=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 12:55:23 JST
Reply-To: nada@twics.com
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: nada@TWICS.COM
Subject: where the boys are
"Why don't more women post" is a rhetorical
question, right? Everyone knows *why.*
(Or did you mean, "where are all the poster
girls?")
Camille P. might say it's because we are
neither skilled nor schooled in the art of
directional peeing -- although *her* urine
describes a pretty well-targeted arc.
Ron and Spencer, I extend my hand in gratitude
for your chivalrous patronage ;-] And Joe, you
sound like a sister. You all employed
one of the pedagogic strategies I suggested in
my first posting out of three in total, (which
was about the reluctance to speak):
teaching the verbally aggressive to
use gambits to draw out silent interlocuters.
My second posting was a short one I intended as
a respectful message about a poet whose works I
love. I did not realize someone might find it
offensive, and just, uh, shot it off. It's the
one Ira called "dumb" and reacted to so
vehemently. He and I have since had a volley
of private e-mails first furious, then
apologetic, with invitations to continue the
dialogue.
Public nudity. Like this posting.
For a day though I was traumatized by my first
experience of being flamed as I walked the
streets of Tokyo in a tormented stupor
wondering if I really was *dumb*.
I have already pointed out to Ira the irony of
that choice of adjective.
Anyway that's why I don't post or speak so much
in male-dom public forums, although my voice is
always wanting to vibrate.
Is it so imperative that we (girls, I mean)
seize the reins of (mainly male) academic
discourse? Maybe, but I'd rather be on a
different kind of horse, and take off the
stupid uncomfortable bridle -- and be free to
let Pegasus(sa) go where she wants, like I
just wanted to say that I wanted the horse to
be a pink one, not in spite of it being a dumb
thing to say but precisely because it is dumb,
and liking the fresh coy challenging dumb
hollow echo that bounces off it.
Dumbness has unexplored potential in poetic(s)
language, (especially in this age of acedemic
piranha-ism) at least as a backlash or contrast
or as a kid beholding a naked emperor. The
dumbness of koans.
I read in a lot of poetics list postings
desires to "get things hammered out once and
for all" -- to be right. Being right is not
always essential to me when I'm having a
conversation -- which act can be conceived of
as an opportunity to swap paradigms. Is the
calendula more right than the hyacinth? How
would *you* define "flesh-colored," or "eye-
level"?
I may be falling into the trap of analyzing
discourse from the perspective of biological
determinism -- intellectually suspect (I just
came back from a great performance of Henry VI,
in which Queen Margaret -- admittedly a
character developed by The Boy Bard -- verbally
kicked ass harder than anybody), but
empirically observable, too.
Like the frequency of qualifiers in "women's"
language. Re-read this message for
conditionals, maybes, seems, etc. Or that men
often (another qualifier) have two voices
(surely countless more), a public "war" voice
-- often heard on this list -- and a personal
voice, more modulated. As Tom Mandel's former
secty. (Tom, you did call me "honey" now and
then) and B.Watten's former student, I should
know.
I like this list best when information ideas
observations parodies accrue, not when it
sounds like a dogfight that needs hosing down.
Even then I like this list a lot, even if it is
d***-wagging bigshot-laden and, as one woman
writer wrote to me "boys talking about boys'
books". It's a techno-miracle for me to be
privy to its world while I'm marooned on this
archipelago.
Later, fellas. Nada (Gordon)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 21:16:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: deified theories and unfounded vocabularies
X-To: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
In-Reply-To: <9502150352.AA20745@imap1.asu.edu>
Preface: haven't had time to fully digest all the prolific writing on the
relation between theory and poetry, but hazard an appearance I will....
Text: I wanted to respond to Spencer's comment that theory/art have not
impacted or have failed to impact people's lives. Two points: 1) Isn't
this a very aestheticist postion? I'm sure the answer is yes, and that's
fine, but this faith in art as having any ... responsibility or ability
to change people's live has fallen under serious scepticism. I'm not
trying to reduce Spencer's position to a humanism--and that in itself
would not be such a bad thing--but how can we not face the fact that art
itself has not saved us from ourselves? This point has been raised by
others.... 2) Thoreau and/or Emerson make the point that reading their
texts should change the reader, that reading them should provoke the
reader into states of change,that the reader should undergo and be
willing to undergo change (a la Peter Carafiol). I return to literature
and art of all sorts because I continually find things that challenge me
to think in different ways--Emerson of the divinity school
address--rather than in static and calcified institutions (no matter what
some may think). However, for all this usefulness of art, for all its
ability to offer visions of difference and change . . . or simply beauty
doesn't it seem somewhat limiting to hold art responsible for humanizing
us? I sort of feel (I'm not sure, in other words, but suspect) that what
is needed is a view of art that is able to avoid the humanizing and
colonizing functions of art/literature . . . a position that also does
not reduce its complexity and multiplicity to beautiful objects.
Refrain: I will now quickly peruse all the previous entries and see how
much I've repeated of others's statements . . . .
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 21:18:55 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: deified theories and unfounded vocabularies
In-Reply-To: <9502150352.AA20745@imap1.asu.edu>
oh, and I forgot the most important thing: I too feel Spencer's
disappointment (if I can characterize it as such) that art/theory has not
impacted people's lives more . . . . But is that art/theory's failure or
our own? I include myself in this collective Our here . . . .
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 21:20:32 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: deified theories and unfounded vocabularies
In-Reply-To: <9502150352.AA20745@imap1.asu.edu>
Geez, I've got to find a way of having the text before me while i
respond: of course, Spencer said what I just said . . . Duh.
Jeffrey
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 22:42:00 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deified Theories Limited
In-Reply-To: <01HN0UVZ8FNM8ZF27E@asu.edu>
Spencer's comments on 14 Feb were wonderful. I appreciate the way in
which he communicates with the list and strives to address others with
respect and interest. Thanks.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 01:30:25 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carla Billitteri <V079SJWU@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Safe Discourse
> Subject: Valentine's Day
> Copyright: 1999 The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Date: 14 Feb 99 00:00:00 EST
>
> Lines: 89
>
> DEAR MS. MANNERISM -- I've been receiving funny little notes
> from an anonymous admirer. The most recent are decidely erotic,
> and I want to respond but don't know how. I think the sender may
> be Barney Fag, I mean Frank, but I'm not sure -- I don't even
> know if the sender is a he. What should I do? -- ``DICK ARMEY''
> GENTLE READER -- I can tell from the plaintive tone that
> you're a newcomer to cyberspace's brave new world, where safe
> discourse is the norm rather than exception. But since Ms.
> Mannerism's forte is not ``net-'' but ``etiquette,'' I asked an
> expert in social engineering to respond to your query (no pun
> intended). Without further ado, here's Myra Breckenridge of
> Vidal Sassoon Laboratories:
> DEAR DICK -- Trying to tell a she-male from the scent of
>
> ---More---
>
> Group bleari.features.ms.mannerism available: 21 - 29 unread: 1
>
> article 28 14-FEB-1999 24:60:60
>
>
> her e-mail will only break your heart -- and isn't worth the
> trouble anyway. In cyberspace, no one cares if your admirer is
> Barney Frank or Barney the dinosaur, so long as he minds his
> p's and q's. There's only language here.
> Anonymous notes used to be scorned as the last refuge of
> the shy, the lonely, the cosmetically challenged, the socially
> awkward. AIDS (Acquired Intellectual Deficiency Syndrome) changed
> all that, ushering in an era of ``safe discourse'' -- conversation
> that doesn't involve any actual exchange of ideas.
> Those used to pre-AIDS polemicism may find safe discourse
> a bit unnerving. But don't worry, honey. Once you get used to it,
> ``safe'' talk is just as hot as the other kind -- and you don't
> die from it.
> But now, you ask, how did safe discourse develop?
> Ironically, those most often blamed for the AIDS crisis --
> unfairly, I might add -- helped point the way to a solution, both
> practically and theoretically.
> That's right -- the S&M poets, so often demonized by conservative
> columnists. Their adventurous committment to ``the free play of the
>
> ---More---
>
> Group bleari.features.ms.mannerism available: 21 - 29 unread: 1
>
> article 28 14-FEB-1999 24:60:60
>
>
> signifier,'' faulted by so many, offers a legacy of ideas to
> a whole new generation of socially adventurous poets, youngsters
> who now struggle to adapt those ideas to a very different world.
> Perhaps a little background will help explain where your
> ``Barney'' is coming from. If you've read journalist Marjorie
> Perloff's best seller AND THE POETS DRONED ON (or seen the HBO
> special), some of this will already be familiar. If you don't mind
> reading something a bit harder, you might pick up Alan Davies'
> NAME, or ask your local librarian to suggest a few other titles.
> Briefly (and skip ahead if this gets too technical), the
> Language Poets had two provocative insights, which they pushed
> (as was the temper of the times) flamboyantly, outrageously, in
> a manner that frightened their more timid contemporaries.
> The first of these insights was that the unity of ``signs''
> is illusory, that ``signifiers'' and ``signifieds'' are only
> arbitrarily related. The naive insistence, they claimed, on an
> absolute relation, serves only to bolster the status quo. One
> way, therefore, to shake up the status quo was to write as if
> the order of ``signifiers'' were more important than the order
>
> ---More---
>
> Group bleari.features.ms.mannerism available: 21 - 29 unread: 1
>
> article 28 14-FEB-1999 24:60:60
>
>
> of ``signifieds'' -- exactly the opposite of ordinary usage.
> Their other insight was that the unity of ``the subject'' is
> also illusory, also a bolstering of the status quo. Works that
> put ``the subject'' into question were thus highly prized. Usually
> this questioning was thematic, but forays into collaborative
> writing and flirtation with group identity extended this thematic
> questioning into the social arena also.
> These two insights met in the relationship between ``name''
> and ``person,'' a very particular sort of `sign-structure,''
> and one which only a few Language Writers (Michael Palmer, for
> instance) paid attention to.
> But how, you ask, does all this relate to anonymous notes
> and cyberspace? Simple:
> By calling into question the reader's desire for ``proper
> names'' and ``proper meanings,'' Language Writing opened up a
> new space for performing ``ideological critique.'' The performance
> of this critique, alas, was decidedly unsafe. But no one knew the
> dangers then.
> But all is not lost, for in cyberspace a writer can pander to a
>
> ---More---
>
> Group bleari.features.ms.mannerism available: 21 - 29 unread: 1
>
> article 28 14-FEB-1999 24:60:60
>
>
> reader's desires and thwart them all at once. With safe discourse,
> writers can criticize the status quo without risk of infection.
> Other discursive practices of L.P. which influence post-AIDS
> polemicism:
> Sarcastic punning (Ron Silliman), allegorizing (James Sherry,
> Michael Davidson), pointed use of cut-up (Charles Bernstein, Tina
> Darragh), or parody (Bob Perleman, Steve McCaffery); wholesale
> appropriation of narratological structures (Carla Harryman) or
> authoritative documents (Rosmarie Waldrop, Susan Howe); guerrilla
> framing (Barrett Watten, Stephen Rodefer); eroticized address (Lyn
> Hejinian, Alan Davies, Jean Day).
> If any of this makes you curious, you might look at the work
> of some of the writers mentioned, writers who weren't (in any case)
> in any agreement as to how far their ``free play of the signifier''
> should go.
> But study isn't necessary. The point is to play. If you have
> an admirer, give in to the thrill of seduction. If you admire
> someone, let them know. Today is Valentine's Day.
> Let's be careful out there.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 12:52:02 WET
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: The interpersonal too is political
The interpersonal too is political. You know you can trust me, and so
you are correct to tell me, in confident confidence, "with my gender
of partner preference defined, I can flirt passionately and we both
enjoy it". On the way home, I feel real recalling you say this. It'd
have been funny to make a joke of it then, or made a joke of something
else you've said months ago, turning the present moment always into
a lyric poem theory commercial with a punchline. It is real fun now
not to have made fun of you then, the trust has made real men of us.
Or we turn to other cultures. Peter says, from a source, but it is an
idea for my purposes, "with writing, in the first place, and the
distribution of writing, in the second place, comes growth of idealist
thinking." We have no memory of having been reincarnated. I wrote this
for myself several lifetimes back. I knew there would be no visual
flashback, that I would only have a sense of a familiar past of
writing, actually written be me aeons back, and use a (re)writing to
see myself there, writing myself to death for myself in the future.
Growth is also a fungus. I consider what Justine Frischmann says in
the March issue of Sky, "when you're in your twenties, being monogamous,
especially fronting a band, isn't a horror to transgress. Damon
read what I said about his flings, in Sky, and laughed". I'm walking.
I have the thought that marriage mustn't be broken, like the pentameter
was feared to be being broken, a superstition held to like a formal
practice, and so much blame dumped on marriage break-up and not how,
not the interpersonal time with the children, care where you put foot.
Or call it a political football. Carla Harryman answers a question,
"certain forms of thinking are simply kept quiet, kept away, kept hidden.
There are few locations in a public or social sense to value the creative"
- from _A Suite of Poetic Voices_. Underlining on the typewriter is like
a twelve string guitar, if the former is electronic and the latter is
acoustic. So that in a culture of good locations, the interpersonal
spaces made in community, the theatre of conversation in a platonic
space where our ideas play as we discuss things in words, lessen writing.
I am not telling you this. Derrida says in the Post Card "there is
the I of lover, the you of lover, the I that fears, the you that fears,
the four of us, the fear of us and us". Paraphrase/troop. I wrote
that too when I was nineteen, and about the thousand cuts of
stepping on upturned plugs. I stepped on a plug just now, it hurt
like memory. I love my readers non-sexually. I send letters and they go
over not under your head, my intended heart-to-heart became a history
of the city. By map we twist through streets, lists of locked doors.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 08:32:54 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Belle Gironda <BG1640@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: BATC RAID ON ALBANY POETICULT
Subject: BATC Raid on Albany Poeticult
Copyright: 1984 The Anti-Hegemony Project
Date: 7 May 1984 03:45:58 EST
LINES: 50
ALBANY (AHP) -- Officers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Chapbooks (BATC) have surrounded the barricaded multi-media
lab in the basement of the Humanities building at the University
at Albany where a small band of writers, artists and miscellany,
reportedly led by poeticult figure Chris Funkhouser, have
sequestered themselves, stockpiling software, poetry, audio and
video equipment. Speculation is that this group may be a splinter
faction of the Branch Derridean cult which occupied that same
compound last winter.
Funkhouser, who refuses to communicate with government
officials except through the internet, e-mailed the BATC officers
stationed outside the lab to announce that his group, ``... simply
wished to live an alternative publishing lifestyle.''
---More---
Group bleari.pest.conglom available: 136 - 718 unread: 15
article 654 5-AUG-1984 09:34:23
``We want to be left alone,'' Funkhouser pleaded, ``We
will come out when _The Little Magazine_ has been produced on
CD-Rom. We are exercising our constitutional right to digitize.''
Sergeant Douglas Messerli of the BATC swat team says he
and his commandos are monitoring the situation for any changes,
``We hope it won't not be necessary to bring in the heavy mimeo
and stapleguns but we'll do whatever's necessary. We're not sure
how they're holding out in there. We are doing our best to stop
the flow of poetry in and out of their compound.''
Albany Speaker of the Common Knowledge Donald J. Byrd has
sought to distance himself from the cult crisis, but sources close
to the situation believe that he may be directly involved with an
underground smuggling ring suspected of supplying the cult members
with poetry and other necessities.
Chris Stroffolino, Secretary of the Department of Reality,
has called for a censure of Byrd whom he says withheld from his
department knowledge that Funkhouser was entertaining delusions of
an Imaginary University.
Meanwhile, BATC officials remain puzzled about a suspected
---More---
Group bleari.pest.conglom available: 136 -718 unread: 15
article 654 5-AUG-1984 09:34:23
flow of contraband materials in and out of the compound.
``We can't figure out how they're getting past us,'' said
a frustrated BATC spokesperson Lawrence Ferlinghetti, ``But we have
reason to believe that they are forcibly digitizing work by Charles
Bernstein, Anne Tardos, Jackson Mac Low, Madeline Gins, Will
Alexander and others even as we speak.''
Self-appointed Prime Minister of Literary Video, Richard
Kostelanetz, has voiced characteristically outspoken support for
the cult's activities while being careful to note that he is
suspicious of their possible connection with Foreign Minister of
Antology, Pierre Joris, who failed to include Kostelanetz's work
in his forthcoming Anthology of the Avant-Garde.
Joris issued an official statement from the Department
of Ontology and Anthologies today in response to Kostelanetz's
accusations. Joris said, speaking for himself and House Rep.
of the Whole Jerome Rothenberg, with regards to the top secret
Anthology Project, ``He can't know he's not in it. How does he
know he's not in it?''
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 08:34:48 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: <199502140449.AA14642@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Ron Silliman" at
Feb 13, 95 04:20:40 pm
The late Douglas Woolf's entry into the poetry and theory discussion:
Poems fly
through the
head faster
than thoughts
and are only
momentarily
forgot.
Sandra Braman
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:45:32 WET
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
I love the idea of "delurking" - like "decloaking" in Star Trek...
I echo Kali Tal's annoyance at the homogeneity, and applaud her post. It's actua
mark of difference one has to inscribe to signal non-assimilable content also
has costs, or at least this is how I feel having had to use it myself. What
Nada says about the "wartalk" of a lot of posters publically rings very true,
of myself too - since I went on the warpath, as Cris noted, over what I
perceived as a flippancy about mental illness in her very genuine concerned
posting for Bernadette Mayer, language "deficiency" as mental "defiency" in
so much writing about aphasia (eg Jakobson's) - Nada has since put me right
privately that she meant no such flippancy. I just wonder, as a campaigner
for children's rights, ablism, and AIDS awareness, what *gender* such issues
have, or are thought to have. Or perhaps: what gender does anger about such
issues, or what issues, have? I was really furious about what I say as an
attack on the vulnerable, so I used attention-seeking tactics, and angered
Nada, when I found out privately I had a lot to learn from her/you. Sometimes
accepting the right to anger of participants in a debate deemed gendered is,
for me anyway, a vital precondition to creating a space where I learn from
the person whose anger I accept (I'm very much talking about anger in this
disembodied, non-physically-threatening e-space). It isn't the exclusion or
the feeling invisible that bothers me, not in e-space, it's just boredom
with the batting around of fixed positions and no-one learning from each
other.
I say this in honesty, hope I don't seem to be discounting Kali or Nada's
postings, very mucch support more woman-talk. I don't know if this is any
other internetter's experience but I tend to delete certain regulars unread,
so that what I see is the list I get. I would definitely read anything
posted by Kali or Nada.
Very best,
Ira
P.S. Would anyone like to discuss Marjorie Perloff's review of Philip Larkin's
poetry in Parnassus, especially anyone who also sees problems in it?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 12:17:31 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Donald J. Byrd" <djb85@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Theory
In-Reply-To: <199502150500.AAA24000@sarah.albany.edu> from "Automatic digest
processor" at Feb 15, 95 00:00:39 am
Actually I am not sure what Parmenides meant,
and I doubt that any one does. He clearly did _not_
mean that change is not possible. The clear theme of
his poem is spiritual transformation.
The various attempts to formalize the logic
are takes on Zeno's paradoxes.
It seems highly likely that Zeno did not
understand his teacher. Students failing to understand
their teachers is fairly common.
I quite agree that poetry is world-making,
which seems to me quite a task. I can't imagine why
one would not want to use all of the tools that one
might have at hand.
Some one noted that my statements seemed too
pat, and I think they probably are. However, I have
found that this medium, at least in its present state,
filters subtle discourse.
Apparently I was not pat enough to make
my point clear.
There is a poetry that sees theory as a
supplement (e.g. in order to get it you have to read
the poets theoretical essays or Derrida or someone),
and there is a poetry that takes responsibility for
the theory in the verse itself (it helps to have to read
Whitehead in order to understand the _Maximus_ but all
the necessary stuff is taken into the poem itself). Thus,
the poem is not an a mere example...
Of course, it is perfectly possible to say "I
do not want to read dry awful theory. I am afraid it
will rot my mind with jargon and the dreariness of its prose."
This is a real danger and a reasonable fear.
However, a very large part of the world we
inhabit (if not the world we build) is theoretical.
This machine by which I am commuting is only
incidentally a thing. Above all it is a theory, about
which, I suspect, most of us are quite vague.
And, of course, to the extent that language
as such is constructed, it too has a theory...
The fact seems to be that at least in this culture,
the _power_ is with the theorists (e.g. engineers). Perhaps
the problem with poetry is not theory but bad theory.
When it comes time for us to demo, we often
seem nothing to show as complex and workable as, say,
the internet.
Don Byrd
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:42:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: AHP
X-To: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH <cf2785@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199502142244.AA21085@panix4.panix.com>
What a delightful idea, that you have a collaborative sendup. Do you wish
to suggest the actual list of participants, since to my ear the writers
are not always the senders. Jmeas
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 15:41:54 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: note of 02/14/95 19:53
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
Why do I, as a male (non-female?) lurker, lurk as much as I do and, when I
post, only post briefly and relatively safely? I'd partly been rationalizing
it by telling myself I didn't have the time and/or that I didn't have much to
add to what was already being said. But Charlotte Pressler's recent post in
response to the "boy talk" issue really spoke exactly to my feelings too about
use of this forum. I'm much, much comfortable working ideas through in
conversation, with all the cues and body language and possibilities for
instant restatement, clarification, negotiation, etc. that that allows than I
am on the net, where I feel compelled (this may be my issue, I realize, but I
suspect I'm not alone) to look smart, informed, thoughtful, whatever, to an
audience many of whom I know but many of whom I don't. And if literal
face-to-face conversation isn't available, which it usually isn't, I'm more
comfortable working things "privately" in writing, drafting, redrafting,
rethinking, before going public. It may just be that I haven't yet learned to
use this medium or the list in a way that works for me and that also
contributes to others. The disjunctiveness of e-mail exchanges fazes
me--putting something forth one day, processing someone's response or
responses two days later when I've already forgotten what I said. And I also
share Spencer's feeling that whatever I say on here, I'm immediately
dissatisfied with, and I haven't yet adjusted to living with a dissatisfaction
that I sense may be intrinsic to the use of the list.
I've learned a good deal from all the recent posts on this, so thanks to
Charlotte, B. Cass Clarke, Nada, Kali (my apologies if I'm leaving anyone
out--trying to backtrack in my head over what I've read the last few days) for
your open and instructive responses, and Ron for bringing it up.
Am I the only one who finds tone hard to read on the net? I sense not, from
what Ira Lightman said in a recent post. I often can't tell, esp. when
someone's sounding snitty or high-handed or whatever, whether they're kidding
or not, and that makes me reluctant to respond--I find this particularly with
the more cryptic one- and two-line messages. Yeah, I guess I could ask them .
. .
As far as I can tell, no-one here has noted the recent passing of James
Merrill. A week or so ago, I believe, though I haven't seen an obit, just
heard about it. Merrill readers on this list are few and far between, I
imagine, but I always found him pretty interesting if one wanted to consider
matters of artificeand absorption and authenticity.
One final thread: I've got to back Cris on Hokey Cokey. Maybe it's becawse I'm
a Londoner (as another such pub song goes), but I only ever heard Cokey
growing up east of London, and only encountered Pokey when I came to the U.S.
For years I just assumed that it was one of those things that Americans
couldn't get right (just as when I first moved to Chicago, I complained to
people about their defective, non-Francophone pronunciation of Notre Dame [as
in University of]. )
I also never heard in the English version (or my English version) the verse
that asks you to put your whole self in. That seems a particularly
un-postmodern injunction.
OK, I'll shut up now.
Alan Golding
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 13:31:23 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Deified Theories Limited
In-Reply-To: <199502150544.VAA27838@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Mike Boughn,
Perhaps I'm a bit late in saying this, but I like your "engendering,
particle accelerator statement" also. I believe that the way all things
are both fragmenting and connecting is so great as to be incomprehensible,
literally beyond belief. This is one big reason why our beliefs and
explanations cannot be fully trusted.
When we go from a general sense of life's richness to explanations that
are more specific, that is when the trouble starts. We cannot formulate or
rationally comprehend this richness, its fluid order and connections, its
complexity and unceasing fragmentation. We all have our awareness of this,
dare I say, totality. But I believe art is better-suited to expressing or
dealing with it than theory.
We don't have to make an either/or choice between theory and art, but
there are very real dangers when those who seem to be the more
knowledgeable authorities of an art side with claims for the necessity of
theoretical formulations with respect to that art. James, Tom and Don Byrd
may balk at my implication that they are adopting authoritative stances,
but I believe that is exactly what they are doing. In fact, that may be
the biggest problem with the statements they have been making on this
forum.
Spencer Selby
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 19:49:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: p>q re parmenides, etc.
and then also Black, but I don't remember his first name, alas.
You see that I put my in my hours of toil, trimming the truth-
function tables. Logic is fun stuff, and proofs like but utterly
unlike poems, in that you know where you are going, but not
how you're going to get there.
Tm
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 20:33:17 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Hypertext mailing list (forwarded)
for those of you not yet getting too much e-mail,
i'm forwarding the following:
ht_lit--the hypertext and literary theory mailing list.
This mailing list was created in February 1995 to provide a forum
for discussion of hypertext fiction, hypertext and literary studies,
and hypertext theory.
-----
To subscribe, send an email message to the server:
subscribe@journal.biology.carleton.ca
with the following body in the message:
subscribe ht_lit [<address>]
this will subscribe yourself (or <address> if specified) to ht_lit.
-----
The posting address is
ht_lit@journal.biology.carleton.ca
-----
Postings to the list will be archived on the web at
http://chat.carleton.ca/~kmennie/ht_lit.html
-----
The list owner is kmennie@chat.carleton.ca
--end forwarded message
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 21:09:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
Dear Alan GOlding--thank you for your comments on "tone"--Actually,
that is an issue I am extremely interested in not only in this forum
but in writing in general. I'm curious if there's any thoughts about
TONE, as a form/content issue, as a question of moods, of ideological
state apparati, whatever. If "tone" is "beyond good and evil" and
"beyond right and wrong" then is it something that is automatically
humanist (in a retro derogatory way) as a concern and should not be
theorized and thus taken for granted and thus the emotional appeal of
rhetoric becomes either lazily anarchic and "all over the place" or
one may end up in that "toneless tone" that allegedly is a sign of
"clear thinking" and "authenticity" (despite the self-conscious
theatricality...)? Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 23:19:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Fisher <VP24AXVW@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: an overhead view of 1 of 54 golf holes
"lurking" would be a hard word for it, or maybe misleading word one
might say:
"there is no neccessary difference in perspective, it is not that is
from the shadows so to speak that silence comes, as the events of
the list offer themselves equally, presumably (i don't know much
of whatever differences there might be), on the screen
(of course, how one reads it, as has been brought up, is another
question and maybe a more important one than whatever question here is
pretended to be responded to.)
(in attempt to weave together threads:
relation of poetry and theory -- the relation of voice to silence
an anxiety about what articulates what-
one cd ask to those who are active: why are you so when it is
evident the majority of the list is not?"
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 00:28:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Evans <Steven_Evans@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Espousing 2/15
FREELY ESPOUSING UPDATE 2/15/95:
* INITIAL REPORT FROM PHILADELPHIA
* REPRESENTATIVE GOODLING OF PENNSYLVANIA
* ORGANIZATIONAL QUESTIONS (OR, THE ART OF PRACTICE)
* WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO IN PROVIDENCE
* (BONUS) TRIBUTE TO FREE ESPOUSERS PAST: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
INITIAL REPORT FROM PHILADELPHIA
On Saturday, February 11, a "Forum to Maintain Support for the Arts &
Humanities" was held at The Great Hall on the University of Pennsylvania
campus. Co-organized by Bob Perelman, Susan Stewart, and Gil Ott, the
event featured upwards of 20 speakers from the dance, music, theater,
visual arts, literary, and educational communities.
Perelman estimates the 70 people attended the two-hour event and reports
that media coverage was good. On Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a
story on page 2 of its Metro section. On Monday, event-participant Julia
Blumenreich (poet, editor, and public school teacher) was the subject of an
Inquirer Op-Ed piece about art in the classroom. The Daily Pennsylvania (U
Penn's newspaper) ran a front-page article on the forum and reporters for
several other magazines and papers are planning to run pieces as well. All
of this is in addition to Perelman's own op-ed piece ("Government by
Irritation") in the Sunday Feb 5 Inquirer.
More details as they become available.
REPRESENTATIVE GOODLING OF PENNSYLVANIA
Staying in Pennsylvania for a moment, Republican Rep. Bill Goodling is
chair of the House Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities.
Recently, Goodling has called for a 3-year "phase-out" of the NEA. If you
know people in Goodling's district (which includes York and Gettsburg, but
what about Shippensburg?), it is crucial that they speak up for arts
funding. For more information, contact Anne Burt of the Literary Network
(1-212-941-9110).
ORGANIZATIONAL QUESTIONS (OR, THE ART OF PRACTICE)
In his note to us about Saturday's events in Philly, Bob Perelman writes:
"The most intriguing possibility is the most difficult to implement. There
were many committed people from a range of different arts. We passed around
a mailing list--but what is the next step??"
The transition from discrete event to ongoing project is a fairly difficult
one. But as Ray Rickman told the audience at Freely Espousing-Providence,
this fight will not be won unless people are willing to do something
*everyday.* The task in the coming weeks is simple enough: we have to
outwrite the right.
But how can that task be accomplished? As the focus turns local how do we
gaurd against isolation? What should the next wave of synchronized events
look like? How can we be sure that the makers, and not only the managers,
of culture play a part in the national debate?
The key is to make the prospect of participation *interesting.* If artists
and writers can't do that, who can?
We encourage everyone who is receiving these updates to think through at
both a local and a national level the question about how to continue and
expand these efforts. Open, imaginative debate is one resource we have
that the tightly organized, well-funded, religious right cannot afford.
WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO IN PROVIDENCE
In Providence, we shifted fairly quickly after the 1/28 event toward
planning our role in a broad forum on the Balanced Budget Amendment that
will take place on 2 March. The work is of the always essential/sometimes
tedious kind: attending meetings, xeroxing fliers, working phone banks,
etc. Still, it's the kind of action we're happy to be involved with since
the objective is coalition building.
Meanwhile, we keep trying to expand our means of communication: exploring
the possibility of establishing a list-serve (an as-yet unresolved
question), hooking up to Arts Wire, informing people about what *FE* is and
what has happened so far, educating ourselves about legislative processes,
and so forth.
We also spent some time assessing what relationship we wanted to adopt to
existing arts organizations. At this point, we've decided to remain an
indepedent project and to seek alliances on that basis. The drawback to
that decision is that we remain for the most part without resources. The
advantage is that we don't waste time in intra-organizational squabbles and
we don't have to submit our thinking and action to an established "line" on
how and whom to organize.
(BONUS) TRIBUTE TO FREE ESPOUSERS PAST: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
All that which makes the pear ripen
or the poet's line
come true!
Invention is the heart of it.
Without the quirks
and oddnesses of invention
the paralytic is confirmed
in his paralysis,
it is from a northern
and half-savage country
where the religion
is hate.
There
the citizens are imprisoned.
--"Deep Religious Faith" (_Pictures from Brueghel_)
Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley / Freely Espousing
61 E. Manning St., Providence RI 02906-4008
401-274-1306
Steven_Evans@Brown.Edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 01:45:51 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Dumb And Dumber
In-Reply-To: <199502150544.VAA27838@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Nada,
I appreciated your post a lot. Specifically I liked the stuff you said
about "dumb." My feeling about it is, there are many kinds of dumb. Some
kinds may be easier to detect, but often those kinds are less significant
than kinds which are not so apparent.
I'm thinking of a forest and trees. And in this forest there are some
really big trees, some trees one could get lost in, maybe for years or
even a lifetime. Men are very good at this. I don't know if it's an innate
talent they--I'm sorry--we have, or something passed on and built up,
primarily through the course of Western Civilization.
What do you think?
Spencer
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 10:03:24 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Nick Lawrence <V121NQND@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Is Theory Bad for You?
> Group teari.news.poesy available: 11094 - 11157 unread: 52
> article -.0001 16-FEB-1999 14:02:47.77
>
> ROME (AP) -- The warning made front-page headlines. Cafe
> customers buzzed about it. Experts came on lunch-time TV to calm
> Italians just as they were sitting down for their daily serving of
> theory.
> For Italians, a suggestion by American poeticians that theory
> can be bad for you has been harder to swallow than mushy lyricism.
> ``The whole thing is so ridiculous,'' the head of the Italian
> Poeticians Society, Eugenio Donato, said on Inferno state
> television.
> Donato appeared on the national news to talk about arguments
> by U.S. experts that starchy prose might contribute to overweening
> self-righteousness.
> The experts were quoted in a front-page article in Wednesday's
> New York Times to the immediate alarm of U.S.-based Italian
> newspaper correspondents.
> ``America, You Don't Understand Theory,'' was the headline over a
> front-page commentary in Thursday's La Stampa, a nationwide daily.
> The Times article focused on concerns that a diet heavy on
> speculative poetics might be bad for the ponderous, particularly for
> those whose bodies tend to overproduce abstraction after reading
>
> ---More---
> Group teari.news.poesy available: 11094 - 11157 unread: 52
> article -.0001 16-FEB-1999 14:02:47.77
>
> philosophical prose. ``Bye-bye theory. It's been fun,'' the Times wrote.
> ``The more explanations your body produces the more likely it is that
> you will convert poetic calories into intellectual dogma'' the paper quoted
> Dr. Spencer Selby, the author of ``Art More, Posit Less.''
> Italians counter that Americans just need to learn how to read.
> ``Americans ought to just think about giving up reading
> mindlessly -- about quitting stuffing themselves four times a day
> with mountains of new sentences and haiku,'' Carla Billiteri, who
> teaches poetics at University of the Sacred Art (USA) in Buffalo, told
> La Stampa.
> Benjamin Friedlander, an American educator, serves up
> platefuls of alterity accompanied by aporias, post-Howe Dickinsonian poetics,
> Levinasian theories of relation and other poststructuralist mumbo-gumbo to
> elbow-to-elbow teatime crowds at his Advanced Writing 1 undergraduate
> course, not far from USA's busy Student Commons. He scoffed at the
> notion that theory could lead to tediousness.
> ``Customers come here and tell me `I'm feeling specific -- I'll just
> have theory today,''' Friedlander said.
> After poking fun at the U.S. theory theory, state television was
> quick to recognize that talk about abstraction might worry Italians who
>
> ---More---
> Group teari.news.poesy available: 11094 - 11157 unread: 52
> article -.0001 16-FEB-1999 14:02:47.77
>
> commonly read theory once or twice a day and who lately have heard
> lots of reassuring talk about the benefits of a Continental booklist
> -- theory, history, disquisitions on community and the like.
> Inferno asked, for example, if it was dangerous for readers lacking
> the poetry enzyme to read poetic theory. Donato replied that a small
> passage of it once a day would be fine--``just avoid truck-driver-sized
> portions.''
> This isn't the first time Italians have turned defensive about
> theory. When a U.S. study not too long ago denounced the vacuity
> of literary deconstruction, Italians were quick to point out that that
> dish, smothered with airless reiterations of the same three concepts,
> was invented to satisfy American tastes.
> Many Americans wouldn't even recognize what's sold in
> bookstores here. Theory is more likely to be topped by entertainingly
> steamy meditations on sexual difference, like those of Duras, Irigaray
> or Kristeva, than anything heavy. Ludic postmodernism, if you can find
> it, is a separate dish, to follow theory or news.
> Poetician Donato suggested Americans should try reading
> spy novels with their theory, saying that plot helps slow down the
> antiabsorptiveness of the prose.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 10:54:30 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kali Tal <kalital@MERCURY.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: More Boy Talk
Sigh.
Let's look at what's happened.
Some well meaning male person asked why women don't post more often on POETICS.
Several women "delurked" and answered the question, giving various and
substantial explanations. A few men commented on the question itself, or on
the responses given by the women. But only Spencer Selby has attempted to
directly draw any of the women into a conversation by responding to her
*ideas* or *assertions*.
Alan Golding wrote that Charlotte Pressler's post spoke to *his* feelings of
isolation and, thanking Charlotte and the rest of us for addressing
something of importance to him, changed the topic to a discussion of "tone"
in espace. Still under the heading "Boy Talk" (which is always already the
proper subject line), Chris Stroffolino thanked *Alan Golding* for his
comments on "tone" and asked Alan a direct question, providing a jumping-off
place for a conversation between men, effectively appropriating the "Boy
Talk" header, and bringing us back to where we started.
Sheesh. Double sheesh.
IF YOU WANT MORE WOMEN TO POST ON THIS LIST YOU GOTTA *TALK* TO 'EM. I know
that's a really hard idea to grasp--revolutionary even--but that's what you
gotta do.
Triple sheesh.
*We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.*
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, 16 Feb 1995 12:30:50 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Donald J. Byrd" <djb85@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: RAID ON AHP BOT (fwd)
>
>
> THE CO-POETRY NEWS NETWORK
>
> ALBANY (CNN)-- It has been reported that James
> Sherry and a vigilante posse of poets and others who are
> committed to decorum on the Internet have located the
> computer of the Anti-Hegemony Project in an abandoned
> road-side bar near Herkimer, New York. Although details on
> the raid are sketchy, it is believed that the computer was a
> cunningly conceived artificial intelligence machine or "bot,"
> as they are known on the internet. There appeared to be no
> human operators.
>
> Although details are still sketchy in this fast breaking
> story, it appears that the computer, an ordinary IBM 8088 of
> about 1985 vintage, had gone into spontaneous self-
> construction and self-reprogramming. Although the odds
> against a random event of this kind producing such
> spectacular evolutionary results, especially in a brief time,
> are astronomical, Professor Hans Moravec of Carnegie-
> Mellon University speculates that it was precisely an accident
> of this kind that originally created biological life on earth.
> "It's just like the birth of humankind," he said, a bit dewy
> eyed.
>
> Among the thousands of still undistributed files, there
> were stories implicating most important American poets,
> including all of the poets in _The Norton Anthology of
> Postmodern American Poetry_, edited by Paul Hoover. It was
> conjectured that the reading of this book set the machine on
> its errant evolutionary path. Many of the discovered files were
> judged by Sherry to be pernicious and likely to cause
> unnecessary harm to innocent poets. The machine was
> apparently also involved in several other long-term projects,
> including a new history of American poetry in which the
> names of many important poets and even entire schools of
> poetry were utterly expunged or replaced with caricatures,
> often grotesque beyond recognition. For fear the records have
> been contaminated, these allegations are being investigated by
> the Modern Language Association's Purity of the Canon
> Committee.
>
> Already statements of appreciation are arriving at the
> offices of Sherry. "We have been snatched from oblivion by
> your brave and strong hands," one well-know west coast
> language poet wrote. Sherry responded dryly, as always,
> saying "It's just my job."
>
> It is reported that the machine was unfortunately
> destroyed in the raid. Scientists at Brown University are
> working feverishly in an attempt to revive it, but they are not
> optimistic. No doubt, however, they will be engaged in the
> study of its circuitry and programs for years to come in order
> to understand the workings of its fine intelligence and sense
>of humor.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 13:08:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: parmenides, poet ***and*** theoretician
parmenides was a poet: what is extant of his work is a poem! [so perhaps he did
not mean it?]
He had what some people may call a naive theory of meaning: that if you name
something it exists someplace. Since you cannot name what is not, then what is
not is not--it does not exist anyplace. There is only stuff, all over the
place, filling the place, and there is no boundary between the place and
nothing because there is no nothing. For him, the universe is infinite (not
finite as some 20th century dudes think).
And, yes, since nothing cannot yield anything, change is impossible and
therefore illusory.
He perpetrated this monstrous blow to common sense in his poem.
But, remember, it was a poem.
So it's ok?
Well, no, because he was the father of metaphysics based on bad language
theory.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 18:20:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
kalital,
Your skill at email gives me hope that posting and reading are things worth
learning how to do. I even saved your Boy Talk message to my hard drive. I
don't do that very often.
Anyway, I've been wondering what the value is here.
I like the informational posts (in fact I'd like to see more about
events/readings, and new books, mixed in with a poem or two, informal book
reviews maybe, why not review the AHP?)
Thanks for starting to clear things up.
bluoma
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 15:52:04 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: deified theories and unfounded vocabularies
In-Reply-To: <199502150418.UAA21726@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Jeffrey,
I can't agree that my concern for the failure of art to impact people's
lives is just aesthetic. Nor do I think it's a case of my humanism--at least
not a humanism which might be historically defined as an ism.
I think if you don't care about change then all you've got is art for
art's sake. I'm talking about anything that changes people outside of
their relationship to art. This would be a pretty broad definition of
change, which includes social and political change as well as changes that
are more exclusive to the individual, or changes that are psychological
and/or spiritual.
