<!DOCTYPE html>
<html dir='ltr' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xmlns:b='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b' xmlns:data='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data' xmlns:expr='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/expr'>
<head>
<link href='https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/2549344219-widget_css_bundle.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<link href='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/favicon.ico' rel='icon' type='image/x-icon'/>
<link href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen' rel='canonical'/>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - Atom" href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - RSS" href="https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - Atom" href="https://www.blogger.com/feeds/3738579/posts/default" />
<!--Can't find substitution for tag [blog.ieCssRetrofitLinks]-->
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Silliman&#39;s Blog' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.' property='og:description'/>
<!--[if IE]> <script> (function() { var html5 = ("abbr,article,aside,audio,canvas,datalist,details," + "figure,footer,header,hgroup,mark,menu,meter,nav,output," + "progress,section,time,video").split(','); for (var i = 0; i < html5.length; i++) { document.createElement(html5[i]); } try { document.execCommand('BackgroundImageCache', false, true); } catch(e) {} })(); </script> <![endif]-->
<title>Silliman's Blog: Dahlen</title>
<style id='page-skin-1' type='text/css'><!--
/*
* Blogger Template Style
*
* Sand Dollar
* by Jason Sutter
* Updated by Blogger Team
*/
/* Variable definitions
====================
<Variable name="textcolor" description="Text Color"
type="color" default="#000">
<Variable name="bgcolor" description="Page Background Color"
type="color" default="#f6f6f6">
<Variable name="pagetitlecolor" description="Blog Title Color"
type="color" default="#F5DEB3">
<Variable name="pagetitlebgcolor" description="Blog Title Background Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="descriptionColor" description="Blog Description Color"
type="color" default="#9E5205" />
<Variable name="descbgcolor" description="Description Background Color"
type="color" default="#F5E39e">
<Variable name="titlecolor" description="Post Title Color"
type="color" default="#9E5205">
<Variable name="datecolor" description="Date Header Color"
type="color" default="#777777">
<Variable name="footercolor" description="Post Footer Color"
type="color" default="#444444">
<Variable name="linkcolor" description="Link Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="footerlinkcolor" description="Post Footer Link Color"
type="color" default="#968a0a">
<Variable name="visitedlinkcolor" description="Visited Link Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="sidebarcolor" description="Sidebar Title Color"
type="color" default="#B8A80D">
<Variable name="sidebarlinkcolor" description="Sidebar Link Color"
type="color" default="#999999">
<Variable name="bordercolor" description="Border Color"
type="color" default="#e0ad12">
<Variable name="bodyfont" description="Text Font"
type="font"
default="normal normal 100% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="headerfont" description="Sidebar Title Font"
type="font"
default="normal bold 150% Verdana,Sans-serif">
<Variable name="dateHeaderFont" description="Date Header Font"
type="font"
default="normal bold 105% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-serif">
<Variable name="pagetitlefont" description="Blog Title Font"
type="font" default="normal bold 300% Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="titlefont" description="Post Title Font"
type="font" default="normal bold 160% Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="startSide" description="Start side in blog language"
type="automatic" default="left">
<Variable name="endSide" description="End side in blog language"
type="automatic" default="right">
*/
body {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
background:#ffffff;
color:#000000;
font-size: small;
}
#outer-wrapper {
font:normal normal 12px Arial, sans-serif;
}
a {
color:#666666;
}
a:hover {
color:#9E5205;
}
a img {
border-width: 0;
}
#content-wrapper {
padding-top: 0;
padding-right: 1em;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-left: 1em;
}
@media all  {
div#main {
float:right;
width:66%;
padding-top:30px;
padding-right:0;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:1em;
border-left:dotted 1px #e0ad12;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
div#sidebar {
margin-top:20px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0;
padding:0px;
text-align:left;
float: left;
width: 31%;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
}
@media handheld  {
div#main {
float:none;
width:90%;
}
div#sidebar {
padding-top:30px;
padding-right:7%;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:3%;
}
}
#header {
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
border-bottom:dotted 1px #e0ad12;
background:#000000;
}
h1 a:link  {
text-decoration:none;
color:#ffffff
}
h1 a:visited  {
text-decoration:none;
color:#ffffff
}
h1,h2,h3 {
margin: 0;
}
h1 {
padding-top:25px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:5%;
color:#ffffff;
background:#940f04;
font:normal bold 80px Verdana,Sans-Serif;
letter-spacing:-2px;
}
h3.post-title {
color:#9E5205;
font:normal bold 150% Arial, sans-serif;
letter-spacing:-1px;
}
h3.post-title a,
h3.post-title a:visited {
color: #9E5205;
}
h2.date-header  {
margin-top:10px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
color:#ffffff;
font: normal bold 104% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-serif;
