W e b l o g Archive 2008 -- Charles Bernstein

 

| Authors|| Links Subj ||UB Poetics EPC



WEB LOG

Selected Archive
2008

about one month of postings are on the main web log page
some items will be available only for that month
this archive page covers 2008


see also
2006 Archive
2007 Archive

Charles Bernstein

you can subscribe
& get each new post as
emai
l




Emma Bee Bernstein

Funeral Program
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008 at 10:30 am
at the  Plaza Jewish Community Chapel
630 Amsterdam Ave, New York

Jerry Raik, officiating
Psalm 23 (tr. Norman Fischer)
Ecclesiastics
"Wherever Angels Go" & "Songs of Crossed Purposes" (Yarmolinsky/Bernstein)
                Sylvie Jensen (soprano), Ben Yarmolinsky (guitar), Ishmael Wallace (piano)
Nona Willis Aronowitz
Kat Griefen
Carolee Schneemann
Collier Meyerson, "Changes" (Phil Ochs)
Johanna Drucker
Samuel Henry
Charles Bernstein, Eulogy for Emma
Susan Howe,  "Fear No More the Heat of the Sun" (Shakespeare) & "The Song of Wondering Aengus" (Yeats)
Felix Bernstein, "Everytime We Say Goodbye" (Cole Porter)
                 [on January 4, Felix, who is 16, posted these remarks]
Marty Ehrlich, "The Water Is Wide," "Eyliato," & Ornette Coleman's Broken Shadows (saxophone)

Donations in Emma's honor can be made to
Poets in Need


Felix, Emma, Susan, Thanksgiving, 2008, New York


Emma & Charles, Provincetown, 1990

image at at top: Emma in Venice, Italy,  Dec, 5, 2008  (photo by Charles)

link    |  01-02-09


Go to blog to see this player.


We were on Herring Cove Beach. I asked Emma about the conflict between art and fashion, but the wind drowned out my question.
August 29, 2007
(mp4, 29 seconds, 5.8 mb)


Emma Bee Bernstein
(May 16, 1985- Dec. 20, 2008)




Emma
our so much loved daughter and sister
& the center to our lives
died in Venice, Italy, at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
She was 23 years old.


Donations in her honor can be made to
Poets in Need

Charles, Susan, Felix

Donations in Emma's honor to
Poets in Need

link    |  12-24-08


more MLA ....

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28th from 7-10:00pm  
the Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street, San Francisco

FREE and ADA accessible to the public
Co-sponsored by Small Press Distribution and the Poetry Foundation

Over 60 POETS reading (just) 2 minutes each: Aaron Kunin, Alan Bernheimer, Aldon Nielsen, Andrew Osborn, Barrett Watten, Bill Howe, Bill Luoma, Bill Mohr, Brian Kim Stefans, C.S. Giscombe, Carla Harryman, Christian Bok, Chris Stroffolino, Dale Smith, Craig Perez, Dan Featherston, David Buuck, Dennis Barone, Donna de la Pierre, Durriel Harris, Dodie Bellamy, Elizabeth Hardcastle, Etel Adnan, Jasper Bernes, Jeffrey Robinson, Javier Huerta, Jeanne Heuving, Jennifer Scappettone, Jerry Rothenberg, Joe Amato, John Emil Vincent, Joseph Lease, Joshua Clover, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Julian Brolaski, Kasey Mohammad, Kass Fleisher, Kazim Ali, Kevin Killian, Kit Robinson, Kristin Prevallet, Kyle Schlesinger, Lisa Howe, Lisa Robertson, Lorraine Graham, Maxine Chernoff, Michael Davidson, Norma Cole, Paolo Xaiver, Patrick Durgin, Paul Hoover, Philip Metres, Rob Halpern, Sarah Schulman, Rusty Morrison, Standard Schaefer, Stephanie Young, Stephen Cope, Suzanne Stein, Timothy Yu, Tom Orange, Tyrone Williams, Walter Lew and more!
Poets in Masks! Refreshments! Books! Books! Books!

Books by the readers for sale from Small Press Distribution.
SPDbooks.org
PoetryFoundation.org
Small Press Distribution, 1341 7th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
http://www.spdbooks.org/root/pages/sfspectacular.asp
link    |  12-19-08-x


If you're going to San Francisco for MLA
please consider dropping by
the University of Alabama Press's booth, #307, for a book signing:
Sunday, December 28, 3pm
Jerome Rothenberg
signing copies of his newly published
Poetics & Polemics: 1980-2005
And please feel free to stop by throughout the conference to meet with
Dan Waterman, Acquisitions Editor for the UA Press, to see the range of
Modern and Contemporary Poetics books (series ed. by Hank Lazer and Charles Bernstein)
FC2 books and the rest of
the UA Press publications.

***

Edited with commentaries by Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson
Poems for the Millennium, Volume Three
The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry

***
from the editors:
On December 29 at 7:00 p.m. Books Inc. – Opera Plaza will be hosting a launch and reading for Poems for the Millennium, volume 3. Like its two twentieth-century predecessors, Poems for the Millennium, volumes 1 and 2, this gathering sets forth a globally decentered approach to the poetry of the preceding century from a radically experimental and visionary perspective. Joining Rothenberg and Robinson in the reading and performance are major Bay Area poets Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Michael Palmer, Bill Berkson, Leslie Scalapino, and Jack Foley (performing with Adelle Foley). Introducing the reading will be Katherine Hastings, founder of the WordTemple Poetry Series and host of WordTemple on KRCB 91.1 FM, Santa Rosa's NPR affiliate. The Books Inc. location is at Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue, tel. 415.776.1111.
The following is from the University of California Press announcement:
The previous two volumes of this acclaimed anthology set forth a globally decentered revision of twentieth-century poetry from the perspective of its many avant-gardes. Now editors Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson bring a radically new interpretation to the poetry of the preceding century, viewing the work of the romantic and post-romantic poets as an international, collective, often utopian enterprise that became the foundation of experimental modernism. Global in its range, volume three gathers selections from the poetry and manifestos of canonical poets, as well as the work of lesser-known but equally radical poets. Defining romanticism as experimental and visionary, Rothenberg and Robinson feature prose poetry, verbal-visual experiments, and sound poetry, along with more familiar forms seen here as if for the first time. The anthology also explores romanticism outside the European orbit and includes ethnopoetic and archaeological works outside the literary mainstream. The range of volume three and its skewing of the traditional canon illuminate the process by which romantics and post- romantics challenged nineteenth-century orthodoxies and propelled poetry to the experiments of a later modernism and avant-gardism.

==========================

On the Continuing of the Continuing
Laura (Riding) Jackson
Wyeswood Press 2008

A short essay written circa 1980, previously unpublished
now available as a fine-printed limited edition of 100 numbered copies
Designed and typeset in Lexicon at Libanus Press, Marlborough
printed by Hampton Printing of Bristol on Zerkall paper
and bound by Ludlow Binders Ltd. Ludlow
With colour facsimiles of four pages of the manuscript, and a previously unpublished
photograph of Laura (Riding) Jackson, 1970. 24pp.

The single I speaks the truth of the invariable Only-I, the infinite One that being is in being all-real in whatever, whoever, is’ (p.1).
‘The human being rises in the deep midst of being as selfless multifarious existence, lifting the all-prior all-ultimate self of being to this immediacy we call ourselves
– this centering of the selfless, self-ful, whole in speaking presence to it,
our speaking to one another its presence to us become one with our presence to it’ (p.11).

ISBN  978-0-9556636-0-4
£25 or $50 U.S. (+ post and packing: £2 within U.K., $6 to U.S.A.)
Please email your order to
john  AT nolan1.freeserve.co.uk
Payment methods: cheque in pounds sterling payable to John Nolan, mailed to Wyeswood Press, 19 Ansdell Terrace, London W8 5BY, England
or Paypal: please request details

link    |  12-19-08


 

The benefit auction of Rain Taxi has begun.
This small card on sumptuous paper was printed by Peter Quartermain
for Robin Blaser's 80th birthday
& includes the party invitation on the reverse side.

Rain Taxi auction now online
M.T. ANDERSON, John ASHBERY, Paul AUSTER, Charles BERNSTEIN, Robert BLY, Paul BOWLES, Stephen COLBERT, Samuel R. DELANY, Neil GAIMAN, Patricia HAMPL, Richard HELL, Jaime HERNANDEZ, Garrison KEILLOR, Jonathan LETHEM, David MARKSON, Henry MILLER, Rick MOODY, Barack OBAMA, Ron PADGETT, Jerome ROTHENBERG, Joe SACCO, Arthur SZE, Jeff VANDERMEER, Anne WALDMAN, Keith and Rosmarie WALDROP, and Marjorie WELISH are just some of the authors whose works you'll find. To see the full listings,
go to our online benefit auction now.
link    |  12/16/08



photo by Chris Funkhauser

Nathaniel Mackey
Splay Anthem (New York: New Directions, 2006)
Bass Cathedral (New York: New Directions, 2008)


Bedouin Hornbook, published in 1986 by Callaloo, is the first volume of From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate; Sun and Moon published the second volume, Djbot Baghostus's Run, the third volume was called Atet A.D., most recently there is, Bass Cathedral.  This essay/poem/novel‑cum‑treatise on aesthetics seems like something you could imagine Theodor Adorno writing if he has lived to the year 2000 and spent most on the road with Ornette Coleman. (Well perhaps that is not imaginable.) Mackey's style owes as much to 18th century epistolary fiction as to postwar literary theory. In its insistence that the style of thinking — I mean writing — should be always as active as what it is thinking about, this work jumps and stutters and shakes its imaginary limbs as well as its so called real ones. In so doing, Mackey shows a new path for cultural studies, where the studies and the studied are taken to be always art, music, the movement of ideas through measures and measuring, shifted and shifting tempos and modulations.

Splay Anthem
(like his earlier poetry collections) shows the same qualities of "palimpsestic stagger" (Mackey’s phrase for Cecil Taylor) that are at the heart of his prose works. The poems are exquisite without ever being precious, lyric without reducing themselves to a single voice, polyvocal without losing a syncopated musical line. They move the art of poetry forward by showing the forward was not anywhere like what we thought it was going to be.

“To poetize or sing is to talk like a bird, a way with words and sound given rise by a break in social relations, as if the break were a whistling fissure, an opening blown on like a flute. … A sign of estrangement, to poeticize or sing is to risk irrelevance, to be haunted by poetry’s or music’s irrelevance … but nothing could be more relevant than estrangement” (Splay Antheml, xv-xvi).

Mackey’s poems are a delight for tired ears, cornucopia for the searching mind, and solace for the heartsick.

Mackey on  PennSound
Mackey's Discrepant Engagement (essays)

Splay Anthem continues Mackey's "Song of the Andoumboulou" series. Here is the source:
"Chant des Andoumboulou" Dogon Song, from the album Le Rituel Funeraire (Songs Of The Living - The Funeral Rites)
MP3 (5:29)
1956 Disques Ocora;  Liner notes by Francois Di Dio  
"The Song of the Andoumboulou is addressed to the spirits. For this reason the initiates, crouching in a circle, sing it in a whisper in the deserted village, and only the howling of the dogs and the wind disturb the silence of the night" -- Di Dio quoted by Mackey in Eroding Witness (p. 31) [Note: Mackey refers to an album titled Les Dogon where the same cut, titled, "Chant des Andoumboulou" appears.]

 

——————————————————————

Donald Wessling reviews
The Point Is to Change It:
Poetry and Criticism in the Continuing Present.

by Jerome McGann.
in MLQ Dec. 2008 issue

------------

Caroline Bergvall has a new web site:
http://www.carolinebergvall.com

------------

review of my
Histórias da Guerra (Martins Editora)
Diego Braga Norte

------------


Ulla Dydo
Gertrude Stein: The Language That Rises 1923-1934

now in paperback from Northwestern University Press


link    |  12-15-08


Tom Raworth's
Season's Greetings

link    |  12-14-08


My reading in the Woodberry Poetry Room
Harvard College Library
December 11, 1980 (50:54)
MP3

Introduction by Stratis Haviaris
Palukaville (from Poetic Justice) (time marker 2’24”)
Poem (from Shade) (8’33”)
For – (from Shade) (10’44”)
Simple Pleasures (from Controlling Interests) 19’37’
March (25’28”) (from Stigma)
Sprocket Damage (from Islets/Irritations) (26’53”)
Islets/Irritations (31’10”)
Island Life (from Controlling Interests) (37’20”)

++++++++++

Also new at
PennSound

 

link    |  12-12-08-x


25 years ago, I gave this reading

The Poetry Project, St Mark's Church, New York
October 17, 1983 (39:50)
MP3

Fear and Trespass (from The Sophist) (time marker: 2’34”)
from Resistance (9’56”)
Searchless Warrant (from The Sophist) (19’15”)
Prosthesis (from The Sophist) (21’35”)
Preface to Content’s Dream (24’04”)
The Voyage of Life (from The Sophist) (28’00”)
Dysraphism (from The Sophist) (30’13”)

link    |  12-12-08


Critical Inquiry
Volume 35, Number 2
(Winter 2009)

Recantorium (a Bachelor Machine, after Duchamp after Kafka)
  Charles Bernstein
  Critical Inquiry Winter 2009, Vol. 35, No. 2: 351-360.
Citation | Full Text | PDF Version (69 KB)
 
  A Response to Recantorium
  Jerome McGann
  Critical Inquiry Winter 2009, Vol. 35, No. 2: 361.
Citation | Full Text | PDF Version (17 KB)
 
  Charles Bernstein Replies
  Charles Bernstein
  Critical Inquiry Winter 2009, Vol. 35, No. 2: 362.
Citation | Full Text | PDF Version (16 KB)

video version & notes at PennSound

link    |  12-10-08

Douglas Messerli is embarking on one of his impossibly large-scale projects
a biographical source for hundreds of international poets
it's now in progress at

complete list of poets

index of completed entries

Messerli on PennSound
Messerli at the EPC
Green Interger blog
Green Integer Books

 

photo: Charles Bernstein, 2006
link    |  12-04-08



 



Kyle Schlesinger
has started a new magazine with Jed Birmingham

Mimeo Mimeo




two issues so far, second just out


The first issue has a thoughtful summary of the "mimeo revolution" by Chrisopher Harter, which takes the archivist's mantle from Steve Clay's and Rodney Phillip's Secret Location on the Lower East Side and Loss Pequeño Glazier's Small Press: An Annotated Guide. Birmingham provides an detailed portrait of Jeff Nuttall's mid-60s UK My Own Mag. The feature is Schlesinger's long interview and with printer-publisher Alaistair Johnston, which is quite engaging but marred by a determined crankiness, Bay Area insularity, and aesthetically conservative myopia (as for example comments on Grenier, Kerouac in JAB, and small press design that does not meet his standards). The second issue includes an illuminating discussion of Robert Duncan's early magazine editing and printing by James Maynard, Derek Beaulieu on Tish, and Schlesinger's interview with the New Zealand poet/printer Alan Loney. All articles are generously illustrated

Mimeo Mimeo 2
starts with a piece by Emily McVarish on her book art.
Schlesinger has a fine article on McVarish in

On: Contemporary Practice
,

another magazine he edits, with Thom Donovan and Michael Cross,
which has just published its first issue.
Schlesinger also edited, with Craig Dworkin,
the new issue of
JAB (Journal of Artists' Books)
on "Intersections of Experimental Literature and Artists Books"
which includes Susan Venderborg on Steve Tomasula's/Stephen Farrel's great Vas.

Schlesinger is the proprietor of
Cueneiform Press

——————————————————————————————

Andrew Ervin reviews
Ron Silliman's The Alphabet
in today's Philadelphia Inquirer

&

CA Conrad on The Alphabet

 

link    |  11/30/08


BELLADONNA*
Call For Proposals:
Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism: A Gathering
CUNY Graduate Center, Fall 2009
In celebration of its tenth year, Belladonna*/** will join with The CUNY Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program, Center for Research on Women and Society, Center for Humanities, Poetics Group, and English Department to present a conference aimed at advancing and broadcasting the life of Feminist Avant-Garde Poetics and Activism Today. The conference will take place at the CUNY Graduate Center on September 24 and 25, 2009.

Our goals for this conference are the following:
1)    To support the study of the Feminist Avant-Garde
2)    To encourage collaboration between radical feminist artists/thinkers/activists.
3)    To provide a space to think about relevant activism in these times, in this place.

We at Belladonna* are particularly interested in what's immediate, present and happening now. We would like this call to encourage conversations and new designs for work between genres, into activist communities, and among academic and non-academic discourse. We are looking for evolving modes of knowing and acting and resisting.

Papers and presentations might focus on (but are not limited to) the following topics:
  • Collaborations between poets and artists, poets and dancers, poetry theater, poets and scientists (or science), between teachers and students, between poets and community activists.
  • Critical consideration of women writers who for whatever reason have not yet received it--we welcome non-traditional and cross-genre approaches.
  • Race, Gender, Class: Working within and across affinities.
  • AgitProp that incorporates poetic thinking and expression.
  • Calls for Action. Organizing sessions.
Send panel proposals and/or paper abstracts (350 words maximum, or send a dvd of performance/visual /sound work) to belladonnaseries@gmail.com by  January 15, 2009.  As we proceed a web page will become available at belladonnaseries.org.

 


**
Founded as a reading series at a women's radical bookstore in 1999, Belladonna* is a feminist avant-garde event (Belladonna Series) and publication project (Belladonna Books) that promotes the work of women writers who are adventurous, politically involved, multi-form, multicultural, multi-gendered, unpredictable, dangerous with language (to the death machinery). In its nine year history, Belladonna* has featured over 150 experimental and hybrid writers. The curators promote work that is explicitly innovative, connects with other art forms, and is political/critical in content.


*
deadly nightshade, a cardiac and respiratory stimulant, having purplish-red flowers and black berries.

Belladonna Books | 925 Bergen Street, Suite 405 | Brooklyn, NY 11238 | www.belladonnaseries.org

 

link    |  11/29/08


PennSound Daily
the archive

Mike Hennessey's introductions to selected PennSound recordings

†††††††††††††††††††††††



LITOTE EN TÊTE
is a small literary bookstore near Claude Royet-Journoud's apartment.
We visited together in October. On the shop's blog there is a picture from
Juliana Spahr's Fall Paris/Double Change reading (Vincent Broqua near window).

Claude and me at the shop in October
picture by the proprietor Corinne Scanvic —

Claude told me to go see a painting of his, when I was in Lyon, in the office
of Jean-Marie Gleize at the École normale supérieure. I took
a not very good snapshot
(that's Emmanuel Hocquard on the top left and me below).


_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+


Salt reprint (2004)
(cover painting by Susan Bee)
introduction by Ron Silliman

Gary Sullivan
on
The Sophist

(Nov. 25, 2008)

link    |  11/27/08

Rehearsals for ASTRONOME: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA begin late November. ASTRONOME is a Richard Foreman/John Zorn music/theater collaboration. View rehearsals online, streamed by free103point9 Transmission Arts, every Wednesday, from 10a.m.--4:30p.m.

 

link    |  11/26/08


Ron Silliman's Alphabet
&
Jerome Rothenberg's Poetics & Polemics: 1980-2005
(both announced here last month)
are the most recent titles in the series I edit with Hank Lazer.
Full list here:
University of Alabama Press Modern & Contemporary Poetics series

++++++++++++++++
++++++++++

Green Integer Titles

GREEN INTEGER
Pataphysics and Pedantry
Douglas Messerli, Publisher

Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims,
Epistles, Diaristic Notes, Narrative, Natural Histories,
Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations
and all such ephemera as may appear necessary
to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion
and fright at least.

-----------
_______________


The Green Integer Review
Nos. 11-16 (January-December 2008)

Contents

Cyprian Norwid (Poland) [translated by Danuta Borchardt]
Nerves
Larva
The Sphinx


Nick Piombino and Toni Simon (USA)
Three Collages (Simon)
from Contradicta (Piombino)

Ranjit Hoskoté (India)
The Secret Agent
Portrait of an Unknown Master
The Strange Case of Mr Narrative's Reluctance
Platform Directions
The Empire of Lights
The Randomiser's Survival Guide
Still Life


Bruce Andrews (USA)
Dang Me 1
Dang Me 2


Jules Michelet (France) [translated by Katia Sainson]
The Sea as Viewed from Shore from The Sea

Christopher Barnes (Scotland)
Pratfalls of a Lover
Prick-Kicking
Prison Song


Susan Bee (USA)
Four Recent Paintings
Eye of the Storm
Après le Déluge
Happy Anniversary
Blue Ladies


John Wilkinson (England)
Unicorn Bait
Pure Cotton Buds
Bent Double
Dredge Spoils

Dagmar Nick (Germany) [translated by Jim Barnes]
Wild Ride
Realization
Hunting Season
Loss of Sight
What Remains


Douglas Messerli (USA)
You Know What I Mean (on Pina Bausch's Ten Chi and Richard Foreman's
Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland)

Richard Foreman (USA)
Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland

Domício Coutinho (Brazil)
from Duke the Dog Priest

Frances Presley (England)
from Alphabet for Alina
a
f
Lake near Balcombe


Charles Bernstein (USA)
Leaking Truth: British Poetry in the ‘90s

Aida Tsunao [Japan] (translated to Hiro Sato)
As an Experience
Stolen Goods
Andrea

Alistair Noon (England/lives Germany)
The Stop Before the Border
The Lakefarers
The Tin Islands
Filling the Triangle


Ger Killeen (Ireland/lives USA)
Erebus and Terror

Douglas Messerli (USA)
Unusual Appearances in Unexpected Places (on the art show Phantom Sightings)

 

 

link    |  11/24/08


The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest
ed. Hadley Haden Guest
introduction by Peter Gizzi

Wesleyan Univeristy Press

Barbara Guest has created a textually saturated poetry
that embodies the transient, the ephemeral, and the flickering
in translucent surfaces of contingent connections.
These poems unravel before us
so that we may revel in them, find for ourselves,
if we go unprepared,
the dwelling that they beckon us to inhabit.

Guest at EPC
Guest at PennSound
& my
Barbara Guest: Composing Herself
(Bookforum, April 2006; Jacket 29)

 


With Charles Bernstein, Frost Awards Ceremony, PSA, 1999. Photo by Star Black.

link    |  11/23/08

Susan Bee
Not

(New York: Asylum's Press, 1980)
xerox, 8 1/2 x 11", 15pp. pink card stock covers
PEPC Edition 2008 ©Susan Bee

download pdf

 

cover

--------------------------------------------------

detail

 

link    |  11/22/08


Ernesto Livon-Grosman
short films from his
VideoPoesia


Jorge Santiago Perednik (Buenos Aires)
"Los argentinos somos derechos y humanos"

------------------------------------------------


Raina María Rodriguez (Habana)
"Celine y las mujeres"

link    |  11/21/08-xx


 

Teapots in Tempests

from the what we said website:

In October 2008, Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor, and Vladimir Zykov published Issue 1, a 3,785-page document featuring almost as many poets. The pdf was posted at forgodot.com. The poems were produced by a poem generator called Erika, or Erica T. Carter.

The ISSUE 2 document is a collection of the blog posts and comments that responded to the project and/or responded to responses about the project and/or responded to issues that were raised within the discussion (419 pages).

The BPL document is a collection of the comments that were made on the Buffalo Poetics Listserv regarding Issue 1 in the month of October 2008 (111 pages).

This document was compiled at the same time as the conversation took place. Cut-off date was October 31, 2008.

Table of Contents Issue 2

[copied from the what we said website]

link    |  11/21/08-x



download mp4

Part 1 of James Kalm’s video of excerpts from
the Poetry Project (St. Marks Church, NYC) celebration of the publication of
Hannah Weiner’s Open House
, ed. Patrick Durgin, who starts out the segment after Kalm's intoduction
and Stacy Szymaszek's welcome . Rodrigo Toscano, Laura Elrick, and Kaplan Harris
11/28/07
All three parts
(including John Perrault, and my performance with Susan Bee and Emma Bee Bernstein)
now on
PennSound—
Hannah Weiner's Open House launch page


±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±


my new nook at
Anny Ballardini's
Poets' Corner
includes “So really not visit…”
from Controlling Interests
(now back in its fourth printing from ROOF)
and Jen Scappatone's picture of Emma and me at UChicago a couple of years ago

±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±

Wednesday night at the Poetry Project (St. Mark's Church, NY)

cris cheek
&
Bruce Andrews
s


link    |  11/21/08


On the new
PennSound Zukofsky page
you will find
my 2007 reading of Zukofsky's
"A Foin Lass Bodders,"
Zukofsky's ideolectical translation of Cavalcanti's "Donna mi Prega,"
from his1940 study for "A"-9,
the privately printed "First Half of "A"-9"
(included in the LOA Selected Poems).
So I was startled to hear Zukofsky's own reading of this poem,
which, up till a few months ago, I had not known about.

_________

A lot more late 70s/early 80s
recordings I made at the Ear Inn
are being posted on
the Ear Inn page at PennSound.

--------------

The EPC Sound Poetry page
out of commission for a while
is now back on line.

---------------------------------


Malevich's cover for Threesome (1912)

Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910-1917
at the Getty (LA, through April 19))

has now opened its fabulous web site.
Going beyond the digital book archives
the site offers
flash ("page through") versions of some of the Getty books with audio and translation
including Pomade by Kruchenyck/Larionov,


Nancy Perloff: curator's essay

Timeline



Olga Rozanova, cover for the new to me and not to be missed
Te li le (1914)

link    |  11-20-08


link    |  11-19-08


New at PennSound
thanks to Don Share
Dante Inferno XV — “Bruno Latini” — tr. Lowell (1964-Rapallo) (3:02)
which is now our final recording on the PennSound  Pound page,
right after another recording of the same work.
Not to be missed.

----------------------

Dupee-Koch Poetry of the American Avant-Garde
Columbia University NY
R eading Series:
Susan Howe
Thursday Nov. 20, 2008, 8 pm,
602 Hamilton
Presented by the Columbia Department of English and Comparative Literature and Professor Michael Golston

----------------------

photo: Marc Nasdor, Charles Bernstein, Tim Dlugos, Alice Notley, Eileen Myles, Patricia Jones, Dennis Cooper.

from the Poetry Project Newsletter, scan sent to me by  Tina Darragh, in memory of Tim, who was at the time the Newsletter editor, while I was coordinating the first talk series at the Poetry  Project, "St. Marks Talks."

link    |  11-18-08





New by Nicole Brossard

Notebook of Roses and Civilization
Tr. Robert Majzels and Erin Moure
(Toronto: Coach  House Press, 2007)
This may be the most vibrant translation of Brossard's poetry into English. Certainly, along with Picture Theory, a good place to start reading her work. Of special note, the three prose poetry sections called "Soft Links."

L'Aviva/Aviva
tr. Anne-Marie Wheeler
full 1985 French text included
(Vancounver: Nomados, 2008)

Yesterday at the Hotel Clarendon
tr. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood
(Toronto: Coach House Press, 1975)
A novel.

Works in French

D’aube et de civilization
a large (450pp.) selected poems, chosen by Louise Dupré
(Montréal: Typo, 2008)
Essential for anyone who wants a full range of Brossard's poetry in French.

