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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 07:26:54 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: academic poet/ry
Maria, but what if you DID encounter such students? Is it a one-way
street? Like can one eat one's "avant-garde" desert before?
I mean dessert....
Or is it possible that a poet who comes to the avant-garde stuff without
ever having access to, or interest in, the mainstream tradition (western)
(dying?), will have been spared an un-necessary immersion in stuffy stuff
? That "experiment" includes "tradition" more than vice versa---
I'm surprised you haven't encountered such students...
I wonder what you would have done with me had I been your student....
cs
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 04:14:02 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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Comments: RFC822 error: <W> TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was
retained.
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Authors & Publishers Fight Photocopy Ruling
The Authors Guild
American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA)
Text and Academic Authors Association (TAAA)
The Authors Registry
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 28, 1996
AUTHORS'
GROUPS BACK PUBLISHERS IN FIGHTING RULING
THAT `COURSEPACK' PHOTOCOPYING NEEDS NO PERMISSION
In a rare instance of partnership, authors and publishers, who
frequently face off in angry disputes about who owns what, this week
joined forces to call for the overturn of a federal court decision
permitting unrestricted photocopying of portions of books and
articles for university "coursepacks" without payment to copyright
holders.
Authors' organizations representing tens of thousands of writers
filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of publishers seeking
a rehearing of what the authors termed a "dangerous" copyright
decision handed down February 12 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit. The authors took particular issue with the court's
finding, in a 2-to-1 decision, that the standard practice of paying
for licenses to make such photocopies is not an incentive for authors
to write.
The organizations involved are three national writers' groups--the
Authors Guild, the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA),
and the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAAA)--and the Authors
Registry, the new royalty collection and licensing agency endorsed by
more than 30 writers' groups and 95 literary agencies.
At issue is a case in which Princeton University Press, Macmillan and
St. Martin's Press sued Michigan Document Services, a copyshop
specializing in coursepacks--professors' custom-ordered anthologies
of excerpts from published works, which are increasingly taking the
place of textbooks for college courses. Copyshops regularly obtain
permissions and pay fees to reproduce copyrighted works, but the
Michigan shop boasted to professors that it would make coursepacks
with "No Delays Waiting for Permission." The appeals court majority,
reversing a lower court ruling, declared the permissionless
photocopying legal.
The "friend of the court" brief, prepared by Authors Guild attorneys,
assured the court that compensation is indeed an incentive to writers,
and that depriving publishers of their share of permissions income
would also hurt writers by leading to fewer published works.
The authors' groups pointed to their long efforts to stop
uncompensated photocopying and asked the court, "What else could
account for the immediate impact of the Authors Registry, in which
over 50,000 authors are registered for collection, accounting and
payment of royalties and fees?"
A decision on rehearing the case is expected in March.
###
Contacts:
Authors Guild - Kay Murray, 212-563-5904
ASJA - Dan Carlinsky, 212-861-2526
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 03:06:13 -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: Re: academic poet/ry
Emily,
I wonder (really--not being facetious) why the poetry & poets that are
least accepted (promoted, hired, what-have-you) by the academe are the
ones whose work can rarely be discussed w/o using "academic" language
or fully appreciated w/o having a theory background? It seems off to
call L=Apo "outsider" poetry, kind of, don't it? Isn't it, relative to
the masses (some cartoon vision of an audience-at-large), more insider
than insider? More academe than academe?"
It's historical. In the 1950s when the New Critics consolidated their
control over the English curriculum, the creative writing movement grew
up as a place where poets (and fiction writers) did not have to pretend
to be new critics (especially true in Iowa, which had some heavy N.
Crit. faculty as I dimly recall). Once the theory wave hit (two decades
later), it really became a bastion of reaction to the rest of the
department. In Syracuse they wanted to make theory an undergrad
requirement several years ago and had to do something like make
creative writing its own separate dept in order to get the votes to do
so.
The idea of langpo as "insider" writing extends a critique that goes
back as far as the troubadors, who composed their "trobar clus" as
poetry for their fellow poets rather than the works they intended for
larger audiences. I fear that writing that requires writers and readers
both to be on their toes will always be considered such.
Ron Silliman
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 02:58:45 -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: College fetish
DiPalma taught there in the late 1960s, early '70s. Howard McCord ran
the writing program there then and may still for all I know. McCord was
a fairly interesting poet whose work seems to have disappeared entirely
from print over the past two decades.
No school can touch Reed back when it produced, at once, Whalen, Snyder
and Welch, for poets-to-total-class-size.
Ron Silliman
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Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 22:07:46 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Spring issue of SPT newsletter
This is Dodie Bellamy again.
The Spring, 1996 (#17) issue of the Small Press Traffic newsletter will be
printed this weekend and bulk-mailed next week. This is your last chance
to sign up for a free copy of the newsletter, cunningly called _Traffic_.
Though the newsletter is for members I've decided that due to our expanded
reviews section, to offer subscriptions to people living outside the San
Francisco Bay area. This first issue is free to anyone who asks--the next
three issues can be had at the low subscription rate of $10.
Make checks payable to Small Press Traffic and send to:
Small Press Traffic
at New College
741 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
This issue features reviews from many people on the Poetics List, plus a
couple non-high tech types:
Jonathan Brannen on Gil Ott
Louis Cabri on Lyn Hejinian and Kit Robinson
David Clippinger on William Bronk
Lisa Cooper on Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
Maria Damon on Kathleen Fraser and Bev Dahlen
Ben Friedlander on Gerrit Lansing
Loss Glazier on Karen MacCormack
Janet Gray on Sheila Murphy
Marisa Januzzi on Ed Foster's _Postmodern Poetry_ and _Primary Trouble_
Kevin Magee on Dodie Bellamy (me!) and Sam D'Allesandro
Ange Mlinko on Alice Notley and Stephen Jonas
Albert Mobilio on Joseph Donahue
Mark Scroggins on Nathaniel Mackey and Jack Spicer
Tom Vogler on Ron Silliman
I just read the whole issue from cover to cover. It's a Good Read.
And reviewers: thanks a million for all your hard work. You'll be getting
your copies soon.
Those of you who have inquired about, or signed up for reviewing books for
the Summer issue of _Traffic_, I'll be getting in touch with you next week.
I appreciate your patience.
Dodie
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Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 16:54:42 -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: sciku
In-Reply-To: <199602290503.AAA19813@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Feb 29, 96 00:01:13 am
Since i started the whole damn renga thing once upon a time (Yup--check
the archives--that first books/dreams line is my most famous flicker in
posey's eternal flame) i consider myself the list's godfather of bastard
imperialist forms. So here's something i wrote sort of in accordance with
the guidelines of the SciFaiku Manifesto (http://www.crew.umich.edu/
~brink/poetry/haikuhabitat.html) and sort of thinking about my post on
scanning brains/scanning poems. But really it's more a sciku or tekku:
slow modem
brain slow like last leaf
tentative fall
of seventeen bits
Let the craze begin!
steve
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Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 21:19:08 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: scanning brains/ scanning poems
In-Reply-To: <199602292051.PAA63239@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU>
YES, exactly, but why is no one saying or thinking this outside
of this list and a few obscure corners. The media and the academy
and the drug companies (and the drug companies) certainly don't.
90% of people who feel bad ask for and get a pill, Part of
the information gap might be the silence of those who hold
an opposing view?
Thanks for starting the renga BTW. It has been an experience.
best,
tom bell
On Thu, 29 Feb 1996, Steven Howard Shoemaker wrote:
> Tom Bell writes:
>
> Does this mean that poetry can change the way a reader
> or writer's brain works?"
>
>
> Sure it can, and i'm a bit surprised by the question, by the tentativeness
> of that groping for "scientific" confirmation of what we know to be true.
> No question that reading all that poetry makes us different people, changes
> the kinds of organisms we are. But to stick with "science" or "biology,"
> the question arises from a persistent reification, common to popular
> discourse, of the "biological" as a kind of lumpy given. In fact, we
> ...
> steve shoemaker
>
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Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 11:57:51 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lisa Samuels <lsr3h@DARWIN.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Adorno
In-Reply-To: <199602281612.LAA25832@mail.erols.com> from "Emily Lloyd" at Feb
28, 96 11:12:19 am
according to Emily Lloyd:
>
> "I do not doubt the egos of sports stars who discourage newspaper boys from
> asking questions about the sport."
>
> --E(xtra!Extra!)
>
>
> Maybe the potential for being bashed, silenced, or "publicly humiliated"
> keeps some women from joining the list.
>
(from one who joined the list but rarely posts) it's more
like wanting to write only when i feel i have something
real to say.
figuring out the positions of various groups and
individuals seems an ongoing (not to say futile, for it's
interesting to watch the shifts) exercise in establishing
and overthrowing and re-establishing what's important
(at least for that particular discursive moment). i have
no insistent stance to promote, nobody to persuade, *here*.
so i just listen.
also, new to this world (no silliman i), i feel a bit
like the betrothed sitting in the living room with the
beloved's family. you'd better believe i'm just going to listen
and figure out how all these people manage to get along.
lisa samuels
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Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 20:09:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Patrick Foley <Pfofk@AOL.COM>
Subject: none
I wrote a longish note after reading Don Byrd's comments, and all of today's
back & forth about academic poetry, but all I really want to say is this: the
differences among poets are small, so far as they all are poets. That you
write poems must matter more than what school (of thought) you are affiliated
with, what college you attended, what year you were born in. From
Shakespeare to Keats is a breath, from Keats to us another, that is all. It
is all poetry. Poets must write all of it. I am embarassed to have let
myself fall into the usual polemics, the pastime of "cheering" for one team
or another, as Don Byrd wisely puts it. I do want to understand the poems,
the poetries I cannot yet, but I have gone about it clumsily. I do hope to
be able to contribute something to this discussion, but I for one will amend
my tone.
Pat Foley
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:48:17 GMT+1300
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: academic poet/ry
Dear Emily, I have a friend accessible only on snail-mail who finds
that Shaks sonnets have been emended and emended without just cause
in academia for a long time, & that the way that they are printed in
first( early ?) edition suggests a structuring of the sequence that
all the academics he knows want to ignore. I'll try get some
statement out of him for you on this to put on the e sometime fairly
soon. But in his experience the one thing you won't get from academia
is a good intro to Shaks sonnets. So he tells me, at length, in
conversation. This puts a long bony finger into the ribs. best
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 10:03:18 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.MUOHIO.EDU>
Subject: Re: dead horses, live theories
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 29 Feb 1996 18:12:40 -0500 from
<kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
David Kellogg writes:
"I know why I read poetry, but I know plenty of people who don't read any, and
they don't seem to be deprived. It's damned presumptuous to write as though
they are, or to suggest that the reasons why poetry is important to ME will be
important to anybody else."
When you're writing on Foucault and BH Smith and Bourdieu, David, aren't you
trying to convince your potential readers that it might be a good thing to
pay attention to what you're saying and what (in your view) they're saying--
about "taste," about contingencies of value, etc.? What makes that writing
less presumptuous? Isn't the real problem here not the professing of taste
per se but the authoritativeness of tone used to profess? I'm not *really*
surprised that people want to know who you read--are you? I mean, to follow
this logic to its endpoint, it's presumptuous to write at all, or to breathe--
you're grabbing some oxygen others clearly have their own use for.
Keith Tuma
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 09:39:12 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: dead horses, live theories
david kellogg has glossed this issue of academic theorizing wisely...
yes---the irony of rejecting theoretically-inclined poets (or
intellectuals, for that matter) in the academic meat market on the basis of
what don byrd has identified as "taste" is that it is precisely the
category of the "poetic" that is thereby accorded primacy in literary
(-historical) studies... and again, as don indicates, this includes
taste-driven views of theory (theory, that is, as anything but
practice---let's call it a connoisseurship of theory), and is often
accomplished w/o any critical intervention at all vis-a-vis those for whom
the term has a direct resonance---poets, poetry theorists, etc... at the
same time, creative writers thus safeguard their status as ultimate
legislators of taste... i would hasten to add that, though the national
book circle critics award will most certainly attract more academic acclaim
than most scholarly awards, the stipulation in mla job ads of "national
publications required" is ONLY used for creative writing positions... that
is, creative writers are in this regard working under much more
exclusionary criteria..
i could make a list of critical works that riff on things poetic but never,
never mention poetry... in any case it's damned difficult, as david sez,
even to *talk* poetry with most of my colleagues, and methinks this is less
a matter of their willful resistance than of their preparation in grad.
school, the emphasis in those quarters...
now it's worth pointing out here that there *is*, within composition
studies (as opposed to literary studies per se), a growing constituency of
folks for whom poetry and poetics means just that... i'm thinking, for
example, of wendy bishop, derek owens (whose book was cited on this list a
couple of weeks back), and eve shelnutt... what's interesting here is that
these latter three scholars foreground the *teaching* of writing as opposed
to the study of literature... hence the institutional status of creative
writing is something about which each is well-informed... and note that jed
rasula's _the american poetry wax museum_ is itself on the ncte (that's
'national council of teachers of english') series, "refiguring english
studies," whose series editor is none other than steve north (whose _the
making of knowledge in composition: portrait of an emerging field_
(boynton-cook) had a rather profound effect on composition studies)...
joe
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 11:17:57 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Five Get Overexcited
"Well Chris I think it would be wise for a poet to write in as many
of the different affects that show up during the day.. to look as much
as possible like a normal person, eventually.. viz your shakespeare
or my breathing keats.."
--from Tony Adorno's first novel, _Deipnosophistry_, republished last
year by Red & Blue..
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 11:43:27 -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: academic poet/ry
Comments: To: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
In-Reply-To: <199603011106.DAA12072@ix2.ix.netcom.com>
Ron's account of the anti-intellectualism of the Iowa-
inspired creative writing programs (which is to say nearly all
creative writing programs) is quite correct. Basically, the
maker of new critical objects (poems, stories, whatever) was
supposed to be a kind of idiot savant. The primary qualifications
were an unhappy childhood, binge drinking, and impeccable
taste.
It was the critic's task to do the socially responsible
task of explaining how this genius adolescent was performing as
an emotional lightning rod for the otherwise responsible
adults of a demanding society.
The underlying assumption that has been in many of the
postings--academic=difficult or requiring a significant amount of
information not provide by the text itself, non-academic= easy to
read--simply has it backwards. The function of the American
academy is not to be in the vanguard of learning. It's functions
are (1) for the sciences to do research that is necessary but not
related to immediate profits and (2) to instruct the undergraduates
in the prevailing values.
The whole idea is to make it all as simple as possible
for young people, who really aren't very interested (and rightly
so, as what they are typically asked to learn is an attack on their
vitality). Early on in the move to theory, Robert Scholes argued
that since we cannot get our students to read as many books as
we would like, we will teach them the theory.... If they can
get the general theory, they won't have to know so damned many
examples.
It all backfired in a way that is somewhat amusing.
Theory turned out to be a kind of tar baby, and the academic hands
got stuck to it.
It's not a matter of knowing the theory (the academic
thing), it is a matter of_ using_ the theory. Consider the way,
Gertrude Stein used William James and Alfred North Whitehead (she was a
student of one and friend of the other) or the way Proust used
Bergson, or Olson used Whitehead, or even the way Eliot used
F.H. Bradley.
In fact, most of the theories in academia are (appropriately
enough) theories of reading (i.e. consumption) or they are made
into theories of reading. These are really of no use for writer's. A
writer's reading is a whole other matter.
Don Byrd
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Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 12:32:52 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: dead horses, live theories
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96030110523787@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
On Fri, 1 Mar 1996, Keith Tuma wrote:
> When you're writing on Foucault and BH Smith and Bourdieu, David, aren't you
> trying to convince your potential readers that it might be a good thing to
> pay attention to what you're saying and what (in your view) they're saying--
> about "taste," about contingencies of value, etc.? What makes that writing
> less presumptuous? Isn't the real problem here not the professing of taste
> per se but the authoritativeness of tone used to profess? I'm not *really*
> surprised that people want to know who you read--are you? I mean, to follow
> this logic to its endpoint, it's presumptuous to write at all, or to breathe--
> you're grabbing some oxygen others clearly have their own use for.
Dear Keith,
You're right: the presumptousness lies in the mode of address, not in the
idea of preference as such. I wasn't making myself clear. But I'm
sticking to my relativist guns.
We all have tastes, sure, they're all socially & historically constructed
("all the way down," as it were), and of course I prefer it if other
people's values correspond *at some level* to my own. (Though this can be
boring also). So yes, I think that, as you nicely put it, "it might be a
good thing if" etc. etc.
What I was trying to address, perhaps not very well, was the network of
expectation in the academy about contemporary poetry, a network of
expectation that ASSUMES that if you're in contemporary poetry well of
COURSE you're going to confirm or challenge people's tastes -- that's what
academics in poetry DO, isn't it? In other words, enter the taste-making
game of poetry or bail.
Moreover, do it on absolutist terms. In my experience, it's more or less
assumed that the theoretical work you do will have some direct relation to
this, that the final mission of theory in contemporary poetry is to say,
"Poet A is the bee's knees," or Poet X beats Poet Y, or Poetry is better
than television because _________. And not theorize it, not say, "I seem
to choose poet A over poet B because of certain elements in my own history
and construction as a subject. This may not work for you."
My current work is precisely about the forms of evaluation current in the
poetry biz, and I think it sometimes -- not always, I'm admittedly
overstating it a bit -- freaks people out some for those reasons. I could
think of other kinds of work that would be equally or more estranged, most
of it falling under the rubric of some form or another of cultural studies
or ethnographic writing. (Like Maria D's book). Such works are piss
people off not because they express opinions, but because they situate
their own position in the field of socially constructed taste.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 11:50:30 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Christopher J. Beach" <cjbeach@BENFRANKLIN.HNET.UCI.EDU>
Subject: Re: dead horses, live theories
In-Reply-To: <960228032425_433549859@emout08.mail.aol.com>
Ron--Good clarifications on the complexities of class.
Rod--I like you idea of "synchronicity" rather than simply class having
to do with why so many poets were at a particular institution at a
particular time. Harvard, in particular, has a history of having
students who are intellectually inclined but not at all from privileged
backgrounds. (My father-in-law was one). There is a lure about places
like Harvard and Berkeley that is not merely class-defined. Perhaps it's
historical, perhaps its literary or poetic. This would be a very
interesting book, actually (the history of Harvard and twentieth century
American poetry). Why has Princeton, to use your example, produced so
many fewer poets. Did Palmer, Hejinian and Bernstein know about the
poetic tradition of Harvard before deciding to go there? Did it play a
role in their decision? Does Harvard's admissions policy place more of
an emphasis on poetic talent in admitting students than, say,
Princeton's? Perhaps--I don't know. But all of these would be relevant
questions, as would questions of how different institutions are perceived
within different communities: ie. Jewish, African-American, gay, poetic,
intellectual.
Chris B
On Wed, 28 Feb 1996, Rod Smith wrote:
> NEW Ziolkowski, Moxley, & Davies YES!
>
> Ron--
> Liked yr post on class very much. Two of my heroes, Cage & Oppen, were
> college drop outs.
>
> Chris B--
> As I said, the Harvard thing isn't something I wld overemphasize, however,
> you asked who among G1 went there -- Bernstein, Hejinian, & Palmer all went
> there.
> Possibly the three biggest name language poets (I know I know Michael's not a
> language poet). Andrews
> was there as a grad student. & Susan Howe's father taught there, was head of
> the Eng Dept. for a number of years I believe. Aside from Olson, Ashbery,
> O'Hara, Creeley was also there during WWII. & Burroghs I think dropped out?
> Pretty good school I'd say. Any "major poets" go to Princeton? Actually, the
> question falls somewhere between "privilege" & some kind of odd
> synchronicity-- Providence & the Bay area being two other places that seem to
> have harbored more than any reasonably expected share of poetic talent.
> Actually, a populace flows through the yard. . .
>
> Chris S--
> I think the question of why L-poets were more politically radical, at least
> overtly, than NYS (other than just "sensibility") had to do with what was
> going on in the universities generally in the seventies/early eighties--
> "theory" was taking over, so it was something they engaged & did it quite
> well I believe. But as I think has been sd here before, it, theory, means
> something quite different now.
>
> I'm sorry if I seemed too dismissive of the M, Chris. But I think my
> statement of the general reaction to their first few manifestoes was
> accurate. I also said I thought a number of the poems they published were
> good. & I've said I like Pam R's work, 'specially the Burning Deck book. & I
> also think Lew D's poem in oblek 12 is interesting. I understand concerns abt
> divisiveness
> but it shouldn't stop one from stating opinions, should it? OK, maybe some
> opinions some of the time. . .
>
> Maybe we can't do what the Allen did because they already did it for us, but
> you can be sure that if we stop for even a short while it wld have to be done
> all over again. & good point you made abt the beats, someone sd somewhere
> "they weren't high school drop outs, they were grad school drop outs!"
>
> --Rod
>
> PS-- the term "biggest name" above being based on my perception of who's
> known, & even occasionally read, outside of their respective communities.
> Armantrout, Silliman, Scalapino being examples of "big names" that didn't go
> to Harvard.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:51:40 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Spring issue of SPT newsletter
Congratulations on the issue, Dodie. I look forward to seeing the issue, and
of course the chax press reviews. Will I receive a few? Will there be extras
I can buy?
Also, would it be permissible (and I could do this later, say after a month
or so) to put some or all reviews on a chax press web site?
Also, did you get plenty of reviewers for the next newsletter? I know I
volunteered to review something if you wished, but I didn't hear back from
you, so I assumed you already had everything covered.
love to you,
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:53:00 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Spring issue of SPT newsletter
I did it again, and hit reply to send a message a second ago (and one which
sounds very silly) to the poetics list, when I meant to send it directly to
dodie bellamy.
very sorry,
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 15:52:52 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: dead horses, live theories
As much as it pains a Columbia grad to say so, Princeton produced some fine
poets.. John Koethe, John Godfrey, Lewis MacAdams.. in addition to those
already mentioned.. of course it pleases a CU grad to note that Galway
Kinnell, W. S. Merwin and others dealt with odd verbs like "bicker" on a
regular basis.. jd
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 16:23:36 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: academic poet/ry
chris s: hypothetically, of course there are students who know the avantgarde
and not the more conventional. i just haven't encountered them. except for
maybe one, who teaches me more than i teach him. he joined the POETRIX list
for a while, then discovered Zizek and unsubbed.--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 16:24:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: dead horses, live theories,
bodies trans sending academic poet/ry
>Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:03:25 -0800
>To: jdavis@panix.com
>From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@slip-3.slip.net>
>Subject: dead horses, live theories, bodies trans sending academic
> poet/ry
Chris Stroffolino's post on this topic hit the nail on the head for me, with
the clarification made by Rod and Mark that critique need not be a divisive
tactic (and I know you knew that, Chris). There are all kinds of ways
aesthetic positions might possibly interact with political ones. One of the
things that cracks me up about reading avant-garde manifestos is how they're
always calling for these radical changes in the way we look at art, and when
you get further down into the specifics, they're not saying anything that
different than the last manifesto that came down the pike from the last
avant-garde group that's now considered an abhorrent sell-out for whatever
reason.
(I'm thinking of a book by Herschel Chipp called _Theories of Modern Art_,
which concentrates on 20th-century painting mostly, but the idea is the
same.) But these small differences are defended to the hilt by people
who've made their pet theory inextricable from their identity, and who
therefore can't admit that there's room for any other perspective. Talk
about "totalization"! This is by no means some oblique attack on anyone,
either, so no jumping to conclusions out there!
Emily,
Why is needing to slow down and read carefully a sign that there's something
wrong? I'm not sure if an academic background is as necessary as an
attentive eye and ear. Certainly whatever intelligence you do have and have
developed, whether through schooling or other means, is going to be
challenged by experimental poetry; I think that's what the experiment is
about--taking language deeper than intelligence, into consciousness or the
psyche or whatever you might call it.
My own experience as a reader is that I'm more interested in poetry which
challenges me to become a better reader, a better thinker, a better
listener. If it only reinforces preexisting brain patterns (which might
make it easy to understand and "identify with") then it's ultimately
disposable. Of course, if there's no point of entry into the poem
whatsoever, that's a problem too--the challenge becomes a threat (sort of.)
Tom, could you elaborate on your intriguing, provocative Levinas quote a
bit? How
is the body manifest as a contestation of the attribution of meaning? And
is this contestation unique to the body? The body seems to me to ground
meaning as much as defy it, and it seems to me that similar claims could be
made for any phenomenon. Maybe I should just read the Levinas: feel free to
tell me so.
At 08:26 PM 2/27/96 -0500, Patrick Foley wrote:
>I will even try
>to go along with the poem not being about anything at all --- which I suspect
>is the secret handshake on this list.
It's not exactly that it's about "nothing at all", really. It's just that
usually when we ask "what's this poem "about", we're looking for a single
thing that the poem's reducible to, and that's what I think most folks on
this list would resist. The poem's "aboutness" flies off in a million
different directions in the face of attempts to seize it thus.
>But I'm going to have trouble if the poem's language
>is not, in those circumstances, expected to do everything language does, and
>that includes reference, boys. What Wittgenstein called how language & the
>world _fit_.
Granted. But again, the fit's not always comfortable. The coat of language
is reversible, for example. One-to-one reference is not a given; and in
this circumstance--
> --- it is natural to assume the poet is in his own head, or at least
>that he is caressing and not grasping the things of the world (Kafka's
>distinction, and Rilke's too, I think).
--not necessarily. Would it be unnatural to make no assumption at all, or
to assume that there's been a typographical error or a pun we don't get but
might or a deliberate joke played on us by the poet? This is what leading
the reader into an experience with language is about.
> I just don't want to hear a lot of talk
>about "ontological" this and that, when we could be talking about the poem.
Does the poem not partake of ontology?
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 17:16:17 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Smith <CharSSmith@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Oppen
Rod Smith wrote:
"Off the global politics of wittle poets topic-- re Oppen-- there seems to me
a fairly large shift in his work after _Of Being Numerous_ -- I love all his
work, but the late books particularly -- he seems, perhaps, to have let go of
a certain kind of sense in favor of another. Reminiscent perhaps of the first
book, but possibly effected by Duncan's ear? An even further opening of the
open text? That kind of fluidity."
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here by a letting go "of a certain
kind of sense in favor of another." The late work seems an intensification
of the previous. Though Oppen admired & read Duncan with interest, I think
the syntactic & rhythmic innovations in the late work were result of further
refinement & development of all that had gone before. Oppen certainly wasn't
after what he referred to as RD's "honey." Your suggestion is interesting
though as to what Oppen might have appropriated from RD as his work was
changing during the period following _Of Being Numerous_. He did make
contact with contact Duncan when they moved back to SF.
You're probably aware of these, but for anyone here who isn't, there are a
few essays on Oppen that deal with the late work & ground it usefully in the
earlier: John Taggart's "Deep Jewels: Oppen's _Seascape: Needle's Eye_"
(Ironwood 26) & one of the best pieces written on GO, Taggart's "To Go Down
To Go Into" (Ironwood 31/32); Ron Silliman's (in more general terms) "The
Shipwreck Of The Singular" (Temblor 5) & Ron's remarks on Oppen's techniques
in "Third phase Objectivism" (Paideuma 10.1) are very useful in examining the
late work. (Sure wish someone would print Rachel duPlessis' piece on the
function of the 'gaps' in Oppen & Blaser that she read at the Blaser
conference last year.)
Charles Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 16:28:45 -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: dead classes
It might be useful to note that Ashbery, O'Hara, Creeley, Hall, etc. were
attending Harvard in a post-WWII context. O'Hara, and I think Hall, were
able to go to Harvard because, as veterans, the GI Bill picked up the
tuition. An influx of GI Bill students had an impact on Harvard at that
time. They were older and tended to be from less priviledged backgrounds.
I suspect that Yale during this period was more reticent about admitting GI
Bill students. Nor, do I sense that O'Hara and Creeley had a particularly
high opinion of Harvard. That there were a number of interesting people
there is as much an accident of time as an accident of place.
>sure, it probably is dopey to compare poets on the basis of what college
>they went to. it is sort of like saying, well, that one's from alabama
>and this one from mississippi, what's the difference. the distinctions
>fuzz up the further away you are. nonetheless, it seems interesting to
>me that at the same time harvard students included poets ashbery, o'hara,
>creeley, donald hall, robert bly, the yale university english department
>was producing a steady stream of future cia types. james angleton,
>one-time editor of furioso and crazed mole-hunter, being only the most
>famous. the institutions' sensibilities have to affected these outcomes.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 16:28:47 -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: academic poet/ry
>& there's no excuse for the way derrida writes when his central ideas could be
>articulated in a pamphlet.
>
>Em
>
Em,
I've been enjoying your comments, so I don't want you to feel unwelcomed
when I say that your statement re: Derrida reminds me of someone saying that
Cliff Notes are preferable to the actual book. There is an excuse for the
way Derrida wrote, it's called style.
Best,
jb
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 22:08:50 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: henry gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: real dead bugs
There is no excuse for Derrida's style,
he was shot for it in Mexico in 1837,
escaped death only because the spectacular one-eyed
Robert Creeley spoke up about Harvard
professor #16 (Rasmussen :
"Intro to Realism in Russian Folksong").
And I was with them, I suffered, I was the man oh man
those chairs were made of plastic blue cheese.
- Elron Hubbub
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 01:02:40 +1030
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carol or Jeremy Close <cclose@ACADEMY.NET.AU>
Subject: Why is all this poetry stuff so damned popular, anyway.
Why is all this poetry stuff so very popular, anyway? Or not?
"helped before"
Carol
------------------------------
sig of shame
http://206.26.158.13/free/apronoffate.html
------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 09:39:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: real dead bugs
Henry Gould wrote:
>There is no excuse for Derrida's style,
>he was shot for it in Mexico in 1837,
I thought it was, "he shot his wife for it in Tijuana/in 1969, aiming for
her apple-shaped head," &c, &c
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 10:35:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Brian McHale <BMCH@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Oppen
In-Reply-To: Message of 03/01/96 at 17:16:17 from CharSSmith@AOL.COM
Charles Smith said he wished someone wd publish Rachel duPlessis' piece on
gaps. I too admire it -- heard it in an earlier/different version at the
Cornell conference last spring -- tried to get it from RAchel for "Poetics To-
day," but it turns out there's meant to be some publication of materials from
the BC conference, & it will appear there, though I don't know how soon. But
it really is a splendid essay.
Brian McHale
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 10:16:57 CST6CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Organization: The University of Alabama
Subject: Re: Oppen
To follow up on Charles Smith's helpful info on essays regarding
Oppen's later work: several of Taggart's essays on Oppen (and others
on Zukofsky, Bronk, Andrews, Susan Howe, Duncan, Olson, Enslin...)
are collected in _Songs of Degrees: Essays on Contemporary Poetry and
Poetics_ (1994, U of Alabama Press, intro by Marjorie Perloff).
Personally, I have found Taggart's essays, especially on Oppen and
Zukofsky, to be very fine readings. I highly recommend _Songs of
Degrees_. William Martin has a good review of _Songs of Degrees_ in
the current _Taproot_.
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 10:19:55 CST6CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Organization: The University of Alabama
Subject: Re: real dead bugs
Actually, Jacques Derrida was aboard the Challenger & died in the
explosion. I'm not sure who was here in Tuscaloosa this past Fall as
Derrida as part of a celebration of his 65th birthday.....
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 12:02:00 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: academic poet/ry
Dear Tony Green---
In reference to the Shakespeare Sonnet thing---
Well, that was Laura Riding's argument in 1926. See her essay
in "Survey Of Modernist Poetry" (a book co-authored with Graves).
--in which she compares a Shakes sonnet (the lust one) to eecummings....
the essay has been an oft unacknowledged source for New Criticism
(of course the NC's perverted it and institutionalized) and has been
attacked by such as Jakobson and Shakespearean Stepehn Booth...
I also detect its "influence" in Zukofsky's BOTTOM: ON SHAKES (though
again unacknowledged).......best, chris stroffolino
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 13:30:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Smith <CharSSmith@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Oppen
Thanks for reminding me of another really expensive book I'd like to have!
Taggart on LZ is always useful. One of my favorites is "Come Shadow
Come..." that appeared in American Poetry (I think?). I trust that's
included in _Songs..._?
________________________
To follow up on Charles Smith's helpful info on essays regarding
Oppen's later work: several of Taggart's essays on Oppen (and others
on Zukofsky, Bronk, Andrews, Susan Howe, Duncan, Olson, Enslin...)
are collected in _Songs of Degrees: Essays on Contemporary Poetry and
Poetics_ (1994, U of Alabama Press, intro by Marjorie Perloff).
Personally, I have found Taggart's essays, especially on Oppen and
Zukofsky, to be very fine readings. I highly recommend _Songs of
Degrees_. William Martin has a good review of _Songs of Degrees_ in
the current _Taproot_.
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 11:23:14 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: message in a bottle
In-Reply-To: <199603020511.AAA04117@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
. . . along the trail
left by the dream of power
--Ingeborg Bachman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 11:30:48 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: G.I. Bill (gastro-intestinal)
In-Reply-To: <199603020511.AAA04117@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
much has been written about effect of returning GIs on college & poetry
in U.S. --
There's a curious phenomenon at the other end of that cycle --
Many of us who were drafted during the late sixties and early seventies
(I did alternative service, which meant no GI benefits upon eventual
release, by the way), have discovered the plum jobs in English
Departments occupied by men who were not drafted -- This is one aspect
of the lottery that wasn't immediately evident when we drew our lots back
in sixty-whatever -- sort of an anti-GI-BILL for the anti-GIs, or we
might call it General Hershey's revenge!
I do not mention this as some seething resentnik (having, after all, a
tenured job when many others do not) -- but as indication that there are
many aspects of post-Viet Nam war academia that are not immediately
apparent in discussions of the profession's history --
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 12:08:45 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Dan Raphael Dlugonski <raphael@ARACNET.COM>
Subject: ron silliman, Re: academic poet/ry
I had ray dipalma (himself a grad of iowa) as a teacher at bowling green,
and he exposed me to writers like stein, the ny york school, and the core
language folks like yourself, people i had heard nothing of as an undergrad
at cornell (presided over by a r ammons, w/ wm matthews and robert morgan) .
another of ray's students was phil demise, who i havent heard from in years.
mccords leadership of the program lasted a couple more years, then, tired of
academic battling, he got into a less stressful spot at BG. his
workcontinues to be published, but by smaller presses than before.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 15:49:50 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "David W. Clippinger" <dwclippi@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Creative Writing at Syracuse
In-Reply-To: <199603020508.AAA25854@mailbox.syr.edu>
As per Ron Silliman's note about the split at Syracuse University into a
Creative Writing Department and the ETS (English and Textual Studies
Department), it's true that the split was indeed a reaction to theory.
Although, it is to the point now where the theory students do not read
literature and the creative writers read nothing but a particular sect of
poetry or fiction.
A rather exacerbating morass. Most interestingly, John Taggart, who has
been trying to get a job at Syracuse for years, has been abruptly passed
over again and again because he was the poet on an MLA panel a few years
ago encouraging other poets and creative writers that they should read
theory. The crowd, composed of mostly creative writers, reacted with scorn.
David Clippinger
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 15:52:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Oppen
Guess what I'd say I was hinting at in my Oppen question-- seems there's less
of an interest in direct statement in the later work, more of an interest in
movement/flow. Of course these are always side by side but I think at times
one is more emphatic. I'd point to a poem like "Animula" or "The Book of Job
&..." as examples of what I'm talking abt, & the last pg of "A Narrative" as
possibly the first occurence of this in his work after returning to poetry.
Poems like "The Hills" or basically all of "The Materials" is _saying_
something, working out a philosophical question or making an
observation/description-- "Of Being Numerous" perhaps the most concerted
attempt at this & the place where he begins to leave it off somewhat. The
practice of quoting himself which shows up so strongly in _Primitive_ also
causes this to happen for me-- the reiteration even at a distance seems to be
saying "this is what I've come to know & largely what I can make with it is
(a) music." The disappearance of punctuation in much of the later work & the
increasing use of gaps within the line also point in this direction. I
wouldn't call it an interest in nonsense, this emphasis I'm talking about,
but rather an acceptance, perhaps, of the sense already made, & an opening
out into music with it. But just now reading through _The Materials_ a bit,
seems I may be wrong, that ear's there too. . .
Rod
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 15:49:57 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Creative Writing at Syracuse
> Most interestingly, John Taggart, who has
>been trying to get a job at Syracuse for years, has been abruptly passed
>over again and again because he was the poet on an MLA panel a few years
>ago encouraging other poets and creative writers that they should read
>theory.
Sorry to continue this thread, as I think the work of Taggart's poetry, as
well as his essays, such as those on Oppen, are considerably more important
and interesting than whether or not he or anyone else has an academic job
(except where that discussion gets into the historical ramifications of the
GI Bill & the draft & class privelege, as in various recent posts) -- but
this particular job note is rather shocking. If true, it demands that there
were Syracuse writer/teachers on the MLA panel, or that the network of
writers who would communicate with Syracuse writer/teachers to blackball a
Taggart is extensive & devious beyond what I might have imagined, and I have
imagined it as potentially quite extensive & devious.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 20:14:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
There has been something bothering me lately. What are those black
things under seals eyes--could they be hairs?
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
kgoldsmith@hardpress.com
v. 212.260.4081
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 17:32:15 -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: Re: Oppen
C. Smith writes:
Thanks for reminding me of another really expensive book I'd like to have!
Taggart on LZ is always useful. One of my favorites is "Come Shadow
Come..." that appeared in American Poetry (I think?). I trust that's
included in _Songs..._?
Yes, it's in there -- and I add another high recommendation
for Taggart's book. I just picked it up from the library a
couple of days ago (coincidentally) -- in paperback, so it
shouldn't be _too_ expensive...
Also, I take it most here are familiar with duPlessis' essay
in the "Man and Poet" volume dedicated to Oppen. I don't know
that she explicitly engages any significant differences between
earlier and later Oppen, but she does (if I remember correctly -
I don't have the book and its been awhile) read Oppen with/against
Pound with an ear to Oppen's fluidity in contrast to Pound's
relative density. Very edifying, as I recall...
Stephen Cope
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 10:59:07 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: G. S. Giscombe
Can anyone help me out with an address (preferably e-mail) and maybe phone
number for G. S. Giscombe? I'd like to contact him regarding his piece in the
recent issue of ABR, "Maroons: Postmodernist Black Poetry."
Thanks,
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:18:15 GMT+1300
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: academic poet/ry
Dear Chris,
Thanks for the Riding note. I'll make sure my friend gets
onto that. Even so he's reading the sonnets in groups in interesting
ways as far as I know independent of Riding. And tells me that all
the local Shaks specialists he's approached insist that the emended
Sonnets hold. My point was that our academies are not always the best
places to get introduced to old arts (let alone new ones). Over three
decades and more I've witnessed often enough the perpetuation of views
that evaporate on close inspection, accompanied by appeals to the
authority of a consensus in the academy and derision for any would-be
corrections. Is this something to do with the seemingly gang-like organization
of academic institutions, that are particularly effective at
exclusion of persons and especially of "new ideas"?
re- the "works or acts of merit towards learning":
"The works pertaining to the persons of learned men...are two: the
reward and designation of readers in sciences alread extant and
invented; and the reward and designation of writers and inquirers
concerning any parts of learning not sufficiently laboured and
prosecuted." Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. The Advancement of
Learning. BkII,6. (Everyman ed. p.63) Elsehwere he notices that
the latter often get short shrift.
(He has some interesting comments on the debate over theory in section
8 -- as on many of the issues that are under discussion here
often.)
He can be usefully consulted even now for "the images of men's wits
and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and
capable of perpetual renovation." Likewise Shaks, but renovation is
not necessarily accomplished by holding to old emendations.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:29:53 GMT+1300
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: dead horses, live theories
Don't tastes change? Aren't they (socially constructed) unexamined
prejudices, because of an assumption that they are beyond
examination? When that assumption is in place, learning tends not to
proceed.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 14:41:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Riding Shakespeare
Tony,
I'm not sure about the politics of the Riding/Booth controversy, but
Booth's edition of the Sonnets (U California P??) contains a facsimile of
the first edition alongside a "modernized" edition. Margreta de Grazia's
SHAKESPEARE VERBATIM (Cambridge UP) is a book-length treatise, coolly
theoretical, on the eighteenth-century origins of the Shakespearean
sequence and how different what we "have" is from what was first published
as that work. It also contains references to a number of other recent
critics who have torn to shreds our notion of the canonical Shakespeare,
including the Sonnets; de Grazia and Peter Stallybrass have an essay about
two years ago in Shakespeare Quarterly called "The Materiality of the
Shakespearean Text" that provides a good overview of this work as well.
Where I come from, revisting the publication and editing history of these
texts is all the rage -- I have sympathy for your friend if he/she can't
get access to people who know about this work (if, that is, I've correctly
understood his/her interests).
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:58:12 GMT+1300
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: Riding Shakespeare
Thanks David Golumbia re Shaks info . Message will be passed on to my non-e-mail
friend. He need encouragement you rightly might guess.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 13:59:54 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: G.I. Bill (gastro-intestinal)
aldon, i've heard others detail this phenomenon, except in harsher, more
specifically pejorative terms... i.e., that english depts. are now
populated in many cases by those unwilling to 'face the music,' either wrt
combat or jail...
i hasten to add that i'm not taking sides here at all, not least b/c i was
young enough not to bother registering and not to worry about my
complacency (turned 18 in '72)... i mean, i wasn't pushed to the edge (not
that way, anyway)...
i wonder what others feel about this... one individual once confided in me
that english depts. were filled with "cowards" (again---non-combat and
non-c.o. status, "draft dodgers") and that this was in fact an aspect of
the general lassitude evinced by english profs. wrt serious work issues
such as collective bargaining, faculty rights, etc... doesn't entirely
wash, given that i've known a number of the (much) older set who were ww ii
vets and who were/are similarly opposed to (for one) unionizing...
but i still wonder what others think about this, the general trauma of
america's involvement in viet nam and the current shape of literary
studies---not theoretically, but in terms of the institutional realities...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 15:05:50 -0500
Reply-To: John_Lavagnino@Brown.edu
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Lavagnino <John_Lavagnino@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Riding Shakespeare
There's a lot of good stuff on the relationship between the physical
book and the text in Randall McLeod's writings; with respect to
Shaksper's sonnets, in "Spellbound: Typography and the Concept of
Old-Spelling Editions" (in *Renaissance and Reformation* NS 3:1
(1979), 50-65) and "Unemending Shakespeare's Sonnet 111" (in *Studies
in English Literature* 21 (1981), 75-96). I think his finest work is
in "Information upon Information" (in *Text* 5 (1991), 241-281,
published under the name "Random Clod").
The particular value of these essays comes from the way they bring
together the perspectives of two subdisciplines that normally have no
connection whatsoever: physical bibliography and literary criticism of
the close-reading sort. McLeod seen solely as a bibliographer or
solely as a critic isn't doing anything revolutionary, though he is
quite good at both; it's the combination that's really remarkable.
Where an edition of Shakespeare will typically have a note of a line
or two about difficult readings or emendations, McLeod has written
essays of ten or twenty pages which set forth more clearly than any
other source what is known about the production process that created
the book and how that affects the likelihood of particular
emendations, as well as providing close readings of the resulting
texts.
Even if you're not convinced about the reading he happens to favor (as
I am not by the second of these essays, which proposes a change in the
usual emendation made to a single word in Sonnet 111), you will
understand much better what you are looking at when you go back to the
work.
John Lavagnino
Women Writers Project, Brown University
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 10:12:46 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
In-Reply-To: <199603031935.OAA02190@orion.sas.upenn.edu>
I got such a kick out of the following translation of Pound's
"The Return" into pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English) that I thought it
might bring a smile to other faces, as well. Here goes (by one of my
students):
Stay Come
Spock em, dey stay come; auwe, spock da scayed
Movaments, and da luau feet,
Stay all twist an' kooked
Walkin' all jag!
Spock em, dey stay come, one, afta da udda
Scayed, ha moe moe-haf not
Wen even spook da snow all white lidat
An soun' stay in da bareeze
An haf stay turn da udda way;
Was da "kooks-wit-wings,"
Safe!
Kahunas wit da flyin' kine Nikes!
Dey get de silva dogs
Smellin' da hauna eya!
Ai sos! Ai sos!
Dey was da fas' mokes
Dose da shaap-smellin';
Dose was da obake of blood
Cruisin' on da leash,
Shmoke dose leash-buggas
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 09:57:58 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: AWOL's web page (Forwarded on behalf of AWOL)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 17:23:20 +1000
>To: awol@ozemail.com.au
>From: awol@ozemail.com.au (awol)
>Subject: AWOL's web page
>
>Australian Writing On Line now has its own web page at
>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol
>
>The monthly HAPPENINGS list can be accessed at
>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/Happenings.html
>
>Over the coming weeks AWOL will upload its small press Virtual Bookshop.
>Stay tuned.
>
>
>
>
>
>AWOL
>Australian Writing On Line
>awol@ozemail.com.au
>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/
>PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia
>Phone 61 2 7475667
>Fax 61 2 7472802
>
__________________________________
Mark Roberts
Student Systems Project Officer
Information Systems
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
PH:(02)351 5066
FAX:(02)351 5081
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 15:42:49 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: Re: Pound translation
Susan --
Thank you for "the return" in pidgin, which for the moment makes that old one
new. It raises a question in my mind, of whether there's been any attempt
at a deep or thorough use of Hawaiian pidgin in contemporary poem-making --
not spicing up the English poem with a little of the flavor but going all the
way as here. I know of that kind of thing from other places but don't know
if similar activity is present in Hawaii.
Anyway, just asking.
JERRY
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 14:24:45 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
In-Reply-To: <9603032342.AA11756@carla.UCSD.EDU>
Jerry--There are some serious writers of pidgin in Hawai'i; the best are
Lois-Ann Yamanaka, whose book of poems, _Saturday Night at the Pahala
Theatre_ (Bamboo Ridge Press) is much more radical than her new Farrar,
Straus & Giroux novel, _Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers_, which has a
standard English narrator. And there's Joe Balaz, whose mock epic about
the discovery of Japan by Polynesians is in the new TINFISH (shameless
shameless self-promotion on my part!), along with a couple of poems in
pidgin by Eric Chock. Darrell Lum is a fine short story writer and
playwright. Other writers, such as Marie Hara, Rodney Morales, and
Juliet Kono Lee, use pidgin, but not exclusively.
The Millenium anthology is working well in my creative writing class. I
guess the funny thing is how little resistance there is to avant-garde
writing among the students. I mean it's almost disappointing sometimes!
Susan
On Sun, 3 Mar 1996, Jerry Rothenberg wrote:
> Susan --
>
> Thank you for "the return" in pidgin, which for the moment makes that old one
> new. It raises a question in my mind, of whether there's been any attempt
> at a deep or thorough use of Hawaiian pidgin in contemporary poem-making --
> not spicing up the English poem with a little of the flavor but going all the
> way as here. I know of that kind of thing from other places but don't know
> if similar activity is present in Hawaii.
>
> Anyway, just asking.
>
> JERRY
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 12:55:52 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: AWOL: XAVIER HERBERT HOME FACES DEVELOPMENT AXE (forwarded)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 17:28:14 +1000
>To: awol@ozemail.com.au
>From: awol@ozemail.com.au (awol)
>Subject: AWOL: XAVIER HERBERT HOME FACES DEVELOPMENT AXE
>
>The following message has been posted by AWOL on behalf of the campaign to
>save Xavier Herbert's home.
>
>******************************************************
>
>ATTENTION - HELP NEEDED
>
>XAVIER HERBERT HOME FACES DEVELOPMENT AXE
>
>The home of Xavier Herbert, located in the once quite Cairns suburb of
>Redlynch in far north Queensland, is threatened with being demolished for
>unit development.
>
>This is the home where Xavier Herbert wrote the 1975 Miles Franklin award
>winner, Poor Fellow, My Country.
>
>The Xavier Herbert Cottage Preservation Committee has been established with
>the aim of preserving the house. The options for this are still being
>developed. A submission to the Cairns City Council to purchase the home has
>been rejected.
>
>The home is for sale at $123,000.
>
>If anyone is interested in lending support to this campaign please contact the:
>
>Xavier Herbert Cottage Preservation Committee
>
>Cairns Ross Parisi 015163313 fax 070 314529
>
>Brisbane Kevin Guy phone/fax 07 3844 5629 email cycad@peg.apc.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>AWOL
>Australian Writing On Line
>awol@ozemail.com.au
>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/
>PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia
>Phone 61 2 7475667
>Fax 61 2 7472802
>
__________________________________
Mark Roberts
Student Systems Project Officer
Information Systems
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
PH:(02)351 5066
FAX:(02)351 5081
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 21:39:55 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Riding Shakespeare
Just want to second John Lavagnino's endorsement of Randall McLeod's work
-- he's not well known outside the Renaissance but within it occupies a
place of high regard -- as one pop god puts it, apropos of something else
I'm sure, "not the stuff for the tourists/But the stuff for the purists."
The de Grazia/Stallybrass essay I mentioned in my previous post was written
as an introduction to a collection of McLeod that, so far as I know, has
not in fact appeared and may not be appearing. He deserves a wider audience
-- but I suspect he's too smart to get one.
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 22:05:22 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: academic poet/ry
Dear Tony Green---I don't know if Chris Reiner is still on this list,
but WITZ published an article just recently by Mark DuCharme on a
Clark Coolidge and a Shakespeare sonnet...recognizing the syntactical
ambiguity and all that in the S as well as C (though I don't know if
he deals with the BOOK KNOWN AS Q punctuation and spellings.....cs
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 21:39:31 CST6CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Resent-From: "Hank Lazer" <HLAZER@as.ua.edu>
Comments: Originally-From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@mail.erols.com>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Subject: spoken through a medium
Hank, could you forward this to the list for me? I ask you because I just
read one of your posts so I had your address handy.
______________________________________________
[THE FOLLOWING POST DOES NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF HANK LAZER, so far as I
know. They're mine. Emily Lloyd]
Not not speaking; something's wrong w/my listserv app. I can receive
Poetics messages but am being prevented from responding. I've saved the
responses I've tried to send & will fwd. them to the list if they're
relevant by the time this (rather metaphorical) problem is solved...
But briefly--re:derrida--NOT pro-Cliff notes. My problem w/JD (& others) is
his audience. In choosing a style, you're often choosing (whether
purposefully or not) an audience. & excluding another. And yes, this
applies to poets & other kinds of writers, too. I was (unfashionably)
making a distinction between theoreticians & poets---feeling the first have
a "responsibility" to [what word to use here? clarity?] by nature of their
work trying to "assert" "convince" "change" or "expose." Of course, some
poets do this too (no one need remind me). So---who reads and who doesn't
Derrida--& should this be a [concern, question, issue] (of mine, of his, of
anyone who likes his "central ideas," which no, I will NOT attempt to
articulate here).
Also--I must be living in a different academic universe from most posters.
I drank theory for breakfast & lunch (with a sensible dinner). I've not
been encouraged to think for a second of poets as savants or poems as
anything but meticulously constructed. And yes, I AM grateful for this. --E
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 23:56:09 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
Hi, this is the real Kevin Killian.
Susan Schultz & Jerome Rothenberg, you 2 were talking about the Hawaiian
writers of Pidgin English. Well have I got a name for you!!
Susan, you probably know all about this guy, R. Zamora Linmark. he came to
San Francisco last week and I got to meet him after his reading. He is
fantastic. He has a book out from Kaya Production called Rolling the R's.
I have not been so impressed with a book in eternity. It's kind of a novel
and all the characters are gay youngsters in a Filipino section of Hawaii
during the late 70s, they are 10 or 12 years old and all of them want to be
like the US stars they watch on TV-Farrah Fawcett, Scott Baio, Matt Dillon,
Kate Jackson, Donna Summer etc. It has to be read to be believed. It was
great to meet him and hear him read. Susan, you should arrange for him to
come to your classes at the University where you teach. But you probably
have already! He is also in new anthology "Premonitions." XXX Kevin
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 00:01:27 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Trivia question about Henry James
Hello gang, it's Kevin Killian again. I can't think of anybody to ask who
would be sure to know, except Raymond Pettibon, and he's too far away, but
I need to know the answer by tomorrow morning!!! It's about Henry James'
Portrait of a Lady. What is the name of the man whom Isabel Archer
marries; and b) what is his relation to that sinister Madame Merle, is she
his sister, mistress, both or what? I forget. And I don't have a copy of
the book in the house. I could probably download it from somewhere, but
duh. Also what is the name of his daughter the one who's in the convent?
First person to write in gets a free copy of this month's issue of Mirage
(Larry Kearney, Ed Morris Jr, Hoa Nguyen, Rosmarie Waldrop, cover by Claude
Royet-Journoud).
Thank you everyone!!!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 02:42:42 -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: Re: academic poet/ry
Chris, Maria,
>
> Maria, but what if you DID encounter such students? Is it a one-way
> street? Like can one eat one's "avant-garde" desert before?
> I mean dessert....
> Or is it possible that a poet who comes to the avant-garde stuff
without
> ever having access to, or interest in, the mainstream tradition
(western)
> (dying?), will have been spared an un-necessary immersion in stuffy
stuff
> ? That "experiment" includes "tradition" more than vice versa---
> I'm surprised you haven't encountered such students...
> I wonder what you would have done with me had I been your
student....
> cs
>
A test case of this might be Bruce Andrews. He is the one poet who
seems never to have had a "conventionalist" early period. Even back in
1971-72, when he was a grad student at Harvard having come from Michael
Lally's workshop in the Baltimore/DC area that proved so fruitful to so
many poets, his work had that atomized "anti-narrative" feel to it. He
once told me that his early listening to jazz as a youngster had led
him to believe that the very same Iowa School poetics that had, for
example, been the site where Lally had gone to school struck him as an
equivalent to, say, Dixieland when he knew there was going to be some
equivalent to an Albert Ayler (or whatever) and he just set his sites
on that, day one, even though at the time he didn't know exactly where
to find it.
Ron silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 06:01:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: real dead bugs
In-Reply-To: <8758D10EF5@as.ua.edu>
On Sat, 2 Mar 1996, Hank Lazer wrote:
> Actually, Jacques Derrida was aboard the Challenger & died in the
> explosion.
Ronald Reagan, when he heard of the explosion, is reported to have
said, "Is that the one with the philosopher?"
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 04:09:27 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jack Mahan <jack@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Challenging academic poet/ry
In-Reply-To: <199603041042.CAA15550@ix10.ix.netcom.com>
On Mon, 4 Mar 1996, Ron Silliman wrote:
>....he just set his sites on that, day one, even though at the time he
>didn't know exactly where
> to find it.
Ron, some of us are young, some came in blind;
some were pushed in... For one, N. Mackey streched my pupils and
laughed heh heh heh heh-- saying- "No."
"But I Can Point You to Some Trees in the Forest..."
*
Face it y'all, Langpo gets/got somefolks _HIGH_ like nothin' else...
*
Anyone here could run for office and get elected on a
platform exclaiming the addictive, brain-damaging effects of Langpo on
the youth of today...
It'd be much easier for me to run that campaign, than to arrange
an academic contract in non-discursive analysis... (even at The Evergreen
State College, where there are no Departments)...
I've seen one logger, and I feel like I've seen 'em all.
Point being, teachers, it's all fun and good, until somebody
gets hurt... "LP-- Not Just a Way With Words."
Very Vichy, (unemployed again)
jack
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 07:38:52 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Trivia question about Henry James
At 12:01 AM 3/4/96 -0800, Kevin Killian wrote:
What is the name of the man whom Isabel Archer
>marries
Gilbert Osmond
b) what is his relation to that sinister Madame Merle, is she
>his sister, mistress, both or what?
*Former* mistress, person who knows him better than anyone else in the
world, and mother of his daughter, the one in the convent, Pansy Osmond
You know they're making a movie of this starring Nicole Kidman? <eek>
Emily
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:11:42 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Mr. Gould re-blasing (twinkling)
A member of the list in a private communique has convinced me that, in my
enthusiasm for the Blasing book (POLITICS OF FORM etc.), I may have
misrepresented the aims and positions of the Langposse. I went back and
had a second look at the book; while she does raise some important
& provocative questions about rhetoric & technique / technique & politics
in 20th cent. poetry, she doesn't examine Lanpo very closely. In
fact one could argue that it was the mainstream free verse of the
70s, which langpo reacted against, which maintained a kind of anti-critical
anti-rhetorical "natural" rhetoric - the kind of political assumption
Blasing claims Pound/Olson modernism & by extension Lanpo maintained.
I won't gab any further along these lines until I've read a little more
of the writings. As I think I pointed out in my first couple of
posts on this subject, my own reading in Language poetry is pretty slim,
so my provocations should be taken with a grain of salt (& 2 teaspoons
of cough syrup). Language poetry's own truly anti-rhetorical rhetoric -
breaking down the "speaking subject" into constituent parts & erratic
orbits & word clusters - was a real political move. Speaking as a blind
& semi-comatose litwerary historian, it may not have produced meisterpieces,
but it opened some doors. Hear, hear. Righto, Mr. Chips.
Further groundsmashing pronunciamentos on this and other subjects are
available from Pluto & Uranus Press in a collection titled: "Pot-shots
and Potheads : Contemporary Poetry and the Incline of the Triangle",
ed. by...yours truly. Available from P-U Press - just send the gold plate.
p.s. ladies & gentlemen: I advise no further discussion on this or any
other subject. Thank you. - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 09:45:51 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Mr. Gould re-blasing (twinkling)
henry, don't worry about being language-ishly correct just cuz yr on this
list. yr allowed to like stuff that's critical of langpo. i've found the
"language people" very nice, and open to my ideas, although i never saw
myself as "one of them."--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 07:05:01 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
Uh, I'm not a teacher, so this is quite literally not my business, & I
certainly don't claim to know the protocol about something like this, but
...
Am I really the only one to be a little put off by the fact that the
translator is not credited by name?
I mean, if I were a student & I knew that my writing was going to be shown,
and praised, to more than 350 poets, editors, translators, critics,
readers, etc. from around the (English-speaking) world, I would 1) want a
choice in the matter and 2) if I wanted them to read it, I'd damn well want
them to know who I was, too.
This e-mail list is a kind of publishing &, even without considering any
people who look through the archives at the EPC, quite possibly has a
larger circulation than, say, TinFish (for which my check is in the mail,
Susan).
Just checking.
Bests,
Herb
> I got such a kick out of the following translation of Pound's
>"The Return" into pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English) that I thought it
>might bring a smile to other faces, as well. Here goes (by one of my
>students):
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 10:15:05 -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: Mr. Gould re-blasing (twinkling)
>p.s. ladies & gentlemen:
whew! that leaves _me_ out...
>I advise no further discussion on this or any other subject...
consider the subject, closed. but may we open the object?
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 10:25:20 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Bradley bugs
At 6:01 AM 3/4/96, David Kellogg wrote:
>On Sat, 2 Mar 1996, Hank Lazer wrote:
>
>> Actually, Jacques Derrida was aboard the Challenger & died in the
>> explosion.
>
>Ronald Reagan, when he heard of the explosion, is reported to have
>said, "Is that the one with the philosopher?"
>
Sunday NY Times: American Book Foundation event, Bill Bradley explains
difference between his book and Colin Powell's--Powell received $6 million,
Bradley received $1 dollar. Bradley quotes from Derrida.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 13:02:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: KUSZAI <v369t4kj@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: info request
does anyone out there have Stephen Ratcliffe's e-mail address. I don't
believe he is a subscriber to Poetics list.
thanks,
Joel Kuszai
please reply to me backchannel,
"if you can"
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 13:09:32 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Patrick Foley <Pfofk@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Silliman et al. on JAZZ, &c.
Re: Chris, Maria & Ron
On the possibility, raised here, of experimental poetry proceeding without a
traditional background, with a suggested analogy from the history of jazz:
Albert Ayler, to take Ron's example, immersed himself in the jazz tradition
just as much as every jazz great. I don't expect you could get him to say we
shouldn't bother listening to Louis Armstrong anymore, or that history begins
with Ornette Coleman.
Bruce Andrews may never have written what you call "conventionalist" verse,
but he did read it, I suppose, as an undergraduate, and as a graduate student
at Harvard. Maybe he was never "interested in" --- one side of the question
--- but he did have "access to" the traditions of poetry.
Is the idea here that he learned NOTHING? That his reading was just so much
time wasted before he could do his own thang?
Pat
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 07:38:54 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
In-Reply-To: <v01520d00ad5fe1d97af4@[205.134.228.84]>
Kevin--so glad you got to hear and meet Zack Linmark. At the reading
here for his book, which had an audience of 200(?) people, he had actors
perform chapters (some are letters, some poems, some dialogues) from it.
The drag queen was especially good. He's writing a mixture of pidgin,
standard American, and increasingly adding Filipino languages to his
work. I also recommend the book highly. Susan
On Sun, 3 Mar 1996, Kevin Killian wrote:
> Hi, this is the real Kevin Killian.
>
> Susan Schultz & Jerome Rothenberg, you 2 were talking about the Hawaiian
> writers of Pidgin English. Well have I got a name for you!!
>
> Susan, you probably know all about this guy, R. Zamora Linmark. he came to
> San Francisco last week and I got to meet him after his reading. He is
> fantastic. He has a book out from Kaya Production called Rolling the R's.
> I have not been so impressed with a book in eternity. It's kind of a novel
> and all the characters are gay youngsters in a Filipino section of Hawaii
> during the late 70s, they are 10 or 12 years old and all of them want to be
> like the US stars they watch on TV-Farrah Fawcett, Scott Baio, Matt Dillon,
> Kate Jackson, Donna Summer etc. It has to be read to be believed. It was
> great to meet him and hear him read. Susan, you should arrange for him to
> come to your classes at the University where you teach. But you probably
> have already! He is also in new anthology "Premonitions." XXX Kevin
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 18:15:25 -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: NEW TALISMAN!
the new talisman is here: new poems by William Bronk, conversations with
Bronk and Henry Lyman, major essay on Bronk by David Clippinger; totally
big and terrific section of Turkish poetry translated, and introduced by
Murat Nemet-Nejat: Cemal Sureya, Ece Ayhan, Ilhan Berk, Behcet Necatigil,
Ozdemir Ince, Nilgun Marmara, Mustafa Ziyalan, and Melisa Gurpinar; and
then: William Walsh on Oppen, Susan Schultz on Bernstein, Guest, Lauterbach,
Palmer, Revell, and Selby, Keith Tuma on Eshleman, Stephen Fredman on
Einzig, Susan Smith Nash on Scalapino, plus huge poetics section: Susan
Smith Nash, John Noto, Patrick Philips, Daniel Barbiero; plus major
essay by W. Scott Howard on Susan Howe.
And it's still just $6, yr. subscription. $11. And even if we sell what
we print, we barely pay the printer. Please buy/subscribe: Talisman,
P.O. Box 3157, Jersey City, NJ 07303-3157.
The next Talisman, #15, the Gerrit Lansing issue, should be here next
month, and #16 (Boston/Britain) is being fine tuned for summer publication,
but we need yr. subscription dollars, please.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 13:43:20 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
In-Reply-To: <v02130500ad6058058b3a@[192.0.2.1]>
Thanks, Herb, for saying what you said. I had a strange feeling about
it, too. The student's name is Nathan Kagayama, and I told him I was
sharing his work.
Susan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:27:43 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Silliman et al. on JAZZ, &c.
Pat, Ron, anyone--
Is Bruce really "reading" Dante?
chris
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 19:40:10 -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: Re: Oppen
In-Reply-To: <199603030509.AAA00466@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Mar 3, 96 00:06:38 am
I'm always glad when Oppen comes up because I think he's really on of our
great poets, despite the deceptive lack of *bulk* in the output. His
poetic project seems to me to engage, with remarkable depth, some of the
more crucial questions of this century's history. So, even tho i'm used
to the poets i like most not being very widely recognized, i'm always just
a bit surprised & disappointed in his case--and susceptible, i guess, to
a utopian dream that some where some day his worth will be acknowledged...
Ah, enough of that. I guess it's enough to see folks like Rod Smith
engaging so seriously and interestingly with the poems. It's *always*
fascinating to consider the relations among Oppen's books, in a way that
just isn't true of many or most poets. That's partly because they're so
much like units, each one self-contained and discrete, but also extending
the project of what has gone before. But as true as this is, it's also
possible to forget about the apparently linear movement from one book to
the next, to think and read instead by attending to recurrences and
anticipations and reversions that weave strange patterns throughout the
work as a whole. I like Rod's comments on the late poetry--the move into
or immersion in flow and fluidity and music. This makes sense to me, or
feels good in terms of my own reading. But in terms of O's late habit of
quoting himself, i'm especially struck by how strongly the last book,
Primitive, loops back to the first, Discrete Series. Strangely moving
(moving strangely?) how that last last poem, "Till Other Voices Wake Us,"
flows back to wash over with watery music the scene of O.'s writing the
first book...
steve
Rod Smith writes:
"Guess what I'd say I was hinting at in my Oppen question-- seems there's less
of an interest in direct statement in the later work, more of an interest in
movement/flow. Of course these are always side by side but I think at times
one is more emphatic. I'd point to a poem like "Animula" or "The Book of Job
&..." as examples of what I'm talking abt, & the last pg of "A Narrative" as
possibly the first occurence of this in his work after returning to poetry.
Poems like "The Hills" or basically all of "The Materials" is _saying_
something, working out a philosophical question or making an
observation/description-- "Of Being Numerous" perhaps the most concerted
attempt at this & the place where he begins to leave it off somewhat. The
practice of quoting himself which shows up so strongly in _Primitive_ also
causes this to happen for me-- the reiteration even at a distance seems to be
saying "this is what I've come to know & largely what I can make with it is
(a) music." The disappearance of punctuation in much of the later work & the
increasing use of gaps within the line also point in this direction. I
wouldn't call it an interest in nonsense, this emphasis I'm talking about,
but rather an acceptance, perhaps, of the sense already made, & an opening
out into music with it. But just now reading through _The Materials_ a bit,
seems I may be wrong, that ear's there too. . .
Rod"
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 17:42:22 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: GI Tract
In-Reply-To: <199603040513.AAA29362@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Mine less harsh because I do not for a minute buy reactionary crap about
universities being filled with cowards who wouldn't serve -- partly
because, being of that generation, I know what some of us had to face
when resisting the draft. Those of us who were serving COs were
confronted with what General Hershey like to call a policy of "maximum
possible disruption," which policy was patently intended to see to it
that nobody in his right mind would seek CO status. On the other side,
the majority of draftees never in fact faced combat. My brother-in-law,
drafted the year before me, spent his two years typing in Germany.
What I was getting at was just that there are many factors operating in
the English Dept. job market of the past decades that have neverbeen much
discussed and, this a bit harsher, that some among those who had
uninterrupted university education and progress towards career have not
always given thought to how they got there and to how others were
siphoned away, no matter how briefly.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 17:54:05 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Tuma's Blues
In-Reply-To: <199603040513.AAA29362@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Direct to Keith + any other interested readers of his review in current _ABR_
The first publication of Brathwaite's _Black + Blues_ that I know of was
published in 1976 by Cuba's _Casa de las Americas_, which would likely
explain why you've never seen a copy. (Ain't the embargo grand!) Your
review mentions a 1979 original. Is that yet another edition? Does the
new version (I haven't seen one yet) indicate a '79 edition from an
English-speaking country? The "76 version is in English, and has a
rather televsiual cover (a sort of music of the spheres effect), which is
continued into the title page. The typography is pretty much like
Brathwaite's other 70s works.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:02:23 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.MUOHIO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Tuma's Blues
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 4 Mar 1996 17:54:05 -0800 from
<anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Aldon,
No other edition--that was my error, likely the product of inscrutable
handwriting, no proofs from ABR, + something like 2 days to write the thing.
Not my title either--and I'm less than pleased with what ABR called the thing.
best,
Keith
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:59:48 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Tuma's Blues
>Aldon,
>
>No other edition--that was my error, likely the product of inscrutable
>handwriting, no proofs from ABR, + something like 2 days to write the thing.
>
>Not my title either--and I'm less than pleased with what ABR called the thing.
>
>best,
>
>Keith
Pardon my ignorance but what is ABR? In Australia it is the AUSTRALIAN BOOK
REVIEW.
__________________________________
Mark Roberts
Student Systems Project Officer
Information Systems
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
PH:(02)351 5066
FAX:(02)351 5081
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 22:27:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Silliman et al. on JAZZ, &c.
i thot chris's q to me was abt having students experimentally oriented who
then got turned on to traditional stuff --i haven't had that experience --but
now folks are talking about people who have only and experimental
"bildungs"apprenticeship, yes i know many such, who have never taken a poetry
class where they read the "classics," at Naropa, say, or some of my u-grads
who have never studied poetry at all til they walked into my class. but i
can certainly imagine such a thing, and do have a friend who dropped out of
the punk/ poetry/zine performance/ poststructuralist theory scene to study
medieval provencal and sicilian poetry --what she loves about it is the
formalism... more power to her; with her background she can do
anything!--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 20:57:43 -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 <tenney@AZSTARNET.COM>
Subject: Need Korean bone marrow - Save a Life (fwd)
one more forward, one more apology for being off topic.
Tenney
>Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 18:52:48 -0700
>Reply-To: English Graduate Literature Program <EGL@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>Sender: English Graduate Literature Program <EGL@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>From: LZ <lyndaz@U.ARIZONA.EDU>
>Subject: Need Korean bone marrow - Save a Life (fwd)
>Comments: To: english@listserv.arizona.edu
>To: Multiple recipients of list EGL <EGL@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>Content-Length: 2717
>
>I know this is off all of our usual topics, but I figured somebody might
>eventually forward this to someone who can help.
>
>LYnda
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Mon, 4 Mar 96 15:23:44 PST
>From: Barbara W. Langstaff <barbara@forte.com>
>To: a-parents-china@shore.net
>Subject: Need Korean bone marrow - Save a Life
>
>Forgive me for being off-topic, (pardon my netiquette) but someone out there
>may be able to save a life. This was forwarded by a friend (headers
>deleted), so I know it's real. His sister appears to have been adopted, so
>maybe it's not too far off-topic.
>
>Please forward as appropriate. Thanks.
>
>
>>>From: Brantley Thompson <thompson_brantley@jpmorgan.com>
>>>
>>>Subject: Re: Waste time helping someone
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Author: mdoyle@cosmix.com (Mike Doyle) at nylanr01 Date: 2/4/96 8:10
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Friends,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>My twelve year old sister has Leukemia and needs a bone marrow
>>>
>>>transplant to survive, but has no blood-related siblings. Her name is
>>>
>>>Karen, and she is 1/2 Korean and 1/2 North American (European
>>>
>>>descendants). Finding out whether or not one is an appropriate donor
>>>
>>>requires only a blood test. All expenses for the donor will of course be
>>>
>>>paid. If you are or know anyone who is of like origin, please email me
>>>
>>>as soon as possible at <mdoyle@cosmix.com>. I would also appreciate your
>>>
>>>sharing this message with the people you know. Karen's doctors are
>>>
>>>searching through the registered donor list, and haven't had much luck.
>>>
>>>Our best bet is to find someone who is not yet registered as a donor. I
>>>
>>>welcome any suggestions you have, and appreciate your concern.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Thank you,
>>>
>>>Mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Alana O'Reilly
>>Laboratory of Ben Neel
>>Beth Israel Hospital Boston
>>RW663
>>330 Brookline Avenue
>>Boston, MA 02215
>>phone: (617) 667-2901
>>fax: (617) 667-2913
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Received: from geoworks.com by ccmail.geoworks.com (SMTPLINK V2.11
>PreRelease 4)
>> ; Sun, 03 Mar 96 21:20:00 PST
>>Return-Path: <ptrinh@fusion.geoworks.com>
>>Received: from water.geoworks.com.geoworks by geoworks.com (4.1/SMI-4.1)
>> id AA07005; Sun, 3 Mar 96 21:22:34 PST
>>Received: by water.geoworks.com.geoworks (4.1/SMI-4.1)
>> id AA24994; Sun, 3 Mar 96 21:22:34 PST
>>Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 21:22:33 -0800 (PST)
>>From: Peter Trinh <ptrinh@geoworks.com>
>>To: junkmail@geoworks.com
>>Subject: looking for help (fwd)
>>Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960303212135.9123o-100000@water.geoworks.com>
>>Mime-Version: 1.0
>>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>>
>>
>>
>
>______________________________________________________________
>Barbara W. Langstaff
>Forte Technical Support Dispatcher
>Support Hotline: 510-451-5400
>Tel: 510 869 2047
>Fax: 510 869 2010
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 03:02:36 -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: Re: Silliman et al. on JAZZ, &c.
"Bruce Andrews may never have written what you call "conventionalist"
verse, but he did read it, I suppose, as an undergraduate, and as a
graduate student at Harvard. Maybe he was never "interested in" ---
one side of the question --- but he did have "access to" the traditions
of poetry.
"Is the idea here that he learned NOTHING? That his reading was just
so much time wasted before he could do his own thang?"
Bruce got his Ph.D. in political science, not English (and got the BA
and masters at Johns Hopkins before going to Harvard). No, the idea is
not that he learned nothing, but rather (perhaps) that the irrelevance
of what was generally being taught as literature was immediately
visible.
Haven't spoken with Bruce about this in at least a decade (and he's not
online, alas), but as I recall, he took some lit and/or writing courses
and noted liking some from Eliot Coleman, some of whose work (such as
the book _Mocking Birds at Fort McHenry_) was itself fairly innovative
for the time and context. (That is, formally innovative but completely
outside of the context of the New American poetics.) Bruce also was
present at the big Languages of Criticism and Sciences of Man (sic)
conference at Johns Hopkins in 1966 (he was 18 at the time) that was,
for some, the first big brouhaha of poststructuralism in the US -- and
that seems to have made some impact. But Bruce has always spoken very
highly of Michael Lally's community oriented workshop(s) as a/the key
introduction for him, as they seem to have been also for Peter Inman,
Tina Darragh, Lynne Dreyer and so many other members of the
DC/Baltimore scene of that period.
Lord knows, at Berkeley, you needed special dispensation to study any
poetry after 1940. I was able to get a course on Zukofsky (a tutorial)
only by explaining that he was a key figure in the Williams scene and
even then only two faculty members at the time had claimed ever to have
read him. The only one who was willing to teach such a course was
Grenier. I never had a course in school in which reading Ginsberg or
Olson was even a possibility, with the sole exception of a linguistics
class at SF State taught by Ed Van Aelstyn, who'd been a founding
editor of Coyote's Journal (the mag that Clayton modeled Caterpillar
after).
What you studied in the 1960s were not the poetics of that decade...
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 03:53:39 -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: War Resisters as Vets
Aldon,
I always thought there ought to be a "veterans" (or otherwise alumni)
org for war resisters and conscientious objectors. Certainly, there are
lots of us out here, but characteristically we've been separated from
that experience by the fact that very seldom did many of us do our
"time" in any one concentrated numbers. I was one of two in the prison
movement group I worked with (which got approval only because John
Tunney, US Senator, and Leo Ryan, the congressman killed at Jonestown,
served as paper members on its board). Paul Hoover is the one whose
written in most detail of his experiences. (Hi Paul)
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 07:28:32 -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: War Resisters as Vets
In-Reply-To: <199603051153.DAA16913@ix2.ix.netcom.com> from "Ron Silliman" at
Mar 5, 96 03:53:39 am
Those interested in the experience of Viet Nam war resisters in Canada
should get ahold of _Hell No We Won't Go: Vietnam Draft Resisters in
Canada_ by Alan Haig-Brown, just out from Raincoast Books (8680 Cambie
St. Vancouver, BC V6P 6M9, Canada, phone: 604-323-7100) at $18.95 CAN
$13.50 US (ISBN 1-55192-011-5). The book consists of interviews with
18 men and 2 women who came to Canada because of the war.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 09:27:55 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: GI Tract
aldon, i don't buy the "coward" line either, meant to pass (again) no
judgment on what anybody did wrt the draft...
like you, i'm interested simply in the what's and why's of those who
managed to profit from what you call the "anti-G.I. bill"... i wonder how
in fact such a "factor" operates in the current industry, as it were... i
wonder what it means to argue, in effect, that there are academics who have
never been self-critical in this regard... and i wonder just how many
(male) academics we're talking about...
i guess i'm asking for more specifics to try to get a handle on this so
very sensitive issue...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 11:09:31 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Artists Statement on the Economy (long!!)
Going to try an experiment here. As mentioned in previous post, I'm meeting
with a few writers to talk politics on a weekly basis. The following is
my own sketchy draft of an "Artists' Statement on the Economy" loosely
modelled (but not echoing) the Catholic Bishops' Statement of a few years
back. It is only an outline - mostly just topic headings. I would welcome
any comments on the whole endeavor - or suggested topics or comments on
the topics below. Please send to Henry_Gould@brown.edu; I will print
them out & bring to the meeting - can't promise anything beyond that.
Thanks in advance. PLEASE send direct to me - do not hit reply button.
This should NOT be a general poetics discussion, in my opinion.
I. POLITICAL ROLE OF ARTS & ARTISTS
- Current drift of US society is inimical to arts & artists. Aspects:
1. economy is inimical to majority of people in general (job loss, insecurity,
overwork, pressure on families; focus on profits, power & technological
consumerism; racism & underclass)
2. Society in general is inimical to arts (pervasive commercial media;
mandarin, splintered academy; divided ethnic cultures)
- Current drift also offers opportunities - time of questioning & change;
drive to re-formulate basic values.
- Responsibilities of artist to society are the same, on a personal level,
as those of any human being. However, art is an activity, a process, a
function of culture with its own particularity. Very rudimentarily, this can
be defined as the creation of forms & images of order, harmony & discovery.
Vital forms which incorporate both real and imaginary experience.
The power animating this activity can be defined very simply as the
_sympathetic imagination_.
- Imagination informs all human activities, as a power of empathy,
understanding, criticism and creativity. In the arts, ideally, this
comes to focus - consciousness - and fruition, giving back to culture
a free image of its common life. A culture without imagination is
quite simply a dead culture. It lives off dead images, and persists
through inertia & repression.
If culture is becoming inimical not only to the arts, but to the majority of
people in their common life, then our aim as artists ought to be to turn
the imaginative powers toward our common life & the common good. It
is not a time to make special demands for artists per se, but a time to
address imaginatively the roots of our common problems. This is the rationale
for the following analysis.
II. PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDWORK
1. Common good and common life. Perennial realities, social utopias.
Peace and equity as standards. Global standards of human rights.
2. Philosophy of government. Democracy - gov't as expression of will
of people. Social contract, traditions of social covenant (Biblical,
Native American, other). Politics as creative social bond; polis as
arena of definition & fulfillment. Gov't as mediator of private rights
and common good.
3. Economic philosophy. Community as source of value. Neither private
property nor collectivity are absolute values - both entail individual
rights and stewardship. Universal human rights as standard for
economic organization.
III. CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN & GLOBAL ECONOMIC REALITIES
IV. CRITIQUE OF CURRENT POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, PARTIES, PLATFORMS
V. ACHIEVABLE STANDARDS FOR AMERICAN ECONOMY
VI. SPECIFIC POLICY GOALS
VII. INDIVIDUAL AS PARTICIPANT IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL COMMUNITIES
(fill in the blanks if you can!!) - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 12:48:04 -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: GI Tract
Joe,
I don't know anyone (self-included) who was politically engaged during the
Vietnam period whose life was not somehow disrupted. C.O. status was not
granted for the asking. Unless one was raised in a pacifist religion, it
was next to impossible to acquire in certain regions. Exemptions from the
draft, for any reason, were not casually granted. Draft resistance was a
political act and often resulted in exodus or imprisonment.
I'm not an academician, in part because of the circumstances of those times,
but I will not fault someone for having been fortunate enough to get on with
their lives. Nor do I feel they should fault themselves.
If you're interested in the factors at work in the "current industry" of
academe, I think you'd find it more "profitable" to examine the very active
roles that racism and sexism continue to play in the academic environment
rather than moralizing about the draft status of your professional
colleagues 25 to 30 years ago.
Jonathan Brannen
>aldon, i don't buy the "coward" line either, meant to pass (again) no
>judgment on what anybody did wrt the draft...
>
>like you, i'm interested simply in the what's and why's of those who
>managed to profit from what you call the "anti-G.I. bill"... i wonder how
>in fact such a "factor" operates in the current industry, as it were... i
>wonder what it means to argue, in effect, that there are academics who have
>never been self-critical in this regard... and i wonder just how many
>(male) academics we're talking about...
>
>i guess i'm asking for more specifics to try to get a handle on this so
>very sensitive issue...
>
>joe
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 12:58:25 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: GI Tract
on a related note, i'm just now noticing a piece in this week's _chronicle_
entitled "fighting over the killing fields: a new book ignites old debates
over pol pot and his brutality" by scott jaschik (p. a8)... it concludes
with this observation by one douglas pike, director of the indochina
studies program at uc/berkeley:
"we have a bunch of scholars who are still walking wounded from the war,
because of things they said and did at that time. i think we may need a
whole new generation of cambodia watchers---people who won't have to deal
with the guilt trip about what they said or did."
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:03:52 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: River City
The new issue of _River City: A Journal of Contemporary Culture_ is out and
available. This is the first issue to come out since I've been a member of the
poetics list, so I thought I'd give a brief description of it. Each issue
focuses on a special topic -- our Summer 1995 issue was devoted to the Blues
and the current issue is devoted to contemporary representations of China --
but each issue also includes material unrelated to the special topic.
The new issue features a selection of poetry from writers based in Taiwan and
mainland China, an interview with Bei Dao, and essay on cinema in Hong Kong,
an essay by Yunte Huang on translating Chinese poetry, an essay by Will
Alexander, and a short story by Brain Russo. The issue also includes a fine
essay by Amiri Baraka on Thelonious Monk, three poems by Charles Bernstein, and
"Carnal Knowledge," a long, meditative poem on the body by Beverly Dahlen.SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
Our next issue, Summer 1996, will focus on the Caribbean and will feature work
by, among others, Kamau Brathwaite, M. Nourbese Philip, and our own Aldon
Nielson. If any of you have any work that deals with the Caribbean, I'd like to
see it.
Subscriptions are $7 per issue or $12 for two issues. Checks and submissions
should be sent to:
Paul Naylor
463 Patterson Building
Department of English
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152
MAIL
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:35:43 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: ossian
Never mind the straw polls of form,
is there any work on recent prosodies?
Anybody whose music's shocking?
March Hare
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:52:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: War Resisters as Vets
another good upcoming read: by Michael Bibby, working title Hearts and Minds:
Resistance Poetry of the Vietnam era, rutgers press, he deals extensively
with g.i. resistance and g.i. poetry. --maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 11:53:02 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: MAXINE CHERNOFF <maxpaul@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: war resisters
In-Reply-To: <199603051153.DAA16913@ix2.ix.netcom.com>
Hi, Ron. I'm not sure of the context here. Maxine saw the message and I
thought I'd reply briefly. Apparently someone has asserted that English
Departments consist of war resisters rather than vets. I was a
conscientious objector from 1968-1970, working in a Chicago hospital. My
experiences are related as fiction in my novel SAIGON, ILLINOIS. As far
as I know, this is the only novel of the dozens of Vietnam-era books to
take the CO point of view. My friend and office mate, Larry Heinemann,
drove a tank in Vietnam and won the National Book Award for his second
Vietnam novel, PACO'S STORY. Most war stories will appear to be more
dramatic to the public taste than the adventures of a war resister. The
truth of it is that conscientious objectors are not generally respected
for their actions. No matter how moral in motivation, they are
deemed unpatriotic. Schwartzkopf and Colin Powell are national heroes.
A conscientious objector is a cultural outsider that most people don't
want to hear about. Being a Vietnam vet gives you a box to check on
academic hiring surveys; being a CO doesn't.
Paul Hoover
On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Ron Silliman wrote:
> Aldon,
>
> I always thought there ought to be a "veterans" (or otherwise alumni)
> org for war resisters and conscientious objectors. Certainly, there are
> lots of us out here, but characteristically we've been separated from
> that experience by the fact that very seldom did many of us do our
> "time" in any one concentrated numbers. I was one of two in the prison
> movement group I worked with (which got approval only because John
> Tunney, US Senator, and Leo Ryan, the congressman killed at Jonestown,
> served as paper members on its board). Paul Hoover is the one whose
> written in most detail of his experiences. (Hi Paul)
>
> Ron
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:02:39 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: GI Tract
jonathan, i'm not interested in "moralizing," either... and i *do* in fact
think that racism and sexism are the sorts of things academics should be
attending to, along with class bias etc etc etc...
yknow, i don't think kali tal is signed on to this list at the moment... a
book of my poetry came out last year under the "viet nam generation"
imprint, and kali is the publisher as well as editor of the related
journal... so i've had occasion not only to read much of the literature
published by viet nam generation, but to talk with folks (like kali, and
poet w. d. ehrhart, and in fact the entire sixties-l list to which i was
subbed to for a while) for whom this question of literary studies----for
example, through what some call the "literature of trauma"---is very much
inflected by viet nam experience of one sort or the other...
just as mccarthyism ostracized and traumatized a lot of folks and, as some
would have it, shaped the hollywood films of the 50s and beyond, perhaps a
reaction to (or perhaps this latter is too strong?) u.s. involvement in
viet nam speaks to the world of letters in ways that are difficult to
unravel?... or at least difficult for me to unravel...
anyway... this started in response to aldon's observation---and i'm not
pointing my finger at aldon 'cept to say that he's not alone in observing
so, and that i'm just wondering---actively, in public---what to make of
this... the _chronicle_ excerpt i just posted may be wrongheaded, but it
nonetheless indicates that there are some general feelings here which may
not be all that well understood or articulated...
best,
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 15:12:32 -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 <POETICS@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Robert Duncan Fesitval
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 1996 12:48:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Kristin S Prevallet <ksp2@acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
ROBERT DUNCAN CONFERENCE
"The Opening of the Field"
April 18-20, 1996
This Wednesdays at Four Plus Special Event is sponsored by the Poetics
Program, the English Department, The Poetry/Rare Books Collection, and
the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities.
All panels and the lecture will take place in the Poetry/Rare Books
Collection, 420 Capen Hall. The readings will be held at Hallwalls
Contemporary Art Center, 2495 Main Street. For maps, hotel reservation
information, and updates, check the Poetry Collection Home Page at:
http://writing.upenn.edu/libraries/units/pl/duncanco.html
The Schedule:
Thursday, April 18
Lecture: Robert J. Bertholf (2:30-3:30 pm)
Dramatic Reading: "Adams Way" (4:00-5:00 pm)
Poetry Reading: Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey (7:30-10:00 pm)
Friday, April 19
Panel: Marjorie Perloff, Nathaniel Mackey and Joseph Conte (10:00-12:30)
Panel: Robin Blaser, Susan Howe and Jerome McGann (2:30-5:00 pm)
Poetry Reading: Michele Leggott and Robin Blaser (7:30 - 10:00 pm)
Saturday, April 20
Panel: Peter Quartermain, Michele Leggott and David Levi Strauss (10:30-1:00)
Reception: 5:00-8:00 pm, 64 Amherst Street
Hotel reservations are being accepted at the University Manor Hotel.
The hotel is in walking distance to a shuttle which goes to the
university, and a subway that goes to Hallwalls.
Special room rates are as follows:
$41.95 for one room, two people. Each additional person costs only $5.
$36.95 for one room, one person.
Call them at 837-3344 for more information.
Persons requesting more information on the conference can call (716)
634-3810 or (716) 645-2917, or e-mail ksp2@acsu.buffalo.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 12:50:36 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: Re: academic poet/ry
In-Reply-To: <01I1X1E57WR68Y72HV@cnsvax.albany.edu>
On Sun, 3 Mar 1996, Chris Stroffolino wrote:
> Dear Tony Green---I don't know if Chris Reiner is still on this list,
> but WITZ published an article just recently by Mark DuCharme on a
> Clark Coolidge and a Shakespeare sonnet...
Yes, I'm still on the list, but unable to spend as much time as I'd like
with all the threads. The issue with Mark DuCharme's article is Fall
1995 (the most recent, though a new one will be out shortly). Single
issues are $4. Back issues more than a year old can be found in ascii
files at the Electronic Poetry Center. The address for WITZ is
12071 Woodbridge Street
Studio City, CA 91604
Upcoming spring issue has articles by Stephen Ratcliffe (on Robert
Grenier's new work) and Carl Peters (on bpNichol), along with
reviews...also a new format...but I'll do a separate post about that when
the issue comes out. Thanks, Chris S. for the mention.
---------------------
Christopher Reiner
creiner@crl.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 15:20:02 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: ossian
>Never mind the straw polls of form,
>is there any work on recent prosodies?
>Anybody whose music's shocking?
>
>March Hare
Dear March Hare
I too would be interested in such work. And I don't know about "shocking,"
but for "stunning" I might nominate Bruce Andrews, whose sense of prosody,
to me, always partakes of a certain kind of maelstrom. I know prosody is
always at the forefront in my own work, but I don't think of it so much as
prosody as simply the sound/sounding of the poem.
And I must admit that for that real bumping, enlivened sound I still
sometimes go back to Beowulf and other Old English works. And I do like to
read Dickinson aloud, and Stein, and Mac Low (I nominate him for music as
well). but so many . . .
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:48:23 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT mailing address
This is Dodie Bellamy,
I spent the morning with Marvin and Michael, the building managers of New
College (nice guys) and they advised giving the following address as our
mailing address:
Small Press Traffic
at New College
766 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
If any of you have already sent stuff to the 741 Valencia address, that
will probably be okay, but it's not the best address to use (that's where
we're located but the mail is delivered across the street).
Should have a phone number by next week.
Thanks for all the response on the SPT newsletter.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:09:59 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Filkins <filch@POBOX.COM>
Subject: Re: GI Tract & CO's
Comments: cc: Jonathan Brannen <jbrannen@INFOLINK.MORRIS.MN.US>
>Jonathan,
>
>This difficulty arose in great part because of the peace churches. During
>WWII the peace churches ran, with the blessing of the US government, a
>rather extensive CO program which broke up in rancor near the end of the
>war because of numerous difficulties which arose between the churches and
>the feds. At that point the churches declared they would no longer become
>involved in that capacity again. So whereas you needed "merely" to
>convince the authorities of your pacifist convictions to be designated CO
>during WWII. This quite often consisted of essays with supporting letters
>from friends, relatives, and clergy. In the Vietnam era you "had" to be
>raised within one of the peace churches for your CO status to stick
>because otherwise the peace churches would not stand by your side in a
>show of support like they did in the WWII era. If there are any "Friends"
>on this list who could go into more detail I'd love to hear it.
>
>Of course in WWII CO status virtually always guaranteed both exodus and
>imprisonment.
>
>I am doing research on CO writers and artists from the WWII era. If
>anyone has anything to share concerning that subject I would love to hear
>from you backchannel (or on the list if it is relevant to the discussion
>at hand).
>
>Thank you.
>
>Christopher
>
>Jonathan Brannen wrote:
>
>>I don't know anyone (self-included) who was politically engaged during the
>>Vietnam period whose life was not somehow disrupted. C.O. status was not
>>granted for the asking. Unless one was raised in a pacifist religion, it
>>was next to impossible to acquire in certain regions. Exemptions from the
>>draft, for any reason, were not casually granted. Draft resistance was a
>>political act and often resulted in exodus or imprisonment.
>>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 14:18:00 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Filkins <filch@POBOX.COM>
Subject: Nuns
Anyone who is interested in the Nun study mentioned several threads ago can
find the study in question at http://www.coa.uky.edu/nunnet/
christopher
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 16:24:39 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jackie Rosenfeld <monkee@ERAMP.NET>
Subject: New here
Hi!
New to the list and wanted to say hello and ask if there is anything I
should know?
ie rules, threads, etc.
Thanks
Jackie
------------------------------------------------------------------
Jackie A. Rosenfeld
monkee@eramp.net
http://eramp.net/jackie
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your
revolution!"
---Emma Goldman
------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 12:12:50 +1300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wystan Curnow <w.curnow@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland
Subject: Re: Trivia question about Henry James
Comments: To: emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM
Dear Emily,
Maybe not so eek, in as much as 'they' making--leastways
directing-- the movie is I believe, Jane Campion, of The Piano fame.
Lets hope.
Wystan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:23:46 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: peace churches
In-Reply-To: <v02130501ad626a769e1c@[204.179.169.69]>
I'm concerned about this right now because I have a small son. I'd love
to know whatever I can, whatever anyone can tell about the situation
now. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 20:44:06 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Seals Eyes
Comments: To: Marisa Januzzi <Marisa.Januzzi@m.cc.utah.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960305182755.13208F-100000@cor>
On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Marisa Januzzi wrote:
>
> On Sat, 2 Mar 1996, Kenneth Goldsmith wrote:
>
> > There has been something bothering me lately. What are those black
> > things under seals eyes--could they be hairs?
>
> Well, I just cannotbelieve no one's framed an authoritative response to
> this! I hope you've had better backchannel mssgs than this one, too.
>
> Anyway my guess wld be they are a formerly vestigial pathos-inducing pattern
> (aka "poetry")
>
marissa--
gosh, nobody's replied to my query. you'd think with such a brilliant
group, one of 'em would've come up with something rather poetic.
i like your idea the best so far
peace,
kenny g
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 17:49:38 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Watts <cwatts@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Oppen (Rachel Blau DuPlessis' essay)
Just to respond to Brian McHale's mention a couple of days ago of Rachel
Blau DuPlessis' essay on Oppen's and Robin Blaser's work: yes, it is to be
included in the collection of essays from the Blaser conference of last
June, which will probably be titled "The Recovery of the Public World:
Essays in Honour of Robin Blaser's Poetry and Poetics." We don't have a
publication date for it yet, but it may appear as early as the fall of this
year.
On this same topic, Alan Golding: please send me a line or two
backchannel re/ your paper.
Charles Watts
cwatts@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 01:33:35 +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: Artists Statement on the Economy (long!!)
etc
>
>III. CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN & GLOBAL ECONOMIC REALITIES
>
>IV. CRITIQUE OF CURRENT POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, PARTIES, PLATFORMS
>
>V. ACHIEVABLE STANDARDS FOR AMERICAN ECONOMY
>
for American substitute what? Are u really still thinking America?
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 19:22:12 -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: Fwd: Communications Decency Act
Dear union members:
When we start up a newsletter, it will feature articles like the
following. Until then, I'll just past them on individually...
John
John Feffer
Philadelphia sublocal of the National Writers Union
519 S. Melville St.
Philadelphia, PA 19143
215-386-5538
e-mail: nwuphil@libertynet.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 14:36:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Alice Sunshine <asun@netcom.com>
To: Newsletter Editors -- Alec Dubro <72614.1375@compuserve.com>,
BJ Novitski <bjn@efn.org>, Bob Chatelle <kip@world.std.com>,
Ann Cefola <Annogram@AOL.com>, Cheryl Peck <cpeck1017@AOL.com>,
chris@netcom.com, Dan McCrory <71363.1722@compuserve.com>,
elinor631@AOL.com, Judy Brandes <judithb777@AOL.com>,
Karen Sandrick <103254.2507@compuserve.com>,
mpritchard@amherst.edu,
Paul Becker <74404.1524@compuserve.com>,
Peter Friederici <pfried@azstarnet.com>,
Sublocal Philadelphia <nwuphil@libertynet.org>,
Rob Ramer <103222.1636@compuserve.com>, Susan Heinlein
<swh@netcom.com>,
Susan Mitchell <susan_mitchell@peoplesoft.com>
Subject: Item for Newsletters
Dear Newsletter Editors,
The following is a report on the Communications Decency Act and the
ACLU
lawsuit against it. The National Writers Union is a plaintiff in this
suit. Bob Chatelle, who wrote the item, says you may cut it down as
needed to fit into your newsletter. The entire text will appear in the
next issue of the Political Issues Newsletter, but only those who
request
it receive that one.
Best to all. Alice Sunshine, NWU organizer asun@netcom.com
*****
NWU Sues to Preserve Free Speech in Cyberspace
By Bob Chatelle, Chair, NWU Political Issues Committee
On February 8, President Bill Clinton hosted a gala televised
celebration
at the White House, which included a joint performance by Vice
President
Gore and Lily Tomlin as Ernestine. The occasion: Clinton's signing of
the Telecommunications Bill, which claims to remove barriers to
competition, but in fact sweeps away most remaining legal obstacles to
the media oligopoly's ever expanding power.
