========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 17:15:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: discursive disruptions//whether poetry makes anything happen In-Reply-To: <199412312322.AA22525@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu> Greetings from a formerly silent lurker! With the indulgence of the list, I would like to revive the question of the political content of poetic form, implicitly continuing a discussion which arose at an MLA session called "Poetry: The Visual Dimension." Alan Golding gave a helpful paper about Susan Howe's visual poetics, and during the Q&A, Marjorie Perloff asked "the big skeptical question" (I wish I could remember her exact words!), wondering about the connection between the disruption for instance of the linear form of the poem on the page and the disruption of patriarchy. And Bob Perelman accelerated the question by raising the specter of the "history of the avant-garde." Since then I have been wondering why poetry can't be construed as having political potential in a metaphoric mode. It seems to me that metaphors (whether formal or more simply rhetorical) not only express but also potentially restage political issues (as in for instance the work of Medbh McGuckian) in educational ways. When Mina Loy chose an open form for her notorious 1915-17 "Love Songs" (THE best since Sappho, she called them) the rhetoric of form and content immediately sent critics into a delirium of invective against free women, free verse, free love... in other words critics got the point before they "got" the poems, a situation which recurs every day in the poetry classroom where students and teachers can usefully confront prejudices in the guise of aesthetic questions. Ten years ago I wrote an ill-thought-out essay about T.S. Eliot which earned me a 'D' from Kathryne Lindberg and caused this student (from a deeply traditional and right-wing family) to attend consciously to the question for the very first time. Although it now may sound nostalgic to say so, Williams and Olson (also on the syllabus) helped me out...and so did Kathryne, with a magnum of patience... Language: the parent, not the child of thought? (Wilde) With gratitude for all of you poetic teachers, Marisa Januzzi ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 19:28:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Domesday Dictionary I just wanted to take the opportunity to as unironically as possible wish each and every one of you a "Happy New(t) Year." Stroffolino... ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 19:53:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: discursive disruptions//whether poetry makes anything happen Dear Marisa-- Thank you for the insight you bring to the issues of "metaphor" and its "antagonism" towards allegedly more "forward-looking" poetic disjunction. I believe the extent to which these issues have been "gendered" by the current dominant poetic factions is highly problematic for it's quite possible that what's called 'reactionary' and therefore patriarchal by a certain avant-garde strain (what's derided as "metaphor" or "symbolist" or even "Romantic") has been dismissed out of hand. If we look at it historically, one can see the rhetoric that has enabled the legitimation of so-called "nonmetaphoric" or "nonlinear" modes of poetry has, for all its claims of radical politicalization, too often played into the demands and dynamics of the "academic establishment." (This reminds me of the statement--"Derrida would not have ever been allowed into the academy were it not for the fact that it's extremely easy to read Shakespeare as such."). In the academic fashion-show, the notion that women (or other 'marginalized' groups) must reject anything that reeks of tradition, seems to be either (1) self-defeating or (2) a desperate attempt to justify the so-called 'new' poetry, a poetry which has now come to have its own share of investment not so much a matter of "which side are you on" or even "taste," but a matter not so much a matter of "which side are you on" or even "taste," but a matter and "form" is problematized. The fact is, the debate between "metaphor" and "nonmetaphor" based poetry, between minimalism and maximalism, between meaning and play, cuts across political lines. To the extent that debates over poetry center on the POLITICS OF FORM obscures a perhaps more serious issue. For if the great "Western Canon" is a repressive force that needs to be subverted, perhaps this can best be done so by entering into dialogue with it. Though we should be aware of the repressive partriachal capitalistic cases supported the so-called "alternative" as well. This is not to say that there aren't writers on both "sides" that ARE more politically subverive than certain formal code. Any more thoughts you have on this would be appreciated. Thanx, Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 15:28:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins, cont. (fwd) Forwarded message: From daemon Wed Dec 28 09:20:26 1994 Message-Id: <199412281420.JAA35051@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 09:13:23 -0500 Reply-To: Teaching the American Literatures Sender: Teaching the American Literatures From: "tamlit@guvax.georgetown.edu \"Randy Bass\"" ***JRNL: T-AMLIT JOURNAL*** Here are three more JOURNAL contributions to the discussion about the marginalization of poetry within the academy. The original query to this thread also posed the open call for more discussion of poetry on this list (as does Tony Petrosky at the end of his first posting). RBass ***************************************************************** (1) From: IN%"tpetrosk+@pitt.edu" "Anthony R Petrosky" 14-DEC-1994 10:46:20.24 Subj: RE: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins I just read the responses to the original posting. It's curious, I think, to see them as a cross section of responses, taking, as they do, various positions that it seems to me I have heard in my department at one time or the other. They all seem legitimate, serious, but in an odd way they would all, including mine, put off people for various reasons. Maybe it is that there is this atmosphere of critique dominating our reading and writing. I think of something Robert Creeley once said to a seminar I was in in graduate school: "you're all here because poetry is plastic, it's something you can do anything in." I think he meant that it is an open form, a place where traditions can dominate and invention can dominate and the mix of what happens will always, then, contain the tensions that arise from differences. Formalists disparage language poets, language poets disparage narrative poets, abstract expressionists like Louise Gluck disparage so called confessional poets like Sharon Olds. The differences create defense, posture. Now that seems similar to just about anything I can think of that allows difference, and the tensions get hightened, I think, we layer on to the scene the interests and motives of those who don't write poetry or teach it but critique it from various perspectives. So, yeah it seems, as one of the respondents put it, there are a lot of reasons why it is on the margins. But why wouldn't it be possible to take as a project the reading and writing of radically different kinds of poetry: Sharon Olds next to Ashbery next to Rumi next to Gluck next to Bernstein? Why not let poetry of all sorts exist in the same space and ask students, then, to work on understanding it. We could give them traditions to use to frame the discussions. We could give them at least a sense of difference and a place to both respect it (as those who participate by writing the different kinds of poems do) and work on it. These are the kinds of solutions I am interested in. What we can do to bring our students to poetry. It seems to me that we could make a huge catalogue of reasons why poetry is in the supposed state we think it is. But that is then a big complaint. Is that a good place for the energy? Maybe to point we can understand the situation of poetry this way, but I suspect the situation varies by location. Bucknell University, for instance, takes poetry seriously for undergraduates with its visiting poets every year, its Poetry Festival, its literary magazines, and its undergraduate workshops. Other places don't do anything near that, but at Pitt, for example, we put a tremendous emphasis on graduate work in poetry. Still other place do so also but with an emphasis on a different kind of poetry. So we learn from this kind of generalized talk, I'd say, that the situation of poetry is not uniform. Ok. So now what? I'd love to continue the discussion of teaching poetry in various places in the curriculum. Rumi and LaLa and Kabir in religious studies along with Blake and Hopkins along with A. Rich and Phil Levine. Poetry in composition studies. Multi-genre writings that include poetry. Traditions of poetry juxtaposed against other traditions. Any takers? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (2) From: IN%"kprovost@MIT.EDU" 16-DEC-1994 15:41:37.16 Subj: RE: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins I would like to chip in regarding reactions to poetry. I, too, find that even in academe, poetry is viewed with some trepidation or perhaps the notion that it's somehow old-fashioned, that the hot stuff is going on in fiction these days? And certainly many students are petrified of poetry, or think it will bore them to tears. But the good news is, I have to agree with several other posters who noted having good success teaching poetry, even (or especially?) in composition classes, especially contemporary, more life-based works. I, too, have had this experience. I taught a section on poetry and writing about poetry in a composition class at a community college--mostly to students who had had very little previous exposure to poetry and whose discomfort level with the subject was high. I chose a range, from Robert Frost and Shakespearean sonnets to Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sharon Olds, Gary Soto, and other contemporary writers. I brought in a record of poets reading their works--they heard Hughes and Brooks, as I recall. I tried not to overwhelm them; I wanted them to read each poem several times and pay attention to the language. I modeled this kind of reading in class and assigend them only a few poems at a time to read, though I encouraged them to browse further! Finally, I had students working in pairs or small groups give their reading of the poem to the class, ie make a presentation about what they had gotten out of the poem, what particular problems they encountered, how they came to some understanding with it. I found this portion of the class quite successful; several students came up to me and told me how they'd never known poetry could be so interesting, or that they could make sense of it, etc. The students also wrote a paper comparing several poems that dealt with the same theme, comparing and contrasting the poems' differing approaches to the theme in terms of language, imagery, tone, etc. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (3) From: IN%"Paul.Lauter@Mail.Trincoll.Edu" 16-DEC-1994 23:52:52.46 Subj: RE: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins Re poetry: You know, it depends somewhat on where you look. I don't have the sense (and I could easily be wrong) that poetry is marginalized in courses that focus on contemporary women writers or on Chicano/a writers, for example. I also think that while Carter Revard's funny account is true in essence, there have always been countertraditions to the deliberately complex and obscure modernism represented by Eliot, et al. Think of Sterling Brown and Langston Hughes, Amy Lowell, Frost, and many of the poets Cary Nelson discusses in REPRESSION AND RECOVERY. Part of the problem has, I think, to do with the struggle of the academic community to free itself from the still hegemonic New Critical pedagogical tradition, which was, after all, constructed by folks like Ransom, Tate, and Brooks, with predecessors like Eliot very much in mind. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 15:58:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Happy New Year In-Reply-To: <9501020359.AA14094@jazz.epas.utoronto.ca> from "Chris Stroffolino" at Jan 1, 95 07:28:07 pm OK, so you've probably all already heard this one, but here goes anyway: How many Intel engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three: one to screw in the bulb and one to hold the chair. Cheers, Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 16:21:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Poetry on the Margins of What? Both Tony Petrovsky and Paul Lauter's comments reflect quite clearly some very different ideas of what might be meant by the proposition "poetry is at the margins."I don't know Tony but given Paul's long involvement with bringing radical politics to the academy, it's interesting how inherently non-market oriented each approach seems to be. The idea that poetry "is at the margins" of course proposes some spatial model of something, with an identifiable center from which poetry could then be distant. What is that thing? Books sold? Cultural influence? Fame? Petrovsky speculates that the diversity of poetic subcultures in our society might be causal (rather than, say, a reflection or manifestation of some larger social process). Paul gets in a gratuitous (and completely reductive) slap at the avant-garde tradition (w/o recognizing it as the only *international* literary tradition the world has ever had). Its role in identitarian political movements is then posed as a truer center. That reminded me of the condition that poets found themselves in the former Soviet Union (FSU). For a long time, almost 30 years, poets held a critical social function for political opposition. Since political meetings were verboten, poetry readings often took on the role of a public rally. Audiences were large. But it is not evident that this benefited more than a handful of individual poets and its impact on writing per se seems to have been quite a mixed bag. Once a broader terrain of discourse was possible, the necessity of the poet as a symbol of resistance quickly disappeared. Audiences shrunk rapidly and the new market economy of Russia and the other republics has meant that the next generation of poets over there will probably be no more well distributed and read than their contemporaries here. Jan Clausen, a poet and novelist who has long been involved with lesbian poetics and politics (until she married a man a couple of years ago, but that's another story), wrote an excellent pamphlet on this subject called *A Movement of Poets: Thoughts on Poetry and Feminism* (Brooklyn: Long Haul Press, 1982). She is generally very suspicious of the impact of each on the other. For example, writing of poetry's decline as a leading force for feminism once second-wave feminism created its own institutions, she notes: "Ironically, I suspect that poetry as a genre has lost prestige within the women's movement for the same reason that fiction lacked it in nineteenth century patriarchal England--because it is perceived as something almost anyone can do. That is the hidden meaning of a code phrase like 'there's so much feminist poetry,' and it points to the hypocrisy of the general feminist rejection of critical standards; rather than apply them, we have sometimes simply stopped paying attention to poetry at all." (pp. 46-7) If Clausen suggests the logical end result of the kind of reductivism that Lauter's comments exhibit, Petrovsky's variation of Teach the Conflicts seems equally problematic. I personally would prefer to have a new formalist who was both passionate and knowledgeable about that tendency to teach a lit course than a liberal who sees Sharon Olds and Bruce Andrews as points of equal interest on an undifferentiated plane. To have any value at all, the "teach the conflicts" approach requres the instructor to have (and argue) a theory of organization and history that positions every text and author. Both Lauter and Petrovsky presume (reasonably enough for a Teaching of American Lit discussion group) a defining privilege for the classroom in determining the answer to the question. Needless to say, I have my doubts there. So I keep coming up against the problem of the Margins of What. Walt Whitman self-published the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Much of Stein's work came out the same way. George Oppen's To Press, which Williams and Zukofsky hoped would be the vehicle to bring the objectivists to a larger audience, was just one more tiny press. As Charles Bernstein and others have pointed out (repeatedly, I must say), the problem of poetry's distribution to The Masses has changed very little in the past 200 years. What has changed, it seems to me, is the set of assumptions we making about what is central in public discourse, i.e., what is a center? Where is it and who defines it? Is Bill Moyers fawning over Donald Hall or Robert Bly an example of the potential success of poetry? Or quite the opposite? What has changed, beyond the ongoing revolution in media (I'm old enough to remember the paperback as the exception, not the rule), has been an articulation of communities of writing. There may well be 300+ poets working in, or more or less directly from, what has been called Language Poetry. And publishing. Plus another 300 to 500 coming out of other variants of the New American tradition of 50s and 60s. And as Petrovsky notes in his comment of Gluck's attitude towards Olds, the establishmentarian tradition in American Lit is as well articulated. All of these discussions of the decenteredness or marginality of poetry seems to me to give very short shrift to very real communities, communities that are ultimately very different from the ones that Lauter imagines (precisely because they derive from lived experience of daily contact rather than application to some ideal of race, gender or nationality). Then the question of the marginality of any community would be one directly of its role within the larger society, poetry being the symptom more than the cause. No? As Lee Ann Brown, the quintessential "NY School" poet of her generation might say, "Happy New Year, y'all." Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 16:25:40 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: discursive disruptions//whether poetry makes anything happen In-Reply-To: <199501012216.OAA17727@leland.Stanford.EDU> I just wanted to clarify one thing for Marina Januzzi. At that MLA session, I did not mean to imply that the choice of form does not have ideological implications, just that "disruption" of form is a complex matter that has to refer to more than breaking up a page--that is, there are breaks and breaks. I suppose I think each example has to be judged on its own merits--and, yes, the "metaphoric mode" may be just as "disruptive" depending. I actually thought Alan Golding's paper was terrific; it's just that all day I had been hearing someone or other say about whatever poems by women that they oppose patriarchy etc, by such things as typography and my sense is that there are often things said (not by Alan but by others) that could apply equally well to a very conventional male poet--say Ted Hughes--just as well so we have to be careful, that's all. Hope this clarifies... Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 10:38:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Conte Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Domesday Dictionary There was an eleventh-century _Domesday Book_ that represents the record of a census of England taken by William I. It's a fairly important text for medieval studies, since it includes much of the surviving information on land division, land use, and economic resources of the time. I'm not clear whether there's an etymological connection between Domesday and doomsday, but if I were being taxed by the King I might be inclined to confuse April 15 and the apocalypse. I suppose Schwerner had both social registry and the nuclear apocalypse in mind. Joseph Conte ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 11:03:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Conte Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Brian: I've just read your earlier query about the work of Armand Schwerner on the Poetics list. Although I very much enjoyed one of Schwerner's performances at the National Poetry Foundation conference in Orono two years ago, I haven't read enough of his work to comment personally. But I've been editing a two-volume set on contemporary poets for the _Dictionary of Literary Biography_, and I "commissioned" an entry on Schwerner by a critic namer Arthur J. Sabatini. He sent me an excellent 5000 word essay, with a full critical bibliography, that includes discussion of the _Tablets_ and the oral-performance mode of Schwerner's work. I'm sure Sabatini would be happy to send you a copy of the essay at your request. His address: Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Arizona State University West 4701 W. Thunderbird Road P.O. Box 37100 Phoenix, AZ 85087-7100 E-mail: ieajs@asuacad I'll let him know you're interested. Hope things are going well on your project. Did you go to the MLA this year? I passed on it. Best regards, Joseph Conte ______________________________________*_________________________________________ | Joseph M Conte | "Where is the figure in the Department of English | carpet? Or is it just . . . SUNY at Buffalo | carpet?" he asked. "Where is--" ENGCONTE@ubvms.bitnet | "You're talking a lot of ENGCONTE@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu | buffalo hump, you know that." | Donald Barthelme ______________________________________*________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 13:54:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Armand Schwerner Live Speaking of the "oral performance mode" does anyone know of any tapes of Schwerner reading from "The Tablets?" And another thing: Do "The Tablets" stop at 15? That's the edition I have and I'm just wondering if there's more. John Krick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 13:45:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: motives for metaphor In-Reply-To: <199501030028.AA19204@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu> Hello everyone-- To Marjorie Perloff: thank you for the clarification; it's pretty much what I imagined you might say, and I'd guess we attended many of the same panels. In any case I understood the spirit of the question. And by the way, *Compliments*, Alan Golding, if you're out there, on your Susan Howe piece. Will you be publishing it? Chris Stroffolino raises the interesting issue of the weird devaluation of metaphor in contemporary theory if not poetry. I remember having a pretty harsh discussion with someone who was trying to get me to admit that metonymy was preferable, ethically, to metaphor, which seemed authoritarian as a mode of discourse... but what ever happened to the surrealist potential for metaphor (the chance encounter described by Lautreamont)? Also, can anyone recommend readings on this huge subject of the political content of poetic form? (i.e. best-case formulations of the question)? I throw it open like this because I'm curious if there are particular texts which you-- any of you-- mentally stand by when these questions come up. Yours in the midst of sleepy weather, --Marisa Januzzi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 14:47:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: America: A Prayer AMERICA: A PRAYER The Honorable Newt Gingrich has informed us that prayer in the public schools is one of the most important issues facing this great nation, and in our firm belief that America doesn't have a prayer, we call upon The Poets of America to accept their intellectual responsibility to give America a prayer. Opportunity is crucial in a capitalist society. We feel therefore that this, the 104th Congress, should have the opportunity to authorize the production of the appropriate American prayer from amongst the deeply felt works of America's finest, most challenging, and dedicated writers. America's prayer is meant to be read by everybody, but don't let that stop you. Your prayers should be 500 words or less. Please send two copies of your prayer, one marked "Proposal for Prayer for the Schools" to The Honorable Newt Gingrich, House of Representatives, 2428 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. Send your other copy with self-addressed stamped envelope to Aerial/Edge at the address below. No strictures on style or content. Writers may or may not wish to imagine delivery of their prayer in a classroom context. You do not have to be a U.S. citizen to participate. Also interested in visual materials. A selection of the prayers will be published in The New Censorship (Denver). Other editors interested in this project should contact us. Please pass this opportunity on to as many people as possible. Deadline: Feb 28, 1995. Rod Smith Lee Ann Brown Mark Wallace AERIAL/EDGE P.O. Box 25642 Washington, D.C. 20007 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 14:49:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Situation #8 Situation #8 features work by Stephen-Paul Martin, Connie Deanovich, Joshua McKinney, Dan Raphael, and others. Cost is $2 for a single issue and $8 for four issues. Please send subscriptions or submissions to: Mark Wallace Situation 10402 Ewell Ave. Kensington, MD 20895 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 16:00:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: Re: Poetry on the Margins of What? In-Reply-To: <199501030024.TAA27254@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Ron Silliman" at Jan 2, 95 04:21:11 pm Ron, Since i don't have your address, i have to post this query here. How wld you feel about me cross-posting your response back to the t-amlit list? It strikes me that transgressing these cyberboundaries could be productive. On the other hand, i wldn't want to start any flame wars. What do you think? steve shoemaker ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 22:46:22 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BMCH@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: Message of 01/03/95 at 13:54:04 from krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Some Schwerner dope: Station Hill Press brought out Tablets I-XXIV in 1983, in a volume together with a collection of shorter poems called "sounds of the river Naranjana."Then Altas Press, London, brought out in '89 I-XXIV plus new XXV and XXVI -- the latter, much longer than any of the earlier ones, is par- ticularly astonishing. XXVI is the last I've been able to locate; until I've checked with Schwerner himself, I'm assuming it's the last -- unless someone out there knows otherwise? I've come across catalogue entries for recordings of Schwerner reading from the Tablets, but haven't had a chance to listen to any yet. I'm curious to know how he handles the visual dimension of the Tablets in performing them ... I think of them as really eye-oriented, page-bound texts, but perhaps that's a mistake... Brian ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 23:51:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <199501040355.WAA12855@sarah.albany.edu> from "BMCH@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU" at Jan 3, 95 10:46:22 pm Brian, you write: > > I've come across catalogue entries for recordings of Schwerner reading from th > Tablets, but haven't had a chance to listen to any yet. I'm curious to know > how he handles the visual dimension of the Tablets in performing them ... I > think of them as really eye-oriented, page-bound texts, but perhaps that's a > mistake... indeed, that is a mistake, Schwerner is an absolutely first rate performer of the TABLETS -- they are among the wild-humourist poems it has ever been my pleasure to hear. Schwerner realizes the visual elements orally as interferences by the scholar-translator into the lyrical process of the poems & it is exactly in the oral realization of that tension, in the juxtaposition of those different levels of discourse, that one can get to the polysemic core of the work. Go & listen, you've got a major treat coming! Pierre ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 02:00:49 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: America: A Prayer In-Reply-To: <199501032243.OAA06428@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Mark Wallace" at Jan 3, 95 02:47:26 pm Here's what a lot of people pray: May the USA disappear and allow America an opportunity to survive. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 06:06:05 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <01HLFBC2UGO6B2ATKP@VX.CIS.UMN.EDU> I'm currently looking at eight pages which are collectively presented as "from Tablet XXXVI," by Armand Schwerener, which were the latest addition to the journal NORTH AMERICAN IDEOPHONICS ANNUAL, a by-invitation assembling journal or series edited by Mark Nowak. The address is 908 Franklin Terrace, 3rd floor, Minneapolis, MN 55406, USA, or by e-mail, manowak@alex.stkate.edu Since this journal was assembled only on Dec. 17, 1994, I assume that this is work is new and may be an addition to the Tablet XXVI published in London, and that it probably brings the work pretty much up to date, although I would, as others have, suggest going to Armand Schwerner to verify that. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 06:09:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <01HLFBC2UGO6B2ATKP@VX.CIS.UMN.EDU> Just to update my last post here, as I hadn't read my Schwerner pages for NORTH AMERICAN IDEOPHONICS ANNUAL yet, and they were given to me after the rest of the annual was assembled, an act with which I assisted. No, these are not eight pages, rather four copies of two pages. Some astonishing writing, nonetheless. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 15:29:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live How would one find the Altas Press (London) volume of Armand's Tablets? Any ideas??? Tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 16:29:13 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: note of 01/04/95 16:07 Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Tom-- One would have a hard time, since it's actually the Atlas Press--there was a typo in the original posting of that information. Anyway, The Tablets is distributed by SPD, along with a couple other of Armand's books. If for some reason that doesn't work, the press' London address is 10 Park Street, London SE1 9AB, England--but that's five years old. General inquiry: Does anyone have an e-address for Cole Swensen? I need to get in touch with her. Alan Golding ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 20:18:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <199501042219.RAA22705@gwis.circ.gwu.edu> On Wed, 4 Jan 1995, Tom Mandel wrote: > How would one find the Altas Press (London) volume of Armand's Tablets? > Any ideas??? > > Tom Mandel > Got mine in a second-hand bookstore; others might try Atlas Press, 10 Park st, The Borough, London SE1 9AB, UK. Hi Tom. Mark Scrogging ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 20:20:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <199501042307.SAA23622@gwis.circ.gwu.edu> Tom-- Alan's post reminds me to check a more recent Atlas Book, which has BCM Atlas Press, London WC1N 3XX, UK. Maybe that'll work. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 21:51:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <199501042113.QAA03793@sarah.albany.edu> from "Tom Mandel" at Jan 4, 95 03:29:46 pm Tom asked: > > How would one find the Altas Press (London) volume of Armand's Tablets? > Any ideas??? I don't know who -- if anyone -- distributes it in this country, but you could write directly to: Aleister Botchie Atlas Press 5 Ormond Mansions, flat 100A Southampton Row London WCI GB An excellent press, btw, with a range of interesting surrealist & post-surrealist titles. Happy semi-new year, Pierre ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 22:37:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BMCH@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: Message of 01/04/95 at 15:29:46 from tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU Just had a look & sure enough SPD carries Atlas Press books, & there's Tablets I-XXVI listed among them. Doesn't appear that the Station Hill Press edition is still in print, but the Tablets part of that would be superseded by the Atlas edition anyway. Alan Golding's note now makes me wish I'd gone to MLA & heard Schwerner rather than stay home to try & write about him! Choices.... Brian ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 23:07:38 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Evil Xmas Devil Monster Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 3 Jan 1995 22:46:22 EST from BTW, don't forget that the Living Theater in New York put on a production of The Tablets five or six or seven years ago. I was priveleged to have attended one of the performances, & was brilliantly acted & scored. It took place at their place on E. 3rd St, one of the first productions at that space. Unfortunately, they lost the space after a couple of years. Regards, Marc Nasdor abohc@cunyvm.cuny.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 23:14:05 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Reading? Hello folks, I'm wondering if it's too late to come up with a couple of readings/talks in the mid-Atlantic states at the end of May or even the very first few days of June? I've been asked by Alec Marsh to give a paper at the ALA in Baltimore (May 26-28) and would love to be able to say yes. But I need to come up w/ travel money to make it possible, since these scholarly meetings are run with the presumption that everyone who will attend comes with departmental funding (a 19th century concept of scholarship that should have died out in the 1930s with the rise of the public intellectual). I need to let Alec know by January 13, so let me know if you're sitting on unspent departmental reading $$. Ron Silliman rsillima@ix.netcom.com or (510) 734-4581 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 00:17:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: Armand Schwerner Live In-Reply-To: <01HLGO494NT291YVNU@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU> On Wed, 4 Jan 1995, The Evil Xmas Devil Monster wrote: > BTW, don't forget that the Living Theater in New York put on a production of > The Tablets five or six or seven years ago. I was priveleged to have attended > one of the performances, & was brilliantly acted & scored. It took place at > their place on E. 3rd St, one of the first productions at that space. > Unfortunately, they lost the space after a couple of years. > > Regards, > > Marc Nasdor > abohc@cunyvm.cuny.edu > how strange to contemplate. I remember being in junior high school in the early sixties and going to see Jack Gelber's dope play The Connection at The Living Theatre (and feeling very hip); then all the terrifically weird stuff in the early seventies which I only heard about didn't see; and then The Tablets??? I guess I'd like to see a split stage, simultaneous staging of The Connection and The Tablets (a la Ashbery's "As We Know"?). Not really now; just a Theatrical Mind Boggler Koan.... happy new year all Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 11:36:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: America: A Prayer In-Reply-To: <199501032243.AA24877@panix2.panix.com> As I said before, my prayer sent to NEWT and to YOUT is "Up yours, teach." As always, James ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 09:45:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RSILLIMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Congressional vote on NEH--forw X-To: perloff@leland.stanford.edu, 70550.654@compuserve.com, lisa@vanstar.com, bernstei@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, abernhei@hooked.net I'm sending this to the Poetics Discussion List but am not sure it will get posted since I'm at work and am not currently subscribed from there. Charles, can you double check? The message below comes from Bob Perelman. It sounds as if Newt et al plan to defund some or all of NEH, NEA, etc., asap and do so w/out any public discussion thereof. Time to act! Ron Silliman --------------------------------------------------------------- Ron, See if this gets to you. I'll also be e-ing on other matters. Bob According to Daniel Traister: > From owner-english-faculty Thu Jan 5 17:24:20 1995 > From: traister@pobox.upenn.edu (Daniel Traister) > Posted-Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 12:24:42 -0500 > Message-Id: <199501051724.MAA05283@pobox.upenn.edu> > Subject: Congressional vote on NEH--forwarded from Frank Whigham (Texas), FYI and wide distribution > To: english-faculty@dept.english.upenn.edu (English Department Faculty), > english-grads@dept.english.upenn.edu (English Graduate Students) > Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 12:24:42 -0500 (EST) > X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn2.9] > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Content-Length: 2738 > Sender: owner-english-faculty@dept.english.upenn.edu > Precedence: bulk > > From: Frank Whigham > Subject: Congressional vote on the NEH > > Dear colleagues: > > I have just received (9:30 am, 1/5) the following news from my > colleague Terry Kelley. > ================ > Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 09:19:58 -0600 (CST) > From: "theresa m. kelley" > Subject: NEH /NEA/PBS funding > To: Frank Whigham > > Here is the news re Republican efforts to kill all funding for these > agencies by a simple majority vote on the Senate floor -- without going > through a hearing process. > > My source for this information is Carl Woodring, who received a call with > this news from Tom O'Brien, in the Grants office of NEH. He called > Gingrich's office to find out what the hearing schedule would be and > learned this news. O'Brien is less concerned wth House deliberations, > where he believes it will be possible to work out an agreement for > funding, though probably reduced, than he is with the Senate, where > funding could disappear without anything more than a floor vote. > > If only for the record and possible future funding, I urge all to write > appropriate senators to protest this plan to kill this funding without a > hearing. > > > Please distribute this news as widely as possible. > > > Theresa M. Kelley > Associate Professor > University of Texas, Austin > ================== > > Obviously we must all be extremely concerned at this news. It is > crucial that we make our collective voice heard in support of the institu- > tions which contribute so much to our disciplines. (This matter will bring > us as close to unanimity as we'll ever get.) We in the academy have done > badly at making our case to those in authority, especially in recent > years. There has been much failure of the will. We need to write, not only > to protest the funding cuts (though cuts will surely be made), but to > protest the absence of open discussion on this crucial matter. This is a > procedural scandal, and might well be pre-emptive for much that we care > about, for years to come. > > If anyone who receives this mailing has a list of congressional > e-mail addresses, it would be very useful to distribute it for the rest of > us. We need to begin to be much more vocal with the new administration. > (I'm sure that many would welcome all federal and state addresses as well; > I would.) > > In addition to Kay Bailey Hutchinson's address above [relevant > to residents of Texas ONLY], I can contribute GEORGIA6@HR.HOUSE.GOV > (specify Newt Gingrich at the beginning of the message). > > Please distribute this message. > =========================== > Frank Whigham > Department of English, Parlin 108 > University of Texas at Austin > Austin TX 78712-1164 > 512-471-8794 > ffw@uts.cc.utexas.edu > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 21:25:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: New Electronic Poetry Center Features ____ ____ ____ / / / / / / EEEE PPPPP CCCCC EE / PP PP CC C/ EEE PPPPP CC / URL=gopher://writing.upenn.edu/hh/ __EE /_ PP |__ CC C ____ / EEEE/ PP/ CCCCC/ / internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift /__________________________/ |--------------------------| | Electronic Poetry Center | |__________________________| ___________________________________________________________________ We are pleased to announce two new EPC features: (Gopher and Web versions) A "search" feature has been designed to probe through the Poetics backfiles for you. You may now search the entire corpus by keyword. (The results screen will list documents containing your keyword. You then may open documents individually and search for the occurrence of the keyword. In most systems this would be /keyword, where "keyword" is your search term.) Now you can pinpoint that elusive phrase... (Web version only) A "hotlist" has been added to most "major" levels of the web version. This means that from any point in the Web you can select "hotlist" and move with great facility to numerous key spots in the EPC web. This feature will pretty much place you within two keystrokes of most menus, making the EPC web much more quickly navigated. ___________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 10:31:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: Congressional vote on NEH--forw For what it's worth: Article in NT Times, Jan 6 gives e-mail addresses for - "Thomas" - as in Jefferson - a new place to read the full text of any bill introduced in Congress, new issues of the Congressional Record - seachable by keyword. For this service you must have an HTML Browser capable of viewing the Web's hypertext format: http://thomas.loc.gov Isn't it good to know we are on a first-name basis with Jeffersonian democracy! For those who would brave the malestrom and contact Newt directly (more of a Hamiltonian "democrat"): georgia6@hr.house.gov For any other congressional e-mail address one may gopher to: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/0/sosci/poliscilaw/uslegi/conemail I offer this list with a clear conscience, but with the understanding that I in a small way am participating in a communication scheme that is surely a marginal, elite display of virtual-class revisionism. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 14:51:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Waples Subject: subscribing to Poetics list Dear Moderator, I learned of the Poetics list from a reference to it on the T-Amlit list, and would like very much to subscribe. Could you please either send me the appropriate address to subscribe, or add me to the list? Thank you very much for your assistance. Sincerely, Tim Waples English Dept., U. of Pennsylvania twaples@english.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 17:15:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Senate vote Dear Poetry List, In response to Ron's posting abt the upcoming Senate floor vote, I sent a query to Jim Warren. Warren runs a mailing list called GovAccess. If he has a list of all Congressional e-mail addresses, or an address where such a list can be obtained, I'll post it. Warren's mailing list is pretty interesting. It's not published often so if your e-mailbox is already full every morning, this won't add much. Here is the subscription info: To join the GovAccess list, email a request to jwarren@well.sf.ca.us . John Krick ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 18:32:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Notlep@AOL.COM Subject: subscribing I would like to subscribe to the poetics list. I saw a posting from this list cross-posted to another list I'm on, Teaching American Literature (T-AMLIT). I'm not sure of the proper procedure for subscribing, so I hope I'm not getting in the way by using the wrong method. Thanks and, if needed, apologies. Ted Pelton Lakeland College ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 10:04:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Marshall H. Reese" Subject: Arts Alliance Campaign to Save Arts Funding Item 625 06-JAN-95 17:25 American Arts Alliance 1-900 Emergency Number in Place January 6, 1995 Dear Arts Advocates: As you know, since the November elections the future of our national cultural agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum Services, is seriously threatened. These agencies are facing severe cuts to their current funding or possible elimination. Arts advocates across the country must act NOW if these agencies are to be saved. The Emergency Committee to Save Culture and the Arts, a project of the American Arts Alliance, has set up a 1-900 number (it is already working!) so that arts groups, artists, volunteers, arts patrons, audience members, contributors, local businesses, vendors and suppliers can quickly and easily register their support for continued funding for the arts and culture with their members of Congress, for a nominal fee. Time is short. You are invited to use this number immediately. When you can call this number, 1-900-370-9000, the following will happen: 1.) The caller will be handled by a live operator. Following a brief statement that the call costs $1.99 per minute and that you must be 18 or over, the operator then asks the caller if he/she would allow the Emergency Committee to send a mailgram in the caller's name to their two Senators and one Representative. 2.) If the caller says yes, the above process takes place and is billed to the caller's home phone. The caller leaves his/her name, address, and zip code which is then matched with the corresponding congressional district to assure that the correct elected officials receive the mailgram. The Alliance has put together a steering committee currently made up of more than a dozen organizations to participate in message development and the disbursement of any funds that are collected over and beyond the costs for set up and maintenance of the number. You are invited to join this steering committee. There is no cost for this participation. In order for this emergency campaign to be effective, we need your help to widely distribute the 1-900 number. Distribution of the number can be accomplished through the use of flyers, word of mouth, printing it in all local newspapers and membership organization's newsletters, radio announcements, posters, and on local computer Bulletin Board Services. (The first flyers are now available. Please call for a copy). Curtain speeches educating audiences about the crisis and drawing attention to ways to respond, are extremely effective and we urge you to undertake these and other activities. The success of the emergency campaign depends on this effort. The future of arts and cultural funding in this country is being determined by members of Congress NOW. More than ever, the voices of arts supporters must be heard. Thank you for participating in this critical grassroots effort. Please call the American Arts Alliance at 202-737-1727 if you would like to join the steering committee or have any questions. THIS POSTING IS FROM ARTSWIRE. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 12:10:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: subscribing to Poetics list In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Fri, 06 Jan 1995 14:51:57 -0500" <01HLJ4YPNC5U8X1C8Z@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> Welcome to the Poetics List. Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume managable. Word-of-mouth (and its electronic equivalents) seems to be working fine: please feel free to invite people you know to sign-up. To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics (The shorter bitnet address is listserv@ubvm. All further references to "Listserve" are to this listserve.) The list has open subscriptions. You can sub or unsub by sending a one-line message, with no subject line, to the listserv address: unsub poetics Jill Jillway {or} sub poetics Jill Jillway I will be sent a notice of all subscription activity. ARCHIVES There are two ways to get archives, the second (see end of message) may be easier. Anyone interested in an archive of all postings after March may send this message to "Listserve": index poetics or index poetics f=mail You will receive a list of archived files in a format that includes something like this: * rec last - change * filename filetype GET PUT -fm lrecl nrecs date time POETICS LOG9403 ALL OWN V 80 1012 94/05/31 07:17:17 Started on Mon, 7 Mar 1994 12:51:12 -0600 POETICS LOG9404 ALL OWN V 83 1864 94/05/31 07:18:54 Started on Sat, 2 Apr 1994 16:01:07 -050 POETICS NOTEBOOK ALL OWN V 640 1693 94/06/09 15:27:09 Started on Sun, 1 May 1994 09:47:10 -0500 You can then send the "get" command to "Listserve" in the format: get filename filetype (eg: get poetics log9403 get poetics log9403 get poetics notebook) or get filename filetype f=mail depending on which log file you want (you can also get multiple files with one message). Note that each of the files has a different beginning and end date, eg LOG9404 starts 7 March and goes to 31 May and that dates overlap. Go figure! "Poetics Notebook" is an anomalous name for what is, in effect, another log file. ******* To subscribe to RIF/T, the e-poetry magazine: Send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: subscribe e-poetry Firstname Lastname where Firstname and Lastname correspond to your name. You will receive a confirmation of your subscription soon thereafter. (Nonsubscribers can automatically sub to Poetics using this same format, but substituting "poetics" for "e- poetry".) ** Date: Sun, 10 Jul 1994 19:14:05 -0400 From: Loss Glazier Subject: Announcement: Electronic Poetry Center (Buffalo) To: Multiple recipients of list POETICS The Electronic Poetry Center (Buffalo) 7-10-94 ________________________Announcement________________________ THE ELECTRONIC POETRY CENTER (BUFFALO). The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the world. The Center will provide access to numerous electronic resources in the new poetries including RIF/T and other electronic poetry journals, the Poetics List archives, a library of poetic texts, news of related print sources, and direct connections to numerous related poetic projects. The Center's first phase of implementation is scheduled for August 1, 1994. A subscription to the E-Poetry list provides a subscription to the electronic journal RIF/T and E-Poetry Center announcements. Subscriptions to E-Poetry to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Inquiries, suggestions for Center resources, submissions to RIF/T, and other mail may be directed to e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu The Center is located at gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/library/e- journals/ub/rift (Presently, the prototype is under construction but operational.) Gopher Access: For those who have access to gopher, type gopher writing.upenn.edu (or, if you are on a UB mainframe, simply type wings) at your system prompt. First choose Libraries & Library Resources, then Electronic Journals, then E- Journals/Resources Produced Here At UB, then The Electronic Poetry Center. (Note: Connections to some Poetry Center resources require Web access, though most are presently available through gopher). World-Wide Web Access: For those with World-Wide Web or lynx access, type www or lynx at your system prompt. Choose the go to URL option then go to (type as one continuous string) gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift ___Participation in the Electronic Poetry Center (Buffalo)___ For those interested in helping us build the Center, our goal is to provide a single Internet site that offers a doorway into the different poetic projects out there in the electronic (and paper) poetics world. We would like to offer access to information about poetics and poetry activities, electronic poetry journals, texts in progress, etc. We are currently developing a library of electronic poetry/poetics texts (submissions to e-poetry@ubvm.cc. buffalo.edu). The Center has other exciting possibilities: 1. Circulation of electronic journals with an emphasis on direct links to those of relevance to Center concerns; 2. Reviews of recent print and electronic publications. (Brief reviews may also be submitted electronically to e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu); 3. Direct links to other related electronic sites; 4. Multimedia resources. Sound and graphics relating to poetry. 5. Building our Small Press Alcove, a place for little magazine and book announcements. The point of including announcements of paper resources is to provide a listing of interesting work for people to look at; they can then write or e-mail the publisher to obtain publications. (Send announcements to lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu or magazines/books to Loss Glazier, E-Poetry, P.O. Box 143, Getzville, NY 14068-0143); 6. Ultimately, the Center could also offer collaborative projects (perhaps for specific groups of writers), lists and/or archives of other lists, and texts-in- progress, as things develop. The "Buffalo" in the title of the Center is not meant to suggest that this activity is limited to Buffalo, only to give the "visitor" a sense of place, i.e., where the mainframe that's providing this service is "located." Vigorous writing wants to "circulate." On this new electronic terrain, the Electronic Poetry Center will serve as a gathering place or point of entry for a range of poetic efforts. ______________________How to Contact Us_____________________ Please contact us with your suggestions, texts, sound files, and graphics files to submit, or if you have expertise in these areas. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK (this is meant to be a Center that grows with your ideas) by posting to this list, sending mail to E-Poetry, or to Loss Glazier (lolpoet@ acsu.buffalo.edu) or Kenneth Sherwood (v001pxfu.ubvms.cc. buffalo.edu) privately. _____________________________________________________________ The Archive is administered in Buffalo by E-Poetry and RIF/T in coordination with the Poetics List. Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Glazier in collaboration with Charles Bernstein ***** Please contact me if you have any questions. Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 00:01:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Press Listings Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Leslie Scalapino's DEFOE X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET --Boundary (ID QzhTPcoSFEchzwbr98ykcw)-- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 00:32:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Press Listings Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Leslie Scalapino's DEFOE (2d try!) X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET New from Sun & Moon Press (6026 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036) distributed by Small Press Distribution, Consortium, and at select bookstores DEFOE, by Leslie Scalapino, Classics 46, 365 pages, $12.95; ISBN # 1-55713-163-5 DEFOE, Leslie Scalapino's new fiction, is an epic where images of battle become meditations, an epic wherein events flap in silence as the narrative moves toward a place where the reader and text become one. The images of this fiction don't resemble events, but are new occurences in time and space. In Part I, Waking Life, the heroine, in love with James Dean, discovers herself in a desert pocked with fires in which the "henna man"- a drug dealer- is being carried in a white cocoon. And throughout Scalapino's work the reader is taken into a world where the written word creates " an event retrieved from so far back that it is separated from its memory." While not resembling reality/history, the fictionalizing induces the simplest movement possible in its whole expanded, unique structure, to change real past and present. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 00:36:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: O Books c/o Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: New O Books X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET New O Books O Books, 5729 Clover Drive, Oakland, CA 94618; & Small Press Distribution, 1814 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley, CA 94702. E-mail inquiries c/o twhite@mendel.berkeley.edu Memory Play, Carla Harryman, 72 pages, $8.50. ISBN # 1-882022-22-x. In Memory Play, one is neither fixed in a memory nor is one in the (non-reactive) politicized moment of the present without memory. The child-non-innocent Pelican, Child, Reptile, and Fish, of Carla Harryman's play are lucid Alices (in Wonderland) observing history which as if backwards is creating phenomena. Harryman's play creates a state that is non/innocent in that it is our real present in our really being innocent, rather than an idea of such in a myth state of 'Garden of Eden.' Steve Benson says: "Suppose you had a dream life and woke up not a person interested in telling as a story what you could recall of it as it coudl be translated and tricked into the words and images of a narrative that made sense by referring to the things of this world as your interlocutor knows them as well as you do but woke rather or also as a polyvocal projection of theater articulating time and personality and politics in idiosyncratic motion and congruence much as clouds and birds in flight make sense to that visionary in you..... Collision Center, Randall Potts, 72 pages. $9.00. ISBN # 1-882022-19-X. This is a first book by a young poet creating multiple narratives in a collision of lyrical and hard tones, isolating words and tones in order to allow their actuality, effectively to allow them to occur. Ann Lauterbach comments: "In Randall Potts' poems, nature and language collide, and then proceed, each having been transformed by the other. ... We witness the newly manifest being carried away on the stark clarities of his lines, "watchlessly dis-figuring / what remains to be seen." There is gratitude and there is terror: here they embrace. MOB, Abigail Child, 96 pages. $9.50. ISBN # 1-882022-21-1. Child's writing scrutinizes the factor of need, our "making need / the figure they want," as the mind's need as contemplation of lust touching a civilization. Bruce Andrews comments about MOB: "Only the impossible is intimate enough." She creates a form that isn't landscape yet is a visible reverberation, "the sky is drunk with ... The center in front of the future," realistic and filmic in that the non-landscape is "frames (which) hit the screen/dependent on the intent", thus subject and object of their own scrutiny and direction which is motivation. Kevin Killian comments: "her new book is a fiery J'Accuse against a war-fueled heterosexist Uberhaus that flaunts "the privilege of a window ignoring its cost." She has always been a provocative poet and thinker, but now she writes her twin obsessions into transparence. Between the words vast flamethrowers aimed by angels singe and give off steam." GROUND AIR, Scott Bentley, xerox 59 pages, $6.00. ISBN # 1-882022-23-8. A first book by a young poet about whose work Jennifer Moxley comments: "As for AIR, so what if we continue to build our loves on the banks of sorrowful Ilion, stolen kisses and all that. At least Scott, like Dido, knows there's more to life than duty. After all, those paleolithic bison were so real you could've hunted them and this language is so true that it runs a body amuck. In both we find the inherent vulgarity of the natural, where every key or brush stroke makes desire's ineffable history more seductive." Kit Robinson says: "Then, having established this deceptively enveloping GROUND, Bentley takes off into AIR, constructing intimate spaces where 'Everything's / tender and sudden.'" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 20:35:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: motives for metaphor Marisa (Januzzi)- I wasn't going to reply because I too feel "at a loss" when it comes to "recommended readings" on the huge subject of political content of poetic form. It's not because of a dearth of material but because of a plenitude. It's so prevalent an issue in most of what I read to have run the risk of becoming a BLASE issue. At least IN THEORY. Yet theory is only as "good" as its praxis, its enactment. So I work by a case-by-case basis here in quoting this just because I happen to be reading it at the time (not that I mean to irresponsibly claim it's a mere arbitrary issue of 'taste'): In Carla Harryman's VICE, page 28, and 29, she writes: "and he went over to talk to his linguist friend, George Lakoff, about the sense of finality evoked by the word LAND when what he was really looking for was more like some forward moving limbo. George, however, counseled him against zombielike, trancelike conditions. If LAND ended the matter, then move out of the house. The boy looked at George, "You're thinking in metaphors and I thought you tore them apart." George told him that he was human just like everybody else." I read Lakeoff's METAPHORS WE LIVE BY over ten years ago, and my memory is extremely vague of it. IS HE TAKEN SERIOUSLY by any of you, or is his mode of thinking facile and discredited? Just curious. Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 10:38:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Congressional E-mail addresses The following list of House/Senate E-Mail addresses can be found at: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/11/socsci/poliscilaw/uslegi and was retrieved on 1-9-95. There were very few Senate addresses available, but there is more senate information available at the same gopher site. CONGRESSIONAL E-MAIL ADDRESSES 104th Congress 1995/96 United States Senate ------------------------------------------------------------------- ST Name E-Mail Address ------------------------------------------------------------------- ID Craig, Larry larry_craig@craig.senate.gov. IL Simon, Paul senator@simon.senate.gov MA Kennedy, Ted senator@kennedy.senate.gov (www home page: http//www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/ Kennedy/homepage.html) NM Bingaman, Jeff Senator_Bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov VA Robb, Charles senator_robb@robb.senate.gov VT Leahy, Patrick senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov VT Jeffords, Jim vermont@jeffords.senate.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------- United States House of Representatives http://www.house.gov http://thomas.loc.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------- ST DS Name E-Mail Address ------------------------------------------------------------------- AR 4 Dickey, Jay JDICKEY@HR.HOUSE.GOV AZ 2 Pastor, Ed EDPASTOR@HR.HOUSE.GOV CA 7 Miller, George FGEORGEM@HR.HOUSE.GOV CA 12 Lantos, Tom TALK2TOM@HR.HOUSE.GOV CA 13 Stark, Pete PETEMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV CA 14 Eshoo, Anna ANNAGRAM@HR.HOUSE.GOV CO 2 Skaggs, David SKAGGS@HR.HOUSE.GOV CT 2 Gejdenson, Sam BOZRAH@HR.HOUSE.GOV CT 4 Shays, Christopher CSHAYS@HRA.HOUSE.GOV FL 6 Stearns, Cliff CSTEARNS@HR.HOUSE.GOV FL 12 Canady, Charles CANADY@HR.HOUSE.GOV FL 20 Deutsch, Peter PDEUTSCH@HR.HOUSE.GOV GA 6 Gingrich, Newton GEORGIA6@HR.HOUSE.GOV IL 14 Hastert, Dennis DHASTERT@HR.HOUSE.GOV KA 1 Roberts, Pat EMAILPAT@HR.HOUSE.GOV MI 3 Ehlers, Vernon CONGEHLR@HR.HOUSE.GOV MI 4 Camp, Dave DAVECAMP@HR.HOUSE.GOV MI 14 Conyers, John JCONYERS@HR.HOUSE.GOV MN 3 Ramstad, Jim MN03@HR.HOUSE.GOV NC 7 Rose, Charlie CROSE@HR.HOUSE.GOV NC 11 Taylor, Charles CHTAYLOR@HR.HOUSE.GOV NC 12 Watt, Mel MELMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV ND Pomeroy, Earl EPOMEROY@HR.HOUSE.GOV NJ 12 Zimmer, Dick DZIMMER@HR.HOUSE.GOV NY 7 Manton, Thomas TMANTON@HR.HOUSE.GOV NY 23 Boehlert, Sherwood BOEHLERT@HR.HOUSE.GOV NY 27 Paxon, Bill BPAXON@HR.HOUSE.GOV OH 2 Hoke, Martin HOKEMAIL@HR.HOUSE.GOV OK 5 Istook, Jr. Ernest ISTOOK@HR.HOUSE.GOV OR 1 Furse, Elizabeth FURSEOR1@HR.HOUSE.GOV OR 4 DeFazio, Pete PDEFAZIO@HR.HOUSE.GOV PA 16 Walker, Robert PA16@HR.HOUSE.GOV TX 3 Johnson, Sam SAMTX03@HR.HOUSE.GOV TX 6 Barton, Joe BARTON06@HR.HOUSE.GOV VA 6 Goodlatte, Bob TALK2BOB@HR.HOUSE.GOV VA 9 Boucher, Rick JSHOUMAK@HR.HOUSE.GOV VT Sanders, Bernie BSANDERS@IGC.APC.ORG U.S. House of Representatives Committees Education and Labor Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations SLABMGNT@HR.HOUSE.GOV Natural Resources NATRES@HR.HOUSE.GOV Science, Space, and Technology HOUSESST@HR.HOUSE.GOV The above information was compiled from the Senate and House Gophers. Corrections/additions to grace.york@um.cc.umich.edu 1-3-95 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 12:05:39 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Congress Here is the reply from Jim Warren, proprietor of the GovAccess list: >Last year's list is archived at cpsr.org . I have asked >postmaster@hr.house.gov for a current copy, but have not >yet received a >reply. Ask 'em, too! :-) >Also, you might check the new web server reputedly at: >http://thomas.loc.gov , the "Thomas Jefferson" site at the >Library of Congress. I GUESS cpsr.org is an FTP site. I'm going to look into both of these and I'll tell ya what I find! John Krick ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 13:38:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: New Electronic Poetry Center Features You mention Web features, but there's no http url listed. tom mandel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 13:57:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: motives for metaphor George Lakoff's work is certainly taken seriously and is well worth attending to. Although METAPHORS WE LIVE BY is still a worthwhile place to start, GL has two other books which should not be missed: Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things (University of Chicago Press) and More Than Cool Reason (can't put my hand on my copy in mess at hand, so no pub. listed, but I think it is also u of c press) More... is co-authored by Mark Turner, whose READING MINDS (Princeton U Press) is also well worth reading. Think of the dep't of english as a part of cognitive studies. Good luck. I might mention that the study of theory in regard of its core subject matters of mathematics, physics, etc. (and of philosophy of science) is a more rewarding activity, in my experience at least, than time spent with the "theory" movement in american academic writing. In '92 I spent a while reading thru this latter corpus of mat'ls, reading something by everybody in the big Literary Theory compilation (pub. - *again!* u of c?) and a dozen or so other books (not scrupulously read, but tried). This reading project resulted in a trimester of extreme depression, and I do not recommend it to anyone. tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 18:32:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: New Electronic Poetry Center Features In-Reply-To: <199501091907.OAA20480@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Tom Mandel" at Jan 9, 95 01:38:57 pm > You mention Web features, but there's no http url listed. Tom, > World-Wide Web and Mosaic Access: > For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access, > from your interface, choose the go to URL > option then go to (type as one continuous string) > gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ > library/e-journals/ub/rift Perhaps I should be clearer in this "flyer" I regularly send out but the url you would enter would start with "gopher" in the expression above. Try it; it works! In fact the web version has begun to evolve as much more useful. (Why the dichotomy in terms, I don't know but apparently you don't have to have an http to have web access.) If any snags, please feel free to let me know, on or off the list. For those with a graphical interface, there are increasingly more graphics, etc., as in decorating the home. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 10:29:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: O Books c/o Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: O Books List X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET O Books List: O Books: fax: (501) 601-9588. 5729 Clover Drive, Oakland, CA 94618. Small Press Distribution: 1814 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley, CA 94702. RETURN OF THE WORLD, Todd Baron, $6.50 GROUND AIR, Scott Bentley, $6.00 A CERTAIN SLANT OF SUNLIGHT, Ted Berrigan, $9.00 TALKING IN TRANQUILITY: INTERVIEWS WITH TED BERRIGAN, Avenue B and O Books, $10.50 MOB, Abigail Child, $9.50 IT THEN, Danielle Collobert, $9.00 CANDOR, Alan Davies, $9.00 TURN LEFT IN ORDER TO GO RIGHT, Norman Fischer, $9.00 PRECISELY THE POINT BEING MADE, Norman Fischer, $10.00 TIME RATIONS, Benjamin Friedlander, $7.50 BYT, William Fuller, $7.50 THE SUGAR BORDERS, William Fuller, $9.00 PHANTOM ANTHEMS, Robert Grenier, $6.50 WHAT I BELIEVE TRANSPIRATION/TRANSPIRING MINNESOTA, Robert Grenier, $24.00 THE INVETERATE LIFE, Jessica Grim, $7.50 MEMORY PLAY, Carla Harryman, $8.50 THE QUIETIST, Fanny Howe, $8.00 VALUES CHAUFFEUR YOU, Andrew Levy, $9.00 CURVE, Andrew Levy, $10.00 DREAMING CLOSE BY, Rick London, $6.00 ABJECTIONS, Rick London, $4.00 DISSUASION CROWDS THE SLOW WORKER, Lori Lubeski, $7.50 CATENARY ODES, Ted Pearson, $6.00 COLLISION CENTER, Randall Potts, $9.00 (WHERE LATE THE SWEET) BIRDS SANG, Stephen Ratcliffe, $8.00 VISIBLE SHIVERS, Tom Raworth, $8.00 KISMET, Patricia Reed, $8.00 COLD HEAVEN, Camille Roy, $9.00 O ONE/AN ANTHOLOGY, ed. Leslie Scalapino, $10.50 O TWO/AN ANTHOLOGY: WHAT IS THE INSIDE, WHAT IS OUTSIDE?, $10.50 O/3: WAR, $4.00 (OUT OF PRINT) O/4: SUBLIMINAL TIME, $10.50 CROWD AND NOT EVENING OR LIGHT, Leslie Scalapino, $9.00 THE INDIA BOOK: ESSAYS AND TRANSLATIONS, Andrew Schelling, $9.00 A'S DREAM, Aaron Shurin, $8.00 PICTURE OF THE PICTURE OF THE IMAGE IN THE GLASS, Craig Watson, $8.00 Forthcoming in 1995: CLOSE TO ME & CLOSER ... (THE LANGUAGE OF HEAVEN) and DESAMERE, TWO BOOKS, Alice Notley VEL, Peter Inman LAPSES, John Crouse THE DISPARITIES, Rodrigo Toscano THE HISTORY OF THE LOMA PEOPLE, Paul Degein Korvah, (History: Liberia) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 12:40:30 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Re[2]: New Electronic Poetry Center Features Gopher vs. http: >(Why the dichotomy in terms, I don't know but >apparently you don't have to have an http to have web >access.) RE: the dichotomy in terms, Gopher refers to an earlier menu-driven, mostly text-only interface to the net. Http addresses reference World Wide Web sites that can deliver graphics sound and video. You can access either type of site using a browser such as Mosaic, but Gopher can be accessed with very minimal machine resources as well. You cannot access Web sites and get the full functionality without a graphical browser however. John Krick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 13:18:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins, cont. (fwd) Forwarded message: From daemon Tue Jan 10 10:53:13 1995 Message-Id: <199501101553.KAA72898@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 09:49:47 -0500 Reply-To: Teaching the American Literatures Sender: Teaching the American Literatures From: "tamlit@guvax.georgetown.edu \"Randy Bass\"" ***JRNL: T-AMLIT JOURNAL*** From: IN%"ccrevard@artsci.wustl.edu" "Carter C. Revard" 9-JAN-1995 14:54:57. 25 Subj: RE: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins, cont. With regard to Shoemaker's further remarks and Silliman's contributions, maybe a few more comments might buzz along the web from here and draw some interest from whoever "lives along the line," as Pope and his classical ancestors have put it. First, is it not interesting that "poets" have their separate web? Is it not also interesting that networkers can assume those of us etherized on this part of the table are professors NOT poets, while those in the poet-hammock hangup of this network ARE poets, whether professors or not? Does anyone think this kind of compartmenting is part of the reasons poets and poetry are perceived as marginalized? Second, since a poet has asked the question of what the metaphor of margins is supposed to mean, let me respond--as medievalist, teacher of American Indian Literature, and practicing poet--that I believe the basic metaphor is that of TEXT vs. MARGIN, and I take it that in the medieval period the text was that "woven" part of the page's words, while the margin was the place outside the weaving, where space was "free." One way "progress" took place, that is, people invented an idea called the Renaissance and relegated the medieval period to a meaningless dark MIDDLE AGES unlike the clean well-lighted humanistic Sixteenth Century of enlightened popes, holy Roman Emperors, reformed bishops and kings able to marry all they wanted, and so on--one way was to turn the marginalized things of the previous age into the textualized central part of the page. Instead of the Virgin Mary, they looked at models for the Virgin Mary, instead of a human image representing a cosmos, they looked at the image as representing an individual unlike all others. You no longer talked of a soul, you talked of a self--in English, that is, a language in which it was possible to take the former pronominal intensifier and turn it into a noun and let it carry the responsibilities which a soul had earlier had to bear. You invented psychology. You invented a blank table on which the senses wrote you you you. (Well maybe you didn't do this, and neither did I, but it seems kind of nasty to keep blaming THEM for it, so I am giving you the honor of riding out of the Middle Ages on the rail of Self.) So anyhow, I take it that behind all the political discourse of margins there is the original textual discourse, the manuscript making, the writerly image. Does that make sense? It should please any language poet, should it not? But there is another assumption I'd like to look at. Someone pointed out very usefully that poetry requires readers to learn the culture inscribed within it, before the poems make sense. Is this not also true of prose? Is it not true of the Dick and Jane readers, as well as of the James and Nora or Tom and Viv or Emily and God anthologies? Is it not true of any human utterance, or lifting of an eyebrow? I suspect therefore that it does not differentiate poetry from the rest of the noises off or on the page or stage or CD-ROM. I was thinking about this particular Silver Screen Dialogue as I was looking up, yesterday, the pseudo-Albertus Magnus Book of Secrets, in which I finally found (having looked off an on since 1980 or so) the probable source of a Latin excerpt copied about 1340 in or near Ludlow by a scribe who was a minor lawyer and probably a chaplain there. The excerpt occurs on fol. 137r of BL MS Harley 2253, and its two parts describe the herbs heliotrope (marigold) and celandine. Of heliotrope it is said that whoever gathers it in summer, when the Sun is in the Virgin, i.e. in August, and rolls it in a laurel leaf and adds the tooth of a wolf, will be able to pacify all opponents with his discourse; also, if anything has been stolen from him, and he lays this under his head at night, he will see the thief and perceive all the thief's circumstances. Further, if one places this leaf etc. inside a church within which are women who have committed adultery, none of the women shall have power to go out of that church without confessing to it. Of celandine, we are told that if one wraps it around the heart of a mole, one will successfully overcome all opponents in discourse, even litigation; and if one places the celandine and mole-heart under the head of any sick person, then if that person is fated to die he or she will begin to sing loudly, but if fated to recover will begin at once to weep. What, you may ask, has this to do with the difficulty of reading poetry, or with the alienation of poetry's audience, or with marginalizing of poetic discourse? Well, there is a poem in this manuscript (Harley 2253--in case you are interested, there is a facsimile that is Early English Text Society No. 255, 1964, edited by the great paleographer N. R. Ker; and there is an edition of the famous "Harley Lyrics" from this manuscript by G. L. Brook, as well as by various other scholars), which consists of five stanzas in each of which the poet compares the lady he is praising to something beautiful and wholesome: in stanza one, to various gems; in two, to flowers and herbs (including celandine and marigold--solsecle is the poet's term for the latter, which is derived from the Latin Solsequium that occurs in the latin excerpt I have mentioned above); in three, to birds; in four, to medicinal herbs or potions; and in five, to heroes and heroines of "romances" including Welsh, Germanic, and French prose and poetry. By now you have guessed that my point is how obscure and difficult this poem must be. It is also heavily alliterative, obviously a highly ornate piece of poetry. But one of the nicest things about it is that its poet has found a very clever way to both conceal and give away the name of the lady he is praising--I should add that in such poems, the medieval writers usually make it a taboo to name the lady, since a courtly lover's affair is actually not supposed to be made public except so far as the pair of them show the symptoms of love, and the man is allowed to "complain" in a GENERAL way, naming no names. This poet, however, has managed to name his beloved in a riddling way, in the third stanza when he is comparing her to birds: HIRE NOME IS IN A NOTE OF THE NYHTEGALE, IN ANNOTE IS HIRE NOME: NEMPNETH HIT NONE! WHOSO RIGHT READETH, RUNE TO JOHON! The clever reader or listener will easily see that the lady's name is Annote, and any medieval or medievalist with half a brain would know that that is a pet name or nickname for Agnes, so the poet is saying: Listen up now and you'll hear her name--and when you get it, whisper it to John! I think the poet could certainly expect his readers (it may have been HER readers, though we have little evidence for women lyricists in the 1300's; little is not NONE!) to get the riddle. But at that point we have another question: what's the poet doing breaking this taboo? I think the answer is that the poem is addressed to, and intended for reading aloud to, a courtly audience of men and women, and that the names Agnes and John were very common names--so that a given audience might have several women and men with those names. The "answer" would therefore become a "debate topic", and not only WHICH Agnes, but which JOHN for which Agnes, would be debated. Can we now go back to that Marigold and Celandine? The poet expects his audience to understand that the lady is not merely like flowers of various colors and fragrances, but flowers and herbs and gems and birds and medicines of various powers--reputed or real, credible or just "interesting" is not certain, according to Lynn Thorndike's History of Science account of the pseudo-Albertus Magnus BOOK OF SECRETS in which the powers of celandine and marigold are explicated, and from which the Harley 2253 scribe carefully copied those passages. The audience would not only know this plant-lore and gem-lore and bird-lore (and star-lore, since the gems and plants linked to Zodiac), but would presumably have the romances all by heart so that comparing the lady to their heroes and heroines would make as much sense as our references to Hamlet or Portia or Oedipus or Prufrock. SO, AS I SAY, I was thinking about this question of marginalizing poetry yesterday as I was dinking about the Science and History of Science shelves trying to get a little footnote finished. But you know, one reason I was doing that was that I had just read Gayle Margherita's new book on medieval literature, all the Lacan and Freud and Marx and such, and been greatly interested by her marvelous hammerlock on the poet of ANNOTE AND JOHON, who clearly was a patriarchal bastard if ever there was one. And I was the more interested because she cited Daniel Ransom's earlier book on the Harley Lyrics in which he claimed there are all sorts of obscene puns in ANNOTE AND JOHON, and it was a little hard to tell whether she thought Ransom was right or thought he was worse than the Harley Lyricist. Anyhow it occurred to me that one reason we may have a lot of non-readers of poetry is that we have convinced so many potential readers that they have to ask a professor before daring to dip into any collection of real literature. And once we ask, we are treated to an incredible pile of unbelievable interpretations, all of burning importance, all proving that every medieval poet was John D Rockefeller plus John Gacy plus the Marquis de Sade plus Faulkner's Popeye, at least when not proving that the poets were really (according to D. W. Robertson of blessed Princetonian memory) John Knox or a Polish Pope. So it is just possible that professors have marginalized their texts pretty athletically. Having perfected an Explanation Factory, having apprenticed all readers to this factory and seen to it that they are chained to the sewing machines fabricating not glosses or footnotes but literary bi-ogre-phy, we have committed them to reading poetry, fiction, essays, newspapers, laws as projections of the psyches of damaged tyrants and misers and sociopaths of various talents and inclinations. Well, maybe that is just auld, lang, and syne. But having got into the Science section of our library, and actually found a book on the shelf that was said by the computer system to be there, and got the footnotes, and read the intelligent and interesting discussion by Margherita (U of Penn Press, 1994; well worth reading, lots besides the problematic misreading of the Harley Lyrics), and so on, I managed to get a copy of the magazine SCIENCE and look at its piece casting doubt on the existence of Black Holes (Jeez, how to write a headline for THAT?!) and another on the anniversary of Oncogene Research in which Harold Varmus, head of NEH and recent Nobelman for that work, had a few things to say and I was reflecting on what a good student of English Literature Varmus had been at Amherst College when I was a junior instructor there. And I kept thinking, you know, if I pick up SCIENCE, I expect to get news, some surprises, some revisions. If I pick up a journal of poetry I don't expect that. Is that maybe one reason people don't pick up poetry journals? But of course scientists complain of being marginalized too. I read that 14.7% of Math Ph.D.'s are going unemployed. Wonder what kind of poet Harold Varmus would have made? You must have asked me the question I am about to answer: How to get back into the text people read? The answer is: be a good host. You let some of the guests tell stories too. You answer questions, you bring other characters onto the show. You treat readers as guests, and not as unworthy approachers of your throne. I bet this will make quite a few readers--especially some who class themselves as poets--mad as hell. I bet the romantic view of poets as dictating rather than as entertaining is still the going thing. I bet the view of readers as not deserving of the wonderful stuff poets are writing is the common one. I bet poets still think of themselves as abused victims of the Philistine masses. And of course the damnable truth is that I write what I please and invent, afterwards, excuses, rationales, explanations which may have little to do with motives and techniques and processes of the actual writing. Still, it seems to me poetry is intended to be a shared thing, a way of getting together with people and things and creatures, not a way of walling out or walling in only. A really great poet should do what Shakespeare did, or Dickens, take a popular medium and make it bear great poetry. The rest of us can try to do that and no doubt fall way short. But I still think if we do it right people will laugh with us, go up the mountain with us, because they will find our words help them, speak to them, make sense of experience they know personally and closely. Sometimes it even seems that really good poetry is whatever people read for themselves because they need it. But that would allow the directions for microwaving a tuna casserole to be poetry, I suppose. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 13:18:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins, cont. (fwd) Forwarded message: From daemon Tue Jan 10 10:35:40 1995 Message-Id: <199501101535.KAA22368@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 09:48:37 -0500 Reply-To: Teaching the American Literatures Sender: Teaching the American Literatures From: "tamlit@guvax.georgetown.edu \"Randy Bass\"" ***JRNL: T-AMLIT JOURNAL*** Two more contributions to the lively thread relfecting on the marginalization (alleged?) of poetry within the academy. RB **************************************************************** (1) From: IN%"tpetrosk+@pitt.edu" "Anthony R Petrosky" Subj: RE: JRNL: Poetry on the Margins, cont. I would like to respond to a few things Ron Silliman mentions in his reponse to our responses to the Poetry on the Margins questions. I thought his comments on the communities of poets helps a lot. They are everywhere, in towns and boroughs, on electronic boards, in letters that they exchange with each other. More so I suspect than 10 or 20 years ago and I take that as hopeful. I'm not as interested as he is, though, in setting up good guys and bad guys in the language of the establishment poets and the others, more particularly the Language Poets. I remember being very excited about what was happening in Language Poetry when Ironwood did an issue devoted to the work, but itdidn't seem to me then nor does it seem to me now that Language Poetry needs to have the establishment to stand against in order to be language poetry in the Objectivist tradition and to extend that tradition. I feel thesame way, for example, about Gluck and Olds. They represent different traditions, different extensions of those traditions, but they don't need to position the other as the blackhat in order to be credible. The philosophy and language of each is not the others but so what. I think of a recent poem by Elaine Equi that goes like this: PRESCRIPTION Take Herrick for melancholy Niedecker for clarity O'Hara for nerve The poem, for me, says there are different things totake fromm differnt poets. So the, for teaching, it becomes a question ofhowto putbefore my students, most of whom are not readers of poetry or fiction, contemporary poetry so that they would be willing to contiue to read and perhaps to write it. Ithink then of letting them see the difference rather than, say, presenting them with just my preferences, and letting them write and talk about the difference to see for themselves what might be available to them from modern poetry. Sure I have a theory of organization and history, as Ron points out, and I can certainly see his suspicion of it as I would be suspicious of other teachers and their agendas if I had one I was proposing over others, but it isnot ppossible to not have, even in the slightest way, a theory of organization and history. At best, I think, I can see mine, such as it is, and be up front with my students about where I come from and how I organize. This is a related problem to thinking about teaching any texts, it seems. I don't want it to prevent me from presenting modern poetry to my composition students or my intro. to lit. students or my school of Ed. students who want to be secondary teachers. Most of them know almost nothing about poetry. They have smatterings of Frost, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson in them, but what they have read usually stops there. The don't kow about the communities of writers in magazines like AMERICAN VOICE or the ST.MARKS POETRY PROJECT NEWSLETTER. So it's not that I would propose that there is a "defining privilege for the classroom in determining the answer to the question" of why poetry is marganilized but thatI would propose the classroom, all kinds of classrooms (e.g., religious studies, composition, educational methods, and so on)as places where poetry can be a part of the curriculum to address questions in those subjects and areas, to be, that is, a part of the conversations of thinking about, say, soul, or language and culture, or American traditions. It is within thiscontext, the one that has to do with speaking to my collelagues about why I might include poetry in these courses, that I locate the problem of poetry on the margins. THe other issues, the unchanged state of distribution of poetry, Bill Moyers and Robert Bly, the creation of good guys and bad guys in poetry weren't my subjects in the last postings, although those seem to me to be certainly related issues. My expeerience is that my colleagues, college and secondary English teachers, by and large are not familiar with the vaariious traditions and commnities of poets or fiction writers, and I'm interested in how this might be changed and I see a place to begin in my immediate teaching by positioning poetry as a serious voice avaailble to my students. I still don't see theusefulness of fractionalism. As poets it is possible to discuss poetry that is not the poetry we write or prefer without positioning it to be establishment, representative of larger social forces, bad, and so on. The difference is a place for discussion rather than dissmisal. In the movesof dismissal and disparagement the new boss--the culturall critique--is the old boss--New Critical critique--with another name and another set of terms. It'sthe same end game: who shall be judged or critiqued the true (and we all know about the will to truth now, don't we, from Foucault for instance), with the same divisiveness, and I don't think that helps poetry communities, poetry, or my thinking about howto present poetry to my students and colleagues. I like theEqui poem and what it proposes. Locate me there. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (2) From: IN%"lauter@Mail.Trincoll.Edu" "Paul Lauter" 8-JAN-1995 17:47:48.97 Subj: Poetry at the Margins I want to pick up on one of Ron Silliman's side comments, which criticized me for making what he called "a gratuitous (and completely reductive) slap at the avant-garde tradition (w/o recognizing it as the only 'international' literary tradition the world has ever had)." Ron is certainly right in criticizing the offhand way I criticized the tradition of Eliot and Pound, and many of their successors. One shouldn't do that in a sentence, any more than one should attack the equally pernicious impact of abstract expressionism and its apologists, like Hilton Kramer, in a sentence. I didn't want to repeat what I had written at length elsewhere--there's one piece coming out in an NCTE volume edited by Jim Slevin and Art Young and another in the next issue of the Yale J of Crit. In both I reflect on the powerful hold that the critical tradition derived from Eliot, Pound, Ransom, Brooks, etc. has had even on those of us committed to a revisionist canon. I think that hold is most of all demonstrated in the New Critical ways in which poetry continues largely to be taught, especially in secondary schools. And in the ways we conceive--even in a revisionist anthology like the HEATH--literary/ historical conceptions like "modernism." Here it's worth considering the other post, from an unnamed high school teacher, that appeared with Ron's post. The teacher mourned the fact that his or her students don't share a great deal of the culture assumed even by relatively approachable poets like Frost. Thus the teacher is put in the position of being the class expert--nothing wrong with that, as such, and probably inevitable in many situations. Yet for students, in my observation, that turns poetry into a puzzle to which an observably more "mature" person has the key, rather than into a form in which they may participate. I think the result of this dynamic is to create among many and perhaps most students a kind of fear and loathing, a sense that poetry, writing in general, is something done by people other than themselves, different from them, distant from them. And that, it seems to me, is precisely the intent of Eliot's form of modernism--see, for example, his comments on the special qualities of the poet's "sensibility" in "The Metaphysical Poets." Eliot's point, I would argue (after Adreas Huyssen in "Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism's Other," AFTER THE GREAT DIVIDE), is precisely to create the critical and teaching apparatus that underwrites the elite forms of poetic practice he helped develop. This is still a shorthand form of the argument, to be sure. And one can speculate about Eliot's psychology--as in "Tom and Viv"--or about the conservative politics he shared with the founders of the New Criticism. Those are interesting issues, to be sure. But here I only want to suggest that the continuing impact of this tradition is to help create distance between many people who pass through the educational system and those forms of language designated within it as "poetry." Underlying the argument is, of course, the question of what we agree to call "poetry." It's the issue Cary Nelson powerfully joins by, for example, quoting H.H. Lewis' little argument about material conditions and consciousness: Here I am Hunkered over the cow-donick, Earning my one dollar per And realizing, With goo upon overalls, How environment works up a feller's pant-legs to govern his thought. (Thinking of Russia) Let's leave it at that for the time being. Paul Lauter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 21:55:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel DuPlessis c/o Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Call for MLA Papers / 20th c. American Division X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET Call for Papers Twentieth-Century American Division 1995 Modern Language Association Three topics: 1. The Literary and Cultural Constructions of Twentieth-Century "Whiteness." 2. Creolization, Hybridity, Syncretisms and Mixings--theory and practice. 3. The Zone of Walden. Hybrid genres--essay, poetic essay, essay-poem. Deadline: Submit up to a two-page abstract, with affiliation and one paragraph brief biographical note by March 15 to Program Chair: Rachel DuPlessis English Department, 022-29 Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 or 211 Rutgers Avenue Swathmore, PA 19081-1715 Phone inquiries to (h) 610-328-4116. Sorry no e-mail. Persons must be MLA members to offer papers. Persons may undertake one paper per MLA. The 1995 MLA will be in Chicago. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 11:54:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: possibilities for readings We've got a number of reading series going on in Washington, D.C. these days and are always interested in readers. No money to offer at this time, but anyone who's thinking about coming through should contact me via e-mail, and I'd be happy to see what I can do. Mark Wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 14:14:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: New Electronic Poetry Center Features In-Reply-To: <199501100102.AA01715@panix.com> LOSS, I notice a lot of back and forth about instructions. Having done this kind of thing for a living, I suggest you might get a good result from have a standard bulleted format for instructions, so you don't have to rely on anyones' intelligence.... to put it mildly. If this of any use... James On Mon, 9 Jan 1995, Loss Glazier wrote: > > You mention Web features, but there's no http url listed. > > Tom, > > > World-Wide Web and Mosaic Access: > > For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access, > > from your interface, choose the go to URL > > option then go to (type as one continuous string) > > gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ > > library/e-journals/ub/rift > > Perhaps I should be clearer in this "flyer" I regularly send out but > the url you would enter would start with "gopher" in the expression > above. Try it; it works! In fact the web version has begun to evolve > as much more useful. (Why the dichotomy in terms, I don't know but > apparently you don't have to have an http to have web access.) If any > snags, please feel free to let me know, on or off the list. For those > with a graphical interface, there are increasingly more graphics, > etc., as in decorating the home. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 17:31:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: New Electronic Poetry Center Features In-Reply-To: <199501112021.PAA03027@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "James Sherry" at Jan 11, 95 02:14:23 pm > LOSS, > I notice a lot of back and forth about instructions. Having done this > kind of thing for a living, I suggest you might get a good result from > have a standard bulleted format for instructions, so you don't have to > rely on anyones' intelligence.... to put it mildly. James, This is a wonderful thought! The problem is the old thinking-on-your- feet angle. In other words, things are changing so fast that it's not only the challenge but the luxury and joy of maintaining such a "center." Dichotomies seem to be the crux of the issue. We originally designed everything for gopher but as the Web grew, that became preferable. And the small details, now able to load numerous graphics and sound files into the system, it's incredible to watch it grow. It's not just the challlenge but the thrill of it. Now, even as we discuss this, I learn that an http address will have been shortly instituted. So an announcement there will be shortcoming! Only to say I try to stay on it, here we go, and the present possibilities are immense... Best wishes, Loss ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 20:51:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: Listings Hi, folks. I've been meaning to respond to Charles Bernstein's invitation to post information about our press at least since October, but haven't had the time or energy to sit down and write up a proper description until now. Viet Nam Generation, Inc. is a small literary and educational nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. I founded it in 1988 when I was a grad student in American Studies. Viet Nam Generation, Inc. was founded to support the publication of an interdisciplinary journal, _Viet Nam Generation_, dedicated to providing a forum for scholars, artists and activists interested in the 1960s in the U.S. and internationally. Now the journal is entering its seventh volume-year. In 1990 we started publishing a line of monographs, fiction and poetry related, in some fashion, to our subject area of the 1960s. We've currently got 27 titles in print (including those forthcoming in 1995). I was joined in my endeavors by my partner Dan Duffy (in 1991) and Steve Gomes (in 1993). We continue to work full-time on a volunteer basis, but hope to be stable enough to pay small salaries by the end of 1995. Viet Nam Generation, Inc. also sponsors the Sixties Project, a collective of scholars interested in the 1960s, housed at the Institute of Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. As part of the Sixties Project we maintain the electronic discussion list SIXTIES-L. POETICS readers might be interested in the publications listed below. As you'll notice, many of the books are in our "White Noise" series. I think we may be the only press admittedly publishing middle-aged white guys as an ethnic group. Our other series is titled "Widespread Panic," and features a variety of poets whose work is distinguished by its confrontational nature.... Best, Kali Tal Viet Nam Generation, Inc./Burning Cities Press 18 Center Rd., Woodbridge, CT 06525 FAX: 203/389-6104 Email: kalital@minerva.cis.yale.edu ________________________________ VIET NAM GENERATION/BURNING CITIES PRESS POETRY PUBLICATIONS _Viet Nam Generation: A Journal of Recent History and Contemporary Culture_. Accepts poetry submissions. We're looking for work which can be at least loosely related to the 1960s in subject matter, influence, politics, or form. Length is no object--we've published everything from short-shorts to 30-page cycles. We usually produce double-issues, so the journal effectively comes out twice a year, averages 220pp, perfect bound, with no advertising. There are only three of us reading all poetry submissions and responding to authors, so it sometimes takes us a while (up to 4 months) to respond. We publish 15-20 poets in an issue. Sample copies are available for $15 each. AMATO, JOE. _Symptoms of a Finer Age_. 