}
h4 {
color:#aa0033;
}
#sidebar h2 {
color:#cc0000;
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
font:normal bold 120% Arial, sans-serif;
}
#sidebar .widget {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:33px;
margin-left:0px;
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
font-size:120%;
}
#sidebar ul {
list-style-type:none;
padding-left: 0;
margin-top: 0;
}
#sidebar li {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
list-style-type:none;
font-size:95%;
}
.description {
padding:0px;
margin-top:7px;
margin-right:12%;
margin-bottom:7px;
margin-left:5%;
color:#cc0000;
background:transparent;
font:bold 100% Verdana,Sans-Serif;
}
.post {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:30px;
margin-left:0px;
}
.post strong {
color:#000000;
font-weight:bold;
}
pre,code {
color:#000000;
}
strike {
color:#000000;
}
.post-footer  {
padding:0px;
margin:0px;
color:#ffffff;
font-size:80%;
}
.post-footer a {
border:none;
color:#968a0a;
text-decoration:none;
}
.post-footer a:hover {
text-decoration:underline;
}
#comments {
padding:0px;
font-size:110%;
font-weight:bold;
}
.comment-author {
margin-top: 10px;
}
.comment-body {
font-size:100%;
font-weight:normal;
color:black;
}
.comment-footer {
padding-bottom:20px;
color:#ffffff;
font-size:80%;
font-weight:normal;
display:inline;
margin-right:10px
}
.deleted-comment  {
font-style:italic;
color:gray;
}
.comment-link  {
margin-left:.6em;
}
.profile-textblock {
clear: both;
margin-left: 0;
}
.profile-img {
float: left;
margin-top: 0;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-bottom: 5px;
margin-left: 0;
border: 2px solid #940f04;
}
#sidebar a:link  {
color:#000000;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:active  {
color:#ff0000;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:visited  {
color:sidebarlinkcolor;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:hover {
color:#cc0000;
text-decoration:none;
}
.feed-links {
clear: both;
line-height: 2.5em;
}
#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: left;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
float: right;
}
#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
}
.widget-content {
margin-top: 0.5em;
}
/** Tweaks for layout editor preview */
body#layout #outer-wrapper {
margin-top: 0;
}
body#layout #main,
body#layout #sidebar {
margin-top: 10px;
padding-top: 0;
}

--></style>
<link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=3738579&amp;zx=a1164a5b-94f7-434c-afab-b49aa5a29e3f' media='none' onload='if(media!=&#39;all&#39;)media=&#39;all&#39;' rel='stylesheet'/><noscript><link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=3738579&amp;zx=a1164a5b-94f7-434c-afab-b49aa5a29e3f' rel='stylesheet'/></noscript>

</head>
<body>
<div class='navbar section' id='navbar'><div class='widget Navbar' data-version='1' id='Navbar1'><script type="text/javascript">
    function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) {
      if(window.addEventListener) {
        window.addEventListener('load',
          function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false);
      } else {
        window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; });
      }
    }
  </script>
<div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
      gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() {
        if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) {
          gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({
              url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d3738579\x26blogName\x3dSilliman\x27s+Blog\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLUE\x26layoutType\x3dLAYOUTS\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttps://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d-6983219020609693114',
              where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"),
              id: "navbar-iframe"
          });
        }
      });
    </script><script type="text/javascript">
(function() {
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = '//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/google_top_exp.js';
var head = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
if (head) {
head.appendChild(script);
}})();
</script>
</div></div>
<div id='outer-wrapper'><div id='wrap2'>
<!-- skip links for text browsers -->
<span id='skiplinks' style='display:none;'>
<a href='#main'>skip to main </a> |
      <a href='#sidebar'>skip to sidebar</a>
</span>
<div id='header-wrapper'>
<div class='header section' id='header'><div class='widget Header' data-version='1' id='Header1'>
<div id='header-inner'>
<div class='titlewrapper'>
<h1 class='title'>
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/'>
Silliman's Blog
</a>
</h1>
</div>
<div class='descriptionwrapper'>
<p class='description'><span>A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div id='content-wrapper'>
<div id='crosscol-wrapper' style='text-align:center'>
<div class='crosscol no-items section' id='crosscol'></div>
</div>
<div id='main-wrapper'>
<div class='main section' id='main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'>
<div class='blog-posts hfeed'>
<div class='status-msg-wrap'>
<div class='status-msg-body'>
Showing posts with label <b>Dahlen</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
</div>
<div class='status-msg-border'>
<div class='status-msg-bg'>