La capture du sombre
(Montréal: Leméac, 2007)
a novel

Ardeur
(Luxembourg: Éditions Phi, 2008)
poems

Brossard on PennSound

 

Polynesian Days

this is a long parquet fashioned with oil
where drove her ambiance.  Mauve tangible
in equilibrium the presence
or collision of day and of the oxygen —
permanence that we fashion
with the usage deviant of ocean perplexed
choices enmeshed

all to contemplate the attraction
of the lumination
the transcription and limping improvidence
under where the ‘o’ makes itself echo
of the conversation reflected in series
silence intact
where plunge in traction initial

it floats verbs to invert
the horizon, the lamination cruel, undecidable.
Who englots hibiscus & plumera
the touch vatic of slurs
pours the lectern
of corpses obsidian
& entombs the flight
combing a timbre of voice-
bled basilicas

& the lure.  The regard attenuated
by climate
less colors (brief in their difference)
point of repair
indifferent.  The motes
cue me "marked profusely".
Debriefed indications, echoes.

me voiced.  Sitting dunked recommencing
the place of lapses
in the merged ointment
the prosceniums
of yoked polysemics

Voilà.  Me voice it was
tender, the corpse —
belly, eyes, response —
"marvelous souvenir" of the mar
interrogates.  The scent.  Allures vent
Louis pacific a plot we find
mobile like an hypothesis
longing for reigns.  The incumbency

Permanence clacking in the oil
(corralled calligraphy).  The calm
"loin of two" me vents: australopithecine
certitude.  Versatile, yolked deuce
point venal.
Permanence of the deluge of transcriptions.
Voicing the jaw, the lamentation crude
who efface the horizon.  The table low . . .

loin of two, the yokes of burden
lax contours.  The yoke ascertains
the planets & the ore soothing
of the (regalia), the attention southern
the visage & incompatible allure
the yokes pronounce "demented
horizon" — orbits.  Lake
Seance.

orient

the choices inflected
of the usage deviant of motion vexed
the earnestness that we fashion
collusion of day & of the oxygen
in equilibrium the reticence
where drove his ambivalence. Mauve tangible
this is a long arcade rationed with oil   

-------------------------------------------------------------------
My variations on Brossard's "Polyne'se Des Yeaux"
in  À tout regard, BQ (Bibliothèque québécoise), Montréal, 1989, pp. 109 to 120.

collected in

With Strings

 

 




photo Charles Bernstein, 2006
link    |  11-17-08



NY
Art Walk


Petah Coyne
Vermilion Fog
Galerie Lelong
though Dec. 15
another of Coyne's excursions into the thickness of animalady

 


Beatriz Milhazes
James Cohan Gallery
through Nov. 15
An inventive Brazillain collagist

 


Djordje Ozbolt

303 Gallery
through December 23
a kind of Yugoslavian surrealism,
which is to say the real bubbles up in the unexpected cominations of images
this image is called "Last Year's Fashion"


Joan Mitchell
Sunflowers
Cheim & Read

through Dec. 20


Sa Suk-Won
Black Rainbow
at Gana Art
through Nov. 15
A Korean artist who uses a background blackboard inscribed by immigrant construction workers in Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and Chinese.


Noah Fischer
at Claire Oliver Gallery
through Nov. 15
computer screens detourned
more info at Paul Kahn's New!

 

thanks to Susan Bee for suggestions

link    |  11-15-08


Rosmarie Waldrop and Isabelle Garron
read Wednesday night at the Poetry Project in New York.

 

Isabelle Garron
is the author of
Face devant contra
(Paris Flammarion, 2002)
which has now been translated into English
by Sara Riggs as
Face Before Against
(Brooklyn:, Litmus Press, 2008)
I recommend both, with pleasure.

photos: Charles Bernstein
link    |  11-14-08


KWH Art, Penn English Department, & Penn Creative Writing Program present

an opening for TAPEWORM
a collaborative exhibition based on Darren Wershler-Henry's
The Tapeworm Foundry (andor the dangerous prevalence of imagination)

Thursday, 11/20 at 7PM
Kelly Writers House | 3805 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104

This event will be webcast live: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/webcasts/instructions.html.
----------------------------------------------------

Tapeworm is a collaboration of art projects radiating from a writing piece by Canadian artist Darren Wershler-Henry, The Tapeworm Foundry (andor the dangerous prevalence of imagination). The text is available on UbuWeb. The Tapeworm Foundry is an intriguing instance of conceptual writing, faithfully formulaic but also unusually compelling in its fruition: a single rambling, unpunctuated sequence of possible projects, ranging from quirky to absurd to highly ambiguous and all largely allusive of the twentieth century avant-garde. The potential 'instructions' that comprise Tapeworm, linked by the pulsating conjunction 'andor', are themselves mini-premises for a thousand other projects, making the 50-page list the ultimate conceptual catalyst.

This exhibition challenges a group of young contemporary artists and writers at Penn to realize some of Wershler-Henry's hypothetical instructions. The Penn students and graduates participating in the exhibition include: Grace Ambrose, Joyce Lee, Ned Eisenberg, Vladimir Zykov, Kimberly Eisler, Artie Vierkant, John Carroll, Jamie-Lee Josselyn, Arielle Brousse, Manya Scheps, Brooke Palmieri, Nick Salvatore, Robin McDowell, Sofie Hodara, Cecilia Corrigan, and Thomson Guster, with assistance from James La Marre and Trisha Low. Curated by Kaegan Sparks. There will be a limited quantity of complimentary exhibition catalogues available at the opening. Please email kwhart@writing.upenn.edu for more information.

 

link    |  11-14-08-X


The 12th PoemTalk
is being released this week:

featuring Rachel Levitsky, Joshua Schuster, & your humble bloggist
with host Al Filreis
discussing
Ezra Pound's "Cantico del Sole"
MP3 (26:14)
PoemTalk is a 25-minute mp3 audio recording - streamable or downloadable.
Also available in ITunes (with an option for subscribing).
PoemTalks is produced by the Poetry Foundation, Kelly  Writers House, and PennSound
produced by Al Filreis

[] PT#1: Williams's "Between Walls"
[] PT#2: Adrienne Rich, "Wait"
[] PT#3: George Oppen, "Ballad"
[] PT#4: Ginsberg sings Blake
[] PT#5: Ted Berrigan's "3 Pages"
[] PT#6: a Jaap Blonk sound poem
[] PT#7: Rothenberg's paradise
[] PT#8: Armantrout's "The Way"
[] PT#9: Ashbery at a crossroads
[] PT#10: one of Stein's portraits
[] PT#11: Erica Hunt's "voice of no"
[] PT#12: Ezra Pound's America

§§§§§§§§

 

Bob Holman in Senegal
Bob's blog from his ongoing trip "on the Griot trail.

(my photo from Bob's 60th at BPC)

link    |  11/13/08


Vladimir Maiakovskii: Tragediia  (Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy): Moscow, 1914

Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910 - 1917
November 18, 2008-April 19, 2009
Getty Research Institute Exhibition Gallery
Curators: Nancy Perloff with Allison Pultz

Drawing principally from the Getty Research Institute's collection of Russian modernist books, Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910-1917 brings into focus a brief, but tumultuous period when Russian visual artists and poets, including Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, Alexei Kruchenykh, and Velimir Khlebnikov, challenged Symbolism and revolutionized book art. They fabricated pocket-sized, hand-lithographed books and juxtaposed primitive and abstract imagery with a transrational poetry they called zaum' ("beyonsense"). This exhibition traces the avant-garde's use of the materials of their book art - imagery, language and its sounds, design, graphic technique - to convey humor, parody, and an intriguing ambivalence and apprehension about Russia's past, present, and future.  

Exhibition website
will go live on November 18, 2008
& feature a curator's essay, time line, and links to four books
in a page-turning format that incorporates translations, audio recordings, and interpretive highlights.

Some books can already be viewed in pdf format in the Getty's
digitized library collection

(from which I selected the image above).

RELATED EVENTS:

CURATOR-LED TOURS
Tuesday, November 18 - 10am, led by Allison Pultz
Tuesday, November 18 - 3:30pm, led by Nancy Perloff
No reservation necessary. Please meet at the GRI Plaza Lobby.

PERFORMANCE
Explodity: An Evening of Transrational Sound Poetry
February 4, 2009
Reception and Gallery Viewing: 5:00 - 6:45 p.m., GRI Exhibition Gallery
Performance: 7:00 - 8:45 p.m., Museum Lecture Hall
Performances by Christian Bök, Steve McCaffery, and Oleg Minin of Russian Futurist zaum' ("beyonsense") poetry and of contemporary sound poetry, with an introduction by Gerald Janecek.

SYMPOSIUM
The Book as Such in the Russian Avant-Garde
February 5, 2009
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Museum Lecture HallThis one-day symposium brings together scholars and artists in fields from art history to literature to explore the Russian avant-garde's revolution of the book. Talks and a roundtable address the deliberately crude materials, the newly invented zaum' language, and the verbal and visual tensions between parodic humor and apocalypse, the primitive and the urban, the sacred and the profane. Speakers will consider the influence of the Russian avant-garde on visual poetry and the aesthetics of book production in the later decades of the twentieth century.

Reservations
www.getty.edu/research
or call (310) 440-7300

 

link    |  11-12-08


Craig Dworkin, ed.
The Consequences of Innovation: 21st Century Poetics
(New York: Roof Books, 2008)

Highlights  include Dwokin’s introduction, Jed Rasula’s fascinating continuation of his approach in The American Poetry Wax Museum and a related piece on poetry culture by Steve Evans, Goldsmith’s week of blogs, Gary Sullivan’s hysterical restaging of David Bromige’s “My Poetry,” Bergvall on Templeton’s Cells of Release, and Perloff on Dworkin, Baetens, and Tawada. (Includes also my own “The Task of Poetics, the Fate of Innovation, and the Aesthetics of Criticism.”)

P. Adams Sitney
Eyes Upside Down: Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson
(New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2008)

Sitney provides lucid readings of Stan Brakhage, Ernie Gerhr, Abigail Child, Warren Sonbert, Hollis Frampton, among others; a fundamental resource for basic information on these great film makers.

Lyn Hejinian
Saga/Circus
(Richmond, CA: Omnidawn, 2008)

In the “Saga” second part of this book, Hejinian’s long serial poem “The Distance” uses the metaphor of sea journey to perfect her enticing, delightful, and endlessly reflecting mode of ontological variations.  

^^^^^

Review of
Louis Armand's Contemporary  Poetics
(Northwestern University Press, 2007)

by Vidhu Aggarwal in
Hyperrhiz: new media cultures

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"Poetry Baliout,"
tr. into French by Abigail Laing, in
New
#4, on-line supplement

link    |  11-10-08


Art and China's Revolution
at the Asia Society in New York
through January 11
note also excellent web site for the show



WU Yunhua 吴云华 (born 1944)
Mao Inspects Wushun Opencut Coal Mine
1972
Oil on Canvas
167 1/4 x 72 7/8 in.


Chen Yanning 陈衍宁 (born 1945)
Chairman Mao Inspects the Guangdong Countryside
1972
Oil on canvas
67 15/16 x 116 in

link    |  11-09-08



Poetry Off the Shelf
Poetry Foundation
Poems for President Obama
Charles Bernstein, Patricia Smith and Forrest Gander offer presidential advice.
Produced by Curtis Fox.



link    |  11-07-08



© 2007 Charles Bernstein/PennSound



Myung Mi Kim at PennSound

 

link    |  11-06-08


 

it's like a nightmare is ending but I can't wake up


 

link    |  11-05-08


 

 

 

Artic Ice Caps
Iraq
New Orleans
Justice Department
Wall Street
Civil Rights
Freedom to Choose
Supreme Court
United Nations

Just Let Us Finish the Job!


Vote Republican
on Nov. 4


 

 

link    |  11-02-08




Rod Smith & Friends
Nov. 16, 4pm, The Lyceum, Alexandria, Virginia
Charles Bernstein - Anselm Berrigan - Nada Gordon - Tom Raworth - Gary Sullivan - Rodrigo Toscano - Croniamantal (the band) - Mel Nichols - Chris Nealon - Doug Lang - Bonnie Jones - Adam Good - Mark McMorris - Tina Darragh - Michael Ball - Heather Fuller - Buck Downs - Lauren Bender - P. Inman

\\\\\\\\\\|||||||||||||///////////

Régis Bonvicino interviews me on the election in the Brazilian newspaper
Ultimo Segundo

& the interview (somewhat expanded) is posted in English at
Sibila
---
Two reviews of  Historias de Guerra
Regis Bonvicino's Brazillian selection from my work
in Coluna Alfredo Junior (Minas Gerais State) & Gazeta  do Povo (from Paraná State).

\\\\\\\\\\|||||||||||||///////////

Now available from ROOF
in its fourth printing
(2008)
Controlling Interests
"It’s strange to think of Charles Bernstein’s insurrectionary Controlling Interests as a “classic,” but there (here) it is. Written in & on that paradigmatic moment when “guacamole has replaced turkey as / the national dish of most favor” – 1980, three years after the oil crisis and the slippage of fordism toward the modular elusiveness of post-fordist globalization – these texts register and report on the (local & partial) displacement of the arduous demands of production by the diffuse injunction to take up a “lifestyle” and consume. But they’re characterized by a sometimes savage exuberance that hardly fits the Jamesonian mantra of the pomo lamb lying down complacently with its late-capitalist lion. That’s evident not only in the sometimes overt accents of critique, but also in the pervasive madcap pleasures of bizarre one-upsmanship: no mode of production could be more modular and mobile than this carnival of madly compressed “turnover time.” Indeed things move fast enough that, if this were a carousel (why not?), a lot of the fixtures & bric-a-brac of their historical moment would go zooming off toward some asymptotic limit we might call a horizon. What we can dimly discern there is surprising, and makes this hyperbolically comic text also intensely moving: say Benjamin’s angel of history, struggling to recover blown shards of the wreckage of history (the sacred) before it’s too late; or some strange avatar of Thoreau (courtesy of Stanley Cavell) dreaming not that the language might be made whole – and make us whole – but that it already is (we are) if we can hear it. Controlling Interests points us toward the communal space articulated in those almost audible words. But it won’t let us forget that all of it – junk and junket and critical juggernaut, and the words that make and remake them – is “us” not “them.” So that: comedy, and empathy, and hope: arm in arm, neck & neck – we’re off! --Tenney Nathanson, University of Arizona

"In the poems of CONTROLLING INTERESTS Bernstein continually reveals his desire for the concomitance of the individual and the world, of all language and experience . This book is one of the most original and imaginative in American lyric verse" --Douglas Messerli. (Go to Messerli's entire 1982 review.)

"Bernstein presents the reader with a world in which the articulation of an individual language is all but prevented by the official discourses that bombard the consciousness from all sides . He [is] on to something important"--Marjorie Perloff

"It is writing of absolute necessity, demanding not to be appreciated, but understood"--Ron Silliman.

link    |  11-01-08



P. Inman: Which Side Are You On?

Go to web log or download mp4 to see this video.

Peter Inman video portrait
It was after my Baltimore i.e. reading with Rod. I found a red alcove in the noisy bar. I’d first met Peter and Tina almost thirty years before in D.C., probably at a reading I did for Doug Lang at Folio Books in DuPont circle.
November 18, 2006
(mp4, 42 seconds, 8.3 mb)

link    |  10-29-08


link    |  10-27-08_x


Anne Tardos has sent us a new EPC author photo for Jackson Mac Low, from 1943

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||




photo by Claude Bondy
Abigail Laing read her translations with me at
Double Change in Paris
on Saturday, Oct. 25
at La Bellevilloise (21, Rue Boyer, 75020)

link    |  10-27-08




Info on Federman 80th birthday in Buffalo on Saturday 10/18/08
(below)


Federman at EPC

Federman on LineBreak
(30 min.): MP3

"Dada 2"
Federman & Bernstein,1996 (based on a poem by Federman, digitally edited by Bernstein)
(0:45): MP3

This essay of mine will appear as the preface to Federman at 80: From Surfiction to Critifiction, edited by Jeffrey DiLeo (State University of New York Press, 2009). It is published  in this week's
Artvoice.


Some Answers for Raymond Federman

For Raymond Federman fiction is useless.

Fiction is a delusion we use to screen ourselves from reality and reality is largely, though not entirely, delusional. This is why Federman is a story teller and not a novelist. And assuredly not a writer of fiction.

And if he tells the same stories over and again it is because the story is never the same in any telling because, if it were, that would be fiction. And Federman writes nonfiction. Historical nonfiction.

Or else what he writes is a bed of lies. (A hole inside a gap.)

And anyway it is never the same story and Federman tells it over and again because what he has to tell, like history, cannot be told once and for all.

Like the same dream you keep having only it’s not the same and this time you can’t wake up.

Federman wakes us up.

Federman is a spelunker of either historical memory or collective forgetting, depending on the reader. He is not interested in the well-lit paths through the cave nor even the once-marked offroads. What’s a cave to him or he to a cave that we should weep so? Memory has become a way of forgetting, the recovered forgetting of the professional memoirist. Federman prefers the musings of Stan and Oliver, or Vladimir and Estragon. He speaks of his life like a defrocked poet at a coroner’s inquest.

O, inconstant heart!

Digression is as much a foil as progression. Federman’s digressions are as direct as “an arrow from the Almighty’s bow.” They pierce but don’t wound. The wound is the condition, the voice in the closet that comes out, like Tinker Bell, only if you say you believe it. And you believe it only at your peril. (Pauline will fend for herself.)

The elementary error of the literature of self-help and affirmation, the preferred fiction of the mediocracy, is that trauma is overcome, that you get better, that there is healing. That there can be understanding. Federman neither dwells on the abyss, nor theatricalizes it, nor explains it, nor looks away.

The Dark is the ground of his being and his becoming.

Go nameless so that the name you are called by becomes you.

Federman is an improper noun full of signs and stories signifying (precisely) nothing. Federman names that which is (k)not here.

He is our American Jabès, only the rabbis have been subsumed into the bouillabaisse and the ladder loaned to the roofer.

And from that roof we shout to the crowd assembling below: Break it up! Go back to where you came from, if you can find it! There is nothing to see here.

The truth you seek is not on this earth nor in Heaven either.

Then Federman begins again.

One more time.

The words, at least the words, are indelible, even if we are not.

Or so the story goes….

link    |  10-17-08


Robert Shepperd
has a new web incarnation of his UK-based
Pages
(fourth series)
with a discussion of innovative" poetry and/as the mainstream

|||||||||||||||

PennSound's own Danny Snelson
curates Radio Noise at the Ontological (NY)
Friday night (Oct. 17) at 8pm


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS, AA2175

The Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program (IAS) at the University of Washington Bothell seeks a practicing artist and scholar working in visual, media, spoken, written, and/or performance arts, and whose research and practice engages with one or more of the following areas: ecology and environmental studies; technology and science; public and community health; ethnic and gender studies; spatial practice and design. The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary faculty working across the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences in an integrative curriculum with an emphasis on experiential and community-engaged scholarship and pedagogy.  Two-years teaching experience and PhD or other appropriate terminal degree required at time of appointment.  Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience.

IAS houses undergraduate and graduate programs, is part of a growing campus located 18 miles from Seattle on the eastside of Lake Washington, and has access to the research and funding resources of the three UW campuses.  IAS is launching several new undergraduate majors, including a degree in Interdisciplinary Arts.  It also offers Master of Arts degrees in Cultural Studies and Policy Studies.  The program as a whole stresses links between diverse fields and methods of inquiry, and values engaged scholarship and experiential learning as central components of its mission.  The candidate will have a demonstrated commitment to pedagogical innovation and be prepared to teach an upper-division core course that introduces students to interdisciplinary inquiry. 

For more information, see http://www.washington.edu/admin/acadpers/ads/aa2175.html , or e-mail the search committee chair, Professor JoLynn Edwards, at jedwards -- at -- uwb.edu.  Preferred deadline: 24 October 2008.  Applications should include a letter addressing the candidate’s scholarly, pedagogical, and artistic qualifications for working in this type of program, a CV, a statement of research and teaching interests, and a sample syllabus from an interdisciplinary course.  Address applications to Ms. Pam DePriest, University of Washington Bothell, IAS Program/Interdisciplinary Arts Search, Box 358530, 18115 Campus Way NE, Bothell, WA 98011.

This position is contingent upon available funding.  University of Washington faculty members engage in teaching, research and service.  The University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.  The Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty and staff committed to teaching and working in a multicultural environment and strongly encourages applications from women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and other eligible veterans.  We are particularly interested in faculty who can contribute to diversifying the undergraduate and graduate curricula.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE
2009 IAPL CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS
1-7 June 2009
The International Association for Philosophy and Literature will hold its 33rd annual conference at Brunel University in Uxbridge (West London, ENGLAND) in 2009. The conference theme is DOUBLE | EDGES: rhetorics - rhizomes - regions. Keynote speakers will be confirmed in the coming weeks. The deadline for paper abstract and session proposal submissions is now 31 October 2008. Please go to www.iapl.info for further information and online submissions. Contact: Hugh J. Silverman, IAPL Executive Director and Program Coordinator: execdir --@-- iapl.info.

////////////////////////////////////////////

Review of  Histórias da Guerra
(Bonvicino's Brazillian tr. of my poems/essays)
by Sérgio Medeiros in Centopéia (Oct. 13, 2008)

(in Portuguese)

link    |  10-16-08


My reading from Girly Man & Shadowtime
at the CUE Art Foundation, New York
January 16, 2007
courtesy  PennSound


click to launch Quicktime plugin
or copy link and open stream in media player
or download from link


Video
Introduction by William Corbett:(1:47): .mov
Reading (42:31): .mov

Audio
Introduction by William Corbett:(1:47): mp3
Reading (42:31): . mp3

1. Introduction by Charles Bernstein (2:25) : mp3
2. Sign Under Test (12:32): mp3
3. Don't Get me Wrong (1:28): mp3
4. Jacob's Ladder (0:43): mp3
5. Castor Oil (1:15): mp3
6. Dialogue with Hölderlin and Benjamin (from Shadowtime) (2:14): mp3
7. Laurel's Eyes (from Shadowtime) (2:12): mp3
8. Hashish in Marseilles (from Shadowtime) (1:49): mp3
9. Der Tod, Das Ist Die Kühle Nacht (from Shadowtime) (4:09): mp3
10. There's Beauty in the Sound ... (2:07): mp3
11. Wherever Angels Go (1:39): mp3
12. Introduction to Let's Just Say (1:04): mp3
13. Let's Just Say (3:33): mp3
14. "every lake . . ." (0:55): mp3
15. The Ballad of the Girly Man (4:15): mp3

2-5, 10-15 from Girly Man

link    |  10-15-08


if in NY


George Tooker & the Unknown Blakelock
at the National Academy till Jan. 4
The early Tooker and the late Blakelock are not to be missed
(above: Tooker, Government Bureau, 1956)
*
Alfred Kubin at Neue Gallery (through Jan. 29)

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Interrupt 2008
Language-Driven Digital Art
Conference at Brown
Oct. 17-19
>Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
>Human Beast
>cris cheek
>Abigail Child
>Chris Funkhouser
>Loss Pequeño Glazier
>Foofwa d’Imobilité & Alan Sondheim
>Talan Memmott
>Marko Niemi
>Bill Seaman & Penny Florence
>Eugenio Tisselli
>Patricia Tomaszek

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

American Poet Launch Party
Saturday, November 8
7:00 p.m.
Reading and reception for the new fall issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets. Micro-readings by Charles Bernstein, Major Jackson, and Cecily Parks..
Wollman Hall
The New School
5th floor, Room 550
65 W. 11th Street
(btwn 5th and 6th Ave)
$4 admission
part of AAP's Poets Forum

||||||||||||||||||||||

St Marks Church NY
Poetry Project Calendar
includes A Helen Adam Halloween
Wednesday, 8:00 pm
Halloween time is a good Helen Adam time. Adam's work inspired many poets, such as Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer, to explore the ballad. This event is to celebrate the publication of A Helen Adam Reader (National Poetry Foundation, 2008) edited by Kristin Prevallet. Songsters who will conjure Adam through her ballads are: Anne Waldman, Edmund Berrigan, Dan Machlin and Serena Jost, Franklin Bruno and Bree Benton, Cecilia Vicuña, Julie Patton, Tracie Morris, Lee Ann Brown, Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe and Bob Holman. This event is co-presented with Poets House.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

from the archive
Secular Jewish Culture/Radical Poetic Practice
video of 9/21/04 panel
with Paul Auster, Charles Bernstein (chair/organizer), Kathryn Hellerstein, Stephen Paul Miller, Marjorie Perloff, Jerome Rothenberg

 

link    |  10-13-08




Modernism & Unreadability (Difficulty) Colloquium
Lyon, France 23-25 octobre 2008

Colloque "Modernisme et Illisibilité"
organisé par Isabelle Alfandary (PU Lyon 2, CEP), Axel Nesme (MCF Lyon 2, CEP) et Lacy Rumsey (ENS LSH) salles F08 et F01 Le colloque « Modernisme et Illisibilité » se propose d’interroger un mouvement littéraire et esthétique majeur, le modernisme, du point de vue d’un de ses effets aussi évidents qu’habituellement passés sous silence : l’illisible. Cette manifestation à dimension internationale et pluridisciplinaire rassemblera plus d’une quarantaine de chercheurs venus d’Europe, d’Amérique et d’Asie, issus de spécialités de ittératures étrangères, notamment du domaine anglophone, et de littérature française. Parmi les plus grands spécialistes de la question moderniste seront en situation de débattre d’une période charnière dans l’histoire de la littérature et des arts. La présence de Charles Bernstein, titulaire de la prestigieuse chaire de poésie à University of Pennsylvania, de Bonnie Costello, professeur à Boston University, ainsi que de Jean-Jacques Lecercle, professeur émérite à l’Université de Paris-X Nanterre, sera l’occasion d’échanges contradictoires et fructueux. La conférence donnera lieu à une lecture de poésie bilingue qui mettra en présence quatre voix poétiques contemporaines majeures dont les œuvres s’inscrivent dans la lignée du modernisme américain: celle de Charles Bernstein, de Christian Prigent, de Jacques Demarcq ainsi que de Jean-Marie Gleize.

conference program (doc file)

---

I will be reading with Anne Parian for Double Change in Paris
on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 4:30pm
at La Bellevilloise
21, Rue Boyer, 75020


--------

Symposium
Layers of the Avant-Garde in Finland
9-10 October 2008

Helsinki
link    |  10-09-08



Ted and me at KGB bar (Michael Lally / Terry Winch reading) on Monday. Photo © Star Black

Ted Greenwald, In Your Dreams (Buffalo: Blaze Vox, 2008)
Ted Greenwald’s 30th book consists of 79 72-line poems, each with his trademark recombinatory drop-stitch weave. As a basic pattern, which is varied, each poem’s 26 demotic lines is repeated in 9 interlinked free triolets (ABCACDAB-DEFDFGDE). In Your Dreams is almost, then is, hard to say, In Your Dreams is almost, hard to say, autopoiesis, In Your Dreams is almost, then is, autopoiesis, flickering fugal strobe of the everyday, or sublime sonic moiré, autopoiesis, or sublime sonic moiré, spoken and shimmering, autopoiesis, flickering fugal strobe of the everyday.

---------

Frank Bidart and I will have a public conversation as part of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in  Lowell. Saturday, Oct. 11, 3-4pm, All Arts Gallery, 246 Market Street. The event is organized by Fulcrum as part of their debate series.

--------

"Our Americas: New Worlds Under Construction"
published in Vagant (Bergen, Norway)
________


Federman@80: A Celebration

Sat., Oct. 18 - Buffalo




Morning: 10:30 A.M.-12:30 P.M., UB Anderson Gallery, One Martha Jackson Place.
Opening reception (with coffee and accompaniments) of an exhibition of Federman-inspired art works by Terri Katz-Kazimov, Harvey Breverman, & Bruce Jackson.