92 pages, perfect bound, paper, 4-color cover, forthcoming March 1995. White Noise #5. ISBN: 1-885215-12-6. Joe will no doubt blush when he reads this (hi Joe!), but we think the world of him. Joe teaches English and composition at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His technical expertise is combined with passion, a fine ear for language, and a strong sense of social justice. Reading his work is like watching a skilled professional put on a stunning display of Fourth of July fireworks--even the most cynical can't help being taken in by the magic. We figure that 25 or 30 years from now, when the lit critters look back and marvel at the wealth of talent that Viet Nam Generation, Inc. has managed to assemble, we'll be most appreciated for showcasing Joe.... BARKER, DAN, _Warrior of the Heart_. 276 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, 1992. ISBN: 0-9628524-7-3. $15. When Dan Barker's manuscript came "over the transom," we knew it was the answer to our publishing prayers. What arrived that day was one of the finest Viet Nam war narratives that we'd ever read. And we'd read hundreds. We never did figure out if _Warrior of the Heart_ was poetry or prose, and we don't really care. It's fucking beautiful, and it doesn't flinch. Dan Barker served as a naval corpsman attached to the Marine Corps in Viet Nam. He is the founder and director of The Home Gardening Project, which has built over 1,100 raised-bed vegetable gardens for the aged, disabled and single-parent families of Portland, Oregon. CHRISTOPHER, RENNY, _Viet Nam and California_. 82 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming September 1995. Widespread Panic #2. ISBN: 1-885215-13-4. Renny's poems are strong and straightforward. They tell the story of a woman's coming-of-age in the period during and after the Viet Nam war, and of her relationships with several Viet Nam veterans. These spare portraits are grounded in Renny's solid sense of herself as a woman with working-class roots. COLEMAN, HORACE, _In the Grass_. 84 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming October 1995. Widespread Panic #3. ISBN: 1-885215-17-7. Horace is an African-American rebel poet. His early Viet Nam war poetry was featured in the first collections assembled by W.D. Ehrhart and First Casualty Press, and his poem gave the title to Ehrhart's _Carrying the Darkness_ anthology. Over the years Horace's tongue has sharpened and his anger has been refined into the razor bite of _In the Grass_. This is a long overdue collection of his work. CONNOLLY, DAVID, _Lost in America." 72 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, 1994. White Noise #1. ISBN: 1-885215-00-2. $12. David Connolly was born, raised, and still lives in South Boston. He was a nineteen-year-old infantryman in Viet Nam--the product of a close Irish Catholic, pro-IRA, working class family. During his year at war he became sick at heart over what his country was doing to a people whose lifestyle and struggle he came to see as being closely related to that of his own heritage. A quarter of a century later, Connolly still makes those connections with passion and power. We just put this book out, so the reviews haven't started to filter back to us yet, but David gave a reading at a conference we held in November and in December we got 15 orders for his book from professors who wanted to use it in literature courses. EHRHART, W.D., _Just for Laughs_. 84 pages, perfect bount, paper, 4-color cover, 1990. ISBN: 0-9628524-0-6. $10. By his writing and editing, W.D. Ehrhart made it possible to be a Viet Nam veteran writer. By his continued work, Ehrhart has become the conscience and inspiration for those who have been sparked into literature by seeing the American war machine on parade. _Just for Laughs_ brings poems addressing Ehrhart's return to Viet Nam, his marriage and family life, and the American wars in Central America. The final poems of this book summon Ehrhart's nightmare past as a Marine in Viet Nam, and evoke his pessimism about the future, from a sense that embraces the present with care and fear. "W.D. Ehrhart continues to deserve recognition, perhaps more than any other, as the Vietnam author in his generation who in fact made the idea of such a thing possible in the first place." --Philip D. Beidler, _Re-Writing America: Vietnam Authors in their Generation_. JAFFE, MAGGIE, _Continuous Performance_. 64 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, 1990. ISBN: 0-9628524-6-5. $10. Maggie Jaffe, peace activist and poet, interrogates the images of empire that form American ideals of war. She places "Viet Nam" in a continuum of aggression that begins with the Pilgrim Fathers and extends through the secret wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Her short poems are connected to the historical record by direct reference and opinionated statement. "Maggie Jaffe's new poems expose the rot behind the baby pink veneer of our image makers. Her verse is boldly political, her human commitment passionate and profound." --Marianne Hauser. "_Continuous Performance_ stands out as a testimony that Maggie Jaffe was not silent, when the times demanded that poets write about important issues." --Jon Forrest Glade, _American Book Review_. LIEBLER, M.L., _Stripping the Adult Century Bare_. 88 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming March 1995. White Noise #6. ISBN: 1-885215-09-6. $12. M.L. has been called a cross between T.S. Eliot and Ward Cleaver. He is a professor of English at Wayne State University, a small press publisher, and a social activist. His Magic Poetry Band regularly performs in his home town of Detroit, and occasionally tours. _Stripping the Adult Century Bare_ is an anthology of Liebler's new and older verse, focusing on the impact of the 1960s on his life. His heroes are Jesus and John Lennon. "M.L. Liebler is a tremendous source of poetry energy in the The Motor City and beyond." --John Sinclair. "M.L. Liebler is a complex mix of poet, university professor, performance poet, Lollapalooza performer and Christian writer... he has played a vital role in keeping the poetry scene alive during its dark days of the 70s and 80s." --_The Detrois News_. "M.L. Liebler is a piece of the reality poetry needs to stay alive. Alive, and kicking, not forgetting the hurt Americans inflict on themselves, each other, and the world--but ready to fight, and sing, the song of hope. He is a beacon! More power to Mike, and to the republic (of poetry and love) for which he stands." --Alice Ostriker MCCARTHY, GERALD, _Throwing the Headlines_. 72 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming April 1995. White Noise #4. ISBN: 1-885215-12-6. $12. Gerald McCarthy is well known to those who study the soldier-poets of the Viet Nam war. This collection spans two decades of McCarthy's work and is an important new contribution to the field of Viet Nam war poetry. The poems in _Throwing the Headlines_ reflect McCarthy's continuing passion for peace and justice. QUINTANA, LEROY, _Interrogations_. 102 pages, perfect bound, paper, 4-color cover, 1990. ISBN: 0-9628524-5-7. Introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa. $10. The cover of this book features a watercolor made from a snapshot of Quintana's Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. The short poems inside make art of the brief glimpses of his tour in Viet Nam. The collection of sharp, sudden poems from Viet Nam mounts to a longer moral address to then-President Bush, written just after the Gulf War. Introduce yourself to the details of jungle fighting, the perspective of a Chicano soldier, and the mature view of a poet who was a soldier once. "The characters in _Interrogations_ have been given genuine depth, and in a few succinct lines they emerge as sharply defined human beings...." --Jon Forrest Glade, _American Book Review_. RICHMAN, ELLIOT, _Walk On, Trooper_. 92 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, 1994. White Noise #2. ISBN: 0-9628524-9-X. $12. Elliot Richman published his first poem in 1984, when he was forty-two years old. Since then, his work has appeared widely in the small press. In 1993 he was awarded fellowships for his poetry by both the NEA and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Asylum Arts has published is two previous collections, _The World Dancer_ and _Honorable Manhood_. Not a veteran, Elliot has probably published more individual poems about the Viet Nam war in more literary magazines than almost any veteran writer. His passion and preoccupation (some might even say obsession) fascinated us, and we felt that we needed to collect his Viet Nam war poems and publish them under one cover. Bill Shields, cowboy poet and hardcore combat vet (_Southeast Asian Book of the Dead_ and _Human Shrapnel_) has this to say about Elliot's work: "_Walk On, Trooper_ is one fucking real book. A straight walk into the beast with eyes wide open; it is the best--and I mean the best--book I've seen on the Viet Nam war. He went into hell to write it." We don't know if we completely agree with Bill, but we're sure that _Walk On, Trooper_ is mesmerizing. RITTERBUSCH, DALE, _Lessons Learned_. 82 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming July 1995. White Noise #7. ISBN: 1-885215-08-8. $12. Dale Ritterbusch began writing the poems in this volume over twenty years ago, while sitting in a class on M-60 emplacement in OCS at the Infantry School at Fort Benning. He's been writing ever since. Ritterbusch teaches English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His poetry came to our attention through the recommendation of W.D. Ehrhart, who discovered Dale years ago, while Ehrhart was compiling the poetry for the anthology _Carrying the Darkness_. A version of _Lessons Learned_ received a publication grant in 1984 from the Ohio Arts Council, but the pressn which had committed to producing the book folded before it could be published. We are proud to produce a long-delayed volume which we are sure will become an instant classic of Viet Nam war literature. VANCIL, DAVID, _The Homesick Patrol_. 72 pages, perfect bound, paper, 2-color cover, forthcoming June 1995. White Noise #3. ISBN: 1-885215-15-0. $12. David Vancil served in Vietnam in 1969 in Khanh Hoa Province as a military advisor. He is a rare books librarian and small press publisher. David is the author of an earlier volume of poetry titled _The Art School Baby_, and is working on a memoir titled _The Sanest Man in Vietnam_. His verse is disciplined and elegant, the work of careful literary artist. ______________ Make check or money order payable to Viet Nam Generation, Inc. All individual orders must be prepaid. We accept purchase orders from bookstores and libraries. Shipping is included in the price. We do not accept returns unless books are received in damaged condition. Orders Dept. Viet Nam Generation, Inc. 18 Center Rd., Woodbridge, CT 06525 FAX: 203/389-6104 email: kalital@minerva.cis.yale.edu Kali Tal Sixties Project & Viet Nam Generation, Inc. 18 Center Rd., Woodbridge, CT 06525 203/387-6882; fax 203/389-6104 email: kalital@minerva.cis.yale.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 01:34:45 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Clark Subject: RADDLE MOON listing In-Reply-To: <199501120235.SAA00631@catacomb-e1.sfu.ca> from "Kali Tal" at Jan 11, 95 08:51:04 pm RADDLE MOON listing Here's some information on current and future issues of *Raddle moon*. Thanks to Charles Bernstein for suggesting these listings. The expanded editorial collective is currently reading manuscripts; we are especially interested in looking at image/text, collaborative work, "engaged criticism" (these terms! try: poetics of criticism [ref. Spahr et al]; see e.g. most reviews and essays recently published in RM), long works, translation-based work, and work by women. Susan Clark clarkd@sfu.ca ************************* RADDLE MOON (Vancouver) edited by Susan Clark with new editors (beginning #13): Catriona Strang, and Lisa Robertson and new contributing editors: Nicole Brossard (in Qu bec); and Norma Cole (in San Francisco) ********************* CURRENT ISSUES: ********************* RADDLE MOON 13 (available): new work by Vancouver writers Dan Farrell, Christine Stewart & Paul Mutton; and Calgary writer, Yasmin Ladha the second round of the Women/Writing/Theory project with contributions by Chris Tysh, Johanna Drucker, Jean Day, Susan Clark, Abigail Child, & Juliana Spahr; an excerpt from the Lyn Hejinian/Leslie Scalapino collaborative project *Sight*; three Dante translations by Bruce Andrews (from *EARTH*); work by Sianne Ngai and Juliana Spahr; reviews of Dahlen and Samuel Beckett ********************** RADDLE MOON 14 (forthcoming, spring, '95): work by Vancouver writers Deanna Ferguson, Gerald Creede, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Lissa Wolsack, Judy Radul (cover image), and (former Vancouverite) Kevin Davies; two long pieces by Bob Perelman, "A False Account of Talking with Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes in Philadelphia" [late night on the heaven channel] and "The Manchurian Candidate: a remake"; multi-language poems and image/text pieces from Anne Tardos; and others. ************************ RADDLE MOON 15 (open for submissions): special section on younger French women writers, edited by Stacy Doris and Norma Cole; photo-based images by Rhoda Rosenfeld ************************************* COVER ART : We are soliciting images for our covers. Our bias is photographic and photo-based work. Please note: our new size is: 6 1/4 " x 8 " with 4" french flaps; cover images wrap around, so can be various proportions/dimensions with a maximum 8" height. Please query first. ************************************* SUBSCRIPTIONS are $12 for one year (two issues) Single issues are $7; most back issues are $6 (tables of contents, details on request) Cheques/checks should be made out to RADDLE MOON. Submissions and subscriptions should be addressed to: Raddle Moon Press 2239 Stephens St., upstairs Vancouver, BC V6K 3W5 Canada US POSTAGE : through the kindness of another small press in the city, RADDLE MOON has access to the US Mail via Pt. Roberts, Wa. and can reply using your US postage if you cannot supply IRCs with your SAE. LIBRARIES can be asked to subscribe to periodicals. (Library subscribers who are patient and faithful and don't move every two years are a great boon to small publishers; getting your library to subscribe, even if you don't need the subscription yourself is one of the most useful things you can do to extend the life of your favourite magazine[s].) Libraries may subscribe through subscription services such as Faxon, Ebsco, McGregor, SMS, or a number of others. **************************************** .... next posting will do GIANTESS, our "casual irregular" ...... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 14:15:27 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Congress again Jim Warren, proprietor of the GovAccess list, published this in his latest mailing: To obtain a current list of Representatives available via email send an email message to the following address: congress@hr.house.gov Or, you can also peruse our gopher service in the House Email Addresses category at: gopher.house.gov To learn the e-mail addresses of your Senators you will need to contact them directly at 202-224-3121. House Web and Mosaic access is at: WWW = www.house.gov Hope this helps. John Krick ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 23:51:06 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: HyperText Poetry course (forwarded message) forwarded message: ------------------ Message #294 (298 is last): Date: Wed Jan 11 18:33:25 1995 From: eastgate-list-approval@world.std.com Subject: Course In Hypertext Poetry Reply-To: eastgate-list@world.std.com Robert Kendall will be teaching a class in hypertext fiction and poetry in the Spring 95 term at the New School for Social Research in New York, NY. The class will also be offered in the summer and fall as part of the New Schools Distance Instruction for Adult Learners (DIAL) program, in which all instruction takes place on-line. Kendall would like to hear from anyone at other schools that offer classes in hypertext or interactive literature. He's interested both in exchanging ideas about teaching such a class and in exploring ways his students could exchange work with students in similar programs. HYPERTEXT POETRY AND FICTION Robert Kendall 12 Tuesday evening sessions beginning Jan. 31, 1995. This course will provide an introductory survey of published interactive poetry and fiction that uses the computer monitor as its medium instead of the printed page. It will also be a workshop for students to create their own writing in this new genre. Students will explore - how the resources of the computer--hypertext, kinetic text, decision-making algorithms, randomization functions, graphics, and audio--can take literature in new directions not possible in print. - how poems and stories can assume nonlinear, reader-determined structures that emulate the dynamic nature of actual human experience, memory, and thought processes. - how the computer can combine the written tradition of literature with elements of its oral tradition, such as real-time performance (with or without musical accompaniment), improvisation, and audience interaction. Students will learn Storyspace, a program for creating hypertext, and will create and discuss their own hypertext stories and poems. The course will also cover opportunities for disseminating interactive literature through the burgeoning new field of electronic publishing. Phone or fax registration for the class is accepted until Jan. 23, in-person registration until Feb. 7. For more information about the course, contact Robert Kendall at: rkendall@mcimail.com For information about registration phone The New School for Social Research at (212) 229-5690 or send a fax to (212) 229-5648 For information about the on-line program write: The DIAL Program The New School for Social Research 68 5th Ave., 3rd Fl. New York, NY 10011 --------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Bernstein Eastgate@world.std.com Eastgate Systems, Inc. voice: +1(617) 924-9044 134 Main St Watertown MA 02172 USA fax: +1(617) 924-9051 ------------------ end forwarded message lbd ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 00:08:53 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans Subject: Defense of NEA In light of recent indications that the Republican controlled 104th Congress intends to summarily eliminate Federal funding for the arts, Jennifer Moxley and I have begun organizing an event that we would like to make known to the participants on this list. We are organizing in Providence, and we invite members of this list to organize in their cities, a "read-in" on Saturday, January 28th. We are calling the event *Freely Espousing* and welcome the adoption by others of that name. We are inviting artists, writers, publishers, scholars, students, and interested citizens to manifest their support for National Arts Funding by participating in a 5 hour read-in (1-6 pm EST) of materials partly or fully funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. We are scheduling speakers at roughly the midway point in the reading, probably from 3-4 that afternoon. If interest warrants, we will stretch both the reading and the speaking component of the event by several hours. We plan to distribute a petition and also pre-fab postcards (probably the ones The Literary Network is producing) at the event. Two weeks is a mercilessly short time in which to organize an event, but the debate on the Balanced Budget Amendment (beneath which rubric we've been told the NEA-NEH's fate will be decided) is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, January 24th. If we do not act immediately, what slim chance we have of affecting the outcome will be entirely pre-empted. Indeed, the opponents of the NEA/NEH have a clear majority on this issue and the RI Democrats that I spoke with (including people at the office of Senator Pell, architect of the NEA legislation in 1965) seem resigned to losing the Endowment. The message I got was, with Social Security on the block, no one is going to go to the wall for art. Jennifer and I chose *Freely Espousing* as the name for this event not only for its resonance in our poetic tradition, but also because the Republican attempt to completely bypass democratic procedure in their 100-day dash to the right is deeply offensive to us. Indeed, although organizing and participating in this defense of the NEA may not save the program, it could be a small but important step toward de- legitimating Newt Gingrich's show of legislative thuggery. Our message should be: this assault on the arts is symptomatic of a cynical and despicable disregard for democracy on the part of Gingrich, Dole, and their followers in the House and Senate (not to mention the Governors). We must oppose their secrecy with openness, their arrogance and greed with generosity and solidarity. Jennifer and I have had tentative discussions with people in San Diego and San Francisco about organizing parallel events on January 28th. While it is not imperative that all events take place on the same day or follow the same program, it does lend a certain credibility (as well as giving local media another "angle" on their coverage) to be able to cite other places around the country where people are convened for the same purpose. If anyone reading this post has some time to spare in the next two weeks (or knows of someone who does but isn't on this list or even on the Internet), Jennifer and I would welcome communication either via e-mail (st001515@brownvm. brown.edu) or phone (401) 274-1306. If you are willing to participate, but don't have the time to coordinate the event, let us know and hopefully we'll be able to put you in touch with someone where you are. From our standpoint, self-organization is the best solution, but we want to keep communication lines open so people in one area can act with knowledge of what others, in other areas, are doing. While Jennifer and I share the misgivings others on this list have voiced about the NEA's unresponsiveness to valid poetic work, we believe that dismantling what should be further democratized is not an acceptable alternative. The fight for the NEA should simultaneously be a fight to make it responsive to your concerns as writers, artists, and, in the case of the NEH, scholars. We hope to hear from some of you in the next days. Happy New Year! Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley 61 E. Manning St., Providence RI 02906-4008 (401) 274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 00:02:13 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans/Jennifer Moxley Subject: Freely Espousing Regarding our announcement of *Freely Espousing,* an event in defense of the NEA to take place on January 28th, we can now provide names and phone numbers for contact persons in two West Coast cities. Craig Foltz is the San Diego contact. His phone number is 1-619-291-4945. Craig graduated from UCSD and is currently in the MFA program at San Diego State. He co-edits a zine called )39. Kevin Magee is the San Francisco contact. His phone number is 1-510-527-9485. Kevin's book, *Tedium Drum,* was recently published by Lyric&. Kevin and his partner, Myung Mi Kim, have just started a monthly *Salon de Refuse* in SF and have been kind enough to let us build off the organization already in place because of their iniative. Craig and Kevin have undertaken to serve as initial points of contact and organization in their respective cities, but both could use a hand--especially from people in their areas with access to the Internet. If you are interested, either contact them directly, or send a post to us and we'll put you in touch with them. We hope to have established contact people in other cities in the next few days. If there is a critical mass of already (or *almost*) organized writers & artists in your area, please consider mobilizing with us on the 28th. Finally, we are trying to build a list of texts that in some way exist because of NEA monies so that people can begin compiling materials for the "read-in." If you can take ten minutes to scan your minds and libraries for work that can be included on a skeleton-list of such texts, your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Just post to us off-list and we will make sure a master copy gets compiled and distributed to the contact people in various cities. Thanks to everyone and remember, Freely Espouse today or Forcibly Emigrate tomorrow. Jennifer Moxley & Steve Evans 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 16:44:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Eric Mottram: In Memorium X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET X-cc: cris@slang.demon.co.uk Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995 3:45pm NYC time Eric Mottram died this morning in London. Tom Raworth just phoned me, just while Allen Fisher was phoning Pierre Joris, both telling us that Eric had died four to five hours ago from multiple infections. He had been hospitalized a day or two ago. Eric turned 70 on this past December 29. From the introduction to *Alive in Parts of this Century: Eric Mottram at 70*, just out from North and South Press: "Eric Mottram is one of the most important figures of post-war literature and teaching. He was the first to teach Beat writing in Europe in the 1950s, the first teacher of American Studies at the University of London, and a co-founder of the Institute of United States Studies in the University of London in 1963. He edited Poetry Review in 1972-75, ran the King's Poetry Series in 1967-80 and co-edited The New British Poetry (1988). He has had two dozen collections of poetry published since the late 1960s including *Elegies*, *A Book of Herne* and *Selected Poems*. [*Selected Poems (1989) *Alive in Parts of This Century*, both from North and South, are available from Small Press Distribution.] His essay collections include *The Algebra of Need*, the first essay full study of William Burroughs, and *Blood on the Nash Ambassador*, a selection of essays. An indefatigable supporter of the most adventurous, inventive, and socially engaged poetry of the UK and USA, Mottram introduced at least two generations of poets to poetry hidden from view by the a literary establishment, on both sides of the Atlantic that, in Mottram's words, promoted a conformist poetry decoration and decorum. Mottram's own uncompromising poetry demonstrated how poetry can be political without sacrificing formal investigation. As Pierre Joris wrote of Eric's poetry -- this is work of "gut passion, crystal clarity of intellect." For *Alive in Parts of This Century*, Pierre Joris chose lines (almost all) from Eric Mottram's work for his contribution. (The format of the poem was disrupted in e-conversion; it should be flush right.) HOMAGE/COLLAGE FOR ERIC MOTTRAM @ 70 1. ...I am searching unceasingly for my own discovery" 2. it takes leisure to be a man is revolution 3. granddad, why are they all whispering? 4. this is not what I want to do, I want to know 5. an image an open hand with things in it 6. the result of composed ascent 7. concepts as modes of ordering 8. performance as what is revealed, moving outwards 9. the embryonic form of organisation 10. laughter of naked bathers 11. of transformed beings returned to the steep sea 12. break the mesh that grips us 13. an errand in wilderness 14. consult a good bookseller as to whether a book is 15. the fields of exchange 16. back there at origins a travelling forward soul springs up 17. the waterfall the illuminating gas 18.I hope this list will be regarded as an open 19. do you enter space from edges by intersecting lines 20. you eat light your eyes carry 21. a parenthesis of what is to be known 22. but a gun to show that he was a faithful private 23. in liberty a space of flame between us 24. Social roles, rituals, taboos, manners and conventions are boundaries of 25. their bark and moan songs of the story tellers 26. believe that in offering a candid account of himself he creates 27. to chose insecurity 28. gather surprise among limestone turf plants 29. The clearest example of work which actually leapt out of the area of 30. knows that the naturally depraved yearns to be a policeman 31. trample workers 32. Intelligent ones should generate the excellent Bodhi-mind 33. when creatures learn brain nucleic acids change 34. our nostrils move we stride on a hill curve air moves 35. from then on my road meets everymanUs road from the south of solitude 36. shieldless venture in adventure / we dare in the undaring sea 37. tracks laid down underwater 38. from seperate existence/this bites in my mouth your kiss 39. "Collage-design method is, as he puts it, 'transformation.' It is similar 40. neck erect for songs at a high level space/ 41. on each cusp spandrel corbel lovers beside angels 42. have you woken up mad with information 43. against fluted pillars the grainy dark of news 44. "the subversions of his own power and confidence" 45. tokens of myself brought here up through clay and soil 46. so a tongue breaks words it assumed memorized 47. the balance acts refuse sacrifice the waste loneliness 48. from a man half through our wall strides towards us parts us / and 49. few leaves touch to live a difference of breath 50. satori 51. determined not to disappear 52. living in a world more or less homicidal and desperately mercantile 53. "gut passion, crystal clarity of intellect: two energies, two modes" 54. the work: encounter between and consolidation 55. he returns me to his head 56. here rewrite the message that is you 57.shaken by the fire and darkness of his time I lived the lives of others 58. friends we need to believe 59. whereby I lived, and moved, and had my being aboard the 60. media prisons through terrors of recognition 61. three kinds of silence and movement in the long wind-strung day 62. "Mottram demonstrates how poetry can be political without" 63. a liberation into power 64. of leisure without guilt 65. shards in winter Night in Tunisia 66. fertile to recognize resemblance 67. a man goes forth stops in the sun 68. beneath light surface fold on fold 69. we to whom the world is our native country 70. "figures always foreboded, awaited, and loved rise into view" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 20:20:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Apex of the M In-Reply-To: <199501162207.OAA22314@leland.Stanford.EDU> Dear Friends: I was pleased to get the most recent Apex of the M and read the poetry with interest but I must say I was dismayed by the manifesto "The Contextual Imperative," put out by the editors. Certainly, the post-language generation has every right to want to move in different directions--that's only logical--but the slight on the L poets vis-a-vis politics seems entirely misguided. The editors write "language poetry, in reproducing and mimicking the methods and language of contemporary capitalism, ultimately commits itself to the same anonymity, alienation, and social atomization of the subject in history that underlie capitalist geo-politics." And they go on to compare the language poets to Reagan, Bush, and Quayle! Come on now! Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, Bob Perelman, Charles Berstein, (the most "political" of the L poets) reproducing and mikcing the language of contemp capitalism!? Just the opposite was/is true--these poets have worked very hard and put themselves on the line to break down language so that it couldn't function as the voice of "contemporary capitalism." At the same time, what about the editors? The sentence above is distinguishable from capitalist geo-politics??? How can it be when it is a tissue of cliches. The very phrases "contemporary capitalism," "social atomization" "capitalist geo-politics" are nothing but buzz words of the type one hears/sees on TV every minute. Whose capitalism? Japanese? U.S.? Serb? what's it really like? What "social atomization" precisely are we talking about? And let's look at that language in, say, Silliman's work and read it against Quayle's and see if it really IS like that., And then what in hell is 'radical transparency"? Literally, it means that language is absolutely see-through, which means what language you use doesn't matter because you want to get behind it to the Big Ideas. But the danger of doing this is that you start spouting the language of those "ruling classes throughout Western history" poets are supposedly oppsing. At its best, Language poetry never valorized language "for its own sake" as the editors claim. Nor is it the case that theirs is the only or hegemonic way of writing. But if language poetry is to be attacked--and don't we have enough attacks from the dominant poetic discourses already?-- it had better be attacked in a more responsible way than it is here. That means informing oneself about what's really going on around the globe and not just throwing out phrases like "Reagan-Bush" or "triumph of capital"? If there's a blueprint for a new economic program let's hear what it is. In specifics. But surely, in the heyday of Newt Gingrich it's rather ineffectual to drop phrases like "triumph of capital". A final question: who is to read the new revolutionary poetry (what it will be like remains to be seen) the editors advocate? Is poetry going to "deliver victims from the daily miseries inflicted by the politicians and the bourgeoisie?" How is this to happen? Certainly not via ignorance,as in the statement (page 7) about "wars of the West against Islam and in Asia." In Asia: Does China have no responsibility for 'wars in Asia"? Japan? and Islam:are the Islamic countries really just innocent victims of "the West"? I would think "revolution," poetic or otherwise, would require a little more analytic rigor than what we see here. Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 22:56:25 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Re: Freely Espousing In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 15 Jan 1995 00:02:13 EST from Two more cities now have contact people for *Freely Espousing* on January 28th. Jena Osman produced incredible results in Buffalo, garnering a sponsor (National Association of Artists Organizitions) and a site (Hallwalls Gallery) within about thirty minutes on a legal holiday! If you don't hear from Jena first, get in touch with her via e-mail (vz10j9vn@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) or phone (716-884-2213). In Milwaukee, Woodland Pattern had already planned a marathon fund-raising reading for the 28th. Bob Harrison is discussing with them ways of linking the events. He has also agreed to be a contact person for Milwaukee. His net address is Robert.A.Harrison@ JCI.Com. His phone numer is 414-962-5989 (home). In San Diego, Cole Heinowitz has joined Craig Foltz in organizing things. Craig's number remains the one to use and we are currently working on hooking them up with someone on the net. Two people wrote in from the vicinity of University of Virginia this afternoon, but neither felt they were in a position to organize something. Does anyone have a suggestion for a contact person in or near Charlottesville? Several people have asked about ways to identify NEA recipients. The best way Jen and I have found (besides gossip) is the *NEA Annual Report,* in book form through 1990, fiche through 1993. We found it in the Government Documents section of Brown's library (call no. NF 2.1:993). A quick scan of the 1990 awards yields many familiar names, including Leslie Scalapino, Susan Howe, Steve Benson, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Lawson Inada, and Rosmarie Waldrop. Journals that received grants that year included o-blek, Sulfur, Five Fingers Review, Conjunctions, Tyuonyi, Callaloo and others. Among the publishers there were Four Walls Eight Windows, Avenue B, Dalkey Archive, The Figures, Burning Deck. Small Press Traffic, Seque, Woodland Pattern, Beyond Baroque, Small Press Distribution, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and the Poetry Project in NYC were all granted varying degrees of organization funding. Different years of course tell different stories, and we have watched operations fold for lack of Endowment monies since 1990. Still it's worth having a browse over the history if you're not already familiar with it. Right now we're working on writing a press release (never done that before), tracking down more precise information on how the Endowment will be dealt with in Appropriations, getting something going in DC and NYC. If anyone can provide tips on any of these fronts they will be deeply appreciated. We're also trying to re-write our initial post to this list for easy travelling on local b-boards etc. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far! Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 22:15:51 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Eric Mottram: In Memorium In-Reply-To: <199501162208.OAA29148@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Charles Bernstein" at Jan 16, 95 04:44:17 pm Dear Charles Thanks for the word on Eric Mottram. That is bad news. But I had no idea that he was 70 already. We grow up many and too fast. I was reading him earlier today! GB ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 09:40:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: Apex of the M X-cc: tmandel@cais.com I originally began this as a private message to Marjorie Perloff, to tell her she'd hit the nail on the head in her comments on the Apex intro, meaning to quote to her what Hobbes said of Spinoza - _I durst not have spoke so freely_ (that's a paraphrase, source not being handy), being a Language Poet myself (wch when it happened to me meant being in a loosely-(un)defined and altogether anonymous group of abt 15-20 folks but now means being in an altogether over-commented and literally undefinable crowd of ?3-500?), but have decided to make the comment openly, wanting to add one or two things... 1. To go from the introduction of the Apex issue in question to the work gathered therein is an interesting study. Mostly what's in the issue is the work of poets in mid-career, many of whom associated (i.e. _are associated_) with LP -- how can this so-called manifesto claim them for a next or new way? 2. I believe the editors must understand themselves to have chosen these poets in mid-career as illustrative of their (the editors') sense of where poetry needs to go now, as illustrative of the ideas in the introduction. Thus, the making of manifestos (manifesti?) and new movements is reduced from that of actually creating a new poetry to being a thoughtful editor. The surrealists too had their chosen forebears to bring forward (i.e. Lautreamont), but they were rescuing work wch had been neglected and even rejected not putting together a table of contents wch cd as easily have been found in Temblor in the late 80's (obviously, _somewhat_ different) or Oblek in the earlier 90's. Moreover, the relative proportion of forebears (a few) to active perpetrants of the revolutionary new poetry (a triple handful) seems more appropriate than in the case of Apex volume. 3. Thus new tendencies in poetry as the acts of editors? Sorry, I don't think so. It's hard not to see in this volume a 2d chapter in a different town of the intentions of the editors of ACTS in SF who invented a term _analytic lyric_ which they wished to counterpose to Language Poetry, then went around telling everybody that this was what they wrote. I remember asking Benjamin Hollander (along with David Levi Strauss, the editor of ACTS) what the term meant. Mostly, his answer was that it was what I was writing! (I and others, of course - I don't mean they were vaunting me in particular) No thanks, Benjamin, I'm a language poet -- i.e. my work, wherever it goes and whoever it attracts the attention of, is historically located in that tendency. If I write rhymed couplets I'll be a langpo who does so (well,... that's _a little_ over- simplified, tho not as much as one might think: I mean it's an ostensively defined term, supplemented with interpretations wch are motivated by a desire to see our work somehow together. there's little else in common between say me and say Bruce Andrews who is a dear, old friend and comrade, or Ron or Lyn; in some sense I believe we will desire our works to be buried in a common historical grave). 4. The test of the Surrealist manifesto was the work of Breton, Eluard, Peret, Aragon, Desnos, et. al., not the validity of the ideas in the manifesto, somehow interpreted in the presence of some other test but absent the test of new work. I don't for a minute doubt the gifts or motivation of the poets who edit Apex. It would have been better, however, to place the intro before a volume of new writers who simply blew one away (and, gentle reader, you cannot imagine how intently I - and most other language poets I know, tho not all surely - await this experience), where its rodomontade, its stuffy certainties abt historical directions/needs, its empty rejection of the exact social and economic matrix which enabled it (doesn't anybody read the Communist Manifesto anymore? viz. its eloge of capitalism?) -- in such a context, all these qualities would be irrelevant in the face of the experience of a new poetry. A new poetry. We always want a new poetry. Tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 09:53:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: Freely Espousing This is great. Just got the list of this year's nea poetry fellowship awardees - got and threw away, alas, so all I can report is that Wang Ping (whom I only know as a name mentioned earlier in this same week in aconversation in NY) and Alice Notley received fellowships. Mine was a quick scan, so there are probably others whom we might know and contact on the subject. Surely, there shd be a DC aspect to this event. I can't volunteer to organize it, but do you all have addresses for Rod Smith, Joe Ross, Buck Downs, Mark Wallace or others who may be able to undertake it? I'm assuming so (and Mark and Joe at least are on this forum...). Tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:09:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Kelly Subject: Re: Eric Mottram: In Memorium Please let us honor Eric, in text and memory. How about May Day in New York, to honor the political power of his work, all his work? When Pierre called and told me of Eric's death, I thought of a day in London when Eric chided me for climbing to the top of St Pauls---bad for the health. The man cared. And knew. I wonder if any AMerican can see our work as clearly and compassionately and all round, as he did. RK ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 19:20:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Mottram : In Memory's Hum _The issue is the orphic difference... between the perpetuation of myth, and its agents, and the free- dom of the creative process...._ _Towards Design in Poetry_ / p.24 more and more people will never have known more and more people. Tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 22:21:56 -0600 Reply-To: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter quartermain Subject: Text of Robert Duncan Selected Poems I have just finished a fairly detailed draft catalogue of problems, puzzles, errors, and the like of the first 44 pages of the New Directions edition of Robert Duncan: _Selected_Poems_. The format of this list (14 pages in hard copy) is severely distorted by e-mail conversion so I cannot post it here. If anyone out there wants a copy, please let me know and I'll send it as soon as I can print one off for you. A couple of bucks ((on receipt) to cover xerox and postage is not necessary but would be helpful, especially if about fifty people want one. Let me point out, though, that unless we know the status of the copy-text, most of the "errors" I report might not be errors at all; I am however absolutely certain that the text of "For A Muse Meant" is seriously flawed, and that some of the dates are wrong. The textual history of _Medieval_Scenes_ is so complicated that it is simply impossible to say anything certain about the text in the _Selected_Poems_ of 1993, save that it agrees with that of _The_ First_Decade_, published in 1968. From the discussion in _Medieval_Scenes_1950_and_1959 (text cross-checked against the original Centaur Press edition, for there are errors in the 1978 reprint), I'm certain that it is not the text of 1947, and almost certain that it is not that of 1950. The most serious error in the book, for those who don't want the full treatment, is the substitution of "however" for "hoverer" in the 8th line of "For A Muse Meant" (pp. 35-37), and the printing of a page-wide rule in the middle of the poem (towards the foot of page 36), interrupting the text in a nonsensical way. This is a carryover from the Jargon Press edition of _Letters_: the page-wide rule is at a page break; it separates the footnote from the body of the text. The stanza itself continues without a break through that line, so you need to close up that final line of the stanza: "a con glomerations without rising". Most of the other errors are of lineation, punctuation and capitalisation, and so forth, with some quite seriously misleading dates in the table of contents. Without knowing what copy text was used in preparing this edition, it is impossible to sort out or estimate the accuracy of this text. New Directions, to whom I have sent this schedule, is no doubt gnashing its collective teeth. Peter Quartermain __________________________________________________________________________ Peter Quartermain 128 East 23rd Avenue voice and fax (604) 876 8061 Vancouver B.C. e-mail: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Canada V5V 1X2 __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 08:56:25 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: Congress again Dear Poetics folk: More info on Congressional Web access follows, this time from Teddy Kennedy's office via Jim Warren of the GovAccess list. Jack Krick CapWeb: A Guide to Congress on the WWW Thu, 12 Jan 95 09:16:45 EST From Chris_Casey@kennedy.senate.gov CapWeb is an "unauthorized" hypertext guide to Congress on the World Wide Web. Committee assignments, contact information including phone numbers, fax, e-mail addresses, state delegation lists, and party rosters are among the information that is available for every member of the Senate and House of Representatives. CapWeb will collect and maintain links to information being provided by individual members of Congress on the Internet; the Library of Congress and other Congressional agencies; state governments; political parties and other related resources. CapWeb is part of Policy.Net, a service of Issue Dynamics, Inc. and can be found at: http://policy.net kennedy.senate.gov /''''\ http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/casey/casey.html /______\ |@@@@@@@@| 202/224-3570 ||0||0||0| Office of Senator Kennedy _____/\________ " " " " "_______/\_____ Washington, DC 20510 {|| || || || || ____/\_____|| || || || ||} ______________________________{||_||_||_||_||____/__\____||_ ||_||_||_||}__ [I wouldn't normally include such an baroque "sig-file," but this is so novel that I tho't I'd inflict it on yer email. --jim] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 09:00:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ross Subject: Re: Freely Espousing In-Reply-To: <199501171527.PAA00437@purple.tmn.com> On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Tom Mandel wrote: > > Surely, there shd be a DC aspect to this event. I can't > volunteer to organize it, but do you all have addresses > for Rod Smith, Joe Ross, Buck Downs, Mark Wallace or > others who may be able to undertake it? I'm assuming > so (and Mark and Joe at least are on this forum...). > > Tom Mandel > Tom et. al. - - It is already in the works - details to follow . . . . Joe Ross ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 10:56:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: call for work for interface 10 (fwd) Forwarded message: > From interfac Sun Jan 15 14:22:01 1995 > From: Interface Ejournal > Message-Id: <199501151921.OAA07196@loki.albany.edu> > Subject: Re: call for work for interface 10 > To: joris (Pierre Joris) > Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 14:21:57 -0500 (EST) > In-Reply-To: <199501151608.LAA07044@loki.albany.edu> from "Pierre Joris" at Ja > X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] > Content-Type: text > Content-Length: 1740 > > > Call for Work > Women on the Net(work) > inter\face Electronic Literary Magazine > > > VOICES > > Voices to the left > to the right > near > and far > rise up and be numbered. > > Resurrect the voices past and present, > those lost from constant screaming, > those buried in layers of silence. > Summon them to rise as phoenixes > and proclaim > "I am woman." I, am woman. > --Tanya Manning > > "Women on the Net(work)" is the focus for inter\face's tenth > issue (coming Spring 1995). This issue is especially dedicated to > providing women writers an electronic forum for the multiplicity of > their voices. Metaphorically the title "Women on the Net(work) stands > for the magazine operating as a net to catch the multiplicity of writings > by women that may typically go unknown. > The search for subjects and forms of discourse are unrestricted. > Whether you write in a "technological/mechanical" voice or > "renaissance/romantic" style, we're interested. Whether your poems or > stories are of topical relevance to politics or race relations, women's > rights or women's magic, sexual orientation or erotica, or anything > unmentioned, we want you to contribute your work. > The criteria for this issue is simple. To preserve the writer's > integrity and promote the writer as publisher, editing of content is > minimal. In the spirit of accepting "contributions" as opposed to > "submissions," we believe in your right as a writer to say whatever > you want to say in the way you want to say it. However, we do ask of > you to limit for publishing fairness your contributions to three > separate pieces. Please send your entries no later than February 14, > 1995 to interfac@cnsunix.albanu.edu. For more information, please contact > Tanya Manning at TM5498@cnsvax.albany.edu. > ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 13:26:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Apex of the M Dear Tom--just how do you DEFINE a "poet in "mid-career""? This is delicious really. CS. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 15:57:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: JRNL: Poetry in the Margins, cont. (fwd) Forwarded message: From daemon Wed Jan 18 09:25:51 1995 Message-Id: <199501181425.JAA137972@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 23:05:07 -0500 Reply-To: Teaching the American Literatures Sender: Teaching the American Literatures From: "tamlit@guvax.georgetown.edu \"Randy Bass\"" ***JRNL: T-AMLIT JOURNAL*** Here are four more contributions (the first two fairly brief, the next two longer) to the thread of Poetry in the Margins. RBass ******************************************************************* (1) From: IN%"cjago@cello.gina.calstate.edu" "Carol A. Jago" Subj: Poetry on the Margin I was struck by the comment that poetry teachers should be good hosts. As I do with dinner guests, I try to offer my high school students some familiar poems but also some dishes they would never think of trying but so obviously related to what they know or care about that they taste. Slipping a little fried squid in with the shrimp. In one class where I ask students to write tabloid pieces to actual headlines from the Enquirer and Globe (oh, you know, RMan Glues His Butt Shut" and such), I slipped in a Lucille Clifton poem: them and us something in their psyche insists on elvis slouching into markets, his great collar high around his great head, his sideburns extravagant, elvis, still swiveling those negro hips. something needs to know that even death, the most faithful manager can be persuaded to give way before real talent, that it is possible to triumph forever on a timeless stage surrounded by lovers giving the kid a hand. we have so many gone. history has taught us much about fame and its inevitable tomorrow. we ride the subways home from the picture show, sure about death and elvis, but watching for marvin gaye. Poetry is just part of what we do in class. No big deal. You like this one, I like that one. It seldom feels difficult. Slips down like yellow peppers in oil. Carol Jago, Santa Monica High School in soggy California ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (2) From: IN%"HOGELALM@UCENGLISH.MCM.UC.EDU" "LISA M. HOGELAND" Subj: Jrnl: Poetry on the Margins, Cont. If it's not already beaten to death, I have a small thought. Why do we assume that "participation" in poetry need be writing it? I have students who claim to hate poetry precisely because they cannot imagine ever writing it (and they frequently refuse to write about it because they cannot imagine writing it). Why not participation as readers? I'm a movie junkie, but that doesn't make me want to be an actor (or even a director); I'm deeply interested in poetry, but no longer write it (one less bad poet is no tragedy). The work of readers is not to be despised or dismissed; for some students, the role of reader (and critic) is more enabling than the role of author. Lisa Maria Hogeland Univ. of Cincinnati ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (3) From: IN%"bremen@uts.cc.utexas.edu" 13-JAN-1995 08:52:00.53 Subj: RE: Poetry on the Margins Putting aside the question of whether poetry is any more on the margins than novels or drama, here's my two-cents-worth. Students have more difficulty reading poetry (and are less likely to take poetry courses) because they are taught early on that they CAN'T read it. The two main culprits--and words which have come to haunt me as a teacher--are Symbols and Themes. Ask a student (try this--I guarantee it will work), "what's the theme of Frost's 'The Road Not Taken'?" and he or she will tell you that the "theme" is that we need to dance to the beat of a different drummer (or some such variant), to boldly go where no man has gone before, and follow our hearts and be an artist. Ask then, "and what are the symbols in this poem?" and the student will dutifully tell you that the Road, of course, is the main symbol and that it symbolizes that road in life that few people dare to travel, the path off the beaten track that only poets go down. Now especially since when you actually READ the poem, you discover that there's almost no difference between the two roads ("Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same"), how do students come to these conclusions? They come to them because they were told that's what the poem MEANS (where's Archibald MacLeish when you really need him). They are told over and over that poetry (in fact, all literature) must be reduced to some moral lesson, formulable in a sentence and that they keys to these formulae are symbols--mysterious words whose true meanings are known only to English teachers, who no doubt are given some secret Book of Symbols upon graduation from English Ed. programs. Read Frost's own "Education By Poetry" and see what he has to say about these ideas. Even if we offer students more sophisticated versions of themes and symbols, we need to recognize as teachers when we are telling students what some thing means as opposed to allowing them to generate meanings. In other words, are we supplying students with the contexts in which they can build their own readings of poems or are we telling them particular allegories of meaning without showing them the contexts and ideas that foster those allegories? I think, particularly with poetry, we tell them the meaning and in doing so tell them the poem means something other than what it directly says--something they can't possibly know, because they can't possibly know as much as we do (about culture, about literature, about history, about oppression, . . . you fill in the blank). In other words, I think poetry highlights issues of power and interpretation in the classroom in ways that other genres perhaps avoid. At the very least, students feel better able to read other kinds of literature. Sorry if all this sounds a bit shrill, but I needed to get it off my chest. Brian A. Bremen William Carlos Williams Review Department of English The University of Texas, Austin Phone: 512-471-7842 Austin, TX 78712-1164 Fax: 512-471-4909 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (4) From: IN%"pamdane@efn.org" "Pam Dane" Subj: > I have been reading the posting about poetry with enjoyoment. All of the > discussions highlight the fun that I thought academic life might offer, > but often doesn't. Now I would like to add my thoughts on the subject. > First of all it is interesting that only males have been participating in > this discussion. Are women also on the electronic "margins?' Next, it > seems to me that poetry is not on the margins in academia--in fact, > school is the one place where poetry is mainstream! Where elso do so > many people aread Wordsworth and Olds? In English departments, poetry is > one of the staples--you know the canon. You can't leave school > without so to speak. Unlike some of the other "posters" (is that the > correct term?), I find students usually enljoy poetry---it's short and > fast to read (not meaning that it's easy of course). Seriously, students > do enljoy poetry and I don't think it is important for them to understand > all of the symbols and allusions in order to love poems. In fact, If > anything marginalizes poetry, it is teachers who insist that in order to > "really understand" poetry you must memorize different rhyme schemes, > symbols, etc. or you can't possibly read poetry. Why not just let > studnets readl, discuss, write, and then read some more? I ask my > students to adopt a poet. they must find a living poet who is publishing > today and then present his/her poetry to the class. They write papers on > theirs poet's poetry. Then I mank a book of all of the poems for the > class. This works really well. I also have them buy books of > poetry--let's support our poets--Rich, Love, Stafford, etc. Finally I > assign them to attend a poetry reading. I also have poets attend my classes. > Another thought, if poetry is marginalized, then what about all of the > poetry slams. Poetry readings are widely attended in my town. Olds had > standing room only. > Finally a question to Petrosky--I used lyour Ways of REading as a > test in my comp classes. If lyou teach poetry in your comp classes, then > why isn't there any poetry in lyour book? I know Rich is there, abut she > is included as an essayist. Also how does poetry work in your comp > classes with your writing philosophy. > Pam Dane > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 20:41:51 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Freely Espousing Update What follows is a longish post updating people on *Freely Espousing.* Please refer any questions to us or to the Contact person nearest you (cf. earlier posts giving that information). WASHINGTON DC As Joe Ross hinted earlier today, and as we can confirm now, Washington D.C. is the sixth city to join in our manifestation of support for the NEA/NEH. You can contact Joe at: 202-745-0454(h), 202-416-8507(w), 202-416-8585(fx). His net address is jross@tmn.com. His street address is 1719 S Street NW#2, Washington DC, 20009. Mark Wallace has also agreed to be a DC contact. His phone number is 202-637-0441(h). His net address is mdw@gwis2.circ.cwu.edu. Our thanks to both Joe and Mark! The DC events will take place at Willow St. Gallery. Contact Joe or Mark for specifics. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE Most of you will have heard by now that the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources (Chair, Nancy Kassebaum, R-KS) will begin hearing testimony regarding the Endowment on Tuesday, January 24th. We are told the Jane Alexander will testify the first day. If you were putting off writing a letter to the editor, you may wish to draft one now so that your local paper has something to hand when the NEA becomes "news" next week. You may also have heard that the House Budget Committee, chaired by John Kasich (R-OH), is currently making rescisions in FY95--i.e. cutting monies from programs that have already been allocated funds for this year. Keep a very close eye on the activities of this Committee, which is effectively serving as Newt's assassination team. BLIND SPOTS IN OUR ORGANIZING Given the rush, it's not surprising that there remain a number of places around the country where support such as we're seeing in the six cities already organized (with NYC, a seventh, still a few phone calls away from being "in") exists but is unreachable by us. Joe Ross reminded us this morning that Texas, Ohio, and Georgia are KEY places in which to rally support. Any suggestions on how to get something going there would be vastly appreciated. Even though ten days may prove too short notice to bring something off on the 28th, there's nothing wrong with bringing something together for the following weekend, etc. PRESS RELEASE With the help of Kit Robinson, we have finally composed a press release, which we will post separately to the list. We recommend that Contact people download the release and supplement it with local information. Of course, the release could also be used for re-posting to local bulletin boards and so forth. Please feel free to use, alter, or ignore the release, depending on the complexion events are taking on where you're at. EXPLOITING A STEREOTYPE OR TWO I don't know about other areas, but here in Providence several people have shown interest in two fairly incidental points about this event. 1) It is being organized by people in what the media call "gen x" (and not, e.g., by professional art bureaucrats); and (2) the Internet is involved. If it makes the difference between getting your event covered or not, Jen and I think you should consider playing to the current buzz-words on these two points. Just a thought. ALBANY We know many people in the Eastern part of the country are going to be in Albany for a gathering this coming weekend. Neither of us will be able to make it, but we hope that the incredibly e-literate bunch at Albany can keep us posted any developments, discussions, thoughts people are having about *Freely Espousing* during the weekend. HERE IN PROVIDENCE An Ad-Hoc Committee of Literary Publishers, consisting of Burning Deck, Lost Roads, Paradigm, Tender Buttons, Garlic Press, and the Impercipient, should exist by sometime tomorrow. Rosmarie Waldrop (Burning Deck) and C.D. Wright (Lost Roads) have been working hard with Jennifer and I to handle the local details. AND REMEMBER OUR MOTTO: FREELY ESPOUSE TODAY OR FORCIBLY EMIGRATE TOMORROW Regards to all, Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 21:27:25 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Press Release For Immediate Release Contact: Steve Evans 401-274-1306 ARTISTS AND WRITERS ORGANIZE TO DEFEND NEA, NEH Events Planned in Six Cities to Protest Attack on Arts Groups 19 January 1995, Providence--In response to strong indications that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress intends to summarily eliminate federal funding for the arts and humanities through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), writers, artists, scholars, and concerned citizens in a half-dozen American cities have organized *Freely Espousing,* a day of events manifesting support for public arts funding on Saturday, January 28, 1995. Begun on the initiative of two Rhode Islanders (the home state of Senator Clairborne Pell, architect of the 1965 legislation that created the NEA/NEH), the idea has spread quickly--partly through use of the Internet--to San Diego, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Washington D.C., Buffalo, and New York City. Providence organizers Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley chose the name *Freely Espousing* to underscore the vital role of the arts in a democratic society and to call attention to what they identify as a lack of rational public debate on a host of issues currently being forced through Congress under the leadership of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. The centerpiece of *Freely Espousing* events throughout the country will be a marathon "read-in" of literary works whose creation the NEA has facilitated in its thirty-year existence. A variety of speakers and round-tables are also planned. APPEND LOCAL INFORMATION HERE / ALSO, CORRECT HEADER INFORMATION ABOVE (PERHAPS GIVING EVANS/MOXLEY IN PROVIDENCE AS SECOND CONTACT?) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 23:11:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Electronic Poetry Center Newsletter #1 ____ ____ ____ / / / / / / EEEE PPPPP CCCCC EE / PP PP CC C/ EEE PPPPP CC / URL=gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/ __EE /_ PP |__ CC C ____ / EEEE/ PP/ CCCCC/ / internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift /__________________________/ |--------------------------| | Electronic Poetry Center | |__________________________| ___________________________________________________________________ E P C . N E W S No. 1 (January, 1995) ___________________________________________________________________ _Contents:_ 1.0 Basic Assumptions 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place 3.0 Interfaces: Gopher, Web, Mosaic; Bookmarks 4.0 RIF/T Notes 5.0 EPC New Additions 6.0 How to Connect ___________________________________________________________________ 1.0 Basic Assumptions The Electronic Poetry Center seeks to provide a central _place_ for Internet resources for poetry and poetics. The lay of the land: 1.__Welcome : Electronic Poetry Center Welcome & FAQ's (About)/ 2.__RIF/T : RIF/T / New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics (Texts)/ 3.__Poetics : Calendar, Poetics List Archive & Files (Texts)/ 4.__Authors : Electronic Poetry & Poetics - Authors (Texts)/ 5.__E-Journals : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Journals (Texts)/ 6.__E-Resources : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Resources (Connects)/ 7.__Small Press : Electronic Poetry Center Small Press Alcove (Cites)/ 8.__Gallery : The Electronic Poetry Gallery (Visuals)/ 9.__Sound : The Electronic Poetry Sound Room (Sound Files)/ 10._Documents : Poetry & Poetics Document Archive (Texts)/ 11._Exhibits : Electronic Poetry Center Exhibit case (Texts)/ 12._Notices : Electronic Poetry Center Announcements (Info)/ The Center continues to provide access to the electronic poetry and poetics journal, RIF/T, and the archives of the Poetics List. Needless to say, the EPC provides quality archival materials for these resources. For the Poetics archive, a feature has recently been added to allow keyword searching for the immense number of files comprising this archive. The EPC author library offers texts and/or information about contemporary poets in a variety of formats. A number of electronic journals are archived and distributed by the EPC. Journals distributed through the EPC differ from other e-journal archives in a significant way: the texts presented here have been checked and verified by their issuing agency, thus at least getting to you versions of electronic journals that have a direct link to their source. We are delighted to offer these journals to you and will continue to make sure texts presented are done so in collaboration with their producers. For resources outside the EPC, we have written links to make seamless connections to these resources. It is our aim to be vigilent about our links so that persons interested in poetry and poetics do not have to spend a lot of time digging for addresses, remembering sites, and locating resources. Through the selections available at the EPC, users of the system have simple and direct access to many other related Internet resources. The Center also provides information about contemporary little magazines and small presses engaged in poetry and poetics. Since this information is often difficult to locate, it is presented at the EPC in hopes of recongizing these contributions, facilitating communication, and providing an additional outlet for these extremely valuable print sources. Look here also for Selby's List of Experimental Magazines. The Poetry & Poetics Document Archive provides access to a number of documents of use to poets, teachers, and researchers. Here you will find essay material and current obituaries. This area should be consulted in conjunction with the Poetics Files and Small Press Sources areas, which also offer material of pedagogical use. The EPC also presently offers gallery, sound, exhibts, and an announcements area. ___________________________________________________________________ 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place Compared to say, a year ago, many people might agree that the idea of some sort of an electronic forum for poetry is not only a possibility but an inevitability. We have seen the continued growth of the Poetics List (I counted around 250 postings the month of December 1994 alone) and the development of the Electronic Poetry Center. The EPC has maintained a significant circulation. We regularly get letters from various world outposts attesting to the reality of such connectivity. Interesting also are the number of visits taking place, both locally and across distance; despite the dips and peaks that typify any active place, the EPC has seen a good amount of traffic across its doorstep. For those with such inclination (and it is illuminating that the following compare favorably with circulation statistics, say, for a little magazine) here are some numbers: _Month_ _Connects_ Nov 1994 573 Oct 1994 429 Sep 1994 367 August 1994 348 July 1994 614 June 1994 110 These statistics give only a sense of scale, it should be noted, since direct connections to EPC submenus and entries through Veronica searches, a significant number of connects, are not included in the above statistics. ___________________________________________________________________ 3.0 Interface: Gopher, Web, Mosaic Even as activities converge, it is also the time of divergent interfaces. I am often surprised by the number of our contributors and participants who do not even have gopher access. (These, again, not represented in the above statistics.) Most people, we figure, have at least gopher access, though Web access is quickly becoming a standard. Mosaic, it would be assumed, though assuming predominance in the University setting, has hardly become a reality for most dial-up users, particularly internationally. (For the sake of a common ground, gopher is an ascii-based interface that offers access through the selection of menus; the web is an ascii-based interface that offers access through _screens_ of information with links to other areas appearing as highlighted text; Mosaic is a graphical interface basically superimposed on the Web structure that offers images, sound, video, and allows you to use your mouse as a navigational tool.) The EPC is accessible through any of these interfaces. It is presently evolving strongly towards exclusive Web/Mosaic access. _Informational Notes_: (1) The standard for Web/Mosaic documents is the markup protocol called html. These are imbedded codes that you will see once in a while when you download an html document. These codes give instructions to the software about highlighting, fonts, and screen layout, as well as providing for the _hot links_ that make possible Web/Mosaic navigation. (2) A feature of these interfaces that should be mentioned is the bookmark. You may wish to investigate this as most systems allow you to set a bookmark, say at the EPC, and gain immediate access to it when you invoke your interface. ___________________________________________________________________ 4.0 RIF/T Notes Forthcoming from RIF/T are two special issues. The first of these is the Transpoeisis issue (see EPC Announcements for details) which will offer a muti-faced and multi-format approach to the presentation of translations. Also forthcoming, a planned special issue on Charles Olson. RIF/T will also soon issue the first in a series of special chapbooks. Much on the way! ___________________________________________________________________ 5.0 EPC New Additions Many additions have been made to the EPC in the past six months. Following are some of the journals archived and directly distributed by the EPC: DIU / Albany Experioddi(cyber)cist / Florence, AL Inter\face / Albany Poemata - Canadian Poetry Assoc. / London, Ontario (Info)/ RIF/T: Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics Segue Foundation/Roof Book News / New York TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition / Lakewood, Ohio We Magazine / Santa Cruz Witz / Toluca Lake, CA / via Syntax Significant connections which the EPC would like to highlight include the following: Alternative-X Basil Bunting Poetry Centre (Durham, England) [Informational] Best-Quality Audio Web Poems (Rhode Island) Carma Bums 'Tour of Words' CICNET Electronic Journal Archive Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (Virginia) Internet Poetry Archive (North Carolina) Michigan Electronic Text Archive Nous Refuse Discussion List (Illinois) Postmodern Culture (North Carolina) Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine ___________________________________________________________________ 6.0 How to Connect The Center is located at gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift Gopher Access: For those who have access to gopher, type gopher writing.upenn.edu at your system prompt. First choose Libraries & Library Resources, then Electronic Journals, then E- Journals/Resources Produced Here At UB, then The Electronic Poetry Center. (Note: Connections to some Poetry Center resources require Web access, though most are presently available through gopher). World-Wide Web and Mosaic Access: For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access, from your interface, choose the _go to URL_ option then go to (type as one continuous string) gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift (Substituting hh for 11 in the URL above may produce better results on your system.) Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access. Also ask about setting a "bookmark" through your system for quick and easy access to the Center when you log on. If you have comments or suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, do not hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier, lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu or Kenneth Sherwood, e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu ___________________________________________________________________ The Electronic Poetry Center is administered in Buffalo by E-Poetry and RIF/T in coordination with the Poetics List. Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Glazier in collaboration with Charles Bernstein __________________________________________________________________ End of EPC.News #1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 10:03:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: apex of the m... i felt i just had to weigh in here (& apologies in advance for a *long* post) with a sort of 'outsider's' response to marjorie's & tom's posts... it'll soon become apparent that my outside is another's inside & another's outside & another's inside-outside... the phenomenology is necessarily blurred, as are the borders... there's much in what both marjorie & tom say with which i find myself in essential agreement... but i believe there's a number of things that have gone unsaid, specifically in these regions, re this issue of how to address the (as i take it, ongoing) phenomenon of poetry, language poetry in particular (& i don't see the point any longer of hedging over that term ---it's here to stay)... & because i'm somewhat on the margins, if you will, of this particular discourse as far as *my* poetics/poetry is concerned, i need to wax a bit autobiographical in order to situate my remarks some... 1. i came to poetry, formally, a little over a decade ago, deciding to leave the engineering profession (& "deciding" is far too genteel a term) to pursue my desire to---as i understood it then & even to some extent now---SAY something... this is a terribly atheoretical way of putting it, i know, but fact is, the alphabet just happened to be the technology through which my saying was to take place... by way of placing things further: during approx. the years charles b. was penning the items in his fascinating collection _content's dream_, i was busy running around a brand new brewery & an aging pharmaceutical plant with a hardhat, safety glasses & earplugs, trying to resolve corrupt labor practices on the construction site & still 'get the job done,' so to speak... trial by ordeal for a young guy in his early 20s, as male as it may sound to say so... 2. so i decided, like i say, at 29, to return to school, & under the able guidance of don byrd & judith johnson at suny/albany, i picked up my doctor of arts (yep) & hit the job market, eventually ending up a decade later here in chicago, at illinois institute of technology, teaching technical & professional writing... i bet some of you could have seen this coming, but i couldn't... anyway... point is that i get questions from my tech. students, even now, that conjure up my former institutional self, & set my teeth on edge as to what it is makes a writer tick... i'm still not sure i know... 3. & fact is, over the past decade, the academic job scene has become, as we all know, miserable... & the politics of the past decade, well... i mean, i came out of the early 70s... as i progressed more & more in my saying activity as a poet, i became more & more aware of the language poets, thanks largely to the liberal learning atmosphere at albany... in any case, the work itself, the poetry, struck me as incredibly difficult, strikingly different from what i had envisioned poetry to be... i never quite came to aesthetic terms with works such as, say, ron silliman's _lit_---& i take this to be a mark of my own poetic limitations, tastes, etc. (but i'll come back to this question of how to evaluate aesthetic practice)... at the same time, i found myself engrossed in the sorts of debates over poetic practice that (had & have) emerged from this collective enterprise, & although i found the work, contextually speaking, a reaction in some ways to the political realities of the day (this is not a political assertion per se, but an aesthetic assertion---& methinks one would be well-advised not to read political ethos too closely into aesthetic articulations), i nevertheless recognized that these folks were *serious* about what they were doing... & at the same time, it was clear to me that they were constructively self-conscious as to their respective institutional histories... they were, in all, i felt (& still feel) against the grain... 4. but the scene, the academic scene (as i've said) was getting tighter & tighter job-wise... & in fact that the language poets were, relatively speaking, fully theorized (if for some, theoretically overdetermined) played well in light of the american academic tendency toward theory... at least, this is how i read the situation, in broad strokes... hence folks like charles bernstein [sorry for picking on you, charles!] thankfully found their way into 'the academy'... &, i might add, this development was long overdue... 5. but my 'initiation,' if you will, into the community of language poets---& i'll refrain from speaking in terms of 'generation' & the like, & by 'initiation' i mean simply acquaintance/friendship & the like---didn't really come until march 1993, at the new coast conference... my colleague & friend here andrew levy had been invited to speak, so i decided (again!) to attend to promote my own little venue.... there i stood during the day, my kinko-green sheets in hand (as some of you may recall), trying to get participants interested in my electronic writing collective, *nous refuse* (juliana spahr & i had discussed the electronic stuff electronically prior to the conference)... i found the general tenor of the conference, at the time, extremely exclusive at times... that is, i felt my place in the proceedings marginal at best, & i found the overarching discourse, what with presumptions as to a 'new coast," downright presumptuous... in retrospect, this was a somewhat hasty judgement, to the extent that many folks at that conference knew each other, had shared histories, whereas i had no reason to expect these folks---strangers initially---to understand either me, say, or my electronic orientation ipso facto... but there was, i'll maintain, an (unintended) air at the conference, to one such as me, of self-importance---not perhaps entirely without warrant, but perhaps a bit off-putting initially to other sorts of aesthetic orientations... i mean, one can't be all things to all people, but then, i thought, just who were these people? (many of whom were a good deal younger than me, albeit no less equipped to discuss their craft)... 6. before i entirely alienate many of you out t/here, i wish to state as clearly as possible that the thing that's really struck me since march '93 has been the *generosity* of the folks i met at buffalo, thereby invalidating my hasty evaluation as to 'exclusivity' & the like, at least in personal terms ... near everybody i met there, & have since met, who are linked in some way with that group (if i may) has been extremely interested in discussing & promoting poetic practice---alternative, mainstream, what have you... sometimes the discussions are heated, yes---but this need not be a sign of agon, simply of commitment... i've found the group in general to be among the most tolerant & supportive around when it comes to appreciating aesthetic diversity, whatever one's "taste" (& no, i don't wish to neutralize this latter category, simply to bracket it for a moment)... in fact it might be argued that this (now somewhat academically centered) group is far more tolerant than most academic press poetry groupings... i'll leave this latter speculation to this list's collective imagination... 7. but ysee, now that i've discussed Personalities-Writ-Large, as it were (hopefully in the process avoiding any unnecessary vitriole from whatever quarter, incl. mine) i need to come back to this issue of aesthetic practice---not 'vs. political practice,' not even 'as informed by political practice'---i wanna talk aethetics as such for a moment, and bracket for a change---not the social, but the political per se... i can't hope to lay out parameters here---this is not what i'm about, in any case... & i'm with tom as to the necessity of practicing what (& mebbe AS) you preach... but at the meta-level, anyway: what i see the need for at the moment is less manifesto (& this reverses my sentiments of a coupla years back) & more a discussion, in critical terms, of how to situate the artist/poet amid this increasingly academic environs... what is the purpose of poetry in shaping even, for example, the *poetic* part of one's world?... i'm a persistent promoter, on the one hand, of things electronic, & i might even be heard to drone on occasionally as to the more existential or pleasure-based or non-utilitarian value of the various pursuits in which i indulge myself... on the other hand, it's lost on me not for a nanosecond that this text, & those prompting it, come to you-us courtesy of our postsecondary institutions (similar such entities being where *most* of you are no doubt currently locating your corporeal & ethereal selves)... along these lines, i'm reminded of charles' superb piece in alh last year, "what's art got to do with it?" etc... we need *more* such work, motivated by such concerns... 8. perhaps we need more poetry too, a new poetry, as tom indicates, & despite whatever modernist misgivings i---we each---may have... 9. but perhaps, as well, situating the artist/poet as a member of a specific ecological or ontological or intellectual sect is somewhat less important than shaping new discourses---poetic-critical hybrids, creoles, what have you--- the point being that *all* forms of code-switching & mutating should be explored... & explored with at least some consideration given as to why one would wish to so explore as well as where one is, institutionally speaking, while exploring (& as michael joyce from the hypertext world would be quick to point out, *constructing*)... what is the value of the alphabet in a world such as ours, such as ours is becoming?... & what do we do (if this is not too naive a question this late in the 20th. century) with the more oral basis for poetry, the idea of poetry 'readings'?... perhaps we need a better collective sense as to the history of readings of this latter variety, as opposed to the currently more popular tendency to read critical reception as a writing enterprise (?)... is this a political issue, strictly speaking (& i have the debates over literacy fluttering around in my head as i write this, as well as talk of discursive hegemonies of one sort or another), or is recourse to politics here merely one way of avoiding sustained discussion of the value of a specific aesthetic dimension? (& again, not that i wish to avoid either ideology or politics per se)... 10. & as to politics per se, & given the very real & recent concern evident in these regions as to the status of aesthetic practice in general in american society: perhaps we need to work harder to convince folks outside of our more individualistic aesthetic pursuits that, whatever this our contested site, it's not a luxury... joe amato humamato@minna.acc.iit.edu (line breaks courtesy of elm) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 11:06:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: Freely Espousing Update In-Reply-To: <199501190419.XAA04520@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> In regards to the "Freeley Espousing" event in Washington, D.C., my e-mail was incorrectly listed. I can be reached at mdw@gwis2.gwu.edu Thanks mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 17:50:34 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: udle114@KCL.AC.UK Subject: EM To all the friends of Eric Mottram: This is just to keep you up to date with whatever is happening in London. Eric's family placed notices in the national papers that there will be a smallprivate cremation ceremony on the 25th of this month. They regret that it is not possible to have a ceremony open to all of Eric's friends but there will be a celebration of Eric's life and work in a few weeks time. To this all are welcome. The family have also asked that no flowers be sent - they hav asked instead for contributions to the Eric Mottram Trust Fund which they are planning to establish. The address for any donnations is The Eric Mottram Trust Fund 1 Sandford Close 72 The Avenue Beckenham Kent BR3 2ES United Kingdom I am Shamoon Zamir at the Department of English at King's College, London. If you have any question or need further information please do not hesitate to contact me on e-mail or by phone or fax. Shamoon Zamir Department of English King's College Strand London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom Phone: Country code + 71 873 2551 Fax: country code + 71 873 2257 e-mail: udle114@bay.cc.kcl.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 10:44:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: *Freely Espousing* In-Reply-To: <199501190616.AA02416@mail.crl.com> Have you heard from anyone in L.A. about a *Freely Espousing* event here? If not, I don't know if I could put one together single-handedly...but it might be worth a shot. This is not really a big town for poetry, as you might expect. But there are reading spaces, and there are poets (tho mostly the type that relate their bouts with bad drugs or bad dates). If someone else is doing an event, I'd be glad to help. If not, I'll do what I can. --Chris Reiner ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 16:01:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501191903.AA27218@panix2.panix.com> The Apex if it's M exhibits the superficies of the dialectic and boy is the thesis the. But the seeds of the M in the L are multiple while the interpretation of the seeds by the M is faulty but understandable. The quotation which I have overused from Wittgenstein helps my explanation. "If we speak of a think, but there is no object that we can point to, there, we may say, is the spirit." Those objectless things in the L include, but are not limited to, vaguely: -the sign: the signified is not the thing, but the idea of the thing, -the body which is a constantly referenced thing but sex in most of the L is skirted to a spirit of the body by both the French and the L, and -Language itself which is constantly reified by the L writers; and also create the hook by which the M writers can attach to L and attack. That these things are misinterpreted by the M writers need not be disputed to thwart the attacks by the L writers. They are the places where we have left openings for the next generation of artists. That the M takes unfair advantage of these ideas doesn't matter either, misinterpretation has already been valorized by the L. The attacks by the M writers are particularly galling, but again represent the same tactic used by the L writers on the previous generation of NY School and Beat writing, although the M writers are less substantive in their attacks on the L than the L was on NY, but isn't that what the M is saying, so at the very least they are consistent. The sad parts of the issue for me are the lack of recognition of these facts by the L and the unconsciousness of the M writers about the openings which they have left to be eviscerated by not only the next generation of writers whom we can conveniently dub... the Nth. They will rue the day they used the word spirit in their fashion when it is used to attack their right to write as they write. For that reason, the most egregious and annoying part of the M is how they have forgotten the lessons of the enlightenment exposing the weakness of spiritual allegiances and its institutions. But I guess we have to "pay to keep from going through all this twice." James ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 17:20:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Freely Espousing Update Dear jennifer & Steve-- What about Philadelphia? When I lived there (1986-1992) we had gotten a pretty interesting scene together, most of whom seem to be gone now or at least not on line. There's Perelman who is on line, but he's probably too busy with school. Ditto no doubt for DuPlessis. maybe Gil Ott, is he still sick. Or Julia Blumenreich. I could senf you there mail (not email) addresses. Valerie Fox of the magazine 6ix is now in Japan. There's Mossin and the TO crowd but they're more aesthetes than politicos it seems. My friend Dave baratier just moved to phila. and edits pavement saw magazine there--If anybody, I would suggest him. Of course, just over the river in CAMDEN is Lamont Steptoe, black vietnam vet poet who used to run readings at the Painted Bride but now works at the Walt Whitman Ctr. and he would probably be a very good connection for you in terms of the NEA. I have a phone # again but no email. Does anybody else know anything about Phila.???? There's Eli Goldblatt. (Charles Alexander probably has his address. I lost it) at (is it) Villanova? For PENNSYLVANIA may be a crucial state as well, Jen & Steve, especially with the new conservative senator replacing Woffod (though I'm not mourning the loss of its conservative democrat governor CASEY to a conservative repub. etc.). Wofford not Woffod. Anyway, just to send this along in lieu of being able (i think) to do anything here in (sm)allbany. Chris Stroff. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 17:16:51 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Berheimer Subject: NEA Enemy Action In defending and rallying round the NEA it could be useful to distinguish the underlying Republican impulse from some of the straw men that are trotted out for the bonfire. I heard recently of a meeting involving Gingrich financial backers in which it was clear their objections were not to Mapplethorpe and other well-known NEA headline "scandals" (much as these are useful ammunition in appealing to fellow conservatives). What really sticks in their craw is their belief the NEA is promoting multiculturalism at the expense of "American" culture. Implicit and explicit is their view that the latter is qualitatively superior. (I have to resort to reference like "the latter" since "what means American if not multicultural?" seems so obvious to me, but you can let your imagination run wild with what it means to an angry white male.) What can we do with this information? Use it to build a broader base of support for the NEA by appealing to multicultural constituencies, undercutting elitism-based arguments and drawing the debate away from kinkiness that so frightens moderate politicians. Alan Bernheimer abernhei@hooked.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 21:43:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: Apex of the M poet in mid-career, defined: a poet in the middle of a long publishing life. As far as delicious: sure, why not? This is a controversial term? gimme a break tom ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 22:11:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: apex of the m... IN James Sherry's post he rightly sees the apexers critique cum rejection of the Language poets in a continuum with the LP's treatment of the generation preceding. Surely, it is true that this need to get this seemingly pervasive presence out of the way, so to clear a space to write, afflicts or at least affects any generation. I don't like it, but it makes sense to me; I can even see it as a strength of character. There remains the question of what is done in this cleared space, and by whom. I'm not sure I understand the first 1/3d of James' post, unless he is beginning to list the features of Language Poetry that he sees as taken over by the Apex of the M group. If so, I'm interested to read a more lengthy treatment of that. Of these non-thing objects. The influence on some Language poets of the NY school is also undeniable, esp. on the early work of Charles Bernstein, Kit Robinson, Steve Benson, Tom Mandel, and others. The intellectual rigor of Language theory is also as open to critique as the intro to the Apex volume which lurks behind this discourse (smugly, non-dislodged, I think). You have only to read the banner and statement of intentions in the early Language magazines (w/ =, etc.) to find yourself in an ill-stirred pudding of the Whorf-Sapir thesis, an utterly misconceived version of the speech/language distinction in (oh what's his name; the swiss linguist's lectures - I really am losing my grip if I can't remember his name... and I can't!), and other sinking suspensions. But, this in no way excuses the Apex intro, does it? All the same, I'm not sure there're any definite _lessons of the enlightenment_ which must be held onto, but James will have expected my disagreement in that matter. I am an utterly secular person (that is, I cd _describe myself_ as _an utterly spiritual person_), and in some sense I like the world I live in (less and less). But I'm afraid I must say that the secularizing of the world over the last 500 years has not pluralized the world, not at all. Just different and even more baleful idols being worshipped. And it is a pluralizing, call it a creolizing if you want, of our world is all can save it. Purity cults, even my favorite one the Pharisees, have demonstrated their horrendous effects over and over, and theese are magnified and multiplied in a world of weapons and media with such powers to make a hell of difference. Finally, if, as in the Apex intro I find so appalling, the poet is to be an iconoclast, she will have to knock over an idol and smash it. Another poet is a poor choice to begin. tom mandel ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 20:38:24 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: call for work for interface 10 (fwd) In-Reply-To: <199501181919.LAA10381@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Pierre Joris" at Jan 18, 95 10:56:12 am I am curious about that phoenix in Tanya Manning's message. What does the phoenix mean by the sentence: "I am woman!"? I have heard it before, in some pop song, I think, and elsewhere, but I have a real curiosity here. I can understand, say, "I am a woman." Or "I am the woman." Or "We are women." Or "I am French." ? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 11:38:24 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: udle114@KCL.AC.UK Subject: Eric Mottram Update on the planned celebration for Eric Mottram: The celebration will be held on March 3rd (Friday) between 6 and 8pm in the Great Hall at King's College in London. If anyone wants to send messages, poems etc. (on tape, in print etc) please send be present at the event. Shamoon Zamir Department of English King's College Strand London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom Phone: Country code + 71 873 2551 Fax: Country code + 71 873 2257 E-mail: udle114@bay.cc.kcl.