<div class='status-msg-hidden'>Showing posts with label <b>Dahlen</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, September 25, 2006</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='http://static.flickr.com/20/70823654_2f5bf6a2e3.jpg' itemprop='image_url'/>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='115918125531327358' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='115918125531327358'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-115918125531327358' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><img height="245" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/VZ7sbkRvopetjk4-b1UzeRvKsgl27by7UgBsm7xssHQFYQuLo3jCl_ME5lI9bTBl0kJH-qjfsi_UAlY7zc2iLCQPlwTihRo%3Ds0-d" width="329"><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><a href="http://www.pw.org/directory/writer_detail.php?writer_id=19768"><span style='color:black'>Beverly Dahlen</span></a> is the most enigmatic American poet since Laura (Riding) </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Jackson</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>. Not that Dahlen is unnecessarily difficult or obtuse, but that &#8211; like Riding &#8211; she writes brilliantly, but has also proven exceptionally reluctant to letting her work into print. She first arrived in San Francisco, I do believe, in the very late 1950s, drawn to the intellectual &amp; cultural ferment around North Beach, the Beat scene &amp; the Spicer Circle, all of which she seems to have internalized but stayed carefully apart from &#8211; those worlds were anything but woman friendly &amp; very few people proved to be as hardy at &#8220;playing with the boys&#8221; as did Joanne Kyger. Thus it wasn&#8217;t until Stephen Vincent published <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://tinyurl.com/lj7y7"><span style='color:black'>Out of the Third</span></a> </i>in 1974, with cover art by William T. Wiley (then the hottest West Coast artist alive), that people actually got to see a book of Dahlen&#8217;s work. Two of the sections  of &#8220;Tree,&#8221; the longest poem in that book, are addressed to members of the </span><st1:Street><st1:address><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Spicer Circle</span></st1:address></st1:Street><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> who, after Jack&#8217;s death in 1965, moved up to Vancouver, one to George Stanley &amp; this presumably to Stan Persky:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Dear Stan<span class=GramE>,</span><br>
<br>
I DON&#8217;T WANT TO BE <br>
THAT WOMAN, ART<br>
<br>
that never got her nose broke<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>That&#8217;s a tone consistent with Spicer &amp; his followers, but hardly what you might expect from this quiet &amp; thoughtful woman if you were to meet her in person. There was a second book, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Letter at Easter: To George Stanley, </i>two years later, which somehow I either did not get or have long since lost. I do however have <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://tinyurl.com/elzw2"><span style='color:black'>The Egyptian Poems</span></a>, </i>published in 1983 by <span class=SpellE>Hipparchia</span> Press of </span><st1:City><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Berkeley</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> in a tiny, fine press edition of just 175 copies, with an afterword by Robert Duncan. Its first poem, &#8220;The Opening of the Mouth,&#8221; is worth quoting in its entirety:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>The dead are our children and we must coax them to eat.<br> 
Ah<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  </span><span class=SpellE>Ah</span><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;   </span><span class=SpellE>Ah</span><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  </span><span class=SpellE>Ah</span><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;   </span>pointing to the mouth, touching<br>
the food: the bull&#8217;s leg, the heart.<br>
<br>
The dead are our gods. We must pry open their mouths.<br>
They cannot live without our sustenance.<br>
We bring hammers and chisels.<br>
We crack their throats.<br>
Our words fly open above our heads<span class=GramE>:</span><br>
stone clouds of owls, lines of water<br>
rippling, geese.<br>
<br>
The gods are our children.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    </span>Eat.<br>
Eat the heart, the leg, the thigh<span class=GramE>,</span><br>
all the parts.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Take into the darkness of your mouth<br>
this eye.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    </span>It will be enough light.<br>
It will light you<br>
forever.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>It is, I think, impossible not to hear the influences here of Spicer &amp; George Stanley &amp; of </span><st1:City><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Duncan</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> likewise. But if what impressed </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Duncan</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> most, at least as evidenced by his afterword, was his own reflection &#8211; <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>These are poems evoking, and in return belonging to, a mystery<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#8211; it is worth noting that Dahlen is going somewhere very different in the poem above. The gods, she says literally &#8220;cannot live without our sustenance.