1974.
• My Quaker-Atheist Friend (poems), drawings by Ian Gardner, privately printed, 1974.
• (Author of introduction) John Clarence Laughlin, The Personal Eye, Aperture (Millerton, NY), 1974.
• Hot What? (prose), Mole Press, 1975.
• A Wee Tot for Catullus (poems), Moschatel Press, 1975.
• A Celestial Centennial Reverie for Charles E. Ives (poems), Donald B. Anderson, 1975.
• Gists from a Presidential Report on Hardcornponeography, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1975.
• GAy BCs, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1976.
• In the Field at the Solstice, Finial Press (Dent, Cumbria, England), 1976.
• Untinears & Antennae for Maurice Ravel (poems), Truck Press (St. Paul, MN), 1977.
• An Omen for Stevie Smith (poems), Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University (New Haven, CT), 1977.
• Super-Duper Zuppa Inglese (and Other Trifles from the Land of Stodge) (poems), drawings by Barbara Jones, Aggie Weston's Editions, 1977.
• (Editor with Allen Ginsberg and contributor) Madeira and Toasts for Basil Bunting's Seventy-fifth Birthday, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1977.
• A Blue Ridge Weather Prophet Makes Twelve Stitches in Time on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, illustrations by Carolyn Whitesel, Gnomon Press (Lexington, KY), 1977.
• A Hairy Coat Near Yanworth Yat (poems), North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1978.
• (Editor and author of introduction) "I Shall Save One Land Unvisited": Eleven Southern Photographers, Gnomon Press (Lexington, KY), 1978.
• Portrait Photographs (photographs and prose commentary), Gnomon Press (Lexington, KY), 1979.
• Shankum Naggum (poems), Friends of the Library, North Carolina Wesleyan College, 1979.
• The Delian Seasons (poems), Topia Press, 1979.
• St. Swithin's Swivet (poems), Circle Press, 1979.
• Glees, Swarthy Monotonies, Rince Cochon, and Chozzerai for Simon (poems), drawings by Furnival, DBA Editions, 1979.
• Elite/Elate Poems: Selected Poems, 1971-1975, photographs by Guy Mendes, Jargon Society (Highlands, NC), 1979.
• Homage Umbrage Quibble and Chicane (poems), drawings by Furnival, DBA Editions, 1980.
• Jonathan Williams--A Poet Collects: February 27-April 30, 1981, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC), 1981.
• The Magpies Bagpipe: Selected Essays of Jonathan Williams, North Point Press (San Francisco, CA), 1982.
• Get Hot or Get Out: A Selection of Poems, 1957-1981, Scarecrow Press (Metuchen, NJ), 1982.
• April 19, Lexington Nocturne: A Poem, as interpreted by Keith Smith, Visual Studies Workshop Press (Rochester, NY), 1983.
• Get Hot or Get Out. Audio Cassette. Washington, DC: Watershed Tapes, 1984.
  
• Aposiopeses: Odds and Ends, Granary Books (Minneapolis, MN), 1988.
• (Presenter) Uncle Gus Flaubert Rates the Jargon Society: In One Hundred One Laconic Presale Sage Sentences, Hanes Foundation, Rare Books Collection, University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 1989.
• No-nonse-nse: Limericks (Invented in Ireland c. 1765), Meta-fours (Invented during the Non-Summer of 1985 in Lower Stodgedale) and Clerihews (Invented in 1890 by Edmund Clerihew Bently) 1993 by a Perdurable "True Descendent of Aristophanes and Catullus," Perishable Press (Mt. Horeb, WI), 1993.
• Krino, 1986-1996: An Anthology of Modern Irish Writing, Gill and Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 1996.
• (Author of essay) Harry Callahan, (photography), Aperture Foundation (New York, NY), 1999.
• A Palpable Elysium, (biography), David R. Godine (Boston, MA), 2000.
• Blackbird Dust: Essays, Poems, and Photographs, Turtle Point Press, 2000.
• Some Jazz from the Baz: Excerpts from Basil Bunting's Letters to Jonathan Williams, 1963-1985. Scaly Mountain, N.C. : Press of Otis the Lamed-Vovnik, Skywinding Farm, 2000.
• A Garden Carried in a Pocket: Letters 1964-1968. Haverford: Green Shade, 2004.
• Kinnikinnick Brand Kickapoo Joy-Juice: Meta-fours. Isla Vista, [Calif.] : Turkey Press, 2004.
• Orpington via Pratt's Bottom: JW at 75 ; a festschrift for 'Fess Williams. New York: Brown Roux, 2004.
• Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems. Port Townsend, WA : Copper Canyon Press, 2005.
  