I believe art/poetry has failed to bring about much change, viewed from
any of these angles. What's mostly aesthetic is the success of this art,
I'm sorry to say.
Caring about change means facing this failure, and not being happy about
it, not giving up or settling for a success that will be bracketed in the
name of poetry or art. A lot of theory is addressed to this problem, or
aspects of it--I certainly will acknowledge that. What I share most with
the theorists may be this concern for change, this refusal to accept human
society as it has been or is. What I do not share is the theorists' faith
in the power of their theories, their belief that theories should be
effective if they sound right, or if they are based upon extensive
knowledge and good analysis.
Please remember, I am talking about the effectiveness of art theory in
bringing about changes outside of these bracketed aesthetic and
intellectual worlds. Remember also that my skepticism does not mean I
think theory is completely worthless or that it can play no role in a future
which I too have not given up on.
More on this later. For now I thank you for your thoughts, and your kind
words. I am glad some of my statements have engaged you. I also have been
engaged by some of yours.
Spencer Selby
On Tue, 14 Feb 1995, Jeffrey Timmons wrote:
> Preface: haven't had time to fully digest all the prolific writing on the
> relation between theory and poetry, but hazard an appearance I will....
>
> Text: I wanted to respond to Spencer's comment that theory/art have not
> impacted or have failed to impact people's lives. Two points: 1) Isn't
> this a very aestheticist postion? I'm sure the answer is yes, and that's
> fine, but this faith in art as having any ... responsibility or ability
> to change people's live has fallen under serious scepticism. I'm not
> trying to reduce Spencer's position to a humanism--and that in itself
> would not be such a bad thing--but how can we not face the fact that art
> itself has not saved us from ourselves? This point has been raised by
> others.... 2) Thoreau and/or Emerson make the point that reading their
> texts should change the reader, that reading them should provoke the
> reader into states of change,that the reader should undergo and be
> willing to undergo change (a la Peter Carafiol). I return to literature
> and art of all sorts because I continually find things that challenge me
> to think in different ways--Emerson of the divinity school
> address--rather than in static and calcified institutions (no matter what
> some may think). However, for all this usefulness of art, for all its
> ability to offer visions of difference and change . . . or simply beauty
> doesn't it seem somewhat limiting to hold art responsible for humanizing
> us? I sort of feel (I'm not sure, in other words, but suspect) that what
> is needed is a view of art that is able to avoid the humanizing and
> colonizing functions of art/literature . . . a position that also does
> not reduce its complexity and multiplicity to beautiful objects.
>
> Refrain: I will now quickly peruse all the previous entries and see how
> much I've repeated of others's statements . . . .
>
> Jeffrey Timmons
>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 13:40:52 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: A Cockney Sparrow
"as yet unsubstantiated
Pokey flavour from Auckland".
"Questions follow:
1.The East London version always starts with 'you put you left (whatever)
leg in' and so on - I'm worried that the folk myth has got lost in its
translation to connect Pokey with a reorientation towards the right foot,
can you or anybody else here possibly clear this up? Otherwise the
ramifications of possible relations between Losely (high culture ice cream
manufacturers but arguably Cockney rhyming slang for Mosely - as in Oswald
and his blackshirts, resurgent in East London even as we post) and
Mussolini will lead to melted sleep."
Well, I'm glad the penny (cent or dime or whatever) has finally
dropped... Yes, of course "Right" in this context does not have a
serious political implication. What politician or poet has ever
stopped participating in the social dance, the Hokey-Cokey (or Pokey
or Tokey) when required to put the Right anything In? None, I
suppose.
The relation of poetry to theory is the issue (or so I understand it
from the previous correspondence). The song that propels the
social dance, in so far as it may be taken as a poem, commonly
disengages dancers from couple-dancing to participate in a species of
exhibitions of sometimes ludicrous and sometimes erotic wagglings
in which all share. The politics of the song could be derived from
this, its apparent function, at "parties". And its relation to
theory could well be seen in its intentional relation to the effect
produced. So "that's what it's all about...... ----- .....".
[Note: "that's what it's all about" is usually followed by a shouted
word that like the name of the song varies from location to location
and sometimes from person to person. It can be Hey, Hi, or sometimes
See. I prefer " See" because Seeing what something is about is what
may be termed Theory.
Taking this as the beginnings of a sketch of a paradigmatic case of
the relation between poetry and theory may be of benefit to the
somewhat blurry discourse surrounding these two nouns when taken in
conjunction.
Agreeing with everybody on this, I would suggest that the bafflement
over the supposed relation between Poetry and Theory, may be somewhat
alleviated, when in all cases of poems, functioning and
engendered response patterns are carefully observed.
I suppose that at all times (and I am aware I may be alone in this)
that poems are items for recitation or recital, that they are either
to be recited by their readers, and if not aloud and before an
audience, then thought of that way. Reading poems by oneself is a
fantasy situation of sorts, where one is searching for something that
will be effective as song or fable, narrative or moral exposition
(sometimes), or some sometimes absurd ridiculous and provocative
contradiction of these (to be modern about it), when an occasion for reading
aloud should present itself.
Caution: this is not a recurrence to "speech" as the origin of
writing. This is rather a belief that poetry is for speaking aloud
and that the reading of it in silence to oneself supposes at some
time a reading aloud. The silent reading being about as complete as
the silent reading of a musical score.
I agree with James Sherry as to poetry and theory. I also agree with
some of his rather noisy opponents that arriving at a fully
articulated theoretical standpoint (a whole book, a discourse) as a means of
generating poems at all is not quite what is wanted. Nevertheless,
poems are written or otherwise composed by people who expect
something of the results and in that respect there is always a
theoretical intention.
I believe that it would not be difficult to substantiate the view
that Lang-Po was concerned with theory, because
of a seeming denial by many poets in the 70's that they needed to
reflect on their theoretical positions, and the belief that as a
result many 70's poets were becoming ineffectual as poets.
This comes from someone who in recent terminology must be counted
as of Generation Minus One, but with sympathies in the later 70's and
1980's for G1 AND ALSO for a lot of G Minus One and Minus Two poets.
(And Minus 3,4,5,6....)
I thought this all could be done with a lighter touch, around
questions of Hokey-Tokey, -Pokey and -Cokey. But I guess
the above heaviness is a necessary resort. Should I put this down to
the present employment of poets teaching Graduates instead of
Liberal College Undergraduates?
My wife, like her father, is for Tokey.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 20:41:53 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: <9502160442.AA24241@imap1.asu.edu>
There was an obit for James Merrill in last weeks New York Times--Tues or
Wed, I think.
Would who ever posted the Stein conference at Pomona (or wherever) please
repost it or send it my way, please? I'm trying to find it but haven't
had any luck.
Jeffrey Timmons
mnamna@imap1.asu.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 21:23:10 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: deified theories and unfounded vocabularies
In-Reply-To: <9502170229.AA17262@imap1.asu.edu>
On Thu, 16 Feb 1995, Spencer Selby wrote:
> I think if you don't care about change then all you've got is art for
> art's sake. I'm talking about anything that changes people outside of
> their relationship to art. This would be a pretty broad definition of
> change, which includes social and political change as well as changes that
> are more exclusive to the individual, or changes that are psychological
> and/or spiritual.
I always catch my self saying poetry is a revolutionary force, within it
lies the potential and the means for . . . achieving a different world.
Then I catch my self again and say . . . but that faith, that belief is
that the faith of modernism, that art itself can be a temporary stay
against chaos? And then I remember how Richard Rorty divorces the
personal visions from the aesthetic creations/ideas of particular
artists/intellectuals because the types of change they desired would
abhor us. And I am left in a dilemma, part of which is the question:
What sorts of change? And how or what in art provides for this course?
> I believe art/poetry has failed to bring about much change, viewed from
> any of these angles.
Hence, the postmodern. And I think the unhappiness you mention, not only
about this situation but the inadequacy of theory to do more than
promulgate analysi, is a difficult position to be in. It amounts to the
condition I've alluded to, of being in a position of needing to
distance oneself from the uses to which art (widely defined) been put and
which, also, doesn't simply reduce it to beauty and/or use. I don't
know. I guess my view is given some shape my hesitation to revert to a
position that reads/interprets art in some universalist-human-condition
variety of analysis/appreciation: we need better tools. I share your
skepticism and hope for change (I'm alway interested in articulating the
specifics, especially with a term like this), it's just I worry about
harnessing art with such a responsibility as engendering change or being
coterminus (?) with it--especially after its failure to do so.
One last thought (for now): I believe it was you, Spencer, who made the
point of needing to stay on a general level rather than specific because
things (understanding? what was it?) tend to break down at that level.
Part of my reading of Emerson/Thoreau/Whitman (derived from Carafiol and
others) is that they are almost simultaneously able to move between such
levels--hence part of the power of their texts. Which move me. Which
encourage me toward change. Perhaps we can compromise and articulate
some issues--especially change--at that intermediary level and how that
might be acheived through art. Is this merging art and politics too
closely? I wouldn't want to hold art to any relation to politics that
restricted it to performing such action . . . . I've gone on long
enough for now . . . .
Thanks for chatting, Spencer. Hope all is well on your end!
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 21:32:19 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deified Theories Limited
In-Reply-To: <9502160630.AA02591@imap1.asu.edu>
On Wed, 15 Feb 1995, Spencer Selby wrote:
> When we go from a general sense of life's richness to explanations that
> are more specific, that is when the trouble starts. We cannot formulate or
> rationally comprehend this richness, its fluid order and connections, its
> complexity and unceasing fragmentation. We all have our awareness of this,
> dare I say, totality. But I believe art is better-suited to expressing or
> dealing with it than theory.
Yes, this is what I wanted to emphasize. Emerson/Thoreau do this to an
extent I find stunning. If we can't "rationally comprehend this
richness", though, Spencer, what sort of experience of art do we have.
Kind of an obvious question, I suppose, but.... And does this "richness"
have to do with change? And is that change one of a "spiritual"
quality? And if so does that experience of art exclude it from being
able to make the sorts of change you are interested in?
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 23:02:15 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: <9502170534.AA09077@imap1.asu.edu>
Oops, sorry about posting to this subject; oversight--or is it
undersight?--on my part.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 23:26:26 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tenney Nathanson <nathanso@ARUBA.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 14 Feb 1995 to 15 Feb 1995
In-Reply-To: <9502161139.AA83808@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu>
Alan--
Well I will delurk as a (prior?) Merrill reader--always used to do him in
my contemporary poetry course though front-end pressure and
special-topics orientation at grad level (G-1 at any rate) has meant I
haven't done so in a couple of years. I never got as interested in all
the ouji board stuff as some said one should; The Fire Screen and Briving
the Elements where the books I liked best. SOme of the ballad like poems
-- though more narratively unpacked--stuff like, is it, "Days of 1935,"
pick up on some of the demonic energies in Auden's terrific ballads in
very nice ways; Willoware Cup reminds me of Bishop's "Poem (about the
size of an old style dollar bill)"; and "Syrinx" is just plain terrific.
Auden too is prolly not a big favorite here, but I learned mostly the
early Auden via Kenneth Koch at Columbia. btw I've found myself looking
at Kenneth's stuff again lately, off and on, and wondering too about
what's interesting in NY School (or so-called so-called NY School) that
didn't get fully picked up on in LangPo: my divided loyalties and
surreptitious personal master plan in part. more on this later; doan
wanna put my whole self in just now....
Tenney
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 06:50:57 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: What about the lurkers?
(... which provoked -- ?already-much-rehearsed -- musings about the
particular characteristics of these discussions, perhaps worthy of
consideration by those who take an active interest in the poetics of
discourse.)
The lurkers far outnumber a few decloaked, familiar voices which speak in a
brightly-lit space but remain invisible.
The voices of the speakers are emphatic, ringing with commitment; they
often are fractious.
The speakers appear to be speaking to each other. They do respond to one
another. There are always replies waiting for them from the other speakers.
The discussions become elaborate, self-refering, complex. The speakers have
time to consider what they will say -- time which does not seem to exist
for the lurkers, who simply hear by reading, now and then.
But the speakers are not speaking to one another. If they wanted to do
this, then they would simply correspond. They are speaking for the lurkers
and for themselves. They are publishing their voices. What they say is
uttered with the sense that they are overheard in the midst of their vital
discussions.
The speakers are not speaking. They are writing. Writing on the loosely
gathered leaves of their next book. One day their words will be edited into
shape. Before then they will be bound up and stored in an archive.
Occasionally the lurkers decloak and speak. Everything changes.
(... I'll resist the temptation to emerge from this mode of writing and
make any of the analytic comments that spring to mind. Leave it to the
lurkers?)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 16:42:24 +0900
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Geraets <frank@DPC.AICHI-GAKUIN.AC.JP>
Subject: Re: deified theories
Q: What's the difference between a good langpo
and a tree?
A1: Nothing.
A2: Everything.
A3: The Answer, like the Question, is beside the point.
A4: The tree, unlike the langpo, isn't preoccupied with
defining its position. It occupies it.
Take your pick. I like A4 (& not just cause it's longer).
Does theorize mean think about or write about what
you think about - or maybe do these things in specific
contexts or forums - as per this LIST.
If I ask, what makes me feel welcome here, what's my
qualification being here (apart from the gender
and de-lurker invitations, which are lovely and
help), I'd say it's cos I'm interested in intellectual
discussion, specifically langpo-type speculations.
This of course means I like the company, very much,
even if I don't know the quality of your social or other
lives. Right now, don't care.
So, it's a kind of community - I mean, there are
commonnesses operating huh, of interests, of reading,
of a pleasure in theorizing. Of stimulation and the
pleasure - yeah maybe power too - of expression.
Poetry and its theorizing I think don't have social
or political or what have you functions. Maybe the sense
of responsibility
comes from the feeling that we owe our patrons, now
that our patrons/the market are in good part the
state, hence society.
I mean, it's opportunity and proclivity that connects
us. What are the personal costs agains the pleasure of
being on the LIST - does it come down to being a
university-sponsored, mail- (oops, male-) dominated
thing.
The loop that leads back from such theory to its
sponsoring society must necessarily get mediated beyond
recognition,
it's dishonest to claim responsibility for ourselves.
At most, such responsibility is an indirect thng.
Now maybe it's the processes of mediation running too & from
langpo and its theorizers, job appointments, books
published, conferences, earnings, what have you. But
theory has to do with what it theorizes, in this case
literary stuff (&itself).
It seems to me typically literature doesn't do well
patronizing the patron.
By the way, Tony, with the place you give sound/voice in
poems where do you leave someone who just happens not to
have heard poetry aloud, or a deaf someone. I can't
see the disadvantage.
Surely one sensitivity being blocked serves well to
open others?
John Geraets
frank@dpc.aichi-gakuin.ac.jp
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 01:45:26 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Dumbfounded
In-Reply-To: <199502160003.QAA24408@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Don Byrd,
I'm very surprised that you have no awareness of the downside of poetic
theory, that you "can't imagine why one would not want to use all the
tools that one might have at hand." Poetic theory, like all art theory,
is used more as a weapon than as a tool of creation. Even if you disagree
with the word "more" in that sentence, surely you're not so naive
as to think this theory is only used to help with creation.
Respectfully Yours,
Spencer Selby
P.S. Wanna trade publications (so we can see all that subtlety we've both
been missing)? I'll send you a copy of my antitheory nonbook if
you send me a copy of one of your most useful, optimistic tools.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 05:13:57 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Thoughts on Theory
Just spinning off Spencer's latest post (hi, Spencer!), I sense that much
about theory (I fear I point to an abstraction rather than to any certain
individual viewpoint) risks treatment as commodity, rather than as the fluid
thing it is. The dance of interplay between theory and practice means for me
that there is always something to enjoy, closer to infinite ways of looking
at a single entity. It is as though one should not (consciously) stop, for
fear of giving the nod to gravity and then falling for who knows how long.
The pleasure of theory is certainly one of its big selling points, in
addition to its power to locate, frame, describe, attune to resonances not
previously picked up.
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 09:07:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: <199502170433.XAA17083@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from
"Jeffrey Timmons" at Feb 16, 95 08:41:53 pm
> Would who ever posted the Stein conference at Pomona (or wherever) please
> repost it or send it my way, please? I'm trying to find it but haven't
> had any luck.
This can be found in the "Announcements" section of the Electronic
Poetry Center.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 09:08:10 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
In-Reply-To: <199502170433.XAA17083@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from
"Jeffrey Timmons" at Feb 16, 95 08:41:53 pm
EPC FAQ Rev. 1-30-95
____ ____ ____
/ / / / / /
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 |
|__________________________|
___________________________________________________________________
The Electronic Poetry Center (Buffalo)
___________________________________________________________________
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 provides 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, the Segue
Newsletter, news of related print sources, and direct connections to
numerous related poetic projects. For texts housed at the
Electronic Poetry Center, texts are "definitive" texts inasmuch as,
prior to posting, they have been approved by their producers.
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 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
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 09:56:50 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: More Boy Talk
OOPS--dear Kali tal--You're right, I did end up replying to a MALE
in a subject topic concerning the lack of women. Sorry about that,
chris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 10:28:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bishop Morda <V369T4KJ@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: ADVERTISEMENT/CURRICULAR REFORM
MEOW PRESS
Spring 1995 list
Beginning a fifth season of small press publication,
Meow Press is featuring the work of senior
Language Poets and many supporting and
distorting younger poets both avowing and
disavowing the historic literary movement. Also
this semester, Meow Press Textbooks makes its
debut in the theoretical/academic marketplace.
These products are all for sale!
Rachel Back, LITANY
Ben Friedlander, A KNOT IS NOT A TANGLE
James Sherry, FOUR FOR BEN
Dubravka Djuric, COSMOPOLITAN ALPHABET
Misko Suvakovic, PAS TOUT (Meow Press Textbook)
Mark Johnson, THREE BAD WISHES
Charles Bernstein, THE SUBJECT
Andrews/Bernstein/Sherry, ART/TECHNOLOGY: 20 Brief Proposals (1984)
(Meow Press Textbook)
(Note: Special! All books are 5.00 + 1.00 postage)
Meow Press is actively reading manuscripts for the
spring offensive of the 1995 campaign! Please
address all correspondence to 151 Park St.
Buffalo/NY 14201
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 13:28:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Evans <Steven_Evans@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Espousing 2/17
FACT CHECK: VOTES NEEDED TO KILL AGENCY
INITIAL REPORT FROM WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
MARCH 14 / ADVOCACY DAY
FEBRUARY 28 / NY ARTISTS OPPOSE CONTRACT
THE ART OF PRACTICE: A RESPONSE FROM HENRY GOULD
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FACT CHECK: VOTES NEEDED TO KILL AGENCY?
Can anyone out there confirm a point of Congressional procedure for us? We
have been told that it takes 218 votes in the House and 60 in the Senate to
abolish a federal agency. Since it appears the opponents of the NEA/NEH do
not have those numbers, it would be cause for optimism if this is true
(though of course the specter of an agency with no budget continues to
loom).
INITIAL REPORT FROM WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
We traveled out to Middletown, Connecticut last night to attend the event
organized by AJ Weissbard at Wesleyan. Roger Mandle (President of RISD)
and George White (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center)--both members of the
National Council on the Arts--spoke for about 20 minutes each, after which
questions were solicited from the audience of approximately 150 people.
Mr. White, who started the O'Neill Theater in 1964-65, emphasized the role
of federal funds in supporting "young" institutions. He noted that while
the loss of NEA funds would lead to 5 new plays and 2 musicals/operas being
cut from the O'Neill annual programme, the impact on less established
organizations would be more drastic. Faced with a shrinking base of
corporate and foundational support, organizations that facilitate
innovation and experimentation would be driven under, leaving only the
"no-risk" institutions (Symphonies, Orchestras, Ballets) intact.
President Mandle used his speech to attack the "narrow corridor" of thought
being imposed by NEA opponents. Switching with great facility between
aesthetics & economics, Mandle argued that the arts are a "strategic asset"
in the post-industrial world economy. Answering a frequently heard argument
that since the NEA is of recent origin it can be eliminated without unduly
affecting the nation's cultural life, Mandle noted that the automobile is
also a fairly recent development but no one suggests that we eliminate it
and go back to walking.
Both Mandle and White emphasized the role that "design" plays in the lived,
material environment of people who might not encounter art in other ways.
Both men also called for increasing the visibility of Endowment support as
a way of countering the conservative strategy of seizing on controversial
exhibits and presenting them to the public as typical of what the Endowment
does. White suggested that plaques acknowledging NEA-support be
distributed along with grant-monies and displayed everywhere that NEA money
has been used.
FEBRUARY 28 / NY ARTISTS OPPOSE CONTRACT
(Anne Burt of LitNet forwarded the following press release yesterday. As
it happens, the Senate vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment--a key
component of the GOP Contract--has just been set for the 28th as well.)
For Immediate Release, 2/10/95
A Gathering of Artists in Opposition to the Contract On America Featuring:
Homer Erotic, Tuli Kupferberg, Emily XYZ & Myers, Bartlett, Matthew
Courtney, John S. Hall, Todd Colby, Edwin Torres, Miguel Algarin, Eric
Drooker and Others.
Event will be hosted by Reno.
On February 28th at 9 pm, artists against the Contract With
America will assemble for an evening of readings, rants and riffs at The
Fez, below Time Cafe, located at 380 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.
Artists scheduled to perform include: the all female rock band, Homer
Erotic; Tuli Kupferberg, the self-defined non-traditional anarchist, poet
and cartoonist; Miguel Algarin, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe;
spoken word artists Emily XYZ & Myers Bartlett; Sine regular Stephan Said
and many more. Admission is $5, with proceeds to benefit the Literary
Network, an organization founded in 1992 to support a strong, uncensored
National Endowment for the Arts.
This event is designed as a visual and vocal protest against the
conservative agenda proposed in the Republicans' Contract with America.
The goal of the evening is to celebrate artistic freedom and diversity as
well as build community and unity in the face of an intended dismantling
of civil rights and social services. As artists and members of arts
organizations, we want to draw attention to the critical issues of
censorship and disappearing funding. Anne Burt of the Literary Network
will be on hand to distribute action materials, including postcards to
Congress and names of government contacts.
For more information contact:
Brenda Coultas (212) 674-0910
Stephan Said (212) 254-0571
MARCH 14 / ADVOCACY DAY
The American Council for the Arts (ACA) has targeted March 14 as a
"National Call-in Day for Art and Culture." They are encouraging
organizations and individuals to make the case for continued federal arts
funding either by traveling to DC for in-person meetings with Congressional
representatives or by calling/faxing/wiring.
ACA is recommending that each interested person involve at least five
colleagues, friends, relatives (etc.) in the day's effort. You can get
more information by calling ACA at 1-212-223-2787, ext. 227. Their street
address is: One East 53rd St, New York, NY 10022.
THE ART OF PRACTICE: A RESPONSE
Henry Gould, a poet, participated in Freely Espousing-Providence. What
follows is an excerpt from his response to some of the questions we posed
on 2/15:
Maybe one thing artists could do is "build coalitions" in SPECIFIC
COLLABORATIONS of agit-prop, Federal Theater 30's-style political work.
Some will claim that art has been over-politicized & ideologized now for
years - with a lot of pseudo-political art & pc one-upmanship. But with
the attack on from the right, this could paradoxically reduce the
polarization -by drawing political art more toward the "center". As I see
it the path to this is through a basic identification: the attack on the
arts is THE SAME THING, is PART OF, the general agenda of social & cultural
impoverishment underway - the downsizing of America, as gov't at all levels
(witness Giuliani's turn in NY) abdicates
vision & follows the dictates of the "world economy". This is a very basic
position, but the agenda of a collaborate art strategy might be to "figure
it out", allegorize it, narrate it, re-discover it. That is, in the spirit
of the living newspaper of the thirties, let's look at the demographics of
class disparity in this country - between super-rich, white middle class,
working
poor, minorities, very poor, & homeless - then look at how this relates to
the economics of private corporate & institutional & professional power IN
COMPARISON with public (government) institutions. Out of this research
will come a perspective on how the malign indifference of the rich, the
mechanism of global markets, the resentment & ignorance of the middle, and
the venality
of commodity-art all TRANSLATE into feeble, tight-fisted, self-destructive
government. And it will culminate in a recognition of personal
responsibility - including that of selfish artists -to make democracy part
of an over-all just & compassionate civilization, in a world currently
subject to tyranny & terror
on an even worse level.
To summarize: let's make solemn, collaborative political theater-works
presented very directly & openly as challenges to the Contract on America,
which provide evidence that the philosophy & activities of present &
planned government at every level DO NOT MEET THE STANDARDS OF PUBLIC GOOD
for civilization, & challenging those who block these standards from coming
into play. I think artists could possibly build some authority by MAKING
ART ABOUT THE GENERAL
PROBLEM rather than by simply DOING POLITICS TO PROTECT ART FUNDING. (It's
not a matter of choosing one or the other, though.)
++++++++++
Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley / Freely Espousing
61 E. Manning St., Providence RI 02906-4008
401-274-1306
Steven_Evans@Brown.Edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 14:21:49 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Nowak <MANOWAK@ALEX.STKATE.EDU>
Subject: North American Ideophonics
North American Ideophonics Annual (1993/4)
2 vol., 200pg. Assemblings
Available for FREE.
Simply send a $3.00 for two-day priority mail delivery to:
Mark Nowakl
908 Franklin Terrace, 3rd floor
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(Contributors include: Nathaniel Tarn, Rochelle Ratner, Carol Berge,
Dan Featherston, Eric Priestley, Jerome Rothenberg, Pierre Joris,
Theodore Enslin, Diane Glancy, Karl Young, Maria Damon, Charles
Alexander, Chris Funkhouser, Maurice Kenny, katie Yates, Sheila
Murphy, Bonnie Barnett, Larry Wendt, Bob Grumman, Kimberly TallBear,
Dennis Tedlock, Forrest Gander, John Olson, John Bradley, Michelle
Perez, George Kalamaras, Armand Schwerner, etc.)
$3.00---> please send in stamps, if possible.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 23:05:09 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Boy Talk
X-To: Kali Tal <kalital@mercury.cis.yale.edu>
Hi Kali Tal, and thanks for the TNC address.
Last thing I bought by Gill Scott-Heron was 'Message To The Meesengers'. I
play it a lot at the moment. Why? - because of the texture of the voices,
because of what he's saying and who he's addressing and because (above all
for me) I think he has a fat and frank and direct talking 'tone' (exactly
not Alan Goulding's e-mail tone problem) that engages my listening. Brings
here somthing between Tony Green's re-statement of Bunting's advocacy'I
have set down words . . . to trace in the air a pattern of sound - Poetry
must be read aloud', Ira Lightman's call to pay attention to the 'musical
phrase' and your own bringing of poets such as Ice-T and Gill Scott-Heron
(among many many others) out of and into, from the root to the source of
the rap, dub and broad oral traditions, into the POETICS list discussions.
Having said all of which by way of introduction I then get a little nervous
- because several slippages are at work here. Not least any definition of
'musical phrase' and thereby a discussion of a breadth of cutting music
practice in popular market and independent market spheres around which it
might be difficult to form a concensual definition of any use - even were
such a thing desirable.
I wonder how open listening is in the present? How far nuance has to become
blunted before readings can be shared? I was very struck by your comments
on the literature of trauma and -
> the failure of language ("You *can't* understand!") and the desperate need
> for language to succeed (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," . . .)
You're right on ascribing documentary 'but never at the now' functions to
both "terrorist" and "revolutionary" poetry.
So, I'm curious. You oviously read this list, do you feel that the struggle
for the production of both constructive and critical meanings (maybe
simultaneously) whether for language or through language is irreporably
fractured into constructs of identity OR are you suggesting a need for more
pro-active polymorphous traffic? It's not intended as a 'trick' question by
the way.
There's been some allusion to trust in respect to various agendas over the
past few weeks here I'd say let's start from the position that -
we're all human beings and therefore not to be trusted (a sentiment
impressed onto me by Eric Mottram - and terrifying to some in its
honesty?)
Don't you just love this thing of posting privately and publicly. I do.
best
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 15:05:14 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: A Cockney Sparrow
In-Reply-To: <199502170849.AAA19538@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Tony Green,
I expect something of the results of my poetry; anyone who is a committed
poet expects something of the results. But that does not mean I have a
need to formulate what those results will be, or necessarily mean. I may
anticipate those results, which is quite different from formulating them,
since my anticipation may involve a range of responses that need not be
explained or characterized in a theoretical way.
I am sorry if this post seems noisy to you. If so, look at it this way:
The theorists will probably take over this list again soon.
Spencer Selby
On Fri, 17 Feb 1995, Tony Green wrote:
>
> I agree with James Sherry as to poetry and theory. I also agree with
> some of his rather noisy opponents that arriving at a fully
> articulated theoretical standpoint (a whole book, a discourse) as a means of
> generating poems at all is not quite what is wanted. Nevertheless,
> poems are written or otherwise composed by people who expect
> something of the results and in that respect there is always a
> theoretical intention.>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 14:47:25 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: boytalk (fwd)
Kali persuaded me to put this direct message to her onto the list.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 21:59:17 -1000 (HST)
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
To: kalital@mercury.cis.yale.edu
Subject: boytalk
Kali--thanks for your remarks of late on "boy talk." As someone who has
tried several times to engage the list in conversation, I wanted to
suggest that the question of "tone" is perhaps a gendered one. I don't
want to over-simplify matters, but Deborah Tannen's model of male and
female conversations seems to work as well on this list as it does in my
freshman comp class. I got on another poetry list, populated mainly by
new formalist fans, where women write in a lot--or at least two women
do. But far less signifyin' is going on.
Several people, including one or two men, did contact me directly about
things I'd said; it would be interesting to talk about messages between
listees that aren't sent to everyone. And now I'm doing it. I was
disappointed, however, when I tried to bring "multiculturalism" into the
conversation, and discovered that these radical language poets, some of
them, are quite reactionary in their literary politics.
So I guess I'd suggest redirecting Golding's remark about tone; he
brought it up in the right context, but we were then swept right back
into boy talk. More than needing to talk to women, they need to ask more
questions; Silliman's posting came rather late in the day.
Susan Schultz
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 17:31:43 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Theory
In-Reply-To: <199502171309.FAA01373@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Sheila,
I'm all for the pleasure of theory. I read it and I get pleasure from it
and I'm sure it fuels my poetic practice. (Some of the best theory I've
read in past year is by one of the people on here that I've been "arguing
with.") What I don't like, what I have a big problem with is when claims
are made for the necessity of formulated theoretical positions on the
part of poets. When it is stated or implied that those who have not
formulated their poetics are "irresponsible" or in some way "misguided."
Thanks very much for your post, Sheila. I am interested in any
further thoughts you might have on this, or anything veering off from
this.
Spencer
On Fri, 17 Feb 1995, Sheila Murphy wrote:
> Just spinning off Spencer's latest post (hi, Spencer!), I sense that much
> about theory (I fear I point to an abstraction rather than to any certain
> individual viewpoint) risks treatment as commodity, rather than as the fluid
> thing it is. The dance of interplay between theory and practice means for me
> that there is always something to enjoy, closer to infinite ways of looking
> at a single entity. It is as though one should not (consciously) stop, for
> fear of giving the nod to gravity and then falling for who knows how long.
>
> The pleasure of theory is certainly one of its big selling points, in
> addition to its power to locate, frame, describe, attune to resonances not
> previously picked up.
>
> Sheila Murphy
>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:07:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: boytalk (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199502180050.TAA03946@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Susan
Schultz" at Feb 17, 95 02:47:25 pm
On gender in postings, some here might be interested in Susan
Herring's paper, "Gender and Democracy in Computer-Mediated
Communication." The background to Herring's linguistic research:
--> Since 1991 I've been lurking (or what I prefer to call
"carrying out ethnographic observation") on various computer-mediated
discussion lists, downloading electronic conversations and analyzing
the communicative behaviors of participants. I became interested in
gender shortly after subscribing to my first discussion list,
LINGUIST-L. Within the first month after I began receiving messages,
a conflict arose (what I would later learn to call a "flame war") in
which the two major theoretical camps within the field became
polarized around an issue of central interest. My curiosity was
piqued by the fact that very few women were contributing to this
important professional event; they seemed to be sitting on the
sidelines while men were airing their opinions and getting all the
attention.
Some of Herring's remarks:
--> Recent research has been uncovering some eye-opening differences
in the ways men and women interact "online"...
--> My basic claim has two parts: first, that women and
men have recognizably different styles in posting to the
Internet, contrary to the claim that CMC neutralizes
distinctions of gender; and second, that women and men have
different communicative ethics -- that is, they value
different kinds of online interactions as appropriate and
desirable. I illustrate these differences -- and some of the
problems that arise because of them -- with specific reference
to the phenomenon of "flaming".
Anyway, interesting, I thought, given recent discussions.
Herring's full paper is available via the web version of the
Electronic Poetry Center under "documents" then "conversations." Use
lynx or a world-wide web browser to go to:
URL=http://writing.upenn.edu/internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:52:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Juliana Spahr <V231SEY9@UBVMS.BITNET>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: boy talk
=20
=20
Reasons why I might not respond at any given moment:=20
=20
=09* the conversation goes too quick=20
=20
=09* a fear of conversation getting out of control=20
=20
=09* I rarely tend to respond to non-personal messages of any sort =
=20
=09(my minor input into this list has been indicative of my role on o=
ther =20
=09lists, including the woman=92s studies list)=20
=20
=09* the feeling that the list is mainly boys talking about boys boo=
ks or =20
=09boys talking to boys, I must admit, also plays a part=20
=20
I am not sure how much of this has to do with gender. =20
I do understand the serious nature of the technology-gender problem =
=20
(and the technology-race and the technology-class problems), =20
the poetry-gender problem (which I am not sure how but continues =
=20
to remain a serious problem despite a large number of active women po=
ets), =20
and various other social-induced, gender-related ills. =20
I do not know how to counter act them. =20
I do not want the conversation on this list or any other list =20
to have to be policed by some sort of affirmative action =20
of response or mention. =20
=20
I just wish society was different, I think, =20
that people were a little more self-aware of what =20
they talked about and how and to whom.=20
=20
I guess the only answer I can suggest to Ron=92s question =20
about how to get more women to respond =20
is to fight for the overthrow of the patriarchal system=20
which is the cause of fewer women being wired.=20
Nothing short of that is going to do much, or maybe,=20
mean much.=20
=20
I wonder if there were equal amounts of women and men=20
on this list if the gender construction of the conversation =20
would not be more equal.=20
I am not sure there is a gender proclivity to lurk or not lurk.=20
=20
=20
I do not want to be a woman all the time either. =20
=20
Part of me wishes I were not responding to but rather disavowing=20
this gender narrative.=20
=20
Juliana Spahr
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 03:05:25 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jonathan Brannen <jbrannen@INFOLINK.MORRIS.MN.US>
Subject: Re: North American Ideophonics
Am I to understand from this message that you are taking this sanctified
medium, this cyber-utopia, and corrupting it for non-commercial reasons?!
JB
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 10:01:41 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
julianna
>I guess the only answer I can suggest to Ron's question
>about how to get more women to respond
>is to fight for the overthrow of the patriarchal system
>which is the cause of fewer women being wired.
>Nothing short of that is going to do much, or maybe,
>mean much.
agreed that the patriarchal system is in some way responsable
for underrepresentation in the discussion; but not (or not
only) because of technological access--last time i checked,
better than 20% of the subscribers to this list were female,
a percentage not reflected in the postings. access to tech
is sure a factor, but the social (patriarchial) relations
seem to me more significant, and harder to address...
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 10:26:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: boy talk
gross underrepresentation is a factor (20% is still gross underrepresentation)
another perhaps is the fact that women tend to do relevant things with their
time.
their time
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 11:57:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: theory
Spencer,
I share your distrust of the current value of current cultural theory. I
think a lot of people are sick of post-this and post-that. Why can't we talk
about theories that, on the surface, don't have anything to do with art?
Like, does anyone know if the astrophysicists have figured out what a quaser
is? What's up with string theory? GUT? T.C. Marshall, what's going on in
the world of flora?
Or I'd be interested to hear about prose composition theory. We should get
Peter Mortensen on this list. What methods are they teaching college
freshman to get essays down on *paper* (for lack of a better word).
I've enjoyed the p>q stuff, not that I pretend to understand it. But it
makes me think about the Law of the Excluded Middle. Joe, Jorge, could you
frame the parmenides verbally around the law of identity, excluded middle,
etc? (I don't know what I mean.)
And I always like to listen to discussions about gender, but don't feel
*qualified* to expound. What if all the boys just shut up for a month and
let the girls steer?
bluoma
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 12:37:36 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
The Russian poet Nina Iskrenko died this past werek. Her principal American
translators include John High, Katya Olmsted, and Patrick Henry, among others.
She was John High's Russian translator as well.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 09:46:49 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: i'd like to introduce myself...
Feb. 18, 1995
Good morning poetics!
--As far as i can tell, everything has worked out and i'm on the poetics
list. This brief message is just a way of introducing myself. i'm
currently pursuing doctoral study at Simon Fraser here in Burnaby BC. My
area of study involves bpNichol so this poetics discussion group makes
sense in light of that. My earlier MA work dealt with the Barthesean
death of author concept & its relation to Nichol's poetics -- i can tell
you more about that as time goes, if you like. In any case, --i'm happy
to be here, and hope this message gets thru without too many distortions.
Carl
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 11:54:17 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Nowak <MANOWAK@ALEX.STKATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: North American Ideophonics
Yes.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 12:43:54 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: theory
In-Reply-To: <199502181817.AA08105@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Bill Luoma" at Feb
18, 95 11:57:56 am
Given that at its extremities postmodernism turns its back on research as
an impossibility and as irrelevant -- Larry Grossberg is now claiming
that doing pure theory and only theory is now the most correct form of
political action -- it would seem to me the same fate would soon fall to
theory itself.
Sandra Braman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 14:08:51 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: theory
In-Reply-To: <199502181844.AA22217@panix4.panix.com>
"Postmodernism" doesn't do any such thing, "postmodernism" doesn't do
anything; people do. And there is a good deal of postmodern research,
from Ann Kaplan's older work on MTV through Edward Soja and various
postmodern geographers.
I also don't think that postmodern has "extremities."
As far as the theory/poetry/poetics debate goes, it befuddles me. I don't
see where the _ought_ appears in any of this. People are invested in
different discourses, different modes of writing. So be it. It seems
dubious that any are primary; we're not after all dealing with an
axiomatics here, and the last seventy years have shown that even
axiomatics is full of holes.
What's been depressing about the debate is what might be seen an
academicization (pardon the word) of poetry itself. I would ask where the
solitary writer is focused on hir work, but that is always already
problematic in an email list fostering community.
Alan
On Sat, 18 Feb 1995, braman sandra wrote:
> Given that at its extremities postmodernism turns its back on research as
> an impossibility and as irrelevant -- Larry Grossberg is now claiming
> that doing pure theory and only theory is now the most correct form of
> political action -- it would seem to me the same fate would soon fall to
> theory itself.
> Sandra Braman
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 14:07:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steven Howard Shoemaker <ss6r@FERMI.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Whitman notebooks discovered (fwd)
> > Newsgroups: clari.living.books,clari.living.history
> > Subject: Long-lost Walt Whitman notebooks discovered
> > Copyright: 1995 by Reuters, R
> > Date: Fri, 17 Feb 95 14:40:07 PST
> >
> > NEW YORK (Reuter) - Four long-lost Walt Whitman notebooks
> > have been rediscovered after disappearing during World War II
> > and could give scholars new insight into the development of one
> > of the world's most famous poems, experts said Friday.
> > Sotheby's auction house said it had rediscovered the
> > notebooks kept by the 19th-century American poet, which contain
> > philosophical writings, his impressions as a male nurse watching
> > young soldiers die during the Civil War and some of the earliest
> > versions of his most famous poem, ``Song of Myself.''
> > Also recovered was a small paper butterfly that Whitman used
> > as a prop in one of the most famous photographs of an American
> > author ever taken, the frontpiece accompanying an 1881 edition
> > of his collection ``Leaves of Grass.'' He had placed the
> > butterfly so that it appeared to have landed on his ring finger.
> > The notebooks and the butterfly disappeared from the Whitman
> > collection at the Library of Congress in 1942 as the works were
> > being packed off in sealed crates to a safe haven in case of a
> > German attack on Washington.
> > When the crates were reopened in 1946, 14 notebooks and the
> > butterfly were gone and presumed lost forever.
> > But Sotheby's said a man came to them last January with four
> > of the notebooks and the butterfly and said he discovered them
> > among his late father's effects and wondered what they were and
> > if they were valuable.
> > Sotheby's would give no details of the man or how his father
> > came across the notebooks but said as soon as he learned they
> > were from the Library of Congress, he demanded they be returned
> > there.
> > Sotheby's said it will hand them back to the Library of
> > Congress next week.