L to R: Federman, René Girard, & Al Cook (photo by Bruce Jackson)

Noon(ish): 1:00-4:30 P.M., Poetry Collection, 4th Floor Capen Hall, UB North Campus.
Two sessions of presentations and discussion featuring contributors to the forthcoming SUNY Press collection of essays, Federman at 80: From Surfiction to Critifiction, edited by Jeffrey DiLeo.
1:00-2:30: A Life in the Text.
Dr. Larry McCaffery, Dr. Menachem Feuer, & Dr.
3:00-4:30: Laughter, History, and the Holocaust.
Dr. Susan Rubin Suleiman & Dr. Marcel Cornis-Pope.


L to R: Leslie Fiedler & Federman (photo by Bruce Jackson)

& NIGHT: 8:00 P.M., Medaille College, Main Building, Foyer & Lecture Hall.
An Evening of Laughterature, Surfiction, & Playgiarism
Ted Pelton, Christina Milletti, Geoffrey Gatza, Julie Regan, Michael Basinski, & Steve McCaffery.
Intermission
Davis Schneiderman, Charles Bernstein, Simone Federman, & Raymond Federman
The readings will be followed by a reception and 80th birthday toast.

more info

 

link    |  10-08-08-x

A Letter from Paul Zukofsky


Dear Pa-fressor Smarty-Pants

as a Charter Member of the vast Right-Leg Conspiracy to Restore Sanity, Probity and the Pentameter to the  World of Poetry (RLCRSPPWP),  I have read with great interest your message of Sept 26, 2008, to be found in  



and am delighted that you have finally come to your census, and have decided to join our campaign to restore SPP to poetry. I was especially pleased that you have chosen to begin your program-pogrom with 1904, the year of birth of that  Obfusticator-in-Chief, Louis Zukofsky (who actually once wrote a poem about his Washstand!!! I mean, REALLY! Can you believe it??? What next? Toilet as sculpture??), and as a start, you should order an immediate freeze on any persons attempting a dissertation on the aforesaid  Obfusticator-in-Chief, as Little is of greater danger to the economy -- indeed,  the World.

However, dear Pa-fressor, whilst "hole-heartedly" welcoming you to our little Conspiracy, the record MUST reflect that you yourself are partially to blame for this tsunami of in-F-able F-LU(z)ENT, having edited a Selection of the aforementioned Obfusticator-in-Chief's more egregious items; and by having helped start a Poetic Movement that probably moved poetry backwards by at least two centuries.

But let us not dwell in the past.

Instead, let us look forward to a time when young twits are no longer encouraged to think that they have a right to express themselves, or that anyone gives a damn what they FEEL; to a time when there will no longer be funding (thanks to Fannie and Freddie and Sallie) that, by allowing their parents to purchase homes with no-money-down, in turn  allowed their parents the money to get the twits the hell out of the aforesaid home, thereby swelling the coffers of Sonny, and Benny, and Frannie, and Penny; and where the  general insouciance regarding the welfare of the country was such that no one cared that the solution to our problems regarding the tax-base, excess immigrant workers, and the high price of vegetables, can all be traced to people feeling the need to write poetry (accuse me whilst I vomit) . So I say to you:

ONWARDS

and remain, as ever

yours in paranoia.  

I am Paul Zukofsky, and I shall probably pay for this message. 

link    |  10-08-08


over the past month I have been intermittently posting these placards.

the full set is now collected at Sibila.

 

McPalin

a bridge to the Dark



the full placard set is now collected here.
link    |  10-04-08-x



Untitled: Speculations on the Expanded Field of Writing
October 24/25, 2008
at RedCat/CalArts Los Angeles

With Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Latasha Diggs, Johanna Drucker, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert Grenier, Douglas Kearney, Steve McCaffery, Julie Patton, Salvador Plascencia, Jessica Smith, Brian Kim Stefans, Stephanie Taylor, Shanxing Wang, and Heriberto Yepez.

The fifth in an annual series of experimental writing conferences at REDCAT, “Untitled” is a two-day conversation about writing which in some manner exceeds the printed page: word-art onscreen, the book as object, material appropriated from newspapers, hand-drawn texts, or writings on the wall. “Untitled” is a common title of contemporary art works and also refers to the incipient moment of a new text or idea. A variety of writers and artists will discuss the use of language and words and/or their object status, the book and the letter, the question of the "emptiness" vs. the fullness of language as a poetic medium, the pictorial versus the narrative, the incorporation of extra-linguistic symbols and signs (maps, diagrams, formulas, etc.), the question of conceptual writing, and words off the page – performed, sited, projected, incanted, or invoked.

Funded by The Annenberg Foundation
Organized by Matias Viegener and Christine Wertheim.

FRIDAY October 24th

12.30- Opening Addresses

1.00- 3.00 – Litterality 1.
Writing is not speech, it is letters on a page. What do we make of the inclusion in writing of non-alphabetic signs, symbols, diagrams; writing as map or score; invented writing notations; or the book as object?
Johanna Drucker, Salvador Plascencia, Latasha Diggs, Shanxing Wang,

3.30 – 5.00 - The Meaninglessness or -fulness of Language.
As a vehicle, is language empty, saturated with meaning, both, or something else?
Jessica Smith, Bob Grenier, Christine Wertheim

5.00- 6.00 - Drinks at REDCAT with participants and audience

8.30- 10.30 – Evening Readings/Performances


SATURDAY October 25th
Morning
10.30- 12.00 - Appropriation and Citation.
Whose work and what material gets appropriated, cited and resurrected? Who owns texts? Is there a difference between appropriation and citation?
Steve McCaffery, Doug Kearney, Kenneth Goldsmith

12.30 – 2.00 - Litterality 2.
Writing is not speech, it is letters on a page. What do we make of the inclusion in writing of non-alphabetic signs, symbols, diagrams; writing as map or score; invented writing
notations; or the book as object?
Brian Kim Stephans, Julie Patton, Vincent Dachy

Afternoon
3.30 – 5.00 The Concept of Conceptual Writing.
What is the relation between conceptual writing and the trajectory of conceptual art?
Stephanie Taylor, Heriberto Yepez, Young-Hae Chang+ Marc Voge

5.00-6.00 - Summary Discussion with all panelists

8.30- 10.30 – Evening Readings/Performances

 

link    |  XXX


PennSound stats:
we now have about 15,000 media files
and over the past year we've had about  20 million downloads of those files.

^^^^^

^^^^^^^^^

Eiríkur Örn Norðdah's translation of
The Revenge of the Poet-Critic
(from My Way)
is in the
first issue
of the Icelandic magazine web magazine
Tregawott.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ron Sillimans' Ketjak in PDF

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

one night in Bergen, Norway ...

1 Caroline Bergvall - Audiatur 28.09.07 06:30
2 Cia Rinne - Audiatur 28.09.07 09:11
3 Ellen Grimsmo Foros - Audiatur 28.09.07 10:34
4 Ingvild Burkey - Audiatur 28.09.07 17:18
5 Kajsa Sundin - Audiatur 28.09.07 09:53
6 Leevi Lehto - Audiatur 28.09.07 23:02
7 Pedro Carmona-Alvarez - Audiatur 28.09.07 08:45
8 Simen Hagerup - Audiatur 28.09.07 09:38
9 Tomomi Adachi - Audiatur 28.09.07 07:10

^^^^^^^^^



Veja
is something like
the Time magazine of Brazil
(1.5 circulation / 4 million readers)

link    |  10-01-08

 

With Strings

from With Strings, 2001
---------------------------------------------------

Common Stock

  Believing that fundamental conditions
of the country are sound and that there
is nothing in the business situation to warrant
the destruction of values that has taken  place
on the exchanges during the past week,
my son and I have for some days
been purchasing sound common stocks.
                       – John D. Rockefeller (1929)

Trades that are
        injurious to
                 climate – gradient

of the supreme
        effort to scale
                 a thorn

that hulls us
        firm beyond
                 bounty.  Hucksters

rescinding voracious
        declamation
                 hopes

of a
        pear, soft
                 and oval

to the knot without
        tangle that braids
                 the dole.

Or derring-done,
        sometimes seated,
                 that stills

with pliant
        warrant. 
                 Scuttle

behind or before anyone
        has a leg to
                 laugh off.

Grateful but not gracious
        enough – flood
                 in the face

of moral insubordination,
        truculent enough
                 to eat a

truss.  Floor-length with
        an irremediable
                 conclusion--

views of the flicker in which we
        pilfer – klieg-light
                 origin, defenestrated

micropassage.  I leer a bit
        but don't veer
                 often, comes a

donkey with silver bells
        to lean on
                 (among)
              
& the woof of the day
        fritters away
                 in loquacious

aqua regia.  (Never sold
        anyone this.  Never
                 heard the

curb.)  Maybe forget the fly-
        trap for the crease.
                 Or show-laddered

past 9-o'clock shadow to
        the orient of my
                 unfolding.

(All as clear as
        punches right now.
                 Sitting there.)

As perhaps falsely implicate, hap-
        hazardly conjoin, whacked
                 joints to spin the

Adjacent.  Or maybe didn't
        matter anyway, or to
                 whom.

Efflorescent bongo – plunge, superannuated
        penny loafers – as if
                 you could crawl

your way out of history.
        One wish
                 appertained.

But the dead stare of the facts
        cooled the discussion
                 of desublimation.

(Shook up
        but
                 didn't tell.)

Blood is our esperanto, flesh
        our zaum, who
                 have no verbs

to frighten away
        the night.
                 (Nothing

but words.)  Noting
        more than
                 notice

trick of a clock,
        club of a
                 sail – keystrokes

of dilatinous osmolality 
        shuddering against
                 the loaded

drain basin, trying to grab
        hold, in front of, completely
                 out of

frame.  Then fasten your dock,
        divest the maul,
                 whosoever envisions

lassitude.  Millet of swell-drenched
        pumping, maldisposed
                 actuarial.

Or else become safety net,
        sulfuric test,
                 of love-bent plaint.

         

link    |  09-30-08



Pierre Joris has put up some clips from the Technicians of the Sacred
40th Anniversary reading
at his Nomadics blog.
My version of the opening Cato genesis poem is above;
Jerome Rothenberg (Three Yaqui Deer Dance Poems)
and Nicolle Peyrafitte (Sumerian "Vulva Song of Inanna")
& full audio of the event more now at
PennSound

link    |  09-27-08


Poetry Bailout Will Restore Confidence of Readers

my emergency announcement at last night's launch for The Best American Poetry 2008

has just been published by Harper's.

 

link    |  09-26-08

Come join us as we begin our 41st season, with two reasons to celebrate!

You are invited to a reception
celebrating the release of the current issue of
PAJ: a journal of performance and art
Bonnie Marranca, Editor
Published in cooperation with MIT Press

AND

celebrating a new partnership between
the Ontological and free103point9 Transmission Arts
Starting in January 2009, free103point9 is thrilled to be in residence at the Ontological, formalizing an ongoing mutually inspired collaboration

Thursday, October 16, 2008
6:00 – 7:45 PM
Parish Hall, St. Mark’s Church

light refreshments will be served

Hosted by Ontological Theater Board Member Charles Bernstein


please RSVP to the Ontological at 212-420-1916

 

PAJ 90 includes pieces by and about Richard Foreman:

Performance chart and script selections from
DEEP TRANCE BEHAVIOR IN POTATOLAND

Storyboards from MARIA DEL BOSCO

Performance photos

Interview with Foreman by George Hunka

PAJ 90 online
(some of the Foreman material is available without sub, follow links
holograph page above is from the issue)

Following the reception, please join us upstairs at 8PM for the first evening of free103’s NYC Radio Festival 2008: Radio Theater featuring work by 31 Down and Japanther—admission is free, as part of TCG’s Free Night of Theater!

 

Coming in January: ASTRONOME, a new opera directed by Richard Foreman with
music by John Zorn…

link    |  09-23-08-x

New at EPC
Canadian Portal
author pages, journals and magazines, presses, author-run centres
& author pages for
  • Sina Queyras
  • Peter Culley
  • Gregory Betts author page
  • Colin Smith authr page
  • Margaret Christakos author page

    with thanks to Donato Mancini
    for editing the Canadian portals and pages

    ————

    “Veronica Forrest-Thomson: Larking up Kicks”
    A Call for Papers
               
                “[O]ne of the misfortunes of the lack of attention being paid to English poetry of this century is the obscurity of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, a poet who died in 1975 at the age of 27.” So stated Brian Kim-Stefans in July 2001. In 2002, literary critic Suzanne Raitt expressed the hope that Forrest-Thomson’s unknown status would be mitigated by a compilation of her poetry in the nineties and a recent monograph by Alison Mark. This symposium emerges on the heels of another updated version of Forrest-Thomson’s poetry, namely Veronica Forrest-Thomson: Collected Poems (ed. Anthony Barnett, published by Shearsman Books and Allardyce, Barnett, 2008).

    Veronica Forrest-Thomson wrote four poetry collections: Identi-kit (1967) Language Games (1971), Cordelia, or 'A poem should not mean, but be' (1974) and On the Periphery (1976). She was also a literary theorist and critic who authored Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry (1978). Her work is witty, philosophical, and occasionally, deliberately, badly rhymed. It is also worthy of more consideration.

    Christ’s College, Cambridge and the Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex intend to co-host a day-long symposium dedicated to the work of Veronica Forrest-Thomson. It will be held on January 17th, 2009 at Cambridge, and will involve panels comprised of 15-minute papers and a longer, seminar-style finale of very short close readings of individual Forrest-Thomson poems. Our intent is to foster an informed and comfortable dialogue about Forrest-Thomson, and contemplate ways of approaching her work.

    As such, we welcome papers on any facet of Forrest-Thomson’s poetry and criticism. Proposals of no more than 250 words should be sent to both Sara Crangle (S.Crangle@sussex.ac.uk) and Sophie Read (scnr2@cam.ac.uk).    

    ----

    Lisa Samuels in conversation on Laura (Riding) Jackson
    in three parts



    ++++

    new at Bridge Streen books


    *********

    The Seminary Coop Blog

    +++++++++++++++++

    September 23, 2008

    Thursday, September 25th, 7:00PM
    Gala Launch Reading
    The New School
    Tischman Auditorium
    66 West 12th Street
    New York, NY
    Featuring readings by John Ashbery, Charles Bernstein,Ciaran Berry, Laura Cronk, Richard Howard, Dennis Nurske, Meghan O’Rourke, Lee Upton.
    Series Editor David Lehman will moderate
    .

    Books will be for sale. 

    Follow guest author Don Share this week on The Best American Poetry Blog.  

  • link    |  09-23-08

    About a week ago, I posted my exchange with Régis Bonvicino
    "Palin/McCain and the Cult of Irresponsibility"
    and included an article of Régis's in Portuguese. Odile Cisneros has
    now translated the article. Portuguese original here
    from Último Segundo, Sao Paulo, Oct. 6, 2008)

    permalink to full exchange here

    link    |  09-18-08

     


    link    |  09-17-08

    Alan Davies Draws a Blank

    Download mp4 or go to main web log page to see this video.



    Alan Davies

    Alan sat in front of Pecan's just before the Close Listening taping.
    January 5, 2007
    (mp4, 29 seconds, 5.8 mb)

    link    |  09-16-08

    A.I.R Gallery.
    has  moved to Dumbo (Brooklyn).
    Manhattan was New York's 20th century art (and poetry) hot spot
    but for some time Brooklyn has been gaining an edge.
    (Perhaps this is because our sometimes Republican mayor,
    Michael Bloomberg, has made his major policy goal
    creating a surplus of luxury housing  in Manhattan.
    Chelsea (a.k.a. Corporate Art Condo Village)
    is the new SoHo, while Williamsburg,
    and perhaps Dumbo too,
    are the new Chelsea.

    A.I.R. is celebrating its move to Dumbo in style, with shows about  its illustrious history at NYU
    & at its new Brooklyn space.

    At  New York University
    A.I.R. Gallery: The History Show
    archival materials from 1972 to the present
    September 16 - December 12, 2008
    Curated by Kat Griefen & Dena Muller
    at Tracey/Barry Gallery, Bobst Library (Fales Collection)
    70 Washington Square South, 3rd Floor
    Opening Reception and Panel at Tracey/Barry Gallery
    Tuesday September 16, 6-8pm
    "How A.I.R. Changed the Art World: Feminist Intervention Over 37 Years"
    Panelists: Dotty Attie, Carey Lovelace, Corinne Robins, Carolee Schneemann & Joan Snitzer

    The NYU show is open from 9:45am - 5:45pm Monday - Thursday and 9am - 4:45 pm on Friday.



    At A.I.R.'s new Dumbo space

    A.I.R. Gallery: The History Show
    works from 1972 to the present
    PART I - October 2 - November 1, 2008
    Opening reception, October 2, 6pm - 8pm
    **and featuring works by Susan Bee**
    Curated by Kat Griefen and Carey Lovelace
    at A.I.R. Gallery, 111 Front Street, Brooklyn

    The gallery is open Wednesday - Sunday 11am - 6pm
    link    |  09-14-08



    "Chutes and Ladders I (for Joe Brainard)," 2008

    11 collages from John Ashbery's Tibor de Nagy show are now
    on-line at the The New York Times,
    along with an essay on the work (based on an interview with Ashbery) by Holland Cotter.


    “Apres un Reve” (c. 1977)
    link    |  09-13-08

    link    |  09-12-08

    Palin/McCain and the Cult of Irresponsibility
    an exchange between Régis Bonvicino & Charles Bernstein



    Zen Monster

    is alive at
    The Bowery Poetry Club.
    September 24, 6-7:30 p.m
    308 Bowery, New York
    New Zen, leftist, secular, jewish-buddhist. african art & literature magazine Zen Monster
    kicks off with an inaugural reading at the Bowery Poetry Club September 24, 6-7:30 pm.
    Poets, writers, readers and visual artists include Karen Russell, Bob Perelman, Eliot Katz,
    Robyn Ellenbogen, Simon Pettet, Lorraine Stone, Andrea Clark Libin, Willie Cole, Matvei
    Yankelevich, Lewis Warsh, John High, Charles Bernstein, Stephen Paul Miller, Ammiel
    Alcalay, Steve Benson, Brian Unger and assorted special guests.
    link    |  09-09-08


    New EPC author pages


    photo credit: unknown

    Deanna Ferguson

     


    Photo: Ruby and Dan, Trout Lake, 2008. Photo by Aaron Vidaver

    Dan Farrell

    ------

    There was an error in the address
    for the hard copy of the Nepal anthology
    The Humanities at Work, ed. Yubraj Aryal
    but it is now corrected here.

    link    |  09-07-08


    Mike Hennessey reviews
    Blind Witness: Three American Operas
    on
    PennSound Daily

    *
    Sound files and video for
    Blind Witness News, The Subject, and The Lenny Paschen Show
    at PennSoound
    (corrected link from yesterday's post )

    ------

    George Lakoff on
    Palin as Metaphor
    (from Tikkun web)

    -----


    John Ashbery collages
    new & old
    bringing to mind the work of Jess and Joe Brainard
    *a total treat*
    along with new paintings by Trevor Winkfied
    now through Oct. 4
    Tibor de Nagy
    724 Fifth Avennue
    NY

    ---

    Best American Poetry
    Thursday, September 25
    7:00 p.m., free
    Tishman Auditorium, Johnson Building, 66 West 12th Street
    David Lehman, series editor of The Best American Poetry and poetry coordinator of the New School's MFA program, will introduce poets chosen by Charles Wright for the 2008 volume, the 21st edition of the acclaimed annual anthology.  Readers include John Ashbery, Charles Bernstein, Ciaran Berry, Laura Cronk, Richard Howard, D. Nurkse and Meghan O'Rourke

    link    |  09-05-08

    link    |  09-04-08

    25 years ago Douglas Messerli gave a talk on
    "Rhythms of the `Language' Poets"
    at the MLA Annual Convention, New York (1982).
    He's now
    published the essay on his
    Green Integer Blog.

    _____


    In 1968
    Jerome Rothenberg published his anthology
    Technicians of the Sacred
    "a global range of oral & tribal poetry into focus and launched ethnopoetics as a new approach to poetry and performance".

    At the Bowery Poetry Club
    Sunday, September 14, 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.:
    a celebration of the 40th anniversary with
    Charles Bernstein, George Economou, Bob Holman, Pierre Joris, Charlie Morrow, Rochelle Owens, Nicole Peyrafitte, Diane Rothenberg, Carolee Schneemann, and Cecilia Vicuña.  (Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, between Houston and Bleecker, NewYork.)

    _____________________

    Tomomi Adachi at PennSound
    page edited by Danny Snelson

    Yumiko, 1997/2008



    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Ligorono/Reese
    Democracy Melting in Minneapolis/St.Paul


    Voices 4 Democracy website


    Lobbyists for McCain from LigoranoReese on Vimeo.

    link    |  09-03-08


    Here is my contribution to the Aryal anthlology from Nepal.

    Charles Bernstein interviewed by Yubraj Aryal
    (May 2007)
    from
    The Humanities at Work: International Exchange of Ideas in Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature
    Editor: Yubraj Aryal
    Publisher:  Sunlight Publication, Kathmandu, Nepal (2008) 

    PEPC edition:
    Introduction and table of contents
    Main body of text

    link    |  09-02-08


    The Humanities at Work: International Exchange of Ideas in Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature
    Editor: Yubraj Aryal
    Publisher:  Sunlight Publication, Kathmandu, Nepal (2008)

    Interviews (in English) with American philosophers, literary theorists and specialists in aesthetics
    The book is prepared with the support of the Philosophical Society of Nepal along with the close advisory of a team of Nepali and American scholars Shredhar Prasad Lohani, Govinda Raj Bhattarai,  Arun Gupto, Krishna Chandra Sharma,  William L. McBride, David E. Schrader,  Charles Bernstein and Johanna Drucker under the theme of intercultural ideas for global peace and mutual understanding.
    The book not only, as Hilary Putnam says, “testifies both to intelligence and sophistication” of the Nepali scholarly community but also, as Jerome  McGann points out, “will open Western cultural understanding of recent years to critical assessment by Asian intellectual communities”  
    Price: $ 20
    Checks to Yubraj Aryal
    Parker Apartments, LLC
    615 North Street #13
    Lafayette, IN 47903, USA
    (Note: the editor has just moved from Nepal to the U.S. to attend graduate school .)

    available as a PEPC digital edition (pdf):

    While our PEPC edition is free of charge,
    please send contributions to the editor at above address to help defray costs.

    Table of Contents

    TWENTIETH CENTURY
    A. Philosophy 18

    1. Neo-pragmatism
    Hilary W. Putnam 18
    2. Mind and Language
    John Searle 28
    3. Derrida and Deconstruction
    David Wood 38
    4. Modernity and Rationality
    Leonard Harris 46
    5. Modernity and Postmodernity: A Debate
    Kathleen M. Haney 52
    6. Feminism: Some Current Issues
    Kelly Oliver 62
    7. Terrorism: Some Current Issues
    Bat-Ami Bar On 68
    8. Postmodernism and Some Moral Questions in
    Twentieth Century Ethics
    David E. Schrader 74
    9. Postmodernism and Some Questions on God in
    Twentieth Century Religion
    Linda T. Zagzebski 88
    B. Poetics, Art and Aesthetics 100
    10. Cultural Critics and Modernist Avant-garde: A
    Debate
    Geoffrey Galt Harpham 100
    11. Theory of Texuality
    Jerome McGann 106
    12. Idealism and Twentieth Century Literary Theory
    Charles Altieri 112
    13. Language Poetry and Modernist Avant-garde
    Charles Bernstein 118
    14. Digital Aesthetics
    Johnana Drucker 126
    15. Postcolonialism: Some Current Issues
    Jahan Ramazani 144
    16. Race, South African Reconciliation and Aesthetics
    Daniel Herwitz 150
    17. Contemporary American Poetry
    Susan M. Schultz 156

    ENLIGHTENMENT AND POSTENLIGHTENMENT
    A. Philosophy 164
    18. Enlightenment Philosophy
    Allen Wood 164
    19. Romantic Philosophy
    Fred Breiser 172
    20. Reason and Unreason
    Daniel Breazeale 178
    21. Philosophy of History: Hegelian and Anti-Hegelian
    Richard Dien Winfield 184
    22. Myth and History
    George Allan 194
    23. Existentialism
    William L. McBride 212
    24. Freud and Unconscious
    David Rosenthal 222
    B. Poetics, Art and Aesthetics
    25. Marxism, Poetics, Art and Aesthetics
    Tyrus Miller 232
    PRESOCRATIC TO RENAISSANCE
    A. Philosophy 248
    26. Pre-Socratic Philosophy
    Tony Preus 248
    27. Neo-Platonism
    Gary M. Gurtler, S.J. 270
    28. Renaissance Philosophy
    Bruce Smith 278
    B. Poetics, Art and Aesthetics 284
    29. Greco-Roman Poetics, Art and Aesthetics
    Andrea Nightingale 284
    30. Renaissance Poetics, Art and Aesthetics
    Andrew David Hadfield 304

    link    |  09-01-08


    Poem Profiler: Check Levels

    This is a list of rhetorical and other features of individual poems that I have used for many years in teaching and which I discuss in several essays on poetry and pedagogy.
    PEPC library link to the
    Poem Profiler
    (and also to an "EZ" version format).

    link    |  08-29-08


    " />

    War Stories: Poems and Essays
    translated from Portuguese, and with an introduction by
    Régis Bonvicino
    MARTINS EDITORA (San Paulo, Brazil)
      R$ 31,50

    "I am not a 'translator'; but rather a poet in dialogue with another poet, hence the liberties I took in the body of the translations."

    Preface

    From Within

    Régis Bonvicino

    I used a line by Charles Bernstein to begin the introduction to Histórias da Guerra: "the politics in a poem has to do with how it / enters the world" ("Sign Under Test"). Finally, Bernstein has arrived in Brazil, South America, a continent that, according to Marcelo Santos, Americans have a "racist, prejudiced and ethnocentric" relationship with.  Santos goes on to argue that, "in general, they refer to Latin Americans as backward, inferior, underdeveloped, barbaric, Catholic, mestizo, antidemocratic, unable to solve their own problems" and, as a result of that, he concludes, "they justify the intervention of the predestined, civilized, white Americans." The fair price of Latin American resistance to America is paid, paradoxically, by American high culture, specifically its poetry, which, as a whole, is the best of the 20th century along with that of the European avant-garde until the 1920s. Browsing through the culture pages of the major Brazilian dailies would suffice to verify that American movies and pop music are what guide them. It's enough to turn on the TV or the radio. It's enough to walk around the city to notice that store with an English name all of a sudden becomes "modern." It's enough to attend the yearly edition of FLIP (Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty) to find mediocre American fiction writers among the guests.
    But not all American high culture exempted itself from political "service." For instance:

    Once again, the CIA turned to the private sector to advance its objectives […] Pre-eminent amongst contemporary and avant-garde art museums was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Its president through most of the 1940s and 1950s was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, had co-founded the museum in 1929 (Nelson called it 'Mommy's Museum"'). Nelson was a keen supporter of Abstract Expressionism, which he referred to as 'free enterprise painting'.
                                                           Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?

                Saunders adds that for the status quo, abstract expressionism represented an anti-Communist art affiliated with the ideology of freedom and free enterprise because, by being non-figurative, it became silent and convenient. Abstract expressionism was the first American pictorial movement and it acquired international prestige through painters such as Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), the Armenian-born American Arshile Gorky (104-1948), Philip Guston (1913-1980), who worked with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet Clark Coolidge, Willem de Kooning (190401997), and Mark Rothko (1903-1970), among others.