[updated from "Jonathan (Chamberlain) Williams," Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Accessed March 24 2008.]

more louisville

friday started off with a heavy-duty panel on music and mysticism in nate mackey's work, four good papers (norman on poet/speaker as shaman, robert on music esp as treated by jankelevich in music of the ineffable, joe on sufism, and dylan on the latest installment of broken bottle)and not a lot of time to discuss afterwards (or rather lots of interesting discussion that could not be accommodated in the space we had), and then it was off to the panel that my paper was being added into: lynn k on ecopoetics (and specifically on srikanth reddy, a cal press poet new to me), me on coolidge, and michael b on slam and langpo. lunch was at the food court in the student center, big crowded tables with all the usual suspects, and a belated arrival of carla b whom i was delighted to see and had not seen in again probably 8 years (photo courtesy of laura h).

then into the afternoon sessions, and the carla harryman panel organized by laura h and went on in spite of some tech difficulties. good papers, and ran into bonnie there who's now in colorado and whom i first met in baltimore this summer. the papers were good -- christine's more reader-response, carla b's more theoretical, laura's more focused on performance -- and then back to the dudes and a ronald johnson panel that was put together in conjunction with the forthcoming life and works volume from the NPF. very interesting to get a sense of where RJ scholarship stands at present (joel b), a coming-of-age memoire from peter o'l, anagrams by mark s, and a teaching experiment by eric s.

the keynote reading by mackey followed, featuring excerpts from bass cathedral (the latest installment of the epistolary life-in-jazz from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate as well as from the latest poetry collection, splay anthem. scott and i sped back to the hotel right after, stopping along the way for some provisions and hanging out in the room a bit talking about life, scholarship, pedagogy etc before join the cash bar at the seelbach shortly before the conference dinner. sat with bonnie and jill among others, the meal was distinctly mediocre, and everyone retired to the seelbach bar afterwards: a great, old, wooded place with a fine selection of bourbon (too sweet for me so i had rye instead) and an excellent house jazz trio (keys/vibes, bass, drums) amidst which there was much mingling -- barry w, joel l, alan g, aldon n, laura h, megan s, and finally tyrone w after most others had called it a night.

saturday morning i jumped panels, first to hear scott's paper on stein and benjamin -- who knew that she described something very much like "aura" in the gradual making of the making of americans? (i think that's the text) -- and then to a panel kristen p had organized. i missed kristen's paper on the helen adam archives in order to hear scott's (but got part of the scoop from her: some 50 boxes of adam's books and MSS discovered in a NYC warehouse!) and stephen c was unable to give his talk on oppen, but in his place had a very interesting paper that had been postponed due to weather on thursday (was actually scheduled to be in the same panel as me): jessica l wrote on a deaf poet, josephine dickinson and the cognitive aspect of sound/image processing. margaret k presented some archival research on laura riding's editorial/collaborative work on the poetry of robert graves.

then it was off to the panel i was chairing on "black arts: mackey, baraka, and music" with excellent papers all around by amy h (collaboartion as a way of contesting autho/ownership), luke h (music and/in poetics) and joel l (theory and anethics). lively discussion ensued. scott and i took a jaunt in the honda immediately after this panel, just to get out, stretch the legs, get some air and take in some local color on bardstown road, where a quick trip into ear-x-tacy where i found a few things, very appropriate for all the music we were disussing in such scholarly fashion: marion brown's 1977 LP la placita: live in willisau (not to my knowledge reissued on CD) and dewey redman's musics also from the late 1970s (on prestige CD reissue).

