tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37385792020-01-04T03:54:39.365-05:00Silliman's BlogA weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4408125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-48984067796035520792019-12-15T10:02:00.000-05:002019-12-15T18:41:29.297-05:00
I have been wrong about 2020’s presidential election and I
should say so. I had expected that by the end of Super Tuesday (March 3rd
this time around), we would see a Democratic party race reduced to no more than
four serious contenders: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and one or two
centrists aiming for the neoliberal vote, the old Clinton coalition that has
not won a presidential Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-46849920758126292022019-11-10T12:28:00.000-05:002019-11-10T12:28:08.120-05:00
We only saw the after-effects of one Catalan
independence rally when we were in Barcelona last month, though there had been
a wilder one the day we arrived (easy to spot demos at a distance by the police
helicopters overhead). The one we saw had the feel of a crowd exiting a stadium
after the home team has won an important game, hundreds heading out homeward or
into bars wearing the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-79951524822605422242019-07-01T17:53:00.000-04:002019-07-01T18:05:16.385-04:00
Bob Dylan’s Eyes
The films by or about Bob Dylan are every bit as strange,
unique, intimate & evasive, as he is and Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Review: A Bob Dylan
Story, streaming now on Netflix, is no exception, blending documentary footage Dylan had
taken during the famous 1974-6 tour with more than a few fictional add-ons from
the likes of Sharon Stone, Kipper Kid Martin vonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-23317267149184503282019-05-08T18:59:00.000-04:002019-05-08T18:59:48.497-04:00
Some Limits of Space
Spatial
metaphors can be useful in providing a visual frame for any activity. To think
outside the box, you need a box. But problems occur if the shape of your vessel
is not congruent with whatever you hope to insert into it: square peg, round
hole, etc. Two of these mismatches have scratching at the blackboard of my soul
of late, so I thought to raise them here.
The Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-86522321309240750972019-04-29T10:36:00.000-04:002019-04-29T14:18:15.333-04:00
The Real Race for the Democratic Nomination
The need to
replace the Fascist-in-Chief is so desperate that the race for the Democratic
nomination carries a sense of urgency that I cannot recall in any of the
presidential campaigns to which I’ve paid heed, basically back to 1960. There are presently 20 contestants running for
the nomination with the possibility of a few more who could still Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-89804193159682682932019-04-02T08:29:00.000-04:002019-04-02T08:29:26.881-04:00
Thursday, April 11th
5:30 – 6:30 PM
Living Arts
307 E. MB Brady Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma
(a part of Tulsa LitFest)
Saturday, April 13th
2 PM
MainSite Contemporary
Arts
122 E. Main Street
Norman, Oklahoma
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-64315345189052480142019-03-18T10:58:00.001-04:002019-03-18T11:01:37.908-04:00
I was a no vote, even though I
enthusiastically support Bernie in his campaign for the presidency in 2020. But
I also support Elizabeth Warren (and would have supported Sherrod Brown, had he
run). And & and I would have supported Barbara Lee over any of them had my
former Congressperson decided to run. But I felt that the either/or choice
posed by the DSA election – Bernie yes
or no – was Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-92126812661363007082019-02-25T14:14:00.001-05:002019-02-25T15:13:21.222-05:00
The Oscars as
always are a mixed bag, often better for the couture
than for the films that grab the gold. The
Green Book was not a dreadful film and it may well pass the ten-year test,
making the cable movie channel rounds a decade from now. But the Driving Mr Shirley plotline,
cringe-worthy ending around the Christmas tree, and Viggo Mortenson’s noble (failed)
attempt to make Italians lookUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-49650664983986504202019-02-06T10:48:00.000-05:002019-02-06T10:49:11.279-05:00
Multitudes
Walt Whitman often
is characterized as an apotheosis of the American cult of individualism with Song of Myself presented as exhibit A –
Stephen Mitchell, for example, writes
Certainly the poem embodies an outrageous
egotism, an “I” so shamelessly naked that even a bodhisattva can admire it<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]-->,
but I hear something different. It
may beUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-3716907093166905272019-01-11T16:49:00.001-05:002019-01-11T16:50:12.168-05:00
This coming Monday
The Fab Fourcome to the
Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant
247 S. 17th Street
Phil-EYE-delphia
7:30 - 9:30 PM
Levi Bentley
Tom Mandel
Anna Strong Safford
Ron Silliman
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-52853459862356254272019-01-07T00:00:00.000-05:002019-01-07T18:02:03.390-05:00
Ben Friedlander jokingly introduced
me at the 2017 National Poetry Foundation conference on the poetries of the
1990s by saying that that decade had been “the period between language poetry
and Silliman’s Blog.” Later, in one of those hallway conversations that proves
so fruitful at events like this, Ben and I talked more seriously about how one would periodize language writing, if one
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-2675227645778120472019-01-04T09:45:00.000-05:002019-01-04T09:45:59.795-05:00
China has to know by now that it
can seize Taiwan any time it wants and that Trump has so ravaged the US’
ability to mount a coalition in opposition to anything it would be a done deal. The Taiwanese have to know this
also. Remember the second Kennedy-Nixon debate when Nixon accused JFK of being
unwilling to use nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy
& Matsu? Do you think Trump has even heard of Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-76258414261664750372019-01-01T00:00:00.001-05:002019-01-04T12:48:09.585-05:00
Is power a function of speech?