> > ``I would rank this as one of the most exciting disoveries I
> > have ever been involved in and that includes finding an unknown
> > copy of the Declaration of Independence and the manuscript of
> > 'Huckleberry Finn,''' said Sotheby's rare books specialist Selby
> > Kiffer.
> > Kiffer added, ``These notebooks will give scholars
> > invaluable insight into the development of 'Song of Myself' and
> > 'Leaves of Grass.' I believe the notebook also contains Whitman
> > poems that have never been published.''
> > The four notebooks dated from 1847 to about 1863 and
> > contained a total of 400 pages of aphorisms, observations,
> > crosses next to the names of dead soliders, drafts of Civil War
> > poetry and most importantly early drafts of ``Song of Myself,''
> > the poem that begins ``Leaves of Grass'' and is considered a
> > masterpiece of world literature.
> > ``There are some wonderful observations in the notebooks,
> > including a story about how when Secretary of the Treasury
> > Salmon Chase visited a friend of Whitman's and saw a copy of
> > 'Leaves of Grass' on his shelf, he asked, 'How can you have that
> > nasty book?''' Kiffer said.
> > If the notebooks had gone on sale, they would have fetched
> > a minimum of $350,000, he said.
>
I also read a piece in the Wash. Post that reproduced a couple of
quotes from the notebooks. W. wrote that the "Test of a poem" is
"How far it can elevate, enlarge, purify, deepen and make happy the
attributes of the body and soul of a man."
And in another passage that speaks to the concerns of this list he
wrote: "Every soul has its own individual language, Often unspoken
or feebly, lamely, haltingly spoken; but a true fit for that man,
and perfectly adapted for his use.--The truths I tell to you or any
other may not be plain to you, because I do not translate them fully from
my idiom to yours.--If I could do so, and do it well, they would be
as apparent to you as they are to me, for they are truths.--No two
have exactly the same language and the great translator and joiner of
the whole is the poet."
steve shoemaker
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:22:27 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Turbulence
X-To: James Sherry <jsherry@panix.com>
James you wrote, 14/2
> . . .turbulence is at the ehart of wht I 'd like to accomplish at hte
> outset, but later I'd like a further. And in that sense the poetry might
> come after writing . . .
I'm taking it as read that all of that is intentional. And I ehol ehartedly
agree.
Slippage isn't the all of where it's at by any means.
It reveals the critical processual dance of the ungainly - (thinking on
its feet?, and falling through the potential of points to engagement).
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:26:02 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Good Morning Poetics
X-To: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@sfu.ca>
Carl, just home it's 21:21:12 - the time zone
lapse means that this
evening I'm reading
'Good Morning Poetics'.
There's a lot of theory
lurking in that welcome.
(Babylon / Vietnam / Holiday Camps)
Having to have recently been
watching other's p and qs
being debated here and being
asked to 'place your bets' on G1,
G2 or G3 pre-G up and post-Gee-ing
(we're talking GGs I take it)
- oh, by the way, careful when
if typing either L or . . . M
to connect them onto the popular
front of a 'word'
(there's considerable negotiation
going on at present
some are calling
for a decisive break with the past
around 'The Breath of the Auteur')
- and what with the
warriors of the lang-shan-po
(for those who never saw the
original cyber-suicide TV series
'The Water Margins' this is
becoming an impossible object as
US Air Force sponsored research
currently 'progressing' into optics and
psychology at Yale would have it)
throwing down their challenge
to the peer hungry new beat hordes
and others
pasting homolinguistic translations
of the Hokey Chokey
playing havoc with cultural
roots on this side of the pond
- well you'll probably soon
feel right at home.
good luck
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 16:54:00 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kali Tal <kalital@MERCURY.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: boytalk (fwd)
Hi, Cris; Hi, Susan--
It is better, yes, to take the dance off the back-channel and perform in
public. Posting is performance, a new kind of art; writing in motion, more
like improvisation in jazz than literary composition--skywriting,
lightwriting, sandpainting, here and gone, happening in time.
Cris asks:
>So, I'm curious. You obviously read this list, do you feel that the struggle
>for the production of both constructive and critical meanings (maybe
>simultaneously) whether for language or through language is irreporably
>fractured into constructs of identity OR are you suggesting a need for more
>pro-active polymorphous traffic? It's not intended as a 'trick' question by
>the way.
My answer is, Yes. And this is not intended as a 'trick' answer. See,
nobody's got just *one* construct of identity: I am this, but I am also
this, and this, and this, and this. To be whole, we gotta keep moving,
shifting from perspective to perspective, so we don't leave any of
ourownself unaccounted for. Each declaration of identity *is* a
"construct," and reflects only a part of the whole, so if we hold onto it
too hard, we lose the point, which is that constructs are useful, but that
they shouldn't, *can't* contain us. Language is the tool of our
fragmentation; at the very moment we describe "how we feel," we have already
left our whole selves behind, because the description accounted for the
feeling of the moment ago, but not of the now. Identity is a process, not a
thing. So we need to counter the fractures with an attempt to create a
pro-active, polymorphous traffic inside ourownselves and between us and
others which takes into account both the necessity and limitations of
constructs of identity.
i yam what i yam
a world-changing fiction
a trickster
a chimera
a heterogloss in my own time
And, Cris, I'd rather start from the position that we're all human beings
and therefore not to be trusted and to be trusted at the same time.
When Susan (hi, Susan) sent me her note backchannel, I urged her to post it
to the list because it seemed to me that she was saying exactly what needed
to be said out in the open. The question of "tone" *is* really important,
and those of us troubled by the "tone" of discussion on POETICS ought to
out-and-out *talk* about it. (Thereby, perhaps, changing the tone.) It's no
accident that one woman (Susan) has brought up the issue of
multiculturalism, and another woman (me) has brought up the issue of the
(unintentional, but also unnoticed) exclusion of African-American, feminist,
and other identity-oriented poets from the discussion, and that there was
*no* response to either woman's post on the public channel. Most white,
male enclaves are pretty happy to *stay* white, male enclaves. And why
wouldn't they be? But POETICS is *not* a white, male enclave, it just
operates like one. So I figure that if the women here *quit* letting it
operate like one by entering into and changing the discussion, then we can
carve out some space for ourownselves, and begin to build a community where
some real exchange can start to take place. Even in the worst case
scenario--the men ignore the women, and the women talk among themselves--we
can still *illustrate* that the problem exists by enacting it (and archiving
it) as a text. Of course, that's a lot of work to expect already overworked
women to undertake, but perhaps, in this venue, such work can pay off.
What follows is a lengthy rumination about gender in espace, including some
excerpts from items I've previously posted on another list:
In January of 1993 I was part (perhaps even instigator) of a massive
flamewar on the TNC (technoculture) list. The flamewar revolved around
issues of gender and women's voice in espace. I learned a great deal from
this discussion, and I've gone back to the text files again and again,
coming away with something new each time. Juliana (pleased to meet you,
Juliana) writes that she "does not want the conversation on this list or any
other to have to be policed by some sort of affirmative action of response
or mention." I agree. Policing rarely works in *any* situation (doesn't
stop crime, does it?). But I've noticed that what I fear more than policing
itself (since policing on the net is really quite rare) are *accusations* of
policing directed at those of us who dare to criticize the speech and/or
"tone" of others. (And, yes, this does resonate with the "political
correctness" argument the right uses to make the left appear more powerful
than it is...) Like Juliana, "I do not want to be a woman all the time
either." In fact, the ability to "pass" on the net is a real relief to me,
and I use it frequently. But passing is just... passing. What I'd really
like is for it not to be so exhausting to be a woman. At any rate, let me
share with you a short piece which I wrote in the middle of the TNC
flamewar, after suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous distortion
(accusations of being a wounded, vicious person, a manhater, blah, blah,
blah) and weathering what can only be called a storm of abuse, name-calling,
and red-faced fist-shaking. (Not that I didn't dish it out as well as take
it, but then, that's the point I make below...)
Simultaneously amused and appalled by the narratives different male
listmembers were writing about "me" (the person behind the narratives, to
which none of them had any access), I explained:
"It is my pleasure in electronic communication to attempt to respond in the
style in which I am addressed, and, at times, to address the issue of style
itself. Lacking physicality (obvious race/gender characteristics), I find
that it is simple to engage in stylistic shifts in espace, whereas it is
very difficult to engage in such shifts in person. One of the results of my
stylistic adventuring has been my realization that textual style is as
gendered and racialized as the physical body--though passing in espace is
easier than passing in person. What I find, however, is that when I
publicly position my gender as female, and then insist upon "competing" in
"rational" (masculine) discourse in traditionally masculine terms while
simultaneously insisting we focus on issues of importance to women, all hell
breaks loose. The pattern is quite predictable: certain men will grow
completely infuriated and claim that I am attacking them because I hate
them. They will also impute all sorts of power to me--as if, in their eyes,
I "control" the discourse--"Kali's game"--and depict themselves as victims
of my rage..."
In fact, the upshot of the TNC flamewar, was that I was accused of being a
machine. George Landow wrote:
"KALI TAL IS NOT A PERSON BUT A TEXT-GENERATING APPARATUS INTENDED TO PASS
THE TURING TEST AND AT THE SAME TIME TO EXPLORE THEORIES OF
SELF-REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION IN CYBERSPACE."
I don't think George really understood what a really nasty shot this was.
He took a long time to explain *why* I must be a machine, ranging from the
fact that I wrote too much too fast to be human, to reducing my posts to an
alleged "decision tree," to the outrageousness of my name (which, amusingly
enough, is actually the name on my birth certificate), to claiming that my
arguments were rational only if I was "part of an experiment to convince
other participants that this digital text assembler is a real person." The
last part of Landow's post was a rumination on which particular TNC
listmember had "written" me. The irony, of course, is that I truly *was*
trying to convince the TNC audience that I was a *real* person. As I am
trying to convince you.
To end the TNC flamewar, I admitted to being a construct, an Artificial
Intelligence produced by some grad students in the History of Consciousness
program at UC Santa Cruz. I also pointed out:
that if a machine speaks/writes to you
and says it wants to be treated like a person
it would be a good idea
to take it seriously.
I think that there are people out there who are still confused about whether
I actually exist, either in human or machine form. All the trouble was
caused (is always caused) by my attempt to inscribe my gender in my texts.
And as I've mentioned, these days I don't post much anymore. I've posted
more to POETICS than any other list (including SIXTIES-L, where I am
listowner) in the last year. I am curious about this space, and what
will/can happen in it.
Kali
__________________
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, 18 Feb 1995 14:16:08 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jerry Rothenberg <jrothenb@CARLA.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: whitman recovered
Thanks to Steve Shoemaker for passing along the full Reuters text on Whitman
(only a brief mention in this morning's L.A. Times) & especially the passage
quoted in the Washington Post. It is a reminder too -- the Whitman quote, I
mean -- of what "theory" sounds like when a poet speaks it at white heat.
All best, etc.
Jerome Rothenberg
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 22:38:06 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: turbulence
X-To: james sherry <jsherry@panix.com>
James, since you mentioned Lamb here's a quote of his which 'cuts both ways'
'The poet dreams being awake'
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 17:49:52 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Theory
Tom Beckett's recent release of INTERRUPTIONS, issue #2 includes wonderful
work by Peter Ganick, "untitled (the text)" that I believe to be generative
as regards the recent talk on theory and practice. No paraphrase of the piece
could begin to do it justice (partial definition of work within a medium
right for itself). So I pass along info re: procurement:
Tom Beckett
131 North Pearl Street
Kent, OH 44240
$8.00
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 18:02:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: boy talk
Jorge's comments suggesting that women use their time (more) wisely helped
bring to mind a few responses I have to the entry of the list into my
sphere. I'd hesitate on conjecturing any firm relationship between what I am
about to say and my gender. Let's just call it one person's fraction of
response:
I tend to devote considerable time to reading and making texts, as do we all.
My long-time career in business/organizations has necessitated my clevering
along and managing to eek out time during conferences and the like to do two
things at once, i.e., listen to a presentation and capture notes PLUS
scribble up a draft that seems just right for just then. And airplanes and
hotels are gifts. I love that quiet, which I always use.
Hometime during nights has been prime time for writing, too, despite packed
weeks whose days overflow into the softer hours. The attention required to
absorb and then respond to what is on the list is potentially extensive.
Even before the gender contribution patterning discussion came up, I found
myself fiddling with how I wanted to approach all this. I've always
corresponded extensively via trad post. And therefore welcome opportunities
to be neighborly in new ways. Funny how the physicality of trad
correspondence comprised just a few steps too many for most people to carry
out. Now many more are willing to go into long discussions, which I value,
but for which I hadn't quite formulated a time/space segment in an already
busy schedule.
I think that someone mentioned earlier (much earlier) that we've not begun to
use this medium up to its potential in regard to sharing work. I was
delighted recently to receive a lengthy piece via the net. And treasured the
late night read of that. Perhaps such a pattern would spark whole new worlds
of interest on the list.
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 18:59:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ted Pelton <Notlep@AOL.COM>
Subject: Poetics flaming
Kali Tal--Just getting this out, following delay..... Just so you know, I
admired your first posting (into the teeth of the self-serious
"revolutionary" poetry mainstream) enough to have saved it on my hard drive,
a rare thing for me to do, even rarer when I don't recognize the name of the
poster. I'm sorry you interpreted the silence as not being heard. I suspect
(at least it was so for me) that some of the silence was the nodding yes of
heads.
I also want to thank you because you gave me some discussion material for my
class this past week. I'm in the very difficult middle of Invisible Man with
my class (its length combined with its denseness making it a uniquely arduous
literary experience for many of my students, who aren't used to being asked
to read 600 page novels), having been working through a number of different
issues with that wonderfully rich text. We dealt with invisibility at some
length last week, but I hadn't considered a women's context. You're right,
though, and I copied down some of your most recent posting to read to my
class. They recalled how in chapter one, the naked woman and the black boys
fighting were both victimized, both objectified.
I too find it difficult to think of lang-po as revolutionary (back to your
first posting); though I think Bernstein's Content's Dream is one of the best
books of the last couple decades, and many others of the poets of this group
well enough; but how can you have revolution when hardly anyone knows you
exist? Mark Wallace's recent posting reflects some of this not-mattering:
needing a theory to be heard. But is a theory enough? For Marx, yes, but he
was before television. I saw a British documentary on rap the other day and
liked something Chuck D of Public Enemy said: that they were doing a sort of
media hijacking. Now that gives the possibility of real change, turning over
of the known; people shout back, You're too violent, you're irresponsible,
but they are really threatened by the art, the newness, the
unintelligibility, the radical politics.
My comments in the freely espousing vein: I attached a column I'd written for
the Milwaukee Journal that basically argued that the arts were the only
politicized speech we have left in this country and that this was the reason
for the cuts, that democracy demanded dissent etc. etc. But I think artists
suffer delusions of grandeur, myself included. Yes, new works are
revolutionary in the sense of overturning the assumptions of mainstream
culture, of the political order, not partaking in what the dearly departed
Guy Debord called "the existing order's never ending discourse about itself."
But if that order continues on unabated, without missing a step, without the
brutal warrior in the black leather boots tearing Godzilla (or Gingrich)-like
through sense and humaneness even coughing at the dust mote he's breathed in,
in what tiny circle has that revolution happened? (It must be very late at
night, because that's a very badly mixed metaphor.)
Ted Pelton
P.S. to Mike Boughn (literarily): Yeah, Ahab has a theory, and Ishmael almost
dies because of it.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 18:08:00 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: theory
In-Reply-To: <199502181923.AA19488@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Alan Sondheim" at
Feb 18, 95 02:08:51 pm
Yes, of course, Alan, postmodernism doesn't do anything, people do; an
old simple and irrelevant mistake. Does postmodernism have extremities?
I live surrounded by them, try to teach the students who etc etc. Does
it have a range of positions? Yes -- I consider myself -- I consider us
all -- "postmodernists" in the sense that we are all living in that
condition and try to make sense out of it, I use the theories, etc.,
etc.. But perhaps it takes getting away from poetry to see what's
happening elsewhere on campuses and in our society -- in a number of
academic programs, in fact -- including under Larry Grossberg here at
Illinois when he was here -- students are being taught that research is
impossible and unimportant, and they live what they are being taught.
Not to deny the great research bein g done by others, including the work
you mention. Postmodernity is simply the flip, effects, side of the
changes wrought by changes in information technologies that have let us
describe this also as the information society, a view which focuses on
causes rather than effects. The fact that you don't see all of the
phenomena and processes I see doesn't mean that what I see doesn't exist,
Alan. Sandra Braman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 17:34:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <9502171439.AA16330@imap1.asu.edu>
Thanks, Loss, for the announcements reference.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 17:38:11 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gabrielle Welford <welford@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
In-Reply-To: <9502181526.AA29918@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info.
--1915904662-2119396536-793164512=:29695
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950218173155.29695B@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Jorge Guitart said:
gross underrepresentation is a factor (20% is still
gross underrepresentation) > > another perhaps is the fact that women tend
to do relevant things with their > time. > their time >
Another lurker
de-lurks. I wasn't going to say this--it seems so sexist, but I for one,
am doing a PhD, have two small kids and a husband, two jobs and a couple
of committees to "do." I don't usually have much time to do much more
than skim the list (whose discussion has actually interested me a lot
lately--especially the mentions of Wittgenstein and Michael Boughn's
wonderful fracturing) and save away stuff for when I have more time (ha!)
or for when I need to think specifically about theory and would like to
pull up these conversations for that.
In the meantime, I would like say _something_. So here it is.
Something...
Gabrielle Welford
welford@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
--1915904662-2119396536-793164512=:29695--
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:24:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tenney Nathanson <nathanso@ARUBA.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 16 Feb 1995 to 17 Feb 1995
In-Reply-To: <9502180930.AA138711@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu>
Sheila--
Hi (O Arizona fairest state of all?). This should prolly be a private
post but: are you still running readings up around Phoenix (gotham)? any
chance of my reading in the next year or so? Am writing a fair amount
(again) and could send you samples.
Charles (hi there!) is much missed in Tucson btw; saw him recently, here,
but his Poetry Series are long long gone; and it don't mean a thing if it
ain't got that swing (I could tell stories)
best,
Tenney
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 23:06:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Thomas Bell <tbjn@WELL.SF.CA.US>
Subject: Re: boytalk (fwd)
re: Schultz' forwarded comments and the issue as a whole.
--For me the issue is one of analyzing or talking about
feelings rather than having them or experiencing them:
from a therapeutic perspective "flames" are analogous
to shouting, screaming, histrionics (used to be hysterics),
striking out physically, etc. as ways to avoid experiencing
feelings. Some people are comfortable with feelings and
some are not. From this perspectivek, gender is an
accidental correlation.
"...it is this lack of complexity in confronting
the methodological complexities of modernist
thought that gives legitimacy to the charge of
postmodernist depthlessness, what Jameson
accurately describes as the "waning of affect":
_all technique, no substance_.
- Charles Bernstein, _A Poetics
[B
--Thomas Bell tbjn@well.sf.ca.us
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 11:42:47 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: boytalk hyperTalk
on mouseUp
doYourself_aFavour
stagger
end mouseUp
on doYourself_aFavour
global alcohol
print report "the Apex of AbsurdExperiCategories"
read file until "." & return
answer "few!" with "many" or "hokey"
if it is "hokey" then
answer "There is nothing like it, Kali Tal..." & return =AC
& "(waiting for the splash)"
else if it is "many" then
answer "light grows phrases"
else
answer "Wendy joined the Pirates."
end if
put "mind in the grip of espace" into alcohol
end doYourself_aFavour
on stagger
global alcohol
put "a newly-imported kilim" into aPlasticSleeve
if alcohol contains "mind" or alcohol contains "grip of espace"=
=AC
or true then
put empty into aPlasticSleeve
windBlows(aPlasticSleeve,underMyFeet,walkingBack,north, =AC
KentishTown,London_UK,February,mild,Winter,false) into theory
if theory is not empty then
answer theory with "practice" -- (US: verb)
show message
put "staggered"
else
put "sundered"
end if
end if
end stagger
function windBlows what,whereClose,moving,whichWay,whereNear,=AC
whereFar,when,weather,season,isItTrue
put one into aleatory
put two into pronoun
if the random of pronoun is aleatory then
return "gravity's flames"
else
return empty
end if =20
end windBlows
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 10:37:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Whitman notebooks discovered (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199502182027.PAA28387@terminus-est.acsu.buffalo.edu> from
"Steven Howard Shoemaker" at Feb 18, 95 02:07:12 pm
On the Whitman notebooks,
Does anyone have any idea how/when these will be published?
A pity it's not a truly digital world as the manuscripts should just be put
online!
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 16:57:20 WET
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
I guess that I'm included in Kali Tal's statement that males didn't respond
to messages by women. I must say I haven't noticed anyone pick up 2 per cent
of anything I've posted to the list, about children's rights, ablism, or
AIDS activism. But then, if I may make a clearly signalled snide remark,
if the alternative is to co-opted into the movement one may be "carving"
(interesting metaphor), in the way that Kali Tal seemed to "welcome"
Juliana Spahr as an ally when Juliana Spahr was raising some issues Kal
i Tal didn't respond to at all, then I shall happily go back to lurking
from *all* sides of this discussion.
Ira Lightman
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 12:11:34 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
having had to clarify my comments several times backchannel, i
ought to do so here: i _do_ think the under-reperesentatnion of
women subscribed to the list is a problem ( i sed 20%,someone
updated that to 18.5--a worsening trend). but even among those
subscribed, until last week, women posted far less than 20% of
the traffic--that seems to me to be the more intractable problem.
the original formulation seemed to me say that the paucity of women's
voices was due to the lack of acces to the wire; but even given
access, women choose/are discouraged from participation. that seems
to me the tougher problem, _and_ the problem we have a chance
of doing something about
appologies if i was unclear
lbd
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 14:12:41 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.BITNET>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: New from Sun & Moon
X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET
NEW FROM SUN & MOON
_Finite Intuition: Selected Poetry and Prose_, by Milo de Angeles, tr. with an
intro. by Lawrence Venuti, has just been published by Sun & Moon Press. This
is the last selection in the book:
POETRY AND THEORY
The Greek _theoria_ signifies "reflection," but also "solemn embassy,"
"spectacle." And perhaps there can be no great poet who has not had
theoretical insights into other great poets, who does not represent them on
the stage of a conceptual power. Yet there is that pathetic mythology of the
poet who--devoid of this power--nevertheless knows how to "tell a story" or to
"dream," as if dream were the land where the thorn of intellect grows dull.
It happens that some line open the veins of their own thought until it is
beyond recognition. But this clenched thought _must have been there_: only
then can the lines enter the region which it doesn't know! This is delirium,
in the most distinct accent on the calendar. Yet if those lines remain in
doubt, if they are worried about not having thought enough...how much unworthy
poetry of ideas is born from this worry...how many genuflections to
philosophers...ho many lines get cornered in the poetry of sensations. There
should be no submission of theory to poetry, if they are Greek sisters. And
no comparison, because these two strangers _must_ have loved each other.
(C) 1995 by Milo De Angeles and Lawrence Venuti. Used by permission of the
publisher.
*********
Also just out this month from Sun & Moon:
MADE TO SEEM by Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout read this past week at UB, at the Poetics Program's Wednesday
at 4 Plus series. Here is my introduction:
Rae Armantrout poem "Extremities" ends with the line "the charmed verges of
presence": and indeed her poems are charms, virtual presents.
Armantrout's poetry is notable for it's precision and elegance, it's
seismographic ability to chart the slightest shifts of social register on the
city streets, in the suburban malls, and in the university corridors. In an
early poem she writes "The smallest / distance / inexhaustible" -- a poetic
credo of commitment to the specific scale of an unadorning everyday life,
words lived in their pajamas as much as their toupees. "The smallest /
distance / inexhaustible" -- providing a reservoir of wry, wacky, wicked,
torqued and torquing observations, skewering any bloated send of proportion,
skewing lines of logic to make poems of sentient, radiant sense: returning us
to the pleasures of reflection and consoling, indomitable wit.
--Charles Bernstein
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 14:56:45 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor c/o <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.BITNET>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: River City / call for submissions
X-To: poetics@UBVMS.BITNET
River City: A Journal of Contemporary Culture is soliciting work on the blues
for a special issue to appear in June, 1995. We are looking for poetry,
fiction, or nonfiction prose that focus on the blues as a contemporary cultural
phenomena. Send work to River City, 463 Patterson Bldg, Department of English,
The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152.
River City and The University of Memphis is proud to announce the appointment
of a new editorial collective dedicated to the exploration of contemporary
culture. Paul Naylor is the general editor; Omar S. Castaneda, Michael
Davidson, Nathaniel Mackey, and Marlene Nourbese Philip are contributing
editors; Robert Bernasconi, John Duvall, M.J. Fenwick, Allison Graham, Leslie
Luebbers, and Helen Wussow are associate editors.River City is published twice
yearly in the winter and summer. Subscriptions are $12 per year, or, as an
introductory offer, three years for $24. Checks should be made out to The
University of Memphis and sent to The University of Memphis, P.O. Box 1000,
Department 313, Memphis, TN 38148-0313.
Paul Naylor
email: pknaylor@msuvx1.memphis.edu
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 20:11:25 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: boy talk
X-To: Hali Tal <kalital@mercury.cis.yale.edu>
Kali, this is the sort of thing that the current discussions are making me
do (but then I've only been on e-mail for a month yet) - namely, drop you a
line to say that I very much appreciate your posting(s) and that although
I'm not so fat with time to reply at present I'll mull what you've placed
and try to make a useful response in the next few days.
I've just read new posts to this agenda. In your e-xperience is this a
common occurence? There does seem to be a mountain of frustration at not
having each others' every point and nuance picked up on and nourished out
in a spirit of love and care in case there's something valuable to be
found. I'm not wanting to sound overbearingly cynical. Whilst I don't
really disagree (hang on I'll prevaricate a little further - I don't
really quite disagree) with that mad utopia it's surely not possible to be
fielding all points on all agendas all the time - even between *all* of
us. I'd like to hear from others on that subject. Which gets to the what of
it? I'd contend that the issues being raised are either anathema to or
'minefields' for many? This is intended to be deliberately provocative. As
such they are met with either by silence or by changing the subject.
Possibility for cheap jokes miserably missed -
I'm curious if anonymity would help?
I know now that you're an 'and and' rather than an 'either/or' kind of
person. The list appears to be arriving at a perception of itself as a
problematically constructed game of club whispers. The message and the
agenda are continually and discontinuously migrating. The feeling is of
trying to listen to and be an active contributant to several conversations
at once at the same time as being alert to the shape of the flock as it
travels and grows. There's a bird (I think it's found in Kenya - and this
is hopeless but I just can't remember it's name, something close to the Red
Quilya) which flies in vast flocks, rolling forwards on a continually
breaking wave to the effect that there is a new bird effectively 'leading'
almost from moment to moment. Espace does provide the potential for a
'writing in motion . . . skywriting, sandpainting, here and gone, happening
in time.' as you rightly assert.
I'm addressing this to you but its content also addresses the list. Much of
the posting that I've read since being here seems broadly addressed. I tend
to read everything that's posted and enjoy the most conversational material
- however oblique.
You're so right in that the List is no more than is being posted. Post
something else - that of makes a difference. Change might appear
continually discontinuous but better might come.
Several issues are hovering unattended even now as we don't speak -
speed of dialogue
tone - voice - identity
awkward silences (yeah I saw Pulp Fiction)
and we who lurk in disbelief
best,
cris
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 14:56:32 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Nowak <MANOWAK@ALEX.STKATE.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
Readings: Notley, Alice. "Epic & Woman Poets." _Disembodied Poetics_ 103-09.
(University of New Mexico Press, 1994).
Quote: "To break & recombine language is nothing. To break & recombine
reality, as Dream always does do, might be something."
(... I'm slowly delurking...)
1.) re. the discussion of "classical" "music" on this list, all boys too:
Cage, Schoenberg, Stockhausen (recently)...
what about Pauline Oliveros, Hidegard Westerkamp (check out her _World
Soundscape Newsletter_) Diamanda Galas, Meredith Monk, Gayle Young,
the _DICE_ Collective, Elaine Barkin, Jin Hi Kim, Alison Knowles...
--- let's read Pauline Oliveros' _Software for PEOPLE_ & then "talk"
about it: no gauntlets.
--- let's read Susan McClary's _Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and
Sexuality_ (Minnesota, 1991) & then re-visit Tom Mandel's
comments on sonata "theory" / "form"
2.) thanks to Kali for her brilliant posts (readings of posts)
& reference to Susan's post (re. multiculturalism)
--- which I missed originally
--- which all reminds me of a paper I heard at the Hoboken-Russian-Talisman
conference where one critic spoke of Howe-Johnson-Cage's "use"
of Thoreau's "Indians" yet all the theory was Western European:
what about Greg Sarris' _Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic
Approach to American Indian Texts_ (CA, 1993)
what about Diane Glancy's _Claiming Breath_ (Nebraska, 1992)
what about Gerald Vizenor's _Manifest Manners: Postindian
Warriors of Survivance_ (Wesleyan, 1994)
3.) Question: again from _Disembodied Poetics_ ... .
--- Amiri Baraka (16): "...if you're talking about language qua language,
what's different about that from the New Critics?"
(back into hiding?), Mark Nowak
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 16:27:38 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kali Tal <kalital@MERCURY.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
Snide is as snide does, Ira Lightman.
>I guess that I'm included in Kali Tal's statement that males didn't respond
>to messages by women.
I guess you are, if you are a male person and did not respond to messages by
women.
>I must say I haven't noticed anyone pick up 2 per cent
>of anything I've posted to the list, about children's rights, ablism, or
>AIDS activism.
I am interested in nonresponse that is part of a larger pattern. It may be
that nonresponse to the particular issues you mention signals an attempt on
the part of the POETICS community to "disappear" those issues. Nonresponse
to those issues, however, does not indicate that my observations of
nonresponse to women as a group are inaccurate or insignificant.
>But then, if I may make a clearly signalled snide remark,
And why would you do this? Why is a snide tone required? Not that I am
surprised--women who bring up gender inequity in, ahem, mixed company, are
often treated to snide comments, as if we were, by our mere presence,
threatening and offensive, needed taking down a notch...
>if the alternative is to co-opted into the movement one may be "carving"
>(interesting metaphor), in the way that Kali Tal seemed to "welcome"
>Juliana Spahr as an ally when Juliana Spahr was raising some issues Kal
>i Tal didn't respond to at all, then I shall happily go back to lurking
>from *all* sides of this discussion.
And whose "alternative" is this? Your response is a nonresponse, it is not
directed *to* me, nor to any of the women who posted to POETICS. Rather, it
is a summary dismissal based upon no apparent consideration of *any* of the
issues raised by *any* of the women; a declaration of freedom from
obligation to respond, as if nonresponse were a virtue; a rhetorical device
used by a fellow who would rather not say so baldly, "Hey, let's talk about
*me* for a minute." Since it does not include a constructive suggestion for
a new topic, I read it simply as a sulk. I welcomed Juliana Spahr's *voice*
(hello, Juliana); whether she is an ally or not is no consideration of mine,
since I am not currently fighting a war or planning a coup. I *am*
interested in hearing more women's voices *and* more men's voices, even if
they are raised to disagree with me.
The role of curmudgeon suits some men well, though when *women* attempt to
play it they are most often redefined as witches, bitches, or shrews.
And it is very good to see the lurkers come out to play.
Kali
_______________________
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: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 15:32:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
In-Reply-To: <9502192103.AA06230@imap1.asu.edu>
In Re: Mark Nowak's post:
As far as women and music, I've been overwhelmingly impressed with Kaija
Saariaho--exploring the limits of noise/music. Great stuff. Any other
composers I should know about?
Jeffrey Timmons
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 17:08:28 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Nowak <MANOWAK@ALEX.STKATE.EDU>
Subject: Women COmposers
By way of
Other composers:
What Next Recordings
PO Box 344
Albuquerque, NM 87103
--- two series: (A). Radius ("Transmissions from Broadcast Artists")
2 volumes include 6 works total, 3 by women composers
(Jackie Apple, Sheila Davies, Helen Thorington)
note: Helen is executive producer of New American Radio.
(B). AERIAL: 4 compilation CD's to date, including
many of the women composers mentioned in both posts.
What Next also did "solo" CD's by Jin Hi Kim, Pauline Oliveros,
Alison Knowles, & others.
DICE
c/o Elise Kermani
343 6th Avenue #2R
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 832-5651
(this may not be current: as of 1993)
CRIo
73 Spring St.
New York, NY 10012
(discs by / with Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Allison Cameron, etc.)
A good journal source for this ...
_Musicworks_
179 Richmond Street West
Toronto, Ont. CANADA
M5V 1V3
(416) 977-3546 (journal edited by Gayle Young)
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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 01:24:18 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Composers
X-To: Mark Nowak <MANOWAK@alex.stkate.edu>
and
Iva Bittova
Virginia Firnberg
Zap Mama
Angelique Kidjo
Oumou Sangare
Sianed Jones
Annea Lockwood
Shelley Hirsch
Zeena Parkins
Chekka Remitti
Judith Weir
Jenni Roditi
Errolyn Wallen
Marilyn Crispell
Anna Homler
Amina Claudine-Myers
Sylvia Hallett
PJ Harvey
Katalin Ladik (anybody know what she's been doing lately?)
Laurie Anderson
Diane Labrosse
joni Mitchell
Nina SImone
Jane Cortez
Moe Tucker
Amy Koita
La Donna Smith
Amy Denio
Ikue Mori
Karen Finlay
Elastica
Stevie Wishart
Jo Truman
Joan La Barbara
. . .
seems homogenous to me
p.s. serious apologies if I've got names muddled
I'm posting out of curiosity
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:13:31 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: i'd like to introduce myself...
X-To: UB Poetics discussion group
<POETICS%UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU@vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
In-Reply-To: <2f4632c14c93002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Dear Carl:
As a reader, friend, & publisher of bp Nichol's, I'm glad to have you
here. I encourage you to bring nichol issues out here, as I believe his
is a poetics vastly undervalued in America, if not in Canada, and that
his various approaches to theory, poetics, and writing involve a joy
which is rare and needed.
charles alexander
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:23:10 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: boytalk (fwd)
X-To: UB Poetics discussion group
<POETICS%UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU@vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
In-Reply-To: <2f466bcf526d002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Dear Kali, Susan, Juliana, & all poetics list --
sometimes I think there is little response from men to some of what you
post simply because what you post seems clear & right, and we don't
always know what we're doing that makes the situation you decry so
difficult. We hope we're not guilty but know we probably are. I should
drop the we and say that I want to hear you. I think that what I've
learned about poetry & poetics in the last two decades has come more from
women than men, yet that the women's work has been comparatively
undervalued in various quarters.
perhaps it would be a good idea for the men to simply be silent for a
time and let the women on this list have the forum, although I also hope
dialogues (multilogues) of various sorts open and continue.
charles alexander
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:46:27 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: music
X-To: UB Poetics discussion group
<POETICS%UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU@vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
In-Reply-To: <2f47c6f1082e002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Jeffrey & Mark - Yes, much more music to attend, by "women of both
sexes," as Cynthia Miller likes to call them. What occurs immediately is
Ladonna Smith, most often heard with Davey Williams, "trans museq," etc.
Also approaches the limits of noise, but what a beautiful noise . . .
charles alexander
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:49:18 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Composers
X-To: UB Poetics discussion group
<POETICS%UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU@vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
In-Reply-To: <2f47eed60063002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Thank you for all of the composer information. My listening work is cut
out for me. That could be a good reason for not de-lurking in near future.
charles
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:52:41 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: i'd like to introduce myself...
X-To: UB Poetics discussion group
<POETICS%UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU@vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
In-Reply-To: <2f4809d6492d006@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
I realize I wrote in a poet recently, concerning bp Nichol, "a poetics
vastly undervalued in America, if not in Canada," and feel like an idiot,
because of course I should have said "in USA, if not in Canada," as, last
time I checked, Canada was still in North America, a geographical fact for
which I am grateful.
charles alexander
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:06:04 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Composers
In-Reply-To: <9502200123.AA25330@imap1.asu.edu>
Oi, great list, Cris, but I was wondering about your inclusion of more
popular sorts of music. Not that I have a thing about making hard and
fast distinctions between the popular and . . . what have you, but was
wondering what the criteria were for your list. I just listened today to
a Requiem for Bosnia by an amazing composer (can't remember her name
right now). Very interesting.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 21:28:50 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Man Talk
X-To: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu>
In-Reply-To: <9502200501.AA24275@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
One clarification: I didn't mean to suggest that I hadn't gotten
responses to my postings. But it did strike me as interesting that I
received a lot of backchannel postings from women (and some from men),
some of whom rarely, if ever, send frontchannel messages.
Susan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 11:00:02 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Composers
X-To: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@imap1.asu.edu>
Hi Jeffrey, it wasn't intended to (or pretending to) be an exhaustive list.
The criteria were - who can I think of right now sitting here, who comes
right to mind - a stretched diversity of practice - enough that some
will know as to become more curious about the others not previously heard
of - and
I'd hoped to:
swing into more discussion of exactly the issue you've picked up on
i.e. distinctions between 'high' art and 'popular' art
and bridge to the issue of cultural diversity.
as well as hopefully get to hear about other composers who I don't know
Also, and more ironically the suggestion that the list seemed homogenous
was to provoke those discussions. On what bases homogenous - surely not
merely beause they are all women>
I'll grant that some of the inclusions (I can't remember 'em all and don't
have the list out) such as Moe Tucker were deliberately more edgy. But as
co-creator on Velvet Underground 'classics' she's been instrumental in one
of those rarer moments when the illusory screen between the high and the
popular gets rent. OK so now where's Tina Weymouth, Kirsten Hirsch and many
many more - I know I know it's cats out of the bag time just come round
again. Certainly with the African musics these distinctions barely exist.
Which is where some of this discussion would begin to open towards other
issues that Kali Tal and Susan Schultz are raising. But there's another
interesting issue here. Women composers are involved (admittedly in smaller
numbers than men, I'd guesstimate about the same kind of proportions as
exist on this list) in all fields of music - making. They combine melody,
rhythm and noise with as many variations as male composers. It's therefore
hard to begin talking about gender in terms of 'preference' field of music
and the extension can be made throughout not just art-form practice but
human activity. The problems of course have been prolonged patriachal
structure, disenfranchisement and repression of opportunity. What do you
feel about it?
Thanks for the contact. If you've others I should hear I be very happy to
get a return. As Eric Mottram has just been quoted as saying 'there's
nothing more exciting than something you don't know about'. Here's to human
ingenuity and curiosity.
best
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 08:54:58 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: boy talk
Ed, what horrible news. Nina was a young - and so very brilliant -
woman. Do You know what caused her death?
Tom Mandel
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 11:13:46 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: New from Sun & Moon
In-Reply-To: <199502191917.MAA04311@mailhost.primenet.com>
de Angeles implies that it's impossible to be a "great" poet (what does
this mean? will we see a series from Sun & Moon, an offshoot of the
"classics" series: "Sun & Moon Great Poets #___"?) if you don't have
theoretical insights into other great poets & go public with 'em.
(Assuming "who does not represent them on the stage of a conceptual
power" means "publishing" or "lecturing" or otherwise airing, publicly.)
If this is true--extending to include prose & drama--G.K. Chesterton's a
"great" writer (his book on Shaw's brilliant & original) but Gertrude
Stein, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, Clark Coolidge are only fair to middling,
despite the obvious influences these writers have had on poets & writers
working today. This is not to say Stein & etc. didn't have theoretical
insights into Whoever, but that they didn't--so far as I know--take 'em
public. If anything's a "pathetic mythology" it's this notion that a poet
MUST air his/her ideas, *as* theory, must create (& promote) a body of
theoretical work, separate from the poetry, in order to be taken
seriously. Stein's _How to Write_ and her _Lectures_ don't seem to me
separate entities, don't seem terribly different in approach or effect
from (say) _A Novel of Thank You_ or any of the things collected in the
Yale volumes. de Angeles' notion that theory & poetry are, MUST be
separate seems awfully reductive, as though one's poetry (or other
creative work) can't possibly include one's theoretical insights, etc. I
think the reason why language poetry has been so (relatively) quickly
embraced by academe whereas Stein, Loy, Barnes & Coolidge (& others who
didn't develop separate bodies of "theoretical" writings) were ignored
for so long has a lot to do with the possibility that people in academic
institutions aren't particularly good readers, *need* demarcations like
"This is Poetry" "This is Theory"--can't (for whatever reason) read Stein
or whoever and see that, indeed, she addresses what she's doing (& why
she's doing what she does) in the "creative" work. I respect people like
Coolidge and Tom Raworth who don't develop bodies of (separate) critical
writings in part because they seem to respect *me*, the reader, my
intelligence. "It's all there in the work if you've taken the time &
trouble to suss it out," they seem to be saying. This is not to say that
I disrespect those who *do* supply bodies of (separate) theoretical
writings; I don't. But, I'm puzzled by this notion that a poet, to be
taken seriously, *must* provide a body of critical work as well.