then back to campus for critical keynote by aldon l, once again showing how the best scholarship is the kind that teaches us something we did not know before, and al's work always does this. who knew that russell atkins, a black small press poet and publisher in cleveland, was writing theoretical articles using the term "deconstruction" in a way not altogether dissimilar from derrida, in his own magazine the free lance in the mid 1950s? who knew? "now we know." and now that we know, what do we do with this knowledge? it might not simply be accommodating the knowledge of atkins to our already-existing understanding of (white european) deconstruction but, more complexly, an entire rethinking of deconstruction along the lines and terms proposed by atkins. hard work, since the texts are largely unavailable, and no one is going to rewrite the OED and put atkins' use of the term ahead of derrida's translator's in the chronology.

by this time bill h had roughly arrived from oxford ohio, satchelfull of slack buddha chapbooks in tow. he and scott and i met in the seelbach bar, went back to the room to sort out all the poetry goods, and then found our way to saffron, a fantastic persian restaurant where we had delectable spinach and eggplant (separate) appetizers (pureed in mildly spice yogurt sauce) and then braised lamb and chicken stew, also delicious. then it was to the annual post-conference party at alan g's house, in many ways the capstone event of the conference. plenty of mingling, celebrating and, in a newish tradition now apparently in its second year, a quick three-minutes-a-piece reading by any and all poets present. great to hear quick shots from everybody. i was able to plus slack buddha via my new chap, and bill actually sold enough chaps to cover his expenses and then some. (thanks to all who enjoyed and bought!)

we were a bit noisy and rowdy on return to the hotel, and scott had to dash off in the early morning for his flight back to the great white north. bill and i arose later and found a down-home brunch buffet at cunningham's just down the street. it was the only way to get breakfast food there, which was fine: i was more than eager to follow up a plate of eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuit and gravy with a plate of roast beef, roast pork, gravy, stuffing, mac & cheese & southern green beans. (i'm sure my arteries were just as eager). light flurries fell, unusual for the good folks of louisville, and bill and i made our way a half price books in the louisville suburbs wher ei foisted all kinds of goodies on bill while limitin myself to a purchase that excites me greatly, a signed hardbound copy ($7) of a book i already own in paperback and love, john godfrey's dabble.

more pix as/if they become available (my own new digital camera still intimidates me and so i did not bring it with...)

(view the full program in PDF here.)

louisville conference

this past weekend was the first time i'd been to what used to be known as the louisville 20th-century literature conference since, as i now tally it up, 1999 (which was at the time my fourth year in a row). it was great to be back, see some old friends and make new ones, hear some interesting scholarship and some great poetry, and be amidst the general company of people who like the same stuff you do.

the journey to louisville thursday last week was rather potentially perilous. i left nashville with what should've been plenty of time, and forecasts for both cities suggested that i would miss most of the precipitation. less than an hour into the 3-hour drive, just over the tennessee border into southern kentucky, i even stopped for a sit-down fast food breakfast. big mistake. shortly after that, I-65 in the bowling green area became a parking lot: no one moving, no apparent precipitation on the road or in the sky, no emergency vehicles, nothing. we more or less remained stationary for over an hour and a half, finally passing a state trooper and a slight crumpled car in either shoulder. we got back up to speed for only about 10 minutes when traffic ground to a halt once again.

since by this point it was clear i was going to be late if not miss altogether my 1:30 panel, i tried dialing 411 from my cell but was disconnected the first time and then given an inaudible/incorrect number the second. so i phoned my family in ohio and asked if they could get online and get me a number off the conference webpage. cleveland was experiencing frigid temps and bluster conditions already, but my aunt managaged to get online and read on the conference homepage: all conference activities for thursday postponed due to approaching ice storm. well thank god, my anxiety was relieved that i was not going to miss anything and i could take as much time as needed to get there -- but there was still no precipitation on the ground or in the air. salt trucks and plows passing to be sure, but otherwise the traffic backup made no sense whatsoever.

finally i got off the highway to stretch my legs, grab a snack and mebbe have a look at a map and see if there wasn't a better way to go. and when i pulled into the gas station parking lot i began to understand what all the traffic was about: the lot was coated in a sheet of ice. a map inside indicated that US 31W paralleled the interstate clear up to louisville so i considered taking on the backroad. but, i thought, at least the interstate was being salted and plowed. so i started back up the onramp to I-65 and, seeing its traffic again at a complete standstill, i did a complete reverse gear back down the ramp and set my course for 31W, which was slow going through cave city, ky, but once we got through the town was salted, plowed, and essentially empty of vehicles.

