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Showing posts with label <b>Minimalism</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
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<div class='status-msg-hidden'>Showing posts with label <b>Minimalism</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a></div>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Wednesday, March 14, 2012</span></h2>

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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;tab-stops:429.0pt"><a href="http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Haiku21-cover.jpg"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:windowtext;mso-no-proof:yes;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/XbQv5ggWLrv3IbCH5mo_fqZIT8L6gVCeyZN9VqHE1-Enb0-oQcMJbGvtQkC5xPTwsgaqyYKtmx-RSyLYTFq8Clw96rYVgtBX%3Ds0-d" width="184"></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">  </span></span><a href="http://www.albalibri.com/collane/haiku/immagini/long_after.gif"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:windowtext;mso-no-proof:yes;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/WJPaM5eOcrHabrsuyFJj4cqEFR11TdKAM8YU5IwjajnYW3x-dfC0XwTKK-vNHs9RL3xY1e_x7jGmRcXQdbhx_PNFpi3r9qQjJw1QbCL7P6tm8g%3Ds0-d" width="181"></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">  </span></span><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/6893388715_11192cd268_o.jpg"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:windowtext;mso-no-proof:yes;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/3-BZXcnWoQL0jL_BglVHkiH55scntNbmnuIQHViR-Ai9cgl_6wgHfG1F5ouk2VcsiBTxsLDbe1s5NLoRMQM8Eh9F9YoQR2A681fcEE_OSuDU9A%3Ds0-d" width="169"></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>  <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;">Why would a poet who writes 1,000-page poems read haiku? Or pay heed to any manner of minimalism, for that matter? That&#8217;s a legitimate question, and one that I asked myself for at least a year before I felt that I fully understood my own personal answer. It&#8217;s because the questions of attention are so very similar. There is, in the minimalist poem generally, nowhere to hide. The poet&#8217;s attention &#8211; and hopefully the reader&#8217;s as well, though that&#8217;s a different discussion altogether &#8211; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">has to be </i>utterly present. Every detail has to be attended. Individual letters &amp; phonemes are revealed to have a beginning, <span class="GramE">a middle</span>, and an end. In poems of ten or fourteen or thirty lines, of five pages or fifty, there are many opportunities for the poet&#8217;s mind to wander. Not that it needs to &#8211; what separates out, say, Frank O&#8217;Hara from Robert Lowell is not simply that the latter reads like the former under the influence of Quaaludes, but that O&#8217;Hara in his best poems is always fully present. The same is true for Robert Creeley or Philip Whalen or Allen Ginsberg or even Ezra Pound. At their best, they are fully present in the text. A poet like Lowell is far too often concerned about getting from point A to point B, formally or narratively, a concern that functions almost as a film of distraction over the writer&#8217;s capacity to observe &amp; react. What drives me crazy about so much poetry, especially of the Quietist tradition, is just how damn slow it is, how long it takes to say or do anything. So when I come upon a poet who wastes nothing &#8211; Larry Eigner, Rae Armantrout, Ted Pearson, Joseph Massey, Mark Truscott &#8211; I feel more than just thrilled, I feel rescued. In contrast, I can&#8217;t even imagine staying awake for the time it takes to slog through many a half-page text by Seamus Heaney. If he&#8217;s not fully present in his own poem, why should I be?<o:p></o:p></span></p>  
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><a href="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/27/50099618_16d78278c0_o.jpg"><span style="font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1; mso-themetint:242;mso-no-proof:yes;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/ea19uaRqljcCankm5TQj37PyoUPQwgiwgGYSfTrIFCgdhn9SazatZ5w5MW4BuFRnOhIPs2IcR6GpXoSbqqWk1kjiMao0s_EyE2kD7bEh%3Ds0-d" width="578"></span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242"><br> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor: text1;mso-themetint:242">A gathering in New Jersey for the journal </span></i><span class="GramE"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">Others</span></span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">in 1916.<br> Alfred Kreymborg, front row, second from the left, in front of Marcel Duchamp &amp; left of WCW (holding cat).<br> Duchamp has his arm looped with Walter Conrad Arensberg, Man Ray folding his arms<span class="GramE">,</span><br> Maxwell Bodenheim on the far right. </i></span><span style="font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">One day last year, I was driving in the rain through southern Chester County when I happened to pass </span><a href="http://www.bookbarn.com/"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">Baldwin&#8217;s Book Barn</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">, one of the quirkier book establishments hereabouts. While Baldwin&#8217;s is on the web these days, it appears <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">in situ </i>to have largely managed not only to have ignored the digital age, but even the world after the Second World War, when paperbacks took over publishing.