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 09:51:07 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: krickjh@MCGRAW-HILL.COM Subject: GovAccess.091: Congressional contact-vectors (pass it along More congressional stuff via Jim Warren's GovAccess If I'm overdoing the forwards of this material, someone please let me know. John Krick ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: GovAccess.091: Congressional contact-vectors (pass it along Author: Jim Warren at Internet_Mail Date: 01/20/95 09:02 AM Received: by ccmail from interlock.mgh.com From jwarren%well.sf.ca.us@interlock.mgh.com X-Envelope-From: jwarren%well.sf.ca.us@interlock.mgh.com Received: from well.sf.ca.us by interlock.mgh.com with SMTP id AA03914 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for ); Thu, 19 Jan 1995 23:23:58 -0500 Received: (from jwarren@localhost) by well.sf.ca.us (8.6.9/8.6.9) id QAA23805; Th u, 19 Jan 1995 16:07:47 -0800 Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 16:07:47 -0800 From: Jim Warren Message-Id: <199501200007.QAA23805@well.sf.ca.us> To: nobody%well.sf.ca.us@interlock.mgh.com Subject: GovAccess.091: Congressional contact-vectors (pass it along!) Congressional Phones, Faxes and - Sometimes - Email Addresses, as of 1/12/95 The following *only* lists U.S. Senate members - all of 'em. The list for the House of Representatives is so large that I'll leave it for those who desire it to fetch from the several sites that have been cited in this and recent GovExcesses. However -- The *next* GovAccess - much shorter than this one - will give the email-addrs of those relatively-few Senate *and* House Congress-creatures who have eaddr and reportedly accept public email ... at least from their state/district constituents. --jim Thu, 19 Jan 1995 13:54:31 -0500 (EST) >From Grace A York You're welcome to share the [following] information. I can't claim perfection; typing all those names and phone numbers is tedious. Am more than willing to make corrections, however. The latest version of the House and Senate directories, Congressional e-mail addresses, and a fledgling list of committee assignments are available on the University of Michigan Library Gopher. LC Marvel also points to them under its U.S.Congress section. Grace York, Coordinator Documents Center The University of Michigan Library Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1205 Phone: (313) 936-2378 Fax: (313) 764-0259 E-Mail: graceyor@umich.edu [illustrating the list's geneology and rapid infection-rate] Wed, 18 Jan 95 15:33:16 EST >From Chris_Casey@kennedy.senate.gov Thu, 12 Jan 1995 11:57:32 -0500 (EST) >From Grace A York To: Chris_Casey@kennedy.senate.gov 1-12-95 UNITED STATES CONGRESS SENATE DIRECTORY 104th Congress 1995-96 Capitol=Capitol Building DSOB=Dirksen Senate Office Building HSOB=Hart Senate Office Building RSOB=Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 E-Mail correspondence may be limited to constituents. Include your mailing address with your e-mail message if a reply is desired. P ST Name and Address Phone & E-Mail Fax = == ======================== ============== ============== R AK Murkowski, Frank H. 1-202-224-6665 1-202-224-5301 706 HSOB R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 522 HSOB D AL Heflin, Howell T. 1-202-224-4124 1-202-224-3149 728 HSOB R AL Shelby, Richard C. 1-202-224-5744 1-202-224-3416 509 HSOB (Switched to the Republican Party on 11-9-94) D AR Bumpers, Dale 1-202-224-4843 1-202-224-6435 229 DSOB D AR Pryor, David 1-202-224-2353 na 267 RSOB R AZ Kyl, Jon 1-202-224-4521 1-202-224-2302 363 RSOB R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 na 111 RSOB D CA Boxer, Barbara 1-202-224-3553 na 112 HSOB D CA Feinstein, Dianne 1-202-224-3841 na 331 HSOB D CO Campbell, Ben N. 1-202-224-5852 1-202-225-0228 380 RSOB R CO Brown, Henry 1-202-224-5941 na 716 HSOB D CT Dodd, Christopher J. 1-202-224-2823 na 444 RSOB D CT Lieberman, Joseph I. 1-202-224-4041 316 HSOB D DE Biden Jr., Joseph R. 1-202-224-5042 na 221 RSOB R DE Roth Jr. William V. 1-202-224-2441 1-202-224-2805 104 HSOB D FL Graham, Robert 1-202-224-3041 na 524 HSOB R FL Mack, Connie 1-202-224-5274 1-202-224-8022 517 HSOB D GA Nunn, Samuel 1-202-224-3521 1-202-224-0072 303 DSOB R GA Coverdell, Paul 1-202-224-3643 na 200 RSOB D HI Akaka, Daniel K. 1-202-224-6361 1-202-224-2126 720 HSOB D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747 722 HSOB D IA Harkin, Thomas 1-202-224-3254 1-202-224-7431 531 HSOB R IA Grassley, Charles E. 1-202-224-3744 1-202-224-6020 135 HSOB R ID Craig, Larry E. 1-202-224-2752 1-202-224-2573 313 HSOB larry.craig@craig.senate.gov R ID Kempthorne, Dirk 1-202-224-6142 1-202-224-5893 367 DSOB dirk_kempthorne@kempthorne. senate.gov D IL Moseley-Braun, Carol 1-202-224-2854 na 320 HSOB D IL Simon, Paul 1-202-224-2152 1-202-224-0868 462 DSOB senator@simon.senate.gov R IN Coats, Daniel R. 1-202-224-5623 1-202-224-8964 404 RSOB R IN Lugar, Richard G. 1-202-224-4814 na 306 HSOB R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-224-8952 141 HSOB R KS Kassebaum, Nancy L. 1-202-224-4774 1-202-224-3514 302 RSOB D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 na 173A RSOB R KY McConnell, Mitch 1-202-224-2541 1-202-224-2499 120 RSOB D La Breaux, John B. 1-202-224-4623 na 516 HSOB D LA Johnston, J. Bennett 1-202-224-5824 na 136 HSOB D MA Kennedy, Edward M. 1-202-224-4543 1-202-224-2417 315 RSOB senator@kennedy.senate.gov (www address: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/ Kennedy/homepage.html) D MA Kerry, John F. 1-202-224-2742 1-202-224-8525 421 RSOB D MD Mikulski, Barbara A. 1-202-224-4654 1-202-224-8858 709 HSOB D MD Sarbanes, Paul S. 1-202-224-4524 1-202-224-1651 309 HSOB R ME Snowe, Olympia 1-202-224-5344 176 RSOB R ME Cohen, William S. 1-202-224-2523 1-202-224-2693 322 HSOB D MI Levin, Carl 1-202-224-6221 na 459 RSOB R MI Abraham, Spencer 1-202-224-4822 1-202-224-8834 B40 DSOB D MN Wellstone, Paul 1-202-224-5641 1-202-224-8438 717 HSOB R MN Grams, Rod 1-202-224-3244 R MO Bond, Christopher S. 1-202-224-5721 1-202-224-8149 293 RSOB R MO Ashcroft, John 1-202-224-6154 R MS Cochran, Thad 1-202-224-5054 na 326 RSOB R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262 487 RSOB D MT Baucus, Max 1-202-224-2651 na 511 HSOB R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594 183 DSOB v. Jack Mudd R NC Faircloth, D. M. 1-202-224-3154 702 HSOB R NC Helms, Jesse 1-202-224-6342 na 403 DSOB D ND Conrad, Kent 1-202-224-2043 na 724 HSOB D ND Dorgan, Byron L. 1-202-224-2551 1-202-224-1193 713 HSOB D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 na 528 HSOB D NE Kerrey, Bob 1-202-224-6551 303 HSOB R NH Gregg, Judd 1-202-224-3324 1-202-224-4952 393 RSOB R NH Smith, Robert 1-202-224-2841 1-202-224-1353 332 DSOB D NJ Bradley, William 1-202-224-3224 1-202-224-8567 731 HSOB D NJ Lautenberg, Frank R. 1-202-224-4744 1-202-224-9707 506 HSOB D NM Bingaman, Jeff 1-202-224-5521 na 1110 HSOB Senator_Bingaman@bingaman. senate.gov R NM Domenici, Pete V. 1-202-224-6621 1-202-224-7371 427 DSOB D NV Bryan, Richard H. 1-202-224-6244 na 364 RSOB D NV Reid, Harry 1-202-224-3542 1-202-224-7327 324 HSOB D NY Moynihan, Daniel P. 1-202-224-4451 1-202-224-9293 464 RSOB R NY D'Amato, Alfonse M. 1-202-224-6542 1-202-224-5871 520 HSOB D OH Glenn, John 1-202-224-3353 na 503 HSOB R OH Dewine, Michael 1-202-224-2315 1-202-224-6519 R OK Inhofe, James 1-202-224-4721 453 RSOB R OK Nickles, Donald 1-202-224-5754 1-202-224-6008 133 HSOB R OR Hatfield, Mark O. 1-202-224-3753 na 711 HSOB R OR Packwood, Robert 1-202-224-5244 na 259 RSOB R PA Santorum, Rick 1-202-224-6324 R PA Specter, Arlen 1-202-224-4254 na 530 HSOB D RI Pell, Claiborne 1-202-224-4642 1-202-224-4680 335 RSOB R RI Chafee, John H. 1-202-224-2921 na 567 DSOB D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 na 125 RSOB R SC Thurmond, Strom 1-202-224-5972 1-202-224-1300 217 RSOB D SD Daschle, Thomas A. 1-202-224-2321 1-202-224-2047 317 HSOB R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1630 283 RSOB R TN Thompson, Fred 1-202-224-4944 506 DSOB R TN Frist, Bill 1-202-224-3344 1-202-224-8062 R TX Hutchison, Kay Bailey 1-202-224-5922 1-202-224-0776 703 HSOB senator@hutchison.senate.gov R TX Gramm, Phil 1-202-224-2934 na 370 RSOB R UT Bennett, Robert 1-202-224-5444 na 241 DSOB R UT Hatch, Orrin G. 1-202-224-5251 1-202-224-6331 135 RSOB D VA Robb, Charles S. 1-202-224-4024 1-202-224-8689 493 RSOB Senator_Robb@robb.senate.gov R VA Warner, John W. 1-202-224-2023 1-202-224-6295 225 RSOB D VT Leahy, Patrick J. 1-202-224-4242 na 433 RSOB senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov R VT Jeffords, James M. 1-202-224-5141 na 513 HSOB vermont@jeffords.senate.gov D WA Murray, Patty 1-202-224-2621 1-202-224-0238 302 HSOB R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393 730 HSOB D WI Feingold, Russell 1-202-224-5323 na 502 HSOB D WI Kohl, Herbert H. 1-202-224-5653 na 330 HSOB D WV Byrd, Robert C. 1-202-224-3954 1-202-224-4025 311 HSOB D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 1-202-224-1689 109 HSOB R WY Simpson, Alan K. 1-202-224-3424 1-202-224-1315 261 DSOB R WY Thomas, Craig 1-202-224-6441 1-202-224-3230 Corrections to grace.york@um.cc.umich.edu &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquillity, provide for the Common Defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [via sig-file of Brad Schrick (esc@ape.com) ] Mo' as it Is. --jim GovAccess is a list distributing irregular info & advocacy, maintained by Jim Warren, columnist, MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/<# upon request> jwarren@well.com (well.com = well.sf.ca.us; also at jwarren@autodesk.com) & To add or drop the GovAccess list, email to jwarren@well.com . & & Permission herewith granted for unlimited reposting and recirculation. & & Past postings are at ftp.cpsr.org: /cpsr/states/california/govaccess & & by WWW at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/states/california/govaccess & ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 11:17:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: NEA Enemy Action In-Reply-To: <199501200729.AA25307@panix.com> I too would support Alan Bernheimer's approach to creating extended constituencies both for supporting NEA and for breaking down the petty fiefdoms which have grown up in the arts, especially non-profit arts, over the past decades. The appeal might also be to attack elitism in the for profit arts which will both confuse the issue and focus the point of the artists for social production as opposed to artists for commodity production, a fight which we have been waging for decades also. But the real issues are I think not those which Alan raises, although they are the public ones. The real issues are twofold and come from different consituencies. 1. When I worked for Hearst Corp. a few years ago, their beef was that the government was funding small presses to be able to compete against them and that was unfair to the for profit presses. Why should Sun & Moon and Greywolf, etc. be allowed to compete unfairly against William Morrow and Avon? (Obviously they are not the same market, but that argument does not convince the "shelf-space" conscious marketeers who are threatened by any kind of alternative as competition.) I think the same argument is at the root of the corporate attacks on NEA and holds true for public broadcasting as well. 2. The other constituency that is attacking the NEA is the right. Originally their attention was galvanized by the body oriented art that received so much publicity, but their real concern is that NEA is not funding their art. They are not represented. I think if a painter of Elvis on Velvet from North Carolina were funded and publicized that a lot of this constituency's opposition will disappear. I don't make these points to discourage coalition building that Alan suggests, I simply think the real (indefensible) anxieties of the attackers needs to be addressed in addition to coalition building. Perhaps some of the more astute political organizers can suggest the route to coalitions that can be effective. Finally, I think the big entertainment money support of NEA will save it or kill it. Pell's argument that it's either NEA or Social Security tells a lot about what even the more liberal in Congress really think and the falsity of their polarizing. Alas. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 11:21:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: call for work for interface 10 (fwd) In-Reply-To: <199501200856.AA16948@panix2.panix.com> The phoenix of course replies at the end of any discourse whether "am woman" or "am French", "je suis fini". James "born again" Sherry ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 09:04:46 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501200717.XAA08804@leland.Stanford.EDU> It's true, of course, as Tom Mandel says, that every generation needs to clear a space for itself and that the Language poets, as James Sherry points out, did the same thing to the NY poets of the previous generation. And Frank O'Hara and company did it to T. S. Eliot (God save us from fisher kings!"). Still, there's an air of implosion about this latest "manifesto." For one thing, the language poets were attacking an Establishment, but it's hardly the case that today the L poets ARE the establishment. Most people around the country still consider them upstarts if they've so much as heard of them. Let's get real. Secondly, if you want to launch a line of attack, you must have an articulated position. "Violence and precision" as Marinetti put it. It needn't be totally coherent--and I agree that the Language manifestos of the 70s were hardly argued through--but you have to stand for something that's then visible in the poetry itself. I just don't see this "change" in Apex of the M. The poets printed therein take for granted that poetry is written in free verse (or prose) for starters. It's a given. The rejection of a "high style" is another given. And so on. That leaves the manifesto with saying, more or less, we're more against capitalism than the Language poets were and, at that level, the rhetoric fizzes out because the L poets in question had/have a particular Marxist position and carried it through. Ron Silliman, after all, was editor of the New Socialist Review. So if the editors of Apex don't share that position, but feel Capital is the source of all evil, I'd like to know what they propose to do to fight capital. Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 12:53:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Monroe Subject: Cornell Poetry Conference CALL FOR PAPERS * CALL FOR PAPERS * CALL FOR PAPERS PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE TENSE: A CONFERENCE ON CONTEMPORARY POETRY Cornell University March 31st - April 1st, 1995 Speakers include: Charles Altieri Rachel Blau DuPlessis Bei Dao Li-Young Lee Marjorie Perloff Evangelina Vigil-Pinon Proposals are invited for a conference on the consequences for poetry of the global redrawing of cultural, political, and economic boundaries underway since the late 1980's and the implications of the increasingly multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual environment within the United States for poetry's inheritance from the past and its legacies for the 1990's and the new millenium. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: dominant modes and alternative practices; anthologies, canon formation, and the distribution and reception of poetry; reading habits and writing communities; poetry's potential and actual contributions to the idea of a "culture-at-large"; poetry and gender; multiculturalism and the poetics of voice; lyric and narrative; poetry and interdisciplinarity; modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary poetry; poetry after the Cold War; language poetry; expansive/new formalist/new narrative poetry; poetry, technology, and mass media; creative writing and critical theory; poetry and performance; how poems matter, what poems know; bodies in/of poetry; poetries of the Americas; U. S. poetry in international context. Please send 500-word abstracts (for twenty-minute papers), suggestions for additional panels, or inquiries by February 10, 1995 to: Jonathan Monroe Department of Comparative Literature Goldwin Smith Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853-3201 email: jbm3@cornell.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 15:30:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: More Espousing To those of you doing freely espousing gigs around the country: My name is Ted Pelton and I was an NEA recipient in fiction this past year. I was in touch this morning with Alexander Ooms at the NEA and he faxed me a list of some 250 well-known recipients of fellowships. If you want to contact him directly, his number is 202-682-5731. Unfortunately the NEA doesn't have email (they are so wasteful with their current budget, I guess). He's a friendly sort who I don't think would mind giving a 15 minute rap about where they stand right now or faxing you info like he did me. He says the current feeling is the fight could go either way, with a lot depending on how the hearings went yesterday and today with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (no word yet -- he's going to keep me posted). But, if not the full list, let me list some names which may be of interest to poetics subscribers from the NEA grantee names he sent me: Walter Abish, Rodolfo Anaya, Bruce Andrews, Paul Auster, Amiri Baraka, Jonathan Baumbach, Charles Bernstein, Ted Berrigan, John Berryman, Mei Mei Berssenbrugge, Paul Bowles, T. Corahessan Boyle, David Bromige, Rosellen Brown, Charles Bukowski, Ana Castillo, Lorna Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, Lucille Clifton, Andrei Codrescu, Clark Coolidge, Robert Coover, Robert Creeley, Diane DiPrima, Stuart Dybek, Louise Erdrich, Clayton Eshleman, William Gaddis, Dagoberto Gilb, Allen Ginsberg, Nikki Giovanni, Spalding Gray, Marilyn Hacker, Joy Harjo, Michael Harper, Lyn Hejinian, Linda Hogan, Fanny Howe, Charles Johnson, Janet Kauffman, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, Galway Kinnell, Denise Levertov, Jackson MacLow, Carole Maso, Harry Mathews, Bharati Mukherjee, Fea Myenne Ng, Alice Notley, Peter Orlovsky, Joel Oppenheimer, Maureen Owen, Ron Padgett, Grace Paley, Robert Pinsky, Francine Prose, Carl Rakosi, Ishmael Reed, Donald Revell, Kenneth Rexroth, Alberto Rios, Kit Robinson, Leslie Scalapino, Ntozake Shange, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ron Silliman, Charles Simic, Jane Smiley, Ted Solotaroff, Gilbert Sorrentino, Gary Soto, Ronald Sukenick, James Tate, Paul Violi, Anne Waldman, Rosmarie Waldrop, Alice Walker, David Foster Wallace, Lewis Warsh, Bruce Weigl, Hannah Weiner, Marianne Wiggins. This is meant as a list to help people, but let me apologize for any exclusions (good NEA-winning writers left off -- I'm sorry). The NEA press release highlights the most visible authors; Ooms then threw in some more experimental writers he knew off the top of his head. Then I selected names I knew from this hodgepodge of names. And, to top it off, I'm a fiction writer; names of other fiction writers are more familiar to me than poets. Nonetheless, it's an impressive list. Many are older names, reminding us that the NEA came into existence in the 60s, but also that they gave out a lot more awards then, and the amount actually could buy you a year to write. Fewer awards at a sum that hasn't been adjusted for inflation -- this makes me think that after we win this battle (I think we will), we should keep the pressure on to fund the arts at a rate more consistent with what's spent elsewhere. The current NEA budget is 64 cents per U.S. citizen. Canada and france each spend 32 dollars per, and Germany 27 dollars. The NEA itself makes a good case for more money, but there's no little grass roots support. Quoting from their press release: "Every dollar awarded by the NEA attracts $11 from state and local arts agencies, corporations, foundations, businesses and other private entities. The not-for-profit arts create $37 billion in economic activity and suppost 1.3 million jobs. They also return $3.4 billion to the Federal Treasury through income taxes, 20 times the budget of the NEA." While I'm uncomfortable with this kind of language (support arts because it's profitable), I think it can be turned to our advantage more than it is currently. In other words, if this is the language that's being spoken, and it shows us off well, we might as well learn to manipulate said language to our own benefit. Will this deprive us of counter-languages? In the short-run, perhaps; but in the long run it could turn to our benefit. How do you feel about being a state-supported artist? Well, that's a question we have to answer each for ourselves. But if we want the endowment, we should also want to use the best terms to make it strong within the framework that's most successful. Sorry for the digression. I'd like to thank Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley for getting this ball rolling. I live in a small city, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and was lamenting not being able to get something like this together here. But then word came in about the Milwaukee gathering. They're only an hour away, but I found out about it on-line. This was an insight into the new technological geography for me. I like it. Ted Pelton ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 17:14:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: Freely Espousing Update Does anyone know if plans are being made for Minneapolis/St. Paul participation in Freely Espousing? If not, there should be since the red flag the Newt most likes to wave is a misrepresentation of an event sponsored by the Walker Arts Center in the Twin Cities. If anybody knows of existing plans or is interested in bringing Minneapolis/St. Paul into the loop, please contact me. Jonathan Brannen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 19:27:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Espousing Update 1/20 We're working on a more exhaustive update to be posted tomorrow, but Ted Pelton's recent post seques nicely with the fact that Joe Ross has gotten Alexander Ooms to speak at Freely Espousing-DC. We also have a new & improved Press Release (courtesy of Diana Cantu's expertise) which we will be happy to fax to you upon request. Cities we currently have initial leads in now include Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia (thanks to Chris Stroffolino for the open post on that one), and Wilmington/Charlotte, North Carolina. If anyone has scoop on those communities, please e-mail us (or: make a few exploratory calls of your own and then let us know what you've found). Finally (for now): we want to encourage anyone who is not able to attend Freely Espousing to compose a statement that can be worked into the various programs across the country. We're exploring the possibility of having Net-links at some of the events, but short of that we'd at least like to have virtual participation along with the palpable participation. More shortly. Steve Evans ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 20:25:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: apex of the m... When I mentioned that we L poets critiqued the NY school I did not go on to say, as I shd have but didn't want to take the time to, that in fact our reaction was _not_ against them, nor against the New Am. Poets, but against the devitalizing and de-authorizing and de-pressing movement in conventional postwar american verse, e.g. the Wm. Stafford school with its endless white male middleclass and most often academic epiphanies of symbolic yet private experience, so small ever so small so heart's needle small and yet so important ever so important so much something they at the center of the universe were doing for everyone; _I did it for all of us_ as Stafford puts it somewhere. Not for me buddy. No thanks. Stafford died earlier this year, having devoted most of more than eighty years life to poetry. I don't like his work one bit. So what. My opinion, and even my critique, is an unproductive fact in the face of his work (which was his life). The only effective counterpoise I can make to work I reject is *my own work*, my own commitments, and beyond that some way that I may intend deeply that they create a community which does not present itself as a symbolic order in place of social life but an example of social life modeling itself as in the making. That *is* a counterpoise. (Not earlier this year, but in '94 of course) tom mandel ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 20:28:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Saussure, you dummy Kit Robinson kindly mailed me to remind of the name of _the Swiss linguist_ in my post a couple of days ago. Saussure, bien sur. But were it Ferdinand or Fernand, I fergit? tom mandel ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 14:50:45 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ratcliffe Subject: ??? X-To: Group@ella.mills.edu, Discussion@ella.mills.edu, Poetics@ella.mills.edu I come back from long winter break, spent mostly travel to Mexico, Calif. mountains & Hawaii, to find some 370 pieces of mail from all of you -- so my work's cut out. Can I catch up??? Ratcliffe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 22:49:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wolfgang Staehle Organization: [ THE THING NYC ] Subject: Saussure, you > bien sur. But were it Ferdinand or Fernand, I fergit? It's Ferdinand de Saussure. I misspelled Foucault the other day. wolfgang.staehle@thing.nyc.ny.us ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 23:27:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: NEA Enemy Action James Sherry wrote that > The real issues are twofold and come from >different consituencies. > >1. Why should Sun & Moon >and Greywolf, etc. be allowed to compete unfairly against William Morrow >and Avon? This, I think, is exactly right. I've heard this argument made against all manner of nonprofits, quite aggressively, up to and including public schools and libraries. (Jack Shoemaker used to complain bitterly about how libraries reduced the need to sell individual copies of a book. As someone who didn't even know about bookstores until I was 15 or 16, I always thought that was nuts.) > >2. I think if a painter of >Elvis on Velvet from North Carolina were funded and publicized that a lot >of this constituency's opposition will disappear. > Wrong on this one, James. George Dukmejian (whose last name I think I just butchered), back when he was governor of California, made a very pointed effort to appoint fellow Armenians to every single commission in California. So his "painter" on the Cal. Arts Commission was a woman from Long Beach who did watercolors of battle ships. It made no difference. By the way, folks, the right is also currently blasting Stanford for spending $1 million+ on the archives of Allen Ginsberg. (His membership in NAMBLA is their main point.) So there will be a focus on censorship at the opening of his archives on February 10. Marjorie Perloff, Carl Rakosi, Ginsberg, Nancy Peters (editor at City Lights) & your humble servant will be on one panel. Kathleen Sullivan (the law professor & wife of the former mayor of SF, Joe Alioto) is doing something else (I'm not sure what). And Allen's reading. Feb. 10 at Stanford. I'm sure Marjorie's got the details. Ron Silliman rsillima@ix.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:45:09 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 20 Jan 1995 09:04:46 -0800 from As usual, I feel as if I am blindly shooting into an argument that I know nothing about, not having read any of the apex manifestoes and only having scanned briefly all previous postings on this subject. However, it seems to me as if someone needs to say the stupidly obvious and that is that every revolution, including any poetry that pretends to be fully fulfilled revolutionary poetry, is written in language. This point, an admittedly stupid point, I think is important when you realize how many revolutions have failed due tothe fact that they are indeed, simply a revolution of the existing social structure, a kind of endlessly self-fulfilling Hegelian loop that we don't seem able to get around. For instance, I remember this guy Mike I used to work with at Taco Bell and he hated the manager for her petty and often cruel treatment of employees. He began a systematic, and I always thought very intelligent campaign to discredit her in the fact of the owner. After many highly entertaining confrontations, he was able to get her fired. Of course, as I'm sure is already apparent, he was then named the manager and after an agonizing, I mean you could see it on his face a lot of the time, three months, he began to do the same things the person he so hated did before him. Simple, easy, maybe too easy, but the point is that you cannot change the particulars of any culture without changing the way if functions. You can't have a revolutionary poetry that says I am revolutionary and therefore I am going to write about coal miners in the language of coal miners etc. Transparency doesn't exist in the poetic context. It seems to me that Language Poetry is a neccessary, but certainly not final step towards a revolutionary poetry because it takes as its project the subversion of language. I don't know anywhere else to start. It doesn't end here, of course, but any revolutionary poetry that is going to succeed Language Poetry, and that will inevitably have to happen, will have to take into account its achievements, as well as its problems. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 14:11:14 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Environmental Systems Research Institute From: Michael Waltuch Subject: Address If you know the current address of the Slovenian poet Tomas Salamun, please send it to me. Thanks, Michael Waltuch ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:16:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: ??? Back to Mexico, Stephen! But this time, take me with you... tom ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:57:44 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: apex of the m... I'm outside both the traditional academic and literary poetry circles. Until Joe Amato introduced me to the work of the Language Poets, I'd never heard them. I like Joe's work (that's why I publish it), but my longest-lasting literary affections lie with "movement" poets, primarily feminist and/or African American and/or war veteran writers who see themselves and their work as inseperable from their politics and their activism. My perspective on the whole _apex of the m_ debate is shaped by a general distrust of manifestos which seem to be substitutes for action, or which are taken *as* actions in and of themselves. I'd like to respond to some of eric pape's comments in that spirit: >every revolution, including any poetry that >pretends to be fully fulfilled revolutionary poetry, is written in >language. I am not sure that this is true. In extremity, language is a luxury that many cannot afford. Violent revolutions (and perhaps most acts of physical violence) are *not* written--that is specifically what makes them violent; pens are *not* swords, however much the revolutionary (or reactionary) poet might wish that they were, might yearn to make language strike like a blow. My particular critical speciality is "literature of trauma"--specifically, the literature of "survivors" of man-made violence (Holocaust, combat, rape, etc.)--and I have found that a characteristic spanning every literature of trauma which I have yet uncovered is the agonizing tension between the failure of language ("You *can't* understand!") and the desperate need for language to suceed (You *must* understand!). Revolutionary poets yearn to write with such strength that their audience is traumatized as they have been traumatized (Jones/Baraka raging that "poems are bullshit unless they are/ teeth or trees or lemons piled/ on a step," wanting his own poem to be a machine gun, reduced to helpless ratatatting; the anger is real, the danger *behind* the poem is real, but the *poem* can never be real in the sense Baraka desires it to be). There was, last year, a lengthy discussion of "terrorist" poetics/poetry on the TNC list--some of you will remember. It seems to me that both "terrorist" and "revolutionary" poetry are impossible constructions unless one is talking about them as documentary (at one remove) rather than actual (the thing itself). Soldiers who write or talk about combat state unequivocally that language fails to describe their experience. Yet every soldier who writes or talks about combat says *something*--uses language in *ways* that fail, though he/she uses it all the same. There are qualities of "revolution" which lie outside of language--the violence that language can describe in the before and the after, but never at the now. The realm of the traumatic event is *silence,* speechlessness, a breach in the narrative, a space for which there are no words or explanations or stories: THIS ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING! Narrative constructions come later, to explain, to rationalize, to describe "what happened," but they can never represent it properly, since its nature and impact are derived from the fact that trauma is *un*representable. There are some truths which cannot be conveyed, some instances in which "only being is believing." >It seems to me that Language Poetry is a neccessary, but certainly >not final step towards a revolutionary poetry because it takes as its >project the subversion of language. I don't know anywhere else to start. The subversion of language is certainly the project of poets like Audre Lorde (whose description of language as "the master's tools," and whose position as the Sister Outsider make even her *use* of language and the poetic form subversive) and Margaret Atwood and Monique Wittig, and so on. But these feminist poets are not considered (I believe) to be connected to the Language Poets. Nor are they given much serious attention by either the literary or academic establishments (dismissed as "political"--and therefore possessing an "agenda"--as lesbian, as feminist). I am asking, as an outsider myself, the honest question: what is subversive about what the Language Poets? What is the distinction between the sort of subversion practiced by Lorde, for example, and various Language Poets? > You can't have a revolutionary poetry that says I am revolutionary >and therefore I am going to write about coal miners in the language >of coal miners etc. Transparency doesn't exist in the poetic context. Sometimes I think that we don't *see* poetry when it *is* transparent. We don't usually look very carefully at what coal miners are doing... or what disfranchised black ghetto kids are doing... or what working class women are doing... Some of the strongest and most "revolutionary" American poetry is spouted by kids at house parties, and used-to-be-kids who now have recording contracts with major record labels. Ice-T *is* a poet, though you might not much like what he's doing (I do). Ice-T is writing poetry about revolution--even if it is not revolution itself--and at least the *poetry* is being televised (hey, Gill Scott-Heron has a new album out, did you hear?). Black Entertainment Network rap programming and "Yo! MTV Raps" are pretty interesting. Which brings me back around to the _apex of the m_ intro, which I haven't read, but have now read *about* at length. It seems to me that one can't be revolutionary without being clear what one is *for* and what one is *against*, and without being willing to put one's body on the line for one's beliefs. (Revolution is risky.) In a culture where a poet can be taken out and shot for writing a protest verse, it makes sense to talk about "revolutionary" poets. In *this* culture, it might even make sense to talk about *some* poets that way. But it's real hard for me to swallow the notion of "revolutionary" poets who live in relative comfort and are not actively engaged in taking physical risks to participate in social or political movements. Maybe I'm just a hard-line kinda gal, but I like to save the word "revolutionary" for times when I really *mean* it.... Kali Tal _______________ Kali Tal Sixties Project & Viet Nam Generation, Inc. 18 Center Rd., Woodbridge, CT 06525 203/387-6882; fax 203/389-6104 email: kalital@minerva.cis.yale.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 19:06:21 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: apex of the m... i'd like to suggest a reading experiment (hat tip to chas b.'s "writing experiments") in re _apex of the m_: begin reading on page 9--an excerpt frm ed dorn's "langue d'oc around the cloc"-- and read thru or around in the following 168 pages... & form an opinion ov the work presented. then, & only then (if you want), go back and read the introduction. how is your opinion of the contents changed? ov course, this is a sham--even if you don't read the intro first, you've read the various comments here, & have those in mind. & my comment--the screed that passes for an introducion is even more vitrolic than the intro to AotM #1; despite that, the issues raised are (to my mind) important ones, and worth addressing--and not just defending against. yes, my proposed re-vision of the work-as-a-whole is a reading that is _not_ the reading intended by the editors... defer to their intended reading if you prefer. fr m'self, i learn several thangs (so far)--i enjoyed much of the work presented (chris stroffolino, susan thackery, & peter gizzi among others,1st time thru); i'm still unable to appreciate jerome rothenberg's work, despite being sympathetic to his stated poetics; the work seems to me to be various & assorted, some better than others, but none of it "revolutionary"; and finally: i _can't_ find the connection between th intro and th work. that might well be my failing as a reader. it might also be a failure of vision, self-perception, or articulation of the editors-- this assuming that the intro is the work of the editors, tho it is unsigned... at anyrate, reaction so far has seemed to be reaction to the intro, rather than the work-as-whole--3 pages out of 176. praps the "problem" is one of perspective. one editor confided in me that one impetus was a collective tiredness with poor imitations of Language poety--something you might well tire of (as tiresome as poor plath imitations, or bukowski imitaitons), especially if yr in the relatively narrow confines of a particular graduate program. but in the rest of the world, we've never heard of l=a=n=g=a=g=e, let alone tired of it; while others with an personal investment might feel their own bastions under attack. i dunno--it hardly seems like getting worked up over, there's so little at stake... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 19:52:53 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Evans/Moxley Comments: Originally-From: Evan/Moxley From: Evans/Moxley Subject: New Press Release From Freely Espousing Headquarters: A slightly punchier version of our press release is attached below. We invite you to forward this message but ask that you encourage Internet rather than phone responses in your prefatory language. Our e-mail address is ST001515@brownvm.brown.edu. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 20, 1995 Contact: Steve Evans 401-274-1306 ARTISTS & WRITERS ORGANIZE NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION TO DEFEND NEA, NEH Events Planned in Seven Cities to Protest Attack on the Arts Writers, artists, scholars, and concerned citizens in more than a half-dozen American cities have organized *Freely Espousing,* a day of events in support of public arts funding on Saturday, January 28th, 1995. Marathon readings, exhibits, and other activities are being planned in response to threats that the new 104th Congress intends to slash federal funding for the arts and humanities provided through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Initiated by two Rhode Islanders--RI Senator Clairborne Pell was the architect of the 1965 legislation that created the NEA/NEH-- the idea for a day of protest spread quickly across the Internet from Providence to New York City, San Francisco, Milwaukee, San Diego, Buffalo, and Washington D.C. Providence event organizers Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley say "we chose the name *Freely Espousing* in order to underscore the vital role of the arts in a democratic society. It is important to call attention to the lack of rational, public debate not just on this issue, but on a range of social and cultural issues currently being forced through the Congress under the leadership of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole." The centerpiece of *Freely Espousing* events nationwide will be a marathon "read-in" of literary works created with NEA support. Featured speakers, round-table discussions, musical performances, exhibits, and other events are also planned. ### (append local information here) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 12:27:30 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Moxley/Evans Subject: Freely Espousing 1/22 Update What follows is a lengthy post updating you on the progress of *Freely Espousing.* Ten days after our initial announcement, momentum continues to gather and to lead in unexpected directions. Jen and I want to thank everyone who has contributed advice (technical and imaginative) to us in recent days. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE The Senate Subcommittee on Education, Arts, and Humanities is composed of the following 16 senators. We give phone numbers for each Senator, followed by fax (if available) and e-mail (if available). This is a subcommitte of the Labor, Human Resources, and Education Committee. Testimony regarding the NEA is scheduled to begin Tuesday, January 24. Jeffords (chair; R-VT): 1-202-224-5141, vermont@jeffords.senate.gov Kassebaum, Nancy (R-KS): 1-202-224-4774, 1-202-224-3514 Dodd, Christopher (D-CT): 1-202-224-2823 Harkin, Thomas (D-IA): 1-202-224-3245, 1-202-224-7431 Simon, Paul (D-IL): 1-202-224-2152, 1-202-224-0868, senator@simon.senate.gov Coats, Daniel (R-IN): 1-202-224-5623, 1-202-224-8964 Kennedy, Edward (D-MA): 1-202-224-4543, 1-202-224-2417, senator@kennedy.senate. gov Mikulski, Barbara (D-MD): 1-202-224-4654, 1-202-224-8858 Abraham, Spencer (R-MI): 1-202-224-4822, 1-202-224-8834 Wellstone, Paul (D-MN): 1-202-224-5641, 1-202-224-8438 Ashcroft, John (R-MO): 1-202-224-6154 Gregg, Judd (R-NH): 1-202-224-3324, 1-202-224-4952 Pell, Clairborne (D-RI): 1-202-224-4642, 1-202-224-4680 Frist, Bill (R-TN): 1-202-224-3344, 1-202-224-8062 Gorton, Slade (R-WA): 1-202-224-3441, 1-202-224-9393 DeWine, Michael (R-OH): 1-202-224-2315, 1-202-224-6519 (Nine Republicans, 7 Democrats) * FREELY ESPOUSING CONTACT PEOPLE (A REMINDER) Seven cities have confirmed events for Jan. 28. Home phone and e-mail information for contact people follows. Very different formats exist for the days events so be sure to be in touch with the local Contact Person for details! Providence: Steve Evans, Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 st001515@brownvm.brown.edu Buffalo: Jena Osman 716-884-2213 v210j9vn@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu note: in Buffalo, event will not be called *Freely Espousing.* Instead it will publicized as *SAVE THE artWORLD.* Milwaukee: Bob Harrison 414-962-5989 Robert.A.Harrison@jci.com New York: Jeff Hull 212-777-7436 HarborRat@aol.com San Diego: Craig Foltz 619-291-4945 San Francisco: Kevin Magee 510-527-9485 (fax) 415-399-3041 Washington DC: Joe Ross 202-745-0454 jross@tmn.com * SPONSORING A WOODLAND PATTERN READER Woodland Pattern has agreed to link their already-scheduled Marathon Reading to the *Freely Espousing* effort. Bob Harrison informs me that WP seeks "sponsors" for each person reading on January 28: suggested sponsoring fee is $25. This Benefit was scheduled in anticipation of lost/reduced NEA support in the coming year. Their address is: 720 E. Locust St., Milwaukee WI 53212. Their fax number: 1-414-372-7636. Please contact Bob for more information. * BEYOND JAN 28 Part 1 Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, St.Paul/Minneapolis, Wilmington (NC), Seattle, Portland, Charlottesville, and Pittsburg as some of the cities where people have expressed interest in organizing a *Freely Espousing* event. Because of obvious time constraints, it is unlikely that more than a few of these places will be able to join us on the 28th. We therefore strongly encourage people to synchronize a second wave of events for the following Saturday, Feb. 4th. Our goal from the beginning has been self-organization strengthened by open information channels. Jennifer and I, in concert with the Ad-Hoc Committee of Literary Publishers here in RI, will be happy to provide what advice and coordinating support we can to interested parties. As combined independent agents, we can be sure that viewpoints excluded by the extant arts bureaucracies have a place on the program (even while including spokes- persons from those art bureaucracies). BEYOND JAN 28th Part 2 Most people we've talked with have expressed concerns about *sustaining* and *expanding on* the momentum generated by these events. We invite an open debate on how this may best be done. As Alan Bernheimer and James Sherry have pointed out in open posts to the Poetics List, communication across segmented aesthetic, generic, and (most importantly) social lines is imperative if our larger goal of preserving and sustaining democratic means of expression and action is to be approached. I doubt anyone needs reminding of what 1996 could bring if concerted efforts are not made now to generalize the material and symbolic conditions of possibility for democratic action. The "Loose Coalition for Democratic Inspiration" that Rod Smith, Lee Ann Brown, and Mark Wallace proposed a while back (vis-a-vis the Prayer in the Schools initiative) is something we should all consider "joining." * SOME OBSERVATIONS ON MEDIA ISSUES The opening of Senate hearding on the NEA certainly will be overshadowed by Clinton's State of the Union Address later the same day. The advance line on the Address proffered by Administration spokespersons today indicates that Clinton will not so much as mention the NEA/NEH on Tuesday night (the highlight, we are told, will be a xenophobic initiative to increase spending on anti-Immigration measures). If by some chance the NEA/NEH is mentioned, by all means use the opportunity to increase local media coverage of your standpoint on Federal Arts Funding. If it isn't, sit tight: the NEA will probably surface in Thursday's print media. Anybody who can get a Charger or 49er to make a statement in support of the NEA/NEH will be guaranteed early entrance into the Small Press Hall of Fame. You may wish to seize on Murdoch's funding/bribing of a writer of little discernible talent (cf. _The Window of Opportunity_) and a nationally-recognized penchant for obscenity as a brilliant argument for why we need alternatives to the *market.* (_Window_ is Newt Gringrich's 1984 "blueprint for the future," published by Tom Doherty Associates, written when NG was Reagan's point-man for SDI). And finally, vis-a-vis Censorship. We abhor the NEA's imposition of censorship on itself as an agency and on the artists it funds. The point to keep foregrounded is that eliminating Federal Funding for the Arts and contributing to the further consolidation of corporate ownership of the means of expression is itself an unparalleled act of censorship. Herb Schiller's *Culture, Inc.* (NY: Oxford, 1989) remains a great reference on this point. * Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 13:40:05 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:57:44 EST from Kali: Just a brief response to your provacative posting in the midst of all the Freely Espousing excitement. What is beyond language? You speak of the traumatized persons you work with expressing their frustration at the fact that they cannot communicate their experiences; you *can't* understand; you *must* understand. This seems to me certainly as you suggested a symptom of the inadequacy of language, but it also seems to see some personality, or personality issues that are beyond or before language. Isn't language the closest thing we have to an identity, a personality? Which means, I think, that identity is something we share with others,exterior. This is what I was trying to get at when I was speaking of transparency as not being in the poetic context. I'd like to amend that and say as far as I know transparency, despite Carl Rogers, is not in any context. Transparency assumes the stability of both the sender and the receiver. I can't tell you how many times I have spoken or wrote and said not five seconds after that I was full of shit and how could I say such things. It wasn't me who said them I think to myself. The frustration everyone feels with language is in this lack of coherence of identity from moment to moment. There is no rapport; something always escapes. As far as language poets vs. Lorde and others, well, that is something I'd rather not get involved in. I can say that I think of Lorde's most subsversive act is simply being there, unavoidable, unplacatable. What she does with language, which is considerable, is to remind us that there are other forms out there that not only have a right to exist, but have informed the dominant language greatly. I should shut up about the apex of the m'ers, because frankly I don't know anything about them. Nor do I want to be seen as some language school apologist. I mean, I just got here. Nobody knows me. I'm surprised anyone even listens to me. I find them intersting (and here I speak of them as if they were already stuffed and mounted on a gallery wall) because I think they have pinpointed where to begin to define an oppositional, or revolutionary, or whatever, poetry. We start at the beginning of poetry, at the beginning of personality, at the beginning of culture. We start with language. What I find particularly interesting is that not only do many language poets *subvert* language, like you have properly noticed Lorde doing, but they make a sort of intervention into language. They try to change its structure. If we are to make any kind of intervention into history, this seems to me a model we can work with. Maybe the apexers are working with this. Maybe not. I don't know. I will say at this point that I think folks tend to discount manifestoes. Must be some sort of American anti-intellectual thing. The fact that both the language poets and the apexers wrote manifestoes is all to their credit as far as I am concerned. If we have learned anything in the last few years of NEA/NEH controversy after controversy it is that the people doing the work had better take the time to define themselves before someody else, like Lynn Cheney,does. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 22:51:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Address In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Sat, 21 Jan 1995 14:11:14 -0500 (EST)" <01HM40FF9HG28X3KUN@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> No I don't. Sorry. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 01:01:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: apex of the m... Hey, Kali Tal--have you heard that new Gil Scott Heron album? Is it as good as 1980? and some of the other stuff he did before his decade or so hiatus from recording/releasing? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 08:49:48 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Environmental Systems Research Institute From: Michael Waltuch Subject: Re: Freely Espousing Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley: Here's a suggestion: This week's What's New with NCSA Mosaic Pick of the Week Home Page is something called BookWire, "the book publishing industry's Online Information Resource". They will doubtless have a lot exposure this week at their Web site. It might be good to send them a press release. They are at http://www.bookwire.com or www@bookwire.com. Michael Waltuch ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 09:57:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501200051.TAA19815@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> In regards to James Sherry's post, why the (again) valorization of the M as the sole "meaningful" response of younger "experimental" writers to Language poetry? Why does no one respond to A Poetics of Criticism, Poetic Briefs, various essays in Witz and Texture and (sometimes interesting essays) Talisman, which have all said much more complex, insightful, and useful things regarding this issue? mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 12:58:18 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: New Press Release In-Reply-To: note of 01/21/95 19:59 Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Steve/Jennifer: Have you distributed your Freely Espousing press release to the TAMLIT list? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 23:25:31 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Espousing Update 1/23 This will be a brief one. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE We have learned that the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources has postponed their scheduled hearing on the NEA until later in the week. As usual, the Committee staff proved rather unforthcoming, but we will post the new time as soon as we learn it. Also, in yesterday's post we provided detailed information on the Subcommittee on Education, Arts, and Humanities. This week's hearing was called by the Full Committee (L & HR), not the subcommittee, so the people you see on C-SPAN may not be precisely the one's we provided information for. CALL FOR STATEMENTS As we have mentioned before, one way to participate in *Freely Espousing* is to post a succinct statement expressing your viewpoint on the issue of federal arts funding. We will do our best to distribute these statements to all participating sites. So far, response has been very low on this count. We think these statements can play a crucial part in facilitating solidarity between otherwise isolated locations, so please do consider writing one. ATTACK ON INTEREST FREE LOAN DEFERMENT FOR GRAD/PROF. SCHOOLS We received an action alert today (via the Marxist Literary Group's list-serve) concerning *Contract with/on America* legislation to dismantle interest free loan deferments to grad students. We will be happy to forward that post upon request. A 1-800 number, similar to the one established by American Arts Alliance on the NEA issue, has been set up (cost $3.95). We haven't got the number to hand, but will include it in our next update. Alright--we're a little weary here in Providence, and a little nervous after having moved our event to a much larger space, but reports from across the country are very encouraging. Good work everyone! Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 07:24:20 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: sign Could you please sign me up or on or whatever.... Or, could you tell me how. Or, at least tell me something. thanks, Ryan Knighton (knighton#sfu.ca) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 16:06:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: apex of the m... Dear mark--maybe a hint at an answer to your question about APEX BASHING may be found in the analogy with U.S.A. cold war politics...The USA certainly paid far more attention to the USSR than it did to England or France (despite its force du frappe) and the BIPOLAR POLITICAL MODEL still seems to exist in the poetry scene, despite the hype to the contrary... This had alot to do with how the L poets "got (in)famous" and have similar effect on MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 22:46:38 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 24 Jan 1995 16:06:55 -0500 from This analogy is very useful if only to demonstrate the absurdity of reducing all the alternatives, political or poetical, down to two. But considering the structural similarites of Soviet and US style administration, I wonder if you're trying to draw some correlation between the claims of m and of the l school? Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 23:22:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501250043.QAA10081@slip-1.slip.net> Dear Chris, If what you're saying is true (about hate giving its object power), then wouldn't the same apply to Newt Gingrich? All Best, Spencer Selby ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 02:05:20 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Espousing Update 1/24 Another late-night update: LEGISLATIVE UPDATE The Senate Hearing on the NEA has been rescheduled for Thursday, January 26th, at 9:30 am. The Congressional Record for January 23rd includes a speech given by Senator Pell in defense of the Endowment which event organizers/participants may wish to glance at. Also included in the record are editorials from various national newspapers. They are: We Need the NEA (Providence Journal 1/15/95) Don't Axe Federal Support for Art (NYT 1/13/95) Maintain Subsidies to Support the Arts (Chicago Sun-Times 1/13/95) Shunning the Yahoo Point of View (Wall St. Journal 1/13/95) Making a Case for the Arts (Atlanta Constitution 1/10/95) GOP Has A Song for NEA: Taps (LA Times, Washington edition 1/11/95) America's Art and Soul (Boston Globe 12/17/94). In the House, the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, was to have met this afternoon at 1:30. I haven't yet seen or heard anything about that (check tomorrow's papers). NEA "PLANS TO" DISTRIBUTE $24 MILLION Or so I read in 1/24 Boston Globe (but nowhere else so far). Massachusetts artists and orgs got $1.3 million. Reports of who received funds in your area could be a handy-way of tracking down further *Freely Espousing* participants. Best to everyone, Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley (401) 274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 02:31:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: apex of the m... No, eric (pape), actually, the analogy is severely flawed. I apologize for bringing it up. I do not know "the dealing that goes on behind the wings" but I prefer to be naive enough to hold out hope that if Mr. Mandel or Ms. Perloff sent work to Apex that they would read it seriously and "on its own merits" as it were. I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but in a letter I received several years ago from a dear friend of mine who happens to be an APEX editor, Mandel's work was mentioned positively--So I don't understand why he needs to say "I'm a language poet" in such a card-carrying way, as if these NAMES matter more than the poetry... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 02:38:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: apex of the m... Well, Spencer, that IS a tricky question is it. Let's SAY i HATE Newt Gingrich, or at least the interests for which he stands. Well, certainly that hatred isn't gonna make him or them go away, nor necessarily make him a larger threat then he is (except perhaps in our minds--LEST WE FORGET, etc.). It may be a quite different phenomena we're dealing with with the "divided left" which is basically how i read this L vs. M controversy... That the L vs. the M debate seems to obscure a more real debate... If we're going to be political, be political. Anyway, it's way more complicated than this...I'll use paper "without a net" to engage it more. All for now, Chris. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 09:22:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: James, please post this; couldn't do it to: poetics@ , ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu (fwd) Leslie asked me to forward this to the group. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Jan 95 15:40:27 PST From: twhite@mendel.Berkeley.EDU To: jsherry@panix.com Subject: James, please post this; couldn't do it to: poetics@ ubvm.cc.buffalo.ed Dear James, L&M S&M?, you're right. The most troubling thing is we've now got G.O.D. known only by the (spiritual) authorities (the fundamentalists; and even people saying they're Zen which they want codified, saying even Zen is essentially authority /convention as a positive assertion); where analysis (of one's language/form), or the form being what occurs or where/how it occurs, is to be overthrown as 'conservative.' Or 'merely reactive.' What's to occur as 'vision' must be given one from outside in that case. Yet that again is similar to the L's (on the West coast, usually two or three dominants, by whose ideas the entire group was then characterized - sometimes messages being given in manifesto group style; the point being that this behavior, which is now reoccurring, is jousting for dominance in which value is defined as power not related to literary substance per se, given credence by the stated assumption that displacing one's predecessors and peers is necessary. This is not the same as being a 'capitalist.'): always saying 'Question yourselves (laid bare by writing process), not us, or you're conservative; and you're (politically/socially) conservative by 'definition' if you question us.' 'You' not being an authority. Lew Daley's book on Susan Howe and John Taggart uses the word God as the reference authority about every third line; it's limiting the vocabulary. Similar to Perelman in the past finding the word "intuition" meaningless, essentially wanting to eliminate it; but not finding the word "thought" meaningless. Daley's book is a work of engagement (certainly passion) and complexity, yet his 'God' is as if a given which 'we' are supposed to know (by authority/tradition) (and renders valid the poetic observations?) rather than phenomena 'to be found out' by experience. In either case, elimination of vocabulary is exclusion of words which allow the perception of those distinctions as they are 'making' distinctions; which exclusion is also 'ordering.' The work of most Language poets is still continually changing and vital as is that of the various multitudinous dark horses, who're always there changing what is occurring. I think the poetic issues, delineated by the two (M/Language) here, parallel the contemporary religious and political moves; are not merely reactivity by them. For that reason, the Apex of M writing these matters is provocative. Personally, I'd rather 'react' to a humane rationalist (meaning even the limitations of such a specifically delineated stance) from which 'place' one can bound freely into one's own (inner) terrain, not usurped by anyone, than to have to have 'vision,' 'tradition' and 'spirituality' ('one's own place,' so that one would simply have to make another place) defined and held as a product or a poetic 'position;' which, when defined, and defining as power (as one avant-garde overtaking another), is voided. Leslie Scalapino Tom White Leslie Scalapino Fax: 510-522-1966 510-601-9588 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:15:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: James, please post this; couldn't do it to: poetics@ , In-Reply-To: <199501251508.KAA18140@sarah.albany.edu> from "James Sherry" at Jan 25, 95 09:22:53 am Just as I was reading Leslie's piece, that wierd "G.O.D." in her second line appeared in huge letters on the side of a truck driving down Madison in front of my window & explaining in smaller letter that it meant: Guaranteed Overnight Delivery ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:30:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "David W. Clippinger" Subject: Cid Corman I was wondering if anyone has Cid Corman's current address. Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks, David Clippinger ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:32:03 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry Rothenberg Subject: el cid For David Clippinger -- Cid Corman's address, as of maybe two years ago, was the following: Fukuoji-cho 80 Utano Ukyo-ku Kyoto 616 Not in any way private as far as I know, so I send it to you over the net. Jerome Rothenberg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 09:01:29 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kit Robinson Subject: Re: G.O.D. Reply to: RE>G.O.D. Pierre, Wow! I thought Leslie meant Grand Old Deity. Kit Robinson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 11:14:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: LAURA MORIARTY Subject: Re: Cid Corman In-Reply-To: <9501251717.AA06515@mercury.sfsu.edu> David, The address we have at the Poetry Center as of 1991 is Fukuoji--Cho 80 Utano, Ukyo--Ku Kyoto, 616, Japan Also: c/o Dr. Leonard Corman 87 Dartmouth St. Boston, MA 02116 On Wed, 25 Jan 1995, David W. Clippinger wrote: > I was wondering if anyone has Cid Corman's current address. Your help > would be much appreciated. > > Thanks, > > David Clippinger > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 14:23:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/23 X-To: Evans/Moxley In-Reply-To: <199501240535.AA06973@panix3.panix.com> NEA is a good thing for our country to support. A nation should support its culture not as a business but as its representative to the world. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 14:26:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501250828.AA08139@panix3.panix.com> Chris, What do you mean that the L vs M debate obscures the real debate. What is this real debate? James ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 13:36:00 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 25 Jan 1995 02:31:25 -0500 from Wanted to post this to Chris privately, but the nodeid wouldn't work. Will have to display my further ignorance of M. I was very interested in Chris's reply to Spencer: if you're going to be political, be political. I agree entirely, but isn't a technique, a method, a mode of production political? Is politics simply contents? Because Forche and others say their work is revolutionary even though written in what may be considered reactionary forms, do we accept this? And this is where my ignorance is most apparent. I know nothing of M, their claims or their practises. The work seemed to be characterized in a certain way on the list and it was this characterization I was responding to.Perhaps illegitimately? I am interested in M materials. Any suggestions as to who and where? I *do* believe there is now room in poetry and poetics for another vital movement, another school in the American passion for schools. My concern is that this other take into account the insight into politics and poetics I believe L school provides. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 14:59:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501231648.AA14450@panix3.panix.com> I think, although others may differ, that the attention to M is based on its "belligerent" attack on L, its infantile "why aren't we being included in the scene" resentment, and its frontal oversimplified politics when addressing such sensitive and subtle issues as spirit. People are too eager to accept or credit or pay attention to these simplified attacks as if such simplicity were a more direct line to truth. The L group has tried to represent an alternative to such bluntness as antithetical to the complex process of writing and the multifold relations between that process and its dissemination to other writers to individual readers to the culture as a whole through its ideas and recursively to the writer of the original work. M seems to be trying to replace that complex web with an antiquated iconography thinly updated. I think also that Pam Rehm is a fine poet and the prose writing in Apex is admirable and profoundly misdirected. I think it's that combination which has attracted attention. A Poetics and my personal favorite of the new publications "Chain" and others have not gotten that attention and that speaks to the exchange Chris Stro.. is involved in today. They are engaging in an ongoing dialog on many and interesting issues which we wouldn't think about combining in some false rubric and reifying to death. They are getting on with the work of making a world of poetry. I wish that the M issue would just go away, but it won't and needs to be addressed even if addresssing it does make it more palpable. I wish all of those reactionaries disguised as the "new" thing would go away but Newt must also be dealt with and all such metered nonsense by people afraid to face the future. I hope that's what you meant by why. Jamses On Mon, 23 Jan 1995, Mark Wallace wrote: > In regards to James Sherry's post, why the (again) valorization of the M > as the sole "meaningful" response of younger "experimental" writers to > Language poetry? > > Why does no one respond to A Poetics of Criticism, Poetic Briefs, various > essays in Witz and Texture and (sometimes interesting essays) Talisman, > which have all said much more complex, insightful, and useful things > regarding this issue? > > mark wallace > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 16:18:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: apex of the m In-Reply-To: <199501211803.KAA16981@whistler.sfu.ca> from "eric pape" at Jan 21, 95 11:45:09 am In 1964 a revolutionary Central American poet told me what he thought about the relationship between language and fighting. He said "Agrarian reform of the mind before agrarian reform of the land." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 02:37:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501250828.AAA18246@slip-1.slip.net> Dear Chris, When it comes to most editorial response today, names do matter more than the poetry. You're not naive to believe otherwise, you're in denial, and you've got a lot of company. (Forgive me for responding to yr letter to eric rather than the one to me, which I did appreciate.) Yrs, Spencer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 08:18:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Up in smoke Is the question, Is L more genuine than M, or is M less rigorous than L? Or is it that L + M = (aside from a nostalgia for smoking) M + L which is greater than the sum of its parts. Actually, you have to hand it to the Mers, who seemed to have learned well from the Lers (who I suspect, if "truth" be told, got it from the Yippies) (who, of course, got it from Madison Avenue) that a catchy logo(s) is half the battle of marketing. That and a "movement" to tag it to. Call me I=R=R=E=S=I=S=T=I=B=L=E. Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 12:03:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Subject: Re: Up in smoke In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 26 Jan 1995 08:18:17 -0500 from Connell McGrath is in the process of breaking down the o-blek office and asked me to post the following announcement: _______________________________________________________________________ POETRY READERS o-blek magazine is out of business and I want to pass on our overstock to interested readers. They are available on a first-come first serve basis at the following rates: o-blek /#'s 1 thru 9 & 11 are a $1.50 per book, o-blek/12's are $4 per set while they last. These amounts will cover the cost of mailing materials and postage. Please help me to get these wonderful books into the right hands. Tell all who may be interested, buy as many as you like, do it soon. Respectfully, Connell McGrath Send Check made out to o-blek to: o-blek PO Box 1242 Stockbridge, MA 01262 _____________________________________________________________________ Please feel free to post this annoucement to other lists or to print out and pass on to others. Thanks Peter Gizzi ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 15:32:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jorge Guitart Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: a reading of apex of the m 2 I have read Apex of the M 2, of the famous editorial. Nothing in it is 100% certified radically transparent--and that includes the editorial calling for radical transparency. Some of the stuff in the editorial struck me as radically opaque Some as medium opaque Some of the poems were of medium transparency some of medium opacity but every poem was extraordinary (though not in the sense of "used for a special service or occasion"--I thought of the wall street journal, where the editorials are conservative and (some of) the stories liberal. Here the editoria "radical" and the poems are "conservative". i am pessimistic about radically transparent poetry bringing about the classless waste your time on me: organize. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 19:22:05 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marc Nasdor Subject: Re: NEA Enemy Action In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 20 Jan 1995 11:17:58 -0500 from RE: James's posting on the NEA: I think maybe I can rustle up a few "big hair" and long-nail salons out here in Staten Island to apply for a grant to satisfy the GOPpers. Do you think we should apply under the Folk Art category? :-) Seriously, though, an effective strategy would be to accentuate the positive and argue for the NEA's survival based on the many small arts organizations and presses, etc., that the endowment funds. They should have have gotten rid of the fellowships a long time ago anyway. Besides, you can't even live for a year on $20,000 anymore, at least not on the coasts. Cheers, Marc Nasdor abohc@cunyvm.cuny.edu or Nasdor@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 19:38:56 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marc Nasdor Subject: Re: New Press Release In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 21 Jan 1995 19:52:53 EST from I've been off the wire for awhile. Could someone tell me where the New York Freely Espousing event will take place, and at what time? Thanks. Marc Nasdor abohc@cunyvm.cuny.edu Nasdor@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 21:11:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: Re: freely espousing Thinking about the NEA again and just having listened to NPR: When is it better to lose than to win? Jane Alexander testified to the senate today about all the travelling she had done and when she spoke to the common people how much art meant to them. Then the freshman senator from Missouri (I forget his name) asked about the problem of art being funded that the majority of Americans felt challenged their basic values. Did Jane Alexander then say that that was precisely the type of art that a democracy should fund? No. Instead she waffled about how they were trying to make sure that such things didn't happen in the future, that they had safeguarded again funding such things in the future (Mapplethorpe, of course, but not said out loud). Seeing an opening, the senator then said that he for one did not trust the NEA to make such safeguards themselves. Do you see where this is going? What if the NEA is preserved, but only to fund orchestras and such? Talking to Alexander Ooms (in the lit program at the NEA) a week ago, he mentioned something that happened in Louisiana a couple of years ago. The legislature axed all arts funding. This so mobilized the arts community that they put enough pressure on government and the next year the legislature gave the arts funding at a dollar per citizen, double their previous budget. The NEA being eliminated might not be as bad as what's currently shaping up. What if federal grants to individual artists were dropped and all money given to states in block grants instead? One can imagine that this might lead to no new artists being funded at all, at least in some (most?) states, the climate being such that what's most feared is anything potentially perceivable as dangerous, as critical, as confrontational. I don't like the way this is going. Ted Pelton ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 22:55:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501252344.PAA05941@whistler.sfu.ca> from "eric pape" at Jan 25, 95 01:36:00 pm Cienfuegos said, when the Communist Party was trying to impose socialist realism on Cuban art and writing: "Revolutionary art is part of the revolution." He did not mean realist stories about heroic peasants. He did not mean (have you seen it?) the 1960 National Art Museum in Sofia. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 01:57:54 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans Subject: Re: New Press Release In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 26 Jan 1995 19:38:56 EST from Marc, You may want to double check with Jeff Hull, but I am pretty sure *FE* will be at the Poetry Project (Parish Hall) from 3-6pm. People are being encouraged to attend Kate Rushin's reading at the Ear Inn and then proceed over to the Project. Jeff's number is (212) 777-7436 or you can call Brenda at the Project. Glad to hear of your interest in all this. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 02:03:08 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Evans/Moxley Comments: Originally-From: Evans/Moxley From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Espousing Update 1/26 This didn't make it through on a first try.... ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- As the 28th draws near, reports from all *Freely Espousing* sites sound very encouraging. We once again thank everyone who has devoted some of (or all of) their time recently to making sure that the events will be thought- and action- provoking. We will try to make "field reports" available to the list as soon after the events as possible. So far, attempts to have on-line links haven't panned out, but that was probably more due to time constraints than anything else. SUGGESTED PETITION LANGUAGE We, the undersigned, wish to make known our unwavering support for federal funding of the arts, humanities, and public broadcast media. We endorse a strong, uncensored National Endowment of the Arts; a vigorous National Endowment of the Humanities; and continued public ownership of and access to the airwaves. As citizens, we will oppose all attempts to dismantle the nation's cultural infrastructure. Arts and education must be democratized, not-- as some members of the 104th Congress currently argue--privatized. Furthermore, in our capacity as artists, writers, scholars, educators, students, curators, and persons committed to democratic cultural and social ideals, we will continue to assist the public in coming to an informed opinion about the enormous return on what is indeed a modest national investment in the arts and humanities. (Note: Joe Ross may have suggestions for alternative language on the petitions by tomorrow. Joe--can you post such if indeed you get it?) ALEXANDER'S TESTIMONY We were unable to listen to JA's testimony this morning, but on Ted Pelton's account it seems well within her usual range. And we agree with Ted that it is a sobering/depressing range indeed (tho not so sobering perhaps as Mr. Heston's House testimony!). The narrowly economic approach being taken by many of the arts advocacy bureacracies should, we think, be countered by an articulate collective voice within the context of continued support for federal arts funding. Here in Providence, that's one thing we'll be interested in watching on Saturday: as organizers, we are arguing democracy, not the bottom line, as the bottom line. Many of our featured speakers, however, will take the prevailing economic line. Should be interesting. PROVIDENCE FEATURED SPEAKERS We don't have detailed programmes for other sites, but we thought people might be interested to know the speakers we'll be featuring on Saturday. They are: Roger Mandle, President of Rhode Island School of Design and NEA Advisory Counsel Member Liam Rector, Freedom to Write-Boston C.D. Wright, RI Poet Laureate Ray Rickman, Host of PBS's _Bestsellers_ Terry Ann Greenwood, Director of RI Arts Advocates, Dir. of RI Philharmonic Randy Rosenbaum, Director of Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Doreen Bolger, Director of RISD Museum Michael Harper, Professor of Creative Writing at Brown, Former State Laureate Rudy Cheeks, journalist for local alternative weekly(The Phoenix) Congressman Jack Reed Mayor of Providence Vincent "Buddy" Cianci Many other people from the education, dance, theater, small press, and artists collectives "scenes" in RI have leant support and will participate throughout the day. STATEMENTS FROM AFAR After our last request, we received several excellent statements that will be read on Saturday. We'll include further statements if they arrive in time to be printed up, so take twenty minutes tomorrow and dash one out. NEA COVER STORY IN THIS WEEKS VILLAGE VOICE A valuable four pages or so in this week's *Voice* includes a terrific piece by Michael Feingold in which he applies to Switzerland for "amnesty" on behalf of the U.S.'s half-million cultural workers. C. Carr's "Hanging by a Thread" is useful for identifying the key advocacy groups currently working on saving arts funding. Elizabeth Hess tallies the costs of internal censorship on both the NEA & NEH's parts. AND DON'T MISS The editorial in today's NY Times entitled "Eating Her Offspring" by Mike Rich. Rich adopts OJ-speak to point out the considerable contra- dictions in Lynne Cheney's testimony to Tuesday's House subcomittee, most importantly her attack on the National History Standards that she helped to write and that she now cites as evidence of the NEH's unacceptable behavior. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 08:35:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501270715.AA22832@panix.com> OK George, what DID he mean? James On Thu, 26 Jan 1995, George Bowering wrote: > Cienfuegos said, when the Communist Party was trying to impose > socialist realism on Cuban art and writing: "Revolutionary art is > part of the revolution." He did not mean realist stories about heroic > peasants. He did not mean (have you seen it?) the 1960 National Art > Museum in Sofia. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 16:07:57 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: apex of the m The truth of a process makes sense to and among those at the end of the process, where the transcription of thought on the page is a clean mirror to both writer and readers, writer as s/he writes, reader as s/he reads; the book unwritten is the look that speaks volumes between and among such. This so rare that most of us do in the name of more, ever more, vocal and verbal, dropped out of empathy then yanked back, the lack of us in "you-you" the vocation of study, time out. Oscar does not believe that art is being and thought is ugliness. He says so as in his day was no art and thought. Those who use Freud as if he were himself as benign and liberational as they do what he did not put sex against the ban on sex, power against stable. Such sects! Lift up hearts, prey on. The dream can only create if sleep is not for the provision of rest, o day for rest and night for study. Bade the body. The good faith goads the intellect setting the church of our agenda which, fulfilled, burns. We digest the stone and break into a jog. Dream breathing. Think, your very heart beating is bleeding and the blood next to come is bleeding into your heart, the oxygen is bleeding to become blood, the folks with beating blood are beating the air only. Dream wing. All every night walk by the venue in their heads where perfect truth of process plays the energy of creation. All have greater artists than Shakespeare to meet, but avery eye, don't converse, few attend, few remember, we are special in knowing we're special not especially. The perfect dreamer in all, in each, not a speaking to us all. Few go to sleep with the energy to mingle. I know I'm not alone in this. Shakespeare the artist in history, fifty of the sixteenth and seventeenth hundreds of years, everyone is Shakespeare. The dead can dance. Dreams trot through our excuses, scared to knock such vital guards. The fear's not explained till the dream's not come back against twenty such sentries. Step out of the stage and into the tubes. Stick to your gun till you blow off your head, walk again on your legs no one else's, carry your seed as she grows in your arms, out of your pain, let her, away from your pain. Think well of yourself, use your hands, get a grip, on the non-carnal gun. So many arms, swinging under the noosed throats, the unspoken carried on so many legs. Like dream life's accidents, vile, we dream nearer and nearer, the guard hangs in the air, twitching, tapping. We feel bumped into until, joy, we are alive. The ambient never wake up. Like you don't. You begin to ban humour and alcohol, the mares buck and head for the guards in new hope. Rest is not it, without truth towards process towards truth. If you're still reading, no-one's got anything. Some *should* let thoughts fester in the mind, process the festering. I know mortally the years from when I was born, each day the unit of measurement cuts history into me-sized portions, knowing ledges. I dodder to think the art of it. Sophocles mortal braved Freud, now so less winning. The Freud-led walk through him, more to hurt that if they'd gone by him, on every shelf in every flame-stricken library? Mind how you go. Excavate Plato, afraid to go out, for dream research. Nothing like life to keep you from dying, the nerves are steel strings, loud acoustic. Song begins the vibration, words reason the entry, into society, largely worthy of nothing so clarity! Be you once, the harsh heart sooner or timely, a slick into two dimensions, of prose, this nuisance is losing its once fascination, the pattern returns to its usual dynamic. Think in the two, drink in the third, things they don't want to reveal indicate why do you say that. I get it. Draw on planes, repairing the prairie, the gasses from the busses, the hole us. Destroy two to save three. The hurt behind the face understood yields to surf on the face again. The month from a flame that took our collection, from our senses, and flashed a banner over a dish of a dominant hemisphere, the northern, a cap with the bill right in front of our eyes. A missable interactive experience, a miserable sky made it so. Is cool holodeck sky? I sensed it cambe back to my name, but a short therapist circuits the patient, tree dimensional. I'll take my "clumsiness", I didn't dream "it" up, I ride broken in the bumps of a world I ought never to have believed was mine only thought. Alive-in world. The process of a sense makes truth to and among those at the head of a process, where the transcription of truth on the page is a claimed mirror to both writers and reader, writer as reader as utter; the book unsmitten is the look that speaks volumes between and among such. MANIFESTO FOLLOWS SHORTLY ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 16:09:52 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) From: CPCMB::P280 "I.LIGHTMAN" 27-JAN-1995 15:42:29.58 To: P280 CC: Subj: 1) Spiritualism. Never assume that in attacking something as religious, you are not part of a religion yourself. Jung not Freud. 2) If you are going to use the I-Ching, notice how your interaction with it produces a different work than is produced by someone else using the I-Ching. Notice that your works are more like each other, than your I-Ching works are like I-Ching works by other artists. Stockhausen not Cage. 3) Keep listening. 5) Have Pound's decency to look back on what you've represented. Next Generation not Kirk. 8) If improvisation is free, why do many of its evenings go out to the same boundary and no further? Leibniz not Newton. 13) To lecture, Stein milking not mocking a restrained common vocabulary to write descriptions, not Derrida punning and concatenating with abstracts to provoke, always with fixed unspoken loyalties of his own, and not own explicitly. Close to who you pretend? 21) Non-Freudian not neo-Freudian post-structuralism, if any. 34) Gloria Steinem not Julia Kristeva. 55) Fuck gender-fuck, open up genre. Harryman not Silliman. Thresh hold of "becoming" an adult and "no longer" being like a child. Neil Gaiman not Ridley Scott. Nurture, non-sexual love sexual life; actual practice of community, professor. Elizabeth Burns' _Letters to Elizabeth Bishop_, not Derrida's _The Post Card_. 89) Hyper-reality and reality, extend, object both ways. Posters and paintings of words not handwritten notebooks. Brush syntax. Johanna Drucker meets Emily Dickinson. 144) The sentence was a good stretch, but now I choose my jailors. Sing energy. So long when you misuse lyric poetry as a prison term. "The voice makes possible the entire continuum from the most extreme consonant-like noises to the purest vocal sound, and is far superior to even the most modern apparatus for creating tone-colours". Stockhausen not Zukofsky, the musical phrase, remember, not the metronome. IF YOU FOLLOW (OR ARE NEARER TO THIS MANIFESTO THAN TO OTHERS), PLEASE SUBMIT WORK TO "CHEERFUL FOLK POP OUT OF BUXTEHUDE" I.LIGHTMAN@UEA.AC.UK OR IRA LIGHTMAN 48 GLOUCESTER STREET NORWICH NR2 2DX UNITED KINGDOM ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 12:03:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jorge Guitart Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: cienfuegos and socialist realism Was that Camilo Cienfuegos, who disappeared mysteriously in Oct '59? (played centerfield for the San Francisco Seals (AAA) before the Rev) it couldnt have been Osmany Cienfuegos, Castro bureaucrat and murderer of bay of pigs invaders (put them in a cattle truck without ventilation). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 12:42:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) Hey--great fibonnuci (sic0 sequence, Ira. Anyway, Elizabeth Burns is here in Albany, NY and she'll no doubt to be thrilled your mention of her icw Derrida. Ah, names! chris s. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 20:20:31 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) HI Chris, Isn't Katie Yates in Albany? She's fab. How would one move to Albany, work there? I'm thinking of it as a next place to live. Ira ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 18:33:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: Life Supports In-Reply-To: <199501271039.FAA21994@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Steve Evans" at Jan 27, 95 01:57:54 am Does anyone know how i can obtain a copy of Life Supports, William Bronk's Collected Poems, which seems to have recently and lamentably become "unsupportable," i.e. gone out of print? Steve Shoemaker ss6r@fermi.clas.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 15:48:29 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501250927.BAA20542@slip-1.slip.net> Well, Chris, I don't know about yr distinction here. You talk about work read "on its own merits," that's what I was responding to. To me the group label is a secondary issue, though certainly related to what I consider primary--namely that people are unwilling or unable to respond to the work on its own merits. They need the signature, the name behind it, whatever might go along with that, whether it be group affiliation, things they've heard about you, yr publishing and/or life history or what they know of it, relations or encounters they've had with you, what they think of you, what they've heard other people think of you, what you believe and what you say about yrself (or anything else under the sun). In short, what they know or think they know of who you are. This is what I mean by name, and this is what is more important in our social reality than the work, unfortunately--most unfortunately. Yrs, Spencer ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 09:07:27 JST Reply-To: nada@twics.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: nada@TWICS.COM Subject: Re: el cid I talked to Cid Corman on the phone a couple of months ago. His current address is Fukuoji-cho 88 Kyoto 616 JAPAN ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 19:44:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 In-Reply-To: <01HMBKJHUYF6L1XPUJ@asu.edu> I am standing on the fringes. . .of this NEA thing, interested and provoked, yet not quite knowing where I stand on the issue. I am curious if someone would care to articulate the argument exactly why the federal government should keep funding the arts, humanities, etc. Now, keep in mind I am of the inclination that it should be continued--that we need support for arts and culture in this country--but that I am particularly curious how it is possible to argue with what appears a majority (hardly) who feel that such funding has been to undermine their values. How does one make the argument that the government ought to fund something that may militate against convention and "American" values? The way I see this is that it is going to very difficult to persuade people with power (reflecting the national mood-swing) to fund something that offends them. Does the federal government have a responsibility to fund art? Yes, of course it does, but if resources are few and the choices even fewer then . . .? Gosh, you know, I know I may be putting my head in the proverbial lion's mouth here, but I am interested in what and why on this issue and ask it so that I might understand it better. I don't want to offend anyone who feels strongly about this, I mean, afterall, I'd much rather the government fund education, art, mass transportation, etc, etc, than the military, etc, etc, etc. . . . And I'm also interested in the possibility that this fiscal argument is actually a covert way of making a cultural argument, of defunding the opposition. But here's where it gets real interesting, doesn't it, I mean, should those that feel that their values are under attack from these agencies honestly be persuaded that they should cough up tax money for something that offends them. It's our money, too, I suppose, but, sometimes I wonder if they're aren't more of them than there are of us. . . and I hate saying that cause we should all be having a broader dialogue with others of different opinions so we can explain what it is that we are attempting when we reread Western Civilisation and so they can articulate why it upsets them . . . and this all makes it so clear of how much is really at stake I suppose and I have to wonder if the opposition between the for/against isn't a distraction from some larger issue that we should be paying attention to ...or, I mean that the argument is a distraction from something else we should be noticing or . . . . And, you know, I just want to know why, why is arts funding important and why should someone who believes it's not fiscally responsible and culturally offensive pay for it? Sorry so long. Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 19:26:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) X-To: "I.LIGHTMAN" In-Reply-To: <01HMC3TL8RQQL1XTHY@asu.edu> "DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST"? Hm. Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 22:17:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: epc.news (note) A slightly corrected version of the epc.news posted to this list has been placed in the Electronic Poetry Center. Epc.news is available through the web version under the "hotlist." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 23:46:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: sign In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Tue, 24 Jan 1995 07:24:20 -0800" <01HM80YKV9N28X6W68@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> How did you hear about the Poetics List? IS SFU State? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 00:10:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: sign In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Tue, 24 Jan 1995 07:24:20 -0800" <01HM80YKV9N28X6W68@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> Welcome to the Poetics List. Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume managable. Word-of-mouth (and its electronic equivalents) seems to be working fine: please feel free to invite people you know to sign-up. It is easier for me if they sign-up by themselves AND send me (bernstei@ubvms) a note telling me how they heard about the list. I will send them *this* document in reply. To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics (The shorter bitnet address is listserv@ubvm. All further references to "Listserve" are to this listserve.) The list has open subscriptions. You can sub or unsub by sending a one-line message, with no subject line, to the listserv address: unsub poetics Jill Jillway {or} sub poetics Jill Jillway I will be sent a notice of all subscription activity. ARCHIVES There are two ways to get archives. The easiest way is to use the archives of the list at the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), for which see the end of this message. The other way is described below: Anyone interested in an archive of all postings after March may send this message to "Listserve": index poetics or index poetics f=mail You will receive a list of archived files in a format that includes something like this: * rec last - change * filename filetype GET PUT -fm lrecl nrecs date time POETICS LOG9403 ALL OWN V 80 1012 94/05/31 07:17:17 Started on Mon, 7 Mar 1994 12:51:12 -0600 POETICS LOG9404 ALL OWN V 83 1864 94/05/31 07:18:54 Started on Sat, 2 Apr 1994 16:01:07 -050 POETICS NOTEBOOK ALL OWN V 640 1693 94/06/09 15:27:09 Started on Sun, 1 May 1994 09:47:10 -0500 You can then send the "get" command to "Listserve" in the format: get filename filetype (eg: get poetics log9403 get poetics log9403 get poetics notebook) or get filename filetype f=mail depending on which log file you want (you can also get multiple files with one message). Note that each of the files has a different beginning and end date, eg LOG9404 starts 7 March and goes to 31 May and that dates overlap. Go figure! "Poetics Notebook" is an anomalous name for what is, in effect, another log file. ******* To subscribe to RIF/T, the e-poetry magazine at UB's Poetics Program: Send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: subscribe e-poetry Firstname Lastname where Firstname and Lastname correspond to your name. You will receive a confirmation of your subscription soon thereafter. (Nonsubscribers can automatically sub to Poetics using this same format, but substituting "poetics" for "e- poetry".) ** ____ ____ ____ / / / / / / EEEE PPPPP CCCCC EE / PP PP CC C/ EEE PPPPP CC / URL=gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/ __EE /_ PP |__ CC C ____ / EEEE/ PP/ CCCCC/ / internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift /__________________________/ |--------------------------| | Electronic Poetry Center | |__________________________| ___________________________________________________________________ E P C . N E W S No. 1 (January, 1995) ___________________________________________________________________ _Contents:_ 1.0 Basic Assumptions 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place 3.0 Interfaces: Gopher, Web, Mosaic; Bookmarks 4.0 RIF/T Notes 5.0 EPC New Additions 6.0 How to Connect ___________________________________________________________________ 1.0 Basic Assumptions The Electronic Poetry Center seeks to provide a central _place_ for Internet resources for poetry and poetics. The lay of the land: 1.