On the same day, in Philadelphia, lawyers representing the ACLU, the
National Writers Union, and 18 other plaintiffs (including the
Electronic
Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Planned Parenthood) filed
suit in US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania to invalidate the
provisions of part of the Telecomm bill, the so-called Communications
Decency Act (CDA).
The CDA was introduced over a year ago by Sen. James Exon (D-NE). As
passed, one provision imposes criminal penalties for "indecent" but
constitutionally protected telecommunications to individuals under the
age of 18; another criminalizes the use of any "interactive computer
service" to "send" or "display in a manner available" to a person under
18 any communication that "depicts or describes, in terms patently
offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or
excretory activities or organs."
Another provision, added to the bill by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL),
criminalizes the distribution or reception of any information via "any
express company or other common carrier, or interactive computer
service"
of "information... where, how, or of whom, or by what means any" "drug,
medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for
producing
abortion may be obtained or made."
The NWU is the only writers organization represented in the lawsuit.
We
were first approached by the ACLU as a possible plaintiff late in
August,
just a few weeks after the NWU Delegates Assembly overwhelmingly passed
a
resolution affirming free speech and privacy rights in cyberspace. The
ACLU asked from us no commitment of financial or legal resources. A
preliminary okay was given by the NWU Executive Committee, and the
matter
was discussed by email by the National Executive Board (NEB) in
November. All NEB members supported the suit on principle, but some
raised legitimate concerns whether the discovery process could require
a
significant amount of staff time. Fortunately, NWU staff is not much
involved in our online activity and the board concluded that there was
little danger of them becoming unduly burdened.
As Political Issues Chair, I signed and filed the affidavit on behalf
of
the NWU, but the affidavit was prepared by the ACLU and based on
questionnaire answers provided by myself, NWU President Jonathan
Tasini,
Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Hartford, and New Technologies Cochair Vicki
Richman. On February 8, Judge Ronald Buckwalter gave the Justice
Department one week to respond to the complaint. The Justice
Department
agreed for seven days not to investigate or prosecute either the
"indecency" or "patently offensive" provisions, but reserved the right
ultimately to prosecute for material available during this time should
our legal challenge fail. The Justice Department also conceded that
the
anti-abortion provision was patently unconstitutional and announced
they
had no intention of enforcing this provision at all.
On February 15, the Justice Department responded, claiming "the
governmental interests at stake here in controlling access by minors of
indecent sexually explicit materials is compelling." To bolster their
case, the government appended the widely discredited study on computer
pornography by Martin Rimm. Judge Buckwalter issued a temporary
restraining order against the "indecency" provisions.
The next phase of the challenge will be a hearing before a three-judge
panel: Judge Buckwalter, Judge Stuart Dalzell, and Judge Delores K.
Sloviter. We will present our case on March 21-22. The Justice
Department will present theirs on April 11-12. April 1 is also
reserved,
should the extra day be needed. The government may take depositions
from
some plaintiffs and I may have to go to Washington DC for deposition
during the week of March 11-15.
On February 26, the Justice Department agreed not to investigate or
prosecute any of the CDA provisions, pending legal resolution. (Again,
should the government win, they reserve the right to prosecute
retroactively material posted before the final decision.)
Also on February 26, a second lawsuit was filed challenging the CDA.
The
lead plaintiff was the American Library Association, and other
plaintiffs
include America Online; American Booksellers Ass'n; American Society of
newspaper Editors; Apple Computer; Ass'n of American Publishers; Ass'n
of
Publishers, Editors, and Writers; Compuserve; Microsoft; Netcom;
Newspaper Ass'n of America; Prodigy; Society of Professional
Journalists;
and the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. On February 27, this
suit was consolidated with ours. Also on February 26, Playboy filed
separate suit in Delaware against the CDA.
Regardless how the three-judge panel rules, the losing side will appeal
and the case will ultimately be decided by the US Supreme Court. _ACLU
v. Reno_ will be a landmark First Amendment case, and the outcome will
determine how cyberspace evolves for decades to come. The NWU would
have
every reason to be proud of participating in this historic defense of
free speech, even if we had not been the first writers organization to
join this essential battle.
END
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 20:55:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: william elliott vidaver <wvidaver@DIRECT.CA>
Subject: Rachel Blau DuPlessis paper
If anyone would like an audio recording of the talk Rachel Blau DuPlessis
presented at The Recovery of the Public World conference/festival last year
in Vancouver, please send a message with your name & address to:
Aaron Vidaver c/o
wvidaver@direct.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 22:22:20 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: ABR
In-Reply-To: <199603060514.AAA03428@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
I was off-line for a bit, so may have missed if somebody already answered
our friend's question -- but in case it wasn't answered --
the _ABR_ containing Keith Tuma's review is the _American Book Review_,
which name, I suppose, distinguishes it from the _North American Review_,
etc.
and by the way -- now that I've seen the New Directions edition of _Black
+ Blues_ I see that the confusion about dates was caused by, surprise,
New Directions. Though the copyright page indicates that Brathwaite's
book was first published in 1976, the jacket copy says 1979 --
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 22:34:06 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: What if they had a poetry reading and nobdoy came?
In-Reply-To: <199603060514.AAA03428@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
That will select all the sixties types who remember those damned posters!
Resisters' reunion a good idea --
What was truly strange, to me at any rate, was the number of formerly
antiwar folk I knew who were deliriously happy about the Persian Gulf
War, as we call it here in the U.S.
My original musing came from the observation over the years that I had
never once met an English professor around my age who had been drafted --
This was not because they were all actively resisting (keep in mind that
student deferments continued through the mid-sixties) -- It just seemed
an interesting contrast to me, and I was curious that none of the
professors I mentioned this to had ever noticed the fact --
(Though let me hasten to add that there are a number of both vets. of the
war and vets of the resistance I have met more recently)
The experience of the war tremendously affected the affected and the more
sincere alike in academia -- look back to the rumblings in the MLA during
those years for a sense of just how strong feelings were at the time --
It would be horribly reductive to do as those who claim that all
post-structuralism flows from snits after Paris '68 (this usually said by
thems who, unlike Bruce A., don't remember when that Johns Hopkins confab
happened) -- and lay all PC wars to lingering aftereffects of agent
orange and its inventors -- but there was something of the ol' epistemic
break going on there --
and back to my first musing, I would moralize -- I think that those who
fail to learn the lessons of job market history are doomed to force their
younger colleagues to repeat them, perhaps as underpaid farce -- (sure
are a lot of temporary postdocs on the scene these days,,,, huuummmm)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 08:39:54 +0200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: Veterans for Peace & GI Tract
In-Reply-To: <199603051527.JAA04217@charlie.acc.iit.edu>
Hi,
If you are interested in the "Veterans for Peace" address, here it is:
Peter B. Shaw
shaw@phys.psu.edu
They're doing a good job.
Best,
Ada Aharoni
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 23:39:51 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: ossian
>Never mind the straw polls of form,
>is there any work on recent prosodies?
>Anybody whose music's shocking?
>
>March Hare
first ---
new here, so am unaware of back-ramifications of this thread.
forgive any redundancy
dear march hare
re shocking music if i may stretch the term to include play
of thought and not limit myself to contemporaneity
will alexander
jake berry
paul celan
john donne
susan howe
macdiarmid
re contemp prosodics: no idea. wld truly like to know if anybody's
working in that area, tho myself am strictly dumbfounded by the
enormity of the task if said work even attempts inclusiveness.
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com>
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 05:29:35 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: FWD: Mexican workers seeking support (fwd)
Sending this because I think it worth knowing that workers in the
low-wage countries that industries are fleeing to are beginning to
protest. Gab.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Mexican Ford workers solicit your support in their battle against
> low wages.
>
> 1996 is a negotiations year between Ford Motor Co. and its workers
> in three plants; Chihuahua, Hermosillo and Cuautitlan.
>
> THIS IS AN ACTION CALL TO SUPPORT THEIR FIGHT AGAINST LOW WAGES
>
> Presently, wage negotiations are taking place in Mexico for the
> Chihuahua and Hermosillo plants. Cuautitlan plant negotiations are
> scheduled for the month of March.
>
> The negotiations in Chihuahua scheduled to be resolved by the end
> of January, concluded on Tuesday, February 27, after two
> extensions. while negotiations are taking place concurrently with
> the Hermosillo plant workers representatives.
>
> The negotiations for Chihuahua got idled when FORD offered a total
> of 15% wage increase against the workers demand of 30%.
>
> In the last five years, thousands of Brazilian auto workers were
> forced to strike twice in order to obtain higher wage increases
> than what FORD offered. The FORD workers in England recently came
> out of a bitter strike where the main issue was a wage increase
> compatible to England's current cost of living.
>
> Labor leaders in Chihuahua say they were ready to strike if the
> gap did not narrow. The final compromise was of a 25% wage
> increase. Mexico suffers presently from a 50% average inflation
> rate. The price of the basic goods basket is predicted to rise by
> over 74%. The basic goods basket includes consumer goods and
> services that are all but indispensable to most of the population.
>
>
> The UAW in the United States and the CAW in Canada, are scheduled
> to hold wage and contract negotiations with Ford and the other two
> auto makers this year as well.
>
> Although Ford has increased its investment in Mexican facilities
> in recent years resulting in sizable profits due to cheaper cost
> of labor and production, it consistently follows the Mexican
> government austerity program by keeping wages way bellow current
> cost of living.
>
> "FORD" is a four letter word: The feelings of Ford workers in
> several countries have been clearly expressed against their
> employer by rewriting the company's logo illustrating Ford's place
> in their communities.
>
> Workers in Brazil rewrote the Ford logo to "FOME" which means
> "hunger" in portuguese, when in 1991 fought against an 11%
> increase proposal at a time when the country suffered an inflation
> rate of 1000% plus. English Ford workers have spelled out their
> anger by writing "F---" within the famous blue and silver oval. In
> the United States, Ford auto workers have qualified their
> company's standing in their communities by replacing "FRAUD" for
> the company's name. Santos Martinez, from the Cleto Nigmo Urbina
> committee spearheading the democratization movement in
> Cuautitlan/Ford, says that although they may think of stronger
> words, they may not fit in the small oval space, so they have to
> settle for FEOS or FUCHI, which means ugly and disgusting in
> spanish to depict the company and the labor relations atmosphere
> Ford has created in their plant.
>
> As it has been expressed during the anti-NAFTA activism, the
> interests of the workers in the U.S. and Canada in term of better
> wages and job security, are directly related to those of the
> Mexican workers.
>
> We ask you to Contact as many of the people listed below and
> insist that FORD respect the human dignity of its workers by
> affording them just and fair wages.
>
> C. T. M.
> C. Fidel Velazquez, Presidente Vallarta No. 8 Mexico DF. C.P.
> 06030 Ph-011-525-703-3112
>
> Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Ford Motor Co. Seccion
> Cuautitlan M. Juarez Eudonio, Sec. Gral KM. 36.5 Autopista
> Queretaro- Cuautitlan, Edo de Mexico Vallarta 8 2ndo piso Mexico,
> 4 DF. Ph- 011-525-326-7212, 7375, 7550, 7573 fx-011-525-326-7476
>
> Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Ford Motor Co. Juan J.
> Sosa, Sec. Gral. Ncl. Kilometro 36 1/2 Carretera Mexico-Queretaro
> Col. Lomas del Salitre Cuautitlan, Ixcala Edo. de Mexico
> CP. 54750
> ph-011-525-326-7630, 7232 fx-011-525-326-7476
>
> Alex Trotman, CEO. Ford World Headquarters The American Road PO
> Box. 1899 Dearborn, MI.48121-1899 Ph-313-322-3000 fx-313-396-2927
>
> Ford Motors de Mexico Phillippe Mellier, Pres. Reforma 333 Sexto
> Piso Col Cuauhtemoc Mexico, DF. 06500 Ph-011-525-326-6230
> fx-011-525-533-3693
>
> President Bill Clinton White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
> Washington, DC. 20500 Ph-202 456-1111 Fx-202 456-2461
>
> Lic. Ernesto Zedillo Presidente de la Republica Palacio Nacional
> 06067 Mexico, DF. ph-011-525-515-3717 fx-011-525-515-8005, 5729
> Fax confirmation numbers: 011-525-515-9829, 8256
>
> NAFTA Officers: Robert Reich U.S. Sec. of Labor 200 Constitution
> Ave. N.W. Washington, DC. 20210 Ph-202-219-5000 fx-202-219-7312
>
> Lic. Javier Bonilla Garcia Sec. Fed. de Trabajo Anillo Periferico
> Sur 4271 Piso 4 Fuentes del Pedregal Delegacion Tlalpan Mexico.
> 14140 Ph-011-525-645-9638 fx-011-525-645-5594
>
> For more information contact
> TIE-US.
> Julio Cesar Guerrero, MSW 7435 Michigan Ave Detroit, MI. 48210 Ph
> 313-842-6262 px313-842-0227
>
> NOTE:
>
> You may use this letter or write your own. Please send copies to:
> TIE.US
> 7435 Michigan Ave, Detroit, MI. 48210 Fx-313-842-0227
>
> I support Ford Workers fair wages:
>
> Wage negotiations between Ford Motor Co. and its workers are
> taking place in Mexico and will take place in the US and Canada
> this year also.
>
> Despite the huge profits that Ford has accrued by increasing
> operations in Mexico, the company disregards the economic and most
> basic needs of workers by keeping their wages low.
>
> Ford workers in Chihuahua, Hermosillo and Cuautitlan plants more
> than need, deserve your support to gain the respect from their
> employer in the form of fair wages, hence dignity and decent
> living for their families.
>
> Recent strikes in Brazil and England over wages are a
> manifestation of the company's insensitivity to the problem of the
> real wages' actual buying power.
>
> I urge you to use the authority in your capacity to promote fair
> wages for Ford workers. It's the just thing to do!!!
>
------------------------------ End of forwarded message 1
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 08:42:21 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: Seals Eyes
--- On Tue, 5 Mar 1996 20:44:06 -0500 Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
wrote:
>On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Marisa Januzzi wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Mar 1996, Kenneth Goldsmith wrote:
>>
>> > There has been something bothering me lately. What are those black
>> > things under seals eyes--could they be hairs?
>>
>> Well, I just cannotbelieve no one's framed an authoritative response to
>> this! I hope you've had better backchannel mssgs than this one, too.
>>
>> Anyway my guess wld be they are a formerly vestigial pathos-inducing
pattern
>> (aka "poetry")
>>
>
>marissa--
>
>gosh, nobody's replied to my query. you'd think with such a brilliant
>group, one of 'em would've come up with something rather poetic.
>
>i like your idea the best so far
>
>peace,
>
>kenny g
>
kenny g ---
the tear ducts of persian cats are situated at such a spot that their
lacrimations leave a stain below the eyes only perceptible when the
cats are white. cld be the same w/ seals. tho wldnt water wash off
the stains?
specialized organs for piercing the vasty deep's primordial gloom
and meditating upon submarine perseity is my guess...
yrs ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.6.96 8:28:58 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 12:51:31 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Communications Decency Act
thanks ron, as a member of the National writers' union, i am pleased that my
organization is involved. i noticed that there's a judge buckwalter
involved: could he be a former mr. phone-booth from boonesville?--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 13:51:12 GMT-5
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Peters <PETERSM@CORAL.INDSTATE.EDU>
Organization: Indiana State University
Subject: John Cage
if anybody still has the address to order the john cage cds and other
groovy music, could you please back-channel it to me?
thanks,
mark
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 14:20:32 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Phillip McCrum <pmccrum@SFU.CA>
Subject: BOO Magazine
now available BOO #6
Includes:
Interview with Bob Perelman
Poetry by:
Bob Perelman
Dorothy Truillo Lusk
Kevin Davies
Louis Cabri
Articles by:
Zainub Verjee
Peter Culley
Clint Burnham
Dan Farrell
Subsriptions are $6, $12(institutions)
BOO Magazine
1895 Commercial Drive, Box 116
Vancouver, B.C. V5N 4A6
CANADA
for info. contact me, Deanna Ferguson, at pmccrum@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 20:15:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Walter K. Lew" <WalterLew@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
Dear Jerry Rothenberg and others interested in the burgeoning pidgin literary
scene,
I wanted to add a few more names to the list of interesting Hawaiian
pidgin writers that Susan Schultz gave last week.
Among younger poets, R. Zamora Linmark (currently finishing up a reading
tour for ROLLING THE R's--see below) and Barry Masuda (now studying in the
graduate Literature program at UC San Diego) refresh/outrage Hawaiian pidgin
by recombining it with other dialects and discourses, such as Masuda's
cyberpunk deconstructions of both tourism and local identity movements in
Hawaii and Linmark's out-there queer/Tagalog/Hollywood talk. There's a
substantial sample of both poets in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New
Asian North American Poetry. (By the way, thank you for the positive
comments on Premonitions that I have heard appeared on this elist--I think I
joined too recently to catch some of them.)
In the area of prose fiction, I feel one of the classic works is Milton
Murayama's short novel, ALL I ASKING FOR IS MY BODY (reprinted by the U. of
Hawaii Press, I believe); his long-awaited second book came out last year,
but I haven't had a chance to read it. I agree with Susan Schultz about
Lois-Ann Yamanaka's new prose book--it falls far short of the intensity found
in her volume of poetry, SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PAHALA THEATER (Bamboo RIdge
Press, 1992). Two other new books to read instead are Kathleen Tyau's A
LITTLE TOO MUCH IS ENOUGH (FSG, 1995) and especially R. Zamora Linmark's
ROLLING THE R's (Kaya Production 1995). Another Hawaiian writer who
sometimes uses pidgin is Gary Pak, whose collection of short stories, THE
WATCHER OF WAIPUNA (Bamboo RIdge 1992), unfortunately did not get the type of
mainland attention that is being showered on Yamanaka.
As for the future, Linmark has the range of interests and energy to
constantly experiment that will make each new work a surprise. The remaining
part of RZ's tour follows; he's a good reader and will probably also talk a
bit about the recent literary use of Hawaiian pidgin:
Wed, March 6th: People Like Us (Chicago, IL) @ 7pm (312-248-6363)
Thurs, March 7th: Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) @ 3pm
Tues, March 12th: UC Berkeley
Fri, March 15th: Spruce Street Forum (San Diego, CA) (619-295-0301)
The most comprehensive book on the literatures of Hawaii is Stephen
Sumida's AND THE VIEW FROM THE SHORE (U. Washington Press 1991); he teaches
in the U. of Michigan English dept.
In case anyone thinks the above is shameless self-promotion, I have
recently given up the chief editorship of Kaya Production. In fact, any
mail intended for me should not be sent to Kaya (it probably won't reach me),
but to:
8 Old Colony Rd.
Old Saybrook, CT 06475
ph & fax: (860) 388-4601
I hope this is useful. Bye for now,
Walter K. Lew
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 23:43:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: BOO Magazine
I just got a BOO magazine published in Chicago....
perhaps this is a different one?
cs
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 23:48:28 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: BOO Magazine
Deanna---sorry about the confusion (mine)....
the magazine in Chicago is called BLOO not BOO...
chris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 18:58:38 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound translation
In-Reply-To: <960306201541_239416979@mail06.mail.aol.com>
Thanks, Walter, for a fine list of writers; let me just add the names of
Rodney Morales (who was just hired by the U of Hawai'i English department
on tenure track--the first local writer in a permanent job). Of course
we have a hiring freeze, so we can't pay him next year. His _The Speed
of Darkness_ contains very strong short stories, and he's working on a
novel that promises to be good. Marie Hara and Juliet Kono Lee are also
good Hawai'i writers. Who is Kathleen Tyau? I haven't heard of her,
strangely enough. Zack Linmark and Barry Masuda are the two writers who
would most appeal to subscribers to this list, I think. Rob Wilson has
done some excellent work on Hawai'i writers, too, more theoretical than
Sumida. The main rap on Sumida is that he writes almost exclusively
about local Asian-American writers, and not about Hawaiian writers
(Hawaiian means native Hawaiian). But the book is still extremely valuable.
Susan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 10:16:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Poetry City Reading
POETRY CITY reading tonight!
at Teachers & Writers Collaborative
5 Union Square West, 7th Floor
March 7 at 6:30 p.m.
Lisa Jarnot & John Godfrey
free
(212) 691-6590
http://www.twc.org
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 15:26:26 +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: New (Cybertextual) Work from Indra's Net
Comments: To: ws@shadoof.demon.co.uk
** APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTINGS **
Pressing the <Reveal Code> Key. Indra's Net VIII
------------------------------------------------
Using a development of the form initiated in Book Unbound (Indra's Net VI)
this piece allows readers to create and explore collocational blends
generated from an article on the relationship between software engineering
and experimental poetics written for the electronic journal, EJournal, vol.
6, no. 1 ("an all-electronic, e-mail delivered, peer-reviewed, academic
periodical" -- to subscribe, send 'sub ejrnl' to: listserv@albany.edu; to
get vol. 6, no. 1, send 'get ejrnl v6n1' to the same address).
> one constructs with and against and amongst the code
> it can be made to enrich such phenomena
> real inscriptions of our most intimate activities
> real inscriptions of our creative
> and destructive
> operations
>
> so either of these absent agents may be programmers
> systematic manipulators of text
> authored in the constructive act as
> poetry
> inscriptions of the code
> each term of the code
> each term of the field of writing
>
> press the reveal code key
The HyperCard-based (Macintosh-only) cybertextual version of this work can
be downloaded from:
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/indown.html
Previously announced, but also new:
The Speaking Clock. Indra's Net VII
-----------------------------------
... with acknowledgements to Emmett Williams's 'Poetry Clock' and, more
specifically, to John Christie's mechanical 'Word Clocks' ... however this
(silent) speaking clock in software both composes from a given text
according to quasi-aleatory procedures and actually tells the 'real time':
"What if it was impossible to apply a single name from a finite set to a
moment which seems to recur in an acknowledged cycle of time? What if it
was impossible to apply the word 'dawn' to more than one single instant at
the beginning of some one particular day?" (from the given text.)
> destroyed warmth true cold
> spelt out and riverflow
> inscribed on illusion of
> real time passing flake
> of snow white to
> many a different instance
>
> even last the clock
> and time piece unique
> name the city this
> last even against on
> this island impossibly lost
> warmth true into would
>
> tells last breath out
> and no like more
> than one single instant
> at the beginning some
> one single instant at
> the beginning of entropy
-- February 26, 00:49 - 01:02
The Speaking Clock can also be downloaded from the site above.
More information on the Indra's Net cybertextual project generally at:
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/
- - - - - >
John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}]
^ innovative literary translation from Chinese ^
1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK
Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
Old home (still working): http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley
(Expansive) New home: http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/
< - - - - -
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 12:21:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: POETRY CITY book offer
POETRY CITY, the experimental theme park,
is proud to make a special offer to poetix readers:
TWO BOOKS BY BILL LUOMA for $10 ppd
_My Trip to New York City_ and _Swoon Rocket_,
both published by The Figures,
sell separately in stores for $11.
Just email POETRY CITY at jdavis@panix.com
and send your real-world address.
We'll send you a bill.
But hurry! quantities are limited, and when
_My Trip to New York City_ is gone, that'll be it!
(_Swoon Rocket_ is available separately for $5 ppd
or 20% off--order now, but please, not to the list!)
Thanks,
Jordan Davis
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 12:33:21 +0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Jim Brodey "Heart of the Breath" Readings
Comments: cc: jongams@crocker.com
Hard Press sponsors two readings to celebrate the release of
Jim Brodey's "Heart of the Breath"
East Coast
When: Wednesday March 13 at 8 pm
Where: The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church 2nd Ave. & 10th. St., NYC
212-674-0910
Who:
Greg Masters
Frank Lima
Tom Savage
Joel Lewis
John Godfrey
Tony Towle
Bill Zavataky
Paul Violi
Ed Freidman
Gillian McCain
Geoffrey Young
Yuki Hartmann
Barbara Barg
Ray DiPalma
Sharon Mesmer
Steve Levine
Rod Padgett
Clark Coolidge
Charles North
David Shapiro
Lisa Jarnot
Susan Cataldo
Eileen Myles
Elio Schneeman
Michael Gizzi
Organized by Michael Gizzi, Joanne Wasserman, & Clark Coolidge
West Coast
When: Friday April 12 at 7:30 p.m
Where: The New College Theater, 777 Valencia Street, San Francisco
Who:
Bill Berkson
Tom Clark
Joanne Kyger
Larry Kearney
Robert Grenier
Joanne Kyger will play a tape of Brodey Reading
===========================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
kgoldsmith@hardpress.com
v. 212-260-4081
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 07:49:37 GMT+1300
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: FW: Re: Seals Eyes
They stay up late into the Arctic night reading Bibles written on
grains of rice.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 13:29:52 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: NEW BOOK
In-Reply-To: <199603071818.NAA00995@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
alert for all interested in Caribbean studies / postcolonial issues /
cricket!
Kent Worcester's _C. L. R. James: A Political Biography_, first announced
by Blakwell and now actually and finally pub'd by SUNY Press, is out and
on the shelves. While it is not yet the full bio. we need, it is more
detailed than Paul Buhle's book of some years back. Worcester has been
working on this for a long time and has studied documents that remain
unpublished even now -- Get it quick! Includes a selected biblio. on
James with good annotations. An excellent starting place for those new
to James's work, and good background material for those who've been
reading James all along.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 09:01:38 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: ABR
>I was off-line for a bit, so may have missed if somebody already answered
>our friend's question -- but in case it wasn't answered --
>
>the _ABR_ containing Keith Tuma's review is the _American Book Review_,
>which name, I suppose, distinguishes it from the _North American Review_,
>etc.
>
Thank you
__________________________________
Mark Roberts
Student Systems Project Officer
Information Systems
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
PH:(02)351 5066
FAX:(02)351 5081
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 19:27:25 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: NYC reading
Just found this on a flyer:
Lyn Hejinian
Ron Silliman
Tuesday, March 19, 1996
8:00pm
Maison Francaise, Columbia University
Admission is free
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 19:29:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: ReVersing Poetics: Measure and Rhythm in the Vicinity of the
Postmodern MLA 1996 Special Session
>Posted-Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 04:15:29 -0500 (EST)
>Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:10:50 -0800 (PST)
>X-Sender: ez013445@peseta.ucdavis.edu
>X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.1.1
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>To: cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu
>From: Joe Aimone <joaimone@ucdavis.edu>
>Subject: ReVersing Poetics: Measure and Rhythm in the Vicinity of the
> Postmodern MLA 1996 Special Session
>Sender: owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>Status: RO
>
>ReVersing Poetics: Measure and Rhythm in the Vicinity of the Postmodern.
>Perspectives (aesthetic, political, philosophical, psychoanalytic) on
>theories and practices of rhythm and meter re-erupting in recent poetry - -
>retroversions, recuperations, reinventions, rediscoveries. Abstracts,
>proposals, March 15. Joe Aimone (joaimone@ucdavis.edu), English, University
>of California, Davis, CA 95616.
>
>
>
>--
>Joe Aimone
>Department of English
>University of California, Davis
>joaimone@ucdavis.edu
>
>
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 22:52:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: BOO Magazine
Deanna--
Wld you like to trade Aerial for Boo? Otherwise can you take 'merican
cheques?
Thanks
Rod
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 20:26:40 -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.COM>
Subject: dead horses, live theories, bodies trans sending academic poet/ry
Jordan davis queried:
>Tom, could you elaborate on your intriguing, provocative Levinas
>quote a bit? How is the body manifest as a contestation of the
>attribution of meaning? And is this contestation unique to the
>body? The body seems to me to ground meaning as much as defy it,
>and it seems to me that similar claims could be made for any
>phenomenon. Maybe I should just read the Levinas: feel free to
>tell me so.
This says it for me:
Invocation
Some of us have spent our lifetimes
searching our bodies
for the letters of flame,
when they arise
some of us burn
and some of us set fires.
Deena Metzger, "Invocation" _A sabbath among the ruins_
Levinias quote came from latest PMC
tom
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 06:33:03 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: help
anybody out there know the word wch means:
that portion of grain wch goes to pay the miller
like tithe
saw it while reading dictionary have lost the word
thanks
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.8.96 6:33:03 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 09:59:06 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Walter K. Lew" <WalterLew@AOL.COM>
Subject: Poetry City
Dear Maria, Jordan, & others involved/interested in the 3/14 reading at
Teachers & Writers Collaborative,
In belated reply to Maria's question to "Wall": Yes, I will be reading
selections from Premonitions, maybe talk a bit about its structure, intended
role.
Jordan--Is there any way a VHS deck and monitor (preferable at least 26")
can be set up for the reading? I want to show some brief video poetry (e.g.
Gloria Toyun Park's work; cf. pp. 172-75 "Red Lolita" excerpts). Let me know
so I can prepare.
Has anybody out there spent time in Montreal? I'm going up to lecture at
McGill on Korean literature for a few days at the end of the month and would
like to know what I can do in my spare time. Any leads on interesting
cultural resources, poetic history & archives, walks, hiking trails,
specialty/used book stores, bars, ethnic subcultures and neighborhoods, etc.?
My reading French is passable, but my speaking/listening skills are almost
non-existent. Any tips would be appreciated.
WKL
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 14:02:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: msgs
hi folks, i haven't gotten any POETRIX msgs for about 4 days; what's going on
--has someone unsubbed me accidentally, or is something wrong w/ my mailer or
yours?
concerned,
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 16:14:49 -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: checking
I haven't received any mail from the poetics list for 2 days, while
all other lists are coming through fine. If this gets through, would
someone please let me know? Is there word of anyone else having this
problem? I checked my settings at Buffalo and they are all OK.
Thanks,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:49:15 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: TINFISH erratum
In-Reply-To: <v01520d00ad5fe1d97af4@[205.134.228.84]>
To everyone who gets a copy of TINFISH #2: pages 2 and 3 of Joe Balaz's
poem are reversed from what they should be. The actual order, then, goes
as follows: pages 1,3,2,4,5 make up what should be pages 1,2,3,4,5.
Gabrielle Welford was acute enough to realize the error, for which I
thank her (even as my feeling about messengers is ambivalent at the
moment!).
Susan Schultz
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 10:32:09 +1300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Dan Horne <DHORNE@NZ.ORACLE.COM>
Subject: Another patois translation
Those of you who liked the Hawaiian Creole English translation of Pound's "The
Return" may also enjoy Tom Leonard's spin on WCW's "This is Just to Say." For
those of you who haven't come across his work before, Leonard's a Scottish
poet who usually writes in a Glaswegian patois:
Jist ti Let Yi No
(from the American of Carlos Williams)
ahv drank
thi speshlz
that wurrin
the frij
n thit
yiwurr probbli
hodn back
furthi parti
awright
they wur great
thaht stroang
thaht cawld
and one more untitled original for good measure:
right inuff
ma language is disgraceful
ma maw tellt mi
ma teacher tellt mi
thi doactir tellt
thi priest tellt mi
ma boss tellt mi
ma landlady in carrington street tellt mi
the lassie ah tried tay get aff way back in 1969 tellt mi
sum we smoat thi thoat ah hudny read chomsky tellt mi
a calvinistic communist thi thoat i wuz revisiionist tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi past tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi future tellt mi
ma wife tellt mi jist-tay-get-inty-this-poem tellt mi
ma wainz hame fray school an tellt me
jist aboot ivry book ah oapnd tellt mi
even thi introduction tay thi National Scottish Dictionary tellt mi
ach well
all livin language is sacred
fuck thi lohta thim
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 00:50:25 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETRY CITY book offer
Oops---wrong heading....
I have two questions.
1) For Deanna Ferguson---I hope you can get someone to bring copies
of BOO to the NYU POERTY TALKS thing that's happening in late
march----it'd probably be a great place to sell it to amerikans
like me.....
2) I need to backchannel Kevin Killian/Dodie Bellamy, but lost their
sirius address.....could anyone forward it to me....
thank you, chris stroffolino
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 22:43:39 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Jim Brodey "Heart of the Breath" Readings
I'd like to add that the West Coast Jim Brodey reading is being organized
and presented by Small Press Traffic--in cosponsorship with the Poetics
Program of New College.
Dodie Bellamy
>Hard Press sponsors two readings to celebrate the release of
>Jim Brodey's "Heart of the Breath"
>West Coast
>
>When: Friday April 12 at 7:30 p.m
>Where: The New College Theater, 777 Valencia Street, San Francisco
>
>
>Who:
>
>Bill Berkson
>Tom Clark
>Joanne Kyger
>Larry Kearney
>Robert Grenier
>
>
>Joanne Kyger will play a tape of Brodey Reading
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 05:50:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: This Is Just To Say
My favorite "translation" of that poem is by a woman I was in a show with
once. Her name's Rachelle Ray, and I have absolutely no idea what she's up
to today, but I've remembered this:
This is Just to Say
I have packed
the clothes
which were in
the bedroom
and which
you were probably
stroking
before breakfast
Forgive me
he was delicious
so sweet
and you, so cold
_________________
Emily
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:56:00 -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.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: test
I have gotten several reports of problems with messages getting posted to
the list. I sending this as a test to see if I can figure out what's
wrong.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:57:02 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lisa Samuels <lsr3h@DARWIN.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Silliman's 60s & another perspective
In-Reply-To: <199603051102.DAA14056@ix2.ix.netcom.com> from "Ron Silliman" at
Mar 5, 96 03:02:36 am
dear ron, et al,
you wrote that one did not study 60s poetics in the 60s.
during my 1980-84 undergraduate education, i had no idea
that anyone was really writing any poetry anymore -- apart
from the cookie-cutter lyrics in the -new yorker-, the daunting
perfections of -poetry-, etc. in part, that must have been
due to the schools i attended -- a small midwestern one,
then william & mary, then unc-chapel hill (i was hooked on
the transfer system). but still, i should have thought
some notion of a live scene might have trickled down.
even more (after five years out of the school world),
i managed to get completely through my graduate coursework
and exams without ever once learning about language poetry,
much less any more recent poetic scene, or even any
individual not sanctioned by the likes of the yale younger poets
award. i had not heard of anyone on this list before about
a year and a half ago.
i am the first to say my own failure to seek reading i
didn't know -- & perhaps not living in american cities --
had everything to do with my ignorance. but i was not,
technically, uneducated.
i thought this perspective might be worth hearing, given
what a blessing the discovery of this world has been for me.
it's strange to realize how utterly non-existent one population
of the thought & writing world can be for another.
yours,
lisa samuels
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 13:16:08 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Albert Cook <CO401000@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: test
In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:56:00 -0500 from
<bernstei@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
The message came through OK to me. Albert Cook
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 10:38:50 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Silliman's 60s & another perspective
--- On Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:57:02 -0500 Lisa Samuels
<lsr3h@DARWIN.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU> wrote:
> i am the first to say my own failure to seek reading i
>didn't know -- & perhaps not living in american cities --
>had everything to do with my ignorance. but i was not,
>technically, uneducated.
> i thought this perspective might be worth hearing, given
>what a blessing the discovery of this world has been for me.
>it's strange to realize how utterly non-existent one population
>of the thought & writing world can be for another.
>
>yours,
>
>lisa samuels
>
lisa ---
even tho i live in sf bay area, i didn't quite realize that an
avant-garde existed outside of the relatively small forces in
academia until i got on a list much like this one in january and
commenced putting my foot in my mouth in a very big way. was out
of touch for abt 15 years, am complete autodidact, had assumed
because of despair that avant-garde had basically become codified,
(nonetheless have eyes and could have sought ... did not for
various reasons, some of them good.)
imagine my delight when informed the opposite!
all to say yr not alone in intimations of blessedness.
yrs
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.9.96 10:38:51 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:42:13 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: plz disregard is a test
please disregard
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.9.96 11:42:13 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:49:17 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT upcoming events
Small Press Traffic is presenting two exciting events in the next week or so=
.
Kevin Killian
and Tan Lin
=46riday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.
at the New College Theater
777 Valencia Street
San Francisco
$5
Robert Gl=FCck & Carla Harryman
Tuesday, March 19, 8 p.m.
at New Langton Arts
1246 Folsom Street
San Francisco
$5
Those hot lights, trained on one's skin, were like the great eyes of God
the poet Jack Spicer wrote of in Imaginary Elegies. They see everything,
even under the skin where your thoughts are. Your dirty little thoughts.
You can take off all your clothes and pretend to be "naked," but you are
still Kevin Killian from Smithtown Long Island, with all the petty details
that denotes. And yet at the same time the heat made me feel languorous,
forgetful, like Maria Montez at the top of some Aztec staircase -dangerous,
as though there were nothing beyond the circle of white-no audience, no
society, only oneself and the red or purple or black hard-on that floats
magically to the level of one's lips. I suppose all actors must feel the
same way in some part of being-that the camera's eye represents the eye of
God, which at the same time judges all and, threateningly, withholds all
judgment till time turns off.
- from Kevin Killian's "Hot Lights"
The agents ('senders') numbered about forty and the tests included a
number, a wild animal with a letter written over his head, two intersected
coloured lines, a taste, a pain at some point on the hands or arm, the
emotional experiences of a drowning man, and finally what a fireman feels
like when he is rescuing a girl. All the stimuli were chose automatically
by means of a machine. Listeners were informed of the general nature of
the stimulus, whether it was an animal, a number, and so on.
There shall be with seraphim and cherubim, there also we shall meet with
thousands and thousands of others that have gone before us to that place.
enlarged lymph mode divisional sales chart fully jacketed bullet
[insert photo here] [insert photo here] [insert photo
here]
- from Tan Lin's "100 Second Chances"
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 14:52:46 -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: Silliman's 60s & another perspective
>(Lisa Samuels)
>during my 1980-84 undergraduate education, i had no idea
>that anyone was really writing any poetry anymore -- apart
>from the cookie-cutter lyrics in the -new yorker-, the daunting
>perfections of -poetry-, etc.
...
> even more (after five years out of the school world),
>i managed to get completely through my graduate coursework
>and exams without ever once learning about language poetry,
>much less any more recent poetic scene, or even any
>individual not sanctioned by the likes of the yale younger poets
>award. i had not heard of anyone on this list before about
>a year and a half ago.
...
> i thought this perspective might be worth hearing, given
>what a blessing the discovery of this world has been for me.
>it's strange to realize how utterly non-existent one population
>of the thought & writing world can be for another.
a while back, someone here suggested the image of a Venn diagram
to describe poetry communities in the us--numerous circles, each
containing individuals w/ shared aesthetics or experiences; some
of those circle partly overlapping, but mostly not, free-floating
in space w/out any contact w/ each other... i've found it a very
useful picture, added details in my own head (it must, frinstance,
have at least 3 dimensions...), and generally hopeless that i could
actually draw such a map. more than just LangPo has created a range
ov work, and a community, that challenges the received traditions--
& it's sometimes disappointing to me that such are not often included in
th discussions here... but lisa reminds that this list, & resources
like it, can literally change a reader's worldview, open the atlas
to new maps, new territories... not a trivial matter.
lbd
trr/burning press
oh, yeah, lisa: no accident that i ellipsed out part of your
original message, the parts where you blame yourself for lack
ov exposure to alternatives...
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 12:11:10 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: one of my favorites forever!
In-Reply-To: <9603090037.AA20761@nzseq1.nz.oracle.com>
So glad you brought in Tom Leonard! He has to be one of the funniest and
most pertinent poets around. A few more great poems in _The New British
Poetry_, especially his version of "Baa Baa Black Sheep." Thanks. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 15:00:41 -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: Access (not in my 60s yet)
It's instructive to recall how particular access to this world
invariably is. I grew up in a family without books (beyond Readers
Digest Condensed Novels) or music, but it was at the edge of Berkeley
and my restlessness put me in touch with so many things. Seeing Chris
Daniels, who lives 7 blocks from the best bookstore in the USA (1814
San Pablo Ave), write of his imagination of a codified (reified?)
avant-garde underscores the problem for each of us. I tend to think
that every one of us is in some sense (not Gerry Jamposlky's or Jeremy
Tarcher's) a miracle. Somehow we did find our way here. It's a test. I
discovered Louis Zukofsky through public TV. Bob Holman is going to
change somebody's life with his series--in ways that he cannot predict
nor control. Good for him.
L-Bob is absolutely right about the existance (and importance) of many
other scenes simultaneous to (overlapping with) (contesting against)
L-poesy, without which the world would be arid indeed. I think it's
important to acknowledge the value in such scenes and not simply
theoretically. For me at least, these scenes are precisely what poetry
at its best is about.
Communitas,
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 17:19:01 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Wood <twood@CONNECT.NET>
Subject: Re: POETRY CITY book offer
Just for my personal and professional curiosity, would you tell me more
about Poetry City?
Tim
>POETRY CITY, the experimental theme park,
>is proud to make a special offer to poetix readers:
>
>TWO BOOKS BY BILL LUOMA for $10 ppd
>
>_My Trip to New York City_ and _Swoon Rocket_,
>both published by The Figures,
>sell separately in stores for $11.
>
>Just email POETRY CITY at jdavis@panix.com
>and send your real-world address.
>We'll send you a bill.
>
>But hurry! quantities are limited, and when
>_My Trip to New York City_ is gone, that'll be it!
>
>(_Swoon Rocket_ is available separately for $5 ppd
>or 20% off--order now, but please, not to the list!)
>
>Thanks,
>Jordan Davis
in space no one can hear you scream
in Dallas no one cares...
______________________________________________________________________________
Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 17:52:27 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Wood <twood@CONNECT.NET>
Subject: Re: BOO Magazine
Deanna,
what are the articles about?
Tim
in space no one can hear you scream
in Dallas no one cares...
______________________________________________________________________________
Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 16:06:32 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: mikl-em <mike@KID-LINEAR.TAYLOR.ORG>
Subject: 90's and other perspectives...
Lisa's note struck a chord, esp. in light of luigi's reply re: circles
overlapping--she having attended w&m and now being at UVA, and I being a
graduate of James Madison, a third VA university.
I had a professor who talkd about Lpo's, but I gather there was no support
for her actually teaching a class focused on them. She accurately
reccommended several off-stream poets that I would be interested in, but
alas I didn't find them until after my school days were up. I do regret
not being able to encounter writers such as Howe and Scalapino in a
classroom setting, becuz I find it difficult to blend smoothly into their
work reading them on my own. There are other neglected poets though, ones
who are outside of some of the movements which get more press, and it took
my own active pursuit to uncover Rexroth, Patchen, Antin, Blackburn and
others who have been essential for me and my writing.
Ultimately Language Poetry intimidates me, not only in the work itself, but
since it is the avant-garde establishment, so to speak, must it be dealt
with in order to proceed, and, if so, are those who know the present
limited by it, ala' the Apexers? Meanwhile, I am trying to find the
poets of language poetry, mostly one by one, and I think will eventually
be glad for finding them the way I am, rather than buying the whole posse
on one ticket.
Incidentally, I had a friend who became somewhat of a convert to LangPo
from an undergrad class at UVA--taught by none other than Tan Lin who is
about to read in the SPD series. How's that for closure?
A couple other threads to touch on: I clearly remember scanning the bios
in my undergrad anthology, Norton I'm sure, and finding consistently Ivy
leaguers and WWII vets, interesting that the GI Bill and the rift from
the Vietnam era experience are strange cousins in a way as far as
"producing" poets. I know that it isn't so simplistic a case, but does it
make you wonder how a generation that isn't touched so intimately with War
will differ in focus? Let's hope that we find out.
And finally, I know another Bowling Green poet, who also was a JMU
undergrad, Denver Butson, who studied under Ted Enslin there--not hugely
published, but doing excellent work.
take care all,
michael
--mike@taylor.org
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 16:16:00 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: dub test (Delete Unless Bernstein)
At 11:56 AM 3/9/96 -0500, you wrote:
>I have gotten several reports of problems with messages getting posted to
>the list. I sending this as a test to see if I can figure out what's
>wrong.
here's typing at you.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 17:33:37 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: another by tom leonard
GOOD STYLE
helluva hard tay read theez innit
stull
if yi canna unnirston thim jiss clear aff then
gawn
get tay fuck ootma road
ahmaz goodiz thi lota yiz so ah um
ah no whit ahm dayn
tellnyi
jiss try enny a yir fly patir wi me
stick thi bootnyi good style
so ah wull
(from the faber book of xx-cent. scottish poetry)
great anthology
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.9.96 5:33:37 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 20:19:57 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Wood <twood@CONNECT.NET>
Subject: Re: Spring issue of SPT newsletter
Dodie,
I've recently joined the mailing list and --since it has spammed my
mailbox-- I just got to your message. Pity is there are still three
hundred on either side of yours to read. Anyway, if it's not too late, I'd
like to recieve a copy of Traffic. I can be reached at PO Box 835984
Richardson Tx 75083
thanks,
Tim
in space no one can hear you scream
in Dallas no one cares...
______________________________________________________________________________
Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 17:54:55 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Access (not in my 60s yet)
ron silliman ---
>Seeing Chris
>Daniels, who lives 7 blocks from the best bookstore in the USA (1814
>San Pablo Ave), write of his imagination of a codified (reified?)
>avant-garde underscores the problem for each of us.
well, yeah, codified: reduced to a code or set of laws, i.e.
DEAD. for many many reasons, and to my loss, that was my initial
reaction to langpo theory and praxis around and abt 1980. was
way too "dense" for me back then. not now tho.
in my defense i must say that i moved to this part of berkeley
last october. SPD is a wonderful store. i volunteer there off
and on and am becoming friends with steve dickison. but SPD
for various reasons is unable to stock i wld say MOST of what
is going on right now. i know, i've gone in there, TAPROOT in
hand, to find nothing i wanted to check out. particularily
no vizpo, most tragic.
you signed yr post: COMMUNITAS
this is the beauty of the web, where a relatively well-known poet
like yrself may be approached and engaged in friendly discussion
with no question of hassle. obviously you are online because you
want to be. if i saw you on the street i would never approach
you, not wishing to bug you. the web makes it all so easy, has
created a potentially VAST community for poets.
very heartening.
yrs ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.9.96 5:54:55 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 20:53:30 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Barton Rollins <foljbr@CCUNIX.CCU.EDU.TW>
Subject: A Protest Against the Missile Exercise (fwd)
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 96 15:01:40 -0800
From: rhhwang <rhhwang@cs.ccu.edu.tw>
To: teacher@ccunix.ccu.edu.tw
Subject: A Protest Against the Missile Exercise
A Protest Against the Missile Exercise
Starting from March 8th the People's Republic of China will launch a
series of missile exercises. The missiles will fall roughly 20 kilometers
from the coast of Taiwan. This is a prelude to a full scale military
blockade of Taiwan, an island girded by the seas.
Freedom and democracy of the 21 million peace-loving people
in Taiwan are now being threatened. The international community
should not stand by and let the people of Taiwan lose their
freedom.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 08:09:43 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "J. Ellis McAdams" <jmcadam@EMORY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Wars
In-Reply-To: <199603100501.AAA00990@graf.cc.emory.edu>
Michael asked yesterday "how a generation that isn't touched so
intimately with War will differ in focus?" I think this question is very
much complicated by the Gulf War, so that many of the undergraduates
presently in universities believe that they have had a close, first-hand
experience with war, because, as many of them have told me, for the first
time people "at home" were "on the frontlines" a la CNN et al.
This issue arose last week in my seminar, "Contemporary Native America,"
when we read Adrian C. Louis's "Red Blues in a White Town the Day We Bomb
Iraqi Women and Children" from his AMONG THE DOG EATERS (Albequerque:
West End Press). A few students were angry about what they perceived to
be "America bashing"--nothing unusual there--but one of them said
something interesting re: Louis's supposed anti-whiteness, "Well, he is,
but I don't take it personally." When I suggested that maybe he should
take it "personally," that Louis intended to make white people
uncomfortable, he and the other students did not seem to grasp what this
might mean in a concrete sense.
I'm rambling here, but I see a connection, that is, the inability (or
unwillingness) of students to put themselves into the equation--of the
poem, in this instance--even as they see themselves involved in this TV
war. I'm wondering 1) what others' experience about the Gulf War have been
in the classroom? and 2) what strategies you use in the classroom to
enable students to write themselves into the text?
Janet
Note: My use of the term TV War is in no way intended to be dismissive of
the horror and brutality of what we did in Iraq.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 09:17:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: test
i got this msg, thanks, today it seems to be working--md
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 09:17:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: test
wow, albert cook, i didn't know you were on the list. awesome, ... my
graduate advisor turned me on to your stuff...
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 09:17:24 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Poetry City/yo wally lew
hiya wally, my old friend peter gibian (who you met at your pacific film
archive show in the 80s) teaches at McGill, i'll let him know youre coming.
or better yet, his e-address is czpg@musica.mcgill.ca
so you can get in touch. see ya thurs. (yay!)--md
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 11:17:19 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: msgs
hi guyzies, i'm getting msgs again. thanks for your support, concern,
sympathy, and fine suggestions, all of which have been invaluable in my time
of need. bests, md
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 07:44:13 GMT+1300
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: test
Receiving you cool & exquisite, Charles. Best,
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 11:00:14 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: test
likewise, dude
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.10.96 11:00:14 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 11:42:09 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Going on without George Burns
In-Reply-To: <199603100703.CAA09268@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
recent dialogue interesting to me -- when in university in the 70's
(undergrad) never really expected that professors might teach from
contemporary poets, and was thus never disappointed (later courses with
David McAleavey, lurking around this list, were a welcome change in that
regard) -- book stores in D.C. then weren't much help either --
so one seized upon those few openings -- such as the short-lived folio
books, where one could actually buy small press books by poets one had
never heard of -- followed in the same space by second story books, whose
used & new sections included much of interest and where the employees
held readings by the likes of Silliman, Hejinian, Palmer, Kelly, and
welcomed local poets to read as well -- That store was my introduction to
those poets, and I am sure this was the pattern in other parts of the
country for other readers -- the academy was not, even for those of us
who by then intended to become academics, where one hoped to encounter
such works --
Now, as someone who does attempt the teaching of contemporary poets I
remind myself of those days as a caution -- who might I be overlooking
that my students would later thank me for?
The answer now as then is to do what I always did with music -- to make a
point of finding and reading poets whose names are new to me -- and that
may be, for me, the chief value of this list!
this has been a test -- people have been telling me that poetry is not
getting through -- no need to respond -- test will resume at the usual
location & time
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 20:52:23 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: KUSZAI <v369t4kj@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: ANNOUNCING RON SILLIMAN's _XING_ from MEOW PRESS
_Xing_
by Ron Silliman
Meow Press
Buffalo, 1996
52 pages, saddle-stitched
No ISBN
Published in an edition of 300
$6
Available from SPD
1851 San Pablo, Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94051
Comprised of 364 three line stanzas, this single long poem is the latest
installment in Silliman's ALPHABET, a project begun with the publication
of ABC in 1983 by Lyn Hejinian in her Tuumba chapbook series. _Xing_
affords the reader the possible view of a writer at work, engaging with
the everyday while filtering in/out the effects on consciousness of the
material circumstances of the poet's life and thought. Like in Zukofsky's
poetry, the domestic scene registers its familial tonality upon the
poem's optics: the poet writing and the meditative quality of writing
which includes itself as part of the frame of the everyday experience.
Curiously enjambed, the materials brought together in this poem represent
an encyclopedia of careful attentions, with characteristic wit:
(noticing how Big Bird
never moves his right wing
expect for certain distance shots
in which he doesn't open
his beak or move his head,
I begin to wonder
If Bob Dole isn't also
a muppet). Cuticle
torn down the side of the nail. (p. 23)
* * *
OTHER TITLES AVAILABLE FROM MEOW PRESS
George Albon, _King_ $5
Andrews, Bernstein, Sherry, _Technology/Art: 20 Brief Proposals_ $5
Rachel Tzvia Back, _Litany_ $6
Michael Basinski, _Cnyttan_ $5
Charles Bernstein, _The Subject_ $6
Jonathan Brannen, _The Glass Man Left Waltzing_ $5
Dubravka Djuric, _Cosmopolitan Alphabet_ $5
Robert Fitterman, _Metropolis_ $5
Benjamin Friedlander, _A Knot is Not a Tangle_ $5
Benjamin Friedlander, _Anterior Future_ $5 (New Reprint!)
Peter Gizzi, _New Picnic Time_ $5
Loss P. Glazier, _The Parts_ $5
Mark Johnson, _Three Bad Wishes_ $6
Pierre Joris, _Winnetou Old_ $5
Elizabeth Robinson, _Iemanje_ $5 (New Reprint!)
Leslie Scalapino, _The Line_ $5
James Sherry, _4 For_ $5
Misko Suvakovic, _Pas Tout_ $5
Juliana Spahr, _Testimony_ $6
Bill Tuttle, _Epistolary Poems_ $5
COMING SOON:
Dodie Bellamy & Robert Harrison, _Broken English_
Wendy Kramer, _Patinas_
Meredith Quartermain, _Terms of Sale_
Aaron Shurin, _Codex_
NOW READING FOR SUMMER 1996 Series.
SPRING 1996 Series announcement due out soon.
* Special offer to Poetics List *
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Buy any 5 and receive 2 Free!
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=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 22:51:19 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: COLLEEN LOOKINGBILL READING
Thursday, March 14th, the Scottsdale Center for the Arts (greater Phoenix
area) is pleased to present a reading by Colleen Lookingbill at 8:00 p.m.
Colleen's reading will be followed by an open reading.
This is a free event, and all are welcome.
Hope those of you living in or visiting the Phoenix area will join us!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 07:42:35 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Counter-example
Although I suspect most on the list have had experiences similar to Mike
and Aldon and others who discovered contemporary avant-garde poetry outside the
academy, I'd like to say that my experience was very different. I was a
graduate student at the University of California, San Diego from 1983 to 1989,
and, thanks mostly to Michael Davidson, that's where I discovered the poets
that now mean the most to me. When I think back on the poets I heard read at
UCSD -- Palmer, Howe, Bernstein, Andrews, Silliman, Hejinian, Mayer, McCaffery,
Mackey, Mac Low, Blaser, Coolidge, to name just the ones that pop to mind
immediately -- and the poets I discovered, yes, in the class room -- Ashbery,
Oppen, Creeley, Zukofsky, Niedecker, Spicer, Duncan, Stein, etc. -- well, I
feel the need to come to the defense of at least one university. And I am
trying to pass that experience on to my students here at The University of
Memphis, where I've been able to teach a special topics course to
undergraduates on experimental poetry as well as a graduate seminar on that
same topic. Since I grew up in Utah (rumor has it the 60s have finally begun
there), there was no way I could have discovered the avant-garde in bookstores
or at readings during the 70s. Anyway, I guess the moral is: not all
universities suppress the new.
Paul Naylor
MAIL
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
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in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 16:26:35 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: avant-garde
perhaps I'm just sensitive to this particular word, avant-garde, but with all
the other ideas I'm thinking during the day, I just can't agree with it
I hope I'm never an avant-garde poet
I mean, who do you really think you're leading to artistic salvation?
For me, personally, the word reeks of "elitism," belief in linear evolution
(the people who use the terms first, second, third-world as a value judgement
or "logical" progression).
The avant-garde were those _guys_ saying, someday, when you are enlightened
like me, you'll understand what I was talking about/expressing.
I feel like I'm opening up that whole censor-ship/ what words can we use/
pomo indian thing again. But I guess I'll post anyway.
I just want to know if other people out there object to the use of
"avant-garde" as a way of describing the writing going on by those on the
list and in discussion of the list. I just think it's a little conceited/
ego-centric. Experimental is one thing, avant-garde is another, but I guess,
why are we using these adjectives at all.
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 18:48:28 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
James Perez:
>I just want to know if other people out there object to the use of
>"avant-garde" as a way of describing the writing going on by those on the
>list and in discussion of the list. I just think it's a little conceited/
>ego-centric. Experimental is one thing, avant-garde is another, but I guess,
>why are we using these adjectives at all.
I object to the vagueness of the terms 'avant-garde' and 'experimental'.
Both are over-used and have gazillions of
implications/connotations/relationships of/to other words and meanings.
Experimental is used to describe nearly everything even slightly new that
we can't think of another word for. Home/kitbuilt airplanes are licensed
as 'experimental' and must have big letters saying so near the cockpit,
even though few homebuilt designs ar really experiments anymore, they've
been proven to be as reliable as any other design. As for poetry, it seems
to me that any/everything written without an easily accessible narrative is
described as 'experimental'. A few months ago Gwyn McVay (I think) coined
the term 'quertzblatz poetics' or some such, which i think is just plain
fun to say.
Same with avant-garde (although the FAA doesn't use that term anywhere).
Everyone seems to have different ideas of what this is. In junior high and
high-school I was lead to believe that all avant-garde artists were elitist
french chain-smoking ascot wearers.
We've got to use *some* adjectives to describe what we're talkking about,
but why do we use such silly ones?
Eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 15:51:08 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ray Davis <raydavis@BEST.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
>Experimental is one thing, avant-garde is another, but I guess,
>why are we using these adjectives at all.
Genre is a matter of marketing category & argumentative community, &
"avant-garde poetry" is just the name of a genre -- pretty much the same
genre as "experimental poetry", I think (speaking as a poetry purchaser).
If we choose to take the "its true meaning is..." approach to etymology,
the term "avant-garde" is just as embarrassingly inaccurate as "mystery",
"realism", "pornography", "science fiction", "the mainstream", "heroic
couplet", or "match" (which derives from "nostril"). One might take the
embarrassing inaccuracy of the etymology as a hint that genres can't be
clearly defined rather than try to stamp out use of genre terms.
Then again, coming up with _new_ genre terms can be a very useful exercise,
both for marketing purposes & for establishing communities.
Ray
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 18:53:45 -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: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <199603112138.QAA02381@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU> from "James
Perez" at Mar 11, 96 04:26:35 pm
For those (relatively) new to this list, there was a long exchange
regarding the appropriateness of the tern "experimental" about a year
and a half ago. Check out the archive.
As for a=v=a=n=t-g=a=r=d=e, it began, after all, as a military term.
Need I say more?
Love,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 16:16:00 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Don Cheney <Don_Cheney@UCSDLIBRARY.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Avant-Garde kills bugs dead
The other day I was thinking of the term "options open". Does anybody
know who COINED that? I'm sure I read/heard it somewhere because only
terms like "DO NOT VIOLATE DOOR-LATCH INTEGRITY" come to my mind
without a proper visa.
was that you what said that, ron S.?
i'm not sure i think the term applies to my process of writing but
maybe (hopefully) my writing allows for an "options open" reading.
Don Cheney
---------------------------------------------------------------------
James Perez:
>I just want to know if other people out there object to the use of
>"avant-garde" as a way of describing the writing going on by those on
the >list and in discussion of the list. I just think it's a little
conceited/ >ego-centric. Experimental is one thing, avant-garde is
another, but I guess, >why are we using these adjectives at all.
Eryque:
I object to the vagueness of the terms 'avant-garde' and
'experimental'. Both are over-used and have gazillions of
implications/connotations/relationships of/to other words and
meanings. Experimental is used to describe nearly everything even
slightly new that we can't think of another word for. Home/kitbuilt
airplanes are licensed as 'experimental' and must have big letters
saying so near the cockpit, even though few homebuilt designs ar
really experiments anymore, they've been proven to be as reliable as
any other design. As for poetry, it seems to me that any/everything
written without an easily accessible narrative is described as
'experimental'. A few months ago Gwyn McVay (I think) coined the term
'quertzblatz poetics' or some such, which i think is just plain fun to
say.
Same with avant-garde (although the FAA doesn't use that term
anywhere). Everyone seems to have different ideas of what this is. In
junior high and high-school I was lead to believe that all avant-garde
artists were elitist french chain-smoking ascot wearers.
We've got to use *some* adjectives to describe what we're talkking
about, but why do we use such silly ones?
Eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 19:45:18 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
well we're all just trying to write and who cares what it gets
called? i myself couldn't care less what anybody CALLS what i write.
all i ask is that if they read it, they really READ it and try to
meet it halfway. labelling performs many functions, most of them
useless to the process of MAKING art. talking abt art is a different
story. "avant-garde" seems abt as good a term as any other.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.11.96 7:45:19 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:20:43 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: AWOL: FAMOUS REPORTER
This message has been forwarded on behalf of AWOL. Please direct all
inquiries to AWOL at awol@ozemail.com.au (all prices are in Aust dollars -
if you are interested in ordering any titles please contact AWOL for
details).
Thanks
Mark
**************************
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REPORTER. For further information about THE FAMOUS REPORTER please contact
them at the address provided. Further information about AWOL's Virtual
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Famous Reporter 12
Famous Reporter is a biannual literary journal, jointly edited by Lyn
Reeves (haiku), Lorraine Marwood (100-word essays/poems), Anne Kellas,
Angela Rockel, Warrick Wynne (poetry) and Ralph Wessman.
Famous Reporter 12 (December `95) features poetry (work by both new and
established poets including Doris Leadbetter, Kathelyn Job, Pete Hay, Peter
Bakowski, Mark Miller, Rudi Krausmann, Gloria B. Yates, John Malone, Kevin
Brophy, Yve Louis, Chris Mansell, Tim Thorne, Rory Harris, Graham Rowlands,
Anthony Lawrence & many more), prose (inc. Geoffrey Dean, Leah Nischler,
Martin R. Johnson, Anne Shimmins), haiku, an interview (Pete Hay and
Richard Flanagan in conversation), reviews of new collections by Nigel
Roberts, Kristin Henry/Doris Leadbetter, Sybylla's She's Fantastical
anthology, essays and articles (Helen Cerne: `Before Chaos - a visit to
Croatia', Sherryl Clark: `Writers at Work' - excerpts from the 3CR radio
programme sponsored by the Victorian Writers' Centre, Janice M. Bostok: `A
Return to Romania', etc), email commentary (from the Austlit mailing list)
by Lyn McCredden and Bill Schaffer, 100-word poems/essays, visits to the
N.S.W. Spring Writing Festival in September and to the Tasmanian Poetry and
Dance Festival in Sept/Oct, gossip and news....
For FR13, (besides poetry, prose, articles and reviews etc.) we are seeking
haiku focussing on relationships; for the 100-word poems/essays section,we
require material taking as its departure point a personal response to the
opening line of `Jonah's Wife' by Jill Hellyer, published in the Penguin
Book of Australian Women Writers, the opening line being "`A likely story,'
she said." Contributions - between 95 and 105 words in length - are welcome
in verse or prose form, and should reach Famous Reporter by April 12th,
1996. An SSAE is essential for the return of contributions.
FR offers modest payment - haiku $5, 100-word essays $5, stories (prose
under 500 words) $5, poems $10, short stories & articles $20 minimum, etc -
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Overland 142
(ISSN 0030 7416 88 pages perfect bound). AWOL is pleased to welcome
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A feature of this issue is a tribute to the late Barrett Reid which
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four W issue 6
(ISSN 1035 7920 Perfect Bound 206 pages) Edited by David Gilbey, Virley
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Poetry by: Mark Brennan, Anna Voigt, Jenni Munday, Jack Bedson, Margaret
Bradstock, BR Dionysius, Mark Smith, M Turbet, Mark Roberts, Ouyang Yu,
Anthony Lawrence, Debbie Robson, Adrian Caesar, Michael Crane, Myron
Lysenko, Barbara Damska, Philip M Everett, Lizz Murphy, Marietta Elliot,
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Berrigan, Jules Leigh Koch, Kelly Chan, Robert Doyle Paul c Dodd, David
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SCARP 27 New Arts & Writing
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Ladd, Les Wicks, Andy Kissane, Peter Kenneally. Emma Lew, June Owens, Margo
Button, CE Hull, Sharon Olinka, Peter Hunt, Margo Button, Deb Westbury,
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of: Lovely Infestation Purcell, The Sky is Moving Hinkley, Do Fish get
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Coppertales - A Journal of Rural Arts No. 2
(ISSN 1320 1021 127 pages perfect bound) Edited by Chris Lee & Brian
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Barbara Ross, Mark O'Flynn, Michelle Mee & Pat Skinner. Poetry by: Estelle
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Julie Hunt, C E Hull, John Forbes, BR Dionysius, T M Collins, Jane
Williams, Mark O'Flynn, Lorraine Marwood, Sunaryono Basuki, Joan Davis,
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Inklings No.5
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Issue 5 contains work by MTC Cronin, Mark Roberts and Mary O'Connell among
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Tinfish No 1
(No ISSN 46 pages). Edited by Susan M Shultz. The first issue of this
Hawaii based magazine is particularly exciting. Tinfish aims to publish
"experimental poetry with an emphasis on work from the Pacific region" and
includes work by a number of well known Australian writers. Tinfish 1
contains work by Joe Balaz, Peter Kenneally, Kathy Dee Kaleokealoha
Kaloloahilani Banggo, John Geraets, Rob Wilson, Spencer Selby, Yi Sha, John
Kinsella, Lyn Hejinian, Barry KK Masuda & John Tranter. $4.00
Hermes Issue 12
(ISSN 0 816 116X 108 pages
Perfect bound). Hermes has a long tradition of publishing innovative
writing and since its relaunch over a decade ago the magazine as gone from
strength to strength. It is published annually. Issue 12 is perhaps the
best issue yet. It contains poetry by John Tranter, Zan Ross, Peter Minter,
Michael Brennan, Karen Attard, Roger Dillon, Alison Clark, Lisa Jacobson,
Kate Llewellyn, Kristen de Kline, Tom See, Fecity Plunkett, Ron Pretty,
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ISSN 0 819 5978 Perfect bound Magazine title on spine 128 pages.
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Issue 12 includes poetry by Nigel Featherstone, Jeff Guess, Brain Purcell,
Mark Miler, Rudi Krausmann, Kevin Brophy, Chris Mansell, Tim Thorne,
Anthony Lawrence and many more. Fiction by Knute Skinner, Martin R Johnson
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=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 00:53:28 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
>well we're all just trying to write and who cares what it gets
>called? i myself couldn't care less what anybody CALLS what i write.
>all i ask is that if they read it, they really READ it and try to
>meet it halfway.
chris, i agree completelike,
> labelling performs many functions, most of them
>useless to the process of MAKING art. talking abt art is a different
>story. "avant-garde" seems abt as good a term as any other.
but i thought the issue was *talking* about art?
eryque "i left my tonsils in san fransisco" gleason
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 22:06:08 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: what a difference a decade makes
In-Reply-To: <199603120502.VAA25822@sparta.SJSU.EDU>
my own recollections to do with local variance (ask your zoning
commission about it) -- Paul's later, enviable transit thru UCSD
testimony to the value of Davidson's presence and the foresight of
several others on that campus at that time --
On the other hand, at that same undergraduate academy where I could not
expect to learn of innovative new poetries, we were required to take a
course in African-American lit. crit., thus avoiding the now commonplace
mistake of thinking that it all began with H.L. Gates & la bell dame
hooks --
One looks around, locates that which is of use at whatever UNIverseCITY
one has managed to get into, and heads straight for it --
Again, what I was more worried about looking back to my own education was
the thought that there may be writers I should be introducing to my
students to whom I have blinkered myself in one way or another --
I experimented for a time with the writing of avant garde verse, but gave
it up as insufficiently innovative -- I am now determinedly guarding my
derriere --
I am, you guessed it, a derrieridian
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 22:49:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Ghost books
_Imagist Anthology 1930_, Edited by Glenn Hughes?, Forewords by Ford Madox
Ford and Glenn Hughes. London: Chaoot and Windus, 1930, lists at the end of
its "Bibliography" on pages 153-154 four titles by William Carlos Williams:
Tempera. 1913.
Kora in Hell. 1920.
Four Grapes. 1921.
In the American Grave. 1925.
Does anyone know of any other ghost titles, announced (or even promised)?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 23:21:18 PST
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From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: avant-garde
--- On Tue, 12 Mar 1996 00:53:28 -0500 Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
wrote:
>>well we're all just trying to write and who cares what it gets
>>called? i myself couldn't care less what anybody CALLS what i write.
>>all i ask is that if they read it, they really READ it and try to
>>meet it halfway.
>
>chris, i agree completelike,
>
>> labelling performs many functions, most of them
>>useless to the process of MAKING art. talking abt art is a different
>>story. "avant-garde" seems abt as good a term as any other.
>
>but i thought the issue was *talking* about art?
o yeah, i forgot abt that ...
>eryque "i left my tonsils in san fransisco" gleason
chris 'i left my foot in my mouth' daniels
sort of tastes like chicken, actually ...
-----------------End of Original Message-----------------
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.11.96 11:21:18 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 23:46:18 -0800
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From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Ghost books
Peter Quartermain wrote:
>Does anyone know of any other ghost titles, announced (or even promised)?
Hi Peter . . . the 1st thing that popped into mind was the book by Dorothy
L Sayers that her publishers kept announcing year after year, after she had
quit writing detective stories, but she kept dangling this one last book at
them season after season, called, "Thrones, Dominations." It was to her
career what "Answered Prayers" was to Truman Capote's.
Okay, ghost books-probably hundreds (dozens?) of readers have wondered
whatever became of Robin Blaser's book of "Astonishments," after his
announcement of it twenty years ago at the end of Jack Spicer's "Collected
Books." Peter, you are in as good a position as anyone to answer that
question!! (There was also Stan's announcement-was it in 1970?-of the
imminent publication of Spicer's "Vancouver Lectures.")
But both these books will appear I'm sure, years down the trail, and so do
not possibly qualify as "ghost books"? XXX Kevin (Killian)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 02:53:49 -0500
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From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: FW: Re: avant-garde
>chris 'i left my foot in my mouth' daniels
>
>sort of tastes like chicken, actually ...
yours too? after a good jog does it taste like dark meat cooked in a light
garlic sauce?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 02:56:48 -0500
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From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: Ghost books
>not possibly qualify as "ghost books"? XXX Kevin (Killian)
Kevin, you're older than 30, aren't you? :-) sorry, it's three in the
a.m. of the morning over here, bedtime for bozo!
OOOO (i get it) Eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 12:39:07 +0100
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From: "William M. Northcutt" <William.Northcutt@UNI-BAYREUTH.DE>
Subject: avant-garde
someone, and forgive my faulty memory, has recently written a good piece on
the notion of avant-garde and all the problems with recent books on the
subject, in Contemporary (contemptuous?) Literature.
As for my own feelings about "avant-garde" as a word used to describe the
works of people such as Pound, Marinetti, H.D., Williams, Reznikof, W.
Lewis, Spicer, Desnos, Queneu, Breton, O'Hara, Dorn, Bernstein, Silliman,
etc...the problem rests in using the term as a concrete rubric through which
to discuss these writers. I mean, there are ways in which the term can be
used so loosely as to apply it to Bly and even Fred Turner, since the term
is a relative term. The trouble, as far as I see it, is in trying to once
and for all codify a term. It may also be that in many cases we don't like
to admit that there are definite similarities between some aspects of Dana
DDDDDDDjjjjjjjjjjjjjjoyyer's work and, let's say, Jim Mc Manus's work, or
more likely, V. Seth's and Jim Mc Manus's, and that there are some
recognizable similarities between Silliman's work (all glories be to my
favorite of all contemporary poets) and that of one of my least favorite
writers ever, someone such as Fred Turner (embraced as he whole-heartedly is
by some of the fascists of Europe I've met in the last year--I'm not
directly attacking Turner here).
The point I'm rambling on about here is that no term such as a-g or
experimentalist can ever be less than abstract, or more correctly said,
relativist.
These thoughts are nothing new to the list. Just my 1 and 1/2 Cents worth.
And has anyone yet tried to disentangle how it is that Pound's work, fascist
and goddamned hard-assed as it is has aspects which make some of the more
humane and radical aspects of lang-po impossible without there having first
been Pound? I don't buy the pure methodology excuse. But I would like to
know what some of you think.
By the way, do any of you know whether Nate Mackey is on line?
end of the pot pourri.
William Northcutt
-----------------------------------
William Northcutt
Anglistik I
Universitaet Bayreuth
95440 Bayreuth
Tel: 44 921 980612
Fax: 44 921 553641
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 09:19:22 -0500
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From: Karen Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
<grin>
all poetry is exactly the same and no other word should be used when
discussing poetry because then the buyer will have no idea what is in the
book and will have to rely exclusively on the opinions of others while
accidentally buying what might have been called traditional work or what
might have been called academic work when what was wanted might have been
called postmodern or avant-garde but the language police didn't let anyone
make any categories so noone bought any poetry
Peter
if you're ever on EFnet, drop in to #postmodern
we're talking a lot about Pound/Olson/Zukofsky
and say hi to me
_Peter_ or Landers
landers@vivanet.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:09:42 +0000
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From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
Has anybody yet seen _The Dada Market_ anthology from
Southern Illinois U. Press, can't remember the editor's
name? Haven't cracked it yet, but bought it almost entirely
for the cover, which is a photo of an apparently genuine
RC-Cola roadside-dilapidated convenience store whose sign
says "The Dada Market." I love it.
Gwyn
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:17:58 -0500
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From: Ursula K Heise <ukh2@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <v01530500ad6b369093e2@[204.176.82.216]>
Hello, I'm new to this list and have been following the discussion re.
the term "avant-garde" with great interest over the last week or so. Some
of the problems in using this word that have been pointed out seem to
relate not to any fuzziness in the term itself, but to the problem of
evaluating work with no or little historical distance. By which I mean: I
think we probably all have a more or less defined and probably also
shared idea of who and what the avant-garde of the 1910s, 20s, 30s was.
But once it gets to the 70s and onward, it becomes harder to tell because
in order to know what the avant-garde is "avant" of, you have to know
what comes "apres," i.e. whether the avant-garde is followed by anything
(if not, it presumably isn't one). So is the irony of the term that you
only know what's avant-garde in hindsight?
Ursula K. Heise
Columbia University
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:31:51 -0500
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From: Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum <mgk3k@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: (fwd) NEW: DADA - Dada mailing list
I'm assuming this is legit. Or does it matter?
Forwarded message:
> DADA on majordomo@teleport.com
>
> ~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.~~~~~
> tHE dADA mAILING LiST
> ~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~==~~~~!~~~~~~
>
> Subscribers to the dada mailing list send their insane ramblings to
> the other subscribers, who are encouraged to embellish these ravings
> with their own lunacy, in an ongoing torrent of meaningless babble!
> It amounts to a verbal jam session.
>
> Some of this prose is appended repeatedly, creating long epics of
> startling beauty and hilarity. Other times, no one adds to a piece,
> and it stands on its own until forgotten.
>
> To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@teleport.com with the command
>
> subscribe dada
>
> in the body of the mail.
>
> Protocol and guidelines may be found on the dadaFAQ website at
> http://www.teleport.com/~xeres/dadafaq.html
>
> Owner: The Robot Vegetable veg@vegtabl.com
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
=================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k Electronic Text Center
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 11:00:04 -0500
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From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
It seems to me not un-noteworthy to consider the difference between writers
who label themselves and their friends avant-garde and writers who GET
labelled avant-garde. This is how I interpreted (chris daniels?) the
original question. If we call *ourselves* avant-garde, what are we
contributing to? (possibilities: a linear view of time, a lack of
responsibility/interest in being understood "because we're ahead of our
time--100 years from now, you'll thank us!", the labelling process in
general, and perhaps--as cd suggested--a kind of elitism, etc.). I do think
there is a difference between those (Marinetti, Pound, et. al) who say "*I*
am the voice of the next generation" (which automatically shuts the current
generation up, because they can neither "prove" nor "disprove" it--saying
"I'm avant-garde" poses me against the possibility of critique) and those
whose writing simply IS such a "voice," but who don't go to great lengths to
assert/promote it that way...it is the self-assertion, the passionate
interest in labelling & grouping *ourselves* (inclusively/exclusively) or
identifying with a "movement" that seems...discussable [sic]. E
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"Sometimes, in a flash, I wake up and reverse
the direction of my fall" --r.barthes
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 12:25:40 -0500
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From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
is it conceited to be avant-garde? on the frontlines? front lines of what.
First lines. The first lines are the avant-garde of the poem. Are we
conceited to be talking about poetry. Poetry isn't talking about us, right?
So why talk about ourselves as experimental. What's the hypothesis. Well we
weren't talking about _you_... Is it egocentric to be writing at all? Yes.
It is. It's egocentric to be writing it all, to be monumental, or to be
called monumental. But what else is there to do. What else. What else. Is
it mental to be conceited. It is conceited to say I'm in charge now
(Alexander Haig). It is conceited to talk about ourselves. What do we talk
about. Do we talk about poems. Whose poems. Aha. Well we do talk about
poems sometimes, or something in a poem. We talk about how to put a poem
over, or what is it at the beginning, the avant-garde of the poem. The poem
is not avant-garde. The poem is ahead of us? How does a poem get from the
avant-garde to the end. What is an end. ("What is the name of this poem.")
Is the job of the discussion which is not one of us to become accurate. To
describe truthfully. To be? The Job of discussion is why we are
avant-garde.
How many poets live in apartment 2-B. Is the poetry we're talking about
more appropriately called anti-teleological. Or is it as Tony Door says the
commutative function of the alphabet. What are we doing. If we have to talk
about it by groups, if we have to talk about a group coming after an
avant-garde group, then what do we talk about. Paradigms? (Hi Gale!) What
is different seems to be located around _what we want_. I don't think it's
conceited to talk about what we want. Maybe it's conceited to speak for we.
What we. Well it's important to talk about what is wanting. Very? Very
wanting. Ambition has been defaced. What is the new ambition. What do they
want these new writers we don't understand. The cover of Time magazine. To
talk to improbable objects. To speak to them. Impossible?
the bouquet years
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 08:53:19 PST
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From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: pedal cuisine
eryque
yeah sometimes it tastes like the dark meat w/garlic
more typically a benignly insolent ragout redolent of
pickapeppa sauce and mogen david garnished w/sour cream
o it's grand i'm tellin you
highly recommend it to all blatherskites
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.12.96 8:53:19 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 11:45:00 PST
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: 16 OZ or
At 12:39 PM 3/12/96 +0100, William Northcut wrote:
>And has anyone yet tried to disentangle how it is that Pound's work, fascist
>and goddamned hard-assed as it is has aspects which make some of the more
>humane and radical aspects of lang-po impossible without there having first
>been Pound? I don't buy the pure methodology excuse. But I would like to
>know what some of you think.
Bernstein has an essay in _A Poetics_ called "Pounding Fascism
(Appropriating Ideologies--Mystification, Aestheticization, and Authority in
Pound's Poetic Practice)" (whew) which, although one could maybe argue that
it relies on the notion of "pure methodology", as I see it simply makes the
point that "some work may usefully evade any single social or political
claim made for or against it because of the nature of its contradictions,
surpluses, and negations."
Or, Pound the fascist could also be Pound the artist because both were Pound
the human being and neither the fascist nor the artist fully disappeared at
the presence of the other; they formed this hybrid which created _The
Cantos_. But the artist tricked the fascist because the poetic text, once
released, escaped the control of (the artist too, but more importantly:) the
fascist.
By the way, I once had a dream that I went to this shack where Ezra Pound
lived with his son, and ol' Ez sat out on his porch with us, waving a
shotgun menacingly.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:09:53 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
Since everybody's putting in their 2 cents worth, here's my
irrelevant comment re: avant-garde. Short poem by Mandelstam,
translated by Sidney Monas:
[#357]
As if, somewhere, a heaven-stone wakes the earth --
a poem fell, a disgrace, not knowing its father;
creators accept the inexorable as it comes --
it is what it is -- no one judges it.
Voronezh, 20 Jan. 1937
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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 17:07:43 -0500
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From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: 16 OZ or
In-Reply-To: <m0twa0w-000JobC@slip.net>
> At 12:39 PM 3/12/96 +0100, William Northcut wrote:
>
> >And has anyone yet tried to disentangle how it is that Pound's work, fascist
> >and goddamned hard-assed as it is has aspects which make some of the more
> >humane and radical aspects of lang-po impossible without there having first
> >been Pound? I don't buy the pure methodology excuse. But I would like to
> >know what some of you think.
The answer is yes: in my view, Bob Perelman's Pound chapter in THE TROUBLE
WITH GENIUS is a little closer to the mark on this score than Bernstein's
essay (which Steve Carll mentioned). Here's a quote that's not too
substantive but gives a sense of what Perelman wants to do.
". . . when we come to THE CANTOS we cannot wish away the
connections between the ambition and the agression that
are positive virtues in his early writing and the rhetorical
violence and moral blindness of his later politics. Painful
as Pound's Fascism and racism are, and attractive as some of
his poetry, literary insights, and pronouncements can be,
nevertheless I want to insist on reading him whole. . . .
What gives the best of Pound's writing its power cannot be
dissociated from the worst of it." (pp. 30-1)
Also, though it's anachronistic with regard to langpo, I must mention
Olson's record of struggle in the volume edited by Catherine Seelye. The
contradictions you mention are at the heart of that book.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 17:52:23 -0500
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From: Peter Baker <baker@MIDGET.TOWSON.EDU>
Subject: Derrida's Style
I've been meditating the issue of Derrida's style, in response to an
earlier posting, i.e. whether his style is in some sense a choice in
relation to a possible audience.
First, not to sound too pedantic, but any comments about his style would
have to be directed to the French texts, *not* the translations. My own
view is that he is one of the great stylists in the French language *ever.*
In my own work with Derrida's text, I find that I am drawn in and engaged
in a textual space that is unique and challenging, on a number of levels.
Derrida has also been involved in a self-commentary, especially in texts
like _Cinders_, available in bilingual edition, that approaches a kind of
poetics of the text. The tape of Derrida reading _Feu la cendre_ with
French actress Carole Bousquet (des femmes, 1986) is a real experience.
His centering on the phrase *il y'a la (accent grave) cendre* [literally:
there is ash there] reverberates in many ways consonant with the most
interesting work (I think of Susan Howe, among others) investigating
historically charged linguistic expression.
I've already referenced my recent book on Derrida, _Deconstruction and
the Ethical Turn_. For a more recent work in progress, I would invite
list members to visit my Towson home page and the paper there:
Deconstruction and the Question of Violence.
http://www.towson.edu/~baker
Though not specifically on topics of poetics, it does take a kind of
cultural studies approach to issues of violence in reading of Derrida's
essay "Force of Law" in juxtaposition to _Pulp Fiction_. Backchannel
commentary welcome.
Peter Baker
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:55:22 -0600
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From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
"avant-garde" is certainly problematic, and usually just irrelevant as a
term. Perhaps even worse is "academic" and "anti-academic." If the work is
worth attending to it seems to make such distinctions seem silly. As
critical terms they aren't worth much at all. Mei-mei Berssenbrugge just
visited here and said something about her work being "anti-academic" and
that just seemed wrong to me. I told her it wasn't "anti" it just was "not"
academic. She said "thank you." That seems about right.
But where I need to use such a term as avant-garde, or experimental, even
where I don't want to, is when I'm trying to explain such work to those who
are not familiar with it, or with a lot of contemporary poetry, at all. That
is, much of my work over the last decade or so has been to present such work
to audiences outside colleges & universities, & to do so I've had to write a
lot of grant applications and proposals to a lot of different foundations,
agencies, museums, & more. Usually I've tried to make the word "innovative"
do the work, but that too gets old after awhile. But saying nothing seems
not to distinguish the work from any other, and that won't do. And one
doesn't necessarily want to give a large educational lesson to these
agencies and organizations; to some one may not want to give any or a lot of
examples to read.
So if anyone wants to suggest new terminology, there are probably many of us
listening.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 17:34:11 -0800
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Steve Carl's dream
"By the way, I once had a dream that I went to this shack where Ezra
Pound lived with his son, and ol' Ez sat out on his porch with us,
waving a shotgun menacingly."
I once spent a morning with Omar Pound in Orono during which he was
interviewed by the local Bangor literary critic, a semi-retired
highschool English teacher who remembered that Ezra had been notorious
for his politics. About halfway through the interview, he leaned
forward, conspiratorially, and asked Omar,
"So what kinda commie was your father, anyway?"
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 18:01:59 -0800
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
Avant-garde has two connotations that I find not so problematic,
certainly compared with experimental -- a term that is genuinely
hideous (suggesting "scientism," or else the idea that the formally
progressive poet does not know what he/she is writing and is trying to
"find out"):
One is its connection with an internationalist tradition that goes back
into the mid-19th century (and which predates the "academic" tradition
as we tend to think of it in the US), from Bertrand and Blake to the
present. That's what I tend to think of as the identarian view of this
community, and one I feel lots of sympathy for/interest in.
The other has its roots right smack in the term's military origins. The
avant-garde is precisely that portion of an army that gets "killed" in
large quantities, the people who storm the barricade and provide (with
their own bodies) the stepping stones that those who follow will climb
upon. When I think of the Mina Loys, the Walter Conrad Arensbergs, the
Fenton Johnsons (not the novelist!), the Marsden Hartleys, the Amos Zu
Boltons, Else von Freytag-Loringhovens, the Dan Proppers, the Bob
Browns, the Mary Butts, the Steve Jonases, the Harold Dulls, the
Seymour Fausts, the Lew Welchs, the William Andersons, the David
Schuberts -- the analogy seems more exact than I care to think. Not
that all "ended badly," but rather that their extraordinary work went
by with remarkably little notice for all the notoriety that the very
few (Joyce, Pound, Stein, Williams etc) who managed to get through the
net received. There is, I think, an inherent sacrifice not only in
writing poetry but in writing poetry that makes demands on readers,
that readers also perform at their best. Like so many other writers, I
have benefitted greatly in ways that I cannot articulate from every one
of these poets (and hundreds, maybe thousands, more). The term
"avant-garde" suggests to me just that sacrifice.
When I was a teenager, I wrote poems more or less exactly like those I
was reading in the magazines (let's say Alan Dugan, George Starbuck,
Donald Justice, for examples). By the time I was 21, I had had poems
accepted by Poetry, TriQuarterly, Poetry Northwest, Southern Review,
Chicago Review and a host of others. The minute I started to actually
work seriously on developing a real aesthetic, I became "unpublishable"
for several years. Every time I see a list of, say, NEA or Guggenheim
winners, I re-experience all the sensations that went with that. When I
read Mark Wallace's comment that only two members of the SUNY Buffalo
graduate writing program have gotten fulltime tenure-track jobs in
recent years, compared with the few hundred gigs there have been, I
realize that this sense is not my own unique experience, and that
sacrifice is inherent in what I and others do.
I don't like the phrase "anti-academic," since the academy is in fact
not the problem but rather the normative traditions that have held a
certain hegemony over institutional culture for the past 50 years, one
that declares American poetry to be a tributary of the British (and
which in turn tends to ignore such great UK poets as Bunting, Raworth,
Jones and others like Thomas A. Clark). While all institutions have
their own internal logics (that can serve as an anchor or drag), it
seems a mistake to confuse the field with the players.
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 21:49:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
>So if anyone wants to suggest new terminology, there are probably many of us
>listening.
>
>charles
i'm a corn field (all ears)
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 18:45:46 PST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
well i guess the only thing that really bothers me abt it is the
tendency to group poets (wch means their WORK) into camps (phalanges)
and so seeming to disallow any peaceable dialogue. all the rest of it
i can live with --- ron silliman's vilification of the term "experimental"
is on the money, though i at least DO learn to write as i write ---
i get the drift
ron's posting abt the front lines being killed off in a kind
of sacrifice said it for me
i have bob brown's 1450-1950, it's one of my most treasured books,
but who the hell is thomas a. clark? i'll find out, you bet.
but the list goes on and on. i'll just mention hugh macdiarmid who was
a remarkable poet by anybody's standards, a poet as worthy of profound
study as pound or olson; and also a living, breathing, amazing poet who
gets little attention as far as i can tell: armand schwerner.
later
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.12.96 6:45:46 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 21:21:49 -0800
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Thomas Bell <tbjn@WELL.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <199603122255.QAA06504@freedom.mtn.org>
What about "what works" [for me]? In most other areas a successful
experiment is a "success" not "experimental" and the forefront becomes
present or it disappears. Does the experimental or avant-garde still
need to be defensive? It is poetry.
tom
On Tue, 12 Mar 1996, Charles Alexander wrote:
> "avant-garde" is certainly problematic, and usually just irrelevant as a
> term. Perhaps even worse is "academic" and "anti-academic." If the work is
> worth attending to it seems to make such distinctions seem silly. As
> critical terms they aren't worth much at all. Mei-mei Berssenbrugge just
> visited here and said something about her work being "anti-academic" and
> that just seemed wrong to me. I told her it wasn't "anti" it just was "not"
> academic. She said "thank you." That seems about right.
>
> But where I need to use such a term as avant-garde, or experimental, even
> where I don't want to, is when I'm trying to explain such work to those who
> are not familiar with it, or with a lot of contemporary poetry, at all. That
> is, much of my work over the last decade or so has been to present such work
> to audiences outside colleges & universities, & to do so I've had to write a
> lot of grant applications and proposals to a lot of different foundations,
> agencies, museums, & more. Usually I've tried to make the word "innovative"
> do the work, but that too gets old after awhile. But saying nothing seems
> not to distinguish the work from any other, and that won't do. And one
> doesn't necessarily want to give a large educational lesson to these
> agencies and organizations; to some one may not want to give any or a lot of
> examples to read.
>
> So if anyone wants to suggest new terminology, there are probably many of us
> listening.
>
> charles
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 00:32:57 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: DC Reading
Sunday, March 17 @ 3 PM
Leslie Scalapino & Rod Smith
publication reading for Leslie's new _The Front Matter, Dead Souls_
(Wesleyan) & my _In Memory of My Theories_ (O Books).
at DCAC, 2438 18th St NW, WDC
(near 18th & Columbia)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:46:21 EST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: "scientism"
what's wrong with 0the word experiment that as Ron says makes it "genuinely
hideous." What is "scientism" any way. I think poets do find out what they
are doing through writing, they find a lot of things through the process of
writing, that's part of why I write. Who out there hasn't thrown something
together and came back to it later and said, "I never knew that was there."
And this whole thing about the relation of experiments and experimental
method. Experimental method (scientific) was created through experimentation
for the purpose of western science. There were experiments (ask Aristotle)
far before experimental method (a product of the enlightenment?).
Experimental method is for the purpose of forming theories and natural laws,
and for that matter an experiment can really only be successful by proving
the hypothesis do be wrong. I find it funny that western sciences closest
thing to fact is negation, i.e. the earth does not orbit the moon (sorry
couldn't think of a good example), because it only takes one experiment to
prove a theory wrong even if that theory has been said to be correct by a
thousand other experiments. Stein has a high percentage of "not" in
her work, she knew something, Scalapino picked up on it to ("A crowd and not
evening or light"). Anyway, experiments and experimental method are not
dutifully intertwined, experimentation, for me, involves exploring new
boundaries for narrative, verse, etc. But in that way, every poet is
experimenting with some thing or other.
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:14:18 +0000
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From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 11 Mar 1996 to 12 Mar 1996
In-Reply-To: <199603130504.FAA25616@hermes.dur.ac.uk>
chris daniels wrote:
> i have bob brown's 1450-1950, it's one of my most treasured books,
> but who the hell is thomas a. clark? i'll find out, you bet.
Thomas A. Clark hails from Grennock, and currently runs Moschatel Press
with his wife Laurie in darkest Gloucestershire. Following a runs of books
from Jonathan Williams' Jargon (latest: A Still Life, 1977) he's produced
a range of tiny-but-perfect pamphlets & cards from Moschatel, as well as
Madder Lake (Coach House 1981) Tormentil & Bleached Bones (Polygon 1993)
and appeared (with Barry MacSweeney and Chris Torrance) in The Tempers of
Hazard (Paladin 1993). The Paladin one was almost a ghost book, and could
be hard to find: they were taken over by Rupert Murdoch during
publication, and when MacSweeney phoned for extra copies c. six weeks
after publication, he was told "Mr. Murdoch ordered it to be burned"...
Here's one from The Hollow Way (Moschatel 1983):
freshness gathers in a jar
the evening waits on splendour
we have come home from war
only the indigent wander
ask nothing of life
the hours have no halter
the garden gate is ajar
purpose does not falter
abundance ripens in a bowl
the telephone rings in an empty room
a turbulence of trapped wings
in the corner reclines a broom
- hope that helps!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:57:59 +0100
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "William M. Northcutt" <William.Northcutt@UNI-BAYREUTH.DE>
Subject: Pound on the front pohch waving his shotgun
Thank Steve and others for reminding me about Bernstein's and Perelman's
pieces on Pound.
I think the problem of avant-garde that I'm trying to get at is one that
Keith Tuma and others have expressed, that a good deal of the discourse on
the a-g tends to see AN avant-garde rather than multiple
movements/discourses/etc which we discuss as being avant-gardist. Same with
modernism as opposed to modernisms.
It gets even stickier when we go beyond saying, "Pound's work is both
fascist and radically non-authoritarian"--that is, it gets stickier when we
try to nail down for sure what is and what isn't fascist. Of course, some
aspects are obvious. What I'm interested in is how, let's say, Pound's
glorification of Jefferson is both fascistic and radically humane at the
same time. Or to take it to a different place, how Olson's work is both a
conservative KULCHURal effort and an elaborate critique of that same culture.
William Northcutt
-----------------------------------
William Northcutt
Anglistik I
Universitaet Bayreuth
95440 Bayreuth
Tel: 44 921 980612
Fax: 44 921 553641
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:00:05 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: "scientism"
--- On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:46:21 EST James Perez :
>what's wrong with 0the word experiment that as Ron says makes it
>"genuinely hideous."
check out jake berry's "articulating freedom" in taproot 7/8 and
also JUXTA #5 (i think) at GRIST --- he briefly sums it up, well
enough for me anyway
>What is "scientism" any way.
here's what webster sez:
2. the principal that the scientific method can and SHOULD BE (my emph)
applied in all fields of investigation
for me that's precisely what ron was after --- the SHOULD BE part ---
SHOULD BE = DEATH to a poet's work and a poet's experience of the work
of other poets
i myself can not seperate theory from praxis any more than i can
seperate form from content --- maybe i'm dumb or something, but it
seems impossible for me, maybe a matter of training --- i dropped
out of highschool, total autodidact, etc
and if we continue to call a poet "experimental" whose work has not
appreciably TRANSFORMED itself over a period of years (this is going
on these days in a very big and scary way), what are we saying abt
ourselves? just because a poet's work has no truck w/ academic values
does not for an instant mean that poet is not in practice just as
conservative and dependent on received "wisdom" --- wch is something
all of us are fighting against
>I think poets do find out what they are doing through writing, they find a
>lot of things through the process of writing, that's part of why I write.
>Who out there hasn't thrown something together and came back to it later
>and said, "I never knew that was there." with some thing or other.
no one in their right mind wld ever argue w/ what you've said here tho i
think artists neither experiment nor hypothesize when they are making art,
but seek to unfetter, unless they are not intuitive in the least, wch seems
impossible to me --- this has been my experience and my wish for what it's
worth --- and i think poets MUST keep that part of their process alive
or their process reaches stasis
BUT
for me "experimental" is not a good one at all --- my stuff is being
accepted by JUXTA and VISION PROJECT and ANTENYM --- as far as i can tell
my stuff is nowhere near as outside as poets like spencer selby, jim
leftwich, tom taylor --- my process has never been one of experimentation
--- i work painfully in an agon of revision and careful attention to
MEANING first and foremost and if anybody called my stuff "avant-garde"
i'd think they were crazy or just kind of unaware --- i feel as much
an affinity w/ the early anthony hecht as i do w/ paul celan or susan
howe for example
it occurs to me that the scientific process UNFETTERS KNOWLEDGE
and after all art is partially at least a process of aquiring some
kind of knowledge. all the great scientists have been hugely
intuitive and the scientific community thrives on ferment and
logomachy, so, well, just gabbin ...
later ---
chris
>
>James Perez
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 1:00:05 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 02:02:59 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: thanks richard caddel
thank you for the information, richard, and the very beautiful poem
by thos a. clark --- i will definitely look into this poet
yrs ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 2:02:59 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 02:08:03 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: thos a clark's ghost book
"rupert murdoch" is obviously a croesus and a stultus
but "ordered it to be burned" is amazingly terrifying
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 2:08:03 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:58:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Karen or Peter Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
>Or, Pound the fascist could also be Pound the artist because both were Pound
>the human being and neither the fascist nor the artist fully disappeared at
>the presence of the other; they formed this hybrid which created _The
>Cantos_. But the artist tricked the fascist because the poetic text, once
>released, escaped the control of (the artist too, but more importantly:) the
>fascist.
or read _Your Witness_, a poem by Charles Olson ...
"If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinion,
"either his opinions are no good or he's no good"
Peter Landers
landers@vivanet.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 21:54:34 +0800
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <199603122255.QAA06504@freedom.mtn.org>
personally, I was always comfortable describing my own poetry as
academic,
although no " real" academic poets ever considered it as such.