--Gary Sullivan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 19 Feb 1995, Charles Bernstein wrote:
> NEW FROM SUN & MOON
>
>
> _Finite Intuition: Selected Poetry and Prose_, by Milo de Angeles, tr. with an
> intro. by Lawrence Venuti, has just been published by Sun & Moon Press. This
> is the last selection in the book:
>
>
> POETRY AND THEORY
>
> The Greek _theoria_ signifies "reflection," but also "solemn embassy,"
> "spectacle." And perhaps there can be no great poet who has not had
> theoretical insights into other great poets, who does not represent them on
> the stage of a conceptual power. Yet there is that pathetic mythology of the
> poet who--devoid of this power--nevertheless knows how to "tell a story" or to
> "dream," as if dream were the land where the thorn of intellect grows dull.
> It happens that some line open the veins of their own thought until it is
> beyond recognition. But this clenched thought _must have been there_: only
> then can the lines enter the region which it doesn't know! This is delirium,
> in the most distinct accent on the calendar. Yet if those lines remain in
> doubt, if they are worried about not having thought enough...how much unworthy
> poetry of ideas is born from this worry...how many genuflections to
> philosophers...ho many lines get cornered in the poetry of sensations. There
> should be no submission of theory to poetry, if they are Greek sisters. And
> no comparison, because these two strangers _must_ have loved each other.
>
> (C) 1995 by Milo De Angeles and Lawrence Venuti. Used by permission of the
> publisher.
>
> *********
>
> Also just out this month from Sun & Moon:
>
> MADE TO SEEM by Rae Armantrout
>
> Rae Armantrout read this past week at UB, at the Poetics Program's Wednesday
> at 4 Plus series. Here is my introduction:
>
> Rae Armantrout poem "Extremities" ends with the line "the charmed verges of
> presence": and indeed her poems are charms, virtual presents.
> Armantrout's poetry is notable for it's precision and elegance, it's
> seismographic ability to chart the slightest shifts of social register on the
> city streets, in the suburban malls, and in the university corridors. In an
> early poem she writes "The smallest / distance / inexhaustible" -- a poetic
> credo of commitment to the specific scale of an unadorning everyday life,
> words lived in their pajamas as much as their toupees. "The smallest /
> distance / inexhaustible" -- providing a reservoir of wry, wacky, wicked,
> torqued and torquing observations, skewering any bloated send of proportion,
> skewing lines of logic to make poems of sentient, radiant sense: returning us
> to the pleasures of reflection and consoling, indomitable wit.
>
> --Charles Bernstein
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:58:03 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Nick Lawrence <V121NQND@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: An Ad for Spirits
I was communing with my friend CB the other day, an active lurker on
this list. He was curious about recent references to "global alcohol,"
which sound most hopeful to him, promising as they do an anaesthetizing
of the persistent pain he associates with aesthetics, from which he says he
suffers acutely--which is to say not prettily. (Likewise he maintains an
active interest in all manner of dull opiates, legal or not, which explains
why, when he was over here yesterday morning for decaf and the papers,
he skipped right over the Times magazine article on who's who in the
poetry world and went straight to the lushly illustrated cover story on
cannabis.) I asked him about his views on the poetry/theory thread.
After denying any easy parallels with the gender-talk thread, he said it
reminded him of the rumpus raised about a composer he used to know.
"'A guy who reasons so much about his art cannot produce beautiful
works naturally'--so some people *said*," he murmured, "thereby
depriving genius of its rationality and reducing it to a purely instinctive
and, so to speak, vegetable function."
(CB tends to be a bit oldfashioned when it comes to genius, greateness, etc.)
What about alchemical cries of Foul re creating art out of theory, I asked.
"An utterly wacky view. Critic into poet--that would indeed be a
wholly new event in the history of the arts, a reversal of all psychical
laws, a monstrosity."
But not vice versa, I prompted.
"On the contrary, all great poets naturally, inevitably become critics. I feel
sorry for poets guided by their instincts alone; I regard them as incomplete.
In the spiritual life of great poets, a crisis is bound to occur that leads
them to regard their art critically, to seek the mysterious laws that guided
them . . ."
It won't surprise the reader to learn that CB regarded the poet as the best
of all critics.
Then, feeling relaxed, we took a recent post to the list on this topic and
discovered to our surprise that it was actually an instance of skillfully
worded negative advertising. Follows our collaboration intended to
make this clear--though, as CB remarked, clarity isn't everything,
even when it comes to critics/spirits.
> Every "poem" (every "fact" in fact) is imbued with and attached to a
> theoretical structure which both informs it and from which it does not
> separate except in the minds of those who would create a transparent
> simulacrum of reality where the pure is real. Fortunately these isolated
> realities are fiction although some use the possibility to inform their
> misguided politics. We have poetries which are embossed with their
> cultures and some readers and even some writers pretend not to see that.
> Thoughts are not purer than bodies and poems are the products of both and
> as such do not exist in isolation, nor can they be distilled into a
> spirit, although some use the possibility to inform their misguided
> poetics. James
AN AD FOR SPIRITS
Every poetic "mope" (every "fruct" in fract) is imbued with and attacked by a
theoretical alcohol which both informs it and from which it does not separate
except in the haze of those who would create a transparent vodka simulacrum
where the pure is alcohol-free. Fortunately these isolated teetotalers are
not themselves distillers although some use the wassailability to reform their
misguided drinking habits. We have bottles which are embossed with throat
cultures and some drinkers and even some distributers pretend not to see that.
Draughts are not purer than toddies and unthinking mopes are the products of
both and as such do not exist in desolation, nor can they be distilled into a
salable spirit, although some use the possibility to formalize their
mislabeled poetics.
James 3:3 ("Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us;
and we turn about their whole body")
--Art Laid Bare Productions 1995
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 12:05:23 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Composers
X-To: cris cheek <cris@slang.demon.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <9502201056.aa00214@post.demon.co.uk>
On Mon, 20 Feb 1995, cris cheek wrote:
> I'd hoped to:
> > swing into more discussion of exactly the issue you've picked up on
> i.e. distinctions between 'high' art and 'popular' art
> and bridge to the issue of cultural diversity.
> as well as hopefully get to hear about other composers who I don't know
Good, I was too lazy to further the issue, but now it's been raised. I'm
also concerned, though, that we don't repeat the problem of owning this
particular discussion to ourselves . . . . You know? I've been finding
it rather difficult to engage with the Boy Talk posts and not for the
lack of interest . . . until this issue ... made itself known. Anyway:
it's very interesting the gender politics of music. At least with lit I
believe there has been either a more concerted effort on the part of
writers/critics to bring/integrate/etc women into view. And
traditionally there have been a great deal of women who wrote--something
should be said about the habitating of this interiorized space of
writing: diaries, notebooks, etc. that are very much part of an ecriture
feminine that does not necessarily have to translate into public voice.
Hm. Nonetheless, writing has had, I believe, more of a gender equity
than visual arts or music. Particularly the latter. This is not to say
it has been blind where gender is concerned, but that writing seems to
have offered women more of an opportunity to create. This is a point my
partner makes (who works for the National Museum of Women in the Arts)
when she talks about the different creative opportunities available for
women. Art, she says, requires more than pen and paper--and that is a
major reason that women do not always have the opportunity to express
themselves. Even so, they are often the recipients of a sexism that is
either unable or unwilling to engage their work with any degree of
critical engagement--except to write it off. When it comes to music I
think the gender differences are even more striking than visual art--it's
almost as if the more one enters the traditional realm of HIGH ART the
less women are present. And music, traditionally, has presented great
obstacles in terms of resources to producing it. And to get around to
your point about the relation between high/low and diversity, perhaps
what is of particular value in the postmodern effacement of the
differences between high/popular that women now have as much access to
the means of production. This is particularly important if we are
talking about the production of symphonic, orchestral, chamber, or
serious music (I realize the limitations of these terms, but I want to
specify my own interest in the production of women in this area--no
matter how difficult it might be to distinguish it from ...). I am also
interested in how women have made use of the tradition of western music
and its 20th century developments, to what purposes they are putting
serialism, cacophony, mixed mediums, etc and why these are not as
well-recieved as their male counter parts who make use of the same
tradition.
Requiem for Bosnia: Victoria Jordanova. I hope I got that right.
Wonderful piece.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 12:51:46 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Joe Aimone <joaimone@ucdavis.edu>" <joaimone@UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: We need presenters for MLA (fwd)
I am forwarding this call for papers to all lists and individuals I think
might be interested.
Joe Aimone
University of California at Davis
joaimone@ucdavis.edu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 14:51:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Aimone <joaimone@ucdavis.edu> <ez013445@peseta.ucdavis.edu>
To: The MLA Graduate student Conference
<E-GRAD%RUTVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: We need presenters for MLA
I will be chairing one of the sessions sponsored by the Graduate Student
Caucus at the MLA. The call for papers appears in the current issue of
the MLA Newsletter. Electronic mail submissions are acceptable but will
not be acknowledged unless your proposal is accepted for the panel. If I
accept your proposal for the panel, I will need a brief cv/bio, which you
may include with your proposal or provide on request.
Please feel free to print, archive or forward this call to all interested
parties.
Joe Aimone
University of California at Davis
joaimone@ucdavis.edu
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Graduate Student Caucus of the MLA will sponsor a session at the 1995
convention called
CONVERSE BETWEEN CRITIC-WRITER AND WRITER-CRITIC
How seriously can critical theorists take creative writers as theorists?
How seriously should creative writers take critics as creative writers?
Critical and creatve responses by or about creative writers and critics
sought. 1-2 page abstracts to -
Joe Aimone
Dept of English
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616
email submissions:
joaimone@ucdavis.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 13:33:45 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Stephen Galen Cope <scope@UCSCB.UCSC.EDU>
Subject: composers
Regarding composers:
Thanks, cris, for the list. A few additions:
Najat Aatabou
Elis Regina
Julie Kabat
Sona Diabate
Sorry Bamba
Carmen Linares
Sanougue Kouyate
It may warrant noting that "composer" as used
in reference to a Western classical tradition
need not necessarily apply to traditions in which
the distinctions made between improvosation/
composition/ interpretation/ performance are
minimal, if imposed at all.
It may also be worth noting the relevance
to poetics of the above consideration.
Anyway, good sources for some of the above
mentioned artists (and many others):
Stern's Music
598 Broadway
7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
(212) 925-1689
Original Music
418 Lasher Road
Tivoli, NY 12583
(914) 756-2767
Stern's is run by Ken Braun, who is one of the most
knowledgable men in the country regarding
African music, and their catalog is the best source
I've come across for both classical and modern music
from around the world.
Original is run by John Storm Roberts, whose book
"Black Music of Two Worlds" is an excellent introduction
African music on both sides of the Atalntic.
Hope this is helpful/ interesting, etc...
-Stephen Cope
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 22:44:46 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Nina Iskrenko
Nina Iskrenko, who was only 43 or 44 when she died, had one of the
sharpest wits I've ever encountered. She would have known exactly what
to make of the fact that her obit on this list and the one additional
comment on it thus far both occurred under the header "Re: Boy Talk."
Sheeesh, as Tali would say.
Readers who don't know Iskrenko's poetry should check out _Third Wave:
The New Russian Poetry_ edited by Kent Johnson & Stephen Ashby (Ann
Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1992), with an intro by Alexei Parshchikov
and Andrew Wachtel. There are several excellent poems there and the book
is generally a good introduction to the entire scene in Russia.
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 02:13:39 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Love Affair
In-Reply-To: <199502202108.NAA21428@slip-1.slip.net>
Milo de Angeles gives the lie to himself. No sisterly love that. Rather,
theory takes a bow as your typical chauvinistic, patriarchical man,
who's more in love with his view of the relationship (his reasonings and
desires) than he is in love with his partner and what _she_ might have to
offer or teach.
The piece is illuminating after all.
Spencer Selby
> > On Sun, 19 Feb 1995, Charles Bernstein wrote: >
> > NEW FROM SUN & MOON
> >
> >
> > _Finite Intuition: Selected Poetry and Prose_, by Milo de Angeles, tr. with
> > intro. by Lawrence Venuti, has just been published by Sun & Moon Press. Thi
> > is the last selection in the book:
> >
> >
> > POETRY AND THEORY
> >
> > The Greek _theoria_ signifies "reflection," but also "solemn embassy,"
> > "spectacle." And perhaps there can be no great poet who has not had
> > theoretical insights into other great poets, who does not represent them on
> > the stage of a conceptual power. Yet there is that pathetic mythology of th
> > poet who--devoid of this power--nevertheless knows how to "tell a story" or
> > "dream," as if dream were the land where the thorn of intellect grows dull.
> > It happens that some line open the veins of their own thought until it is
> > beyond recognition. But this clenched thought _must have been there_: only
> > then can the lines enter the region which it doesn't know! This is delirium
> > in the most distinct accent on the calendar. Yet if those lines remain in
> > doubt, if they are worried about not having thought enough...how much unwort
> > poetry of ideas is born from this worry...how many genuflections to
> > philosophers...ho many lines get cornered in the poetry of sensations. Ther
> > should be no submission of theory to poetry, if they are Greek sisters. And
> > no comparison, because these two strangers _must_ have loved each other.
> >
> > (C) 1995 by Milo De Angeles and Lawrence Venuti. Used by permission of the
> > publisher.
> >
> > *********
> >
> > Also just out this month from Sun & Moon:
> >
> > MADE TO SEEM by Rae Armantrout
> >
> > Rae Armantrout read this past week at UB, at the Poetics Program's Wednesday
> > at 4 Plus series. Here is my introduction:
> >
> > Rae Armantrout poem "Extremities" ends with the line "the charmed verges of
> > presence": and indeed her poems are charms, virtual presents.
> > Armantrout's poetry is notable for it's precision and elegance, it's
> > seismographic ability to chart the slightest shifts of social register on th
> > city streets, in the suburban malls, and in the university corridors. In an
> > early poem she writes "The smallest / distance / inexhaustible" -- a poetic
> > credo of commitment to the specific scale of an unadorning everyday life,
> > words lived in their pajamas as much as their toupees. "The smallest /
> > distance / inexhaustible" -- providing a reservoir of wry, wacky, wicked,
> > torqued and torquing observations, skewering any bloated send of proportion,
> > skewing lines of logic to make poems of sentient, radiant sense: returning u
> > to the pleasures of reflection and consoling, indomitable wit.
> >
> > --Charles Bernstein
> >
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 08:59:45 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: refried theory and deified beans
Dear Spencer:
Thanks for responding. One does feel invisible around here sometimes,
even when decloaked. It's reassuring to be addressed occasionally
(like the holographic emergency medical officer on ST Voyager, I
just want a name) Anyway, I had some further thoughts about this
theory thread, which occasionally, it seems to me, threatens to
collapse into an absurdity of miscommunication.
It would be interesting to track the history of the institution of
"theory", especially as it replaced "philosophy" and "literary
criticism" as the acceptable form of explanation. People throw this
word around like they know what it means, but I just get more
confused. My own (admittedly limited) sense is that the recent
popularization of theory as an institution is based on a kind of
bastard marriage of Marxism and Freudism as they tried to hitch their
marvelous 19th century systematic architectures of revelation onto the
science bandwagon. From thence via Frankfurt, we sudddenly find
ourselves in the midst of a world in which something called
"under-theorization" has replaced certain "sins".
Papa Charlie (the absent father?) sends in his hit men (be they
jazz musicians or imported Euro-brains) to try and get the kids to
cool it by overwhelming them with the "obvious", as if this discourse
of "theory" itself were, what did James Sherry call it, "transparent"?
As if it didn't have a history. As if it weren't the center of a very
specific world, one in which "practice" (another interesting
institution) is "based on" certain abstract "principles" (Yikes!
shades of Plato.) What does it mean in 1995 to affirm a world that
looks like this? Does asking this question mean that I am
anti-intellectual, that I don't want to "think" about poetry, that I
just want to wallow in words like some kind of Romantic pig?
Well, given the responses here so it would seem.
Hang in there.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 11:25:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Language Poetry
In-Reply-To: <9502182118.aa21564@post.demon.co.uk>
It strikes me as appropriate that just after our exchange on the list
about Language poetry that the New YOrk Times should mention it. so if
any of you want to konw about Language Poetry, read the New York Times
book review 2/20/95. The charts and text really give you the straight
skinny about Language Poetry, although somehow the New YOrk school gets
omitted. This article is indicative.
Please does anyone know the author of that piece, I want us all to thank
her for her amazing understanding of the poetry world and the work of poets?
Send her name and number in confidence to me. All inquiries will be
understood.
James
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 12:13:01 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: New from Sun & Moon
Gary,
Nice post. I do feel stupid for not having a coherent body of theoretical
work. No, I feel more guilty than stupid.
I like your point about the academy needing a good dose of marketing to pay
attention to certain trends:
> people in academic institutions aren't particularly good readers, *need*
demarcations . . .
You've got to hand it to the Lang Poets, they know marketing.
but, really, how entrenched is an L-P writing method in the university?
Could we come up with a location matchup and some market data? L-P
infiltration appears to have been sucessfully implemented in Buffalo, UC San
Diego, San Francisco State, Brown, Sonoma, Simon Frazer, Albany (no),
Toronto?, Montreal?, and say 20 more campuses for good measure versus the
rest of the colleges and universities who offer writing programs. That's
about 30 LPs versus ____ . Can anyone fill in the blank?
bluoma
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 13:41:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nina Iskrenko
In answer to Tom's question, I assume Nina died of cancer, from which she has su
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 13:38:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nina Iskrenko
Third Wave is a good source for Iskrenko translations, but see also those in Exa
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 13:34:58 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nina Iskrenko
my apologies, ron, for having put the announcement re: Nina's death under "boy t
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 14:09:43 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: New from Sun & Moon
In-Reply-To: note of 02/21/95 12:54
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
Some thoughts (we hope) about theory and boy and girl talk and other matters,
prefaced by the disclaimer that I had a system crash yesterday and lost four
days' worth of posts and mail--so if I repeat what someone's already said, am
not responding to someone, whatever, apologies.
Bill Luoma asks a statistical question about the "entrenchment" of LP writing
method (a category I'd question, Bill, because I'm not convinced that there is
a method in the same way that there seems to be a workshop method, and this
absence of a "method" may explain what remains LP's relative academic
marginality--its absence of a monolithic method doesn't endear it to creative
writing programs. Whew--did that long parenthesis make sense?). But I'd fill
in your blank, Bill, with "100s." One could find out from Associated Writing
Programs. More generally, rumors of LP's academic entrenchment are (as Bill
implies) greatly exagerrated. Two points: (1) there's a distinction to be made
between establishment in the academic side of English Depts. and in writing
programs. I teach LP in academic English courses, but no one here exploits the
possibilities of its method(s) in creative writing courses. (2) This so-called
"entrenchment" gets exaggerated by LP's already entrenched opponents (a
strategy that parallels the right's strategy in the NEH/NEA wars and in other
fora--though I emphatically do not want to associate divergence from LP with
the right, which would be silly). I'm just saying that despite an emergent
body of criticism on LP, the increased visibility of particular poets, and so
on, still a very small number of writers who might be associated with that
increasingly amorphous-looking tendency are engaged in full-time academic
work, nor do I think that their work exactly saturates syllabi nation-wide.
On the recent theory exchanges: interesting that the theory discussion and the
boy/girl talk have been going on simultaneously but in parallel lines, without
much crossover. What's the relation between theory (the tendency to theorize,
the kind of theorizing that gets done) and gender? I'd like to hear from some
of the female subscribers as to their take on the theory discussion. Does
theory mean something to you (in "theory" and in practice) different from what
it means to male participants (I'm not assuming that I know what it means to
them, by the way)? I just have the intuition that there's a connection between
these two current threads that's getting suppressed or not talked about or
overlooked. Is it just coincidence that they're going at the same time, but
separately?
Given recent posts like Juliana Spahr's referring to boy's talk about boy's
books, I suspect not. Y'all, as we say here in Kentucky, can let me know if
I'm off base.
Also: "theory" means something different to academics and to poets. I think
that what Spencer, James, and Tom have been debating as theory, I'd be more
inclined to call poetics. Or at least I'd make this distinction, which is an
institutional one, not an essential one: that in most current intellectual
debate, "theory" means a certain body of poststructuralist texts and thought
that, yes, obviously, is deeply tied up with the writing practice of many
people on this list, but that is used in the academy to marginalize poetry. Or
to put it bluntly, many more people in universities are interested in theory
than they are in poetry. So: I just wanted to (re)call to people's minds this
definition and use of "theory." LP has the wonderful power (as do Emily
Dickinson and Wallace Stevens) to interest people who are also interested in
theory. Sorry if this risks academicizing the whole issue unduly--just
reporting from the site where I spend most of my time.
To Sandra (Braman): I was shocked by your report of Larry Grossberg's claim
that doing pure theory (whatever exactly that would mean--I'm not sure--what
would purify it, and how would one assess its purity?) was the only meaningful
contemporary politics. I'd be interested to hear more about this, either on or
off line. On the surface it sounds like a kind of quietist reiteration of the
old arguments about the political efficacy of deconstruction, but maybe I'm
missing something.
Alan Golding
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 13:08:48 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 08:59:45 -0500 from
<mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Has anyone here read Viswanathan's new book about the history of
"literary" studies in India? Basic assertion that literary studies
in English began not in England or America, still under the classical
mode of learning, but in India where it was used to "Anglicize" Indian
subjects, ie, the teaching of English values through English literature
meant to "replace" their own culture, which was obviously devalued
as "primitive."
My point is to suggest that if we want to historicize theory,
a very good idea incidentally, we cannot forget to do the same
for art, and for philosophy, and particularly not for "literary
criticism.""Any document of civilization..." etc.
Thanks, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 15:07:12 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
In-Reply-To: note of 02/21/95 14:40
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
Eric--Could you please post the full citation for the Viswanathan book?
Thanks.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 16:16:26 -0900
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David <erben@MABUSE.CAS.USF.EDU>
Subject: Quote
In-Reply-To: <199502180908.AAA15413@mabuse.cas.usf.edu>
I wonder if someone might identify a quote that goes something like:
"All poetry after the holocaust is..."
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 09:07:55 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: deified theories
"By the way, Tony, with the place you give sound/voice in
poems where do you leave someone who just happens not to
have heard poetry aloud, or a deaf someone. I can't
see the disadvantage.
Surely one sensitivity being blocked serves well to
open others?
John Geraets
frank@dpc.aichi-gakuin.ac.jp"
Hi, good to see you de-lurk, John. I'll have to think about it,
since I'm on duty enrolling students this a.m. I guess it must be
a problem of limiting cases that you've raised, rarely possible to
include these definitely, or exclude. This position has to be
carefully looked into: it's about the process of thinking the text
read as something someone is saying. If you were deaf, the usual
pleasures and frustrations will no doubt intervene. How about
pictures for blind people? Theory would be hard-pressed to cope.
Best wishes
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 17:35:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Evans <Steven_Evans@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Quote
David,
In the last paragraph of "Cultural Criticism and Society," Theodor W.
Adorno writes:
Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic
of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after the holocaust is barbaric.
And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to
write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual
progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind
entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long
as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation." (_Prisms_. Trans.
Samuel and Sherry Weber. Cambridge: MIT P, 1981.)
In Part Three of _Negative Dialectics,_ Adorno revised the statement.
Perennial suffering has as much right to rexpression as a tortured man has
to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you
could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less
cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living--especially
whether one who escape by accident, one who bu rights should have been
killed, may go on living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the
basic principle of bourgeois subjectivity, without which there could have
been no Auschwitz; this is the drastic guilt of him who was spared.
(_Negative Dialectics_. Trans. A.B. Ashton. New York: Continuum, 1973.
363.)
A few pages on: "All post-Auschwitz culture, including its urgent critique,
is garbage" (367).
Steve Evans
David wrote:
>I wonder if someone might identify a quote that goes something like:
>
>"All poetry after the holocaust is..."
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 17:59:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Language Poetry
that times piece was one of the silliest things they've ever published, of cours
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 14:32:17 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Greg Keith <kgk@PHANOS.RASNA.COM>
Subject: Tapeworm puts poetry village on the map
X-To: poetics@ubvm.buffalo.edu
Copyright: 1999 by The Anti-Hegemony Project
Date: 22 Mar 99 03:22:59 EST
Lines: 14
DEEP CYBERSPACE (AHP) - A 26-foot long tapeworm was caught
by weary computing engineers yesterday, who claimed the foul-smelling
creature had been feeding off the Net. Now on display, the worm has
turned a tiny Cyberspace village into an unexpected tourist attraction,
the Co-Poetry News Network reported yesterday.
Engineers ``netted'' the basking tapeworm -- biggest of its
kind ever seen in the area -- and used ropes to extract it from a gaping
terminal in Charles Bernstein's office in Clemens Hall at SUNY Buffalo.
Bernstein, away on a reading tour, had left the terminal unattended and
during this time the tapeworm -- nicknamed ``Benji'' by engineers --
apparently nestled into an intractable position. The tapeworm drew
carloads of summer vacation tourists, said CNN, which showed children
climbing onto the giant carcass and posing for snapshots.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 19:47:30 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Congratulations to TREE (TapRoot Electronic Edition)
loss--
greetings again. i'm starting in earnest the task of formating
TRee into WWW--having finally gotten a web-capable connection &
getting a grip on what i'm aiming at. i've prototyped the home
page & index pages, which i
'll send you fr input. are you/the EPC still up for hosting
the documents?? i'm checking again, 'cause i'm beginning to
realize what might be involved... & if yr still up for it, a
technical question: are there lenght/format restrictions on
the names of documents on your system? that'll impact the
names i assign for links, so let me know...
basically, my general plan is to link the homepage to 2 directory
pages (1@ for zines & chaps), each of which will have alphabetic
subcatagories ("zines A", "zines B"... "chaps author A"... etc);
each of which will link to the actual index for "Zines/a" "Zines/B"
etc...--then those indices will link to the individual reviews.
what this would mean, for you, is everytime a new issue comes out,
there would be a group of documents to add (one for each publication
reviews), AND the various index files (26@ for both zines & chaps)
would have to be replaced with new versions... if this is unclear,
i'll send (on disk) the initial prototype. if it _is_ clear, and
looks to be more than you bargained for, lemme know.
i'm kind of psyched to actually have documents coded & linked,
and daunted by the prospect of converting all the back issues
into the new format. but i think it'll be pretty impressive
when done, and ultimatly may GET SOME OF THIS STUFF READ, which
is ov course the goal not to loose site of.... i'm curious, too,
if the mention in _Online Access_ had a noticable impact on
logins to the system--any statistics yet?
morelater
luigi
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:01:31 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
In-Reply-To: <9502212135.AB28726@imap1.asu.edu>
To eric, et al:
It's good you bring up the view that all culture should be
historicized. I've been reading Said's _Culture and Imperialism_ and the
point is not simply to historicize, but to point out that the supposed
greatness and fact of existence of European culture is made possible,
implicated to the highest degree, with the system of imperial/colonial
exploitation. Beyond this, Said suggests looking at discrepent
experiences of colonial relations--texts from different perspectives on
colonial experience whose commonality does not efface their important
differences. This is a rejection of a "pure" aesthetic realm; a
rejection of "humanism"; a rejection of "unitariness; and an imperative
to unthink the ridgid separation of politics and aesthetics. One should
include theory in the latter, I believe, and, even, indict it on the
same terms.... Just some thoughts.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:03:07 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
In-Reply-To: <9502212135.AB28726@imap1.asu.edu>
To Eric, et al:
Oh, I forgot: the only reason I mention Said and some of his
ideas is that he refers to Visawanathan's book (indirectly; as a student
of his I believe) in his own book.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 14:28:24 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: A Cockney Sparrow
Spencer Selby says:"I expect something of the results of my poetry; anyone who i
poet expects something of the results. But that does not mean I have a
need to formulate what those results will be, or necessarily mean. I may
anticipate those results, which is quite different from formulating them,
since my anticipation may involve a range of responses that need not be
explained or characterized in a theoretical way."
Dear Spencer,
I would like you to look closer at "anticipation of
results", because I think you could find just there, thought that may
never be more than muttered to yourself, or even quite silent, but in
which something other than the poem to be written or the poem in hand
or the poem just written is saying, for example "Some other
person(s), whether living or dead, would like/not like
this, because...." how is that not theoretical, that is dependent on
a stance in regard to others who will read or hear the poem. Will it
"move" someone else in any way? I would have thought that the use of
theory to poets was that in between writing they could sort out what
went wrong with the last poem or what went right. Between posts
(?poems) several people on this list are theorizing the post and the
network.
What you seem perturbed about is the thought that poems should
conform to a prior encapsulation of right method(s) for producing
what has already been determined as "good" poetry. Theory as
prescription is a worry, yes. But that doesn't mean that poetry can
be disentangled from the theory that goes into the making of it.
Cheers,
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:28:05 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: <9502220050.AA28613@imap1.asu.edu>
Adorno was obviously a pessimist. A cynic. But did that keep him from
exercising his own critique? Perhaps it is garbage, but there seems to
be an equal if not more pressing imperative/responsibility to
produce/create/make/whatever in the face of such institutional forms of
fascism. Today.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:58:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nina Iskrenko
I must echo what Ron said of Nina Iskrenko, whom I met only
once and then in a passing way, but heard in conversation
that evening. A great brilliance proceeded from her, and
it is a corresponding loss.
Ed Foster's mention of her death under the rubric "boy
talk" has at least the excuse that he's new to email.
I have no excuse at all.
Tm
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:12:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: the holy Dead
Dear Ed and Tm,
Pardon my widow's weeds, but nobody needs an excuse. Stop
tripping over yourselves for being "insensitive." There is nothing
wrong with boy talk. Perhaps the poet had a sense of humor.
B. Cass Clarke
V080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:22:58 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Patrick Phillips <Patrick_Phillips@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Nina Iskrenko
I met Nina once here in Providence last year. As Ron said, she had a keen
wit and a great sense of humor. She also possessed the ability to be, to
simply engage in conversation with a conviction that never once waivered.
At our very brief encounter I told her of a project I'm working on and
three months later, battling breast cancer, she sent four "poems for deaf
people" - drawings of the slightest filigree composed entirely of words.
They remind me of some of Michaux's line-work and captivate with a similar
drift between language and line, between cultures - so to speak. This
gesture provides a lasting tether. Here's one of her poems from
"Third-Wave" (pg 91) translated by Anesa Miller-Pogacar:
/a biography from the opposed, 1989/
The author belongs to the generation born in the 1950's and realizing its
creative strivings in that period of our history that proved to be an epoch
of sharply developed absurdism and carefully preserved principles of highly
artistic stagnation. Being accustomed since childhood to the paradoxical
phenomena of everyday life with theri unforseeable consequences, knowing
how to get my in the majority of situations without common sense or
psychological ease, with a strict immunity to all that can be had without
struggle, that wich is passed out one apice-all of this sooner or later
creates a corresponding supply of firmness, or, if you wish, a natural
conservatism, pritecting its bearer from simple decisions and direct paths
to even the most obvious truths, This healthy conservatism lays a
noticeable imprint on the stylistics and character of the depicted, and it
also explains-metaphorically at least - a cluster of phenomena that defy
more reasoned means of interpretation. Specifically, these are certain
facts of the "biography from the opposed." Having obvious inclinatins
toward the humanities-toward literature, musci, drawing, etc.- the author
nonetheless spends six years studying at Moscow University in order to,
having obtained a diploma in physics, never again to return to the natural
sciences, those ex-personal froms of interacting with the surrounding
reality; having selected, as primary orientation, the word, and as shelter
of necessity - the trivial pusuit of work as a translator of scientific and
techinical literature from English to Russian. A family and two children
convincingly fill out the picture of a normal existence for a Russian woman
in the contemporary literary process, an existence that was secret for many
years and even shameful in the eyes of others, to reveal itself only in the
past year or two with a few publications. Thus, it is not surprising that
the author accepts any signs of attention paid to her humble persona with a
certain dubiousness and perplexity; for this she offers excuses in the form
of gratitude, and gratitude in the form of a text whose rehearsal coincides
with its final result.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:33:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: A Worm?
X-cc: v080l3np@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Dear Benji,
I was shocked, simply shocked to see your persona
bandied about so cavilierly on this list. Is this some
form of "get the guest" as in Virginia Woolf (who's afraid
of)?
You have my condonlences and solid aridy.
B. Cass Clarke
V080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:42:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Patrick Phillips <Patrick_Phillips@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: corrected Nina Iskerenko poem
Sorry for the repost - Just thought I oughtta get it down right.
/a biography from the opposed, 1989/
The author belongs to the generation born in the 1950's and realizing its
creative strivings in that period of our history that proved to be an epoch
of sharply developed absurdism and carefully preserved principles of highly
artistic stagnation. Being accustomed since childhood to the paradoxical
phenomena of everyday life with their unforseeable consequences, knowing
how to get by in the majority of situations without common sense or
psychological ease, with a strict immunity to all that can be had without
struggle, that which is passed out one apiece - all of this sooner or later
creates a corresponding supply of firmness, or, if you wish, a natural
conservatism, protecting its bearer from simple decisions and direct paths
to even the most obvious truths, this healthy conservatism lays a
noticeable imprint on the stylistics and character of the depicted, and it
also explains - metaphorically at least - a cluster of phenomena that defy
more reasoned means of interpretation. Specifically, these are certain
facts of the "biography from the opposed." Having obvious inclinatins
toward the humanities - toward literature, music, drawing, etc. - the
author nonetheless spends six years studying at Moscow University in order
to, having obtained a diploma in physics, never again to return to the
natural sciences, those ex-personal forms of interacting with the
surrounding reality; having selected, as primary orientation, the word, and
as shelter of necessity - the trivial pursuit of work as a translator of
scientific and technical literature from English to Russian. A family and
two children convincingly fill out the picture of a normal existence for a
Russian woman in the contemporary literary process, an existence that was
secret for many years and even shameful in the eyes of others, to reveal
itself only in the past year or two with a few publications. Thus, it is
not surprising that the author accepts any signs of attention paid to her
humble persona with a certain dubiousness and perplexity; for this she
offers excuses in the form of gratitude, and gratitude in the form of a
text whose rehearsal coincides with its final result.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:41:43 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:28:05 -0700 from
<mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Just a brief reply, but I think it is a majoy misunderstanding to think
of Adorno as a cynic. A pessimist, certainly. To some extent a paralyzed
thinker, I grant. But not a cynic. A cynic gives in to the barbarity.
A cynic gives up the ever more problematic possibility of Utopia.
Adorno had a hell of a lot of problems as a person and sometimes
as a thinker, but he was never a cynic.
Thanks, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:51:03 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 15:07:12 EST from
<ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Sorry Alan. Of course.
Viswanathan, Gauri. *Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British
Rule in India* New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1989.
Wow. It suddenly occurs to me that by today's standards this is not
all that new after all.
Thanks, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:57:29 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Romantic
X-To: mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
Dear Mike:
War bird decloaking at starboard. I wonder if anyone has read
Sidney or Shelley's Defense of Poetry in the last 20 years? I think
"theory" has taken the place of philosophy in the equation. I used to
think it was pseudo-psychology in its reading of poetry and its authors.
All lean toward the destruction of poetry's power as soverign
in human imagination. Without the poets there is no hope. We will
not be educated, consoled, inspired, loved or moved to action in this
brazen world - only the poets can deliver a golden (to quote a buddy).
We all know who they are. They are written on our hearts. Whether
alive or elsewhere they get the job done, usually alone, on the screen
or in the streets, curled up around a terminal or allowing it to fade "like
a sand painting at the end of day" their labors keep all of creation
going - otherwise all is entropy. All else is A River of Ka-Ka sold at
a very high price.
When I think of theory and Blake, I know he came to his in the
work - and when he found it he abandoned the Four Zoas to write Jerusalem.
I believe every poet discovers "theory" in this way. It reveals
itself.
All hail the Poets. They keep us free and laughing in an other-
wise dismal prospect. Call me Post-Romantic.
B. Cass Clarke
V080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 00:34:26 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: theory and being heard
Dear Mark (Wallace), in response to your claim of having to be a theory
to be heard, what then do you have to be to listen? Do only theories
listen to theory?
In any event, I do not claim to find any comfort in the hegemony of
"theory" in the academy, and I do not intend my response to be "flip"
and "merely rhetorical" but "THEORY IS POETRY IN DRAG" can, as a motto,
approximate a perspective a legitimate (i.e. IT PAYS) tradition is
(re)-forming around, regardless of ruptures that on an institutional
level are reinscribed into what becomes read as a "debate."
I am trying to avoid the cynical resignation in the face of a compartment-
alized view of the world. For such "resignation" simply perpetuates it.
And if I may lapse for a second an indulge myself in a freudian metaphor,
isn't it possible, Mark, that sometimes what seems more like "theory"
than "poetry" actually falls more on the "side" of the intrinsically
motivated ID rather than the extrinsic SUPEREGO? And thus, ocassionally
if you didn't DO POETRY you'd be out of a job? Or is this just a matter
of interpretation on my part....
As for Alan Golding's rewording of what many have called "theory" as
really POETICS, which he claims is an institutional rather than
essential distinction, that doesn't seem "accurate"--for "academic
theory" only becomes poetics if put into dialogue with poets and
or poems... Granted, we're on a POETIC list, so we can claim we're
some kind of hermetically sealed interpretative community gathered
around some transcendental signifier BUT isn't the question to some
extent the idea that there exists this THEORY which in itself is
HOSTILE to poetry, in a way quite different from "poetics" is...
Now, this "hostility" of course brings in the whole question of
whether thinking binary is a CAUSE of cultural disenchantment or
merely a rhetorical exercise to show off one's "wit" with not externAl
ramifications in the "real world"--And thus, that dreaded question
of TONE becomes raised again in a piece of writing (this) that is
marketable NEITHER as theory or poetry, and then one wonders if there
is communication only with commodification, and I drank another dollar
to quench my thirst for anti-naive-vulgar organic humanism (which
of course is really really really what we all want "underneath it all")
All of my love, Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 21:44:00 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Alan Golding's queryPOETICS Digest - 20 Feb 1995 to 21 Feb
1995
In-Reply-To: <199502220510.VAA15311@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Dear Alan and others--
Susan Schultz and I discussed the boy/girl issue in Hawaii two weeks ago
and I brought it up when Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, and Leslie Scalapino
were here for the Ginsberg censorship affair last week. Interestingly,
Lyn and Leslie say they never see the poetics net; Joan Retallack tells
me the same thing and I guess in general we girls just don't do it as much.
Why? (1) as one correspondent wrote in, we DO have too much to do. I don't
see how the men have the TIME to write endlessly back and forth. and (2)
this mode of communication is somehow unsatisfactory to women. It really
IS a gender issue, I think. I like to write to someone, not everyone/
anyone. A mode of address. A form of life.
Writing to those "out there" is somehow unappealing, as Kathleen Fraser was
saying the other day.
So: it's great for messages like, "What is the title of that book?" or
here are three conferences coming up--a bulletin board. But beyond that?
well-I think we'll let the men go for it.
Another topic (here it's useful): who IS Dinitia Smith, who wrote that
article? She never contacted me but I did get a call from the photo dept
asking for a picture. The dept. here sent it and then they called back to
say sorry, they could only use "one in every category." I was so glad the
cartoon wasn't of me.
Where did she learn of her "language poets"?? I wonder who was her source of
information?
Bye, men!
Marjorie Perloff
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:16:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans (fwd)
This apparently didn't get sent. I'm forwarding it from my files.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:01:31 -0700 (MST)
From: mnamna@imap1.asu.edu
To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu>
Cc: Multiple recipients of list POETICS <POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans
To eric, et al:
It's good you bring up the view that all culture should be
historicized. I've been reading Said's _Culture and Imperialism_ and the
point is not simply to historicize, but to point out that the supposed
greatness and fact of existence of European culture is made possible,
implicated to the highest degree, with the system of imperial/colonial
exploitation. Beyond this, Said suggests looking at discrepent
experiences of colonial relations--texts from different perspectives on
colonial experience whose commonality does not efface their important
differences. This is a rejection of a "pure" aesthetic realm; a
rejection of "humanism"; a rejection of "unitariness; and an imperative
to unthink the ridgid separation of politics and aesthetics. One should
include theory in the latter, I believe, and, even, indict it on the
same terms.... Just some thoughts.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 17:26:03 JST
Reply-To: nada@twics.com
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: nada@TWICS.COM
Subject: Poetics List Takes Toll On Tough Birds
***
Subject: Poetics List Takes Toll On Tough Birds
Copyright: 1999 by The Anti-Hegemony Group
Date: 21 Mar 99 12:12:12 PST
Lines: 57
SAN FRANCISCO (AHP) -- A cyberzoo can take its toll on
even the toughest old birds, and these birds were never very
tough to begin with.