__Welcome : Electronic Poetry Center Welcome & FAQ's (About)/ 2.__RIF/T : RIF/T / New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics (Texts)/ 3.__Poetics : Calendar, Poetics List Archive & Files (Texts)/ 4.__Authors : Electronic Poetry & Poetics - Authors (Texts)/ 5.__E-Journals : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Journals (Texts)/ 6.__E-Resources : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Resources (Connects)/ 7.__Small Press : Electronic Poetry Center Small Press Alcove (Cites)/ 8.__Gallery : The Electronic Poetry Gallery (Visuals)/ 9.__Sound : The Electronic Poetry Sound Room (Sound Files)/ 10._Documents : Poetry & Poetics Document Archive (Texts)/ 11._Exhibits : Electronic Poetry Center Exhibit case (Texts)/ 12._Notices : Electronic Poetry Center Announcements (Info)/ The Center continues to provide access to the electronic poetry and poetics journal, RIF/T, and the archives of the Poetics List. Needless to say, the EPC provides quality archival materials for these resources. For the Poetics archive, a feature has recently been added to allow keyword searching for the immense number of files comprising this archive. The EPC author library offers texts and/or information about contemporary poets in a variety of formats. A number of electronic journals are archived and distributed by the EPC. Journals distributed through the EPC differ from other e-journal archives in a significant way: the texts presented here have been checked and verified by their issuing agency, thus at least getting to you versions of electronic journals that have a direct link to their source. We are delighted to offer these journals to you and will continue to make sure texts presented are done so in collaboration with their producers. For resources outside the EPC, we have written links to make seamless connections to these resources. It is our aim to be vigilent about our links so that persons interested in poetry and poetics do not have to spend a lot of time digging for addresses, remembering sites, and locating resources. Through the selections available at the EPC, users of the system have simple and direct access to many other related Internet resources. The Center also provides information about contemporary little magazines and small presses engaged in poetry and poetics. Since this information is often difficult to locate, it is presented at the EPC in hopes of recongizing these contributions, facilitating communication, and providing an additional outlet for these extremely valuable print sources. Look here also for Selby's List of Experimental Magazines. The Poetry & Poetics Document Archive provides access to a number of documents of use to poets, teachers, and researchers. Here you will find essay material and current obituaries. This area should be consulted in conjunction with the Poetics Files and Small Press Sources areas, which also offer material of pedagogical use. The EPC also presently offers gallery, sound, exhibts, and an announcements area. ___________________________________________________________________ 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place Compared to say, a year ago, many people might agree that the idea of some sort of an electronic forum for poetry is not only a possibility but an inevitability. We have seen the continued growth of the Poetics List (I counted around 250 postings the month of December 1994 alone) and the development of the Electronic Poetry Center. The EPC has maintained a significant circulation. We regularly get letters from various world outposts attesting to the reality of such connectivity. Interesting also are the number of visits taking place, both locally and across distance; despite the dips and peaks that typify any active place, the EPC has seen a good amount of traffic across its doorstep. For those with such inclination (and it is illuminating that the following compare favorably with circulation statistics, say, for a little magazine) here are some numbers: _Month_ _Connects_ Nov 1994 573 Oct 1994 429 Sep 1994 367 August 1994 348 July 1994 614 June 1994 110 These statistics give only a sense of scale, it should be noted, since direct connections to EPC submenus and entries through Veronica searches, a significant number of connects, are not included in the above statistics. ___________________________________________________________________ 3.0 Interface: Gopher, Web, Mosaic Even as activities converge, it is also the time of divergent interfaces. I am often surprised by the number of our contributors and participants who do not even have gopher access. (These, again, not represented in the above statistics.) Most people, we figure, have at least gopher access, though Web access is quickly becoming a standard. Mosaic, it would be assumed, though assuming predominance in the University setting, has hardly become a reality for most dial-up users, particularly internationally. (For the sake of a common ground, gopher is an ascii-based interface that offers access through the selection of menus; the web is an ascii-based interface that offers access through _screens_ of information with links to other areas appearing as highlighted text; Mosaic is a graphical interface basically superimposed on the Web structure that offers images, sound, video, and allows you to use your mouse as a navigational tool.) The EPC is accessible through any of these interfaces. It is presently evolving strongly towards exclusive Web/Mosaic access. _Informational Notes_: (1) The standard for Web/Mosaic documents is the markup protocol called html. These are imbedded codes that you will see once in a while when you download an html document. These codes give instructions to the software about highlighting, fonts, and screen layout, as well as providing for the _hot links_ that make possible Web/Mosaic navigation. (2) A feature of these interfaces that should be mentioned is the bookmark. You may wish to investigate this as most systems allow you to set a bookmark, say at the EPC, and gain immediate access to it when you invoke your interface. ___________________________________________________________________ 4.0 RIF/T Notes Forthcoming from RIF/T are two special issues. The first of these is the Transpoeisis issue (see EPC Announcements for details) which will offer a muti-faced and multi-format approach to the presentation of translations. Also forthcoming, a planned special issue on Charles Olson. RIF/T will also soon issue the first in a series of special chapbooks. Much on the way! ___________________________________________________________________ 5.0 EPC New Additions Many additions have been made to the EPC in the past six months. Following are some of the journals archived and directly distributed by the EPC: DIU / Albany Experioddi(cyber)cist / Florence, AL Inter\face / Albany Poemata - Canadian Poetry Assoc. / London, Ontario (Info)/ RIF/T: Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics Segue Foundation/Roof Book News / New York TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition / Lakewood, Ohio We Magazine / Santa Cruz Witz / Toluca Lake, CA / via Syntax Significant connections which the EPC would like to highlight include the following: Alternative-X Basil Bunting Poetry Centre (Durham, England) [Informational] Best-Quality Audio Web Poems (Rhode Island) Carma Bums 'Tour of Words' CICNET Electronic Journal Archive Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (Virginia) Internet Poetry Archive (North Carolina) Michigan Electronic Text Archive Nous Refuse Discussion List (Illinois) Postmodern Culture (North Carolina) Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine ___________________________________________________________________ 6.0 How to Connect The Center is located at gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift Gopher Access: For those who have access to gopher, type gopher writing.upenn.edu at your system prompt. First choose Libraries & Library Resources, then Electronic Journals, then E- Journals/Resources Produced Here At UB, then The Electronic Poetry Center. (Note: Connections to some Poetry Center resources require Web access, though most are presently available through gopher). World-Wide Web and Mosaic Access: For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access, from your interface, choose the _go to URL_ option then go to (type as one continuous string) gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift (Substituting hh for 11 in the URL above may produce better results on your system.) Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access. Also ask about setting a "bookmark" through your system for quick and easy access to the Center when you log on. If you have comments or suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, do not hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier, lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu or Kenneth Sherwood, e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu ___________________________________________________________________ The Electronic Poetry Center is administered in Buffalo by E-Poetry and RIF/T in coordination with the Poetics List. Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Glazier in collaboration with Charles Bernstein __________________________________________________________________ End of EPC.News #1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 04:44:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) Yates left Albany in August for Boulder, Co. Naropa scene buddhist holistic meditation trip. Her whereabouts are unknown to me and as far as I know to most here in Albany. If anybody, probably funkhouser would know.... As for moving to Albany, I'm torn about what to tell you. We certainly would enjoy the presence of another poet here. Why would you want to leave England for a country (gendered masculine--sorry) who has "Blown its wad" in a century that is approaching its end? Just curious--chris ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 06:52:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: Funding Arguments In-Reply-To: <199501281241.AA12451@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Jeffrey Timmons" at Jan 27, 95 07:43:54 pm In answer to Jeffery Timmons, and anyone else -- As a scholar whose field of research is information policy, I've spent some time over the past couple of years articulating reasons why a nation-state should be concerned about arts policy. The arguments I offer differ from those traditionally available (makes money for the communities, eg...) because I believe the position of the arts within the postmodern condition/the information society play a different role vis a vis private and public power structures. Theories of self-organizing systems are used. Happy to send a "popular" and/or academic version of these arguments fully laid out to anyone who sends a snail address, and will try to put a one-screen version of the arguments up later today. Sandra Braman Institute of Communications Research University of Illinois-Urbana s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 07:13:41 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Katie Yates When I saw her at Naropa last summer, Katie Yates was saying that she planned to move permanently to Boulder. She'd attended Naropa before Albany (and is, in fact, the first grad of the Kerouac school to go on to get a PhD in writing, odd degree that that is). She was on this list when she was at Albany, but I don't know if she still has access. Katie, are you there? Ron Silliman rsillima@ix.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 10:41:30 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Re: Funding Arguments In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 28 Jan 1995 06:52:31 -0600 from Sandra: We would love to make the "popular" version of your argument available to the audience at *Freely Espousing* this afternoon. Any chance of having it, via e-mail, by 1:30 or so? Yours, Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 11:14:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Katie Yates In-Reply-To: <199501281515.KAA15749@sarah.albany.edu> from "Ron Silliman" at Jan 28, 95 07:13:41 am Ron, A PhD in writing wld be an odd degree indeed. The Albany grad program,however, involves what we call "a nexus of discourses" with three primary areas: writing / criticism / pedagogy. A degree has to involve at least 2 of those, as did, for example, Katie's. Pierre ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 11:51:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Scheil Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 In-Reply-To: <199501280746.CAA26484@grfn.ORG> Jeffrey Timmons has articulated certain vague apprehensions that I have also entertained in regard to the whole NEA funding controversy. In particular, I have always entertained a certain unease about the funding of individual artists; there is a sense that by allowing the government (through whatever assemblage of artist-advisors brought in to make value judgements, ect) to pick and choose them, that we are perpetuating a hegemonic acceptance of and de facto perpetuation of whatever stylistic movement is deemed to have sufficient cultural currency at any given time. Rather, I would probably like to see the NEA become an organization dedicated to funding other local organizations, who in turn would support those individuals in whom they find merit. Let The Knitting Factory, the local Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, and the regional art organizations decide where the federal dollars are spent. Local funding, local control... Just wanted to put my 2 cents in... Chris Scheil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 13:14:13 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: Art Policy in the 90s In-Reply-To: <199501281544.JAA41268@argus.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Evans/Moxley" at Jan 28, 95 10:41:16 am The following more lengthy message articulates in broad brushstrokes what art policy might b e in the 1990s relative to today's policy environment, the postmodern characteristics of our culture, and what it means to be in an information economy. The NEA ain't the only game in town. Sandra Braman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 13:20:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: Apology -- it didn't work In-Reply-To: <199501281544.JAA41268@argus.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Evans/Moxley" at Jan 28, 95 10:41:16 am Attempt to send art and poetry policy text failed. Sorry to have disturbed you. Iced and snowed out of freely espousing in Milwaukee. Will try again later. S. Braman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 17:18:55 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 >Rather, I would probably like to see the NEA become an organization >dedicatd to funding other local orgaizations... so would i, but that sort of thing is _exactly_ what the first round of hearings made clear was unacceptable to congress. they want _more_ control, not less... and, since i have in the past voiced my own misgivings about the NEA, let me say that Newt Helms & co. do not need my help in bashing any segment of the arts communities, and i hope the Espousing events went well... luigi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 15:13:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: cienfuegos and socialist realism In-Reply-To: <199501272114.NAA18863@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Jorge Guitart" at Jan 27, 95 12:03:47 pm Cienfuegos didnt disappear all that mysteriously. His plane went down somewhere, not all that much to the dismay of the CP adherents who didnt like his barbudo style. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 15:25:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: to Mark Wallace In-Reply-To: <199501231649.IAA24004@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Mark Wallace" at Jan 23, 95 09:57:16 am Did you write a review of Bromige's book from Brick Books? If so, wd you get in touch with me at bowering@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 15:16:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501271347.FAA04763@whistler.sfu.ca> from "James Sherry" at Jan 27, 95 08:35:51 am He meant revolutionary ART, not art about the revolution. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 19:31:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary I'm changing the "name" of this debate/discussion--not so much because I necessarily see the issue as more 'real' in an absolute way but it is perhaps more empowering. There are several 'issues' or 'insights' I'd like to 'address'. Tom Mandel's recent post claims "difference is where it's at" and basically I agree. The question then becomes a matter of the debate between the structuralist "Difference between" and the post-structuralist "difference within," a "meta" debate I find engaging. When Tom writes "I want the discourse to proceed at the level of the poetry" he raises the question of the RELATION between poetry and polemics. Eric Pape brings up the "politics is not simply content" but also form and that can be a little too black and white at times. For the example he uses claims that the trouble with Forche is her work in "reactionary forms". Yet, maybe that wouldn't be such a problem werethe work engaged in a more rigorous questioning of the complexities of current political/ideological/economic questions rather than the relatively SAFE poems about World War II, etc. And maybe Kali Tal would argue, but too much VIETNAM poetry seems to do this too... Nonetheless, I do not wish to reject these voices out of hand. And in terms of this i find Leslie Scalapino's comments quite helpful. She considers Lew Daly's appeal to "God" as a too limiting vocabulary and equates it to perelman's rejecting "intuition" but not "thought." And this illuminates but one way in which the L poets (Baby boomers?) and the M editors (gen. x?) are actually quite similar, despite James Sherry's assertion that "The L group (not the CHUBB group] has tried to represent an alternative to such bluntness as antithetical to the complex process of writing..." Yes! However, I can not necessarily totally side with the urge for boundless vocabulary. In the first place, even if i hold it a value to have no taboos in my work and say everything (as it were), there are certain "charecteristic" things I return to often.In the second place this may be as much of an issue of "difference within" as "difference between" (When I first got into poetry in around 1986 I remember going back and forth, dialectically as it were, between Brecht and Ashbery and i also remember being rather skeptical towards the "times they are a changing" and the "gotta serve somebody" dylan--prefering the more complex "Bringin' It All/Hiway 61" stuff--but then one day it hit me "YES, there is a certain level on which it's BLACK AND WHITE"). I do not claim to solve any of this nor do I mean to come off like some "independent" "third party candidate" with an "open mind" (ever hear the song by MAGAZINE--"My mind ain't so open that anything would crawl in") but I'm curious when Tom (Mandel) writes that a NEGATIVE RESPONSE IMPLIES A CLOSED MIND. In the first place, what IS a NEGATIVE RESPONSE? Don Byrd told me (forgive me if I'm misquoting you Don) that although his last book of poetry was reviewed quite favorably, it wasn't the response he wanted. he didn't think people "got it." Often, so-called NEGATIVE responses show far more engagement with the work than so-called POSITIVE ones. But not always. One last point I would like to flog like a dead horse is the question of Mandel's definition of the identity of himself as a LANGUAGE poet as historical and not card-carrying. Do we define say David Shapiro or John Godfrey, roughly the same age and with many of the same concerns as a good number of the L poets, as LANGUAGE poets--historically. Doesn't this become like the academic co-optation of poets. i had a teacher at Temple who was bent on proving that marianne moore was an objectivist, because she saw herself as an objectivist and began to like Moore. That can be interesting I suppose, but what i'm more interested in at present is what Leslie Scalapino calls "multidinous dark horses."(typo at multitidinous) In what context? Chris... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 17:13:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: Espousing back at ya-hoo Reply to: RE>Espousing back at ya-hoo Thanks, all goes well in nuevoyourko. gringos & heathens alike. when yall comin to town? BillyDglsMark&Jeff ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 17:35:00 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: the real language poet Reply to: RE>the real language poet look, the other day i was sitting in this stupid pretend english pub that was less like a real english pub than anyone in hollywood could ever imagine (even the evil eisner), & my head bounced off the fucking floor when i realized that james sherry, tom mandel, & charles bernstein were raking this guy over the coals for writing an article 2 (not one, but 2) YEARS ago about Language Poetry. (& how they weren't that thing.) FINE--They're not, infact no one except ME ever was. Yes--I AM THE FIRST, THE ONE & ONLY LANGUAGE POET. Silliman, Andrews, Bernstein, Hejinian, Harriman, Palmquist, Veal-Scalapino, 1000w Lig htBulb, & Hello Kitty Robinson are all imposters-posers-reactionary posse. (at best PROTO-LANGUAGE poets.) {More precisely, NEO-Door.} I am THE Language Poet. Group identification is merely another marketing ploy & the oldest one at that. -Tony Door Calabria, Italy 1/29/95 -------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:56:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 Reply to Jeffrey Timmons re: arts & humanities funding: First of all, I don't believe that there is a national mood supporting Gingrich & co., but rather that it's manufactured; neither do I believe the country is in terrible financial trouble, as NEA/NEH detractors would have it. Sometimes their manuevers are naked: witness Lynn Cheney testifying against the NEH two years after chairing the agency herself and testifying it should be renewed, and that at a time when we had a worse deficit. But to the point (I could get into an interrelated media and politicians and corporations thing, but it's a rather familiar tune by now), I offer the following quotations: "I believe, as a free society, we need to protect diversity and encourage the exchange of ideas. I regard some recent attempts to cut funding for NEA as attempts at censorship, and at silencing one part of this discussion." "The world leadership which has come to the United States cannot rest solely upon superior power, wealth, and technology, but must be solidly founded upon worldwide respect and admiration for the Nation's high qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and of the spirit." "Democracy demands wisdom and vision of its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of the technology and not its unthinking servants." The first quote is from Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin. Why doesn't something like this come from Jane Alexander was my question a couple days ago. It isn't outside the debate, but she chose to compromise before the fight began. Conservatives are trying to censor those who stand for values they don't agree with. Values is a word that's been taken over by the Right, as if you have to be a fundamentalist to have values. But things that are happening in Congress right now are deeply offensive to my values -- the right to have an art that functions as critique and antidote to prevailing norms, a neccessity in a democracy. (That much more necessary because the press -- which Madison and Jefferson and co. thought would save us -- have abdicated their adversarial position vis a vis government, preferring a scandal-sheet mentality.) The second two quotes are also from the center, or at least what used to be the center: both come from the original NEA/NEH charter in 1965. I particularly like "masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants." Is it possible that the US Government once produced language like that? Now all the powers that be seem to want are unthinking servants. Thus the endowments are opposed. Who are *the people* we're always being told support this and condemn that? I don't buy what I'm told the people want. Polls are a sophisticated form of lie; similarly, I can structure my lectures to my students so that I see my own phrases coming back to me on tests. But as a part of the people, I'm going to demand what I think the nation should stand for; that first government quote hits home for me -- I'm tired of being known around the world for our endless flow of weapons to the world's thugs, or as the world's biggest thug. James Sherry said something similar the other day: "A nation should support its culture not as a business but as its representative to the world." I could add: others will represent you if you don't represent yourself. Ted Pelton ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 23:22:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Archives Department Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root, Sept. 1990 X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET [The editors of Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root are preparing electronic versions of some of the material from their magazine, which will soon be available at the EPC. This text is provided as introduction.] Dark Ages Clasp the Daisy Root #4, Sept. 1990 Editorial: We live at a time in which "modern" no longer makes clear what differentiates the present from the past. Comes instead the prefix "post-," illuminating like a metaphysical truth an age that never did, perhaps, exist, signifying above all our wish to be rid of words that no longer help us speak. What Beverly Dahlen calls "a journey of indecipherables.a way in the cloying dark" defines a relation to history no longer indifferent to language. Fate throws the darkness in our path. We believe that terms, outwitting their applications, charge us with the task of preparing further journeys. The "ancient confidence" Charles Olson felt when he named himself "POST-MODERN," idiosyncratically, to state that he _did_ belong to something called a "universe," no longer moves us to overthrow estrangement. As long ago as 1950, Olson realized that what is modern is "Man" itself, that "Man's" only means of opposing "himself"--withstanding the brutality of "his" will, the tyranny of a modern logos--is the body, "intact and fought for." Without this ground--without an experience specific to time and place--we are lost. "The _modern_," declared Olson, writing Robert Creeley, "(and we have to push this biz, of the SINGLE I, to undo the modern) does--admit it or not--feel he does _not_ belong to what--just, quick, call it, the universe." Such "undoing" (a word that recalls the spinning of the Moirai) represents what theologian Mark C. Taylor terms "errant" thought. "Repeatedly slipping through the holes in the system within which it must, nevertheless, be registered," writes Taylor, "such thought is perpetually transitory and forever nomadic." The individual, the single I, given over as one might yield the most useless of properties, to the _properties_ of that "Worth"--a breath that is taken, the beating of a heart no less a fact than the fiction of God by which history is made and written--insofar as _it is_ given, announces itself as an illusion. This is what the Old Testament called _tselem_: a phantom, a representation, an image. Held in the procreant hands of time, the postmodern-- applying that word as Olson coined it--enters upon the Earthly Paradise so errantly addressed in _Maximus_. Man came here by an intolerable way. When man is reduced to so much fat for soap, superphosphate for soil, fillings and shoes for sale, he has, to begin with, one answer, one point of resistance only to such fragmentation, one organized ground, a ground he comes to by a way the precise contrary of the cross, of spirit in the old sense, in old mouths. It is his own physiology he is forced to arrive at. And the way--the way of the beast, of man and the Beast. If Olson resists the call of God in this, he does so to repossess creation, to mark and insist "that the idea of one god itself is only an extension of the principle, that one man can, by the labor of his life, give light that others can use to have theirs." Man and woman--in _their_ image, the shadow of divinity, fallen. Is this the apotheosis of what Postmodernism would inaugurate? What other names for our relation to the past, for the burden of our present? _So many stumble / going out of the world_, writes Susan Howe, _word flesh crumbled page edge . . . A question of overthrowing_. No longer indifferent to language, have we become, in our disaffection, our estrangement, unused to other paths, other ways through the cloying dark? Has the brashness denoted by the prefix "post-" become a despair, an intellectual despair, rigorous as geometry? A journey of indecipherables A question of overthrowing _For its power_, writes Olson, thinking of what he came to call the soul, _is bone muscle nerve blood brain man or woman, its fragile mortal force its old eternity, a stumbling_. Andrew Schelling & Benjamin Friedlander September 1990 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:38:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 X-To: Ted Pelton In-Reply-To: <01HME4FZA3O6L1Y7OA@asu.edu> I thought Ted's response was pretty right on about the manufacturing of consent (Chomsky?) and I agree with him on this point, but (and this for the sake of sorting this out better for myself) doesn't that idea sort of deny the validity of those that--false consciousness or manufactured consent be it may--honestly hold and feel as strongly about their beliefs? And that's what seems to me to be the issue here: cultural conflict, in the sense that various versions of America are being brought into conflict, that it's being described as a battle, a cultural war, and it's actually taking on more and more shades of division and separation between my America and your's--so to speak. Proposition 187 and the calls for tighter immigration, the Haitian invasion, Newt's defense of American Civilisation, and all the negative reactions to multiculturalism as a weakening of WESTERN CIVILISATION--these all seem to reflect an attitude or a drawing of battle lines or a restratification ... where am I? Or as Emerson said, "Where do we find ourselves?" I think that's what he said . . . The point is, the question I have for Ted is if consent or opinion is manipulated or manufactured does that mean that those that hold those views are embodiments of a form of false consciousness--and does that make us any less subject to alternative forms of that same process from other loci of power? And if--if, mind you--their consent or opinion is not manufactured and neither is ours and we both have--demand--a representation in America of our views how do we mediate these positions. This is only a lame attempt to think about these issues, so don't hold me to any accuracy or clarity in articulating them--they've been hounding me, especially as I've tried to listen over the past few months to conservative points of view in order to understand the arguments. I'm a registered independent, for what it's worth. Anyway.... Jeffrey ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:40:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 In-Reply-To: <01HMCPRS0NKI8X2YRZ@asu.edu> Interested in seeing the text sandra braman alluded to. Jeffrey ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 23:51:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary chris stroffolino can't be serious in thinking that if I'm historically a language poet (I hope this subject goes away soon) then I must mean that anyone else my age is too. I meant my history and that of the others associated with this group. Anyway, what difference can it possibly make? it's not whether your mind is open or closed but what is it closes or opens your mind. What makes this the end of a century? a convention. What makes this _late_ capitalism. a convention. what makes this the deadend of a culture? a convention. the music of alois haba invalidated the theoretical/ critical/historical harmonic judgment theories of schoenberg. work renders theory its meaningful or meaningless place. but haba's music does not invalidate the music of schoenberg. work only underlines the interest, the possibility, of other work - of previous work, of new work. a discourse in re: poetry that is interesting to poetry is one that adds space for poetry to be made. Adds space. It is in the nature of powerful work, interesting work, fabulous work, to provide more not fewer places for next work to take off from. Hence, "a fundamental break with the past" is a marketing term with meaning if you want to rev your network, but of no interest to long scope activities like poetry. a connection with the past is no different from a connection with the future. This is the reason it is possible for poets like Duncan or Mandelstam to write about Dante in ways that unveil new possibilities for poetry. tom mandel ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:54:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Funding Arguments X-To: Sandra Braman In-Reply-To: <01HMDAYP16WY8X3EL5@asu.edu> I agree with Robert Drake that it's not a rational issue at all. It seems very weird to me (or par for the course) that the smithsonian exhibit has taken so much flak (ha) for daring to challenge the conventional wisdom of the enola gay. Conventional, not informed opinion, apparently. And isn't this what it comes down to, that history, politics, poetry are empty--essentially (were there such a thing)--and that we and everyone else realizes this and that we are contesting who gets to define and represent such things as Hiroshima and the dropping of the bomb to ourselves? I share robert drake's pessimism, particularly when it comes to being able to negotiate competiting histories. More to say, always more to say, but not more time to say it . . . . Jeffrey Timmons PS--sorry about the weird posting ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 23:55:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: the real language poet Luoma - henceforth and immediately : stop stealing my ideas and if you are going to steal them, please present them in boring ways. If you continue in your present mode, you will only bring credit upon yourself. mandel a period alone at the margin on a line by itself ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 22:03:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary X-To: Tom Mandel In-Reply-To: <01HME8I0GKGIL1Y8P6@asu.edu> On Sat, 28 Jan 1995, Tom Mandel wrote: > a discourse in re: poetry that is interesting to > poetry is one that adds space for poetry to be > made. Adds space. It is in the nature of powerful > work, interesting work, fabulous work, to provide > more not fewer places for next work to take off > from. Hence, "a fundamental break with the past" > is a marketing term with meaning if you want > to rev your network, but of no interest to > long scope activities like poetry. a connection > with the past is no different from a connection > with the future. This is the reason it is possible > for poets like Duncan or Mandelstam to write > about Dante in ways that unveil new possibilities > for poetry. Invalidated schoenberg? Hm. Long scope? Yeah, ok. And, well, a connection with the past is different than a connection with the future, but connection is the important thing. As with capital so with poetry, there is no out; and that's ok. Eliot discusses this in Tradition and the Individual Talent; it's really also Bloom's argument in any number of places where he takes about revisionary ratios and misreading, la, la, la.... And tom, if I read this right, is right: marketing strategy, but not useful. Tradition, if only to empty it out. Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 22:10:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary X-To: Tom Mandel In-Reply-To: <01HME8I0GKGIL1Y8P6@asu.edu> Tom Mandel wrote: > work renders theory its meaningful or > meaningless place. > Ok, how is theory not work? Freud said writers had said all that he said before and better (rough paraphrase, I assure you) than he--is this the difference between theory and work? In a sense, then the poetry is no less theoretical. I missed the schoenberg is not invalidated--but tom had it the other way as well--schoenberg is invalidated. " I contain multitudes . . . ." Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:50:55 -0600 Reply-To: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter quartermain Subject: Re: Up in smoke In message Thu, 26 Jan 1995 12:03:35 EST, Peter writes: Peter Quartermain asks, Can you please reserve me one dozen copies of #12 at $4.oo each, PLUS TWO complete sets of Oblek #1-#9 at $1.50 each? I've put a cheque for $75.00 in the mail but the Canadian Post Office is sometimes so slow that they might all otherwise be sold before my cheque reaches you. Thanks. Peter (I'd be grateful indeed if you could forward this message to Connell McGrath. Thanks. > Connell McGrath is in the process of breaking down the o-blek office > and asked me to post the following announcement: > _______________________________________________________________________ > > POETRY READERS > > o-blek magazine is out of business and I want to pass > on our overstock to interested readers. They are available > on a first-come first serve basis at the following rates: > o-blek /#'s 1 thru 9 & 11 are a $1.50 per book, o-blek/12's > are $4 per set while they last. These amounts will cover > the cost of mailing materials and postage. Please help > me to get these wonderful books into the right hands. Tell > all who may be interested, buy as many as you like, do it soon. > > Respectfully, > > Connell McGrath > > Send Check made out to o-blek to: > o-blek > PO Box 1242 > Stockbridge, MA 01262 > _____________________________________________________________________ > Please feel free to post this annoucement to other lists or > to print out and pass on to others. Thanks > > Peter Gizzi > __________________________________________________________________________ Peter Quartermain 128 East 23rd Avenue voice and fax (604) 876 8061 Vancouver B.C. e-mail: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Canada V5V 1X2 __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 00:24:46 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: NEA & Randy Cunningham The individual most likely to determine whether or not the NEA survives in 1995 is a GOP Congressman from San Diego, Randy ( Duke ) Cunningham. Every writer (and, indeed, artist) in California needs to contact this dude and let him that his future as a statewide politician may hinge on the House reauthorizing the NEA. Others with less strategic, but nonetheless critical, roles include Congresspeople (I believe they are all men actually) Livingston of Louisiana; Bill Goodling of Gettysburg, PA; Kasich of Columbus, OH; Regulia of Canton, OH; Gunderson of Wisconsin (the gay member of the GOP); Rukema (of where?) and Castle of Delaware. Not one of these folks has email. These are the key players according to Eliot Figman of Poets and Writers & Jim Sitter of CLMP, with whom I met today. Both have been accompanying Gigi Bradford, the lit director of the NEA, on a tour. (Bradford s constrained by her position from discussing such matters, although she was quite enthusiastic about the Freely Espousing events.) Figman & Sitter believe that, with Kassabaum (I m probably misspelling a lot of these names, but I m working fast late at night ) and Jeffords both supporting the Endowment, the votes exist in the Senate for the NEA, but that House is much more problematic. Here s why: for reasons of parliamentary procedure, the NEA needs to be blessed by three separate processes in each house this year. It must first receive authorization from each house. It must also receive an appropriation. And the budget must leave enough room in the general category for the appropriation to be budgeted. The first two processes are especially important, since the third can happen through a number of different scenarios. If the Senate authorizes and the House does not, it goes to conference committee. In such a circumstance, the bill is not conferenceable, meaning that you can t half authorize it. It s all or nothing. So the Senate version would have to win out in conference. The exact same scenario applies for appropriation. If the House fails to authorize and/or appropriate and its version wins in either conference committee, then the NEA is kaput. On the budget bill, there s much more room for raising and lowering sums and jockeying around between categories. This means that the chance of the NEA of surviving is at best one in four. Randy Duke Cunningham chairs the House committee that is charged with authorizing (or not) the NEA. To give you an idea of its centrality to that committee s purpose, it s the Early Childhood, Youth and Families subcomittee (of Ways and Means?). Goodling chairs the committee that it reports up to. So that s his role. Regulia and Livingston are keys in the appropriation bill. My notes are not clear on the committee that Gunderson, Goodling, Rukema and Castle all sit on, but it may be budget. I don t know if Cunningham is a pure opportunist reactionary (as is Newt Gingrich, a man who once co-authored a bill to legalize marijuana for cancer patients), a true believer libertarian type (a la Barry Goldwater), or a not wrapped too tight dingbat (a la John Briggs, Michael Huffington, Bullet Bob Dornan and Sonny Bono), but that tends to be what the Southern California GOP serves up. In this case, opportunism is good. If Cunningham wants to go onto a larger stage later (for example, Pete Wilson was once mayor of San Diego, a very weak position from the point of view of formal power, and now he s got a 50-50 chance of being on the 96 national ticket for the GOP). Every California Republican expects to be president someday. But the arts play a major role in California, both commercial and nonprofit. And failing to authorize the NEA is one way to get identified as an ideologue. He could "authorize" the NEA without voting for its appropriation, for example, and accomplish some real good. We need to let him know that this is a high-profile issue and that he is being watched closely. Can anybody in San Diego give us more details? I should note that last time the NEA came up, Cunningham voted against its appropriation and went so far as wave a check for $2,000 to the San Diego Symphony (I m not certain that that was the agency), saying that this is how the arts deserve to be funded. Gingrich copied this gesture this year right down to the dollar figure (his donation was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). If the NEA gets authorized in both houses, but appropriated only in the Senate, its chances of making it through the conference committees is much better. So Cunningham is the key. I should note that I share a lot of the same reservations about the NEA that just about every poet has, certainly every progressive poet. But I agree with Luigi Bob completely that we should not aid Helms, Gingrich et al by airing those problems at an inopportune moment. I d rather communicate those directly to the folks at the NEA (and I have, from time to time). The lit program receives 16.85 percent of all applications at the NEA, even tho lit gets only 3.05 percent of the program's funds. I too have doubts over the Lit Program's commitment to funds for individuals over programs (it has the highest percentage of funding for individual artists of any NEA program). However, I noted that seven of the current winners (there were just 37) were writers I read and pay attention to. Frankly, just under 20 percent's not that bad. Maybe Jack Krick or someone can get us the phone and fax #s for these people. Let's do it! Ron Silliman rsillima@ix.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 02:51:05 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary In-Reply-To: <199501290034.QAA18561@slip-1.slip.net> A lot of this discourse is interesting, but I question whether it leads to many of the values being alluded to for the work. This discourse does not proceed at the level of the poetry. I don't believe it. Nor do I believe much space is being added for this different, fabulous work, this dark horse that may be too dark to recognize or see. Spencer Selby ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 06:56:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: Re- the real language po Reply to: RE>Re: the real language poet Re>> Luoma - henceforth and immediately : stop stealing my ideas and if you are going to steal them, please present them in boring ways. If you continue in your present mode, you will only bring credit upon yourself. << Fortunately or unfortunately, Tony Door is Dougy Rothschild MD, who was a guest on my account. Bill Luoma BLUOMA@VANSTAR.COM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 10:46:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: Re- the real language po Reply to: RE>Re: the real language poet In 1989, the Sixth District Court of the United States ruled in the case of Jeffery M. Masson vs. Janet Malcolm & The New Yorker that, "Fabricated quotations do not prove actual malice." {This decision was later over turned.} [sic] The information gathering sources which i have employed for the past few years seem to be defective. Previously they had informed me that Mr. Charles Bernstein was at an unspecified drinking establishment speaking on the weather or knots of language poetry. Further inquirey has re-veal-ed that he was not. My sincerest apologies to Mr. Bernstein. There was indeed a third party at the poetics-fest; it was, however, NOT Charles Bernstein. Tony Door out on a canal Venice, Italy 30/1/95 -------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 15:13:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: Life Supports Thanks to everyone who responded w/ suggestions for getting hold of the Bronk volume. Seems like i shld be able to scrape up a copy one way or another... steve ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 19:18:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary Dear Spencer--Yes, immediately after sending my "contribution" to this discussion I felt like I wanted to retract--not so much everything I said as the way I said it. Agitation. Agitation. Oh what good does any of it do. In fact I was considering asking to temporarily cancel my subscription to this list, since it's taking up way too much of my psychic energy and is frustrating. To OVERDOSE on polemics, etc. Instead, I will try to hold myself to avoiding getting caught up in such argumentative vortexes. But will others do it? I guess it doesn't matter who started it. It was probably Tony Door disguised as Nils Ya disguised as Saint Geraud disguised -----BUT, then, Spencer, I'd like to ask you to help me with something... If we (and I think we're similar in this) want to get the discussion here in this email forum to be more like poetry, HOW can we go about doing it? Should we send rough drafts of poems to each other over email? Would that work? I'm considering it. Any other ideas? I'm certainly "open." Chris ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 22:55:41 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 27 Jan 1995 19:26:37 -0700 from How can there be a decisive break with the past when the past is neither decisive nor is the break? I have two responses to Lightman which I have been thinking about a lot this weekend and I'm going to sound pompous as hell but that hasn't stopped me before and it only proves I am interested. First, the manifesto. This is not a break at all with the past and it in fact repeats old conflict. It in fact only sees those conflicts that have been handed down to it from, where, the past? Freud and Jung? Not really interesting anymore. Lacan and Butler would be perhaps a little more interesting. Maybe. Irigaray and Steinem? Who? What about Sedgewick and Wittig? Derrida? Which Derrida? Where's Bhabha, Haraway, Acker? My point is not to parade a list of names, but to demonstrate how much this list seems determined by a past that is not at all broken with. Nor should it.Nor can it be. Not that there isn't anything of interest in both the manifesto and to a greater extent the work. There is the possibility of great confusion which seems interesting. I'm interested in the reference to Gaiman. It seems to me that there may be room for a messier poetics to come. Not sure this is it, but may be a proper direction. When I think of L school poetry and poetics, I think of a very pure poetry, in its engagement of its materials. Could be a legitimate response to muddy up the waters. But if there is going to be this Jung stuff, then forget it frankly. There is a lot more interesting things happening out there and a return, and I do mean return, to crypto-fascist mysticism instead of say a hybrid (to jargon bait a little) form of cultural community won't be able to compete. There may be something to this, and its probably not fair to judge a movement on the basis of one guys work over an impersonal medium, but I think it is important to be very very aware of the past, to break with or to build with. And I believe also that the difference between mainstream poetry and avant-oppositional-experimental-whatever poetry is how well it is theorized. Mainstreamers don't bother to do that at all and as such, they are just not that interesting. Thus it'scrucial for any movment to compete theoretically as well as poetically. To pick the right voice. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 23:24:25 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 29 Jan 1995 19:18:33 -0500 from Chris, Spencer and all: I understand the frustrations and the anxieties very well. I've just got on the list not too long ago and already I've been in more wars then I can remember. Probably my fault, certainly, but what I want to say is that I think these have as well as being stressful been very stimulating. I've been forced to think about poetry and poetics thanksto Chris and Tom, and Ron and Steve, in ways I would never have before. Brecht-like, I say, you've made me think and I don't think that is a bad thing. I think the list is doing what well what it should do. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 14:33:30 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Geraets Subject: Langusage When words stop being logical they sound like this. Breath usually is quite nice because it isn't outlined. John Geraets frank@dpc.aichi-gakuin.ac.jp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 10:14:40 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Espousing Update 1/30 A quick overview of what transpired on 1/28: *We estimate that 500 people turned out for Freely Espousing events on Saturday. (This figure does not include the many people who attended Woodland Pattern's benefit reading in Milwaukee.) *While it is difficult to estimate the amount of mail generated, we do know that between New York City and Providence at least 150 letters and 250 postcards were generated. Actual numbers for the combined events are probably safely estimated at somewhere around 700 pieces of mail. In our push to Outwrite the Right, we made a good start. *Here in Providence, we had sympathetic coverage from the Providence Journal. A substantial article appeared in the Sunday ProJo entitled: "Writers gather in Providence to fight cuts in Endowment" (by John Castellucci, 29 Jan 95: B3). Rather than focusing on our "big name" speakers, Castelluci reported on the small press crowd: the Waldrops, Jennifer Moyer of Moyer Bell, Peter Gizzi, Lee Ann Brown, and Sianne Ngai were all cited. The article closed with words from Keith Waldrop's _Potential Random_! Jena Osman reports that at least two Buffalo t.v. stations covered her event, and WBFO (the NPR station there) has run two pieces on the event. Cole Heinowitz expects coverage of the San Diego event in today's San Diego Union. On a more modest note, Brown's campus daily is beginning a three part series on FE and on the right's attack of federal arts funding more generally today. *We have compiled field reports from the various sites and we hope to have time, by late today, to post again with info about the specific shape the various programs took. *As one of our organizers remarked, making sure Saturday's events went smoothly was like "tending a wildfire." To all the people who so tended, our very deep thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 13:51:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 Jeffrey, Let me know if you find anything interesting in your forays into contemporary conservative political thought; to my mind, an anti-immigrant movement or a desire to keep the U. S. culture pure means no more today than it did when the Know-Nothings tried it in the 19th century. I don't consider fear of the unknown a viable or useful political or cultural philosophy. I, like Ron Silliman, find that many writers I read have gotten individual awards (not to mention benefitting from funded presses, mags, etc., through the pittance given the lit program). That's a good thing, to my mind, which is the only one I can speak for. *The People* (some say) don't find their values represented in NEA/NEH funding decisions. I don't believe that. Let's give the NEA and NEH bigger advertising budgets so they can circulate their truths. Then we might be able to talk about it. In the meantime, I distrust anyone who claims to speak for American values (Chomsky does read this well, I agree); the main American value I personally see as having come out of the recent elections is that the overwhelming majority of citizens lead private lives very distant from the machinations of policy-making and choose not to participate (or at least don't actively seek to vault the blocks preventing their participation). Generally speaking, I think that it's in the interest of a healthy state to help support an avant-garde that will question the values the state puts forth as mainstream. A state that becomes intolerant of and seeks to eliminate such non-mainstream voices is, to my mind, that much less healthy. When cost of such programs is called a main issue and we're talking about 65 cents a person, then the distortions have reached an obscene level to my mind. I resist the current rhetoric that persists in such mislabelling under the umbrella of traditional values. My own values are insulted. You may be right, it may be cultural war, but I know what side I'm on if that's true (and so do you, I'd suspect). Ted Pelton ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:27:13 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) Eric Pape is missing my point but, ah well. For what it's worth, I know some history, and I have read all the writers Eric Pape mentions, could indeed argue out reasons against each, mainly covered by my point "non-Freudian not neo-Freudian post-structuralism, if any", which was in the manifesto. The line before my line about "Jung not Freud" sets what I meant: the utterly rationalist, that's religious therefore dumb, line pervades everywhere in Language Writing and indeed on POETICS. "Jung rather than Freud", if you want. So many buy into Freud, and not into Jung even a little; fascist connections don't make the rest of Pound unreadable, and not Jung either; Freud's connections with countless molesters of children should rule him out totally of consideration by the same logic, but I don't like the logic, applied to Jung or Freud. If you look, Eric, at the start of Lacan's ecrits, you will see he raises exactly my point, that Freudians attack religion but are not religious. I thought I'd make the point without explicit reference to Lacan, as Lacanians would get it anyway (some hope). You've also missed everything I said about painting and music. Ah well. Ira Lightman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:12:13 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) Hi Chris, I just got the Dec issue of Poetic Briefs in the mail from Elizabeth: it and your own response to my posting are reasons why I'd like to get to a continent where I can write to, meet and telephone some people who've read the same books with the same mix of part enthusiasm part reservation and thresh that all out till we write our way into new ways forward. Perhaps the worse the state of the U.S., the more the writers will be shook up to write better? Ira ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 11:52:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ratcliffe Subject: Re: sign learned about Poetics List via letter from Juliana Spahr, who suggested not only its interest (indeed) but possibility I might "notice" Avenue B books to those in group who might be interested. Hope to do get to that (having seen Peter Gizzi's similar announcement re: o.blek. Look forward to seeing you Charles here next week. Stephen Ratcliffe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 15:16:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501260023.TAA04735@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> I appreciate James Sherry's remarks about my query. I have one more query for him. James, what is it about the "prose style" (hope I'm getting it right) of Apex that you find admirable? mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 14:15:48 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:27:13 GMT from It is quite possible that I missed the point of Ira's posting. I don't deny that, nor did I mean to imply that I somehow know more names than he and as such am more qualified, though I admit it sounded that way even to me after I read it. My point is that the past has never been fixed, thus no break. The enterprose is flawed in itself and I tried to demonstrate that the conflicts mentioned are perennial, not new. And as far as Jung goes, I'm just not interested. Remember also that Lacan's point was not that God exists, but that s/he is unconscious, as for example is woman, which also doesn't exist. I'm not claiming, by the way, that this is any more interesting. Anyway, thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 11:45:19 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ratcliffe Subject: Gertrude Stein "Listening and Talking at the Same Time": Gertrude Stein at Mills College. October 26-28, 1995, the 60th anniversary of Stein's appearance on the Mills campus in Oakland, where she delivered her lecture "Poetry and Grammar" to 500 students and faculty in the Music Hall, after having learned there isn't any there there). Inquiries/proposals for papers/readings to Stephen Ratcliffe, Mills College, Oakland, CA 94613. (510)430-2245. stephenr@mills.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 13:07:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary In-Reply-To: <199501300023.QAA07919@slip-1.slip.net> Dear Eric, I'm not saying this forum is a bad thing. I'm saying it's important to interrogate the discourse (some of it, at least) as much as the participants seem to want to interrogate each other. Dear Chris, Thank you for yr response, yr honesty and willingness to step back. I'm not sure sending poems is the answer, though I wouldn't rule it out either. As I say above, there are times when the overall discourse deserves more critique than the positions individuals are taking. I admit that I don't buy this "theory is practice" thing. I know people can be very articulate in that direction and I know there's not always a clear line between the two and I know theory can be helpful to practice. But it can also be a negative, a weapon, a suit of armor, a self-promotion, an excuse to revel in one's intellect and ability to rationalize. Or maybe theory/practice is not the issue. Maybe the issue is the relation between the social discourse of writers and the work. Here again the discourse is helpful and even necessary, but it can also be destructive and counterproductive. Maybe more attention should be paid to the dark side here, to the ways this discourse may close off space or possibilities. My other suggestion would be to encourage those who don't participate to get involved, offer their two cents, or reconsider their silence. Perhaps it's natural that few do most of the talking, but it's certainly not preferable. I will even say it doesn't seem right that so many signed on here seldom if ever jump in. Spencer Selby ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 16:19:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carlos Gallego Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) In-Reply-To: <199501302054.MAA23085@leland.Stanford.EDU> perversion of context, but that's o.k.-- it serves a purpose (Wittgenstein): tHE PaST (or) His-Story--HiStOry: "In you more than you..." THUS, "a decisive break with past?" hm is (?) right (all this more of an interruption than a position-- like listening more than saying) P.s. "In you more than you..." some french guy named Lacan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Carlos Gallego Stanford Univ. (THE tower of Babylon) kritik@leland.Stanford.EDU. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:18:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: CC field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. Comments: RFC822 error: CC field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. Comments: RFC822 error: CC field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. Comments: RFC822 error: CC field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: NEA & Randy Cunningham X-cc: semaz@aol.com Here are the office phone #s for the members of Congress who will determine whether or not the NEA gets funded. Also included are their snail mail addresses (LHOB = Longworth House Office Building, I believe; RHOB = Rayburn; I don;t what the C is for). As I noted in my last email, Cunningham is the person who will have the most impact. Michael, Jerry, Rae -- you can have the most impact of all the people on the list. Steve/Jennifer, call in your old San Diego friends. My experience as a lobbyist in the mid-70s (when I stopped over $240 million in construction funds for new prisons) taught me two things worth remembering: 1) Almost all legistlation comes down to one or two interested members who basically trade their pet projects with each other to make up coalitions and majorities. These are the folks for the NEA. 2) It is awfully easy to halt spending, much harder to start it. The NEA is up against the wall. Member Party State/ Room Phone Name District Number Area Code: 202 Michael N. Castle R DE00 1207 LHOB 225-4165 Randy "Duke" Cunningham R CA51 227 CHOB 225-5452 Newt Gingrich R GA06 2428 RHOB 225-4501 William F. Goodling R PA19 2263 RHOB 225-5836 Steve Gunderson R WI03 2185 RHOB 225-5506 John R. Kasich R OH12 1131 LHOB 225-5355 Bob Livingston R LA01 2406 RHOB 225-3015 Ralph Regula R OH16 2309 RHOB 225-3876 Marge Roukema R NJ05 2469 RHOB 225-4465 These numbers are all available through Thomas, the congressional WWW site. And, oh yes, I was wrong. There is one woman involved in the process at this level. But the general boys club effect still seems to hold. Onward, Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:33:26 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Re: NEA & Randy Cunningham In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:18:10 -0800 from Thanks to Ron for the concise breakdown of key legislators on the NEA issue. On Randy "Duke" Cunningham, I understand from Cole Heinowitz in San Diego that a group of people stayed after *Freely Espousing* wrapped up on Saturday to discuss ways of working on him. Cole mentioned a tentative plan to work with the Escondido Arts Center (Escondido is "Duke"'s district) and possibly the mayor of SD to get a meeting with Cunningham. If anyone has information that could help in this effort, please pass it along, either via e-mail to us or by phone directly to Cole. Cole's phone number is 619-291-4945. She is working with Deedee Halleck (of Paper Tiger TV & Video), Roderigo Toscano, and several other people on this. And Ron--did your contacts mention a time-line for the House appropriations process? I'm assuming the curve is shorter there than in the Senate's reauthorization process, but precise info would be highly valuable. We won't have time to post a detailed update on 1/28 this evening (our lives--more or less suspended for the past two weeks--demand some attendance just now). We'll get something to the list shortly. Greetings to All. Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley 401-274-1306 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 22:04:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: How to Subscribe to RIF/T (Informational Posting) RIF/T Subscription FAQ Rev. 1-28-95 ------------------------------------------------------------------ H O W T O S U B S C R I B E T O R I F / T (An Electronic Journal of Poetry, Poetics, and Writing) To subscribe to RIF/T send an e-mail message to: listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the "to" and "subject" lines of your e-mail message blank. In the body of the e-mail message type: subscribe e-poetry Firstname Lastname where "Firstname" and "Lastname" correspond to your actual name. You will receive a message confirming your subscription in short order. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Recent contributors include Charles Bernstein, Ben Friedlander, Michael Joyce, Lisa Jarnot, Robert Kelly, Hank Lazer, Susan Schultz, Katie Yates, and many others. Plus Riffs: dialogs on electronic compositional space ... and Rif/t chapbooks. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for your interest in RIF/T, Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Kenneth Sherwood & Loss Glazier ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 22:53:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Evans/Moxley Subject: Correction I mistakenly provided Craig Foltz's phone number in my previous post. The actual number for Cole Heinowitz is: 619-295-8311. Sorry for the confusion. Steve Evans ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 15:17:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501260023.TAA04735@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> to add to my post of a moment ago, I see that James said "prose writing." My query still stands. mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 07:21:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Catherine Yates Subject: subscription Please send me information as to how to re-enlist myself on the poetics list. I've forgotten. With thanks. Katie Yates ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 08:47:12 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: Re- CALL FOR A DECISIVE Reply to: RE>Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE_ Ira, I'm encouraged by your reply to Eric Pape contrasting Freud and Jung. Could you do this for all your points? I haven't read a whole lot and I'm wondering who Stockhausen is and why Stockhausen is better than Cage and Zukofsky. Bill Luoma BLUOMA@VANSTAR.COM ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 09:04:49 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BLUOMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Re: Re- reified names vs. bo Reply to: RE>Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary Spencer, >> But it can also be a negative, a weapon, a suit of armor, a >> self-promotion, an excuse to revel in one's intellect >> and ability to rationalize. Yes, I agree theory often functions in this way. It's also a way to market yourself, especially in terms of academic jobs. If you want to eat on the university meal ticket, you'd better be able to argue convincingly if not arrogantly. However, there are other times where you need a thorough and convincing polemical stance to accomplish some "good" means. What if you were on a senate panel with Jesse Helms? What if you were a Language Poet in 1980 and you saw what was passing as good writing and good teaching? Thanks to the L poets (and Tony Door), the field is now wide open. I would like clarification from the M on why they want to narrow down the present opening to one acceptable "lyric" mode. Bill Luoma BLUOMA@VANSTAR.COM -------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:37:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: subscription In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Tue, 31 Jan 1995 07:21:42 -0700" <01HMHPARZ7UA8X0VT6@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> Sign yourself up using these instruction: however if you have any problem doing that just reply to this message and I will sign you up. It is funny to see you send that message to the whole list since there were several messages inquiring/speculating about yr whereabouts on the list last week or the week before, as you will no doubt now here from other! --charles **** Welcome to the Poetics List. Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume managable. Word-of-mouth (and its electronic equivalents) seems to be working fine: please feel free to invite people you know to sign-up. It is easier for me if they sign-up by themselves AND send me (bernstei@ubvms) a note telling me how they heard about the list. I will send them *this* document in reply. To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics (The shorter bitnet address is listserv@ubvm. All further references to "Listserve" are to this listserve.) The list has open subscriptions. You can sub or unsub by sending a one-line message, with no subject line, to the listserv address: unsub poetics Jill Jillway {or} sub poetics Jill Jillway I will be sent a notice of all subscription activity. ARCHIVES There are two ways to get archives. The easiest way is to use the archives of the list at the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), for which see the end of this message. The other way is described below: Anyone interested in an archive of all postings after March may send this message to "Listserve": index poetics or index poetics f=mail You will receive a list of archived files in a format that includes something like this: * rec last - change * filename filetype GET PUT -fm lrecl nrecs date time POETICS LOG9403 ALL OWN V 80 1012 94/05/31 07:17:17 Started on Mon, 7 Mar 1994 12:51:12 -0600 POETICS LOG9404 ALL OWN V 83 1864 94/05/31 07:18:54 Started on Sat, 2 Apr 1994 16:01:07 -050 POETICS NOTEBOOK ALL OWN V 640 1693 94/06/09 15:27:09 Started on Sun, 1 May 1994 09:47:10 -0500 You can then send the "get" command to "Listserve" in the format: get filename filetype (eg: get poetics log9403 get poetics log9403 get poetics notebook) or get filename filetype f=mail depending on which log file you want (you can also get multiple files with one message). Note that each of the files has a different beginning and end date, eg LOG9404 starts 7 March and goes to 31 May and that dates overlap. Go figure! "Poetics Notebook" is an anomalous name for what is, in effect, another log file. ******* To subscribe to RIF/T, the e-poetry magazine at UB's Poetics Program: Send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: subscribe e-poetry Firstname Lastname where Firstname and Lastname correspond to your name. You will receive a confirmation of your subscription soon thereafter. (Nonsubscribers can automatically sub to Poetics using this same format, but substituting "poetics" for "e- poetry".) ** ____ ____ ____ / / / / / / EEEE PPPPP CCCCC EE / PP PP CC C/ EEE PPPPP CC / URL=gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/ __EE /_ PP |__ CC C ____ / EEEE/ PP/ CCCCC/ / internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift /__________________________/ |--------------------------| | Electronic Poetry Center | |__________________________| ___________________________________________________________________ E P C . N E W S No. 1 (January, 1995) ___________________________________________________________________ _Contents:_ 1.0 Basic Assumptions 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place 3.0 Interfaces: Gopher, Web, Mosaic; Bookmarks 4.0 RIF/T Notes 5.0 EPC New Additions 6.0 How to Connect ___________________________________________________________________ 1.0 Basic Assumptions The Electronic Poetry Center seeks to provide a central _place_ for Internet resources for poetry and poetics. The lay of the land: 1.__Welcome : Electronic Poetry Center Welcome & FAQ's (About)/ 2.__RIF/T : RIF/T / New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics (Texts)/ 3.__Poetics : Calendar, Poetics List Archive & Files (Texts)/ 4.__Authors : Electronic Poetry & Poetics - Authors (Texts)/ 5.__E-Journals : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Journals (Texts)/ 6.__E-Resources : Gateway to Electronic Poetry Resources (Connects)/ 7.__Small Press : Electronic Poetry Center Small Press Alcove (Cites)/ 8.__Gallery : The Electronic Poetry Gallery (Visuals)/ 9.__Sound : The Electronic Poetry Sound Room (Sound Files)/ 10._Documents : Poetry & Poetics Document Archive (Texts)/ 11._Exhibits : Electronic Poetry Center Exhibit case (Texts)/ 12._Notices : Electronic Poetry Center Announcements (Info)/ The Center continues to provide access to the electronic poetry and poetics journal, RIF/T, and the archives of the Poetics List. Needless to say, the EPC provides quality archival materials for these resources. For the Poetics archive, a feature has recently been added to allow keyword searching for the immense number of files comprising this archive. The EPC author library offers texts and/or information about contemporary poets in a variety of formats. A number of electronic journals are archived and distributed by the EPC. Journals distributed through the EPC differ from other e-journal archives in a significant way: the texts presented here have been checked and verified by their issuing agency, thus at least getting to you versions of electronic journals that have a direct link to their source. We are delighted to offer these journals to you and will continue to make sure texts presented are done so in collaboration with their producers. For resources outside the EPC, we have written links to make seamless connections to these resources. It is our aim to be vigilent about our links so that persons interested in poetry and poetics do not have to spend a lot of time digging for addresses, remembering sites, and locating resources. Through the selections available at the EPC, users of the system have simple and direct access to many other related Internet resources. The Center also provides information about contemporary little magazines and small presses engaged in poetry and poetics. Since this information is often difficult to locate, it is presented at the EPC in hopes of recongizing these contributions, facilitating communication, and providing an additional outlet for these extremely valuable print sources. Look here also for Selby's List of Experimental Magazines. The Poetry & Poetics Document Archive provides access to a number of documents of use to poets, teachers, and researchers. Here you will find essay material and current obituaries. This area should be consulted in conjunction with the Poetics Files and Small Press Sources areas, which also offer material of pedagogical use. The EPC also presently offers gallery, sound, exhibts, and an announcements area. ___________________________________________________________________ 2.0 Poetry and the Electronic Place Compared to say, a year ago, many people might agree that the idea of some sort of an electronic forum for poetry is not only a possibility but an inevitability. We have seen the continued growth of the Poetics List (I counted around 250 postings the month of December 1994 alone) and the development of the Electronic Poetry Center. The EPC has maintained a significant circulation. We regularly get letters from various world outposts attesting to the reality of such connectivity. Interesting also are the number of visits taking place, both locally and across distance; despite the dips and peaks that typify any active place, the EPC has seen a good amount of traffic across its doorstep. For those with such inclination (and it is illuminating that the following compare favorably with circulation statistics, say, for a little magazine) here are some numbers: _Month_ _Connects_ Nov 1994 573 Oct 1994 429 Sep 1994 367 August 1994 348 July 1994 614 June 1994 110 These statistics give only a sense of scale, it should be noted, since direct connections to EPC submenus and entries through Veronica searches, a significant number of connects, are not included in the above statistics. ___________________________________________________________________ 3.0 Interface: Gopher, Web, Mosaic Even as activities converge, it is also the time of divergent interfaces. I am often surprised by the number of our contributors and participants who do not even have gopher access. (These, again, not represented in the above statistics.) Most people, we figure, have at least gopher access, though Web access is quickly becoming a standard. Mosaic, it would be assumed, though assuming predominance in the University setting, has hardly become a reality for most dial-up users, particularly internationally. (For the sake of a common ground, gopher is an ascii-based interface that offers access through the selection of menus; the web is an ascii-based interface that offers access through _screens_ of information with links to other areas appearing as highlighted text; Mosaic is a graphical interface basically superimposed on the Web structure that offers images, sound, video, and allows you to use your mouse as a navigational tool.) The EPC is accessible through any of these interfaces. It is presently evolving strongly towards exclusive Web/Mosaic access. _Informational Notes_: (1) The standard for Web/Mosaic documents is the markup protocol called html. These are imbedded codes that you will see once in a while when you download an html document. These codes give instructions to the software about highlighting, fonts, and screen layout, as well as providing for the _hot links_ that make possible Web/Mosaic navigation. (2) A feature of these interfaces that should be mentioned is the bookmark. You may wish to investigate this as most systems allow you to set a bookmark, say at the EPC, and gain immediate access to it when you invoke your interface. ___________________________________________________________________ 4.0 RIF/T Notes Forthcoming from RIF/T are two special issues. The first of these is the Transpoeisis issue (see EPC Announcements for details) which will offer a muti-faced and multi-format approach to the presentation of translations. Also forthcoming, a planned special issue on Charles Olson. RIF/T will also soon issue the first in a series of special chapbooks. Much on the way! ___________________________________________________________________ 5.0 EPC New Additions Many additions have been made to the EPC in the past six months. Following are some of the journals archived and directly distributed by the EPC: DIU / Albany Experioddi(cyber)cist / Florence, AL Inter\face / Albany Poemata - Canadian Poetry Assoc. / London, Ontario (Info)/ RIF/T: Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics Segue Foundation/Roof Book News / New York TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition / Lakewood, Ohio We Magazine / Santa Cruz Witz / Toluca Lake, CA / via Syntax Significant connections which the EPC would like to highlight include the following: Alternative-X Basil Bunting Poetry Centre (Durham, England) [Informational] Best-Quality Audio Web Poems (Rhode Island) Carma Bums 'Tour of Words' CICNET Electronic Journal Archive Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (Virginia) Internet Poetry Archive (North Carolina) Michigan Electronic Text Archive Nous Refuse Discussion List (Illinois) Postmodern Culture (North Carolina) Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine ___________________________________________________________________ 6.0 How to Connect The Center is located at gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift Gopher Access: For those who have access to gopher, type gopher writing.upenn.edu at your system prompt. First choose Libraries & Library Resources, then Electronic Journals, then E- Journals/Resources Produced Here At UB, then The Electronic Poetry Center. (Note: Connections to some Poetry Center resources require Web access, though most are presently available through gopher). World-Wide Web and Mosaic Access: For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access, from your interface, choose the _go to URL_ option then go to (type as one continuous string) gopher://writing.upenn.edu/11/internet/ library/e-journals/ub/rift (Substituting hh for 11 in the URL above may produce better results on your system.) Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access. Also ask about setting a "bookmark" through your system for quick and easy access to the Center when you log on. If you have comments or suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, do not hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier, lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu or Kenneth Sherwood, e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu ___________________________________________________________________ The Electronic Poetry Center is administered in Buffalo by E-Poetry and RIF/T in coordination with the Poetics List. Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Glazier in collaboration with Charles Bernstein __________________________________________________________________ End of EPC.News #1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 12:21:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: apex of the m... X-To: Mark Wallace In-Reply-To: <01HMH2UMPWO28X42MZ@asu.edu> A naive question from the unlearned: Would someone please articulate in what ever fashion possible some general practices/theories of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry? What a hassle to type that. I won't hold anyone responsible for the reductive nature of categorizing what is (obviously) a highly diverse assortment of writers and writing. Ok? Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 12:48:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Espousing Update 1/26 X-To: Ted Pelton In-Reply-To: <01HMGHAGU34IL1YP15@asu.edu> On Mon, 30 Jan 1995, Ted Pelton wrote: > Let me know if you find anything interesting in your forays into contemporary > conservative political thought; to my mind, an anti-immigrant movement or a > desire to keep the U. S. culture pure means no more today than it did when > the Know-Nothings tried it in the 19th century. I don't consider fear of the > unknown a viable or useful political or cultural philosophy.> Well, I would say that I'm sure that while there are similarities, the particular purposes to which such attitudes are harnessed speak to are different--at least to the extent that that was then and this is now. What more precisely do you see as the similarities though? How did that turn out? And, again, simply for the perverse interest I have in what "those" folks are saying, perhaps you don't consider it a viable or useful political/cultural philosophy but there are others who are using it successfully to garner and wage power. Unfortunately. In the meantime, I > distrust anyone who claims to speak for American values (Chomsky does read > this well, I agree); the main American value I personally see as having come > out of the recent elections is that the overwhelming majority of citizens > lead private lives very distant from the machinations of policy-making and > choose not to participate (or at least don't actively seek to vault the > blocks preventing their participation). American, then, would seem to equate with something very unpleasant--at least in our eyes. But while I agree most choose not to participate, it is particularly disturbing that those who do not agree with that version of America don't vote; or, another way, those that do agree with that version of America do vote. There's a poetics of America here that I would like, some day, to articulate--perhaps it's been done, but to set it in terms of the present need be done. Any suggestions, in terms of poetry of who's doing this? I think of Ginsberg, obviously, but who else? On another note: I have been in favor of proportional representation and continue to think that our system is too anachronistic (sp?) to "re-present" the plurality that is America. La, la, la.... > Generally speaking, I think that it's in the interest of a healthy state to > help support an avant-garde that will question the values the state puts > forth as mainstream. A state that becomes intolerant of and seeks to > eliminate such non-mainstream voices is, to my mind, that much less healthy. And there is an interesting point to make here: is an avant-garde antithetical to the mainstream? Isn't it by definition? I would argue that it's just the opposite of how you describe it: a state has an obligation to delimit, maintain, police, and exclude those voices which question its power, authority, and ability to narrate its existence. You know? Yes, though, you're completely right: the state is unhealthy when it seeks to eliminate voices. And it is about as sick as I've ever seen it. My own values are insulted. You may be > right, it may be cultural war, but I know what side I'm on if that's true > (and so do you, I'd suspect). Yes, so are mine. Constantly. I read with great disappointment today that the smithsonian will exhibit the enola gay without comment. A victory for a representation of war and America (perhaps I should use a little "a" for now on) as entirely justified in its destruction of thousands of lives--as if to question that perception were tantamount to treason. It frightens me greatly that alternative views of that horrible event cannot be funded or articulated; though, at the same time, I don't think that questioning of our actions (dropping the bomb) has ever been stronger than at present. And yes, I know what side I'm on. I just want to know what it is that's being said, who's saying it, and why. It's hard to argue with the opposition if you don't know what they're arguments are--an obvious point, I'm sure. One last item: I've been reading Micheal Berube's new book Public Access. It's a wonderful examination of the culture wars and attacks on academia, especially as it tries to correct the distortions of the right about higher education. Particulary in the literary studies area. But what I find most valuable about it is that it seeks to engage a wider audience than a strictly theoretical readership--something long overdue at this juncture. Regards, Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:11:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary X-To: Spencer Selby In-Reply-To: <01HMGMP71CLUL1YQOE@asu.edu> On Mon, 30 Jan 1995, Spencer Selby wrote: > Dear Eric, I'm not saying this forum is a bad thing. I'm saying it's > important to interrogate the discourse (some of it, at least) as much as > the participants seem to want to interrogate each other. > Dear Chris, Thank you for yr response, yr honesty and willingness to step > back. I'm not sure sending poems is the answer, though I wouldn't rule it > out either. As I say above, there are times when the overall discourse > deserves more critique than the positions individuals are taking. >Maybe the issue is the relation between the social discourse of writers and >the work. Here againthe discourse is helpful and even necessary, but it can >also be destructive and counterproductive. Maybe more attention should >be paid tothe dark side here, to the ways this discourse may close off space or >possibilities. Hey, yeah! You know what, though, I'm not sure we have a discourse here, as is being said. Sometimes we do, as discussions on Apex, experiment show; other times it seems to waffle in this vague, disembodied dislocation of personal interrogations. I guess, if I were to make a suggestion along these lines, it would be (as Tom Mandel might suggest, if I might be so bold) to be more specific. What is the discourse of L poetry that is under question, whose practice and why is under consideration. Poems, poems, practice and theory. In another sense, too, perhaps the extant discourse is closing off something that needs to be accounted for--what are we not talking about? The connection of social discourse to writers seems interesting. What does it mean in terms of specific writers? > My other suggestion would be to encourage those who don't participate to > get involved, offer their two cents, or reconsider their silence. Perhaps > it's natural that few do most of the talking, but it's certainly not > preferable. I will even say it doesn't seem right that so many signed on > here seldom if ever jump in. Yes, I agree. Perhaps some basic questions might help. What are we interested in? Who are we interested in and why? Why did we join the poetics listserv? For myself I thought it a good channel to supplement my interactions with other people, with other views about poetry and poets. Duh, huh? It's turned into much more than that, though. Bosnia, Freely Espousing, Academia and the work world. . . . How marvelous. Just what I wanted. I also joined because I was very interested in Charles Bernstein's work and hoped to listen in on what he had to say about poetry and his own work; I have Dark City and am very intrigued and amused, though I don't claim to understand. I laugh a great deal. I think of television and commercials, as if he's doing a pastiche, clashing and inserting various ranges of discourse--a very perverse inversion of Eliot's "I can connect/Nothing with nothing." I don't know. It's fun and I hope to keep learning from my reading of it--any suggestions? I'll leave off here--for no particular reason. Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 16:02:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary X-To: mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU words must be read in context. read my words in context, not as an abstract opposition of poetry and theory but as a contextualized one. sure, theory (or criticism, or history, whatever) is also an art activity, an art form, a form of writing, what have you. And yet.... are we to succumb to the idea that there is no difference between Moses Und Aaron and Harmonielehre? I think my point was clear enough. What use to react to it in a way that is no reaction at all? tom Mandel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 16:21:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: CALL FOR A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE PAST (NURTURE THE APEX) Eric Pape writes: Thus it's crucial for any movment to compete theoretically as well as poetically. To pick the right voice. This is true and interesting, like so much of what Eric writes in this forum. I, on the other hand (or is that "for example") didn't suggest that Schoenberg's harmonic theory wasn't essential to his music - to him writing his music. Only that the music doesn't topple when the theory's knocked over. tom m. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 15:55:52 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Spirits, etc. Just to clarify. This is as true as stories get. My great-grandmother and her sister sit at the kitchen table. The wind heaves sheets of sand at the screen door. They're telling me about the lost people of the lost country of Mu, on the lost continent of Lemuria. These are the first people, on the first world. The strange words you hear just before you fall asleep is their language. We and Elves and Martians are related to the Lemurians. Aunt Alice mentions how once she traveled in a dream to Mars and taught the women there to use ladles, because before they had only their tongues to scoop up the thin soup they cook on that planet. My great-grandmother mentions how once she opened up her closet door to find Elves dining with spiders, but they didn't have enough to eat so she poached an egg for them. As a result, all the black widows that plagued her garage left for the desert over night. Making them principles does not serve spirits. There is no compassion in racial memory. Engendering stereotypes does not create a community. We are related to the first people by language. We do live in a world where Martians need to be taught to use a ladle and where Elves should be fed. That this story came from my family is not insignificant, because spirituality *cannot* be faked. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 17:21:16 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rodger Kamenetz Subject: Re: Spirits, etc. In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 31 Jan 1995 15:55:52 CST from ERic Pape writes: There is no compassion in racial memory. "Also you shall not oppress a stranger: for you know the soul of a stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Ex 33:9. ( I know I know I'm quoting out of context & there's plenty of blood curdling racial memories in the same text.) RK ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 16:33:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: Re- reified names vs. bo In-Reply-To: <199501311834.KAA28623@slip-1.slip.net> Dear Bill, What is a "thorough and convincing polemical stance" in the U.S. Congress? I shudder to think... As for L poets, I give them credit for opening things up in certain ways, but it's also true that the openings they accomplished were only partial, and that there were closings which also resulted. I wouldn't call the field today "wide open." If it were so, there'd be more unique, original work than I believe there is. Dear Jeffrey, Be specific, sure. But if you get too specific it will again be people talking or arguing about their personal tastes and beliefs. Some of that is inevitable and fine, but I think the value of this forum would be limited if that's what dominates. There needs to be a balance between the general and specific, in my opinion. Otherwise there's no basis for communication that different people can relate to. Yrs, Spencer Selby P.S. Sorry if I seem argumentative. I do appreciate the input from both of you. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 18:05:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ratcliffe Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary dear spencer, I'm getting on board this group talk/mail thing, and want to ask you to send me another copy of your magazine list, which I seem to have misplaced and want now to pass along to some interested students. Thanks, and keep up the good work (writing/reading)! Stephen Ratcliffe, P.O. Box 542, Bolinas, CA 94924 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:08:53 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: Spirits, etc. In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 31 Jan 1995 15:55:52 CST from That last sentence should read: .....spirituality cannot be faked, only shared. Thanks, Eric (enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 21:25:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501282354.AA13133@panix3.panix.com> ..but how did he make the argument from the perspective of the practice of revolution, since revolutions in art take resources away from the political revolution. This was a brave statement for him to make and I wonder in what context and in what way he made it, since his argument must speak to the questions that are continuously raised about the social utility of art. Best, James On Sat, 28 Jan 1995, George Bowering wrote: > He meant revolutionary ART, > not art about the revolution. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 21:41:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: apex of the m... In-Reply-To: <199501310437.AA01784@panix2.panix.com> Being a fan of Richard Hooker, I find Lew Daly's style remarkably independent of the last 300 years of prose writing and yet it has a current ring to it; and I wonder how both impressions can be the case. I haven't looked back at it to reply in detail, but if you're interested we can take a detailed discussion off-line, since I am concerned lest a polemic ensue. Thanks for your interest. Jamse On Mon, 30 Jan 1995, Mark Wallace wrote: > I appreciate James Sherry's remarks about my query. I have one more query > for him. James, what is it about the "prose style" (hope I'm getting it > right) of Apex that you find admirable? > > mark wallace > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:06:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: reified names vs. boundless vocabulary X-To: Tom Mandel X-cc: tmandel@umd5.umd.edu In-Reply-To: <199501312102.QAA15308@yorick.umd.edu> On Tue, 31 Jan 1995, Tom Mandel wrote: > words must be read in context. read my words in > context, not as an abstract opposition of poetry > and theory but as a contextualized one. sure, > theory (or criticism, or history, whatever) is > also an art activity, an art form, a form of > writing, what have you. And yet.... are we > to succumb to the idea that there is no > difference between Moses Und Aaron and > Harmonielehre? I think my point was clear > enough. What use to react to it in a way that > is no reaction at all? Ok, ok, I'll try harder. Let me, then ask, what constitutes a "reaction" in your view? This is not a trick question.... Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:13:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Re- reified names vs. bo In-Reply-To: <01HMI6NCAQ768X4GVT@asu.edu> Yes, Spencer, general and specific would be best. So much seems so general, though, that I thought .... Jeffrey Timmonss ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:16:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: apex of the m... X-To: James Sherry In-Reply-To: <01HMIBC9DGRM8X3KB5@asu.edu> On Tue, 31 Jan 1995, James Sherry wrote: > Being a fan of Richard Hooker, I find Lew Daly's style remarkably > independent of the last 300 years of prose writing and yet it has a > current ring to it; and I wonder how both impressions can be the > case. I haven't looked back at it to reply in detail, but if > you're interested we can take a detailed discussion off-line, since I am > concerned lest a polemic ensue. Thanks for your interest. Why off-line? I'd like to see what it is and how you account for it. Jeffrey Timmons