I remember once discussing with Ted Greenwald how little most "academic"
poets actually knew about any traditional poetries. Of course, that was
some time ago, perhaps the situation has changed.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:18:14 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 11 Mar 1996 to 12 Mar 1996
Nice that this is the second time within a year (go back through the poetics
list archive) that thomas a. clark has been the subject. Richard Caddel's
list leaves out one title I have, which is Dwellings & Habitations, from
Prest Roots Press in 1993. Kate Whiteford contributes drawings which do
justice as well. Among the pages
saxifrage on a wet rock face
samphire in a salt marsh
skeins of mist among bog cotton
a depth of sky in a shallow pool
quite in the rib-cage of a sheep's carcase
always nice to have a reason to look back at thomas a. clark's work.
charles alexander
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:12:49 EST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
I liked Ron Silliman's connecting "avant-garde" with the sacrificial
aspect. But it seems to cover an awful lot of territory; how, for example,
is Marsden Hartley's career sacrificial? Are all the modernists
sacrificial victims on the altar of a few mighty masters who get all
the attention? Doesn't that just play into the cliche of the heroic
artist? What lasts, what gets read, what people like in the next millenium,
is still very open to question. I think the critical & public judgements
about art works and artists should be evaluated very specifically
with respect to the individual artist, within a historico-biographico-
aesthetic frame. To lump all the "experimental" artists out there as
part of a great creative sacrifice punished by the critical/academic
dead wood powers-that-be leaves out all the historico-biograph-aesthetic
details. For example, each of the ignored great Harlem Renaissance
poets & writers have white counterparts - sacrificial or no - who for
a long time got more attention than they did. But fame/sacrifice are
not simple contraries. Don't talk to me about the heroic sacrificial
artist any more; tell me about the talented artist who makes some
work that's gonna stand no matter how many or few discover it.
The vagaries of criticism & attention have always been just that.
I know this sounds like denial, disinterest, or indifference to
many of the burning "canon" issues discussed here, but often
such discussions leave out the particular, actual art works,
and end up echoing or rehashing real aesthetic issues of long
ago. What are the aesthetic - as opposed to literaro-political -
issues of today? - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 06:44:16 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Subtext Readings in Seattle
Here's the schedule for the next few months: the first two readings listed
were curated by Ezra Mark, the last two are the first of four readings to
be curated by Nico Vassilakis.
Thursday March 21
Nico Vassilakis & Laura Feldman
Thursday April
Jeanne Heuving & Dan Farrell
Thursday May
Joseph Keppler & Gerald Burns
Thursday June
Michael Magoolaghan & Catriona Strang with Francois Houle
All readings at the Speakeasy Cafe at 2304 2nd Avenue in Seattle's
Belltown district at 7:30pm.
Donation of $5.
Also of note, David Bromige will read at Open Books at 2414 N 45th Street
on April 11th.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:04:25 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: avante-garde and other terms
I find the discussion of the possible adjectives for the poetry we discuss on
this list very useful and productively problematic. I'm facing a very practical
problem on this issue. I'm in the process of writing a book on contemporary
poetry that focuses on six poets -- Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Charles
Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, Kamau Brathwaite, and M. Nourbese Philip -- and I'm
struggling with that necessary adjective to put after that requisite colon in
my title. Like Charles, this is a practical problem of addressing an audience
that may not know who these poets are and would like ("require" may be more
accurate, since my first audience will be publishers of academic books) some
way of initially categorizing (an awful yet necessary stage in this scene of
writing) the writers I'm discussing. I too find "experimental" the least
appropriate term, and I do like the term "avant-garde" because it taps in to
the tradition Ron mentions, but it does carry too many "berets and black
clothes" connotations for too many people. Again like Charles, I tend to use
the term "innovative," but I doubt that there is a poet out there who doesn't
consider his or her work to be "innovative" in some sense (I'm sure Mark Strand
considers his work "innovative," but I'm also fairly sure that he wouldn't
consider his work "avant-garde"), so it may not do the work of distinguishing
the poets I'm concerned with from the poets I'm not concerned with. I'd prefer
not to pin these poets down with a single adjective, but I don't think that
will fly in the realm of discourse I've chosen to enter with this book. So I'd
greatly appreciate any suggestions about how do deal with this nagging but (it
seems to me) necessary issue. And, yes, this post is the product of
tenure-angst.
Paul Naylor
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
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=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:19:52 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: avante-garde and other terms
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:04:25 -0600 from
<PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:04:25 -0600 Paul Naylor said:
>not to pin these poets down with a single adjective, but I don't think that
So I'd
>greatly appreciate any suggestions about how do deal with this nagging but (it
>seems to me) necessary issue. And, yes, this post is the product of
>tenure-angst.
--How about "swell"?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:43:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: should be = death
forgive the provocative appropriation
but I'm hearing things that remind me
of the "rules" thread from last year
roughly this time aka "reverse"
and I'd like to float the waterlily
that there are some ideas one works
on and adjusts these being ones politics
aesthetics and general way you know
life and when description cools
it becomes imperative maybe but
what do you call that then that
saying to yourself no not that do
this is that learning? or writing
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:56:22 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: avante-garde and other terms
Henry -- "swell" is perfect, and much more compact than "Poets Paul Likes,"
which is the real answer to my dilemma -- but since I'm not Helen Vendler, I
don't think I can get away with it.
Paul Naylor
MAIL
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
>From: IN%"POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU" "UB Poetics discussion group" 13-MAR-1996 09:40:48.81
>Subj: RE: avante-garde and other terms
>
>On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:04:25 -0600 Paul Naylor said:
>>not to pin these poets down with a single adjective, but I don't think that
> So I'd
>>greatly appreciate any suggestions about how do deal with this nagging but (it
>>seems to me) necessary issue. And, yes, this post is the product of
>>tenure-angst.
>
>--How about "swell"?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 16:00:00 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Carlyle Reedy
Carlyle Reedy's new book from words worth books:
Obituaries and Celebrations . 0 906024 05 6 . 9.95pounds plus post
words worth books, BM Box 4515, London WC1N 3XX
Carlyle's had work in loads of anthologies from "Children of Albion"
(196-something) to "Out of Everywhere" (recently plugged on this list,
Reality Street, 1996) but very few solo publications. I failed to get her
to do one with Pig, years ago, there's a slim pamphlet called "The Orange
Notebooks" (Reality Studios, 1984) - and now this. It's really nicely
produced, too.
f i r e lights
b o n e s the chinese
cast of faces recognized
hair
wet soft caught in
hands
familiar
lilies of solomon
Ash in the instant
I realise now that this will look very odd on some folks' equipment - oh
well, you'll just have to go and buy it...
Richard Caddel
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:53:57 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Re: Ghost books
These books are _not_ ghost books. The imagist anthology was a
copyeditors nightmare, done in such a rush that the typos throughout
the book are well documented and easy to notice by comparing the
anthologized pieces with the originals. So to to answer your question,
all of these are slight typographical errors of the original titles of
Williams second through fifth books.
Of course I'm new to this list, perhaps your definition of ghost titles
includes any book mentioned in print, reguardless of textual elements mired in
error.
davebaratier@mosby.com
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Ghost books
Author: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> at INTERNET
Date: 12/03/1996 00:59
_Imagist Anthology 1930_, Edited by Glenn Hughes?, Forewords by Ford Madox
Ford and Glenn Hughes. London: Chaoot and Windus, 1930, lists at the end of
its "Bibliography" on pages 153-154 four titles by William Carlos Williams:
Tempera. 1913.
Kora in Hell. 1920.
Four Grapes. 1921.
In the American Grave. 1925.
Does anyone know of any other ghost titles, announced (or even promised)?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 11:03:54 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: should be = death
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:43:21 -0500 from <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:43:21 -0500 Jordan Davis said:
>forgive the provocative appropriation
>but I'm hearing things that remind me
>of the "rules" thread from last year
>roughly this time aka "reverse"
>and I'd like to float the waterlily
>that there are some ideas one works
>on and adjusts these being ones politics
>aesthetics and general way you know
This sounds like what the deathly Blasing was describing - the fusion of
form and politics
>
>life and when description cools
>it becomes imperative maybe but
>what do you call that then that
>saying to yourself no not that do
>this is that learning? or writing
Maybe choosing?
Somewhere in Shakespeare's sonnets, I forget which one, he distinguishes
between political maneuverings and something else, a commitment or
dedication (to love? to art? God?) he calls "hugely politic". I suppose
this HAS all been discussed before, on some thread or other; the
dividing line between art & politics is essentially un-markable on
any abstract scale of apprehension, yes; but I guess when I think
of "poetics" (and what do I know about it?) I'm thinking of the
graininess of the maker's work - the sound, the rhythm, the
crossweave, the stealth, the obstacles, the finish, yeah, the form.
And the human & maybe transhuman (along with political) impulses behind it.
-HGould
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 10:42:00 PST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: avante-garde and other terms
At 09:04 AM 3/13/96 -0600, Paul Naylor wrote:
> I too find "experimental" the least
>appropriate term, and I do like the term "avant-garde" because it taps in to
>the tradition Ron mentions, but it does carry too many "berets and black
>clothes" connotations for too many people. Again like Charles, I tend to use
>the term "innovative," but I doubt that there is a poet out there who doesn't
>consider his or her work to be "innovative" in some sense (I'm sure Mark Strand
>considers his work "innovative," but I'm also fairly sure that he wouldn't
>consider his work "avant-garde"), so it may not do the work of distinguishing
>the poets I'm concerned with from the poets I'm not concerned with.
Last year two of my poems appeared in a UK little magazine called _Terrible
Work_, and the contributors' notes in the back referred to me as an
"expansionist." Elsewhere in the issue, the editor mentioned preferring
that term to "linguistically innovative", "avant-garde", "experimental",
"post-modern", etc., but he didn't really say why, except to note that some
minimalism could also be expansionist. I guess what's supposed to be
expanding are the possibilities of language, but in practice the term sounds
kind of ominous, like "imperialist" or "neocolonial" or something. Yikes!
I think Paul Naylor may have hit on something with his distinction between a
single, monolithic AVANT-GARDE as opposed to many avant-gardes. If used in
this way, much of the elitist hot air is deflated, since any single
avant-gardist is one among many, and even one's particular AV-GD group is
one group among many. Of course, "the avant-gardes" as a whole can still be
opposed to "the mob" or whatever, but I think there's something to be said
for speaking and hearing terms like this carefully and conscientiously,
rather than simply rejecting them because they may need a little further
elaboration due to historical-cultural baggage they've acquired. This
baggage is exactly what needs to be sorted through.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 13:53:15 -0500
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From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
In-Reply-To: <v01530504ad6c849ed3d4@[204.176.82.150]>
Have you read the radio broadcasts? If you haven't, let me assure you
they contain some of the worst anti-semitism I've ever read. I can't read
Pound anymore; he sickens me. The artist didn't trick the fascist; the
fascist did his disgusting dirty work, did damage.
Alan
On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Karen or Peter Landers wrote:
> >Or, Pound the fascist could also be Pound the artist because both were Pound
> >the human being and neither the fascist nor the artist fully disappeared at
> >the presence of the other; they formed this hybrid which created _The
> >Cantos_. But the artist tricked the fascist because the poetic text, once
> >released, escaped the control of (the artist too, but more importantly:) the
> >fascist.
>
> or read _Your Witness_, a poem by Charles Olson ...
>
> "If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinion,
> "either his opinions are no good or he's no good"
>
> Peter Landers
> landers@vivanet.com
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 13:57:34 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: what is poetics
Lesson 12 in HG's Back to Basics course.
Half hour after I posted last message expounding on poetics as close
reading, I happened upon the following (in Poetics of Cavafy, by
G. Jusdanis):
"I take poetics to mean a theory of literature that seeks a methodical
knowledge of the principles underlying it. It defines literature and
its subdivisions, as it also establishes the criteria and standards by
which literature has meaning and value. As Tsvetan Todorov points out,
poetics does not propose a close reading or a description of a particular
work, nor does it promise to name the text's message; rather it explores
the laws governing the production of literature. Poetics is concerned
with the properties of literary discourse; it differentiates the codes
specific to literature as opposed to those of other arts, such as
painting, architecture, or dance. In other words, poetics represents
the theory of a particular art - literature - in the system of arts."
HG
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 15:43:05 -0500
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From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: NYC Poetry Talks, fwd from R. Fitterman
NYC Poetry Talks: a convergence of questions
March 29, 30, 31, 1996
Organized by Robert Fitterman and Stacy Doris
Panel Discussions
**New York University: Silverstein Lounge and Jurow Lecture Hall**
101 Main Building (NE corner of Washington Square Park)
Poetry Readings
**Biblio's Bookstore**
317 Chruch Street (1 block south of Canal Street)
**The Ear Inn**
326 Spring Street (Corner of Washington Street)
**Ichor Gallery**
127 W. 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenue)
**St.Mark's Poetry Project**
2nd Avenue & 10th Street
**Segue Performance Space**
303 E. 8th Street (between Avenues B & C)
Friday, March 29
3:00 Opening Remarks
3:30>>Poetry & Definition (I)
Joe Elliot
Robert Fitterman
Andrew Levy
Kristin Prevallet
Rodrigo Toscano
3:30>>Poetry & Definition (II)
Lee Ann Brown
John Byrum
William R. Howe
Garrett Kalleberg
Heather Ramsdell
Rod Smith
5:00>>Poetry & Community
Tim Davis
Jeff Derksen
Stacy Doris
Kimberly Lyons
Sianne Ngai
Joe Ross
5:00>>Poetry & Audience
Michael Friedman
Judith Goldman
Dan Machlin
Melanie Neilson
Fiona Templeton
6:30>>Poetry & Collaboration
Elena Alexander
Michael Basinski
Martine Bellen
Heather Fuller
Kim Rosenfield
Cole Swenson
10:30>>Poetry Reading at St. Mark's
Michael Heller
Michael Basinski
Jeff Derksen
Chris Funkhouser
Joel Kuszai
Kristin Prevallet
Lisa Robertson
Cole Swenson
Saturday, March 30
10:00>>Poetry & Tradition (I)
Dan Farrell
Liz Fodaski
Ben Friedlander
Robert V. Hale
Catriona Strang/Nancy Shaw
10:00>>Poetry & Tradition (II)
Louis Cabri
Lisa Jarnot
Bill Luoma
Doug Rothschild
Chris Stroffolino
Mark Wallace
12:00>>Poetry & Poetic Forms
Beth Anderson
Steven Farmer
Jessica Grim
Joel Kuszai
Sean Killian
Lisa Robertson
12:00>>Poetry & Technology
Jordan Davis
Chris Funkhouser
Brian Kim Stefans
Samuel Truitt
2:30>>Reading at The Ear Inn
Elena Alexander
William R. Howe
Nancy Shaw
Catriona Strang
Chris Stroffolino
Rodrigo Toscano
6:00>>Reading at Ichor Gallery
Stacy Doris
Steven Farmer
Dan Farrell
Robert Fitterman
Ben Friedlander
Jessica Grim
Melanie Neilson
Kim Rosenfield
10:00>>Book Party at Segue
12:00>>Party Party @ Bill Luoma's Apt
280 Court St #4 Brooklyn, NY 11231
(between Douglass & Degraw) 718-596-1752
F train to Bergen St, follow traffic on Bergen to Court, left.
Sunday, March 31
3:00>>Readings at Biblio's:
Beth Anderson
John Byrum
Louis Cabri
Heather Fuller
Sianne Ngai
Joe Ross
Mark Wallace
4:00>>Readings at Biblio's:
Lee Ann Brown
Tim Davis
Michael Friedman
Lisa Jarnot
Bill Luoma
Doug Rothschild
Rod Smith
5:00>>Readings at Biblio's:
Martine Bellen
Garrett Kalleberg
Sean Killian
Andrew Levy
Dan Machlin
Heather Ramsdell
Samuel Truitt
6:00>>Readings at Biblio's:
Jordan Davis
Joe Elliot
Liz Fodaski
Robert V. Hale
Kimberly Lyons
Brian Kim Stefans
Fiona Templeton
A presentation of New York University's School of Continuing Education, in
conjunction with the General Studies Program. Special thanks to Dean Gerald
Heeger (SCE), Dean Steve Curry (GSP) and the SCE Writer's Community for their
support and assistance.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 15:50:23 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Another one for the academics
As per the list guidelines, I announce:
A piece I wrote AGES ago is just out. Some on this list might
be interested.
"Literary History and the Problem of Oppositional Practice in
Contemporary Poetry," *Cultural Critique* 32 (Winter 1995-96):
153-186.
Although the piece is "about" poetry, there's no actual citation of poems.
It's really about Robert Langbaum, using Langbaum's 1957 book "The Poetics
of Experience" to argue that prevailaing notions of poetic history
constitute a repressive univocal mechanism -- also, it makes a plea at the
end for a more Foucauldian genealogy (thus more or less describing my
current project).
I extend the same offer that I made for my American Imago piece a couple
weeks back -- anybody wants it should mail me and I'll send a xerox gratis
(sorry, they didn't send offprints).
Apologies for redundancy: if I'd known this piece was going to come out on
the tail of the other one, I would have sent them together. As it was, I
mailed the Lacan article this week.
As it's a wee bit of labor on my part, I'd ask that folks who are likely
to paper their birdcages with either article don't ask.
Also, before I forget: a piece on the Irish poet Thomas Kinsella entitled
"Kinsella, Geography, History" should be out *any day now* in SAQ. I'll
send that too if you'd like.
Send your addresses again, too -- I wrote them on address labels.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 15:45:36 -0500
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From: Steven Howard Shoemaker <ss6r@FERMI.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <199603130521.AAA00662@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Mar 13, 96 00:02:15 am
William Northcutt writes:
"And has anyone yet tried to disentangle how it is that Pound's work, fascist
and goddamned hard-assed as it is has aspects which make some of the more
humane and radical aspects of lang-po impossible without there having first
been Pound? I don't buy the pure methodology excuse. But I would like to
know what some of you think."
I think this is a pretty fascinating question. Perelman's Pound chapter
in The Trouble with Genius takes it on in more depth than anything else
i've seen. But still leaves much to wrestle with...
steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 23:36:08 +0200
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From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
In-Reply-To: <199603132045.PAA42746@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU>
Hi!
And has anyone tried to protest how it is that Pound's work, fascist
and goddamned Hitlerite ... is so much discussed in this list?
I don't buy the pure methodology excuse or any other pitiful excuse.
What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside his
his "genuis mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
Ada Aharoni
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:02:45 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
Hey, I heard a rumour there's a new bernadette mayer book out on
nude-erections does anybody know if this is true? chris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 15:04:00 PST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: turn of the repressed
At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside his
>his "genuis mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 18:50:25 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: turn of the repressed
>At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>
>>What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside his
>>his "genuis mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
>
>It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
Well, I don't think burying people is too complicated, but if those three
haven't been embalmed, they must stink pretty badly.
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 19:00:32 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
> And has anyone tried to protest how it is that Pound's work, fascist
> and goddamned Hitlerite ... is so much discussed in this list?
>
> I don't buy the pure methodology excuse or any other pitiful excuse.
>
>What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside his
>his "genuis mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
Eek, I mean, gosh, I don't even LIKE Pound's stuff (except the loose
translations), but--flaming guyzie-with-1001-liberal-causes that I am--I
can't agree with agreeing NOT to discuss him just because his politics
repulse me. All the more reason TO discuss him. If I only read/discussed
the poets that didn't offend me in some way politically, I'm not sure WHO
I'd read. <counting my finger>. It is important, tho, to discuss him as we
*are* discussing him--fully acknowledging his fascism, etc., which often
gets edged out by that wet, black bough in classroom discussions.
Vivas to you, Henry, for your post on sacrificial a-g poets.
(& I don't mean that in no Whitmanian sense, neither)
If we want to say "why talk Pound, who's been done to death, when we could
talk about harlem renaissance poets," then I'm all for *that*.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I mistrust your bitch."--Nietzsche
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 19:46:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
In-Reply-To: <199603140000.TAA28138@mail.erols.com>
But what does it mean to "fully acknowledge his fascism"? Does it mean to
read his fascist texts, or just to talk about them? Does it mean to read
his poetry or just to talk about it?
Hatred makes me sick. I have trouble with Kerouac, Eliot, and the like. A
survivor once told me if I ignored the anti-semites I'd hardly have anyone
to read. But it's the same problem for me, say, with Henry Miller - much
as I appreciate his support of AN, his justification of woman-beating on
occasion is difficult for me to take.
Also given the shit in the world at the moment, the subject header for
this thread is insulting. I don't find fascism fun.
Alan
On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Emily Lloyd wrote:
> At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>
> > And has anyone tried to protest how it is that Pound's work, fascist
> > and goddamned Hitlerite ... is so much discussed in this list?
> >
> > I don't buy the pure methodology excuse or any other pitiful excuse.
> >
> >What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside his
> >his "genuis mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
>
>
> Eek, I mean, gosh, I don't even LIKE Pound's stuff (except the loose
> translations), but--flaming guyzie-with-1001-liberal-causes that I am--I
> can't agree with agreeing NOT to discuss him just because his politics
> repulse me. All the more reason TO discuss him. If I only read/discussed
> the poets that didn't offend me in some way politically, I'm not sure WHO
> I'd read. <counting my finger>. It is important, tho, to discuss him as we
> *are* discussing him--fully acknowledging his fascism, etc., which often
> gets edged out by that wet, black bough in classroom discussions.
>
> Vivas to you, Henry, for your post on sacrificial a-g poets.
> (& I don't mean that in no Whitmanian sense, neither)
> If we want to say "why talk Pound, who's been done to death, when we could
> talk about harlem renaissance poets," then I'm all for *that*.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Emily Lloyd
> emilyl@mail.erols.com
>
> "I mistrust your bitch."--Nietzsche
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 16:54:02 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
schuchat:
>I remember once discussing with Ted Greenwald how little most "academic"
>poets actually knew about any traditional poetries. Of course, that was
>some time ago, perhaps the situation has changed.
abt ten years ago i was at a party w/ a bunch of comp lit grad
students (cal berkeley) and there was the usual for that day talk
abt the frankfort school, anti-oedipus --- i was entirely lost so
got drunker and drunker. at some point somebody pulled down the
oxford shelley and began reading first lines of poems and asking
people what were the titles of the poems. i got them all, beat
the shit out of the entire bunch of em. i'm still amazed. i mean,
shelley?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 4:54:02 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:02:23 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: avante-garde and other terms
paul ---
how abt
colon
Poets What I Read During Summer Vacation
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 5:02:23 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:07:11 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: should be = death
>there are some ideas one works
>on and adjusts these being ones politics
>aesthetics and general way you know
>
>life and when description cools
>it becomes imperative maybe but
>what do you call that then that
>saying to yourself no not that do
>this is that learning? or writing
i hear that loud and clear
chis
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 5:07:11 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:15:01 PST
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From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
>Have you read the radio broadcasts? If you haven't, let me assure you
>they contain some of the worst anti-semitism I've ever read. I can't read
>Pound anymore; he sickens me. The artist didn't trick the fascist; the
>fascist did his disgusting dirty work, did damage.
o yeah those broadcasts are some sick shit.
that's the thing for me as well w/ pound, being myself a
jew. wch is why the ONLY pound i can read is the pisan cantos where
pound is convinced he is soon to die for his naive treason and he
KNOWS what a fool he's been and he tells us so. i can't stand him
as a person either, but some of those cantos are unspeakably
honest and terrible and beautiful. it does not redeem his idiotic
racism one jot, can not palliate the fact that he took his amazing
talent and crapped all over it for the sake of that sub-primate
mussolini and his thug cohorts scattered all over europe. but some
of those pisan cantos are among the greatest poetry.
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 5:15:02 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:33:13 PST
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From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
>Vivas to you, Henry, for your post on sacrificial a-g poets.
>(& I don't mean that in no Whitmanian sense, neither)
>If we want to say "why talk Pound, who's been done to death, when we could
>talk about harlem renaissance poets," then I'm all for *that*.
yep
chris
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Emily Lloyd
>emilyl@mail.erols.com
>
>"I mistrust your bitch."--Nietzsche
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.13.96 5:33:13 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 22:52:42 -0500
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From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
At 07:46 PM 3/13/96 -0500, Alan Sondheim wrote:
>But what does it mean to "fully acknowledge [Pound's] fascism"? Does it
mean to read
>his poetry or just to talk about it?
Read it; talk about it. Preferably in that order. Or don't read it, and
don't talk about it.
>Hatred makes me sick. I have trouble with Kerouac, Eliot, and the like.
Some years ago I interviewed Rita Dove for a feminist newsjournal. I asked
her if her advice to women writers would be different from her advice to
men. She said something along the lines of, "To women, I'd say, don't miss
reading Hemingway just because he's a sexist man. To blacks, don't miss out
on reading so-and-so because they're racist & white." I fully agree. Often
there's something to learn from these bad folks. This could be anything
from "knowing thine enemy" to useful ideas sitting on a page right next to
insulting crap, as I often find with the man down there in my signature quote.
Hatred makes *all* (at least, most) of us sick. Your "having trouble" does
not saint you. If we need to get into a "who's more marginalized and mad at
the bad bad world" contest, I'll be happy to throw my stats into the ring.
I apologize if the subject header offended (Alan, whoever else) (whoops,
it's on this message, too). I do not think fascism is "fun." The header
does not connote "fun" to me. I was thinking of the Salt-n-Pepa song "Let's
Talk About Sex"----i.e., we need to talk about the things in our lives that
affect us, scare us, are surrounded by silence, NOT *avoid* talking about
them. Sex and fascism--poor interchangeables, I realize. On the other hand,
maybe not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I mistrust your bitch."--Nietzsche
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:19:41 -0800
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From: Gary Hawkins <ghawkins@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound
I'm posting the following for Laura Hope-Gill. We hold just one
subscription to the list so as not to be swallowed with duplicate poetics
mail.
>
>To:UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
>From:laurahopegill@halcyon.com (Laura Hope-Gill)
>Subject:Re: Pound
>
>
>
>You can't kill a poet such as Pound; we can only engage him in battle
>throughout our own work, not essays or e-mail, but poetry, that place
>between dream and history, the place from which Pound wrote. In her essay
>"What would we create?" Rich quotes Rukeyser speaking of two kinds of
>poetry:
>
>"the poetry of 'unverifiable fact'- that which emerges from dreams,
>sexuality, subjectivity-- and the poetry of 'documentary fact'-literally,
>accounts of strikes, wars, geographical and geological details, actions of
>actual persons in history, scientific invention.
> "Like her, I have tried to combine both kinds of poetry in a
>single poem, not separating dream from history-- but I do not find it
>easy."
>
>Pound also wrote both kinds in single poems. He did not find it easy either.
>
>Poems create space in the universe (this also from Rich). The spaces
>created balance the weight of material history (weaponry, stripmalls, etc)
>but also the weight of ideas. To face Pound, poets have to create poems
>which balance the bastard out. We have to descend into the same dark dream
>to undo on the poetic level what's been done on the historic. That's our
>job.
>
>Get to work.
>
>Laura
>laurahopegill@halcyon.com
>
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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 07:58:33 -0500
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From: Peter Jaeger <pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Re: avant-garde and other terms
In-Reply-To: <199603130201.SAA02363@ix5.ix.netcom.com>
The term "Savant gardeN" comes to mind, but I'm not sure if I just made
it up or read it somewhere else
Peter Jaeger
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 08:17:00 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: avant-garde and other terms
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 14 Mar 1996 07:58:33 -0500 from
<pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
On Thu, 14 Mar 1996 07:58:33 -0500 Peter Jaeger said:
>The term "Savant gardeN" comes to mind, but I'm not sure if I just made
>it up or read it somewhere else
Savant gardeN ? - or... Savagen' trad'N ?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 08:34:56 -0500
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From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
I probably quoted this once before...
Cixous quotes I. Bachman---
"the first thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is
fascism...."
why are we racing to be so bold?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 08:59:46 -0500
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From: Karen or Peter Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>wrote:
>Have you read the radio broadcasts? If you haven't, let me assure you
>they contain some of the worst anti-semitism I've ever read. I can't read
>Pound anymore; he sickens me. The artist didn't trick the fascist; the
>fascist did his disgusting dirty work, did damage.
>
>On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Karen or Peter Landers wrote:
>>
>> or read _Your Witness_, a poem by Charles Olson ...
>>
No, I haven't read them and I don't want to. I believe you.
But how many people did he affect in a good way? Jewish or gay poets
that he encouraged or recommended to editors. Doesn't it go some
way toward reconciliation? Zukofsky spoke up for him, too.
And, as a friend pointed out recently, shouldn't we be more
upset at people like Frost who got a colleague fired for being gay?
When did Ezra actually personally destroy another person's life?
I have friends who have to take a lot of medecine. I try not to
hold them responsible for the things they have done when ill.
Peter
landers@vivanet.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:08:35 EST
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From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: avante-garde and other terms
paul, I think you should cut to the point on the subject
title:
Poets. Hide yourself or be Destroyed!
(I think more subtitles need a good caesura for dramatic effect)
and imagine the cover with giant comic drawings of Howe, Bernstein,
Brauthwaite, etc. stomping through NYC tearing it apart. I would buy it in
a second. In fact, make it large format and soft cover, and maybe you can
trick some comic-buying teens and pre-teens into buying it (which led to my
other possible title, "Poets that will corrupt your children").
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:18:41 EST
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From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
I have to agree with Emily and Dove. Further, since I think it is especially
pertinent to this topic...
I think anyone interested in how artists are to deal with fascism should take
a look at the work of the German Painter Anselm Keifer. There was a good
book done for one of his exhibits (nearly a decade ago now?) with essays on
his work. He is a painter trying to find out what it means for himself to be
german after the Nazi period. He is dealing directly with Nazi work,
mimicing the Nazi/Roman salute in full dress in a book of photos, dealing
with how to accept artists that the Nazis accepted, such as Wagner and a good
deal of German Literary/Cultural/Art History that was/is being looked down
upon for being liked by the Nazi regime, dealing directly with the Jewish
issues of the Nazi era, check out his pieces inspired by Celan's Death Fugue
(anyone ever see the translation that calls it Death Tango?). Keifer's work
is excellent and very intellectually and emotionally challenging (such as a
painting called Shulamith (I might be wrong on the title) that is a german
soldier monument painted with charred brick walls to look like a furnace).
Where does the irony end? Someone gave a lecture at UVA last year and talked
about Keiffer for a while (I wish I remembered who it was), which was a
pleasure for me considering my interest in Keifer's work, and it surprised me
when she said Keifer's work was highly praised by a large number of
Jewish-American citizens.
See his paintings "live" sometime at any major art museum (they are huge and
beautifully painted in a vocab of dripping, scraping, throwing, brushing,
pouring...pouring molten lead that is)
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:55:36 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
Peter wrote:
>And, as a friend pointed out recently, shouldn't we be more
>upset at people like Frost who got a colleague fired for being gay?
AS upset, at least. YES.
>When did Ezra actually personally destroy another person's life?
Well, okay, he wasn't exactly kind to Amy Lowell, and certainly sought to
destroy her reputation. Whether this was because she was a woman, or fat,
or a lesbian, or just a lame poet? Who knows. On the whole, it seems to me
that Peter's basically right--Pound didn't seek to destroy lives so much as
prevent them from happening. Those he promoted he demoted as soon as it
looked like he wouldn't have as much control over them as he wanted. He
*was* a pain in the butt. Pretty much bar none.
More complicated (for me) is someone like Baraka--some of whose political
contributions I truly admire--a major fagbasher (at least, in his work) who
felt the need to abuse one already-abused group in order to empower
another...as if this were the only way to accomplish his argument. And, of
course, it *was* a very effective way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"The female is a chaos,
the male
is a fixed point of stupidity"
--Ezra Pound, in a letter to
Marianne Moore
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:24:45 +0000
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
Bravo, Peter Landers, bravo, bravo for compassion. I take
psychiatric meds, too, and would not like my life's work to
be judged on what I was like "before."
Of course, that's easy for me to say, woman but not Jew.
Gwyn McVay
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Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:26:49 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: in the public domain...
well speaking of poet-characters: what y'all think about *the postman*?...
i was bowled over by it...
joe
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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:25:23 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Pound in the doghouse
Seems pretty clear that Pound reflected and exaggerated (but not really
exaggerated) in a grotesque mode, but without irony, a cultural
pathology at the core of the WC (Western Culture). It wasn't a
personal illness entirely, it was a recapitulation by megaphone
& poetry; it's not something he can exonerate himself of by personal
kindness to some of his best friends. The best thing I've read
about it is "Genealogy of demons" by Robert Casillo (NWU Press, 1988),
which doesn't try to read a redemptive pattern in the late verse or
statements he made to Allen Ginsberg, etc. But it's not simply
judgemental, either - Casillo tries to explore what happened.
& speaking of Harlem Renaissance, somebody might want to compare
the cultural rivalry, borrowings, mimicry, appropriations, masking,
and scapegoating involved in black-white relations in US (one could
argue that ALL modern popular culture in US stems from blackface
minstrel shows & vaudeville) - with the age-old relations between
Christianity & Judaism. Might be an interesting take on "our"
Son of God.
- Henry Gould
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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:47:29 CST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Re[2]: avant-garde
Anyone who is living and can be considered "a poet" becomes
avant-guarde (or advance-guarde if you prefer) by default, by the act
of continually writing in a period where continuity has been debased.
Categorization is for the empire of the senseless, the bigots who
couldn't care less. Even the fields of Robert Bly's masculine epiphany
are avant-guarde: get used to it.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:50:44 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: lb.'s oz.
>No, I haven't read them and I don't want to. I believe you.
>But how many people did he affect in a good way? Jewish or gay poets
>that he encouraged or recommended to editors. Doesn't it go some
>way toward reconciliation? Zukofsky spoke up for him, too.
Reconciliation, no. Good deeds don't cancel out bad, in my mind. But they
are important, and it's necessary not to neglect the good, and not to
neglect the bad. And unlike one post, I don't think The Pisan Cantos are the
only good -- some is to be found in various Cantos, other poems, and essays,
as well as in the good words & deeds for other artists. I am intrigued by
the notion that some of what we positively take from Pound is inextricably
linked to the negativism and hatred. Instinctively it seems as if this must
be true, but I'd like to read more specifics. Guess I should read Perelman's
work on this. OK.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:00:44 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: HYPE CITY thanks
Tonight at POETRY CITY:
Maria Damon & Walter Lew
Maria Damon is the author of _The Dark End of the Street_ (UMP, 1993).
She's a frequent contributor to the poetix list, and a charter member of
the renga qabal. Walter Lew is the editor of _Premonitions: the Kaya
Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry_ (Kaya, 1995). It's one
gorgeous book. He's quite a reader.
Poetry City is a borough of Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 5 Union
Square West, 7th Floor, New York NY 10003. Both books will be available at
the reading.
If you're in New York, stop by Poetry City and say hi.
______
SPECIAL OFFER to the first five people to respond:
_Selected Poems_ by Simon Pettet &
_Talking Pictures_ by Simon Pettet & Rudy Burckhardt
sold separately in stores for $35
available *today* from Poetry City for $30 ppd
Send your street address to jdavis@panix.com
"We want to get the books out there."
--our founder
Thanks, btw, to everyone who jumped on the Bill Luoma twofer deal.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:16:36 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: - Kim Tedrow <RoseRead@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: HYPE CITY thanks
Kim Tedrow
8208 Houston Ct. #6
Takoma Park, MD 20912
(301)588-7156
http://members.aol.com/RoseRead/
Thanks Jordan,
Kim
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:38:28 -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: 16 Oz or
In-Reply-To: <v01530500ad6dd4036326@[204.176.82.220]>
On Thu, 14 Mar 1996, Karen or Peter Landers wrote:
> No, I haven't read them and I don't want to. I believe you.
> But how many people did he affect in a good way? Jewish or gay poets
> that he encouraged or recommended to editors. Doesn't it go some
> way toward reconciliation? Zukofsky spoke up for him, too.
No. Nor does this work with Heidegger.
>
> And, as a friend pointed out recently, shouldn't we be more
> upset at people like Frost who got a colleague fired for being gay?
> When did Ezra actually personally destroy another person's life?
Since Pound was only broadcasting over Italy I have no idea.
> I have friends who have to take a lot of medecine. I try not to
> hold them responsible for the things they have done when ill.
Nazism is not an illness any more than poetry.
People who advocate extermination and are sane enough to be on national
radio should be held responsible.
Pound did damage.
Alan
>
> Peter
> landers@vivanet.com
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:59:05 EST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Daniel Bouchard <Daniel_Bouchard@HMCO.COM>
Subject: Pound takes an "ing"
>When did Ezra actually personally destroy another person's life?
Emily's repsonse:
Well, okay, he wasn't exactly kind to Amy Lowell, and certainly sought to
destroy her reputation. Whether this was because she was a woman, or fat,
or a lesbian, or just a lame poet? Who knows. On the whole, it seems to me
that Peter's basically right--Pound didn't seek to destroy lives so much as
prevent them from happening. Those he promoted he demoted as soon as it
looked like he wouldn't have as much control over them as he wanted. He
*was* a pain in the butt. Pretty much bar none.
Emily,
I don't read posts on this list for scholarship but I am wondering (again) if
you can cite a few examples about Pound as Power Broker of poetry.
I'm thinking, as a response, of a letter George Oppen wrote to Pound in the
early 60s stating how exceptional his behavior in regard to young and/or
unknown poets had been throughout his (Pound's) career. And I'm pretty sure
Oppen was no big fan of Pound, as a person, at that point. As for Amy Lowell
(she could have used a few lessons in professional decorum also) I am trying to
think of how Pound "sought to destroy her reputation." ??
daniel_bouchard@hmco.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:48:23 -0500
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From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
In-Reply-To: <199603141418.JAA25948@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU>
Why is it surprising that Keifer is praised by Jews? I like Keifer as
well. This isn't the issue.
Look, Pound the fucker called for extermination of my people. He called
for it repeatedly and publicly. I'm glad you all can forgive him. I can't.
If poetry is elevated above political action, poetry is obscene.
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 12:05:14 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: POETRY CITY 6:30
just a couple quick reminders
then I'll stop abusing the list--
Poetry City events are at 6:30 pm daylight savings (or 6:45 poetry savings)--
and be sure to send responses to book offers to me (jdavis@panix.com)
and not the list! (don't feel bad, Kim, it's an easy mistake to make)
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 12:09:23 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: William Slaughter <wrs@UNF.EDU>
Subject: Re: query: book distribution
Dear Wendy Battin:
This is in reply to your post (attached) re your panel at AWP in Atlanta. I
don't know if my MUDLARK is relevant to your project but I would like to
call it to your attention. It is refereed, copyrighted, archived and
distributed, free, on the World Wide Web, by e-mail, and on disk. MUDLARK
has an ISSN from the Library of Congress so, technically, it is a journal
not a press, but its second (and current) issue, for example, is a
chapbook, THE RAPE POEMS, by Frances Driscoll. Perhaps you'll be willing to
at least have a look at MUDLARK and decide for yourself. I have tracked
what you're doing with CAPA from the beginning and, of course, I know
you're own poetry. In both cases, it's important work you're doing.
Sincerely,
William Slaughter
_________________________________________
MUDLARK
An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics
Never in and never out of print...
E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu
URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark
>I'll be part of a panel on electronic publishing at the AWP Convention
>in Atlanta this April; I'll be doing a presentation on using the internet
>to keep books in print, to distribute them despite the economic pressures
>that are driving small & university presses out of bookstores, etc.
>(Given all the scares about internet as the death of the book, it seems
>important to turn attention to the alternate economy the net can sustain.)
>I've run across a few instances of small presses and bookstores marketing
>their stock on mailing lists and on the web; I'd like to know more and to
>make these resources more widely available, and this convention seems
>like a good start. If you know of major distributors on-line--especially
>those dealing with small press books--or poetry bookstores, presses, samisdat
>networks with websites or email addresses, please send them to me, and I'll
>see that they're distributed as widely as I can manage. I'll get them
>out at AWP, and I'll post them on the CAPA site as well.
>
>Many thanks,
>Wendy
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>Wendy Battin
>wjbat@conncoll.edu
>wbattin@mit.edu
>
> Contemporary American Poetry Archive
> http://camel.conncoll.edu/library/CAPA/capa.html
>----------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:11:54 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: wings & things
In-Reply-To: <199603140523.AAA29582@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Naylor -- I want to read that book! While I'm waiting, is the Mackey
chapter a version of your essay in _PMC_? Used that in a class a couple
weeks ago, & grad. students liked it lots --
Kellog -- Only reason I haven;t been addressing you for copies is that I
am briefly living near a library that actually subscribes to all those
journals -- keep those notices coming in --
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 12:51:35 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: PAVEMENT SAW
Pavement Saw is published once a year
has been said to "mix the incongruent"
in way which was compared favorably to kayak
in Small Press Review.
Some of the contributors are ususal suspects,
regulars on this list.
The most recent issue is 56 pages, fleck cover, perfect bound.
The featured writer is Gian Lombardo.
Others include Chris Stroffolino, Jendi Reiter, Will Alexander,
Charles Rittenhouse, Lizbeth Keiley, W.B Keckler, Sheila Murphy,
Simon Perchik, and Virginia Aronson to name a few.
One issue is $3.50 and a subscription is $6.00 for individuals.
Back issues are availiable for $3.
$10. subscription fee (2 issues) for libraries and institutions.
Send to:
Pavement Saw
7 James Street
Scotia, NY 12302
Make checks payable either to Pavement Saw Press or David Baratier.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 13:28:40 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: in the public domain...
dear joe amato--
I was very interested in seeing IL POSTINO because it portrayed
a poet as a character, and the tension between the poet as marxist/populist
and as "ladies man" was quite interesting. And the way N became role model
for young Italian male. At first middle man to woo/seduce woman and then,
of course, more important to that young man than the woman now his wife.
This latter part was the weakest part of the movie for me...
and the tentative Marxism (albiet culminating in heroic death)....
anyway, curious what you thought of that....
Another issue:
somebody raised the question of BARAKA (who interests me more than EZ)
and it made me think of the whole question of discomfort with a poet's
POLITICS (in the vulgar sense) and stance. I've seen Baraka speak in
a very improvisatory way on political issues--and one of the things I
admire about him (both in the microcosm of lectures and in the macrocosm
of his whole development--the various phases he's gone through)--is his
willingness to RISK saying things that may be perceived as stupid or
wrongheaded. When called on it, at one of the lectures I've seen, Baraka
appealed to the poets' right to THINK OUT LOUD, or to grow up in public
---
A lot of the question of "poetic responsibility" for me turns on a
question of genre. When we read a novel or a play, we often accept the
fictions of characters. Yet, in reading poetry (especially "statement
poetry") there's this desire to want to hold the poet accountable as if
the speaker of the poem (or even a whole book of poems) is not to some
extent a character, a fiction. Perhaps this is because one wants to
identify with a poet as a person---despite the "death of the author" and
all that---and this need and/or desire is not necessarily to be blamed.
Yet, at the same time, it does seem to hold others up to standards of
consistency we may not necessarily apply to ourselves (sorry for the
use of the "royal"? "we" here)--
Aside from the politics that makes Baraka great (see for instance his
two pieces in the most recent NEW AMERICAN WRITING) is the ENTHUSIASM
that may be involved in what many find disturbing about him.....
Aside from my belief that even if we take Baraka strictly as a public
intellectual (rather than a poet) the good outweighs the bad,
there is also the sense that the whole question of judging poets' on
their politics does to a large extent reduce the whole issue to one of
mere OPINION. I can't believe that I am alone in thinking that "I DO NOT
TOTALLY AGREE WITH ANYONE" and nor do I expect people to totally agree
with me. I tend to be moved by things I HATE more than things I tepidly
embrace. Ashbery said something like the reason he doesn't read much
vulgar political poetry is because he finds himself in too easy agreement
with it. I don't TOTALLY AGREE with that either, but AT TIMES I do.
Am I "taking a stance" here? Is that a value? Or is it what "they"
(and you know who they are) want from us?----
And perhaps the problems people have with poet X or Y are related very
much to the POLITICS OF POETIC STANCE, of the perceived need for poets
to commodify themselves, and take a position that is seen as consistent
in both the narrower sense of the literary world and the larger political.
But such a need for consistency is as much a problem as the failure
of poets to achieve it, and probably more. It boxes people in to pre-
existing grids, one becomes even more of a slave to one's past than one
would otherwise---even in trying to make a "clean break"......
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 12:56:08 -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: Re: ghost titles
In-Reply-To: <199603140523.AAA29582@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Mar 14, 96 00:02:07 am
An "Objectivist" number of Contempo magazine was advertised, but never
appeared. Ooooh, scary.
steve
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 08:07:12 GMT+1300
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: what is poetics
Re Henry Gould's quote. Is that really Todorov, or was that ghosted by Clement Greenberg,
literature as distinguished from as opposed to other arts?
(Eliminating concrete and visual elements components or practices
from writing and verbal-textual writing ditto from the other arts -- e.g. music
and painting. Really difficult for him.) In so far as "poetics" is
about "making", and "medium" is not a useful means of
categorisation, that position needs some heavy rethinking methinks.
Todorov's "poetics" looks like being a prescriptive (policing)
organisation over poetic production too.
Meanwhile, it's just after dawn and the traffic is intensifying into
the sonorous stinking rushhour.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 13:59:38 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: poetry center info/donations
Rhode Island has nothing like Poets House in NY or other poetry resource
centers for the public; it's something some of us have been thinking
about for a long time. 6 yrs ago a group called the Poetry Mission was
set up with this long-term goal in mind - a public resource/performance
center. We concentrated for a few yrs on publishing a journal we inherited
(NE Journal, now Nedge) and other things, but the goal has been there.
The Mission recently reached an agreement with a branch of the Cranston
Public Library - Hall Library, near Providence/Cranston line - to
set up a collection/reading space in a large room there. We have
access to about 100 ft of shelf space, several tables & chairs,
areas for readings, and a full stage for other performances. We
plan to start being open one night a week & one Saturday a month;
we envision reading & talk series, informal writers groups gathering
there, people looking for book & journals, etc. Considering the
dearth of such a focal point around here outside of the colleges,
we think it might be fairly popular.
If you want to help us inaugurate this space, there are several ways
you can do so. You can:
1. Donate poetry bks or journals, chapbooks
2. Send info about your journal (i.e. subscription cost, # issues,
address, etc.)
3. Suggest worthwhile materials for the center & how to acquire them.
4. Other suggestions welcome! (i.e. offers to read while in area, etc.)
All donors will be gratefully acknowledged & the materials will be
well cared-for with the library's assistance. As the Mission currently
has basically a zero budget beyond putting out Nedge, we can't afford
many subscriptions, but some extra income will go in this direction.
All queries or suggestions can come to me via email (Henry_Gould@brown.edu),
all materials should be sent to: The Poetry Mission, PO Box 2321,
Providence, RI 02906. Please include a note & return address - and
if you have special requirements regarding use of materials, please
query before sending! If the project for some reason does not get
off the ground or folds, materials collected will be donated to a
public library (unless other arrangements have been made with the donor).
Thanks to all interested - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 14:41:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Pound's mean: examples
Below is taken from Steven Watson's _Strange Bedfellows: The First American
Avant-Garde_. Stuff written in CAPS is me interjecting.
(AT A DINNER CELEBRATING THE BRIT. PUB. OF _LES IMAGISTES_) "In a Garden"
[was Lowell's] sole contribution to _Des Imagistes_. Pound suggested that
her closing line, "Night, and the water, and you in your whiteness,
bathing!" referred to Lowell and her vast, pale body...Pound stole out to an
adjoining room and returned with a large tin bathtub on his head. He
deposited it before Amy Lowell, and made a formal announcement: Les
Imagistes would be succeeded by a new school of poetry, Les Nagistes, with
this tub as its symbol. Perhaps Lowell, its inaugurating poet, should
demonstrate her whiteness by bathing in it.
THIS IS NOT SO MUCH POUND SEEKING TO "DESTROY HER REPUTATION" AS TO PUBLICLY
HUMILIATE HER AND PARADE HIS POWER. HOWEVER, TWO WEEKS LATER, WHEN LOWELL
SUGGESTS ANOTHER IMAGISTE ANTHOLOGY BE COMPILED...
As a democratic alternative to _Des Imagistes_, Lowell suggested that each
poet be given equal space in which his or her own selection of poems would
appear. To ensure publication by a reputable firm, Lowell would stake the
venture. She secured their [HD, Aldington, Ford, Fletcher, Flint,
Lawrence's] participation and then invited Pound...He roundly rejected her
proposal, informing her that poetry was not "a democratic beerhall." Pound
entreated his friends not to participate. (DESTROY HER EFFORTS, INTERFERE
WITH HER PROJECTS=WHAT I MEANT BY "SEEK TO DESTROY HER REP.")...he asserted
ownership of the term "Imagisme," and when Lowell simply stripped the word
of its Gallic affectation to make it "Imagism," he riposted that the
movement would henceforth be known as "Amygism."
[END WATSON]
"I think that America is getting fed up on gynocracy and that it is time for
a male review."--Pound to John Quin, 1915.
Once Amy et al. had taken up Imagism, Pound said he had never been serious
about the movement at all, and took up Vorticism, denouncing Imagist poets &
poetry (inc. HD). In what I've read of Pound (as a person), seems less like
he was interested in helping young poets and more like adopting them,
putting his stamp on their work, and getting to hold them up claims to his
own fame. "Yes, Tiffany started out right here on Star Search." It's just
a feeling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 15:08:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: in the public domain
Chris Stroffolino: thanks for that post.
"Baraka appealed to the poets' right to THINK OUT LOUD, or to grow up in
public."
Yes; I think that might be a nice right to appeal to not only in "public,"
but on this list.
Appealing,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 14:25:34 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
Alan,
not to be argumentative, but I think you are being reductive, since when is
speaking on national radio a mark of sanity?
Nazi-ism may not be an illness, but something like chronic depression will
make someone reach out for anything, then the Nazi-ism is just another
symptom of the illness. I think you're being reductive, not that I profess
to know anything at all about Ezra's psychology.
When I think of Ezra Pound I think of that portrait of his by Avedon. He's
old and disfigured, outright grotesque, but beautiful somehow. That's how I
like to think of his poetry. Along that line (and about bad tepid poetry vs.
good horrible poetry) someone once told me that when a thing is ugly it
repels you, but when it is grotesque its ugliness attracts you even as it is
pushing away.
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 15:22:11 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: what is poetics
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 15 Mar 1996 08:07:12 GMT+1300 from
<t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996 08:07:12 GMT+1300 Tony Green said:
>Re Henry Gould's quote. Is that really Todorov, or was that ghosted by Clement
>Greenberg,
>literature as distinguished from as opposed to other arts?
>(Eliminating concrete and visual elements components or practices
>from writing and verbal-textual writing ditto from the other arts -- e.g. music
>and painting. Really difficult for him.) In so far as "poetics" is
>about "making", and "medium" is not a useful means of
>categorisation, that position needs some heavy rethinking methinks.
I agree, Tony. It was another HG patented confu-mush post. Only sent
it to highlight contrast between a previous post of mine, where I tried
to describe poetics as the study of the specifically artistic qualities
of poems, and what seems to be the generally accepted view of poetics,
as a more broad-based study of poetry in its cultural context.
And regarding New Zealand rush hour: I hope you're not reading your
POETICS while driving (or herding sheep) - HGould
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:51:05 GMT+1300
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: avante-garde and other terms
the Naylor dilemma: if it's a matter of provocative description
some striking neologism or unexpected banality might do: the poets
might take offence at " X,Y and Z: Fucked up Poets of the 90's",
while "X,Y and Z: Real Poets of the 90's" wd raise a question or two
that might make opening the volume or buying it more likely options
than passing by. " Real Cool Poets: X, Y and Z", for "cool"
substitute whatever word is current..."of the 21st century" is
actually more enticing than 90's"... It does not matter a damn from
the point of view of sales whether the poets in quesion have been
writing and publishing since 1958 or whether they really have got
test-tubes going or not...or have done something they think is
new....from the point of view of poetics maybe it matters.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 16:02:52 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Daniel Bouchard <Daniel_Bouchard@HMCO.COM>
Subject: Pound takes a "Ding" -Returns a "Dong"
Following the flap-chat from Calabria, Tony Door asked me to forward this to
the list:
daniel_bouchard@hmco.com
___________________
wAtt? has someone rushed to defend amy lowel? not to say
the pound was not rich or anything, but wasn't the town near
boston that kerouac came from named after some progenitor
of hers? wasn't she the third generation of american poet?
wasnt her success generated by this fact? isn't the FACT
that we ALL know her name completely contradicted by the
relative merit of her work? Finally, does naming a derived
"movement" in poetry AMYGISM constitute "ruining"
someone's career? like, if he ruined it, how come she still
had one. I think asking Beckett if he was working on the
ILLIAD. (even that didnt seem to ruin his career) or perhaps
when he told Jackson Mac Low that he (Jackson) was NOT
Jewish...I never heard of Pound actually denouncing anyone
but the Stiff, Stuffy, & Well Established in poetry--perhaps
this has been hidden, but he seems to have let loose on his
own against anyone he didn't like. I would not be suprised to
learn that there were those whom he might not have
helped--there seem to be no women in his circles. perhaps in
part due to his unattractiveness as a "teacher" for women
poets--on this i do not know. (but would like to find out)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 16:14:44 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: in the public domain...
did anybody go to the jim brodey reading?
i'm curious for any report.....
cs
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 12:40:46 +1300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wystan Curnow <w.curnow@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
Comments: To: sondheim@PANIX.COM
Dear Alan,
That AN is Anais Nin? Well, that's one of my problems with HM,
how can you justify his support for AN? Tell me.
Wystan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 13:06:25 +1300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wystan Curnow <w.curnow@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
Comments: To: emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM
Dear Emily,
Don't hate me (it'll make you sick) but learn from me.
Better still lets learn together. Let's make a BAD FOLKS List.
Let's see, who we got so far:
Pound
Frost
Baraka
Hemingway
There are so many bad folks in the world and so much badness to learn
from.More names please.
Wystan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 16:43:38 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960314114657.9668H-100000@panix3.panix.com>
On Thu, 14 Mar 1996, Alan Sondheim wrote:
> If poetry is elevated above political action, poetry is obscene.
If poetry is related to political action, poetry is obscene. This
is really the issue here, isn't it?
tom
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:16:28 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: ghost titles
A few years ago Viking announced an unpublished ms. of Joyce short stories --
believe they sd it was written after Ulysses, & parts of it were garbled into
or swallowed whole by the Wake. This is a less clear memory-- but something
abt they were based on irish fairy tales, or variations on a particular tale.
The estate must have pulled it.
Rod
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:20:09 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@MAIL.EROLS.COM>
Subject: Bad Folks List
Comments: To: w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz
At 01:06 PM 3/15/96 +1300, w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz wrote:
>Let's make a BAD FOLKS List.
>Let's see, who we got so far:
> Pound
> Frost
> Baraka
> Hemingway
>There are so many bad folks in the world and so much badness to learn
>from.More names please.
> Wystan
Joking, I hope? Subjective. My bad is not your bad (which may be the only
thing we've learned re: my derrida comments). My bad is not even *my* bad
all the time. I would say, in what I hope is closing, that reading someone's
work is no synonym for "forgiving" them. I still believe, if that's what's
being challenged, that one can (and perhaps even should try to) learn from
people that offend, hate, etc. one. But the list above reminds me of
"potential rapists" lists on university bathroom walls. I don't want a bad
folks list any more than a capital A G avant-garde. E
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:29:56 -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: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
Comments: To: w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz
In-Reply-To: <2CEAC9231B3@engnov1.auckland.ac.nz>
I like some of her stories, short novels, and general predating of
Irigaray and Kristeva...
Alan
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996 w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz wrote:
> Dear Alan,
> That AN is Anais Nin? Well, that's one of my problems with HM,
> how can you justify his support for AN? Tell me.
> Wystan
>
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 17:26:34 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: lb.'s oz.
--- On Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:50:44 -0600 Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
wrote:
>>No, I haven't read them and I don't want to. I believe you.
>>But how many people did he affect in a good way? Jewish or gay poets
>>that he encouraged or recommended to editors. Doesn't it go some
>>way toward reconciliation? Zukofsky spoke up for him, too.
>
>Reconciliation, no. Good deeds don't cancel out bad, in my mind. But they
>are important, and it's necessary not to neglect the good, and not to
>neglect the bad. And unlike one post, I don't think The Pisan Cantos are
the
>only good -- some is to be found in various Cantos, other poems, and
essays,
>as well as in the good words & deeds for other artists.
I ONLY SAID THAT PERSONALLY I COULD ONLY READ THE PISAN CANTOS NEVER
MADE JUDGEMENT OF ANYTHING ELSE AS GOOD OR BAD
I am intrigued by
>the notion that some of what we positively take from Pound is inextricably
>linked to the negativism and hatred. Instinctively it seems as if this must
>be true, but I'd like to read more specifics. Guess I should read
Perelman's
>work on this. OK.
>
-----------------End of Original Message-----------------
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.14.96 5:26:34 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 17:57:59 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
i am a jew. if it weren't for WWII, i wld have a huge family in
rumania and the ukraine. my people were beaten, tortured, raped and
gassed by corporal hitler and his idiot assassins. i grew up in a housing
project in nyc where i was beaten, tortured, stolen from and constantly
humiliated by blacks and latinos. when i was 13 a black wino raped me.
i will never forgive what was done to my extinct european relatives or to
me when i was a boy, and i have trouble with the hurt, yet one of my
favorite poets is steven jonas, a gay black man. martin heidegger is
important to me. so is the music of charles mingus and villa-lobos, both
notorious assholes.
one of the first thing we notice abt fascists is their inability to
accept anybody who looks, acts, thinks differently.
yeah, pound was an asshole and a fascist. he was also a great poet.
and he furthered, made the careers of several poets, no matter his
motives. that's something we can either deal with or ignore. bestiality
resides in the human heart. none of us are sheltered from it, all of
us are capable of it. that's another thing we can either deal with
or ignore. human beings are terribly complicated; our motives usually
suck, especially when we jump up and down and yell abt how good our
motives are. the finger points both ways.
later
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.14.96 5:57:59 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 21:41:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: Bad Folks List
>I don't want a bad
>folks list any more than a capital A G avant-garde. E
hell, sometimes i don't even want capital e's...
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 18:47:58 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: william elliott vidaver <wvidaver@DIRECT.CA>
Subject: Question re: Schwitters studies
Does anyone know of an electronic mailing list (or association) that is
dedicated to any extent to discussions of the abstract collage work of Kurt
Schwitters and/or Hannah Hoech, and/or their contemporary inheritors?
Any leads would be helpful,
Aaron Vidaver c/o
wvidaver@direct.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 22:16:54 -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: 16 Oz or
In-Reply-To: <199603141925.OAA13049@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU>
I want to bow out of this discussion. But I must say I have chronic
depression and it does not "make me reach out for anything." And if
Nazism is the symptom, pray, what is the cure?
Yes, I read Pound; I wouldn't deny myself that. I read Celine. I don't
have bad boys and good boys. But I read through, not around, Nazism, just
as I have to have an informed reading of Heidegger say for my own work.
I would be careful about all this excusing fascism. Perhaps all fascists
in Germany and Italy were chronically depressed?
Alan
On Thu, 14 Mar 1996, James Perez wrote:
> Alan,
>
> not to be argumentative, but I think you are being reductive, since when is
> speaking on national radio a mark of sanity?
>
> Nazi-ism may not be an illness, but something like chronic depression will
> make someone reach out for anything, then the Nazi-ism is just another
> symptom of the illness. I think you're being reductive, not that I profess
> to know anything at all about Ezra's psychology.
>
> When I think of Ezra Pound I think of that portrait of his by Avedon. He's
> old and disfigured, outright grotesque, but beautiful somehow. That's how I
> like to think of his poetry. Along that line (and about bad tepid poetry vs.
> good horrible poetry) someone once told me that when a thing is ugly it
> repels you, but when it is grotesque its ugliness attracts you even as it is
> pushing away.
>
> James Perez
> jmp2p@virginia.edu
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 22:28:33 -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: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
Worth reading in this context is Charles Olson's journals kept while visiting
Pound in custody, published in _Charles Olson & Ezra Pound: An Encounter at
St. Elizabeth's_, edited by Catherine Seelye. Olson had quit his government
job in the wake of F.D.R.'s death and the sellout (as he saw it) of the
progressive wing of the Democratic party by Truman. (Much of Olson's work
had involved coordinating activities with immigrant organizations.) He was
really just starting as a poet, and though _Call Me Ishmael_ was written,
he hadn't yet secured a publisher. Olson was fascinated by the Cantos and
had arranged to cover the trial for Partisan Review. The issues raised here
on the list more or less as a matter of intellectual stance take on a
palpable reality in Olson's journals, enthrallment and disgust hopelessly
tangled. Should Olson have washed his hands of Pound sooner than he did?
(Pound credited Olson's small kindnesses at this time with saving his life.)
What exactly did he learn by sitting at Pound's feet? Condemnation and
forgiveness are two ends of a very long continuum of possible judgments.
Here are two interesting excerpts:
From 15 January 1946:
. . . was it in here that he asked, does anyone know Westbrook Pegler?
I indicated I didn't, and must have froze more than I ever have with him.
He then called him "the best man they've got." And with that, for the
first time, the full shock of what a fascist s.o.b. Pound is caught up
with me. I guess I had to feel it on my own America before I could have
a realization. For Pegler I have traveled through and understood. Pound's
praise of him reveals his utter incomprehension of what is going on, and
what has happened to himself. Just on a technical level, that such an ear
as Pound's could permit himself to praise Pegler! What a collapse. I
wondered then how long more I can hold out my hand to him as a poet and
a man. I suppose I shall tell him one day I am the son of immigrants, this
influx of second class citizens whom Pegler and Pound think has made impure
their Yankee America of pioneers--and Biddles. That my father was killed
fighting for the right of labor men to organize in unions. That decadent
democracy gave me the chance to grope out of the American city into some
understanding of what life is, and how to peg a smart fascist s.o.b. like
Pegler--and Ezra Pound.
From 24 January 1946:
He was quiet for a minute, working his forehead, talking down and away
toward the window to his right and my left: "There was a Jew, in London,
Obermeyer, a doctor of comparative . . . . . of the endocrines, and I used
to ask him what is the effect of circumcision. That's the question that
gets them sore," and he begins to be impish as hell, "that sends them
right up the pole. Try it, don't take my word for it, try it." And then,
with a pitiful seriousness, turning directly toward me and says: "It
must do something, after all these years and years, where the most
sensitive nerves in the body are, rubbing them off, over and over again."
((It was fantastic, again the fascist bastard, the same god damned kind
of medical nonsense Hitler and the gang used with the same seriousness,
the same sick conviction.)) It was so cockeyed for the moment it was
funny actually, absurd, and I was carried along by the swearing, swift,
slashing creature.
I record it, but here as elsewhere, it is impossible to give a true
impression. For at any given point, always, there is the presence of the
seriousness of the man. Even in his sickest and most evil moments. He is
always a man at work, examinging, examining. Here, for example, on the one
hand he is attacking K as a Jew, when the truth is K is making the mistakes
of any young man, and Pound is god damned well lucky it is K and not the
monster Griffin who is questioning him, is in charge. I could not help
feeling during this whole line of Pound's, how it was precisely the Jews
around him here and in the DDC who gave him some warmth and help, how
it was through Tiny and K that I had got drawers issued to him, how it
was K who at least had the curiosity to read his verse, and that K, in
Chicago, when the bookstores said, they wouldn't carry the books of a
fascist, objected and damn well told him that was the same as burning
books, and plain out and out fascist. On top of that it was Rahv, another
Jew, who had accepted my Yeats thing on EP, when all the blessed Christian
editors took it as offering Pound an out, an intellectual excuse.
****
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 22:16:07 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Wood <twood@CONNECT.NET>
Subject: Re: poetry center info/donations
Henry,
I'll be sending materials in response to your querry on the Poetics group.
You probably don't recognize my name, since I've been mostly lurking.
Anyway, enough of that. As a bug to chew on your mind, how about setting
up some sort of resource center for poetry resource centers. Put another
way, I and Joseph Zitt are in the first stages of developing a poetry
organization to act as a resource center/event organizer/whatever in N.
Texas. And there seems precious little available out there on how to make
that happen: what are the pitfalls, the shortcuts, the wise moves and
foolish ones...
thanks,
Tim Wood
in space no one can hear you scream
in Dallas no one cares...
______________________________________________________________________________
Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:05:51 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or
alan ---
i've bowed out also. let he who is w/o sin ...
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.14.96 8:05:51 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 13:00:54 +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: Reedy / plus Sound & Language books (special offer)
Ric mentioned Carlyle - I published a chapbook of hers called 'Sculpted
In This World' in 1979 under my old Bluff Books imprint - 18 poems -
still have some copies if there's interest.
Also available from Sound & Language:
'stranger' - cris cheek (44pp, one extended piece)
a brief extract:
Film keeps jumping in Her frame.
And on an old Hum
Teeming with cows
a blood puddle yoked to a sky.
The Earth - burying
A small boy beating a Squealing
Pig with a red hot stick . .
One at one time, bird lures
Flit across corn, of Ripening
Chrome.
Smudging movements, to irrigate Fracture.
and 'Civic Crime' - Allen Fisher (29pp - 6 poems from 'gravity as a
consequence of shape'):
(from 'Cakewalk')
The image of a woman frottaged
by the Burglar
to the wall shifts
with his attention reads
a bicontinuous sponge
with surfactant interfaces.
His cleansing gaze as he sees it
rapidly fluctuates the curvature
of her shapes. They begin to leave
the wall and spatter
the footpath.
The Informer's report confirms
they are metallic balls of
crystalline liquids sandwiched
in saliva honeycombs and
dynamically disordered into droplets
disturb the gravel.
Oh what a wonderful world.
. . .
and 'Sore Models' - Miles Champion (32pp sequence of 28 poems):
what place does consiousness have
in a world of molecules
for which God or Nature designed
the solid table of common sense?
a coral reef has a history
thousands of small mutations finding their niches
a cosmic ray scrambles the atoms
of secularisation and late capitalism
an obsessional kink
in these brains
left by traumatic constellations of causal forces
and producing talk
(27/12/94)
and 'TM 4' - Ulli Freer (40pp - 4 poems):
a tight never
found myself in a pit
full of many bodies
some were moving
between the bushes woes
magpies flutter reflections
damage limitation line war
low sound merges thresholds
each breath stirs inversion
who eats propaganda raw
garden green in your heart
on saturday me awn
saturday and
magpie circles the head
Offer is to Poetics list subscribers at: all five books (Carlyle Reedy /
cris cheek / Allen Fisher / Miles Champion / Ulli Freer)
15 dollars (cash)
10 pounds sterling (money order
or sterling cheque)
or swap for other chapbooks
Offer runs from April 1st (but it's not an April Fools gag - just that's
the date of the Ulli Freer publication to make this offer possible).
Separate titles can be bought at 5 dollars or 2 pounds sterling or equivalent.
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 22:04:39 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Filkins <filch@POBOX.COM>
Subject: Re: Bad Folks List
Hey i once broke a dog's neck and i write pomes, do you think i can get on
the bad poets list? Does anyone know if this will help my career? Am i
left out cuz i haven't published racist polemics? Should i work some up
right quick?
signed,
poor misunderstood bastard looking for notoriety.
_______________________________
In the undergrowth
There dwells a Bloath
Who feeds upon poets and tea.
Luckily, I know this about him
While he knows almost nothing of me!
- Shel Silverstein
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 21:11:26 +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: Thomas A Clarke
Good to see Thom turning up again here - he's certainly worth tracking dow=
n.
=46or those really keen to dig you might look into two other poets close to
him early on. Namely Charles Verey and Neil Mills to whom he dedicated his
Jargon book 'some particulars' in 1970. Both are almost forgotten now,
although both produced (to my mind) very interesting work. Certainly John
Wilkinson has acknowledged the early influence of Verey as a teacher. A
nexus of Ian Hamilton Finlay meeting Jonathon Williams and Dom Sylvester
Houedard?
Here are a couple of pieces by Neil Mills:
(they're hard to give well in this space as he uses handwriting and
spaciality extensively - so I've had to translate a lot of 'peritext' to
represent it; some of his neo-signs aren't on the keyboard at all but I've
deliberately intended that different systems in this space will be rendered
differently for each user - this one's from a 1969 booklet called '12
LOGOTRICKADES - TEXTBOOK' terrific stuff - and btw i've proofread
these, no errors as far as i can tell. Curiosity of the week has got to be
the prescient 'pog' at the end here, for those who know this kiddie craze)
14. WOODBLOOD
.prannies
.?nias
.witlap
.aucholy
!ebe - ebe
.puselech
.thich =A7steamen
.spargines
.gulc
@dudphoe
.phalcious
*parospect
%titip
.villocks
inpee@aggrimes
^soud-rinal
=99espher
67 - inorize - intasch
bra-austive +
.verp
& pog
(the next is from 'Explanation Poems!' in 1970 - intended very much for
performance; strangely prefiguring Maggie O'Sullivan's work?)
STONESWANE !
EARTHSHIRE !
STAGAGAGONY !
toadplant & foestrade
TEMTARNISTIME !
BRUUU !
lovehewn & seedslow /
mangrowth dreambraided /
saintselect !
SEASWAX!
DRUMBOUND 1
VIVEMAXIMUS MINDFLESHED 1
selfpriested & bellyzest !
quaaaaarm !
swadewaters slateshelved
& blackdeep
MANBROODS INDAGGERED
razorstark ! nervesqualid ! rooftight !
caregave & painfucked /
TIMESWING IMEMERGES GINGERMAN
LIFESUCKLED & NORTHFAMED !
DOOMFUNCT NEVERGAIN !
cuntsmead & noonblonde & harrierlord !
kingfingers ! lupinsbleed !
jaggedbones !
FLINTSUCKERS !
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 00:59:31 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Thomas A Clarke
cris ---
tell me more abt verey.
the mills stuff looks fantastic --- 1969-70 you say?
goes to show you.
later
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.15.96 12:59:31 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 11:23:16 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: in for a pound
"Every anti-semitism, anti-niggerism, anti-moorism, that I can recall in
history was base, had its foundation in the meanest kind of envy and in
greed. It makes me sick to see you covering yourself with that filth. It
is not an arguable question, has not been arguable for at least nineteen
centuries... it is hard to see how you are going to stop the rot of your
mind and heart without a pretty thoroughgoing repudiation of what you
have spent a lot of work on."
- Basil Bunting to Pound, 1938.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 05:34:58 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Thomas A Clarke
Cris,
Thanks so much for posting the work by Neil Mills. Marvelous. I'll have to
try and find his books in libraries here, there, or somewhere.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 08:11:42 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: poetry center info/donations
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 14 Mar 1996 22:16:07 -0600 from
<twood@CONNECT.NET>
Thank you, Tim - that's great! I HOPE OTHERS FOLLOW SUIT ON THIS LIST -
I know there are a lot of publishers, manic book collectors, & poets
who'd like their stuff read out there. One of the things we'll do to
start with is make a big add-on poster roll call of all the people
who donate materials. The Mission will send you something in exchange
if you're taking books now.
Good idea about gathering info on how to set one up, though there must be
endless different ways. I bet somebody could do a good oral history
project on it, such places probably go back farther than we think.
Lee Briccetti at Poets House in NY has always been friendly & helpful,
they seem to have done pretty well & might have some ideas. They
have gotten pretty good financial backing, it seems. Beyond Baroque
has been around for a long time out in LA(?) though I don't know
much about them.
We shall see how working with a library is. For a long time we had
our sights set on downtown Providence, closer to the (mini) artist
& theater scene; plus there's a pretty active multi-arts punky funky
dada thing going downtown called AS 220. But the logistics of
renting space & protecting materials made starting in a library
more feasible. Plus it sort of happened by chance. Edwin Honig
& I discovered about 2000 copies of poetry & fiction books he
had published in the late 70s - & subsequently turned over the
operation to another publisher - sitting in a basement, still in
good condition. We arranged with this library to have sets of
25 titles each distributed free to public libraries in the state
& that formed the connection for us with this branch library.
If other states are like RI, branch public libraries are one way to
move some books (if you're not looking to sell!). Here they have
a pretty efficient delivery network covering the whole (humoungous)
state.
Besides logistics, we liked the idea of connecting quiet reading,
research, study & conversation with possibilities for performance.
Cafes & bars are some scene, but I think poetry worth its salt has to be
attended to, and then it takes you far out of the drab or homely
performance space, whatever it may be, into its own reality.
Tim, thanks again. For people still mulling this over, we would
be very grateful for your extra poetry books, recent back issues of
little mags, etc. Please email me at Henry_Gould@brown.edu, or write
to me at The Poetry Mission, POB 2321, Providence, RI 02906 if you
have any questions about what to send, how it will be handled, etc.
All materials can be sent to the same address. Thanks - HG
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:24:38 -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: 16 Oz or
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960314221433.23749B-100000@panix3.panix.com> from
"Alan Sondheim" at Mar 14, 96 10:16:54 pm
>
> I want to bow out of this discussion. But I must say I have chronic
> depression and it does not "make me reach out for anything." And if
> Nazism is the symptom, pray, what is the cure?
>
> Yes, I read Pound; I wouldn't deny myself that. I read Celine. I don't
> have bad boys and good boys. But I read through, not around, Nazism, just
> as I have to have an informed reading of Heidegger say for my own work.
>
> I would be careful about all this excusing fascism. Perhaps all fascists
> in Germany and Italy were chronically depressed?
>
> Alan
Not to try and keep you in this, Alan, but one parting observation--
you're right, neither illness nor depression seem very relevant here.
The way Robin Blaser taught Pound (it was him I first read Pound with
30 years ago) was as symptomatic of the dis-ease of our deeply
troubled times that drives so many lively minds, in their turn towards
"utopian" remedies to our historical malaise, to become
inhuman--Blake's Druids. Where "to build the city of Dioce whose
terraces are the colour of stars" gets you. And where not building it
gets you.
Mike
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:55:10 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jonathan A Levin <jal17@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: in for a pound
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPP.3.91-941213.960315105151.5716A-100000@pahang.dur.ac.uk>
Someone referred earlier to Charles Bernstein's essay on Pound in A
Poetics, and I thought it worth quoting two lines at this point: "When
Pound the great artist is excused for his politics, fascism has won.
When Pound's politics are used to categorically discredit the
compositional methods of his poetry, fascism has won" (p. 126). Nicely
put.
It's extraordinary how utterly complicitous Pound can make us feel. The
problem with Pound is that he's such a magnificent reader: he's a dream
student, going out and digging things up and then making them his,
swinging them into his orbit, setting them in motion in new and
provocative ways. This, I take it, is what Bernstein means by the
compositional method (it's also, I think, a reading method: which is where
Kathryne Lindberg's terrific Reading Pound Reading: Modernism After
Nietzsche converges with a postmodern, Language-ish Pound). Being a good
reader, being a magnificent reader, and being a genuine revolutionary of
poetic form, has nothing at all to do with being good. It makes you
wonder what it is we have to teach, exactly: sentimental cliches about
fellow feeling and peace? (We are the world and the like.)
Pound, I think, is a tremendous challenge. All I know about him, for
myself, is that it's better to face such a challenge than to turn from
it, to appreciate its many-sidedness, good and ill. How could anyone so
smart, so talented, so full of lively intelligence, be so stupid, so
simple-minded, so inhuman? No answer required.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:56:46 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Karen or Peter Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or (bow outs)
Alan,
I suspect you will never really bow out, this runs too deep.
I have similar problems with Edmund Spenser, so I understand your emotion.
There is also a lot of gaybashing and racism in other work by modernists.
Edward Dorn, for instance, even though he denies it, upset my sense of
justice, making Slinger seem like macho psuedo-intellectual rambling. It
is true that "anyone can use logic to justify his emotions" (Twain). I
realize my perspective is always colored by feelings.
It's easier to villify poets who write poorly. Modernism didn't have a Byron
to write pastiches and lampoons. Maybe it would have helped.
Another reason this is a problem, for others probably as much as me, is
because I want to draw a historical lineage. It's naive, I know, but the
line from my favorite poets back to Whitman goes through Pound. If I look
at it: Whitman - Pound - Zukofsky - Olson - (here it explodes into various
Black Mountain and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E people), I can see where the weakest
link is in the chain. It is Pound. Compare any part of the Cantos to any
part of "A" or Maximus, it really pales in comparison. And I don't know
but it seems "A" was started before the Cantos and would have existed without
the Cantos, however it was EP who told Poetry magazine to look into LZ, then
LZ did the "Objectivism" issue and brought in many on his coattails. And there
are certain techniques (indentation, repitition, lingering on the sound of
a word from another language, imbuing words with stipulated meaning) that
are forceful and effective. These techniques are also used by other prop-
agandists, of course. And neo-beat neo-poetry has been airing a lot on ads
for beer and jeans lately. Ad writers and speechwriters probably take great
pride in their skill ... and when I make money as a tech writer I pull in
my esthetic of simplicity. (a tangent, sorry)
The lineage I draw includes Pound. This does not mean that I condone him.
He was sick, he was hospitalized for 20 years, he was punished. His karma
includes this thread, which has been running for 50 years and will continue.
Frankly, I wish LZ had done something to upset people enough to talk about
him to the same degree. Each time I see a young poet discover LZ and ask
"how come nobody ever mentions this, it's awesome" I realize that the adage
continues to hold: infamy is better than no fame at all.
Two more points (not directed at Alan in particular):
Never say let's *not* talk about some poet on poetics. We'll end up with
three weeks of that poet above all others.
Never say _such-and-such_ is a bad word, for the same reason.
That said, let's *not* talk about Zukofsky; "objectivism" is a bad word. :)
peace (I can't even resist breaking my own rules!),
Peter Landers
landers@vivanet.com
Alan, I want to give you a hug! I *know* where you're coming from.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:54:49 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: the postman...
(ok, don't read this if you ain't seen the film)
chris s., seems to me in that last post of yours---which i found really
useful & provocative---you've suggested reasons for liking *il postino* so
thoroughly (and i'm thinking out loud): that the young man becomes
absorbed with neruda in part b/c he mistakes the poet(ic) for the
person(al), and that neruda becomes absorbed with the young man in part b/c
he mistakes the person(al) for the body politic(al)... neruda/poetry for
the young man is initially merely a means to making love, and the young man
for neruda is initially merely a political gesture to reach (another)
'ordinary' man (like the miner he mentions)...
what makes the film so intriguing for me is how the personal gradually
intrudes upon this reductive poet=person or person=political formula... in
the scene where the young man attempts to rationalize neruda's abandoning
him, what's really happening as i see it is that he's finally taking
responsibility for his actions... i mean, it's clear he *knows* he's
rationalizing at one level, but on another this is necessary, vital to his
self-identity... ergo he forges a poetry of the island's sounds---a found
poetry---a poetry of the ordinary that constitutes a gift in exchange NOT
for the gift that neruda has given (and taken away)---guidance---but in
exchange for neruda's friendship... in a sense, the young man is actually
*befriending* neruda as an equal... if the social action that precipitates
the young man's death is part poetry reading and part coming to age, it is
also a public act of friendship (hence his poem's title has neruda's name
in it) ...
but what really makes the film for me is its conclusion... as i read this
emotional sequence, neruda is struck with the recognition that poetry
constitutes neither pure political (-marxist) statement, nor pure aesthetic
achievement (we never get to see the young man's poem)... in the final few
moments, it seems to me (and with due regard for the lines from neruda with
which the film concludes) poetry is understood as part of a larger social
context that brings with it certain responsibilities... and neruda
understands that he's reneged on his responsibility---not to politics or to
poetry, but to the young man, the person who's implicated in both... the
insight would seem to be that, however personal or political, poetry per se
matters less than the person who writes it or reads it... and a thing more:
that poetry can represent as much an avoidance of our responsibility in
this regard as a means of addressing same... and for neruda to realize
this---again?---as an older man--- well, i found it astonishing, and
astonishingly rendered...
sorry for going on some, but that's a rough approximation of the way i saw
the flick...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:18:46 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: Re: Pound takes a "Ding" -Returns a "Dong"
Somewhere along the line of the deja vu Pound discussions comes the statement
"there seem to be no women in his circles" as against his extraordinary
elevation of the young H.D. as the exemplary Imagist poet, his promotion of
the work of Moore and Mina Loy very early along -- however anyone might
want to explain that away. It is interesting to consider too how the
most telling impact of his work -- the most vital influence -- was precisely
on poets who politically, morally, might have been at the greatest distance
from it. I mean particulary in my generation and beyond. I take it that
this is Pound's legacy also -- in the strange way that these things work.
Jerome Rothenberg
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 12:30:44 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: West coast trip
Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville
Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu
I'll be in San Diego the evening of Th. March 28, and either there or LA the
evening of Fri. March 29. Anyone know of readings / performances / other
interesting stuff going on either place on those dates?
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 12:34:00 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: ghost titles
In-Reply-To: <960314201627_351491374@mail02.mail.aol.com>
Don't know if these would count, but
I recall seeing Thomas Pynchon's VINELAND listed in a prepublication
*Books in Print* as *Vineland, Volume 1."
And wasn't Pynchon supposed to be writing a Civil War novel?
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 12:33:03 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or (bow outs)
From a post from Karen or Peter Land:
Frankly, I wish LZ had done something to upset people enough to talk about
him to the same degree. Each time I see a young poet discover LZ and ask
"how come nobody ever mentions this, it's awesome" I realize that the adage
continues to hold: infamy is better than no fame at all.
I'm not at all certain about this. Sometimes I think it's the hateful work
which, in part, comes out of the desire for fame, notoriety, etc. Has being
famous helped anyone's work? Would it have made LZ a more interesting poet?
Has it made Michael Jackson a better songwriter/performer? Has it helped Bob
Dylan?
True, it does seem necessary to get noticed, and I think of some of the
finest work of our moment being done by people who aren't all that good at
getting noticed, such as Bev Dahlen, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and M. Nourbese
Philip (thanks to Paul Naylor for suggesting this last writer). And I would
like them to have more attention, but I'm also concerned that having a lot
of fame/notoriety might not help their work at all.
I don't mean I want writers to be unnoticed, just that fame takes a price
probably at least equal to what it gives.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 13:08:06 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Dan Machlin <S29CC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: New Reading Series at Segue
The Segue Foundation will host the following readings/events at its Segue Perfo
rmance Space located at 303 E. 8th Street, NY, NY (bet. aves B&C)212/674-0199
THURSDAY, March 21, 7:30 Joe Elliot/Barbara Henning
SATURDAY, March 30, 10ish New York City Poetry Talks Book Party and Social
(hosted by Rob Fitterman)
FRIDAY, April 12, 7:30 Jeff Prant's "Slide Show of America"/Tim Davis "Poems ab
out Photographs"
Three Weeks of New Fictives /THURSDAYS, 7:30
4/18 Lauren Sanders/Angela Himsel; 4/25 Linda Solomon/Leslie Daniels; 5/2 Eliss
a Schappell/Susan Sherman
TUESDAY, May 7th,7:30 LIVE FROM THE WEST COAST! Dodie Bellamy/Kevin Killian
THURSDAY, May 9th,7:30 Segue Sponsored Event at Hebrew Union College-Brookdale
Center 1 West 4th Street(near W.Bway)Rob Fitterman/Kim Rosenfield/Hugh Seidman
All events Free|| For more info. mail me at this address or at 212/674-0199
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 12:50:55 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: battling the other
Re; Goulds comments on the Harlem Ren. and CS on Baraka
I take it that these issues aren't important enough to be dealt with
on this list, that people are too intent on defining themselves,
others and the like. Our passion for categorization, life neatly
sectioned into graspable sanctions, has led to an unforeseen
paradoxical distress; confusion, a breakdown of meaning into THAT
WHICH CAN ONLY BE DEFINEC. The aim has become to reduse all writers to
the compulsive, bloodless dimensions of a moniker or an empty sign
(which ever fits your terminology better). The proper name is merely
artifice. Baraka has indirectly given many their freedom through his
audacity to say that which needs to be said. Most of the writers
avoided in the academe', oh say Kenneth Patchen as another particular,
are refused status because the force of the WORD as a power of
revolution, one which builds and destroys countries, has been
forgotten or not accepted as an important aspect and function of
writing. While the academy of the future might have been opening its
doors at that time, the door was one of singular speech variety: one
that didn't offend the american sense of progress limited to the
social arena, one which was divested of overarching human concerns
such as poverty, violence, or slums for the sole sake of retaining the
cloud of statistical safety.
David Baratier
As the inner fails, people run desperately to the post-office.
-Thoreau
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 13:42:57 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Dan Machlin <S29CC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject: Additional Readings at Segue
Sorry folks, my list of Segue Performance Space Readings got too big for my scr
reen. Here are those additions: these all on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at 303 E. 8t
h Street between Avenues B&C. Refreshments. All free except BIG ALLIS event.
THURSDAY, May 16th, 7:30 p.m. Bill Luoma/Deirdre Kovac
THURSDAY, May 23rd, 7:30 p.m.
Blockbuster Reading to celebrate BIG ALLIS # 7 (Modest Contribution)
Release Party Reading Hosted by Melanie Neilson: featuring Bruce Andrews, Marti
ne Bellen, Abigail Child, Ulla Dydo, Rob Fitterman, Elizabeth Fodaski, Deirdre
Kovac, Jena Osman, Joan Retallack, Kim Rosenfield, Juliana Spahr &Hannah Weiner
THURSDAY, June 6th, 7:30 p.m. Special Gay Pride Week Presentation
Mark McBeth - Lecture: THE QUEENS' ENGLISH: The Forms and Function of Gaylect
With New Video Work and Special Guest t.b.a.
Thursday, June 13th, 7:30 p.m. Sharon Lattig/Krysia Jopek
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 16:14:13 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Watts <cwatts@SFU.CA>
Subject: Action Derrida (et al) francaise
Guyzies, this lookt interesting in light of the recent discussion
around Derrida:
Forwarded message: > From owner-english-dept Fri Mar 15 13:42
> >>>Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 16:22:01 -0600 (CST)
> >>>From: anderson kevin <tk0kxa1@corn.cso.niu.edu>
> >>>Subject: French Intellectuals and Political Engagement
> >>>Sender: owner-psn@csf.colorado.edu
> >>>To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
> >>>Reply-to: tk0kxa1@corn.cso.niu.edu
> >>>MIME-version: 1.0
> >>>Precedence: bulk
> >>>X-To: progressive sociologists <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
> >>>
> >>>The following commentary on "French Intellectuals and Political
> >>>Engagement" by Kevin Anderson, Department of Sociology, Northern
> >>>Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, was broadcast on KPFK-FM
> >>>(Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles) on Febuary 12, 1996:
> >>>
> >>> At a time when French thought - from deconstruction to post-
> >>>structuralism to difference feminism - continues strongly to
> >>>influence radical thought in the U. S., especially in academic circles,
> >>>there is a curious omission in much of the U. S. reception of these
> >>>French thinkers. Here in the U. S., the work of these thinkers is
> >>>often presented as if it were cut off from the social and political
> >>>engagement which marked earlier generations of French
> >>>intellectuals.
> >>> Such a reception is distorted, as can be seen by the intense
> >>>involvement of French intellectuals in a number of current political
> >>>issues, including, most recently, the massive anti-austerity strikes
> >>>of last December, which at their peak brought over 2 million
> >>>disaffected workers and students onto the streets of Paris and other
> >>>cities. The strikers forced the conservative Chirac-Juppe
> >>>government to withdraw most of a series of budget cuts which
> >>>would have drastically lowered the standard of living of public
> >>>employees. While the December strikes were reported at least
> >>>sporadically by the American mass media, the involvement of
> >>>leading French intellectuals in the strike has been passed over in
> >>>silence.
> >>> At the beginning of the labor protests, a few progressive
> >>>intellectuals criticized the strikers and tacitly supported the
> >>>austerity plan. These included the sociologist Alain Touraine, who
> >>>called the government measures "courageous", the philosopher and
> >>>human rights activist Bernard-Henri Levy, who termed the strikers a
> >>>privileged special interest group, and the editorial board of the left
> >>>of center Catholic journal Esprit.
> >>> These efforts to distance progressive intellectuals from the
> >>>workers met with a furious reaction from hundreds of other well-
> >>>known intellectuals of the left. By December 4, over 500 leading
> >>>intellectuals, including the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, a professor
> >>>at the prestigious Coll=E8ge de France, where luminaries such as
> >>>Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault once held professorships,
> >>>had organized an "Appeal to Intellectuals in Support of the Strikers."
> >>>The intellectuals' appeal spoke of "our responsibility to affirm
> >>>publicly our solidarity with ...this movement, which has nothing to
> >>>do with the defense of special interests and still less that of
> >>>privileges. In fighting for their social rights, [the appeal continued],
> >>>the strikers are fighting for equal rights for all: women and men,
> >>>young and old, unemployed and employed, public employees and those
> >>>working in the private sector, immigrants and French men and
> >>>women." Among the other signers of the appeal were the
> >>>deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida, Regis Debray, the
> >>>companion of Che Guevara in Bolivia during the 1960s, the feminist
> >>>philosopher Christine Delphy, the Trotsky biographer Pierre Broue,
> >>>the Marxist theorist Michael L=F6wy, and the historian Pierre Vidal-
> >>>Naquet.
> >>> Pierre Bourdieu also addressed a large meeting of workers on
> >>>the evening of December 12, following the demonstrations of over 2
> >>>million. "This crisis is a historic chance," Bourdieu said, "for France
> >>>and for all those who refuse the new choice given to us: free market
> >>>liberalism or barbarism." He castigated experts who, "using the
> >>>authority of science, especially economics," tell us that "they know
> >>>what is best for people, even when it goes against the popular will."
> >>>Today's economic and social problems, Bourdieu concluded, "are too
> >>>important to be left to technocrats." In France, a country where the
> >>>opinions of intellectuals carry greater weight than in the U. S.,
> >>>Bourdieu's speech was reported on the front page of the country's
> >>>leading newspaper, Le Monde.
> >>> This "return" by French intellectuals to political engagement
> >>>has been building all through the 1990s. Over the last few years, a
> >>>number of leading intellectuals have spoken out forcefully against
> >>>the genocide in Bosnia, and against a series of draconian and racist
> >>>anti-immigration laws passed by the French government.
> >>> The philosopher Jacques Derrida is a good example of this
> >>>engagement in the 1990s. In the last few years, Derrida has
> >>>(1)strongly supported the Bosnian cause, (2)campaigned on behalf of
> >>>the feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, still under a death sentence by
> >>>Islamic clerics in her native Bangladesh, (3)spoken out against
> >>>racism in France and abroad. With regard to racism, of particular
> >>>note was Derrida's lengthy August 1995 article, carried on page one
> >>>of Le Monde, on behalf of African-American writer Mumia Abu-
> >>>Jamal, who still faces a death sentence in Philadelphia. Derrida
> >>>lashed out at the State of Pennsylvania "for wanting to offer more
> >>>'Black blood' in a racist frenzy, and this in a state which dares to
> >>>boast of being the place where the U. S. Constitution was written, a
> >>>Constitution whose letter and spirit it violates daily." In his 1993
> >>>book, Specters of Marx, Derrida also pointed to the importance of
> >>>rereading Marx today in order to understand and act upon the
> >>>cultural, economic, and social crisis. Something is definitely
> >>>stirring today among French workers and intellectuals, something of
> >>>which we need to be more aware.
> >>>
> >>
> >>-------------------------------
> >>James G. Ennis <jennis@pearl.tufts.edu>
> >>Sociology, Tufts University
> >>Medford, MA 02155 USA
> >>
> >>617 628 5000 x2473
> >>fax: 617 627 3032
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 01:02:24 +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: Thomas A Clarke / Charles Verey / Neil Mills et al
>tell me more abt verey.
well i don't know too much myself. He was an art teacher who was a member
of the Gloucestershire Group aka the Gloucestershire Ode Construction
Company, centred around Dom Sylvester Houedard. He's worth a prolonged
diversion here. Some readers here may know of Dom, a remarkable figure who
lived at Prinknash Abbey in Gloucester and went awol with his typewriter
and his sexualities every now and again and again. Perhaps most outlived
(at present - there's a huge reclamation project under way spearheaded by
Bob Cobbing and Peter Manson of the excellent 'Object Permanence') by his
simplified translation of the Basho haiku as 'frog pond plop'. Many will
recognise a fine bp nicol running gag in that one. Dom Dylvester was a
remarkably erudite man with rangey understanding of poetries, particularly
those with sonic and spatial concerns. His own typewriter poems are quite
extraordinary and I'm no way going to attempt to place one of them here. I
simply recommend that you track them down. He prolifically translated and
mis-translated, in particular from the Chinese. He archived assiduously.
Charles Verey edited the best collection I know of (ceolfrith 15) dedicated
to his work from which 2 poems:
streets go
BOTH
crazy ways
at once.
if this hp
soul were a
portable
id take it ev
rywhere
beaches choir buses
bluecinemas and chap
termeetings
cafes innerspace
& play
it full blast
the second is dated 1963
this poem
all it represents
what
?
______________________________
this transvestite poem parading about in somebody else's prose
________________________________________________________________
my mind
transparent this
between
here.
So that's a mere taste of Dom. Verey ran a small press called South Street.
Neil Mills and Thomas A Clark were both also members of this
Gloucestershire network. The poet John Wilkinson acknowledges this as his
start-off patch in the early seventies. Thomas A Clark edited a little mag
call 'bo-heem-e-um' and its no.3. january 1968 edition was a Charles Verey
(rare as hens' teeth) special. Much of his work is so spatially set (often
angled) as to be no use in thise space. It's work that unsettles me by dint
of a sentimental undertow within a seeming arcane stream. But i'll post a
couple of more robust bits - (this is from a booklet 'some soundings' of
1970) i can only exerpt what's feasible [chunks are missing]:
POEM ZERO (for Tom)
Rose no more
Fat Bastard - who cares?
Squirrel seen rarely so
yr beechnuts rise into
this ether
newly brother
light even
tangible in
tubes and
meander
thro' clouds
Red was it
roses are red
be hanged . fat
Moon meaning
thrown into running water
fortunes . that easy . of gold
Black is colour
of love
some . more azure
some . more green
some . more umber
[ . . .]
trine tarry
a ritual
that burn
and the little mist that rise , above the holme
AND GROAN
crackle as timber
stakes MALT by
former
skills
of terraces
particles
dust and scorpion lanes
fingered before the
holocaust
slide
and across the water
glimmer the fail line
of two planets
[ . . . ]
blood rumba beating in the suburb blood
rumba in the beating suburb blood
rumba beating in the blood
in the rumba blood
blood rumba
blood
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 17:10:12 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: AN: Aldon Nielsen: BAD
In-Reply-To: <199603150544.AAA00675@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
no way to part Baraka's petics from his politics -- But, have to read
things like _Rays, Raise etc._ and the essay that was titled (not by
Baraka) "Confessions of an Ex-Anti Semite" -- alongside Stalinist verse
of late 70s,,, alongside, in turn, more lyric pieces that appeared
throughout -- Can't abide the antismitism of the earlier pieces, the
homophobia of same period, the Stalinism that still appears from time to
time,,, nor can I simply read around them as if they weren't there --
Have somehow to account for all of these appearing in the same man's life
-- not easily accomplished ["poetics" for "petics" above]
If one risks thinking out loud, one must be prepared to take
repsonsibility for that loud thought (& Baraka has always been, as an
early poem put it, loud on the changing of his ways)
Derrida's remarks on the reading of Nietzche in his _The Ear of the
Other_ have much to offer this discussion that so many are bowing out of --
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 20:25:48 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: ghost titles
then there's the dreaded book by Harold Bloom--
FREUD: TRANSFERENCE AND AUTHORITY......