&#8221; The mystery, to call it that, she is exploring here isn&#8217;t the theosophical &#8220;secret doctrine&#8221; of transpersonal unity, but rather that other one, a mystery less attached to names like Blavatsky than to names like Freud, Kristeva or Lacan. <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>By the time <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Egyptian Poems </i>were printed, Dahlen had  helped to co-found <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.how2journal.com/"><span style='color:black'>HOW(ever) </span><span style='color:black;font-style:normal'>(now </span><span style='color:black'>How2</span></a>) </i>and was already well into writing <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Reading, </i>an &#8220;endless&#8221; &#8211; the term she has used more than once &#8211; poem that is, to my mind, one of the masterworks of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. To date, there have been five volumes published from this project, the most recent being <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0967985447"><span style='color:black'>A Reading 18-20</span></a>, </i>just out from Instance Press of Boulder, Colorado. This is a slim enough volume, just 64 pages, and none of it was written after August, 1986, which means that this work is 20 years old. That is a considerable period of time to wait &amp; let work come into print, but that&#8217;s Beverly Dahlen. I sometimes wonder if there are a thousand pages of poetry tucked away somewhere I don&#8217;t know about, and that won&#8217;t emerge for another few decades. My main problem with this is that I might not be here to read them, say, in 30 years. And I definitely want to read every word.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>A  </span></i><st1:City><st1:place><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Reading</span></i></st1:place></st1:City><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> 18-20 </span></i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>contains three sections of Dahlen&#8217;s project, each in turn being composed of several segments &#8211; I almost want to say of several poems or works. Thus <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>18 </i><span class=GramE>begins</span> with a series of prose poems, of which this is the third:<o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>terrorism out of context, a story of murder as light reading.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> <span class=GramE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>the civilized way to call it a day.</i></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'> </i>when people meet at the end of a workweek, the context of their speech is the oppression of the boss. who <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>was </i>that masked man? the industrial décor of my favorite restaurant, the heating ducts painted red. it would be difficult to name the timeless values when gas pumps had become sacred relics. <span class=GramE>worshipping at a bowl of gelato.</span> <span class=GramE>how do you do.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>history repeats, the second time around as farce. the third time&#8217;s the charm. marigolds banked on a slope as part of a scientific plan for erosion control. I don&#8217;t understand you. read up on it: here&#8217;s a booklist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>content is what&#8217;s swallowed: junk food.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>here&#8217;s a list. light up the sky with your faith, everything goes into the memory bank. <span class=GramE>the bombs bursting in air.</span> it&#8217;s no more difficult than saying you&#8217;re going to live till you die. forty-five minutes. where does this road end? <span class=GramE>somewhere beyond the bird observatory.</span> Rasputin held an onion in his right hand. <span class=GramE>deadlocked.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span class=SpellE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Gonick</span></span><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> made history. so <span class=GramE>do</span> </span><st1:place><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>I.</span></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> so do you. drink me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>At some level &#8211; I frankly can&#8217;t tell which &#8211; this passage references a series of four bills enacted into law at the behest of President Reagan, establishing rewards for informing about terrorism, setting penalties for sabotaging airplanes or taking hostages, and prohibiting organizations from &#8220;engaging in terrorism,&#8221; or &#8220;supporting or cooperating&#8221; with such groups.&#185; Yet this is just one pole pulling this text, as are the cartoon collections of <a href="http://www.larrygonick.com/"><span style='color:black'>Larry <span class=SpellE>Gonick</span></span></a>, the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Star-Spangled Banner, </i>references to Marx. This is not atypical of the disparate elements Dahlen puts into play. After a fourth prose poem comes a section in verse:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>all that it&#8217;s not to deprive one<br>
<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>No man shall be an idiot for purely external reasons.</i><br>
interiority to flux, crime shamefaced<br>
reaches for a larger napkin to cover the wound.<br>
the definition expands, the lunatic fringe<br>
becomes the entire cloth<br>
I is another killer<br>
where shall we <br>
take the place of that noun that common thing<br>
the third person, the world<br>
the world equal to <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>x</i><br>
or any letter which may stand for the unknown<br>
a great loss, a damnable mystery<br>
sold for a mess of pottage<br>
<br>
and you<br>
impossibly sleeping across the table from me<br>
to secure for ourselves and our posterity<br>
the blessings<br>
how shall I shifter shifting shiftless<br>
be one<br>
a hole a number<br>
any letter might take its place<br>