&#185; The Book Barn claims to have 200,000 books somewhat anarchically shelved in its rambling establishment, perhaps 99% of which are hard cover. I always need the map they hand out at the counter to find my way to the poetry section &amp; this time returned with a signed copy of Alfred Kreymborg&#8217;s </span><a href="http://bit.ly/yv2Ara"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1; mso-themetint:242">The Little World: 1914 and After</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1; mso-themetint:242">, </span></i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint: 242">published by Coward McCann in 1932 for the price of a paperback. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListBulletCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:0in; mso-list:none;tab-stops:.5in"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;">In 1932, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kreymborg"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D; mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">Kreymborg</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;"> would have been 49, publishing for over 20 years &amp; widely known as an editor with some serious (if waning) avant-garde cred. The first literary figure to become a regular at Alfred Stieglitz&#8217; 291 gallery, Kreymborg and Man Ray brought out a magazine called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Glebe </i>in 1913 &amp; &#8217;14, the fifth issue of which was Ezra Pound&#8217;s anthology of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Des <span class="SpellE">Imagistes</span>. </i>While the younger Man Ray (the imaginatively reinvented Emmanuel <span class="SpellE">Radnitzky</span> of New Jersey) went on to establish himself primarily as a visual artist in Paris, Kreymborg stayed literary, editing a series of magazines and anthologies. Two years prior to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Little World, </i>Coward McCann had published Kreymborg&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Lyric America: An Anthology of American Poetry (1630 &#8211; 1930), </i>which, while aimed at the general reader, included not one, but three sections of its final age cohort of poets, those born from the mid-1880s &amp; after, one large one focused on modernists (Amy Lowell, Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, Lola Ridge, Pound, H.D., Williams, Walter Conrad Arensberg, Stevens, Loy, Moore, Hartley, Cummings, Eliot &amp; even Haniel Long among others now forgotten), the second focused on formalists (DuBose Heyward, Aiken, Ransom, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore, Robert Penn Warren &amp; George Dillon, but also Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Fenton Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes &amp; <span class="SpellE">Countee</span> Cullen&#178;) &amp; finally a third group of more eclectic or relaxed quietists&#179; (MacLeish, <span class="SpellE">Tristram</span> Coffin, Dorothy Parker, Mark Van <span class="SpellE">Doren</span>, Robert Silliman <span class="SpellE">Hillyer</span>, Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Cowley, Stephen Vincent Benét, Babette Deutsch, Louise Bogan, Kenneth Fearing, Horace Gregory, Stanley Kunitz, Stanley Burnshaw &amp;, last but not least, Hart Crane), hybridism <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">avant la <span class="SpellE">lettre</span></i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top:12.0pt;margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:0in;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:0in; mso-list:none;tab-stops:.5in"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint: 242">The work I&#8217;d seen of Kreymborg&#8217;s earlier anthologies, mostly compilations of poetry published in his journal </span><a href="http://pippoetry.blogspot.com/2009/04/issue-of-others-dedicated-to-spectric.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1; mso-themetint:242">Others</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">, </span></i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#0D0D0D;mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">had led me to pigeonhole him as a later, lesser imagist, although already by the 1930 anthology Kreymborg&#8217;s selection of his work own suggests a gradual move away from the modernist group &#8211; where he positioned his work in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Lyric America </i>&#8211; toward the third tendency. By the end of his career, Kreymborg was giving readings accompanying <span class="GramE">himself</span> on the <span class="SpellE">mandolute</span>, a larger version of the mandolin, anticipating by a few decades Robert Bly&#8217;s similarly folksy performance style. I wasn&#8217;t prepared for the work that forms the dominant strain of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Little World, </i>political doggerel &#8211; think of deadline poet </span><a href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/calvin-trillin"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#0D0D0D; mso-themecolor:text1;mso-themetint:242">Calvin Trillin</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;"> &#8211; presented in imagist format. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, May 21, 2007</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:center'><span style='color:black'><img height="123" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/C62ubUIpnaIQaIhrQl2jveY3SOADlAaRV1sZP25OVAlNlaL_wBQHHlXMdMfqyibOm13Np3xPmUM3UDrb8klqhvM26ZKjKaa6DhEzuFlS-nxT%3Ds0-d" width="156"><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'>Of my reluctance in 1970 to include Bob Grenier in the &#8220;15 New Poets of the San Francisco Bay Area&#8221; feature that David Melnick &amp; I edited for the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Chicago Review, </i>an old acquaintance &amp; longtime editor writes that<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'>there was really no need in late 1970 to be afraid of bob <span class=SpellE>grenier's</span> minimalism: </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span   class=SpellE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>aram</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> <span class=SpellE>saroyan</span> was already there<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 was, of course, impossible <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>not </i>to know about Aram Saroyan circa 1970. Random House had published his eponymous volume, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/ARAM/aram.html"><span style='color:black'>Aram Saroyan</span></a>, </i>(in which the poem above appears) in 1968, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/PAGES/pages.html"><span style='color:black'>Pages</span></a> </i>one year later. How many other experimental poets were getting books published &amp; widely distributed by </span><st1:State><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>New York</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> trade presses back then? Clark Coolidge&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/SPACE/space.html"><span style='color:black'>Space</span></a>, </i>published by Harper &amp; Row in 1970&#185;, <span class=GramE>was</span> really the only other one. If you knew about the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>New York</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, you knew about Aram Saroyan. Ditto if you paid attention to the conceptual poetics that seemed to be emerging from <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/page-0-9.html"><span style='color:black'>0 &#8211; 9</span></a>, </i>the journal co-edited by Vito Acconci &amp; Bernadette Mayer, tho that was, at the time, a much more fugitive endeavor. And, of course, when Saroyan got a grant from the NEA, some congressman read some of his work, perhaps &#8220;<span class=SpellE>Blod</span>&#8221; (a one-word poem, if, that is, <span class=SpellE>Blod&#8217;s</span> a word) into the Congressional Record with all the rhetorical froth we would expect today from Bill O&#8217;Reilly. Finally, the name Aram Saroyan inevitably rang bells simply because, for my generation &amp; at least in </span><st1:State><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>California</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, William Saroyan&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Aram"><span style='color:black'>My Name is Aram</span></a> </i>was as predictably a part of the high school curriculum as <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Things Fall Apart </i>or <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Beloved </i>are today. <span class=GramE>That the title character&#8217;s name in the book is not Saroyan, or that the poet was born three years after <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>My Name is </i></span></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span class=SpellE><span class=GramE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Aram</span></i></span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class=SpellE><span class=GramE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#8217;s</span></i></span></span><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> initial publication, were just details.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> <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'>But, as I replied, I was pretty sure that, in 1970, I wouldn&#8217;t have included Aram Saroyan in that grouping either. His conceptual poetics were perceived, I think, as a satire on publishing and poetry itself, witty &amp; fun perhaps, but decidedly &amp; willfully outré. And outré was not what <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Chicago Review </i>was about in that era. While it published some experimental fiction, thanks to editor Eugene Wildman, in poetry the journal struck Melnick &amp; I as being anxious about its status as a &#8220;major&#8221; college-based publication, which meant in practice that they were not looking for Aram Saroyan but the next Sylvia Plath. <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'>Besides which, what Saroyan &amp; Grenier were doing at that time were not exactly identical, a distinction that might have been lost because both used exceptionally short forms &amp; were often paired in the minds of readers &amp; editors with Clark Coolidge. Grenier&#8217;s best known work from this period is <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Sentences, </i>published originally by <a href="http://www.whalecloth.org/"><span style='color:black'>Whale Cloth Press</span></a> in an edition of 500 cards delivered in a box, but now online at the Whale Cloth site. Saroyan&#8217;s work has been online also, principally at the Eclipse website, but now is available in a fat &amp; sumptuous edition from <a href="http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/"><span style='color:black'>Ugly Duckling <span class=SpellE>Presse</span></span></a> under the title <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Complete Minimal Poems. </i>At 275 pages, it&#8217;s just slightly over half the size of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Sentences. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Saroyan&#8217;s work often seems to come out of the same conceptualism that drove <span class=SpellE>Acconci&#8217;s</span> work of that period. One poem in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Aram Saroyan, </i>the first of Saroyan&#8217;s minimal books, is a page of nothing but radio call letters. Another reads:<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'>STEAK<br>