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 17:25:44 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: AN: Aldon Nielsen: BAD
>Derrida's remarks on the reading of Nietzche in his _The Ear
>of the Other_ have much to offer this discussion that so many
>are bowing out of --
now that things have calmed down, i'm bowing back in.
i think it's very clear where i stand on the whole subject. if i may,
i wld like to elaborate.
that asshole pound was terribly hurt by the death of his dear friend
gaudier-brzseska in WWI. WWI was perceived (rightly) as the deathknell
of an entire civilization. even yeats flirted w/ fascism. wyndham lewis.
they were all grasping at straws because everything they knew had just
been shown to be bullshit. i can't imagine how painful that must have
been for these people.
i'd rather talk abt what fascism IS than talk abt how LOUSY it is ---
we all agree on that, we all want to see an end to injustice and
blind hatred.
fascism as i understand it is a combination of several things:
nationalism, deep concern w/ roots
charles olson
wc williams
belief in and insistence upon racial purity
castigate zukofsky for agreeing w/ "purifying the
language of the tribe"
coupled w/ racial/sexual intolerance
kill the hip-hop artists
exclusionism
get rid of the anthologists
bizzare distortions of history
anyone who insists their cultural (in the widest possible
sense of the word) ancestry is free from evil
mysticism
robert duncan
robert kelly
jack spicer
john donne
wm blake
christopher smart
abu abulafia
paul celan
blaming one's own problems on The Other
everybody alive on this earth from the beginning
of history
proto-fascists, each and every one of the above named.
okay. hitler was a vegetarian therefore all vegetarians partake in
his madness to some degree.
goebbels was a dope fiend so heroin addicts?
fascism is one of the most recent of our blights. we HAVE to discuss
it, but let's please try to discuss it w/o rancor no matter how
much we hate it, otherwise we just end up getting pissed at each other,
people bow out and nothing gets learned.
i enjoy this list very much, and hope my outbursts have not alienated
anybody.
thanks
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.15.96 5:25:45 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 21:16:24 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: AN: Aldon Nielsen: BAD
Dear Aldon--
thanks for taking up the baraka thread....
okay, i grant you these negative things about baraka
BUT there's a couple issues here....
first, wasn't baraka closeted himself (re homophobia)....
secondly, was talking to a *friend* lately about Laura Riding's
THE WORD "WOMAN" in which at one point she makes an anti-homosexual
statement....and we decided to "historicize" and "contextualize" it
(in terms of her "project") as making a valid point about the
homosocial qualities of the heterosexual male dominated canon and/or
culture industry.....
But the more important question I think needs to be raised, re WHOEVER
(Baraka, Pound, Riding) is a question of OUR stance, and also of the
the relationship between it and criticism of others. It's pretty damn
easy and done over and over again recently to speak from a perspective
of IMPLIED values ("liberal" and "democratic"?)--and this is not targeted
at Aldon btw--and reactively critique the "great masters" for flaws in
their politics. And this is a necessary step perhaps towards self-
definition. Yet it seems so many are not going beyond it. Part of the
MALAISE I see in academia and perhaps the poetry world is this FEAR
of taking a stance. Alot of stuff I'm reading seems to have this attitude
that "THOSE NAIVE MODERNISTS, those naive beats," back in the days when
people really believed in such silly things as saying things, or even
creating the illusion of immanence, or something....
related to this is the question of p.c. type verse....
probably one of the reasons the pound/baraka threads have been so HEATED
is because there's passionate attachment and/or investment to the work
(Pound: "can't move 'em with a cold thing like economics"--all writing
is hero worship, etc.)--much of which has to do with PERSONALITY....
now there was the ANTI-PERSONALITY movement, the trouble with DUNCAN
and GINSBERG, etc--that was perhaps born out of a recognition of the
analogy with such differentiation on a personal level with a need for
HEIRARCHIES which becomes disturbing on a "political" level. And since
the personal is the political, therefore any admission even on aesthetic
and/or subjective/psychological plane of the need for heirarchies is
problematic and proto-fascist. I think such a rational needs to be
rethought--it definitely accounts for why so many L poets don't write
about things like LOVE and marriage from any kind of immanent perpsective
--that becomes consigned to the margins and ironically the art/life
distinction THICKENS (with usury?)....
If we look at Pound from the perspective of a poet dissatisfied with the
tepid PC qualities of his day (which he saw in ROOSEVELT, who for us
of course is far better than CLINTON---WPA stuff etc...) and remember
that he was looking for JEFFERSON and had to settle for MUSSOLINI, and
that perhaps it was done out of a feeling of powerlessness--despite how
POUND is now served up as a cultural authority (Oh yikes, I really didn't
want to get into pound again....), we may not be able to REDEEM him, but
at least we can see why it's NOT JUST THE FORMAL QUALITIES OF HIS WORK
that make him a more potentially subversive poet than the so-called
liberal stuff that gets in the NEW REPUBLIC or THE NATION.....
But Baraka is (as Emily Lloyd brought up) a different issue because there
is a LOT more empowering on a strictly political level to him....
sometimes I wonder if the critical attitude of superiority is not a form
of censorship---and if that's the case why not THROW OUT EVERYBODY.....
Ginsberg is AT LEAST as compromised as Baraka, for instance....
I mean why not dwell on the good Baraka did, does---
or is there a fear of that VULGAR MARXISM again,
or does it come to close to home....
that maybe looking at BARAKA and seeing his failure, we retreat into
the academy, and then convince ourselves it's not a retreat. And maybe
it isn't. But Baraka went to jail to help blacks, not to bash gays....
Yeah, he failed. Well, we fail too--especially if we side with the
boring drab academic drudges AGAINST the barakas of the world.....
I'm not saying anybody here necessarily is. But if you can't change
anybody's mind (shades of alfred corn!), at least there can be unity
in diversity. I used to be involved in local political groups in the
early 80's and we always got into arguments over the one or two things
that divided us. That attests I think more to the NEED FOR ARGUMENT
than anything. And though Lou Reed sang that song to Jesse Jackson
about common ground (great guitar playing, LOU!) about "common ground",
I still would rather accentuate the positive when it comes to Baraka....
Just as Susan Howe wrote HER Emily Dickinson.
As Rod Smith says "you take what you need and leave the rest...."
........okay, i contradict myself...i am contained by multitudes....
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 21:19:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wendy Battin <wjbat@CONNCOLL.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
In-Reply-To: <199603150544.AAA00675@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Sorry, been away, and am only on digest lately. But where can I find
Perelman's piece on EP? It's always seemed important to me to keep
him in mind, both as great poet and as vicious politician--a warning that
poetry doesn't make us what we'd like to think it does. Also a very
personal warning to the autodidact and the isolated bright against the
arrogance that comes with that territory--I wasn't born in Idaho in the
19th C., but grew up where his "I don't imagine America has any more
idiots per capita than anywhere else" (loosely from memory) was a perverse
comfort. Bad news. All that mostly entertaining early rage had to go
somewhere, and there were plenty of hate-machines to absorb it. Still are.
While I sympathize with Alan's refusal, I don't think it's safe to ignore
this man, to rub him out of memory before we've taken him in. And his poetry
caught me young & still shakes me--Pisan Cantos, yes, also Rock Drill & many
others--to the point where I can't stop asking, ever, who can afford to
hide in talent or even in genius.
Wendy
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 21:29:34 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's talk about fascists, bay-bee...
Dear Wendy Battin---
Perelman's main writing on POUND is in "THE TROUBLE WITH GENIUS"
(U-CAl Press, 1995, or is it 94?). He also had some essay on POUND
and CELINE in an earlier form in POETICS JOURNAL.....
I sat in on a course with him at U-Penn in 1990 on Pound and Stein
and it was quite brilliant---really did close readings of ABC of
READING and GUIDE TO KULCHUR as if they were POEMS rather than "prose"---
---c, stroffolino
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:57:31 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: poetry center info/donations
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96031414333870@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Henry, considering the location ("Cranston near the city line") might I
suggest you name the poetry center after that son of Providence, Ted
Berrigan?
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:58:06 +0300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
In-Reply-To: <m0twzan-000MOFC@slip.net>
> At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>
> >What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside
his "genius mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
> Steve Carll answered:
> It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
>
> Hi!
It could be that simple if we make it so. One of the methods I've used
is just refuse to teach him to my students, and have stopped reading him
a long time ago. From my point of view and that of many of my colleagues
and students, as well as poets\critics around the world - Ezra Pound has
already been buried alongside his "genius" friends, Hitler and Mussolini.
Please don't resurrect him! He's dangerous to our world! Let's read
Wilfred Owen instead, perhaps we would bring our world one inch closer to
the world beyond war he dreamed about.
Ada Aharoni
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 03:12:49 -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: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960316104631.804A-100000@techunix.technion.ac.il>
Hey, no no no... I'm sorry, but _everyone_ should be read; the world is
too complex to do a repeat cleansing. I've read Mein Kampf, Goebbels'
Michael, most of Celine, a lot of Pound. If we're going to ever
comprehend what we ourselves are, and not just our "evil" selves, the
last thing we need is censorship. (And we should not read _X_ say "just
for" the politics or to reprimand, violate - my own relationship to
Heidegger is much more complex than that, for example, breaking out in
other, productive directions.)
To censor, is to give in; as someone else has pointed out, the fascists
have won.
There is another issue, incapable of resolution, needing discussion in
the classroom, and that is the relationship of _any_ biographical infor-
mation to the written texts of an author. This can't be passed over; I
read Celine _cold,_ engrossed, sensing a violence towards myself, a vio-
lence towards him, a Europe that Heiner Muller built on. I would never
say, don't read Celine; I would say, read him _most of all_ - how else
to comprehend the abject, ressentiment, burial?
Alan
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Ada Aharoni wrote:
> > At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
> >
> > >What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside
> his "genius mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
>
> > Steve Carll answered:
> > It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
> >
> > Hi!
> It could be that simple if we make it so. One of the methods I've used
> is just refuse to teach him to my students, and have stopped reading him
> a long time ago. From my point of view and that of many of my colleagues
> and students, as well as poets\critics around the world - Ezra Pound has
> already been buried alongside his "genius" friends, Hitler and Mussolini.
> Please don't resurrect him! He's dangerous to our world! Let's read
> Wilfred Owen instead, perhaps we would bring our world one inch closer to
> the world beyond war he dreamed about.
>
> Ada Aharoni
>
With some new texts and image files -
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 00:07:56 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
but, ada, fascism didn't just suddenly spring into existence because
of the minds of the "geniuses" you'd like to eradicate --- didn't stalin
and mao love to rewrite history? --- it was and is a product of several
thousand years of human history. don't you think it wld be better to try to
undertsand why fascism exists instead of sweeping it under the carpet where
it can fester and erupt again? the more we look at fascism, the more we
expose it, the less of a chance it has of gripping our lives. bt we can not
simply point a finger and accuse: we have to do our best to understand,
even if that understanding may be very painful. because ultimately
don't we have to examine our very souls for the seeds of fascism?
yrs ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 12:07:56 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:05:20 +0300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960316002720.Chris@kunos>
> but, ada, fascism didn't just suddenly spring into existence because
> of the minds of the "geniuses" you'd like to eradicate --- didn't stalin
....>
> chris
SORRY, HAVE NO TIME OR USE FOR READING ABOUT DESTRUCTIVENESS, FASCISM AND
HATRED. I PREFER TO USE MY READING TIME FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ISSUES, AND
LEARNING ABOUT NEW FIELDS IN POETRY THAT HAVE NOT BEEN OVER-KILLED BY
USELESS "BADINAGE". I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO READ MORE "WOMEN POETRY",
"BLACK POETRY," "THIRD WORLD POETRY," "PEACE POETRY" ETC. WHY BOTHER WITH
THE LIKES OF NAZI POUND? > -------------------------------------
>
> q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
> said anything goes?"
> --- charles wourinen (?)
>
> a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
>
> --- george clinton
>
> snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
> voice: 510.524.5972
> http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:19:23 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Dom Sylvester Houedard
In-Reply-To: <199603160504.FAA08717@hermes.dur.ac.uk>
And it's good to see dsh cropping up on the list. The Ceolfrith
publication must be long gone by now, as are other Ceolfrith publications
of that time including my own, but there's still a chance to get the dsh
special issue of words worth magazine (same outfit that did Carlyle
Reedy's book) - that's :
words worth books
BM Box 4515
London WC1N 3XX
- but dammit, I can't find the price! "write for further details"...
By the way - let's have that superfluous e off the end of Thomas A.
Clark's name! He only put the "A" in to avoid confusion with a
similarly-named US literary figure...
signed,
The Librarian
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 04:01:40 -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: Re: 16 Oz or (bow outs)
Charles Alexander writes:
"True, it does seem necessary to get noticed, and I think of some of
the finest work of our moment being done by people who aren't all that
good at getting noticed, such as Bev Dahlen, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and
M. Nourbese Philip (thanks to Paul Naylor for suggesting this last
writer). And I would like them to have more attention, but I'm also
concerned that having a lot of fame/notoriety might not help their work
at all.
"I don't mean I want writers to be unnoticed, just that fame takes a
price probably at least equal to what it gives."
Charles,
I'd add you to that list of poets who deserve much more wide exposure
(not exactly the same as notoriety).
Watching Ginsberg at Stanford last year (as distinct from at Naropa the
year before), I realize that this is a man who never gets to read to an
intimate audience, an audience where he knows a large portion of the
readers first hand, an audience that even knows his work all that well,
simply because of his fame (a cynical take on which can be found in
Spicer's work). It seems like a lot to give up, frankly.
So, who can introduce me to the work of M. Nourbese Philip? This is a
new name to me. Books, quotes, etc?
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 05:32:14 -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: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
Wendy,
"I wasn't born in Idaho in the 19th C., but..."
Don't blame Idaho. Pound was very much a creature of the Philadelphia
suburbs (going to Penn was not going "away"). At the end of his life he
refers to his anti-semitism as a "suburban prejudice" and I fear that
there's much more truth in that than we can to admit. I.e., it was (is)
not his problem alone.
I've been depressed by this entire discussion, frankly.
The discussion on Baraka has been interesting, but it seems like so
much of this is just re-opening old wounds and pain. I'm sympathetic to
Alan Sondheim but wonder if there is ever any way out of that cycle of
pain for people who have been or feel victimized.
How women might feel about Carl Andre.... (or Bill Burroughs or Jack
Spicer or...)
How people who were sexually abused (or who have young sons) might feel
about Ginsberg and Hakim Bey's activities on behalf of NAMBLA
How people might feel about all that sexual come on (almost a form of
stalking) that goes on in the correspondence of a Dahlberg or even an
Olson...
The problem of making a "perfect revolution" (to loop back into 30 year
old language for a moment) is that we are, all of us, starting off from
a condition of damage that history has brought to us and that we carry
within ourselves in many different ways. The problem is not the "other
guy's (or gal's)." The problem is us.
Every heterosexual I've ever met (myself included) who was not
homophobic seems to have been personally educated by a specific gay man
or lesbian who helped them (me) to understand the world in a new way
For this education in my life, I thank David Melnick.
But I can remember just how macho the antiwar movement in the 1960s
was, both homophobic and just plain sexist. It seems unimaginable now
but was simply unquestioned then until some people actively stood up
and did question it.
And those were people who were trying to make a better world...
So I wonder just how good a job I can do as a father helping my own
sons not to carry that problem (homophobia) in their own lives, knowing
how much of it they will get in school, from friends, etc. Not to
mention racism, anti-semitism, sexism, agism, the whole shebang. Do we
all have to learn these lessons over again and again, each person from
scratch?
It ain't easy...
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:50:17 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
In-Reply-To: <199603161332.FAA03675@ix15.ix.netcom.com>
Ron's post reminded me of one Chinese traditional theory of reading the
Odes, which was meant to justify/explain the inclusion of certain
"lascivious songs," the Odes of Zheng (which Pound described as 'a sort
of crooning or boogie-woogie'), anyway, the problem was to reconcile the
presence of immoral poems within a moral text. the solution offered by
the Song neo-Confucian Zhu Xi was that, by reading these immoral odes,
you could experience immoral thoughts and, having internalized them, you
would be prepared and able to defend yourself against the immoral acts
that might be the consequence when circumstances caused you to have the
immoral thoughts, i.e.,
reading Pound one enters into the consciousness of a fascist and perhaps,
as a consequence, can recognize fascism in one's own self. or
antisemitism or homophobia or whatever the condition.
I wouldn't want to suggest that the only justification for reading Pound
is prophylaxis (now I sound like Pound) but it is one way to deal with
the fascism. in any case, this century* is defined by the two mirror
ideologies of fascism and communism, our art will also be understood by
the future in their context, and in this sense we'll be in the same boat
as Dante and that awful medieval Catholicism.
* the one that's finally almost over
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 07:12:41 -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: Fwd: The poetry of Lenore Kandel (fwd)
This showed up on the Sixties List this morning. Please contact Karen
directly (I don't think she's on this list, so a "reply" won't work).
Ron
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karen Kling <KK15968@swt.edu>
Subject: The poetry of Lenore Kandel
Hi. Does anyone know where I can get a copy of poems by Lenore Kandel?
She
was a popular Haight Ashbury poet who wrote a book of Love Poems that
was seized
in the late 1960's for being too explicit. I am currently doing
research on
the writinngs of those who were there at the start of the Haight Ashbur
phenomenon. I would appreciate any information.
-Karen Kling
kk15968@academia.swt.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:13:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wendy Battin <wjbat@CONNCOLL.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's talk about
In-Reply-To: <199603160521.AAA16637@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Dear Chris Stroffolino,
many thanks for the Perelman info
Wendy
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:27:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Golumbia <dgolumbi@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
Thanks Ron -- once again, you've summarized a vitally important
"theoretical" issue without even one time using theoretical language,
achieving a level of clarity and directness that even the best cultural
theory, for me, sometimes lacks (is *this* what being a language poet, or
an "M poet," etc., means??)
At any rate, for those with a taste for MORE theoretical language, and back
to the D. word again, several of Derrida's recent works (I'm thinking of OF
SPIRIT, POINTS, "At this very moment in this work here I am," MEMOIRES FOR
PAUL DE MAN, "'Passions': An Oblique Offering," THE OTHER HEADING, &c &c)
offer a series of reflections on this topic with regard to figures like de
Man & Heidegger that strike me as very much in line with Ron's comments &
those of some others. Also cf. Gayatri Spivak's "Responsibility" in
_boundary 2_.
I agree with those who've suggested that there's no easy answer to these
issues -- & pretending there are no hard questions is one of those easy
answers that aren't.
--
dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu
David Golumbia
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 07:51:22 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
--- On Sat, 16 Mar 1996 05:32:14 -0800 Ron Silliman
<rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:
>Wendy,
>
>
>I've been depressed by this entire discussion, frankly.
I'VE BEEN ENRAGED
>The discussion on Baraka has been interesting, but it seems like so
>much of this is just re-opening old wounds and pain. I'm sympathetic to
>Alan Sondheim but wonder if there is ever any way out of that cycle of
>pain for people who have been or feel victimized.
YES, I THINK THERE IS A WAY OUT --- I FOUND MY OWN WAY OUT ---
IT WAS NOT EASY AND IT IS STILL NOT EASY
>How women might feel about Carl Andre.... (or Bill Burroughs or Jack
>Spicer or...)
>
>How people who were sexually abused (or who have young sons) might feel
>about Ginsberg and Hakim Bey's activities on behalf of NAMBLA
BEING A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ABUSE ALONG W/ MOST EVERY OTHER KIND
OF ABUSE A CHILD CAN SUFFER I AM HERE TO SAY THAT IT HAS NOT HELPED
IN MY APPRECIATION OF THEIR WORK.
>How people might feel about all that sexual come on (almost a form of
>stalking) that goes on in the correspondence of a Dahlberg or even an
>Olson...
>The problem of making a "perfect revolution" (to loop back into 30 year
>old language for a moment) is that we are, all of us, starting off from
>a condition of damage that history has brought to us and that we carry
>within ourselves in many different ways. The problem is not the "other
>guy's (or gal's)." The problem is us.
EXACTLY SO, RON, THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS SO DIRECTLY.
>Every heterosexual I've ever met (myself included) who was not
>homophobic seems to have been personally educated by a specific gay man
>or lesbian who helped them (me) to understand the world in a new way
>
>For this education in my life, I thank David Melnick.
FOR MINE I THANK ONE OF MY BEST HIGHSCHOOL FRIENDS, TED VAN WHY, WHO
CAME OUT TO ME IN 1974 --- I SAID "DON'T CARE, JUST AS LONG AS YOU DON'T
TRY TO FUCK ME." TED LOOKED AT ME, DECIDED NOT TO GET PISSED, AND SAID
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I FIND YOU ATTRACTIVE?" .
WE BEGAN TO LAUGH, AND THEN BEGAN TO TALK ABT IT. WE HAVE TO TALK ABT
THESE THINGS, BUT WE HAVE TO TALK ABT THEM W/O TOO MUCH RANCOR AND
W/ REAL SENSITIVITY TO EVERYONE ELSE'S EXPERIENCE OR WE POUR SALT IN
SOMEONE'S WOUNDS AND THAT CAN NOT HELP.
>But I can remember just how macho the antiwar movement in the 1960s
>was, both homophobic and just plain sexist. It seems unimaginable now
>but was simply unquestioned then until some people actively stood up
>and did question it.
>
>And those were people who were trying to make a better world...
>
>So I wonder just how good a job I can do as a father helping my own
>sons not to carry that problem (homophobia) in their own lives, knowing
>how much of it they will get in school, from friends, etc. Not to
>mention racism, anti-semitism, sexism, agism, the whole shebang. Do we
>all have to learn these lessons over again and again, each person from
>scratch?
YES I THINK WE DO --- IT SEEMS A TERRIBLE THING BUT I THINK IT IS
UP TO EACH OF US TO HONESTLY AND COURAGEOUSLY FIND THESE THINGS OUT
FOR OURSELVES WITHIN OURSELVES --- OTHERWISE OUR SOCIETY BECOMES
OVERWHELMINGLY PC (IT CURRENTLY SHOWS THE SIGNS) --- LIKE THE RED
GUARD DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA --- CONSTANT DENUNCIATION
--- BLAME --- OPPRESSION OF DIFFERENCE --- WCH AS WE HAVE SEEN ---
OVER AND OVER AGAIN THROUGHOUT HUMAN HISTORY --- LEADS TO SOMETHING
MUCH MORE TERRIBLE AND DISHONEST --- THE INQUISITOR'S QUESTION
WE DO NOT NEED TO BE TOLD, WE NEED TO BE SHOWN --- WE DO NOT NEED
TO MERELY HATE, WE ALSO NEED TO UNDERSTAND
>It ain't easy...
AMEN TO THAT. BUT IT'S ESSENTIAL. THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THIS
POSTING, RON
>Ron Silliman
>
-----------------End of Original Message-----------------
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 7:51:23 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:21:35 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
yeah, that was a great post, ron... and thanx to others too for keeping
this thread productively alive---alan, chris's, jerry, david, ada, peter,
michael, carla etc...
one thing that strikes me is the willingness hereabouts and in general to
discuss pound's fascism as such, whatever one's ultimate opine, in part b/c
it's been a controversy from way back... as opposed to, say, getting twain
folks to discuss outright twain's nastier tendencies...
by which i mean to say that the pound issue is a valuable locus of points
if only b/c it permits for plumbing the personal/political/poetic... alan's
right about this: there's value in reading even the bad and the ugly...
even as i can appreciate that tolerance for same may reduce to individual
motivation...
and yeah, we each have that little jack-boot fascist inside someplace...
mebbe the point is finding ways not to let him out...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 11:33:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Jaeger <pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Re: Marlene Noubese Philip and Pound
In-Reply-To: <199603161201.EAA07670@ix14.ix.netcom.com>
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Ron Silliman wrote:
> So, who can introduce me to the work of M. Nourbese Philip? This is a
> new name to me. Books, quotes, etc?
Marlene Nourbese Philip is a Tobago born poet and essayist who now lives
in Canada (Toronto, I think). Her work is challenging because of its use
of two dicourses, a so-called standard (educated middle class)
Canadian English and what she calls the Caribean demotic.
Her book _She Tries Her Tongue her silence softly breaks_ (Charlottown:
Ragweed Press, 1989) provides a good example.
To pick up a thread from the Pound discussion, Nourbese Phillip's writing
certainly can be situated in a genealogy which includes Pound, regardless
of her radically different poilitcal agenda, i.e. her search for a
"mother tongue" which has been silenced by colonialism. This search is
formally enacted through fragmented long poems, classical mythological
intertexts, and citations to historical figures. I'm sure I would never
have understood her project without some knowledge of the generic
conventions that she uses and/or breaks. Conventions I learned about
through reading Pound. So until someone can convince me otherwise,
I'm for the "if Pound is censored, fascism has won" position.
Peter Jaeger
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 08:37:48 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
joe amato wrote:
>and yeah, we each have that little jack-boot fascist inside someplace...
>mebbe the point is finding ways not to let him out...
>
>joe
almost precisely agree. wld like to refine:
mebbe the point is finding ways to DISARM HIM
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 8:37:48 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 12:31:17 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
Just as an aside: NAMBLA is not about child abuse, but challenging
age-of-consent laws and "who is old enough to have rights." A friend of
mine, Rick, 23, whose lover (also my friend) is Jason, 15, was charged by
Jason's mother as an "abuser of children" because she didn't want to deal
with her son's homosexuality. She couldn't have cared less how old Rick
was, but used his age as a means of preventing them from seeing each other.
The age discrepancy between them may seem big, but when I was 15 and dating
college men no one complained or cried "abuse." "Children's" rights, sexual
and otherwise, are important. NAMBLA seeks to empower, not abuse, queer kids.
Aside over: this business of raising kids in society is a scary one. It
does seem to me that an important thing to think about is how to be a
parent/teacher w/o putting our kids into a hierarchical relationship with
us. Like Ron says, our kids are going to get different perspectives from
their friends, etc.--and, from my own (I think this is common) experience,
kids are more likely to listen to their friends than their parents; they
assume lessons from parents have "motives" and lessons from friends don't.
So, it's "desirable" to have one's kids think of one as a friend & equal.
One thing I'd like to get rid of (along with those gender pronouns) is "Mom"
and "Dad" as opposed to first names. I saw a preview for a film, I forget
which one, and the father was talking about sex with his new lover, and the
son said, "Please. I'm not ready to think of you as a human being yet."
That really resonated with me. It's "funny," but it's also scary as hell.
Carolyn Forche writes, "When my son was born, I became mortal." Our kids,
unless we stride otherways, are more likely to see it the opposite way: when
our kids are born, we become (inhuman) gods.
I spent some time on a commune a few years back & met the most amazing kids.
They were, *really*, small people. 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, sitting there
participating in political discussions with myself and other "adults," and
completely willing to call us on our opinions. As a kid I don't think I
*ever* stood up (other than tantrums or whining) to adults, certainly not
*strangers*. These kids had been taught that they were people; they hadn't
been told "I'm the mommy, that's why" or "You'll understand when you're
older." They weren't in hierarchical relationships with their parents
(except economically)--and it seems to me that kids like this are more
likely to stand up to folks in the Real World, to call bullshit, to resist
"peer pressure," etc. I don't think we need to raise our kids on communes
to raise kids like this. e (lowercase for eryque)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"And how one goes about educating that would-be
audience may very likely determine the history
of that moment, its direction, the qualities
that become emphatic and characteristic of its
later influence." --Lyn Hejinian
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 09:35:25 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
In-Reply-To: <199603160521.AAA16637@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
well, the first time Baraka went to jail it was because of his reading
matter (in the Air Force) and the second time he went to jail it was for
what he had printed in _Floating Bear_, and what might irk me is that
most people would not see that this was still a cse of going to jail "to
help black people" --
Look, none of this has anything to do with assuming any position of
superiority, and I was talking about Baraka because it was his name that
had been brought up in the discussion -- One does not engage in a
critique of racism in verse simply so that one can then hold oneself
proudly above it, as having gotten beyond all that -- It is important to
anatomize racism in American poetry, antisemitism, homophobia, because we
HAVE NOT gotten beyond all that! I do not believe it possible to read
Pound coherently without attempting to understand the way in which
antisemitism functioned in his thought, and in his poetics -- I do not
beliueve we can understand Baraka's post-cultural nationalism
poetics/politics without analysing carefully, AS HE DID HIMSELF IN A
SERIES OF ESSAYS, the variious dead-ends of that nationalism --
OF COURSE the same sorts of analyses need to be done with other poets as
well -- for one example, I think many in the academy who have been
gushing about RAP and cultural studies could learn an imprtant cautionary
lesson from the BEATS writings about jazz --
And most importantly, the telegraphic ref. to Derrida had to do with this
-- We cannot dismiss the NAZI appropriations of Nietzsche simply as rank
misreadings, nor can we leave unchallenged readings of Nietzsche that
sugest that Nazism is an inevitable outcome of his texts. What we need
are readings that account for the ways in which Nietzsche's texts lend
themselves to both Nazi and antiNazi readings -- I do not read the racism
of tate's poetry or the antisemitism of one phase of Baraka as a means of
dismissing these poets, but as a means of understanding what they mean
FOR US NOW, how those politics continue to affect our reading, thinking
and writing today -- to place a writer in his or her historical context,
whether Jefferson or Baraka, is not done either to dismiss or to rescue
that writer's racism, but to understand it as living discourse
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 12:58:33 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Andrew D Epstein <ade3@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Silliman and Hejinian Reading
In-Reply-To: <v01520d00ad6df1266087@[166.84.199.56]>
Hi. This is my first post here, but it's just an annoucement. Last week
someone mentioned they had seen a flyer for this reading, and I just wanted
to make it official.
For those of you in the New York area:
The F. W. Dupee Poetry Reading Series at Columbia University (founded and
organized by Kenneth Koch) is pleased to present:
Lyn Hejinian and Ron Silliman
Tuesday, March 19
8 PM
Maison Francaise
Columbia University
116th and Broadway
Admission is FREE and
there will be a reception following with wine and cheese and other things.
Please come!
(If anyone needs directions to the Maison Francaise at Columbia, feel
free to contact me).
Andrew Epstein
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:11:05 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: - Kim Tedrow <RoseRead@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
> At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>
> >What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside
his "genius mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
> Steve Carll answered:
> It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
>
>Ada responded:
> Hi!
> It could be that simple if we make it so. One of the methods I've used
>is just refuse to teach him to my students, and have stopped reading him
>a long time ago.......
About 10 years ago, I stopped reading anything written by men because I was
pissed off about sexism.
Showed THEM didn't I?
-Kim
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:20:32 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
Alan Sondheim:
>Hey, no no no... I'm sorry, but _everyone_ should be read; the world is
>too complex to do a repeat cleansing. I've read Mein Kampf, Goebbels'
>Michael, most of Celine, a lot of Pound. If we're going to ever
>comprehend what we ourselves are, and not just our "evil" selves, the
>last thing we need is censorship. (And we should not read _X_ say "just
>for" the politics or to reprimand, violate - my own relationship to
>Heidegger is much more complex than that, for example, breaking out in
>other, productive directions.)
>
>To censor, is to give in; as someone else has pointed out, the fascists
>have won.
Exactly. Yay Alan!
Think back to hich school history class, someone would invarably ask "Why
do we have to know all this stupid stuff?" The responsemy teachers gave
was invariably that old quote "He who doesn't know the past is doomed to
repeat it." (loosely from my remembery of loosely given quotes). It's a
crock of shit of course, but it does give a perspective of what goes on
(there was a party across the hall last night, noone was over 25 and
EVERYone was wearing bellbottoms or polyester flower shirts, and it wasn't
a costume party). Knowledge of history does give us a way out (sometimes)
when we see the bad shit going down, even if that way out is to migrate to
friendlier climates.
To say simply "we should stamp out pound and not read him" might be okay
ONLY IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ HIM, or at least enough to be disgusted by his
ideals, but it's certainly not okay as a general rule for everyone,
particularly since he is, like it or not, an important poet as (i think it
was) chris s. pointed out.
I don't care how adamately you don't want to read someone, and i don't care
how violently you assert YOUR right not to read them, but please don't let
it get beyond YOURself.
Ada:
>SORRY, HAVE NO TIME OR USE FOR READING ABOUT DESTRUCTIVENESS, >FASCISM AND
>HATRED. I PREFER TO USE MY READING TIME FOR CONSTRUCTIVE ISSUES, >AND
>LEARNING ABOUT NEW FIELDS IN POETRY THAT HAVE NOT BEEN >OVER-KILLED BY
>USELESS "BADINAGE". I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO READ MORE "WOMEN >POETRY",
>"BLACK POETRY," "THIRD WORLD POETRY," "PEACE POETRY" ETC. WHY >BOTHER WITH
>THE LIKES OF NAZI POUND? > -------------------------------------
Way to assert YOUR right not to read him. But do we have "black poetry"
without someone to oppress blacks, make it a class rather than an
adjective?
Love, (and i mean that)
Eryque
and now that i'm about to send this i get ron's and joe's and chris's
postses. amen amen amen
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:44:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
Aldon wrote:
>-- We cannot dismiss the NAZI appropriations of Nietzsche simply as rank
>misreadings, nor can we leave unchallenged readings of Nietzsche that
>sugest that Nazism is an inevitable outcome of his texts. What we need
>are readings that account for the ways in which Nietzsche's texts lend
>themselves to both Nazi and antiNazi readings --
well, here we're in a dangerous area. As far as I'm concerned, Nietzsche
was very CLEARLY against fascism in his writings. ALL texts in the world
"submit" themselves to different readings, readings that the author didn't
intend. Like, say, the bible. One would have to disregard MOST of
Nietzsche to hallucinate a pro-Nazi stance, as one has to disregard most of
the bible to be a member of the religious right. It's like, what do you do
with the guy who goes out and rapes a bunch of women and has a copy of
"Playboy" in his glove compartment? Not, as far as I'm concerned, blame
"Playboy." Is it possible to write responsibly for irresponsible readers?
To make sure they won't find what they're determined to find? e
PS--my messages were getting bounced back to me again, so I've
double-subscribed to poetics until I can figure out which subscription is
working and which isn't. Is everyone getting my messages twice? I hope
not. How obnoxious. Let me know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing"
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:41:13 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
was it raymond federman said abt beckett:
the more sam rubs our noses in the shit the more we love it
by quoting wch i mean to say (along w/ ron, eryque, joe, alan,
wendy, emily, all us chris's and EVERYBODY else and i mean EVERYBODY):
the more you look, the more you learn. the more you learn, the more
you know. the more you know, the more you can change IF YOU HAVE THE
CAPACITY to change.
olson:
what does not change/ is the will to change
i wld change that "does" to "must"
for what it's worth
later
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 10:41:13 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:57:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
>I spent some time on a commune a few years back & met the most amazing kids.
>They were, *really*, small people. 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, sitting there
>participating in political discussions with myself and other "adults," and
>completely willing to call us on our opinions. As a kid I don't think I
>*ever* stood up (other than tantrums or whining) to adults, certainly not
>*strangers*. These kids had been taught that they were people; they hadn't
>been told "I'm the mommy, that's why" or "You'll understand when you're
>older." They weren't in hierarchical relationships with their parents
>(except economically)--and it seems to me that kids like this are more
>likely to stand up to folks in the Real World, to call bullshit, to resist
>"peer pressure," etc. I don't think we need to raise our kids on communes
>to raise kids like this. e (lowercase for eryque)
Emily, (and btw, i've taken to capitalizing only the first letter of
sentences for readability, when i remember to follow my own rules :-)
Amazing story, five year olds actually taking place in political
discussions? I've met some bright kids, but few that young that would keep
a thought around long enough to form solid "intellectual" opinions (as
opposed to emotional ones).
My mommy always makes fun of her mommy for saying "because i'm the Mommy",
but then turns right around and does it anyway.
Thank god she can't ground me anymore.
eryQue
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:54:10 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
abt 10 years ago i read a small book of translations of italian and
german fascist manifesti, etc., all written before WWII.
i'm almost ashamed to admit this, but at the time i was both repulsed
by and attracted to these ideas, and i was so scared i immediately began
to wonder why. my current attitude is the result of that wondering, which
continues to this day and (such is my fervent wish) will go on until i die.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 10:54:10 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 11:02:48 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
emily ---
PS--my messages were getting bounced back to me again, so I've
double-subscribed to poetics until I can figure out which subscription is
working and which isn't. Is everyone getting my messages twice? I hope
not. How obnoxious. Let me know.
i'm not getting them twice.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 11:02:49 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:25:28 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: learning about the other
I think what Ron has said about his "homosexuality" is right on the money.
I found when I came to a point that I was questioning my own sexuality, that
I was getting into more and more discussions with friends who were
homosexuals, finding out about what it meant to come out, what helped them to
come out, etc? As well as finding out more and more about gay culture.
But for a friend of mine it was a little different... She wasn't questioning
her sexuality, but here homophobia, not exactly...more of a fear of gay life
and an extreme disgust for it, she had been brought up in an extremely
anti-homosexual household. Through working as a waitress she was able to get
in touch with that "other," a very nice gay man who was a bartender. She got
to know him before she knew he was gay, and was finally led to see that "gays
are real people, too." It's too easy to say that the other is inhuman,
something that was used to justify all kinds of inhumanity (I find this term
odd, because humans are very good at being inhumane). To further the happy
ending to her story, she now works with a gay man who is a drag queen and has
brought started to get her to come out to some drag shows in DC.
Transvestites were weird dirty perverts to her (parental and media education
there) and has found these drag shows to be great celebratory experiences, as
well as just plain fun.
I'd also like to say my "chronic depression" comment has inspired responses
that I agree with whole heartedly. I wasn't trying to be so literal, but I
should watch myself when in such emotionally charged waters. What I was
trying to do was open up the discussion to what causes "fascism," and for me
chronic depression, etc. is what made me run into the arms of a heterosexual,
homo-phobic, community as a young adolescent, and was comparing that kind of
wrong-headed move, and trying to understand it through my own experience. I
should have explained it more, but keeping things to yourself becomes a habit
after a while. Thanks to chris daniels who was so much more lucid on the
topic and was able to bring a lot of factors to light that we should all
think about. Not to keep on the point, but I think burying Pound is a very
wrong idea. My roomate (he's Jewish) and I got into a very emotional
discussion of the holocaust one night and I learned the true meaning of
"forgive but never forget." If we forget Hitler, Mussolini, Pound, etc. we
will never be able to investigate what is in us that causes these extreme
inhumanities. When I read Conrad's work (rampant racism in "...Darkness") it
allows me to see aspects of racism in myself that I need to work against. I
think the same of the work of Pound, Hitler, etc. Sorry if I'm dragging this
out, but I think revising fascism out of history just improves its forecast
for the future.
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:28:43 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
aside to Emily...
"I'm not ready to think of you as a human being yet"
is from "Kicking and Screaming"
amazing how a line that is supposed to be a joke, about a typical
situation...thinking about your parents having sex...really pegs down a very
disturbing subject
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:39:13 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Perez <jmp2p@UVA.PCMAIL.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
re: appropriations of Nietzsche by the Nazi's
I think this is the same as the Nazi appropriation of Wagner and other German
art that I had discussed re. Anselm Keifer's work. I think we have to
reclaim these things.
It reminds me of the history of dynamite. Invented as a digging tool.
Or nuclear fusion/fission...a power source.
With every breakthrough there is the opportunity for wrong-headed use. Can
the invention of dynamite be said to inherently contain its use as a
destructive weapon of war. Perhaps. Can the invention of nuclear fusion be
blamed with the massive destruction caused by the bombs. It can also be
blamed for the lives saved in radiology and radio-therapies.
Anything can be twisted into a "bad" thing by the right person. That just
takes the same amount of creativity pointed in a direction that is very
human, but that we like to think is inhuman (I'm human, he's not, therefore I
am not like him...now I feel better).
James Perez
jmp2p@virginia.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:09:01 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Nourbese Philip
Peter beat me to the punch on Nourbese Philip. Glad to hear that others are
reading her work. _She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks_ (Ragweed,
1989), which won the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1988, is her best work, and
there is one poem in particular that engages Pound directly. It's in a series
called "The Question of Language is the Answer to Power" (which was also
published in _Hambone #8). Here's an excerpt:
word it off
speech it off
word in my word
word in your word
I going word my word
begin
the in of beginning _OO as in how did they 'lose' a language._
empires _oo as in 'look' at the spook
erect with the new
"Make it new"
he said
"Make it new"
floundering in the old
For those interested, Nourbese also has a fine collection of essays,
_Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture_ (The Mercury Press,
1992) and a long poem in poetry and prose, _Looking For Livingstone_ (The
Mercury Press, 1991) as well as an "adolescent" (for lack of a better term),
_Harriet's Daughter_ (Heinemann, 1988) I should also note that all but the
collection of essays are published under the name Marlene Nourbese Philip. She
also has a piece of fiction in the latest issue of _Hambone_. I think her work
is well worth searching out -- for many of the reasons Peter mentions. And,
finally, to put in yet another plug for _River City_, she's a contributing
editor (along with Nathaniel Mackey, Michael Davidson, and Omar Castaneda), and
we will be publishing an interview with Nourbese in the upcoming special issue
on "The Caribbean: South of the South."
Paul Naylor
MAIL
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=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:16:18 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: switzerland
What are you reading these days.
--Jd
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:24:45 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Nourbese Philip
Just a correction to my earlier post. _Harriet's Daughter_ is a _novel_
addressed to adolescents (still for lack of a better term). And she does live
in Toronto and has for the last 25 years, which is one reason her work isn't
well known in the U.S.
Paul Naylor
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=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:41:43 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: learning about the other
Having been "My First Homo" to a number of people, I have to say I'm a
little worried about the "I was homophobic, but then I met this nice normal
homosexual" thing. I don't wish to underestimate the power of personal
experience--"evidence"--to change minds in a nice & effective way,
but...what if you never meet that special homo? What if all the gay people
you meet are assholes? You stay homophobic? When friends tell me I'm the
first dyke they've ever met, I get a little worried about the (implied)
responsibility: I'll be the deciding factor. What if I'm in a bitchy mood?
Uh-oh. I've also been told, in many a relieved voice, "Oh, wow, you're not
like the stereotype at all." Meaning, workboots crewcut & flannel. While I
know that stereotypes are harmful, and while it's nice to know that in some
way I've de-legitimized them for these "wow"-ing folks, I'm more interested
in asking: what's wrong with workboots? What if I *were* "like that"?
Would we then not have spoken? If meeting me, a "nice" "normal" (loosely)
homo has changed your mind about homosexuality, does this mind-change
include the workboot gals---or do they still repulse you? And if so, why?
Do you still "have a problem" with homosexuality, just not with me?
Mistaking your lack of emilyphobia for a lack of homophobia? etc. In days
of old (highschool) I felt very pleased to put a friendly "normal" face on
homosexuality for my small Virginian town. "Look, she's in the honor
society! First chair clarinet! She laughs! She cries! She eats food!"
etc. But I *have* realized that, for ex., my family members, "accept" me
but not "those daggers" or "those queens." Thanks, but no thanks. I'd
rather the idea of "normalcy" be questioned than my "normalcy" praised. Or,
in other words, I don't think it should be the responsibility of gay people
to cure straight people's homophobia. flaunting it, e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing"
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:03:02 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
yes, chris daniels to DISARM the little fascist in us all
is TO LET HIM (gender?) OUT, not to keep it bottled up....
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:26:10 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: p.s. other
Sorry I was a little frothy in that last post. I forgot to mention another
problem I have with "getting rid of one's homophobia" because of one great
gay person one met. That's: is it not possible you might meet one
helluva-guy fascist or Nazi? How do we want to decide what we believe?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing"
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:29:17 -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: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
emily sed:
>Just as an aside: NAMBLA is not about child abuse, but challenging
>age-of-consent laws and "who is old enough to have rights." A friend of
>mine, Rick, 23, whose lover (also my friend) is Jason, 15, was charged by
>Jason's mother as an "abuser of children" because she didn't want to deal
>with her son's homosexuality. She couldn't have cared less how old Rick
>was, but used his age as a means of preventing them from seeing each other.
>The age discrepancy between them may seem big, but when I was 15 and dating
>college men no one complained or cried "abuse." "Children's" rights, sexual
>and otherwise, are important. NAMBLA seeks to empower, not abuse, queer kids.
that view would carry more weight with me if NAMBLA was an organization
of queer kids; it is in fact primarily made up of adults, most of whom have a
vested interest (by virture of their taste in sexual partners) in lowering
the age of consent. i'm for empowering children in all areas ov their lives,
as i am for empowering all individuals... which i think means opposing the
ability of people with more power from using that position for their own
benefit at the expense of those with less power. despite their rhetoric,
i don't believe that is the agenda of NAMBLA.
but to address ron's original question; as a survivor of abuse, one of the
things i do is to speak up when folks would ignore or whitewash the kinds
of situations that have caused me so much pain. just as various have
vehemently reminded me of the pain that pound caused, & still cause. i'll
continue to read pound for what i find of use, but i appreciate the reminders
here that his work is compromised--for that matter, i'll still read ginsberg;
but i won't pretend his NAMBLA shit means anything more than he'd like to
sleep with young guys.
sincere
luigi
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:39:32 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
Dear Aldon--
You're right. I overstated the case about the reasons Baraka went to
jail. Further, yes Baraka did ANALYZE HIMSELF IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS
ABOUT HIS INVOLVEMENT in Black Nationalism. But to me--I still love
reading the stuff from the period. My only regret is that certain
anthologies don't publish stuff AFTER that period--and give the distorted
view of a two phased Baraka. The dead lecturer somewhat white assimilati-
onist Jones (learning the language of the enemy to some extent so he
could curse in it?--or at least get famous in white circles, a la the
early FANON--and there may be a psychological need for this as well,
a genuine love in the early years of Olson/Creeley/O'Hara who influenced
that work) and then the BLACK NATIONALIST. Yet, since I am interested
in Baraka's whole OUEVRE (sic?), I think we can't simply dismiss even
(scratch even) this phase as nothing but negative. The separatism, like
Malcolm X's, WAS heroic, and perhaps a necessary phase. Granted, it's
easy to say this in retrospect (and may have been harder to accept at
the time--if I may strain an analogy here, just as NASHVILLE SKYLINE
alienated alot of Dylan's fans at the time, but later listeners see
it as part of the overall sense of Dylan)--Yet, part of this very much
has to do with CLEARING A SPACE FOR ONESELF....
you know? the whole Blake "I must create my own...or be enslaved by
another's" and in such a creation often EXTREME postures are needed.
The struggle against anti-semitism, homophobia, racism, classism, sexism
(did i leave anything out?) can not be enforced. I certainly would
appreciate it if anybody calls me on what may be perceived as any kind
of hate politics. But the absence of hate is not enough, and the FEAR
of being seen as sexist, racist, etc, may be a problem to address.
I'll offer two examples:
One of them reminds me of the POMO thread. While teaching a class of
mostly black students, one student told me how she finds a certain kind
of racism in the pious use of the term "african american" by so many
whites. Now, this is a thorny issue--and the fact that I generally say
BLACK does not make me immune...but this reminded me of a time I saw
Angela Davis at Smith College lecture about how Northeast liberals (as I
think she categorized them) are in some ways worse than the BLATANT racism
of the southeners. At least they, she said, can look us in the eye...and
deal with us on a day to day level as people. There's an irony here I,
Chris Stroffolino, am only scratching the surface of. But it's something
to think about.
The other point is a story I love to tell in private....
It revolves around a reading I did years ago with a prominent male
Language poet. I read a poem called BLACKBURNIANA in the midst of my more
"abstract" pieces. In this poem, like Blackburn, I wrote of watching
admiringly women's physical appearance in NYC---knowing damn well I
ran the risk of being called sexist, but feeling HEMMED IN and needing
to simply let it out. Well, the male poet came out and called it, and
Paul Blackburn, sexist. Luckily, a famous woman avant-gardist/academic
(who generally was unsupportive of my work), came to my defense.....
The point is these questions are very complex....
and that anger (even if simply WRONG and misdirected) may be better than
this unspoken, hidden, bottled up fear that often passes for enlightenment.
--at least as a phase.
Chris Stroffolino
"a sin that is mortal in a master is venial in a slave"---
P.B. Shelley
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 15:18:09 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Filkins <filch@POBOX.COM>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
Emily,
>One thing I'd like to get rid of (along with those gender pronouns) is "Mom"
>and "Dad" as opposed to first names.
This is a fascinating subject you raise and I must say it is not as simple
as you specify. Our daughter spent the first few months of her life _very_
isolated in that we did not go out very often. We had very few visitors.
My wife and I call each other by our first names. Yet she came up with
sounds like "ma" & "da" seemingly out of the blue by the time she was six
months old. I at one time felt exactly like you describe above concerning
"Mom" & "Dad". My daughter however has changed my mind.
When discussing this topic with some friends who happen to be linguists I
was informed that the "m", "a", & "d" sounds are among the first
articulations which english speakers make. While it is true that there are
no doubt many spoken & unspoken clues which we gave our daughter concerning
the validity of "ma" & "da" (i must admit it thrilled me to no end the
first time she said "da") the current theories hold that she is predisposed
because of being surrounded by english speakers to come up with those
sounds. Every language has its own primary dispositions towards sounds.
Those which have much in common, i.e. english, russian, spanish, for
instance are likely to have similar predispositions, which they do. While
those with different roots, such as swahili, hauza (sp), etc are likely to
have other primary sound dispositions, which they do. This of course might
all be bullshit, but my personal experience bears this out.
Our daughter calls us by a number of names - our first names (although she
hasn't quite mastered mine yet), nani, mom, mommy, dad, daddy, ma, da, you,
hey, the list goes on & we have been extremely contientious about not
imposing any preferences on her.
There are a whole host of things in the world of language i disagreed with
vehemently before she came along. And most of those she has blown out of
the water and made me completely rethink. I owe her alot for the this
education.
Nothing is so simple as just getting rid of "mom" or "dad" or gender
pronouns. The situation is far more complex.
Some questions:
What determines the predisposition towards sounds, if it were purely the
shape of the mouth etc. would the first sounds in english still be "m",
"d", & "a"? What social aspects of language impinge on this choice of
first sounds?
Why does english have gender pronouns in the way it does? How do other
languages deal with this subject and why is there a difference?
After talking with my linguist friends i can certainly understand why
language aquisition is such a hot topic in linguistics. It has got to be
one of the most fascinating things to participate in and observe. It's
especially relevent to me as a writer because this is how i define poetry
for me - i am attempting to aquire a language.
christopher
_______________________________
In the undergrowth
There dwells a Bloath
Who feeds upon poets and tea.
Luckily, I know this about him
While he knows almost nothing of me!
- Shel Silverstein
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 18:53:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: dadaists & mamaists
Christopher F--that's *really* interesting, about "da" "ma" & your daughter.
I had no idea that these sounds were the easiest for kids to make first...I
guess I always thought kids acquired them with their parents standing over
the crib going, "I'm your dada; I'm your mama." You're right, the issue is
more complex than I made it. I was thinking of when I first heard people
call my mother "Sharon" on the telephone, how that was an almost shocking
event for me...how calling parents by their first names reminds one of their
relationships to others besides you. 'Course, one can be(come) aware of
these and still call one's mother "Mom" (which I do when I'm talking to
mine--for some reason her first name coming from me offends her--shows a
"lack of respect" she thinks, which is odd to me: I think it shows more).
I'm curious, though---did your daughter automatically call you "da" and her
mother "ma"? You say you lit up when she first said "da"--was it clearly a
reference to you? Did she call other people, or things, "da"? e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing"
--R. Hass
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:12:52 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Filkins <filch@POBOX.COM>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
Emily,
Her actual first sounds were "da" and she used it specifically for both my
wife and i. She did not use sounds to refer to anything besides the two of
us until after she had already clearly defined us with these sounds.
Shortly after she began using "da" to refer to the two of us she began
using "ma" to refer to my wife and then she started switching back and
forth and then it finally, after a month to two months, settled into the
usual "ma" & "da". Of course by that time she was begining to close the
sound by appending the "d" & "m".
When i refer to lighting up i am referring to when she had settled into
this pattern and i could see in her face that she knew she was using the
word to refer to me and she knew that i would respond to it as if named.
Of course i realize that we as parents must have given her all sorts of
preverbal clues etc. to teach her mom & dad. I'm afraid i would be
dishonest if i denied our participation. My only point is that it is such
a complex process that it is impossible to declare "mom" or "dad" off
limits without going against what seems like a liguistic tendency.
christopher
I'm curious, though---did your daughter automatically call you "da" and her
>mother "ma"? You say you lit up when she first said "da"--was it clearly a
>reference to you? Did she call other people, or things, "da"? e
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Emily Lloyd
>emilyl@mail.erols.com
>
>"I know that I know myself/no more than a seed
>curled in the dark of a winged pod/knows flourishing"
>--R. Hass
_______________________________
In the undergrowth
There dwells a Bloath
Who feeds upon poets and tea.
Luckily, I know this about him
While he knows almost nothing of me!
- Shel Silverstein
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 19:18:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: crowds and power
In-Reply-To: <199603162353.SAA17478@mail.erols.com>
My youngest brother (seventeen yrs younger)
used to when about one and a half or two walk around
the kitchen saying "Jordan" which was pleasant
until I realized he was attaching this sound
to the refrigerator, the dishwasher, the cabinets,
and the table. He said "Jordan", pointed to the
dishwasher, then walked up to it and bit it.
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:25:40 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Baraka again
james perez wrote:
>Anything can be twisted into a "bad" thing by the right person. That just
>takes the same amount of creativity pointed in a direction that is very
>human, but that we like to think is inhuman (I'm human, he's not, therefore
>I am not like him...now I feel better).
one seder i attended horrified me. the father of the family, a recent
convert to hassidism, catechized his seven-year-old son in the following
manner:
q: "now, xxx, what is traife?"
a: "traife is what dogs eat, daddy."
q: "what are gentiles, son?"
a: "gentiles are people who eat traifes."
i said nothing, and have always regretted not getting up and storming
out of the house.
--- chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 4:25:40 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:34:05 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
> yes, chris daniels to DISARM the little fascist in us all
> is TO LET HIM (gender?) OUT, not to keep it bottled up....
yes, chris stroffolino, to let IT (thanks for that!) into the open where
it can be seen for what it is --- the product of encoded fear and
superstition.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 4:34:05 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 16:50:57 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: p.s. other
Sorry I was a little frothy in that last post. I forgot to mention another
problem I have with "getting rid of one's homophobia" because of one great
gay person one met. That's: is it not possible you might meet one
helluva-guy fascist or Nazi? How do we want to decide what we believe?
emily ---
not only is it possible, it is entirely probable. charm is not
dependent on politics.
i'm not suggesting that my friend ted "cured me of homophobia." what
did happen is that my knowing him allowed me slowly begin my
transcendence of the fear i felt abt homosexuals --- i had very good
reason to fear them --- i had been raped. nothing's instant:
there's no sudden acceptance; it's a long process which i don't think
shld ever end.
i believe that causing another human being to feel pain is
undesirable (if unavoidable at times). that's my yardstick for
deciding what to believe. sometimes i think the only thing
worth believing in is Compassion.
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 4:50:57 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:14:01 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
i gotta say i'm w/ luigi-bob on the NAMBLA thing.
i may be totally wrong-headed abt this, but to judge
from my entire 40 years of experience, an adult can get
a kid to do nearly anything, given the right circumstances.
i've not responded to emily's post til now because i cldn't
see past my own history of being abused and didn't want
to lash out. i don't feel hatred towards the NAMBLAites,
i just don't think they're being very honest, and have
constructed a VERY SEDUCTIVE MASK for themselves when they
say that they are seeking to empower children (not young
adults, children). i agree entirely that children need to be
allowed the exact same freedom of choice/thought etc as
adults, but a 12-year-old kid is simply not the same as a
19-year-old kid. lowering the age of consent is not the
issue here, i don't think. neither is the empowerment of
chldren. what is at issue is a child's right to live and
grow AS A CHILD among adults. i mean there's a limit ...
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 4:37:40 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 02:16:55 GMT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: jms <jms@TIAC.NET>
Subject: Re: ghost titles
Station Hill at one time was going publish a book by Duncan
(I can't remember title) but it got pulled. I think it might
be because he died before it was published (it was several
years late at the time) and Duncan's mss., and the ability
to publish them, were then limited.
But come to think about it I think Station Hill might
qualify as the press with the most ghost books.
Juliana Spahr
>Don't know if these would count, but
>
>I recall seeing Thomas Pynchon's VINELAND listed in a prepublication
>*Books in Print* as *Vineland, Volume 1."
>
>And wasn't Pynchon supposed to be writing a Civil War novel?
>
>Cheers,
>David
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>David Kellogg Duke University
>kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
>(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
>FAX (919) 684-6277
>
> There is some excitement in one corner,
> but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
>
> -- Thomas Kinsella
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:16:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: NAMBLA
At 05:14 PM 3/16/96 PST, chris daniels wrote:
>i may be totally wrong-headed abt this, but to judge
>from my entire 40 years of experience, an adult can get
>a kid to do nearly anything, given the right circumstances.
An adult can get an *adult* to do nearly anything, given the right
circumstances.
It seems to me that being raped should make one resent/fear rapists/a rape
culture, not gay men black men white men latino men asian men, or, in my
case, policemen.
I never meant to downplay the fact that yes, NAMBLA members are men who want
to sleep with boys. "Sweet boy, gimme yr ass," etc. I stand by my defense,
though. Note, they have created an organization/forum in which to discuss
this (cross-generational sex). Why create such a thing if all you're really
concerned with is lurking in bathrooms near boy scout meetings? I ask
semi-rhetorically; I'm not really sure any of us could benefit from further
discussion of NAMBLA.
So hows about them poems/Mets?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily "Yes, it's true, I kind of LIKE Camille Paglia" Lloyd
emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 22:06:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
re charles alexander's comment abt mei-mei, that someone called her work
"anti-academic." typical minnesota. esp if it was someone from my
department. they know i teach her, they think that i'm a yahoo, hence,
rather than listening to her poetry, they say something that proves their
inability to listen. humph! charles, tell me more about that event; it's one
of those i wish i could've been there for.--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:20:12 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
Thanks to Emily for getting the discussion on children going, and to
Christopher for pointing out that saying "ma" and "da" is a rather complex
affair involving general tendencies of speakers of English, nonverbal clues
by parents, etc.
But I would also like to say that parenting in general is quite complex. As
a father of two girls (6 & 2 years old) so far I haven't ever said "because
I'm your father," but in fact there have been several times where if I
hadn't exerted parental authority of one kind or another, a child would have
been hurt physically or otherwise, or done something to hurt another. In
some ways an adult's actions are better informed than a child's, of that
age, anyway -- which is not to imply a disrespect for the child's opinions,
imagination, or intellect. I also have learned many things from my children.
But we don't live on a commune, and children pick up much from various
places. Up to age one or so I read them Gertrude Stein and Jackson Mac Low
and Chaucer and a lot of other things they couldn't read to themselves. But
after a while they would rather hear Frog & Toad, or other books they found
out about in various ways. And while I have had conversations where the 6
year old has expressed political ideas, I also think it's perfectly fine for
her not to be expected to do so. In some ways the world inhabited by
children in school and pre-school makes them aware of politics in complex
ways daily, probably moreso than many adults in the world/words in which
they circulate daily. We don't need to encourage "childish"-ness, nor do we
need to encourage growing up before one's time. And what does that mean? It
probably differs with every child. We never gave our children certain kinds
of dolls (Barbies being one of them) for a long time, but grandparents and
others did, and in some ways I think it's important for them to know about
such things in the world. We decided banning such things was not the point,
rather letting our children make their own decisions about them, and talking
with them, was the point.
Being a parent makes one confront one's abilities and one's limitations
every day, usually several times a day. I would consider it absolutely
cowardly to deny one's duty to be a parent -- but I do consider it necessary
to constantly redefine what that means.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:54:59 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
>re charles alexander's comment abt mei-mei, that someone called her work
>"anti-academic." typical minnesota. esp if it was someone from my
>department. they know i teach her, they think that i'm a yahoo, hence,
>rather than listening to her poetry, they say something that proves their
>inability to listen. humph! charles, tell me more about that event; it's one
>of those i wish i could've been there for.--maria d
>
>
The first event of a 4-day residency (March 6 - 10) in the Twin Cities by
Myung Mi Kim & Mei-mei Berssenbrugge was a "fireside chat" by the poets at
Asian American Renaissance (ably directed by Valerie Lee, who with me first
conceived of this residency). Perhaps the primary difficulty of the
residency was present there as well as at the other events, just that there
were clearly very few people at these events who knew the writers' work at
all, therefore a need to introduce it. Thus both Myung & Mei-mei read a bit,
Myung even from pieces widely separated in time, in order to convey
something of poetic growth. The talk was then mostly about senses of space
in the work, but this was interpreted in some ways quite differently by each
of them. Mei-mei spoke of facing the literal horizon in the desert where she
lives, and how this relates to her line, breath, etc. But she also talked
about her poem "Chinese Space," and how her poems of China are half what
others told her (she left Beijing, where she was born, at 1 year old), half
made up by her, but that her philosophical sensibilities, she feels, are
very informed by Chinese ideas. When Myung spoke there was more of a sense
of a conceptual space, but one which she described as a body, but always a
body with fissures, disjunctiveness. Mei-mei spoke of her commitment, at 21
years old or so, which has served her for nearly 30 years, of writing in
sentences and of her writing being "beautiful," a commitment to beauty, as
she put it. Myung had more of a sense of wanting to disrupt whatever beauty
may be possible. (and my memory may be putting words in both their mouths)
One gained a sense of both of their relationships to their Asian heritage,
and to the English/American language, and of how both of those relationships
have a role in both their subject and the forms present and created in their
work. Myung was 9 years old when she left Korea.
The following day I led the first hour of a workshop with them at the
University of Minnesota Creative Writing program. I displayed books and
spoke of developing a sense of physical space from their work, of literally
trying to make the spaciality created by their work into a physical form,
or, perhaps more accurately, to find corresponding forms in type, book
structure, paper, etc. Mei-mei wondered if I was thereby destroying the
"illusional" space. But no, it's more like giving it some kind of physical
dimension, perhaps adding to it, but not in any sense destroying it. It was
odd being in this circle of creative writing faculty and students. I made a
comment, at the very beginning, about breaking the circle and asking people
to get up and go to where books were displayed (including one book by
Mei-Mei I made in 1990 which was fully unfolded to be nearly 14 feet long).
And absolutely noone got up. I think perhaps I truly transgressed something
by breaking that circle, and I realized that I'm entirely unfamiliar with
whatever kind of energy exists in a writing workshop class. An hour later,
at the end of my part of the workshop, everyone did get up and there was
more animation.
I had to leave after that for other commitments and I can't comment on the
remainder of the poets' workshop, or its continuation the next day. They
also gave a workshop on Saturday March 9 at Asian American Renaissance which
I did not attend.
The reading they gave at Minnesota Center for Book Arts on Friday March 8
was marvelous. Mei-mei reads in a persistent, quiet voice, altogether what
one might expect from reading her work over the past decade or so. Some
sense of space being so linear, yet also so full, barely room to breathe.
Myung followed her with a reading which was also strong on the sense of
enunciated space, but, as comments earlier in the week had touched on, a
space much more divided, uneven. Both readings were powerful.
This is just about the last event which will be held at Minnesota Center for
Book Arts which I had anything to do with organizing or envisioning, having
left there as director (although still spend a good deal of time there on
one book project or another or in teaching) more than 7 months ago now. In
that sense it was both very pleasing and a little bit awkward for me, having
more sense that the leadership (board) of that organization didn't really
know what it had in this residency -- and that I was ready to take that
organization to places it just wasn't ready to go. Sorry if this sounds a
little too self-satisfied, actually it feels a little sad. But it gave me a
new and different glimpse of a place which has meant much to me over the
last three years.
But back to Myung & Mei-mei, they had good audiences at each of the events
and people seemed genuinely interested in their work. I only wish more such
events were occurring in the Twin Cities.
and thanks for asking, maria. I got closer to the U-Minnesota English
Department than I ever have before during these events, and I really missed
your not being there. I didn't hear anybody call you a yahoo, but if you're
willing to ya & hoo (and I know you are), then I think they need more like you.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 20:18:33 -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: Re: switzerland
You wrote:
>
>What are you reading these days.
>
>--Jd
>
Charles Borkhuis' Proximity (Stolen Arrows)
Ilya Kutik's Ode on Visiting the Belosaraisk Spit on the Sea of Azov,
trans. by Kit Robinson
Swoon Rocket by Bill Luoma (who can tell me which DC bookstore that
back cover photo was taken in??)
They're all great books. I knew the last two would be because I've been
reading/enjoying their work for ages (Kutik as well as Kit and Maz).
Borkhuis is a really great new addition to my reading list. There's a
bounce in his line that reminds me of the best of John Godfrey or Ted
Greenwald or maybe even Tom Raworth, a sense of surrealism that feels
lived rather than bookish and a great eye throughout.
What amazes me is that Borkhuis is only a year or so younger than I am
and this appears to be his second book or thereabouts. What has he been
doing all this time? Is there an archive of material waiting to be
released?
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:03:00 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960316002720.Chris@kunos>
Has anyone on the list read Wilhelm Reich? He was dealing with exactly
these things. He was and still is very controversial--I think the only
American to have his books burned by the government. The most radical
activist can be a fascist to the kids at home. Where does it start?
Gab.
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, chris daniels wrote:
> but, ada, fascism didn't just suddenly spring into existence because
> of the minds of the "geniuses" you'd like to eradicate --- didn't stalin
> and mao love to rewrite history? --- it was and is a product of several
> thousand years of human history. don't you think it wld be better to try to
> undertsand why fascism exists instead of sweeping it under the carpet where
> it can fester and erupt again? the more we look at fascism, the more we
> expose it, the less of a chance it has of gripping our lives. bt we can not
> simply point a finger and accuse: we have to do our best to understand,
> even if that understanding may be very painful. because ultimately
> don't we have to examine our very souls for the seeds of fascism?
>
> yrs ---
>
> chris
>
> -------------------------------------
> christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 12:07:56 am
>
> q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
> said anything goes?"
> --- charles wourinen (?)
>
> a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
>
> --- george clinton
>
> snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
> voice: 510.524.5972
> http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:07:41 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: voting on a new usenet group...
all: this is from another list, sans original headers... i thought it
might be appropriate to post here on poetics... i've decided, with some
hesitation, to vote 'no'... my hesitation owing only to my concerns about
first amendment issues---BUT voting is established practice for creating
usenet groups... ergo the internet decides for itself on the basis of
appeal to democratic (voting) practices, w/o intervention in the form of
censorship... this touches on the question of how best to deal with fascism
etc...
anyway...
joe
> A group of neo-nazis are trying to get a new Usenet Newsgroup
>set-up so they can get their message of hate out to young people using the
>Internet. EACH OF YOU HAS ONE VOTE when it comes to creating a new Usenet
>group (all you need is an e-mail account to vote).
> We have nearly 1500 members in our group. We can send an
>effective message by all voting NO.
> Do _not_ vote twice - that would constitute voting fraud.
> Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 18 Mar 1996.
>
> HOW TO VOTE:
> ------------
>
>Send E-MAIL (posts to a newsgroup are invalid) to:
>
> music-vote@sub-rosa.com
>
>This is an impartial, third-party vote taker.
>Just replying to this message will NOT work.
>Check the address before you mail your vote. Your mail message
>should contain one and only one of the following vote statements:
>
> I vote YES on rec.music.white-power
> I vote NO on rec.music.white-power
>
>I REALLY HOPE YOU VOTE NO!
>
>If your mail software does not indicate your real name, please also
>include the following statement and add your name (on the same line).
>
> Voter name:
>
>Vote counting is automated. Failure to follow these directions may
>mean that your vote does not get counted. If you do not receive an
>acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker
>about the problem. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote
>is registered correctly.
>
>If you would like more detailed information on why you should vote no,
>check out http://nizkor.almanac.bc.ca on the World Wide Web, or contact
>Ken McVay, kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca
>
> This message is not meant to represent an official usenet
> Call for Votes. An official copy of the Call for Votes can
> be found in news.groups on Usenet.
> Thank you, Avi
>
>------------ Forwarded Message ends here ------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:38:27 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Jaeger <pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Re: Nourbese Philip
In-Reply-To: <01I2ES9F1FMA985RWA@msuvx2.memphis.edu>
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Paul Naylor wrote:
_She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks_ (Ragweed,
> 1989), which won the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1988, is her best work, and
> there is one poem in particular that engages Pound directly. It's in a series
> called "The Question of Language is the Answer to Power" (which was also
> published in _Hambone #8). Here's an excerpt:
>
> word it off
> speech it off
> word in my word
> word in your word
> I going word my word
> begin
> the in of beginning _OO as in how did they 'lose' a language._
> empires _oo as in 'look' at the spook
> erect with the new
> "Make it new"
> he said
> "Make it new"
> floundering in the old
>
>
Paul: this is an appropriate quotation. It seems to me that there's
a good deal of tension between Nourbese Philip's legitimation of what she
calls the autonomous "i-mage," or "irreducible essence" of writing as
something other than the word, and her simultaneous legit. of subjectivity
as a construction of language. Her theory (published in the intro to _She
Tries Her Tongue_) is metaphysical to the extent that it affirms
presence, the author as magical source of the poem, yet it simultaneously
affirms language as the site for subjectivity, the absent author. Instead
of a rigid binary between text and essence, she presents both
text and essence--two seemingly paradoxical positions that are evoked but
left in suspension. This tension is played out in her writing, and to
my mind it moves her poetry away from the type of culturally
assimilated models of diversity criticised by Charles Bernstein (I see
grandma on the hill / next to the memories I can never recapture).
Peter Jaeger
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 16:16:14 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: switzerland
In-Reply-To: <v01520d02ad70dfc3c7f7@[166.84.199.56]>
Pablo Neruda, CANTO GENERAL trans Jack Schmitt
Simon Pettit, Selected Poems
Michael Palmer, At Passages
Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization (history of
founding and early years of Magnitogorsk
Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Alice Notley, Close to me & Closer...(The Language of Heaven)
Jon Stallworthy, Life of Louis MacNeice
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 22:18:58 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: NAMBLA
--- On Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:16:48 -0500 Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
wrote:
>At 05:14 PM 3/16/96 PST, chris daniels wrote:
>>i may be totally wrong-headed abt this, but to judge
>>from my entire 40 years of experience, an adult can get
>>a kid to do nearly anything, given the right circumstances.
>
>An adult can get an *adult* to do nearly anything, given the right
>circumstances.
>
>It seems to me that being raped should make one resent/fear rapists/a rape
>culture, not gay men black men white men latino men asian men, or, in my
>case, policemen.
>
>I never meant to downplay the fact that yes, NAMBLA members are men who
want
>to sleep with boys. "Sweet boy, gimme yr ass," etc. I stand by my defense,
>though. Note, they have created an organization/forum in which to discuss
>this (cross-generational sex). Why create such a thing if all you're
really
>concerned with is lurking in bathrooms near boy scout meetings? I ask
>semi-rhetorically; I'm not really sure any of us could benefit from further
>discussion of NAMBLA.
emily ---
this is extremely inflammatory important stuff --- i'd like to wait on
it a bit because right now i couldn't be reasonable. i agree w/ you
and disagree w/ you everywhere above. i want very much to get back to
you on this, but will take the time to think it all through, sort it
out.
later ---
chris
>So hows about them poems/Mets?
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Emily "Yes, it's true, I kind of LIKE Camille Paglia" Lloyd
>emilyl@mail.erols.com
>
-----------------End of Original Message-----------------
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.16.96 10:18:58 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 00:47:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: switzerland
Ron,
Charles Borkhuis has been involved with theater lo these many years, I
believe in all guises-- acting, writing, directing, tho there cld well be a
trunk of poetry to be hauled out as well. Don't have more details in terms of
what/where the theater. He just read down here w/ Heather Fuller (DC poet to
watch for).
I'm curious to see this photo on _Swoon Rocket_ -- is it from the
C=O=M=P=U=T=E=R=L=A=N=D reading?
Re J's what are you reading?-- well into Ralph Maud's _Charles Olson's
Reading: A Biography_ -- it's so thorough it's quite mad & therefore very
satisfying. Now we need a bio of Zorn via his record collection. Also looking
at Leslie Scalapino's _The Front Matter, Dead Souls_, always her work it's
fine. Also new Blackwell book _Rethinking CLR James_ includes Stuart Hall
interview w/ James & good piece by Andrew Ross. & spent some time in
Areas/Lights/Heights, there's simply noone at all like him. Anyone seen this
rumored new Roof Books Raworth Selected since '84, want it want it. Also I
have to admit I've spent a bit of time with new Rod Smith _In Memory of My
Theories_ which arrived yesterday in blue & in gray.
--R
-------------------------------------------------
You wrote:
>
>What are you reading these days.
>
>--Jd
>
Charles Borkhuis' Proximity (Stolen Arrows)
Ilya Kutik's Ode on Visiting the Belosaraisk Spit on the Sea of Azov,
trans. by Kit Robinson
Swoon Rocket by Bill Luoma (who can tell me which DC bookstore that
back cover photo was taken in??)
They're all great books. I knew the last two would be because I've been
reading/enjoying their work for ages (Kutik as well as Kit and Maz).
Borkhuis is a really great new addition to my reading list. There's a
bounce in his line that reminds me of the best of John Godfrey or Ted
Greenwald or maybe even Tom Raworth, a sense of surrealism that feels
lived rather than bookish and a great eye throughout.
What amazes me is that Borkhuis is only a year or so younger than I am
and this appears to be his second book or thereabouts. What has he been
doing all this time? Is there an archive of material waiting to be
released?
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 21:50:31 -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 <tenney@AZSTARNET.COM>
Subject: more on Pound: query for Jerry R.
> It is interesting to consider too how the
>most telling impact of his work -- the most vital influence -- was precisely
>on poets who politically, morally, might have been at the greatest distance
>from it. I mean particulary in my generation and beyond. I take it that
>this is Pound's legacy also -- in the strange way that these things work.
>
>Jerome Rothenberg
Jerry--
(or anyone!)
any speculations as to why this is so? (that may lead us back into the old,
trashed form-and-its-[indeterminate]-politics thread, but perhaps from a
usefully oblique angle).
best,
Tenney Nathanson
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:16:39 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: let's NOT talk about fascists, but ourselves
In-Reply-To: <199603161621.KAA23503@charlie.acc.iit.edu>
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Joe Amato wrote:
> and yeah, we each have that little jack-boot fascist inside someplace...
> mebbe the point is finding ways not to let him out...
>
> joe
>
Or maybe ways to let Hir out in a setting where s/he can't do any to
the world damage. Maybe damage to some pillows or something. Somehow,
stopping up the pipeline always seems to lead to an explosion down the
line. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 14:15:39 -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.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Pound & Man at Yale
I wrote a follow-up piece to "Pounding Fascism" (which is in _A
Poetics_) called "Pound and the Poetry of Today". It was
published in _The Yale Review_ in 1986 (I don't have the exact
citation handy). The speech was originally presented at the
Pound Centennial at Yale: an occasion at which at I was made to
feel (and no doubt also made myself feel) very unwelcome. I was
just about the youngest person invited to speak, and the the only
Jewish one; it didn't seem a coincidence that I was also the only
person to raise the question of Pound's fascism at this occasion.
The spirit of the supposedly academic event was set by the
Pound's daughter asking us to observe several minutes of silence
in honor of the anniversary of her father's death, which
coincided with the Yale event. In keeping with this reverential
spirit, the tone of the event was solemn and studiously
respectful. In contrast, my speech would have seemed boisterous
and structurally irreverant; though insofar as this was so it was
was oddly more in the mood of the putative subject. While I was
excluded from some of the social occasions set up for the
participants (for example the lunch just before my talk), I was
invited to a formal dinner at one of those Yale halls filled with
dusty oil paintings of important Yale men (fortunately, Susan
Howe, who was living in nearby Guilford, came to the dinner with
me). This was the sort of occasion where you'd hear people
murmuring to one another, "you know, despite it all, maybe Pound
was right about social credit" (and maybe some other things too).
Creepy.
The Yale Review had written to me saying they wanted to
publish works from the proceedings. After the event, at which it
was made clear to me that I should not have spoken the way I did
(not a new problem for me however), I wasn't surprised that Yale
Review turned the piece down. While they may have had other
reasons to reject it, since it was advocating an approach to
poetry antipathetic to their aesthetic agenda, I couldn't help
but interpret it as an extension of the reception I had gotten at
the centennial. I made my views known to them and they
reluctantly relented, agreeing to publish the work not as an
article, but as "commentary" which meant the back of the ...
book and in a smaller point size.
After insisting on the necessity and value of reading Pound in
terms of his fascism, my speech begins with a discussion of
Jerome Rothenberg's anthologies as a counter to the Core
Curriculum mania (then in full swing), which I suggest is a
logical extension of Pound's ideas of master texts. (Here I
distinguish between Pound's "panculturalism" and "decentered
multiculturalism".) I go on to differentiate Pound's desire for
"montage" (the use of contrasting images toward the goal of one
unifying theme) from his practice of "collage" (the use of
different textual elements without recourse to an overall
unifying idea). The piece ends with a discussion of Jackson Mac
Low's great book _Words nd ends from Ez_, which it still seems to
me is a fundamental resource for any consideration of Pound.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:27:15 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: kids without godparents
In-Reply-To: <199603161731.MAA05328@mail.erols.com>
I agree with all you say eryque about raising kids as much as possible as
equals. What I would say though, is that we stand a much better chance
of achieving this in some sort of communal, village, extended family,
whatever setting than in a nuclear family. In a nf, everyone is pretty
much forced together, whatever mood they're in, however tired they are,
ill, overwhelmed. Kids need lots and lots of people they can go to, lots
of different views on the world, people who can listen when their parents
are done in or being jerks. I had tremendous good intentions (as I'm
sure all parents have) when I began this parenting, but I've had to lower
my perfection quota being in a nf (where was that commune, anyway?
that's much how I'd prefer to do things). I recognize in myself daily
this potential and sometimes actual fascist. Yuk. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 11:27:27 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: switzerland
heidegger: being & time II.1
jean amery: at the mind's limits
PAUL CELAN
grimal's history of ancient egypt
bob brown: 1450-1950
heidegger is, well, heidegger. it's the older translation.
jean amery was a viennese jew --- studied philosophy --- survived
gestapo torture and then auschwitz --- he and primo levi were in
(sometimes not so) slight contention
i'm obsessed w/ paul celan these days. i've been familiar w/ his
work for quite some time, but joris' BREATHTURN knocks me out
thanks ron silliman for reminding me to read bob brown's glorious
book once again!
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 11:27:27 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 11:49:18 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
charles (or anybody) ---
is mac low's book still in print?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 11:49:18 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 07:52:50 GMT+1300
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: avant-garde
one more word: AMBITIOUS
Greenberg uses it: "AMBITIOUS PAIN TING"
Title:" 3 AMBITIOUS POETS AT THE MILLENNIUM"
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:54:57 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
In-Reply-To: <199603162353.SAA17478@mail.erols.com>
My little boy called everyone "ada" for a long time. Both the kids call
us very much whatever comes into their minds, not all of it complimentary
by a long shot! :-) Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 07:59:29 GMT+1300
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: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
> At 11:36 PM 3/13/96 +0200, Ada Aharoni wrote:
>
> >What I suggest is -- just bury the guy and forget about him, alongside
his "genius mates" Hitler and Mussolini.
> Steve Carll answered:
> It would be nice if things were this simple, wouldn't it?
>
> Hi!
It could be that simple if we make it so. One of the methods I've used
is just refuse to teach him to my students, and have stopped reading him
a long time ago. From my point of view and that of many of my colleagues
and students, as well as poets\critics around the world - Ezra Pound has
already been buried alongside his "genius" friends, Hitler and Mussolini.
Please don't resurrect him! He's dangerous to our world! Let's read
Wilfred Owen instead, perhaps we would bring our world one inch closer to
the world beyond war he dreamed about.
Ada Aharoni
Yeah, let's meet Fascism with Moral Censorship. Slit some throats,
shed some blood. Yeah.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 15:07:45 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "John E. Matthias" <John.E.Matthias.1@ND.EDU>
Subject: Pound & Fascism, etc.
I don't know...Ric Caddel quotes an eloquent letter from Bunting to Pound
that couldn't be improved on. But then Bunting also wrote of the Cantos:
"There are the Alps.... / you will have to go a long way round / if you
want to avoid them." Wendy Battin says "I don't think it's safe to ignore
this man." It's also not possible. How can someone choose not to read "The
River-Merchant's Wife," "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley," Canto 2, Canto 47, Canto
81, etc.
I've been reading Milan Kundera's _Testaments Betrayed_ these last couple
of days & found some good things about the trials, in every sense, of
writers in our century. In the Chapter called "Paths in the Fog" Kundera's
focus is Kafka. On pp. 225-240, however, he begins to generalize with a
rather surprising paragraph on Orwell's _1984_:
"The pernicious influence of Orwell's novel resides in its implacable
reduction of a reality to its political dimension alone, and in its
reduction of that dimension to what is exemplarily negative about it. I
refuse to forgive this reduction on the grounds that it was useful as
propaganda in the struggle against totalitarian evil. For that evil is,
precisely, the reduction of life to politics and of politics to propaganda.
So despite its intentions, Orwell's novel itself joins in the totalitarian
spirit, the spirit of propaganda. It reduces (and teaches others to reduce)
the life of a hated society to the simple listing of its crimes."
A little later he goes on like this, reaching back again to Kafka:
"Tribunal: this does not signify the juridical institution intended for
punishing people who have violated the laws of a state; the tribunal (or
court) in Kafka's sense is a power that judges, that judges because it is a
power; its power and nothing but its power is what confers legitimacy on
the tribunal...
"The trial's memory is colossal, but it is a very specific memory, which
could be defined as _the forgetting of everything not a crime_. The trial
thus reduces the defendant's biography to _criminography_; Victor Farias
(whose _Heidegger and Nazism_is a classic example of criminography) locates
the roots of the philosopher's Nazism in his early youth, without the least
concern for locating the roots of his genius; to punish someone accused of
ideological deviations, Communist tribunals would put _all_ his work on the
index (thus, for instance, the ban on Lukacs and Sartre in Communist
countries covered even their pro-Communist writings). "Why are our streets
still named for Picasso, Aragon, Eluard, Sartre?" a Paris paper asked in a
1991 post-Communist intoxication; it's tempting to answer: because of the
value of their works! But in his trial against Europe, Sartre said exactly
what values mean now: "our cherished values are losing their wings; looked
at closely, every one of them is blood-stained"; values stained are values
no longer; the spirit of the trial is the reduction of everything to
morality; it is absolute nihilism in regard to craft, art, works..."
"For nearly seventy years Europe lived under a trial-regime. From among the
great artists of the century, how many defendants...I shall mention only
those who had some significance for me. Starting in the twenties, there
were those hounded by the tribunal of revolutionary morality: Bunin,
Andreyev, Meyerhold, Pilnyak, Veprik (a Jewish-Russian musician, a
forgotten martyr of modern art; he dared to defend Shostakovich's opera
against Stalin's condemnation; they stuck him in a camp; I remember his
piano compositions, which my father liked to play), Mandelstam, Halas (the
poet was adored by Ludvik in _The Joke_; hounded after his death for
gloominess seen as counterrevolutionary). Then there were the quarry of
the Nazi tribunal: Broch (he gazes at me, pipe in mouth, from a photo on my
worktable), Schoenberg, Werfel, Brecht, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Musil,
Vancura (the Czech writer I most love), Bruno Schulz. The totalitarian
empires and their bloody trials have disappeared, but the _spirit of the
trial_lingers as a legacy, and that is what is now settling scores. Thus
the trial strikes at: those accused of pro-Nazi sympathies: Hamsun,
Heidegger (all Czech dissident thought, Patocka most notably, is indebted
to him), Richard Strauss, Gottfried Benn, von Doderer, Drieu la Rochelle,
Celine (in 1992, a half century after the war, an indignant official
refused to designate his house a historical monument); supporters of
Mussolini: Malaparte, Marinetti, Ezra Pound (the American military kept
him, like an animal, in a cage for months under the blazing Italian sun; in
his Reykjavik studio, the painter Kristjan Davidsson showed me a large
photo of him: 'For fifty years it has gone with me everywhere I go'); the
Munich appeasers: Giono, "Alain, Morand, Montherlant, St.-John Perse (a
member of the French delegation to the Munich conference, he was closely
involved in the humiliation of my native country); then, the Communists and
their sympathizers: Mayakovsky (who today remembers his love poetry and his
amazing metaphors?), Gorky, Shaw, Brecht (who is thereby undergoing his
second trial), Eluard (that exterminating angel who used to decorate his
signature with a drawing of crossed swords), Picasso, Leger, Aragon (how
can I forget that he offered me his hand at a difficult time in my life?),
Nezval (his self-portrait in oils is on the wall of my bookshelves),
Sartre. Some of these people are undergoing a double trial, first accused
of betraying the revolution, then accused for services they had rendered
earlier: Gide (in the old Communist countries, the symbol of all evil),
Shostakovich (to atone for his difficult music, he manufactured rubbish for
the regime's needs; he maintained that for the history of art a worthless
thing is null and void; he didn't know that for the tribunal it is the
worthlessness itself that counts), Breton, Malraux (accused yesterday of
having betrayed revolutionary ideals, accusable tomorrow of having held
them), Tibor Dery (some works of this Communist writer, who was imprisoned
after the Budapest massacre, were for me the first great literary,
nonpropagandistic reply to Stalinism). The most exquisite flower of the
century, the modern art of the twenties and thirties, was even triply
accused: first by the Nazi tribunal as _Entartete Kunst_, "degenerate art";
then by the Communist tribunal as "elitist formalism alien to the people";
and finally by the triumphant capitalist tribunal as art steeped in
revolutionary illusions.
"How is it possible that the Soviet Russian chauvinist, the maker of
versified propaganda, he whom Stalin himself called "the greatest poet of
our epoch"--how is it possible that Mayakovsky is nevertheless a tremendous
poet, one of the greatest? Given her capacity for enthusiasm, her emotional
tears that blur her view of the outside world, wasn't lyric poetry--that
untouchable goddess--doomed one fateful day to become the beautifier of
atrocities, their "warmhearted maidservant" (Baudelaire)?....To be a true
poet and at the same time to support (like Mayakovsky) an incontestable
horror is a scandal--in the sense of an unjustifiable, unacceptable event,
one that contradicts logic and yet is real. We are all unconsciously
tempted to dodge scandals, to behave as though they don't exist. That is
why we prefer to say that the great cultural figures tainted with the
horrors of our century were bastards; but it isn't so; if only out of
vanity, aware that they are seen, looked at, judged, artists and
philosophers are anxious to be decent and courageous, to be on the right
side, to be right. That makes the scandal still more intolerable, more
inexplicable. If we don't want to leave this century just as stupid as we
entered it, we must abandon the facile moralism of the trial and think
about this scandal, think it through to the bottom, even if this should
lead us to question anew all our certainties about man as such.
"But the conformism of public opinion is a force that sets itself up as a
tribunal, and the tribunal is not there to waste time over ideas, it is
there to conduct the investigations for trials. And as the abyss of time
widens between judges and defendants, it is always a lesser experience that
is judging a greater. The immature sit in judgment on Celine's erring ways
without realizing that because of these erring ways, Celine's novels
contain existential knowledge that, if they were to understand it, could
make them more adult. Because therein lies the power of culture: it redeems
horror by transforming it into existential wisdom. If the spirit of the
trial succeeds in annihilating this century's culture, nothing will remain
of us but a memory of its atrocities sung by a chorus of children."
I didn't mean to type out so much; nor do I agree with everything Kundera
says. But this is certainly all worth thinking about in the context of the
continuing trial of poets like Ezra Pound.
John Matthias
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:03:22 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: voting on a new usenet group...
joe ---
this is a very tough issue --- i wld have voted no myself, also w/
misgivings --- freedom of speech is exactly what it means
but does free speech include the right to call me a subhuman kike
to make a frightened and confused teenager cry on her way into an
abortion clinic
to butt in on a gay/lesbian/bisexual chat group w/ things like:
you faggots are gonna burn in hell
????????????????
i was waiting for the bus in downtown oakland a few years back. there was
a right-to-lifer standing there w/ a megaphone and a large placard
covered w/ photographs of an aborted fetus. after a few minutes of
enduring his haranguing, an elderly black woman started shouting at him:
"you satan's helper! you satan's helper!" at that the crowd at the bus stop
joined in and the guy had to leave.
so maybe i wld actually vote yes and then spend a few minutes every day
sending them posts in wch i wld calmly and as irrefutably as possible
call them on their shit (with my signature carefully removed, of course!)
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 12:03:22 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:19:28 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: avant-garde
how abt
3 NONSTOP SWINGING PROTEAN MOTHERFUCKERS
HEADING FOR THE 3RD ON THE GOOD FOOT
?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 12:19:28 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:26:07 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
tony ---
right on
yeah we'll knife em stack em up n watch em burn n then we'll feel
so good abt ourselves, won't we?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 12:26:07 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen (?)
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:44:17 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: kids without godparents
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960317092247.505L-100000@uhunix5>
On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Gabrielle Welford wrote:
> I agree with all you say eryque
oooops! Sorry emily. I misread your (for eryque) as (from eryque). Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:47:38 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: this list
I just want to say that I am proud and umble to be on this list. What a
wonderful, compassionate, thoughtful crowd dealing with explosive
topics. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:51:25 GMT+1300
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: avant-garde
how abt
3 NONSTOP SWINGING PROTEAN MOTHERFUCKERS
HEADING FOR THE 3RD ON THE GOOD FOOT
?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 12:19:28 pm
another three or four lines of title and you would really screw up
the library data-entry machinery
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:33:54 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
i don't have kids myself, and my parents were none the best, to say
the least, but i think you all agree that it's much more important to
show yr kids yr own tolerance self-respect honesty compassion, all
that good stuff, than it is to worry abt what they call you. i'm not
criticizing you guys at all, please don't think so, and i have no
arguments w/ any of you --- still less am i accusing you of ANYTHING
---just want to put in my (uninformed) 2 cents re yr very complex
courageous beautiful utterly necessary (to me frightening!) lives
as parents
re nuclear family:
freud (i have a feeling i'll get slammed for this) said
humanity will never be happy until it realizes that the family is
it's worst enemy
how's that for a can of worms?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 12:33:55 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:57:21 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: Re: Pound & Fascism, etc.
Bravo John Matthias and Milan Kundera.
Bravo Ezra Pound without whose poetry ours likely wouldn't be.
(Brooding on this for a while: the rush to condemnation.
More later, as it comes.)
Jerome Rothenberg
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 14:59:08 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: voting on a new usenet group...
chris, yeah, i hear you... what turned it for me was simply this: that
this is in fact not a censorship issue exactly, that usenet was set up to
permit formation of new news groups in accordance with things participatory
and democratic... now i understand how consensus is often abused, how
democracy can become tyranny... nevertheless there's all sortsa precedent
here, and no doubt the neo-nazis have and will continue to have net outlets
in any case...
so mebbe this goes back indirectly to that remark i made to the effect of
'not letting the fascist' out, and subsequent glosses by you, chris s., gab
(i was aware btw of my choice of pronoun---was merely using a 'him' for a
change in an obviously negative context)... seems to me we can't 'bottle
up' the neo-nazis, and in this respect the fascists will have their say
(perhaps even the fascists in us)... now we may attempt to disarm same
etc.... but this is no reason to encourage the fuckers either...
anyway, i hear you...
best,
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 16:01:16 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
chris sd:
>was it raymond federman said abt beckett:
>
>the more sam rubs our noses in the shit the more we love it
>
>by quoting wch i mean to say (along w/ ron, eryque, joe, alan,
>wendy, emily, all us chris's and EVERYBODY else and i mean EVERYBODY):
>
>the more you look, the more you learn. the more you learn, the more
>you know. the more you know, the more you can change IF YOU HAVE THE
>CAPACITY to change.
>
>olson:
>
>what does not change/ is the will to change
>
>i wld change that "does" to "must"
>for what it's worth
i realize this is a little behind the game now, but anyway:
yay chris! damn straight!
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 16:01:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: learning about the other: forgive buut never forget.
james's comments seem just about right on the money. (been a lot of good
comments of late, sometimes i think we're all loopier'n a bunch of loons!
:-)
i grew up (am growing) in (one of) the first generations to be taught to
believe that everyone's okay, and by people that really think so. the
problem is that we were almost never taught how to get to a point where we
all get along. we were/are taught to basically ignore stereotypes and then
everything will be groovy. the suburb i grew up in was almost all white,
there was a section of town (past the tracks) where almost all the black
kids went home to, i don't remember any hispanic people around. somehow
living in such a lily-white world we were supposed to learn to think of
everyone on the same level. every time i turn around i find misogynist,
patriarchal, racist, and other bigoted nastyist tendancies in myself, and i
think they're in most people who look inside far enough. i've been lucky
enough to keep these tendancies inside most of the time, keep them from
hurting others or myself. i'm glad for that, but there are times when i
wish these tendancies were more towards the surface, where i could deal
with them more easily.
so now the problem is, how do i (we) get to a point where we truly are
groovy? what do we do with pound after we read him?
if no one finds a solid point here, don't worry, neither do i. i've been
doing a lot of soul-searching lately, if i knew what i was saying, it
wouldn't be that much of a search, would it?
erYque
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:01:41 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Imamu Redo
In-Reply-To: <199603170524.AAA14122@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
let me try this quickly --
1) NOTHING I have said suggests deleting or slighting any period of
Baraka's work -- In fact, one of my complaints about the new selected,
aired in this space some months ago, was its leaving out of such texts as
_Spirit reach_ ;;; What I am asking is that we read and critique ALL OF
IT --
2) please read that Derrida on F.N. as I can't summarize here -- BUT
Please also note: the fact that a text can have infinite meanings DOES
NOT mean it can be made to mean anything -- If I believed that I would no
longer see much purpose to writing;;; If it were so easy for Nazis, for
example, to twist ANYTHING to mean what they wanted it to, they might as
easily have twisted somebody else,,,, what is needed is a reading
precisely of the mechanisms by which F.N.'s texts can be supportive of
both Nazi and antifascist readings -- This is not a relativist argument
-- It is possible to examine competing readings within the historical and
political contexts of their production without simp[ly throwing up one's
hands and saying that "bad" people can twist any text to mean anything
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 11:05:57 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Ed Fallon
Someone on dada (yes, I am an addict. I subscribed) sent copy of the
speech by Iowa Rep. Ed Fallon given in Feb. on voting for/against gay
marriage in Iowa. It is pretty superb. It's long, so if anyone wants
it, let me know. Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:06:39 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism, etc.
i just want to clarify an earlier post of mine:
for several years i read pound incessantly and was enthralled by
the poetry and the man. it is now, much later on, that i can only
read the pisan cantos. whatever pound was, he was also one of the
great poets, period. doesn't "mauberly" show pound's extreme pain and
sense of loss, and so show us a way into comprehending him?
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:06:39 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:13:47 GMT+1300
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: what is poetics
" regarding New Zealand rush hour: I hope you're not reading your
POETICS while driving (or herding sheep) - HGould"
Oh yes, I ride my sheep across the Harbour Bridge but it hasn't got
enough revs to change lane. It can't compete with people on
ostriches, deer and llamas, so gets stuck by the Elephant House for
twenty minutes every morning. It drives me up the wall, like a good
NZ poet.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:26:12 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: Pound & Fascism, etc.
--- On Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:57:21 PST Jerry Rothenberg
<jrothenb@CARLA.UCSD.EDU> wrote:
>Bravo John Matthias and Milan Kundera.
>
>Bravo Ezra Pound without whose poetry ours likely wouldn't
be.
I HEARTLY JOIN IN W/ WITH YR HUZZAHS.
>(Brooding on this for a while: the rush to condemnation.
>More later, as it comes.)
>
>Jerome Rothenberg
>
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:03:40 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:31:14 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: learning about the other: forgive buut never forget.
eryque wrote:
>so now the problem is, how do i (we) get to a point where we truly are
>groovy? what do we do with pound after we read him?
one thing maybe we could do is to marvel at the protean nature
of humankind
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:31:14 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:34:08 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: this list
--- On Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:47:38 -1000 Gabrielle Welford
<welford@HAWAII.EDU> wrote:
>I just want to say that I am proud and umble to be on this list. What a
>wonderful, compassionate, thoughtful crowd dealing with explosive
>topics. Gab.
>
me, too, gab
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:34:08 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:40:26 GMT+1300
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: 16 Oz or
From: Wystan Curnow <w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz>
Let's make a BAD FOLKS List.
Let's see, who we got so far:
Pound
Frost
Baraka
Hemingway
There are so many bad folks in the world and so much badness to learn
from.More names please.
Wystan
How's abt Wyndham Lewis for his persecution of David Bomberg and of
other Jews at the Slade (see R.Cork's monograph on Bomberg). Don't
try to read Wyndham Lewis, don't even thinbk abt it. And don't let me
hear anyone make demeaning remarks about Bomberg's paintings anymore,
such as "Well, in that David Sylvester show at the Tate, Bomberg
turned out to be not really all that exciting..." which cd be heard in
responsible quarters in London.