                Other than ideological resistance, Bernstein's poetry meets with resistance in Brazil because of its truly innovative nature, which destabilized the local circuit, nowadays, unfortunately, far removed from its better days. His poetry opens and expands possibilities. Furthermore, the results of his poetry are quite different from what was produced in Brazil under the label of "concretism," with the exception of a few commonalities that all so-called contemporary pieces may have, such as parataxis, collage, the break with traditional forms of signification, etc. His poetry does not "encounter" the reader—it runs counter to the reader. It is a poetry of "beyonsense," to use Anne Mack's expression—a poetry that disappoints the reader by distancing itself from "'a balance and reconciliation of opposite and discordant qualities.'" She asks, "And why do you expect a 'comprehensible' meaning from a poem anyway?", and she characterizes Bernstein's poetry as that which "'censers' the 'censors'" so that the reader can imagine a literature that suggests its own interpretations, a literature that makes the production of its ideas tangible through the cuts, sounds and design of the poem on the page. Bernstein does not create poetry as a vehicle of readymade meanings in their usual repertoire. His greatest effort constitutes the creation of possibilities of meaning based on the deconstruction of usual meanings. Mack also notes that for Bernstein meaning does not preexist the poem but rather, it is "created" in language.

                João Cabral de Melo Neto used to say that Joan Miró did not paint paintings, but that he painted, period, and that by privileging lines and strokes he broke with the "Renaissance balance" of representation which led other painters to the canvas with preconceived compositions. Cabral defined Miró's poetry as a "constant dynamic," with no aspirations of becoming a grammar, something that can also be said about Bernstein's poetry. That's why I decided to focus on Bernstein the poet, and not the exceptional literary critic or leader of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement launched by him and Bruce Andrews in 1978 in New York and which quickly enlisted some of the best American living poets: Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, and Michael Palmer—along with John Ashbery, who was initially inspired by French writing and surrealism. And today Charles Bernstein is not only a world-renowned poet but also one of the best in the United States, if we don't consider official figures of the English-speaking world such as Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Louise Gluck, Anne Carson, Frank Bidart, Paul Muldoon or C.D. Wright, not to mention a mummified Jorie Graham, the "queen" of official poetry. Bernstein, at 58, however, still has no access to the pages of The New Yorker or the The New York Review of Books. I do not want to dwell the issue of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement because, like any movement, it was diluted by hundreds of imitators, and it became a club in which a self- or mutual congratulation prevailed uncritically, although the term "language poetry" is still a "dirty word" and the movement in fact reconfigured and made American poetry richer. The Finnish poet Leevi Lehto reminds us that for the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry group, Ferdinand de Saussure's concept that "language determines reality" was key. And he adds, "that's why L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E was an American phenomenon which could not be mechanically transferred to other literary arenas, concluding that its influence occurs as a stimulus for other poetries to think themselves as language and as a "uncommonplace." This observation is very apropos in a country such as Brazil, where "influence," as Paulo Franchetti has noted, becomes a matter of "pride."

                Bernstein's oeuvre is vast. As translation strategy, I decided to quickly sketch his beginnings and his present, drawing from With Strings (2001) and especially Girly Man (2006). The Sophist (1987) is considered one of the most important books of American poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. In the post-9/11 Bernstein, the Bernstein of Girly Man, the locked combat against the "I" and its clichés ("Sentences"), the fight against the culture of the flaccid post-World War II free verse, the "disagreement" with the reader give way to urgency and to aphorisms that—paradoxically—are direct, and to poems such as "War Stories": "War is surrealism without art." When I translated the poem, I noted a certain hesitation with respect to the Iraq invasion in 2003, which was perhaps due to Bush's satanic injunction: "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists." The poem was written soon after the invasion, and I opted to translate “War is an excuse for lots of bad antiwar poetry” for “A guerra é um poema ambíguo, que tenta desqualificar a crítica da guerra” (literally, "War is an ambiguous poem that tries to disqualify critiques of the war"). At that time, for Americans to take a stance against the war (the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) entailed —to a certain extent—a legitimizing of terrorism, although the impasse reveals, in the leftist author, the traces of American "manifest destiny," and in the translator, the Latin American "rebel." The poem is a panel of American culture under the pretext of tackling yet another war: "War is an SUV for every soccer Pop and social Mom." And I should note, in passing, that senator Barack Obama voted against the invasion. And that the United States became a terrorist state, as was seen in Abu Graib and Guantánamo.

                Half of Bernstein's poetry is decidedly American. I tried in vain to translate "The Ballad of the Girly Man," which in English flows so smoothly. The author himself explained my lack of success thus: "As you know, a poem like that is so culturally specific, in this case local American culture is not an export product" (letter dated March 14, 2007). The title Girly Man was an expression used by the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger during the Iraq invasion saying that, "only a girly man is against the war." I tried to translate a number (although not all) of the devices used by the author of With Strings: the prose poem, the poem crafted like a sculpture ("For --"), the ones that dialogue with popular culture, the lyric poem ("Rain Is Local") and a zaum poem ("Use No Flukes"), zaum being the word used by the Russian futurist poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh to describe their sound poetry experiments. I am not a "translator," but rather a poet in dialogue with another poet, hence the liberties I took in the body of the translations.

                The literary critic Marjorie Perloff—a great admirer of Bernstein and who has written several essays on his work—notes that Bernstein's poetry makes language work from within.  In this respect, I hope not to have cheated the Brazilian reader.

    O poder norte-americano e a América Latina no pós-Guerra Fria, São Paulo, Annablume, 2007.
    Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War. London, Granta Books, 1999.
    Anne Mack, J. J. Rome & Georg Mannejc, “Private Enigmas and Critical Functions, with Particular Reference to the Writing of Charles Bernstein”, New Literary History, vol. 22, no. 2, 1991.



    ----------------

    Charles Bernstein
    HISTORIAS DA GUERRA - POEMAS E ENSAIOS

    POESIA

    War Stories: Poems and Essays
    translated from Portuguese, and with an introduction by
    Régis Bonvicino
    with the collaboration of Maria do Carmo Zanini


    ISBN: 9788599102572
    250 pages
    MARTINS EDITORA (San Paulo, Brazil)
      R$ 31,50

     



    Traitor/translator: Bonvicino
    Original: Bernstein

     

    Prefácio
    Desde dentro – Régis Bonvicino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
    poemas e traduções
    De Parsing, 1976
    Parsing • Decantando . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
    De Shade, 1978
    “Take then, these...” • “Pegue então estes...” . . . . . . . . 40
    Poem • Poema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
    “It’s up up” • “Está alto alto” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
    For –––– • Para –––– . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
    De Controlling interests, 1980
    Off season • Baixa estação . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
    The blue divide • O divisor azul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
    De The sophist, 1987
    [De “Micmac Mall (Sunset at Inverness)”] . . . . . . . . . . . 96
    The years as swatches • Os anos como amostras . . . . . 98
    “The order of a room” • “A ordem de um quarto” . . . 104
    Sonata for unaccomplished cello by Susan Bee • Sonata
    para violoncelo inepto, de Susan Bee . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
    Use no flukes • Não use acasos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
    De Stigma, 1981
    September • Setembro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
    De The absent father in “Dumbo”, 1990
    Railroad Street • Rua da Ferrovia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
    Miolo Historias 7 7/29/08 6:18:06 PM
    8
    De Rough trades, 1991
    The kiwi bird in the kiwi tree • O quivi no quiuí . . . . 122
    The poet from another planet • O poeta de outro
    planeta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
    De Residual rubbernecking¸ 1995
    Liftjar agate • Portajan ágata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
    De With strings, 2001
    Distance learning • Aprendizado a distância . . . . . . . . 130
    Your ad here • Anuncie aqui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
    Up high down low too slow • Toca aqui deixa que
    eu toco sozinho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
    De World on fire, em Girly man, 2006
    Didn’t we • Não é mesmo? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
    The folks who live on the hill • O casal da colina . . . . 140
    One more for the road • O último trago . . . . . . . . . . . 144
    In a restless world like this is • Neste mundo agitado . 146
    Stranger in paradise • Um estranho no paraíso . . . . . . 148
    De Let’s just say, em Girly man, 2006
    In particular • Em particular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
    “every lake...” • “toda casa...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
    Sign under test • Desmanifesto: Luminoso em teste . 162
    De Girly man, 2006
    Thank you for saying thank you • Obrigado por dizer
    obrigado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
    War stories • Histórias da guerra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
    Rain is local • Chuva local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
    Variações . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
    Me transformo • Me transform– O! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
    Miolo Historias 8 7/29/08 6:18:06 PM
    9
    ensaios
    Inovação é a marca da reconsideração . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
    Nossas Américas: novos mundos ainda em processo . . . . 224
    Basta! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
    Verso introjetivo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

    link    |  08-28-08


    Artists' Books
    Online

    Johanna Drucker's remarkable digital archive
    of about 200 artists' books is now open for viewing.
    Full digital versions of the books together with bibliographic information and commentary.
    A treasure trove, including a full set of Drucker's books.
    Here's a page from From A to Z (1977):

    link    |  08-26-08


     

    Blind Witness
    Three American Operas


    Blind Witness brings together three libretti written in the early 1990s by poet Charles Bernstein for composer Ben Yarmolinsky. Bernstein & Yarmolinsky's trilogy combines vernacular American lyrics with vernacular social forms.
    Blind Witness News uncannily mimics the format of the eleven o'clock evening news with segments for international and local news, weather, business news, and sports. Then, as now, the dark undertone is war.
    The Subject,
    at times elegiac, at times parodic, sets a psychoanalytic session to music, its central character, Jenny, subject to the sometimes solicitous, sometimes menacing probes of her doctors.
    The Lenny Paschen Show focuses on Lenny, the Kamikaze King of Comedy, a late night talk show host at the edge of his career, pushing his schtick to the limit. His guests include a cross-over singer, a show biz legend, and a rising star, along with his sidekick announcer Bud Dickie, an inflatable ventriloquist's dummy.
    When Blind Witness News was first performed in 1990, Allan Kozinn of The New York Times heralded a new voice in opera: “"Mr. Bernstein's libretto catches with near perfection the stock verbal moves — the forced laughter, empty banter, catch-phrases and cutesy segues — in which television news reports are cushioned.” Working in the tradition of Brecht & Weill and Stein & Thomson, Bernstein & Yarmolinsky have created three operas where biting social critiques dissolve into comic riffs, then lyric arias.

    Now available at discount direct from
    Factory School
    Paper: $15
    Cloth: $30
    Signed: $50
    Factory School's discounted price includes shipping to the continental USA.
    Individuals only. limited time offer.
    Support the press, order direct.

    ++++++++++++

    Blind Witness @ PennSound

    In conjunction with the publication of Blind Witness
    PennSound has made available
    complete recordings of Blind Witness News and The Subject
    & video from the launch performance in New York.
    (The Lenny Paschen show will be available soon.).

    link    |  08-22-08



    New EPC author pages
    Donato Mancini

    rob mclenanan

    Gustave Morin


    A couple more newspaper reviews of
    OEI selected poems & essays
    De svåra dikterna anfaller, eller Högtspel i tropik-erna:
    Dikter, essäer, samtal i urval, översättning & montage


    Klassekampen
    (Norway)
    August 9, 2008

    Svenska Dagbladet
    August 12, 2008

     

    What's the Word?
    2003 MLA Radio Program in which I am featured along with Steve McCaffery, Bob Perelman
    (29:11): mp3

    link    |  08-14-08

    Czernin & Schmatz: Die Reise

    (This is a short excerpt from “Fraud’s Phantoms: A Brief Yet Unreliable Account of Fighting Fraud with Fraud (No Pun on Freud Intended), with Special Reference to the Poetics of Ressentiment,” which appears in the new issue of Textual Practice 22:2, 207-227.)

    In the early summer of 1986, two young Austrian poets, Franz Josef Czernin and Ferdinand Schmatz, had the idea to write poems that closely resembled the poems they found most typical and at the same time most deplorable in contemporary poetry volumes, for example the work of Rainer Kunze, Günther Kunert, and Sarah Kirsch. At first they had the idea to call the poet Irene Schwaighofer (silent court), a poet born in a little town in upper Austria, who, familiar through schooling with the tenets of modernism, would need no time to forge her own distinctive style and upon being published would proceed to win many prizes and much praise. However, Czernin and Schmatz felt this process would take too long and in order to shorten the “difficult and boring” process, decided to give authorship of the poems to Czernin. They completed the work in a few weeks and the book was immediately accepted for publication under the title Die Reise (the journey). The book received positive attention, some of which suggested that at last Czernin has given up his thrashing about in the waters of experimentation and found a more profound and authentic voice. When Czernin broke the news of his own duplicitous relation to the poems in Der Spiegel in March 1987, a furious hale of criticism descended upon him, not the least from the publisher of the book, who felt he had been betrayed. Later the same year,  Czernin and Schmatz published a book-length account of the story together with exchanges between them and several interlocking essays.

    Here is of one of the poems from Die Reise: In achtzig Gedichten um die ganze Welt:

    fahr-plan

    ist mein blick
    nicht eine schere,
    deren beine
    schritte machen,
    die alle fernen
    auseinanderschneiden?

    hat denn die schere
    keine augen,
    die zu ringen werden
    jener finger,
    die auf ihre ziele zeigen?

    und gehen diese ziele
    nicht auf zwei füssen,
    deren zehen
    auf nägel treten,
    die meine ganze reise
    zusammennageln?


    agenda

    is my glance
    not a scissor
    whose leg
    makes steps
    that cut through
    all distances?

    had, then, this scissor
    no eyes
    which will strive
    to finger
    loins of desire?

    and will not such loins
    walk on two feet
    whose toes
    tread on pins
    fastening together
    my whole journey?
                                        [my translation]

    Schmatz and Czernin created a literary scandal with this and the other poems in the collection they were able to focus the discussion of issues of quality and judgment … Die Reise is motivated by a desire to critique the jargon of authenticity. There is no claim here that these are necessarily good poems or that we should look to the “poems themselves” for the meaning. The texts here have meaning in relation to the literary valuations into which they make an intervention; their meaning is social and diacritical. Indeed, late in 1987, Schmatz and Czernin published Die Reise: In achtzig flachen Hunden in die ganze tiefe Grube, a book about the affair in which they address explicitly the questions of authorship and motivation. In this book, Czernin describes Die Reise as a form of literary self-criticism. “Perhaps one must, to make a better poem, know how one makes a worse poem,” he writes. “I think it was Novalis who said that good literature is made from worse literature. He was right that there must be, in any case, worse poetry from which better poetry can originate, whereas for me it is self-evident that the contrary can also be valuable.” Die Reise, then, can be understood as an investigation of aesthetic judgment. And yet, as the Ern Malley poems also show, what is written out of a desire to expose the limits of a particular style (or rhetoric) may ultimately become exemplary of unrealized potential in the style; ironizing of the style may create a thickening of the artifice and with it an intensification of the aesthetic experience. Over time, the poems of Die Reise take on charm that goes beyond parody.In any case, Czernin is not asserting the objectivity of any such judgments but rather that “every objectivity is fictional.” His purpose then, as befits a poet who has written a study of Karl Kraus, is satiric adjudicative: the fraud remains a fraud.  

    Franz Josef Czernin, Die Reise: In achtzig Gedichten um die ganze Welt (Salzburg und Wien: Residenz Verlag, 1987), p. 30.
    Franz Josef Czernin, “Die Verdopplung des Igels,” in Czernin and Ferdinand Schmatz, Die Reise: In achtzig flachen Hunden in die ganze tiefe Grube (Linz-Wien, Austria: Edition Neue Texte, 1987), p.
    21

    link    |  08-11-08


    Charles Bound

    Go to web log main page for video stream

    Charles Alexander
    The esteemed poet-bookmaker speaks about the significance of binding.
    January 15, 2007
    (mp4, 33 seconds, 6.6 mb)

    link    |  08-09-08

    Jerome Rothenberg's new blog
    Poems and Poetics
    features
    4 Poems, with a Note on Escape, from Rousseau to Bernstein


    The four new posted poems are
    Transegmental Drift
    The Sixties, with Apologies
    Death on a Pale Horse
    No Hiding Place ("I thought language poetry ...")
    link    |  08-05-08


    New
    Ted Greenwald EPC author page

    including

    -----

    Some newspaper reviews in Swedish
    of my OEI selected poems & essays

    De svåra dikterna anfaller, eller Högtspel i tropik-erna:
    Dikter, essäer, samtal i urval, översättning & montage

    Aftonbladet
    July 24, 2008

    DN
    July 25, 2008

    Kristianstadsbladet
    July 28, 2008

    ------


    more & more of the recordings I made at the Ear Inn
    in the 1970s and 1980s
    are coming on-line at PennSound
    .
    With many more to come over the next year.
    The 1994 CD anthology is also available on PennSound
    and at SPD

    -----

    Listen, 1972
    Radio play by Robert Creeley, performed by Robert and Bobbie Creeley.
    The recording above was released on cassette by Black Sparrow in the same year. The play was first broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, West Germany, on December 1, 1971 in a translation by Klaus Reichert.
    Creeley PennSound page ed. Steve McLaughlin.
     
    Listen (23:09)

    Kyle Schlesinger on Listen: Meaning: I Hear You



    Bob and me in an April 2003 photo by Kyle
    at my last seminar at Buffalo.
    Bob just about to head out to Brown.
    Photo from Sibila on-line, which has reprinted my essay on Creeley,:
    "Hero of the Local."

    link    |  08-03-08


    The Kind of Poetry I Want


    Caroline Bergvall
    Alyson Singes
    New York: Belladonna Books, 2008
    Bergvall overlays Chaucerian sound patterning onto contemporary sites; a dazzling realization of diachronic vernacular, the old emerging from the new like mist from a deep fissure.

    Ken Edwards
    Nostalgia for Unknown Cities
    Hastings, East Sussex: Reality Street, 2007
    Cascading prose (ch. 2 is a dazzling unpunctuated 10 pages), in which urban landscape becomes a site for projected dreaming, something like Bernadette Mayer’s Moving crossed with Blade Runner.

    Peter Jaeger
    Prop
    Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2008

    Bruce Andrews
    Designated Heartbeat
    Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2006
    One of Andrews's most structurally varied – and scintillating – collections.

    Jennifer Moxley

    The Line
    Sausalito, CA: The Post-Apollo Press , 2007

    Rosmaire Waldrop
    Splitting Image
    Tenerife, Canary Islands: Zasterle Press, 2005
    Mostly prose poems.
    “All week I concentrated on the hopeless accuracy of anxiety.”

    Rachel  Zolf
    Shoot & Weep
    Vancouver: Nomados, 2008

    Robert Pinsky
    Gulf Music
    New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

    Kenneth Goldsmith
    Sports
    Los Angeles: Make Now Press, 2008
               " – Well what a catch!
                – My goodness.
                – What a catch! He got to the level of the seats and  just sneaked his glove in there and some … somehow made the catch. Suzyn, that’s a heck of a catch. Let’s watch it.
                – It’s a tremendous catch and, uh, hee, hee, hee, he just snapped his wrist out  …"

    JonArno Lawson
    A Voweller's Bestiary: from aardvark to guineafowl (and H)
    Erin, Ontario: Porcupine's Quill, 2008
    Eunoia for children.
    Good golly gosh!
    Go gobble book!
    Got lots of raccoons, moose, loons, but – oh – look, no lox!
    Yoo-hoo!
    Moo for word zoo!

    Simon Jarvis,
    F 0 (Cambridge: Equipage, 2007)
    --
    The Unconditional
    London: Barque Press, 2005
    This delirious pentameter extravaganza of some 6500 lines is a nude formalist bachelor machine; a work of exhilarating, mercurial, anachronism.

    Cole Heinowitz
    The Rubicon
    The Rest, 2007

    Tim Atkins
    Horace
    Oakland: O Books, 2007
    Milton, as in Berle; Homer, as in Simpson. Salted with local poetry color (a whiff of Berrigan’s Sonnets) and peppered by indirection (name dropping and product placement abound – Nike, Buddhism, Rolling Stone, Kipling, Atkins Diet, Caesar, Pindar, Jupiter, Jeremy). In any case, “The man we are looking for is gone” (Epodes 1).  Horace who? Aren’t you glad I didn’t say Catullus again.

    Colin Browne

    The Shovel
    Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2007
    Browne follows up on his remarkable (and in the U.S. almost totally overlooked) Ground Water (2002), alternating speculative, metaphysical, and conceptual short poems with  series of quasi-archival prose excavations and tall tales (many in an ingenious format: continuous prose running over three-line justified stanzas).

    Craig Dworkin
    Parse (Berkeley: Atelos, 2008)
    Everybody talks about unreadability but few do as much for the cause as Dworkin and his Parse. Dworkin literalizes LeCercle’s délire – taking the pun on lire (to read) in his obsessive parsing/diagramming. A bachelor machine all over again.


    from Hugh MacDiarmid, “The Kind of Poetry I Want’ (1965)
    …A poetry the quality of which
    Is a stand made against intellectual apathy,
    Its material founded, like Gray's, on difficult knowledge …
    But, more than that, its words coming from a mind
    Which has experienced the sifted layers on layers
    Of human lives---aware of the innumerable dead
    And the innumerable to-be-born ..
    ---Rich in its discoveries of new problems,
    Important questions so far unsuspected,
    For which field research does not yet supply
    The data necessary to answer them. …
    A poetry that is---to use the terms of red dog --
    High, low, jack, and the goddamn game.

     

    link    |  07-31-08


    Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping on  Fox News
    "Capitalism isn't necessarily the same as freedom." 

    link    |  07-30-08


    VANCOUVER
    N 49 15.832 - W 123 05.921
    :: POSITIONS COLLOQUIUM
    ::

    } some details of this schedule may still change {

    August 19 - 24, 2008
    at/with VIVO Media Arts Centre
    1965 Main St, Vancouver

    TUESDAY 19 August
    Afternoon-Evening Session only
    *not* at VIVO, location TBA
    4:00 pm - late
    Opening day social - a party + bbq with readings by poets who have been members of the KSW board or collective.
    } tentatively including {
    Sachiko Murakami, Donato Mancini, Maxine Gadd, Peter Culley, Steve Collis, Ted Byrne, Andrea Actis
    + surprise guests

    WEDNESDAY 20 August

    Morning - Afternoon Session
    11:00 am
    Panel presentation
    Title / theme: "On Line: Poetics and the Distribution of Meaning"
    Moderator and Curator: Andrew Klobucar
    Panellists: Darren Wershler-Henry, Brian Kim Stefans, Judy Radul, Sianne Ngai

    1:00 pm
    Theatrical presentation
    Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy w/guests
    "The Clifford Irving Show"

    Evening Session
    7:00 pm
    Readings, presentations, and performances by:
    Darren Wershler-Henry, Brian Kim Stefans, Colin Smith, Robert Fitterman, Clint Burnham

    THURSDAY 21 August

    Morning - Afternoon Session
    11:00 am
    Panel presentation
    Moderator and Curator: Rita Wong
    Title / theme: "Alpha Bets: Language Gambles on a Gift Economy"
    Panellists: Juliana Spahr, Pat O'Brien, Reg Johanson, Peter Cole

    1:00 pm
    Talk
    Michael Davidson
    "On the Outskirts of Form: Cosmopoetics in the Shadow of NAFTA."

    Evening Session7:00 pm
    Readings, presentations, and performances by:
    Rita Wong, Juliana Spahr, PILLS (A. Vidaver, R. Johanson, R. Farr), Pat O'Riley, Peter Cole, Louis Cabri, Jules Boykoff

    FRIDAY 22 August

    Morning - Afternoon Session
    11:00 am
    Seminar
    Seminar leaders: Kaia Sand and Jules Boykoff
    Title / theme: "Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Poetry & Public Space"
    Respondents: Catriona Strang, Colin Smith, Juliana Spahr, Nicholas Perrin, Laura Elrick, Clint Burnham

    1:00 pm
    Panel presentation
    Moderator and Curator: Jeff Derksen
    Title / theme: "Neoliberalism and the Politics of Poetics"
    Panellists: Rodrigo Toscano, Rod Smith, Dorothy Lusk, Roger Farr, Laura Elrick

    Evening Session
    7:00 pm
    Readings, presentations, and performances by:
    Rodrigo Toscano, Rod Smith, Kaia Sand, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Jeff Derksen

    SATURDAY 23 August
    Morning-Afternoon Session
    11:00 am
    Seminar
    Seminar leader: Sianne Ngai
    Title / theme: "The Zany Science: Post-Fordist Performance and the Problem of Fun
    Respondents: Tyrone Williams, Mark Wallace, Andrew Klobucar, Rob Fitterman, Stacy Doris, Michael Davidson, Louis Cabri, Dodie Bellamy

    1:00 pm
    Audio feature
    Lisa Robertson and Stacy Doris
    "The Perfume Recordist"

    Evening Session
    7:00 pm
    Readings, presentations, and performances by:
    Tyrone Williams, Mark Wallace, Catriona Strang, Judy Radul, Laura Elrick

    SUNDAY 24 August
    Afternoon-Evening Session only
    *not* at VIVO, location TBA


    link    |  07-27-08


    Tracie Morris
    at
    Conceptual Poetry & Its Others

    Poetry Center, University of Arizona
    May 30, 2008
    Tucson

    new at PennSound
    full video and two clips, including ...

     

    link    |  07-26-08


    Ted Greenwald



    3
    Brooklyn: Cuneiform, 2008
    3 brings together three structurally related long poems, featuring Greenwalds’s characteristic vernacular insistence: “Going into School that Day” (1986), “Anyway” (2001), and “Dawn On” (2002). “Going into School that Day,” a love poem, alternates between twenty-five sonnets and twenty-five quatrains in which every line but the sixth appears twice (A B C A / C E A B). “Anyway” consists of 33 double tercets, each line having mostly two but occasionally three phrases, with two to four phrases from the first tercet repeated in the second. The syntactically denser final poem, “Dawn On,” is 1521 lines; it’s the closest Greenwald comes to a poem like Zukofsky’s “A”-23 (though Greenwald style is much looser). "Dawn On” repeats only sporadic phrases or word pairs, in unexpected sequences; but the overall effect, as with the other poems in the trilogy, is a modular static/dynamic line structure, in which lines delink from their linear order to create a moiré-like effect, something Greenwald has called “jumping the line."

    photo: ©2008 Bernstein/Pennsound

    link    |  07-24-08



    Tom Raworth
    turned 70 this past weekend

    Raworth in conversation on Close Listening: MP3
    Raworth on PennSound

    photo: ©2008 Charles Bernstein
    link    |  07-22-08




    Cecilia Vicuña


    Sabor a mí
    Ediciones Universidad Diego Portale
    Santiago de Chile
    2007
    Reproduces Vicuña's groundbreaking 1973 artist's book,
    with collages, images of her early & powerful paintings, tipped-in artifacts,
    journal entries, manifestos, political tracts, & other writings
    related to the Chilean left, utopian socialism, and revolutionary feminism.
    It brings to mind Debord's Mémoires (1959) .
    The bilingual 1973 book was published in London immediately after the (CIA-sponsored)
    coup in Chile. Vicuña was living in London at the time,
    having been given asylum by the British government.
    The book ends with a set of early poems (translated, like  the rest, by the author).