That, in essence, was the core of the Supreme Court decision we know under the
deeply cynical – but curiously not inaccurate – name of Citizens United. Limiting the right of the wealthy to spend
limitless sums of capital on political campaigns was curtailing their right to
speak about issues that matter both to them and the polis.
But capital is not speech – Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-24753663271202532642018-12-23T11:00:00.000-05:002018-12-23T10:49:29.590-05:00Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-73009609351898557052018-12-12T14:25:00.003-05:002018-12-12T14:28:19.070-05:00
https://www.facebook.com/events/172759946964251/
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-36975689258996246512018-11-15T13:30:00.000-05:002018-11-15T13:30:09.972-05:00Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-53522339261943433622018-09-30T01:00:00.000-04:002018-09-30T01:00:10.449-04:00Today in DC
Sunday, September 30, 6PM
Bridge Street Books
2814 Pennsylvania Ave NWWashington, DCReaders in addition to co-editors Silliman and Krick will include K. Lorraine Graham, Ryan Walker, Buck Downs & Rod SmithUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-59683275216449816362018-09-28T14:14:00.001-04:002018-09-28T14:15:12.120-04:00Realized today that I have attended something like 4,000 poetry readings in my life. What a great gift that has been.
And, yes, the Bromige reading at Saint Marks, was probably the best of the entire bunch. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-27497786638834658772018-09-20T12:09:00.001-04:002018-09-25T15:15:53.233-04:00
David Bromige:Posthumous World Tourcontinues
The tour continues.
We are celebrating the life and poetry of David Bromige (1933 - 2009), the
London-born, Canadian-American poet who began as a star pupil of the Black
Mountain poets, emerged as a major language writer, and evolved into a fiercely
independent voice from deepUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-11669213069795716202018-09-05T14:12:00.000-04:002018-09-05T18:44:23.356-04:00
Where
We Are Now
When I was a young man, I
wrote law. I was not a lawyer, having no degree beyond my high school diploma,
although I had attended a few colleges as a creative writing and/or English
major before dropping out from UC Berkeley to perform “alternative” service as
a Conscientious Objector to the military. That service I performed as a
volunteer case worker for the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-368121735984984022018-08-24T15:13:00.000-04:002018-08-24T15:15:20.272-04:00
Incremental Windows, James Garrahan's documentary of David Bromige, available for viewing NOW on YouTube. Don't forget to come to the Posthumous World Tour -- next stop, Kelly Writers House, Philadelphia. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-32074223269444249932018-08-06T15:41:00.001-04:002018-08-06T15:42:39.679-04:00
David Bromige:
Posthumous World Tour
There will be
a series of readings on both coasts to celebrate the life and poetry of David Bromige (1933 – 2009), the London-born, Canadian-American poet.
In addition to the three editors of if wants to be the same as is: Essential Poems of David Bromige, Jack Krick, Bob Perelman and Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-85171856449548923242018-01-22T10:39:00.000-05:002018-01-22T10:42:20.001-05:00
Writing Across Borders
Penn Students: I still have a few seats available in my Writing Across Borders class that meets on Wednesdays from 2 until 5 in Kelly Writers House (upstairs in room 203). Feel free to join the class.
Writing Across Borders, English 127.301
Butterflies and
hurricanes pay no heed to borders, but humans will risk their lives to cross
them, build walls to mark Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-69772414576824612322017-11-04T14:10:00.001-04:002017-11-04T14:10:30.674-04:00
Reading Tonightwith Peter Manson
fresh from the symposium
on the man & his work
at the University of Glasgow
@
The Hiding Place
in the Bok Building
1901 S. 9th Street
Room 306
Philadelphia
7 to 10 PM
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3738579.post-15091422042558680072017-10-25T16:50:00.000-04:002017-10-25T16:52:51.098-04:00
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
14.00
<![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com