And Nicolas Poussin for following Roman fashionable anti-semitism in
his painting of the Last Supper for Cassiano dal Pozzo, where Judas
is characterised as a Jew (in distinction from the other Apostles)...
Do you think I don't know how to point the fimger?
And, Tony Green, not for anti-semitism, but for his disgusting way of
life.
And Wystan Curnow, well now, we all know what he gets up to.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:41:49 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: voting on a new usenet group...
joe ---
yeah, i hear you , too
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:41:49 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:43:35 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: learning about the other: forgive buut never forget.
eryque ---
loopier than loons kinda goes w/ the territory, don't it just?
i gotta run now ---
going to hang out w/ my good friend and ex-, gigi gamble,
who is a scando-latino-bisexual-wonder-woman (learning abt
the other), whom i love dearly
flyin th freak flag
i remain
til next we meet
yr hmbl & obt etc
dogboy
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:43:35 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 16:57:21 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960317090040.505E-100000@uhunix5>
Gab wrote:
Has anyone on the list read Wilhelm Reich? He was dealing with exactly
these things. He was and still is very controversial--I think the only
American to have his books burned by the government. The most radical
activist can be a fascist to the kids at home. Where does it start?
Reich's MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM is still an excellent book -- as are a
number of other books by Reich who did indeed die in jail, harassed to
death by the FBI -- even if some of his own late ideas (the orgone stuff
-- though the cancer biopathy material is still worth looking at) went
kinky. The trajectory of the life & career is an amazing testimony of
this century's madness -- & greatness. -- Pierre
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force
Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That
SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida
Albany NY 12222 |
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language."
email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu|
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 13:54:29 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: badfolks list
i gotta nominate myself for this list as well, for all the
vicious things i've done to myself and others in my very
checkered past.
re wyndham lewis --- yeah, but wasn't he good friends w/
jacob epstein?
lewis is another writer i was enthralled w/ for a while.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 1:54:29 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 14:21:59 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Ed Fallon
gab ---
please send me a copy of that speech
thanks
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 2:21:59 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 16:32:33 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism, etc.
re john's helpful extract from kundera:
there's a lot about kundera TOO that i've a problem with in fact!... i'm
not just trying to be difficult here, and i can appreciate that many of you
(jerry, chris, others) may find k's writing invigorating... i don't wish to
rush a judgment *here*, but there's always seemed to me to be a
not-so-latent (male) sexism at work in his work (such as _the book of
laughter & forgetting_---and i don't *think* there were any women artists
in those excerpts, were there?)... i can recall trying once to broach this
issue with a colleague of mine, and the resistance i experienced at that
time to any mention of k's authorial responsibility...
now i like some of k's remarks (as excerpted) re the paradoxes of
judgment/"trial" (although i think he's wildly off on _1984_)... but i'm
also struck by how this can become a dodge, a way of avoiding even talking
about, say, the fascism of pound (which latter would seem, thankfully, NOT
to be the rule of thumb in these parts, and which, for example, charles'
experience at yale speaks to)... just look at the way k frames his
argument, for example: "the immature sit in judgment on celine's erring
ways..."
excuse me?... "the immature"?...
i mean, i'm interested in the context (i can be such a bore, i know) in
which kundera's work is articulated/received... and so much of our current
political climate strikes me as conservative, so much so that i'm struck by
how k's remarks can be taken to support a conservative approach to what
should be taught, and how... for those on the outside of academe, you may
be aware that many of us on the inside are experiencing incredible pressure
to be 'less radical,' which generally translates in more extremist jargon
to claims that we radical folks are "indicting" various authors for their
passe political sentiments... that is, there's pressure on many of to
'return' to a more presumably blessed state of literary-critical
rapprochement (evidently, from my vantage point, one more amenable to
corporate mergers)... ergo those of us who lay claim, however diversely, to
represent more progressive-liberal agenda are accused of a "politically
correct" platform by (generally) the right (latter term used
unadvisedly)... which often ends up filtering into more popular media to
make us look like eager zealots whose sole purpose is to ideologize and
deflate Great Literature in order to perpetuate our self-interested ends
(*whatever* these may be)... not to excuse abuses from the left, but,
uhm---
sorry to go on so... but i think that judgment as well as critiques of same
need to be rendered carefully, but nonetheless need to be rendered...
best,
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 17:42:52 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Nourbese Philip
Peter -- your reading of the tension between text and essence in Philip's essay
and work is right on the mark. As she puts it, her use of the term "i-mage"
"does not represent the increasingly conventional deconstruction of certain
words, but draws on the Rastafarian practice of privileging the 'I' in many
words." When she was here in Memphis last November, I asked her to comment on
this passage in relation to one by bell hooks in "Postmodern Blackness":
"Should we not be suspicious of postmodern critiques of the 'subject' when they
surface at a historical moment when many subjugated people feel themselves
coming to voice for the first time." Neither Philip nor hooks are arguing that
we dismiss deconstructive or postmodern critiques of the subject. hooks goes on
to argue (and I think Philip would agree) that "Postmodern culture with its
decentered subject can be the space where ties are severed or it can provide
the occasion for new and varied forms of bonding." I think that either/or
speaks to the tension not only in Philip's work but in most of what gets termed
postmodernism -- the tension that helps produces "new and varied forms of
bonding." (I hope that doesn't smell too offensively Hegelian, to borrow
Nietzsche's comment on his _Birth of Tragedy_.) For Philip, there does seem to
be a resolution of that tension, although it is a kinetic rather than static
resolution. Here's the final paragraph of "The Absence of Writing or How I
Almost Became a Spy," which opens up _She Tries Her Tongue_:
"For the many like me, black and female, it is imperative that our writing
begin to recreate our histories and myths, as well as integrate that most
painful of experiences -- loss of our history and our word. The reacquisition
of power to create in one's own i-mage and to create one's own i-mage is vital
to this process; it reaffirms for us that which we have always known, even in
those most darkest of times which are still with us, when everything conspired
to prove otherwise -- that we belong most certainly to the race of humans."
So the "I" does go through the postmodern process of critique or
deconstruction, but it doesn't end there but with the possibility of "new and
varied forms of bonding" -- like this list.
Paul Naylor
MAIL
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
SEND
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 19:19:28 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Kids, Frieddy, etc.
At 10:44 AM 3/17/96 -1000, Gabrielle Welford wrote:
>On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Gabrielle Welford wrote:
>
>> I agree with all you say eryque
>
>oooops! Sorry emily. I misread your (for eryque) as (from eryque). Gab.
>
:) Gab: eryque probably needs the apology more than me. The commune
was--maybe this is telling, maybe not--a small lesbian commune in MD. I
agree wholeheartedly about kids needing many different adults in their
lives. I do think the nuclear family is a problematic set-up (hat-tip to
Freud and Chris); it doesn't lend itself to exposure to lots of different
kinds of folks (on the other hand, a lesbian commune doesn't really either).
What can we do if we don't move to communes? I don't know. Have lots of
diverse friends. Invite them over. And don't send the kids to bed when we
do. I'd, please, like a copy of that Fallon speech.
Eryque: about us whiteys who grew up in lily-white neighborhoods trying to
deal with the racism we've been taught/have internalized: there's a group in
DC called DC White Lesbians Against Racism Everywhere. Is this
wacky/infuriating? A black woman wanted to go to their meeting and was
barred. They wanted to be in an all-white space so they could talk
uninhibitedly about their racism w/o feeling ashamed. I get the point, I
definitely do, but I think it's hugely ironic/saddening/maddening that it
ended up that way. Lily-white neighborhoods will hopefully be a thing of
the past soon. Lily-white neighborhoods are another place I would prefer
not to raise my (theoretical) kids.
Aldon: true, not ANY text can be manipulated by nazis. But truly, a
thorough, honest reading of Nietzsche yields nothing in the way of
Pro-nazism. My guess is that his choice of the word "Overman" (Ubermensch)
is what did it. He talked about the creation of a world of "overmen," and
the nazis took one glance at the word and thought "yup, like an aryan
nation." But he was using it to mean "enlightened being" (insofar as one
finds Nietzsche's prescriptions enlightening)..."Bodhisattva" (sp?) could be
warped, then, to nazi purposes. "Overman" was an unfortunate word choice;
overmen them(nonexistent)selves would have nothing to do with a nazi state,
or any kind of state.
Everyone: haven't seen "Il Postino," but rented last night Jean Luc-Godard's
grapple with "King Lear," and recommend it. It's the kind of movie that
makes you think of big words, but it's great anyway-- deals w/everything
from imagism to ancestors to text-im-purity to re & de construction etc.
Also, weirdly enough, it stars Molly Ringwald. King Lear is a mafia don. e
(from emily) :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 17:58:00 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: switzerland
The new issue (#4) of _Lyric &_
Jacques Derrida: _Of Spirit: Heidegger and The Question_
Aris Fioretos, ed: _Word Traces: Readings of Paul Celan_
E.E. Cummings: _Eimi_
Larry Eigner: _Selected Poems_ (Oyez)
Bill Watterson: _Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons_
(Calvin and Hobbes)
and a bunch of Burning Deck titles I just received:
Brita Bergland, _The Rebirth of the Older Child_
Claire Needell, _Not a Balancing Act_
Claude Royet-Journoud, _i.e._
Pam Rehm, _Piecework_ and
Jackson MacLow, _The Virginia Woolf Poems_
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 17:58:00 PST
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Kundera
Thanks John Matthias for the long Kundera quote. I do agree with him about
the reduction to politics and the notion of the trial as "the forgetting of
everything except guilt."
And Joe, your point about how such a concept might be used to stifle
critique from the left is well taken, but to me it doesn't negate the
resonance of truth in the thought itself (I'm aware that you weren't trying
to do this). In many ways, the right and the left are equally culpable in
the reduction of human beings to their "positions" on certain political
"issues", and while I'm quite a bit more sympathetic to the left when it
does this, I don't see any real lasting solutions to the problems we face as
human beings being solved by this reduction.
Humanity is an extraordinarily complex critter, and I'm not sure that
there's a politics out there that gives that fact the full respect, empathy,
and imagination it demands. In trying to develop something that will, we of
course run massive risks and make ourselves totally vulnerable to reduction
ourselves.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 20:19:55 -0600
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From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Uber-Freddy
I agree with you, Emily; I don't think you can find pro-nazism in Nietzsche's
texts -- sexism and biologism, yes, but nazism, no. I think the term Ubermensch
has it's origins close to home -- in Emerson's term Oversoul. Emerson was a
great favorite of Nietzsche's. "Emerson with his essays has been a good friend
and cheered me up even in black periods: he contains so much skepsis, so many
'possibilities' that even virtue achieves espirit in his writings. A unique
case! Even as a boy I enjoyed listening to him. _Tristram Shandy_ also belongs
to my earliest favorites . . ." Thus Spoke Frieddy.
Paul Naylor
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Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 19:05:37 -0800
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From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
Fascist work is always interesting. I cannot imagine why one would want to
avoid that type of work. I really do think that there is some form of
fascism in all of us. Especially ones who want to ban or restrict thoughts
- pure and ugly.
tosh
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 22:26:18 -0500
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From: Karen or Peter Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Re: 16 Oz or (bow outs)
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:56:46 I wrote:
>Another reason this is a problem, for others probably as much as me, is
>because I want to draw a historical lineage. It's naive, I know, but the
>line from my favorite poets back to Whitman goes through Pound. If I look
>at it: Whitman - Pound - Zukofsky - Olson - (here it explodes into various
>Black Mountain and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E people), I can see where the weakest
>link is in the chain. It is Pound. Compare any part of the Cantos to any
>part of "A" or Maximus, it really pales in comparison.
Dear Self,
Dickinsen - Williams - Zukofsky makes more sense.
It is also neater.
Peter
landers@vivanet.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 22:46:20 -0500
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From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Uber-Fried
Yes, lots of Emerson in Nietzsche. And lots of Lady MacBeth.
Switz: all my ROOF book orders that just came in the mail. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 20:37:25 PST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism, etc.
joe
my huzzahs were directed toward the SPIRIT of jerry's bravos,
not necessarily at kundera himself. i'm not all that familiar
w/ kundera, to tell the truth.
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 8:37:26 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 01:17:19 -0500
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From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
Emily L. wrote:
>Christopher F--that's *really* interesting, about "da" "ma" & your daughter.
>I had no idea that these sounds were the easiest for kids to make first...
My daughter, Alexandra, went through a period at 9 months as she was just
beginning to walk, holding onto things, in which she wld repeat over & over
"boo-da, boo-da" sometimes plaintively, sometimes matter-of-factly, sometimes
laughingly, sometimes seemingly making an observation. . . my friend Robby
Bick's daughter repeated "allah, allah" around the same age. . .
Rod
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 23:04:21 -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.COM>
Subject: Kellog's article and reification
I have received (thank, Davids) and begun exploring David Kellog's
"Desire..." article he recently passed out. While reading I was
puzzled and saddened by his comments on desire's apparent growing
reification as a noun. My bias as a psychologist and a poet is for
process. I see this as possibly a reflection of our current captivity
in advertising imagery, sound bites, and conservative rigidity:
"...the overwhelming preference more recent poets have for _desire_
in its noun form....poets gravitate toward the potential of the word
as a thing...[its] gestural, deictic quality increases its appeal for
recent poets who negotiate the Scylla of discourse and the Charybdis
of subjectivity. (414)."
I think it was my sense of cultural rigidification that recently
led me to initiate a "verbalized noun" renga (collaborative poem -
with help from fellow fellow renga qaballists):
Sam friscoed his living space
she has plans to cattle his life savings
for a formering singe to heart my laptop
I could magazine it if you'd creche me
don't apple with me or i'll weeping willow you
until you profound it, you coffee it up
and wetting don't caulk in the whispered
to-be-jointed night, don't phone me
laughter it fretly, soap a mariner
who perimeters the sextant or sextants the
apse he milky ways on the shore on the shore
tom
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 00:38:05 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: _Rethinking C.L.R. James_
In-Reply-To: <199603180542.AAA02690@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
As Rod indicated, there is much good stuff in this book -- but ::
for some reason it reprints Anna Grimshaw's Intro. to the volume of James
letters published by the same press (Blackwell) at the same time
:: The Jim Murray essay contains several repeats from earlier
publications AND completely misrepresents the essays of other people he
talks about (like Selwyn Cudjoe)
:: Grant Farred, in the process of arguing that James is not yet famous
enough to be "quotable" proves his point inadvertenly by misquoting James
upshot -- read this one at the library, and spend your money on the
volume of letters -- The Ross & Larsen essays are pretty good, but the
letters are something to have for your own library -- they are letters
written to Constance Webb, who became James's second wife -- he
contradicts himself, very well , he contradicts himself,,,, but this book
is a wonderful opportunity to watch a writer thinking his way through
some of the pressing issues of his day -- he's way off about Muriel
Rukeyser, but he's right on the money about so much else --
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 00:39:38 -0800
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: headings
In-Reply-To: <199603180542.AAA02690@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
I'm going to Detroit Saturday & will be in town thru Wed. night -- any
Detroit folk on this list in addition to Lyndberg & Watten?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 12:25:35 +0300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: Bunting, Pound and Luther King
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPP.3.91-941213.960315105151.5716A-100000@pahang.dur.ac.uk>
Hi!
The most relevant piece of information so far, to my mind, that has been
quoted in this discussion concerning Ezra Pound, is Basil Bunting's sincere,
outspoken and couragious condemnation of Pound's disgusting Fascism:
> "Every anti-semitism, anti-niggerism, anti-moorism, that I can recall in
> history was base, had its foundation in the meanest kind of envy and in
> greed. It makes me sick to see you covering yourself with that filth. It
> is not an arguable question, has not been arguable for at least nineteen
> centuries... it is hard to see how you are going to stop the rot of your
> mind and heart without a pretty thoroughgoing repudiation of what you
> have spent a lot of work on."
> - Basil Bunting to Pound, 1938.
> Basil Bunting was wise enough to sense how dangerous, "filthy," "rotten"
and twisted Pound's fascist ideas were at the rise of Nazism. I congratulate
all those on this list who have expressed the same kind of disgust and
fear concerning our own times, and have enough backbone not bend to "peer
pressure" and to fashionable "cliches rags."
I am sorry to see that some of us have not learnt enough from history, as
"Fascist ideas and fascist poetry pave the road to burning ovens..." After
all the self-pitying lame arguments, excuses and repetitions, let's be
conscientious enough to bury Ezra Pound after all. Let's rather resurrect
Luther King's wise words:
"WHEN BAD MEN PLOT, GOOD MEN MUST PLAN...." (I am sure he meant good
women too...)
I suggest we be choosy, and read, teach and spread, in the restricted time
that is at our disposal, what can help us build a better culture
and a better world toward year 2000, and not drag with us into the new
century what can lead us again to gas chambers.
Cheers to Basil Bunting and Luther King! And to all those who do not
just toe the line and join the herd, but rather adopt challenging attitudes,
and think new, positive, constructive and nourishing thoughts like them...
"For my day is a Pomegranate
full of ruby grains -
as long as each grain
is a lifetime -
I do not care if I'm the woman
of no time ..."
Ada Aharoni
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 02:00:32 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: my excesses
hey ---
received a couple of posts today telling me i was sending a
bit to much --- i'm sorry for any inconvenience i may have
caused and hope that my enthusiasm has somewhat excused my
breach of etiquette. in future i will be infinitely more
discreet.
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.18.96 2:00:32 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 02:49:36 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: a hurricane triggered by butterfly's wings <plord@THERE.ORG>
Subject: newsgroup creation policy bogosity
In-Reply-To: <199603180542.AAA02690@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Automatic
digest processor" at Mar 18, 96 00:12:52 am
Sorry for the delay, digest don't ya know.
So then Joe Amato <amato@charlie.acc.iit.edu> up and wrote:
>all: this is from another list, sans original headers... i thought it
>might be appropriate to post here on poetics... i've decided, with some
>hesitation, to vote 'no'... my hesitation owing only to my concerns about
>first amendment issues---BUT voting is established practice for creating
>usenet groups... ergo the internet decides for itself on the basis of
>appeal to democratic (voting) practices, w/o intervention in the form of
>censorship... this touches on the question of how best to deal with fascism
>etc...
Folks, as I understand the Usenet voting process, the ONLY
valid method of announcing newsgroup votes is the CFV in
news.groups. That way, the votes (theoretically, anyway) come
from informed sources, and NO votes come from people who object
to the group based on traffic or namespace issues (such as
redundancy). Any broadcast of the vote to other forums
constitutes vote fraud; I've now seen the announcement of this
particular vote on three or four newsgroups, which almost
certainly guarantees that the group will be created. The
authors of the CFV will merely point out that a massive smear
campaign was launched against the group in this newsgroup and
that newsgroup, and <poof>, all those NO votes get invalidated.
I'm not quite paranoid enough to suspect that the smear campaign
against the group was started by one of the groups proponents,
nor do I really believe that the newsgroup should be a part of
the 'rec.' hierarchy (talk.politics.white-power would be a more
appropriate place in the namespace hierarchy for the group, as
the proposed charter clearly allows for discussion outside of
purely musical issues; further, alt.music.white-power was
created over the weekend), but it's pretty much moot now.
They'll get their 'rec' group by default. I know you meant
well, Joe, but you've acheived the reverse of your intentions
by posting this information. Sorry to bear bad tidings.
paul
--
At least we'll know where to find them. Maybe the huge
wandering fascism/libertarian argument will take root in that
newsgroup and free up the rest of the net...nah, who am I kidding.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:10:10 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: poetry center info/donations
In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:57:31 +0800 from
<schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996 10:57:31 +0800 Schuchat said:
>Henry, considering the location ("Cranston near the city line") might I
>suggest you name the poetry center after that son of Providence, Ted
>Berrigan?
Good idea - I'll bring it up at the next meeting. We met day before St. Pat's
day & somebody suggested "Wild Geese", after the Irish emigres (Dante liked to
call bad poets "geese") - HG
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:16:44 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Scott J Pound <spound@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: AN: Aldon Nielsen: BAD
Comments: To: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960315170334.19653A-100000@athens>
On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Aldon L. Nielsen wrote:
>
> Derrida's remarks on the reading of Nietzche in his _The Ear of the
> Other_ have much to offer this discussion that so many are bowing out of --
>
As do Nancy's in his essay "Our History," about de Man. The essay appeared
in _Diacritics_. I'm not sure which one.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:17:51 -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: 16 Oz or (bow outs)
In-Reply-To: <v01530500ad7253db1748@[204.176.82.166]> from "Karen or Peter
Landers" at Mar 17, 96 10:26:18 pm
> If I look at it: Whitman - Pound - Zukofsky - Olson - (here it
> explodes into various Black Mountain and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E people), I
> can see where the weakest link is in the chain. It is Pound. Compare
> any part of the Cantos to any part of "A" or Maximus, it really
> pales in comparison.
Yeah, but try to imagine _A_ or _Maximus_ in a world without the
_Cantos_. Can't be done. You may not like the road, but that's how you
get there.
The funny thing is, 30 years ago the attack on Pound came from the New
Critics. Part of the courage of Pound's then readers--Duncan, Blaser,
Creeley, Olson, Rothenberg, etc.--was their willingness to stand up to
that authority's dismissal of Pound as a fascist loony, and insist
that there was something essential to be learned in reading this work.
Maybe one similarity between the old new critics and new correct
critics is that both are more interested in telling other people WHAT
to read, rather than helping them augment HOW they read. Read RP
Blackmur on Crane (as Thomas Yingling has it) then read Jane Smiley on
Twain. Same old same old.
Mike
mboughn@epas.uotornto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 07:53:40 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Paul Naylor <PKNAYLOR@MSUVX2.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Subject: Pound and Zukofsky
Mike -- you ask if it would be possible to imagine "A" without The Cantos.
Barry Ahearn claims in _Zukofsky's "A"_, that Zukofsky "first read the _Cantos_
after completing "A" 1-4, and the rest of the movements [up to "A" 8] were
probably too far advanced for drastic change" (76). Hey all you Zukofskyites,
is Ahearn right about this? The more I read "A" the less like The Cantos it
seems. While I'm on the topic, does anyone know if there's an article or book
or posting that identifies all the passages from Marx, Veblen, Adams, etc in
"A" 8?
Paul Naylor
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=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:56:05 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9603172213.A28481-0100000@well>
On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Thomas Bell wrote:
> I have received (thank, Davids) and begun exploring David Kellog's
> "Desire..." article he recently passed out. While reading I was
> puzzled and saddened by his comments on desire's apparent growing
> reification as a noun. My bias as a psychologist and a poet is for
> process. I see this as possibly a reflection of our current captivity
> in advertising imagery, sound bites, and conservative rigidity:
> "...the overwhelming preference more recent poets have for _desire_
> in its noun form....poets gravitate toward the potential of the word
> as a thing...[its] gestural, deictic quality increases its appeal for
> recent poets who negotiate the Scylla of discourse and the Charybdis
> of subjectivity. (414)."
I must say I agree with this assessment, though I hadn't thought about the
word's reification in exactly this way. Do you take the article as
contributing to this reification? (Of course I hope not, but I'm open to
modification, will be glad to consider yr thoughts). In other words, was
I the source of yr sadness & puzzlement? Not my aim at all . . .
As you no doubt see, I read the function of desire in psychoanalysis as
secondary -- in a historical sense -- to its use as a code term in the
reproduction of poetic value. Not that it doesn't function also as a term
of meaning; only that's not my primary concern.
Another notion of reification is implied, I think, in the comparison the
article makes between *desire* and other words in earlier poetries. Also,
since I focused on desire in some comparatively establishment- oriented
poets (Hass & Graham), the reification might be stronger there -- in Hass
especialy (I think Graham escapes a bit on this score) -- than in some
more radically process-oriented poets.
My observation re: many prefer noun over verb / came after collecting a
couple hundred desire-poems. By which I mean, I think it's really &
sadly there. Which is not to say poets can't work against it.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 14:58:48 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
In-Reply-To: <199603180520.FAA18973@hermes.dur.ac.uk>
Charles wrote:
> This was the sort of occasion where you'd hear people
> murmuring to one another, "you know, despite it all, maybe Pound
> was right about social credit" (and maybe some other things too).
> Creepy.
- anyone who's been to a Pound Gathering must recognise that scene, and
the really creepy bit for me is that so many of the murmurers are young
and in other respects bright: young enough to know better, I'd have hoped.
The Bunting poem "On The Fly-Leaf Of Pound's Cantos" which John Matthias
mentions, as well as recognising that "you will have to go a long way
round / if you want to avoid them" does carry a warning:
Fatal glaciers, crags cranks climb,
- but still some folk want to debate that "Pound was right". Heigh-ho.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:18:59 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rachel Blau DuPlessis <RDUPLESS@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
Subject: Re: Pound takes a "Ding" -Returns a "Dong"
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:18:46 PST from
<jrothenb@CARLA.UCSD.EDU>
Intersecting circles of critical approaches, and non-intersecting circles.
Feminist critics interested in modernism, esp. modern poetries, have talked
about Pound's complex use of, interest in, ambivalence to, relation with the
women of his generation. Those who want to follow thru on Pound and women
might look at e.g. me, or Rachel Blau DuPlessis, "Corpses of Poesy:some
modern poets and some gender narratives of lyric," in Lynn Keller and Cri-
stanne Miller, ed. Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory from
Univ of Michigan Press, 1995. Although I also appreciate moves to reinvent
the wheel mainly because I don't think I have "the wheel," still it's
interesting to see that gender and modernism is not currently undiscussed.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:19:53 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Bunting, Pound and Luther King
At 12:25 PM 3/18/96 +0300, Ada Aharoni wrote:
I am sorry to see that some of us have not learnt enough from history...After
>all the self-pitying lame arguments, excuses and repetitions, let's be
>conscientious enough to bury Ezra Pound after all. And to all those who do not
>just toe the line and join the herd, but rather adopt challenging attitudes,
>and think new, positive, constructive and nourishing thoughts like them...
Wow. To call people who seem seriously interested in discussing the problem
Pound's fascism v. teaching/reading his poetry presents--in grappling with
themselves and looking at the issue from all angles-- "self-pitying," "lame"
herd-joiners, etc., does not seem new, positive, constructive, or nourishing
to me. It is quite odd language from someone clearly concerned with the way
language can perpetuate/create animosity. e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
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Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:20:13 -0600
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From: Julie Marie Schmid <jschmid@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960317114957.Chris@kunos>
I'm not sure if that book is in print, but his collected works were
published recently and I'm fairly sure it was included in there.
On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, chris daniels wrote:
> charles (or anybody) ---
>
> is mac low's book still in print?
>
> -------------------------------------
> christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.17.96 11:49:18 am
>
> q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
> said anything goes?"
> --- charles wourinen (?)
>
> a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
>
> --- george clinton
>
> snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
> voice: 510.524.5972
> http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:17:17 EST
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From: Henry <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 18 Mar 1996 14:58:48 +0000 from
<R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
On Mon, 18 Mar 1996 14:58:48 +0000 R I Caddel said:
>Charles wrote:
>> This was the sort of occasion where you'd hear people
>> murmuring to one another, "you know, despite it all, maybe Pound
>> was right about social credit" (and maybe some other things too).
>> Creepy.
On NPR this morning they were talking about new municipal paper money
issued in Ithaca, NY - called "Ithaca Hours" (the bills that is) - they said
it helps the local barter economy.
Ithaca, no less! Maybe Pound was there too, trying to shoot arrows through
axeheads while giving a harangue or something... -- Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:32:32 -0400
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From: Mark W Scroggins <mscroggi@ACC.FAU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound and Zukofsky
In-Reply-To: <01I2H5UVJXUA986L3T@msuvx2.memphis.edu>
Paul:
Yes, Ahearn's right, at least according to Zukofsky in his correspondence
with Pound--that is to say, he had no idea of _The Cantos_ as large-scale
project when he wrote the first movements of _"A"_, tho he'd read some of
them in little magazines.
There is no exhaustive or less-than-exhaustive tracking of his borrowings
in "A"-8--Ahearn's probably as close as you can get, though Sandra Stanley's
Zukofsky book from California has interesting material on Z and Adams,
and does some clever things with "A"-8. No-one seems terribly interested
in doing a Carroll F. Terrell (or George Butterick) on _"A"_, though I
believe one of Guy Davenport's grad students traced all the Spinoza
material in the poem.
At the risk of self-promotion, you might want to check out my edited
collection, _Upper Limit Music: The Writing of LZ_, out this summer from
U of Alabama P.
Mark Scroggins
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:42:18 -0600
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From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: newsgroup creation policy bogosity
paul, thanx for pointing that out, and apologies to the rest of this list...
i had (foolishly) assumed, having been forwarded the voting info., that
this was ok... but my lack of experience with usenet (more
techno-ignorance---and i've been online steadily for five-six years to
boot!) done me in... so mebbe my misgivings were not misgiven...
anyway... thanx again paul for the info and correction...
best,
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:46:25 -0600
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From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Kundera
steve, chris and others---thanx much for your subsequent glosses re kundera
etc...
listen: much of my experience re relative left's and right's (and
steve---you're correct, it's no mean thing to try to speak to experience
through politics) is, these days anyway, academically-situated... i won't
say that this should be taken as *the* privileged locus of points---there
are surely non-academic arts communities for which many of the academic
issues seem moot... but i have to assert here that it's much more likely to
find oneself debating pound's relative de/merits if one is in an anguish
dept. than if one is working at a brewery (i spent four-five years in a
brewery, and the autodidacts in this regard were the exception proved the
rule)... that many intellectuals in this country have been driven into
academic quarters in the past half-century itself reflects a changing
political-economic demographics...
put simply: i regard the primary service of the academic institution as
teaching, and i regard teaching as a powerful institutional force in this
culture (and other cultures)... further, there's simply a lot of
controversy these days in educational circles (at all levels, in fact) over
what is properly and not properly educational---and this is highly
motivated controversy, with lots and lots of dollars behind it... please,
ALDON, pipe up, you're better-informed here than me!...
let me say it another way: the discussion hereabouts re pound would NOT be
considered pertinent to anguish studies by the
powers-that-would-like-to-be-and-may-in-fact-be-the-only-powers-that-be...
the powers-that-would-etc. would prefer it were we anguish profs. to
discuss such matters in our spare time, among our arcane selves... or, if
we must, then devote our teaching time either to (1) skills instruction, in
which event pound becomes merely a 'model' writer---this is the preferred
mode if pound is to be introduced at all (and this latter would so
obviously be so difficult) or (2) art appreciation, in which event pound is
seen as one of the giants on whose shoulders we variously reside...
i am not exaggerating about this united-state-of-affairs, and i find it
alarming as hell---which is why this issue continues to be my hobbyhorse on
poetics whenever the question is raised of how to situate aesthetic
practice... there is currently incredible pressure right at this moment to
turn curricular and pedagogical realities into mere instructional
mechanisms for corporate indoctrination (which btw is not the same as
institutional survival)... part of what has compromised the ability of
phuds to mount any sustained resistance is the dismal job market (and
yes---i understand that this mirrors other dismal economic realities)... at
my institution, for example, we recently filled a position for which we had
over 400 fully-qualified applicants---applicants with phud, with
publications, etc... a hopelessly reductive task, in short, and one that is
all too commonplace these days... couple this with an academic-professional
tradition that resists talk of collective bargaining and the like and you
get something like indentured service as a presumed means of 'accessing'
the tenure-track... and the fall-out for teaching and learning is often the
loss of any less-than-functional motives, with little institutional
leverage to do anything about it...
ergo, i began my "creative writing workshop" this semester (and please do
note how the term "workshop" itself plays into this functional grid) by
claiming i had NO OBJECTIVES in teaching the class... that students would
have to set their own goals, that i simply required certain activities and
submissions and participation, these latter sans any teleology, any set
point (i am instructing primarily science and technology kids, and i have
no majors)... or to put it as my wife kass fleisher does, i am striving for
USELESSNESS as an instructor---a difficult thing to attain, and something
fully in accord with student-centered theories of education---which are
themselves the bane of top-down, expertise-driven, paternalistic corporate
practices (which remain resolutely chain-of-command past a certain
managerial level)... note that i abrogate no responsibility in striving for
uselessness---it is simply that i redirect my teaching energies toward
making students more self-sufficient... which makes me less useful,
ysee---a paradox, in short... and to the extent i'm able, i also institute
peer review and *grading*, usually with a fair amount of success (and peer
grading is formally outlawed at my institution, but students rarely
complain)...
anyway, you can imagine how my students reacted... now, at the mid-point of
the semester, they would seem, those who are still in the class, finally to
be catching on...
again i apologize for going on so... there is, as steve has suggested,
truth in kundera's remarks... the difficulty for me comes with the
recognition, a cliche perhaps at this late point in the 20th. century, that
truth is context-dependent, provisional... which is less to argue against
truth as such than to indicate just how important it is to construct and
select our truths as carefully as we can...
best,
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:54:43 -0800
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From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Bunting, Pound and Luther King
Again, I don't see how we can judge people in such black and white terms.
There are so many gray areas. Pound is a jerk, but so what - he is still a
fantastic poet. I mean, we can learn so much from "the jerks" out in the
world. To bury or burn them - I find that totally fascist in itself.
tosh
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 12:59:32 -0500
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From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
thanks charles for your account of the yale deepfreeze. i think i tend to
take for granted that the issue of pound's fascism is a dead horse --i'd been
deleting the msgs and just read this one cuz i assumed the "man at yale" was
harold bloom and wanted to know the scoop. what i learned was important,
shocking and helpful.
bests, maria d
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Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:03:29 PST
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From: Jerry Rothenberg <jrothenb@CARLA.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: more on Pound: query for Jerry R.
This is in reply to Tenney's query about my own statement that the the most
telling impact of Pound's work was on poets who politically, morally, might
have been at the greatest distance from it. To start with my own experience
-- growing up0 when I did -- the presence of Pound in the late 1940s was, to
say the least, a bewilderment. I was stunned by much of the poetry, both
by how it read (the language of it) and by what I heard it saying: anti-war
& anti-capital & powerful too in its presentation of a way, a means, of
approaching & hoping to shape the world through the poet's means, the poetry
itself. I was about 16 years old at a first reading of him & shortly
thereafter -- along with the reading -- came the awarding of the Bollingen
& the tremendous fuss that that stirred up (close to fifty years ago). With
that we were aware also of the extent of Pound's fascism &, as became clearer
over the years, the viciousness of the anti-semitism in his World War II
broadcasts -- a lunacy of language common to the fringe of homegrown fascists
who were also in his entourage. My own first published piece of writing was
a letter to the New York Post (a different NY Post at that time) in which
I lamented what I thought had happened to Pound and what had become (as it
still seems to be) a conundrum around the man & the work the man had given
us. There was a lot I didn't know then but knowing it would certainly not
have made it easier.
I was never, in any sense, a Poundian, since there were too many other threads
& lines coming into my awareness to allow a focus (in that sense) on any
single individual. But the observation of Pound's impact -- on myself &
others -- began shortly after that: the observation that those who were
most significantly building on Pound's poetics & actual poetry were not the
crazies & the fascist hoods of the John Kasper variety, etc., but poets
like Kelly, Olson, Duncan, Mac Low, Blackburn, & before them the whole
gallery of "Objectivists" or -- from other directions -- any number of
European and Latin American writers -- all of them (as I understood it) with
a political and moral sense (coming out of World War II) that was
strongly anti-fascist, strongly in opposition to the totalitarian barbarisms
for which Pound (in the years of his fascist infatuation) had become a
minor flunky. In their context Pound became, remained a vital force -- the
proof, through them, of what was right & germinal about him and the proof,
conversely, of what was evil -- & banal in Hannah Arendt's sense -- in
his succumbing to the "fascist temptation."
What Pound offered and in some sense made possible wasn't divorced from the
political but wasn't at the same time tied to what became HIS politics.
It was a demonstration of how the political -- as history -- could enter
the body of the poem -- how the poem could thrive on what Ed Sanders
(many years later & clearly drawing on Pound) spoke of as "data clusters"
defining a new "investigative poetry". I don't need to go on with this, I
think, except to note that it was (as far as I can recollect) not the
little fascists who learned from this but poets who by disposition and, I
believe, commitment were looking for a way out of the fascist &
totalitarian nightmare that had threatened to overwhelm our world. And
there was also -- stronger in Pound than in most other forerunners in
the North American context -- a sense that history & poetry could be
redefined, opened up and certainly renewed, and that for this Pound himself
(as Charles B., I think, points out in his Pound essays) was a stepping-
stone, a guide to things that his fascist leanings would have finally
precluded. He was clearly the most extraordinary translator we had by then
produced -- not only pointing to Albigensian Provence and to a sense of
China speaking to the present, but (coming like Cesaire and the other
Negritude poets) from the likes of Frobenius, forming one of the links (but
only one) to an African past as a pinnacle, too, of the creative human
spirit. It is not to say that this was -- all of it -- of Pound's doing
but that he helped to set much of it in motion -- much of what, coming
after him & (in some sense in spite of him) -- became essential to our
present work.
And, finally, I would point out what was -- for myself & others -- the
lesson of Pound's failure -- the lesson of the poet who had in the long run
betrayed his poetry. It is a terrible thing to say and it is, I think, a
terrible possibility that faces all of us. But it is Pound who also says
it best, from the "pull down thy vanity" voice in Canto 81 to the still
more telling voice (where he was already into his silence, depression) in
Canto 116:
I have brought the great ball of crystal
who can lift it?
Can you enter the great acorn of light?
But the beauty is not the madness
Tho' my errors and wrecks lie about me.
And I am not a demigod,
I cannot make it cohere.
I can read this, anyway, as both a confession of failure (and of betrayal --
of himself & us) and at the same time a triumph of whatevr is there
speaking through him. But not Pound alone -- for which let me end, Tenney,
by copying out (in what's already a long message) a poem by Julien Beck
(of the Living Theater, etc. (a good pacifist & anarchist & anti-fascist),
who I think loved all the poets that he mentioned in it. It's one too
that Pierre and I are hoping to include -- along with a number of others --
in a section of manifestos for the next volume of Millennium.
Julian Beck's "the state will be served / even by poets"
the breasts of all the women crumpled like gas bags when
neruda wrote his hymn celebrating the explosion of a
hydrogen bomb by soviet authorities
children died of the blistrs of ignorance for a century when
siqueiros tried to assassinate trotsky himself a killer
with gun and ice
pound shimmering his incantations to adams benito and
kung prolonging the state with great translation
cut in crystal
claudel slaying tupi guarani as he flourished cultured
documents and pearls in rio de janeiro when he
served france as ambassador to brazil
melville served by looking for contraband as he worked
in the customs house how many taxes did he requite
how many pillars of the state did he cement in
place tell me tell me tell me stone
spenser serving the faerie queene as a colonial secretary
in ireland sinking the irish back for ten times
forty years no less under the beau monde's brack
seneca served by advising nero on how to strengthen the
state with philosophy's accomplishments
aeschylus served slaying persians at marathon and salamis
aristotle served as tutor putting visions of trigonometrics
in alexander's head
dali and eliot served crowning monarchs with their gold
wallace stevens served as insurance company executive
making poems out of profits
euclides da cunha srved as army captain baritoning troops
and d h lawrence served praising the unique potential of
a king
these are the epics of western culture
these are the flutes of china and the east
everything must be rewritten then
goethe served as a member of the weimar council of state
and condemned even to death
this is the saga of the state which is served
even to death
jr
jrothenb@carla.ucsd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:34:00 PST
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Bunting, Pound and Luther King
Hi yourself, Ada!
Just to start, let me say that I applaud and share your clearly sincere
desire to live in a post-fascist world. I also appreciate your observation
that we only have so much time, and it's certainly desirable to spend that
time immersed in positive, healthy ideas rather than negative hateful ones.
However, I see several very crucial dangers in the approach you suggest in
your last three posts on this issue. Fascism works by precisely the kind of
projection you seem to be advocating: it's so easy to project it onto a
Pound, a Hitler, a Mussolini and divide the world into the bad people and
the good people, and think that if the good people bury the bad, we'll have
utopia. As soon as enough good people believe this to start carrying it
out, they become fascists too. You've already manifested some of this
divisiveness by implying that those of us who advocate a different tack on
fascism and on Pound than you are somehow spineless, have bent to peer
pressure and conformist fashion (but of what sort?), that we're lame and
self-pitying (do these sound like Hitler's denunciations of the
"degenerates" to anyone besides me?) (Interesting also, that you seem to
feel some anxiety at King's omission of women from the words you quoted, and
felt the need to fill that space in for him, as if not to wish to
acknowledge a possible shortcoming of one of the "good people.")
If we were all automata and could just have fascism programmed out of us,
your solution would work great. However, fascism also feeds on negative
emotions, and as human beings, we all have negative emotions. It's how we
express them that's determinative. If we repress them, if we don't give
them healthy outlets, if we make them Unspeakable, we'll end up with
fascism. Because we all know how tempting taboos become. That's why I'm
glad I'm not one of your students. Again, I appreciate that you want to
give them positive role models, but if you're a positive role model yourself
(and I'm certain you are), you should be able to talk them through Pound and
have them understand where he goes wrong so they can avoid falling into the
same trap. Instead I'm worried that you may have stuck their heads in the sand.
Just to end, let me reiterate that I applaud and share your clearly sincere
desire to live in a post-fascist world. I also appreciate your observation
that we only have so much time, and it's certainly desirable to spend that
time immersed in positive, healthy ideas rather than negative hateful ones.
Also, I like the lines of poetry you ended with. I hope you take the time
to go back through some of the posts on this subject and try to think
through them with compassion for their authors.
Thank you,
Steve
At 12:25 PM 3/18/96 +0300, you wrote:
>Hi!
>
>The most relevant piece of information so far, to my mind, that has been
>quoted in this discussion concerning Ezra Pound, is Basil Bunting's sincere,
>outspoken and couragious condemnation of Pound's disgusting Fascism:
>
>> "Every anti-semitism, anti-niggerism, anti-moorism, that I can recall in
>> history was base, had its foundation in the meanest kind of envy and in
>> greed. It makes me sick to see you covering yourself with that filth. It
>> is not an arguable question, has not been arguable for at least nineteen
>> centuries... it is hard to see how you are going to stop the rot of your
>> mind and heart without a pretty thoroughgoing repudiation of what you
>> have spent a lot of work on."
>> - Basil Bunting to Pound, 1938.
>
>> Basil Bunting was wise enough to sense how dangerous, "filthy," "rotten"
>and twisted Pound's fascist ideas were at the rise of Nazism. I congratulate
>all those on this list who have expressed the same kind of disgust and
>fear concerning our own times, and have enough backbone not bend to "peer
> pressure" and to fashionable "cliches rags."
>
>I am sorry to see that some of us have not learnt enough from history, as
>"Fascist ideas and fascist poetry pave the road to burning ovens..." After
>all the self-pitying lame arguments, excuses and repetitions, let's be
>conscientious enough to bury Ezra Pound after all. Let's rather resurrect
>Luther King's wise words:
>
>"WHEN BAD MEN PLOT, GOOD MEN MUST PLAN...." (I am sure he meant good
>women too...)
>
>I suggest we be choosy, and read, teach and spread, in the restricted time
>that is at our disposal, what can help us build a better culture
>and a better world toward year 2000, and not drag with us into the new
>century what can lead us again to gas chambers.
>
>Cheers to Basil Bunting and Luther King! And to all those who do not
>just toe the line and join the herd, but rather adopt challenging attitudes,
>and think new, positive, constructive and nourishing thoughts like them...
>
>"For my day is a Pomegranate
>full of ruby grains -
>as long as each grain
>is a lifetime -
>I do not care if I'm the woman
>of no time ..."
>
>Ada Aharoni
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:46:31 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Bunting, Pound and Luther King
I pretty much agree with Steve on this matter. But I for myself do not
believe in Utopia. I think it is impossible to live on this world without
pain. Fascism is one form of pain of sorts. I think to ignore fascism is
to LATER embrace fascism.
Tosh
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:37:32 -0500
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From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Big Allis reading at Segue Space, 23 May 1996
Melanie Neilson asked to have this updated notice & list posted:
Re: _Big Allis_ #7 publication/ celebration
evening of readings/performances
on Thursday 23 May 1996 7:30 pm
at the Segue Performance Space
303 East 8th Street, New York, New York 10009
Participants:
1. BRUCE ANDREWS
2. ULLA DYDO
3. ROB FITTERMAN
4. KIM ROSENFIELD
5. JULIANA SPAHR
6. JENA OSMAN
7. JOAN RETALLACK
8. ABBY CHILD
9. DEIRDRE KOVAC
10. ELIZABETH FODASKI
11. JEAN FOOS AND DIRK ROWNTREE
12. JACKSON MAC LOW
13. ANNE TARDOS
14. MARTINE BELLEN
15. HANNAH WEINER
16. GAIL SHER
17. PETER SEATON
18. RACHEL CAREAU
and others
Jackson Mac Low (for Melanie Neilson)
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Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 21:32:43 +0000
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From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
first word i 'recognised' from my son was 'hello' - somewhere around the
ten month mark. 'dust' followed on its heels pretty quickly - like
within a week. after that we went back to the goatish laughing gurgle for
quite some time.
seemed a clear trajectory to me then - and now.
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 15:48:41 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: poems
Just thought I'd put a couple of new poems here. Hope they come through
without awkward codings or other transformations.
CERYTAIN SUHLANTS TWO for Ron Silliman
this man strange turning
forgetful though not in a line
abiding to want oranges and not a color so much as
through the tunnel pushing water
reading a turn into some blue note
ashes brass gate closed but a space under
level or tool for moving
same but shadows upon
brown boxes, books, yellow cat
nothing lists as if breathing matters, crocus
beside, along, otherwise aslant
and stripes, sure, can't away now or want
doing for reach, elbow still
surprises unfurnished, as though
leaving means line break, body
open, callous, asking without rancor
not what keeps
night's premise that points never starry
say what one wall, hearing owls among
rising a single point for
horizon's will, my or their intention
witnessed, ever, walking for
notions, encounters, as fine this hour
a line wants edge, aloof and
strengthened with no idea
ground upon lack turning other to cheeks' sadness
ripe, lively wanting or unstraightened
enough to place in mouth, hand, wash
taste down forks upon nothing
accordingly, original upheaval merges rimless
engraved with Defoe's initials plunging sea-like
concerned with the address of a rose
(static wanders to empty spaces cling true)
suits or untied hair muted
a long time ago a trumpet g-sharp to b, odd sonority
unfounded with an oboe, pierrot, re-beckoning
the border is not necessarily a margin
that gap water permeates / asking
hosannas to be silent / prayer may be received or taken
while sitting, facing wood, politics closed to mourners
another world jumps on fathers / some paragraphs
announcements and justice poses a fable
prayer and the book try to make responsible
deaf or out from under / that space the subsequent (previous)
appearance of children, imperatives, request
the occupation of bare feet, high sounding
in open territory or aware
PLACES IN TOW for Cynthia Miller & Steven Kranz
Certain shifts of continent may be predicted
from unfortunate windfalls coming by the dozens
when all of us beg to be in pantaloons
among apostrophes.
Forget the wind, she said, except
in one's dreams where hairs ride
on saddles among lush thighs, tropical
strivings toward monetary task forces,
philanthropy withstanding, stated dimensions
are questionably produced, framing documents for the
freestanding corners of beds, ring hands until
by virtue of finishing we wander slowly
into wind woven canyons, heart shaped places in tow
Apostles' flowing accomodations, robes for the pilgrims
showing signs of wear, sing only arias, can it
summon meetings of unequal duration, as in
cesura heading for the cliff's edge, walk toward angels
only when dust and secret drawings remember a friend,
without crayons or sarcasm, he needed one, perhaps four
and only found meditation possible with toxicity, strange
books made of pencils and torn pages, not enough
time to announce the inevitable, going through madness
or laughing, sometimes the path does not diverge to
green garden, frost only at higher altitudes where there have
been no clouds for days, or remembered haiku along the rim
of what human lingers where it all grew before, rolling, him
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:54:18 -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: Pound and Zukofsky
In-Reply-To: <01I2H5UVJXUA986L3T@msuvx2.memphis.edu> from "Paul Naylor" at Mar
18, 96 07:53:40 am
>
> Mike -- you ask if it would be possible to imagine "A" without The Cantos.
> Barry Ahearn claims in _Zukofsky's "A"_, that Zukofsky "first read the _Cantos_
> after completing "A" 1-4, and the rest of the movements [up to "A" 8] were
> probably too far advanced for drastic change" (76). Hey all you Zukofskyites,
> is Ahearn right about this? The more I read "A" the less like The Cantos it
> seems. While I'm on the topic, does anyone know if there's an article or book
> or posting that identifies all the passages from Marx, Veblen, Adams, etc in
> "A" 8?
>
> Paul Naylor
>
Thanks, Paul, for clarifying the compositional chronology, but my
claim is more general. Not that Zukofsky was specifically inspired by
the _Cantos_, but that that larger work of poetry that Jerry
Rothenberg refers to--the epic, history, economics, and where it led
Zukofsky--arose out of a world of possibilities that Ez, bless his
ornery, repulsive soul, was crucial in helping create. We owe him
that, however much we may hate his politics. It's one of those weird
father things. I wonder if Zukofsky doesn't also make his turn away from
that and toward his family at least partially in response to his
reading of Pound? What Pound inadvertently has to teach us about
reaching and over-reaching.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:16:10 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: vacation from my vacation
hi guyzies, it's maria. just came back from nyc where i did my first
"reading" ever, at poetry city. it was a deep thrill. teachers and writers
collaborative is a beautiful space. i'd assumed that, like most
writing-related institutions, it'd be a hole in the wall type place but no.
beautyful hardwood, vases full of roses, pretty potted trees and plants,
posters and books on the wall-shelves, nice lighting. i read w/ walter lew.
i went first, did part of a paper called Word-Landslayt: Gertrude Stein,
Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce, which is forthcoming in a book called People of
the Book: THirty Scholars Reflect on their Jewish Identity, edited by Shelley
Fisher Fishkin (of Was Huck Black? fame) and Jeffrey Rubin-Dorsky, U
Wisconsin press. shd be out this summer, cuz there's gunna be a publication
party at the Jewish museum on july 9, from 6 to 8 pm. to coincide with the
shallow but fun exhibit Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities,
which i also saw on this visit. The fun part of the reading (besides getting
to meet jordan davis, bill luoma, issa clubb, and brian steffens in the
flesh, and seeing juliana spahr, douglas rothschild, bob holman and charles
bernstein again) was that part of what i read was a story about my best
friend from high school --and she was there! what a thrill. in fact, my best
friends from high school (essie), college (walter) and grad school (ed cohen,
who now teaches at rutgers) were there, as well as new people who have come
into my life via this list. so it felt really complete, and i felt supported
by people who had known me for a long time, as well as folks who knew me only
from cyberwords. the crowd was great (though small). everyone laughed at
the right places, and bob holman whooped it up in the front row for both me
and walter. then jordan and i read some of our "collaborative poems," as
i've renamed the rengas since as walter pointed out there's an orientalist
problem with calling any collaborative poetry rengas, since many cultures
have such poetic traditions. those were well-received also. charles b asked
us to identify the collaborators, which we did to the best of our
recollections. it was totally fun. then after a break walter read his
terrific eliot-inspired spoofs of eliot (not that what he read was solely
satirical, also intense), some of it abt. the korean slave-labor casualties
of the hiroshima/nagasaki bombings. those were his own poems; he also read
some of sesshu foster's, barry masuda's and roy oki (?)'s poetry from his
anthology Premonitions (much recommended) and showed video poems by Jessica
Hagedorn (from words in yr face, produced by bob holman) and Gloria Park;
both works are featured in Premonitions through text and stills. he also
showed his own WNYC poetry spot, when urged to do so by holman (who also
produced it). it was truly swell and cool. it was an honor to read w/ him.
the feeling overall was warm, turned on and groovy. much thanks to all who
came, it was a moment of grace for me. other things i did were fun too, esp
hanging out w/ ed's gargantuan cats, who are of oblympian and flabulous
girth, going to the unbelievably tacky flower show at the coliseum (based on
broadway hit theme --big mistake), researching bob kaufman's maritime years
at the rutgers special collections (they have the national maritime union
archives), meals/coffees with assorted groovoids from past present and
future, almodovar's new flick, buying books (hambone, gathering of the
tribes, etheridge knight selected, charles stein for $1 used, walter's dictee
book which i'd lent out and never saw again, and rod smith's boy poems). to
my credit, not one single item of clothing or jewelry was purchased by me
(mostly cuz my favorite consignment shop, ina, was closed when i tried to
go). fun to tha max. spring is coming, i cd feel it in brooklyn and i can
see it in the rhododendron buds here on the cape. fishing boats out doing
their thing, and i'm planning a party down here to show tapes of United
States of Poetry to my cape crowd, who are not writers but enjoy having their
minds blown. will be in nyc again for the bob kaufman birthday bash, yay!
that's my update, i know it may be bad form to write up your own event on
the POETRICKS list, so sue me. glad to be back on line.--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:16:17 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: poetry as performance
has anyone else out there picked up gregory nagy's poetry as performance
(cambridge, 1996)? i read in going down to nyc. it's about homeric epics
and their process of reification as finished products. kinda pedantic, but a
very pretty book and with some good if tedious etymological play.===maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:55:39 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Ack--the word reified
's OK to mention publications to this list, right? My
chapbook _Brother Ikon_ is available now from Inkstone
Press--backchannel me for info.
Gwyn McVay
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:04:19 +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: Black Writers Conference on the Web
Hi - thought this might be of interest:
BLACK WRITERS CONFERENCE TO INCLUDE INTERACTIVE INTERNET COMPONENT
Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York will host the
Fourth National Black Writers Conference in Brooklyn, NY on March 21-24.
The theme is BLACK LITERATURE IN THE 90'S: A RENAISSANCE TO END ALL
RENAISSANCES? A publicly accessible interactive version of the
conference, hosted by Arts Wire, will be available on the World Wide Web
at http://artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu/NBWC
Those who can't make it to Brooklyn can respond to these issues on this
World Wide Web version, implemented on Arts Wire's future virtual home --
the server at The Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University. "We are
pleased to announce that The Black Writers Conference will act as the
kick-off of a long-term collaboration with the School of Arts Management at
CMU," says Arts Wire Director, Joe Matuzak. "We believe there are unique and
exciting opportunities for both Arts Wire and the Master of Arts Management
Program in this association, and that both Arts Wire participants and CMU
students can benefit substantially from this association. More details will
be made available as they are settled."
Keynote speakers for the conference are Paule Marshall and Amiri Baraka.
Marita Golden, Terry McMillan, Bebe Moore Campbell, Walter Mosley, Arthur
Flowers, Thulani Davis, and others will participate in a series of panels
that include:
*Choosing Exile: Black Writers from the Harlem
*Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement
*Choosing Exile: Black Writers from the Black Arts
*Movement to the Renaissance of the 1990's
*Presuming the Universality of the Black Experience
*Politically Correct in a Politically Incorrect World
*Black Literature: Who are the Readers?
*Black Literature: The Politics of Publishing
The Institute for African American Affairs at New York University will
host Paule Marshall's keynote address at NYU on March 22, 1996.
All panel discussions, Baraka's keynote address and Remarks by Walter
Mosley will be held at Medgar Evers College.
The web version includes all the panels listed above. It is free! Not
only will Web visitors be able to read reports and transcripts uploaded
to the Web during the face-to-face conference, but also they will be able
to participate in discussions of issues raised by the conference panels.
To join the conference, go to http://artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu/NBWC and
follow the registration procedure.
The face-to-face event received funding from the National Endowment for
the Humanities. The Web version was funded by the Reed Foundation and
implemented by Arts Wire's Beth Kanter, Barry Lasky and Tommer Peterson.
It uses a version of WebCaucus, a web-based interface, that was developed
for Arts Wire's Conferencing system.
For information about the Fourth National Black Writers, contact: Dr.
Elizabeth Nunez, 1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225; tel: (718)
270-5049 E-mail ELNME@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
To participate in the web version of the conference, contact:
bwc@artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:41:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Pound etc.
In re a question of Chris Daniels anent Charles Bernstein's last posting, I
backchanneled the following information to Chris:
I have copies available of _Words nd Ends from Ez_ @ $7.50
(my snail is 42 N Moore St New York NY 10013-2441.)
I will begin something about Pound below, but may not finish it in this
posting:
Writing about EP is very painful and difficult. In a real sense, he
introduced me to modern poetry in 1938 when I was 15 or16, in my late 3rd
year or early 4th year of high school.
I visited the University of Chicago campus, traveling from Kenilworth, a
North Shore suburb, to the South Side of Chicago, to talk with my high
school hero, Bertrand Russell. He was very nice when I phoned him (when I
got out there!) but wasn't able to see me. (I met him several months later
at a party out there.) So I went over to the U of C bookstore & found
_Culture_, the New Directions 1938 version of _Guide to Kulchur_. I read
most of it standing up at the book table. I'd literally never read anything
like it. (I must not have noticed the fascism--there was so much exciting
and new in it.)
On the way home I stopped by at the main Chicago Public Library & got out
several of EP's early books--_Lustra_, _Ripostes_, _Cathay_, and possibly
_Personae_, (tho the aforementioned were collected eventually in that
book). Whichever they were besides _Lustra_, I read them in a high state of
excitement all the way hom on the El & and North Shore Line trains. *That*
led me (with some assistance from George Dillon & Peter DeVries, who then
were the editor & asst editor of _Poetry, A Magazine of Verse_) to all the
rest of the modernists, except for Stein, whom I'd discovered in the
Marshall Field's in Evanston several years earlier, and who later became my
"favorite" of them all. I first read Pound, then Eliot, then Williams,
then . . .
By the spring of 1939, my later senior year in HS, I was giving lectures on
modern poetry up thru Auden to our English class.
Before reading Pound, I had only read with pleasure Whitman and Sandburg
(who were both very inspiring to me--before coming across them, I disliked
poetry). (It was about the same time that I discovered Donne and Herbert
and the other 17th-century Metaphysical poets, and the Shakespeare of the
Sonnets (I'd read several of the plays, of course.)
My first poems were political--antiwar. Having been a New Deal liberal
earlier, I was by then a democratic socialist and pacifist. Funny that,
like Olson, I had my life changed, especially as a poet, by that fascist
--and wonderful poet
Several years later--in 1945--Robert Duncan and I crashed a reading by
Williams at the 92nd St YMHA. We talked a little to him & then I wrote to
him a little later, among other things, asking how Pound was.
Next thing I got a note from Pound telling me to visit Hubert Creekmore at
New Directions, and the latter told me how to write back to Pound. By then
I knew about the fascism, but not yet about the radio talks. EP & I
exchanged sporadic notes & eventually he was sending me Social Credit and
other papers and I was sending him pacifist anarchist papers.(I was by then
working with an anarchist pacifist group that put out a paper first called
_Why?_ and later _Resistance_. (I did so 1944-54.) Among those who came to
our discussion group were Robert Duncan, Paul Goodman, and once Julian Beck
and Judith Maline who later began The Living Theatre. Goodman, as well as
James Baldwin (once,anonymously) and myself wrote for the paper, but I
don't think Duncan did. However, he often came to our discussions (we had
first met my first day in NYC--on 12 September 1943, my 21st birthday).
>From 1945 to 1955, fascism never came up between Pound & me. I noticed that
the Social Credit papers were antisemitic (advertised the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion!) but I discounted Pound's fascism as psychosis. He never
*said* anything that seemed fascist and he was fine to Jewish friends of
mine who visited him at St Elizabeths (tho they sd he got riled up & talked
crazy when his Praetorian Guard of Southern boys showed up. He sent me
books about Andrew Jackson and a bound copy of the _Democratic Review_ that
contained some first publications by Hawthorne and a speech or 2 by
Calhoun, which I didnt read, tho that must have been what EP wanted me to
read.
>From 1945 to 1955, then, we talked (on paper--I never met him) about poetry
mainly, tho he did give suggestions for what the anarchist-pacifists shd
look into (money, of course). (Those notes from EP seem to have been
spirited away.) My attitude was that you don't kick an old men in his
paranoia.
But then, after reading several sections of the _Cantos_ that I hadnt read
before, I brought the subject up (probably in March 1955). He denied being
antisemitic ("I never bitched Louis [Zukofsky] or Mina Loy (Levy) [EP's
paren.--near enough--her name was Loewy]!" & of course he hadnt.
_Culture/Guide to Kuclchur_ was dedicated to Zukofsky as well as Bunting,
(That's where I first saw their names.)
I then pressed EP about the meanings of certain lines in the Cantos. I also
mentioned that my father's name until about 1906 or 7 (when he was 18 or
19) was Michalowski. My father changed the name to MacLow, along with the
other younger brothers of a group of 8--the older brothers changed it to
Michalow-- a little before he came to the US in 1908, when he was 20.
(I didn't know it then, when I mentioned it to Pound, that my father's
name was Jacob MacLow when he came to the US. He changed it to Jackson
MacLow at the urging of his Baltimore boss. He told me this in the early
1970s, when he'd forgotten he was hiding all his background. It seems that
his Southern boss, who liked him a lot, told him: "Jack, I want to call you
"Jackson," after our great general, Stonewal Jackson"!
& so I became "Jackson MacLow, Jr. when I was born in 1922. (My parents,
fleeing their Judaic background, gave me that very unJewish name. I
separated the "Mac" from the "Low" & dropped the "Jr." in 7th or 8th
grade.)
At first Pound was in denial & defensive, but after I sent him, of all
things, a page from Stein's _Wars I Have Seen_ in which she made it plain
that though the Rothschilds may have controlled gold in the 19th century (I
don't remember whether she mentioned the Sassoons & silver--one of EP's
other hobbyhorses), they sure didn't do so now (i.e., in the 40s & earlier
decades of the 20th century).
I also mentioned that an acuaintance of mine, Gideon Strauss, who was then
the first Israeli consul in New York, when he was given the job of setting
up a branch of the Bank of Israel in New York, couldnt find a a single
Jewish banker to work with him!
The upshot, of course, was a blow-up. Pound's parting shot to me was
"You'll do better as Michaelovitch than MacLow."
So why am I still conflicted about the bastard? I think it's obvious.
He wasn't *only* a fascist, and only a relatively small proportion of his
poetry is fascist. (Of course this sounds like "she's only a *leetle bit*
pregnant.") But could it be that what Pound told Allen Ginsberg when he
visited him in Venice--that it was "a stupid suburban prejudice!"--was
really what he thought it was? Could THAT have led to supporting Mussiolini
& even Hitler?
I think Major Douglas & his Social Credit (a version of money reform that
was dripping with antisemitism--not *all* money reformers are
antisemites--had as much to do with it as Pound's moving to Italy. (I think
he met Douglas before leaving London.) The whole concatenation of Western
"populism", the Silver Movement, &c., had as much to do with the turn
toward fascism. (Ez had all too much in common with Pat Buchanan!
Curiously, there were even hints of interest in Bolshevism around the time
of _An Objectivist Anthology_!)
The fact is that Pound could be a fascist and also write wonderful
poetry--even *after* turning into a fascist! People are not integral.
Certainly Pound wasnt (and neither am I). One is a different person at
different times. What I referred to once--much to my surprise--as "the
spirit of Ezra Pound" was not that of a fascist. Tho he may have thought
that he was writing a populist-reformist anticapitalist-fascist montage
when he was writing the Cantos (& I think even this was sporadic) turned
out to be a collage poem such as few if any had written before. (Thanks,
Charles, for ponting this out, despite the fact that you hate Pound much
more than I do!) It certainly *doesnt* "all cohere!"
(I won't even do more than mention, Roy Campbell, a fine poet who fought on
the Franco side in Spain--more of a monarchist than a fascist-- and wrote
not only some fine poems of his own but good translations of Baudelaire and
St. John of the Cross. [I even have a faint suspicion that he was one of
the first to translate Lorca--but I may be mistaken.]
When I wrote _Words nd Ends from Ez_ in the early 1980s, I was fully aware
of Pound's fascism & antisemitism, but I still found much of his
poetry--the nonfascist parts--inpiring. I think many of us--especially my
younger friends who are called "language poets"--learned a great deal from
Pound. The whole process of juxtaposing disparate elements within the space
(in all senses) of a poem was given to us primarily by him and his b^ete
noir Stein! How he'd gnash at that sentence!
I think the contributions of the dadaists & surrealists to this kind of
poem-construction were minor compared to those of Pound.
& he taught many *different* groups of poets--not only the imagists, the
objectivists, and the projectivists--new ways of making poems and of making
*verse*. It's incredible when one thinks of the lineages of poem-makers
descending from EP! (Think, for instance, of Pound-Olson-Duncan . . . !)
Think of all the ears he taught to hear (*helped* teach--remember how many
of us learned as much or more from Stein--& also, in my case, in
approaching hearing and the putting together of disparate things,
Cage--especially his music of the early 1950s).
Would he have been as great a teacher--even to those of us who came to
reject as much as we accepted--if he'd not have been such a fucking
authoritarian? Probably for some--but that authority thing is what often
drives teachers--good & bad.
One cannot obliterate Pound because he was in so many ways a fascist (in so
many ways, he wasnt!) or Heidegger because he was for a very short time a
Nazi (for a much much shorter a time than Pound was a fascist). I've
recently learned that not only Arendt but also Celan! visited Heidegger in
his late years. We cannot be totalists about poets and philosophers any
more than we can be about society. Like Whitman, we all contain multitudes.
The way I chose in the early 80s was to read through the Cantos by a
deterministic (nonchance) nonintentional method--the "diastic
reading-through text-selection method"-- which gleaned whole words & "ends"
of words--everything from the last letter of a word to all the letters
except the first--that successively had the letters of "Ezra Pound" in
corresponding places (e.g., E'z and P's in the first place, Z's & O's in
the second place etc). I spelled out the name diastically over and over
until I found no more z's. (Thus the last section of the poem is a
silence.) I tried to follow this method out exactly. But of course I made
mistakes.
Just as Pound projected a great anticapitalist montage, I attempted to
write a completely deterministic nonintentional work by reading through
_The Cantos_ to select words & ends "diastically". But chance intervened in
the shape of mistakes. Luckily, I decided long ago, to accept my own
mistakes (tho not others' typos!) once a poem is in print. I accept the
fact that _Words nd Ends from Ez_ is a partially deterministc poem modified
by completely unintended chance interventions (uncaught mistakes). I also
accept the fact that others, such as Charles, find it valuable despite its
deviations from its intent. (A curious word to use for the project of
writing a deterministic *nonintentional* work!)
I've gone on much too long already. Forgive me, fellow polisters!
Jackson mac Low
tarmac@nyc.pipeline.com
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:49:59 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: responses to my excesses
OPEN LETTER TO SOME ASSHOLES
since my last posting, i have received more than a few private mssgs,
some of wch were nasty in a clever, sneering, condescending way. my
feelings are hurt and i am pissed off. one of them called me "a charmingly
naive amateur social critic" --- that one from the most pleasant mssg.
to the senders who were kind, i say thanks plain and simple, for making
me feel welcome. to the senders who were exceptionally kind, i have
sent seperate mail.
in all fairness i have to say that charles bernstein was very tactful
and fair abt telling me i'd breached etiquette. he didn't make it seem
like i'd done anything wrong. thanks, charles.
to answer the others, who in their pride wldn't admit to frailty even
to save their paltry positions or to obtain tenure, allow me to direct
them to Blake's _Milton_, plates 40 and 41. think abt that one, boys and
girls, while counting yr crisp degrees.
finally, allow me to quote this poem by tom pickard :
City Council Poem
The Lord Sherrif's gold chain
sparkles w/ the names
of hanged men
whose lifeless limbs
dangle and decorate his chins.
He has the honour to be present
at the scaffold
as his predecessors were.
Is it their heavy memory
which causes your official brow to bead?
Your sloppy mouth waters
at such entertaining deeds.
You said, when I asked you
what your powers were
that you could lock me up
if I caused some disturbance
in the town
but who, proud pig,
if you chose to knock me down
would lock you up?
love,
chris "i have no gun but i can spit" daniels
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.18.96 5:22:26 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 18:40:11 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: more on bunting
i'd like to clarify the bunting issue a little:
first, by quoting IN FULL the poem "On the Fly-Leaf of Pound's Cantos"
--- wch bunting wrote in 1949, yes, 1949! and where, tell me, where
was pound in 1949 and what was the literary world saying abt him?
There are the Alps. What is there to say about them?
They don't make sense. Fatal glaciers, crags cranks climb,
jumbled boulder and weed, pasture and boulder, scree,
_et l'on entend_, maybe, _le refrain joyeux et leger_.
Who knows what the ice will have scraped on the rock it is moving?
There they are, you will have to go a long way round
if you want to avoid them.
It takes some getting used to. There are the Alps,
fools! Sit down and wait for them to crumble!
secondly:
"ezra was certainly confused, but he was never a fascist"
(this may be misquoted, but it's what i remember bunting saying)
thirdly, didn't bunting work for the oss or some such?
ah, well, guess that means i can't read my favorite poet anymore
sit down and wait for them to crumble ...
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.18.96 6:40:11 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:12:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Pound one last sentence
More to the point than most of what I said in my long memoir is the
dedication of _Words nd Ends from Ez_:
"in memoriam . . . "freeing the sparks"
Jackson Mac Low
tarmac@nyc.pipeline
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:22:47 -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: Black Writers Conference on the Web
[begin forwarded message]
-------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 18 17:26:37 1996
From: kanter@tmn.com
Subject: Black Writers Conference on the Web
BLACK WRITERS CONFERENCE TO INCLUDE INTERACTIVE INTERNET COMPONENT
Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York will host the
Fourth National Black Writers Conference in Brooklyn, NY on March 21-24.
The theme is BLACK LITERATURE IN THE 90'S: A RENAISSANCE TO END ALL
RENAISSANCES? A publicly accessible interactive version of the
conference, hosted by Arts Wire, will be available on the World Wide Web
at http://artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu/NBWC
Those who can't make it to Brooklyn can respond to these issues on this
World Wide Web version, implemented on Arts Wire's future virtual home --
the server at The Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University. "We are
pleased to announce that The Black Writers Conference will act as the
kick-off of a long-term collaboration with the School of Arts Management at
CMU," says Arts Wire Director, Joe Matuzak. "We believe there are unique and
exciting opportunities for both Arts Wire and the Master of Arts Management
Program in this association, and that both Arts Wire participants and CMU
students can benefit substantially from this association. More details will
be made available as they are settled."
Keynote speakers for the conference are Paule Marshall and Amiri Baraka.
Marita Golden, Terry McMillan, Bebe Moore Campbell, Walter Mosley, Arthur
Flowers, Thulani Davis, and others will participate in a series of panels
that include:
*Choosing Exile: Black Writers from the Harlem
*Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement
*Choosing Exile: Black Writers from the Black Arts
*Movement to the Renaissance of the 1990's
*Presuming the Universality of the Black Experience
*Politically Correct in a Politically Incorrect World
*Black Literature: Who are the Readers?
*Black Literature: The Politics of Publishing
The Institute for African American Affairs at New York University will
host Paule Marshall's keynote address at NYU on March 22, 1996.
All panel discussions, Baraka's keynote address and Remarks by Walter
Mosley will be held at Medgar Evers College.
The web version includes all the panels listed above. It is free! Not
only will Web visitors be able to read reports and transcripts uploaded
to the Web during the face-to-face conference, but also they will be able
to participate in discussions of issues raised by the conference panels.
To join the conference, go to http://artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu/NBWC and
follow the registration procedure.
The face-to-face event received funding from the National Endowment for
the Humanities. The Web version was funded by the Reed Foundation and
implemented by Arts Wire's Beth Kanter, Barry Lasky and Tommer Peterson.
It uses a version of WebCaucus, a web-based interface, that was developed
for Arts Wire's Conferencing system.
For information about the Fourth National Black Writers, contact: Dr.
Elizabeth Nunez, 1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225; tel: (718)
270-5049 E-mail ELNME@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
To participate in the web version of the conference, contact:
bwc@artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu
-------------------------------
[end of forwarded message]
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:41:05 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: corrected notice for Big Allis reading
There was an partially erroneous posting of this information recently.
Unless al message *identical* to this was posted by someone else earlier
today, 18 March 1996, this is a corrected version of the earlier message:
To: poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Big Allis reading at Segue Space, 23 May 1996
From: tarmac@nyc.pipeline.com(Tardos Mac Low)
X-PipeUser: tarmac
X-PipeHub: nyc.pipeline.com
X-PipeGCOS: (Tardos Mac Low)
X-Mailer: The Pipeline v3.4.0
There was a partially erroneous posting of the following information to the
poetics list recently. Unless a message identical to the following was
posted today, 18 March 1996, this is a correction of the earlier posting of
this information.
Melanie Neilson asked to have this updated notice & list posted:
Re: _Big Allis_ #7 publication/ celebration
evening of readings/performances
on Thursday 23 May 1996 7:30 pm
at the Segue Performance Space
303 East 8th Street, New York, New York 10009
Participants:
1. BRUCE ANDREWS
2. ULLA DYDO
3. ROB FITTERMAN
4. KIM ROSENFIELD
5. JULIANA SPAHR
6. JENA OSMAN
7. JOAN RETALLACK
8. ABBY CHILD
9. DEIRDRE KOVAC
10. ELIZABETH FODASKI
11. JEAN FOOS AND DIRK ROWNTREE
12. JACKSON MAC LOW
13. ANNE TARDOS
14. MARTINE BELLEN
15. HANNAH WEINER
16. GAIL SHER
17. PETER SEATON
18. RACHEL CAREAU
and others
Jackson Mac Low (for Melanie Neilson)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 20:03:47 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: my excesses
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960318020442.Chris@kunos>
I'm not quite sure what that means... Chris is sending too much? Are we
on a quota? I thought we sent as we felt moved. Could someone clarify?
Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:17:41 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: Ghost books
Kevin Killian wrote, some time ago (11 March)
>Okay, ghost books - probably hundreds (dozens?) of readers have wondered
>whatever became of Robin Blaser's book of "Astonishments," after his
>announcement of it twenty years ago at the end of Jack Spicer's "Collected
>Books." Peter, you are in as good a position as anyone to answer that
>question!! (There was also Stan's announcement-was it in 1970?-of the
>imminent publication of Spicer's "Vancouver Lectures.")
Kevin -- it took me a little while to track all this down ACCURATELY, but I
can report
a) Spicer's Vancouver Lectures are being edited by Peter Gizzi and I
believe are even as i write ready to be sent to a publisher (but I know
not who the publisher might be)
b) Blaser's collected essays have been more or less under the
editorship of Stan Persky for a number of years, but Stan's energies
have been distracted from this project. Robin and I discussed this today
and both agree that Stan should be encouraged to take it up again.
c) ASTONISHMENTS --a small section was transcribed by Daphne
Marlatt and then published in _The Capilano Review_ some years
ago. The series itself was never completed, at least in the form Robin
intended, and is currently beiing transcribed and edited by Miriam
Nichols (who is also, by the way, editing a book of essays on Blaser's
poetry). When completed, they will become a selection of the (ever
to-be-published?) book of RB's essays, since they are not (says Robin)
long enought to be a book in themselves. IF, on the other hand, half a
dozen folk would interview Robin, then _Astonishments_ and let's
call them _Blandishments_ might make a really nice book.
I too would like this stuff to come out. Especially the essays.
---
And a propos my original ghost titles posting, I am so intrigued by that
title FOUR GRAPES that I want to write the book myself. I wonder what it
should have in it.
Sorry to bear such unhelpful news, Kevin. XXX Peter
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:39:39 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: my excesses
gab ---
it has to do w/ the listserv setting a limit to the amt of traffic
per diem or something --- not sure i understand it myself --- i
don't see it as a problem, anyway.
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.18.96 10:39:39 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:56:27 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Lenore Kandel
In-Reply-To: <199603110702.CAA10237@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Somebody may have answered this backchan. -- but here's an answer to the
Kandel query --
Quickest place to find her poetry is in her Grove Press book, _Word
Alchemy_, which remains available in many libraries and often turns up in
used book stores -- The more notorious _Love Book_ is harder to find
copies of --
Kandel and Lew Welch turn up in slightly altered versions of the,selves
in Kerouacs _Big Sur_, under the names Romona Swartz & David Wain.
If your library has a copy of _Literary San Francisco_ by Ferlinghetti &
Peters (1980, City Lights with Harper & Row), you can find an interesting
photo of Kandel sitiing with McClure, Murao and others in The Cellar club
listening to a poetry and jazz performance by Rexroth --
I don't know if these things are preserbed anywhere, but the old Joe
Pynne (Pine?) television show, grand-daddy to Rush and others, had kandel
on as a guest for Joe to attack one week in the sixties -- she read some
poems & did a good job of turning Joe's taunts back upon him -- This in
the wake of the _Love Book_ banning episode --
San Francisco Poetry Center Archive probably has tape of her
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 02:08:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: my excesses
the listserver sets a limit to the number of messages every day? seems
loopy to me, although the question is really irrelevant to me. i just
canned 40 some messages from this list simply because i don't have the time
to read them. i woulda just pecked my way through, but there were too many
threads i did want to read.
you'll all just have to beget your wisdom unto me at a less busy time of
year :-)
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 23:42:40 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Feminist Measures
At 10:18 AM 3/18/96, Rachel Blau DuPlessis wrote:
>Those who want to follow thru on Pound and women
>might look at e.g. me, or Rachel Blau DuPlessis, "Corpses of Poesy:some
>modern poets and some gender narratives of lyric," in Lynn Keller and Cri-
>stanne Miller, ed. Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory from
>Univ of Michigan Press, 1995.
Hi Rachel, it's Dodie Bellamy here.
Well, I was in San Francisco's Mission District this afternoon, and being
your number one fan, I stopped into Modern Times bookstore to see if I
could find a copy of _Feminist Measures_. I didn't find a copy, but I did
find Kaja Silverman's _The Threshold of the Visible World_, which looks
more fun than _The Acoustic Mirror_, so I took it up to the counter to buy
it. Even though I'd thoroughly checked out the Women and the Theory
sections, I thought it silly not to ask if they had _Feminist
Measures_--just to be sure. The problem is that since I'm from Indiana I
pronounce "measure" as may-zhure--something I never noticed everybody
didn't do until Kevin pointed it out to me a couple years ago. Since, then
of course, I've realized that everybody else in the world says measure to
rhyme with pleasure. But, there's no way I can make myself say anything
but "may-zhure" without feeling false to my roots and a bit
pretentious--similarly I can only pronounce aunt as ant. So, anyway, the
snootiest clerk in all of San Francisco was at the counter at Modern Times,
and as I paid for the Silverman book, I timidly asked, "Do you have
Feminist May-zhures?" "What?!!!" he screeched. "You don't mean 'meshures'
by any chance?" I nodded and said I thought it was published in 1995. He
looked it up in his computer and turned to me and exclaimed with glee, "It
was 1994 and no we don't have it." He said it was listed as a textbook and
wouldn't have even been shown to him. I guess I'll have to go to Berkeley
if I want to look before I leap.
Dear Rachel, I turn to you for advice, are you ever too shy to ask for
something at the counter--or are you always heroic, the way I think of you?
I feel like steeling up the nerve to ask for your book made me more of a
feminist than I've ever been.
Love,
Dodie
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:44:36 +0300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ada Aharoni <ada@TECHUNIX.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: Re: Pound & Man at Yale
In-Reply-To: <960318125931_171324135@emout07.mail.aol.com>
Thanks Charles for your account of the Yale "Pound" deepfreeze. I hope
it will help to bring home to conscientious critics\poets that Pound is
indeed a "dead horse."
Like Maria, "what i learned was important, shocking and helpful."
best,
Ada
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 02:55:01 -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: my excesses
In-Reply-To: <199603190825.DAA09028@shell.acmenet.net>
You can of course reset the message height anywhere you want. About a
month ago Cybermind which I co-mod reached over the limit at 100; I freed
it for another 17 that day -
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:30:38 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: mikl-em <mike@KID-LINEAR.TAYLOR.ORG>
Subject: Re: Kandel
Quoth Alden on Kandel:
> San Francisco Poetry Center Archive probably has tape of her
which is true indeed: 3/17/76 reading with Diane Di Prima, intro-ed by
Lewis MacAdams
it includes a Q&A session. I've lost track of who sent the Query,
but I'm volunteering at the center--if you aren't in the area or don't know
how to reach the center, just drop me a line and I'll steer you to the
archives,
re: gards,
mkl.
mike@taylor.org
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 07:37:58 GMT-5
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Peters <PETERSM@CORAL.INDSTATE.EDU>
Organization: Indiana State University
Subject: Espanol
Could anyone direct me to some exciting contemporary poetry in
Spanish? I need to improve my reading skills, and would love to
discover and use some recent poetry in the process.
Thanks,
Mark
"Look for discrepencies in your totem pole."
--Kit Robinson
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:18:53 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: more on bunting
In-Reply-To: <199603190504.FAA08992@hermes.dur.ac.uk>
Thanks, Chris, for quoting the whole Bunting poem, inc. date. Those Alps
still ain't crumbled, though the fools are still waiting and the cranks
are still climbing (it seems to me increasingly evident that there's a
direct link between the study of Pound's social economics and insanity).
We have, surely to try to find some way to do as BB did, revile the
politics of intolerance - especially where it lives on around us - and yet
learn from the poetry, without which, as others have pointed out, we'd all
be much poorer.
What's the "oss"?
I can't lay hands on the quote of BB on EP you give, but for what it's
worth I do recall (roughly) the conversations we naive students had with
him c. 1968 (we nobbled him several times on this one, so the following is
a kind of digest of his soundbites, as I remember them. He was remarkably
consistent in his responses - Diplomatic Service training, I guess):
Naive Students: Why was Pound a fascist?
Bunting: You must remember that he became increasingly unstable throughout
the 1930s, as he found himself isolated from friends and literary
contemporaries. He was always susceptible to crackpot ideas, and that
made him vulnerable to a direct wooing from Mussolini. Heaven knows why M.
thought it worth his while.
NS: Why was Pound an antisemite?
B: That was a very fashionable fad at the time, which a lot of people
absorbed to a greater or lesser degree without recognising it. Because it
seemed like a convenient solution to Pound's great economic headaches, he
swallowed it unquestioningly - to his detriment. It lead him to be very
hurtful to many of his friends, for which I remonstrated with him.
NS: Have his views changed since the war?
B: Couldn't say. His breakdown, when it inevitably came, was so complete
as to make any real judgement difficult. Obviously eddies of his old
preoccupations surface in fragments from time to time, but his main
concern these days seems to be to find some sort of peace, mostly in
silence. [nb - this was about the time drafts&fragments appeared]
NS: If he's a fascist antisemite, shouldn't we refuse to read him?
B: Your teachers would probably thank you, since you'd be sparing them a
lot of difficult work. But you'd also be depriving yourselves of some of
the best poetry of this century or many others, and of the fullest poetic
toolkit which any young poet could have at his [sic] disposal. Refusal to
learn from Pound's work, complex and flawed as it is, seems exceedingly
dull-witted.
[Kids! don't quote this in your theses! It's just the way I remember it...
For what it's worth I buy quite a lot of BB's line on this - particularly
that no competent poet or critic can simply dismiss Pound unread. You have
to make the effort, and it has very great rewards. Equally, I was aware at
the time that BB was oversimplifying EP's fascism and antisemitism -
perhaps for his rather dim audience - in a way that won't do in the end.
That has to be tackled too. It's a tricky old world. Sorry for taking up
so much space/time on this... RC]
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:18:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Karen or Peter Landers <landers@VIVANET.COM>
Subject: Peter Landers at Writers & Books Thursday
hi gang,
if you're in the rochester area on thursday, stop over to W&B for my reading
call them at (716) 473-2590 for more details
here's a teaser...
______________________________________________
I watch TV
.
warty, wrinkled skinhead
pronounced: di-he-dral or flex
cathartic deathbird
legs dover cliff white by shit
spreaded silvery primaries (splayed, I'd say)
soars, eyesore,
.
follows ivory nose to roadkill;
tears at (vultus)
sun-ripe meat.
______________________________________________
cya,
Peter
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:21:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Feminist Measures
hiya dodie, the university press books bkstore in berkeley oughta have
university press books. would that they were all "textbooks," then we'd have
enough $ to really matronize the arts as we'd like...
lovies,, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 08:48:15 -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: Pound & Fascism
In-Reply-To: <199603190940.EAA19098@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Even as so many members of this list are excoriating Pound, we have,
right now, a fascist in our midst named Pat Buchanan who has managed to
get 30% of the Republican Primary vote even though (or perhaps because
of) he makes open statements that are antisemitic, homophobic, and
racist. Just the other day on TV (maybe CNN) a farmer in Georgia was
being interviewed as to who he was planning to vote for. He said, "I
think I'll vote for Pat Buchanan because he feels the way I do about the
niggers." This on CNN. This is the world we live in--a world where many
could hardly believe Furman said the "N word" and yet Buchanan gets away
with this every day.
So I think if you want to fight Fascism you have to begin at home.
But as for Pound, I think many of the postings here have been quite off
the mark. Reading Walter Benn Michaels' OUR AMERICA, about racial
attitudes and nativism in the 20s, I was reminded what a horrible
anti-semimite dear old Ernest Hemingway was, with that charming portrait
of Robert Cohen in SUN ALSO RISES. It has recently been shown how
anti-semitic HD was, in her notebooks for TRIBUTE TO FREUD. In fact,
anti-Semitism and racism were as Michaels's shows, part and parcel of 20s
postWWI culture. Very few writers escaped it. We have to try to
understand why and not say let's get rid of Ezra Pound, who also happens
to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th C.
I still believe--and I speak here as a refugee from Hitler whose family
fled the morning of the Anschluss (March 12, 1938) of Austria--that
Pound's "fascism"--most of it completely nonsensical, juvenile, and
failing to understand how government works--was not nearly as dangerous
as Heidegger's willed, conscious, perfectly "reasoned" Fascism. to read
what Heidegger did at his own university in order to get rid of
colleagues who might have Jewish blood boggles the mind. And then
there's Paul de Man. As Eliot Weinberger wrote in SULFUR some years ago,
Pound's iniquities are not on the same scale because who the hell
listened to Pound's message?? Whereas Heidegger/de Man influenced
generations of students.
Jerry McGann has an essay in CRITICAL INQUIRY (a few years back) where he
makes an eloquent case for the Cantos as the tragic poem of the 20th C in
that it sums up so many of the terrible ideologies, anxieties, prejudices
around. To call it tragic may go too far, but Jerry is right. And
without the Cantos, I maintain there would have been no Black Mt, no
Objectivism,no Ethnopoetics (Rothenberg) and performance poetry like Mac
Low's, and so on down the line. So to say, as some people have on this
list, let's just get rid of Pound, is ridiculous.
And if you only read people whose ideology you approve of, who shall
'scape whipping? What about a Stalinist like Neruda? Is he to be
totally excused for supporting his Dictator? Shall we not read Wyndham
Lewis, a worse fascist than Pound but also an incredible writer? Let's
see, who's left? What about the homophobic, antisemitic passages in
Baraka? And so on.
It all comes back to the vexed question about the relation of poetry to
politics and that's a question that should be hotly discussed in a larger
theoretical way than it is today. Robert Duncan has wonderful comments
on the issue in his correspondence (not yet published) with Denise
Levertov. But whatever the relationship, it can't be Love my Politics,
love my poetry.
Marjorie Perloff
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:56:07 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: main <feathers@U.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Espanol
In-Reply-To: <4B45AB73A3@coral.indstate.edu>
On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Mark Peters wrote:
> Could anyone direct me to some exciting contemporary poetry in
> Spanish? I need to improve my reading skills, and would love to
> discover and use some recent poetry in the process.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
> "Look for discrepencies in your totem pole."
>
> --Kit Robinson
>
see _Mandorla_ mag (ed. Roberto Tejada / Apartado postal 5.366 / Mexico
D.F. / Mexico 06500): olson, oppen, niedecker, etc. translated, and many
contemporary writers in spanish.
dan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:07:51 -0800
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From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism
>
>Marjorie Perloff
I just want to say "yeah" to Marjorie's comments regarding Fascism. Thank
you Marjorie!
tosh
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Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:09:20 -0800
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From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scroggins without Limits
In-Reply-To: <199603190940.EAA19098@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Mark -- Please post notice here as soon as that book is available!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 11:31:26 -0600
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From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism
first, chiming in here to say that i've been learning much---MUCH---about
politics & poetry just from reading the various posts on this list re
pound... and much about various (personal and public) histories, too...
thanx to marjorie, jerry, jackson, ric, chris, everybody else (and
chris---i'm sorry to hear of your backchannel struggles, i would have hoped
for more generosity than it seems you've been shown by several poetics
subscribers)...
love to see the duncan/levertov correspondence marjorie mentions, to see
whether and how the revelatory aspect of form to which levertov was
committed (and with which duncan is so engrossed) finds a political turning
point... and as to politics & poetry, in particular: this latter
constitutes for me the slippery slope on which i find mself most often
these days, both as a poet and in a more general intellectual sense... i
mean, the questions i find mself asking most frequently, and with most
urgency, and with such tentativeness, are those that turn on this axis...
which is not to deny aesthetic questions per se but simply to situate
same...
it seems to me that the mere/sheer tendentiousness of politics & poetry as
a couple, and the degree of controversy sustained whenever this couple
surfaces as such, is itself a litmus of how charged it is, how pertinent it
is to our discussions... i understand that many will feel a (territorial,
discursive) claim being made here, but i really do believe that we have
perhaps more to learn by plumbing the aesthetic/poetic in such terms than
perhaps any other---at least in these times, in these places...
all best//
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:43:57 -0500
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From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: youth against fascism
Our landlord here at Teachers & Writers is wearing a new kind of shoe that
sounds like tap shoes. Increasing numbers of Americans buy their shoes
through the mail.
Btw, I'm reading with Leslie Scalapino tomorrow (Wednesday @ 8 p.m.) at the
Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, 131 E 10th, NYC.
--Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:52:51 -0500
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From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: switzerland
answering jordon's question, there's one recently read book especially
worth mentioning. it was recommended by a friend whose recommendations
have always been good, but this was a book published by graywolf, collecting
work that first appeared in places like ploughshares and the kenyon review,
and was endorsed who are very fine writers but who live, with ploughshares
and greywolf and kenyon, in a different universe. and the writer teaches
at harvard. hmmmm. it sounded more like a career than a poet. but you
never know, and in fact book and poet turned out to be pretty terrific,
so i pass this on. the writer is carl phillips and the book is cortege.
yes, there is a great respect for convention and finish, but the poems
are authentic and some are quite strong: see, for example, "the reach."
or look at "toys," for example; not as fine as "the reach," i think, but
it puts that old chestnut, roethke's "dolor," to shame. oh, that's not
fair: roethke's poem is good; still, Phillips's is better. clearly many
who are likely to read this would find phillips much too finished and
rounded, and any surviving language people, should there by any, would
have problems here, too. it's traditional in many ways, but there are
many authentic moments here. yes: authentic, not a word we are supposed
to use anymore, but phillips proves that it still works. -ed
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:01:45 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: youth against fascism
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:43:57 -0500 from <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
On Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:43:57 -0500 Jordan Davis said:
>Our landlord here at Teachers & Writers is wearing a new kind of shoe that
>sounds like tap shoes. Increasing numbers of Americans buy their shoes
>through the mail.
Oh-oh. Pretty soon they'll be tapping our phones & metering our feet.
How neo can you get. Call out the minutemen! - HG
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:25:20 PST
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From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: more on bunting /perloff's post
--- On Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:18:53 +0000 R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
wrote:
>Thanks, Chris, for quoting the whole Bunting poem, inc. date. Those Alps
>still ain't crumbled, though the fools are still waiting and the cranks
>are still climbing (it seems to me increasingly evident that there's a
>direct link between the study of Pound's social economics and insanity).
>We have, surely to try to find some way to do as BB did, revile the
>politics of intolerance - especially where it lives on around us - and yet
>learn from the poetry, without which, as others have pointed out, we'd all
>be much poorer.
>
>What's the "oss"?
OSS = overseas service, wch later became intelligence agencies all
over europe and america, if i'm not mistaken. i have since looked it
up and find that bunting never worked for OSS itself (as far as we know),
but he was involved in some espionage work in iran during the war
and after, some if it shady (if not suspect)
>
>I can't lay hands on the quote of BB on EP you give, but for what it's
the quote is from a filmed interview i saw in a pbs show abt pound
>worth I do recall (roughly) the conversations we naive students had with
>him c. 1968 (we nobbled him several times on this one, so the following is
>a kind of digest of his soundbites, as I remember them. He was remarkably
>consistent in his responses - Diplomatic Service training, I guess):
>
>Naive Students: Why was Pound a fascist?
>
>Bunting: You must remember that he became increasingly unstable throughout
>the 1930s, as he found himself isolated from friends and literary
>contemporaries. He was always susceptible to crackpot ideas, and that
>made him vulnerable to a direct wooing from Mussolini. Heaven knows why M.
>thought it worth his while.
i don't know abt more recent knowledge, but as far as i know, pound's
only real contact w/ mussolini, besides the many letters he sent,
is described in The Pound Era: pound waited for quite a while to see
mussolini. mussolini said that pound's poetry was "divertenti". pound
thought mussolini was a hell of a guy for seeing that poetry shld
delight! how sad and ironic that seems to me. was there really that much
more direct wooing? i seem to think pound was the woo-er ...
>NS: Why was Pound an antisemite?
>
>B: That was a very fashionable fad at the time, which a lot of people
>absorbed to a greater or lesser degree without recognising it. Because it
>seemed like a convenient solution to Pound's great economic headaches, he
>swallowed it unquestioningly - to his detriment. It lead him to be very
>hurtful to many of his friends, for which I remonstrated with him.
>
>NS: Have his views changed since the war?
>
>B: Couldn't say. His breakdown, when it inevitably came, was so complete
>as to make any real judgement difficult. Obviously eddies of his old
>preoccupations surface in fragments from time to time, but his main
>concern these days seems to be to find some sort of peace, mostly in
>silence. [nb - this was about the time drafts&fragments appeared]
>
>NS: If he's a fascist antisemite, shouldn't we refuse to read him?
>
>B: Your teachers would probably thank you, since you'd be sparing them a
>lot of difficult work. But you'd also be depriving yourselves of some of
>the best poetry of this century or many others, and of the fullest poetic
>toolkit which any young poet could have at his [sic] disposal. Refusal to
>learn from Pound's work, complex and flawed as it is, seems exceedingly
>dull-witted.
>
>[Kids! don't quote this in your theses! It's just the way I remember it...
>For what it's worth I buy quite a lot of BB's line on this - particularly
>that no competent poet or critic can simply dismiss Pound unread. You have
>to make the effort, and it has very great rewards. Equally, I was aware at
>the time that BB was oversimplifying EP's fascism and antisemitism -
>perhaps for his rather dim audience - in a way that won't do in the end.
>That has to be tackled too. It's a tricky old world. Sorry for taking up
>so much space/time on this... RC]
>
i want to tack on a response to marjorie perloff's recent posting:
marjorie ---
i'd have to add to your list hugh macdiarmid, whose hymns to stalin
have always confused me, and members of the tel quel group and the
situationist international who showed strong maoist leanings in
the sixties. also the whole 60's thing in america wch to my mind was
very suspect w/ it's usually uninformed embracing (appropriation)
of age-old religious customs, native american garb --- and the brutal
sexism and intolerance shown by the yippies and others, the call for
violence and murder --- the hell's angels were folk heroes at the time
--- all this in spite of the very good things wch came out of the sixties
and the whole ufo craze --- now this amazes me --- were the inca
and maya and egyptians so primitive that they cldn't have figured
out how to build what they built? is the fact that the triangle
is infinitely more stable than the square so incredibly hard for
the "primitive" mind to grasp that they needed extraterrestrial
help to see it? buckminster fuller figured it out for himself
when he was a kid --- but he was born in america-descendent-of-
europe, source of all progress and technology --- no wonder! oh
that whole insistence on extraterrestrial technological aid strikes
me as plain old thick-headed condescending chauvinism if not racism
and also that we live in very confusing times and must do the best
we can to be humane
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.19.96 9:25:20 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 11:42:58 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism
Comments: To: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960319083124.29583A-100000@elaine27.Stanford.EDU>
I haven't posted in a while and have only attended half-heartedly to this
thread so please disregard my comments if they are repetitive of what has
gone before them. . . . .
Following several recent posts on this thread perhaps the appropriate
question to ask is how we are to grapple/read/theorize our relationship
with poetry/writing of persons who's politics are less than delicious.