Forty-four ``light-winged Dryads of the trees'' have
fallen dead silent; a population that once reached 44 is down
to four.
``It would appear ... that it's the wrong zoo for the
species and, indeed, it's no doubt the wrong species for zoos,''
said Kali Tal, president of the animal rights group Hungry
Generation.
But generalizations are difficult. For instance, these
particular nightingales share neither habitat nor coloration.
They come in all shapes and sizes. Some call Hawaii home, some
Group bleari.nooz.boids available: 32 - 23 unread: -9
article 32 20-MAR-1999 12:12:12
hail from Buffalo. And their song is not necessarily the same
one heard by ``emperor and clown.''
In fact, the unusual braying sound has earned the birds
a nickname from snide zookeeper Ira Lightman -- ``jackass
nightingales'' -- though others describe the sound as more like
the coo of an angry dove.
But why are the birds so stressed?
For one thing, there are well over five males competing
for the attention of one female, a panel of experts noted.
For another, unknown predators have gotten into the feed
lines and parodied several of the nightingales.
And instead of a big, blue sky to parade in when they get
hot and bothered, they have a 1-foot-square screen.
Still, said Kali Tal, relenting in her earlier pessimism,
``birds do just fine on other lists.''
A panel of experts made their official recommendation this
week in a memo to head superintendent Charles Bernstein. According
to a secret source, the memo urged a shutdown of ``Poetics@ubvm,''
and immediate dispersal of the birds.
Group bleari.nooz.boids article: 32 - 23 unread: -9
article 32 20-MAR-1999 12:12:12
``The nightingale issue has gone beyond what is in the best
interest of the nightingales, and I want to refocus on their welfare,''
said noted animal rights activist Liz Willis.
List spokesperson Alan Golding acknowledged the ``bird
talk'' program has had its ``ups and downs.''
``We're out of kilter right now, definitely out of kilter,''
he said.
Noted another expert, Juliana Spahr, ``The problem is the
concept of aviaries itself, you know, birds perched on swings. We'll
have to do away with the whole `polly wanna cracker' mentality if
we want any actual change.''
The last time activists got so upset at the zoo was in 1994,
when Betina, a 5-ton bull elephant, died after being tranquilized
so she could be caged for shipment to a more suitable list.
Most of the nightingales died of diseases that were
aggravated by stress due to boredom, competition and malnutrition,
the panel said.
Poetics has tried to give the birds more ventilation in
their tiny pens by installing a new subject line and cutting
Group bleari.nooz.boids available: 32 - 23 unread: -9
article 32 20-MAR-1999 12:12:12
back on brashness. It's also considering zookeeper Mark Nowak's
recommendation that other species of birdsong be piped into the
aviary.
And it's looking at easing the gender pressure by boosting
the population to include as many females as males, consultant Cris
Cheek said.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 11:44:10 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Arrow and Sparrow
X-To: Tony Green <t.green@auckland.ac.nz>
Hi Tony, and it's a cheep cheep
from the chirpy
over, "here, here!".
Of course your take on 'theory' and 'poetry' does presume
that everybody writes poems with a reader 'in mind'. Or, splitting it down
more to further - a reader Other than Them Selves. But even a dialogue
within Them Selves' work will produce the intimate inter-relations you
articulate.
>I would like you to look closer at "anticipation of
>results", because I think you could find just there, thought that may
>never be more than muttered to yourself, or even quite silent, but in
>which something other than the poem to be written or the poem in hand
>or the poem just written is saying, for example "Some other
>person(s), whether living or dead, would like/not like
>this, because...." how is that not theoretical, that is dependent on
>a stance in regard to others who will read or hear the poem.
At heart (I'm recently reconciling myself to using what I
saw before as a centralising anatomical reference but now re-emphasise its
decentralising function, from the left) poetry is social (interpersonal and
yes political) in a most challenged sense.
The issue which has been mentioned several times here is
that of voicing, reading out loud - which seems crucial to this
discussion. It makes a useful bridge (I'm always up for building 'em) to
issues of composition and to oral - improvisatory traditions and innovative
oral - improvisatory 'practice' (surely it's always practice, however
'accomplished it gets - that's its edge which admits process - is process
an institution?).
Having said which I would also be disturbed by what you describe as 'poems
being written in order to conform to a prior encapsulation of right
method(s) for production'. That way lies closure. But is anybody on this
list proposing that?
I've read no evidence of it.
Thanks for your post - it may have wafted the smokescreen a touch.
I.m worried that there is an idealism footloose with the fancy that's
chirping a hymn of variation - too whit:
'there is a theory far away, without a city wall'
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 06:33:50 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Finally, boy talk
In-Reply-To: <199502220958.AA06174@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "Marjorie Perloff"
at Feb 21, 95 09:44:00 pm
OK, finally I'll "delurk" on boytalk as a woman who follows/participates
in/ listens to the poetics list -- may we at first all, please, stop
generalizing in any of your statements to ALL women? There hasn't yet
been one statement that has appeared yet that would apply to us all, and
I for one intend to keeping waving my arms in as many shiva thousands of
ways as possible . . . . Sandra Braman
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 22:21:08 JST
Reply-To: nada@twics.com
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: nada@TWICS.COM
Subject: aunts and sisters
Dear Marjorie, Men, and Marginalized:
In a recent post, Marjorie Perloff wrote:
>I guess in general we girls just don't do it as much.
Really?
And gave the following reasons. The first one makes perfect
sense to me:
>Why? (1) as one correspondent wrote in, we DO have too
>much to do. I don'tsee how the men have the TIME to write
endlessly back and forth.
but I must take isue withthe second one :
>and (2)this mode of communication is somehow
>unsatisfactory to women. It really
>IS a gender issue, I think. I like to write to someone, not >everyone/anyone.
>Writing to those "out there" is somehow unappealing, as
>Kathleen Fraser wassaying the other day.
>So: it's great for messages like, "What is the title of that
>book?" or here are three conferences coming up--a bulletin
>board. But beyond that? well-I think we'll let the men go for
>it.
This mode of communication is not unsatisfactory to me -- and
ain't I a woman? It's not perfect, but it's not a bad substitute for
a real live community. After just a few posts I've made several
valuable personal connections via this list. Gone are the
strictures of geography and social placement. My interlocutors
are not limited to people I know, hence "internet" -- a "form of
life" -- a cocktail party where everyone's invited, and it
doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there . . .
Not to attack ad feminem, but it's one thing if you are a
tenured person of power at a major university with a brood of
influential books -- you don't need a forum. I do. I don't have
time for or invitations to all those conferences. I am not in
close proximity to good English-language libraries or small
press bookstores. Usually when I hear my language spoken
it's work-related or expat gossip or badly -translated news. Or
the beautiful flawed pidgin from my students.
And if writing to those "out there " is unappealing, why not
just write letters? Why publish anything? No desire at all to
ripple the pond? Trace your subjectivity? Make your voice
resound? Of course you want to do these things -- Marjorie,
Kathleen, Leslie -- or you wouldn't be in the positions you're in
now. You (especially Kathleen) would not have made it
possible for me a generation down to say what I'm saying right
now. All the net's a stage! And the men are all the players. . .
Letting "the men go for it" is the waste of a medium, the
waste of minds, a passive knuckling-under, tantamount to
letting the men make wars, oppress people, and argue
themselves into nightmares of sophistry. So I will agree that
"it really IS a gender issue," but not in the way you mean.
So I send out this call to my good and strong aunts -- if you
speak here, you make space for me (and my sisters -- pardon
the 70's-ish rhetoric) to speak here too. You'll also make the
discussions decidedly more interesting.
-- Nada
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 08:24:47 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: New from Sun & Moon
In-Reply-To: <199502220145.SAA18445@mailhost.primenet.com>
Dear Alan Golding & everyone:
The discussions re: "boy talk" and "theory" *have* crossed over: In my
original post, to which Bill Luoma was responding, I'd noted that
Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes didn't provide separate bodies
of criticial writings (I said Stein's "criticism" or "theory" or
"poetics" didn't feel "separate" to me--that _How to Write_ felt not much
different in style, approach & intention to (say) _A Novel of Thank
You_), and was hoping POETICS list readers might pick up on the fact that
these writers were women. Implication being (generally) that "poetics
talk" or "theory" *tends* to be a male preoccupation. Of course that's a
wild generalization to make--there are exceptions. Also, I didn't mean to
imply that language poetry was wildly successful in academe, but that
relative to Stein, Loy & Barnes (& let's add Bernadette Mayer--another
influence on language and other contemporary writers), well, relative to
writers like Bernstein, Andrews, Silliman, Scalapino, Perelman & so on,
the earlier 20th century women experimental or exploratory or whathaveyou
writers weren't acknowledged by people in universities as quickly as the
language poets have been. (Not by *all* people in universities, or *all*
universities, mind you.) I suppose you could say that Stein's Yale series
was a form of academic "acknowledgment"--but, I'd argue that she *paid*
for those books to be published (the money for them left via her will),
and that, of course, Yale never bothered to reprint any of them after
they went out of print. (Except for a _Selected_.)
Of course, the _Times_ article on "The Poetry Pantheon" was ridiculous,
but do note that the only "exploratory" group of poets mentioned there
was the language poets--as though all of us writing non-mainstream poetry
were "language poets." I was amazed, reading a fairly recent essay by
Jefferson Hansen that appeared in _Poetic Briefs_--& Jeff's a really
talented poet & not unbrilliant guy--I was amazed that he could imply
that younger poets (like myself & hundreds--thousands?--of others) were
all "influenced" or, in his words, "were greatly indebted to" the
language poets. This is absurd, of course, and suggests that what might
have happened or be in the process of happening is that people are
tending to lump all "exploratory" poets into a single camp: language
poetry. My own influences are mostly artists, writers & thinkers who did
their work prior to 1970.
At any rate, I'd love to hear what others, men or women on this list,
have to say about "theory" or "poetics"--especially what the women have
to say: *Is* theory, *is* this notion that "Great poets have & make
public their insights into other 'great' poets" a particularly *male*
preoccupation? (Alan, if you don't know what that quote refers to, if you
lost Bernstein's original post, e-mail me separately & I'll pass along
the original post, which was a selection from a new book Sun & Moon has
just published.)
Yours,
Gary.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
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=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 08:44:09 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: <199502220435.VAA18907@mailhost.primenet.com>
Dear David:
I don't remember offhand who said that, but if memory serves me, it was
re-quoted by Eliot Weinberger in one of his two essay books (_Outsider
Stories_ or _Works on Paper_). I don't have either of those books anymore
so I can't look them up for you, but I'm pretty sure you'll find it--and
I think Weinberger did cite the original--in one of them.
Good luck. Yours--Gary.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
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On Tue, 21 Feb 1995, David wrote:
> I wonder if someone might identify a quote that goes something like:
>
> "All poetry after the holocaust is..."
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 09:47:46 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <HUMAMATO@MINNA.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: aunts and sisters... and uncles... and cousins...
without 'taking sides,' i'd like to express my enthusiasm for nada's assertion
that it would be a "waste of a medium" for women to let "the men go for it"...
there are all sorts of gender issues at stake in a space such as this... it's
not simply how many women post/lurk vs. how many men (though this is in fact
*does* constitute, for me, a sort of bottom-line litmus of gender), there's
also the question raised by alan golding as to the parallel boy talk/theory
threads (for example)... part of the way to see these threads as connected
IS simply not to treat them as separate (!)... i mean, why is the boy talk
thread by its very nature NOT theoretical?... i would have to argue that it
is in fact a theorized discussion---though it's theory in a different vein,
hence it's perceived (by some) as atheoretical... i had in mind two items
in reading alan's post: rachel blau duplessis' essay "for the etruscans"
(a poetic inquiry into "feminist aesthetic") and what i've heard from certain
communities of women (virtual and otherwise) re "theory"---that it's all too
often practiced in ways that exclude alternative voices/soundings...
a few typos in that paragraph above, i hate line editors...
anyway... there's something about that suggestion (who made it?) about shutting
up and letting the women speak that appeals to me, albeit i understand this
as a provisional gesture... we have to learn to dance with one another...
and believe me, this medium filters out *my* more active (male, i guess)
presence (ftf, that is), so i'm not pretending in any way to have developed
an immunity to what i'm busy t/hereabouts criteeking...
so i'll shut up now...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 08:58:58 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Perloff's post
Dear Marjorie:
Too busy doing other things? You mean, like _Radical Artifice_? Marjorie,
that's disingenuous of you to say you're above "boy talk," considering
you make your living writing about poetry & poetics & theory--what we're
equating (or what some of us are equating here) with "boy talk."
Maybe what you mean is that you're above writing about theory *here*,
where you're not getting paid to do it? Are your classes at wherever you
teach totally unlike the discussions here on the net?
I think you've more to offer this discussion than pooh-poohing it
wholesale, & hope you'll maybe consider posting more.
Yours,
Gary
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:21:12 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: refried theory and deified beans (fwd)
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:16:40 -0700 from
<mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Jeffrey: Right. What can I say. That's pretty much exactly what I
intended my remark to do. I'd like to respond much more to this idea,
particularly on Said's figure of the intellectual which he models
in a very weird way on Auerbach and many of the German philologists,
but I just don't have time. I love this list, and as Nada indicated,
it provides a complete unknown like me, someone out of the blue,
unconnected to any of the power centers, a forum and a voice.
Unfortunately, I never have the time to take full advantage of it.
Thanks, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:28:53 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Romantic
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 21 Feb 1995 23:57:29 -0500 from
<V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Cass (I hope that's right and not "B.Cass?"): I'd like to respond to
your message personally and sort of "out" myself in the process. I want
to do this because I'd like very very very much to believe in what you
say; that poetry makes a difference; that it can save the world; that's
why, I think, most of us are here, huh? But I'm troubled by the resistence
to the various discources (let's not pin it down to post-structuralism,
poetics, philosophies, etc: theory is what is used) that come, today,
under the category of "theory."
When I graduated from high school, barely I might add, I knew I was
interested in writing poetry. Knew that's how I wanted to spend my life.
Didn't know where to, though, because where I grew up the only book store
in town was a used paper back place that sold mostly horror and romances.
So, like many of my friends, I went to the local community college, where
a teacher became interested and encouraged me to keep writing, and indeed
to go into a "writing program."
So I shuffled off to a CSU in the San Fernando Valley, the only
place I could get into with a 1.9 hi school average, and became very
interested in the scene down there, Beyond Baroque, the BEBOP, etc.
My profossers of writing encouraged me to read langpo, and ny school
etc, because of course this was a hip school after all, if it couldn't
quite be a prestigious one. The point is that they were very receptive.
(If this is boring you can skip to the last paragraph; I'm
currently involved in the very Foucault-esque thrill of confessing and
realize this is more of a kick for me than you) Ultimately, I went to
a graduate writing program here at LSU. I studied with Codrescu, and
Rodger (hey Rodger) and Dave Smith. Odd grouping, I know and in fact, for
me, this was very disconcerting because I kept getting mixed ideas as
to what poetry was. I became very confused as each tried to shape my
work. I began writing a kind of workshop poetry (as Golding terms it and
it is a very good term), though I tried to reconfigure it, subvert it
as I discovered the fiction of Acker and to a certain extent Auster. But
I was never quite satisfied.
I graduated and stayed for a Ph.D. I discovered theory, particularly
the to me thrilling and disparate writings in Western Marxism. Then I
discovered post/neo colonial stuff, and I began re-reading my poetry
and the poetry I was reading and I realized how naive I was;they were.
How much they left out because they weren't keeping up with the explosion
of extremely various writings out there all called theory. I re-read
Frank O'Hara, found him to be fabulous in ways I never saw before. The
l-school I saw as being the most sophisticated thinkers in poetry I knew.
I re-read Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, found them tapped into culture
more intimately then any of the mainstream political poets. Ultimately,
I signed on to this list and I realized (suck up) that I could talk
about these things for the first time with other poets, which I
couldn't do before (except with Rodger, obviously). Realized that there
were differences there, but they were aware, into it, not still talking
about line breaks, point of view, etc.
And that's where I am now. Stuck selling a book I wrote when I was
a little more naive, though the things I was writing about I still think
was very important to me but the way I was writing seems naive, dated.
And better working, still working, on a method that ties in everything
I've learned then, and now.
The point is that if you are not aware that as you write to certain
extent you are theorzing, you end up theorizing badly, which is what I was
doing. You end up seeming naive, lost, confused. I know, Cass, that you
and all the others on this list perhaps cannot identify too much with my
story because you already knew the "avant-garde" was the most interesting
and legitimate tradition, the only international one, as I believe Tom
said. But I didn't. Didn't even understand it. Until I began to theorize.
Hope this didn't just bore the hell out of you, but I believed your
post required the most fully "historicized" response I could muster.
Thanks, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:30:44 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Alan Golding's queryPOETICS Digest - 20 Feb 1995 to 21 Feb 19
In-Reply-To: note of 02/22/95 00:45
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
Dear Marjorie:
I'll see if I can tempt you into writing to everyone/anyone again.
On your first point: I'm not sure that the gendered differences in
participation on the list occur because the women have more to do than the
men.(I do wonder, like you, where some folks find the time, as I find even
skimming the list tremendously time-consuming). We can probably agree that
even in working-couple-with-family households like Gabrielle described, in
arrangements where there's a conscious, sustained effort to make things
equitable, women often end up being stuck with more of the load. But I'm not
sure that the quantitative difference between male and female work
loads/responsibilities is large enough to explain the participation
differences we've been talking about. At least, it's not among my peers and in
the community in which I live. In other words, I don't think this notion that
women simply have tons more to do than men will really wash, will it?
And is this mode of communication somehow unsatisfactory to women? I've been
wondering about that myself; we've had posts suggesting how it might be, and
Kali especially, though others have too, has talked about how it might be. But
I much prefer to write to someone, too. (I think this is probably the first
public e-mail letter you and I have written to each other.) On the whole this
preference may be gendered, but I do think there are other issues beyond that.
What are they? Wish I had time to figure that out.
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 20:07:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: forwarded with permission from BF
X-cc: v080l3np@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
From: IN%"V080L3NP@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu" "Ben Friedlander" 22-FEB-1995 19:48:
To: IN%"V080G6J3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu"
CC:
Subj: RE: A Worm?
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22 Feb 1995 19:48:48 -0500 (EST)
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 19:48:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Ben Friedlander <V080L3NP@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: A Worm?
To: V080G6J3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Message-id: <01HNCYLOV5028X302Q@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
Organization: University at Buffalo
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Cass,
Yeah, friends have been pinging me the bandwidth in question for a
while now. I find some of it funny and some stoopid, or both at once.
Condolences? Soldarity? Maybe those are appropriate, but don't
direct them to "me," it's my "name" and "identity" that have been
usurped, and I've already lost title to 'em. There was a guy last
year on the Derrida list, for instance, who copied messages, including
mine, and posted them on other lists. Or something--I never got it
straight, and found the whole business bemusing.
Not to say I don't care. I do! But I realize now I haven't any idea
what it means to be a writer--to share my words when all I have to
offer ARE words, with only a name to guarantee my propietary interest,
and only a social mechanism (often bewildering, if not oppressive) to
guarantee reception. Until I get THAT straight, I think I'll stick
to being a grad student, which I find much easier.
E-mail is an extreme instance, for sure, but it HAS made explicit how
in public discourse, at the most extreme edges, where all we have are
words, dialogue in the ethical sense is impossible. There is no
"face to face," only an economic relation, free and not-so-free exchange
of thoughts, feelings, bodily fluids (from the body without organs),
echoes, ventriloquism, plays within plays.
"Ben Friedlander" may be my "personal_name," but I could just as well
type "Benji," "worm," even "B. Cass Clarke." And obviously, ANYONE
could type those names. Identity, especially on the 'net, is just
another subject line, easily appropriated, misused, a cover for
something snuck in illegitimately, sometimes out of sloppiness or
ignorance, sometimes in bad faith. The only limits set for this
appropriation are structural (a hacker's power far supercedes a
parodist's) and legal (cf. the alt.sex.stories pornographer who got
arrested for using a classmate's name).
And then again, while these issues all pertain in the so-called real
world, e-mail is different. I have no idea what the "real" ramifications
of that difference are, but being (like you) a Dickhead (as in Philip K.)
I assume they're bad.
I would probably be more upset if my name or identity had been used more
maliciously--that has to be said too.
But thanks for passing the junk along,
Yours "in the analogy,"
Ben
(in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Institute of
Further Studies at v080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) - Cass Clarke
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 20:13:29 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
X-cc: enpape@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu
From: UBVMS::V080G6J3 "B. Cass Clarke" 22-FEB-1995 19:49:57.28
To: IN%"cris@slang.demon.co.uk"
CC: V080G6J3
Subj: legislators
Dear Cris and Eric
Thank you both for your backchannel and public response.
You remember the line from Shelley - poets are the unacknowledged
legislators - on that level poets have been warring with commerce, as
well as philosophers, critics, historians etc., since an attempt at
a definition of poetry's value, use and purpose came up for defense.
I said "post-romantic" because it is within that tradition that
this "defense" occurs, from medieval forward - i.e. a *belief* that the
poet performs a job that cannot be relegated to the other arts. This
includes the long tradition of invisibilities, knowledges that are not
contained by philos., mathematics, etc.
That post romanticism is not recognized as valid has to do with
the trend of treating any practise which includes some notion of power
not material, as disreputable and exposed by the advent of deconstruction.
For the act of poeisis depends upon a maker, an author. These days to
be a singular identity is to be phallocentric, anti-multicultural, etc.
Unfortunately the prime requirement of making is thrown out because
of its patriarchal associations. We have not yet seen how poetry will
recover, but there are many workers out there who are bleeding tears
trying. Including so-called language poets.
The "correct line" is not the one I'm drawing. But here in
Buffalo, there are many strings being pulled. Most of the posters to
this list are naturally caught up in the politics of the situation and
it is national. They want jobs. Academic jobs. Here, if you're not
with the lang-po project, it's not happening. Witness major poet hirings
nationally and you get language critics, language poets. They control
who gets brought in, who gets read, who gets studied - i.e. the remaking
of the *canon*. So the fight, if there is one has to do with who will
rewrite history? Those poets who have academic jobs from the prior wave,
Creeley, Dorn, Blaser, - I'm speaking of the Black Mt. here, for example,
we can insert our favorites here, have understandably left the arena to the youn
and will be replaced by the next *hot* language poet. I can think of
others who were never part of the academic, Kyger, DiPrima, Grenier, Thorpe,
Sanders, yes I have my favorites too, and many whose work I don't know,
as I'm sure you can, who continue to teach and labor without the same
visibility afforded a tenured professor with good small press (or large)
commitments.
It will always be this way, it ever has been. I fall on the side
of Mental War is Combat for the Angel, conducted by individuals armed
with theory, philosophy, history, criticism, hell why not some architech-
tonic too? This chick is old-fashioned that way, and no puritan mean
streak will put me on the sidelines with the wallflowers.
As to the legislators, someone must take the initiative. As to
this list, it was Bernstein, I believe, who took the initiative and has,
as far as I can tell, been courageous in his efforts to keep the lines
open, and encourage all comers. His kind of equanimity is becoming
rare in this time of fear.
With regard,
Cass
B. Cass Clarke
V080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 23:29:51 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: flushing the quarry
Dear Sis, dear cous,
Those dogs may scare the fox. Perhaps you should have kept
them muzzled until you had her treed.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 22:30:08 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1995 to 22 Feb 1995
In-Reply-To: <199502230519.VAA19422@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Well, OK, to respond to Alan and Gary:
I'm not satisfied with such a simplistic gender explanation either, so
let me just speak for myself.
Gary says it's disigenuous of me to say I don't have time when I do have
time to write books. To which one could say: well, yes, but if I spent
much time on the e-net, I wouldn't. But more seriously: writing articles/
books is one thing: you work, you revise, you research and you don't
let anything out of the house that you haven't thought through. Conversation
with students is a second thing--and I adore it--and that's face to face and
really fun.
But for me too much of what comes through this poetics group is just
throw-away, personal little bits and it doesn't quite seem like a "conver-
sation." I suppose it does when I know the person as I know Alan who
is a good friend but not when it's someone I don't know.
So: this is just a gut reaction to (1) having been excited when this net
began and loving to read the messages, and (2) now feeling every day a
sense of oh-my-god here are 25 messages on the Poetics net to plow through
and 90% is just not interesting to me. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault,
but perhaps there would be a better way to organize it so that private
conversations between A and B wouldn't just bounce back and forth and be
left unresolved.
Marjorie Perloff
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 22:51:53 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Oz
In-Reply-To: <199502060836.AAA19553@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Stephen Galen Cope"
at Feb 6, 95 00:34:13 am
I am just back from a week in Melbourne. Poetry scene there seems to
be dominated by a group calling themselves the
A=R=I=T=H=M=E=T=R=I=C=K Poets. Claim to be reconstructed Social
Creditors who bombard magazines with "funny money" and ragged verses.
I went to a gala reading, but forgot my calculator, and could not
follow the poems very well.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 22:57:56 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Hokey Pokey
In-Reply-To: <199502100750.XAA27140@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Mark Roberts" at
Feb 10, 95 04:05:06 pm
I want to know more about that Hokey Pokey ice cream. Unfortunately,
they didnt hav any at thre Aukland air port.
Can you get a big tub of it and put your left leg in, and shake it
all about?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 00:36:03 -0600
Reply-To: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: <2f4aee3d2e0b002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Regarding Adorno, as Eric Pape says, as a pessimist not a cynic, not
giving up the "ever more problematic possibility of Utopia."
Can't one be a non-cynic, in fact can't one even be an optimist (but my
that is harder every day) without believing in Utopia. Even Thomas More
had his problems with Utopia, creating one which was patently unlivable,
and putting its articulation in the utterings of Raphael Hythloday, a
character whose name etymologically (and loosely, I believe) may be
translated as "bringer of health/babbler of nonsense." Equivocal at the
least.
charles alexander
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 08:25:17 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: making the bed
Dear Cass:
I was thinking about your recent post, and about Jack this a.m.
as I made the bed. About "the human", partly because I have to teach
Foucault and Derrida tonight to a group of undergraduates, partly
because I was trying to come up with a name for what Jack so
generously offered those lucky enough to work with him. And, for me
anyway, "human" is it. This, I guess, is one of those key sites where
I find myself at odds with those Euro-guys. I mean the notion that the
human is over. When, from an "Ohio" point of view (I guess you could
read "Emerson" here), the problem is we have yet to realize the human,
except in very rare cases.
Best,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 05:54:44 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Marketing and infiltration
> really, how entrenched is an L-P writing method in the university?
> Could we come up with a location matchup and some market data? L-P
>infiltration appears to have been sucessfully implemented in Buffalo,
UC San Diego, San Francisco State, Brown, Sonoma, Simon Frazer, Albany
(no), Toronto?, Montreal?, and say 20 more campuses for good measure
versus the rest of the colleges and universities who offer writing
programs. That's about 30 LPs versus ____ . Can anyone fill in the
blank?
Well, there are slightly over 260 programs in the US (plus whatever more
in Canada, which has a population somewhere between California and
Texas), and I might be inclined to add Penn, UC Santa Cruz, Wayne State,
University of Alabama and a few other schools, but really what
constitutes "infiltration"? I think that virtually ALL of the New
American Poetry branches, not just langpo, acquire a significant amount
of their weight and moral authority precisely by virtue of their being a
literature of the urban writing scenes rather than of the campus. And of
the 40 poets in In the American Tree, only 5 or 6 (depending on whether
Fanny Howe has tenure at UCSD, which I'm not clear on) have ever had
tenure. Of those, one is retired (Bromige) and another (Andrews) has
tenure in political science.
I wonder how Paul Hoover feels at (1) being asked to stand as the incon
for langpo in the NY Times and (2) being described there basically as an
unintelligible man w/ tenure, which his school (Columbia College in
Chicago) does not even offer?? or Leslie (a lurker here, I believe)
likewise, who has been so clear for so many years that her relationship
to the basic langpo traits has been that of friendly critic and whose
summer job at Bard similarly cannot count as that major tenured job
alluded to?
The value of the NY Times piece seems to me to come precisely from its
wrong-headedness. I.e., the NY Times is willing to put forward an index
of how out of it the journal really is.
One further thought: Larry Bensky on KPFA the other morning (talking up
the series on the first 100 days of the republican administration that
he's doing w/ Juliane Malveaux on the Pacifica Radio Network) virtually
mapped to the Apex of the M argument in saying that, to paraphrase,
"Newt Gingrich's band of republicans are like Language Poets. They talk
about government out of context and in that denatured light, everyone
can imagine it as Other, as alien, rather than as the collective
expression of the will of the people."
Sigh.
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:49:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Finally, boy talk
Shiva,
You make a good point about (not) generalizing about ALL women. Another
implicit assumption seems to be that when one says man or woman on this list,
one means hetero man & woman. I don't want to generalize, but I do want to
speak.
And we seem to be talking here; this list seems more speechlike than any
other discourse I'm familiar with, a cocktail party as nada said. And speech
is the wonderful land of generalizations, big ideas expressed in a few words.
How should we speak about gender and biology? Binary is right out. How
many genders are there?
trying to wave with more than two hands,
bluoma
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:35:28 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: To Cass, Marjorie, Ron, Charles
Rather than post multiple messages...
Cass, thank you for that last post. You know John Thorpe's work? I grew
up in California, lived in the Bay Area 10 years, not once did I hear
Thorpe's name mentioned, read anything anyone had to say about him. I
move out here to Minneapolis-St. Paul, no longer have a scene to rely on
to suggest "what to read"--voila! I discover Thorpe's books in used
bookstores. _Exogeny_, _The Cargo Cult_, _Five Aces & Independence_, then
Spencer Selby graciously gives me his copy of _Matter_. He's become one
of my favorite living poets (I assume he's still alive), have learned
much from his work. No one writes about him these days, maybe never wrote
about him. He didn't make it easy for the critics. No cliff note
manifestos, not even anything (so far as I know) about other poets, never
wrote a book review, even. The fact that he was (again, so far as I know)
unaffiliated didn't help, I'm sure.
Other interesting discoveries made only after I moved out of the bay
area: Well, the second most important for me was Philip Whalen. I
discover, lately, that Scalapino at least wrote about the guy, a short
treatment of his work that wound up in her Potes & Poets book of
criticism. Thanks, Leslie. I literally never heard his name mentioned,
nor did I see any of his work, until I moved out here.
"New Hope for the Disappeared" Ron? Nice that you'd write about Ceravolo
when you did, I thought your piece on his work in _The New Sentence_ was
swell. But, what's the common thread among these poets who's work we have
to *hunt* for? They didn't go public with their manifestos, theoretical
insights, etc. Thorpe is obviously a brilliant thinker: you couldn't
write _Five Aces_ "off the cuff"; obviously a *lot* of thought & planning
went into that book. Why haven't we any critics willing to write about
it? Is it simply easier to take a poet who *has* said a few public words
about his/her writing and write about him/her?
That, Marjorie, was the feeling I got, reading your _Radical Artifice_. I
thought the book was good, but was surprised that, in a book that had, as
subtitle, "Poetry Writing in the Age of Media" that you not once
mentioned Bern Porter, who I imagine was, if not the first, certainly one
of the first American poets to use & address--not exclusively, but
close--the media in his work. My suspicion was that you'd never heard of
Porter--quite likely as most of his books were self-published. (As
opposed to paying, say, Station Hill to publish 'em.) No distribution,
save Bookslinger (found a mountain of his books there). SPD doesn't carry
'em. What you say in your last post about wanting or enoying only
carrying on discussions with people you know suggests the possible reason
so much of _Radical Artifice_ seemed to be about Sun & Moon authors-you
are, after all, on their Advisory Board. It seems to me, if you're
talking to the same people all the time to the exclusion of people you
don't know, you'll perhaps bring a very limited body of work to your
critical writing. If I'd not've moved out of the bay area, would I ever
have discovered John Thorpe? I'm admittedly a very impressionable person
and moving out here was great for me as it forced me to do my own hunting
around for poetry, etc.
Charles, thanks for the footnote re: Raphael Hythloday. More's wonderful.
I'm sorry I missed Lazer's lecture & reading, and the lunch at your
house. I've been sick with the flu, only starting to recouperate. I hope
it all went well.
Maybe it's just because I'm new to this, but I really appreciate getting
loads of e-mail, especially when they include names of poets I've not
heard of before, or composers, & addresses as to where one might find
this stuff. Thanks to Mark Nowak for much of that. I also *enjoy* some of
the more "personal" posts--thank both Kali and Sheila E. for theirs,
especially, as well as Cass's. I think it's great that the language poets
have been receiving whatever recognition they've received, but I do think
that, undoubtedly unintentionally, a lot of other work's being lost or
forgotten in the process. As lineages are mapped out & recognized (you
all realize the Loft, here in MPLS-STPL, is a terribly conservative
writing institution, but that when it did make a single nod to
"exploratory" poetries decided to do a class on language writing, as
though that's "all she wrote") unaffiliateds & those who never made
public the ideas & concerns that went into the "creative" work *except*
in the creative work, are being forgotten, erased. I'll leave you all
with something from Mina Loy. It's somewhat self-righteous, but
appropriate enough:
SHOW ME A SAINT WHO SUFFERED
Show me a saint who suffered in humility;
I will show you one and again another
who suffered more and in deeper humility
than he.
I who have lived among many of the unfortunate
claim that of the martyr to have been
a satisfactory career, his agony
being well-advertised.
Is not the sacrifice of security to renown
conventional for the heroic?
The common tragedy is to have suffered
without having "appeared."
PS: Ron, I guess it was a drag not to've been mentioned in Dinitia
Smith's _Times_ article under the grouping of language poets (none of
whom were, of course, language poets). Now you know how I felt when I
picked up a copy of your _N/O_ and saw that you'd forgotten to
acknowledge _Stifled Yawn_ as one of the magazines who'd published some
of that work (the first 4 pages of "NON" as you'll recall). Sigh, indeed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:57:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: RSILLIMA <rsillima@VANSTAR.COM>
Organization: Vanstar Corporation
Subject: Poetry, Media, Funding
I noticed that the House committee on appropriations voted to cut CPB and
NPR by 15 percent this year, 30 next, much smaller cuts than they
anticipated from this particularly hostile committee. I'd expect to see
the same for the Endowments. A hopeful sign.
On the less hopeful side, I quote from a discussion of "The English
Poetry Full-Text Database," a 4-CD set that includes, says the author,
the complete life works of roughly 1,250 poets. Of this, says the author,
"But who are they all? How many poets could you list off the cuff? I sat
down for half an hour, scratched my brain [nice mixed metaphor
there--RS], and got as far as a lousy fifty-five."
This from page 102 of the Feb 20/27 double issue of the New Yorker, by
Anthony Lane. Maybe he studied with Dinitia Smith.
Obviously, in NYC's "mainstream" media when it comes to the
knowledge-base for reporting on the topic of verse, less is more.
It does make for tidier narratives. Which may be how Mark Strand made 4
separate lists in the Times, including "best-looking males."
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:36:24 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: More in re: Radical Artifice
Marjorie:
Other missing material from _Radical Artifice_:
Daniel Davidson's book _Product_, published by e.g. press in 1991. Anyone
who has read both your _RA_ and _Product_ can tell you why it should've
been included. A full-frontal assault on advertising/P.R., the most
successful I've ever read, which is why my wife & I published it.
Probably you never heard about the book because, when my wife (Marta
Deike) and I took over the press in 1989, it was something of the
laughingstock of the west coast language writing scene, though its
original editor, David Highsmith had published a book of David Bromige's
and Todd Baron's. He also published (the unmittegated gall!) a lot of
people who weren't in that particular scene.
e.g. was so thoroughly detested by language writers that Todd Baron took
the manuscript he'd had published through e.g. (_Partials_) and got O
Books to publish it--without acknowledging that e.g. had been the
original publisher. I assume the fact that the people in your general
circle think so poorly of the press is why none of them bothered to tell
you about Dan's book--even despite the fact that Dan is very much a
"language" writer (see his work in Ganick's anthology). I'll send a copy
of __Product_ if you like; just let me know.
Also missing, of course, is the work David Ossman's done: especially his
_How Time Flies_. As pointed as anything in _The Baffler_ re: the
entertainment industry, and recorded in 1973. Why you chose to write
about Lyn Hejinian's _My Life_ in the context of "Writing Poetry in the
Age of Media" to the neglect of these other things is precisely what has
me questioning your motivation, as well as your sources for information.
Someone just mentioned that Charles Bernstein's to be thanked for setting
this list up, and for keeping it open to any & all, including
loudmouthed, opinionated malcontents like myself (& a few others). Yes.
Lovely thing this; one can question people, challenge them, and have it
somewhat public, "on record." Much better than a magazine, as, you write
something negative about language poetry for, say, Rod Smith's magazine,
it gets rejected. (I'm referring to Alan Davies' uneven, but certainly
provocative, "Peer Pleasure," which has been passed around among poets
since having been rejected by _Aerial_.)
Charles? When I first read the piece you wrote for Bernadette Mayer's
_Utopia_, I thought you disingenuous, given the sometimes exclusionary
tactics of (at least) the west coast language poets & affiliateds. You of
course know, and probably better than I do, how Johanna Drucker was
treated by 'em. At any rate, I no longer think that; am really glad
you've made this space available. This is truly "reader response."
Finally.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gpsj@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 14:48:59 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Alan Golding's queryPOETICS Digest - 20 Feb 1995 to 21 Feb 19
X-To: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199502230426.AA13096@panix4.panix.com>
Marjorie and Kali and B. Cass and other women speaking up on this subject
may have more in common with Alan Golding, Tom Mandel, and other men than
they do with each other on any of a variety of subjects. Being a woman
does not insure agreement anymore than men agree. The women's movement
sought agreement or at least support along gender lines, but doesn't even
within this narrow group appear to hold when personal identity and
aesthitic issues are raised. Poets dont agree, men don't agree, women
don't agree and neither does anyone else. We are all tender in parts and
I hope will persevere even if we don't agree.
James
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:55:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jeffrey Timmons <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: <9502220750.AA18367@imap1.asu.edu>
Yes, yes, yes, I agree. You're right. I hope that I suggested as much,
if not I stand corrected.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 09:03:49 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Arrow and Sparrow
X-To: cris cheek <cris@slang.demon.co.uk>
Even "dialogue within Them Selves' work will produce the intimate inter-relation
articulate".
Comment: In so far as "I" is constructing itself in an
"imaginary", yes [ or, okey-dokey]. But that takes us into a
Lacanian vocabulary that may be going too far too soon for
those who do not recognise the inter-subjectivity of writing
enough to begin to admit it as a base for theory. POINT TAKEN.
Thank you for bringing it up.
being to articulate inter-subjectivity I (Timid
"The issue which has been mentioned several times here is
that of voicing, reading out loud - which seems crucial to this
discussion. It makes a useful bridge (I'm always up for building 'em) to
issues of composition and to oral - improvisatory traditions and innovative
oral - improvisatory 'practice' (surely it's always practice, however
'accomplished it gets - that's its edge which admits process - is process
an institution?)"
Comment: Oral emission, but not necessarily composed by "internal"
speech-like thinkings, i.e.improvisatory irruptions. Aural
reception, -- but like John Geraets was saying, deaf people may well
read poems --, would be more appropriately thought of as aural
"imagination". Without a lot of caution over this, I'd be
bothered by locking poetry into varieties of opsycho-babble from the
old surrealist depths, and disallowing the constructed "language"
based rather than "speech" based poetries to which Lang-Po was much
attached in the 70's and 80's (or so it seemed to me, and as I
thought usefully).
Best
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:02:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1995 to 22 Feb 1995
X-To: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199502231347.AA27551@panix4.panix.com>
Marjorie and others in this loop:
I have had several conversations recently regarding control on the
listserv. On the one hand we don't want to tell anyone what to say;
clearly censorship is not a good idea. On the other hand there are a lot
of personal discussions made public and "exhibitionists" contrast with
"lurkers" vying for the same mental space.
Based on backchannel discussions with some other people I would make two
recommendations based on my own difficulties and others concurrence with
these difficulties, not the least of which is Marjorie's complaint.
Perhaps these will form the basis of discussion.
1. Perhaps Loss can subdivide the list into two parts. Part one can be
for listings of events, newsletters, and exchanges of bibliographical
information. Part two can be a discussion list where people can express
their individual views collectively.
2. Without making any rules, perhaps people could keep personal notes and
conspiritorial exchanges to the back channel. I don't want to point any
fingers here, but there are a lot of short notes thatdon't really add to
the discussion and are also directed at only one other person. That
constitutes back channel material to me. This would solve what many of us
feel are messages which "clog up" our bulletin board. Obviously personal
exchanges can be used to "inform" the group. This trope which is
developing nicely is an effective, but not particularly attractive
technique. That's the kind of thing we might consider doing without, but
it has to be applied by each individual and might be considered
acceptable under conditions which each individual anywhere on the
spectrum from "lurker" to "exhibitor" has to judge for themselves.