a perfect backroad tour of southcentral ky: cave country, tumbledown shacks, cheap motels and abandoned storefronts. hart country looks especially hard hit: horse cave ("sleep in a wigwam!"), munfordville etc. but i love it, and so much better than sitting on an interstate. after 60-90 minutes of steady 40-50 mph making steady progress on 31W we paralleled I-65 and it appeared to be quite clear, so i hopped back on it and sailed pretty much straight into louisville, ice-covered as my little red honda was.

immediately checked into the seelbach and met up with my roomie scott p, who'd arrived from thunder bay a few hours earlier, very happy to see him after 8 years (not seen since MLA 2000 in DC). a number of conference goers were conspiring in makeshift panels throughout the mezzanine level attempting to make up for a whole day's worth of cancellations. conference honcho alan g was among them and said this was the modus operandi, to make up for cancellations where possible and add people into subsequent panels space permitting. he thought of including me in a panel the next day with himself and lynn k, which i was more than honored to do.

then back down in the lobby ran into ewa c out of knowhere, she was planning on dinner with phil m and wanted to know i we'd join them. of course. so we went for the nearby japanese steak and sushi house at her suggestion, good food and fine company. after which scott and i just went back and flaked out in the room, unpacked, read mags, watched the pres debate and crashed.

[more to come...]

Catherine Wagner "On Writing"

Catherine Wagner's February 15 discussion "On Writing" at Vanderbilt University is now available as a podcast.

Stream or Download audio (mp3, 128kbps, 68.7MB)

Press Release

Tiny URL

small victories

the recent and long-awaited publication of george oppen's prose has the poetry world buzzing. well, at least that's my intuition in a kind of incidental way indicated, for example, by paul's recent comment on mark's blog.

until any such time as i have further thoughts on the oppen book, i'll just note another telling coincidence in the pages of the latest issue of the nation.

reviewing the oppen prose together with the recent critical study of oppen by peter nicholls, james longenbach concludes that "Oppen's victories are no less great for being small." (not unrelated to my previous post on sectarianism.)

turn the page, and in an omnibus review of recent books chronicling late 1960s radicalism, maurice isserman points out how elinor langer assesses the great failure of the new left was that "it mistook revolution, a rare historical event, for a moral choice." she goes on:

"John Brown is a good symbol for us," Langer noted in passing. "At one point he wanted to run a school for Negroes but he came to find the idea too small: he had to attack Harper's Ferry."

score one for small victories.

Joglars at Google Books

i've stumbled upon a strange discovery. google books seems to have made available the 1974 arno reprint of JOGLARS, the little magazine edited by clark coolidge and michael palmer (1963-1966) -- though it has misidentified it as "American foreign policy currents documents 1963" published by ayer in 1971. (this information itself is incorrect: arno did a reprint of something called "american foreign policy, vol. 1" in 1971.)

the link is here.

naturally some of the pages are not viewable and i've not gone through the whole thing closely. but there's still a lot of great stuff that is viewable.

i wonder if there is any way to correct the misinformation on this item or how else it might be put to better use. please circulate this to whomever you feel might be interested, and i welcome any suggestions you or others might have.

henri chopin (1922-2008)

bio and links at erratum
sound at ubu
commentary by pierre joris
recordings at forced exposure
films at WFMU
wikipedia entry

drugs, money and names

From this morning's Chronicle of Higher Ed, "Northwestern U. Sells Royalty Rights From Blockbuster Drug for $700-Million":

In what could be the biggest windfall of its kind to date, Northwestern University has received $700-million for selling some of its rights to future royalties from a new blockbuster drug. The drug, marketed under the name Lyrica, is used to treat pain associated with fibromyalgia, shingles, and diabetes.

That's right, the brand name of the drug is Lyrica. The generic name is pregabalin, much less melifluous.