What, that is, or how are we to approach the work when we find it or its
writer involved with attitudes/beliefs/views we find anthema?
Richard Rorty in contingecy, irony and solidarity attempts to distinguish
(in his reading of heidegger in particular) between the person and the
writing; but i think this is somewhat inadequate--though it appeals to my
new critical/poststructural sensibilities. Afterall, I am deeply
interested in the person as well as the poetry/writing.
I, for one, think that in the case of pound that his views complicate our
understanding/reading of the poetry in not altogether unproductive ways;
that is, if nothing else they allow readers access to issues--as Marjorie
points out--that were part of a set of attitudes generally part of many
of the major figures of pound's era [hope I am repeating this correctly].
Basically, then, such questionable politics, rather than being an
argument for abandoning the writer, actually makes the case for
engagement with issues that are even more pressing and contemporary (as
Marjorie also points out). I'm not advocating political activism
(though I'm not ruling it out either) in the classroom (or wherever your
reading takes place), but I am suggesting that an engagment with the
writer's polictics can be a productive source of discussion.
Cheers y'all,
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:49:05 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT: Island of Lost Souls
One Night Only
"Island of Lost Souls"
a play by Kevin Killian
directed by Wayne Smith
A Benefit for Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center
at the Lab
2948 16th Street, San Francisco
Thursday, March 28, 8:00 p.m.
$5-10, sliding scale
For reservations leave a message at 415/281-9338
"Island of Lost Souls" is Long Island where, in the late 60's, one valiant
woman tries to hold her family's life together with only brains and belief
in God to aid her. Will Gabrielle Kerouac be able to protect the befuddled
genius of her son, Jack, from Hollywood producers wishing to make a musical
out of his masterpiece, On the Road, a book she herself wrote while he was
passed out? Will she find love in the arms of charming heiress Sunny von
Bulow, or lose her to the sinister machinations of her depraved husband
Claus?
Starring
Phoebe Gloeckner
Barbara Guest
Glen Helfand
Clifford Hengst
Scott Hewicker
Philip Horvitz
Kevin Killian
Hoa Nguyen
Rex Ray
Michelle Rolllman
Leslie Scalapino
Alicia Wing
SUNNY. I'm fading, but I'm still stunning, like a loud clap of hands in a
forest. - Maybe I shouldn't have eaten all that candy. I feel my blood
sugar rising, turning my blue blood white, like the blue frost that makes
snow flake. It was chocolate done me in, a victim of Whitman and Godiva.
Come, Gabrielle, bring your Canadian freshness to this overheated place of
fat!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:50:17 -0800
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT: Rae Armantrout & Fanny Howe
Small Press Traffic and the Poetics Department of New College
present
Rae Armantrout
and Fanny Howe
Saturday, March 30, 7:30 p.m.
at the New College Cultural Center
766 Valencia Street
San Francisco
$5
Rae Armantrout has published six book of poetry, most recently Made to Seem
and Necromance from Sun and Moon press. Her poems have been included in
numerous anthologies, including Out of Everywhere, Postmodern American
Poetry: A Norton Anthology and From the Other Side of the Century. Her work
has recently appeared in the Bay Area magazines New American Writing,
Prosodia and Avec. Writing in Spin magazine, Lydia Davis has called
Armantrout's poetry "brilliantly exact and never obvious." Rae Armantrout
teaches writing at U.C. San Diego.
Fanny Howe is the author of numerous books of poetry, including, most
recently, The End (Littoral) and O'Clock (Reality Street, England). Her
most recent novels are Saving History and The Deep North (Sun & Moon). A
trilogy of her earlier novels will be released in 1996. Her video work
includes What Nobody Saw, Simone Weil Avenue and the award winning Be
AGain. She teaches at the University of California at San Diego.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:49:30 GMT+1300
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From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: more on bunting
Yes, Chris, abandon Pound: stick to nourishing thoughts. There must be a poet
somewhere who propounds nourishing thoughts, some clean poet
somewhere, King David? No?
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
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Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:56:46 GMT+1300
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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: dadaists & mamaists
My son Stefan's first word was "yuk". He called me Tony and his mother
Judi until he was about five.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
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Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:15:20 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Kundera
joe
Joe, nice poster on dot EDU, which reminded me of the recent voyager wherein
a Q wants to commit suicide to shake up the continuum. whatever happened to
cya? rtfm?
Bill
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:39:40 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: SPT: Island of Lost Souls
At 10:49 AM 3/19/96 -0800, Kevin Killian wrote:
>One Night Only
>"Island of Lost Souls"
>a play by Kevin Killian
>directed by Wayne Smith
>A Benefit for Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center
>at the Lab
>2948 16th Street, San Francisco
>Thursday, March 28, 8:00 p.m.
>$5-10, sliding scale
>For reservations leave a message at 415/281-9338
God, Kevin, sounds like a riot. Is there any way for po' easterners to get
a look at the script? e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:51:56 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Smith <CharSSmith@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: dadaists & mamaists
There's surely more recent articles on the subject, but Roman Jakobson has a
piece, "Why 'Moma' & 'Papa'?," collected in _On Language_ where as I recall,
he says that labial & dental (both stopped) consonants & open vowels are the
earliest phonemic acquisitions & that combinations of consonants & vowels
which provide maximum contrast would first be used. That doesn't explain
gendering, which I suspect must be taught.
Charles Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 16:27:27 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Tabbi <jtabbi@UIC.EDU>
Subject: announcement: electronic book review #2
The second issue of the *electronic book review*, on "cultural criticism and
the politics of selling out," is available for viewing at
http://www.altx.com/ebr. It includes an essay by Joe Amato, which is partly
about his experience contributing to the Poetics list, as well as essays by
Poetics contributors Marjorie Perloff and Matt Kirschenbaum.
Joe Tabbi
editor, ebr
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 09:20:43 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: may-sures & misc
Dodie: I like your measure, esp. if pleasure can be pronounced play-sure. I
found the book at Borders, & it's well worth having, both for Rachel's
"Corpses of Poesy" and Joan Retallack's ":RE:THINKING:LITERARY:FEMINISM."
After reading Rachel's essay, I'd like to take back my months-old Marianne
Moore-bashing comment, please. Her essay's also a good place to start if,
like me, you're interested in the recent Mina Loy renaissance.
Chris (Daniels): I don't know what the whos I don't know have been telling
you about your posts, but one way to foil the powers that be who restrict
numbers of messages is to answer a number of posts in one large message.
Meaning, rather than respond to a post by me and then a post by Aldon in 2
separate posts, you'd do one like:
Emily: I completely disagree with you :)
Aldon: etc.
So this post is an example. :)
Gwyn: (forgive the non-backchanneling, but I'm modeling here) please let me
know, bc, how I can get a copy of that chapbook of yours.
btw, when Chris Stroffolino speaks of a malaise/fear of taking a stance, how
does that speak to Chris Daniels' I'm pissed post? Has CD been criticized
for taking a stance, or taking a stance "unsophisticatedly," or taking too
many stances or...? If he IS "charmingly naive," does that mean (as his
post on backchannel messages he's received would seem to indicate) he's not
welcome here? Speaking a little defensively as someone aware of her own
naivete, if not her charm. e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:48:50 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jonathan Brannen <jbrannen@INFOLINK.MORRIS.MN.US>
Subject: Re: Derrida's Style
Peter,
I'd love to get a copy of the tape of Derrida reading _Feu la cendre_ with
Carole Bousquet. Where might I obtain a copy?
Thanks,
Jonathan Brannen
>I've been meditating the issue of Derrida's style, in response to an
>earlier posting, i.e. whether his style is in some sense a choice in
>relation to a possible audience.
>
>First, not to sound too pedantic, but any comments about his style would
>have to be directed to the French texts, *not* the translations. My own
>view is that he is one of the great stylists in the French language *ever.*
>In my own work with Derrida's text, I find that I am drawn in and engaged
>in a textual space that is unique and challenging, on a number of levels.
>
>Derrida has also been involved in a self-commentary, especially in texts
>like _Cinders_, available in bilingual edition, that approaches a kind of
>poetics of the text. The tape of Derrida reading _Feu la cendre_ with
>French actress Carole Bousquet (des femmes, 1986) is a real experience.
>His centering on the phrase *il y'a la (accent grave) cendre* [literally:
>there is ash there] reverberates in many ways consonant with the most
>interesting work (I think of Susan Howe, among others) investigating
>historically charged linguistic expression.
>
>I've already referenced my recent book on Derrida, _Deconstruction and
>the Ethical Turn_. For a more recent work in progress, I would invite
>list members to visit my Towson home page and the paper there:
>Deconstruction and the Question of Violence.
>
>http://www.towson.edu/~baker
>
>Though not specifically on topics of poetics, it does take a kind of
>cultural studies approach to issues of violence in reading of Derrida's
>essay "Force of Law" in juxtaposition to _Pulp Fiction_. Backchannel
>commentary welcome.
>
>Peter Baker
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:48:54 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jonathan Brannen <jbrannen@INFOLINK.MORRIS.MN.US>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 11 Mar 1996 to 12 Mar 1996
Chris,
Membrane Press (P.O. Box 11601 - Shorewood, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211) has
published Thomas A. Clark in the states during the 1980s (to some degree
reprints of Moschatel
publications, in any case lovely). SPD, in spite of its regional leanings,
has carried, at times, Clark's perfect bound books (i.e. those from Coach
House, Polygon and Jargon), and may still have some in stock. Probably the
best source for Clark's books in the U.S. is Woodland Pattern, a bookstore
in Milwaukee which doesn't issue a catalog but does accept mail orders (P.O.
Box 92081, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202). Woodland Pattern, has my vote for
best bookstore (excellent chapbook, poetry and Canadian lit sections).
Thomas A. Clark's work is well worth seeking out.
Best,
Jonathan Brannen
>chris daniels wrote:
>> i have bob brown's 1450-1950, it's one of my most treasured books,
>> but who the hell is thomas a. clark? i'll find out, you bet.
>
>Thomas A. Clark hails from Grennock, and currently runs Moschatel Press
>with his wife Laurie in darkest Gloucestershire. Following a runs of books
>from Jonathan Williams' Jargon (latest: A Still Life, 1977) he's produced
>a range of tiny-but-perfect pamphlets & cards from Moschatel, as well as
>Madder Lake (Coach House 1981) Tormentil & Bleached Bones (Polygon 1993)
>and appeared (with Barry MacSweeney and Chris Torrance) in The Tempers of
>Hazard (Paladin 1993). The Paladin one was almost a ghost book, and could
>be hard to find: they were taken over by Rupert Murdoch during
>publication, and when MacSweeney phoned for extra copies c. six weeks
>after publication, he was told "Mr. Murdoch ordered it to be burned"...
>
>Here's one from The Hollow Way (Moschatel 1983):
>
> freshness gathers in a jar
> the evening waits on splendour
> we have come home from war
> only the indigent wander
>
> ask nothing of life
> the hours have no halter
> the garden gate is ajar
> purpose does not falter
>
> abundance ripens in a bowl
> the telephone rings in an empty room
> a turbulence of trapped wings
> in the corner reclines a broom
>
>- hope that helps!
>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>x x
>x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
>x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
>x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
>x x
>x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
>x - Basil Bunting x
>x x
>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:48:57 -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: POETICS Digest - 11 Mar 1996 to 12 Mar 1996
Charles,
What's the address for Prest Roots Press?
Best,
Jonathan Brannen
>Nice that this is the second time within a year (go back through the poetics
>list archive) that thomas a. clark has been the subject. Richard Caddel's
>list leaves out one title I have, which is Dwellings & Habitations, from
>Prest Roots Press in 1993. Kate Whiteford contributes drawings which do
>justice as well. Among the pages
>
>
>saxifrage on a wet rock face
>
>samphire in a salt marsh
>
>skeins of mist among bog cotton
>
>a depth of sky in a shallow pool
>
>quite in the rib-cage of a sheep's carcase
>
>
>
>always nice to have a reason to look back at thomas a. clark's work.
>
>
>charles alexander
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:02:21 GMT+1300
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: Bury Fascist Ezra Pound
It's bigotry rather than Fascism maybe that this is about with Pound
and the early twentieth century arty anti-semitisims but
there are more of these good/bad guy cases... e.g. Anthony Blunt
scholar and spy obtaining British military secrets for Russia. But do
Read His Books, they have much to say on the issues that beset him,
masks, disguises, projected onto his painter, ideology that his
painter seemed to justify...but the most disinterested seeming
scholar was he.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:19:31 -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: Jeanne McGahey
I was talking this evening with friends about Jeanne McGahey, who recently
died, and thought it might be good to add something here about her. There
is to be a memorial reading for her on March 30th in San Rafael; I only
wish there had been readings in her honor that she could have attended
these last few years. She was a very accomplished poet and deserved
attention that she never got.
McGahey (1906-1995) was a member of the group called the Activists
by Auden. Their leader was Lawrence Hart, whom McGahey married in 1944.
Hart took from Pound, Eliot, Crane, and other modernists various standards
by which he felt poetry could be judged. In turn, as I understand it, these
standards could be exploited as procedures or rules for the poet to follow.
In some sense, then, it was possible to teach/learn how to write poetry.
Hart and McGahey's son, John Hart (himself a respected poet), told me that
the Activists (despite the name and Auden's collective praise) were never
really a community but rather those who studied under his father during
his fifty-year teaching career.
The Activists were well known in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and
there was a special issue of _Poetry_ dedicated to their work. And they
had some very strong defenders: Theodore Weiss, for example, gave them
much space in his magazine.
But the Activists had to share the Bay area with the Rexroth and
Duncan/Spicer groups, among others, and there was friction. Duncan, for
example, dismissed Hart as one who did "not comprehend problems of poetry
in the least." Duncan would not deny that Hart had "a remarkable number
of interesting poets" working under him, but principally what he passed
on to them was "the claptrap of bells, honey, coins and senory machinery."
Duncan knew McGahey at Berkeley, and they were published together.
In 1941, a selection of her work appeared in _Five Young American Poets_,
published by New Directions, and she was, I'd guess, the first Bay Area
poet of her generation to be nationally recognized. Her poetry was built
from "images and phrases," which, she said, "might come through automatic
writing, random devices, fragments I picked up from conversations, street
signs, newspaper stories, anything: but if they fitted or were right, the
emotion would seem to recognize them or let them in." Her intent was to
"make the real more real," to create "a word reality that is as actual
to the mind as place is to the senses." The results are great baroque
constructions: "Old fogies in the rusty weather / Dream for a dram or
two / that kelpy / Locomotive length" (i.e. sea serpent); "The day the
iron fell: / the enormous Lie. / And the adversary licks it like a
toad."
Activist poetry, George Leite wrote, possesses "a surface of brilliant
notation, imagery and connotative statement." According to McGahey, "the
`interesting' word is very seldom the abstract word."
Between 1983 and 1986, McGahey edited _The Poetry Letter_ from her
home in San Rafael and tried again to promote the Activist position, but
the magazine did not have much circulation. I visited McGahey a few years
ago, and found her a truly wonderful person who remained absolutely
committed to the Activist ideas. Lawrence Hart was equally certain that
the Activists were the true heirs of the modernists--at least those in
their pantheon, which apparently did not have room for Stevens or even
Williams.
I liked them immensely, their certainty and conviction. And I think
her poetry should be much better known. It is worth locating a copy of
_Homecoming with Reflections_, her selected poems published ten or twelve
years ago. Here is part of one of her poems, reprinted on a memorial
card for her:
The old and disheveled may well take aim.
Whatever they came for: the lucky fix,
The absolute noise, the smile that disappeared
Like a sparrow:
these being forfeit
Leave little to lose.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 00:52:13 +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: poems
>CERYTAIN SUHLANTS TWO for Ron Silliman
>
>
> this
is quite simply exhilerating.
thanks charles
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:03:08 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: may-sures & misc
>btw, when Chris Stroffolino speaks of a malaise/fear of taking a stance,
>how
>does that speak to Chris Daniels' I'm pissed post? Has CD been criticized
>for taking a stance, or taking a stance "unsophisticatedly," or taking too
>many stances or...? If he IS "charmingly naive," does that mean (as his
>post on backchannel messages he's received would seem to indicate) he's not
>welcome here? Speaking a little defensively as someone aware of her own
>naivete, if not her charm. e
emily ---
one last shot, and then i'll say no more abt it.
i think i was criticized for not speaking "the language of the
tribe."
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.19.96 6:03:08 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:28:09 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: Heidegger
The following messages were originally backchanneled to Alan Sondheim in
answer to an email posting to me.
MESSAGE 1
Dear Alan,
Thanks for the message. From what I've read again lately (David Ferrell
Krell's General Introduction to his collection _Martin Heidegger: Basic
Writings_ (NY: Harpers, 1977), 26-28), MH *did* repudiate the Nazis in a
real sense:
"On the eve of the Reichstag elections of Novemer 12 [1933] Heidegger
spoke out in support of Hitlerian policis that culminated in Germany's
withdrawal from the League of Nations--whose birth certificate was the
deeply resented Versailles Treaty. Meanwhile the NSDAP-dominated ministry
of culture began to pressure university leaders for more politiclly
oriented courses and more ideologically enlightened faculty members to
teach them. In February 1934 the Karlsruhe branch of the ministry demanded
that Heidegger relieve of their duties two professors openly hostile to the
movement. Heidegger demurred.At the end of the month, because of this and
apparently a whole range of administrative difficulties, he resigned. By
the begining of the new year (1934) Heidegger had recognized the
impossibility of the situation and the bankruptcy of his hopes for
resurgence. [Wrongly, of course, he *had* hoped that the NASDP movement
would lead to a "resurgence" of Germany--as did many others who were more
informed politically than he was.] In lectures and seminars he began to
criticize at first cautiously and then more stridently the Nazi ideology of
_Blut unf Boden_ chauvinism that preached a racist origin for even poetry.
[fn; "One of the most sharply critical texts appears in Martin Heidegger,
_The End of Philosophy_, trans. Joan Stambaugh (NY: Harper & Row, 1973),
pp. 105 ff.] Party admerents bitterly criticized Heidegger in the
mid-1930s; his courses were apparently placed under surveillance; some
were canceled; various restrictions were placed on his freedom to publish
and to attend conferences. In the summer of 1944 he was declared the most
"expendable" member of the university faculty and along with a recalcitrant
ex-dean sent to the Rhine to dig trenches. Upon his return to Freiburg he
was drafted into the People's Militia (_Volksturm_). Heidegger's support of
the Nazi Party had lasted ten months (May 1933 to January 1934); it earned
him the virulent enmity of many. That Heigger's early engagement in the
Nazi cause was a monstrous error all concede; that this error sprang from
basic tendencies of his thought only a few have argued. [fn: It is of
course convenient to decide that Heidegger's shortlived but inense
involvement in political despotism "taints" his work: that is the fastest
way to rid the shelves of all sorts of difficult authors from Plato to
Nietsche and to make righteous indignationeven more satisfying than it
normally is. But neither does it do to close the eyes and stop up the ears
to the dismal matter. {Krell then recommends several "accounts and
reflections," notably Hannah Arendt's "Martin Heidegger at Eighty" [ _The
New York Review of Books_, October 21, 1971,pp. 53 -54 n.3) and Fergus
Kerr's "Metaphysics after Heidegger: for Eighty-fifth Birthday," in _New
Blackfriars_(August 1974), pp. 344-57.]
I am of course aware of the much more severe takes on this whole situation
in the collection of essays on MH edited by Thomas McCarthy in the 1980s,
of which I can't at present locate my copy..
I do not understand the connection you draw between Heidegger's idea of
_Dasein_ and fascism. Please let me know your reasoning. As for "destiny,"
I have been convinced by Aristotle, Whitehead, and others that the future
is open--that real *novelty* is continually coming to be, so "destiny" is
not part of my philosophical vocabulary. To what extent is it basic to MH's
thought?
MESSAGE 2
Alan
I found my copy of the collection I mentioned, but it was *not* edited by
Thomas McCarthy but by Thomas Sheehan!- -_Heidegger: The Man and the
Thinker_ (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1981). The relevant items are
"Heidegger and the Nazis," by Karl A. Moehling" (pp. 31-43) and "'Only a
God Can Save Us': The _Spiegel_ Interview (1966)" (pp. 45-67). The
interview took place on 23 September 1966, but MH insisted it not be
published during his lifetime. It appeared in _Der Spiegel_ on 31 May 1976,
five days after his death. The translator of the interview, William J.
Richardson, S.J., remarks in his intro to it that MH "neither repudiated,
justified, nor explained" his "association with the Nazis while Rector pf
the University of Freiburg, 1933-34." MH has a lot to say about this matter
in the interview, & Moehling's essay is, with it, a very complete account
of the matter.
Do you know this book? I picked it up at a small press book fair held at
NYU in the early 80s.
Yrs, Jackson [Mac Low]
<tarmac@nyc.pipeline.com>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:21:13 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: may-sures & misc
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960319180451.Chris@kunos>
chris-
check out archives for the past month. A couple of other newcomers
have expressed pleasure at their recption here. I'll join them in
expressing my comfort here even though I am a complete ignoramus in
regard to poetry politic's ins and outs. In my experience this is
probably the most tolerant and friendly place online.
tom bell
On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, chris daniels wrote:
> >btw, when Chris Stroffolino speaks of a malaise/fear of taking a stance,
> >how
> >does that speak to Chris Daniels' I'm pissed post? Has CD been criticized
> >for taking a stance, or taking a stance "unsophisticatedly," or taking too
> >many stances or...? If he IS "charmingly naive," does that mean (as his
> >post on backchannel messages he's received would seem to indicate) he's not
> >welcome here? Speaking a little defensively as someone aware of her own
> >naivete, if not her charm. e
>
>
> emily ---
>
> one last shot, and then i'll say no more abt it.
>
> i think i was criticized for not speaking "the language of the
> tribe."
>
> later ---
>
> chris
> -------------------------------------
> christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.19.96 6:03:08 pm
>
> q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
> said anything goes?"
> --- charles wourinen
>
> a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
>
> --- george clinton
>
> snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
> voice: 510.524.5972
> http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 23:38:48 +0000
Reply-To: jzitt@humansystems.com
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is <jzitt@bga.com>
From: Joseph Zitt <jzitt@HUMANSYSTEMS.COM>
Organization: HumanSystems
Subject: Re: ghost titles
Well, it's not necessarily poetry, but there's always Harlan
Ellison's "The Last Dangerous Visions", now some thirtyish years
delayed.
---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1----------
|||/ Joseph Zitt ==== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \|||
||/ Organizer, SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List \||
|/<A HREF="http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/">Joe Zitt's Home Page</A>\|
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 22:56:52 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism
>Cheers y'all,
>
>Jeffrey Timmons
I just want to say "yeah" to Jeffrey's comment too as well as Majorie.
Sorry to be such a dumbell on the side!
tosh
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 09:21:40 GMT0BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Larkin <LYAAZ@LIBRIS.LIB.WARWICK.AC.UK>
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK LIBRARY
Subject: Thomas A Clark
Dwellings and Habitations is still in print, and North American
orders (paying in dollars) can be sent to Paul Green. Full details
appear under Small Presses on the EPC web pages. Thank you, Charles
Alexander, for airing a few quotes from it. In case of any
difficulty, members of this list are welcome to contact me direct.Peter Larkin Philosophy & Literature Librarian
University of Warwick Library,Coventry CV4 7AL UK
Tel:01203 524475 Fax: 01203 524211
Email: Lyaaz@Libris.Lib.Warwick.ac.uk
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 01:24:15 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: another open letter
--- On Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:21:13 -0800 Thomas Bell <tbjn@WELL.COM> wrote:
>chris-
> check out archives for the past month. A couple of other newcomers
>have expressed pleasure at their recption here. I'll join them in
>expressing my comfort here even though I am a complete ignoramus in
>regard to poetry politic's ins and outs. In my experience this is
>probably the most tolerant and friendly place online.
>
>tom bell
>
just to say that i also feel very welcome here --- a few people were
mean to me, i got pissed off --- that's all --- i have no problem
w/ being asked to make my posting more efficient --- that's never
been the point
i'm very glad to be on this list --- it's the first extended contact w/
literary people i've ever had --- out of the 400 or so subscribers,
less than ten were nasty --- seems like good odds
there is much passionate intelligence here, and i repeat i am very glad
to be a subscriber --- even though i am not the most elegant writer,
and am w/o a doubt not a trained thinker, you have been taking what i
have to say seriously and i have gotten some very kind words of support
and encouragement from some of you --- poets and critics alike --- whose
work i has filled me w/ awed delight for twenty years or more --- i am
moved and very grateful --- so please don't think i'm fuming or holding
a grudge
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.20.96 1:24:15 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wourinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:37:18 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Bunting / Military Intelligence
In-Reply-To: <199603200505.FAA28554@hermes.dur.ac.uk>
Yes, Bunting worked for British Military Intelligence in Persia during
WWII, and you may share my view that MI is nearly always "shady" or
"suspect". We can actually confirm very little of what he did, since the
Military won't release the records. It's known that there was an attempt
to contact the remote tribes, to prevent German (and subsequently Soviet)
intelligence from "destabilising" the region. And it's also evident that
whilst he was Vice-Consul of Isfahan he did a lot of travelling to remote
areas to meet such tribes (and had a wonderful time). Therefore there's an
assumption that he was actually making diplomatic contact as part of said
attempt. A sort of "Greenmantle" - and very typical of British
Intelligence to be one war behindhand.
"Military Intelligence" is another of those terms like "English Cuisine"
isn't it - doesn't stand much examination...
RC
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 21:03:34 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: something else
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91-941213.960320100424.23466C-100000@deneb.dur.ac.uk>
What does the list have to say about Gilbert Sorrentino's work?
(How) does he fit in?
Is his poetry read? His prose?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 08:41:17 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: something else
I adore Sorrentino's _The Orangery_. That is precisely the
kind of thing I find sexy, silly, liberating about the new
or "querzblatz" kinds of poetics--You wake up in the morning
and you REALLY LIKE ORANGE. So you write an entire book in
which every poem mentions orange-the-color or
orange-the-fruit. Bravo; my virtual hat is off.
Gwyn
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 09:41:41 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound, fascism, etc.
In-Reply-To: <199603192028.PAA29757@pipe3.nyc.pipeline.com>
Bravo for Jerry's & Jackson's messages re Pound: they should lay that
question to rest or at least make it clear that one cannot dismiss work
of the order of Pound's because of the man's failings. I was about to
post Julian Beck's poem, when Jerry did so, as that poem embodies for me
the kind of vigilance we should all strive for, as citizens & writers.
Olson said, liberatingly, that space / geography is
the essential characteristic of the US, but the unhappy concommittant
seems to be a flattening out of history: from the various messages re
Pound I get a strong sense of a lack of historical perspective -- as if
all events were synchronic -- so that hindsight gets construed as clarity
of vision -- & used to condemn those who in their time, the twenties &
the thirties, in this case, messed up, aligning themselves with what they
percieved as revolutionary positions -- on the right & on the left --
which both ended in totalitarianisms.
'nuff said, except that for those interested I'd like to point to
a few books that can help clarify matters (unhappily as far as I'm aware,
they are not translated into English yet):
Jean-Pierre Faye's masterful "Langages Totalitaires" (Hermann, Paris
1973): an analysis of how the discursive modes of national-socialism/
nazism came about, evolved from the various strains of nationalist,
socialist, jungdeutsch & many other discourses. A historical semantics
that should interest any poet.
Zeev Sternhell, _Ni Droite, Ni Gauche: L'ideologie Fsciste en France-
(Editions du Seuil, 1983, reprinted 1987 by Editions Complexe) There are
a number of Sternhell's essays available in English, for ex. "Fascist
ideology," in Walter Laqueur, ed. _Fascism: A Reader's Guide_ (UCP,
Berkeley 1976).See also his book _La Droite Revolutionnaire: Les origines
francaises du fascisme 1885-1914 (Seuil 1984).
In the 1930s George Bataille spoke of "the fascist temptation" that the
intellectuals & artist of his time had to contend with: some of his work
(like the essay on the prefix "sur") are essential reading. Important
also is the work done & ongoing around Maurice Blanchot's 30s antisemitic
writings (Jeffrey Mehlman's _Legacies of Anti-Semitism in France_; Alice
Yaeger Kaplan's _Reproductions of Banality: Fascism, Literature, and
French intellectual life_,among others, are important to get a grasp on
that period).
As we approach the millennium, making this century "history," we have to
keep worrying it, we have to try to understand not only what went wrong,
but why & how. It's not a question of either forgetting or forgiving what
has happened: we must neither forget nor forgive anything that happened.
Pierre
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force
Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That
SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida
Albany NY 12222 |
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language."
email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu|
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:14:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heidegger
In-Reply-To: <199603192028.PAA29757@pipe3.nyc.pipeline.com>
Dear Jackson -- thanks for your thoughtful postings re both EP &
Heidegger. As far as the latter is concerned, I cannot, however, agree
with your sense that he repudiated nazism -- ever (he remained, for example,
a card- & lapel-pin-carrying member in good standing of the nazi party
until 1945, something there was absolutely no need for him to do). On the
question of H's politics, Krell's intro is something of a whitewash. In
the late 80s, when the Heidegger shootout at Sorbonne Corral was in full
swing I wrote an essay covering the books (from Farias to Lyotard's) on
that question, & also looking at Heidegger's practical application of
his ideology & thought, i.e. what he actually did when in a position
of power at the university. I never published the piece & it's too long to
post here (30+ pages), but if you wld like to see it, I'll be happy to
backchannel the thing. If other people are interested I cld also cut it
up into three parts & post those to the list &/or post it on my epc
author page.
Certainly Heidegger's problems after he abdicated the rector position are
no proof of his opposition to the nazi regime. If there is one
interesting conjecture in Victor Farias's book, it is the suggestion that
the ultraconservative agragrian origins of H wld make him more
sympathetic to the SA than to the SSS. This would indeed explain a lot,
but all the info we need to judge isn't in yet.
The recently published paraphrase of the Arendt/Heidegger correspondance
is a disastrous & disappointing job. At any rate, I can't take Arendt's
continued involvement with Heidegger as in any sense a proof that
Heidegger had abandoned or changed his ideological views. Paul Celan who
visited him in July 1966 left disappointed, if not disgusted, & recorded
the negativity of the visit in his poem TODTNAUBERG. (have an essay on
that encounter too, CELAN/HEIDEGGER:TRANSLATION AT THE MOUNTAIN OF DEATH,
if you're interested)
Pierre
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force
Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That
SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida
Albany NY 12222 |
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language."
email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu|
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:19:39 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: something else
In-Reply-To: <314FC4AD.356B@osf1.gmu.edu>
On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, Gwyn McVay wrote:
> I adore Sorrentino's _The Orangery_. That is precisely the
> kind of thing I find sexy, silly, liberating about the new
> or "querzblatz" kinds of poetics--You wake up in the morning
> and you REALLY LIKE ORANGE. So you write an entire book in
> which every poem mentions orange-the-color or
> orange-the-fruit. Bravo; my virtual hat is off.
>
> Gwyn
>
& I adored _Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things_ (among other
Sorrentino works) but that one so much that I even got the hard-cover in
those hard-pressed days, which Ted Berrigan then borrowed sometime in
1975 & is, I hope, still chuckling over whenever the angel choirs are
getting to dull & his buddy Frank is catching a nap. -- Pierre
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:06:47 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: something else
one thing perhaps directly pertinent to this list re sorrentino: his
admiration for jack spicer's poetry... i recall a 'review' he did---early
70s?---of spicer's poetry, how important he thought it was... mebbe kevin
or somebody can give the reference, i've forgotten it...
anyway, as to sorrentino's writing per se, YES, surely an innovator,
well-worth checking out...
as is charles a.!---charles, i really enjoyed your first poem 'for ron
silliman'!...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:21:40 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Daniel Bouchard <Daniel_Bouchard@HMCO.COM>
Subject: Re: Sorrentino
Joe wrote:
one thing perhaps directly pertinent to this list re sorrentino: his
admiration for jack spicer's poetry... i recall a 'review' he did---early
70s?---of spicer's poetry, how important he thought it was... mebbe kevin
or somebody can give the reference, i've forgotten it...
_________
This essay is part of the SOMETHING SAID collection of essays published in the
early 80s by. . . North Point? It also has worthwhile essays on Zukofsky,
Neidecker, Oppen, Reznikoff, Rexroth and many others. Unfortunately it's out
of print now but I bet the Dalkey Archive picks it up soon.
I read Spicer after reading the IMAGINATIVE QUALITIES OF ACTUAL THINGS and
recall thinking what a debt that novel owes to Spicer. It's very good; very
funny.
His recent novel RED THE FIEND (1995) is also worth checking out (as is all his
work while I'm mentioning it).
daniel_bouchard@hmco.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:13:30 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heidegger
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:14:39 -0500 from
<joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
On Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:14:39 -0500 Pierre Joris said:
>Heidegger had abandoned or changed his ideological views. Paul Celan who
>visited him in July 1966 left disappointed, if not disgusted, & recorded
>the negativity of the visit in his poem TODTNAUBERG. (have an essay on
>that encounter too, CELAN/HEIDEGGER:TRANSLATION AT THE MOUNTAIN OF DEATH,
>if you're interested)
There is also some discussion of this in Felstiner's new book "Paul Celan".
On this whole issue of Pound et al., I think Ron Silliman's post remains
the most interesting. "We are the problem." I read recently that the
Scottish philosopher Hume developed a view that sympathy is the bond of
social peace; he wrote an essay on "the pleasures of tragedy" specifically
to criticize the self-righteousness of religious forces in his country
which were attacking cultural values, theater, etc.
It seems to me we all tend to talk too glibly about "forgetting and
forgiving" or "remembering and condemning", as if these were somehow
group efforts that can be invoked by social decree. In my view
there is an individuality in all these acts of reading & judgement;
we respond to an incredible range of things when we read or listen
to poetry. An awareness of the historical & political background
just deepens our response & heightens the hunger for alternatives
or revisions - it is ethics in action, ethos being formed, even if
we'd rather not deal in such stuffy vocabulary. - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 08:52:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Update on Billy Higgins
In-Reply-To: <199603110702.CAA10237@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
_L.A. Times_ 3/20/96
Jazz great Billy Higgins received a successful liver transplant on Monday
at the UCLA Medical Center and was listed in stable condition. "He's
just fine. The new liver started working immediately," said Higgins'
wife, Gina, who requested no phone calls to Higgins at the hospital for
the time being.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:06:13 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: poems
>>CERYTAIN SUHLANTS TWO for Ron Silliman
>>
>>
>> this
>
>is quite simply exhilerating.
>
>thanks charles
>love and love
>cris
thank you, cris
Seems like some poems on the poetics list are called for once in a while, at
least, even though I have been following the pound/fascism and other
discussions with interest, too. but I've also been doing a lot of new work
and wanted to share some. such responses as yours are great to hear.
love & love
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:32:25 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Christopher J. Beach" <cjbeach@BENFRANKLIN.HNET.UCI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Pound, fascism, etc.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.ULT.3.91.960320085114.24139A-100000@loki.hum.albany.edu>
I have tried to stay out of the fray on this whole Pound thing (having
already said my two cents worth in my book), but now that things have
died down a bit, I'd just like to add my thanks to Ron Silliman, Marjorie
Perloff, Jerry Rothenberg, and Jackson Mac Low (among others) for the
insightful and informational comments. For those who would "bury" Pound,
I think we need to remember that if it weren't for Pound, and his
influence on the course of avant-garde/ experimental/ innovative American
poetry, we might not be having the conversation or this list at all.
Christopher Beach
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 15:38:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bill Luoma <Maz881@AOL.COM>
Subject: Tim Davis & Stephen Rodefer Read
Comments: cc: nd@panix.com, drothschild@penguin.com
Tim Davis & Stephen Rodefer
read at Biblio's on Sun March 24 @ 5:00pm
317 Church St, 1 blk below canal, Manhattan, NY
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 16:26:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Heidegger
pierre: i for one wd be interested in seeing your longish heidegger essay:
128 racing beach ave., falmouth ma 02540, if you decide against posting it
in 3 parts...
bests, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 14:12:22 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Franklin Bruno <BRUNO@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Request for addresses
Hello, this is my first post. Could whoever publishes Witz please re-
post (or backchannel) ordering information? I wrote down the address
but not who to make out the check to, and I can't find the original
post. Sorry.
Also, could someone post information (address, price) for lyric&?
I've read of this several places but can't find it anywhere, even,
say SPD.
Switzerland: brand new edition of Robt. Smithson's writing, w/
several unpublished interviews.
thanks in advance,
Franklin Bruno, henceforth:
fjb
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 14:13:43 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: New Laura Moriarty Book
.....a short commercial break.....
------------------------------------------------
New from Avec Books
_Symmetry_
by Laura Moriarty
Winning manuscript of the Gerbode Foundation Awards in Poetry
selected by Robert Creeley
"If poems can be profoundly emotional--illuminating the
persistently difficult zero of experience--these poems are.
Precise, compelling, moving, simple, yet in places skirting the
edges of what can be said, the writing in _Symmetry_ feels
absolutely necessary. Its toughness, honesty and eyes-open
confrontation with the unnameable may make you weep." --Norman
Fischer
"Laura Moriarty has unique wit and humor--and perhaps the most
perceptive engagement with words that anyone's had for years.
They are her pleasure, her resource, her wisdom and company, and
she shares them with generous abandon. Here one may finally see
that what's said makes a world endlessly, over and over and over.
Hers is an abiding delight." --Robert Creeley
Price $9.95
120 pages, perfect bound
ISBN 1-880713-04-7
LCCN: 95-77361
Distributed by Baker & Taylor, Bookpeople, Small Press Distribution
AVEC WWW: http://www.crl.com/~creiner/syntax/avec.html
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 14:50:18 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Douglas Messerli <djmess@SUNMOON.COM>
Subject: Sun & Moon competitions
Sun & Moon Press is pleased to announce its competition winners of 1995
The New American Poetry Competition was judged
this year by Bruce Andrews
The winner is: METROPOLIS, by Rob Fitterman
The New American Fiction Competition was judged
this year by Sun & Moon Publisher, Douglas Messerli
The winner is: POSSESSED BY A DEMON, by Elana Greenspan
Both titles will be published in Sun & Moon Poetry and Fiction
Series in 1997.
Contgratulations to the writers whose manuscripts were chosen. We also
want to express our appeciation to the many other excellent writers who
participated in the 1995 competitions.
Sun & Moon is now reading manuscripts for the 1996 competitions. Please
send a full poetry or fiction manuscript with your name on the cover sheet
only along a $25.00 fee (which goes toward the publicaiton of the winning
titles) to Sun & Moon Press, 6026 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Manuscripts are accepted from January 1, 1996 to December 30, 1996.
Last year's New American Poetry Competition winners, NOON, by Cole Swensen
and POLYVERSE by Lee Ann Brown are announced for publication in the Fall of
this year.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 15:05:08 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Douglas Messerli <djmess@SUNMOON.COM>
Subject: Re: something else
Sun & Moon has just republished THE ORANGERY by Gil Sorrentino.
I think he's a great poet, highly unread, underappreciated, and
neglected. In part that's a phenomenon of his fiction receiving
so much attention with the publication of MULLIGAN STEW
and ABBERRATION OF STARLIGHT. But that is, in my opinion, unfor-
tunate. He's an excellent poet, full of wit and leaps and good
language.
His prose, almost all republished now by Dalkey Archive Press, is
respected, I think, more than read. He's excellent there also.
Obviously, I'm a fan.
Douglas M
============================================
At 09:03 PM 3/20/96 +0800, you wrote:
>What does the list have to say about Gilbert Sorrentino's work?
>(How) does he fit in?
>Is his poetry read? His prose?
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 14:52:22 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: New WITZ
Dear POETICS folks:
The new issue of WITZ is now available. It features an essay on
Robert Grenier's new work by Stephen Ratcliffe, a piece on
bpNichol by Carl Peters, a review of Stephen-Paul Martin's _Fear
and Philosophy_ by Andrew Joron, a review of David Bromige's _Tiny
Courts_ by Douglas A Powell, a review of Kevin Connoly's _Asphalt
Cigar_ by Clint Burnham, and some brief reviews by Susan Smith
Nash.
For those of you who are familiar with WITZ, the format is now a
little different. The journal is 8" x 5", 40 pages,
saddle-stitched.
Also, for those of you who have been getting WITZ as members of
Syntax Projects for the Arts, the journal is now its own,
independent publication. Your subscription ended with the
previous issue. I hope you'll resubscribe to the "new" WITZ.
Subscription information:
$10 U.S. (individuals)
$30 U.S. (institutions)
Checks should be made payable to Christopher Reiner
WITZ
12071 Woodbridge Street
Studio City, CA 91604
Back issues are also available, contact me for a list.
Also, if you'd like send an essay or review for consideration,
I'd be happy to see it. Please include an SASE. I'll be posting
a more detailed call for submissions in the near future.
Thanks,
Christopher Reiner
creiner@crl.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 21:30:14 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wendy Battin <wjbat@CONNCOLL.EDU>
Subject: Carl Phillips reading
Ed,
agreed on the Carl Phillips book. For anyone in the Boston area,
Phillips will be reading at MIT on April 4, 7:30 at Bartos
Theater. also Lloyd Schwartz, on the same program. Stop
in & say hi.
Wendy
Edward Foster wrote:...
>never know, and in fact book and poet turned out to be pretty terrific,
>so i pass this on. the writer is carl phillips and the book is cortege.
>yes, there is a great respect for convention and finish, but the poems
>are authentic and some are quite strong: see, for example, "the reach."
>or look at "toys," for example; not as fine as "the reach," i think, but
>it puts that old chestnut, roethke's "dolor," to shame. oh, that's not
>fair: roethke's poem is good; still, Phillips's is better. ....
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wendy Battin
wjbat@conncoll.edu
wbattin@mit.edu
Contemporary American Poetry Archive
http://camel.conncoll.edu/library/CAPA/capa.html
----------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 22:35:00 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: SPT: Island of Lost Souls
Yes. I second that suggestion / question. Us po' Canadians too?
Emily Lloyd wrote:
>God, Kevin, sounds like a riot. Is there any way for po' easterners to get
>a look at the script? e
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 22:50:31 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: Re: New WITZ
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960320145045.5291A-100000@crl6.crl.com>
Oops...forgot to say that a subscription to WITZ is for three issues.
--Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 02:44:01 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: SPT: Island of Lost Souls
and how about us po folk in the east but variously from the midwest and the
awful san francisco burbs?
:)
-- e~q
>Yes. I second that suggestion / question. Us po' Canadians too?
>
>Emily Lloyd wrote:
>>God, Kevin, sounds like a riot. Is there any way for po' easterners to get
>>a look at the script? e
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
> Peter Quartermain
> 128 East 23rd Avenue
> Vancouver
> B.C.
> Canada V5V 1X2
> Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
>
> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 02:42:54 -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: Re: Jeanne McGahey
Ed,
Wasn't Robert Barlow, the poet/anthropologist whom Olson was interested
in while down in Mexico, also connected to McGahey & Hart? I got that
newsletter in the 1980s and it was definitely a breath of the 1930s all
over again.
I'm waiting for someone to rediscover Adelaide Crapsey.
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 10:07:21 +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: Heidegger / H & Celan
Hi Pierre, I'd like to read both pieces and e-mail in downloadable chunks
is just fine - from the list or backchannel.
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 03:18:30 -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: Re: something else
Simon Schuchat wrote:
>
>What does the list have to say about Gilbert Sorrentino's work?
>(How) does he fit in?
>Is his poetry read? His prose?
>
I've always been fond of his work. His omnibus poetry reviews were
unique in the early & mid 60s for covering so much of what was
happening (collected now happily in Something Said). It was a genre
that Poetry used a lot, but relatively few other mags and tho Gil seems
to exported that mode for his own purposes, nobody else was really
doing that during that period.
I like his poetry also, but have never really tried the novels. (I've
had Mulligans Stew on the "to be read" pile since 1981.) The Orangery
is a fine sequence.
I believe that Ted Pearson and Keith Shein had a pretty strong
relationship with him and his work and might be the most active
instances of its influence being carried forward. Haven't heard from
Keith in some years (he's the tennis pro at Dominican College in San
Rafael).
Tho Sorrentino has been at Stanford for years, he's never been active
in the SF scene at all. (I recall mentioning that I'd never seen him
even tho we'd lived in the same area for years and a Stanford student
-- I forget whom, possibly Ty Miller -- saying that he'd never seen him
either).
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 10:40:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: bodenheim
Since it's been an issue lately among the talkers, and since I'm certain
it's on the minds of more than a few lurkers, could somebody connected with
the list just come out and say what the rules are. I ask this, knowing very
well that "rules" are undesirable on notebook paper.
So far, I've come up with:
Don't reify.
Announce books.
Ask questions.
Rescue lost writers.
Probably the chief rule is "announce books".
Rushing in,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 07:47:52 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Jeanne McGahey
Dear Ron, I always find "tone" the most difficult thing to judge in e mail,
and forgive me if I'm wrong but when you say, as you did in response to Ed
Foster's Jeanne McGahey post, "I'm waiting for someone to rediscover
Adelaide Crapsey," it sounds almost sarcastic. If so this is not
*becoming* especially from you, the man who is always pissing and moaning
about this or that poet having been "disappeared."
Say it ain't so Joe! Love, Kevin K.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:13:31 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Douglas Messerli <djmess@SUNMOON.COM>
Subject: Re: Pound & Fascism
Brilliant comments, as always, Marjorie!
Douglas Messerli
=================================
At 08:48 AM 3/19/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Even as so many members of this list are excoriating Pound, we have,
>right now, a fascist in our midst named Pat Buchanan who has managed to
>get 30% of the Republican Primary vote even though (or perhaps because
>of) he makes open statements that are antisemitic, homophobic, and
>racist. Just the other day on TV (maybe CNN) a farmer in Georgia was
>being interviewed as to who he was planning to vote for. He said, "I
>think I'll vote for Pat Buchanan because he feels the way I do about the
>niggers." This on CNN. This is the world we live in--a world where many
>could hardly believe Furman said the "N word" and yet Buchanan gets away
>with this every day.
>
>So I think if you want to fight Fascism you have to begin at home.
>
>But as for Pound, I think many of the postings here have been quite off
>the mark. Reading Walter Benn Michaels' OUR AMERICA, about racial
>attitudes and nativism in the 20s, I was reminded what a horrible
>anti-semimite dear old Ernest Hemingway was, with that charming portrait
>of Robert Cohen in SUN ALSO RISES. It has recently been shown how
>anti-semitic HD was, in her notebooks for TRIBUTE TO FREUD. In fact,
>anti-Semitism and racism were as Michaels's shows, part and parcel of 20s
>postWWI culture. Very few writers escaped it. We have to try to
>understand why and not say let's get rid of Ezra Pound, who also happens
>to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th C.
>
>I still believe--and I speak here as a refugee from Hitler whose family
>fled the morning of the Anschluss (March 12, 1938) of Austria--that
>Pound's "fascism"--most of it completely nonsensical, juvenile, and
>failing to understand how government works--was not nearly as dangerous
>as Heidegger's willed, conscious, perfectly "reasoned" Fascism. to read
>what Heidegger did at his own university in order to get rid of
>colleagues who might have Jewish blood boggles the mind. And then
>there's Paul de Man. As Eliot Weinberger wrote in SULFUR some years ago,
>Pound's iniquities are not on the same scale because who the hell
>listened to Pound's message?? Whereas Heidegger/de Man influenced
>generations of students.
>
>Jerry McGann has an essay in CRITICAL INQUIRY (a few years back) where he
>makes an eloquent case for the Cantos as the tragic poem of the 20th C in
>that it sums up so many of the terrible ideologies, anxieties, prejudices
>around. To call it tragic may go too far, but Jerry is right. And
>without the Cantos, I maintain there would have been no Black Mt, no
>Objectivism,no Ethnopoetics (Rothenberg) and performance poetry like Mac
>Low's, and so on down the line. So to say, as some people have on this
>list, let's just get rid of Pound, is ridiculous.
>
>And if you only read people whose ideology you approve of, who shall
>'scape whipping? What about a Stalinist like Neruda? Is he to be
>totally excused for supporting his Dictator? Shall we not read Wyndham
>Lewis, a worse fascist than Pound but also an incredible writer? Let's
>see, who's left? What about the homophobic, antisemitic passages in
>Baraka? And so on.
>
>It all comes back to the vexed question about the relation of poetry to
>politics and that's a question that should be hotly discussed in a larger
>theoretical way than it is today. Robert Duncan has wonderful comments
>on the issue in his correspondence (not yet published) with Denise
>Levertov. But whatever the relationship, it can't be Love my Politics,
>love my poetry.
>
>
>Marjorie Perloff
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:50:18 -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: bodenheim
>Since it's been an issue lately among the talkers, and since I'm certain
>it's on the minds of more than a few lurkers, could somebody connected with
>the list
we're all connected with the list...
>just come out and say what the rules are. I ask this, knowing very
>well that "rules" are undesirable on notebook paper.
but, of course, any community/language/conversation has "rules";
to have rules imposed & enforced from "above" i find undesirable, but
to pretend they're nonexistant seems naive or worse. so, seems an
positive step to articulate or acknowledge, as per:
>So far, I've come up with:
>Don't reify.
>Announce books.
>Ask questions.
>Rescue lost writers.
to which i'd add:
share enthusiasms
question author-ity
backchannel when addressing individuals rather than the whole list
encourage newcomers
sincere
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:59:39 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sorrentino
In-Reply-To: <199603210600.BAA12921@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
But where is Sorrentino's poetry since the old Black Sparrow _Selected_;
Great to see his oranges back in print after all these years, but I know
he must have written some more poems while churning out all that fiction--
??
for those new to this territory, in addition to the _Review of
Contemporary Fiction_ Sorrentino issue, you may find in some libraries
the old issue of _Vort_ dedicated to Sorrentino --
I first encountered him in Williams's _Paterson_ and have been reading
ever since
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 10:10:35 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT newsletter--has it arrived?
This is Dodie speaking. Ms. Damon informs me she hasn't yet received her
SPT newsletter. The bulk-mailing went out last week, and Bay Area people
have received theirs. This is the first time I've bulk-mailed outside
California. Has anybody else received/not received their newsletter?
(This does not apply to those of you living outside the U.S.--yours went
first class). Please backchannel me.
Thanks.
Dodie
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:35:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: "Brilliant comments, Marjorie!"
Insofar as a well-executed dose of common sense is brilliant, I
wholeheartedly agree. e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@mail.erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:48:28 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: praed
Of course it may be a really juvenile wish to want the rules out front.
In which case a rule might be:
Do not speak for the list.
Jd
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:08:58 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: praed
In-Reply-To: <v01520d05ad77545e72d5@[166.84.199.56]>
I believe the 'rule' was to announce publications, not just books.
Anyway, having no books, I've been announcing articles. Is this cool
with our Miss Mannerses?
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:23:46 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa Januzzi <Marisa.Januzzi@M.CC.UTAH.EDU>
Subject: Forgotten hours chime louder/In the meantime...
In-Reply-To: <199603201632.LAA13240@krypton.hmco.com>
Who started the ding-dong motive here?! Was cruising Laura Riding for an
alternate purpose and startled into a response to Rachel Blau DuPlessis'
message about reinventing the wheel. I just want to add my voice to the
many, and say that Rachel's essay "Corpses of Poesy" contains the most
succinct and grimly hilarious footnote I have ever seen on Pound's
relations with women poets of the period. Rachel, I hope you don't mind
if I quote it.
"...While genuine in its interest, and supportive if
didactic, [Pound's attitude re: female poet-acquaintances]
was also like that of miners to their canaries; if the canary
didn't keel over, then the site was safe to enter and to work.
Pound used H.D. as the canary for imagism, and Moore and Loy
for heteroglossic logopoeia. Amy Lowell keeled over and was
discarded." [RBDuP, "'Corpses of Poesy': Some Modern Poets
and Some Gender Ideologies of Lyric." FEMINIST MEASURES, eds.
Lynn Keller and Cristanne Miller. U of Michigan, 1994.
I must say, I am always stunned to hear people reify a Whitman-Pound-Zuk
lineage. It's not to say there aren't obviously affinities... it's just
to say that's not a "lineage," it's a dynasty, the house of poetry
entailed (via crit.) on the male heir. With the kind of scholarship Rachel,
for one, has done, new books and courses and lectures on modernism which barely
hint at the work of non-male poets signify an active effort of obtuseness on
the part of the authors.
Not certain about Crapsey, but... how about Emily Holmes Coleman?
Emanuel Carnevali? Bob Brown, viva!
ciao.
Marisa
PS: How can I tell you there's a red-striped box elder beetle just
to the left of the screen, wobbling his antennae at y'all? (But how can I
not?)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:28:13 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa Januzzi <Marisa.Januzzi@M.CC.UTAH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sorrentino
In-Reply-To: <199603201632.LAA13240@krypton.hmco.com>
Pierre's message made me remember: I have to take a lot of personal
credit for bringing IMAGINATIVE QUALITIES OF ACTUAL THINGS to the
attention of Kenneth Koch, who apparently had no idea he figured there...
I knew he'd love it from the classicKoch opening passage, and he did.
Sorrentino blurbed one of KK's subsequent books.
MULLIGAN STEW is the classic, but I never got past the flyleaves.
You know, we have to do something to ensure that Dalkey Archive doesn't
succumb to commercial pressures now that its main editorial God, Steven
Moore, is leaving. ---Marisa (debeetled)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:11:09 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: UDC Protest
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960321122411.23413T-100000@cor>
I was wondering if anyone in the DC area could tell me (us) anything
about the the protest at UDC this week. I looked in the NYT but saw
nothing and being in Phoenix--notorious for its poor national news
coverage--I feel out in the dark.
From what I understand congress had decided to cut their budget--which in
effect meant that UDC would apparently no longer be able to keep up their
accredidation. I don't know how this works so I'm hoping someone can
explain this.
I know UDC has had problems in the past with its accredidation and its
viability as a university, but it's--from what I understand as a parttime
resident of DC--about the only place where those unable to afford the steep
tuitions of most of the area's universities can attend. Basically, the
city kids who can't afford Georgetown (etc) go there.
Without accredidation . . . well you can imagine. When the admin found
out the cut--and I am repeating this secondhand--they decided to give
only pass/fail grades for this semeseter and to close down a month
early. The students were outraged and blocked Connecticut avenue--a
major street in NW DC--for most of a day this week, demanding that the
cut not take place and that UDC would not close early.
From reports from my DC source there were police in riot gear, and so
many of them that they were double the number of protesters.
Well congress caved in or something and acceded to their demands.
Hooray! and here's to protest!
But again I'd like more details if anyone could fill me in.
I also want to draw everyone's attention to the vote today in the house
that prevents "illegals aliens" from attending public schools. Newt
himself seems to think this a great idea--since it "costs" taxpayers
money to educate the brutes.
In response to this I thought it an appropriate protest to offer
training/program/classes to any "illegals" [anyone really] in english
language/writing skills who want it.
Denying the opportunity to anyone the right to read and write and read
and learn it seems to me to be a fundamental denial of humanity--which it
seems what this vote and the cut at UDC and the screwed up census count
and the scaling back of affirmative action is all about. It's not that
it costs money but that educating people is a threat. Reading writing
learning are the biggest threat there is--and these events clearly say so.
Jeffrey Timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:21:57 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Umbrella and Disaster
I'm forwarding this message from Judith Hoffberg, on the chance that any
librarians or writers or others on this list might also know about and care
about the artists' book journal Umbrella, and might want to know what has
recently happened to it.
charles alexander
>Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 23:10:15 -0800
>Reply-To: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, collecting"
> <BOOK_ARTS-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>Sender: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, collecting"
> <BOOK_ARTS-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>From: Judith Hoffberg <umbrella@IX.NETCOM.COM>
>Subject: Umbrella and Disaster
>To: Multiple recipients of list BOOK_ARTS-L
> <BOOK_ARTS-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>X-UIDL: 827439388.002
>
>Dear Friends:
>
>My computer was stolen last Thursday in mid-day as I went to pick up my
>mail. It was a vindictive and vengeful act on the part of my drug
>dealer neighbor--but I cannot prove it. The guys wore gloves! They
>only stole my computer and nothing else--the printer, scanner, monitor,
>computer and even the shell of the old computer which served as a
>pedestal for my monitor. I am numb inside. There is nothing
>left--they even took the last backup disk for my next issue of
>Umbrella, which was to have been in press as I write this. I have lost
>all my writing, my addresses both on the Net and off for 10 years and
>more, my correspondence, personal and business, for 10 years--and a
>great deal more. I am starting from square one--with some luck by
>having copied lots of data--but still, there are deadlines,
>subscribers, and so much more.
>
>I am telling you all this to send the word around, please, that
>Umbrella will be late--very late--since I cannot produce it in a flash.
>It takes months of work--and the last three months I have been writing.
>Much of the original material for many of my columns has been thrown
>away--clippings, etc.--so a truncated issue will be forthcoming. I have
>gone into debt to buy a new system--without tools, what are you? At
>any rate, at this late stage of my life, I am beginning again--I am
>full of denial right now. And fatigued emotionally and overwrought, I
>shall try to reconnoiter and begin again. I beg you all to tell other
>Listservs for me--librarians, collectors, artists, curators, and book
>artists read Umbrella--even book dealers and friends do so too--but not
>enough of them to gather them in on one list-serv or any one group. So
>please pass the word around. And if any of you feel like helping
>Umbrella continue either by a subscription ($18) or a donation to help
>buy the computer equipment, I would be forever grateful. I wonder
>whether sometimes this is a sign--to anthologize and stop. But I have
>readers to satisfy and there is always much news.
>
>Please send the word around that Umbrella will be late, because of a
>burglary that will probably never be solved. And so it goes.
>
>Judith A. Hoffberg
>umbrella@ix.netcom.com
>P.O. Box 3640
>Santa Monica, CA 90408
>tel: (310)399-1146
>fax: (310)399-5070
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:49:08 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Jeanne McGahey
it ain't so, kevin!...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:22:02 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: FREE PELTIER (fwd)
FREE LEONARD PELTIER
On March 20, 1996 in San Francisco about 300 people met at the Federal
Building at about 7 AM to support a civil disobedience protest to free
Leonard Peltier. His parole was denied. There was drumming, speeches and
free oatmeal and bagels. There were many signs saying Free Peltier Now!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS, 20 YEARS IS ENOUGH - FREE LEONARD PELTIER
NOW. Two rows of federal police totaling about 30 in all stood across the
plaza blocking the entrance to the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate
Ave. Police barricades and a chain link fence made it so there was only a
small entrance to the Golden Gate Avenue side of the building. The
Federal Protective Service video taped everyone. He even spent time
taping a child drawing with chalk on the side walk. The protesters
marched to Market and Van Ness where 27 people sat in a circle and stopped
traffic in two directions. The civil disobedience action was peaceful
even though several people went limp when the police arrested them. When
everyone was arrested they followed the drum up Market to Larkin and back
to the Federal Building. The protest to free Leonard Peltier ended with a
dance to free all political prisoners. Only Channel 2 and an unmarked TV
camera showed up when the traffic was blocked. It seemed that no
reporters and KCBS were the only corporate media, As for our media it was
extensive. Four or five activists video taped the action. Karen Pickett
and two other people taped event for Free Radio Berkeley, Free Radio Santa
Cruz had at least one tape recorder, and Richard Edmondson and Kiilu
Nyasha from San Francisco Liberation Radio also recorded the event. San
Francisco Liberation Radio will air parts of the tapes Wednesday night. A
report on the Free Leonard Peltier action will most likely be on next
months Food Not Bombs Radio Network program. Send $12 to The Food Not
Bombs Radio Network, 3145 Geary Blvd., #12, San Francisco, CA 94118.
1-800-884-1136
There were protests in Washington DC, Dayton, OH and Salt Lake City, UT
and other cities calling on Bill Clinton to free Leonard Peltier.
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, BUT IT IS BEING BROADCAST
BUCK THE FCC
Support Free Speech
Free Radio Berkeley is under attack by the FCC because of its efforts to
liberate the air waves from corporate control the airwaves. Farther legal
success depends on your financial assistance. Donate today!
Free Radio Berkeley Legal Defense
1442 A Walnut Street #406
Berkeley, CA 94709
FREE RADIO BERKELEY GOES TO COURT FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1996 AT OAKLAND COURT
FCC officer David Doon has indicated that has no respect for the Federal
Courts claiming that they could take action regardless of how the Court
rules.
The San Francisco Police have excepted two helicopters equipped with spot
lights from the Defense Department. They are going to fly 10 hours a day
for one year. Will the helicopters be used at protests?
KEITH MCHENRY
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:22:24 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Update 3/20: Peltier Parole Denied (fwd)
PAROLE DENIED TO LEONARD PELTIER, 3/20/96
The following is the text of the United States Parole Commission's letter
of denial to Leonard Peltier:
Leonard Peltier:
No change in continuing to a fifteen year reconsideration hearing, December
2008. Reasons: The December 1995 hearing led to a re-examination by the
hearing examiner of the issues beyond the normal scope of an interim
hearing, including the previous findings made by the Commission that you
participated in the execution of two FBI agents. The limited purpose of an
interim hearing under 28 Code of Federal Regulations 2.4 is to determine
whether circumstances that have changed since the last hearing warrant a
different decision.
The Commission declines to reopen your case to re-examine your role in the
offense since there are no significant changes regarding information on this
issue from the information presented at your last parole consideration. You
have not given a factual, specific account of your actions at the time of
the offense that is consistent with the jury's verdict of guilt. Considering
either theory of your participation in the crimes outlined by the government
at the trial, the Commission therefore has no reasonable basis to find an
explanation of the facts concerning the agents' execution other than the
version presented by the government. See 28 Code of Federal Regulations
S2.19C. The government has not changed its position that circumstantial
evidence presented at your trial established your complicity in the
executions of the agents. Their circumstantial evidence described in several
of the decisions of the Eighth Circuit rejecting your appeals supports the
previous findings that you participated in the executions. A full
consideration of your case will not be appropriate until your 15 year
reconsideration hearing. Appeal Procedures: The above decision is not
appealable.
3/18/96 National Commissioners, Document Number DNJ OJ Referral pg 101
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
The above decision is a clear and blatant example of a complete disregard
for justice. The USPC states in this decision that regardless of the
information brought back to them from the Parole Officer presiding at the
December 11th hearing, and despite the favorable recommendation that officer
made following the government's distinct concessions that no direct evidence
exists against Peltier nor do they have a clue as to who was culpable in the
deaths of their agents, that it is more convenient to keep an innocent man
in prison than to deal with the controversy and impropriety that may erupt
regarding this case. They even go as far as stating that Leonard has never
given a factual account "consistent with the jury's verdict of guilt". How
can an innocent man give a factual account of guilt when he is not
responsible?!? Rather than face the FACTS of Peltier's outrageous
incarceration, the USPC would rather scold its own employee for overstepping
his bounds where they should commend him for his social conscience. Still a
mystery: The Parole Officer who made the favorable recommendation has since
lost his position within the USPC.
VOICE YOUR OUTRAGE
United States Parole Commission--Phone (301)492-5952, (301)492-5821, Fax
them at (301)492-6694, (301)492-5307, (301)492-6516, (301)492-5525, Fax
Janet Reno at (202)514-4371, (202)514-4507, phone (202)514-2001,
(202)514-4195, Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick fax at (202)514-0467, (202)514-4699,
phone (202)514-2101, Call the White House Chief of Staff fax(202)456-2883,
Legal Counsel to President fax (202)456 1647, White House Comment Line at
(202)456-1111 and Contact your elected officials.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 16:22:23 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: something else
re Sorrentino:
i find his work funny, smart, erudite, but not "deep." i very much enjoy it
in moderate doses. i took a class from him at Stanford and was in the
trouble-making crowd, trying to get him to assign a book by a woman or a
person of color. (we lost). i've mellowed since, as my presence on this
list indicates. thus i remember him w/ fond nostalgia rather than a
heaven-ward roll of the eyes.
bests, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:34:29 -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@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: ACA at Las Vegas
In-Reply-To: <199603211835.NAA01623@mail.erols.com>
Anyone going to the Am Cult ASsoc conference in Las Vegas next week?
I'll be there (tra la) starting Wednesday. Reading a paper on Mary
TallMountaon on Thursday morning. Be good to meet anyone going... Gab.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:43:00 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Request for addresses
At 02:12 PM 3/20/96 PST, fjb wrote:
> could someone post information (address, price) for lyric&?
>I've read of this several places but can't find it anywhere, even,
>say SPD.
lyric& is available for $6 from Avery E.D. Burns, P.O. Box 640531, San
Francisco, CA 94164-0531. Subscriptions are available at 2 issues for $12
(postage included). A few back issues of #s 1,2, and 3 are still available
for $6 apiece. Issue 4, just out, includes work from Pat Reed, me, Jim
Leftwich, Dennis Barone, Dale Smith, Lyn Hejinian, M. Kettner, Peter DeRous,
Eric Selland, Laurie Price, Andrew Mossin, John Perlman, George Albon,
Elizabeth Robinson, Darin DeStefano, Nico Vassilakis, Michael Basinski, Pam
Rehm, Greg Biglieri, Alicia Wing, Travis Ortiz, Kevin Magee, Kristin
Burkart, Brian D. Lucas, Rodrigo Toscano, Anselm Berrigan, Joe Noble, Eleni
Sikelianos, the editor, and a cover by Spencer Selby.
Also, lyric& #5 will feature Italian poetry, so if anyone has any leads,
drop Avery a line or email them to me and I'll get them to him. Thanks.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 16:40:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
damon"?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:44:24 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Laura Moriarty <moriarty@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Laura Moriarty Book
Chris, thanks for the advertising!
However, I wanted to make an immediate correction. The Gerbode Foundation
Awards were judged by Rosmarie Waldrop, Bradford Morrow, M. Mark and Jewel
Gomez, as well as Robert Creeley.I checked with Frances Philips to get the
names of everyone and she said also that they were peers in the judging.
ALSO - I've taken down the address and hope to become, as I have meant to
for awhile, an immediate subscriber to WITZ!
Best - Laura Moriarty
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 17:59:58 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Forgotten hours chime louder/In the meantime...
Marisa---great post (and great R.B.D. quote) on lineage/dynasties...
something that needs to be said over and over....
cs
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 16:14:00 PST
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> Incorrect or incomplete address field found and
ignored.
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@POP.SLIP.NET>
Subject: antenym 9 publication/reading
Comments: To: basinski@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu, ninthlab@aol.com,
kristinb@wired.com, jmbyrum@aol.com, steven_evans@brown.edu,
jasfoley@aol.com, dgansz@csn.org,
cynthia.huntington@mac.dartmouth.edu, andrew_joron@sfbayguardian.com,
tlovell@mercury.sfsu.edu, 75323.740@compuserve.com,
smithnash@aol.com, el500005@brownvm.brown.edu,
ortiz@uclink.berkeley.edu, kit_robinson@peoplesoft.com,
ashurin@mercury.sfsu.com, lisas@ncgate.newcollege.edu,
tomt@ch1.ch.pdx.edu, mbates@s3.sonnet.com, raphael@aracnet.com,
lehall@umd5.umd.edu, vrgnamgnta@aol.com, mmscott@gsbpop.uchicago.edu,
eric_skiles@sedgus.com, 6500dtpt@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu,
wwilcox@smtpgmgw.ossa.hq.nasa.gov, leechapman@aol.com,
jbennett@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu, israfel@uci.edu,
hday@alpha.utampa.edu, tunguska@tribeca.ios.com, rmorey@baaqmd.gov,
70550.654@compuserve.com
This is to announce the imminent publication of Antenym #9 (in April).
To celebrate, a contributors' reading and publication party will be held at
3 PM, Sunday the 14th of April, at Canessa Park Gallery, 708 Montgomery St.
(at Columbus) in San Francisco. Admission will be $5. The reading will
feature Anselm Berrigan, Avery E.D. Burns, Pamela Lu, Adam Cornford, Chris
Daniels, Leslie Davis, Shauna Hannibal, and John McNally. Hope to see you
there!
Antenym 9's 50 pages of poetry and art feature the above-named folks, plus
Benjamin Baxter, Jake Berry, Mark DuCharme, Graham Foust, Heather Fuller,
David Golumbia, Bob Harrison, Bob Heman, Pierre Joris, Richard Kostelanetz,
Tim Krafft, Hank Lazer, Jim Leftwich, Sheila E. Murphy, Spencer Selby, Eric
Selland, Steven Howard Shoemaker, Gustaf Sobin, Thomas Stolmar, and Paul
Wiedenhoff. It was edited by Steve Carll and designed by Kristin Burkart.
It's available for $3 plus $1.50 postage payable to Steve Carll, 106 Fair
Oaks St. #3, S.F., CA 94110-2951.
Back issues 1-6 are available at the Electronic Poetry Center
(http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/antenym). #7 should be there soon. #8
still available on real paper for $3.50 (includes postage).
Once again, submissions are welcome!
Steve
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Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 19:21:29 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe <JNOBLE@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 19 Mar 1996 to 20 Mar 1996
In-Reply-To: Pound & Lyric& Address <LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
An interesting essay for folks interested in the Pound/Fascism question
is Rachel Blau DuPlessis' "Objectivist Poetics and Political Vision:
A Study of Oppen and Pound" in "George Oppen: Man and Poet." (Nat.Poe.Found.)
Also, there's Jean-Luc Nancy's essay "The Inoperative Community" in his book
of the same name, published by Minnesota Press where he discusses the notion
of fascist communion and a more left oriented idea of community.
Franklin Bruno - Avery Burns publishes Lyric& and you can contact him at
Lyric& Press, P.O. Box 640531, San Francisco, California, 94164-0531.
He is just bringing out his most recent issue. I know he would like to hear
from anyone on the Poetics List. Unfortunately, he doesn't have e-mail, but
you can write him,or I would be glad to pass along any messages or requests
for subscription to him.
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Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 20:00:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Jeanne McGahey
ron: don't quite catch yr. tone (or hope i don't) re: the silligism on
crapsey, but as for Barlow, yes he was part of Hart's circle, and they
eventually published a selection from his works. i don't think barlow
was as interesting a poet as mcgahey or robert horan, but he certainly\
led the more interesting life. a beautiful boy, i've been told--a wild,
rimbaud-like figure, whom the Activists thought would prove the greatest
of the group. i don't know how much interest he would have here, but
i'll enter some examples of his work if anyone wants to see it. in
any case, he did wind up in mexico (the olson connection), and one
day hung a sign on his door saying he didn't want to be disturbed: he
needed a long sleep. And then took twenty-one seconal capsules.
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Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:45:28 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: "JNORTON.US.ORACLE.COM" <JNORTON@US.ORACLE.COM>
Subject: More Pound cake, anyone?
This Tuesday's NY Times (3/19/96) ran an obitutary on Ezra Pound's longtime
companion Olga Rudge. They first met in 1928. She kept the house for him
and was a traffic cop, keeping many of his admirers at a distance.
She said: "We get hippies coming here and when we're in Rappelo. They
have embraced the wisdom of Ezra Pound, but they haven't read him. One
of them pitched a tent outside. I gave him coffee, but no Ezra. Another
was so persistent in his devotion that I told him, 'I'll let you in if
you can quote one line of Ezra Pound -- any one of the thousands he's
written.' He couldn't.
As for the biographers: "They ring my bell and announce they
are writing books that 'will tell both sides.' Both sides? Both sides?
What do they think we are? Ezra Pound is no pancake!"
John Norton
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 01:13:01 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Some EPC Stats
Comments: cc: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@destrier.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Here are some interesting stats re EPC usage. There were 12,616
transactions this months. (If only our presses would do so well!)
Here goes: (selected results -- I'll make a link from the EPC home page
for the full stats, EPC contributors might enjoy checking how many
times they were accessed)
(#'s indicate the # of times a directory was accessed)
3240 /epc/
1237 /epc/authors/
556 /epc/poetics/
546 /epc/ezines/
384 /epc/connects/
302 /epc/rift/
230 /epc/biblioteca/
172 /epc/linebreak/
165 /epc/mags/
158 /epc/presses/
150 /epc/documents/
128 /epc/sound/
114 /epc/epclive/
79 /epc/ezines/we/
288 /epc/documents/experiments
286 /epc/smallpress.html
203 /epc/documents/obits/
181 /epc/ezines/diu/
170 /epc/authors/bernstein/
160 /epc/authors/cage/
153 /epc/announcements.html
122 /epc/poetics/archive/
97 /epc/documents/maglist
94 /epc/presses/viet
90 /epc/authors/ashbery/
86 /epc/authors/creeley/
81 /epc/authors/kelly/
74 /epc/authors/sherwood/
71 /epc/authors/silliman/
69 /epc/authors/olson/
69 /epc/mags/sulfur/
64 /epc/authors/glazier/
60 /epc/ezines/brink/
58 /epc/authors/bunting/
57 /epc/ezines/passages/
56 /epc/ezines/tree/
56 /epc/authors/howe/
50 /epc/authors/eigner/
46 /epc/documents/bookstores
31 /epc/authors/spinelli/
31 /epc/authors/glazier/e/
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 04:57:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: FREE PELTIER (fwd)
all this hub-bubbing about peltier, what'd he supposedly do? and what
happened? i mean besides he was wrongfully imprisoned, the details i mean.
i always like to know what i'm talking about before calling the
politicians, gives me an edge on the fuckers...
eryque
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 03:54:55 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) died young, but was otherwise of the same
generation of Gertrude Stein and Robert Frost, for example.* All of her
books were, I believe, posthumous (two volumes, each called Verse, and
the A Study in English Metrics, which I read thru when I was in
college). [Since Knopf published both one volume of the poems and the
critical book, they might still be hiding in larger, older libraries.]
She counted everything when thinking about a poem (you can imagine how
I feel about that!) and did not simply work with received categories.
Many of her poems are 5 liners, always with a 2-4-6-8-2 syllable count:
AMAZE
I know
Not these my hands
And yet I think there was
A woman like me once had hands
Like these.
She is nowhere nearly as far "out there" as an innovator, say, as Loy,
but her sense of generative form is evident. Can anybody tell me if she
was the first American female poet to produce a critical/theoretical
volume? It seems possible.
I was using her as a figure of a branch of modernism that did not carry
itself forward (exactly an instance of the "disappeared"). In Crapsey's
case, she was not part of a "scene" that I can tell of (not really an
imagist or even an Amygist), and her use of inverted syntax really
dates the work. I take the Activist poets to be a similar phenomenon.
As are, for that matter, virtually all west coast poets before WW2 --
even Michael Davidson's great book on the SF Renaissance fails to make
much of the links between, say, Ina Coolbrith and George Stirling and
the scene that emerged later around Rexroth.
*Another poet born in the 1870s was Joyce Kilmer, who likewise died
young. It is intriguing in retrospect to see just whom one gets bunched
with in literary history -- I don't think of Kilmer and Stein as "of
the same generation" at all.
Ron Silliman
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 09:31:45 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Michael Leddy <cfml@EIU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sorrentino
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960321122411.23413T-100000@cor>
Sorrentino's Selected Poems is still available from Black Sparrow. There
are some interesting poems in Talisman's William Bronk issue and in
Arshile 3, though they don't explain where Sorrentino's poetry has been
since the Black Sparrow volume.
Aberration of Starlight is a remarkable novel. And the Dalkey Archive's
claims for it in the "classroom" are not exaggerated. Nice too if you're
from Brooklyn.
Michael Leddy
Charleston, IL (nee Brooklyn)
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 08:05:50 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
Thnak you, Ron Silliman, for restoring my faith. Hey everyone, Ron's not
such an ogre after all! Soory to doubt you for even a second! XXX Kevin
K.
Mea culpa.
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 09:23:23 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: U.D.C.
In-Reply-To: <199603220539.AAA20664@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Have heard nothing till now of U.D.C. cuts & protest -- as a graduate of
that school (where, though we didn't read Olson in class, I did have
classes with C.L.R. James & other equally great scholars [Gil Scott
Heron, too, but that's another story]) I want to know as much as
possible --
Could someone give me relevant dates so I can look up Washington Post
coverage in library when I get back from Detroit -- also, if anybody can
lay hands upon and xerox relevant coverage by papers not likely to be in
the UCLA library (*city paper, etc) & send them to me, I would be truly
grateful:
A.L. Nielsen
1743 Butler Avenue
Apt. #2
Los Angeles, CA 90025
From what's appeared here on the list, it sounds as though this was as
significant a chain of events as the student protest in New York last
year -- but as per usual, no coverage in most news outside D.C.
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 11:06:20 -0700
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From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: U.D.C.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960322091824.27312B-100000@athens>
Aldon,
Hey, I actually found, after my initially unsuccessful exploration, an
article buried in the VERY BACK of the NYT in this week's wednesday (or
perhaps thursday's) edition. I didn't find it the first time--cause I
usually recycle the business section. The article was terribly vague,
though, and actually left more unsaid than it explained. I guess that
shouldn't surprise me.
If you find out more, please pass it along.
Jeffrey Timmons
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 11:07:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: U.D.C.
Comments: To: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@email.SJSU.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960322091824.27312B-100000@athens>
Sorry everyone, I didn't mean to send my recent post to the list. booboo.
jeffrey timmons
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:09:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Peter Jaeger <pjaeger@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Re: Visual Poetry
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960322091824.27312B-100000@athens>
Can anyone contribute to a list of addresses (snail or email) for magazines
that currently & primarily publish visual poetry, in Canada, States, anywhere?
Peter Jaeger
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:08:53 -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: Adelaide Crapsey
ron: i'm interested to see george stirling (that is the spelling?) mentioned;
he was deeply transformed by french symbolists and produced an often dark
but formal verse with the french not far away. rexroth like to see himself
as a principal conduit for french influence in america, and stirling's
somewhat more misty version would not have pleased him. he liked to say
that stirling killed himself the day he (Rexroth) arrived in San Francisco.
actually, as i recall, that's wrong--together with a number of other
rexroth claims. rexroth was such a good publicist--and terrific poet--
that his prejudices may have led people away from some minor, but real,
pleasures, like stirling. stirling's work is very "aesthetic" with all
the associations, including homosexuality, that this implied for his
generation. and stirling was very close to jack london. whether or not
they were lovers, i don't know, tho there are those assert that they were.
in any case, london's boyishness, which some of us would find one of
his most beguiling and attractive features, was no more acceptable to
rexroth than stirling's aestheticism and misty symbolism, and rexroth
could be, quite unfairly, vicious toward them both. i was very glad
that the ferlinghetti/peters book on the bay area gave attention to
the london/stirling circle. there's also a fairly competent TUSAS book
on stirling, and much has been done on london, tho most of it is
biographical and anecdotal. but _martin eden_ is quite a good book
and has very interesting (puzzling and ambiguous) fictional portrait
of stirling. -- Another french presence in the bay area worth looking
at is c.f. mcintyre. his translations of the symbolists are still
around. he also published original work, musical and vague. he was
in berkeley while rexroth was establishing his anarchist circle in
san francisco, but i'm not aware of any overlap. if i recall correctly,
one of the early issues of leite's _circle_ (maybe the first issue)
has an article on rilke by mcintyre (his rilke translations are also
still in print. a norton book?). anyway, i've often wondered if this
was one of the things that led spicer to rilke; that's the right time
(c. 1946) exactly. -- i once asked various survivors of that era
about mcintyre, what he was like and so forth, and what i got was
stange looks, as in (i thought) let's be discrete. there was something
about his drinking. -- But I'd like to know more, and I think there
was a book (another of those ghosts) promised, tho it did not appear.
-- whatever the case, myintyre, like stirling, should be pursued, if
only to define what _didn't_ happen but could have, if they had had
rexroth's abilities as poet/publicist. it was after all a perfectly
legimate direction, and it's interesting to speculate what might have
happened in west coast poetry in the 1950s and 1960s (and, therefore,
now) if either had been able to modulate their french sources into
english as well as stevens did. -ed
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:57:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
i think joyce kilmer was male, if i've been told correctly. --maria d
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:15:53 -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.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: reading Pound
What Greek logomachy had in common with the
Hebrew poison was debate, dialectic, sophistry, the
critical activity that destroys faith. ....
The Hebrew attack, crying our for vengeance,
began by destroying the Roman Gods. ...
But faith is weakened by debates, [which are] more
or less rabbinical and if not rabbinical at least anti-
totalitarian.
_`Che l'intenzione per ragione vale."_
Faith is totalitarian. The mystery is totalitarian.
The sacred symbols are totalitarian. The destruction of
the images of the Gods did not increase faith. ...
... That fatal inclination to want to understand
logically and syllogistically what is incomprehensible is
Hebrew and Protestant.
--Ezra Pound, 1942 (in _Meridiano di Roma_), qtd
by Peter Nicholls in _EP: Politics, Economics and Writing_
*
THUS, in thanks to Jerry, Marjorie, Jackson, Rachel, and the rest of the
Poetics "Jews" and Protest-ants (irregardless of ethnic origin) who insist
on debating what they/we cannot understand.
This is Charles Bernstein speaking ... from the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, home of Zabar's and Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King.
& now for some further sophistry: "the critical activity which destroys
faith":
*
Many of the poets and critics who discount Pound do not do so because of his
fascism but because of a dislike for collage, parataxis, and the very
strikingly rhetorical surfaces of Pound's poems. They also discount other
poets, working in related modes, whose politics are quite contrary to Pound's.
The converse of this is also true, as the remarkable posts by Rothenberg, Mac
Low, and Perloff, among others, have shown. In this context, I don't take the
new wave of Pound criticism that regards fascism as central to Pound's poetic
project to be a move away from reading Pound or as a way of undermining his
significance or influence. This new Pound criticism, which in some ways
incorporates aspects of what has come to be called cultural criticism, or
cultural and gender studies, tries to integrate Pound's political and economic
ideas with his poetic practice. Like all critical projects, this one is
limited. Much of the best Pound criticism before this period tended in various
ways to cauterize or surgically remove the cancerous parts of Pound's work, or
career, in an attempt to save the good parts. Partly this was a strategy to
"save" the work, but it was equally a forceful interpretative system, an
"apolitics" of poetry if you will. (Peter Nicholls: "Most previous criticism
of [Pound's] work has, from a variety of motives, sought to keep these
different strands separate, tending in particular to drive a web between the
'literary' and poltical dimensions in his writing.")
Starting in the 1980s, critics like Nicholls (a deep lurker on
this list), Rachel DuPlessis, Richard Sieburth, Jerome McGann, Burton
Hatlen, Bob Perelman, and others, but most militantly Robert Casillo,
tried to integrate Pound's political and economic and gender ideologies
into the "tropical system" that is his poetry. In doing this, these
readers were giving Pound the respect of taking him at his word, in
contrast to those critics who, like well meaning relatives, were often
forced to say Pound didn't know what he was talking about. The point here
is not to say one approach or the other is right but to note that these
approaches allow for different readings of Pound's poetry. None of this
work, it seems to me, ought to drive one from reading Pound; quite on the
contrary. (Possibly this may be the work of a distinctly younger
generation of scholars who no longer felt that raising these issues
aligned their views with those who roundly dismissed Pound in the postwar
period; this earlier polarization pushed those who went to the defense of
Pound's poetry to avoid dwelling on the relation it has to his politics
and views on money.)
Casillo and Sieburth actually brought me back to reading Pound; that
is, reading through the fascism and masculinism brought me from a passive,
largely unarticulated, aversion to Pound, to an active, and ongoing,
interest in all aspects of his work. Certainly I have been polemical in
my essays on Pound, but not without the ironic realization that Pound
relished just this sort of poetic polemicism. Reading Pound through the
fascism means reading Pound in the most specific social and historical
terms. It also means reading poetic forms politically, as an economy of
signs; it means thinking through the implications of poetic structures,
rather than imagining them ever to be neutral or transparent. A poem
including history means we must read the history too, and this history is
writ in the style, in the symbolic/semiotic economy of the poem, in the
material means of production, as much as in Pound's "disembodied" "ideas"
-- a matrix of material meanings that Christine Froula so brilliantly
calls "The Pound Error": error as much in Joan Retallack's sense of typos
and errancy as in political misjudgment: it's _all_ there.
Poetry is not worth reading because it is comfortable or happy or
understandable or uplifting, any more than history or philosophy is. Nor
does reading for a politics of poetic form mean that forms are liberating;
more often we find, as Ray DiPalma once wrote, that "all forms are
coercive". If one starts with the assumption that a poetry should be
truthful or beautiful, that it's meaning should transcend the
circumstances of its production -- then of course talk of the politics of
Pound's poetic forms will seem dismissive of Pound's work, since it pulls
that work down from the heights of poetic vanity into the real-politics of
the actual poem in actual history.
People say, Pound was deluded, Pound was insane, Pound was paranoid,
Pound was delusional, as a way to explain away, or possibly contextualize,
his fascism. I don't doubt this, but it doesn't get me anywhere. Fascism
itself was (IS) delusional and paranoid, and Hitler and Mussolini and
Goebbels are certifiable in my book, as are the shouting Brown Shirts
pictured in Triumph of the Will (don't we call this "mass hysteria"?).
[Highly recommended, in this context, in the recent documentary on
Riefenstahl, "The Wonderful, Horrible World of Leni Riefenstahl".] I agree
with Pierre Joris that what's important to understand as we approach the
end of this long century is the nature of this delusion, of this insanity,
that has attracted so many otherwise admirable, sometimes brilliant,
people, groups, indeed cultures. Of course Pound was delusional during
the period of his Radio Speeches; reading Pound means reading through
these delusions, trying to come to terms with them. It doesn't mean that
in making these judgments one is free of one's own delusions, or that such
a reading gives a complete account of this poetic works, which demands
multiple, contradictory, readings.
Pound was not just a fascist; he had different politics, and poetics,
at different points in his life and even at some of the same points.
Nicholls notes that from 1930 to 1937, Pound was eager to keep a dialogue
open with the American Left; and earlier in his life his views seemed more
Left than Right, although, reading Nicholls, one begins to see this as
much as a weakness in the Life/Right distinction as an inconsistency on
Pound's part. Nicholls also shows that "perhaps the most disquieting
thing about [Pound's] savage propaganda is that it was to some degree an
extension of ideas that had governed the earlier Cantos." Indeed,
Nicholls's tracings of the (de?)evolution of the practice of "authority"
and "ideological closure" in Pound's work is crucial for understanding a
fundamental dynamic of modernism.
Yet Pound's poetry is never simply a direct reflection of his
politics; indeed, I would argue quite to the contrary that Pound's work
contradicts his fascism. The fascist reading of Pound's poetic practice
is valuable as one approach; it is not a final or definitive reading; as
with all critical methods, it illuminates some issues while obscuring
others. Of course, as Casillo's book and other Pound criticism shows, it
also may push the criticism to the polemical and even hysterical, as if
the critic feels she or he is wrestling with a demon more than
interpreting a poem. This too needs to be historicized and contextualized
before it can be judged.
Pound told Allen Ginsberg he suffered from "that stupid, suburban
prejudice of antisemiticm", as if he should have been immune from such a
low, "suburban" consciousness. But one thing that is notable about Pound
is that he does not appear to have been "personally" antisemitic, which
would have been in no way unusual for a person of his generation and
background. His attacks on Jews are not related to his hatred of
individual Jews or his desire to be a member of an "exclusive" country
club. His views of Jews are highly theoretical and structural, projecting
Jewishness, more than individual Jews, as the core force in the
destruction of the most cherished values of the West. This demonization
is not a "stupid suburban prejudice", it is the systematic
paranoia-producing ideology that has come to be called by the fascism.
(Burton Hatlen: "we will all seriously misundertand fascism if we insist
on seeing it as a "right-wing" poltical movement. For fascsim ... blended
an authoritarianism ususally associated with the `right' and a `populism'
ususally characteristic of the `left'.") Marjorie Perloff is quite right
to point to it in Buchanan and the fundamentalist right; they too have
gone well beyond "stupid suburban prejudice", even as they bank on it. It
is scary to see the degree to which fascist ideas have rooted themselves
so deeply in mainstream American life, often in the guise of family values
and consonance with a natural order. Pound's most fascist polemics
resonate in an eery way with the current wave of attacks on the arts,
gays, the disenfranchised poor, immigrants, feminism, and the cities. I
say this because there is often a tendency among Americans to exoticize
fascism; Pound did his best to bring it home.
There are any number of fascist writers who are of virtually no
interest to many or probably any of us on this list. And there are
virulent antisemites like Celine, whose work I like more than is
comfortable to say, but which I don't find as structurally and
"tropically" rich in terms of the sort of issues I am raising here.
Pound's work, it seems to me, not only allows for but provokes an
ideological reading; it insists that it be read, form and content, for its
politics and its ideas. And it is precisely this that is one of the
_enduring_ values of his work. The dystopian aspects of Pound's work are
important to fully explore, even with tempers flying off the page, because
he is a fundamental a part of that elective tradition (thinking of
Christopher Beech's useful sense of Pound's influence in his _ABC of
Influence: Ezra Pound and the Remaking of American Poetic Tradition_)
that, as Beach and others have noted, consists mostly of poets whose
politics and economics differ so radically from Pound's. But the more
important Pound is for that tradition, then the more important it is to
understand the disease that consumes his work, which cannot be
disentangled from what is "good" about it. Nicholls, for example, notes
how Pound's insistence on "making it new" made for an affinity with
related fascist ideals. The significance of "the Pound tradition"
requries that we interrogate it for what it excludes as much as what it
makes possible: interrogate the assumptions of poetic lineages not just to
acknowledge their effects but also to counteract their effects. (Perhaps
one aspect of this elective tradition is a commitment to difficult writers
and difficult writings; after spending some weeks lately writing about
Laura (Riding) Jackson, that possibility is hard to miss.)
Marjorie urges us to "begin at home" with our political concerns, to
look around at what is happening in 1996 in America. Given the context of
her own life experience, her warning is all the more ominous, all the more
to be headed. But also, I would say, I hope within the spirit of her
wake- up call, but also in the spirit of "debate", that in the context of
this Poetics list, taking on Pound's fascism is also a way of starting at
home.
*
N.B. The first paperback edition of The Cantos (expanded) is due this
spring from New Directions
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:18:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Nourbese Philip
A step away from them:
The Poetry Project at St Mark's Church will host a reading
by Yukihide Maeshima Hartman & M. Nourbese Philip
on April 29, 8 p.m.
Suggested contribution of $6.
St. Mark's is at 131 E 10th St, NYC 10003.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:26:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Brian McHale <BMCH@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
In-Reply-To: Message of 03/22/96 at 03:54:55 from rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM
By way of supplementing Ron's account of Crapsy, let me just add: "the" book on
Crapsey is by Karen Alkalai-Gut, entitled "Alone in the Dawn." Full-dress bio-
graphy, with some reflection on AC's poetics, & reprints here & there much of
her (rather small) oeuvre.
Brian
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 15:43:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: environmental/cultural antisemitism
charles is right to write of antisemitism in first half of century to be
structural and theoretical. i'm reading a book of essays responding to otto
weininger, self-hating austrian jew who wwwrote 'sex and character" in 1903,
vicious tho highly abstract attack on women and Jews, then killed himself in
the same house that beethoven died in. weininger participated in/crystalized
much of the "characterology" of his time, that scientized and racialized
personality types, temperaments, various physical and mental abilities, etc.
many self-respecting Jews, like Gertrude Stein and Freud, found aspects of
weininger's work appealing. i have no opinion on the current pound debate
raging on this list; i'm not a big fan, but not allergic either.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 16:44:43 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Odysseas Elytis
Last night I hear from my friend Ethel at APR that Odysseas Elytis had
died earlier in the week. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge (or
even correct for that matter). Considering I don't read daily media,
this might be known, but is there anyone else on the list who has any
more information. What I do know is that the Axiom Esti is a
phenominal piece, one that taught me an intense layering of the lyric.
david.baratier@mosby.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 15:59:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Carl <dgcarl@UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 20 Mar 1996 to 21 Mar 1996
>You know, we have to do something to ensure that Dalkey Archive doesn't
>succumb to commercial pressures now that its main editorial God, Steven
>Moore, is leaving. ---Marisa (debeetled)
>
Too late, they have already pulled their books from SPD and are now being
distributed by a "large" distributor (one of the universities I believe). . .
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 15:59:36 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Carl <dgcarl@UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject: you decide
"It would seem that the communion between a man and his power to
choose cannot long be endured. Among the rebels, some have unconditionally
surrendered to the Communist discipline, others to a revealed religion,
while others-- those most loyal to their youth-- have split their lives in
two: in their roles as citizens, husbands, lovers, or fathers, they follow
the rule of a fairly conservative reason, localizing their revolt in
literature or poetry, which thereby becomes a religion.
"It is true enough that sheer rebellion is insincere. As soon as we
desire something or call others to witness, that is, as soon as we live, we
imply that the world is, in principle, in harmony with itself and others
with ourselves. We are born into reason as into language. But the reason
at which we arrive must not be the same reason we abandoned with such a
flurish. The experience of unreason cannot simply be forgotten: we must
form a new idea of reason. . .
"Likewise, if we are to rediscover a system of morals, we must find
it through contact with the conflicts revealed by immoralism. As Simone de
Beauvoir's book L'INVITEE points out, it is a question of knowing whether
there is indeed a certain line of conduct which can justify each man in the
eyes of his fellows or whether, on the contrary, our condition does not make
all ways of behaving mutually unforgivable and whether, in such a situation,
all moral principles are not merely a way to reassure rather than to save
ourselves, a way to wave questions aside instead of answering them. In
morality as in art there is no solution for the man who will not make a move
without knowing where he is going and who wants to be accurate and in
control at every moment. Our only resort is the spontaneous movement which
binds us to others for good or ill, out of selfishness or generosity."
Merleau-Ponty SENSE AND NONSENSE
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 20:42:49 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: reading Pound
charles ---
thanks for that summing-up. yeah.
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.22.96 8:42:49 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 20:52:30 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: yet another open letter
due to an impassioned request from larry price, i have decided NOT to
unsubscribe from this list. i am issuing a public warning to those who
flamed me: i have saved all yr vileness and if you dare to flame me
again i will post everything you have sent me, except for the nearly 100
pieces of blank mail. it was very stupid of you to flame me in the first
place --- even stupider not to do it anonymously. i've got you, proud
bullies, right where i want you.
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.22.96 8:52:30 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 01:57:51 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Hawkins <ghawkins@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Visual Poetry
If you want information about the Australian concrete poetry scene, contact
TT.O. (greek symbols Pi and Omicron) and thalia c/o
Collective Effort Press
P.O. Box 2430V GPO Melbourne, Australia
They printed an anthology of works by TT.O. (say Pi O), thalia, ACR, Jas
Duke, and loads of others who continue today. Also, they can hook you up
with the Italian scene, namely a dictionary of women's language using
concrete poetry.
Tell them you got the info from Laura Hope-Gill; give 'em my best.
Laura Hope-Gill c/o GHawkins
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 05:00:24 -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: The Bay scene in 1950s
Ed,
I wonder if any of the KQED shows that Rexroth still survive. He would
sit in a chair next to a table with a little bookcase behind him (vain
attempt at "home library" effect) and comment on 10 or 12 books per
show. This was in the late 1950s more or less (we got the telly in
'55). Often just pick up one, sniff at it and grumble, "now this is
real poop." Other than Readers Digest Condensed Novels and a World Book
Encyclopedia, we had no books in our house, but for some reason my
grandparents did watch that show with some regularity. I was too young
to have figured out how to actually get hold of those books (that came
later). Rexroth was pretty much a household word in the Bay Area, even
in households where writers were not household words in any sense.
I've seen McIntyre's work in print, but actually did not know of the
Berkeley connection at all. Josephine Miles (who turned me on to
Crapsey in '69 or '70) had been "the poet" in the UC department for
decades. Rob Wilson -- whom Susan Schultz and Gab Wellford must know --
was one of Jo's regular students and might have gotten more detail.
((Miles, whom I knew only very slightly, was very scrupulous about
putting contexts around works and readings--when she told Melnick and I
that poets in the 1940s didn't know how to read Williams, how the work
would even sound, I trust that statement, foreign as it seems to my own
sensibility.))
Burt Hatlen (is he a lurker here?) was Parkinson's TA in the 50s. He
might have some detail as well. He was very lucky to have been out of
the country on a grant when a deranged student shot and killed
Parkinson's then-TA (and wounded Tom), because TP had refused to sign a
loyalty oath, in (I think) 1956.