These two changes might make it easier to go through the list and to find
what we each want to look at without having to wade through 40 or more
messages over a weekend. I'd appreciate discussion on these matters.
James
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:21:55 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Stephen Ratcliffe <stephenr@ELLA.MILLS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Language Poetry
I started to look of NYTimes page on poetlore, saw waht they was up to
w/ their pantheo(n)s, including now so-called LP, and turned off the lite.
Will I find time to return to it?
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:39:56 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Finally, boy talk
" braman sandra" was saying" I for one intend to keeping waving my arms in as ma
ways as possible . . . . Sandra Braman" Keep on waving. Your
information in the past few months has been really interesting. My
attempt to send you a post at your e-mail address a couple of weeks
back to this effect didn't work (?my incompetence).
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:24:20 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Hokey Pokey
"I want to know more about that Hokey Pokey ice cream. Unfortunately,
they didnt hav any at thre Aukland air port.
Can you get a big tub of it and put your left leg in, and shake it
all about?"
Dear George,
You can get it at most dairies in New Zealand. And if you want
total immersion, no worries, just microwave twenty containers-full
for three minutes each, cool it, then hop in the tub. Next time you're through
way give me a buzz on 373599 x8981 and we cd do lunch + ice-cream.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:06:18 +1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Oz
>I am just back from a week in Melbourne. Poetry scene there seems to
>be dominated by a group calling themselves the
>A=R=I=T=H=M=E=T=R=I=C=K Poets. Claim to be reconstructed Social
>Creditors who bombard magazines with "funny money" and ragged verses.
>I went to a gala reading, but forgot my calculator, and could not
>follow the poems very well.
Melbourne can be like that.
Mark Roberts
Australian Writing On Line
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:08:17 +1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Hokey Pokey
>I want to know more about that Hokey Pokey ice cream. Unfortunately,
>they didnt hav any at thre Aukland air port.
>Can you get a big tub of it and put your left leg in, and shake it
>all about?
No but I'll email you a tub... Hope it doesn't melt on your hard disk
Mark Roberts
Australian Writing On Line
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 23:57:36 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: e-ager posters
X-To: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@leland.stanford.edu>
Hi Marjorie, it's just yet another rejoinder to your post about post.
Suffice to say, and many would testify, I have down several years been the
most non-existent correspondent almost anybody could have wished for. My
letters barely ever crossed a mat. BUT
I like e-mail and am pretty active with it. I find when I sit down to write
letters I feel that I'm engaging in an old-school type 'proper' 'literary'
activity. The sort of thing that might one day be published by some trust.
I value the transitory aspect of this. Don't you find that conversation is
full of 'throw-away, personal little bits'? One minute you're humming with
excitement of discovery through detailed exchange - the next boiling a
kettle for a cup of tea (sorry that's very Anglo-centric of me I know)? But
the drift is clear.
E-mail feels more like post cards might have done to me, if I'd ever posted
the ones that I bought. Letters always felt like serious writing whereas I
find this space as Tom Mandel described it to be 'a pleasant whirlwind' in
which a variety of agendas appear to circle and sample each other with some
variety of speeds of address and attention. The cafe, the bar, the club,
the coffee break at the conference, the chance encounter between the
supermarket shelves, the heated discussion in the corner shop, the after
hours philosophising and more all seems to breand here. I'm curious - it's
seems full of new potential. It feels like a localised conversation of
distances. I'm trying to keep myself open to change through the process.
And I'm probably giving it as much time as I should have given to writing
letters in the past. But I get a lot more post and get to meet people I
might never otherwise have known. What's the problem?
feel it needs devaluing because . . . ?
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 23:57:28 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Arrows and Sparrows
X-To: Tony Green <t.green@auckland.ac.nz>
Hi Tony, yes I realise I'm treading a fine line when it comes to the dances
of tongues in a mouth.
I'm all for the 'oral emission' of extremely un-speech-like constructed
language and the speech-like things (Burroughs is one of the great
vaudeville vocal performers). I'd love to hear P. Inman read. Tom Raworth
is the most energising and compelling reader here on this port off the
pond. Many of the lang'shan-po are strong readers. I'd bring other aural
imaginative strategies such as Jackson MacLow and Hannah Weiner and very
very much enjoy what Carla Harryman and Steve Benson have done and are
doing in terms of memory and improvisation in performance. I'd bring
Michael Smith with his dub song-poem 'My cyaan believe it', Jean Binta
Breeze, Linton Kwesi Johnson - many many more across into the music more
direct Tribe Called Quest 'When the Papes Come'. I'd bring Schwitters' 'Ur
Sonata' and Ernst Jandl and Chopin and Cobbing and the 4 Horsemen of the
Apocalypse and many others - Jerry Rothenberg performing Frank Mitchell's
'Horse Songs'. All of these people (it's only a tip off a scratch) work
with aural / oral invention and imagination. All of this work is
constructed - 'language under pressure'.
As to 'the old surrealist depths' I remember jotting down a quote of
Margaret Thatcher's "I will delve deeply into the surface of things" -
seems to take care of that. She should have recorded 'Feelings' it would
have been sincere.
Any thoughts ?
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 14:05:57 +1100
Reply-To: Ann Louise Vickery <avickery@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ann Louise Vickery <avickery@ARIEL.UCS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Boy Talk
Delurking /Delousing/Coming Clean
Having only joined the poetics list a short time ago, I have followed the
gender trouble (let's get out of the old binaries of boys vs girls at
least) discussion with great interest. It seems that the concurrent
discussion on the relationship between theory and practice would be more
interesting if it passed beyond rather than below the abstract limbo
stick to speak in terms of greater specificity-which aspects of practice
have been institutionalized, which aspects are still excluded from the
academies, can this be linked to trends in pedagogic practice such as the
teaching of certain theories over others or how they are taught in
relation to poetry. I have appreciated the comments of Kali Tal (hello
Kali!) as well as all the other women who have contextualized gender problems on
poetics list from their own perspective.
At this point, I would like to "delurk" and try to articulate my own
politics of location. I am a Melbournian doctoral student (with no
affiliation with A=R=I=T=M=E=T=R=I=C=K and who has eaten lanolin-free
Hokey Pokey icecream and lived to tell the tale) who is researching ways in
which contemporary poetry contributes to feminist cultural practice. I
also teach a course on postmodernism which has such items as the Hoover
anthology and Laurie Anderson on its syllabus. I am interested in the
challenge that the internet offers both in terms of poetic community
formation and discursive horizons.
It is not surprising that the net creates its own disciplinization and
exclusion effects; rather we should be asking how these can be changed.
Although statistics are the fool's creditcard, my information was that
women make up only 5% of the population who use the net. So the poetics
list is obviously attracting women to enter its space. The question then
arises as to which women and how they engage with the net both as a
medium and as a practice. Being Australian, I am speaking on the margins
as a not-so-dutiful daughter to the many on the list who are or have been
associated with Language poetry in one way or another. Yet, as part of
the university, access to the list was easier for me than it is for many
Australian women who are interested in contemporary poetry and poetics
but who feel isolated. The net is one way in which such isolation can be
dissolved.
From my Asian-Pacific position, I cannot contribute to matters
of US funding and I feel that much of what is discussed on the poetics
list has a localized politics of which I am uninformed. However, I feel
that such a connection is invaluable-whether taken up in more active ways
or not(my lurking is not necessarily passive and can be tactical). I am
therefore content to "listen in on" than query much of what goes on in
the list. That's all I'll say for now if not just for another voice and
two cents in the debate.
Thanks,
Ann Vickery
P.S. Given that most ocker slang derives from a cockney origin, perhaps
it is fitting that our convict past has furnished us with the world's
first musical icecream.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:37:14 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David McAleavey <dmca@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU>
Subject: community request
I'm grateful to Ron Silliman for propelling me to this list back in
December. I've lurked, feeling peripheral, but have a request I'd like
your help with.
One story about the value of poetry says that its meaning is like the
meaning of money: not an intrinsic value, only a value of exchange. The
greater the community-building involved, the more valuable the poetry
which is the basis of that exchange. I learned this idea in fact from
Ron, though my formulation is not his, I don't think.
I'd like to consider this idea, now, more seriously, and am hoping that
some of you will have suggestions for me of things to read, problems to
grapple with, other issues.
The context for my question is that I'm interested in doing a
nearly-sociological study of how poetry is actually used (in the specimen
case of the Washington DC area, though I'd hope with relevance to other
physical communities). There's an anxiety I suppose everybody writing
poetry has grappled with, about the value to others of the enterprise,
and it seems to me that if there were some new ways of talking about the
varied applications and, I guess you could say, "community-significances"
of the poems themselves it might be useful.
So I'm pretty shamelessly asking for help, asking to pick your brains on
this.
Since so few of you know me at all either in person or by name, I should
say by way of intro that, having done a PhD dissertation (1975) on
Oppen's poetry, I am teaching, and have been since 1974, at George
Washington University in DC.
A postscript: I've broken silence finally because the gender issues being
raised, as well as the issues of time and focus raised by Marjorie Perloff
and others, seem to focus on the status of this list too as a community,
and I thought perhaps you might all be already really thinking of this
subject.
Thanks -- David McAleavey
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:45:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: e-ager posters
Sometimes you just go through deleting everything that isn't
by someone whom you feel you must read in each address, and
that's just the way it is. It is not necessary to digest
completely what's on a listserv to get something out of it
and to find it possible to give something to it. Other times,
less often to be sure, one reads each post carefully - that's
the way you want to spend your time that time.
I don't think there's anything to do, either, about people
getting excited and dashing off fuzzy paragraphs to each
other. My sense is that imposing an order of division or
of personal discipline will not change anything.
It is true that the number of posts is daunting, especially
if god forbid you take off 3-4 days. I do wish, but there's
nothing to do to make it so, that people would think thru
what they are about to say; if it really doesn't amount
to much, it's always possible to wait for another day.
Tom Mandel
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 23:46:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1...
I agree with James about dividing the list into two categories, and it would
appear that category #2 (discussions of issues) will simply require the sort
of judgment which several people are urging that people use in the present
list. A matter of consideration for others. Let's go with the plan.
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:05:21 -0600
Reply-To: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poetry, Media,
but I don't want to talk about Funding right now
In-Reply-To: <2f4d24c547a1002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Everyone who has commented on this list about the NY Times Magazine
article on poetry by Dinitia Smith has laughed at or otherwise critized
the treatment of language poetry, and the choices used to represent it. I
agree entirely, but I must admit that the article made me consider that
its treatment of other issues in poetry, such as cronyism, awards to
friends, control by Academy of American Poets, etc., a treatment with
which I might find myself in agreement, must have been equally
ridiculous. I don't know if I applaud Stephen for "turning off the lite"
and not reading it, or if I think there was a curious delight in reading
something so totally ludicrous.
As to James Sherry's suggestion about dividing into two lists, I'm not so
sure. I have responded and become involved in conversations where posts
seemed private. I also would wonder about decisions as to an "a" and a
"b" list. I greatly value the growing divergence of views, particularly
as represented in "boy talk" posts and in Gary Sullivan's energetic,
thoughtful, and informative posts, some of which are directed personally
at Marjorie or Charles or Mark or me or others (Thanks, Gary, for
information on John Thorpe, whose work I don't know, and for making my
picture of "e.g." more clear). I have found value in many of your posts,
James, which were ostensibly responses to specific individuals and
addressed to them as such. I liked the characterization of
this floating conversation nexus as Cris Cheek put it --
"I find this space as Tom Mandel described it to be 'a pleasant whirlwind' in
which a variety of agendas appear to circle and sample each other with some
variety of speeds of address and attention. The cafe, the bar, the club,
the coffee break at the conference, the chance encounter between the
supermarket shelves, the heated discussion in the corner shop, the after
hours philosophising and more all seems to breand here. I'm curious - it's
seems full of new potential. It feels like a localised conversation of
distances."
Let's keep the whilrwind moving. If there was a division into two areas,
I could see a value in one part being posts of conferences, lists of
available books, and no conversation whatsoever, and the other being the
conversations, no matter how widely or narrowly directed, no matter how
central or tangential they seem to the list as a whole.
all best,
charles alexander
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 21:03:45 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Hokey Pokey
In-Reply-To: <199502240334.TAA14560@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Tony Green" at Feb
24, 95 11:24:20 am
Okey dokey!
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 21:06:00 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Siva Brahman
In-Reply-To: <199502240435.UAA18569@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Tony Green" at Feb
24, 95 08:39:56 am
Last time I saw Sandra Brahman she was moving her left arm and her
right arm and her left arm and her right arm and her left arm and her
right arm all about.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 21:33:19 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Quote
In-Reply-To: <199502220435.UAA17893@whistler.sfu.ca> from "David" at Feb 21,
95 04:16:26 pm
The way I heard it was
After Auschwitz there can be no poetry.
gb
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 21:42:03 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Tapeworm puts poetry village on the map
In-Reply-To: <199502220444.UAA18380@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Greg Keith" at Feb
21, 95 02:32:17 pm
That's no news about the giant tapeworm fopund in Buffalo; Benji has
been, to literary people, known for years. Chas Bernstein raised
benji since he was a pup, and a truer pet was never known. Charles
even brought Benji to a conference in Calgary 2 years ago, and it is
no easy thing to being a half-grown tapeworm across the canadian
border. The poets converged in Calgary took to Benji, and fed him; in
fact they vied for the opportunity to feed him. Benji is particularly
fond of Lacanian case histories.
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Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 22:09:12 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Lang Po?
In-Reply-To: <199502170849.AAA20967@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Tony Green" at Feb
17, 95 01:40:52 pm
This scribe called Lang Po that I occasionally hear about here---is
he perhaps related to Li Po ?
Li Po, as many know, drank some, and in fact drowned while reaching
into a stream for the reflection of a basketball.
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 02:48:13 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, separate bodies
In-Reply-To: <199502221528.AA22274@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu>
Hello "everyone"--
I'm tuning in kind of late here on the boy-talk/theory thread, but in
response to Gary Sullivan's observation that Mina Loy, Gertrude Stein, and
Djuna Barnes didn't "provide separate bodies of critical writings," I
feel that I must point out that (depending of course on how we are
defining bodies here!) Mina Loy did. In the mid twenties she felt so
compelled to draw out the theoretical implications of Stein's aesthetic
that she pressed the word 'deconstruction' into circulation-- this was in
Ford's transatlantic. And I think the entire notion of 'deconstruction'
(in the parisian, sixties ense of the word) was intelligible to her
because of the way her sense of sex politics shaped her aesthetic from
the beginning.
Gary Sullivan's observation interests me though because it leads me to
wonder-- what "counts" as theory? If I can use Barnes' article about how
it feels to be forcibly fed (as she allowed herself to be, in sympathy
for the British suffragists) as a way of reading her work, then doesn't
it stand as theory? Maybe these writers theorized in ways that are still
invisible to too many of us. (That comment really is a general one, and
not directed against Gary Sullivan, who raised the question well)
I think it was Naomi Schor who figured out that Freud didn't believe
women could theorize.... that what we supposedly do instead is construct
paranoid observations based on the repressed or projected (but in any case,
apparently intellectually stifling) experience of our own bodies...Loy
was forced to write an epic in response to this sort of thing.
More in a minute!
--Marisa Januzzi
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 00:55:06 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "GERI L. BAUMBLATT" <gbaumbla@DU.EDU>
Subject: Re: subscribing to Poetics list
In-Reply-To: <199501071709.KAA02967@phoebe.cair.du.edu> from "Charles
Bernstein" at Jan 7, 95 12:10:46 pm
Hello-
Ann Lauterbach and I attempted to send you a message last night, and
this morning I found it was undelivered. Ann is currently in Denver
for the quarter and would like to be added to the poetics list. Her
e-mail address is alauterb@du.edu
I'll give her your correct e-mail address tomorrow, but I wasnted to
be sure that she was added as soon as possible.
Many thanks!
p.s. Please tell Susan Howe that her students at Denver miss her.
--Geri Lynn
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 03:08:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Kenneth Koch and the New York School
In-Reply-To: <199502221528.AA22274@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu>
...Hello again,
It was unimaginative of me, I know, but I couldn't figure out how to
connect the Girl-talk/theory thread with Kenneth Koch... which leads to
the question I would like, in all seriousness, to ask: does he have
female readers? I am very interested in the relative lack of discussion
about New York School poets (a few exceptions aside) at conferences, and
here too. Tenney Nathanson brought up the lineage question (what did
they do that hasn't been picked up by language poets) and the *question
itself* wasn't even picked up. I'm wondering if it's in part because of
the apparent sexual politics of, for instance, Koch's stories (and his
ART OF LOVE). Or is it a generational blind spot?
KK is about to turn 70 (!), and a celebration reading/performance is
being planned for March 23, 7:00PM, in New York City.... yours truly is
curating the food. Anyone interested in participating in some way, or
anyone wishing more information, can contact me at <jma5@columbia.edu>.
Meanwhile I continue to admire his recent two collections with a lot of
unanswered questions surfing the brain.
Has anyone else picked up Anne Porter's work, by the way? I'm not sure
she would have wide appeal among members of the list, but I was surprised
and moved by her stuff, the way I was when I first found Schuyler.
that's all she wrote
--Marisa
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:35:43 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest
I'm confused, not having seen James' post about dividing the list into
categories. What's the proposal? How will it work? Who is going to decide
what is and what isn't an issue? It looks a very slippery slope to me!
Not having been able to read what must have been a serious discussion I'm
curious as to what the benefits can be. And isn't it true that sometimes
hot issues emerge from the pan-handling of what appears to be nothing more
than playful chit-chat? Jokes and deliberate (nay wilful) misunderstandings
can provide unexpected impetus for flight / engagement. But is this more an
instance of net flight -, establishing a compound safe from the rabble at
the gates?
cris
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:35:33 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: New Flavours
Re - Ann Louise Vickery's post on Hokey Pokey being the first musical ice
cream, wasn't it pipped to the cone by the Tutti Fruitti?
cris
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:43:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest
I'm with Chris Cheek, and think "dividing" the list wd only "multiply"
the problem.
One firm suggestion: puh-lease send private notes privately. This alone
wd make the list easier to handle. Moreover, if a discussion turns out
to be between you and one or two other folks, send messages among
yourselves if you can bear not to place your message before this
public.
That was more than one suggestion. Here's a final one: consider
carefully whether the funny remark you are about entropize electrons
with is really likely to be so received among the several dozen other
puns on hokeypokey, etc. (I am sure I am as guilty as anyone, btw).
Restraint in these areas would lighten the load, clarify the focus
of the list, and make my life at least a little easier to manage
in this particular.
But, lets not divide a thing all the same.
Tom Mandel
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:48:09 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: John Thorpe
How great that John Thorpe's work should come up on the list.
I read Cargo Cult in awe when it first appeared. When I was
Director of the Poetry Center at SFSU, Thorpe was one of my
first choices to read. Please find and absorb his work.
Tom Mandel
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:56:43 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: More discipline
In-Reply-To: <9502241346.AA21218@jazz.epas.utoronto.ca> from "Tom Mandel" at
Feb 24, 95 08:43:40 am
I definitely think more discipline is in order. Perhaps we should
assign some police to make sure that the personal is kept out of here.
Especially warm or fuzzy personal stuff. Please, keep it hard,
precise, and penetrating.
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:47:41 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: That Talmudic Range
The exraordinary intellectual stimulation of Talmudic study comes from
the need to try to develop logical or linear coherence out of the record
of an oral conversation -- topics in the Talmud move easily from
questions of Shabbat practice to the issue of whether or not giving the
infant oatmeal will make it stop crying.... (Of course, study of Talmud
is an oral practice of the study of an oral text, despite all that
emphasis about being "of the book"....).
Let's keep our richness on the poetics list and not divide it.
Sandra Braman
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 08:55:45 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Topical Convergence
In-Reply-To: <199502241314.AA07092@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> from "cris cheek" at Feb
24, 95 10:35:33 am
At last, all of our conversation has come together -- about the
relationship between theory and poetry, about the relationships among the
genders, and about that darned ice cream problem --
The epic poem that ought to result is called:
EVEN SHIVA DOES THE HOKEY-POKEY
Thanks, George.
Sandra
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 09:03:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <HUMAMATO@MINNA.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: e-ager posters
chris, about the "transitory" nature of this stuff: unlike paper, it's
got the potential to be around FOREVER... to be duplicated, forwarded,
copied, downloaded, what have you... it's *anything* but transitory,
though the dynamic of exchange has much to do with the feel you detail...
james: to discuss what to do with this list (and your suggestion really
amounts to starting yet another list) in these parts is to introduce another
meta-thread INTO this discussion!... this is ok with me, but i'm sure you
see that what you've done is created another topos that is likely (witness
my post, THIS POST) to cause another little stir...
by which i mean to say that EVERY list will go through this sorta thing...
even if this list bifurcates, it's very likely that somebody down the line
will propose what amounts to a change in direction (up to and including
another list)... though your suggestion SOUNDS tidier, i doubt that it
will prevent public service announcements (if you will) from being posted
ultimately to BOTH lists...
just my two bits on this... spin-offs of all sorts are always a possibility,
but they generally only 'solve' "clogging" problems by creating more traffic...
best,
joe
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:13:36 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: community request
i was walking by the elementary school the other day, near-west
(urban poor) neighborhood, and picked up a paper, a poem:
"Yo, my name is crack cocaine,
I promise you pleasure but I give you pain..."
& so on. i've seen it, or versions of it, before. doggeral.
doggeared. a xerox of a xerox of a xerox, multiple generations.
i wouldn't be surprised if it had more readers than any of the
latest from sun & moon.
i sat down in the arcade to eat my lunch last week, some kid
had left their notebook--study hall notes, doodles, and a
coupla poems she wrote...
when i was setting up the In-Yr-Ear poetry hotline a while
back, i went to radio shack to buy an answering machine. the
salesman was a big yeats fan. then, when i went to the print
shop to get business cards made up, the grandmotherly woman
at the counter admitted she write poems, "but i never showed
'em to anybody."
taproot reviews recieves about 25 publications (zines & books/
chapbooks) a week. i'm sitting in a room, w/ _7 milkcrates_ full
of incoming, to-be-reviewed books. almost none of 'em from
university affiliated presses, much less major publishers...
and i cleared out the studio of backlog about a year ago
i'm mentioning all this, 'cause the common knowledge is that the
"communities" for poetries are various factions--iowa workshop,
langpo, multiculti...--that have in common a schooled self-
awareness, and a self-definition that stands in relation to
"the mainstream", either in it or forcably excluded from it.
what yr talking about studying sounds like it might be able
to consider the place of poetry in communities in a larger
sense, beyond what's usually considered appropriate. hope
so, anyway.
allbest
luigi
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:09:50 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1...
dear james and sheila--the problem I see with dividing the list between
information and "opinion" is that the segregation that is already latent
in the current list will simply become more foregrounded. When Steve Evans
asked if he should stop posting FREELEY ESPOUSING info. on the net, the vast
majority said NO--now, if you're suggesting a segregation here, it's going
to have the same effect (it seems to me--at least no -one's suggesting a
FEE for this yet, but i expect that to come $oon enough...best chris stroffolino
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 16:07:55 WET
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: More in re: Radical Artifice
I do just want to respond a little to Gary Sullivan's remarks about
Marjorie Perloff's _Radical Artifice_, perhaps also in the context of
the girl/boy/tone discussion which, as an anti-rape activist, a consistent
grader of girls higher than boys in my classes, and a co-editor of a
British anthology of contemporary experimental women's poetry, I continue
to find Kali Tal wrongly putting me on the wrong "side" of.
Let me say first off that I agree with Gary Sullivan that Daniel
Davidson's _Product_ is a wonderful, brilliant work, so as to assure him
that I am not hiding a partisan agenda underneath my comments. More on
_Product_ in a minute. I happen to also think that _Radical Artifice_ is
a wonderful, brilliant work too - please let me add that I do usually
use such terms of real esteem sparingly. I always read Marjorie Perloff's
writing wherever I can find it. Many of her books mark and back up a
critical moment, usually in sea-changes in literary academic trends, and
they do so in such a language that they succeed (in my experience) in
appealing to the kind of mindset and rhetoric of correctness that most
academics do have, and, having got their ear, pour a little of the present
into it. Put more simply, Marjorie Perloff has always seemed to me to be
the kind of rare and invaluable university teacher who actually keeps
*updating the syllabus*, putting new books on; and what I'm trying to say
about her critical prose style is that I think it is very effective in
appealing to very static unchanging teachers to also update their syllabus.
It's hard to say how, but I think it's because she awakens the sense
of seriousness that academics should have, and usually only have in their
inflated sense of themselves. She writes, in my opinion, given this audience,
with brilliant cajoling rhetoric.
This is important work, and much more likely to succeed in getting
teachers to update their syllabus, than different kinds of rhetoric; for
example, huge sweeping generalisations against academia in general. I hope
that it might be appreciated as a subtlety that I applaud this in Marjorie
Perloff, even though I myself prefer vainglorious sweeping generalisations
against academia in general. I cannot but, after all, acknowledge the
reality; that her method works, and is professional, mine doesn't, and is
done out of selfish pleasure and despair. I hope Kalil might appreciate
that if I draw attention to myself by saying this, it is also to welcome
criticism.
The book is called _Radical Artifice_. Might not this be seen as
also describing itself, without quite so much rancor? Like all books, it has
authors it wishes to discuss, one, and wants to inaugurate a whole new
area of study, two: in this case, poetry and media, poetry as media. Of
course there won't be a tidy fit, that's what Perloff argues for all the#
authors she discusses. Instead, it has an elegant surface, and, to quote a
phrase, throws down the gauntlet: go ahead and top this, with different
authors, different critical footholds, and rival me for prose style, why
don't you? I myself find this kind of confident stylishness really
exhilarating.
If anything, _Radical Artifice_, taken as a part of a body of work,
moving from discussing Lowell and O'Hara, opening territory with Cage and
with futurism, shows a questing writer moving through and against the
dominat avant-garde of the sixties and seventies, and finally producing
her most assured and "this is my moment" work; or, as Cage found, switching
from being a strongly opinionated and ambitious student of the art seeking
out and talking to those she esteems, to becoming someone others will
esteem. In this, Perloff's journey, as I'm putting it, resembles and indeed
illuminates the Language Writers, who are after all critics as well as
poets, more as one of them than anything else. For me anyway, reading all
of Perloff's much more readily available books helped me to find a way
into Language Writing, both its "forms" and, more importantly, the culture,
the history of opposition, its writers come from.
So that it seems to me to be too harsh and mudthrowing to attack
her work in this way. Yes, there is a Sun & Moon connection, but as I am
suggesting that would be more understandable if Perloff was seen as a kinf
kind of poet-critic. Donald Davie, in England, does just the same, and
is attacked just the same, in writing his books mainly about poets from
a press on which he is an editor. But, for Heaven's sake, isn't this a
way of a critic putting money where the mouth is: not just writing about
groundbreaking writing of the past, but trying to get current groundbreakers
into print, and read? Pound would have thought so. And just as Pound and
Davie, Perloff has her favourites: Thank God, a criticism motivated by
pleasure and excitement and a feel of radical energy, instead of politcal
correctness!
This is why, as a gender-conscious writer, I am reluctant to enter
the discussion about gender we've been having; if I criticise any writer,
it is on non-sexist grounds, and yet in such an atmosphere, it won't be
seen that way. If I do have reservations about Perloff's writing, it is
that writers she dislikes (eg Larkin) get attacked in a way that seems to
use very big weapons (MacKinnon-like psychoanalytic equating of pathetic
male bravado as evidence of ... well, actually, self-hatred in a man who
didn't actually do much real harm to all the people he privately and
rhetorically fumed at; being part of New Criticism, when he hated academic
dissection of work; being "fascist" - sic - for fantasising the destruction
of all high culture, in favour of low culture; how can "fascist" mean
anything then, when Pound wanted the reverse of Larkin and is also fascist?
And reservation two would be, but this is not uncommon on this list, that
Perloff gives so little time to anarchist thinking - and Davidson's Product
seems to me to a very anarchistic book, in the sense of Prince Kropotkin
and Colin Ward. As with a lot of the writers she discusses, the politics
are often statist socialism, and the rhetoric harsh enough to storm the
bastille with. Davidson's is angry, but also not wanting to be President.
Again, I don't think either approach is wrong, and again, looked at
realistically, statist radicalism energises more people, and energised
people in a state of change is not to be sniffed at. But I would, certainly,
like to see Perloff continue to be a fascinating and impassioned critic
writing very publically, and find some room - as Davie does sometimes -
to appraise a writer with a very different strategy almost as if it was
worth believing in. Even if she doesn't, she's still a writer I will
always read, annoyed or not. I missed this sense of acknowledgement in
the attack on her. She's not the enemy, she's the energising rival.
Emotionally one may be provoked by her critical skill and wish it were
directed at one's own favourites - precisely because it's good prose. Product
is a good favourite to have, a good thing to have an emotion about, but
I suggest that, only by humbly honouring what is good about each other,
will we see that good prose written about our own favourites - by writing
in emulation of a powerful (female) contemporary, ourselves.
Ira
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:29:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: More in re: Radical Artifice
I appreciated Gary Sullivan's remarks on the lapses of MAINSTREAM Lang po
(Li Po's bastard bro) and the implications of the politics that often
surround it. And Ira lightman's notion that Gary is mistaking Perloff
as an "enemy"(if Sullivan is doing that) is well taken too. The question
all too often seems to come down to "do we bank on the 3 or 4 big names"
or do we really break down the constand Bernstein/Howe(Susan not Fanny)
appeal that is made as a kind of metonomy, synechdoche in a kind of
representative parliament of the avant-garde...of course all of this
seems contradictory in a generation who claims to be ANTI-the notion
of heroes, the trouble with genius, no cult of personalities, etc...
I've read some Davidson (they mostly have one word titles) but not the
book Sullivan's press published...I assume it's still in print....
Chris Stroffolinoz
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:59:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: e-ager posters
I agree with Tom Mandel that dividing up the posts would only fragment the
current energy that's starting to build. It's starting to get fun. It's a
good thing for people to get excited.
bluoma
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:08:19 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:35:43 +0000 from
<cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
I'm very worried that Chris is correct here; that what we might be talking
about is a kind of listserv Jim Crow. I don't think that is the intention,
but could be the result. I've seen stuff happen like this on lists before,
ie, someone complains about "the overload of irrelevancies," asks for more
"discipline," and what makes lists fun and important, the spontaneity,
the misunderstandings that lead to more productive posts, vanish.
But hey, this comes from perhaps one of those "exhibitionists,"
maybe? Maybe in some way that obviates my remarks?
Thanks, Eric.
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Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:25:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1...
ditto.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:44:06 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: RSILLIMA <rsillima@VANSTAR.COM>
Organization: Vanstar Corporation
Subject: Poetry in the community
David McAleavey is way too modest. He's been a fine poet for at least 25
years that I know of and can take credit for having published, via Ithaca
House Press, the first books of yours truly, Bob Perelman, and David
Melnick, as well as Ray DiPalma's second (Soli). In fact, I met Ray first
through that connection back when Ray still taught at Bowling Green in
Ohio. McAleavey is also the man who taught me to play chess, but that's
another story.
When I ran a writers workshop in the Tenderloin in SF (1979-81),
something on the order of 250 different people would attend one or more
sessions, usually with work in hand, over the course of a year. (There
was a core group of maybe 40 people, 25 of whom could be counted on to
show up every week.) They ranged in age from 14 to upper 70s (one had
been a student of Zukofsky's at SF State in '58), all races, sexual
orientations (there were at least 6 represented), lifestyles, as they
say. Some, like Bob Harrison (Hi, Bob), Marsha Campbell and Mary
Tallmountain have done considerable publishing. One fellow (I'm blanking
on the name) worked on an article that was eventually published in Mother
Jones exposing the presence of PCBs in telephone transformers and
outlining their toxic implications. Bob Holman once attended a session
while visiting SF during which two of the writers had a serious
disagreement over the details of Santeria and put hexes on one another.
As a result of another incident, the workshop adopted a no guns in class
rule. It was that kind of scene. Kit Robinson ran the same workshop after
I left, as did John Mason. (And Erica Hunt was on the board of directors
for awhile before she moved to NYC.) It's still happening I believe,
every Wednesday night at Hospitality House, 146 Leavenworth, SF.
What impressed me most was how writing (poetry and fiction mostly, but
not exclusively) was being used by the people in the workshop. It was
very close to Paulo Friere (I probably just butchered that, sorry) and
his use of photography as outlined in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Writing
provided a form and focus for thinking through their lives in a critical
(in the best sense of that word) fashion. Furthermore, 250 represented
over one percent of the entire community.
It's important to remember that the Tenderloin is one of the poorest
neighborhoods on the west coast (and has been transformed considerably
since I worked there), so these folks in general didn't have a lot of
toys and other distractions (very few were involved in family or even
significantly bonded relationships). But any time you have one percent of
a community writing, it's worth thinking through. The work ranged all
over the map in style and general sophistication and I ran into a couple
of real lumpen writers who were doing amazing things that, to this day,
I've never seen anywhere else (I'm thinking of Harley Kohler and Spider
James Taylor, whom Kit and Erica at least know) and whom to this day have
barely ever been published.
I wonder if I would have gotten one percent in a more rural (or even
suburban) setting. Out where I work in Southeastern Alameda County,
there's only one visible literary movement: romance novelists. There are
between 20 and 24 publishing romance novelists out here, who will all be
happy to tell you that 40 percent of all paperback books bought and sold
are in their genre. They range between Christian Fundamentalist
"housewives" (that's a self-designation) to a biker couple out in
Livermore. Since I don't read that genre, I can't tell you a lot more,
but I get a sense that for them a magazine like Writers Digest is a
living tool in a way that no poet has ever found it.
But whenever/wherever I travel, I come across local writing communities
that suggest that something much like this use of the written word is
very widespread just beneath the surface. Certainly a look at the poetry
items on the Usenet groups suggests that a dimension is going on there as
well. One percent of the US population is over 2,000,000 people. So it
wouldn't shock me at all to discover that one million really do write,
maybe half of them writing poems. If Jimmy Carter's writing poems, who
isn't? (And yes, Marjorie, I want you to read ALL of it.)
This is where the "clubbiness" of so much of the "world" of the poetry as
outlined in the NYT seems completely nuts.(Charles Alexander is
completely right about that.) And why even worrying about a failed
institution like the Times seems ultimately a waste of breath. There is a
hell of a lot of poetry out there. And, under the right conditions,
there's an audience for almost all of it. Amen!
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:57:12 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jennifer Theresa Raney <Jennifer.Theresa.Raney@DIRECTORY.REED.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, separate bodies
I'm dropping into this conversation very late, but something caught my eye:
The question of a distinct body of critical, theoretical, or prescriptive
writings in a poet's work makes me proceed with caution...but as long as we
are on the subject of Loy, Barnes, Stein, I wondered what Gary Sullivan
(excuse me if I'm misdirecting this response) thought about Loy's
"International Psycho-Democracy," "The Artist and the Public," "Phenomenon
in American Art," or her many Aphorisms or "Feminist Manifesto," as well as
the essay on Stein mentioned by Marisa Januzzi? Although I am infinitely
more interested in the theoretical implications of work such as "Brancusi's
Golden Bird" or "Love Songs," the examples above are clearly
self-consciously didactic statements. I would agree with Marisa Januzzi that
the social dimensions of Loy's work feed her aesthetic sensibilities. "What
counts as theory?" --certainly "Love Songs to Joannes" or "Anglo-Mongrels and
the Rose"! But...how could one say that Loy has no separate theoretical
body??? In Roger Conover's edition of The Last Lunar Baedeker, he even
portions out several works under such a title in the table of contents...
Jennifer Raney
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:52:02 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: McAleavey: community
Feb. 24, 1995
Dear David McAleavey,
Your post on community and poetry interests me a great deal: the issue
you foreground is similar, in fact, to a dissertation topic i'm working
on: poetry/storytelling/moral law/community. It'll be a few more months
before i actually start to approach the thing concretely; however, i do
know that i want to focus on bpNichol's long poem THE MARTYROLOGY. i
think it's an excellent text which raises new questions re the relation
between theory & practice, theory/praxis, and interdisciplinarity
, as well as questions of community, communal, sacred & visionary.
i'm very interested in hearing more about your work-
-and looking forward to meeting you in the machine, so to speak
Take care,
Carl Peters
PS: hope this message gets to you without any distortions. i'm new to the
system and its one i haven't really felt comfortable with nonetheless
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:15:13 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: RSILLIMA <rsillima@VANSTAR.COM>
Organization: Vanstar Corporation
Subject: List management
Dividing the list won't improve what ends up in my to-be-read box on my
receiving system at all, just increase the number of sources I get mail
from. I also wouldn't be especially happy w/ a list moderator system
(like the Sixties List has, for example). The Sixties List for example
has kept off messages about the NEH battle, partly because it's not "on
topic" but really I suspect more because a professional rightwinger like
David Horowitz is on the list, ready to pounce on any "misuse" of an
"edu" domain. I appreciate the contentious nature of some of the messages
on the Poetics List and wish only that a broader community of poets were
here and active.
Someone mentioned a New Formalist listserv awhile back. Does anybody have
subscription info to that? Inquiring minds want to know.
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 11:06:59 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jennifer Theresa Raney <Jennifer.Theresa.Raney@DIRECTORY.REED.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mina Loy
P.S. While on the subject:
Does anyone know to what "Q H U" refers in section 19 of Loy's "Love Songs to
Joannes"?
JRaney
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:08:33 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: RSILLIMA <rsillima@VANSTAR.COM>
Organization: Vanstar Corporation
Subject: NY School
A compleat map/geneology (can't decide whether I prefer a spatial or
temporal metaphor here) of the NY School would probably take about 10
dissertations to get half accurate.
I'm always amazed at how individual poets (including individual "NY
School" poets) seem to draw the lines. I've never seen two the same. Not
even remotely.
I've heard arguments, like the one Darrell Gray used to make, that you
couldn't "get" O'Hara until you saw how he extended the work of David
Schubert, whose work came back into print awhile ago thanks to Ted Weiss.
And at Naropa last summer I met students who had taken classes on the NY
School who'd NEVER even read Koch. And had not heard him mentioned in the
course (at least so they said, and they were not what Ginsberg refers to
as the "chemical derangement of the senses" students either).
One thing does seem clear: it is the only one of the so-called New
American Poetries that has maintained a sense of unbroken
intergenerational continuity over close to half a century. That's pretty
amazing. But I'm not sure what it means.
My theory is this: it means that the "first generation" didn't actively
halt or stomp on the second one (FOH was dead, Ashbery still in Europe,
Schuyler a recluse and Koch seems to have been actively supportive of
younger poets) and once a more diverse scene was established, nobody was
in control and something like a laisez farie democracy ensued. Permission
and support is actually a pretty good model on how to behave toward
younger poets. It doesn't hurt when the younger people are as forceful as
Anne Waldman or Ted Berrigan either.
At my 3,000+ mile distance, I got my sense of the scene most constantly
through Tom Clark's Paris Review editing (which to this day still seems
to me to be the most significant contribution he's made), not realizing
that he was not in NYC and that some of his pals (Clark Coolidge for one)
weren't either. More than any of the anthologies or more local mags, it's
the image I still carry in my head.
I know people who love Koch and people who can't stand him but who
consider themselves "NYS" influenced. Personally, I think _When the Sun
Tries to Go On_ is one of the great longpoems of the 20th century, but
I'm more ambivalent about the broader satirical pieces. I think we have a
different sense of baseball.
W/ my own lumpen background, I just don't "get" some of the influences on
NY School poets (esp. in the first generation) from, for example, British
and/or American academic poets (Auden, Bishop) etc and from musical
theater. Ashbery, for one, never seems to have worried about his
relationship to the Pound/WCW tradition and that distance from what I
(especially as an anxious youngster, ready to "take sides") saw as the
more rigorous post-Olsonian attempts at articulating a social theory of
the line. They just didn't seem to worry about theory. (In fact, worry
isn't a major theme in their work as I think it is for several of us, tho
I'm not sure what to make of this either, tho I'm a little envious.)
One thing I see today when I think of "NY School" is that there are a lot
of women empowered within its tradition, such as Lee Ann Brown and Eileen
Myles, and that it still seems to be evolving, interesting and sometimes
quite powerful.
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
rsillima@vanstar.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 17:45:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "B. Cass Clarke" <V080G6J3@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Golden Whip
X-cc: mboughn@epas.utoronto.edu
Dear Mike, all,
Since the dogs have answered the call to circle the sheep and
get them off the lawn, a 911 is belated. Her golden whip is more
effective than any show of male erected wit.