any pronoun armed to the teeth an absolute construction<br>
any thing<br>
having been buried in a mass grave<br>
how shall we name it the third person<br>
the ragged world<br>
the tattered fronds of the holy ghost<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Referencing Pound (<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>&#8220;No man&#8230;</i>) and Creeley (&#8220;I is&#8230;), Dahlen focuses here on what she clearly envisions as the disruptor between I &amp; Thou in any communication, &#8220;the third person, the world / the world equal to <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>x</i> / or any letter which may stand for the unknown / a great loss, a damnable mystery.&#8221; It&#8217;s a concept that recalls the epigram to her very first book:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:center'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>One becomes <span class=GramE>two,</span> two<br> 
becomes three, &amp; out<br>
of the third comes<br>
the one as the<br>
fourth.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Dahlen turns now back to prose, to a prose poem in the mode of a letter &#8211; a form favored by Duncan &amp; Spicer alike &#8211; addressed presumably to Michael Palmer, which begins:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span    style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Dear Michael<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>It was one of my ideas to speak of the third person as if that stood for the world. In another sense it&#8217;s a sign of the holy ghost. These two are one: &#8220;world without end.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Then I was reading a recent essay of Barrett Watten&#8217;s which begins: &#8220;The world is structured on its own displacement.&#8221; That seemed to me to be true, and also much of what follows in Watten&#8217;s piece seemed irrefutable. I read it again and again. I tried to imagine using it, going beyond it. All I could really imagine was quoting it in its entirety. What did I want? <span class=GramE>the negation of a negation?</span>
Watten&#8217;s work reminded me of all I know to be true: that the world, the self and the other are created out of absence, lack, desire; that &#8220;desire is the desire for meaning itself&#8221; (I don&#8217;t know where that quote comes from), that desire is that which by definition can never be fulfilled.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Dahlen returns to this again in the next segment, again in prose, albeit so short that it almost calls that into question:<o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>The third person is Eros, who never appears. It is, as Robert Glück has written, the referent, <span class=GramE>&#8220; the</span> guest who doesn&#8217;t come.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The next segment is also worth quoting in its entirety, perhaps most of all for its directness:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The desire for meaning, to produce meaning, fills me with dread and anxiety. We do not want to hear of another&#8217;s anxiety; there is nothing we can do with it, nor about it. Anxiety, Freud observes, &#8220;corresponds to a libido which has been deflected from its object and has found no employment.&#8221; <span class=GramE>An unappeased ghost, incessantly circling.</span> <span class=GramE>The parodic and diminished double of all that was holy.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#8220;What is originally holy is what we have taken over from the animal kingdom &#8211; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>the bestial,</i>&#8221; Engels wrote in 1882, and since then the hundred years war against what is never quite adequately translated as &#8216;instinctual nature&#8217; has brought under the domain of repression the very notion of &#8216;the bestial.&#8217; It is slanderous thus to describe the activities, for example, of death squads in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>El Salvador</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>. We live in a posthumous world. &#8220;Nothing can be compelled from the site of the speaker except the outlines of her form.&#8221; (Watten)<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>This poem has another seven sections, ranging in length from a single sentence (or perhaps a sentence fragment, since its first word is &#8220;Or&#8221;) to more than a page of verse &#8211; and is then followed by a bibliography.&#178;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>If a long poem like Rachel Blau DuPlessis&#8217; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Drafts </i>can be read as a post-<span class=SpellE>Poundian</span> palimpsest, each text swirling around a theme or series of questions, Dahlen&#8217;s approach strikes me as something closer to that of a stalker or perhaps a detective. Each section of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Reading </i>is close to a dossier or case file  on its topic. The <span class=GramE>relation of parts to wholes and of genre forms &#8211; verse, prose poem, letter, meditation &#8211; are</span> all in play &amp; their meanings change from section to section. This makes sense given that Dahlen&#8217;s approach is to call this project <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Reading </i>rather than A Writing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>As I noted above, every piece here is at least 20 years old. But, as Dahlen&#8217;s comments on terror or on the writing of Barrett Watten demonstrate, this work also feels completely current. In a sense, Dahlen&#8217;s strategy of being slow &#8211; glacial &#8211; to let things into print puts the &#8220;news that stays news&#8221; challenge to the test. Now if someone would just gather the five volumes of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Reading </i>into a single volume, if Vincent&#8217;s <span class=SpellE>Momo&#8217;s</span> Press would re-issue <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Out of the Third, </i>if Chax or someone would issue a trade edition of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Egyptian Poems </i>and if we could just get a bunch of the remaining work into print! I don&#8217;t know if anyone has re-issued &#8220;Something/Nothing,&#8221; Dahlen&#8217;s 1985 talk on Laura Riding &amp; Julia Kristeva &#8211; my copy is little more than a mimeograph with a clip to hold the cover together, published in that form by Africa O Malley &#8211; but that would be worth having back in print as well. Every time I&#8217;ve ever asked Dahlen about new work, she has always indicated that there wasn&#8217;t any, but then a new book appears. That may be a maddening (to me) process, but I hope that at least it continues on &amp; on. <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black'>&#185; Bizarrely enough, a few weeks <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>after</i> Dahlen wrote A Reading 18, followers of <span class=SpellE>Bhagwan</span> <span class=SpellE>Shree</span> Rajneesh deliberately <a href="http://www.gosleepgo.com/node/239"><span style='color:black'>contaminated the salad bars</span></a> of several restaurants in Dahlen&#8217;s home state of </span><st1:State><st1:place><span   style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black'>Oregon</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black'>, one of the first high-profile bio-terror incidents. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#178; The Watten material comes from &#8220;The XYZ of Reading: Negativity (&amp; Diane Ward)&#8221; in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Jimmy &amp; Lucy&#8217;s House of K,</i> #1 (Oakland: May, 1984). It anticipates, but is not part of, the great discussion of negativity in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~upne/0-8195-6610-1.html"><span style='color:black'>The Constructivist Moment</span></a>. </i>Indeed, it might be read as the bridge between the essays of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Total Syntax </i>&amp; Watten&#8217;s later work. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/09/beverly-dahlen-is-most-enigmatic.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/09/beverly-dahlen-is-most-enigmatic.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2006-09-25T06:34:00-04:00'>Monday, September 25, 2006</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=115918125531327358' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen' rel='tag'>Dahlen</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

        </div></div>
      
</div>
<div class='blog-pager' id='blog-pager'>
<span id='blog-pager-older-link'>
<a class='blog-pager-older-link' href='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen?updated-max=2006-09-25T06:34:00-04:00&amp;max-results=20&amp;start=20&amp;by-date=false' id='Blog1_blog-pager-older-link' title='Older Posts'>Older Posts</a>
</span>
<a class='home-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/'>Home</a>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<div class='blog-feeds'>
<div class='feed-links'>
Subscribe to:
<a class='feed-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default' target='_blank' type='application/atom+xml'>Posts (Atom)</a>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div id='sidebar-wrapper'>
<div class='sidebar section' id='sidebar'><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text4'>
<h2 class='title'>Upcoming</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<b>October</b><br /><br />Madrid<br />with Charles Bernstein & Susan Bee<br /><br />Barcelona<br /><div><br /><br />Saragossa?<br /><br /><b>November</b><br /><br />Rome?<div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text4&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text4"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText4' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget TextList' data-version='1' id='TextList1'>
<h2>Email</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<ul>
<li>silliman AT gmail DOT com</li>
</ul>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=TextList&widgetId=TextList1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("TextList1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configTextList1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div>
</div><div class='widget LinkList' data-version='1' id='LinkList1'>
<h2>Silliman Sites</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1544'>Academy of American Poets</a></li>
<li><a href='http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/silliman'>Electronic Poetry Center</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/ron.silliman'>Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/search/search%3Fsearch_type%3Dbooks%26search%5Bquery%5D%3Dron%2Bsilliman'>GoodReads</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/silliman/silliman.htm'>Modern American Poetry</a></li>
<li><a href='http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Silliman.php'>PennSound</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.pcah.us/the-center/grants-awarded/grantees-1998-ron-silliman/'>Pew Fellowships in the Arts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6323'>Poetry Foundation</a></li>