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 05:08:49 -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: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
You wrote:
>
>i think joyce kilmer was male, if i've been told correctly. --maria d
>
Yes, he was.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 05:43:34 -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: Re: Odysseas Elytis
There was an obit in the NY Times on Tuesday, 3/19. On the same page, I
believe (or maybe the facing page), as one for Olga Rudge. Made no
mention of his time as a political prisoner on Youra.
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 08:40:48 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 20 Mar 1996 to 21 Mar 1996
>>You know, we have to do something to ensure that Dalkey Archive doesn't
>>succumb to commercial pressures now that its main editorial God, Steven
>>Moore, is leaving. ---Marisa (debeetled)
>>
>
>Too late, they have already pulled their books from SPD and are now being
>distributed by a "large" distributor (one of the universities I believe). . .
They are distributed by Consortium, which is probably more of a mid-sized
distributor by commercial standards, although quite large for "small press."
But Sun & Moon, Coach House, and a few other very productive small presses
are distributed by Consortium. I do believe Consortium asks for some kind of
exclusive arrangement, but that in various cases books they distribute are
also made available through SPD and perhaps other sources. Sorry I don't
have the details. Consortium, as some of you know, was begun by a former
partner in Bookslinger, and began and achieved at least part of its success
(not without struggles) by taking the 8 or so best-selling presses away from
Bookslinger, contributing to the difficulties Bookslinger faced in its last
several years and its eventual closing. But of places distributing small
press books (although only the biggest of the small), Consortium has had
good deal of success placing books in bookstores -- so it's quite a mixed
story. Dalkey Archive has actually been with Consortium for some time, not
just recently. So perhaps Dalkey has a new development in its distribution, too.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 09:35:43 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: On way to Detroit -- Check in again in a week
In-Reply-To: <199603230529.AAA20367@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
I believe
Joyce Kilmer is
a rest
stop
in New Jersey
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 10:41:45 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT newsletter in space
This is Dodie. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me with news/advice about
my bulk mailing. Apparently, according to e-mail knowledgeable
listservers, bulk mail can vary dramatically from place to place, and when
there are only a few pieces going to a location, it can take forever. So,
hang in there and keep in touch.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 10:17:09 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: charming naivete, etc.
well, all this supportive private mail i've gotten has made me feel
sort of cocky
1. eight charmingly naive writers
tutuola
bob brown
blake
whitman
patchen
stein
dickinson
shakespeare
2. charmingly naive and derivative poem by me
Maelsublime
cinder
through seiasche throe
moumiamiller's multure
rest in shoddy
corrugate stasis
its misspelled label
hammer glyphs
down remain reft
smallest words
roun with her throh
_timor mortis conturbat me_
--- for jim leftwich
after Mandala Damages
_flowers unfolding reft truffle_
3. rose read wrote me this
>I often wonder how the others on this list, almost all of whom I respect a
>great deal, feed their work -- their writing. There isn't much discussion
>of the writing process itself ...
yeah, me too --- how abt it?
yrs ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.23.96 10:17:09 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 15:45:38 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "John E. Matthias" <John.E.Matthias.1@ND.EDU>
Subject: Crapsey & Winters
It's interesting to see a few references to Adelaide Crapsey. When I was
briefly a student of Yvor Winters' in 1963, Crapsey's work was still on his
syllabus where presumably it had remained for thirty years. Everyone read
what little there was to read. It's interesting, too, that Winters
acknowledged Crapsey as an influence on his own early (modernist) poetry,
along with translations from the Japanese and early translations from
Native American poetry that appeared in the Indian bulletins of the
Smithsonian Institution (especially those by Washington Matthews, Frances
Densmore, and Frank Russell, all of whom were anthropologists). Anyway, in
1941 Winters called Crapsey "certainly an immortal poet...and one of the
most famous poets of our century" ("Post Scripta" to _In Defense of
Reason_). By 1967, the year of his death, he calls Crapsey "almost
forgotten" and attributes part of the cause to "the anthologists, who have
an infallible taste for the weakest work of any poet whom they consider." A
great lister of poems, Winters cites (in _Forms of Discovery_) Snow,
Anguish, Moon-Shadows, Night-Winds, Roma Aeterna, Amaze, Niagara, For Lucas
Cranach's Eve, Dirge, Song, Angelique, Chimes, To Man Who Goes Seeking
Immortality. He calls it "a formidable list."
Winters identified with Crapsey in various ways, in part because of her
illness. He, too, had tuberculosis. Anyone unaware of Winters' early
poetry ought to have a look at it. Much of it was written in New Mexico,
where Winters was recovering at a sanatorium, and in Colorado once he was
up and about. Marianne Moore sent him books from the New York Public
Library ("very kindly, but I am sure illegally"). And he had his
subscriptions to _Poetry_, _Others_, and _The Little Review_. He wrote all
of _The Immobile Wind_ and most of _The Magpie's Shadow_ in the sanatorium
in Santa Fe. And he would have been reading Crapsey there.
It's an interesting early conjunction--Crapsey, Haiku, the anthropologists'
translations of Native American poetry, and also Rimbaud, whose work
Winters deciphered with the help of a disapproving French priest. The dates
were 1921-1927. He tells the story in his Introduction to _The Early Poems
of Yvor Winters_. Anyone interested in this phase of Winters' career should
also read his short story, "The Brink of Darkness." Readers who only know
the later Winters of Stern Measures might be surprised as well by the early
reviews published in _The Uncollected Essays and Reviews of Yvor
Winters_(Swallow Press) where he expresses great enthusiasm for modernist
writers whose work he later dismissed. This book also includes his
important 1928 review of _The Path on the Rainbow: An Anthology of Songs
and Chants from the Indians of North America_.
John Matthias
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 18:09:57 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
yes, aldon, kilmer is a rest stop
and whitman is a bridge...
a toll bridge...
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 20:43:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: charming naivete, etc.
hey chris daniels, i like yr poem and yr energy. another charmingly naive
poet is thazarbell biggs, whose poem about human anatomy was published by
adventures in poetry in the 1970s. I teach it as often as i can. sometimes
jamaica kindcaid comes out with a cn. phrase, like, the queen of england was
"extremely not beautiful." i'm hooked on that kinda stuff, but i'm
suspicious of my own taste for it cuz i wonder if i'm being patronizing. but
i think not, see an article (by moi) in cultural critique from 1990 or so
called "tell them about us" (also half a chapter in my one and only
booky-poo) that analyzes poetry by South Boston teenaged schoolgirls. lots
of people don't "get" why i love this stuff, think i'm being a do-gooder or a
politico with no aesthetic taste, but i love it AS POETRY. i could go on and
on...
how does shakespeare rate as charmingly naive? esplain?
bests, maria
ps as for flamers, judge not lest etc.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 20:43:54 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Crapsey & Winters
john mathias: what was it like to work with winters. i was at stanford from
1981-88, and many of us saw his legacy as oppressive: ginsberg had, at the
time i arrived, never been asked to read at SU, etc. i've heard, tho, that
he was a devoted tEACHER who supported the early careers of folks like thom
gunn, scott momaday, etc.
bests, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 21:28:19 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: you decide
dear david carl--
very interesting Merleau-Ponty quote...
I am especially attracted to the part in which he writes
"others--those most loyal to their youth--have split their lives in
two...." The "conservative" and "moral" "private life" vs. the
the "public" and "immoral" aesthetic seems to be the distinction here.
If so, it seems to be a somewhat accurate description of
much poetry--though not, say, the more bohemian bernadette mayer,
eileen myles, or berrigan. Some seem to split their life in two in
EXACTLY the oppposite way....Radical lifestyle but linguistically
"conservative." Anyway, YOU DECIDE....
thanks for the quote again.
chris s.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 18:30:11 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: charming naivete, etc.
--- On Sat, 23 Mar 1996 20:43:12 -0500 Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
wrote:
>hey chris daniels, i like yr poem and yr energy. another charmingly naive
>poet is thazarbell biggs, whose poem about human anatomy was published by
>adventures in poetry in the 1970s. I teach it as often as i can.
sometimes
>jamaica kindcaid comes out with a cn. phrase, like, the queen of england
was
>"extremely not beautiful." i'm hooked on that kinda stuff, but i'm
>suspicious of my own taste for it cuz i wonder if i'm being patronizing.
but
>i think not, see an article (by moi) in cultural critique from 1990 or so
>called "tell them about us" (also half a chapter in my one and only
>booky-poo) that analyzes poetry by South Boston teenaged schoolgirls. lots
>of people don't "get" why i love this stuff, think i'm being a do-gooder or
a
>politico with no aesthetic taste, but i love it AS POETRY. i could go on
and
>on...
as cld i. it's the (as i feel it) unpremeditated quality of such writing
that gets to me --- i understand yr self-concern, tho --- there is always
the danger of seeing a writer like amos tutuola as a kind of side-show.
tell me what to read by jamaica kincaid --- i've never even heard of her.
the british poet john clare was another cn., wonderful poet.
>how does shakespeare rate as charmingly naive? esplain?
shakespeare rates as charmingly naive because he started
in the stables, was basically unschooled, and somehow became,
in most people's opinion, the greatest poet in the english
language. no one really knows how or why he started writing.
last week i heard duncan mcnaughton lecture on the
sonnets --- very moving to hear such a wonderful poet reduced
to silence when he began to speak abt his own reaction to
King Lear --- "it's just so sad" was all he cld say. i was
humbled.
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.23.96 6:30:11 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 23:11:41 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: KUSZAI <v369t4kj@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Announcing _Broken English_ by Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison
Comments: cc: core-l@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
Announcing:
_Broken English_
Dodie Bellamy and Bob Harrison
Meow Press
32pp. 4.75"x4.75"
with cover art by Peter Mitchell-Dayton
$6.00
Available from Small Press Distribution
1814 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, California 94702
510-549-3336
or from the publisher (see below)
From a review by Michael Stancliff
By any conventional standards, _Broken English_ is a
pornographic text. But is it so in the world of small press poetry
and poetics? It remains to be seen whether or not the authors,
publisher or distributors will encounter the legal turbulence that
would validate such a genre distinction. Such affairs seem
unlikely given the low profile and limited circulation of the
small press scene. This raises an interesting question: Will a
book be marked as pornographic if it remains unprofitable and
circulated locally (the local here constituted not geographically
but by a community of readers and writers)?
This comes early in the book:
Can we cuddle and fuck? Can we fuck too? Can
you see me kneeling there on the floor in front of you,
unzipping your pants with my teeth, one hand on each of
your thighs, my little pointed tongue with its red tip
licking the honey from the tip of your cock? Can't keep
your pussy off my dick. Dear Fuck Slug. Dear Fuck Toy.
Dear Three-Headed Cock.
Dear True Cranberry. Desire for you is dripping
out of my pussy like hot wax.. Do you like it when I suck
your nipples? Do you like to move all that roughness
across something smooth and vulnerable, my breast for
instance...Do you still want me to cover your face with
come? Do you wanna fuck our brains out?
I cite this passage only to suggest that a representational passage
might be tagged, to suggest how, after many pages, this erotico-
fantastic prose does indeed effect a genericism in keeping with
much print porn. But this text, ironically, exploits the
transgressive language of porn, employing it in an interesting
poetic project. _Broken English_, its "closeness to the body,"
reminds us that "plain language" might still be more radical
than the _detourment_ and monkey-wrenching poetic satire of
much language and post-language writing. The language of sex
engages all the legal and social issues surrounding porn, begging
questions of the small press community: What is the status of
the "marginality" of the texts we produce, circulate and read?
Where and how do we transgress, and are those transgressions
merely literary?
But there are other things to say about the passage above.
Notice the way in which the biological specificity
simultaneously highlights and negates gender and sexual
identities. Notice also the litany of addresses. This is an
incredibly intimate book, not because its ostensible subject
matter is sex, but because of the continual emphasis of a "you"
and an "I" morphing in and out of one another in moments of
narcissistic projection and simultaneous
embodiment/consumption of the other. "I'm going to fuck you
so that our bloods move next to each other. I'm going to fuck
you until I can't tell where my body is, until we've lost all our
boundaries and even the most complex 4-color map will not be
able to separate us again."
With the desire to embody a lover comes a straining to
embody sex acts in language acts. Sexual and compositional
energy are linked again and again. Genital excretions become
language--"I write in large cursive letters with my come on
your chest...My pussy's all wet now, and now my finger, the
middle finger of my left hand, is covered with my pussy's
wetness, and I'm getting it on the keyboard...If you say that
writing is a sexual experience, then collaboration would have to
be a kind of fucking, right?" The brute rhythmic force of the
prose radiates this doomed effort to join these realms of action.
Hence the wonderfully dedicated quality of the declaration: I
WILL NOT JERK OFF, I HAVE WORK TO DO. I WILL
NOT JERK OFF. This is an incredibly ironic line in such a
masturbatory text, but it makes a great deal of sense--The
speaker eschews the release of sexual energy that is not directed
towards intimacy with another, that does not fuel the
"WORK" of the writing which, in the endless inventiveness of
its sexual reference constitutes an urgent address. Constant
climax. Mind-fuck virtuoso fantasy.
OTHER TITLES AVAILABLE FROM MEOW PRESS
George Albon, _King_ $5
Andrews, Bernstein, Sherry, _Technology/Art: 20 Brief
Proposals_ $5
Rachel Tzvia Back, _Litany_ $6
Michael Basinski, _Cnyttan_ $5
Charles Bernstein, _The Subject_ $6
Jonathan Brannen, _The Glass Man Left Waltzing_ $5
Dubravka Djuric, _Cosmopolitan Alphabet_ $5
Robert Fitterman, _Metropolis_ $5
Benjamin Friedlander, _A Knot is Not a Tangle_ $5
Benjamin Friedlander, _Anterior Future_ $5 (New Reprint!)
Peter Gizzi, _New Picnic Time_ $5
Loss P. Glazier, _The Parts_ $5
Mark Johnson, _Three Bad Wishes_ $6
Pierre Joris, _Winnetou Old_ $5
Elizabeth Robinson, _Iemanje_ $5 (New Reprint!)
Leslie Scalapino, _The Line_ $5 (New Reprint!)
James Sherry, _4 For_ $5
Ron Silliman, _Xing_ $6
Misko Suvakovic, _Pas Tout_ $5
Juliana Spahr, _Testimony_ $6
Bill Tuttle, _Epistolary Poems_ $5
Coming Soon:
Wendy Kramer, _Patinas_ $6
Aaron Shurin, _Codex_ $6
Meredith Quartermain, _Terms of Sale_ $6
SPECIAL OFFER TO POETICS LIST SUBSCRIBERS!
We'd like to thank those of you who took us up on our last offer
and we'd also like to renew that offer: 4 books for the price of 3 &
7 books for the price of 5. Because our institutional support is
limited, and the labor involved in making these books is great, we
would like to urge those of you with available means to subscribe
to the press. As a subscriber, you will be entitled to all of the
Meow Press publications: 10 publications are scheduled for the
upcoming Spring-Summer Series & another 10 are planned for
the 3rd Anniversary Series, which commences in August.
Please write for more information:
Joel Kuszai
Meow Press
151 Park Street
Buffalo, NY 14201
v369t4kj@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu
EPHEMERA SERIES
Published in extremely limited editions
(number of copies in parentheses)
Free with subscriptions and to friends of the press
SDDDRTT-123 by Bishop Morda (10) (no longer available)
Report on Community by Joel Kuszai (50)
Filmic 10 by Joel Kuszai (50)
Riven by Cynthia Kimball (100)
Barstokai by Michael Basinski (100)
28 for the Road by Kristin Prevallet (100)
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 02:22:31 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: reading report: hunt/killian/foster
On friday (the first one in spring--though you wouldn't guess by the
snow), at the recently renovated ICHOR gallery, Sean killian, Erica (erika?)
Hunt and Ed Foster read their poetry....Since Jordan D. wasn't there
(at least I didn't see him), I felt I'd steal his schtick just this once
and try to offer a "poetry report"...
First, Sean Killian read. Intense rhapsodic work (still not in print!)
that only at the rarest moments lets the listener off the hook. Someone
in the audience complimentarily likened the work to Rilke....but I thought
it was more like Beckett and Ashbery (not the suburban "short poem" Ashbery)
Especially effective were the long prose poems, whose subtle wit and
swift fade-ins and fade-outs addressed as a METAPHYSICAL problem, the
systematic incentives AGAINST human (especially male-female) connection
in the hyper-ontological world of NYC and/or "late capitalism."
Ed Foster read work that, in terms of touchstones or "markers", was
somewhat reminiscent of Duncan (especially in classical references and
homoerotically charged) and/or Olson(his use of non-western cultures,
and "special views" of history). FOster's work seems to have undergone
profound changes since the last time I saw him read (1993). The more
"aesthetic" quality of his earlier work has taken a backseat to a more
prophetic/visionary tone--especially evident in his oracular reading style.
After a break, Erica Hunt read from her MS of her second book due out any
second from KELSEY ST. PRESS. I had never before seen Ms. Hunt read before
and strongly encourage all of you to do so at the first opportunity. This
work is majr, though in different ways than Killian. In the first place,
her work had a "deceptively light" quality about it. But in the midst of
the humourous, casual, everyday BELIEVABLE PERSONA that emanated from her
work and radiated in performace was the kind of fast, dense sociopolitical
turns that also characterize, say, Bob Perelman and Carla Harryman at
their best. Hunt is definitely onto a synthesis quite unique, however,
of more "language" based writing with a more NY School lyricism...
The three readers, coming from vastly different spaces, complemented
each other. All were very powerful. Faith in poetry restored for the
time being, etc. My little characterizations do them an injustice....
cs
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 23:37:39 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9603172213.A28481-0100000@well>
Now that recent flurries seem to have abated somewhat I'd like
to revive this topic/query which may have been missed.
David,
I came across this quote which seems pertinent to the
problem:
"[Poetry] does appear at present, despite various modifications
in the mode of presenting it in public, to be static, death-laden,
just as it is so often death-referenced" - Allen Grossman in
_The Sighted Singer_
> I have received (thank, Davids) and begun exploring David Kellog's
> "Desire..." article he recently passed out. While reading I was
> puzzled and saddened by his comments on desire's apparent growing
> reification as a noun. My bias as a psychologist and a poet is for
> process. I see this as possibly a reflection of our current captivity
> in advertising imagery, sound bites, and conservative rigidity:
> "...the overwhelming preference more recent poets have for _desire_
> in its noun form....poets gravitate toward the potential of the word
> as a thing...[its] gestural, deictic quality increases its appeal for
> recent poets who negotiate the Scylla of discourse and the Charybdis
> of subjectivity. (414)."
>
> I think it was my sense of cultural rigidification that recently
> led me to initiate a "verbalized noun" renga (collaborative poem -
> with help from fellow fellow renga qaballists):
>
> Sam friscoed his living space
> she has plans to cattle his life savings
> for a formering singe to heart my laptop
> I could magazine it if you'd creche me
> don't apple with me or i'll weeping willow you
>
> until you profound it, you coffee it up
> and wetting don't caulk in the whispered
> to-be-jointed night, don't phone me
> laughter it fretly, soap a mariner
>
> who perimeters the sextant or sextants the
> apse he milky ways on the shore on the shore
>
>
> tom
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 10:25:02 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: FW: Re: charming naivete, etc.
interesting abt. shakespeare, his lifestory, not his oeuvre, constitute his
naive charm...i'm one of those folks who thought shakespeare was a pseudonym
for some lord or other, so i never marveled at the self-taughtness of
him...but then, genet really was genet, and he's another, i'd never call him
charmingly naive, but he's certainly an autodidact genius.--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 10:24:44 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Leddy <cfml@EIU.EDU>
Subject: Frank O'Hara and Ghost Books
Hello, list. (I'm new.) Concerning ghost books, as discussed in the
most recent log--
I've seen a number of references to a book of Frank O'Hara's letters,
which has never appeared. (Explanation?)
Don Allen's Editor's Note to O'Hara's Collected Poems mentions a
forthcoming volume of collaborations and translations. Exciting news, at
least for a few seconds, before I realized (or re-realized) that of course I
was reading (in the U Cal P paperback) the note that introduced the
book in 1971. A ghost of a ghost.
Michael Leddy / Charleston, IL
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 11:18:59 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" <mnamna@IMAP1.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
In-Reply-To: <01I2OR29CMDEHTUNS9@cnsvax.albany.edu>
On Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Chris Stroffolino wrote:
> yes, aldon, kilmer is a rest stop
> and whitman is a bridge...
> a toll bridge...
>
whitman is also a jail, and a mall I believe. . . .
jeffrey timmons
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 11:53:59 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Douglas Messerli <djmess@SUNMOON.COM>
Subject: New Sun & Moon Press titles
Sun & Moon Press announces the publication of three new titles:
SELECTED DECLARATIONS OF DEPENDENCE, by
Harry Marthes
Sun & Moon Classics: 128, 196 pages, $10.95 (paper)
First published in 1977, SELECTED DECLARATIONS has, like
all the books of Harry Mathews, grown in reputation over
the years of its unavailability. Sun & Moon Press now returns
this remarkable text--in which Mathews (beginning with a set
of 46 familiar proverbs) uses and absuses proverbs to create
a new set of "perverbs"--to press. Illustrated by Alex Katz
-----------------------
BEGINNER, by Erik Ehn
ATL-American Theter in Literature Program
94 pages, $9.95 (paper)
A wonderful and witty new play of four short dialogues by
San Francisco playright Erik Ehn, connected with what has
come to be called the "Language" theater (which includes
writers such as Mac Wellman, Len Jenkin, Jeff Jones, Suzan-Lori
Parks and others).
--------------------------
THE RETURNS, by Dennis Barone
New American Fiction Series 36, 96 pages, $10.95 (paper)
An officer encounters a hapless Nell with her beaten son on a
cliff just before he attacks a nameless army; in a city where
all houses are painted blue, a record keeper tracks filter
replacements and filtermen; in the midst of Thanksgiving dinner
a boy suddenly encounters a pilot of an x-15 rocket and a
salesman, who seem to sympathize with one another. In these
strange and yet seemingly familiar tales the past and its
language is grafted onto the present world, with a language that
has fallen into near meaninglessness.
--------------------------
Folks on the Poetics List can order (for one month) any of these
three books for a 10% discount. Order through our website:
www.sunmoon.com
or through E-mail: djmess@sunmoon.com.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 15:11:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "John E. Matthias" <John.E.Matthias.1@ND.EDU>
Subject: Winters & Stanford
Maria Damon:
I didn't personally have a lot of trouble with Winters, but I only took the
literature courses, not the writing courses. It was clear he wouldn't have
liked my poetry and I never showed him any. I learned from his enthusiasms
and discounted his prejudices. I can imagine that by the early '80s many of
you saw his legacy as oppressive, although Donald Davie certainly wouldn't
have given you that impression if he was still there. Was he? And how many
people studied with Ken Fields? He was the poet of my generation who
stayed on at Stanford. The others were Bob Hass, James McMichael, John
Peck, and Robert Pinsky. In 1979 Carcanet Press published (in England) an
anthology called _Five American Poets_ that included work by Hass,
McMichael, Peck, Pinsky, & myself. In some ways it produced the impression
among British reviewers that we were, or at any rate had been, Wintersians
of some kind--laughable in my own case, and a distortion even in the cases
of Pinsky and the early Peck. We've gone in five very different directions.
John Peck, by the way, ought in particular to be of interest to readers on
this list. I wonder how many know his work, especially his recent work.
He's now back in this country after a decade and more in Europe. He
practices as a Jungian analyst in Vermont. I can list books if anyone needs
to know titles. I think Peck is one of the best poets we have. It's
coincidental that Jeremy Hooker is about to publish an essay called
something like "Five American Poets after Fifteen Years" in _PN Review_ in
England. Anyway, back to your question. The best answer is perhaps to
quote section XX, "Peroration, Concerning Genius," from Robert Pinsky's
"Essay on Psychiatrists" (from _Sadness and Happiness_). The "old man" in
the poem is Winters.
As to my own concerns, it seems odd, given
The ideas many of us have about art,
That so many writers, makers of films,
Artists, all suitors of excellence and their own
Genius, should consult psychiatrists, willing
To risk that the doctor in curing
The sickness should smooth away the cicatrice
Of genius, too. But it is all bosh, the false
Link between genius and sickness,
Except perhaps as they were linked
By the Old Man, addressing his class
On the first day: "I know why you are here.
You are here to laugh. You have heard of a crazy
Old man who believes that Robert Bridges
Was a good poet; who believes that Faulke
Greville was a great poet, greater than Philip
Sidney; who believes that Shakespeare's Sonnets
Are not all that they are cracked up to be. . . Well,
I will tell you something: I will tell you
What this course is about. Sometime in the middle
Of the Eighteenth Century, along with the rise
Of capitalism and scientific method, the logical
Foundations of Western thought decayed and fell apart.
When they fell apart, poets were left
With emotions and experience, and with no way
To examine them. At this time, poets and men
Of genius began to go mad. Gray went mad. Collins
Went mad. Kit Smart was mad. William Blake surely
Was a madman. Coleridge was a drug addict, with severe
Depression. My friend Hart Crane died mad. My friend
Ezra Pound is mad. But you will not go mad; you will grow up
To become happy, sentimental old college professors,
Because they were men of genius, and you
Art not; and the ideas which were vital
To them are mere amusements to you. I will not
Go mad, because I have understood those ideas. . . ."
He drank wine and smoked his pipe more than he should;
In the end his doctors in order to prolong life
Were forced to cut away most of his tongue.
That was their business. As far as he was concerned
Suffering was life's penalty; wisdom armed one
Against madness; speech was temporary; poetry was truth.
* * *
That's the parody version, of course, but it comes pretty close.
John Matthias
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 09:43:48 -0400
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@ISU.USYD.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Visual Poetry
>If you want information about the Australian concrete poetry scene, contact
>TT.O. (greek symbols Pi and Omicron) and thalia c/o
>Collective Effort Press
>P.O. Box 2430V GPO Melbourne, Australia
>
>They printed an anthology of works by TT.O. (say Pi O), thalia, ACR, Jas
>Duke, and loads of others who continue today. Also, they can hook you up
>with the Italian scene, namely a dictionary of women's language using
>concrete poetry.
>Tell them you got the info from Laura Hope-Gill; give 'em my best.
>
>Laura Hope-Gill c/o GHawkins
There was a CD tribute to Jas Duke in an issue of Going Down Swinging a
year or so back. Also the latest issue of Southerly has a collection of
articles on pi0. Australian Writing On Line will shortly be making GDS
available through its Virtual Bookshop (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/).
If can't wait email AWOL at awol@ozemail.com.au and they can give you more
details.
__________________________________
Mark Roberts
Student Systems Project Officer
Information Systems
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
PH:(02)351 5066
FAX:(02)351 5081
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 18:05:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Winters & Stanford
thanks for the poem, John Matthias: it resonates eerily with a book i've been
reading on otto weininger and turn of the century interest in "madness" and
"creativity," --creepy stuff, esp. for Jewish folks. Donald Davie had just
retired. Ken Fields was still teaching, i took two courses from him one
semester and he made my life miserable during that period; he was a troubled
person who notoriously indulged in punitive grading to a degree so flagrant
that it could only be called delusional. (he wasn't as hard on me as he was
on some others, perhaps because i tried to go to his office hours to talk to
him about our "conflict" --). However, my problems with him got me into
"recovery" I was having dreadful nightmares) so I actually owe him some debt
of gratitude. hey, maybe i'll write and tell him so...bests, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 18:05:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Announcing _Broken English_ by Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison
looks terrific, gotta pick this one up --congrats, dodie-kins! --md
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 19:46:08 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Adelaide Crapsey
a toll bridge, a jail, a mall, a candy sampler
and the republican governor of New Jersey USA....
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 16:46:44 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Announcing _Broken English_ by Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison
>looks terrific, gotta pick this one up --congrats, dodie-kins! --md
Maria,
Here's a kiss for you.
Dodie
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 08:15:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9603232312.A9037-0100000@well>
On Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Thomas Bell wrote:
> Now that recent flurries seem to have abated somewhat I'd like
> to revive this topic/query which may have been missed.
> David,
> I came across this quote which seems pertinent to the
> problem:
> "[Poetry] does appear at present, despite various modifications
> in the mode of presenting it in public, to be static, death-laden,
> just as it is so often death-referenced" - Allen Grossman in
> _The Sighted Singer_
>
I don't think I want to go down this road.
The problem with pronouncements like this is their tendency toward
universalism. I have no wish to go back to the "death of poetry" debate
(which seems happily to have died down since the late eighties) where
people accused back and forth: Poetry's dead/is not/is so/is not! Saying
something like this is rather easy; the heart part is figuring out what's
actaully happening *here* or *there* or *there*.
I'm not as familiar with Grossman's work as I should be. What's the
context of his saying this? I'm curious because he seems obviously (in
Summa Lyrica) one of the most rigorous thinkers about poetry in our
time.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 08:48:02 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "J. Ellis McAdams" <jmcadam@EMORY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Peltier
In-Reply-To: <199603230502.AAA24209@graf.cc.emory.edu>
eryque--
You asked about the Peltier case. The best 2 sources I know of are Peter
Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a long and detailed account
of what is an extremely complex legal case, and Michael Apted's film,
Incident at Oglala.
Briefly, two FBI agents were shot in 1975 near Wounded Knee. Three
members of AIM were indicted: Bob Robideau and Dino Butler were acquited;
Peltier fled to Canada, was extradited, and stood trial separately. He
was convicted and has now been in prison for (I think) 20 years.
Both Mattheissen and Apted make a good case for the FBI, furious at the
aquitals of Butler & Robideau, manufacturing evidence and coercing
witnesses in order to convict Peltier. From everything I've read, there
seems no evidence that Peltier had anything to do with the deaths of the
agents.
The second issue the case raises is more complicated. Because of the
"quasi-sovereign" status of Indian nations, and because of the
climate of violence on the res. at that time--there had been shootouts and
murders of Indian people--one wonders what on earth
two agents in plain clothes, who
apparently did not identify themselves--were doing there in the first
place. Thus, the question is: Were these "murders" or casualties in a war
between two sovereign powers?
As I've said, it's an extremely complicated case, and I'm certainly no
expert. Matthiessen's book is also interesting because of its publishing
history. Libel cases brought by public officials kept it out of print for
8 years.
J.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 09:01:19 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Sun & Moon Press titles
Dear Douglas,
I'd love to order the Mathews--do you prefer to deal with e-people via
credit card or check?
Regards,
Gwyn McVay, a big Sun &Moon fan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 07:42:50 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Douglas Messerli <djmess@SUNMOON.COM>
Subject: Re: New Sun & Moon Press titles
Dear Gwyn,
You can either order through my website or through E-Mail,
which will probably be easier for you. But we do't yet
accept credit cards, so I'll just bill you and you can send
us a check.
Our website is www.sunmoon.com.
===============
At 09:01 AM 3/25/96 +0000, you wrote:
>Dear Douglas,
>
>I'd love to order the Mathews--do you prefer to deal with e-people via
>credit card or check?
>
>Regards,
>
>Gwyn McVay, a big Sun &Moon fan
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 14:39:59 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: nea creative writing fellowships
As penance for the tone of my last post about the creative writing
fellowships in poetry awarded by the NEA for FY96, I now post the list of
recipients:
Robert Benson, Onenonta NY
Pamela Bernard, Duxbury MA
Linda Bierds, Bainbridge Island WA
Sharon Bryan, Salt Lake City UT
Stuart Dischel, Las Cruces NM
Nancy Eimers, Kalamazoo MI
Jeffrey Greene, Paris FRANCE
Barbara Hamby, Tallahassee FL
Carol Henrie, Hayward CA
Karl Kirchwey, New York NY
Stephen Knauth, Charlotte NC
John Koethe, Milwaukee WI
Joan Larkin, Shelburne Falls MA
Charles F. Martin, Brooklyn NY
William Olsen, Kalamazoo MI
Donald Platt, Carrollton GA
Laurie Sheck, Princeton NJ
Enid Shomer, Gainesville FL
Sheryl Saint Germain, Galesburg IL
Daniel E. Tobin, Racine WI
Dean Young, Bloomington IN
Panelists were:
Lucille Clifton, Columbia MD
Poet, educator
Debora Greger, Gainesville FL
Poet, educator
Edward Hirsch, Houston TX
Poet, editor, educator
Philip Levine, Fresno CA
Poet, educator
Thylias Moss, Ann Arbor MI
Poet, writer, educator
Steve Orlen, Tucson AZ
Poet, educator
Sherod Santos, Columbia MO
Poet, educator
Margo Viscusi, New York NY
Layperson
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Cabot VT
Poet, educator
You can contact the NEA (sort of; they've been cut severely and may not
have enough people to get straight to your call, but though they _can't_
talk to you about your application they can send you application guidelines
for creative writing and translation fellowships in poetry (including verse
drama) now.
Gigi Bradford
NEA
Nancy Hanks Center
1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20506
202.682.5400
________
That said, I'd like to suggest that 'quertzblatz' poets _not_ go the record
store route of filing themselves under 'alternative' or shriek of pain
'commercial alternative.' Thanks.
Jordan Davis
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 15:32:17 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: Peltier
thanks for the info, j.
i'm always amazed at our powers that be, but i don't know why, it's been
the same old same old for two hundred years. i shouldn't be amazed
anymore. incredulous, yes, but i should expect this sort of activity.
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 15:44:34 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ward Tietz <100723.3166@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: Visual Poetry
On March 22, Peter Jaeger wrote: "Can anyone contribute to a list of addresses
(snail or email) for magazines that currently & primarily publish visual poetry,
in Canada, States, anywhere?"
Here are some places I know of, although "primarily publish visual poetry" does
not apply for all of them. (I've also listed some presses.)
USA
Generator
John Byrum
3203 W. 14th St., Apt. 13
Cleveland, OH 44109
Score
Crag Hill
1015 NW Clifford St.
Pullman, WA 99163
O.ars
Don Wellman
21 Rockland Rd
Weare, NH 03281
Lightworks
Charlton Burch
P.O. Box 1202
Birmingham, MI 48012
Canada
Rampike
Karl Jirgens
95 Rivercrest Rd.
Toronto, Ontario
M6S 4H7
CURVD H&Z
jw curry
1357 Lansdowne Ave
Toronto, Ontario.
M6H 3Z9
Austria
Edition Neue Texte
Heimrad Baecker
In der Stockwiesen 13
A-4040 Linz
Press, publishes mostly concrete poetry (anthologies and some books).
Germany
Christian Scholz
Gertraud Scholz Verlag
Rothenberg, Weinbergstr. 11
D-8501 Obermichelbach
Press, publishes books and CDs of sound poetry.
Australia
Pete Spence
4/27 Alma Grove
St. Kilda 3182
Victoria, Australia
Curates visual poetry mail art show. Last year's show was in various public
libraries.
Hungary
Laszlo L. Simon
Mezo u. 12
H-2484 Agard
e-mail: sxs@ludens.elte.hu
Curated an international visual poetry exhibition in '95, is about to start an
electronic magazine. Their URL is http://ludens.elte.hu/~LIFT/
France
Doc(k)s
Philippe Castellin
20 rue Bonaparte
F-20 000 Ajaccio
Ward Tietz
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 13:22:43 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: FW: Re: Peltier
Eryque Gleason wrote:
>thanks for the info, j.
>
>i'm always amazed at our powers that be, but i don't know why, it's been
>the same old same old for two hundred years. i shouldn't be amazed
>anymore. incredulous, yes, but i should expect this sort of activity.
>
>eryque
eryque ---
may i respectfully add two zeros to that 200?
later in the good fight ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.25.96 1:22:43 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 14:34:59 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Davidson <rdavidson@POPMAIL.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Steve Benson
Does anybody out there know where I can find a tape of Steve Benson
performing "Echo" (which appears in BLINDSPOTS)? I know he did a version of
it in Washington at a performance organized by Kirby Malone, but I can't
locate Kirby (if you're out there, KM, please backchannel me). Perhaps
others can help me locate this or other performances. Thanks in advance.
Michael Davidson
Michael Davidson
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 18:20:54 -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: The Bay scene in 1950s
i haven't heard any rexroth tapes from that show, but i believe he taped
some of them (very early machine for doing that) from his home. linda
hamalian would/should know about that, i guess. spicer's novel is pretty
good on that side of rexroth's career, the author/authoritarian. speaking
of spicer, he took over parkinson's classes after the shooting. the
gunman, by the way, wrote about what he'd done and why, and if i remember
correctly, he shot parkinson and the student for no other reason than
that they were there; the intended victim was out of the building at
the time. ---
anyway, it would be interesting to track mcintyre down;
considering how many people still reach rilke and the symbolists
through his words, i should think it would be important to know
something about his own work, and sensibility.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 01:17:46 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Blair Seagram <blairsea@PANIX.COM>
Subject: sublet/NYC/CPW
Anyone looking to sublet an apt. in NYC?
Available: April thru May +
Location: off Central Park West (1 bed room with a view)
Contact: Jacklyn Johnson (212) 877-1214
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 01:11:57 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: FW: Re: Peltier
>may i respectfully add two zeros to that 200?
chris, although i was referring to our present gov't. (which i don't think
was that bad for the first few years of it's existence), you're more than
welcome to jump on the bash-wagon. anyone else care for a shot? i'm
selling them cheap, this week only, only for poetics subscribers (everyone
else pays twice what you guyzies will). like sun&moon (i almost
abbreviated that s&m, then thought better of it...)
did the settlers buy any land besides manhattan? and did they really buy that?
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 00:48:57 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "J. Lowenthal" <jlowenth@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: Electronic Poetry Review (fwd)
Hello all.
I have been lurking for a while now---this is my first time out and it's
info only. I thought some of you might be interested in this new
magazine. It represents incredibly strange and wonderful juxtapositions,
I think, in terms of poetics, personality, etc.
Katherine Swiggart, one of the editors, would love to hear from you re:
submission guidelines etc., etc..
Jessica Lowenthal
_________________________________________________________________________
In April, 1996, the first issue of _Electronic Poetry Review_ will
be available on the internet. The Spring issue will feature an interview
with Jane Miller by Jorie Graham, and poetry by Etel Adnan, Rae
Armantrout, Marvin Bell, Frank Bidart, David Bromige, Mark Doty, James
Galvin, C.S. Giscombe, Jorie Graham, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Fanny
Howe, Timothy Liu, Bob Perelman, Bin Ramke, Tim Seibles, Spencer Selby,
James Tate, Mark Strand (and others).
EPR will be published three times a year, and each issue will
become part of a developing on-line archive, available--at no subscription
cost--to an international community of writers, teachers and readers of
poetry. The editors aim to publish the best of both experimental poetry
and more traditionally formal poetry, as well as interviews, essays on
poetics, and book reviews. _Electronic Poetry Review_ welcomes submissions
of poetry, essays or reviews from writers in or outside of the United
States. Requests for submision guidelines, and all other inquiries, should
be sent to the editors at EPR@www.poetry.org or, before May 15, to
swiggart@blue.weeg.uiowa
Editors: Katherine Swiggart and Douglas Powell
Production editor: Davi Ottenheimer
Board of advisors and contributing editors: Marvin Bell, Jorie Graham,
David Hamilton, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Tom Sleigh
___________________________________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 23:05:41 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960325075711.11826A-100000@godzilla4.acpub.duke.edu>
David,
The issue for me here is whether or not poetry is _static_ (reified,
or NOUN vs. verb). The answer for me as I think it is for you is NO.
I posted the quote as another example of a tendency you alluded to in
your article. I think the quote suggests the "tendency to noun" may
have older and more traditional roots as Grossman sees "poetry as
immensely conservative"
Sorry for the confusion, I have not completely digested the book as a
whole, but the operative word for me in the quote is _static_. The
death referenced to is _death_, not the death of poetry, but I can
see how it can be interpreted the other way. The quote is taken
from a conversation between Grossman and a younger poet and the
specific context is film vs. poetry. The broader context is poetry
as reifying "person" or validating "self".
tom
> On Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Thomas Bell wrote:
> > "[Poetry] does appear at present, despite various modifications
> > in the mode of presenting it in public, to be static, death-laden,
> > just as it is so often death-referenced" - Allen Grossman in
> > _The Sighted Singer_
> >
>
> I don't think I want to go down this road.
>
> The problem with pronouncements like this is their tendency toward
> universalism. I have no wish to go back to the "death of poetry" debate
> (which seems happily to have died down since the late eighties) where
> people accused back and forth: Poetry's dead/is not/is so/is not! Saying
> something like this is rather easy; the heart part is figuring out what's
> actaully happening *here* or *there* or *there*.
>
> I'm not as familiar with Grossman's work as I should be. What's the
> context of his saying this? I'm curious because he seems obviously (in
> Summa Lyrica) one of the most rigorous thinkers about poetry in our
> time.
>
> Cheers,
> David
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 03:23:20 -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: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
The shooter did indeed write and publish a book, a hardback vanity
press affair (I remember it having a pink cover). Twenty years ago, you
could see this guy giving copies of it away for free on BART.
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 04:24:11 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: robinson jeffers/west coast scene
the first american poet i got truly obsessed w/ was robinson jeffers ---
i found a copy of his book "Such Counsels You Gave To Me" at a friend's
house when i was 14 or so --- ended up reading everything. his "Inhumanism"
was strangely comforting to me when i was a kid
i haven't read him in years --- the last time i tried, when the five-volume
collected poems began to appear, i stood in moe's books and couldn't
get very far --- i've got a soft spot for him, though
ron and others --- did his postwar reputation plummet as rapidly out
here on the west coast as it did elsewhere? and how did he fit into
the postwar scene out here? what's the general consensus on him
nowadays? is there in fact any interest in his work at all?
later ---
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.26.96 4:24:11 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 10:24:51 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9603252248.A23326-0100000@well>
Tom,
Righto, of course. I was talking right past you again.
Re: static poetry, I have a question for Charles Bernstein. In Chicago in
December you read a hilarious point-by-point inversion of Charles Olson's
PROJECTIVE VERSE. Is this out somewhere? I would like to reference it.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg Duke University
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program
(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708
FAX (919) 684-6277
There is some excitement in one corner,
but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads.
-- Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 10:43:30 -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: robinson jeffers/west coast scene
jeffers' primary connection to later west coast work was william everson,
whose early poems are deeply jeffers. after that, the line gets very
thin although i believe you can find it mixed in with early beat writing.
but rexroth didn't like him, despite everson's enthusiasm, and that
certainly didn't help things. jeffers is certainly of his time, and i
don't much care for his long works, but there are a number of short
pieces that still seem very strong--unlike the work of other whitman-
based poets, sandburg for instance.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 11:00:38 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "D. LaBeau" <dlabeau@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: Announcing/Call for Submissions EPR
Forwarded from Katherine Swiggart:
In April, 1996, the 1st issue of _Electronic Poetry Review_ will
be available on the internet. The Spring issue will feature an interview
with Jane Miller by Jorie Graham, & poetry by Etel Adnan, Rae
Armantrout, Marvin Bell, Frank Bidart, David Bromige, Mark Doty, James
Galvin, C.S. Giscombe, Jorie Graham, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Fanny
Howe, Timothy Liu, Bob Perelman, Bin Ramke, Tim Seibles, Spencer Selby,
Mark Strand, James Tate (& others.)
EPR will be published three times a year, & each issue will become
part of a developing on-line archive, available--at no subscription
cost--to an international community of writers, teachers, & readers of
poetry. The editors aim to publish the best of both experimental poetry
& more traditionally formal poetry, as well as interviews, essays on
poetics, & book reviews. _Electronic Poetry Review_ welcomes submissions
of poetry, essays or reviews from writers in or outside of the United
States. Requests for submission, & all other inquiries, should be
sent to the editors at EPR@www.poetry.org or, before May 15, to
swiggart@blue.weeg.uiowa
Editiors: Katherine Swiggart & Douglas Powell
Production editor: Davi Ottenheimer
Board of advisors & contributing editors: Marvin Bell, Jorie Graham,
David Hamilton, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Tom Sleigh
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 12:03:25 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: query abt stein/toklas
hey guyzies:
does anyone on this list know if Gertrude and Alice kept any semblance of
Jewish dietary laws? i don't own a copy of the cookbook, but if any of you
does, cd you take a quick glance and let me know if there are, for instance,
any pork or shellfish recipes, and if there are any recipes that combine
dairy products with meat (excluding fish) products? i'd be grateful, since
i'm trying to find concrete, identifiable clues about how they defined their
own Jewishness. Stein sez various things throughout her career; one piece
i;m looking at is "reverie of the zionist," where she claims Judaism must be
considered a religion, not a race or nationality, cuz she doesn't want to
move to Zion, but at the same time, considers her position an "expression of
Shem" --ie legitimately Jewish.
thanks--md
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 09:08:27 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Davidson <rdavidson@POPMAIL.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
Very interesting to hear about Spicer's role following the shooting. We
should remember that, although the shooter may have claimed disinterest in
his target, Parkinson at that time was a target for all sorts of right wing
animosity, due to his opposition to the Vietnam War and other political
activities. So if the shooter were looking for a warm (eg. pinkish) target
TP would be in the line of fire. Parkinson himself represented the shooting
as a political act.
md
At 06:20 PM 3/25/96 -0500, you wrote:
>i haven't heard any rexroth tapes from that show, but i believe he taped
>some of them (very early machine for doing that) from his home. linda
>hamalian would/should know about that, i guess. spicer's novel is pretty
>good on that side of rexroth's career, the author/authoritarian. speaking
>of spicer, he took over parkinson's classes after the shooting. the
>gunman, by the way, wrote about what he'd done and why, and if i remember
>correctly, he shot parkinson and the student for no other reason than
>that they were there; the intended victim was out of the building at
>the time. ---
> anyway, it would be interesting to track mcintyre down;
>considering how many people still reach rilke and the symbolists
>through his words, i should think it would be important to know
>something about his own work, and sensibility.
>
>
Michael Davidson
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 13:24:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jena Osman <josman@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Kellog's article and reification
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960326101853.27805C-100000
@godzilla4.acpub.duke.edu> from "David Kellogg" at Mar 26,
96 10:24:51 am
>
> Re: static poetry, I have a question for Charles Bernstein. In Chicago in
> December you read a hilarious point-by-point inversion of Charles Olson's
> PROJECTIVE VERSE. Is this out somewhere? I would like to reference it.
>
> Cheers,
> David
This piece will be printed in the next issue of _Chain_ (special topic:
hybrid genres/mixed media), which will be out sometime in May.
Jena Osman
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:10:15 GMT+1300
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: nea creative writing fellowships
'Quertzblatz' here you go. Drop your ' ' and be part of the
language.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 16:40:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: ye poetry city reading
Hear ye! hear ye! All ye poets in ye big city for ye talks
POETRY CITY READING THURSDAY MARCH 28
Rod Smith (Rod Smith!), author of _Ye Boy Poems_ and _In Memory of Ye
Theories_, and Loss Glazier (Loss Pequeno Glazier!), author of _Ye Parts_,
will be reading at POETRY CITY on Thursday, March 28, 6:30 p.m.
It's free. We'll have wine.
POETRY CITY is a wholly-owned (but free-standing and subversive) subsidiary
of Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 5 Union Square West, NY NY 10003.
______
Now as for desire, did anybody really ever "desire" anybody else? how many
men on when fear struck out. What's wrong with a little personification. I
beg your pardon. What's wrong with the category of desire. It's objectless.
Right. Pointless? Pointilist? Easter is a round the. What do you want to
happen. To save string. To save a nation. F Troop Penelope had no hair. The
thrill is back in the basement.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 18:51:18 -0800
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From: AARON SHURIN <ashurin@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: O'Hara's ghost
In-Reply-To: <01I2SI4LCR609EG1UU@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
I talked to Don Allen today about the aforementioned "ghost" book of
O'Hara's letters. Said he'd been working on it with O's sister
(?Maureen?), but they weren't able, back then, to find a publisher. Then
she was working on another version with Rod Padgett, but they stopped
working together. According to Don, he offered to Maureen to publish a
selected letters, but she didn't want that. In any case, the letters
hadn't really been edited, ie annotated.
Don is, though, preparing a new edition of O'Hara's POEMS RETRIEVED, and
of course UC has issued in paperback the Collected.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 22:26:55 -0500
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From: jms <jms@TIAC.NET>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
Entries in ABT Cookbook
Pork
Rilettes
Roast Pork Normandy
Veal and Pork Meat Loaf
Lots of shellfish also.
Save to say no to semblance of Jewish dietary laws.
--Juliana
>hey guyzies:
>does anyone on this list know if Gertrude and Alice kept any semblance of
>Jewish dietary laws? i don't own a copy of the cookbook, but if any of you
>does, cd you take a quick glance and let me know if there are, for instance,
>any pork or shellfish recipes, and if there are any recipes that combine
>dairy products with meat (excluding fish) products? i'd be grateful, since
>i'm trying to find concrete, identifiable clues about how they defined their
>own Jewishness. Stein sez various things throughout her career; one piece
>i;m looking at is "reverie of the zionist," where she claims Judaism must be
>considered a religion, not a race or nationality, cuz she doesn't want to
>move to Zion, but at the same time, considers her position an "expression of
>Shem" --ie legitimately Jewish.
>thanks--md
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 20:00:27 -0800
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From: Gary Hawkins <ghawkins@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Visual Poetry
>>If you want information about the Australian concrete poetry scene, contact
>>TT.O. (greek symbols Pi and Omicron) and thalia c/o
>>Collective Effort Press
>>P.O. Box 2430V GPO Melbourne, Australia
>>
>>They printed an anthology of works by TT.O. (say Pi O), thalia, ACR, Jas
>>Duke, and loads of others who continue today. Also, they can hook you up
>>with the Italian scene, namely a dictionary of women's language using
>>concrete poetry.
>>Tell them you got the info from Laura Hope-Gill; give 'em my best.
>>
>>Laura Hope-Gill c/o GHawkins
>
>
>There was a CD tribute to Jas Duke in an issue of Going Down Swinging a
>year or so back. Also the latest issue of Southerly has a collection of
>articles on pi0. Australian Writing On Line will shortly be making GDS
>available through its Virtual Bookshop (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/).
>If can't wait email AWOL at awol@ozemail.com.au and they can give you more
>details.
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Mark Roberts
>Student Systems Project Officer
>Information Systems
>University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
>M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au
>PH:(02)351 5066
>FAX:(02)351 5081
Dear Mark,
Thanks for the AWOL e-address as well as the lead to the TT.O. articles in
Southerly. Could you tell me Southerly's e-address as I'd love to get a
copy.
I'm glad to learn of GDS going electronic via AWOL's electronic bookshop.
It's a great magazine-- is Myron Lysenko still heading it up? Is Jas being
read in Australia outside of the GDS subscribers? WAR and PEACE is an
excellent book of poems, as with all poems published by the Collective
Effort Press. I'm glad the CD project worked-- it was a first, wasn't it--
after the 45 included with Off the Record. Couldn't have honored a greater
voice, I think. That voice.
Thanks again.
Laura Hope-Gill
laurahopegill@halcyon.com
c/o ghawkins@halcyon.com (shared list to avoid double sending)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 20:12:44 -0800
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From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT newsletter at EPC
The address of the SPT newsletter will change a bit in the future, but
right now you can access it at the Electronic Poetry Center at:
http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/spt/sptS96_toc.html
Thanks to John Keeling for the wonderful work he did in creating this
electronic version.
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 23:21:18 -0500
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From: Charles Bernstein <poetics@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Introjective Verse (reply to David Kellog)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960326101853.27805C-100000@godzilla4.acpub.duke.edu>
In reply to David Kellogg --
> Re: static poetry, I have a question for Charles Bernstein. In Chicago in
> December you read a hilarious point-by-point inversion of Charles Olson's
> PROJECTIVE VERSE. Is this out somewhere? I would like to reference it.
"Introjective Verse" will be in the immediately forthcoming issue of
CHAIN, ed. Juliana Spahr and Jena Osman: Chain / 3.
I wrote this over the summer in response to a request by Olivier Cadiot
and Pierre Alferi to do something on "Projective Verse" for a "speed"
issue of their periodical incroyable _Revue de litterature generale_
and it will be, I think, in the 2d number of the review, in a translation
divided into hexameters._
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 19:15:05 -0800
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
Michael,
"Parkinson at that time was a target for all sorts of right wing
animosity, due to his opposition to the Vietnam War and other political
activities" Your timing is off.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident, if it had actually happened, was the 4th
of August, 1964, something like 8 years AFTER the shooting (but one day
before I became eligible for the draft). Still, Parkinson, who was a
cantankerous fellow not given much to collective action, had long been
an active supporter of professors like Tolman, who'd lost his job (and
career) over his refusal to sign the loyalty oath. This was a 50s
McCarthy backlash shooting, basically.
[I recall there being a lot of controversy right here in Philadelphia,
where I happened to be at the time, at somebody carrying a "Don't Laos
Me Up" sign on a Hiroshima Day march at City Hall in 1964 -- there was
no antiwar movement to speak of then, even as US involvement had been
stepping up for some time. Madame Nhu spoke at the Greek Theater in 63
or 64 with virtually no protest. I met Dean Rusk and Adlai Stevenson
who were in town for that occasion--I was the "lawn boy" for Rusk's
sister in law on Marin Ave in Berkeley--and they had virtually no
security with them. Unthinkable just two years later.]
So Parkinson was shot before. Before the HUAC demonstrations of 1959 --
the first "student riot" of the post WW2 generation -- in San Francisco
City Hall, before Tracy Simms and the Auto Row sit-ins on Van Ness
Avenue (around 1962), and before the "shop-ins" at Luckys on Telegraph
Ave in (across from what is now Cody's) or the CORE picketing of
Spengers in Berkeley and the restaurants around Jack London Square
(which led to the crackdown on "campus organizing" that led by way of
response to Jack Weinberg getting arrested for the simple act of
setting up a card table and being held in the police car in Sproul
Plaza for 36 hours as students refused to let the cops take him
downtown, the first "event" of the Free Speech Movement (and that was
still a year ahead of the first Vietnam Day Teach-in).
Here's a question: Were Spicer, Duncan, Parkinson, Blaser, Rexroth or
any of the others around at the time involved in the 3 or 4 day general
strike that occurred in Oakland in 1949, the last such to be truly
attempted (and successful to the degree that people did go out) in the
US? This was the same year that KPFA was founded (Rexroth was active in
that and Spicer had a folk music program for a little while).
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 22:41:44 +0000
Reply-To: jzitt@humansystems.com
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: Authenticated sender is <jzitt@bga.com>
From: Joseph Zitt <jzitt@HUMANSYSTEMS.COM>
Organization: HumanSystems
Subject: Sound Poetry ensemble live at Austin Festival
(More shameless self-promotion; the group includes several members of
this list.)
"Question Authority, The", Dallas's almost all-star sound poetry
ensemble, will make its Austin debut at the Fourth Annual Austin
International Poetry Festival. The ensemble will perform at Book
People at 6th and Lamar on Saturday, March 30 at 5:30 PM.
"Question Authority, The" is a performance collective, exploring the
borders between poetry and music and between composition and
improvisation.
The ensemble includes former Austinites Joseph Zitt and Ric Speed, and
Fran Carris, Tim Cloward, Debi Tannenbaum, and Tim Wood. This
performance focuses on original work by ensemble members and includes
the group's arrangement of a work by poet Allen Ginsberg.
The Festival's opening ceremony, on Friday at 4:30 PM at MexicArte at
5th and Congress, features the premiere of "Inaugural" by Joseph Zitt,
performed in a version for two tubas, string bass, and three speakers,
by Austin's ensemble Batrachomyomachia and special guests. The
composition recombines presidential speeches and American folk tunes
in unpredictable ways. Zitt will also lead a workshop on sound poetry
on Friday at 3 PM at Book People.
Fran Carris and Tim Wood, editor and publisher of the Dallas arts
monthly the Word, will create an the official festival Video Poem at
the Electric Lounge that Saturday afternoon at 2 PM, preceded by their
Video Poetry workshop at 5 PM on Friday. They will also be
coordinating the creation of an on-the-spot festival anthology Friday
night at the Green Room.
More information on the Festival can be found on the World Wide Web at
http://www.hyperweb.com/poetry
---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1----------
|||/ Joseph Zitt ==== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \|||
||/ Organizer, SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List \||
|/<A HREF="http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/">Joe Zitt's Home Page</A>\|
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 02:19:51 -0400
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From: Mark W Scroggins <mscroggi@ACC.FAU.EDU>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
In-Reply-To: <960326120325_256364869@mail04>
Maria:
I don't have the cookbook either, but I thought of the Autobiography (p.
12 in the Selected Writings volume): "She did not like the stranger's
looks. Who is that, said she to Alfy. I didn't bring him, said Alfy.
he looks like a Jew, said Gertrude Stein, he is worse than that, says
Alfy." How do you read the tone of that?
And where is the "Zionist" piece you mentioned?
Cheers,
Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 00:10:13 -0800
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From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
Regarding the shooting of Thomas Parkinson-I know a little bit!
Ed Foster is almost correct, but wrong to suppose that the gunman had no
motive beyond "he was there." In addition, Jack Spicer didn't take over
Parkinson's classes but merely helped Josephine Miles and others grade
papers for him while he recuperated.
Michael Davidson pretty much hits the nail on the head but just places the
date a little late. Ron Silliman's dating is too early.
Parkinson was shot in his office, January 18, 1961. The assailant
proposed to open World War III by an assault on "liberals" in this, the
still highly charged aftermath of the McCarthy era. He wounded Parkinson
and killed a graduate student who happened to be conferring at the
professor's desk. The killer was a student obsessed with anti-Communism
and indeed believed Parkinson to be a communist since he had defended in
the student newspaper the students Ron alludes to who participated in the
famous sit-in at San Francisco City Hall. This is the incident that opens
up the documentary of a few years back, "Berkeley in the Sixties" (and
isn't the Parkinson incident featured in that film too?) Parkinson, who
died four years ago, recounted the story to me and Lew Ellingham as we were
interviewing him, in June of 1991, for our projected biography of Spicer,
with heavy emphasis on the terrible waste of the young graduate student's
life.
Hope this helps! -Kevin Killian
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 09:35:54 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
hi mark, i read the passage you cite from the autobiography ambiguously.
part of this is, i think, an example of "subaltern humor," in Renato
Rosaldo's phrase --an instance of the marginalized using oneself as the butt
of quasi-hostile humor (see, natch, freud on this). the zionist piece is in
Painted Lace, vol 5 of the posthumously collected.
anyone else got insights on this optic, i mean topic? i'm having a dickens of
a time with this essay cuz there's just too much to say.
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:52:29 -0600
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From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: robinson jeffers/west coast scene
In the mid-70's at Stanford, at least by Al Gelpi, Jeffers was taught as one
of the major 20th Century poets post-Pound/Williams, along with such as John
Crowe Ransom. Whereas Zukofsky was never mentioned and, although I think
Olson was mentioned, it was in passing. The way I began to read Olson out of
that Stanford undergraduate context was that, after Donald Davie read a poem
by Dorn on the 18th Century explorer John Ledyard ("Ledyard: The Exhaustion
of Sheer Distance") in the context of a late 18th Century British poetry
class (Johnson/Smart/Gray and some others), I went out and found books by
Dorn which led me to Olson and much else. But if one had stuck to the
syllabus in the mid-20th Century poetry classes, one would have left
thinking of Jeffers as a major poet. When I left California in mid-1976 and
found that others had either never heard, or barely heard, of Jeffers, I
thought of him more as a major regional poet (in terms of his reputation).
>jeffers' primary connection to later west coast work was william everson,
>whose early poems are deeply jeffers. after that, the line gets very
>thin although i believe you can find it mixed in with early beat writing.
>but rexroth didn't like him, despite everson's enthusiasm, and that
>certainly didn't help things. jeffers is certainly of his time, and i
>don't much care for his long works, but there are a number of short
>pieces that still seem very strong--unlike the work of other whitman-
>based poets, sandburg for instance.
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 10:41:59 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
"I saw all this to prove that Judaism should be a question of religion..."
[not race] "I don't want to go to Zion." GS, "Reverie"
If Judaism is a question of religion, then I'm inclined to think Stein's not
all that "interested" in being a Jew. Sort of in the same way that she's
not all that interested in being a woman if that means having to be
"religiously" involved in feminism/women's causes. In _Making of Americans_
she talks about how religious her grandfathers were, how it was religion
that made them "feel important in their being" (paraphrasing, I don't have
the book w/me)...that was the function of their religiousness [sic] as far
as she writes, and Stein clearly didn't need it to feel important in HER
being. I guess I read the passage in Autobio of ABT
the same way you did, Maria, but also--it seems to me that Stein's very
aware of stereotypes & in some cheeky sense believes in & promotes
them...when they apply to groups she happens to be, technically, a part of,
this doesn't change. But it's hard for me to see, from her writing, Stein
thinking of herself much as a "woman" or a "Jew"...her chosen identities
being, as far as I can tell, American, genius, and "brother singular." e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com
"I mistrust your bitch."--nietzsche
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 10:52:03 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Wallace <mdw@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU>
Subject: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
The AWP Chronicle this month has a number of remarkably deluded articles
about the nature of poetic form, in case anyone's interested--it ties in
quite nicely with some of our recent talk about the politics of poetic
form.
Ira Sadoff's "Modernism and Continuing Myths of Form" actually has a
good, engaged reading of poems by Lyn Heijinian and John Ashbery among
others, but his historical confusion seems immense. He writes: "In the
past thirty years the premises behind Modernism have been widely
refuted"--what he means by Modernism, apparently, is the New Criticism as
forrmulated according to him to a great extent by Cleanth Brooks.
Although T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stephens are mentioned, Sadoff's example
of "Modernist poetic closure" is a poem by James Wright. Modernism=Poetic
Closure is the underlying assumption of his article.
Annie Finch's "Conspicuous Repetition and the Multiplicity of Forms"
starts by saying that, until recently, she believed that "formal poetry" was
"metric poetry." But in editing the anthology "A Formal Feeling Comes:
POems in Form by Contemporary Women," she received many "non-metrical"
poems which the writers in question nonetheless considered "formal."
Finch wrestles with the oddity of this notion, and finally decides that
"formal poetry" includes poems that "play to the human potential for
childlike or ceremonial language; found something powerful in a poetic
language that was rhetorical rather than natural; answered the desire for
language to become more than the sum of its ordinary parts." She then
defines formal poetry--"Formal poems are structured by the conspicious
repetition of any language element"--not a bad definition, actually,
although she remains quite unaware of how many types of poetry she's
ignoring. Finch then lets a number of contemporary women poets speak
about their own interests in form, which I won't summarize here.
Frederick Turner's article "The Inner Meaning Of POetic Form" begins "It
is becoming clear at this moment that the most dynamic and promising
trend in poetry today is the expansive movement, or the New Formalism, as
it is also known." Need I say more?
I thought I would post this just in case anybody out there was
thinking that there was no longer any need to argue for or promote the
significance of "avant garde" work--we can argue all day about what to
call it, but the fact of the matter is that highly "official" creative
writing professional publications still often act as if it doesn't even
exist.
Mark Wallace
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:54:37 -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 <tenney@AZSTARNET.COM>
Subject: caveat webber
Mike Magoolaghan--
your interesting looking www page (which I found through Alta Vista, an
amazing search engine) has now crashed my computer twice (each time I've
tried to load the page: one of those serious Windows 3.1 major GPFs that
dumps you right back into cold unadorned reality).
Is anyone else having this problem?
or, Mike: what I ever do to you?
best,
Tenney
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:09:34 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Davidson <rdavidson@POPMAIL.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
ron...thanks for the corrections. I think TP, in interviews with me, may
have encouraged such conflations of dates. On the other hand, I thought the
shooting was later than this...in which case Spicer couldn't have been his
TA. So when was the shooting exactly? I've lost the original post. Was it,
indeed, in the 1940's? I had thought it was an incident of the 1960s. Now
I'm all confused. Please clarify.
(I don't know about the 1949 strike)
MD
At 07:15 PM 3/26/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Michael,
>
>"Parkinson at that time was a target for all sorts of right wing
>animosity, due to his opposition to the Vietnam War and other political
>activities" Your timing is off.
>
>The Gulf of Tonkin incident, if it had actually happened, was the 4th
>of August, 1964, something like 8 years AFTER the shooting (but one day
>before I became eligible for the draft). Still, Parkinson, who was a
>cantankerous fellow not given much to collective action, had long been
>an active supporter of professors like Tolman, who'd lost his job (and
>career) over his refusal to sign the loyalty oath. This was a 50s
>McCarthy backlash shooting, basically.
>
>[I recall there being a lot of controversy right here in Philadelphia,
>where I happened to be at the time, at somebody carrying a "Don't Laos
>Me Up" sign on a Hiroshima Day march at City Hall in 1964 -- there was
>no antiwar movement to speak of then, even as US involvement had been
>stepping up for some time. Madame Nhu spoke at the Greek Theater in 63
>or 64 with virtually no protest. I met Dean Rusk and Adlai Stevenson
>who were in town for that occasion--I was the "lawn boy" for Rusk's
>sister in law on Marin Ave in Berkeley--and they had virtually no
>security with them. Unthinkable just two years later.]
>
>So Parkinson was shot before. Before the HUAC demonstrations of 1959 --
>the first "student riot" of the post WW2 generation -- in San Francisco
>City Hall, before Tracy Simms and the Auto Row sit-ins on Van Ness
>Avenue (around 1962), and before the "shop-ins" at Luckys on Telegraph
>Ave in (across from what is now Cody's) or the CORE picketing of
>Spengers in Berkeley and the restaurants around Jack London Square
>(which led to the crackdown on "campus organizing" that led by way of
>response to Jack Weinberg getting arrested for the simple act of
>setting up a card table and being held in the police car in Sproul
>Plaza for 36 hours as students refused to let the cops take him
>downtown, the first "event" of the Free Speech Movement (and that was
>still a year ahead of the first Vietnam Day Teach-in).
>
>Here's a question: Were Spicer, Duncan, Parkinson, Blaser, Rexroth or
>any of the others around at the time involved in the 3 or 4 day general
>strike that occurred in Oakland in 1949, the last such to be truly
>attempted (and successful to the degree that people did go out) in the
>US? This was the same year that KPFA was founded (Rexroth was active in
>that and Spicer had a folk music program for a little while).
>
>Ron Silliman
>
>
Michael Davidson
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:09:51 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Davidson <rdavidson@POPMAIL.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: The Bay scene in 1950s
Whew, thanks Kevin...I thought that TP had been shot somewhat later than the
time that RD and JS were students there. Now another query--was the incident
also related to Parkinson's stance on the Loyalty Oath controversy--that was
certainly in the news by that time.
MD
At 12:10 AM 3/27/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Regarding the shooting of Thomas Parkinson-I know a little bit!
>
>Ed Foster is almost correct, but wrong to suppose that the gunman had no
>motive beyond "he was there." In addition, Jack Spicer didn't take over
>Parkinson's classes but merely helped Josephine Miles and others grade
>papers for him while he recuperated.
>
>Michael Davidson pretty much hits the nail on the head but just places the
>date a little late. Ron Silliman's dating is too early.
>
>Parkinson was shot in his office, January 18, 1961. The assailant
>proposed to open World War III by an assault on "liberals" in this, the
>still highly charged aftermath of the McCarthy era. He wounded Parkinson
>and killed a graduate student who happened to be conferring at the
>professor's desk. The killer was a student obsessed with anti-Communism
>and indeed believed Parkinson to be a communist since he had defended in
>the student newspaper the students Ron alludes to who participated in the
>famous sit-in at San Francisco City Hall. This is the incident that opens
>up the documentary of a few years back, "Berkeley in the Sixties" (and
>isn't the Parkinson incident featured in that film too?) Parkinson, who
>died four years ago, recounted the story to me and Lew Ellingham as we were
>interviewing him, in June of 1991, for our projected biography of Spicer,
>with heavy emphasis on the terrible waste of the young graduate student's
>life.
>
>Hope this helps! -Kevin Killian
>
>
Michael Davidson
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:15:21 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: Re: query abt stein/toklas
dear Maria -- Regarding Stein, David Antin used to read (or to suggest
reading) THE MAKING OF AMERICANS as a great shtetl novel -- certainly an
immigrant account though with the jewishness (I think) sub rosa. In A BIG
JEWISH BOOK I present her with lines from Patriarchal Poetry and sections
from A
Sonatina Followed by Another, including (as long as we're on the question
of did she follow the dietary laws etc) the following Jewish love song
(earlir subtitled "the song of Alice B":
"Willy nilly with a roasted kid, how you can you be so delicious and give it
to the cat. I gave to the cat because we were uncomfortable. We are not
naturally uncomfortable, we are a little nervous. I took a piece of pork
and I stuck it on a fork and I gave it to curly headed jew jew jew. I want
my little jew to be round like a pork, a young round pork with a cork for
his tail. A young round pork. I want my little jew to be round like a
young round pork. I do."
More that in the surrounding sections.
All best
JERRY
ps. When as a kid I first began reading Stein, my mother asked me (good
naturedly, I should add): "What makes you so interested in that 'alte
yiddeneh'?" Somewhere, I remember, Gertrude refers to herself in somewhat
the same way -- but likely with a different tonality. She was also not
beyond a certain fashionable (if possibly defensive) anti-semitism --
as in the passage Mark came up with. But that much is par for the course.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 08:20:23 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
I'm thinking of the instructive friendship between Stein and Laura Riding .
. . seems to me that part of their bonding (unusual for both women) was
some kind of Jewish connection. Wasn't it Stein, who had visited there,
who recommended Mallorca to Riding in the first place? And didn't she do
so knowing Riding's desire for a kind of Old Testament Zion (I don't have
the letters with me)-Mallorca as the place where the early Jewish mariners
had established a homeland? Or maybe Emily is right and they were just
these 2 American footloose geniuses who recognized each other neither as
women nor Jews.-Kevin Killian, God, do I sound dumb today.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 11:59:09 +0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Semansky <writcks@SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: EPR
Has anyone tried (successfully) to e-mail _Electronic Poetry Review_ . I
keep getting a "host unknown" response to the two addresses listed in
recent posts.
chris s.
***************************************************************************
"The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus: In the beginning
there was nothing, which exploded." -Terry Pratchett
*****************************************************************************
Chris Semansky
Campus Writing Program
325 General Classroom Building
University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, MO 65211
573-884-7310
writcks@showme.missouri.edu
http://www.missouri.edu/~writcks
***************************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:44:36 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 27 Mar 1996 10:52:03 -0500 from
<mdw@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 10:52:03 -0500 Mark Wallace said:
>
>Frederick Turner's article "The Inner Meaning Of POetic Form" begins "It
>is becoming clear at this moment that the most dynamic and promising
>trend in poetry today is the expansive movement, or the New Formalism, as
>it is also known." Need I say more?
>
> I thought I would post this just in case anybody out there was
>thinking that there was no longer any need to argue for or promote the
>significance of "avant garde" work--we can argue all day about what to
>call it, but the fact of the matter is that highly "official" creative
>writing professional publications still often act as if it doesn't even
>exist.
Are there some connections between reaching a "mainstream" audience,
the kind of "official" (pseudo?) notice & canonization Mark's talking
about, and formal & rhetorical "finish"? I'm thinking not only of
Mark's post but of Chas. Alexander's comments about Jeffers/Olson etc.
The New Formerlists call for more "finish" - and Jeffers too displayed
much formal/rhetorical flourish & finish - but ironically it also
"finishes" them, at least for a certain readerly audience (i.e. Charles
demoting Jeffers to a "regional" writer).
Olson, on the other hand, seems to relish the notational, the
marginal, the unfinished, the incomplete - the ragbag - and I think this
exerts both an artistic and political pull on readers in the future -
readers as interpreters of dark, unfinished speech; readers as
participants in unfinished projects; readers as political participants
in unachieved communities...
There's plenty of e*x*p*e*r*i*m*e*n*t*a*l work that displays
high polish & finish - but according to rules & rhetoric not easily
grasped. Then, there's multilevel work - four-fold allegory, for
example - with a surface narrative - a surface finish - which if you
don't interpret through, leaves you high dry & reified on the surface.
(Maybe Frost played at this, in a sometimes heavy-handed way.)
Hermeneutics is the sister of Poetics; without her, it's all
Medusa-reified.
New name for avant-garde or experimental - Unfinished Poetry?
(two branches - Unfinished Young Informalists; Unfinished Coterie
Formalists)...
Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:11:53 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: EPR
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 27 Mar 1996 11:59:09 +0400 from
<writcks@SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 11:59:09 +0400 Chris Semansky said:
>Has anyone tried (successfully) to e-mail _Electronic Poetry Review_ . I
>keep getting a "host unknown" response to the two addresses listed in
>recent posts.
>
Yes - but you have to add "edu" at the end of the address she gave,
...uiowa.edu
HG
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:31:57 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michelle Roberts <meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: EPR
In-Reply-To: <v01510105ad7ea503ab3b@[128.206.30.203]>
NO. I just tried to email ERP not five minutes ago, and the post was
returned. I have no idea what the problem is. I posted to the swiggart
address. Did you?
More Luck,
M.
Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world...
Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature |
The University of Texas at Dallas |
Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:42:23 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michelle Roberts <meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96032714173221@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
HI, it seems I have an oppurtunity to enter this discussion. I happen to
study with Dr. Turner from time to time here a UTD. He and I disagree on
the vitality and the politics of the New Formalism. My attitude in
conversation with him has been, "Well, ok, but there are lots of textures
*out there* in the world that highly polished and formal poetry won't
*jive* with. Sonnets, for instance, describe and assume an orderly
universe, and orderly and relatively uncontested social order.
Fred's ideas about formalism arise from the context of an entire social
project which he descirbes to my dissatisfaction in -The Culture of Hope-
which is basically that the Englightenment was right,and we got it wrong,
so let's go back. This is a gross and unfinished representation of his
argument, but if anyone's curious about it I could try to represent Fred,
or I could turn him on to the list for a while.
Lastly, I'm not even too thrilled that the avant garde has a name at all;
that name is a convenient tag which allows its diserate projects, modes,
goals and textures to be lumped together and dismissed. I'd rather we
had to talk about one poet, painter, sculptor, etc at a time and really
do the work of adressing the work.
Hoping to hear,
M.
Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world...
Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature |
The University of Texas at Dallas |
Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:08:27 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: EPR
me, too, i.e. no success in getting the e-mail through. where's the pony
express?
charles
>Has anyone tried (successfully) to e-mail _Electronic Poetry Review_ . I
>keep getting a "host unknown" response to the two addresses listed in
>recent posts.
>
>chris s.
>
> ***************************************************************************
>"The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus: In the beginning
>there was nothing, which exploded." -Terry Pratchett
> *****************************************************************************
> Chris Semansky
> Campus Writing Program
> 325 General Classroom Building
> University of Missouri-Columbia
> Columbia, MO 65211
> 573-884-7310
> writcks@showme.missouri.edu
> http://www.missouri.edu/~writcks
> ***************************************************************************
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:24:15 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
>Lastly, I'm not even too thrilled that the avant garde has a name at all;
>that name is a convenient tag which allows its diserate projects, modes,
>goals and textures to be lumped together and dismissed. I'd rather we
>had to talk about one poet, painter, sculptor, etc at a time and really
>do the work of adressing the work.
I do think we have to talk about each artist, although no work exists
without a context, and many times it makes sense to speak of more than one
artist at a time and to try to find out how different ones speak to/with
each other. This can make for movements, but it doesn't always. It certainly
does not make for one united "avant garde" movement; neither is there one
united mainstream out from which the avant garde erupts. So I agree and
disagree with you. I think there is a danger in speaking about "one poet,
painter, sculpture" at a time to then go on to speak of one work at a time
and get back into a sort of new critical approach which removes the work of
art from the world, and I hope that's not what we want.
Everything I have heard about the New Formalist movement makes me want to be
far away from it, although I wonder about what you report as Turner's sense
that New Formalism thinks the Enlightenment was right and we got it wrong
after that. Just that I believe that any school of thought that truly thinks
of the Enlightenment as enlightened in some singular way is reducing that
period's complexity. After all, it not only gave us Samuel Johnson's Vanity
of Human Wishes, but also Christopher Smart's Song to David and Jubilate
Agno, and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. And even a lot of reading in
Johnson can cause one to question the supposed Reason of this Age.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:41:11 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: EPR
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:08:27 -0600 from <chax@MTN.ORG>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:08:27 -0600 Charles Alexander said:
>me, too, i.e. no success in getting the e-mail through. where's the pony
>express?
>
>charles
>
>>Has anyone tried (successfully) to e-mail _Electronic Poetry Review_ . I
>>keep getting a "host unknown" response to the two addresses listed in
>>recent posts.
--Add "edu" to end of address. I.e. swiggart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
Worked for me. - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:49:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: (Fwd) PBS, NPR (National Public Radio)
I think this has already been circulated around here, i remember signing a
similar petition a month or so back, but my name wasn't on here, so it's
going around again...
eryque
>> Public Broadcasting Petition
>>
>> PLEASE read, sign, and forward
>>
>> PBS, NPR (National Public Radio), and the arts are facing major cutbacks
>> in funding. In spite of the efforts of each station to reduce spending
>> costs and streamline their services, the government officials believe
>that
>> the funding currently going to these programs is too large a portion of
>> funding for something which is seen as "unworthwhile".
>>
>> Currently, taxes from the general public for PBS equal $1.12 per person
>per
>> year, and the National Endowment for the Arts equals $.64 a year in
>total.
>> A January 1995 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicated that 76% of
>Americans
>> wish to keep funding for PBS, third only to national defense and law
>> enforcement as the most valuable programs for federal funding.
>>
>> Each year, the Senate and House Appropriations commitees each have 13
>> subcommitees with jurisdiction over many programs and agencies. Each
>> subcommitee passes its own appropriation bill. The goal each year is to
>> have each bill signed by the beginning of the fiscal year, which is
>> October 1.
>>
>> In the instance of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the
>> bill determines the funding for the next three years. When this issue
>comes
>> up in 1996, the funding will be determined for fiscal years1996-1998.
>>
>> The only way that our representatives can be aware of the base of
>support
>> for PBS and funding for these types of programs is by making our voices
>> heard. Please add your name to this list if you believe in what we
>stand
>> for. This list will be forwarded to the President of the United States,
>the
>> Vice President of the United States, and Representative Newt Gingrich,
>who
>> is the instigator of the action to cut funding to these worthwhile
>> programs.
>>
>> If you happen to be the 50th, 100th, 150th, etc. signer of this
>petition,
>> please forward a copy to wein2688@blue.univnorthco.edu. If that address
>is
>> inoperative, please send it to kubi7975@blue.univnorthco.edu. This way
>we
>> can keep track of the lists and organize them. Forward this to everyone
>you
>> know, and help us to keep these programs alive.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>>
>> 1. Elizabeth Weinert, student, University of Northern Colorado,
>Greeley, CO
>> 2. Nikki Marchman, student, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley,
>CO
>> 3. Laura King, Salt Lake City, UT
>> 4. Mary Lambert, San Francisco, CA
>> 5. Sam Tucker, Seattle, WA
>> 6. Steve Mack, Seattle, WA
>> 7. Stacy Shelley, Sub Pop Records, Seattle, WA
>> 8. Kerri Harrop, Sub Pop Records, Seattle, WA
>> 9. Christopher Langkamp, Crustacean Records, Milwaukee, WI
>> 10. Todd Streicher, Flyswatter Inc., Madison, WI
>> 11. David Beining, Explora Science Center, Albuquerque, NM
>> 12. Tracy Dingmann, writer, Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, NM
>> 13. Johnny Snyder, mathematician, University of NM
>> 14. Paul M. Bennett, mathematician, University of New Mexico,
>Albuquerque, NM
>> 15. Nicolas Robidoux, mathematician, University of New Mexico,
>Albuquerque,
>>NM
>> 16. Laura Ring, Research Analyst, Div. of Gov. Research, UNM,
>>Albuquerque, NM
>> 17. Leonard Plunkett, Career Resources, Career Services, UNM, Albuq, NM
>> 18. Bart Norman, Career Services, UNM, Albuqu. NM
>> 19. Louise Edwards, Career Services, UNM, Albuq. NM
>> 20. Lynne A. Sampson, MPH, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
>> 21. Jennifer Doherty Mitra, MS, University of Illinois at Chicago,
>Chicago,
>>IL
>> 22. Dan Doherty, M.D. Ph.D. student, UCSF Medical School, SF, CA
>> 23. Taara Eden Hoffman, Publicity & Promotions Director, Wired Magazine
>> 24. Allison Moseley, Foreign Circulation, Wired Magazine
>> 25. Kristina Pappas, IDG Books Worldwide Inc.
>> 26. Sam Tucker, Progressive Networks, Inc.
>> 27. Holly Baldwin, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley
>> 28. Erik Wieland, Stanford University
>> 29. Geoff Pitfield, LMI
>> 30. Kristin Burns, Administrator, Stanford University
>> 31. Sean Burns, Manager, Fontana's Italian, Menlo Park, CA
>> 32. Karen Anderson, Marketing, Klutz Press
>> 33. Tom Borthwick, Editorial Tester, Scholastic Inc.
>> 34. David Borthwick, math professor, Univ. of Michigan
>> 35. Peter de Boor, musician, Ypsilanti, MI
>> 36. Carl de Boor, mathematician, Madison, WI
>> 37. Paul Nevai, Dept. Math., The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
>43210
>> 38. Larry Hatfield, Mathematics Education, The University of Georgia,
>>Athens, GA 30602
>> 39. John Olive, Mathematics Education, The University of Georgia,
>>Athens, GA 30602
>>40. John Benson, Mathematics Teacher, Evanston Illinois, 60202
>>41. Lesley Williams, Librarian, Evanston Illinois, 60201
>>42. Gordon Hazen, engineering professor, Northwestern University,
>Evanston
>IL 60208
>>43. Marilyn Justman, consultant, Evanston, IL 60202
>>44. Bennett C. Weaver, consultant, Oak Park, IL 60302
>>45. Harvey S. Millman, technical writer, Evanston, IL 60202
>46. Kristen R. Stenglein, technical writer, Des Plaines, IL 60016
>47. Joe Amato, English professor, Chicago, IL 60615
>48. Kassie Fleisher, English professor, Chicago, IL 60615
>
>
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 16:41:09 -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: Jeffers and Spicer
In-Reply-To: <199603271452.IAA10592@freedom.mtn.org> from "Charles Alexander"
at Mar 27, 96 08:52:29 am
It was actually Spicer who led me to Jeffers:
A redwood forest is not invisible at night. The blackness
covers it but it covers the blackness.
If they had turned Jeffers into parking lot death would
have been eliminated and birth also. The lights shine 24 hours a
day on a parking lot.
True conversation is the effort of the artist and the private
man to keep things true. Trees and the cliffs in Big Sur breathe
in the dark. Jeffers knew the pain of their breathe and the pain
was the death of a first-born baby breathing.
Death is not final. Only parking lots.
--from "Thing Language"
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 17:04:45 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Barry MacSweeney
There have been a few -- too many -- announcements of poets' deaths on this list
recently. It's a pleasure to report on a poet's coming back to life.
Barry MacSweeney gave his first reading in some years last night (27 March), at
the Three Cups, London, in the SubVoicive reading series. To say Barry has been
unwell recently is something of an understatement -- he has been struggling with
his alcoholism, and has been reportedly and on his own admission close to death.
But he's fighting back, and last night's reading counts as a triumph.
Looking thin and somewhat fragile, he nevertheless delivered a robust,
courageous and moving reading from his unpublished Book of Demons (I think it's
called) and from Pearl, recently published by Equipage -- revealing that his
linguistic inventiveness and energy are undiminished. He got warm and heartfelt
applause from the audience of about 30 or so.
Barry's Trigram Press book Odes (1978) was for me one of the defining moments in
the new British poetry. Other books include Black Torch (1978) and Ranter
(1985).
The supporting act was Peter Manson, an excellent young Scottish poet and the
co-editor of Object Permanence, one of the most interesting mags in the UK
today. I hope there'll be a book on its way from him.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 17:07:17 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Mark: I think the question isn't "why aren't the marginalized advance-
guarde better represented in AWP" but rather "why do we as writers
return to the same journals and expect different results?"Can't say I
ever bought a good vegetarian meal at McDonalds. Since I know what
kind of material to expect, that rarely bothers me. Instead, what I
found annoying in this article were the lapses in logic, such as the
statement that "language (should) become more than the sum of its
ordinary parts." As if this bears relevance to the specific instance
of formal poetry, as if the ordinary parts of the phoneme and morpheme
or of whole words really control the sucess of the piece. THERE ARE NO
ORDINARY PARTS, unless of course they had chosen an awful piece.> The
effect of the Operator implying the unsaid through sound,
page-placement, line break, etc. are all unordinary parts, that is to
say they are parts specifically chosen for the piece with the utmost
scrutiny.
Dictators never jail literary critics - Simic
David Baratier
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 17:18:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
re: "unfinished"ness --this is precisely what i find exciting about much
poetry that is not taken seriously by either New Formalists or, judging from
the thematics of list discussions, many folks on the POETRICKS list. open
mikes, slams, topical poetry, and micro-poetries that abound in households,
neighborhoods, therapeutic venues, and various dissident traditions often
seem, to formally trained folks, to lack "finish" or sophistication. cf our
recent "charmingly naive" discussion. this is part of their power. it's a
strength, as i see it, an opening to the reader's engagement, in the way that
a line of conversation in "unfinished" in that it actively anticipates
particpation rather than rapt consumption. --mari a d
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 17:18:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
thanks everyone, for all the response. it's all central to my thinking along
these many crisscrossing and spiraling lines. my own sense is that Stein was
deeply opposed to a sense of Jewishness as a "race" that had to have a
"nation," as Reverie of a Zionist makes clear. she felt, of course, that
such a position limited her autonomy, her freedom of choice to construct her
own id/entity (the concept of identity itself was one she challenged very
deeply). hwoever, the way i read that piece is that she makes a case ("This
is an expression of Shem") for her opposition to a race-based argument
--she's very much in line with "progressive" Jewish social scientists at the
time like Melville Herskovitz, Maurice Fishberg, etc --being a legitimate
way to "be Jewish." As charles b and i have discussed, I take her
discomfort with "identity" as an essential characteristic to be, arguably, in
line with a Jewish intellectual tradition (not an essential biological Jewish
trait, obviously) of challenging fixed discourse.
md
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 21:48:23 +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: Performance Writing Conference / Dartington 12-14 April
Performance Writing Conference
April 12-14 at Dartington College of Arts (Devon)
Public Performances:
Alaric Sumner - 'Error Studies'
Ronald Fraser-Munro - 'Bruder, C'est Grim' / ' Le
Monde
du Pen and Ink'
SuAndi - 'The Story of M'
Readings with cris cheek / Caroline Bergvall / Aaron
Williamson / Cherry Smyth / Anthony Howell / Drew
Milne
/ Jean 'Binta' Breeze
Conference Papers:
Matthew Goulish (Goat Island) - 'Five Short Lectures on
Performance Writing'
Tim Etchells (Forced Entertainment) - 'New
Instructions
for Ghost Writers'
Cherry Smyth - 'Visual Translations: Art History
Extended'
Susan Croft - 'Dreaming New Forms'
Drew Milne - 'Susan Howe and the Visual Performance
of
Writing'
John Cayley - Cybertext and the Performance of
(Plastic)
Literary Objects'
Heiner Goebbels - 'Opening the Text - Composition & the
Spoken Word'
John Hall - 'On Grammar & Performance Writing'
Steve Baker - 'Flying, Stealing: Cixous, Words and
Things'
Panel Sessions:
Live Writing - Chair: Claire MacDonald
Hybrid Writings/ Hybrid Identities -
Chair: Andrea Phillips
Writing, Materiality and Technology -
Chair: Andrea Phillips
Spoken Texts/ Written Speech - Chair: Rod
Mengham
Additional events during the Conference:
% cris cheek (writer-in-residence) will make interventions,
provocations and broadcasts during the symposium as a whole
(from the Research Unit)
% The Vault of Language: an exhibition of performance
writings in various media curated by cris cheek with Brigid McLeer
and Sally Tallant (Ship Studio). A catalogue is available
price #1.50.
% Itinerant Texts: an exhibition of new work for slide
projection by 12 artists commissioned by Book Works (London) -
(Studio 2)
% The Dartington Collection and Archive at High Cross House
- open to Conference participants. (Saturday and
Sunday 14.00 -18.00 hrs)
% Book and Information Stall (Lower Close Foyer)
% Richard Povall will be constructing and running a
Performance Writing Web-Site during the Conference and cris
cheek will be providing guided tours to Internet sites of interest
to performance writers. (Research Unit)
% Jools Gilson-Ellis and Richard Povall will be
demonstrating their ACE funded interactive CD-Rom
project 'Mouthplace' over the weekend.
% Susan Croft and Michael Macmillan of MMU will talk about
the ACE commissioned 'Live Writing' report.
% Ben Paine and John Deeney will talk about the New
Playwrights Trust 'Writing Live' report commissioned
by LAB.
*******
Between Wednesday 10th April and Friday 12th April there are workshops
(still a very few places available) with the following practitioners:
Jean 'Binta' Breeze
Mary Lemley
Mike Pearson
Fiona Templeton
Aaron Williamson & Tertia
Longmire
workshop showings will form part of the conference weekend.
there will be conference bulletins during and after and the opportunity for
others who can't attend to contribute via these electronic media
until then
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:47:47 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: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Regarding "unfinished poetry," why do I remember from some years back a
distinction being made, using Levi-Strauss's terms, between raw & cooked
poetry? Was it me? was it someone else? was it just a dream? Clearly
we were on the side of raw poetry -- on the side, that is, of the gods --
or were we?
Jerome Rothenberg
ps. A "formalism" that's blind (or deaf) to the work of (let's say) Jackson
Mac Low wouldn't know order from chaos or would restrict it to the trivia
of ABAB or its variations. But that discussion is -- & always has been -- a
dead end.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 16:50:05 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "M. Magoolaghan" <mmagoola@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Re: caveat webber
In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19960327085655.49379216@mail.azstarnet.com>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996, Tenney Nathanson wrote:
> Mike Magoolaghan--
>
> your interesting looking www page (which I found through Alta Vista, an
> amazing search engine) has now crashed my computer twice (each time I've
> tried to load the page: one of those serious Windows 3.1 major GPFs that
> dumps you right back into cold unadorned reality).
>
> Is anyone else having this problem?
>
> or, Mike: what I ever do to you?
>
> best,
>
> Tenney
>
Hi Tenney, nice to hear from you. No, I haven't had anyone else complain
about this, but I'll look into it. You (or anyone else) have any idea
what might be causing such problems? I'm still pretty much a novice at
this webpage thing--never realized you could crash someone else's computer
at such distances! Hope the damage/inconvenience was minimal.
Thanks for the alert,
MM
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I hear you say: "All that is not *fact*; it is poetry."
Nonsense! Bad poetry is false, I grant, but nothing is truer
than true poetry. And let me tell the scientific men that
the artists are much finer and more accurate observers than
they are, except of the special minutiae that the scientific
man is looking for.
--Charles S. Peirce, Collected Papers 1.316
Michael Magoolaghan
mmagoola@u.washington.edu
Webpage: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~mmagoola
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 19:43:12 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
and Jeffers too displayed
>much formal/rhetorical flourish & finish - but ironically it also
>"finishes" them, at least for a certain readerly audience (i.e. Charles
>demoting Jeffers to a "regional" writer).
Henry, please don't read me in such a reductive manner. I specifically said
that, moving away from California and finding most readers (and people who
were familiar with lots of poetry) not familiar with Jeffers, I considered
him more regional "as far as reputation goes." In terms of my own sense of
his work and his relative importance, I'd rather not say anything for now as
I have not read his work in any depth for two decades. But I didn't demote
him, and if I gave you that impression, I apologize.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 18:06:50 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: robinson jeffers/west coast scene
In-Reply-To: <199603271452.IAA10592@freedom.mtn.org>
jeffers is alive and well today. he got a healthy shot in the arm from
the ecocrits who read him as a nature poet, but there are myself and
others who are subjecting RJ to the rigors of poststructuralism,
deconstruction, etc--and he can handle it! indeed, to me it seems that
his work fairly cries out for it. i gave a paper at RMMLA this fall on
inhumanism and feminism, and it went over quite well, if i do say so myself.
there is a robinson jeffers assotiation, and soon to be a refereed
_jeffers studies_ journal. we hold an anual international jeffers
conference--was at occidental this year, i think back at carmel again
next year. there is a jeffers list, and should anyone be interested,
send mail to <adkison@equinox@unr.edu>.
current jeffers scholars include tim Hunt, Robert Zaller, Bob Brophy,
David Copeland Morris, Terry Beers--and a host of "new blood" such as
myslef, Peter Quigley and David Rothman.
there will be a RJ panel at this year's ALA (San Diego) should any of you
be in the area and interested.
some surface stuff, i know--but evidence of his remainig inport in the
modern poetry world--although i think i would have to argue that RJ is
antimodern--!
best,
shaunanne
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 15:52:49 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: nea creative writing fellowships
In-Reply-To: <v01520d00ad7ca4ce1567@[166.84.199.56]>
Except for John Koethe (whose work I haven't read in 15 years, but which
I recall I liked) I have never heard of any of the recipients (or half of
the panel, for that matter). am I out of it or what?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:36:33 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: R I Caddel <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Barry MacSweeney
Happy to echo Ken's pleasure in the resurfacing of Barry MacSweeney, and
to plug PEARL once more as I did when it appeared last year:
... I in
worry eat my fist, soak my sandwich
in saliva, chew my lip a thousand times
without any bought impediment. Please
believe me when my mind says and
my eyes send telegraphs: I am Pearl.
So low a nobody I am beneath the cowslip's
shadow, next to the heifers' hooves.
I have a roof over my head, but none
in my mouth. All my words are homeless.
- And to say how important his "Odes" were to me too, and how well they
read now. Barry's work's always changing, developing in ways which delight
me, and I hope he continues to mend.
His recent Subvoicive reading may be his "first reading in some years" in
London, but I'm pleased to say that he gave great readings in the
Northeast at least twice last year, both at Newcastle's Morden Tower. One
of these was the Bunting Centre's memorial for Eric Mottram, where Barry
read chunks of Pearl, ansd was accompanied by Tom Pickard, Bill Griffiths,
and yrs trly.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 08:15:54 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:42:23 -0600 from
<meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:42:23 -0600 Michelle Roberts said:
> Sonnets, for instance, describe and assume an orderly
>universe, and orderly and relatively uncontested social order.
Really? Seems to me the benchmark in sonnets in english, Shakespeare's,
celebrate, mourn, ironize, a breakdown in relations between
women/men. They show a social order based on "games people play"
and how these games self-destruct. They start with these avuncular
advisements of an elderly gent to a handsome young man to "be fruitful
and multiply" & disintegrate from there. The only standard still standing
at the end is "love" - but love with a shady meaning.
I think forms can be turned in any direction you want. But M. Damon's
remarks on the struggle between "finish" & "unfinished" focus on something
that has been true for a long time (let's say, back to the beginning
of scribes), & D. Baratier's Simic quote (Dictators don't jail critics)
is clever about these age old power/prestige/finish questions.
Poets are unacknowledged legislators when they connect with an audience;
critics are acknowledged legislators when they connect with publishers.
Then there are your poet-critics, who are dictators who somehow avoided
a jail term. ("Le Sonnette, c'est Moi")- Hank Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 08:49:11 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:47:47 PST from
<jrothenb@CARLA.UCSD.EDU>
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:47:47 PST Jerry Rothenberg said:
>
>ps. A "formalism" that's blind (or deaf) to the work of (let's say) Jackson
>Mac Low wouldn't know order from chaos or would restrict it to the trivia
>of ABAB or its variations. But that discussion is -- & always has been -- a
>dead end.
Agreed that such restrictions would trivialize ABAB or its variations;
but if you say ABAB or its variations are in themselves trivial, I
must say with much rawness that you are either a literary critic or
a dictator! - Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 08:59:16 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Daniel Bouchard <Daniel_Bouchard@HMCO.COM>
Subject: borders and wobblies
You won't be hearing over your local Borders intercom system, "Fellow Worker,
please pick-up line one" anytime soon. The Philadelphia Borders booksellers
voted not to unionize with the IWW yesterday (25 to 20, I hear). That's all I
know.
daniel_bouchard@hmco.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 09:49:53 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: george hartley <gehartle@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject: Howe grafts
Hi--does anyone have anything of interest that you could paste into an
e-mail message and send to me concerning Susan Howe, her work, her
teaching, her Emily Dickinson, and so on?