This is no accident. Does Pfizer intend for this pain medication to invoke poetry? Who knows exactly. But you can be sure that the name was chosen very carefully and deliberately. Donald G. McNeil penned a very interesting piece for the New York Times a few years back on "the science of naming drugs," in which he cites James Dettore, president of The Brand Institute -- not an institute at all but a Miami-based company specializing in naming drugs. (Lipitor and Clarinex are among its successes.)

Here's how Dettore's "phonologics" works:

"Lipitor is 'lipid regulator' with the -tor of atorvastatin, the generic name," Mr. Dettore added, with the plus that "-or is grounded as a cardiovascular-sounding suffix." Levitra, the Viagra competitor, comes from "elevate," he said, but "we tested and it sounds European, elegant, with premium connotations." "Le" indicates masculinity in French, he noted, and "vitra" can allude to vitality. (Viagra is also said to make men feel vital -- and like mighty Niagara Falls.)

Fascinating. What is it about "-or" that makes it sound cardiovascular, or does it even? And what precisely are the "premium connotations" that add to Levitra's European elegance? -- which we still like with drugs apparently even though we despise the Europeans for their approach to our foreign policy.

I recall reading somewhere that big pharma likes to give generics really awkward, hard-to-pronounce names so that they are harder to remember and therefore harder to "ask your doctor" about. Anyone with more and/or interesting link along this line should let me know, as I'm fascinated by this essentially poetic, Adamic function of naming and creation, and the psycholinguistic aspects of it, perverted by and for the marketplace.

tales from the poetry stand

douglas goetsch reports in the autumn 2007 american scholar on how his high school students faired in writing free poetry on demand for all comers at the poetry stand they set up in princeton nj one afternoon last year.

grammar and neuroplasticity

Philip Davis has a fascinating piece in The Reader (UK) entitled "The Shakespeared Brain" which addresses an issue I for one, and I imagine many of us who have read and studied experimental poetry for any extended period of time, have suspected to be the case -- that non-normative grammar might change the way the brain works.

Beginning with "a specific intuition – about Shakespeare: that the very shapes of Shakespeares lines and sentences somehow had a dramatic effect at deep levels in my mind," Davis conducted an experiment with Neil Roberts, a neuroscientist at the University of Liverpool, regarding the cognitive effect of a characteristic Shakespearean rhetorical device known as "anthimeria," or the syntactial forcing of one part of speech to perform the labor of another, i.e.

to try to see what happens inside us when the brain comes upon sentences like 'The dancers foot it with grace', or 'We waited for disclose of news', or 'Strong wines thick my thoughts', or 'I could out-tongue your griefs' or 'Fall down and knee/The way into his mercy'. For research suggests that there is one specific part of the brain that processes nouns and another part that processes verbs: but what happens when for a micro-second there is a serious hesitation between whether, in context, this is noun or verb. The main cognitive research done so far on the confusion of verbs and nouns has been to do with mistakes made by those who are brain-damaged and thus on the possible neural correlates of grammatical errors and semantic violations. Hardly anybody appears to have investigated the neural processing of a 'positive error' such as functional shift in normal healthy organisms.

The results are fascinating, and vary depending on whether or not the resulting shift creates sentences that still make some sense or not given the violation of normative grammar. But Davis goes on from this evidence to muse further (and in ways that will not surprise anyone who has worked with victims of traumatic brain injuries whose neural functioning has moved and thus been regained):

Shakespeare's syntax, its shifts and movements, can lock into the existing pathways of the brain and actually move and change them – away from old and aging mental habits and easy long-established sequences. It could be that Shakespeare's use of language gets so far into our brains that he shifts and new-creates pathways - not unlike the establishment of new biological networks using novel combinations of existing elements (genes/proteins in biology: units of phonology, semantics, syntax , and morphology in language). Then indeed we might be able to see something of the ways literature can cause affect or create change, without resorting to being assertively gushy.

Upon reading this I was immediately led to recall the audio file of a Bernadette Mayer class on experimental writing techniques, held June 1978 at Naropa, during which Mayer reads passages from Clark Coolidge's Polaroid (page 69), Gertrude Stein's Stanzas in Meditation (LIII), and Shakespeare's Sonnet 105 and invites students to explore the connections. It's a 39 minute audio file, and the passage in question takes place beginning at 7:00 minutes into the file. I won't reproduce those texts here but will include a subsequent experiment conducts, namely to offer three lines, one each from the three authors in question, and invite readers to consider which is by which. (Answer key in the comments.)