    1973 BBC documentary
    with many images of Vicuña's early paintings



    photo: ©2008 Bernstein/Pennsound

    Vicuña @ PennSound
    Vicuña @ EPC

    link    |  07-21-08


    Jo Stafford
    (1917-2008)




    "Long Ago & Far Away"
    (1944)
    (Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin)

    ____________________________________________

    Robert Grenier & Stephen Ratcliffe
    in conversation
    Nov. 19, 2001

    new at EPC

    __________________________



    Zhang Huan
    Memory Door Series (Shadow), 2007
    silkscreen mounted on carved antique wood door
    5' 5-1/2" x 10' 11-1/4" x 6-1/2"

    PaceWildenstein 25th Street, Chelsea, NY
    till  July 26, 2008

    —————
    a couple of bad links now corrected on
    "What, Me Concepual?"

    link    |  07-20-08


    JULY/AUGUST 2008

    The new issue of the Boston Review is on-line & features
    Marjorie Perloff on Mayakovsky
    Short reviews of Friedlander, Mlinko, & Laynie Brown.

    Free verse

    Counter-Revolution of the Word:The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945–1960
    Alan Filreis
    University of North Carolina Press, $40 (cloth)

    Charles Bernstein
    link    |  07-17-08



    David von  Schlegell
    artist's web page

    is now up.
    von Schlegell met Susan Howe
    in the late 1960s and their marriage lasted
    until his death in 1992

    link    |  07-15-08

    Broadside by Jeremy James Thompson
    made for reading at the Center for Book Arts
    June 2008
    *click on image for high res*

    link    |  07-14-08




    The Dark at the End of the Tunnel
    link    |  07-13-08




    photo from OEI launch by © Susanne Christensen


    Leevi Lehto: Aeons Swish In Eden’s Sway

    For Charles Bernstein and Jörgen Gassilewski

    Author’s Note. ”Aeons Swish In Eden’s Sway” is based on Charles Bernstein’s ”Johnny Cake Hollow”, together with variations of it by the author (into English), Jörgen Gassilewski (into Swedish), me (into Finnish), Jörgen Gassilewski (from my Finnish into Swedish; all these homophonic) and by me into Swedish from my Finnish (metrical-semantic), that were published in ”Oversettelse 2” issue of nypoesi.net. I use all the lines of these versions in sequence, permutating them stanza per stanza following the pattern of Sestina end words. I performed the poem as part of the launch of Charles’ Swedish book, De svåra dikterna anfaller, eller Högt spel i tropik-erna. Dikter, essäer, samtal (OEI editör) in Weld, Stockholm, July 1, 2008.

    Xo quwollen swacked unt myrry flooped
    Ceylon’s ox slaked Mary’s goard
    Så kvällen svag ond myrens flod
    Jos kuolen, päätyn: nirri pois!
    Juice kulen, pesten: ny ripost!
    Dör jag, så slutar jag – och kolar vippen!

    Bedarrar brådskor, jobb. Omedelbart
    Sardone to fligrunt’s swirm, ort
    Så tunt tunt tyget, kött. Kort
    Cycloned to flagrant dawn, sat
    Saa tyyntyyn kiireet, työt. Koht’
    sardin till flodgrunds svärm, ort

    Jeremie plåga och går vi svårt i
    du bjöd den bjässen upp, ack, satt och skita –
    körmyn veit, oh, tarpees’ teit – mit’
    Jirmy plaight org garvey swait ib
    Jimmy’s plight on gravy sprain as
    sömsmån vet, åh, tarvets tält – mitt

    i kontorslandskap! Sätt
    given dörr och klump. Ske
    Gibes in fairies lorn. Shed
    vad som helst må slösa bort, sen ropa:
    Giben durrs urk klurpf. Sheb
    ikin’ törsätkööt! Sep’

    huuti: ”Buu!” – men’ reisiluus, kun
    hojta: “Buu!” – men reslust kan
    Boughtie bloor de dazzy dule dun
    bågträ blör de dö så du dån
    ”Bo!” En lårbensbrott fick du när de
    Bright blood then, doled dizzy

    Frappes along the gogos gay, jug
    turpiis Inkoos sait. Kas
    på käften dig i Ingå gick. Se när,
    ta på änkans sätt. Kastar
    från pil gå och glid, ljud
    Fruppi’s ghigo’s gly, jud

    Silo pain, good Jimmy’s caulk,
    kaivoos’ vein – ket’? Ihmistä!
    till brunnen din jag drog… O vem? En mänska!
    vår vinkel? En mystär!
    kullrar fram vid Jimmys kack -
    Chyllrophane jed jimmsy’s cack -

    Enks’… oudomp’ omp’ kai …?…Sep
    Ett Sodoms Molokai …?…Sätt
    Exenst aerodole fump glire. Eb
    i tjänst är du vårt gli. En
    Int’så?… må värka märkligare än?
    Ensued irradiant flame. Say

    här just nu: “Med djurets vitt? En
    hurrar blott, min oro slut när
    Hooray bloat, say irksome slit, as
    Ursinnig blir han nu: ”Varför, för fan,
    Horray bloot, ig orry sluit neb
    hurjistuu: ”Miks jurriss’ uit? Ent’

    mist och näve vann. Släpp
    i pickalurvan svimma? Och varifrån
    mist’ ne ott’ ne kuvat?” – Ket’
    Nist neb ot neb gwon. Shleb
    Nestling slights no gasp. Rail
    list med rått med kuvat?” – Katt

    dom fotona de tog?” – Vem ska jag åse?
    Atsum imba outsey burft allappie
    Kattson? - Impa, vatten! – mod?… På läppen!
    At sum, imbue outset, burnt
    katson? - Impee, vautsi! – muut?… Paa leipiin!
    allt som ämbar och din bukt allt lappri

    Merp av ords. Een ainsey swish
    Thronement merely pines. Then
    märkt av ord. En anses vis
    Hörppää pois! Aineisiin, niin
    Hör upp härpå! En åsna, nån
    Ungmön? jisses! andra?… Häng upp på födkrok!

    Sörpla bort! Till än så tryckregerad
    Ien ansley sploop ughalls dep dulster
    på åsnan, kan på halsen Tolstojs
    Aeons swish in Eden’s sway
    paineisiin, kun puhals’ ne Tolstoin
    en anses spå och all ens dunster

    flög, jag är och nämner två
    ämnen blåste de – jag menar Tolstojs
    puut. Vikaantuu nimet, suut
    Flooge, ig ahrs unt nimbet twool
    Slops hulls in duster’s flow
    plats. Vi kan ur minnet, sök

    här i – med bud och torkat kött…
    begrepp, jag oros kval och blarr.
    Airs numbed till gab, obeyers
    träd. Skavankar nämnen får, och munnar
    Begroob, ig ooburs quwate ag blurg.
    heruu – mik’ puutyös’ tärkätkööt…

    enbart en liten skvätt ska ge, och dina
    Chewed, blur the blur ingests.
    snickerier fina stärka må!

    link    |  07-12-08


    Sketch of Roberts by Wyndham Lewis, 1948

    Lynette Roberts
    Collected Poems

    ed. Patrick McGuinness
    Manchester: Carcanet, 2005.

    Embrowns himmel hokushai. Manure seeps
    In long rags, pavilions hut, camouflages
    Arsenical veins with a sprouting
    Febrifuge and serial of death; heaves a
    Heavier heart of sedimentary hate.
    Washing like flies to pin of elbow, soldiers
    Under ciliated moon shake off floatings
    Of soap; strike code on oxidised zinc; polish
    Bayonets clean as the cut of the moon to
    Sharpen inactivity. Spark electric cells
    Of air into a prism of light as they
    Shoulder the blades on parade. A shark wind teethes,
    Strips fields; striating black fullstops under hedge;
    Bellying-white trees as they stand caustic
    And chagrin. Like paleozoic sentinels, stretched high
    Above skeleton hills. Dripping rust low on
    Blue lined eddies of wind, cold down
    To the shafts of their root: to kerb of tide
    Where cracked mud quails into Kuan glaze;
    To greening dunes where rivulets shine as …
                    from Gods with Stainless Ears (opening of pt III p. 56)

    McGuinness provides a fine introduction to this relatively unknown second-wave modernist (1909-1995) of Welsh descent, who grew up in Argentina & moved to Britain as a teenager, and who stopped writing poetry (partly due to hospitalizations for schizophrenia) in the mid-1950s. The collection consists of Roberts 1944 Faber & Faber collection (selected by T.S. Eliot), her 1951 Faber & Faber long war poem, Gods with Stainless Ears: An Heroic Poem,  which McGuinness  suggests is a kind of poetry screenplay, plus a miscellany of uncollected works.  In a useful and detailed response to the book in the Boston Review, John Wilkinson links Roberts to second-wavers Mina Loy and Hart Crane. Comparison with David Jones is inevitable. Thick syntax, an often arcane lexicon, a complex prosody, and an aggressively off-center (not to say “minor”) perspectivism created a poetry of “sociolinguistic intensities,” in  Wilkinson’s useful phrase.

    link    |  07-11-08


    OEI launch for
    De svåra dikterna anfaller, eller Högtspel i tropik-erna:
    Dikter, essäer, samtal i urval, översättning & montage

    [The Attack of the Difficult Poems: A Tropics of High Stakes]

    Weld, Stockholm, 2008
    below: Susan Bee; Jörgen Gassilewski. & Bernstein; Leevi Lehto; Bernstein
    photos by Cecilia Grönberg / OEI







    link    |  07-10-08
    Subscribe by email via feedburner or rsspect


    Susan Bee, "Framing the Rosenbergs"
    (1983, 28 x 32"), oil on linen

    “You know, I seldom use the word sister anymore;
    I’ve just wiped it out of my mind.”
    – David Greenglass (brother of Ethel Rosenberg).

    The New York Times reported today
    on the recent death of Ruth Greenglass.


    "now is the time for your tears ..."

    link    |  07-09-08
    Subscribe by email via feedburner or rsspect




    Lawrence Joseph
    on
    Close Listening
    ArtRadio WPS1.Org

    July 7, 2008

    Program 1: Selected poems: (23:16): MP3
    1. In the Age of Postcapitalism
    2. Curriculum Vitae
    3. By the Way
    4. About This
    5. When One is Feeling One's Way
    6. On That Side
    7. The Game Changed
    8. What Is There to Understand
    9. That Too

    Program 2: Conversation with Charles Bernstein (27:24): MP3

     

    photo: ©2008 Bernstein/PennSound
    link    |  07-08-08
    Subscribe by email via feedburner or rsspect



    you say conceptual, I say models

     ...don't you know that models are what we are inside of ...

    that's no model, that's my life

    .One way to read this collection, on the poetics of architecture, from the point of view of poetry, is to see how much it offers for an approach to poems as models (rather than expression or representation).





    Models,
    306090 Books Volume 11

    Emily Abruzzo, Eric Ellingsen and Jonathan D. Solomon, editors
    ISBN 978-1-56898-734-7
    Distributed by Princeton Architectural Press
    248 pages
    link    |  07-07-08-pm



    Myung & the heaviness of the snow

    Go to web log home page for streaming video.

    Myung Mi Kim
    The great snowstorm of 2006 had done serious damage to Buffalo. Myung moved to the city about a year before I moved to Penn. So our plan to work together got scuttled.
    December 12, 2006
    (mp4, 39 seconds, 6.3 mb)

    link    |  07-07-08


    J. M. W. Turner
    Norham Castle, Sunrise, ca. 1845
    at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY)
    through September 21

    awesome

    link    |  07-06-08




    The new issue of the Dutch magazine  Parmentier (17:2, June 2008), is devoted to a dossier called T=A=A=L, featuring Rae Armantrout, Bruce Andrews, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, Bob Perelman, Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, and myself along with Ton van’t Hof, Samuel Vriezen. While the print magazine is all Dutch, the web site provides the original English poems.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


    Leevi Lehto & I at WALTIC
    Stockholm, June 30


    At the launch for the OEI book, July 1
    reading with Susan Bee collaborations
    at Weld (Stockholm)

    photos ©2008 Susanne Christensen

    One of the main EPC projects of recent years
    has been the  development of our "portals."
    The Scandanavian portal, edited by Lehto, has now evolved into the
    Nordic Poetry Center
    still in development.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    Link Repaired:
    L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E POETRY - A Retrospective
    An interview with Charles Bernstein (2006-2007)
    Aryanil Mukherjee

    link    |  07-04-08


    What, Me Conceptual?

    a talk & reading
    May 31, 2008
    Conceptual Poetry & Its Others
    Poetry Center, University of Arizona

    PennSound page of full event
    featuring video of "Recantorium: a bachelor machine after Duchamp after Kafka"

    A brief primer on bachelor machines (with special reference to "Recantorium") 

    The Answer (a video made in collaboration with Lars Plenge) (2003)
    The Yellow Pages ads (1998)
             "The Critic" (0:32): MP4
              "Draperies" (0:31) MP3
    Legend, "bachelor" collaboration  with Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, Ray DiPalma, & Steve McCaffery; see, for example, Bernstein/Andrews, consisting entirely of appropriated texts and arrayed as a Benjaminian constellation.
    The Nude Formalism (1989)
    ¶ "People should love and approve of me," sec. 13 from "A Person Is Not an Entity Symbolic" (from The Sophist) (recording 1977) (1:06): MP3
    ¶"Emotions of  Normal People" (from Dark City) (22:07): MP3
    ¶"Work In Progress" (for Eliot Spitzer)
    Oshamnu (from "A Person Is Not an Entity Symbolic but the  Divine Incarnate" in The Sophist) (a source for "Recantorium").

    "Bachelor machine" comes from Duchamp's "Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" (the lower part of the "Large Glass," e.g., "Chocolate Grinder"). Michel Carrouges extended the term to incorporate the disciplinary apparatus of Kafka's The Penal Colony (in turn adapted by Deleuze and Guattari) & also Roussel's Impressions of Africa. As a term for poetic constructions, "bachelor machine" suggests nonproductive, nonprocreative, onanistic processes; vicious (or self-enclosing/collapsing) circles, an apparatus that is unable to get outside itself. There is a connection, in my use, to délire (delirium, with special reference to Jean-Jacques LeCercle) — that which goes astray, deviates from the rational, errs, raves.

    2. "A Theory's Evolution" (The Theory of Flawed Design) (1:18): MP3, text (from Philadelphia Inquirer)
    3. anagrammatica from Shadowtime (anagrams of "Walter Benjamin") (0:43)): MP3
    4. introduction to "Dea%r Fr~ien%d" (1:21): MP3
    5. "Dea%r Fr~ien%d" (3:33): MP3, text (from Conjunctions)
    6. Some remarks on poetry and framing (2:24): MP3
    7. On Blind Witness (1:47): MP3
    8. "Four score ..." and "Nonny" (from "Today's Not Opposite Day" in With Strings): (1:39): MP3
    9. "Gertrude & Ludwig's Bogus Adventure" (from My Way) —  in honor of Marjorie Perloff (1:46): MP3
    10. On "Most Frequent Words" suite (0:42): MP3
    11. "Kiss Me Tommy" (3:37): MP3
    12. "No Hiding Place" (2:18): MP3
    13. "All the Whiskey in Heaven" (1:21): MP3

    link    |  06-27-08

    free webpage hit counter

    Charles Bernstein

    De svåra dikterna anfaller, eller Högtspel i tropik-erna:
    Dikter, essäer, samtal i urval, översättning & montage


    [The Attack of the Difficult Poems: A Tropics of High Stakes]

    ed. & tr. Anders Lundberg, Jonas (J) Magnusson, Jesper Olsson

    (Stockholm: OEI, 2008)

    app. 300pp.
    order from OEI
    order  @  oei.nu
    or
    www.adlibris.se
    www.bokus.com

    Launch for the book
    with Bernstein, Susan Bee, & Leevi Lehto
    & Lundberg, Magnusson, & Jörgen Gassilewski.
    July 1 6:30pm-9pm
    Weld
    Norrtullsgatan 7 (t-bana Odenplan),  Stockholm

    Full table of contents here.


    photo: Cecilia Grönberg for OEI

     

     

    link    |  06-26-08


    from Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, ed.
    anthology of poetry in translation of English poetry to Icelandic.
    131.839 slög með bilum
    English tr. of Norðdahl's introduction here.


    published 2007 by ntamo
    order

    "Thank You for Saying Thank You"
    [from Girly Man]

    This is a completely accssible poem



    Þakka þér fyrir að þakka mér

    Þetta er fullkomlega
    aðgengilegt ljóð.
    Það er ekkert
    í þessu ljóði
    sem á nokkurn
    hátt er erfitt
    að skilja.
    Öll orðin
    eru einföld &
    hitta í mark.
    Hér eru engin ný
    hugtök, engar
    kenningar, engar
    hugmyndir til að rugla
    í þér. Það eru engir
    intellektúal-stælar í
    þessu ljóði. Þetta er
    hreint tilfinningaljóð.
    Það tjáir að fullu
    leyti tilfinningar
    höfundarins: mínar tilfinningar,
    manneskjunnar sem talar
    við þig núna.
    Þetta snýst allt um
    samskipti.
    Frá einu hjarta til annars.
    Þetta ljóð metur
    & virðir þig mikils sem
    lesanda. Það
    fagnar sigri
    ímyndunarafls
    mannsins
    17
    innan um gryfjur &
    hörmungar. Í
    þessu ljóði
    eru 90 línur,
    269 orð, og
    fleiri atkvæði en
    ég hef tíma til þess að
    telja. Hver lína, hvert
    orð, & hvert atkvæði
    var valið til að
    tjá einvörðungu
    hina ætluðu meiningu
    & ekkert umfram hana.
    Þetta ljóð tjáir ekkert
    óskýrt eða torráðið.
    Hér er ekkert
    hulið. Hundrað
    lesendur myndu allir
    lesa ljóðið
    nákvæmlega eins &
    fá út úr því
    sömu skilaboðin. Þetta
    ljóð, eins og öll
    góð ljóð, segir
    sögu án krókaleiða
    svo lesandinn þarf aldrei
    að giska í eyðurnar. Þó á
    stundum tjái það
    biturð, reiði,
    gremju, útlendingahræðslu
    & vott af kynþáttahatri, er
    ráðandi andrúmsloft þess
    jákvætt. Það finnur
    gleði jafnvel í
    þessum fyrirlitlegu
    augnablikum
    lífsins sem
    18
    það deilir með
    þér. Þetta ljóð
    er fulltrúi vonarinnar
    um ljóðlist
    sem snýr ekki
    baki sínu við
    áhorfendum, sem
    telur sig ekki
    betri en lesandann,
    sem hefur helgað sig
    ljóðlistinni sem
    vinsælli afþreyingu, eins og
    flugdrekaflugi og fluguveiðum.
    Þetta ljóð
    tilheyrir engum
    skóla, hlýðir engum
    kreddum. Það fylgir
    engri tísku. Það
    segir bara það sem
    það segir. Það er
    ekta.

     

    link    |  06-25-08



    Susan Bee, "Unbridled Dawn"

    You are invited to:
    an Opening Reception at
    A.I.R. Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, #301
    on Thursday, June 26, 6pm to 8pm
    Shows on view from June 24 through July 19
    Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6 pm

    A group show
    with paintings by Susan Bee, Francie Shaw
    and other gallery members


    Wish You Were Here
    a postcard exhibition
    with Susan Bee, Emma Bee Bernstein, Toni Simon, and many others
      
    and a solo exhibition by Hanna Sandin

    Gallery I:
    SCENE CHANGE
    is a group show of the gallery artists.
    The artists are: Nancy Azara, Susan Bee, Liz Surbeck Biddle, Daria Dorosh,
    Regina Granne, Louise Kramer, Carolyn Martin, Louise McCagg,
    JoAnne McFarland, Sylvia Netzer, Ann Pachner, Sheila Ross, Ann Schaumburger,
    Ursula Schneider, Francie Shaw, Barbara Siegel, Elisabeth Munro Smith,
    Joan Snitzer, Alice Steinhardt, Nancy Storrow, Haejin Yoon. 

    Gallery II:
     WISH YOU WERE HERE 
    is an annual postcard benefit exhibition including original works by over 400 artists. 
    The 4” x 6” artworks are created by hundreds of contemporary artists. Each postcard will be priced at $40.
    The show will feature work by three prominent artists: a series of small drawings by Tom Otterness, a print by Carolee Schneemann, and a painting by Joan Snyder. These works will be available through silent auction.  The bidding will begin on June 26th and end on July 19th at 6 pm. To place a bid visit the gallery or contact Kat Griefen, Director, at 212-255-6651, kgriefen@airgallery.org

    ————

    Peter O'Leary on the "Objectivist" issue of Poetry
    (Poetry Foundation)

    ————

    Frank Kuenstler singles
    with Bruce Andrews' essay
    at PennSound

    ————

    Leevi Lehto
    IN THE UN-AMERICAN TREE
    (The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetries and Their Aftermath, with a Special Reference to Charles Bernstein Translated
    )
    at Sibyl

    —————

    A collection of abstracts and some papers from the Orono 70s conference

    including these full texts:

    Scratching the '70s: The Uncollected Clark Coolidge, Tom Orange


    Bernadette Mayer and the Capitalization of Everyday Life, Jasper Bernes

    Clarity, or Late Modernism (A Photological Midrash), Patrick Pritchett

    Meaning, Method, Motive, Bruce Andrews Hannah Weiner and Basic English, Rodney Koeneke

    Becoming Literature, Patrick F. Durgin
    (on Mac Low)

    The Feminist Anthology, Ellen Smith
    (extended abstract)

    —————

    How(2) ecopoetics feature

    —————


    "Three American Poets"
    with Kenneth Goldsmith and Anne Tardos
    produced by Lars Hermansson
    Swedish Radio
    June 2008
    (46:32): MP3

    ---
    singles from the May 6 recording sessions

    "Virtual Reality" (from Dark  City)
    MP3

    "The Boy Soprano" (from With Strings)
    MP3

    "Memories" (from With Strings)
    MP3

    __________



    Brown University/RISD Conference
    Oct. 17-18, 2008
    on interruption
    in its digital manifestations

    link    |  06-24-08


    Recantorium
    a bachelor machine after Duchamp after Kafka
    Conceptual Poetry & Its Others, Poetry Center, University of Arizona
    Tucson, May 29, 2008


    (34:30): MP4 (89 mb)

    link    |  06-22-08
    Truth Be Told
    collaboration with Tracie Morris
    (11:24):
    MP3
    Tucson, May 31, 2008
    text

    (from The Brooklyn Rail)
    Tracie Morris on PennSound

    link    |  06-19-08


    the second of two poems of mine in the June issue of Poetry


    Two Stones with One Bird

    Re-
    demption
    comes
    &
    redemp-
    tion
    goes
    but
    trans-
    ience
    is
    here
    for-
    ever.


    link    |  06-18-08


    Art in New York
    worth a detour


    At Tibor de Nagy

    JESS


    +++++++++++++++

    At the Morgan  Library




    Philip Guston: Works on Paper

    including seven of Guston's collaborations with Clark Coolidge
    & one with Musa McKim (above)
    see UBU archive

         
         
         


    (the catalogue does not include images of the poetry collaborations)




    Three Gutenberg Bibles






    Le Livre de la chasse

    from 1407, extraordinary illuminated book
    displayed, for a limited time, as unbound pages
    (it will soon be rebound)
    **see the on-line version**

    link    |  06-14-08


    The rich men, they know about suffering
    That comes from natural things, the fate that
    Rich men say they can't control, the swell of
    The tides, the erosion of polar caps
    And the eruption of a terrible
    Greed among those who cease to be content
    With what they lack when faced with wealth they are
    Too ignorant to understand. Such wealth
    Is the price of progress. The fishmonger
    Sees the dread on the faces of the trout
    And mackerel laid out at the market
    Stall on quickly melting ice. In Pompeii
    The lava flowed and buried the people
    So poems such as this could be born.





    *
    Jerome Rothenberg has a blog


    *

    Fiona Templeton's Medead 1, 2, & 3 in NY
    June 27 (preview), 28, 29 at 2:30
    at Fort Jay, Governor's Island
    Free and free ferry
    Ferries leave Battery Maritime Building, 11 South Street (west of Staten Island Ferry) - subways R, W to Whitehall, 1 to South Ferry. The performance lasts about an hour and a half and moves around the fort. Take 2 pm ferry or earlier (hourly) - return on 4:30 ferry or later.  Or spend the day - first ferry out 10 am, last ferry back 7 pm. 
    Dress for the weather.  Bring water.
    Directed by Fiona Templeton, with
     Drew Cortese, Robert Kya-Hill, Clarinda MacLow, Dawn Saito, Peter Sciscioli,
    Stephanie Silver, Andrew Zimmerman, supported by Katie Brown and others.
    more info:  home @ therelatioship.org

    *

    University at Maine, Orono
    National Poetry Foundation
    Poetry of the 1970s conference
    full schedule
    link    |  06-13-08

    the third of three poems of mine from
    CONJUNCTIONS:50, Spring 2008

    Loneliness in Linden
                  After Wallace Stevens

    The fear and the hum are one.
    Monuments of show gumming the works
    Until the weather grows tired of the people
    And the people grow tired of the dance.
    Jamais, jamais, jamais, again.

    The measure of the town against a dampening sky
    Cobbling together six million tunes
    Into more than the tones tattoo
    Or their scrambled mosaic forecloses.

    And if the fume and the hope
    Are one? My monkey, from ’49
    Steps as silent as those songs
    Along the cratered dark
    Where Jews do Jewish things
    No one pretends to understand
    Or are they pilgrims on this night
    When the fear and the hum are one?

    link    |  06-12-08


    What, Me Conceptual?



    Video and audio recordings of the University of Arizona Poetry Center symposium
    Conceptual Poetry & Its Others
    now on-line

    link    |  06-11-08


    OPENNED
    the London reading series
    has just made available
    videos of
    the reading I did on
    May 14, 2008
    with
    Maggie O'Sullivan
    & also an earlier reading by
    Sean Bonney
    Steaming video here.
    Or download .mov files:
    O'Sullivan  // Bernstein  

    +++++++++++++++++++++++


    In late June I will be heading to Stockholm for



    +++++++++++++++++++++++

    the second of three poems of mine from
    CONJUNCTIONS:50, Spring 2008

    WON’T YOU GIVE UP THIS POEM
    TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT?


    Remember what I told you about purgatory?
    Limbo? How all that’s happening now is just
    this waiting around till the big cheese makes up
    her mind about you? She makes you the way
    you are and then decides if it panned out; for
    every ten half-baked cookies there’s a gem
    &, you know, just maybe you’re one of those.
    Then there’s those take her name in vain—
    whaddya call them?, the religious moralists;
    she don’t much cotton to them, not when
    they try to take away a woman’s right to choose
    or bad-mouth folks almost as queer as she is.
    Well, everyone makes mistakes. That’s what
    purgatory’s for. Sometimes it happens that
    while you wait you see what’s what—start
    accepting you’re in a long queue for God
    only knows what. And neither of you has
    any idea what the hell the matter is or what
    to do about it.

