Previous Updates: May 2006

May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005

May 31, 2006 10:18 AM To be premiered in Studio Johan Tobias, Suomenlinna Island, Thursday, June 8, at 6 PM, QUICKSAND: The Evidence is an interactive sound poetry installation by Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski and Alan Prohm - a movement sensitive sound poem in suspension, where "entering the dusty void unawares, moving bodies (interagents) catalize the self-organizing potentials of a clumping, stringing, thickening universe". In an attempt to collect feedback for the further evolution of their work the authors also organise two special events to discuss the piece from particular perspectives: Friday, June, at 6 PM: "Quicksand as interactive sound poetry and movement-generated text", special guest Leevi Lehto, and Tuesday, June 13, 6 PM: "Quicksand as a movement and performance environment", special guest Raisa Vennamo. These events are open to the public. Studio Johan Tobias is behind Pot Viapori ceramics studio, on Island B
(number 31 on the Map).

May 30, 2006 7:25 PM "Arise Nigger Savage Wench: A Census". Lorna Dee Cervantes' "answer to the controversy over Flarf and certain language".

May 30, 2006 5:15 PM Ville Luoma-aho has some critical second thoughts about Janne Nummela's Lyhyellä matkalla ohuesti jäätyneen meren yli.

May 30, 2006 4:00 PM (Of course) not in Hesari.

May 26, 2006 1:16 PM "Plurifying the Languages Of the Trite", my essay for the seminar on "Poetry in Time of War and Banality", to be published in Portuguese in the Brazilian poetry magazine, Sibila.

May 25, 2006 6:40 PM "There are objectivists who think" (though I may have my doubts about that): "beauty is", a new Sonnet by Karri Kokko 5/25/2006)

May 24, 2006 5:50 PM "Definitions of Brazil" by Régis Bonvicino (for Arkadii Dragomoshchenko).

May 19, 2006 10:30 PM In the early morning hours I'll leave for Sao Paulo and Campinas; check here for my responses to the questions by Eduardo Simoes, a journalist working for Folha de S. Paolo, a large Brazilian nespaper. (I don't know when his article will come out and what, if any, of my thoughts will go to it; anyway, check back on Friday, May 26, for "Plurifying the Languages of the Trite", my essay for Sibila.)

May 19, 2006 10:30 PM In the early morning hours I'll leave for Sao Paulo and Campinas; check here for my responses to the questions by Eduardo Simoes, a journalist working for Folha de S. Paolo, a large Brazilian nespaper. (I don't know when his article will come out and what, if any, of my thoughts will go to it; anyway, check back on Friday, May 26, for "Plurifying the Languages of the Trite", my essay for Sibila.)

May 18, 2006 19:19 PM A call for translators. I'm editing an anthology of new Finnish poetry for the special Finlandsnummer (Finnish Issue) of the Swedish poetry magazine, OEI, scheduled to come out next August or September (also coming up a big Finnish-Swedish reading on Saturday, Sept. 16, in Stockholm, to follow the successful TekstiKonst / TextTaide event in Helsinki last November). Now we are looking for translators from Finnish (primarily) into Swedish (primarily). If you are interested in experimental poetry / poetics of translation, and know some suomi, rikssvenska, finlandssvenska or tvångsvenska (or wish to learn them - think of the guy who, to learn Spanish, put out an ad: "Spanish lessons given..."), read more (in Finnish) here.

May 18, 2006 16:36 PM Hiimio! Hiimio! Miikka Mutanen is bringing Finnegans Wake into Finnish (& his stuff is very readable, to say the least). Good luck with the important work!

May 18, 2006 11:11 AM "Too cool, too rumpled. Too real. One" Mario Cutajar, the artist behind the remarkable Code X project (and see my note on April 24), provides a breath-taking and, as it turns out, acutely topical Google Sestina, "he feeds on stark pussy". Also check out "ihmisapina", another Google Poem by Rita Dahl.

May 17, 2006 17:52 PM Is it a real poem or did you make it up yourself? "Karvan verran" by Rita Dahl, "Neighbor Max", a Sestina by Luis Oliveira, and "Sähkötrilogia" ("Elecricity Trilogy") by Ville-Juhani Sutinen. Ville Juhani's concluding "New Sentence" piece is amazing. In general, sequentiality seems to be the thing in Generator-based sculpting just now, witness, among others, "Some Substance" by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz and Timo Salo's recent "Arvomaailma" sequel: here, here, here, and here.

May 16, 2006 11:42 AM Spewing Time: Karri Kokko in this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and thanks for Kenny Goldsmith for a hint on that.

May 13, 2006 5:33 PM Defence & Poetry and Defence of Poetry: two chances to see both George H. W. Bush's and Charles Bernstein's names at one page. Congrats, Charles!

May 13, 2006 5:20 PM New poems in the Anthology: "DJ Fly Agaric 23" by Phly, "21 To Win" by Jesse Crockett, "realistic: a sestina" by Timo Salo (5/13/2006). And Chris Funkhouser used the Google Poem Generator to make, then edit texts which were then performed at Thailand Media Arts Festival a couple of weeks ago. Go here to listen to "Feedback", "How Fast Can A Zebra Run", "Why Do Durians Smell", and "Bangkok" (all recorder by Chris together with Eric Curkendall in a Bangkok studio).

May 4, 2006 7:35 AM A review, by Taneli Viljanen, of Lyhyellä matkalla ohuesti jäätyneen meren yli by Janne Nummela, in Kiiltomato.

May 2, 2006 5:15 PM Warmly recommened: Otoliths, a new webzine by Mark Young. The first issue, "Southern Autumn 2006", features work from Tom Beckett, Geof Huth, kari edwards, J-P. Kervinen, Jack Kimball, Andrew Lundwall, Marko Niemi, and harry k stammer, among others.

May 2, 2006 11:55 AM Ildiot the Flarfist. When preparing my contribution to the coming San Paulo seminar on Poetry in Time of War and Banality, I came to again leaf through this acclaimed feat of literary scholarship, Inventions of the March Hare, an edition of T. S. Eliot's early verse by Christopher Ricks. Yes, I think you may find elements of Flarf for instance in a poem like "The Triumph of Bullshit" (from 1910 or 1916) which I came to translate into Finnish as "Hevonpaskan riemuvoitto". Note the use of "disturbing" stuff ("The Triumph" certainly disturbed the later Tommy...), the somewhat perverse confessionalism (Eliot to Pound in Feb., 1915: "I understand that Priapism [himokkuus], Narcissism [my emphasis] etc. are not approved of...", and, perhaps most importantly, the complex problematic of normative aesthetics / power structures of publishing. Interestingly, it seems the word "Bullshit" may be coined by Eliot, Pound, or Joyce, Eliot's poem being perhaps its first appearance in writing. You'll find the etymology discussed here, here, and here. - "Ildiot" is what Joyce called Eliot (whom he loathed) in Finnagans Wake.