Test #1:
to one of one still such and even so
itself in come as same
and now and hours not at all

Test #2
once more to add feeling to feeling
off near to points in itself
one thing expressing leaves out difference

I reproduce Mayer's exercise in fun but also in the spirit of the very serious implications of Philip Davis' insight, namely to consider form his Shakespeare example what neuroplasticity potential lies in the writing of Stein and Coolidge among others.

mary ellen solt (1920-2007)

elegy for the astronauts #4 (1964)



geranium, from flowers in concrete (1966)



dogwood, second movement (1966, from artpool.hu)


from prentice-hall author biographies:

Mary Ellen Solt was born in Gilmore City, Iowa, and spent much her life in the Midwest. Her poetry and essays were heavily influenced, however, by her international travels. Moreover, Mary Ellen Solt's Concrete Poetry: a World View established her as a powerful influence on the genre of concrete poetry around the world.

Her international travels would produce more than poetry. A university professor on teaching exchange in 1977–1978, Mary Ellen Solt spent time living in Warsaw, Poland, with her daughter Susan. She was instrumental in establishing the American Studies Center at Warsaw University. Back in the United States, she served as the first director of the Polish Studies Center at Indiana University, established in 1977.

Married for nearly forty-seven years to historian Leo Solt, she is the mother of two daughters, Catherine and Susan. In her retirement, Mrs. Solt moved with her daughter Susan to California. She continues contributing to education and the arts by serving as a Visiting Artist at the California Institute of the Arts. She remains a Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at Indiana University.

Some other works by Mary Ellen Solt:

* Creator of Poor Old Tired Horse—a volume of poetry
* Editor of Dear Ez: Letters from William Carlos Williams to Ezra Pound
* Poems Marriage, Rain Down, Moonshot Sonnet

east european mytho-folk surrealism

picked this up at the half price books in north olmstead ohio last week. born the same year as jackson mac low, vasko popa is the great serbian surrealist. he tends to write short poems arranged into short cycles. his palette is colored with myth and the idiom of folkore (riddles, games, etc.) and allegory, all adding up to something quite different from the revolution and amour of french high surrealism. it's much closer to lorca i find. some of popa's animal cycles are a bit too totemistic for me, preferring as i do the more ludic, aggressive and philosophical cycles.

the cycle Games, for example, reads very much like a dick higgins or yoko ono piece from the fluxus days. i even imagine my nephews (ages 9 and 6) having some fun with these:

Before the Game

Shut one eye then the other
Peek into every corner of yourself
See that there are no nails no thieves
See that there are no cuckoo's eggs

Shut then the other eye
Squat and jump
Jump high high high
On top of yourself

Fall then with all your weight
Fall for days on end deep deep deep
To the bottom of your abyss

Who doesn't break into pieces
Who remains whole gets up whole
Plays

here's another from the same sequence, far more wicked and telling of la condition humaine, and very much echoes something from a 1978 robert duncan naropa lecture i transcribed a while back, "I mean there’s not a living form that isn’t working away day and night to demolish the earth it lives on -- chew chew, chomp chomp, scrabble scrabble, dig holes in it, the whole thing, uh -- in this fabric, where are you gonna put yourself?"

Race

Some bite from the others
A leg an arm or whatever

Take it between their teeth
Run out as fast as they can
Cover it up with earth

The others scatter everywhere
Sniff look sniff look
Dig up the whole earth

If they are lucky and find an arm
Or leg or whatever
It's their turn to bite

The game continues at a lively pace

As long as there are arms
As long as there are legs
As long as there is anything

these are anonymous translations from a nice little 32-page PDF (132K) of translations done mostly by anne pennington, while charles simic did the selection from the oberlin press book above: apparently the two collaborated on a 1997 anvil press edition of the collected. (now out of print?) this PDF tho is noteworthy to me for the inclusion of the little box sequence, along with another, far within us, not included in the simic selection.

here's one i can't resist including, from the little box cycle:

The Tenants Of The Little Box

Throw into the little box
A stone
You'll take out a bird

Throw in your shadow
You'll take out the shirt of happiness

Throw in your father's root
You'll take out the axle of the universe

The little box works for you

Throw into the little box
A mouse
You'll take out a quaking hill

Throw in your head
You'll take out two

The little box works for you

here's a few from one of my favorites, the cycle give me back my rags

Give me back my rags

My raglets of pure dream
Of silken smiles
Striped premonition
And my lace-like sinews

My raglets of polka-dot hope
Of filigreed lust
Calico glances
And the skin off my face

Give me back my rags
I’m asking you nicely

(Simic)

later in the sequence things get a bit more aggressive and insistant:

Get out of my walled infinity
Of the star circle round my heart
Of my mouthful of sun

Get out of the comic sea of my blood
Of my flow of my ebb
Get out of my stranded silence

Get out I said get out

Get out of my living abyss
Of the bare father-tree within me

Get out how long must I cry get out

Get out of my bursting head
Get out just get out

(Pennington)

definitely one of my favorite opening lines of recent memory. read the whole sequence in simic's rendering online at the exile quarterly.

collapsible poetics theater

extensive photo documentation of the five pieces from rodrigo toscano's collapsible poetics theater performed as part of the yockadot poetics theater festival that took place this past weekend in alexandria, virginia.

from "spine":


from "first box":

never stop singing for liberty

We’re very happy that Nancy Shaw has been holding an appointment as a Visiting Professor of American Studies at New York University, for it’s a far easier journey here from New York than it is from Nancy’s more recent home in Montreal or her more lasting attachment to Vancouver. She’s the author of Affordable Tedium from Tsunami, Scoptocratic from ECW Press, and most recently a collaboration with Catriona Strang entitled Busted from Coach House Books. According to this book’s afterword by Christine Stewart, "Busted razes the discursive frames that still the possibilities of reason, society, nations, identity, persons, morality and justice; it records, fragments, listens to generations and the generation of historical agency and/or control to note the articulation of social relationships; it rails against the flaccid generic -- the justifications of historical subjugation; corrupts convention’s larynx and cruel pretty lyric in triangular (self-supporting) seen metrical pediment." In introducing Nancy I want to focus a few remarks around four notions, namely community, culture, collective and collaboration.

First, community, an idea that we take as such a given here in D.C. and that has been so valorized in the recent history of experimental writing that I wonder if perhaps we lose sight of what it actually means. So I think we can always look to The Kootenay School of Writing as an exemplary kind of community. Yes you can take classes there, but no it is not a degree-granting institution. Nor is it, as has been a common misperception from our south-of-the-border perspective, some subsidiary or branch office of Language Poetry, Inc. The KSW’s roots are in grassroots writing workshops that sought to develop and foster the class consciousness of the workers, and thus its subsequent efforts in experimental practice have never been far from its proletarian origins.

Second, culture. As a scholar Nancy is a true interdisciplinarian. And while Cultural Studies has come to be defined less by the specific disciplinary objects it studies and more by its constructivist, materialist disposition towards those objects, whatever they may be, clearly one object towards which its disposition has been most problematic is poetry. Poetics becomes a buzzword in cultural studies, with catch-phrases like "the poetics of x" or "the politics and poetics of y" effectively and safely neutralizing the transformative capabilities of poetry as a productive making. For Nancy, to articulate "the politics and poetics" of something is to articulate redundantly. Or, as she and Catrioana Strang put it in Busted: "Politics and art are never free of lyric poetry."

Third and fourth, collective (to gather together) and collaboration (to work together). How many recent poetic collaborations still retain the signatures of individual authors for individual poems? Busted is a true collaboration, something of a manifesto, a catalog of bulletins, gripes, credos, shuffles, flags, edicts, anthems, torch songs and protocols. It’s small enough to carry with you in a pocket or purse; and as the poem "Just watch me" tells us, "History turns on small events; an emphatic hit delivered with such sincerity, and we are suddenly resonant." Busted is an emphatic hit, and the song we resonate with is both simple and profound: "never stop singing for liberty."

[introduction to nancy shaw's reading with lorraine graham, in your ear at the district of columbia arts center, april 21 2002]