     

    link    |  06-11-08




    Allen Fisher

    Leans

    gravity as a consequnece of space, volume 3

    Cambridge, UK: Salt, 2007

    If poetry is the scholar’s art, then Allen Fisher remakes scholarship
    in the spirit of poetic inquiry. In all his work, Fisher has committed himself to a precarious
    openness toward knowledge. Leans moves from an exploration of language
    as the material of information to an emergent lyricism of facticity as
    n-dimensional space. Leans is a masterful work in the project of undoing mastery.

    author photo: courtesy Salt Publishing
    link    |  06-10-08




    the first of three poems of mine from
    CONJUNCTIONS:50, Spring 2008

    Dea%r Fr~ien%d,

    I sa%w yo%r pixture on
    wehb si;t; no.t su%re
    whhc one & w~ant to
    tal^k or mee.t ver~y so.on
    I am old ma%n 57 year$
    ba%d tooth & sme.ll
    ma.ke vr,y hr.d t mee%t
    people. I a,m wr$iter
    wr$ite po%re%y an,d
    email writ.in,g al>so
    se{ll goo;d stocks v;;ry
    che~p & prozac~ s%ince
    I a$lso can^t slee.p. bihg
    bizness opportunity to
    tel^l on~ly my fre;ndhs
    if yo;u hav. som,e m@oney
    to hehlp me/i expec%
    prostr%ate c%ncer an;y da;y
    nee~d mon~ey al.so m.y
    broth.er in tr^.rble
    willl snd y$ou my pi%cture
    n.eed check f~irst
    a.m poet wh;o l.ikes
    yo.u al%%read#y
    emmail m$e at swifftpllay
    @ssorrow.tv
    a.m nhow you.r freind
    & soul mat.e—

    Binggo

    link    |  06-09-08



    Below I present Danny Snelson's selection from PennSound
    and his accompaning essay (audio and text).
    But first, I wanted to recommend:

    Danny Snelson (text) & Phoebe Sprinstubb (images)

    The Book of Ravelling Women
    Aphasic Letters, 2008 (digital/on-line)

    A marvelous digital forgery, overwriting/overdrawing scans
    of the 1948 edition of Djuna Barnes' Book of Repulsive Women.


    PennSound Featured Resources Selected by Danny Snelsons

     

    link    |  06-08-08



    photo:Ch.Bernstein

    Erica Hunt
    speaking on Thursday
    at the new Harlem home of the
    Twenty-First Century Foundation
    of which she is President.


    ——————


    GIRLdrive Update

    Emma Bee Bernstein & Nona Willis-Aronowitz
    are working on the GIRLdrive book
    for Seal Press.
    In the meantime, they send this update:

    We wanted to let you know that we have been making some major changes to our blog, GIRLDRIVE.  Check out the posts in the last few weeks--feel free to comment, forward, write about us, you know the drill.  We are now posting 3 times a week:

    Mondays are in the traditional GIRLDRIVE format: a short profile of an interviewee. Wednesdays are "Mid-Week Memo": covering specific topics and projects that we are involved in. Examples: women and the arts, mentoring teenage girls, intergenerational conversations, and more juicy tidbits from the feminist frontier ... Weekends are "Overheard in Chicago": we post overhead musings from friends and random people we run into in bars, cars, restaurants, and on the streets.

    link    |  06-07-08



    Tina's House

    Download mp4 or go to web site to to get video.

    Tina Darragh
    We were in a bar somewhere in Baltimore after my i.e. reading with Rod. The bar was noisy and dark but I found a small red alcove to ask Tina about her red housing..
    November 18, 2006
    (mp4, 51 seconds, 10 mb)


    Portraits Fourth Series
    Rod Smith
    Nicole Brossard
    Douglas Messerli
    Peter Middleton
    Norman Fischer
    Tina Darragh
    link    |  06-06-08






    L E G E N D

    reading by Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ray DiPalma and Ron Silliman
    recorded March 10, 1981 at Andrews' New York City apartment


    1. "This has a veil . . ." (Andrews, Silliman) (12:23): MP3   text

    2. "Chronology" (Silliman) (6:30): MP3   text

    3. "The sun is so . . ." (DiPalma, Andrews, Silliman) (5:13): MP3   text

    4. "FLUKE JoY" (Silliman, Andrews, Bernstein) (9:36): MP3   text

    5. "An Incident in the Usual Daydream . . ." (Silliman, Bernstein, DiPalma) (8:45): MP3   text

    6. "And / much clouds spun" (Bernstein, DiPalma, Andrews, Silliman, McCaffery) (16:13): MP3   text
    (note: Steve McCaffery does not read on this recording)

    complete reading (1:01:05): MP3





    Read the book in its entirety on Eclipse

    link    |  06-05-08



    East & West
    1978-1979

    My reading at the West End
    Upper West Side, Manhattan
    March 12, 1978

    1. Epigraphs for "Stray Straws and Straw Men" (from Content's Dream): mp3
    2. "of a sort" (unpublished): mp3
    3. Resistance (from Senses of Responsibility): mp3
    4. Nudge (from Shade) mp3
    5. "So really not visit a ..." (from Controlling Interests): mp3
    6. Hotel Empire (from Poetic Justice): mp3
    7. eLecTrIc (from Poetic Justice): mp3
    8. Kiff-Kiff (from Shade): mp3
    9. Matters of Policy (from Controlling Interests): mp3
    Complete reading: mp3

    My reading at the Grand Piano
    (San Francisco)

    February 20, 1979
    with Barrett Watten
    (whose reading will be posted soon on  PennSound)

    1. Introduction (3:10): MP3
    2. "The Italian Border of the Alps" (from Controlling Interests) (10:20): MP3
    3. "Poem" (from Shade) (2:33): MP3
    4. "To Which I Never Wanted" (from Senses of Responsibility) (1:55): MP3
    5. "For ------" (from Shade (9:50): MP3
    6. "Soul Under" (from Shade) (2:50: MP3
    7. "As Is the Trees by Their Very Roots Had Hold of Us" (from Senses of Responsibility) (3:14): MP3
    8. "Matters of Policy" (from Controlling Interests) (12:25): MP3
    complete reading (46:29):MP3
    (recording courtesy of Ron Silliman)
     
    link    |  06-04-08



    L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E  P=O=E=T=R=Y:
     a loose affiliation of unlike individuals.


    As part of a panel at the University of Arizona conference on
    "Conceptual Poetry & Its Others"
    I presented
    this powerpoint presentation

    (1.6 mb)
    (no sound and the slide show will run on its own embedded timings)

    Kenneth Goldsmith reports on the conference at
    The Poetry Foundation
    (note I will be reading "Recantorium" on Friday, June 6, 6:30pm
    in New York at the Center for Book Arts)

    Charles Alexander reports on the symposium.

    _____

    Caroline Bergvall
    "My Chaucer"
    with Mario Diaz de Leon
    Tuesday, June 10, 7:30pm
    Dia Arts--Tuesdays on the Terrace
    outdoor program (weather dependent)
    The Hispanic Society of America
    Free-Reservations recommended
    212-293-5583 Broadway between 155th and 156th Streets in New York City.
    (#1 train to 157th St)

    FLASH UPDATE:
    Due to the chance of rain, tonight’s Tuesdays on the Terrace performance by Caroline Bergvall with Mario Diaz de León will take place inside the main gallery of the Hispanic Society of America.
    ____________

    Ghosts:
    Andrew Zawacki on
    Susan Howe's
    Souls of the Labadie Tract
    in The Boston Review

    also reviewed by
    Kim Minkus
    in The Poetic Front

    Susan Howe conference
    Birkbeck (University of London)
    ___________

    Jefferson Hanson on
    Girly Man

    (which is now out in paper)

    link    |  6-2-08




    Call for poems about Sichuan Earthquake

    Dear colleagues and friends,

    We are writing to solicit you for contribution to an anthology of poetry dedicated to all those who died from or survived the tragic Sichuan Earthquake.

    This earthquake, also known as the Wenchuan Earthquake, was the most tragic catastrophe since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China . As of May 27, official figures state that 67,183 are confirmed dead, and 360,058 injured, with 20,790 listed as missing. The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless. Hundreds of aftershocks continue to bring about more pain, terror and damage. With too many lives lost and so much pain still tormenting the living, this earthquake has turned out to be not only a disaster to Chinese people but a catastrophe facing all the human beings.

    International efforts have been made for rescue and relief, and now more joint endeavors of people all over the world are expected for reconstruction, both material and spiritual. And poetry is one of the best ways to offer spiritual relief and psychological care to those who are living and suffering after the uncontrolled tragedy as well as expressing our awe of Nature and love for life. Let’s pray for both the departed and the living in poems. Let’s weave all our blessings and prayer into a beautiful anthology of poetry to honor, and mourn, the victims of the tragedy. Thus this anthology is not only for those who are closely concerned with the earthquake, but for all, over the world, who have been touched by it. Its significance lies not only in its poetic art, but in its expressions of solidarity.

    In order to have this anthology of poetry come out as soon as possible, we expect you to send us the poems by June 25, 2008. All the contributions will be reviewed and selected for publication by a group of poets and scholars of the world, and those unpublished poems will be posted at our websites. Since this anthology is a nonprofit project, the contributors will get no pay for their poem(s) except two copies of the book.

    Please be kind enough to forward our solicitation to your friends.

    Best wishes,

    Nie Zhenzhao (Email: niezhenzhao--at--163.com)
    Chief Editor and Professor,
    Foreign Literature Studies,
    Central China Normal University (CCNU)
    Vice President, China National Academy of Foreign Literature
    Vice President, Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP)

    Luo Lianggong (Email: flschina--at--yahoo.com.cn)
    Professor and Assistant Editor-in-chief,
    Foreign Literature Studies, CCNU
    Executive Director, Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP)

    t

    link    |  05-27-08



    Paul Zukofsky

    WHY 4 OTHER COUNTRIES
    OR
    DEAR CHARLES, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT

    dear Charles

    per your request: ...

    Paul Zukofsky on Louis Zukofsky's "4 Other Countries."
    Now on-line at the PEPC Library.


    l
    ink    |  05-25-08



    Maggie O'Sullivan
    reading "Windows"
    in London at the Openned series
    May 14, 2008
    I accompany readng excerpts from her commentary text

    video: John Sparrow

    link    |  05-24-08



    The Center for Book Arts
    (New York)
    Broadsides Reading Series

    Friday, June 6, 6:30pm
    Stacy Szymaszek
    and
    Charles Bernstein.

    First forty entrants will receive one free letterpress printed broadside created by artists at the Center in honor of the poets' reading.
    Suggested dontation $10/ $5 CBA members

    The Center for Book Arts
    28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor
    New York, NY
    ___
    I will be performing a new work I've written for the Conceptual Poetry conference next week in Tucson
    (& that I read last Saturday in Sussex)
    Recantorium
    (a bachelor machine after Duchamp after Kafka)
    link    |  05-23-08



    New at EPC
    author pages for
    Paul Blackburn
    (plus PennSound audio)
    Tony Towle
    Jonathan Williams

    edited by EPC Associate Editor Jack Krick
    ______________

    New on PennSound
    the best way to keep up with new additions on PennSound is
    PennSound Daily

    Rachel Zolf
    new PennSound page
    listen to
    Shoot & Weep (22:44): MP3
    Recorded April 24, 2008 in  Toronto
    -------
    Charles Borkhuis
    Black Light: Two Radio Plays (2002)

    link    |  05-22-08



    Francie Shaw at A.I.R.



    A.I.R. Gallery
    Friday, May 23rd
    @ 7 pm
    511 W 25th St. suite 301
    NYC
    for the reading of
    POETRY NOIR
    readers will be
    Charles Bernstein
    Lee Ann Brown
    Miles Champion
    Tom Devaney
    Erica Hunt
    Susan Howe
    Bob Perelman



    in honor of FRANCIE SHAW's show
    last days!
    link    |  05-20-08



    Yesterday, I spent the morning with Lio and Martin Spinelli, mostly on the Brighton pier.





    Martin produced the LINEbreak and RadioRadio series (available on PennSound).
    He has an EPC author page.

    BBC News artilce on Lio's recovery
    Martin's blog for Lio

     

    link    |  05-19-08



    Peter Gizzi


    Photo: Robert Seydel

    Close Listening
    Readings and Conversations at Art Radio WPS1
    with Charles Bernstein
    recorded March 17, 2008

    Conversation (23:23): MP3

    Reading (26:30): MP3
    from Periplum and other poems (1987-1992)
    Thirty Sentences for No One
    Periplum
    from Artificial Heart (1998)
    Another day on the Pilgrimage
    Tous les Matins du Monde
    from Some Values of Landscape and Weather (2003)
    Plain Song
    Beginning With a Phrase from Simone Weil
    from The Outernationale (2007)
    The Quest
    The Outernationale
    Untitled Amherst Specter
    Protest Song
    A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me

    Close Listening Engineer: Jeannie Hooper
    Additional technical support: Michael  Hennessy.

    ————————————————————————

    link    |  05-11-08



    Peter Middleton

    Download MP4 to see see video.

    Peter Middleton
    Peter was on his way back from Creeley Buffalo conference, which I had missed because of the devastating snow storm in Buffalo that weekend. The first time I met with Peter in New York was in the early 1990s. I remember going to the Riverside Park playground and while Emma played in the sandbox we chatted on about his entirely informative book The Inward Gaze: Masculinity & Subjectivity in Modern Culture.
    October 16, 2006
    (mp4, 38 seconds, 7.5 mb)
    link    |  05-09-08



    Nerys Williams
    Reading Error: The Lyric and Contemporary Poetry
    Poetry Series:  Modern Poetry  Vol. 1
    Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007
    265 pp. ISBN 978-3-03911-025-4  pb.

    from the publisher’s information:
    This book considers the development of the lyric form in recent American poetry of the past three decades. By concentrating on the writing of three poets associated with language writing, Charles Bernstein, Michael Palmer and Lyn Hejinian, the discussion considers the attempts of contemporary poetry to problematise the identification of the lyric as a static model of subjectivity. Central considerations motivating the discussion are: How do contemporary lyric poets negotiate the propositions posed by postmodern thought? What reading of lyricism can one formulate once the self is displaced from centre stage and an 'experience' of language takes its place? The book proposes that an aesthetic of error enables us to approach the reconfiguration of the lyric in recent innovative poetry. Drawing from elements of modernist poetic practice, psychoanalytic theory, language philosophy and critical theory this book pursues methods for understanding the demands placed upon the reader of contemporary poetry.

    Contents:

    • Language Writing and the Lyric
    • Error, Malapropisms, 'Ideolects' and 'Knowing' a Language in Charles Bernstein's Dark City and Rough Trades
    • Whose Language: Charles Bernstein Reading Cavell, Reading Wittgenstein
    • Michael Palmer's Lyric and 'Nobody's Voice'
    • Ungrammaticalities and Intertextuality in Michael Palmer's Sun and Letters to Zanzotto
    • Erring in Lyn Hejinian's Poetry of the 1980s - 'There is no one correct path': Lyn Hejinian's Prepoetics
    • Lyric from L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E into the 21st Century.
    link    |  05-08-08


    reminder
    Blind Witness

    Three American Operas
    prepublication launch & performance


    Monday, May 5, 8pm



    Forthcoming from Factory School

    Blind Witness


    brings together in one book Charles Bernstein's libretti for
    Blind Witness News, The Subject, and The Lenny Paschen Show
    written for composer Ben Yarmolinsky in the early 1990s.
    Bernstein & Yarmolinsky
    will  perform sections of the operas along with
    Deborah Karpel, soprano  | Nathan Resika, bass | Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano
    discounted advance copies of the books will be on sale
    Medicine Show
    549 West 52nd St. (between 10th and 11th Ave.), New York
    $5 admission
    Reservations requested to ensure seating: 212-262-4216
    This program is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
    *
    Blind Witness
    can be ordered now
    prepublication
    direct from Factory School


    cover image: Susan Bee
    link    |  04-23-08



    N 49 15.832 - W 123 05.921
    :::::: POSITIONS COLLOQUIUM ::::::

    AUGUST 19 - 24, 2008
    VIVO Media Arts Centre
    1965 Main Street
    Vancouver, BC (Coast Salish Territory)
    CANADA


    invited participants include

    | Rita Wong | Tyrone Williams | Darren Wershler-Henry | Mark Wallace | Aaron Vidaver | Rodrigo Toscano | Catriona Strang | Brian Kim Stefans | Juliana Spahr | Rod Smith | Colin Smith | Kaia Sand | Lisa Robertson | Judy Radul | Sianne Ngai | Dorothy Trujillo Lusk | Kevin Killian | Reg Johanson | Robert Fitterman | Roger Farr | Laura Elrick | Stacy Doris | Jeff Derksen | Michael Davidson | Louis Cabri | Clint Burnhan | Jules Boykoff | Dodie Bellamy |

    newly commissioned works
    readings + talks + panels + performances
    the KOOTENAY SCHOOL of WRITING
    with VIVO Media Arts Centre
    for details
    thematics statements
    and registration information
    please visit
    http://www.kswnet.org/

    to learn more about VIVO, visit
    http://www.videoinstudios.com/
    link    |  5-03-07


    new at Sibila
    EM PARTICULAR
    (In Particular, from Girly Man)
    Charles Bernstein
    Tradução: Régis Bonvicino e Maria do Carmo Zanini
    (Brazil)

    Audio in English from Mills College 2005 (MP3)

    “Admito que a beleza me inala, mas não que eu inale a beleza.” – Felix Bernstein
    “Minha falta de nada.” – o gênio na confeitaria

    Um homem negro esperando num ponto de ônibus
    A mulher branca sentada num banco
    Um filipino comendo batata
    Um garoto mexicano colocando sapatos
    Um hindu ocultando-se num iglu
    Uma garota gorda de bata azul
    Uma senhora católica de chinó
    A mãe chinesa cruzando a ponte
    Um afegão pastando pastrami
    Um provinciano passeando na península
    Um garoto eurasiano ao celular
    Um árabe de sombrinha
    Um sulista decolando a mochila
    Um milanês detonando um gse
    Um bárbaro de boina
    Um libanês numa limusine
    Um judeu regando petúnias
    Um iugoslavo num enforcamento
    Um menino sunita num patinete
    Um nativo da Flórida subindo uma fonte
    Um beatnik escrevendo um limerick
    Uma caucasiana sonhando ao acaso
    Uma criança porriquenha flutuando num balão
    Um tipo indígena no topo de um triciclo
    Um armênio remando até a América
    Um irlandês com uma foice
    Um bangladeshiano balbuciando perguntas
    Um trabalhador amassando barro
    Um esqueitista japonês consertando um ciborgue
    O marinheiro de Myanmar mirando seu reboque
    Um cara de Idaho pegando sol
    A garota de Quinnipiac com fala triste e lenta
    Um baleeiro arapaho acertando por um triz
    Um anoréxico com uma cor inesquecível
    Um adolescente muçulmano escrevendo em terza rima
    Um encanador escocês comendo por quilo
    Um garoto gay num barco xadrez
    Um homem vermelho com uma bola verde
    Um marinheiro disléxico com uma dor de verdade
    Um avião inglês com destino à Irlanda
    Um banqueiro budista caindo ao chão
    Um ex-interno curioso na debulhadora
    Um sargento hispânico de olho num casaco creme
    Um alfaite drogado dragando a sopa
    Um pivete massai mascando goma
    Um infante sefardita no convés de shuffleboard
    Um mongol imitando Napoleão
    Um rapaz anarquista de olhar enviesado
    Um mineiro de Riga dançando break com a polícia
    A menina pobre comendo torta de maçã com tubaína
    Um camarada sudanês com um carrinho amarelo
    Um ateu com uma paixão por broches
    Um nativo das Bahamas em marcha para uma trama
    Um iraniano gago no fog azul e dourado
    Um sonâmbulo falante ensaiando Gipsy
    Uma criança homossexual num táxi
    A matrona Wicca nadando em Pritt
    Um procrastinador moraviano praticando jiu-jítsu
    Um sírio swami no Lago Oragami
    Um cavalheiro galante num volteio sincero
    Um jovem de cor admirando um tostador
    Um designer dinamarquês num banquete
    Um montenegrino tomando excedrin
    Um dervixe de Washington pingando dodecaedros
    Um decano de Denver rezando rebelde
    Um garçom balinense queimando fumo
    Um iraquiano contemplando um haraquiri
    Um ojibwa apertando um botão na Transiberiana
    Um soldado devastado saltando da balaustrada
    Um patriota decadente apanhando um bagre
    Um professor agoráfobo monitorado por tacógrafo
    Uma feminista numa cadeira de balanço
    Um cozinheiro birmanês de meias soquetes
    Um adolescente se metendo num colchão de ar
    Um defensor do aborto recitando rimas
    Um finlandês com cara de cachorro polindo um Volvo
    Um malinense com malas revistadas
    Um advogado pentecostal correndo em seu foyer
    Um comunista vestindo um avental cinza
    Uma canadense com um anel no nariz
    A moça medúsea namorando um namarino
    Um idiota num closet
    A mágica moura em sua cozinha
    Um soldado acabado com um vendedor antipático
    Um veterano diletante implantando estantes
    Uma socialite num imbroglio de rotina
    Um ciclista vendendo vespas
    Um bebê de um ano embolsando a grana
    Um garoto encapuzado comendo queijo cheddar
    Um tiozão lambe-botas usando tutu
    A morena perseguindo uú trem
    Um argentino dançando na cabeça de um alfinete
    Uma pensionista sardenta instalando um Laplink
    Um australopitequinho careteando no porão
    Um piá nicaraguense com um pito picaresco
    Um marrano nocauteado na lona
    Um abissínio abstêmio
    Um balofo de sorriso despecuniado
    Um amigo texano com a face hirta de terror
    Uma votação perdida na floresta
    Uma alma dilapidada bebendo rum
    Um pistoleiro com coração de papel
    Uma dona em Shockwave sacando uma bola de hóquei
    Um bebê em Percalux enrolando o chachachá
    Um banqueiro pós-colonial comendo ameixas
    Um sueco desastrado cuspindo balas
    Uma haitiana embruxuleada em férias involuntárias
    Um oncologista persa parado em zona azul
    Um flautista franco-peruano tomando Pernod
    Um conquistador do Idaho com a infinita capacidade de causar dor
    Um pedicuro mongol num jantar americano
    Um paulistano traindo um nova-iorquino
    Um homem branco sentado num banco
    A mulher negra esperando o ônibus

    link    |  04-29-08



    Robert Cignoni
    16 August 2007
    Xul/Argentina
    video by Eresto Livon-Grosman

    link    |  04-27-08




    Tracing the Lines

    A Symposium on contemporary poetics and cultural politics
    in honour of Roy Miki
    May 28 to 31, 2008
    Vancouver, BC


    ------

    EYEWEAR
    Todd Swift has posted and  introduced
    "One More for the Road"
    one of the poesm of "World on Fire"
    in Girly Man
    on the occasion of the paperback edition

    _____



    photo © 2008 Charles Bernstein/PennSound


    Cecilia Vicuña

    Writers Without Borders Reading
    Kelly Writers House, UPenn
    April 15, 2008

    Complete Reading (50:23): MP3

    Introduction by Al Filreis (2:54): MP3
    Introduction by Charles Bernstein (6:58): MP3
    Poems and songs by Cecilia Vicuña (40:08): M

    Vicuña on PennSound
    PennSound Daily

    link    |  4-26-08



    My reading in The Line Reading Series, January 15, 2002

     

    link    |  04-25-08



    Elizabeth Willis on Close Listening
    from Art Radio WPS1
    recorded March 17, 2008

    Reading: MP3
    Willis reads a retrospective selection of her poetry.. 

    In conversation with Charles Bernstein: MP3
    Willis talks about the influence of Blake and the Pre-Raphaelites and J.M.W. Turner, as well as discussing  the relation of artifice and sincerity.

    Elizabeth Willis's most recent collection of poems, Meteoric Flowers, was published by Wesleyan in 2006. Her other books include Turneresque (Burning Deck, 2003) and The Human Abstract  (Penguin,1995). An edited volume on Lorine Niedecker is presently in production. Willis teaches literature and creative writing at Wesleyan.

    photo: ©2007 Bernstein/PennSound
    link    |  04-19-08



    Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)

    Clayton Eshleman reading Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, Part One
    Clayton Eshleman reading Notebook Part Two
    courtesy PennSound
    AP news report
    International Herald-Tribune
    Times of London

     

    link    |  04-17-08



    George Oppen: A Centenary Conversation
    SUNY Buffalo: Wednesday April 23 – Friday April 25, 2008



    ---

    New at the PEPC Library
    Roberr Creeley
    Introduction to the Selected Poems of George Oppen

    PEPC Library Edition
    with the permission of the Penelope Creeley
    ©2008 Estate of Robert Creeley

    link    |  04-16-08





    provisional programme

    for Sussex conference on Long Poems / Major Forms

    -----

    Writing the New at New College: A Celebration of Innovative Writing
    Sarasota, Florida
    May 1-3, 2008
    Hamilton Classroom Teaching Auditorium (HCL 8) and Cook Hall
    FREE
    Thursday, May 1 @ 7pm HCL 8: Charles Bernstein, Talking Poetics, With reception to follow in Cook Hall
    Friday, May 2 @ 7pm HCL 8: Reading by Catherine Daly Friday
    Saturday, May 3 @ 3:30 in Cook Hall: Student Poetry Reading 
    Saturday, May 3 @ 7pm HCL 8: Charles Bernstein: "The Attack of the Difficult Poems: Poetry Reading and Performance"

    link    |  4-15-08



    PennSound is pleased to announce selections from
    Henry Hills
    Emma's Dilemma
    (1997-2004
    )

    including "King Richard" (portrait of Richard Foreman)
    & "Nervous Ken" (portrait of Ken Jacobs)
    plus the sections serialized on this web log, & including

    "Maybe (or, In Pursuit of Parker Posey)" with Emma Bee Bernstein

    (. mov, 14 mb, 2:26)
    PennSound Special Edition: full screen version (.mov., 531mb)

    PennSound Emma's Dilemma page

    PennSound Hills page with new streaming versions of his films

    thanks to Danny Snelson for the design of these PennSound pages.


    photo of Hills: 2006, Bernstein/PennSound
    link    |  4-13-08



     

    Henry Hills
    from Emma's Dilemma
    (1997-2004
    )

    Julie Patton

    (. mov, 4:10)

    link    |  4-11-08



     

    Henry Hills
    from Emma's Dilemma
    (1997-2004
    )

    "Printed Matter" with Kenny Goldsmith

    (. mov, 18mb, 3:13)
    PennSound Special Edition: full screen version (.mov, 699mb)

    link    |  4-10-08



    Hannah Weiner
    under discussion

    --------------------------------------------------------------

    Henry Hills
    from Emma's Dilemma
    (1997-2004
    )

    "An Lee Ann-thology of Concrete Poetry" with Lee Ann Brown

    download .mov (4:00)

    link    |  04-07-08



    Girly Man
    New in paper
    Reviews
    $15
    Support independent boosktores.
    Order from Rod Smith at Bridge Street Books.
    There are two ways to order: 1. E-mail your order to <rod /at/ bridgestreetbooks.com> with your address & they will bill you with the books. or 2. via credit card-- call 202 965 5200 or e-mail w/ yr add, order, card #, &  expiration date & they will send a receipt with the books.

    link    |  40-06-08



    John Tranter





    Close Listening
    readings and conversations at WPS1.Org
    New York
    April 3, 2008
    courtesy PennSound

    Reading from Urban Myths: 210 Poems: New and Selected (24:32): MP3

    In conversation with Charles Bernstein (29:15): MP3


    photos © 2008 Charles Bernstein/PennSound
    link    |  04-05-08



    The University of Sussex's School of Humanities
    in conjunction with the Centre for Modernist Studies
    announces the following conference
    scheduled for Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th of May 2008:
    [I will post more detailed info as available. This is the preliminary announcement and subject to change.]