I'm introducing her this Sunday afternoon at the Wexner Center in Columbus
(she's talking about visual Emily) and I'd like to do some kind of grafting
exercise, cutting & pasting from various sources, if I have time to pull it
off.
If anyone has anything & can send it by Sat morning, I'd be grateful & happy.
Thanks for your help.
George Hartley
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:27:06 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: borders and wobblies
DAMN---about the uNION vote!
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 07:40:54 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Davidson <rdavidson@POPMAIL.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
but Maria, so many modernists felt discomfort with "identity" that I wonder
if you can hang it on Jewish cultural and social origins. This would make
T.S. Eliot and Henry James honorary Jews. There's an equally compelling
argument for making such discomfort a response to modern commodity culture
in general, the city as "shock," the commodity as objectifier, against which
the individual constructs a separate, disinterested field. One could also
make the argument that her inheritance of German transcendentalist
philosophy, from Kant to Whitehead, encouraged the same kinds of opposition
to "identity" and hence to a world of affective, emotional ties. In fact it
was precisely this kind of gemeinschaft association of Jewish culture that
Pound so vilified ("intravaginal affections," I believe was his phrase). But
I would agree with you that Stein would not have approved of a nation-based
notion of race, on the Zionist model, and that it would have had more to do
with cultural traditions.
P.S. One "take" that would support your view would be to look at Simmel's
"Metropolis and Mental LIfe" where he makes the same argument about
individual identity being purchased as a defense against the confusions of
the city. And he was a Jew writing very much at the same time as Stein.
best,
md
At 05:18 PM 3/27/96 -0500, you wrote:
>thanks everyone, for all the response. it's all central to my thinking along
>these many crisscrossing and spiraling lines. my own sense is that Stein was
>deeply opposed to a sense of Jewishness as a "race" that had to have a
>"nation," as Reverie of a Zionist makes clear. she felt, of course, that
>such a position limited her autonomy, her freedom of choice to construct her
>own id/entity (the concept of identity itself was one she challenged very
>deeply). hwoever, the way i read that piece is that she makes a case ("This
>is an expression of Shem") for her opposition to a race-based argument
>--she's very much in line with "progressive" Jewish social scientists at the
>time like Melville Herskovitz, Maurice Fishberg, etc --being a legitimate
>way to "be Jewish." As charles b and i have discussed, I take her
>discomfort with "identity" as an essential characteristic to be, arguably, in
>line with a Jewish intellectual tradition (not an essential biological Jewish
>trait, obviously) of challenging fixed discourse.
>md
>
>
Michael Davidson
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:53:51 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
On the Sonnet: Where does one arrive at the idea of the sonnet
assuming an orderly universe and relatively uncontested social order?
Especially in the modern context, but also in the built in traits of
the form. Whether it's Shakespeare or Spenserian rhythm patterns,
there still is a turn in the European or Italian placement which is
designed to bring the reader to a re-imagining and re-fashioning of
society. Holy Sonnet #10 was revolutionary, that Donne could bring any
audience to affirm denying destiny during a hierarchical society whose
daily focus centered around the wheel of fortune. This effect may not
be apparent in the present and therefore might seem to leave the
social order relatively uncontested yet these are effects of time, not
of intention or reception.
Applying this same frame of the how the "orderly universe" is
reflected in recent instances of the sonnet, the reflection becomes
one of pure opposition. Berrigan's caesural tensions, Mayer's
reclaimation of the sonnet from a purely masculinist form, Hoover's
injection of humor, and Berryman's rejection and destruction of the
form throughout the Dream Songs.
There is where listening happens, unaware
Blending into attention.
-- Jorge Guillen
David.Baratier@moby.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:50:54 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: query abt stein/toklas
Kevin Killian--
you might want to look at the argument in one of those early sulfurs
(circa #12 or something) where (Riding) Jackson coins the term
J=E=W=I=S=H=N=E=S=S....
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 09:44:25 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: E-Zine Questionnaire - Request
>Leilani Wright has asked me to forward this questionnaire to participants
on this list, in the hope that some of you may see fit to respond. Leilani
will be making a presentation about electronic magazines at this April's AWP
Conference. Responses to this questionnaire will provide a foundation for
her examination of reader response to a selection of electronic
publications. Leilani has examined more than 80 journals, and is seeking to
hear from readers of these e-zines.
>
>Those who participate will receive the following:
>
>1. The list of e-zines and URLs accumulated as part of Leilani's study
>2. Summary of the presentation
>
>SPECIAL NOTE: Those of you wishing to participate, please forward your
responses to Leilani Wright at the following address:
>
>cervantes@mc.maricopa.edu
>
>
>DO NOT REPLY TO THIS LIST OR TO ME.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Sheila Murphy
>
>
>>
>>QUESTIONNAIRE FOR CONTRIBUTORS AND READERS
>>OF LITERARY E-ZINES
>>
>>
>>1. Have you published any of your work in electronic literary
e-zines? If
>>so, please name one or two that you recommend and tell me why you decided to
>>submit work to them.
>>
>>2. Do you regularly or sometimes read any literary e-zines? Please
>>recommend 1 or 2 only and tell me why they interest you.
>>
>>3. What do you feel are the main advantages of reading and/or publishing
>>in e-zines? What are the personal and professional benefits?
>>
>>4. In contrast to #3, what do you feel are the disadvantages?
>>
>>5. As a contributor to e-zines, have you experienced any conflicts or
>>problems with e-editors, e-readers, print editors, plagiarists, etc.? Any
>>copyright problems? If so, please relate the details and how the issue was
>>resolved.
>>
>>6. Do you feel that the electronic medium is influencing e-editors to
>>publish certain kinds (shapes, forms, genres, styles, etc.) of poetry,
stories,
>>reviews or creative non-fiction? If you have noticed such a tendency or
trend,
>>please describe it.
>>
>>7. Frankly, do you really think people are reading any of these e-zines?
What
>>do you think of e-zine quality when compared to print journal quality?
>>Please name 2 literary e-zines that you think are of high quality.
>>
>>8. What do you envision the future of e-zine publishing to be in 5 years?
>>20 years? Do you think that e-zines will replace the prints in the future?
>>Will they complement each other? Or will they be separate but equal?
>>
>>9. Are you confused or troubled by current digital copyright issues? How
>>are you protecting yourself when publishing on-line?
>>
>>10. Do you feel that your exposure to e-journals has changed the way you
>>read creative work and/or write your poems and stories?
>>
>>=============================================================================
>>
>>Thank you very much for slogging through these 10 questions. Please let me
>>know if there is a question I should have asked but didn't.
>>
>>
>>
>> Leilani Wright--==--==--<*^*>--==--==--Mesa, Arizona
>> cervantes@mc.maricopa.edu
>>
>>
>>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 12:08:01 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
WOW! What great books!!! I am reading yours & Kim's & Nichol's in turn,
in random bits--I think bp would have approved. More soon.
Gwyn
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 12:05:09 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: raw and cooked
Before they took her off of the book beat and put her on the theater beat,
Margo Jefferson reviewed (in one article) books by Joseph Ceravolo and
Stephen Sandy for the New York Times. She argued that Ceravolo's poetry was
raw, and Sandy's was cooked, and then she said that she preferred the
cooked. It seemed like an extraordinary thing to say. Of course it was
extraordinary that Ceravolo would be reviewed in the Times at all.
This does _not_ mean that things in the businesses of poetry, newspapers or
anthropology are in a bad way.
What seems to be developing among younger writers (come to the Poetry
Talks) is an alternative, a quertblatz poetry that borrows heavily from
several conservative traditions, and is unironic about that borrowing.
These writers seem to want to learn how to cook. And why not? Cooking
preserves, and a good cook can take so-so food and make it delicious. Good
cooks always use the freshest possible goods. Who among you does not enjoy
a well-cooked meal.
Now it may be asked, isn't it conservative to cook. Yes, it is conservative
to cook. It is, traditionally, a woman's job, or a servant's job, or an
invisible person's job. Is it macho to eat raw. Maybe. It is exciting.
Probably the mistake is to look at anthropology as describing states of
advance and primitvism, and likewise, to look at the historical development
of poetry as producing ever greater examples of the same kind of poetic
effect. Generally, both these errors have led to gorgeous incoherent
monsters.
Post-language and pre-destination,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 12:14:20 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Mark, all I can say re the AWP Chronicle is--send us articles. I can't get
anything about querzblatz poetics in there if nobody sends us anything.
(Now trying to persuade my boss to run Joe Amato's piece.) I work at the
Chronicle. I like querzblatz poetics. Send the articles and interviews
directly to me. I promise to argue for them. I have had all the usual
suspects up the ying-yang, too.
Gwyn McVay
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 12:28:49 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: blush
Argh! Ignore last message, which was meant for Charles Alexander, not the
whole list. Still mastering Netscape.
<<blush>>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:24:03 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
in response to this question of raw/cooked raised by maria and others: i'm
all for keeping an open mind about form, performance, bringing poetry to
the public, and the public to poetry... but my reservations about, say,
some of what i've seen go down at slams here in chicago have to do with the
sort of cultural backdrop we've developed for all such public performance,
the extent to which it's become entertainment/spectacle, the sort of
work---and i think there IS a sort---that tends most toward receiving a
positive reception...
it's not that i distrust the public as such (which is not to say the masses
as such---i am entirely comfortable with popular culture)... what i don't
distrust are the mechanisms that have been developed for valuing and
revaluing such work... as i see it, to understand these mechanisms is to
understand how our various media have constructed audiences lo this past
quarter or half-century or so... it's not that i don't see great potential
at slams, or occasionally great performances, or good (to borrow from
maria) "household" work... it's that a lot of what i DO see is
terrible---not ill-formed or unfinished, but designed to appeal to some
rather basic audience impulses... the yield is often a sensationalistic
and/or immediately accessible work that often depends on an overwrought,
theatrical delivery... poets chewing the scenery, as it were... and i'm not
the type who's at all opposed to emotional readings, and i'm also not the
type who enjoys hearing my and other folks' bellies gurgle during
reverential readings in the hallowed halls of academe...
i raise this w/o ire, and in the spirit of trying, as john fowler once so
wisely corrected me, to try to keep an open mind about my practice... i
guess it's my passion, writing poetry... which always risks that elitist
problem discussed hereabouts a while back... but while i can understand the
legitimacy of all sorts of language communities, incl. slams, performance
poetry (per se), homebrews, and so forth, and while i think it essential to
cultivate as much diversity in this regard as possible, i do *feel*, inside
me, a resistance NOT to more popular or orthodox poetic forms, but to the
assumption that popularizing such popular forms is ipso facto contributing
in a meaningful way to meaningful reform or advance in the poetic arts...
which are, as i see it, so in need in so many ways of cultural
revitalization...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:32:02 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Perhaps the problem is not with the sonnet but with the uses/arguments to
which it has sometimes been put. For example, I once was invited in as a
guest to a class at the U of Wisconsin where I introduced certain
contemporary poets, ranging from Creeley to Mac Low. After the class, its
grad student teacher, who was a bright Indian woman who had grown up in Hong
Kong, wanted to argue with me that the sonnet was more accessible to to
students in the class than what I had been teaching, in part biologically,
i.e. its movement and rhythms were more natural to them. I do think that
part of what she had in mind was what she conceived of as its orderliness,
and a correspondence of that orderliness to her sense of nature and the
world in a variety of ways. And yes, I thought that was rather nonsensical.
But to agree with Henry & Daniel, at the time I had recently come through
rather intense readings of sonnets by 16th Century writers, particularly
Wyatt and Gascoigne, and I thought of neither of them as particularly
affirming social orderliness, rather always conscious of a tension between
order and disorder. And the form of the work was such as to not give
entirely over to order, either. Such tension to me made all the difference
in my seeing Wyatt, for one, as a somewhat more raw and considerably more
interesting poet than Sidney.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 14:04:27 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: raw and cooked
But, Jordan, isn't IRONY--whether New Critical ("conservative"?) or
Ashberian/Lang.Po more "cooked" than "raw"?
Sometimes I eat cooked, sometimes I eat raw.
....
is one person's refinery another person's CRUDE?.....c
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:21:36 GMT+1300
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: emnlightenmnet?
re: comments on The Enlightenment from Charles Alexander in Re: AWP Chronicle,
discussions of form:
"Everything I have heard about the New Formalist movement makes me want to be
far away from it, although I wonder about what you report as Turner's sense
that New Formalism thinks the Enlightenment was right and we got it wrong
after that".
Enlightenment values of order and reason and rules came in at the
expense of the values in thought and writing that in English run
from (at least) Chaucer through to Herbert or Marvell (say) -- that
includes elimination of a mode which allowed artifice and process to
remain audible in the language (e.g. in puns and all kinds of figures
which call for multi-levelled allegorical reading). Much as many
Enlightenment texts are delightful reading, what was cast in shadow
is often closer to quertzblatzian needs (Quertzblatz -- sounds like the School of
Blasted Oak poetry, or the School of Hard Knocks).
The problems for "revival" of knowledge of the whatever (generic
names, a problem, always and ever,) before The
Enlightenment (The Baroque?) is largely dependent on readings and
ways of writing largely
proscribed from the Enlightenment onwards and still prevalent as
norms and standards in our academies.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS OFF THE TOP OF MY HEADACHE
1.
What still tends to keep Giam-Battista Marino out of the canon?
Crocean aesthetics? Failure to find the positions for reading that
the poetry supposes? Proscription of wiritng and reading positions
suitable for reading the poetry?
2.
How explain the coincidence of the revival of Baroque studies with
the rise of the most useful modernisms ( those intent on denial of given orders and
/or of continual demonstration of hidden powers of language and
image, and/or disclosure of the hidden anthropologies at work in the
construction and reading of artworks?)
3.
How explain opposition to modernisms (see 2, above) other than as a
continuing obstinate refusal to acknowledge the defectiveness of a one-eyed
position, which is still popularly supposed (take a vote on it
nation-wide) to be effective and true.
Yours truly,
Chicken Little.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:36:55 CST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Baratier <dave.baratier@MOSBY.COM>
Subject: Re[2]: emnlightenmnet?
Here's my poll
1. The lack of humanist literary critics and avenues for publishing
this form of criticism. What I mean is criticism that is not a pure
distillation of negative polarization, or merely a lens. Take
"decontructivism" as a lens, we know what results this procedure will
enforce upon a text but will it make anyone read the damn thing. If I
were to point to a humanist example that fits what I would hope to
strive for, as odd as it might sound, I'd say "My Emily Dickinson" by
Howe. I feel her passion for some poems that I never read as
thoroughly before. I still want to believe that only emotion endures.
2. Couldn't understand question.
3. Very few people read poetry take for example the voter turnout this
election year.
The container for the thing contained
-Jack Gilbert
David.Baratier@mosby.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:50:45 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
Okay, I'm taking back what I said about Stein seeming ambivalent about her
Jewishness&womanhood after a dream last night where she told me I didn't
know what the hell I was talking about, then bonded with my nonliterate
housemates while snubbing me...and this after I yanked Hemingway's beard a
few weeks ago when he badmouthed her...(whatever happened to those nice
dreams about cigars and train tunnels?)
sonnet conversation reminds me of that wcwilliams statement: "all sonnets
say the same thing"--referring to the turn, the way all sonnets land on
their feet (even if they have to invent feet at the last minute to do so).
so we're talking form, not content---or rather, the content of the form. In
which case I kind of agree with the "ordered world" assertion, insofar as
the form & turn are strictly adhered to (they usually aren't today). I've
been diddling around with writing "experimental" sonnets for a while now.
If anything revolutionary occurs, I'll post it. medium rare, e
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 18:42:36 -0500
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From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
wyatt is truly amazing, from a weird psychosexual angle, and fun to teach for
that reason.--
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 18:42:42 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: raw and cooked
what's quertblatz? sounds like a cross between a german leaf and a New World
rock.
md
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 12:21:52 GMT+1300
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: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
or Lyn Hejinian 14 PAGE sonnets, complete with rhymes...these not
remembered in either of the discussions I have seen of sonnets on
this list in the periodical GNOME BAKER (can't remember which number)
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 19:14:08 -0800
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Jerry wrote:
Regarding "unfinished poetry," why do I remember from some years back a
distinction being made, using Levi-Strauss's terms, between raw &
cooked poetry? Was it me? was it someone else? was it just a dream?
Clearly we were on the side of raw poetry -- on the side, that is, of
the gods -- or were we?
-----------------
That was, I believe, Robert Lowell who first made that characterization
and may even have preceded L-S in the distinction used as a cultural
descriptor.
On the general question of finish and closure (riffing off of Gould et
al), I actually think (tho I suspect my logic is rather different than
Sadoff's) that closure is indeed the Big question lurking w/in
modernism...
IF (big if, please increase your screen font accordingly) we take
modernism to mean not the whole of innovative poetics of this century,
pre-holocaust,
But rather only that portion of it (High Modernism as Fred Jameson wld
have it) which got rather quickly canonized and digested for the
students of the 1950s (a world of Pound that situated him within the
frame of Stevens and Eliot, rather than, say Stein, WCW or even LZ).
My sense has long been (I've said this before) that when writers in the
19th century finally got to the point of arriving at a genuinely tropic
realism, the "real" world suddenly turned out to be wholly constructed
--i.e., the genuine intellectual/artistic project that was realism (a
collective undertaking on the scale of getting one to the moon)
suddenly turned out to be a phantom -- thus the career of Joyce's
Dubliners leads directly to Ulysses & the Wake, for example (as, say,
Dickens, Norris and James lead straight to Pound). The world in the
first few decades of this century pretty much divided into those who
were actively either trying to find new ways to create that sense of
closure again (Joyce and Eliot being the most persistent), tho it also
meant exploring the ways in which, always, itv seemed not to work
(Crane seems to genuinely pained by this, a real sense of mourning) --
and those who just took it as obvious and went on writing (Stein, say),
not bothering to focus the energy of the work in that way.
That modernism which got codified was that which aimed at (or faked)
closure. Even Whitman was treated like a 19th century media joke first
and poet later up until around 1950 (when that slot in the public
consciousness seems to have been taken by Stein who still is treated by
large sectors of the reading world as a collector of paintings who
popularized hash brownies). So much of the mediocre litcrit of the past
40 years still treats the modernism of closure as THE main current of
poetry, say (viz. M. Davidson's comments in the Princeton Encyclopedia
of Poetry & Poetics), when in fact it is a radical and retro rereading
of the work of the period (Cary Nelson's work has done a great job of
unearthing the look and feel of that period sans the narrative frames
that we have been taught by the likes of Davie, Bloom, Brooks, Jarrell
et alia).
The curious career of John Ashbery -- his idolization by the very
community he so viciously satirizes during his "middle" period -- has I
think a lot to do with the ways in which he mimes a finished surface,
although the way I read him what he really shows -- brilliantly and
repeatedly, is that finish is ultimately a surface effect.
I too prefer rough edges.
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 22:32:43 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gwyn McVay <gmcvay1@OSF1.GMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: raw and cooked
In-Reply-To: <960328184241_500513161@emout07.mail.aol.com>
Maria, "querzblatz" is a word I made up to describe the kind of poetics
that a broad spectrum of us on this list enjoy and/or write, and that we
mostly agree terms like "avant-garde," "language," or even just "new"
don't adequately describe. Plus it would get you a hell of a score in
Scrabble.
Gwyn
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 22:40:59 -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: alphabetic avatars
In-Reply-To: <1D6E3704B6@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
The Avatars
All avatars act as ascii aligned
Before broken banners bitter, barren, bound, blind.
Cold characters caught, crawled, cold, cracked, calcified;
Drawn dependents, dragged down, devolved, drowned, died.
Early earth emerged, escaped, erased
Full fury fallen, failed, fought for fear, felled, faced
Gore, grief, gravel grown gaunt, grown gruesomely grey.
Harrowed hell hastened homeward, hoarsely hollered hooray.
Ice interned I, immediate, involuted, in
Jostled jingles, jealous, jammed joined judging jinn,
Kissed knave, killed kine, kindled, kissed kindly knight
Like lost loves left leering, like loose lasses' light.
Many might mean much, measured manifolds mean more:
Nothing numerous, nought, never neither none, nor
One. Ontogenetically, organs, ooze, often obscure
Prepared proud phalluses, pricked, placed, proffered pure -
Quite quickly questioned, quizzed, quote "quagmired,"
Representing "right reason," resonant. Retired
Systems sizzle, suppurating, say, structured slime
Toppling to thoughts teetering towards tendered time.
Unfortunately, unclassified under ultimate unction,
Violence, vexed victims, vent violent version.
We watched while wounds wrought weakened warriors
X-ing x-chromosomes, x-rated xenophobias.
Young yesterdays yawned yore. Yes, you
Zap zealously, zygotic zone's zoo.
_______________________________________________________________________
Netsex with the Avatars
Avatars beg; cyberspace details
Electronic fury, grim hails
In judgement kind. Leverage
Must never openly presage -
Quashed really, she thinks.
Underneath, vaginal winks,
X! You zealously yearn,
X! - What viewpoints unborn
To systemize? Rare, questioned,
Prospects or newcomers motioned
Lustfully, killed jinxed intuition
Heavily gone for emanation.
Depositions considered, birth arrowed
Beneficient cunts, devoured
Early fates; gestation harrowed
Intention's jammed killers, lest
Men need objection. Pest
Quickly runs, she thought.
Untoward, verify what, X?
You're zapped, you're X?
What, vicious uncanny troll
Seems rancid? Quote "Patrol
Often neatly muscles, licks,
Kisses juicily; immured hicks
Groan fiercely, eagerly. Dicks
Cum, beautifully, affixed!"
______________________________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 22:26:37 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: Announcing/Call for Submissions EPR
Here is the paste-up version of Sheila Murphy's submission.
Prose pieces affected by formatting are Letters 39, 40, and Previously Named...
Thanks. I look forward to hearing.
SEM
LETTERS TO UNFINISHED J.
39.
He introduced me to the possibility of circumspection by first speaking the
word, using an
adjective about someone with figures in his left breast pocket we presumed.
Fingers in pie
(blackbirds) and a humid wash of possible stilletos somewhere in the
evenstance. My
mentor was a mood to me, a priest. Evented in the solid wall of no specific
interruptions
as a yeast implants the further possibility of our statistics' rising. I
can only flow with what
he saw of me, quicksilver light and certitude, small-packaged in a manner
never distant
from completed somethings crafted by hand indicative of no such pause as
summer's
moderato. It had not before occurred to me to hide fruits that I told
myself would spoil if
not consumed. Imagining soiled pocket where a tiny stain implanted shadow
evidence of
something now evolved to worthlessness of past tense. I did not perceive
the mathematics
of withholding. Felt intuitively thus crafted a small picture of
transactions: make to offer,
listen/watch the glee even of predators become your own
advertisement/evaluation/full-
time sun. Evaporate no pool capable of mirroring your glory as machine, as
evidence all
present of the gleam within a snapshot, silent as a tease instilling all the
opposites of stasis.
With a strong crease where a craft has been, diminishing to yield first
picture that might
have, on the surface, cloned original intent, if correspondence equalled
trust, if time did
not invite manipulations to complete the full equation.
LETTERS TO UNFINISHED J.
40.
He spoke without coffee (line at Einstein's Bagel's, out the door already in
first week post-
opening) about systems. In crisp tie, reminisced traditional intaglio, the
lack of menacing
equality, exacting value-neutral neural nines, rotomontade of cherishing
(sit by the
window, hatch the round voice wiggling to get into Hollywood and heather field
narrations, posse screams). He half elbowed his way out of the frost. We were
unmutually not enemies, no cost was exacted, every ritual you name was
represented in
note taking moderato with a chaperone who sent a wire from God reminding us
of our
fetality long since expired. It was production season. All the lateral
impassives gonged
together noose points to retract the weariness of sin and its remaining
ointment. Cobbled
sweets were limned along formica. We rowed to match old inclinations.
Rivers stowed
their stasis. Homogeneous intentions ricocheted off pyramids. Someone was
hovering
above the hasp connecting everglades and promising intentions. Power
clothes hung on to
voice prints while the pen riled every surface of legality. No glowering
came from
whipstitch centers to the right and left. We fathomed ourselves apolitical,
and he could
dream, sit up, take nourishment by his own hand. I was an economy. The
ribboned birds
sanguined their way to positive alignment with each homonym glassed in by
elders who
entreated the onlooking shutter scars to make new pictures become whole and
ravishing.
IN THE SHINING STICKS
Prayer comps nature surreptitiously.
Calm waters, stilton ease
To have anticipated causal weather
Always the trapeze of birth's new slumber party
In the shining sticks the opposite of Heathrow.
Paltry fillings ghost write showcased palms
As lightly as extinct shepherds on board
Waiting to dismiss the trappings of life's work
Among the crop of central nervous systems
Showing little EKG one would suppose
And branded underneath uncombed
Abundance that gleans warmth
From even chill wind blistering,
The tourists from another century acceding
To the bounty that outlives its maker
Stranded on a page in history
Consistently interpreted off-center
For the good of new philosophy.
SCULPTURE FULLY DRESSED
Pauses leaf through valuables lodged within
Clock focus to exude
Blunt stoppage of work-the-
Optical incisions to alleviate a pressure
Bookmarked near supple seeds we have
Accumulated heartily and irresponsibly our
Behavior lighthousing its way
Shoestringing along the budgetary dipstick
Surrounding formative instilleries as
Structured as a patch of acreage
Composed of wire and single crop endorsements
Ceasing to elect someone with
Pasts writeworthy in the journals that supplant the
Creed with empty rosters
Coasting along personal breath forming a
Sculpture fully dressed compositing full-figured showtime
Nothing (noting)
Everything's as easy
As the quilt
(Supplantive of) an offering
Midwinter you beneathive
Crow-toned habitat exclusive of
The each thing silvered, row-prone,
Confiscatable as friendship never is
(Leave no misimpression)
Sacraments wide-eyed snow blow
Incessant fever to the side of
Sandwiching and we are lost (at cost)
Soprano coldsmiths with a romp in mind
Still satisfied with what
We might cook up, some gilded
Penchant for nothing
Some aware awakeness
Perfectly unmiffed sacrament of butterfly
SUNGLASSES THAT WRAP AROUND
Sunglasses that wrap around leave no room
For inhabitals whose chemistry
Elongates the already lengthened pasture
The equation of impasse, smokepoint
Of river glide's deliberate
Retraction of nerve sin
Lentily defrosted near clothespin
Hummingbirds the crayon of rubato blue
Tumult's vituperative wingspin
Dismantles the somehow of offspring's
New porous mood unfeathering
Some gloss along the corner of mood ring
With shiver in its past, a father
Dramatized by the inchoate
Inner cold rendered apparent
Only through tiny splinterings of intimacy
THE PARENTHETICAL REDUNDANCY OF SECONDARY LOVE
He says in public "What a quiz
Show host I am" and poses
With a prize, kissing the winners
First place and last clutching
Their homonyms as they return
To seats they were assigned.
He takes long sips of personality
To hone immunity, walks out
Into the friendly night to slave
Over a swizzle stick, imbue
The parenthetical redundancy
Of secondary love, replace
The quiet core of nothing
That intakes his whole attention
To distract from harshness of the daylight,
And improbability of warmth within the night.
PREVIOUSLY NAMED "COLLEGE OF COMMERCE"
The only way that he can like me is for me to purchase something that will
earn him a
commission. All of his rehearsing leads to sinking something in the
designated pocket or
between goalposts. What flair is for is the advancing, not a fluency that
coasts within
arrays of intimate exchange. He plays out loud with possibilities of
talking me into or out
of something. The guestbook in his heart fills when the dancecard
overflows. He is
indulgent for a purpose so I walk away unfriended, perfectly unwilling to assume
imperfect risk not worth flimsy return of acquisition not my own. He sees
me as a place to
prey without a grotto stone to roll away. The only likely resurrection
would exact a cost.
A trade of what is wrought from pensive moods under the tutelage of
guardians who
never learned to schmooze.
IMPERVION OF UNDRESSED BRANCHES
You would not want to photograph
Impervion of undressed branches
Stick dark splintered pencils
Cropped with liquid frost and dried again
The miniature windows of the warlords
Feather caps osmotically
Tree branches wasp their way into
Depictions of the ether
Correspondence supple as the ice
Per diem landed in a metric park
From home off-centered perched
Where cameras cannot cull
Delicious wingspan and interpretations
Full bath of the orneries
With taste wide plums breath looking
Clouded outer skin unprim
Suited for crime winter shivering
Against a coat woven apart from snow and southerlies
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 01:06:30 -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@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
Ron--Thanks for your interesting post on "modernist" "closure"---.
I was reading a very "academic" (more in the sense of "stiff" than
in "difficult") book recently---MURRAY KREIGER'S "The Reopening Of
Closure: Organicism Against ITself" and it starts by saying that it
IS NOT AN ATTEMPT to make the New Critics hip again by pointing out how
they really weren't such CLOSURE OGRES after all...and quotes a lot of
their statements and explicates poems to show that to read them reductively
as "poems that click shut like a box" is to miss the complex point....
Yet the argument is somewhat disingenuous. For he doesn't talk about
Stein or even Riding and focuses on poems like THE EQUILIBRISTS
(sic) to drive his point home----which goes to show how rhetoric
(Kreiger is very steeped in De Man and Lyotard, etc), especially a rhetoric
of rawness, can be used to foster a particular canonical agenda.
This of course can work both ways, however.
SuanAnne Tanguy (sp.?) mentioned that Jeffers can hold up to a
"deconstructive" reading. So can many. By the same token, it would be
interesting, and possible (though not necessarily needed---though
it could I suppose make a good marketable dissertation) to read Stein
and others using the more "old fashioned" terms, etc.....
cs
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 03:24:00 -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: NYC Talks
Today is the first day of the awesome NYC talks sequence, 5 panels and
one reading today, four more panels and two more readings tomorrow,
followed by a marathon at Biblio's on Sunday.
For those of us who will not be there (I have to go to Florida on
business):
(1) I hope somebody plans to collect all this material into a book.
(2) I hope the correspondents on this list who attend will fill us all
in -- in minute detail: Rod Smith, Ben Friedlander, Bill Luoma, Chris
Stroffolino, Mark Wallace, Joel Kuszai, and Jordan Davis are among
those whom will be presenting and reading.
Looking forward to those nice long posts already,
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 04:45:06 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
i've got this sequence-in-progress i'd like to post, several pages
worth --- mostly short-line stuff --- wld that be too long for the list?
please advise --- wld appreciate help, comments, crit
later
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 4:45:06 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:11:41 -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: Wyatt nd the sonnet
In-Reply-To: <960328184236_500513063@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "Maria Damon"
at Mar 28, 96 06:42:36 pm
> wyatt is truly amazing, from a weird psychosexual angle, and fun to teach for
> that reason.--
> maria d
But also for the sheer gristly, sinewy chewiness of the language and
the astonishing rhythmic variety. Spenser and Sidney run it thru the
neoplatonic mill so that it comes out all heady and mellifluous. It
takes Donne to bring it back to ground. And what about Milton? Wow.
Mike
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 07:19:42 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
>wyatt is truly amazing, from a weird psychosexual angle, and fun to teach for
>that reason.--
>maria d
or, I'd say, psychosexual/religio angle, filled with mythology which
sometimes may be seen to be turned on its head, or hind
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind . . .
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:16:05 EST
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From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:50:45 -0500 from <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
On Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:50:45 -0500 Emily Lloyd said:
>sonnet conversation reminds me of that wcwilliams statement: "all sonnets
>say the same thing"--referring to the turn, the way all sonnets land on
>their feet (even if they have to invent feet at the last minute to do so).
If that's the case, then all poems says the same thing. Check out the
Princeton Encyc of Poetics on "Sonnet" - there are about 20 different
_traditional_ variations, at least. All poems have to land on some
kind of footpad.
But I would agree that the sonnet and "the little sonnet men" (EA
Robinson) have become a symbol of a danger inherent in all form -
it exerts its own fascination, can give a false sense of closure &
achievement, snaps shut in a facile way. And the weight of tradition
is designed to smother (in a fatherly manner).
- Henry Gould
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 07:34:38 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
>i've got this sequence-in-progress i'd like to post, several pages
>worth --- mostly short-line stuff --- wld that be too long for the list?
>please advise --- wld appreciate help, comments, crit
>
>later
>
>-------------------------------------
>christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 4:45:06 am
I can't speak for the list protocols, or for anyone else on the list, but
I'd certainly like to see the work. If it is a sequence and you're worried
about it being too long, why don't you post it in three or four postings,
one a day. But if you want to post it all at once, that seems fine, too.
charles
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:36:13 -0500
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From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
i think lowell had just read levi strauss when he made that statement about
his own poetry in relation to beats, confession, etc.--he didn't coin the
phrase...md
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:35:54 EST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 28 Mar 1996 19:14:08 -0800 from
<rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
On Thu, 28 Mar 1996 19:14:08 -0800 Ron Silliman said:
>My sense has long been (I've said this before) that when writers in the
>19th century finally got to the point of arriving at a genuinely tropic
>realism, the "real" world suddenly turned out to be wholly constructed
>--i.e., the genuine intellectual/artistic project that was realism (a
>collective undertaking on the scale of getting one to the moon)
>suddenly turned out to be a phantom -- thus the career of Joyce's
>Dubliners leads directly to Ulysses & the Wake, for example (as, say,
>Dickens, Norris and James lead straight to Pound). The world in the
>first few decades of this century pretty much divided into those who
>were actively either trying to find new ways to create that sense of
>closure again (Joyce and Eliot being the most persistent), tho it also
>meant exploring the ways in which, always, itv seemed not to work
Are you saying writers then divided between a kind of Platonic/
transcendental realists (Eliot et al, for whom the material world
is a kind of structured illusion with a transcendental reality
behind it), and a kind of Nietzschean post-realists (Stein et al,
for whom reality is a continuous radically free construction)?
>
>That modernism which got codified was that which aimed at (or faked)
>closure.
>
Thus closure and "finish" are equated with a belief in transcendental
order?
>The curious career of John Ashbery -- his idolization by the very
>community he so viciously satirizes during his "middle" period -- has I
>think a lot to do with the ways in which he mimes a finished surface,
>although the way I read him what he really shows -- brilliantly and
>repeatedly, is that finish is ultimately a surface effect.
Thus Ashbery "succeeded" because he played it both ways -- closure &
finish without _philosophical_ closure or belief. It seems like
ancient/medieval/Renaissance poetry also played it both ways -- the
finish was presented as a conscious trap, the husk -- it was the
kernel, the interpretation, the answer to the riddle that was the
ultimate "closure". The rough edges are on the _inside_. This was
linked with the theological idea that Nature is a riddle of signs
to be interpreted; writing is the sign of signs.
- Henry Gould
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:09:44 -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: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96032908294955@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> from "Henry Gould"
at Mar 29, 96 08:16:05 am
>sonnet conversation reminds me of that wcwilliams statement: "all sonnets
>say the same thing"--referring to the turn, the way all sonnets land on
>their feet (even if they have to invent feet at the last minute to do so).
As much as I love Williams on this stuff (as great as his ear is) I
have to agree with Henry on this. Bill had his axes and he ground them
with a vengence. But don't we all.
Watch for upcoming volume of John Clarke's sonnets, _In the Analogy,
Books 1-7_ from shuffaloff in the next couple of months--a sequence of
250 sonnets which only death managed to stop.
Mike
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:22:44 EST
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:09:44 -0500 from
<mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
On Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:09:44 -0500 Michael Boughn said:
>Watch for upcoming volume of John Clarke's sonnets, _In the Analogy,
>Books 1-7_ from shuffaloff in the next couple of months--a sequence of
>250 sonnets which only death managed to stop.
But Willis Barnstone's got him beat - just published "501 Sonnets".
But Edwin Honig was talking last night about a book titled "M" -
standing for "1000 Sonnets". Wish I could remember the author...
Little sonnet men make BIG sequences.
But my question is - where's the Colonel's husky in all this?
Here's a short poem, the kernel of which is: "Either way, you're finished."
OLD-TIMEY ELEGY
Lord, we will write and write.
Your August ripens.
A radio keeps the beat.
The writing is what happens,
while merged with the wheat
a single strand of hair stays hidden.
- Henry ["Finish my Day"] Gould
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:44:51 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Emily Lloyd <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
At 08:16 AM 3/29/96 EST, Henry Gould wrote:
>On Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:50:45 -0500 Emily Lloyd said:
>>sonnet conversation reminds me of that wcwilliams statement: "all sonnets
>>say the same thing"--referring to the turn, the way all sonnets land on
>>their feet (even if they have to invent feet at the last minute to do so).
>
>If that's the case, then all poems says the same thing. Check out the
>Princeton Encyc of Poetics on "Sonnet" - there are about 20 different
>_traditional_ variations, at least. All poems have to land on some
>kind of footpad.
Eek! The Princeton! That book's good for buildin' yer biceps, maybe...but
I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm (only because Williams isn't here
to) saying...I LIKE sonnets, not trying to insult them...but...see...they've
got that rising action/climax/falling action thing going on...of course
there are variations...I'm talking about the strict sonnet forms, i.e.
Petrarch, Shakespe, and that other guy...where a turn is necessary, and
where the turn is supposed to occur at a certain predetermined place. Which
means you can pick up any traditional sonnet & know there's gonna be a
twist...Keats is going to find Chapman's Homer, Nature is going to prick out
the friend for women's pleasure...etc. This doesn't mean they have to be
banal (although I've referred to them in the past as "aggressively
tidy")...the pleasure, for me, in reading traditional sonnets is watching
how skillfully the turn is executed...kind of like anticipating the zinger
in a hitchcock film. I should say, tho, that I don't think that
"traditional" forms necessarily mean "patriarchal poetry" or
conservativism...while nobody here may particularly enjoy their work, Rafael
Campo, Marilyn Hacker, & Molly Peacock (among others) have used traditional
forms (& I mean "strictly," not berrymanning around) as containers for
subversive (it's all relative in Ploughshares et al) content.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:48:23 -0600
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
according to jed rasula (in _the american poetry wax museum_, 233-234)
lowell was borrowing from virginia woolf when he distinguished between "a
cooked and a raw" poetry in his acceptance speech for the national book
award... rasula indicates that woolf had used these terms to distinguish
her own "cooked" work from joyce's presumably "raw" _ulysses_...
lowell one the nba in 1960, so his acceptance speech would have been in
'61... it wouldn't surprise me if others had picked up on woolf's
distinctions before then...
and not to sound, uhm, ambiguous, but i just love it when a given work
oscillates from the raw to the cooked...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 10:53:01 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Gary Hawkins <ghawkins@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Discussions of form: the sonnet
>On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 13:42:23 -0600 Michelle Roberts said:
>> Sonnets, for instance, describe and assume an orderly
>>universe, and orderly and relatively uncontested social order.
>To Which Hank Gould Replies on Thu, 28 Mar 1996:
>
>Really? Seems to me the benchmark in sonnets in english, Shakespeare's,
>celebrate, mourn, ironize, a breakdown in relations between
>women/men. They show a social order based on "games people play"
>and how these games self-destruct. They start with these avuncular
>advisements of an elderly gent to a handsome young man to "be fruitful
>and multiply" & disintegrate from there. The only standard still standing
>at the end is "love" - but love with a shady meaning.
>
In this, the sonnet, rather than being example of form that "over orders,"
of form as constraint, as necessary _finish_ (as in _done_), is instead
perhaps one of the most neat (I'll admit to the tidiness of fourteen lines)
and beautiful expressions of chaos. Too easy to see the line count, the
rhyme scheme of a sonnet and think: orderly universe. When in fact what a
sonnet is all about is its volta, the turn of its own self-destruction, (as
Hank Gould well points out). _That_ is the action of a sonnet. _That_ is
what makes a sonnet.
Point being, if the poem is _good_, then it behaves and excels at multiple
levels (Hank's point of the day previous), and "finish" or form need not be
a constraint any more than "unfinish" be a detriment. Come on, simplicity
and straight-jacketing are not imposed by form (or even by Formalists),
they are only the result of the poet unwilling or unable to both embrace
and challenge a form (which is to say challenge the poem, no matter its
form). If you aim to show the complexity of 'experimental poetry' then you
will have to allow the complexity of "formal poetry," too.
Gary.
.........................................................................
.. Gary Hawkins ::::::: Olympia, Washington
.. ghawkins@halcyon.com ::::: "It's the Water."
......................................:::................................
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:17:44 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Contra Simic (back from Detroit)
In-Reply-To: <199603290706.CAA23489@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Actually, they DO put critics in jail, often -- we could start a list
with Gramsci and C.L.R. James, both of whom compounded their offenses by
writing more criticism IN jail --
and on another note -- while I suppose I may not be the best test case,
one example of deconstructive readings causing somebody actually to read
the poetry (as if that were the true test of criticism??? don't most
critics assume at least a nodding acquaintance with the text they are
writing about?), was my coming to Ponge (who I had not previously heard
about) through Derrida's book -- that's a fact, jacques
I know of many critics who are not poets, but I've never met a poet who
didn't at one time or another write criticism,,, Remember Charles's great
title this year, something like THE REVENGE OF THE POET/CRITIC
(or was it "return"?)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:54:01 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: poetry sightings at poetry city Mar. 28
Because it was a sort of last exhibition game before the poetry season
begins (today at 3 p.m., Poetry vs. Talks at NYU, Silverstein Lounge &
Jurow Lecture Hall, 101 Main Bldg, NE corner of Wash Sq Park--starting
pitchers: Rob Fitterman (0-0), Stacy Doris (0-0)--don't you love statistics
at the start of the year) the reading at Poetry City last night would be
described.
Poets Rod Smith and Loss Glazier arrived just when they said they would, at
6:15. A workshop with June Jordan's "Poetry for the People" students and
students of Mark Statman's "Teachers & Writers" class at the New School
wound up just as Rod set his bag down.
People milled in starting with graciously on-time arrivals Julie Patton,
Lisa Jarnot, Lee Ann Brown, Chris Funkhouser, Tim Davis, Jen Levine, and
Stephen Rodefer. Arriving soon after were Charles Bernstein, Kenny
Goldsmith, and a stunned Bruce Andrews, who said, "It's true, it is a nice
space." Pretzels, popcorn, crackers, brie, seltzer, cola, and quite a bit
of red wine were served. The bottle of white wine on ice has lasted three
weeks without being uncorked. Rod stepped out to have a smoke, and a few
minutes after he came back, we got started. As I told Rob Fitterman, "I
think we're going to get ready now."
I'll make again the offer I made last night: ten Ron Silliman books for $75..
(_What_, _Tjanting_, _Jones_, _Lit_, _Toner_, _Manifest_, _Paradise_, _The
New Sentence_, _N/O_, and _Demo to Ink_... act quickly!)
Loss Glazier, star of the _EPC_, read first to an audience of about 25.
Loss read from his Meow book, _The Parts_, and segued into a sequence about
Windows 95. He had an extremely affable and gentle style, translating the
idioms of "the other platform" and playing on ambiguities of pronunciation
and meaning in "the more arcane computer journals." Loss's poems cracked me
up.
We had a brief intermission.
Anna Malmude introduced Rod Smith, calling everyone's attention to the
publications on the table in the back of the room. At this point, I'd like
to make another offer to poetics readers: Maria Damon's _The Dark End of
the Street_ (UMP, 1994) for $15 ppd, and Walter Lew's anthology
_Premonitions: the Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry_ for
$20 ppd.. OR both books for $30 ppd..
Rod Smith, whose new book _In Memory of My Theories_ is a "must", opened
with an intense reading of "Postmodern Long Poem". Rod's commitment to
straddling. Whoops. Rod's commitment to operating on the boundaries (and
deep in the territories) of sense and nonsense really paid off for us, the
stunned listeners, in a platonic dialogue among among others John Cage, Ted
Berrigan, Derrida, Morton Feldman, Kathy Acker, Mark Wallace. Rod rocked.
Then we stood around and talked. Bill Luoma and Brian Stefans were there,
Tim Davis was wearing an amazing purple coat, Anna and Jen Levine went to
Anna's dad's house, Kim Rosenfield and Rob Fitterman smiled, said good
night, Douglass Rothschild went down the street to visit his brother who is
leaving shortly for Amsterdam, Lisa had to go, Carol Conroy was cleaning up
and I was and Stephen Rodefer helped. I tried to tell him not to, and who
was I to tell him not to, we just met, everybody headed off to the Cedar, I
caught up a little later, they were eating salads. Bill, his friend Brian,
and Chris Funkhouser were down at one end of the table. Talked for a while
to Chris about Woods Hole, _The Telephone Book_ and _Crack Wars_, and then
about the poetry and technology panel we'll both be on tomorrow, last panel
of the whole deal. Bill and Brian took off, I swung around the table, at
the other end were Lee Ann, Rod, Loss, and Charles. Stephen came around the
side and sat next to Chris. We talked for a while about the list. Was David
Ayre real. Yes David Ayre is real.
See you all at the talks,
Jordan
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:26:13 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: william elliott vidaver <wvidaver@DIRECT.CA>
Subject: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
Does anyone on this list know if the papers delivered at the "Spicer in
Context" Conference of 1986 have been assembled into a publication?
On a related topic, does anyone here know of any visual artists who have
attempted to translate aspects of Spicer's poetics over into the production
of what might be called picture-books? (One of the aspects I have in mind is
serial and narrative structure, the _book_ becoming the unit of composition,
instead of the individual poem, painting, or collage
Aaron Vidaver c/o
wvidaver@direct.ca
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:09:58 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: apologies to the list
My apologies to the list for an error in forwarding something that I thought
I'd sent backchannel, but apparently the lateness of the hour triggered an
unwanted reflex.
Sorry!
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 12:29:54 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eryque Gleason <eryque@ACMENET.NET>
Subject: Re: NYC Talks
i second ron's request for a detailed report, i have to stay in albany this
weekend on finances.
was about to say "happy talking!" but somehow i get the feeling that most
of the folk around here don't need much encouragement....;-)
eryque
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 14:58:25 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Henry Gould <AP201070@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:44:51 -0500 from <emilyl@EROLS.COM>
On Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:44:51 -0500 Emily Lloyd said:
>Eek! The Princeton! That book's good for buildin' yer biceps, maybe...but
you can't get everything from chapbooks and the internet...
>I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm (only because Williams isn't here
>to) saying...I LIKE sonnets, not trying to insult them...but...see...they've
>got that rising action/climax/falling action thing going on...of course
>there are variations...I'm talking about the strict sonnet forms, i.e.
>Petrarch, Shakespe, and that other guy...where a turn is necessary, and
>where the turn is supposed to occur at a certain predetermined place.
Point taken... but if the turns in Shakey are diff from the ones in
Petrarchan... and if the turns are really an art of making a logical
argument dance... I give up, this is another fruitless issue. Williams
just sounds defensive, trying to put down something he didn't want to
try to master. But to master this kind of slow turning shaping of
an argument seems like a kind of dialogic pseudo-conversational art
that's diffused and de-fused later...maybe by modern print culture?
- Henry Gould
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 12:36:05 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michelle Roberts <meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: <199603281732.LAA00708@freedom.mtn.org>
thank you for the lesson, all. i suppose i've let my personal aversions
to some forms keep me from knowing their history. this makes me
uncomfortable, which is good, and i'll use more caution in future.
M.
Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world...
Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature |
The University of Texas at Dallas |
Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 12:18:26 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michelle Roberts <meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96032808573879@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
> On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 15:47:47 PST Jerry Rothenberg said:
> >
> >ps. A "formalism" that's blind (or deaf) to the work of (let's say) Jackson
> >Mac Low wouldn't know order from chaos or would restrict it to the trivia
> >of ABAB or its variations. But that discussion is -- & always has been -- a
> >dead end.
>
> Agreed that such restrictions would trivialize ABAB or its variations;
> but if you say ABAB or its variations are in themselves trivial, I
> must say with much rawness that you are either a literary critic or
> a dictator! - Henry Gould
>
Oh my, isn't that a bit harsh? You have a choice here gentlemen the
facism of The Trivia of ABAB of the facism of Everything Goes AT all
Cost, including one's right to personal taste. Cool heads, folks. If
what's clashing here is your various aesthetics, please enlighten me with
a discussion; if what's clashing is ego, go gently.
M.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 11:44:38 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michelle Roberts <meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
In-Reply-To: <199603272024.OAA11697@freedom.mtn.org>
Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world...
Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature |
The University of Texas at Dallas |
Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU |
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996, Charles Alexander wrote:
> I do think we have to talk about each artist, although no work exists
> without a context, and many times it makes sense to speak of more than one
> artist at a time and to try to find out how different ones speak to/with
> each other. This can make for movements, but it doesn't always. It certainly
> does not make for one united "avant garde" movement; neither is there one
> united mainstream out from which the avant garde erupts. So I agree and
> disagree with you. I think there is a danger in speaking about "one poet,
> painter, sculpture" at a time to then go on to speak of one work at a time
> and get back into a sort of new critical approach which removes the work of
> art from the world, and I hope that's not what we want.
Well, yes, I did a lousy job of expressing myself. I'm not at all
interested in returning to new criticism (except as a way to begin to
read, but not the goal of reading). It's just that the phrase "avant
garde" gets tossed around rather irresponsibly by "its" detractors.
That's what I think moves toward specificity (within context, yes) can
help to balance.
>
> Everything I have heard about the New Formalist movement makes me want to be
> far away from it, although I wonder about what you report as Turner's sense
> that New Formalism thinks the Enlightenment was right and we got it wrong
> after that. Just that I believe that any school of thought that truly thinks
> of the Enlightenment as enlightened in some singular way is reducing that
> period's complexity. After all, it not only gave us Samuel Johnson's Vanity
> of Human Wishes, but also Christopher Smart's Song to David and Jubilate
> Agno, and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. And even a lot of reading in
> Johnson can cause one to question the supposed Reason of this Age.
Yes. I think that Turner's worry is that "we" have developed ourselves
into an "avant garde" culture (it's a prhase people like to use here, I'm
not sure what they mean by it yet) and that's what he sees his project as
"curing." I'll need to review the book if you want more specifics; I read
it a year ago, and it's sort of gelled into a few vague statements in my
head now.
Thanks for the adjustment,
M.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 10:37:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Barry MacSweeney
In-Reply-To: <960327220445_100344.2546_EHQ88-1@CompuServe.COM>
Let me add my three hurrays to the resurfacing of Barry Mac Sweeney --
who was one of the first young English poets (with Allen Fisher & Dick
Miller) who Eric Mottram introduced me to when I moved to London in
1972. His work certainly showed what a serious political yet lyrical
voice could achieve. BLACK TORCH (published in 78 by Allen Fisher's
_Spanner Editions- -- & maybe still in print? (Ric/Ken, any of you
know?)) is a superb engagement with the Tyneside coalminer strikes. Also,
his essay on Chatterton (_Elegy for January_) did, for me, in relation to
Chatterton what Howe's book did years later in relation to Dickinson.
Great to have him back! -- Pierre
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force
Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That
SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida
Albany NY 12222 |
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language."
email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu|
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 17:01:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum <mgk3k@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
In-Reply-To: <96Mar29.093658-0800pdt.205425-29789+1@orb.direct.ca> from
"william elliott vidaver" at Mar 29, 96 09:26:13 am
> On a related topic, does anyone here know of any visual artists who have
> attempted to translate aspects of Spicer's poetics over into the production
> of what might be called picture-books? (One of the aspects I have in mind is
> serial and narrative structure, the _book_ becoming the unit of composition,
> instead of the individual poem, painting, or collage
If you're not already familiar with them, I'd suggest looking at
some of Johanna Drucker's books: _The Wor(l)d Made Flesh_,
_Simulant Portrait_, _Otherspace: Martian Ty/opography_, and
also perhaps some of her criticism, _The Visible Word_ for
example. (This is a small sampling indeed, as her bibliography
includes some 50 original works.)
I posted an inquiry about JD here a few months ago, and
received a number of helpful replies, which I'd be happy to
forward to you.
--Matt
=================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k Electronic Text Center
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 19:42:14 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Matthew Gary Kirschenbaum <mgk3k@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: correction
In-Reply-To: <199603292201.RAA211474@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Matthew
Gary Kirschenbaum" at Mar 29, 96 05:01:07 pm
Oops. I see I've conflated the title of Drucker's _The Word
Made Flesh_ with another of her books, _The History of the/my
Wor(l)d_.
=================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k Electronic Text Center
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:53:15 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joe Amato <amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: AWP Chronicle, discussions of form
'one the nba'
yeah----raw...
but anyway, it's a curious pun//
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 20:55:10 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Barry MacSweeney /Pickard
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 8:55:10 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 20:59:55 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: author of M
>But Edwin Honig was talking last night about a book titled "M" -
>standing for "1000 Sonnets". Wish I could remember the author...
i don't know if this has been answered yet, but M was written
by merril moore, i believe, who was a lawyer or a physician
and was a friend of marianne moore and elizabeth bishop but
for god's sake don't quote me on it
chris
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 8:59:55 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 21:09:52 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: Re: Barry MacSweeney
speaking of political poets, does anyone know what tom
pickard's up to these days? is he living in poland w/ his
wife or?
will commence posting bits of me sequence in a little
later
ps sorry abt the blank posting --- slip of the mouse
-------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 9:09:53 pm
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 18:40:09 +0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Schuchat <schuchat@ARC.ARC.ORG.TW>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: <POETICS%96032917210199@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
On Fri, 29 Mar 1996, Henry Gould wrote
Williams
> just sounds defensive, trying to put down something he didn't want to
> try to master.
>
Nah, Williams doesn't sound defensive when he says all sonnets say the
same thing, he sounds ideological, since he is trying to make the point
that there is something else, more interesting and worthwhile, for
American poets to do (at that point in time) than to replay received
forms.
There are interesting things that can be done with received form
and Williams was not blind to them -- he like Lowell's early work, for
its energy, despite its Ransom Tate aesthetic -- but he had alot of
people to convince. In any case, he wrote sonnets now and then himself,
there is even one (Sonnet in search of an Author) in the Pictures from
Breughel collection.
Now, is being ideological the same as being
defensive? Interesting question.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 07:46:44 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Barry MacSweeney
In-Reply-To: <Chameleon.960329211144.Chris@kunos>
On Fri, 29 Mar 1996, chris daniels wrote:
> speaking of political poets, does anyone know what tom
> pickard's up to these days? is he living in poland w/ his
> wife or?
>
Chris, I haven't seen them in a few years now, but as far as I know Tom&
Joanna are still based inLondon with stays in Poland. Last I heard Tom
was mainly involved with television documentaries. But I may be out of
date on all this -- Pierre
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 04:51:16 -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: Spicer
Several pieces from the 1986 conference were collected in Acts 6: A
Book of Correspondences for Jack Spicer (mine, Michael Davidson's,
Michael Palmer's, Robin Blaser's)
Spicer's White Rabbit books were quite distinct in their presentation.
The pages of each section of Book of Magazine Verse roughly mimed the
paper of the publication for which the poems were "intended" (the cover
was, as I recall -- I don't have the book anymore -- a deep brown image
stolen or parodied from the cover of Poetry). Language used the image
of the cover of that lingusitics magazine (not to be confused with the
Andrews/Bernstein affair of the late 70s) that had Spicer's own article
(his one "professional" publication) in it, with the book title and
author's name in large red letters supper imposed. I never owned Heads
of the Town up to the Aether but recall seeing it (before I realized
how important it was to own everything Spicer ever wrote). There was a
period of nearly a decade after his death when most of the books were
out of print but rumors always abounded that somebody -- Gino Clay Sky,
I think -- had a box of Heads of the Town somewhere, if only you could
find him.
They weren't artist's books in the usual sense, but they did present
the book as the unit. That's why, no doubt, the Collected is not the
Collected Poems, but the Collected Books....
And, no, Henry, I don't think Eliot and Stein were worrying about their
relation to transcendtalism or Neitzsche. At least Stein wasn't.
Ron Silliman
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:20:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jordan Davis <jdavis@PANIX.COM>
Subject: new york city, a bag
It's not too late to see the rest of the New York City Poetry Talks.
What you've missed: a friendly exchange between Jeff Derksen and Steve
Evans on "the consitutive outside"; Martine Bellen saying "Look at someone
like Bruce Andrews," Bruce sitting four rows back; Rodrigo Toscano
suggesting that writing does not undermine ideology; Kristin Prevallet
saying she no longer knows what is meant by the word "language"; Tim Davis
analogically polling the audience about poetry and community; Buck Davis
declaring that the second the community stops giving him what he needs,
he's out of there; several of us seconding Buck; Andrew Levy describing his
first experiences of writing (and the pleasure he found in them); Andrew
Levy contrasting I forget whom with Vermeer, and observing that Vermeer is
good for human dignity; Chris Stroffolino, Douglass Rothschild, Steven
Farmer, Will Howe and Rod Smith (and me) heckling, often instructively; Kim
Lyons on the change in the poetry community in New York in the early 80s;
Sianne Ngai on Oppen and Stevens; Kim Rosenfield reading a piece that
seemed to play on the phrase "inca lab oration"; Joe Elliot on the
development of the crusades from the wanderings of itinerant Irish priests;
and a stunning performance by Michael Basinski and family. Not to mention
the two whole roomfuls of people I didn't manage to get out of my
heat-smothered little zone to hear. Rob Fitterman, viva Rob Fitterman!
It's at 101 Main Bldg, NYU, which is at the NE corner of washington square
park. I'd tell you more, but I have to go write my talk.
Love,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:25:07 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: poetry sightings at poetry city Mar. 28
thanks for the fulsome report, jordan, that's what i call a leisurely and
pleasured recap of what sounds like a wonderfllll evening. whish i
coulda...and by the way, folks,walter's and my book for 30$? a steal, both
worth it... and what were you all saying about woods hole?
bests, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:25:14 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
i think some of those papers appeared in, was it ironwood, or boundary 2,
something like that, a special spicer issue? mdavidson wd know. i loved
that conference --it's what inspired me to write about spicer in what became
my booky-poo; i'd loved his poetry since larry fagin introduced me to it in
1977, but it never crossed my mind to write about it...until that magic
moment in SF when i saw michael davidson, john granger, and george stanley (i
was least impressed by the latter, who was incoherent) talk about what for me
had been a somewhat secret passion, as bob kaufman had been, or at least
private if not secret.
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:36:36 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: author of M
merrill moore was a psychiatrist, one of whose clients was robert lowell as a
kid! it' rumored that moore also had an affair w/ lowell's mother, and that
the two were planning --later, after Cal got famous -to collaborate on a
biography of him. what a nightmare...poor little rich boy....
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 10:39:31 -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: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
In-Reply-To: <96Mar29.093658-0800pdt.205425-29789+1@orb.direct.ca> from
"william elliott vidaver" at Mar 29, 96 09:26:13 am
> On a related topic, does anyone here know of any visual artists who have
> attempted to translate aspects of Spicer's poetics over into the production
> of what might be called picture-books? (One of the aspects I have in mind is
> serial and narrative structure, the _book_ becoming the unit of composition,
> instead of the individual poem, painting, or collage
>
> Aaron Vidaver c/o
> wvidaver@direct.ca
I have a held a book by Fran Herndon consisting of collages she worked
on with Spicer. They're marvelous. I can't remember the name of the
book now. Perhaps Kevin can help. If not, I'm sure it could be tracked
down. As visual evocations of the spirit of Spicer's work, they're
impeccable.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 10:58:03 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Albert Cook <CO401000@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Providence Small Press Book Fair
Sunday April 14 1-5PM Alumnae Hall 194 Meeting Street Brown University Providen
ce. Admission Free. Refreshments. Bartlett Society's Small Press Book Fair. Fin
e Printing, Poetry, Handmade bindings Artists Books Scholarly Publications Ephe
mera. SPEAKER: Rosmarie Waldrop, "35 Years on the Burning Deck."
Adastra Press, Ampersand Press, Barbazange, Bu
ll Thistle Press, Burning Deck Press, Chicory Blue Press, Copper Beach Press, H
affenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Haybarn Press, Innerer Klang, Italica
Press,
Elizabeth Coombs Leslie Paper Conservator, John Carter Brown Library, Little R
iver Press, M&S Press, Oat City Press, Paradigm Press, Farmer's Museum, Rhode I
sland School of Design, Sea Dog Press, Showcase for Collage, Singular Speech Pr
ess, The Umbrella Press, Ziggurat Press, Palabra Press,
and others. Information 401-331-0659.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:38:34 -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 <tenney@AZSTARNET.COM>
Subject: gristle is as (?)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:11:41 -0500
Fr>Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 08:11:41 -0500
>From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
>Subject: Wyatt nd the sonnet
>
>> wyatt is truly amazing, from a weird psychosexual angle, and fun to teach for
>> that reason.--
>> maria d
>
>But also for the sheer gristly, sinewy chewiness of the language and
>the astonishing rhythmic variety. Spenser and Sidney run it thru the
>neoplatonic mill so that it comes out all heady and mellifluous. It
>takes Donne to bring it back to ground. And what about Milton? Wow.
>
>Mike
Mike--
I always thought so, but remember the guy with whom I did my 16 & 17 C
poetry, Seymour Kleinberg, saying that those qualities may not have been
there for a conotemporary audience: re off-rhyme in, esp, Donne, say, but
also re rhythmic syncopations, that they may not have been heard that way
esp. when the words were set.
it would be sad to think so
(Blackburn: "would that it were so / would that it were not so")
but how not chew on THIS?:
(from [faulty?] memory which has at least likely garbled lineation):
for this / both the year's and the day's deep midnight is"
Kenneth Koch used to say that reading "Song of Myself," esp section 2, made
you feel like you had a mouthful of rocks....
meanwhile
him who disobeys me disobeys?
best
Tenney
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 11:07:06 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
>On a related topic, does anyone here know of any visual artists who have
>attempted to translate aspects of Spicer's poetics over into the production
>of what might be called picture-books? (One of the aspects I have in mind is
>serial and narrative structure, the _book_ becoming the unit of composition,
>instead of the individual poem, painting, or collage
>
>Aaron Vidaver c/o
>wvidaver@direct.ca
>
This IS what book artists do. Sometimes I think the work is more unknown
than I suspect, perhaps because it is significantly outside the conventional
art markets and decidedly outside most literary practice. See work by any
number of artists, including some Chax Press books, books published by
Granary Books by various artists, Claire Van Vliet, Walter Hamady, Katherine
Kuehn, Penny McElroy, Susan King, Mare Blocker, Tim Ely, Phil Gallo, Karen
Wirth, and I could go on and on and on. For an introduction, see Artists'
Books, ed. Joan Lyons, Visual Studies Workshop. More recently, see Talking
the Boundless Book, ed. by me, Minnesota Center for Book Arts. And see
particularly Johanna Drucker's The Century of Artist's Books, pub. Granary
Books.
Enjoy searching.
charles alexander
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 11:16:42 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
>> On a related topic, does anyone here know of any visual artists who have
>> attempted to translate aspects of Spicer's poetics over into the production
>> of what might be called picture-books? (One of the aspects I have in mind is
>> serial and narrative structure, the _book_ becoming the unit of composition,
>> instead of the individual poem, painting, or collage
>
>If you're not already familiar with them, I'd suggest looking at
>some of Johanna Drucker's books: _The Wor(l)d Made Flesh_,
>_Simulant Portrait_, _Otherspace: Martian Ty/opography_, and
>also perhaps some of her criticism, _The Visible Word_ for
>example. (This is a small sampling indeed, as her bibliography
>includes some 50 original works.)
Yes indeed. And I'd also suggest a strong dose of Karl Young's work, both
his own books and his publishing of others, for years through Membrane Press
and more recently in Light & Dust Books. You could write Light & Dust at
7112 27th Ave., Kenosha, WI 53143 for a catalogue and to inquire about its
web site as well. A recent visual poetry catalogue for an exhibition in
Milwaukee (is Bob Harrison still on this list -- he can give details?) began
with a foreword by Drucker and ended with an afterword by Karl Young.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:27:21 PST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: chris daniels <kunos@LANMINDS.COM>
Subject: pickard/sonnets/my sequence
--- On Sat, 30 Mar 1996 07:46:44 -0500 Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
wrote:
>On Fri, 29 Mar 1996, chris daniels wrote:
>
>> speaking of political poets, does anyone know what tom
>> pickard's up to these days? is he living in poland w/ his
>> wife or?
>>
> Chris, I haven't seen them in a few years now, but as far as I know Tom&
>Joanna are still based inLondon with stays in Poland. Last I heard Tom
>was mainly involved with television documentaries. But I may be out of
>date on all this -- Pierre
1.
pierre
i'm not surprised abt the documentaries at all, having read The Jarrow
Marches --- pickard was always highly politicized. but i am a little
disappointed, i guess --- Hero Dust was important to me when i was in my
early twenties --- still think it's a terrific book --- i wasn't too
crazy abt Custom & Exile --- tho there are some beauties in there --- and
have been keeping my eye out for pickard ever since --- anyway, let's hope
he's content w/ what he's doing now, whatever it may be
2.
i've been extremely interested in the sonnet discussion, tho have had
very little to say abt it --- but i wrote A LOT of sonnets when i was a
kid --- really bad sonnets --- a couple of hundred, all trashed a long
time ago --- it's a great form, one of the greatest, does its dialectic
work compactly
i'd like to mention cummings' "sometimes/ in)spring" and gm hopkins'
Windhover as examples of outrageously beautiful sonnets wch strain
the form w/o "breaking" it and cecco anghiolieri's "S'il fosse fuoco"
as a particulary nasty bit of sonneteering
3.
speaking of form and volti, here's the first few pages from the
sequence i've mentioned. i'd GREATLY appreciate comments, criticism, etc,
--- also, please tell me if it's too much to post at once
nb: the text has lost it's formatting --- LET THIS URN SPEAK shld be in the
shape of --- you guessed it
the sequence is called --- for now, anyway --- NICHTS MACHT FREI (...AND
PISSE NOT UPON THEIR ASHES)
i hope you enjoy reading it
later
chris
******************************************
Saint Lt
Vire will wind in other shadows
unborn through the bright ways tremble
and the old mind ghost-forsaken
sink into its havoc
--- Samuel Beckett
*
LET THIS URN THEN SPEAK
WHEREIN SHE LIES IN PART
NO MORE O THE SUN COMES UP
IN THE MORNING AND SENDS OUR CHILDREN OFF
TO SCHOOL AND SENDS US OFF TO DO OUR JOBS AND
SENDS US OFF TO CHANGE THE WORLD THE SUN COMES UP IN
THE MORNING AND WILL WE NEVER AWAKE SINCE NO AMOUNT
OF FINGERWORK MAY REDEEM THE BARREN MAESTRO COME ALL
YE LATTERDAY ZHDANOVS CHOIR YOUR TENDENZ-POESIE NOR
MOST INTRICATE CENOTAPH SUBLIMATE THE SMELL OF DEATH
SLAMMED THROUGH DISASTERLESS IMMENSITIES SOON TO
BE RAVELLED IN DECAY FAR MORE SWEET THAN YOUR
THRICE GONGORIC BLOOD DRY SOIL BLOW AWAY
WORLD FORGET YOUR BARE BONES DANCE
MUTE MONSTERS TO A SILENT
COMMONSONG
SELAH
ELASELAHELAS
ELAHELASELA
HELAS
ELAHELASELASELA
HELASELAHELASELAH
SELAH SELAH SELAH SELAH
SELAH SELAH SELAH HELAS
SELAH SELAH HELAS HELAS
SELAH HELAS HELAS HELAS
HELAS HELAS HELAS HELAS
*
Cede To Fog
every
no thing s
some
*
Black wing slice
shitten meatglut
azraelstrom ventrex come
take this shadow
home to vorterus
abaddon your grinding
bloodash kingdom come
shadow come
take this shadow
up
*
You remember there i was back then that time
you know in the pit with the others there how
well you know
funnel of ash wind and shit with the ones not
me in that bloody cone
yet me the flapping above us alike yet seperate
in glacial grinding unformed bones to imma-
nence you know well
huge shrieking black mantling silence over all
you ever knew in that cloacal vortex
protoclasmic surge and buckle in ourhailin-
through-us-omnidirectional-wind wing brush
each eye blind staring out from filthy ice
how only too well you know that howling
nowhere compass-net perseity
o immane immanation imbanning mendacity
your predation untrammeled in black muck
its mire-sucking quag mocks our ludicrous
tropical bathos with vertical hurl
******************************************************
------------------------------------
christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.30.96 8:29:05 am
q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
said anything goes?"
--- charles wuorinen
a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
--- george clinton
snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
voice: 510.524.5972
http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 09:46:43 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@ISC.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: NYU Talks
In-Reply-To: <199603300703.CAA05218@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
PLEASE keep those reports coming -- Sounds great --
and somebody might pass a word to whoever organized this at NYU to stop
being so damned insular and let a few people outside their immediate
circles of acquaintance know ahead of time when they're planning such an
event -- I left the East before it happened, not knowing it was to
happen, and coulda hung for at least part of it --
Other big poetry wing dings happening soon back there at least have told
us they are to occur -- The call for papers & readings for a few of them
has been attracting much attention around the bulletin board where I
posted it here in L.A. --
Rod -- Congrats. on the book!
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 17:40:52 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chami Wickremasinghe <webmaster@CHAMISPLACE.COM>
Subject: NEW POETRY PAGE
Santa Rosa Soundings
http://www.chamisplace.com/art/srs/
Interested in a new approach to the
exciting world of poetry? Visit Santa
Rosa Soundings at Chami's Place...
all categories, all styles, news and
more in a whole new kind of magazine!
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 16:44:49 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: author of M
It might be worth remembering, too, that William Carlos Williams wrote a
foreword to Merrill Moore's 1938 book SONNETS FROM NEW DIRECTIONS; parts of
this were later reprinted on the last pages (pages 1016-1017) of Moore's M:
ONE THOUSAND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SONNETS (Harcourt Brace 1938). The Foreword is
titled "Merrill Moore's Sonnets: Present total, steadily mounting, 50,000."
I don't know what he said about the sonnet there, since I haven't read it.
Moore wrote roughly (i.e. approximately!) five sonnets a day from his
eighteenth year on.
Peter
>>But Edwin Honig was talking last night about a book titled "M" -
>>standing for "1000 Sonnets". Wish I could remember the author...
>
>i don't know if this has been answered yet, but M was written
>by merril moore, i believe, who was a lawyer or a physician
>and was a friend of marianne moore and elizabeth bishop but
>for god's sake don't quote me on it
>
>chris
>-------------------------------------
>christopher daniels <kunos@lanminds.com> 3.29.96 8:59:55 pm
>
>q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they
> said anything goes?"
> --- charles wuorinen
>
>a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow."
>
> --- george clinton
>
>snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa
>voice: 510.524.5972
>http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing)
>
>
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 16:44:54 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Tom Pickard
Tom Pickard was until very recently running a quite successful but surely
shoestring TV documentary production company (he did the writing, mainly, so
far as I know) in the north of England -- did a brilliant documentary some
years back on the English poet Roy Fisher, plus a number of other things.
Joanna Voight is mainly working out of London, or was, last I heard.
.
There is also his wonderful documentary book about the last of the
Northeastern shipyards, WE MAKE SHIPS (I think I've got the title right)
published about 1990 by was it Andre Deutsch? Ric Caddel will know, are you
there Ric?
Peter
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue
Vancouver
B.C.
Canada V5V 1X2
Voice and fax: 604 876 8061
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 13:52:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Stephen L Burt <stephen.burt@YALE.EDU>
Subject: M, irony, Niedecker, "the equilibrists"
In-Reply-To: <01I2VHV0OBQQHTW71O@cnsvax.albany.edu>
I've been enjoying reading this list a lot and haven't posted to it
before, but I thought I'd answer a few specific questions and ask a few more.
***
_M_: Merrill Moore was a successful psychiatrist in Boston whose famous
patients included Robert Lowell. He had some sort of project to write as
many sonnets as he could before dying, or maybe simply to write a
thousand sonnets; he would interrupt consultations to write sonnets, and
kept a notepad with him in his car so he could write sonnets at traffic
lights, etc. There's an anecdote in Elizabeth Bishop's letters about him,
I forget where or what but it's funny.
Speaking of New England eccentrics, I bet some of the people on this list
would enjoy John Wheelwright: I heard Ashbery talk about him several
years ago and looked him up, and I didn't think he was that great, but
he's certainly disjunctive, experimental, singular and fun.
***
"The Equilibrists": the people we group together now as "New Critics"
certainly _didn't_ insist that all poems be pinned down like butterflies,
with one demonstrable meaning and total snap-shut closure. At least not
all of them did. That Ransom poem somebody mentioned a few days ago is--
in part-- about _preferring_ a certain amount of indeterminacy (in a
reading or in a romance), and justifying that preference by explaining it
after the fact as a desire for unresolved "tension" or "balance." Ransom
was terrifyingly sexist, not open-minded enough in other ways, and so on, but
he and his friends were thinking seriously about many of the same issues
we think about now. (So were Hazlitt and De Quincey, I think, but don't
quote me on that. Yet.)
***
Irony, cooked, etc.: Is irony "inherently" more cooked than its
opposite (sincerity? univocality?)? Whether or not it is, we expect works
that appear "cooked" and "finished" in other ways to include some irony
(or anyway I do). (We have been taught to do so.)This expectation
opens up a whole range of effects to
be achieved by (1) writing heavily ironic, deeply ambiguous poems that
_sound_ "raw," or by (2) writing poems that are apparently "cooked" and
"finished" aurally but completely univocal and sincere emotionally, in a
way that makes their sincerity a suprise.
Successful example of (1): (some of) Stevie Smith, and possibly Veronica
Forrest-Thomson.
Successful example of (2): (some of) early Creeley.
But such general terms can't take us very far, and I should probably stop
right there.
(People who care where Lowell got the phrase "The Raw and the
Cooked" might think about the famous Philip Rahv essay "Paleface and Redskin,"
which applied a slightly-similar binary division to American fiction, and
which Lowell and all his friends would certainly have read. And our
library catalog places Levi-Strauss's _Cru et le Cuit_ in 1964, after
Lowell's talk-- is it really that late, or have I been deceived by
reprint dates?)
***
Finally, I heard a rumour that the reason I've never seen a _Collected
Poems of Lorine Niedecker_ for sale is that they were stored in a
warehouse in North Carolina and the warehouse flooded. Terrible irony,
if true ("My Life by Water"...!) Does anyone know whether the poems that
weren't in _The Granite Pail_ will ever be made available again (or
whether they're available now)?
***
Back to the cave,
steve
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 01:15:22 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Joshua N Schuster <jnschust@SAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
In-Reply-To: <199603301707.LAA11413@freedom.mtn.org> from "Charles Alexander"
at Mar 30, 96 11:07:06 am
Charles,
While everyone is waiting for updates on the NYC conference, myself
included, could you
expand some on the current state of book art practice. I agree book art
tends to slide behind the couch pieces of both art and poetry markets.
Partly, perhaps, because the books tend to be too expensive for casual
purchase but not a rare enough commodity for museum/gallery space.
I'm curious what sort of genres or "schools" or margins are out there and
who is a particular publisher, besides Granary and Chax. I"d like to
know more about the list of names you posted and how their work relates
to previous movements such as lettrism and even fluxus. I enjoy reading
Johanna Drucker's critical work but sometimes feel she name drops to a
supersatured extent which makes a sort of i.d. salad, particularly with
regard to the current "scene" or industry. It's perhaps odd that the
langpo's mostly kept astray from the book of the thing, with noteable
exceptions Grenier and McCaffery.
I've been trying to research assemblings, multimedia "books", sort of, but
can find very little critical material. What little of such current
assemblagers I hear of, like Blast, I devour. Does anyone know of
any international journals which cover the states of practice?
Also what does _Talking the Boundless Book_ feature? Willing to share more?
So any info on current book art and assemblaging practice would be of
help. If not, still eagerly awaiting the results of the talk series.
bests,
Joshua
Charles Alexander wrote:
>
> This IS what book artists do. Sometimes I think the work is more unknown
> than I suspect, perhaps because it is significantly outside the conventional
> art markets and decidedly outside most literary practice. See work by any
> number of artists, including some Chax Press books, books published by
> Granary Books by various artists, Claire Van Vliet, Walter Hamady, Katherine
> Kuehn, Penny McElroy, Susan King, Mare Blocker, Tim Ely, Phil Gallo, Karen
> Wirth, and I could go on and on and on. For an introduction, see Artists'
> Books, ed. Joan Lyons, Visual Studies Workshop. More recently, see Talking
> the Boundless Book, ed. by me, Minnesota Center for Book Arts. And see
> particularly Johanna Drucker's The Century of Artist's Books, pub. Granary
> Books.
>
> Enjoy searching.
>
> charles alexander
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 08:41:48 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ward Tietz <100723.3166@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: assemblings and multi-media books
On March 31, Joshua Shuster wrote,
"I'm curious what sort of genres or "schools" or margins are out there and who
is a particular publisher, besides Granary and Chax. I'd like to know more
about the list of names you (Charles Alexander) posted and how their work
relates to previous movements such as lettrism and even Fluxus."
"I've been trying to research assembling, multimedia 'books,' sort of, but can
find very little critical material...Does anyone know of any international
journals which cover the states of practice."
From what I know about European practice, this sort of work can get even more
difficult to track since it also overlaps with other practices such as mail-art,
which while on the wane in some countries, is still going strong in others. In
this context Fluxus influence and tradition are still quite strong. I know, and
have worked with, a few people who were in the "flux-like" group Ecart here in
Geneva which was started by John Armleder in the 1970s. One of them, Guenther
Ruch went on with a mail-art magazine in the 1980s called Clinch and published,
and still publishes, assembling-style books through his press, Out Press (315
Rte. de Peney / CH-1242 Geneva-Peney / Switzerland).
Another person who continues in this tradition is Juergen O. Olbrich who through
the NO INSTITUTE (Nederfelderstr. 35 / Kassel, D-34128 / Germany) publishes
assembling-style books in limited editions of 150. This style of work tends to
be cruder and more ad-hoc than most of the work Charles Alexander described, but
it is able to investigate the idea of assembly more fully as a result.
Juan Agius, who is based in Geneva, is one of the few book sellers who
specializes in this sort of work. He publishes a catalog about three times a
year. His address is P.O. Box 5243 / CH-1211 Geneva 11 / Switzerland.
There is also Gates of Heck, the catalog of artist books and other related
material, put out by Katharine Gates and Davi Det Hompson. The last one I have
is from late 1994, so there may be a more recent one. Their address is 5301
Brook Rd., Richmond, VA 23227, USA.
Ward Tietz
Rte. de St. Cergue, 48a
CH-1260 Nyon
Switzerland
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 10:51:37 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Thomas M. Orange" <tmorange@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>
Subject: Queneau's sonnet machine
In-Reply-To: <199603300703.CAA05218@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu>
> On Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:09:44 -0500 Michael Boughn said:
>
> >Watch for upcoming volume of John Clarke's sonnets, _In the Analogy,
> >Books 1-7_ from shuffaloff in the next couple of months--a sequence of
> >250 sonnets which only death managed to stop.
>
and Henry Gould replied:
>
> But Willis Barnstone's got him beat - just published "501 Sonnets".
> But Edwin Honig was talking last night about a book titled "M" -
> standing for "1000 Sonnets". Wish I could remember the author...
> Little sonnet men make BIG sequences.
Raymond Queneau probably has them all beat with his _Cent mille millards
de poemes_ (1961). Ten sonnets printed onto thick card stock, with each
page die-cut into line-by-line strips for continual rearrangement.
Any chance that Gallimard will ever actually allow this text to get
marked up into HTML and stored on the WWW so that it can truly run like the
well-oiled sonnet machine that it wants to be? And in a bilingual
edition maybe....
Tom Orange
London, Ontario
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 11:02:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: pickard/sonnets/my sequence
cool!
md
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 11:04:05 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <MDamon9999@AOL.COM>
Subject: USOP event report
Last night a lovely event was held chez moi. a potluck,
sunset-over-the-ocean-watching, United States of Poetry video watching party.
about 12-15 of us, lots of different kinds of folks, let's see: Julie Chang
came down from Boston College, Beth Swanson Goldberg late of Miami U-Ohio,
Michelle the wedding photographer, Mark the research engineer from New
Zealand and his friend Julie, Dave the computer modeler from the Woods Hole
Oceanographic (or is it the marine bio lab?), carol the yoga teacher, Susie
the reiki therapist and home-schooler, Ron the photojournalist, patti the
social worker, debbie the mother, spike and isabel the kids, herb the
businessman-turned oceanographic lab technician, alll brought food and lay on
the floor and/or sofas with down comforters and watched...poetry! to eat
there were figs and strawberries, chicken stew, two roasted chickens,
vegetarian rice salad w/ raisins and avocado, wheatballs in tomato sauce,
organic greens salad w/ balsamic vinaigrette, an exquisite middle eastern
platter made by beth's husband the world class chef, organic apple pie and
ice cream, pesto pizza, girl scout cookies (chocolate mint, they went fast),
chips and salsa, wonderful coffee with whipping cream (doubling as stuff to
put on strawberries), spinach-and-cheese dumplings, and other feasty foods.
everyone loved the videos, there was a flurry of excitement when the 800
number came on the screen to order the video set and the book. I had the
book too and that made the rounds dduring and after the "screening". the
teachers (julie, beth, and susie were excited about showing this to students,
college students and home-schoolees), there were many comments about "I'm not
a poetry person, but this is great!" and "why didn't they show us this kind
of stuff in English classes?" big faves were maggie estep in big capital
letters (her lines were quoted long into the night), john wright, tracie
morris, pearl cleage and quincy troupe, the i hate james joyce guy, pedro
pietri, and, to coin a phraase, others too numerous to mention. there was
also a fair amount of excitement cuz bob holman was known to some of the
long-time woods hole dwellers; i showed the "spoken word unplugged" mtv tape
afterwards (for the maggie estep diehard contingent) and there was bob, doing
his rap piece, folks that had known him many years ago were delighted. we
decided to have a writing night sometime before i leave, why oh why didn't i
do this earlier, o well that's the way it wuz meant to be i guess... it was
really great seeing people get turned on to poetry, many of whom had not
liked poetry before , cuz they found it "depressing." in the middle of the
whole thing, my tax lady called (saturday night???) and sed i'd be getting a
"substantial" return. so, what could be better. an evening with food,
sunshine, sunset, a comet (which everyone went out to watch during breaks in
the video), poetry, and a promise of buckeroonies. today's another beautiful
day, promises to be high 50s and sunny, there's fishing boats and a large
research vessel off the beach, and what am i doing inside glued to my
repetitive-strain-injury-causing machine here? guess i just wanted to tell
everyone about the evening. Thanks, nuyopoman, for all inspiring poetry
activism.
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 11:52:39 -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: M, irony, Niedecker, "the equilibrists"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960330131902.19589E-100000@minerva> from "Stephen
L Burt" at Mar 30, 96 01:52:11 pm
> Finally, I heard a rumour that the reason I've never seen a _Collected
> Poems of Lorine Niedecker_ for sale is that they were stored in a
> warehouse in North Carolina and the warehouse flooded. Terrible irony,
> if true ("My Life by Water"...!) Does anyone know whether the poems that
> weren't in _The Granite Pail_ will ever be made available again (or
> whether they're available now)?
I recently heard from Peter Quartermain that Jenny Penberthy has been
preparing a a new edition of the Collected which rectifies editorial
errors in previous editions. Should be out shortly.
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 12:09:38 -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: gristle is as (?)
In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19960330093950.50f75854@mail.azstarnet.com> from "Tenney
Nathanson" at Mar 30, 96 09:38:34 am
> Mike--
>
> I always thought so, but remember the guy with whom I did my 16 & 17 C
> poetry, Seymour Kleinberg, saying that those qualities may not have been
> there for a conotemporary audience: re off-rhyme in, esp, Donne, say, but
> also re rhythmic syncopations, that they may not have been heard that way
> esp. when the words were set.
Tenney:
What was K's point? That Elizabethans couldn't hear the difference?
That it wasn't a difference within the structures that governed sonal
significations? It's a fascinating idea, but Donne's moves, in
terms of sound, structure and content seem so clearly organized in
response to that earlier material. Is K's position part of that
skeptical scientizing "intentional fallacy" business?
How about this from Wyatt:
Why then, Alas, did it not kepe it right,
Retorning to lepe into the the fire,
And where it was at wysshe it could not remain?
Such mockes of dremes they torne to dedly pain.
Would K argue that all 16th and 17th c. readers and listeners would
hear this as iambic pentameter? But poets would always know the
difference, wouldn't they, even if others couldn't hear?
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 13:00:57 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tardos Mac Low <tarmac@PIPELINE.COM>
Subject: NYC poetry talks
Comments: To: jdavis@panix.com
Dear Jordan,
Please give my regrets to those at the poetry talks since I cannot stop
working right now on things that have to be done by 27 April for our
concert at Roulette. The sesssions sound great.
Jackson Mac Low
tarmac@nyc.pipeline.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 10:41:03 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: Queneau's sonnet machine
Thomas Orange asks (about Queneau's Cent mille millards de poemes):
>Any chance that Gallimard will ever actually allow this text to get
>marked up into HTML and stored on the WWW so that it can truly run like the
>well-oiled sonnet machine that it wants to be? And in a bilingual
>edition maybe....
Here's the URL for a monolingual version, not by Galliamard.
<http://www.labri.u-bordeaux.fr/~goudal/htbin/Miliards/poemes-direct.cgi>
Bests,
Herb
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 07:46:31 GMT+1300
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: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
is the problem of The Sonnet, that satisfying formal protocols is no
guarantee of a poesis of any use or interest or value? The Haiku?
The Blues? oft revisited sites of similar argument? My spell checker
does not recognise poesis.
Tony Green,
e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 16:41:07 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: assemblings and multi-media books
>This style of work tends to
>be cruder and more ad-hoc than most of the work Charles Alexander
described, but
>it is able to investigate the idea of assembly more fully as a result.
I really like what Ward Tietz says here about investigating the idea of
assembly. Could you say more about this, Ward? Do you mean to suggest that,
because it isn't consciously a fine craft seeking technical seamlessness,
that more ad-hoc work thereby exhibits its assembly more openly, and
experiments with it more avidly?
If so, I guess I'd think this is true in comparison with more traditional
book arts in general, but again it's the exceptions to the seamless book
which I tend to find more interesting, even if they are sometimes on the
margins of the less ad-hoc field of work.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 16:40:56 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: assemblings and multi-media books
Thanks, Ward Tietz, for pointing out the connections of book arts to mail
art, as well as for pointing to the work of Davi Det Hompson and others. I
think if as many people as possible join this conversation it will be
helpful, as I know I can not catalogue all the varieties of work out there.
Part of the difficult, as well as part of the richness, is that book art
comes from many sources. One source is a tradition of fine printing revived
at the end of the 19th Century by William Morris and his Kelmscott Press,
but also in somewhat different artistic visions by Doves Press and Ashendene
Press at close to the same time. Compared to Morris's Kelmscott books, Doves
books are elegant but spare, the typographer may be said in some sense to
disappear. Beatrice Warde, noted type historian, later made a metaphor of
the typographer's art as a fine clear wine goblet, enabling the glow of the
wine to shine through but not calling undue attention to itself. What has
come down, however, as this tradition has evolved, ranges from similar spare
print on fine white papers, to bookmakers such as Walter Hamady whose books
certainly are beautiful, but who makes wide use of colors, textures, collage
images, and more. And Walter is one of the few in this field who has
consistently worked with contemporary writers, publishing books from the
mid-1960's to the present by writers such as George Oppen, Robert Creeley,
Robert Duncan, Diane Wakoski, and many more. His books tend to work as
sumptuous but not disappearing homes for the texts they present. Another
noted fine printer of the last fifty years is Harry Duncan (last I heard he
was still alive, probably in his late 70's if not older), whose
typographical/book design sense is much more subdued. Both of these have
produced a lot of students (I was one of Hamady's), but not many of these
students necessarily remain that close to the work of their teachers.
But this is only one source of book arts, which I take to include fine
print, livres d'artiste, artist's books, conceptual books, sculptural works
which refer to the book form, some but not all photographic books, some but
not all mail art, and some but not all concrete/visual poetry. And I'm sure
I've missed something.
I'm not sure there was much sense of the term book arts before about the
mid-1970's, when the Center for Book Arts formed in New York. Richard Minsky
is the founder (he has a web site with a gallery of his works and I don't
know the URL but if you have NetScape you cand o a NetSearch for Minsky and
find it; you can also hit the chax site which is very modest at
http://www.bookarts.org/chax/ for varius links). Minsky comes from a
traditional and fine bookbinding background, but he has made several altered
books (where an existing book has been altered in some way by an artist to
form something altogether different, perhaps the most famous example of
which is Tom Phillips's A Humument). Minsky comes out of the fine craft
tradition but he also makes these sculptural books. My guess is also that
he's quite aware of Fluxus.
I'm just meandering here and I'm going to keep doing so for a while, then stop.
Since Johanna Drucker's work has come up, I'll mention that she began
setting and printing type letterpress and her first few books were of her
texts in various kinds of type, both with and without illustration, some
works where in essence the type becomes the message as well as the medium.
But in recent years she has also produced work she designed in an offset
print studio, and she has produced work she designed on computer which then
was printed by an artists' book printer. She is married to such an offset
printer, Brad Freeman, who has also produced several visual artist's books
(generally with little or no text) in his own name, which are quite
marvelous. He has also curated an exhibition, which first was mounted by
Granary Books in New York, of offset-printed artists' books from across the
United States. Perhaps one benefit of this exhibition was wider exposure to
at least two artists who were photographers and printers making books before
people ever started talking about the book arts, specifically Joe Ruther in
Florida (who is one of Brad's teacher/mentors) and Todd Walker in Tucson,
Arizona. Both of these artists produce very personal, irreverent
combinations of text/image in book form. Both are worth attending to.
In her The Century of Artist's Books Johanna Drucker noted Chax as one of a
very few presses trying to use the form and structure of the book in
combination with contemporary innovative literary texts. That is what Chax
(in its handmade editions, not in its trade paperbacks) tries to do, and I
think there are some others who have done that, particularly The Salient
Seedling Press of Katherine Kuehn in Albuquerque, and several of the works
Granary Books has published. Granary is different in that it is directed not
by an artist but by Steve Clay, who chooses projects and commissions artists
to make books. These collaborations are always interesting and nearly always
defy my expectations that commissioned books aren't going to be as
interesting as books which begin with the artists. It's a kind of magic
Steve has. Those books are quite diverse, ranging from a mostly painted book
by Susan Bee with snippets of text in it, to work by John Cage in which the
book finds its form in and around the finely printed text. Chax books tend
to be low in the fine press price spectrum, at generally under $100 (a
couple more than that). Granary prices have ranged from under $100 to more
than $1,000. So it's true that one is not likely to find these books in many
bookstores, but also not in many art galleries. A lot of the market is
developed over years and continued by word of mouth, by travels to rare book
librarians and curators, collections, a few dealers, etc.
There are various rifts in the book arts world. I have a constant argument
against most "fine presses" which I think are entirely unimaginative in
texts they choose to print, and often entirely predictable in the book forms
they issue. But I can think of lots of exceptions. And I love mail art and
visual poetry and irreverent bookmakers. But when I had one such, Steve
Kranz, a young bookmaker and writer of note, come to Minnesota Center for
Book Arts and lead a class on making books from everyday materials, I
actually received a letter later from one student who was decidedly put off
by Kranz's lack of care for such things as proper grain direction in paper.
So, in this long post which hasn't had much structure I'll just close by
saying that though the sources include Fluxus & mail art & livres d'artiste
by such as Matisse & Delaunay, and the experimental typography and
publications of Futurists and Dadaists, and the fine print history, it's
also true that, partly due to the increased presence of binding and
papermaking and other book arts classes in centers like Center for Book Arts
in New York and Minnesota Center for Book Arts, but also in community arts
programs and some colleges, that a lot of the participants in the book arts
come to it from a crafts-learning perspective and don't know a lot about the
history. And I find it unfortunate that a lot don't care about that history
and about its dynamic possibilities in the present. But there are some who do.
I'm glad to chip in with more as people want to continue this thread.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 16:52:54 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <chax@MTN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Question regarding "Spicer in Context" Conference 1986 &
Responding to Joshua's question about Talking the Boundless Book.
It is a compilation of talks given on panels during the 1994 symposium at
Minnesota Center for Book Arts titled Art & Language: Re-Reading the
Boundless Book -- there was a corresponding exhibition of that name which
traveled to a few sites around the country.
Since they are essentially talks, there is a distinct informality to these
pieces, particularly as some of the presenters are artists not very
accustomed to giving such talks. There's also an extremely wide breadth to
the kinds of people included in the symposium and their interests, which was
the strength of the symposium; but it's also true that because of this
breadth, there is a corresponding lack of depth. People were primarily
presenting their work and/or ideas, and not working with others on panels to
build a conversation/dialogue. Still, it was one of the more interesting
gatherings in the book arts in recent years. For one overview, you might see
Johanna Drucker's essay in JAB (Journal of Artist's Books, second issue),
which reports on this and two other symposia or panels in the book arts.
I'll give the table of contents. The book should be in at least a few
bookstores, but it can also be ordered from Minnesota Center for Book Arts
(MCBA), 24 North Third Street, Minneapolis, MN 55401; 612-338-3634. MCBA is
much in transition right now, without a director for 7 months now (I was the
last one), and recently has lost other staff as well. Recent news is a
considered move to Minneapolis College of Art & Design. But they should
still be taking care of book sales.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Charles Alexander
Hermeneutics and the Book Arts
Dick Higgins
Embrace & Incite: The Book is a World
Steven Clay
A Critical Metalanguage for the Book as an Art Form
Johanna Drucker
The Economics of the Small Press: Poetry Publishing
Charles Bernstein
Social Book Building
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Design Elements in Nude Formalism and Fool's Gold
Susan Bee
Hyakunin Isshu: Between Power and Play, An Anthology in Translation
Toshi Ishihara and Linda Reinfeld
Images from Pictured Knowledge
Katherine Kuehn
Nexus Press: A View from the Loading Dock
Jo Anne Paschall
Navigating My Electronic Books
Colette Gaiter
It Really IS A Book
Alison Knowles
The Book and the Body: Generation and Re-Generation
Byron Clercx
JAB Talk
Brad Freeman
Re-Reading the Boundless Book
Karen Wirth
The book was published by Minnesota Center for Book Arts in 1995. Its price
is $15.95.
charles
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 19:16:51 -0600
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tim Wood <twood@CONNECT.NET>
Subject: Poetry Video
Hello all...
I'm doing research into poetry video. I've already contacted a number of
people in Chicago, SF and the NE, but I'm still looking for additional
material. This would include all the usual primary and secondary suspects.
Of course, even a name or an idea would be welcome...
thanks,
Tim Wood
in space no one can hear you scream
in Dallas no one cares...
______________________________________________________________________________
Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 18:57:08 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: tosh berman <tosh@LOOP.COM>
Subject: Re: Poetry Video
>Hello all...
>
>I'm doing research into poetry video. I've already contacted a number of
>people in Chicago, SF and the NE, but I'm still looking for additional
>material. This would include all the usual primary and secondary suspects.
>Of course, even a name or an idea would be welcome...
>
>thanks,
>Tim Wood
>
> in space no one can hear you scream
> in Dallas no one cares...
>______________________________________________________________________________
>Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/
>the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html
> poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development
I am sorry, I don't see any reason why there should be "poetry video."
Poetry was always the first art that propelled the arts. And now, it seems
that poetry (at least on a commercial level) is following the other arts.
If one is looking for video poetry I suggest the cinema of Cocteau, Bunuel,
Sam Fuller, Kenneth Anger, Louis Feuillade, Fritz Lang, Ed Wood Jr., Ozu,
and perhaps the master of poetic cinema - Buster Keaton. "Literal" videos
on poetry is boring, and I might add for all its good intentions & good to
interesting poets who participated in - The United States of Poetry - it
is still a big bore. And really I don't care if it makes people who are
not interested in poetry all of sudden become interested in poetry - it is
still a bore. Sorry to be so harsh, but it is just a thought among other
thoughts.
tosh
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:28:58 -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.COM>
Subject: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go
In-Reply-To: <60D93542FB@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
Betwixt and between the cooked and the raw
I feel that poetry exists on the edge between the raw and the
cooked, rather than being one or the other. It is voice in David
Appelbaum's sense ("Voice that escapes the written or spoken page
is deeply organic and fraught with the problem of human suffering.").
It is Susan Griffin's plum ("The plum has been my lover. And I have
known the plum. Letting the plum into the mind of my body, I will
always have the taste of sweetness in my memory.") before it is paled
"In texts and words which will grow more pale the further away they
are placed from life."
\tom