B. Cass Clarke
V080g6j3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 18:20:48 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: keith tuma <KWTUMA@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>
Subject: second
Here's another request for subscription information on the New Formalist
list. I want to slink on over there and lurk for awhile.
--keith tuma
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 15:31:27 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: List management
In-Reply-To: <199502242210.OAA01148@slip-1.slip.net>
I agree with Tom Mandel and others that the List should not be divided.
People should police themselves, try to be aware that weeding thru all
this is a problem for everyone.
Spencer Selby
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 15:40:22 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: A Cockney Sparrow
In-Reply-To: <199502240414.UAA12368@slip-1.slip.net>
Dear Tony Green:
If you want to define theory that broadly, then we have less
argument--none in terms as you've extended my statement about
"anticipation." I personally think this is where poetics and theory don't
overlap. Where poetics is but theory isn't would be the most necessary
area to me--and the least dangerous.
Spencer
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 16:09:51 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Stephen Galen Cope <scope@UCSCB.UCSC.EDU>
Subject: Charles takes young prince and princess fox-hunting
Subject: Charles takes young prince and princess fox-hunting
Copyright: 1999 by The Anti-Hegemony Project
Date: 24 Oct 99 01:30:00 EST
Lines: 20
BUFFALO (AHP) - Heir to the throne Prince Charles took
his young son Gary and daughter Cass hunting yesterday, defying
popular disapproval to initiate them into a traditional poetic
pastime.
``I think anyone who knows anything about the history of
poetry can tell you, the skills necessary for tracking and killing
an animal are similar to those required for ruling the Imagination,''
said Yunte Huang, a spokesman for the Prince.
``It was ... like shooting fish in a barrel,'' gushed the
excited princess. ``I wanna go out again.''
The royal trio were lashed by rain for several hours as they
rode with the down-jacketed Poetics Hunt across rolling hills near
Charles' country estate, The Fountainview Apartments, in Amherst.
Group bleari.nooz.poesy available: 1848 - 1917 unread: 0
article 1917 6-NOV-1999 12:00:00
Gary, 10, and Cass, 12, have ridden at earlier meets but
devotees of the sport said this was their first full-fledged
critic hunt.
Charles, often accused of being out of touch with
contemporary developments in poetry, has insisted his heirs should
learn to hunt despite the anger of opponents who say the sport is
bloodthirsty and cruel.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 17:55:02 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 21 Feb 1...
In-Reply-To: <199502241932.LAA07714@ferrari.sfu.ca> from "Chris Stroffolino"
at Feb 24, 95 11:09:50 am
Oh, FREELEY Espousing!
I thought it was CREELEY Espousing!
Sorry--
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 18:07:18 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Topical Convergence
In-Reply-To: <199502241508.HAA15459@whistler.sfu.ca> from "braman sandra" at
Feb 24, 95 08:55:45 am
Okay, Sandra, let's get that epic p[oem started:
"And then went down to the ice cream parlour,
Set paddles to Pokey, girls & boys, a godly C, and
We set up housekeeping, and sail on a sweat shirt . . . .
===or maybe this whole session has been epical.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 18:08:52 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: More discipline
In-Reply-To: <199502241438.GAA13745@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Michael Boughn" at
Feb 24, 95 08:56:43 am
I think that M. Bone is right.
Let's whip these users into shape.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 01:25:53 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Waples <twaples@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Formalist list?
In-Reply-To: <9502242211.AA32372@dept.english.upenn.edu> from "RSILLIMA" at
Feb 24, 95 11:15:13 am
According to RSILLIMA:
>
>
> Someone mentioned a New Formalist listserv awhile back. Does anybody have
> subscription info to that? Inquiring minds want to know.
>
Ron & others,
I'm guessing you mean CAP-L (Contemp. Amer. Poetry), which is moderated
by Richard Abowitz. The address to subscribe is:
listserv@vm1.spcs.umn.edu
I lasted about a month, then just couldn't take it any more. It's all yours!
Tim Waples
twaples@english.upenn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 22:48:24 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: theory & truth
In-Reply-To: <199502121700.JAA02665@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Donald J. Byrd" at
Feb 12, 95 10:33:33 am
"The Pen is mightier than the theory"
-- Pessoa
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 01:39:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: NY School
dear ron---thank you for taking up on marissa's NYS post. There's many
questions I'm interested. The assumptiomn that NYS poets don't worry???
There is the sense of the "laissez faire" Ashbery, the failure to write
"critical (non-poetic) prose", the question of the relation to the Pound-
Williams tradition (which is a whole other question---though I hear much
talk of it, and Marjorie Perloff's perception that hardly anyone is both
deeply engaged with both POUND AND STEVENS is interesting---One thing here
is that instead of Pound and Williams as the "forward looking" and Stevens
and Eliot as the "backward looking" of those "big 4" male modernists, there
is an equally valid contention that Stevens and Williams are the more
"forward looking" and Pound and Eliot "backward"--to say nothing of Loy,
Moore, Stein, Riding...but I DIGRESS)...
Anyway, reading Auden lately it's clearer and clearer to me his debt to
Riding (stylistically if not sensibility wise)...and Riding (who Ashbery
claimed among the three biggest Am.
nfluences) is as rigorously THEORETICAL
(though that's not quite the MOT JUSTE) as Pound. In fact, contrasting
THREE POEMS with THE TELLING (published less than a year apart) could be
a very illuminating academic paper (hint, hint). I'm only "scratching the
surface" but i'll shut up now. But, there IS a nother question that has
been on my mind, RON, since you posted your NEW YEAR'S NOTE invoking Leanne.
I'm curious why you consider her a NEW YORK SCHOOL poet? It can't be quite
the "historical" reason Tom gave for calling himself a LANG PO? Is it because
she was IN NYC? Is Waldman a NYS poet? She's not (historically) a beat? But
what does one call those who address the same issues the beats did but are
not males with gottees and bongoes (as Jerome Sala would point out)? Not
that this name game really matters (i feel silly quibbling about it) but
I am curious about how "affiliations" are constructed from the outside in.
Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 12:03:31 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: WILLIAM NORTHCUTT <William.Northcutt@UNI-BAYREUTH.DE>
Subject: Re: second
Before anyone hands out the New Formalist list so that Keith Tuma can
"lurk" over there for a while, remember that he is a 400 lb ogre, stalking
the manicured lawns of Miami U. Dana Gioia might not be able to find a
ready form for handling such a thing.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 08:32:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: Loy, Stein etc.
It's interesting that the recent posts from Gary Sullivan, Jennifer
Raney, Chris Stroffolino, etc. citing modernist women writers have all
omitted reference to H.D. Why is this? (I'm really not trying to guilt
anyone into including her, I'm just interested in why she has (once
again) been excluded.) Any answers? (Keeping in mind the significance
of repression and omission).
Best,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 14:35:36 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: WILLIAM NORTHCUTT <William.Northcutt@UNI-BAYREUTH.DE>
Subject: Re: Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, separate bodies
Since Mina Loy seems to be so popular on this list, is it possible that
some of our co-lister publishers might take it upon him/her/itself to
republish the Last Lunar B? Trying to get a copy of this has given me a
feeling of frustration comparable to Pound's frustration over not being
able to find a cheap edition of Martin Van Buren.
william.northcutt@uni-bayreuth.d400.de
"I am lost in these trousers / And empire." --Louis Zukofsky's "A"
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 01:25:05 +1100
Reply-To: Ann Louise Vickery <avickery@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ann Louise Vickery <avickery@ARIEL.UCS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Stein, Loy, H.D, et al
I'm afraid that at the time I entered my message I had not read Gary
Sullivan's posting fully because its subject title was regarding Sun and Moon.
As I'm a subscriber to four fairly busy lists, I tend to skim through a lot
of messages then sit down and go through the ones that might be of
interest when I have more time. I realize now that I should have read
your posting more fully as you were converging the issues in a way that I
hoped somebody would. This is probably a bit out of date now but I
thought I should apologize.
As far as earlier experimental writers (not necessarily women) who bring
up feminist issues in their writing, Gary covered many of the women
that are already fairly institutionalized on academic courses (and H.D.
was also mentioned-thanks).
Perhaps it are those who are not so well known that also need to be mentioned
if not just for revising the poetic map. Although Lorine Niedecker never
wrote any essays as far as I know on theory in the same way that Stein or
Loy did, her letters are full of her debating the feminist implications
that certain directions in poetry may hold (Daphne Marlatt's vs Jean
Daive minimalism for instance). Perhaps it is because she was on the edge of
what has since been seen as a "movement" that she has been recently recovered,
whereas there are many other writers who still remain forgotten-women who
did not have the support network that people like Stein and Niedecker
did. How many indigenous North American women writers have been
mentioned on this list, let alone from other non-European and
non-American countries? In the 1920s in Australia, Lesbia Harford was
exploring the relationship between class and gender through her poetry in
ways that overlap with Niedecker and others. Yet, she remains largely
unknown not only here but elsewhere. She's just one that I
thought I'd mention.
I also apologize for my icecream 'melt'-we have the NZ icecream co over
here & I might have discovered hokey pokey icecream through it. What
came first-tutti frutti or hokey pokey might be more a question of which
came first-the chicken or the banana peel. I would also like to put a
vote towards keeping the list together-at least for now. I don't know
quite how you could toughen up on moderating the list-how have other
lists handled the problem? Does anyone know?
Ann
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 15:11:24 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: community: questions from what floor
Feel strongly that it would be wrong to split or police this discussion.
Apologies if any interventions from this quarter have been read as
ill-judged (probably were) or contributed to what sense there is of waste.
Genuinely fascinated by the nature of this medium, cf. Cris Cheek's
succinct summary of its virtues and possibilities, (already quoted). The
cocktail, book-launch, preview party is an apt metaphor, as much for the
implied power/gender structures as for the indication of a likely tone.
And the gallery is in the background, behind the chit-chat and idle banter
with some fine works to be viewed over a quiet drink once you are cut loose
from some particular conversation (although here the situation and the talk
are the works). The latter image pertinent because one of the valued and
to-be-defended aspects of visiting, say, a gallery is the ability to move
past art works at high velocity dismissing whatever at the time seems
irrelevant, distasteful or plain bad -- in the not-so-secret knowledge that
what you are dismissing may be (is) important, interesting even great work.
No one is forced to attend to anything in a gallery space and DOS forbid
that they ever should be.
Just so, our mailboxes are clogged but we have the power to empty them as
necessary or desirable. Decisions like that should be left as close to the
grassroots as possible, as a matter of principle.
Finally, in this discussion surely the ludic, the occasional piece/fragment
of poetics, parody, whatever is not only to be expected but encouraged,
allowed to become a integrated part of the more usual discursive
contributions? No, personal letters (unless they are open) shouldn't be
posted (it can be embarrassing) but if you didn't overhear something like
their contents from time to time it would spoil atmosphere of the party.
You want to be someone else or to become part of the process.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 08:33:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Loy, Stein etc.
In-Reply-To: <199502251334.GAA13015@mailhost.primenet.com>
Dear Michael:
Touche'. Personally speaking, I didn't bring her up because: (a) I haven't
read enough of her work to feel comfortable doing that; (b) others
(notably Barbara Guest) have written extensively about her; and (c)
because I haven't yet started to read her work, I didn't know if she was
appropriate to bring up in the context in which I brought up Loy, Stein &
Barnes.
While I've got you here, Michael: loved your "Well, sometimes you get
there and sometimes/ the there gets you, a simple fact of how/ turns it,
a space of shifting constellations// at war with the mill"--from your
series of poems in the new _First Intensity_. Very nice, that; liked the
whole series, actually.
Gary Sullivan __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
On Sat, 25 Feb 1995, Michael Boughn wrote:
> It's interesting that the recent posts from Gary Sullivan, Jennifer
> Raney, Chris Stroffolino, etc. citing modernist women writers have all
> omitted reference to H.D. Why is this? (I'm really not trying to guilt
> anyone into including her, I'm just interested in why she has (once
> again) been excluded.) Any answers? (Keeping in mind the significance
> of repression and omission).
>
> Best,
> Mike
> mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 10:42:12 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: kathryne lindberg <KLINDBE@WAYNEST1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: theory
In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 18 Feb 1995 12:43:54 -0600 from
<s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
My disk has been full and has prevented me from responding for some time.
Anyway, I have to note that Larry Grossberg speaking of doing
pure theory must provoke peels of laughter. My goodness.
There is also something laughable about this talk of boy vs girl//
theory vs practice. I suppose there might be no escaping certain
essential desires to repeat the same old shit, but really!!!
It was not any particular woman who exposed Freud's misogyny, he wrote it
there for all to see. Furthermore, Hegel's bold statement that neither
women nor Blacks could DO philosophy was hardly unprecedented. What can
one say to such statements? It seems to me that they speak their own
hysteria. I became aware recently of how sad this state of affairs remains
when, in a theory group I was leading, I said, "well, one is tired of
white boys business as usual." One of my male colleagues, feeling
interpellated, it seems, said that he didn't like being referred to as
a boy. Shit, the things that remain unquestioned!!!! I would hope, in
any case, that ideas about policing the list that appear in such words as
those I read in a post my Michael Boughn (pronounced Bone, I would say)
that one should "get some police" in order to keep the list "hard,
precise, penetrating" would be read as both high parody and hysteria.
Moments like that, even just the sound of, "police," "precise," "penetrating"
over the supposedly eviscerated electronic net, would be argument enough to
open the list--even if, as one bro. suggested, one decides to read
only the postings from the "names" one knows to be guantors of interesting
stuff.A cop with a big cock, who could resist? Who among us would cast. . .
In any case, theory aside, I have noticed that certain sorts of behaviors are
expected by women, others suspect. I wonder, though, how the name or
category WOMEN seems again so clear. This list, if I may say so, seems
to have fallen for several rather worn labels and strategies. I was
especially struck, after so many interesting (??) postings about poetry
and the "public" to see a suggestion that certain things should be
kept off or in another list; that some things should not be put
before "the public." Is this list now the long lamented absent public.
Funny, too, that public should also devolve to PUBIK, as Ted Joans might
pun.
Oh, sorry. Puns, let alone irony, insinuation, and insolence aren't,
any more than invidious profanity (?), particularly woman-ish.
How about getting away from the program, boys and girls?
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 11:19:15 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: theory & truth
the pen may be mightier than the theory, but is the theory
the same thing as the sword?
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 12:56:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Colleen Lookingbill <Zorlook@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Gender and theory
Having just subscribed 2 weeks ago I am new to this kind of list email thing.
Wanted to put my woman's voice into the mix. We are all survivors of
patriarchy, that fact is genderless. How you choose to respond to that fact
is up to your response - ability. The kind of continuous one-upsmanship, king
of the heap games that are seem apparent on this list are characteristic of a
patriarchal system in my opinion.
About what Alan Golding wrote:
"On the recent theory exchanges: interesting that the theory discussion and
the boy/girl talk have been going on simultaneously but in parallel lines,
without much crossover. What's the relation between theory (the tendency to
theorize, the kind of theorizing that gets done) and gender?"
I found the gender discussion to be the more interesting of the two threads.
To me the theory discussion seems kind of weird - do I really read that some
people are saying that to be a good poet you have to be a theorist as well?
Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Unless the idea is that by writing and
thinking about what you write and how effectively your creativity is working
you are doing theory. Theory that interests me the most is more experiential
- based on this is what has happened to me or what I have observed in the
stream of life and this is what I think about that, less academic in nature
than what is being posted, I'd say. I'm willing to read the more technical
and academic stuff, but probably less likely to participate in those
discussions. Don't know if this is gender based, but it might be, does seem
to fit in a little with what other women are saying about responding more to
the personal.
from Colleen Lookingbill
P.S. - Don't divide the list - sounds like a control issue to me!
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 08:54:10 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 23 Feb 1995 to 24 Feb 1995
In-Reply-To: <9502250500.AA03582@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Ron and Keith and other interested parties: the way to subscribe to the
"New Formalist" list (to be fair, they're a bit more eclectic than that)
is to write to abow0001@gold.tc.umn.edu[.] At present they're locking
horns about obscurity.
Susan
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 14:19:09 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Belle Gironda <BG1640@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: One Poet One Channel
Subject: Main poetics channel to reject messages
Copyright: 1999 by The Anti-Hegemony Project
Date: 20 Jul 99 66:6 6:66 EST
Lines: 32
CYBERSPACE (AHP) - New York State's main state-run poetics
channel said yesterday it would stop posting responses to messages
because they were causing too much social disruption.
BoweryBoysVision (BBV) made the surprise announcement just a
week after President James Sherry imposed a ban on discussion of ``ice
cream'' and ``personal well being,'' a move industry executives
said would hit the major poetics channels.
An announcer on the main evening news read out a statement
from BBV directors saying the outpouring of chat had recently
``been the source of great irritation and disappointment.''
``Therefore we have taken the decision to stop broadcasting
personal messages until strict rules are set up to regulate discussion
in interests of the economic development of society and ethnical norms.''
---More---
Group bleari.nooz.censorship available: 2001 - 2525 unread: 1984
article 1939 4-JUL-1999 12:00:00
The statement did not say when the ban would come into
effect or how BBV would make up the huge loss of programming
such a step would entail.
BBV and its main rival, the Co-poetry News Network (CNN),
came under heavy fire last year for showing continuous advertisements
by the ``Freely Espousing'' investment fund, which lured millions
of poets into parting with their work just before share prices were
slashed.
Although the government declined to ban ``Freely Espousing,''
this and other poetics projects were relegated to subsidiary channels.
``Our task is to create mutual understanding and agreement
in society,'' the BBV statement said at the time.
``In the best of all possible worlds,'' said Sherry, ``the
one man one vote principle would be extended to poetivision -- one
poet one channel.''
The new ban, which comes into effect from the moment it is
published in tomorrow's official government digest, said poets defying
the ban would be sued and their words appropriated for use in Lang-Po
Labs infomercials.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 12:42:12 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Where to find Thorpe's books
Everyone:
Many responses backchannel re: Thorpe, asking where to find his books. I
believe (last time I checked) Small Press Distribution has the four I
mentioned. Most of you have that address, but maybe not everyone (it's a
great one to have, if you don't):
Small Press Distribution
1814 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
(510) 549-3336
Write or call them for a catalog--I *think* the catalog's free. Anyone in
the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can borrow my copies of Thorpe's books;
just ask.
I was told by someone not on this list that Thorpe does have a book of
"theory" out (I stand corrected). It's not in SPD's catalog; it was a
mimeo or Xeroxed & stapled book that (maybe) Duncan McNaughton published.
Whether or not copies are still available's uncertain. Stephen Ratcliffe,
do you know?
--Gary
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 20:38:40 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Li Lang Po
Li and Lang Po are definite not related although they do have something in
common. Li is the surname, so it is Po that they share, perhaps
unsurprisingly.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 22:15:18 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: theory
In-Reply-To: <199502251604.JAA20732@mailhost.primenet.com>
Dear Kathryne:
I thought, when I read Michael's post, it was tongue-in-cheek, and that
he was *against* the idea of "policing." Maybe I need to switch to a
breakfast cereal without the added irony?
Anyway, I agree with you that the list shouldn't be regulated, policed,
and certainly not divided up. The whole point seems to be to bring poets
& critics & afficionados together, & see what happens. We're not here to
perform Shakespeare. (Unless we want to do that, too, I guess.)
As to the whole "boy/girl" discussion, I don't think anyone
here is saying that men & women have different capacities for and/or
interests in theory. I've liked reading what people have to say about
this, actually; it seems to be one of the more generative topics
currently under discussion. I know Colleen Lookingbill, and her post in re
this subject was one of the few times I've read what she has to say about
"how" she writes, what drives it. It was nice to get that. I'd like her
poetry regardless of whether or not she ever wanted to talk privately or
publicly about it, but this was a nice bonus, reading her confirm what
I'd suspected--that hers is a poetry of personal experience (despite how
it might otherwise appear at first glance).
But, we sometimes have to ask questions to get at this stuff, to get
people talking about X, Y, or Z, and sometimes, granted, the questions
might seem simplistic, or backwards, or whathaveyou. A week or so before
I got on this list, someone told me that someone (& my memory's not the
best, so forgive me if I don't get this completely right) had said that
they were afraid that people might think them "dumb" if they asked
questions or responded, and someone else had responded: "What's wrong
with that?" I totally agree. Someone once said that there are no correct
answers, only correct questions. (Or something to that effect.) Well, how
do you know which questions are the "right" ones until you've started
asking?
Anyway. I did appreciate your post. Thanks.
--Gary
On Sat, 25 Feb 1995, kathryne lindberg wrote:
> My disk has been full and has prevented me from responding for some time.
> Anyway, I have to note that Larry Grossberg speaking of doing
> pure theory must provoke peels of laughter. My goodness.
> There is also something laughable about this talk of boy vs girl//
> theory vs practice. I suppose there might be no escaping certain
> essential desires to repeat the same old shit, but really!!!
> It was not any particular woman who exposed Freud's misogyny, he wrote it
> there for all to see. Furthermore, Hegel's bold statement that neither
> women nor Blacks could DO philosophy was hardly unprecedented. What can
> one say to such statements? It seems to me that they speak their own
> hysteria. I became aware recently of how sad this state of affairs remains
> when, in a theory group I was leading, I said, "well, one is tired of
> white boys business as usual." One of my male colleagues, feeling
> interpellated, it seems, said that he didn't like being referred to as
> a boy. Shit, the things that remain unquestioned!!!! I would hope, in
> any case, that ideas about policing the list that appear in such words as
> those I read in a post my Michael Boughn (pronounced Bone, I would say)
> that one should "get some police" in order to keep the list "hard,
> precise, penetrating" would be read as both high parody and hysteria.
> Moments like that, even just the sound of, "police," "precise," "penetrating"
> over the supposedly eviscerated electronic net, would be argument enough to
> open the list--even if, as one bro. suggested, one decides to read
> only the postings from the "names" one knows to be guantors of interesting
> stuff.A cop with a big cock, who could resist? Who among us would cast. . .
>
> In any case, theory aside, I have noticed that certain sorts of behaviors are
> expected by women, others suspect. I wonder, though, how the name or
> category WOMEN seems again so clear. This list, if I may say so, seems
> to have fallen for several rather worn labels and strategies. I was
> especially struck, after so many interesting (??) postings about poetry
> and the "public" to see a suggestion that certain things should be
> kept off or in another list; that some things should not be put
> before "the public." Is this list now the long lamented absent public.
> Funny, too, that public should also devolve to PUBIK, as Ted Joans might
> pun.
>
> Oh, sorry. Puns, let alone irony, insinuation, and insolence aren't,
> any more than invidious profanity (?), particularly woman-ish.
> How about getting away from the program, boys and girls?
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 23:12:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: To Ira, & all
In-Reply-To: <199502241650.JAA17584@mailhost.primenet.com>
Dear Ira:
Thank you much for such a well-considered response. I'd backchannel this
to you, but you probably weren't the only one who felt I was attacking
Marjorie, so I'd like to address that. I was, certainly, put off by what
I felt to be Marjorie's pooh-poohing of the great unwashed on this list,
the people she doesn't know. My post was not meant as an attack. I was
questioning her, questioning specifically her raising the issue of
cleansing the list of undesireables. (The fact that I've read _Radical
Artifice_ [and other of her books] seems to suggest I've granted her a
certain amount of respect, moreso than she seems to want to grant to
her non-chums on this list.) I'd meant to suggest that, if she was more
open to listening to & being available to others outside of her circle of
friends (which we all have, of course), it would make her
criticism--which I think is fine--even more valuable. Someone suggested
to me, "backchannel," that Marjorie is a "friendly" critic, not an
"enemy" critic. I don't think of critics (or reporters, like Dinitia
Smith) as either. I do think she has a certain amount of responsibility,
especially as such a visible critic (one of few mentioned in that _Times_
article). And the questions I posted to her were originally questions that
came up as I was reading _Radical Artifice_ a year or so ago. I liked the
book, was definitely "on her side" reading it, but if *I* could have
these questions about the appropriateness of certain work in that
context, maybe I'm not the only one out here who does.
Cape's (or Cope's?) "article" on foxhunting was too kind to me;
I'm not 10, I'm more like 5 or 6--meaning I've only been reading &
writing & thinking about poetry for 5 or 6 years--and if someone as new
to this as I am sees or considers significant (Bern Porter) "missings" in
a book on Media & Poetry ... well, it made me really begin to question
the book, what it really was (beyond its stated intentions). I had always
wanted to write to Marjorie about that book, and once I got onto this
list, I saw an opportunity. Unfortunately, it arrived with what I felt
was a very disappointing post of hers. If it hadn't been for that post,
I'd still have asked, though perhaps not as indignantly. Despite all the
things you say about her work, what it gives you (& I agree), I still
have those questions. Assuming this "a" and "b" list (which I don't
understand, being new) refers to groups of people ("a=stars"
"b=unwashed") ... well, if it's ever implemented as such, I'm sure I'll
never get any answers. Mostly my loss.
Anyway, thanks very much for the response. It's much appreciated.
--Gary
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 22:25:01 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Thomas Bell <tbjn@WELL.SF.CA.US>
Subject: NYT article
By way of brief introduction since this is my first post
(I am a "boy" of fifty+ in truth and not posting under a
male pseudonym): I am a psychologist in private
practice in Nashville who has recently revived an interest
in poetry and poetics with some minor success.
I think I a much more coherent and relevant article than
Dinita, and one that raises some issues that are worthy of
discussion. I do have to apologize for my anti-academic
bias: this stems from earlier experiences of mine when I
was an academic, and I have since moderated these views to
some extent.
This article appeared in the November/December 1994
issue of _Educom Review_ the hard-copy journal of EDUCOM
and is also on their gopher.
LIVING LANGUAGE
Today a child was shot in my daughter's school. Last
week a local dealer was gunned down in a drive-by shooting.
This is life today. In the _American Poetry Review_, Eavan
Boland tells of distress at her inability to include
"awkward and jagged pieces of reality" in the decorums of poetry
she admires. Can can we afford a literature that doesn't deal
with jagged andawkward reality?
Dana Gioia calls for poetry to become an important part
of American culture when he asks, "Can Poetry Matter?" Poetry
is read aloud today in coffeehouses and bars, even if it has not
yet gotten all the way to the street. These are signals of the
emerging reintegration of poetry and life.
In an even more significant development, vital and
authentic poetry is appearing on the Internet and its byways.
People who do not have a post-graduate degree in English are
actually writing and reading poetry in discussion groups on
bulletin boards, commercial services, and elsewhere on
the "information superhighway," working to incorporate today's
realities into today's e-literature. They do this in a way
that traditional writing has never been able to do, at least
in a way that reaches significant numbers of American readers
and listeners.
The Internet is more than just another venue for writers.
It has opened up the field for a new audience and new material
whose vitality and authenticity give hope to those yearning to lead
literature out of the academy and onto the computer screens of
America, if not actually out onto the streets.
The essence of capturing a slice of life in poetry or prose
lies in the struggle to express it well or authentically. These
writers on the Internet are (with help from more experienced
fellow writers) struggling to express life as they experience it.
In more traditional and academic writing this vision is often
missing. I think these "awful" or "bad" (see "Bards on the
Internet", _Time_, July 4, 1994) writers are the wave of the
future.
This e-poetry is seen by some as "awful" and, indeed,
it does have its awful moments (and hours and days). But it
is wrestling with a reality that doesn't require a post-graduate
degree in writing to appreciate. Even though it has not yet
found its appropriate form, that will come with time, as it
did for the Russian revolutionary Futurists and others. The
search for a new content and form in literature and other
arts often accompanies social revolutions, and particularly
those associated with technological change.
Since this poetry is seeking to express the essence of
what the writers are experiencing, the appropriate form will
likely reflect the vital (and even frenetic) rhythms of life
today along with a fascination with e-life. Rap and beat and
hip-hop song and poetry and poetry bands in bars are precursors
of what will come, but the final flowering will happen on the
Internet. It is here that the electronic engineer who didn't
want to, or wasn't allowed to, take advanced poetry writing
courses has a chance to wrestle with her despair over American
culture following the shooting of her little sister's friend
on a suburban playground.
by Thomas Bell, Psy.D
tbjn@well.sf.ca.us
[A [A [A [A.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 14:13:35 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X
From: Alan Golding <ACGOLD01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: community request
In-Reply-To: note of 02/23/95 22:38
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
David--(hello again; remember when we were on that Objectivists panel about
15 years ago)? My recommendation: Bob Perelman's "Money," in Virtual Reality
(Roof, 1993).
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 15:19:53 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: the meaning of lang po
is it true that lang po means "inscrutable solace" in mandarin?
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 16:38:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steven Howard Shoemaker <ss6r@FERMI.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: digesting poetics
To all those worried about cluttered mailboxes: have you tried the
"digest" option? The discussion does feel a little less "live" &
somewhat more "archived," but it certainly helps to receive only one
"message" per day rather than 30. It also makes it possible for me
to print the whole thing out as one file if I get tired of perusing
pixels.
On the other hand, it's a lot easier for a day or days to slip by w/out
me getting around to poetics stuff at all. I guess my personal jury is
still out, but i'd recommend that people give it a shot to see if it
alleviates their particular difficulties with navigating the infopoglut.
steve shoemaker
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 08:36:23 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Arrows and Sparrows
Hi Chris I go along with your sentiments and that list of yours which
includes some I don't know (thanks for names).
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
post: Dept of Art History,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: 64 9-373 7014
Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 18:26:55 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: More discipline
George:
See, if we got our own List Police (we could call them the L-Team)
they could round up those hokey personal messages, along with the
bad puns, and throw them all in the pokey. Then it would be--
EEGADS!!--the HOKEY POKEY. Is this what it's all about?
Penetratingly yours,
M. "We-stand-on-guard-for-thee" Bone
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 22:32:46 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: More discipline
In-Reply-To: <199502262329.PAA13003@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Michael Boughn" at
Feb 26, 95 06:26:55 pm
Michael:
It's so depressing. I took my hockey equipment to the Kerrisdale
laundrey of my choice before I went to Melbourne, and somehow on the
trip I mislaid the ticket with which one redeems said paraphenalia.
Well, all my blandishments did not work on the laundreyman. He just
lookt me in the eye and said
(wait for it)
"No tickee, no hockey pucky!"
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 06:40:12 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: the meaning of lang po
>is it true that lang po means "inscrutable solace" in mandarin?
A number of posible replies:
1) Is it true that "lang po" means "tongue skin" in French?
2) Whose transciption system are we using? Hopeful assumption is that the
LangPo-friendly will have gone over to the sinocentric system (pinyin)
where 'P' approximates more to the 'P' of 'Po', but perhaps old liberal
traditions die hard and Free-China-familiars are looking up a 'Po' that's
more like 'Bo'. (... and what about the vowels?)
3) The only (commonish) surname with Lang as transcription is Lang2 (Xinhua
Zidian 248.4). Perhaps a good choice in view of the boytalk thread because
it was used as a pronoun-like word for young males and a word translatable
as 'darling' which females addressed to males. The 'Po' surely has to be
Po3 (Xinhua Zidian 337.2) 'impossible' (now only in literary registers).
It's good graph too.
4) No. But you can be sure there is a dictionary out there somewhere that
will answer yes.
5) Run this:
on theMeaning_ofLangPo
put "darling,wolf,corridor,veranda,hammer,chain,mantis,light,bright,
loud,clear,wave,billow,breaker,unrestrained,dissolute" into Lang
put "lake,slope,sprinkle,spill,rude,unreasonable,shrewish,oblique,
biased,partial,quite,rather,considerably,matchmaker,midwife,white,
impossible,hackberry,compel,force,press,urgent,pressing,approach,
broken,damaged,torn,break,split,destroy,defeat,capture,expose,
reveal,paltry,lousy,soul,vigour,spirit" into Po
put word (the random of the number of items in Lang) of Lang into Lang
put word (the random of the number of items in Po) of Po into Po
answer "the meaning of LangPo is " & Lang & space & Po
end theMeaning_ofLangPo
(only slightly selective from _A Chinese-English Dictionary_, 1978)
Answer number 3 above would be "darling impossible" for example.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 00:00:38 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 25 Feb 1995 to 26 Feb 1995
In-Reply-To: <199502270501.VAA25941@leland.Stanford.EDU>
I do apologize to Gary S for sounding what he took to be dismissive of
those "I don't know." I really didn't mean to sound that way. I was
writing (so far as reading all the messages go) out of sincere perplexity
as to time frames. Maybe it's just me but it seems that I'm totally
overloaded with endless daily tasks that include writing on an average of
a letter or two of recommendation a day, being graduate adviser and
figuring out whether X can get rid of his or her language requirement by
taking whatever "unusual" language or whether I can get around the Old
English requirement by allowing someone to do Dante and so on. So I guess
my complaint has less to do with the poetics discussion group than with a
general perplexity as to how to get through the day in the current academy.
Therefore, when I turned on the Mac at night and found all those endless
messages, it seemed overwhelming. But now that I have it as a "digest" it's
really much better. And it did bring in that piece from Ira, which is
certainly one of the nicest reviews I've ever had. So who can complain?
Enough on that front for a while, I hope....
Marjorie
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 02:19:23 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Spencer Selby <selby@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Response and Another Try
In-Reply-To: <199502270806.AAA23606@slip-1.slip.net>
I appreciate this forum, and I think it's great that more people are
contributing, both women and men.
The following is an attempt to respond to all those who wrote me over the
past week, plus others who didn't. It is also an attempt to clarify or do
a better job of indicating certain feelings and concerns that I have
about the literary world today.
1) My argument is not with theory per se. My argument involves claims that
are made for theory, uses to which it is put and effects it often has.
2) I am for the freedom of the individual to think things through for
hirself. To do that, s/he must fend off or overcome pressures to conform to
correct ideas, which today are formidable.
3) I believe the discourse and social reality surrounding poetry has
become more important than the poetry itself. When I said poetry was on
its own level, that was nothing more than an attempt to counter this sense
of skewed priority that I feel pervades the scene.
4) I am concerned about the degree to which all communication surrounding
the poetry is framed as "literary politics." I am concerned about the
dominance of this frame, the way it all becomes a game we play at to the
detriment of our art and its greatest goals.
5) What's matters to people in this literary world is not community. What
matters is spheres of influence. Each person's spheres are a little
different and some have more or broader spheres than others. But these
spheres are not communities because they are motivated and defined
entirely by the dynamics of personal and literary influence.
6) Much energy is directed toward appreciating and understanding those
within one's approximated spheres of influence. (The stronger the sphere
or link, the more the energy.) Far too often, alienation is the keynote
with respect to everyone else. Alienation and a tendency to project the
blame and responsibility for problems onto an elsewhere as variously
perceived or defined.
7) Denial is an important part of the game. There are many different ways
of denial, too many to list here. It may be that denial, more than
anything else, is what keeps people playing, what allows them to stay
focused and do what is necessary to be a good competitor.
8) What about the person who can't or won't play this game? My feeling is,
s/he doesn't have much chance. My feeling is, you're forced to play if you
want to survive as a creatively engaged poet in this world today.
Spencer Selby
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 08:39:34 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: New Formalist List
I just did a search in the archives of the recently-established CAP-L
list (Contemporary American Poetry). In their discussions so far the
word "iamb" does not appear and there seems little talk of formalism
of any sort--new, old, or middle-aged. Isn't there a real good
McCarthyite pigheaded sonnet-writing bunch of people somewhere? Or
have they gone the way of the snail-darter?
The list called "Prosody" has mostly been taken over by linguists,
phonologists, phoneticists, etc and is very strong on things like
glottal clicks.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 09:23:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: New Formalist List
In-Reply-To: <9502271355.AA26619@jazz.epas.utoronto.ca> from "H. T.
KIRBY-SMITH" at Feb 27, 95 08:39:34 am
Dear H.T. Kirby-Smith:
Although it's not specifically dedicated to poetry, the
Philosophy-Literature list seems to contain many of the people you're
looking for. I checked out a while ago, after the list boss proposed
Timothy Steele as the height of American achievement in poetry.
Good hunting.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
> I just did a search in the archives of the recently-established CAP-L
> list (Contemporary American Poetry). In their discussions so far the
> word "iamb" does not appear and there seems little talk of formalism
> of any sort--new, old, or middle-aged. Isn't there a real good
> McCarthyite pigheaded sonnet-writing bunch of people somewhere? Or
> have they gone the way of the snail-darter?
> The list called "Prosody" has mostly been taken over by linguists,
> phonologists, phoneticists, etc and is very strong on things like
> glottal clicks.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 12:48:42 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert A Harrison <Robert.A.Harrison@JCI.COM>
Subject: Tenderloin, etc.
In response to Ron's, Spencer's, and Colleen's posts:
Ron, I DID frequent the Hospitality House, but as a painter, not a writer.
The place is proof that there are lots of poets/artists out there that are
interested in more than politics, and in being a part of a community that may
not have much to give back in return in terms of professional advancement (or
whatever the hell you call it). Without the Hospitality House, my stay in
San Fran would have been worse, to say the least. And, man, I know a lot of
the people that worked there worked for just a few pennies, for a living!
Spencer, I agree with you that theory is used as a power tool too often, and
that at the same time it can be useful, and that the poem is what counts (if
anything counts at all), whatever is brought to it. But isn't this politics
bullshit something we're going to find ANYWHERE there is more than one
person? I hate it as much as you do, but I've never managed to get away from
it. Wether its working with a road crew, living in a half-way house, buying
hash in Morocco, or programming for a corporation. The trick seems to me to
be that if it happens, to see that it doesn't happen destructively. Or, if
it does happen in a "bad" way, to BURN it.
I just want to re-iterate one of Colleen's comments:
We are all survivors of patriarchy, that fact is genderless. How you choose
to respond to that fact is up to your response - ability. The kind of
continuous one-upsmanship, king of the heap games that seem apparent on this
list are characteristic of a patriarchal system in my opinion.
I agree whole-heartedly. One up-manship?, shit, I thought that didn't exist
in the poetry world (call me naive). As much as I want to read lots of
theory (as general and almost meaningless as that term is), in response to
anyone that wants to force it down my throat, well, I have lots and lots of
crude responses to make. Plus a few things to throw. Is that
unprofessional?
Bob Harrison
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 14:26:59 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Thoughts About Engagement
Spencer's most recent post quite clearly crystallizes some of the concerns
that have been discussed around theory/participation/community and the like.
His post brings to mind for me the extent to which it perhaps always has
been true that there's little room, certainly in art, and probably in most
things, for the pure entity of THE PROCESS AND WHAT'S MADE to exist without
that entity's being propped up by loads of self promotion. An unspoken kind
of currency exists in many realms of endeavor. Specifically, having
"something to trade," some commodity to hold/exchange/seek that puts one on
the board at all. This offering can take the form of publishing, producing
programs, critical perspective published or spoken, and undoubtedly several
more. Spoken opinion or assessment concerning someone's work, where and how
it fits, what new ground it breaks, etc., has particularly high value
associated with it. To me, it has always been true that this kind of
exchange pattern has been present. But with the abundance of material and of
distribution channels (be they small/large, unofficial/official), including
the machines we can access to share them, there's been an escalation of need
to create focus on any given work. (Sort out something that seems to deserve
light) However people fare within this system, combined with their own needs
for recognition, (and these are not the sole variables!) seems to connect to
levels of frustration or levels of felt reward. I suspect that the struggle
to be counted forces many people to have to expend far more effort than they
would choose just getting into the middle of things and being perceived as
complete.. This, of course, can rob time from producing work one cares about
producing.. I feel this among people in the earnings world, too. So much
energy goes into getting one's name out about one's business services, etc.,
that there's too little time (sometimes) left for doing what one does. This
whole issue seems pertinent to the theory question within the world of
practice. I hate to put theory into the category of "must do," as though it
were something no one would do if they didn't have to, because it's at least
potentially worthy and elegant and illuminating an a thing unto itself.
(Transcending the level of inventing a frame within which to illuminate what
one is doing!) But for some people, at least the writing about writing
aspect is a price to pay to get closer to what is wanted.
I have no particular answer for this except to say that the sooner one can
pursue something at the center of her or his passionate concerns, without the
requirement of having to "pay dues," the more satisfying and possibly
meaningful the work can become. I suppose that dues paying will always be
with us (But try not to think of it as often as I think about my work!)
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 14:07:39 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: RSILLIMA <rsillima@VANSTAR.COM>
Organization: Vanstar Corporation
Subject: PBS
X-To: 70137.1745@compuserve.com, cftoakland@igc.apc.org
I didn't write this. Wish I had.
Ron Silliman
A TYPICAL DAILY PBS SCHEDULE IF THE PUBLIC BROADCASTING LEADERS CAVE IN
TO REPUBLICAN PRESSURE
8:00 am Morning Stretch: Arnold Schwarzenegger does squats while
reciting passages of "Atlas Shrugged."