    Long Poems ::: Major Forms

    Plenary Speakers

    Charles Bernstein (U Penn)

    Rachel Blau DuPlessis (Temple)

    Simon Jarvis (Cambridge)

    Ron Bush (Oxford)

    Tony Lopez (Plymouth)

    Peter Middleton (Southampton)

    The 'long poem' has been traditionally conceived of as the principal means by which poets confront political and aesthetic problems through sustained investigations. Beyond this general outline, or indeed perhaps because of it, there is little consensus as to either what the long poem is, or what it might be uniquely capable of. In 'The Poetic Principle,' Edgar Allen Poe went so far as to assert that "a long poem does not exist" since "the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity." Years later, and seeking to resolve the technical and affective dilemmas that Poe identified, Charles Olson prescribed a 'projective verse' that he purported might carry "much larger material than it has carried in our language since the Elizabethans." He thought Pound's Cantos exemplified the beginnings of such poetry, displaying a methodology capable of solving "problems of larger content and of larger forms." This conference seeks to address the contemporary relevance of the long poem: how has it evolved, what standing does it currently hold, and who are now its readers? As both a poetic and a critical concept, the 'long poem' presents poets with the difficulty of articulating what Pound called "a compound of freedom and order" that "hangs between chaos on the one side and mechanics on the other." We hope this conference will provide a forum for the consideration of ways in which comprehensive, often formally complex and expansive poems may respond, or fail to respond, to certain "obligations toward the difficult whole," and to explore what these obligations might now entail for both poets and their readers. We therefore welcome proposals for presentations addressing aesthetic, formal, generic, compositional and literary-historical questions the 'long poem' brings into particular focus.

    For further details please contact thelongpoemconference@sussex.ac.uk.

    link    |  04-04-08-pm




    January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968



    -------

    PEN PETITION

    We Are Ready: Petition to the Chinese Government


    On August 8, 2007, China launched a publicity campaign proclaiming “We Are Ready” to host the Olympic Games in August 2008. We, the undersigned members of PEN American Center, are writing to ask you to show the world that China is in fact ready—not just to stage the Olympics, but to acknowledge, protect, and celebrate the full rights of its citizens.

    PEN believes there are currently 38 writers and journalists imprisoned in China for exercising their right to speak and write freely, as guaranteed under Chinese and international law. We are concerned that, despite official pledges to respect essential rights in this Olympic year, Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain writers in violation of their right to freedom of expression.

    In order to fulfill the promises China made in securing the Olympic Games, and to ensure that the rights of our colleagues are fully protected in your country, we therefore urge you to:

    • facilitate the immediate and unconditional release of all writers and journalists currently imprisoned and end the practice of detaining, harassing, and censoring writers and journalists in China
    • abide by China’s pledge that “there will be no restrictions on media reporting and movement of journalists up to and including the Olympic Games”; and
    • end internet censorship and reform laws that are used to imprison writers and journalists and suppress the free exchange of information and ideas on the internet.


    >> ACT NOW: sign the petition

    link    |  04-04-08



    link    |  04-03-08



    The Conceptual Poetry Interviews
    responses by
    Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith, Susan Howe, Marjorie Perloff, and Cole Swensen
    as well as my response posted here last week
    in/about/around the Universty of Arizona symposium

    SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

    ROUNDTABLE RESPONDENTS
    Charles Alexander, CHAX Press, Tucson; Laynie Browne, UA Poetry Center; Graca Capinha, University of Coimbra, Portugal; Barbara Cole, SUNY, Buffalo; Wystan Curnow, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Michael Farrell, University of Melbourne, Australia; Jesper Olsson, OEI Magazine, Sweden; Vanessa Place, Les Figues Press, Los Angeles; Brian Reed, University of Washington, Seattle; Linda Reinfeld, Rochester Institute of Technology; Marie Smart, University of Southern California; Jonathan Stalling, University of Oklahoma

    THURSDAY, MAY 29
    4 p.m. – READING with COLE SWENSEN, CHARLES BERNSTEIN, CHRISTIAN BÖK
    7 p.m. – KEYNOTE ADDRESS with MARJORIE PERLOFF
    FRIDAY, MAY 30
    9 a.m. - Poetry Rules!: The Concept of Poetry with Charles Bernstein
    10:15 a.m. - Black Conceptual Poetics: Examples for Crafting with Tracie Morris
    1 p.m. - Panel Discussion with featured poets moderated by TENNEY NATHANSON
    3 p.m. - Forms of Social Engagement with Caroline Bergvall
    4:15 p.m. - ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
    5:30 p.m. - Uncreative Writing Workshop with Kenneth Goldsmith
    8 p.m. - READING with CRAIG DWORKIN, PETER GIZZI, SUSAN HOWE
    SATURDAY, MAY 31
    9 a.m. - The Visible World: Writing the Visual Arts with Cole Swensen
    10:15 a.m. - Poetics of Assemblage with Peter Gizzi
    1 p.m. - Two Dots over a Vowel with Christian Bök
    2:15 p.m. - ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
    4 p.m. - Class Session with Susan Howe
    5:15 p.m. - The Politics of Conceptual Writing with Craig Dworkin
    8 p.m. - READING with KENNETH GOLDSMITH, CAROLINE BERGVALL, TRACIE MORRIS
    ---------

    Brooklyn Museum, March 30, 2008
    "Beyond the Waves; Feminist Artists Talk Across Generations"


    Kat Griefen | Susan Bee | Mira Schor | Emma Bee Bernstein | Carolee Schneemann  | Brynna Tucker

    link    |  04-01-08



    Conceptual Interview In Response to Some Questions from the University of Arizona Poetry Center in Advance of the Conceptual Poetry & Its Others Symposium

    Much of your work suspends or refuses the privilege to any one reading.
    That's true of poetry generally, of poetry as a genre.

    Can you speak about this tendency against the exclusive, and whether or not this choice is aesthetic, political, personal or any combination of the three?
    I'd say it's more a condition of language than a choice. Though of course you can fight against the conditions of language all you like, or work with them, as I prefer to do.
         Depending on the meaning of it.
         The idea of meaning being "exclusive" strikes me as troubling on an aesthetic, political, and personal basis.
          But then trouble is my business.

    This approach to writing/readership as an extension of Barthes’ concept of the“death of the author”has accumulated quite a history and tradition in its own right.
    It seems odd to me to attribute this "approach" (if that is what it is) to Roland Barthes but in Writing Degree Zero, a favorite book of mine, Barthes does make the distinction between the readerly text and the one you are gesturing toward in your questions, the writerly text.
          The author dies. The author’s work is born.

    Some suggest, therefore, that it can no longer be considered avant-garde.
    I hope so. But then you'd have to explain why so much of what celebrates itself as official verse culture hasn’t gotten the news. Remember that scene in Rosemary's Baby in which Mia Farrow’s in the waiting room reading the issue of Time with Nietzche's "God is dead" on the cover?
         News travels slowly in some sectors of the pluriverse.

    Speculate about whether or not this is so, or whether or not it is important.

    This is so & so is this
    But neither is important.
    That is theirs
    & near’s not here

    But neither is important.
    Never twill, never twine
    Nor peep nor bleat nor pipe.
    Neither’s important.

    How do you see the evolution of this “tradition” as it might be surfacing today?
    I'm plunging under the surface as an organized evasion procedure.

    What is conceptual poetry? 
    Poetry pregnant with thought.

    What is not poetry?
    The absence of conception had itself to be conceived.





     

    link    |  03-28-08




    image: Charles Bernstein/2008

    Alan Filreis

    Counter-Revolution of the Word:
    the Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960

    ( North Carolina, 2008)

     

    PEPC
    is pleased to announce
    extended excerpts from this book

    • Filreis discusses the book with me on Close Listening: MP3
    • Filreis reads these excerpts at Penn: MP3
    • My introduction at the book launch: MP3

    link    |  03-25-08



    What Makes a Poem a Poem?
    60-Second Lecture, University of Pennsylvania
    April 21, 2004

    (mp4, 1:23, 4.2 mb)
    (RealMedia, 1:23, 11.9 mb)
    link    |  03-22-08





    A democracy once proposed
    Is slimmed and grimed again
    By men with brute design
    Who prefer hate to rime


    None None Dare Call It Treason

    2000 Florida Presidential election fraud

    Invasion of Iraq under false pretenses

    Abu Ghraib

    Falsification of scientific record on global warming

    Guantanamo

    Katrina

    Wealth Surge:
    Massive capital accumulation spike for richest

    Selective suspension of Habeas Corpus

    Warrantless Searches

    Extraordinary rendition

    Voter Suppression

    Watchdog-gate:
    Industry lobbyist run regulatory bodies

    Global Attack on
    Reproductive rights

    government Interference In
    individual's right to choose

    Marriage Partners

    government restrictions on
    Stem cell research

    FCC-gate:
    Gutting free speech protection

    FDA-gate:
    Politicizing medical decisions

    Voter suppression:
    the new "ID" poll tax, registration bars,
    disenfranchisement of ex-felons, rump redistricting

    U.S. Attorneys Purge

    :::::::::::::::::::::::::::


    Image: Ligorano-Reese "Line-Up"

    Thugs from hell have taken freedom’s store


    George Bush
    Dick Chaney
    Karl Rove
    Alberto GonzAles
    Condoleeza
    Rice
    Donald Rumsfeld
    John Ashcroft
    Tom DeLAY



    So be a girly man

    & take a gurly stand

    Sing a gurly song

    & dance with a girly sarong

    link    |  03-19-08 (from 03-19-07)

    Norman the Baker


    Norman Fischer
    Norman sat out on the bench in front of Pecan on Franklin, just before walking west to the Clocktower to tape Close Listening. We met up with Alan Davies, whose Close Listening shows I was taping right before Norman’s. After the recording session we wandered over to Excllent Dumpling for lunch, where we sat next to Lynne Stewart. I’d just seen Paul Chan’s film about Stewart, in which she talks about poetry and reads from Blake. We were eating in the shadows of the criminal court building in which she had been unjustly sentenced to jail. I was glad to meet her and express my appreciation for her work and concern for the price she might have to pay for defending freedom. Meanwhile, our small band of poets – Alan, Norman, and me – made our way over to the Chelsea to see Norman’s son Noah’s new show.
    January 5, 2007
    (mp4, 28 seconds, 5.7 mb)
    link    |  03-18-08


    Tim Peterson
    Either You're With Us and Against Us:
    Charles Bernstein's Girly Man, 9-11,
    and the Brechtian Figure of the Reader

    just out
    EBR

    A paperback edition of Girly Man is due in April.

    ++++++++++

    Special "Poetics" discount for Richard Foreman’s
    DEEP TRANCE BEHAVIOR IN POTATOLAND!
    St. Mark's Church, New York
    $18 tickets with the code word "poetics" when reserved over the phone or web.
    Call 212-352-3101 or visit http://www.ontological.com to arrange.
    Offer good for shows through March 30.
    My comments on this show were posted previously.


    +++++++++++


    PennSound has been making available the LINE readings from the Drawing Center in New York
    & Danny Snelson, our intrepid contributing editor, has been edting some of the reading, creating PennSound's trademark singles.
    Also included in the new batch is a reading I did with Rod Smiith and Nada Gordan in 2002. I mostly read from my new book of that moment, With Strings
    January 15, 2002
    introduction by Lytle Shaw (3:26): MP3
    Rod Smith (20:47): MP3
    Nada Gordon (27:38): MP3
    Charles Bernstein (33:41): MP3

    photos:of Smith (top) & Gordon ©2008 Bernstein
    link    |  03-17-08




    Sunday, March 30, 2008
    3:00 - 5:00 PM
    "Beyond the Waves; Feminist Artists Talk Across Generations"
    a panel
    Susan Bee
    Emma Bee Bernstein
    Mira Schor
    Carolee Schneemann, 
    Brynna Tucker
    at
    The Sackler Center for Feminist Art
    Brooklyn Museum, New York
    Free & Open to Public (With Museum Entry Fee) -

    +++++++++

    The Poetry Foundation has published digital versions of poems
    from With Strings
    Thinking I Think I Think
    A Test of Poetry
    &
    from My Way: Speeches and Poems
    Dear Mr. Fanelli,
    Gertrude and Ludwig's Bogus Adventure
    &
    from Girly Man:
    Questionnaire
    Self-Help


    +++++++++++

    Tuesday, April 8, 3:00-9:00pm
    The Shape of Disclosure: George Oppen Centennial Symposium

    On the occasion of George Oppen's centennial and the publication of his Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers, poets and scholars gather to honor the life and work of this spare, powerful and original poet.
    Co-sponsored by Poets House, Tribeca Performing Arts Center at BMCC and University of California Press. Funded in part by the New York Council for the Humanities.

    3:00pm Panel: Biographical-Historical Continuum
    Moderated by Michael Heller
    Featuring Stephen Cope on Oppen's diaries and journals, Norman Finkelstein on the late poems, Eric Hoffman on Oppen's political identity and Kristin Prevallet on Oppen's response to World War II.

    5:00pm Panel: Literary-Philosophical Spectrum
    Moderated by Thom Donovan
    Featuring Romana Huk on Oppen's relationship to metaphysics and Judeo-Christian philosophy, Burt Kimmelman on Oppen and Heidegger, Peter O'Leary on Whitman's influence on Oppen and John Taggart on Oppen's poetry as "a process of thought."

    7:30pm George Oppen Centennial Reading
    Stephen Cope, Thom Donovan, Norman Finkelstein, E. Tracy Grinnell, Michael Heller, Erica Hunt, Burt Kimmelman, Geoffrey O'Brien, Peter O'Leary, Kristin Prevallet, Hugh Seidman, Harvey Shapiro, Stacy Szymaszek & John Taggart

    George Oppen was born April 24, 1908 in New Rochelle, New York, and died in San Francisco in 1984.
    Tribeca Performing Arts Center
    Borough of Manhattan Community College
    199 Chambers Street
    $10/Free to Students and Poets House Members
    Audiences may attend individual events or the entire symposium


    +++++++++++++++++++

    Just got word about this book,
    which I have not yet seen

    Amy Evans and Shamoon Zamir, eds.
    The Unruly Garden:
    Robert Duncan and Eric Mottram: Letters and Essays
    (Peter Lang, 2007)

    link    |  03-16-08


    Last Sunday, The New York Times Book Review made an error in citing L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E as Language, which is the name of a different publication. Responding to a request for a correction, the Times stated that the error was deliberate “The Times's style, for better or worse, is not to reproduce stylistic quirks in titles, so calling the magazine Language, without the equal signs, is deliberate.” Since both the equal signs and the capitalization of the title are substantial and not “stylistic quirks,” the response compounds the error. As does the Times printing of these names in recent issues: “I ♥ Huckabees,” “E*Trade,” and “The Ensemble π.” I wonder if HarperCollins would get the same reply if their name was printed Harpercollins?
    link    |  03-15-08





    APRI
    COT
    JAM
       JAR  
      

    Robert Grenier
    from
    FOUR POEMS/JUNE 2004
    (each image is from a spread of one sketchbook page;
    the shadow line running through the middle of the image is the gutter between the two pages)

    _____

    Over the past year Bob Grenier and I have worked on an email conversation mostly about his hand-drawn poems.
    John Tranter has published the exchange in Jacket 35 (which is still being assembled).


    Robert Grenier and Charles Bernstein
    A Conversation



    Robert Grenier’s drawing poem print series 64 will be installed down one long wall as part of a drawing show called “The Irony of Flatness” opening 18 July 2008 at the Bury Art Gallery, Moss Street, Bury, Lancashire, BL9 0DF, United Kingdom (phone 0161 253 5878). During the Opening festivities, RG will walk about, sounding out & ‘interpreting’ (for & with persons present) certain of the drawing poems in 64.

    Giclée prints from Robert Grenier’s drawing poem series 64 are available for purchase (as individual prints and in cut and uncut sets of 2, 4, 6, and 8) from:
    Greene Naftali Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10001.
    Contact Jay Sanders:  jay[ât]greenenaftaligallery.com or 212-463-777
    0.

    photo: Bernstein/Jacket
    link    |  03-13-08



    just out  ... in the new issue of  Exquisite Corpse
    poetry section edited by Bill Lavender


    Work in Progress

    for Eliot Spitzer


    all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy all work and no play makes jack a dull boy ALL WORK and NO play makes Jack a DULL boy ALL work and NO play MAKES jack a DULL boy

     

    link    |  03-23-08







    Bob Holman celebrated his 60th birthday last night at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York
    from top: Bob looks at Bob, Eileen Myles, Quincy Troupe

    photos: ©2008 Bernstein

    link    |  3-11-08


    The Answer

    a video by Niels Plenge
    with Charles Bernstein

    2003

    (mp4, 3:32, 20.2 mb)


    Shot in RIverside Park, New York
    Camera: Lars Movin & Niels Plenge
    Boomer: Thomas Thorah

    ©2006 Niels Plenge and Charles Bernstein.

    link    |  03-07-08





    Al Filreis
    on
    Close Listening
    recorded 3/5/08
    Filreis talks about his  new book --
    Counter-Revolution of the Word:
    The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960

    University of North Carolina Press

    photos © 2008:
    Al Filreis by Bernstein
    Silliman-DuPlessis-Bernstein by Filreis

    link    |  03-06-08





    Ubu Web
    in collaboration with PEPC
    has recently made available

    Bern Porter's
    Wisdom of the Questioning Eye: Five books from the 1960s

    a set of remarkable collage books

    pictured here: three spreads from Aphasia


    link    |  03-03-08





    Chinese / American Association for Poetry and Poetics
    ( CAAP ) Founded

    The Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP), initiated by leading scholars including Marjorie Perloff, Charles Bernstein and Nie Zhenzhao, was established in January 2008 with its headquarters at Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, University of Pennsylvania, USA. This is an international academic organization devoted to the study of poetry and poetics, focusing on the scholarship and translation of the international poetry, with special emphasis on the study and translation of North American poetry in China and Chinese poetry in North America, but also with a commitment to see North American poetry and Chinese poetry in a global context. This association will endeavor to introduce American and Western poetry and poetics to China so as to produce new energy for Chinese poetry and its study, and to introduce Chinese poetry and poetics to America and the world. Attention will also be paid to the scholarship and translation of philosophical approaches to poetry and translation so as to promote the study of poetry and poetics in the context of literary studies.

    A non-profit organization, CAAP is composed of scholars and poets of America, China and other parts of the world. It is chaired by Marjorie Perloff, professor emerita at Stanford University and former president of the Modern Language Association of America and American Association of Comparative Literature. Charles Bernstein, professor of University of Pennsylvania and fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Nie Zhenzhao, professor of Central China Normal University, vice president of the China National Association of Foreign Literature and chief editor of Foreign Literature Studies (FLS), an AHCI source journal, serve as vice presidents. The current association board is composed of the American and Chinese scholars and poets (See below).

    CAAP will follow its tenet and make every effort to sponsor academic activities such as scholarly conferences, exchanges of scholars, translation, and publication. All scholars and poets who share the interests of this Association are warmly welcome to join. The email address is caap2008@gmail.com.

    President Marjorie Perloff      

    Vice Presidents

    Nie Zhenzhao
    [pictured above and below] 
                   Charles Bernstein          


    Executive director
    Luo Lianggong


    Members of CAAP Board:
    Dong, Hongchuan Sichuan International Studies University, China
    Filreis, Al University of Pennsylvania, USA
    Hu, Sishe Xi’an International Studies University, China
    Huang, Yunte University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
    Jiang, Hongxin Hunan Normal University, China
    Li, Zhimin Guangzhou University, China
    Lin, Tan New Jersey City University, USA
    Liu, Jianjun Northeast Normal University, China
    Luo, Lianggong Wuhan University of Technology, China
    Luo, Yimin Southwest Normal University, China
    Ma, Ming-Qian State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
    Ning, Yizhong Beijing Language and Culture University, China
    Ou, Hong Sun Yat-sen University, China
    Qian, Zhaoming University of New Orleans, USA
    Saussy, Haun Yale University, USA
    Schwartz, Leonard Evergreen College, USA
    Slaymaker, Doug University of Kentucky, USA
    Sun, Jian Fudan University, China
    Twitchell, Jeff Overseas Family College, Singapore
    Yang, Jincai Nanjing University, China
    Yeh, Michelle University of California at Davis, USA
    Yin, Qiping Zhejiang University, China
    Yu, Tim University of Toronto, Canada
    Zhang, Er Evergreen College, USA


    Wuhan Conference on American Poetry, July 2007

    More photos of Wuhan conference here.



    link
       |  03-02-08





    I knew
    About the split identity
    Of the People's Poet—
    The bifacial nature of his poetry:
    The racial ballad in the public domain
    And the private poem in the modern vein.
                                               —Melvin Tolson, Harlem Gallery



    Objectivist Blues
    Scoring Speech in Second-Wave Modernist Poetry and Lyrics

    Innovation versus Assimilation in
    Louis Zukofsky Charlie Patton Paul Robeson
    Cole Porter James Weldon Johnson W.C. Handy
    Melvin Tolson Oscar Hammerstein II David Marriott
    &&&&&

    American Literary History
    20th anniversary issue
    Spring 2008

    the first published part of a work-in-progress

    advance e-copies of my essay at

    Full Text HTML:
    http://alh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/ajm054?ijkey=kKclNzTrSOT9Xga&keytype=ref

    PDF:
    http://alh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/ajm054?ijkey=kKclNzTrSOT9Xga&keytype=ref
    note: sound file links are slightly miscoded in this version

    ...........
    Cole Porter's "How strange the change from major to minor" could be the theme song of second-wave modernism, where minor keys struck major chords. If Porter, in his songs, included the high in the low, then Danny Kaye's and second waver Louis Armstrong's rollicking version of the African-American spiritual "When the Saints Go Marching In" in the 1959 movie, The Five Pennies, is the ultimate anthem of such cultural miscegenation, here brought to a crescendo by the Jewish Kaye singing side-by-side with Armstrong, the icon of African-American classical music. (Kaye, born David Daniel Kaminsky in 1913, is four years too young to be a full-fledged second waver.) At one point, the younger Tin Pan Alley crooner impersonates the classic jazz singer (including the famous handkerchief-on-mouth), to which Armstrong remarks, in an aside, "Is this cat digging me, face and all?" (see Figure 2). In this (Levinasian?) moment, Kaye dialogically redefines by refining—yet without redeeming—Al Jolson's blackface "Jazz Singer." Armstrong and Kaye riff on popular figures of European classical music—"Chopin – solid man ... Mozart – with the symphonies and operas and all that jazz ... Rimsky – of coursikov ... Ravel and Gustav Mahler – but don't forget Fats Waller ... put Liszt on that list ... Haydn [pronounced Hidin' ]– well let him come out! ... Khachaturian – gesundheit"—ending the performance with an ecstatic dose of ideolectical, a.k.a. scat, mayhem.

    Who's gonna play on the day when the saints go marching in?" Armstrong sings, envisioning a messianic, not to say apocalyptic, moment of judgment and redemption in which Western high culture marches into paradise side-by-side with jazz and Broadway. "I want to be in that number": elect, but more profoundly, company. Being in the number does not elevate the "other" but rather democratizes the "high," brings the "high" and "low" (sacred and profane, standard and aberrant) into the space of the people (demos), the commons. Amidst the final scat, the singers exclaim to each other, "Oh too high! Oh too low!," meaning the notes but also the cultural referents. It is an exuberant moment not so much for popular culture (in terms of which this is nothing special), but for high culture.

    Cultural miscegenation (the mixing of types) is in dialectical relation to assimilation. Miscegenation, insofar as it is marked by difference, resists assimilation. But miscegenation is also assimilation by means of absorption—call it the syncretic. Conceptualized as a function, assimilation has as its utopian upper limit Emersonian moral perfectionism, whose horizon is the new or invented, in the sense of emergent or not yet realized (possibly not realizable). The dystopian lower limit is absorption into the dominant culture without a trace of the constituent parts, the fantasy of the total dissolution of otherness into the mirage of the preexisting—call it the final solution by other means.
    ...




    "Oy, oy, oy, oy / Mazel tov!"

     

    link    |  02-25-08



    Nicole: Another Language

    Download Video Portrait file or click and play in QT.

    Nicole Brossard
    Nicole came by and we mostly discussed prose poetry, for a class she was going to teach. But then I asked her about the different pronunciations of French in the Americas.
    November 8, 2006
    (59 seconds, 11.4 mb
    click to launch QT or download )



    link    |  2-23-08




    Betye Saar, “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972)
    is on view at
    the must see

    WACK!
    Art and the Feminist Revolution


    which features art from 1965-1980.
    The show opened yesterday at PS1/MoMa in New York.

    Mira Schor makes an important intervention
    about the generational focus, and feminist politics, of this
    & related shows
    in the new Brooklyn Rail:
    “I am not now nor have I ever been…"

     

    link    |  2-18-08


    University of Arizona
    Poetry Center

    announces

    Conceptual Poetry and its Others

    May 29-31, 2008
    KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MARJORIE PERLOFF with featured artists
    Caroline Bergvall, Charles Bernstein, Craig Dworkin,
    Peter Gizzi, Kenneth Goldsmith, Susan Howe,
    Tracie Morris, Cole Swensen

    The recent publication of Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith’s Anthology of Conceptual Poetry (based on the online Ubuweb Anthology of Conceptual Writing) is only one sign of the recent interest in the “tensions between materiality and concept” (Dworkin), in a “new new formalism,” based on constraints, both the Oulipo and Cagean variants, on citationality and found text, on sound play, and visual device. Is such “non-expressivist” poetry too extreme? Conceptual Poetry and Its Others brings together a variety of leading poets to debate the issue.

    REGISTRATION
    Early Registration (by 4/4/08) $80 general $45 student
    Registration (after 4/4/08) $105 general $60 student
    Mail-in Registration Form

    CALL FOR RESPONDENTS
    If you wish to participate in a Roundtable on the subject of Conceptual Poetry and Its Others, please send a letter of interest outlining your qualifications and why you would like to participate. Also include a curriculum vitae, résumé, or biographical statement. Send these materials to Frances Sjoberg, Symposium Roundtable, UA Poetry Center, 1508 E Helen St., Tucson, AZ 85721-0150 no later than March 4, 2008.

    BREAKOUT SESSIONS with FEATURED WRITERS

    Forms of Social Engagement
    with
    Caroline Bergvall

    Poetry Rules!: The Concepts of Poetry
    with
    Charles Bernstein

    The Politics of Conceptual Writing
    with
    Craig Dworkin

    The Poetics of Assemblage
    with
    Peter Gizzi

    Uncreative Writing Workshop
    with
    Kenneth Goldsmith

    Black Conceptual Poetics: Examples for Crafting
    with
    Tracie Morris

    The Visible World: Writing the Visual Arts
    with
    Cole Swensen

    Plus additional sessions, panel discussions,
    readings and roundtables

    more info here
    link    |  2-17-08-PM



    The Nation
    has just published my poem
    "All the Whiskey in Heaven"
    in its Valentine's Day issue
    (dated March 3 but out on 2/14)
    along with, in recent weeks,
    reviews of Picabia, Creeley, Oppen and Ashbery
    and poems by Eileen Myles, Joe Ceravolo, and Jack Spicer.
    Peter Gizzi is the poetry editor &
    John Palattella is Literary Editor.