<li><a href='http://ronsillimanbibliography.blogspot.com/'>Silliman's Bibliography</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?AuthorName=Ron+Silliman'>Small Press Distribution</a></li>
<li><a href='http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/TOTTELS/'>Tottel's</a></li>
<li><a href='http://twitter.com/ronsilliman'>Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ubu.com/contemp/silliman/index.html'>Ubuweb</a></li>
<li><a href='https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/findingaids/mss0075.html'>UC San Diego Archives</a></li>
<li><a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Silliman'>Wikipedia</a></li>
</ul>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=LinkList&widgetId=LinkList1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("LinkList1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configLinkList1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text1'>
<h2 class='title'>Ketjak</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php">I: The Age of Huts<br /><br /></a>             <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/u_VsYLU9NS_tJXOrl6A4RM1Dne7QkuSslpBc0StgKSXXoIDStYoXqSwDo2tuxST00QD3ynVJH4yjAhcEzTWyM0F_RriCRx9yZdyygceY2wm-%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br />II: Tjanting<br /><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/tjanting-9781876857196"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/efy1lIcVIKeKSdy_WUDIxV8WLN0OJmA3f7enQ2XDwxwt7Bh5ssfQQAkW_o4oG6FqrB1RGf7CX-Rw-VQ4u36RIuwSsCMxWjjHFDP4c7CbW2d_%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx">III: The Alphabet<br /><br /></a><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx"><img id="ctl00_MainContent_ProductInfo1_ctl00_PrimaryImage_PrimaryImage" onclick="javascript:window.open(&#39;http://www.uapress.ua.edu//images/temp/212-1897-Product_LargeToMediumImage.jpeg&#39;, 1, &#39;resizable=1, width=500, height=700&#39;)" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/OnaMjXm2h6XxneM04RgHx1Bkf2Wi9UE3a8c3o0NDvW5wXo7BK3MaM5VP9YfbEIpHYxAstTorwhNW4lhhkNuua5bDX7Ogr2UgZ1NMDDjeh-0bNnuo-WH-9pGHIR6lv-4-_UDHVNe36xB6%3Ds0-d" style="border: 1px solid Gray;" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>IV. from Universe</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text3'>
<h2 class='title'>Other Books in Print</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">MEMOIRS &amp; COLLABORATIONS</span><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leningrad-American-Writers-Soviet-Union/dp/1562790056">Leningrad</a><br /><a href="http://www.thegrandpiano.org/">The Grand Piano</a><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/under-albany-9781844710515">Under Albany</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CRITICISM</span><br /><a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/0937804207/the-new-sentence.aspx">The New Sentence</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ANTHOLOGY</span><br /><a href="https://secure.touchnet.com/C22921_ustores/web/classic/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=327&SINGLESTORE=true">In The American Tree</a><br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text3&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text3"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText3' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Image' data-version='1' id='Image1'>
<div class='widget-content'>
<img alt='' height='163' id='Image1_img' src='//3.bp.blogspot.com/_TEBx9oYcXio/S9oGYEaetqI/AAAAAAAABDs/UI7l5u8GwcA/S230/redron.jpg' width='230'/>
<br/>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Image&widgetId=Image1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Image1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configImage1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text2'>
<div class='widget-content'>
<br /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Desktop/silliman2a.jpg" / /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png" / /><span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">RON SILLIMAN</span> has written and edited 40 books, and had his poetry and criticism translated into 16 languages. Silliman was a 2012 Kelly Writers House Fellow, the 2010 recipient of the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council, and a 1998 Pew Fellow in the Arts. Silliman has a plaque in the walk dedicated to poetry in his home town of Berkeley and a sculpture in the Transit Center of Bury, Lancaster, a part of the Irwell Sculpture Trail. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(c) 2002-2019 by Ron Silliman.
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text2&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text2"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText2' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<!-- spacer for skins that want sidebar and main to be the same height-->
<div class='clear'>&#160;</div>
</div>
<!-- end content-wrapper -->
</div></div>
<!-- end outer-wrapper -->

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/1068551213-widgets.js"></script>
<script type='text/javascript'>
window['__wavt'] = 'AOuZoY7nHCU_FUCSuctE67brSDeRRh8izA:1574390521207';_WidgetManager._Init('//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID\x3d3738579','//ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen','3738579');