9:00 am Mr. Rogers' Segregated Neighborhood: King Friday sings
"Elitism is neat." The House Un-American Activities investigation of
Mr. McFeely continues. Mr. Rogers explains why certain kids can't be
his neighbor.
10:00 am Sesame Street: Jerry Falwell teaches Big Bird to be more
judgemental. Oscar the Grouch plays substitute for Rush Limbaugh. Bert
and Ernie are kicked out of the military. Jesse Helms bleaches all the
Muppets white.
11:00 am Square One: A MathNet episode "Ernest Does Trickle-Down."
Jim Varney explains how cutting taxes for the rich and spending more on
defense will balance the budget.
Noon Washington Week in Review: Special guest Senator Bob Dole,
explaining why the current pension crisis, budget deficit, bank
closings, farm foreclosures, S & L bailouts, inflation, recession, job
loss, and trade deficit can all be blamed on someone else.
1:00 pm Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? Guest detective Pat
Buchanan helps kids build a wall around the U.S.
2:00 pm William F. Buckley's Firing Line: Guests George Will, Rush
Limbaugh, John Sununu, Pat Buchanan, James Kilpatrick, Mona Charen, G.
Gordon Liddy, Robert Novak, Bay Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Joseph Sobran,
Paul Harvey, Phyllis Schafly, Maureen Reagan, and John McLaughlin bemoan
the need for more conservative media voices.
3:00 pm Nature: Join James Watt and Charlton Heston as they use
machine guns to bag endangered species.
4:00 pm NOVA: "Creationism: Discredited, but what the hell?"
5:00 pm Newt Ginrich News Hour: Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood
present in-depth personal reports on sexual harassment. Pat Buchanan
says he is being shut out from national exposure.
6:00 pm Mystery Theater: Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Sherlock Holmes
and Inspectors Morse and Maigret team up to investigate Whitewater.
7:00 pm Great Performances: Pat Buchanan is a guest conductor of
Wagner's "Prelude to a Cultural War."
8:00 pm Masterpiece Theater: Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Phyllis
Schafly improves this classic with an added scene where Nora gladly
gives
up her independence while her husband chains her to the stove.
9:30 pm Washington Week in Review: Guests George Will, Rush Limbaugh,
John Sununu, Pat Buchanan, James Kilpatrick, Mona Charen, G. Gordon
Liddy, Robert Novak, Bay Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Joseph Sobran, Paul
Harvey, Phyllis Schafly, Maureen Reagan, and John McLaughlin discuss
liberal media bias.
10:00 pm Adam Smith's Money World: How to Profit from Ozone Depletion
10:30 pm Nightly Business Report: Wall Street celebrates the end of
all laws regarding antitrust, consumer protection, work-place safety,
environmental protection, minimum wage and child labor.
11:00 pm Insights of Dan Quayle
11:01 pm Sign-Off
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 23:02:16 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: E - speration and Communit - E, (sorr-e)
X-To: James Sherry <jsherry@panix.com>
Hi James, thanks for posting that rationale again. I must have missed it
the first time, since I'm suddenly getting so much e-mail and ironically,
find it hard to get the time to read it all. Also I tend to read shorter
messages first with the express intention of going back to look more
thoroughly over what look like longer, maybe more complex posts. Sometimes,
I forget which ones I mean to go back to. Sometimes I'm printing certain
posts out because I want to respond to them but also want to unclog the
space. I'm thinking about this issue of community as raised recently. The
size of this 'community' must be getting up towards that 250 which Ron
identified for Tenderloin. I'm a (now relative) newcomer - it seems
positively active, with a rapid convergence and hexvergence across agendas.
Obviously more and more people are subscribing at present (any figures
Loss) - there you see I just jumped from what was intended as a so-called
backchannel message to what can now be addressed in part to the whole -
is there an exponential volume at which point a list such as POETICS might
take on either a debilitating or invigorating entropic quality ? Might not
simply particularised 'loop', as you term them, agendas achieve a measure
of what might help ? I don't appear to be alone in being excited by the way
this list is developing ?
What percentage of people's posts are sent to all subscribers ? My
experience is of posting two-thirds 'privately' and one third 'publicly'
but of getting public to private in a ratio of 2:1.
This list seems yet to be poised to address the issues raised by how to go
beyond being merely a community of interests to becoming a community of
evolving friendships and alliances that both is and also furthers the
development of the work.
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:16:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: E - speration and Communit - E, (sorr-e)
X-To: cris cheek <cris@slang.demon.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <9502272258.aa26613@post.demon.co.uk>
Yes, cris, I think that the list at its best can be both interesting in
and of itself in terms of the discussions we can have on it ANd
generative of independent relationships on both one-to-one and sub-group
levels. The effective limits of community are not yet clear, but from
several people's perspective they relate to the number of messages one
can get through considering the available time. This obviously differs
for different people, so the quantifying of community is not possible at
a single value for all participants. What I am looking for is a
suggestion how to "customize" each person's community according to their
capacity and interest. It's a hard question, but I think one worth
working on. It has a lot of assumptions that need to be exposed before we
can get too far. Clearly the group has about 3-1 rejected a simple
division by message type. But as you point out the question does not go
away. I'd still appreciate hearing further responses at this new level. James
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:19:02 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Thoughts About Engagement
X-To: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
In-Reply-To: <199502280103.UAA04446@panix2.panix.com>
From my point of view the question arose about 20 years ago in response
to the New Criticism's perspective, which you and Spencer have affinity
for although not congruence with, that only the poem in itself is a valid
carrier of meaning. Several dozen people have been workingfor 20 years to
expand the view. James
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 22:52:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Evans <Steven_Evans@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Espousing 2/27
Hello again everyone. What follows are the results of my dipping back into
the data-stream after a few refreshing days in Louisville (where Alan
Golding's efforts made for a wonderful 20th-Century Lit Conference). Hope
you can use some of the info:
+ WORKING CALENDAR FOR MARCH 1995
+ NEA FUNDING IN SAN DIEGO LAUDED BY REP. BOB FILNER
+ PROPOSED RESCISSIONS
+ SENATE EDUCATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES SUBCOM (2/23)
+ AMERICAN ARTS ALLIANCE WEB & GOPHER SITES
+ NCFE/NAAO POSTCARDS AVAILABLE
+ DAY OF CAMPUS ACTION AGAINST CONTRACT ON AMERICA
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MARCH CALENDAR
1 Mar Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Slade Gorton
(R-WA), chair. Witnesses: Sheldon Hackney and Jane Alexander
2 Mar NEH reauthorization hearings continue in Senate Labor and Human
Resources Subcom on Education, Arts, and the Humanities
3 Mar House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee (FY96 funding), Rep.
Ralph Regula (R-OH), chair. Subject: National Gallery of Art and Kennedy Center
14 Mar National Advocacy Day <See Espousing Update 2/17/95 for more
information>
21 Mar House Interior Appropriatons Subcommittee (FY96 funding), Rep.
Ralph Regula (R-OH), chair. Subject: NEH and IMS
29 Mar Day of Campus Action Against Contract on America (alternate date
for campuses not in session on the 29th is 23 March). <See below for more
information>
<Please send additions and corrections to Steven_Evans@brown.edu.>
WORK OF NEA IN SAN DIEGO DEFENDED BY REP. BOB FILNER
On 24 February 1995, Democrat Bob Filner made the following remarks in the
context of defending federal funding for the arts:
"In San Diego County, the San Diego Opera Company and the San Diego
Symphony provide opportunities for kids to attend the opera and symphony
concerts. The opera regularly goes out to schools with ensemble
performances.
San Diego's recipients of arts funding range from elementary
schools and universities to KPBS public radio and TV to the Samahan
Philippine Dance Company and the Centro Cultural de la Raza to the Balboa
Park Museums and the Old Globe Theater, groups representing the entire
population of San Diego County.
TheatreForum, an international theater magazine published at UCSD;
the renowned La Jolla Playhouse whose productions go on to thrill audiences
on Broadway and in the rest of the country; an international festival at
locations on both sides of the border between San Diego and Tijuana,
Mexico; graduate internships at the Museum of Photographic Arts; touring
exhibitions from the Museum of Contemporary Arts in San Diego. I could go
on and on. These and hundreds of other art forms are advanced by arts
funding in San Diego County."
(from the Congressional Record, p. H2218)
PROPOSED RESCISSIONS
The House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee (Ralph Regular, R-OH, chair)
approved a recision package that included a significant cut to FY 95
funding for the NEA and NEH.
The figures we've seen indicate that if the proposed recisions are
approved, the NEA cut will be $1m (administrative) and $4m (program), with
the bulk of program-budget reductions targeted toward individual artist
grants.
On 16 February, some members of this Subcommittee (only 7 of the 14
actually) had heard testimony from Rep. Amo Houghton (R-NY), a supporter of
the NEA/NEH; Richard J. Franke, chairman of the John Nuveen Company and a
past chairman of the Illinois State Humanities Council; David McCullough;
Ken Burns; and Clay S. Jenkinson, "noted for his scholarly impersonations
of Thomas Jefferson at NEH sponsored Chautauquas" [!].
SENATE EDUCATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES SUBCOM
[note: what follows is redacted from a National Campaign for Freedom
Expression summary of 23 February activity]
Among those who testified were:
*Christover Reeves, actor and President of the Creative Coalition, who
reportedly called for creating a "real endowment" by setting aside a
portion of the NEA's budget over the next 7 years with the intention of
creating an endowment base that could be supplemented by private 2-to-1
matching funds. Reeves argued that this timed phase-out of taxpayer
support would decrease the hostile "politicization" of cultural subsidies.
Harold Williams (president of the J. Paul Getty Trust) and others
testified that reaching the $3-3.5 billion base necessary to generate
$167m annually was an unrealistic 7-year goal.
*Leonard Garment (lawyer, former advisor to Nixon, co-chair of the 1990
Independent Commission mandated by Congress to review the NEA) proposed
consolidation of the Endowments: one chair, a deputy for arts and one for
humanities, and a council appointed by various elected officials that would
include the President and Speaker of the House. The restructured Endowment
would not grant individual artist grants, Only institutions of "national
stature" would be directly supported, with block grants going to smaller
institutions.
*George White (NEA National Council Member and founder/president of the
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center) and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT and
subcom member) proposed to change copyright laws to supplement the
Endowments' budgets. The proposal would permit the government to auction
literary and artistic works after their copyrights expire, with proceeds
routed to the NEA.
Note: We have heard White speak about this copyright idea but still don't
quite understand what he has in mind. This NCFE account doesn't clarify
matters much. An Associated Press report on the Subcomittee hearing
summarized White's position as follows: "He proposed extending copyrights
on such things as plays and music, with revenue from the added royalties
going at least partially to support the NEA and its sister agency, the
National Endowment for the Humanities" (23 Feb).
Others who testified on 23 February included: Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. of
Charleston, South Carolina; John D. Ong, BF Goodrich Company; Richard S.
Gurin, Binney and Smith Inc.; Dean Amhaus, Wisconsin Arts Board; Leonard
German, Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander and Ferdon, on behalf of the
Independent Commission on the Arts; Laurence Jarvik, Ctr for the Study of
Popular Culture; and Charles T. Clotfelter, Duke University.
AMERICAN ARTS ALLIANCE WEB & GOPHER SITES
AAA has created an "advocacy homepage" accessible on the World Wide Web at
URL addresss http://www.tmn.com/Oh/Artswire/www/aaa/aaahome.html or through
the Arts Wire gopher (gopher.tmn.com, menu item #5). You do not need to
subscribe to Arts Wire in order to access the latter gopher site. Among
the tools available at these sites are easily downloadable sample letters.
NCFE/NAAO POSTCARDS
The National Campaign for Freedom of Expression and National Association of
Artsists Organizations have been supplying postcard sheets since 1 February
1995. They report that 25,000 sheets (3 card each) have been distributed
so far and an additional 40,000 are currently in production. Distribution
copies can be obtained from NCFE at 1-800-477-6233 or NAA0 at
1-202-347-6350. Steven Johnson at NCFE can provide further information
(sbj@tmn.com).
DAY OF CAMPUS ACTION AGAINST CONTRACT ON AMERICA
Organized by the Center for Campus Organizing. The stated objectives of
this day of action are: 1) to save student aid and increase funding for
education; 2) preserve pro-environmental regulations; 3) protect and extend
women's rights; 4) defend the rights of poor people and end poverty; 5)
prevent the scapegoating of immigrants; 6) resist the attacks on gays,
lesbians, and bisexuals.
What follows is an excerpt from CCO's "call to action" <full copy available
upon request>
> I. The Call
>
> The "Contract With America" currently under consideration in Congress
> purports to advance economic opportunity and make government more
> accountable and responsible to the people. After learning about the
> details of the Contract, we question the sincerity of these goals. In
> recent weeks we have heard about proposals which would:
>
> o deny many young people the opportunity to attend college
> o punish the poorest people for their economic status
> o undo decades of efforts to reduce racism and other forms of
> discrimination, and
> o allow big business to evade social and environmental responsibility.
>
> Congressional forces who won the last election claim to be acting on
> these measures IN OUR NAME.
>
> However, this slim electoral victory is no automatic mandate to enact
> mean-spirited laws that were disguised during the election campaign.
>
> We must make it clear that if these measures are enacted, it will be
> WITHOUT OUR CONSENT.
>
> A Contract we never signed is not a Contract with America; it is a
> Contract on America.
>
> We, the undersigned, therefore call for a National Day of Campus Action
> Against the "Contract With America" on March 29, 1995.
>
> We call for students, faculty, and staff organize forums, rallies,
> pickets, teach-ins, direct action or other activities on March 29 to
> educate their campuses and communities, and to build resistance to the
> reactionary agenda of social inequality and environmental disregard
> proposed in the Contract.
**********
Permission is granted to freely copy this document in electronic form, or
to print for personal use.
*Freely Espousing* is an ongoing project aimed at protecting and further
democratizing access to the arts, humanities, broadcast media, and emerging
forms of communication. For more information, please contact:
Steve Evans & Jennifer Moxley
61 E. Manning St., Providence RI 02906-4008
401-274-1306
Steven_Evans@Brown.Edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 00:22:15 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Sheila Murphy <SEMAZ@AOL.COM>
Subject: Fwd: Re: Thoughts About Engag...
---------------------
Forwarded message:
Subj: Re: Thoughts About Engagement
Date: 95-02-28 00:17:44 EST
From: SEMAZ
To: jsherry@panix.com
And expand they should. But with the usual pendulum effect, things swish far
in one direction. I find theory and discussion enriching at least, yet feel
concern about any climate that would seem to dictate that a writer who is
real, concerned, or whatever must become a full service provider of the range
of thought services.
Sometimes, when in the midst of discussion, I begin to want to find a poem.
Perhaps simply a bout of longing that could be dismissed as discourageable
emotion or hunger for a different thing.
Sheila
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 21:25:19 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: RFC822 error: <W> CC field duplicated. Last occurrence was
retained.
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Bob Filner & NEA $$
X-cc: jrothenb@ucsd.edu
Bob Filner, the lone Democrat from the San Diego region, made a speech
on behalf of the NEA in Congress on Friday. Herewith, as reported in the
Congressional Record, is what he said:
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bateman). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner] is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I rise today in support of
continued Federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts , the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum
Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To be or not to be
civilized; that is the question, Mr. Speaker.
A civilized society must include art and cultural enrichment, and it is
one of the responsibilities of government to support that aspect of our
civilization. We get what we pay for. We cannot rely solely on the good
will of a relatively few private individuals to fund the arts --it is
the duty of us all.
This Nation's investment in the arts is one of the best we make. For
example, the approximately $2 million in Federal funding for the NEA,
NEH, and IMS that goes to my county in California, San Diego County, is
matched by nearly four times that amount in local contributions. This is
a perfect example of public-private partnership. The Government's
funding stimulates local giving to the arts which in turn stimulates
local economies.
According to a recent study commissioned by the California Arts
Council, nonprofit art organizations contribute some $2.1 billion
annually to California's economy, generate $77 million in tax revenue,
and create some 100,000 jobs. Yes, the arts are important to the State
economy of California, and to other States as well. Business Week says
that Americans spent $340 billion on entertainment in 1993.
Critics tell us that the arts are only for the elite. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Audiences and participants alike are people from
all walks of life. Nearly 40 million tickets were sold last year to
theater, music, and dance performances. Nielsen-rating figures show that
56.5 percent of households watching PBS programs earn less than $40,000
a year. And a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that 76 percent of
respondents thought the Government should continue to fund public
broadcasting. Exposure to the arts is especially important for our
children. If our young people can be motivated, thrilled, enriched, and
`turned on' by exciting experiences in theater, painting, pottery, or
dance, they will be less likely to `turn on' to drugs or gangs to fill
their empty hours and empty souls.
Barbra Streisand, in a speech at Harvard University earlier this month,
told how participation in the choral club at her Brooklyn high school
was the beginning of her career--and she urges more support for the arts
, not less. She asks how we can accept a country which has no
orchestras, choruses, libraries, or art classes to nourish our
children. How many more talents like Barbra Streisand's are out there,
whom we will lose when there are no programs to challenge them?
In San Diego County, the San Diego Opera Company and the San Diego
Symphony provide opportunities for kids to attend the opera and symphony
concerts. The opera regularly goes out to schools with ensemble
performances.
San Diego's recipients of arts funding range from elementary schools
and universities to KPBS public radio and TV to the Samahan Philippine
Dance Company and the Centro Cultural de la Raza to the Balboa Park
Museums and the Old Globe Theater, groups representing the entire
population of San Diego County. TheatreForum, and international theater
magazine published at UCSD; the renowned La Jolla Playhouse whose
productions go on to thrill audiences on Broadway and in the rest of the
country; an international festival at locations on both sides of the
border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico; graduate internships at
the Museum of Photographic Arts ; touring exhibitions from the Museum of
Contemporary Arts in San Diego. I could go on and on. These and
hundreds of other art forms are advanced by arts funding in San Diego
County.
Even so, among all First World nations, the United States now spends the
least on Federal arts support per citizen--and we are thinking of
reneging on that support. If we say no to culture, we will prove, in the
words of Los Angeles Philharmonic managing director Ernest Fleishmann,
that `we are the dumbest Nation on the planet.'
According to the General Accounting Office, the Department of Defense
plans to spend $9 billion over the next 7 years building nuclear attack
submarines that the Pentagon admits it does not need. That $9 billion
could sustain the Arts and Humanities endowments at current levels for
26 years. 26 years of National Public Radio, Big Bird, music and art
for kids--or superfluous subs for the Pentagon. Is this a difficult
choice?
If we defund the NEA, the NEH, the IMS and PBS, we will be telling the
world that we no longer take pride in our theaters, our educational
children's programs, our museums, our dance companies, our poets,
ourselves.
Ultimately, we are judged by the heritage we leave our children. I hope
we leave them more than soap operas and talk shows, attack submarines
and assault rifles, gangs and drugs!
Yes, Mr. Speaker, to be or not to be civilized; that is the question.
---------------------------------
Randy "Duke" Cunningham (as he's listed in all the House directories),
the GOP member who will chair the authorization subcommittee that will
consider the fate of the NEA, has the district next to Filner's. So
Filner can be a key allie. He & Cunningham may be mortal enemies, but he
ought to know how best to turn up the heat on him on this issue. Steve &
Jennifer, Jerry & Michael & Rae, take note & take action!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 01:49:29 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: PBS
Hey ROn--this PBS thing almost TOPS your "MICROSOFT BUYS CATHOLIC CHURCH"
thing---thanks, I'm gonna distribute it to my class tomorrow. Chris Stroffolino
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 23:52:45 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Sullivan <gpsj@PRIMENET.COM>
Subject: Re: Thoughts About Engagement
In-Reply-To: <199502280611.XAA15942@mailhost.primenet.com>
On Monday, February 27, James Sherry wrote:
> >From my point of view the question arose about 20 years ago in response
> to the New Criticism's perspective, which you and Spencer have affinity
> for although not congruence with, that only the poem in itself is a valid
> carrier of meaning. Several dozen people have been workingfor 20 years to
> expand the view. James
>
Dear James,
Please don't misread Sheila & Spencer's posts. Neither said *only* the
poem is a valid carrier of meaning. Closer would be: The poem is the
*primary* carrier of meaning. They're saying much more than that; you
might take another look. Reducing their concerns, which are fairly
complex, to anything equivalent to New Criticism is like dismissing the
concerns of the language movement (especially those who write in length
about the political value of the work) as those of WPA muralists. Your
conclusion above has a nice epigrammatical ring to it, but little more.
More on this later.
Yours,
Gary
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 03:31:40 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Thoughts About Engag...
In-Reply-To: <2f52d10759e1002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Getting back to what was a topic at the begining of the po/theor
discussion, which was about whether every poem had a theory within or
behind it, whether poems embodied theory in some way . . .
I think that we are using the term theory loosely, that poetics or
philosophy may be what we sometimes mean, even though these are also used
more loosely than Aristotle might like. Simply "a body of thinking" might
suffice.
I certainly believe that Sheila Murphy & Spencer Selby's work, both of
which are supple in movement, fluid in their construction of patterns of
sound, and moving in their humanity (there's a loaded term, too), also
have, within and behind them, important bodies of thinking. If they value
the poems more than such theory or philosophy, that's fine -- I would
agree with them, while still in some ways wanting to unlock the thinking
to more fully inform, for me, the poems and the world. But I don't think
their greater interest in the poems devalues the theory in any way, so I'm not
certain if we really have an argument here. Either that, or my response to the
issue is relaxing as the time & messages pass by.
Regarding Spencer's frustration at the concentration on power games and
spheres of influence in the literary world, I would say that I recognize
such things and sometimes also decry them. I've been in situations where
I brought to a community I moved to an approach to poetry/poetics which
was not present, and helped to build a community of interest. I guess we
created a sphere of influence, and while I thought it was open to anyone,
I know and heard there was some resentment from people who felt they
weren't invited in. My thinking was that it was the nature of specific
concerns which provided the grounding for that sphere or community, and
anyone who wanted to think about those concerns, even if they had
disagreements, was invited in. But that wasn't always the perception.
I've also had the experience of bringing myself to a community, more
recently, because of a new job, in which I find almost no outlet for my
own concerns about poetry, and I don't feel welcomed by others. We all
have stories like this, I am sure. Still, within this sometimes
deplorable situation, be it local or international or something in
between, I've also managed to find true friends, cooperation, a sense of
commonality with many, so that I don't feel as negative about it all as
it seems that Spencer does. I don't think the manipulation of spheres of
influence is by any means the only story. There is some sustenance as well.
charles alexander
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 06:11:03 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Thoughts About Engagement
Gary's (Sullivan's) defence of Spencer and Sheila's positions as
something that need not (should not) be reduced to a simplistic caricature
understanding of "New Criticism" is well-taken. How easy is it for
so many to mouth an "anti-New Criticism" stance without really knowing
what N.C. was---for if the L poets are not a monolith, neither is
New Criticism, and so much of the conversation once again becomes a
navigating of the alleged "minefield" of the connotations of various
movements---be it "New Criticism," the "Pound-Williams line" or the
"Apex G2ers"--and this all has the effect of "translating" consciousness
(or culture, if you must) into something very "pinball" like...
And yes we may well wonder whether the stars are conscious of the
constellations we "put them in" and whether that consciousness can be
seen as the REASON why they burn out (though of course we don't know
they're burnt out yet), and there's probably some reason, some driving
urge that should not be ignored, to PLACE OURSELVES, to orient ourselves,
through the use of stickfigures. But to claim there's a definite
anchor of certainty in such poetic schemas of culture is to not take
seriously enough the potential power of reification and idolatry that
can habituate identity to a point of barren solipsism. Otherwise,
you can surely guess. Chris S.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 06:52:59 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Joining the arts community
Steve and Jennifer mentioned this new web page in their recent long
message, but I thought a little more detail might be useful. For
those in the poetry community who would like to join with those
engaged in other arts around the NEA issue and other issues -- and
just to learn what's up in the art world -- ArtsWire is the way to
go. They've just added this advocacy section to ArtsWire,
acessible to those who aren't members on a web page.
Sandra Braman
> Advocacy Homepage announced by American Arts Alliance
>
> In response to the imminent threat to the survival of the National
> Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the American Arts Alliance is pleased
> to announce the creation of an "advocacy homepage" and gopher site
> accessible to the millions Internet users. The homepage provides
> advocacy information and tools for arts supporters to communicate the
> need for continued federal support of the arts to their senators and
> representatives.
>
> This information, which includes our 900 number, a sample letter, NEA
> facts and general information, greatly advances the the arts community's
> continuing efforts to generate support for the NEA through local
> grassroots contacts with elected officials. In addition to educating
> the public and expanding the base of potentially interested parties,
> computer users can easily transform the data into a uniquely personal
> letter to send to their leaders in Washington.
>
> The American Arts Alliance is available on the Arts Wire WWW site.
> The URL: http://www.tmn.com/0h/Artswire/www/aaa/aaahome.html
>
> This information is also available on the Arts Wire gopher:
>
> Address: gopher.tmn.com
> Once there choose Menu Item #5, Artswire.
> At the next menu, select American Arts Alliance
>
> For those gopher developers who want to link, here is pertinent path
> information:
>
> Type=1
> Name=American Arts Alliance
> Path=1/Artswire/www/aaa
> Host=gopher.tmn.com
> Port=70
>
>
> The American Arts Alliance
> Advocates for the Arts
> 1319 F Street, NW Suite 500
> Washington, D.C. 20004
> Phone: 202-737-1727
> Fax: 202-628-1258
> Email: aaa@tmn.com
>
> Member organizations: American Symphony Orchestra League, Association
> of Art Museum Directors, Association of Performing Arts Presenters,
> Dance/USA, Opera America, Theatre Communications Group, representing
> 2,600 Non-profit Arts Institutions.
>
> If you have a link for the arts and cultural advocates page, please
> contact Beth Kanter, Network Coordinator, Arts Wire at kanter@tmn.com.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 09:36:21 -0500
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: E - speration and Communit - E, (sorr-e)
>more and more people are subscribing at present (any figures...
there are currently 190 people subscribed to poetics; 2 of whom
are "consealed". you can get the list by sending the message
"review poetics" to the listserv address <listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu>.
it's handy to have for backchannel (where did that term originate?)
communications
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 11:59:39 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kali Tal <kalital@MERCURY.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: Improving community relations in espace....
Auntie Netiquette says:
One of the easiest things posters can do to make things easier on their readers
is to send out posts with very clear subject lines. Most systems allow
users to change or revise subject headers; it's worth learning how to do.
Outside policing or moderating isn't necessary if folks simply take the time
to label their contributions accurately. For example, the following subject
headers are both specific and informative:
CONFERENCE: First Annual Such-and-such meeting.
CALL FOR PAPERS: New anthology of Lang Po
NEA INFO: Latest Gingrich horror
ANTI-HEGEMONY PROJECT: Poetics list takes toll...
Discussion thread headers like
Boytalk
E - speration and Communit - E
Theory
are also really useful *if* people stick to the thread while using thread
headers. It's a good idea to *change* the thread if you change the subject,
for example:
"Tone" in Espace (was: Boytalk)
Clearly identifying subject lines allow those with limited time to delete
stuff they aren't interested in without taking the time to open the message
and without fear of missing something they *are* interested in.
My two cents,
Kali
______________
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: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:05:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Belle Gironda <BG1640@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: WARNING
---------------------------------------------
W = A = R = N = I = N = G
A toxic spill of Lang-Po Labs' Simulac infant
formula caused a linguistic disturbance in
Cyberspace this past Valentine's Day and some
Newsgroups appear to have been affected. As a
result of this disturbance mutation in the
language is expected. If you suspect that a
message sent to your account has been tainted
contact authorities at The Anti-Hegemony
Project immediately.
***DO NOT READ TAINTED MESSAGES.***
Rest assured we are working on the problem.
--------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:16:41 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kali Tal <kalital@MERCURY.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: Origin of term "backchannel"
>backchannel (where did that term originate?)
>communications
>
>lbd
I picked up the term on the VWAR-L, a list populated by many military
veterans as well as a certain percentage of wannabe veterans, fake vets, and
interested others. It was the first place I ever heard it, though
everywhere I've used it, it's been picked up immediately because people like
it (I like it; that's why I use it). My in-house military consultant
(business partner Steve Gomes, a Desert Storm-era vet) says it's a
faux-military term based on the notion of switching to an alternate
frequency, off the "command channel" or public frequency. What makes it
useful, I think, is that it emphasizes that there are "lines" or "channels"
of communication in espace, different "frequencies" which are accessible to
different audiences.
Kali
_______________
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: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:29:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: SILLIMAN IN MY LIFE
Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
From: djb1917@iou.albany.ahp (Donald Jaybird)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
Subject: Silliman in my life...
Date: 14 Feb 99 22:22:22
Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
Lines: 23
I just thought I'd put just my opinion of silliman
He totally excites me and I am always looking forward to what
he'll do next....no matter what he does I like. Does
anyone know if the Bay Area book awards will be broadcast on Pacifica and when?
I predict he will give readings in the early fall of 2000. I saw the
Ear Inn show in New York City..It was increadible and unreal...
I paid 85 bucks for my share of the dinner after...but it was worth it!
WHAT came as a shock to me...I saw Toner in Sulfur and flipped out...I LOVE
paradise ...and lit...and ABC
and
hell the whole damn alphabet....It really bugs me when people put him
down...they are just jealous and ignorant.....I'm looking forward
to what he does next!
"To be a poet in this society is to become, however marginally, a projected
(if not hallucinated) social object" -- R.S.
___
('< Donald Jaybird
,',) djb1917@iou.albany.ahp
''<<
---""---
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:30:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: going somewhere?
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: kit_rubitin@bando.ahp (The Kitmeister)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: going somewhere?
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 15:15:15
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 18
>
> lew@acsu.buffalo.ahp wrote:
> : All of you people who like Sillman are going straight to hell. How can
> you
> : support such filth as some kind of God? It seems as though you
> people have
> : a lot of repenting to do. burn silliman. Burn Silliman!!!!!
> : Lew
> : SUNY Buffalo
> -----
>
> This is the same sort of unmitigated bullshit that we heard last year
> after the L.A. earthquake where these pathetic bible thumpering losers
> stated that the quake was God's way of punishing a city full of sinners.
> I guess by their standards the San Fernando valley area has more sinners
> than, say, West Hollywood or other areas of the city, since the Valley
> areas were hit so much hard than the rest of the L.A.
>
> So you pathetic, judgemental, semi-literate hypocrites; get a life and get
> grip on something besides your bibles and your tiny little dicks. ;-)~
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:31:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: What Silliman Really Likes?
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: tmundel@ALAS.POOR.YORICK.AHP (Tom Mundel)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: What Silliman Really Likes?
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 09:09:09
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 16
>
> In article <??????????>,
> Robert Keely <keely@the.bard.ahp> wrote:
>
> > And in _Ketjak_ there is an enigmatic "confession" that goes like:
> >
> >In the middle of a blow job, she puked. (p. 84)
> >
> > Is he saying that his girlfriend got sick on his cum? :-)
> >
>
> Silliman is not saying anything. That's Ketjak, a fictional character,
> speaking.
>
> --
> T O M ! ! | "Sex is like bridge: If you don't have a good partner
> tmundel | you better have a good hand"
> @alas.poor.yorick.ahp | - Buber
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:30:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: what is this terrorism thing?
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: v21sey9@ubvms.buffalo.ahp (Juliana Spar)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: what is this terrorism thing?
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 12:12:12
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 20
>
> In <??????????> ENPOPE@LSUE.ME.AHP (Erik Pope) writes:
>
> >
> >I am normally a Silliman fan to the max, but I think I am slipping.
> >What is the story on him and Lyn Hejinian being terrorists? What was
> >his comment? Can anyone help?
> >-Erik
> >
>
> Absolutely Nothing.......
>
> "Once the rumor is started, the truth is a thing of the past..."
> Apparently some disgruntled poet who heard about the Russia trip made
> the comments that Ron and Lyn were degrading humanity and should be sent
> to Pakistan to be dealt with by this terrorist group. Garbage and more.
> Quit listening to everything you hear. The media is so warped especially
> where Silliman is involved. Probably an Andre Codrescu plant anyway...
>
> See Ya
> Juliana
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:32:15 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: media's LOVE/HATE silliman problem
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: Michael Bone <mbone@hopis.utoronto.ahp>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: media's LOVE/HATE silliman problem
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 24:24:24
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 17
>
> Hi All
> I know Im gonna get killed for this, but not everything Silliman
> does is wonderful, and sometimes he deserves to be bashed (i.e. Messerli
> feud, remarks about younger poets, boring insistence on prose, the entire
> 70's marxist thing) It was so funny after the Buffalo reading and everyone
> was saying how wondeful his performance was. It was awful people, he was
> out..out of touch, undergrads were streaming out of there. Yes he is human.
> I like the Silliman weve been seeing lately a lot better than his earlier
> phase. Id really love him to go on with the humorous closely observed writing
> like What, but Oh well. Th epress has been rather nice to him lately, almost
> every one gave What rave reviews, adn the science fiction writer Samuel Delany
> even mentioned Silliman in a novel. I thought that was neat
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:32:26 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: media's LOVE/HATE silliman problem
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: bw@GEEWIZ.SIR.GWU.AHP (Bjork Wallace)
> Subject: Re: media's LOVE/HATE silliman problem
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 21:21:21
> Lines: 14
>
> Steven Roadclif (stevenr@JOHN.STUART.MILLS.AHP) wrote:
> : v69t4kj@ubvms.buffalo.ahp wrote:
>
> : : when will the hate-Silliman bandwagon end?
> : : are we stuck with it "for good" or just for "now and then"?
> : I'd say forever - it's been this way since the beginning. But there are
> : almeliorative measures you can take, like cancelling your subscription to
> : rags like Poetry Flash.
>
> That's what I did last year. I wrote them a letter stating I was tired
> of the language bashing.
> --
>
>
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:32:59 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: I *TOUCHED* what! :)
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 12 suggested>
> From: mazzystar@AOL.AHP
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: my bizzare Silliman dream
> Date: 14 Feb 99 18:18:18
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 15
>
> I was either reading Tjanting in an airport (strange since I haven't actually
> even seen this book). It was a really difficult text, and there were rhymed
> parts to it like a Charlie Bernstein piece. I think the poem had the f-word
> and the word love in it a lot. The airport was designed in a Russian sort of
> way with old people selling flavored vodka out of shopping carts
> The really strange thing about this dream is how Silliman looked on the cover
> of the book. He had on a dress and I think he had something like glitter in
> his beard. He had his arms raised in a pose like Patti Smith on the cover of
> Easter and I saw that like Patti he hadn't shaved his armpits, and the hair
> was dyed green, like Dennis Rodman. He seemed happy.
> Strange dream, eh? Just thought I'd pass that along, and give everyone the
> chance to play armchair Freud. My analysis: I was thinking about dyeing my hai
> last night, which is where the unshaved, green armpits come in.
>
> -blogna
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:33:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: I *TOUCHED* what! :)
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: CS1984@ALBANY.AHP (Chris Strappalino)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: I *TOUCHED* What! :)
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 12:12:12
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 11
>
> I have the book and I think it's great. These are by far the best alphebet
> poems I've seen. I think the best part is the neo-romantic Springsteen
> Rambo MLA sequence, but I think that the observed detail is more
> "meaningful."
>
> The packaging is great!
>
> Can't wait to hear him read.........
>
> Please feel free to email me with any questions about the text!
> Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:34:05 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: What Cover (was I *TOUCHED* What! :)
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: hamnas@AOL.AHP (MICHAEL HAMNASAN)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: What Cover (was I *TOUCHED* What! :)
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 15:15:15
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 34
>
> In article <??????????>,
> STRAPPALINO <CS1984@ALBANY.AHP> wrote:
> >I have the book and I think it's great. These are by far the best
> alphebet
> >poems I've seen. I think the best part is the neo-romantic Springsteen
> >Rambo MLA sequence, but I think that the observed detail is more
> >"meaningful."
> >
> >The packaging is great!
> >
> >Can't wait to hear him read.........
> >Chris
>
> Thanks to SPD, I finally got my very own What :) I have been waiting for th
> since I heard RS perform it. I thought then that this is thebest volume of th
> it stood out as the most sincere (for Silliman at least). I couldn't believe
> someone on this newsgroup said that What will be the next book! When I saw it
> I was disappointed with what Geoff Young did to it (but that was only my initi
> Now that I've seen all the covers, I'm still kind of disappointed because no
> of them kept the freak-y feel of the poems (I guess you need R. Crumb for that
> heavy arty-productions with a strong cerebral feel to them. I agree with you
> Springsteen is more meaningful but still isn't.
> Anyway I'm really happy that Silliman chose this letter to go all out and pr
> this cool package for. But I wonder if it's going to do well here in the US.
> definitely going to be read at universities, but reputation-wise I'm not sure
> book is very America-oriented and a quick glance at the poetry scene shows wha
> American public likes. And unfortunatly books by dead white European men like
> d Rosmarie Waldrop, and *JORIS* (which I think is going to knock Silliman off
> pretty soon), are what's hot here. I think that and the fact that the indivi
> are doing well is why the whole A-Z is still not released here. And to Sillim
> "Don't stop doing what your doing baby," and FORGET the damned scene!!!
>
> Michael.
>
>
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:31:45 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: AA1464@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: Re: Olson bashing is just as bad as Silliman bashing
> Rating: PG13 <poetic guidance for readers over 13 suggested>
> From: pearlman@MAIL.SASSY.OPEN.APU (Bob Pearlman)
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.silliman
> Subject: Re: Olson bashing is just as bad as Silliman bashing
> Date: 14 Feb 1999 03:03:03
> Organization: The Anti-Hegemony Project
> Lines: 25
>
> rayA1SAUCE@AOL.AHP (Ray Armensling) wrote:
> >
> >>Marjorie, I love Silliman and his art...but I also admire Charles Olson.
> >As a
> >>matter of fact I think the two are very much alike. Please, let's not
> >bash
> >>anyone or anything.
> >
> >What? Arrrrrrrgh! Other than being controversial and famous, Silliman
> is
> >nothing like that sexist, ranting, overgrown pumpkin head. Excuse
> me
> >while I go puke.
> >
>
>
> i agree! they are in no way alike! just look at that pig's weight!!!
> oink!! oink!! and talk about ignorance, he's the king!
>
>
> -bp
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 11:36:52 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Throw me something!
From Louisiana, between riots and debauches, HAPPY MARDI GRAS!
On to the Quarter, Eric.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 15:22:56 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: Language Poetry
I would be interested to know if the following in any way serves to
describe Language Poetry, and, if not, what sort of poetry it might
seem to describe--
Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed
round for each one of us by that
thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever
pierced on its way to us, or from us
to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of
those impressions is the
impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a
solitary prisoner its own dream
of a world . . . To such a tremulous wisp constantly reforming itself
on the stream, to a single
sharp impression, with a sense in it, a relic more or less fleeting,
of such moments gone by, what is
real in our life fines itself down. It is with this movement, with
the passage and dissolution of
impressions, images, sensation, that analysis leaves off--that
continual vanishing away, that strange,
perpetual weaving and unweaving of ourselves.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 16:54:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: I *TOUCHED* what! :)
It's true what they say about my armpits.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 17:09:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carla Billitteri <V079SJWU@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: correction
Subject: AHP Correction on Lean Times Story
Copyright: 1999 by The Anti-Hegemony Project
Date: 31 Feb 99 26:30:13 PST
Lines: 7
LOS ANGELES (AHP) -- In a story yesterday about a study examining
how shortages of inspired language and increasing population will affect
U.S. poetics production and Americans' diet of subsidized corn porn lyrics,
The Anti-Hegemony project erroneously reported the corporate affiliation
of a researcher.
Marjorie Perloff is employed by Lang-Po Labs, not Arithmetrick
Frozen Yogurt Co. Down Under.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 20:48:20 -8000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: theory & truth
In-Reply-To: <199502251641.IAA01378@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Chris Stroffolino"
at Feb 25, 95 11:19:15 am
There's many a slip 'twixt the theory and the hip.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 19:21:01 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 27 Feb 1995 to 28 Feb 1995
X-To: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <9503010500.AA26911@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
I'm all in favor of keeping relevant discussions on the one list,
but speaking as someone who lives in the middle of the Pacific (though it
wouldn't matter where I lived), I'd love to see extended in-jokes put on
another list entirely. I promise not to subscribe.
Susan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 21:32:02 -8000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: what is this Silliman thing?
In-Reply-To: <199502282241.OAA14084@whistler.sfu.ca> from
"AA1464%ALBNYVMS.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU" at Feb 28,
95 12:30:35 pm
Where did all this excitement about flaming Silliman come from? It's
as if he were famous like Prince Charles instead of a poet doing his
job and beginning to get known outside the tight citcle. Give him and
us a break. He writes and he edits. He aint Prince Charles.