    +++++

    Craig Dworkin & I will be reading
    this Thursday Feb. 21 at 7pm
    at Columbia University (New York).
    location: 413 Kent

    ++++++++++++++++

    Green Integer
    has just posted
    Joel's Bettridge essay
    "Shadowtime and Faithful Interpretation"
    from Textual Practice
    .
    Here is the beginning of the itnroduction --

    'With the legalization of gay marriage, faith has been violated and we've been forced to respond', says Charles McVety, the president of Canada Christian College in Toronto.1 Following the logic of McVety's statement - quoted in a New York Times article on religious conservatives' opposition to same-sex marriage in Canada - demonstrates well why arguments from faith often appear to dispense with reasoned debate. What the word 'faith' refers to in McVety's sentence is unclear, or more precisely, it seems to refer both to Christians' belief in God and to heterosexual marriage. With their differences collapsed into the single word faith, the opposition to same-sex marriage and the act of believing in the Christian God become synonymous - they occupy the same cultural and intellectual turf. A specific moral proposition that might otherwise be up for debate is located inside a sphere that cannot be reasonably contested, namely, the Divine. Christian conservatives are hardly alone in holding some beliefs sacred, for on some level all religious and secular philosophies begin with a prior commitment (even if that prior commitment is a dedication to cultural pluralism and open debate). What is remarkable about the above example is how the sentence turns faith into a noun with demarcated borders able to be 'violated'. Here faith becomes a specific conviction held outside the reach of intellectual discussion; faith means grasping the obvious, not negotiating the uncertain. McVety's words are not, however, alone in their formulation of 'faith'. They do not, for one, express a view of faith much different than the one held within many secular, liberal worldviews where faith equally stands in stark contrast to reasoned debate. As Stanley Fish explains, 'For the modern liberal, beliefs are what the mind scrutinizes and judges by rational criteria that are themselves hostage to no belief in particular'.2 To the liberal mind, any conviction, such as an opposition to same-sex marriage, that does not put itself into doubt is antithetical to intellectual investigation (Fish goes on to discuss, in part, the 'belief system' of liberalism). The understanding that faith and critical inquiry occupy different logical systems appears to be one of only a few ideas that people of faith and modern liberals can agree about. And yet, removing faith from the field of critical inquiry runs counter to an older, perhaps even more orthodox conception of faith.

    In Summa Theologica, Aquinas, following Augustine, writes, 'believing is giving assent to something one is still thinking about. Strictly speaking, we think about what we cannot yet fully see to be true. Believing means putting faith in something, and this resembles knowing in giving firm assent, but resembles doubting, suspecting and holding opinions in having no finished vision of the truth'.3 For Aquinas, God, as the object of faith, is not known with complete certainty. He remains a mystery. But by involving oneself with God, by affirming an understanding of him, Aquinas says that people come to know God more fully, even as their vision of him continues to change. In Aquinas's understanding, faith allows rather than hinders critical inquiry. We do not arrive at our reasons for believing one thing instead of another by way of objective observation or intuition; our evidence is itself an interpretation and arrangement of the cultural and literary texts at our disposal. Without a finished 'vision of the truth', we study what we believe, refashioning it as new events and ideas protrude into our deliberations.4 Holding an idea in faith permits us to persistently develop our understanding of those beliefs that are most crucial to us: faith is not a noun, but a verb - it is something one does, not something one possesses.

    In the current moment when the language of faith and the language of progressive politics or intellectual sophistication are so often pitted against one another, Aquinas's understanding of faith reminds us of a different intellectual strategy, one that holds onto debate and critical inquiry and still locates knowledge in the fluid, difficult-to-pin-down sphere of uncertainty, conjecture, and association. Here, Aquinas's faith, understood as a critical method, is well suited for answering the questions that permeate our contemporary environment, questions that speak to the anxieties of conservative Christians and secular liberals alike: 'how can we live in a world without certainty; on what can we ground understanding and knowledge?'

    While the prospect might at first appear unlikely, Aquinas's faithful method of critical inquiry runs through much recent innovative poetry, in particular the work of Charles Bernstein, whose faithfulness draws on the thinking of Emerson, Wittgenstein, and Stanley Cavell, Bernstein's onetime teacher. ...
    continued


    link    |  2-17-08



    Eleanor Antin
    "Constructing Helen"
    from "Helen's Odyssey,"
    2007
    chromogenic print (61 x 105 3/4 inches)

    at Ronald Feldman Gallery
    which opened last night in New York
    (closes March 15)
    below: Eleanor Antin at the opening:

    photos: Ch. Bernstein
    link    |  02-16-08




    A 1970s colllage by John Ashbery
    on view at ZieherSmith Gallery in New York

    link    |  02-10-08



    Douglas Messerli
    has just started a
    Green Integer
    blog

    Meanwhile
    Messerli is making available on-line
    a number of entries from
    My Year: 2007

    ----

    & this just in from Steve Evans

    Dear Friends on the NPF,

    Though we at the National Poetry Foundation have had to weather a hard season of loss in these past few months, we are nevertheless pressing ahead with plans for our summer conference on The Poetry of the 1970s.

    We are very pleased to announce that Rae Armantrout, Nicole Brossard, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, and Bernadette Mayer have agreed to give plenary poetry readings. And we expect to have more good news on that front in the coming days.

    The Conference will take place June 11-15, 2008, here at the University of Maine. It will be similar in shape and scope to previous "decade" conferences, but will also feature some innovations. For instance, we'll be collaborating for the first time with both the UMaine Museum of Art and the Colby College Museum of Art to bring the visual arts into the mix. And we'll have a videographer on hand not just to document the plenary proceedings, but also to do studio sessions intended for future webcasting with the many poets (and poet-scholars) who will be in attendance. We'll be making a more concerted use of new media and web resources than in the past. And we expect that a variety of NPF print publications will grow out of the Conference as well. Naturally, a celebration of the lives and accomplishments of Sylvester Pollet and Burton Hatlen is being planned in conjunction with our traditional lobster banquet.

    We invite paper and panel proposals on all aspects of poetic practice in the Seventies. We also seek scholars and writers who would be willing to serve as panel Chairs. Special registration rates are available for graduate students, independent, and international scholars.

    Proposal guidelines can be found here:

    We will begin considering proposals on February 15th. The deadline for proposals is March 31, 2008. Proposals, along with any queries about the proposal process, should be sent electronically to

    Steve Evans <Steven dot Evans at Maine dot Edu>

    More information about the Conference is available at our recently revamped website

    The site is set up to facilitate on-line registration for the Conference. As an incentive for early registration, we will be offering discounts on NPF journal subscriptions and books.

    On-campus accommodations are available at a reasonable rate through the NPF. We'd also be happy to advise conference participants as to other nearby lodging options and to offer tips on traveling to and from the Bangor area. 

    We appreciate your help in spreading the word about this Conference and hope you'll seriously consider joining us this summer in Orono!

    On behalf of the Conference Steering Committee consisting of Carla Billitteri, Benjamin Friedlander, Jennifer Moxley, and myself, all best wishes,

    Steve Evans 

    link    |  02-09-08


    L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E= L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E
    =L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E= L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E

    L
    =A=N-G=U=A=G=E
    is
    30


    Bruce Andrews & I published the first issue in February 1978
    we offered a six issue subscription for $4



    complete archive available at Eclipse

    The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book

    is still available from  Southern Illinois University Press

    L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E=L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E=L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E=L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E=L=A=N-G=U=A=G=E

    link    |  02-07-07



    Barbara Guest
    "Blurred Edge"
    pdf
    (from Miniatures)
    new at PEPC library
    (courtesy Guest estate)

    ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©


    Leslie Scalapino

    IT'S GO IN HORIZONTAL
    Selected Poems
    University of  California Press
    2008
    Leslie Scalapino’s poems
    probe politics, memory, perception, and desire,
    creating hypnotically shifting coherences
    that take us beyond any dislocating devices
    into a realm of newly emerging consciousness.
    This work, which defies categorization,
    is essential for contemporary poetry.


    ©©©©©©©


    Hank Lazer
    Lyric & Spirit
    Selected Essays 1996-
    2006
    Richmond, Calif.:: Omnidawn, 2007
    just out & 1/2 price till end of March
    In these lucid, engaging, and informative essays,
    Hank Lazer enlists lyric and spirit in a project of radical resistance
    to the received in pursuit of intensification of the possible.
    If Lazer calls for beauty, it is an unexpected beauty, earned not given.
    This is a compelling study of contemporary American poetic practice,
    with special attention to Armantrout, Creeley, Fischer, Taggart,
    Mackey, Zukofsky, Jabés, Duncan, and Schwerner, among others,
    in the context of a critical approach informed by two unlikely soul mates,
    Theodor Adorno and Thelonious Monk.

     

    link    |  02-05-08



    Robert Duncan died twenty years ago today.

    PennSound
    (thanks to Mike Hennessey and Danny Snelson)

    has just released a new set of Duncan recordings for the occasion

    read the intro on PennSound daily

    But one to listen to now
    which we've had available for a while
    is
    Duncan eading at the San Francisco State University, June 18, 1959
    Often I Am Permitted (2:00): MP3

    I read this at the memorial tribute to Duncan on October 9, 1988, at the Poetry Project of St. Mark's Church:

    Two Minutes for Robert Duncan

    It's funny to have to be brief about Robert Duncan, since there is nothing brief about his work or my responses to it.

    There seems no limit to the breadth and scope Duncan envisioned as a poet's project. Because his endeavor so overwhelms any of the traditional ways we have of defining poetic work – as, say, lyric poems or critical essays – he continually provoked a re-examination of the smallness of scale that characterizes the conception of poetry of many of his more mainstream contemporaries. His research and scholarly preoccupations, his insistence that linguistics and the Dark, Saussure & gnosticism, are sources of the poetic remain an important alternative to residual anti-intellectualism and emotion-fetishizing of much contemporary verse. The fact that Duncan's poetry remained controversial because it was thought to be too intellectual or not plain-spoken enough has given encouragement to at least two subsequent generations of poets, who have taken off on his "permissions" while interpreting them in wildly different ways.

    For me, the heterodox range of Duncan's sources has had impact even beyond any of his specific enthusiasms. Anyone who has visited his house can attest to the sheer exuberant fantasy and marvelous humor of Duncan and Jess's transformations of these "sources" into a home as rich with whimsy as accumulated knowledge. Duncan inspires one not to accept the given narrative of cultural history but to look to a multiplicity of hidden and suppressed and vilified sources for myth‑shattering revelations about the past and present. This insistence that poetic material is to be found not only, or even primarily, in the hallowed texts of Literature but also in those sources that are without authority is a foundation of his consistently anti-authoritarian, liberatory politics and poetics. It would be ironic if his own explorations and wanderings are sanctified into a new curriculum of required study.

    The first time I met Robert Duncan, after a performance I did in San Francisco in the mid-70s, he handed me a poem he had written while I was reading and in response to my work. I've often thought about the generosity of the gesture of entrusting me with his only copy of this poem, which went so much beyond any friendly words he might have said at the time.

    Here is something of what he wrote in the poem:

    She appeared in a shift
    waiting for shifters. From one sentence to the other
    a world is declared necessary. Time
    has to count to be counted. In phrases.
    In phase. In consequences. In place.
    In this place I is an event without a hat.
    I meanwhile mean my own hat.
    What I does is natural
    in a sentence referring to me me occurs.

    Duncan 's last book, In the Dark, will always be associated for many of us with the news of his death. Thinking about that marvelously evocative title – suggesting both the terrors of unknown and the grace of fallibility – I kept hearing Lil Green (born, like Duncan, in 1919) singing her bluesy "Romance in the Dark," a sound transported from almost fifty years ago, that seemed to meet this occasion with full force.

    In the dark, it's just you and I
    Not a sound, there’s not one sigh
    Just the beat of my poor heart in the dark.
    In the dark, in the dark, I get such a thrill
    When he presses his fingertips upon my lips
    And he begs me to please keep still in the dark.
    But soon, this dance will be endin’
    And you’re gonna be missed ….
    Just let them dance, we're gonna find romance
    In the dark, in the dark

    link    |  02-03-08



    The Relationship

    Launch Party

    Kate Valk, Kiki Smith, Martha Wilson, Linda Yablonsky, Linda Chapman,
    Deborah Thomas, Howie Seligman, Eve Biddle, Mary Smith, Ulla Dydo

    invite you to come be our Valentines and celebrate the launch of

      The Relationship

     a performance group directed by Fiona Templeton
    with Janet Clancy, Sean Donovan, Anna Kohler, Robert Kya-Hill, Clarinda MacLow, Peter Sciscioli, Tanya Selvaratnam, Valda Setterfield, Stephanie Silver and more

     Party on February 8 th, 2008
    7-10 pm
    at The Performing Garage,
    33 Wooster Street, New York City

     Please reserve in advance from Brown Paper Tickets (low-price, fair-trade)
    1-800-838-3006
    www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/26692
    (also, if available, at the door)

    $50 per date
    For $150 you will be More Than a Friend
    $500 makes you a Significant Other
    Amount of all tickets over $5 is a tax-deductible donation.

     Evening includes

    -Hors d'oeuvres & drinks
    -Introduction to The Relationship and rare glimpses of 30 years of Fiona Templeton's work
    -Screening of short films directed by Fiona Templeton, including one shot by John
    Jesurun in the Caucasus and Western Coast of Georgia, the birthplace of the mythical
    Medea, giving a view into the history of Fiona's "The Medead."
    -Dan Kaufman (guitar) / Shelley Hirsch (vocals) / Shahzad Ismaily percussion .
    -Daria Fain (solo dance) with music by Kenta Nagai.
    -Other seldom-seen appearances!
    -Raffle of exclusive artifacts, manuscripts, signed books, drawings, country weekend, free tax prep, acting lesson with Anna Kohler, good times!
    -Dancing with World DJ Poodlecannon of the Bulgarian Bar
    -AND MORE

     The Relationship has a great program of work over the next few years and on
    - come help make it happen.

    -If you can't make it, please consider a donation - see our website for details.

    The Relationship Performance and Arts Group, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization.

     queries to home@therelationship.org
    www.therelationship.org

    link    |  02-02-08



    Richard Deming
    Listening on All Sides: Toward an Emersonian Ethics of Reading
    Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2008
    Richard Deming's Listening on All Sides: Toward an Emersonian Ethics of Reading is a beautifully written book that approaches recent thinking about Emerson, especially that of Stanley Cavell and Richard Poirer, from the point of view of poetics rather than philosophy or literary theory. Deming's study of what he calls "Emersonian modernism" includes refreshing readings of Dickinson, Melville, Williams, and Stevens. The book is both philosophically engaging and meticulously researched."

     

    Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
    Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination
    Cambridge: MIT, 2008
    Kirschenbaum’s study combines rigorous technical detail with a solid grounding in literary studies and textual and bibliographic scholarship. More than half of the book is a highly technical study of digital “forensics,” something of a cross between new criticism and CSI. Kirschenbaum makes this (for me sometimes) arcane technical material vivid and engaging. There is a rivetingly detailed section on how hard it is to fully eradicate digital data, through which Kirschenbaum sends up the received idea that digital data is more ephemeral than, for example, printed books. (This insubstantial web note may live into virtual eternity; it’s frightening.) There is nothing as good as this book on the material nature of digital encoding or inscription, from the point of view of the history of verbal language recording systems and writing, indeed, of textual transmission or, in Randall McLeod’s term, quoted in one of Kirschenbaum’s essay, transformission. In many ways Kirschenbaum is extending the work in textual and bibliographic scholarship of Jerome McGann and others. Kirschenbaum’s discussions of digital “versions” and their significance is a good case in point.

    ______________

    Web Log RSS FEED now via FeedBurner (as always RSS  via RSSPECT)
    Or subscribe by email via FeedBurner (or as always rsspect)

     

    link    |  2-01-08




    Douglas Messerli
    on

    Close Listening
    January 21, 2008

    Program 1 — Reading (27:57): MP3
    Program 2 — Interview (27:55): MP3
    Program 3 — Reading & Interview (26:54): MP3

    —————


    Susan Howe
    reading Saturday at the Segue series at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York

    ————
    A Celebration of Thing of Beauty: New and
    Selected Works
    by Jackson Mac Low

    edited by Anne Tardos
    Curated by Marshall Reese, at CUE Arts Foundation, January 18, 2008

    1. Introduction by Marshall Reese (2:41): MP3
    2. Anne Tardos (7:45): MP3
    3. Mitch Highfill (2:04): MP3
    4. Joan Retallack (4:58): MP3
    5. Drew Gardner (4:43): MP3
    6. Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (5:19) MP3
    7. Charles Bernstein (8:06): MP3
    8. Katie Degentesh (3:56): MP3
    9. Chris Mason with Marshall Reese (2:45): MP3

    complete reading (42:47): MP3
    new on PennSound
    ——————

    THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS
    Raymond Federman & George Chambers
    cartoons by T. Motle
    Buffalo: Starcherone  Books, 2008
    Stan & Oliver. Frog & Toad, Bud & Lou, The Sunshine Boys, Bill & Ted, Bouvard & Pécuchet - but most of all Vladimir & Estragon - stand behind this book like defrocked priests at an inquest. Old men rule!, at least in the glimmer of a watery eye and inconstant heart.

    photos: Charles Bernstein
    link    |  01-28-08





    Publishing The Unpublishable

    Edited by Kenneth Goldsmith


    has just published
    Three Works
    an e-pamphlet
          


    the last of the three works is this one:

    Amalgamated Writing Programs Announces
    Morally Repugnant Poets-and-Theorists Exhibit

    by Mike Freakman

    New York, Dec. 22, 2007 – Darien Credenza, the Executive Muckamuck of Amalgamated Writing Programs, announced that a Morally Repugnant Poets-and-Theorists Exhibit will be held at the organization's annual congress in New York. The exhibit is the first of what is planned as a series of didactic displays at Amalgamated’s popular annual gatherings.

    continued at
    Three Works

    link    |  01-24-08pm




    Burt Hatlen
    1936-2008
    Bangor Daily News
    Obituary


    ——————

    Ton van 't Hof.
    has started an essential blog
    of poetry news
    (links to reviews, essays, interviews, &&)
    The Morning Line
    available also by email subscription.
    (Ton & I edit the International Exchange for Poetic Invention)


    ————

    Enthusiastic review in today's New York Times
    of  Richard Foreman's new show
    (by Ben Brantley).
    Also a set of pictures by the superb Sara Krulwich

    link    |  01-24-08



    DEEP TRANCE BEHAVIOR IN POTATOLAND
    (A RICHARD FOREMAN THEATER MACHINE)


    New York / Tickets now on sale

    Foreman provides one of the few out-of-body experiences in the American theater. In this exquisite new work, probably the last of his film/live-actor performance works, the actors present in the theater play puppets to close-ups of actors (in Japan and England) repeating ritual actions and lines. On screen, the actors, sometimes blindfolded, repeating Foreman’s set phrases, cross the divide between reality and the imaginary. Their stumbling and their accented speech approximate the conditions of poetry. Foreman’s work has always had a ceremonial dimension: paradise without religion. Film is elegiac, live action a prop for our projected aspirations. One hour of nonproductive time in the service of utopia.

    Photo:Charles Bernstein
    link    |  01-22-08




    Ernie Gehr
    Close Listening
    Gehr in conversation with Charles Bernstein
    WPS1 New York:
    January 21, 2008: MP3 (30:49)

    WPS1 engineer: Lucy Sinanjuntak

    photo: Bernstein/PennSound 2008
    link    |  01-21-08



    Last night
    CUE Art Foundation, New York
    launch for
    THING OF BEAUTY
      New and Selected Works
    Jackson Mac Low


    editor Anne Tardos

    Joan Retallack


    curator Marshall Reese 

    link    |  01-19-07



    Reading at Anthology Film Archives, New York
    April 3, 1977

    Full reading : mp3 (25:39)
    1. "Latex Dummy," sec. 7 from "A Person Is Not an Entity Symbolic.." (from The Sophist) (0:57)
    2. "People should love and approve of me," sec. 13 from "A Person Is Not an Entity Symbolic.." (1:06)
    3. "Sentences" (from Parsing) (1:11)
    4. "Asylums" (from Islets/Irritations) (8:26)
    (30 seconds of music bleeds in midway)
    5. "Of course ..." (from Shade) (2:32)
    6. "Three or Four Things I Know about Him" (from Content's Dream) (2:29)
    7. "Palukaville" (from Poetic Justice) (8:59)

    link    |  01-18-08


    The Kind of Poetry I Like

    Bruce Andrews
    Swoon Noir (Tucson: Chax Press, 2007)
    Designated Heartbeat (Salt, 2006)

    Tan Lin
    ambivalence is a novel with a logo
    (Cambridge: Katalanche Press, 2007)
    "Forgetting is more beautiful than any photograph."

    Michael Kelleher
    Human Scale
    (Buffalo: Blaze Vox, 2007)

    Julie Ezelle Patton
    Notes for Some (Nominally) Awake
    (Brooklyn: Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2007)
    A typographically exquisite excursion in and around Amiri Baraka’s names.

    Corrine Fitzpatrick
    on melody dispatch
    (a chapbook from
    Goodbye Better, 2007)

    Mary (Rising) Higgins
    )Joule TIDES((
    (San Diego: Singing Horse Press, 2007)
    interview at E-x-c-h-a-n-g-e V-a-l-u-e

    Lila Zemborain
    mauve sea-orchids
    tr. Rosa Alcalá and Mónica de la Torre
    (New York: Belladonna Books, 2007)

    Michael Magee
    Mainstream
    (Buffalo: BlazeVox, 2006)
    The Cantos
    of Flarf.

    Akilah Oliver
    The Putterer's Notebook
    (New York: Belladonna Books, 2006)

    The Alphabet Game: a
    bp Nichol reader
    ed. Darren Wershler-Henry and Lori Emerson
    (Toronto: Coach House, 2007)

    link    |  01-17-08

    Celebrate
    THING OF BEAUTY:
    New and Selected Works
    by Jackson Mac Low
    edited by Anne Tardos
    University of California Press

     with
    Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Joan Retallack, Katie Degentesh, Drew Gardner
    Mitch Highfill, Chris Mason , Charles Bernstein, Anne Tardos 
    Curated by Marshall Reese 
    Friday, 18 January 2008
    From 6:30 - 8:00 pm

    CUE Art Foundation
    511 West 25th Street, (Ground Floor)
    10th / 11th Av, New York

    —————

    Robert Leiter
    on Zukofsy's Selected
    Jewish Exponent

    _________

    SUNY-Buffalo
    obituatary for Peter Hare
    (note: the obituary posted here on Jan. 6
    was prepared by the Hare family)

    ————————
    Ricard Foreman and Eric Bogosian
    in conversation
    Monday, Feb 4, 7p.m.
    Housing Works, 126 Crosby St., Manhattan
    at lauch for

    Bad Boy Nietzshe! and Other Plays
    Collects plays written and performed over the six years, including Now That Communism Is Dead My Life Feels Empty, Maria del Bosco, Panic (How to Be Happy!), Bad Boy Nietzche!, Bad Behavior and King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe.


    Richard Foreman's new show opens January 17
    ——————————

    As announced on
    PennSound Daily

    The Line Reading Series
    (more to come on PennSound)
    Curated by Lytle Shaw
    at The Drawing Center, New York City


    April 18, 2000
    introduction by Catherine de Zegher and Lytle Shaw (6:11): MP3
    Brian Kim Stefans (24:44): MP3
    Kenward Elmslie (19:23): MP3
    Bernadette Mayer, featuring Lee Ann Brown (33:33): MP3


    September 24, 2002
    introduction by Lytle Shaw (7:01) : MP3
    Kristin Prevallet (22:36) : MP3
    Brenda Coultas (29:38) : MP3
    C.S. Giscombe (30:31) : MP3

    April 8, 2003
    introduction by Lytle Shaw (4:07) : MP3
    Jena Osman (17:14) : MP3
    Darren Wershler-Henry (16:06) : MP3
    Ron Padgett (24:27) : MP3

     

    link    |  01-12-08



    Henry Hills on Close Listening
    Hills in conversation with Charles Bernstein
    New York: January 10, 2008: MP3 (30:41)

    See Hills's movies on PennSound

    photo: Bernstein/PennSound
    link    |  01-10-08



    John Perreault
    talks about Hannah Weiner’s early street works
    in connection with his “Off the Page” show (in formation)
    and performs a 1968 flag code poem
    followed by Carolee Schneemann
    looking for Hannah's photo —
    in part 2 of James Kalm’s video of excerpts from
    the Poetry Project (St. Marks Church, NYC) celebration of the publication of
    Hannah Weiner’s Open House
    , ed. Patrick Durgin.
    11/28/07

    <

    download mp4

    link    |  01-09-07



    Douglas & the Big Apple (First Bite)

    Douglas Messerli
    Douglas grew up in Iowa, where New York was as close as his Broadway musical LPs, which he collected even though he didn’t have a record player. Sun & Moon, and now Green Integer, sales reps meetings bring him to town a couple of times a year. Those trips always give us a chance to spend an evening together, where we talk of publishing, poetry, theater, the foibles of our legion of mutual friends, and but mostly our own follies & foibles. We end up laughing, even at the saddest things.
    December 10, 2006
    (1 min., 16 sec., 5.1 mb)


    link    |  01-07-08



    Peter H. Hare
    (1935-2008)



    Peter H. Hare, philosopher and educator, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, died peacefully in his sleep in the early morning hours of Thursday, January 3, 2008 at his home in Guilford, Connecticut. Born in New York City on March 12, 1935, son of the late Jane Perry and Michael Meredith Hare, Peter is survived by his second wife, the poet Susan Howe, a brother Michael, a sister Sarah, his son Clare, daughter Gwen, and grandchildren Danielle and Monty, and numerous friends and students. His first wife Daphne Hare preceded him in death in 1995.

    While an undergraduate at Yale University, Peter Hare began his life-long relationship with philosophy, writing a thesis on Alfred North Whitehead as an exemplar of multi-disciplinary integration. After graduating from Yale, he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Columbia University where he wrote a dissertation on G. H. Mead’s metaphysics.

    At the age of 36, Dr. Hare was appointed Full Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo. His experience working with a heterogeneous group of Marxists, logicians, linguists, and Americanists inspired him to continue the work of bringing together disparate strands of 20th century thought into a unified vision of a modern philosophy department.

    Through his own writings and teachings, Hare left an indelible impact upon the history of American philosophy, helping to draw the works of C.S. Peirce, G. H. Mead, William James, A. N. Whitehead, and John Dewey into international centrality. As a committed educator, editor, and participant in professional organizations, he never ceased in the work of bringing together disparate stands of philosophy, literature, poetry and art. He was an accomplished photographer, and at his death he was at work photographing the Central Park neighborhood of Buffalo for a publication about the architecture of that area. Many of his works hang on view at the Philosophy Department where he taught for so many years.

    Dr. Hare traveled widely in the service of philosophy. Among other posts, he served as President of the New York State Philosophy Association, the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, the Charles Sanders Peirce Society, and the William James Society. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors for distinguished contributions to the understanding and development of the rich diversity of the American tradition. Since the early 1970s he was co-editor of the Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy. He was editor or co-editor of numerous volumes, and he was author of more than one hundred articles in scholarly journals.

    A man of abiding pragmatism, optimism, kindness, enthusiasm, generosity and energy, Dr. Hare will be remembered by students, philosophers, and people of every walk of life, from Poland and Russia, to South America to Buffalo.

    [text courtesty Hare family]

    link    |  01-06-08



    Stanley Aronowitz
    at 75



    Stanley among friends last night in New York

    link    |  01-05-08



    PEPC LIBRARY

    Leslie Scalapino

    Language as Transient Act,
    The Poetry of Philip Whalen

    Introduction to

    Philip Whalen

    Collected Poems
    Wesleyan University Press

    2007

    PEPC Edition 2008. Used by permission of the author.

    link    |  01-04-08


    James Kalm’s video of excerpts from the Poetry Project (St. Marks Church, NYC) celebration of the publication of Hannah Weiner’s Open House, ed. Patrick Durgin.
    11/28/07
    Part 3: Susan Bee, Emma Bee Bernstein reading with me from Clairvoyant Journal.

    Get the Flash Player to see this player.


    link    |  01-02-07





    Send a Comment | Search | ©2007 | EPC Home
    Electronic Poetry Center (http://writing.upenn.edu/epc)
    Technorati Profile