_WidgetManager._SetDataContext([{'name': 'blog', 'data': {'blogId': '3738579', 'title': 'Silliman\x27s Blog', 'url': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen', 'canonicalUrl': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen', 'homepageUrl': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/', 'searchUrl': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search', 'canonicalHomepageUrl': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/', 'blogspotFaviconUrl': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/favicon.ico', 'bloggerUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com', 'hasCustomDomain': false, 'httpsEnabled': true, 'enabledCommentProfileImages': true, 'gPlusViewType': 'FILTERED_POSTMOD', 'adultContent': false, 'analyticsAccountNumber': '', 'encoding': 'UTF-8', 'locale': 'en', 'localeUnderscoreDelimited': 'en', 'languageDirection': 'ltr', 'isPrivate': false, 'isMobile': false, 'isMobileRequest': false, 'mobileClass': '', 'isPrivateBlog': false, 'feedLinks': '\x3clink rel\x3d\x22alternate\x22 type\x3d\x22application/atom+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - Atom\x22 href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default\x22 /\x3e\n\x3clink rel\x3d\x22alternate\x22 type\x3d\x22application/rss+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - RSS\x22 href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt\x3drss\x22 /\x3e\n\x3clink rel\x3d\x22service.post\x22 type\x3d\x22application/atom+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - Atom\x22 href\x3d\x22https://www.blogger.com/feeds/3738579/posts/default\x22 /\x3e\n', 'meTag': '', 'adsenseHostId': 'ca-host-pub-1556223355139109', 'adsenseHasAds': false, 'view': '', 'dynamicViewsCommentsSrc': '//www.blogblog.com/dynamicviews/4224c15c4e7c9321/js/comments.js', 'dynamicViewsScriptSrc': '//www.blogblog.com/dynamicviews/ac414222f14fdfa1', 'plusOneApiSrc': 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'disableGComments': true, 'sharing': {'platforms': [{'name': 'Get link', 'key': 'link', 'shareMessage': 'Get link', 'target': ''}, {'name': 'Facebook', 'key': 'facebook', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Facebook', 'target': 'facebook'}, {'name': 'BlogThis!', 'key': 'blogThis', 'shareMessage': 'BlogThis!', 'target': 'blog'}, {'name': 'Twitter', 'key': 'twitter', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Twitter', 'target': 'twitter'}, {'name': 'Pinterest', 'key': 'pinterest', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Pinterest', 'target': 'pinterest'}, {'name': 'Email', 'key': 'email', 'shareMessage': 'Email', 'target': 'email'}], 'disableGooglePlus': true, 'googlePlusShareButtonWidth': 300, 'googlePlusBootstrap': '\x3cscript type\x3d\x22text/javascript\x22\x3ewindow.___gcfg \x3d {\x27lang\x27: \x27en\x27};\x3c/script\x3e'}, 'hasCustomJumpLinkMessage': false, 'jumpLinkMessage': 'Read more', 'pageType': 'index', 'searchLabel': 'Dahlen', 'pageName': 'Dahlen', 'pageTitle': 'Silliman\x27s Blog: Dahlen'}}, {'name': 'features', 'data': {'sharing_get_link_dialog': 'true', 'sharing_native': 'false'}}, {'name': 'messages', 'data': {'edit': 'Edit', 'linkCopiedToClipboard': 'Link copied to clipboard!', 'ok': 'Ok', 'postLink': 'Post Link'}}, {'name': 'template', 'data': {'name': 'custom', 'localizedName': 'Custom', 'isResponsive': false, 'isAlternateRendering': false, 'isCustom': true}}, {'name': 'view', 'data': {'classic': {'name': 'classic', 'url': '?view\x3dclassic'}, 'flipcard': {'name': 'flipcard', 'url': '?view\x3dflipcard'}, 'magazine': {'name': 'magazine', 'url': '?view\x3dmagazine'}, 'mosaic': {'name': 'mosaic', 'url': '?view\x3dmosaic'}, 'sidebar': {'name': 'sidebar', 'url': '?view\x3dsidebar'}, 'snapshot': {'name': 'snapshot', 'url': '?view\x3dsnapshot'}, 'timeslide': {'name': 'timeslide', 'url': '?view\x3dtimeslide'}, 'isMobile': false, 'title': 'Silliman\x27s Blog', 'description': 'A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.', 'url': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Dahlen', 'type': 'feed', 'isSingleItem': false, 'isMultipleItems': true, 'isError': false, 'isPage': false, 'isPost': false, 'isHomepage': false, 'isArchive': false, 'isSearch': true, 'isLabelSearch': true, 'search': {'label': 'Dahlen', 'resultsMessage': 'Showing posts with the label Dahlen', 'resultsMessageHtml': 'Showing posts with the label \x3cspan class\x3d\x27search-label\x27\x3eDahlen\x3c/span\x3e'}}}]);
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_NavbarView', new _WidgetInfo('Navbar1', 'navbar', document.getElementById('Navbar1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_HeaderView', new _WidgetInfo('Header1', 'header', document.getElementById('Header1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_BlogView', new _WidgetInfo('Blog1', 'main', document.getElementById('Blog1'), {'cmtInteractionsEnabled': false, 'navMessage': 'Showing posts with label \x3cb\x3eDahlen\x3c/b\x3e. \x3ca href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/\x22\x3eShow all posts\x3c/a\x3e', 'lightboxEnabled': true, 'lightboxModuleUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/4152225668-lbx.js', 'lightboxCssUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/v-css/368954415-lightbox_bundle.css'}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text4', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text4'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextListView', new _WidgetInfo('TextList1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('TextList1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_LinkListView', new _WidgetInfo('LinkList1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('LinkList1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text3', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text3'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_ImageView', new _WidgetInfo('Image1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Image1'), {'resize': false}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text2', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text2'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
</script>
</body>
</html>