<br>
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQURSTUVWXYZ<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 third contains the word <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>crickets </i>repeatedly typed, one word to a line, down an entire page. This is a type of poem almost entirely absent from Grenier&#8217;s work, which shows almost no interest in conceptualism. The closest Grenier gets to this mode is an occasional poem that functions at the <span class=SpellE>metacomment</span> level:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana; so-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>TWELVE VOWELS<br>
<br>
breakfast<br>
<br>
the sky flurries<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 second Saroyan type that comes closer to Grenier entails poems that utilize the graphic elements of language &#8211; the poem at the top of this note is a famous instance of this. As it does there, this kind of poem works when there is some intelligible connection &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t have to be articulatable &#8211; between what is going on the page and denotative &amp; connotative dimensions of the word at hand. Thus<o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:center'><span class=SpellE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>eyeye</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><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'>strikes me as effective precisely for the way it calls up the double-image element involved in stereoscopic vision, why humans see in 3D, whereas<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:center'><span class=SpellE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>lighght</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><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'>just sits there on the page doing not much of anything. <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'>Grenier likewise has works in <i>Sentences</i> that depend on their graphic presentation, such as this poem, which builds on a device &#8211; the s t r e t c h e d word &#8211; first developed by Paul Blackburn<span class=GramE>::</span><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'>s o m e o l d g u y s w <span class=SpellE>i</span> t h s c y t h e s<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 one level, this is a poem about the blank space, what Hugh Kenner liked to call the 27<sup>th</sup> letter of the alphabet (and certainly the last one &#8220;invented&#8221;) and how it cuts (or scythes) discrete words from the flow of speech &#8211; it a prerequisite for the existence of words at all. Yet there is a richness both of sound and image here that gives Grenier&#8217;s poem dimensions that simply aren&#8217;t active in Saroyan&#8217;s work. This is characteristic of Grenier, whose most common mode of <span class=SpellE>micropoetics</span> in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Sentences </i>is a snatch of language that begins &amp; ends in atypical places, e.g.,<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'>yawns at solid<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'>or <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'>or the starlight on the porch since when<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'>Grenier&#8217;s use of the graphic dimension of language doesn&#8217;t really occur until much later, when he moves into his &#8220;<a href="http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&amp;d/grenier/lgrena00.htm"><span style='color:black'>scrawl</span></a>&#8221; works. In those pieces, tho, what seems to interest Grenier most is the making explicit of the &#8220;coming to recognition&#8221; process of <span class=GramE>reading.</span> He is really fascinated at the idea of identifying the instant a word &#8220;pops&#8221; into consciousness &amp; poem after poem functions to locate precisely this moment. I&#8217;ve often that Grenier comes closest to what I would call a cognitive formalism &#8211; using form to explore cognition, the mind as such. There are of course limits to this &#8211; one can explore that instant in which words appear, for example, but it would far harder to identify a gap that occurs, for example, when one can&#8217;t think of a term, even tho it is every bit as palpable. <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 place where Saroyan and Grenier completely overlap, not surprisingly, are in the poems that call up the relationship to what they&#8217;re doing as poets and the larger tradition of poetry, as such, especially the short poems of Louis Zukofsky &amp; the Robert Creeley of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Pieces</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>LOUIS<br> <br>
<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>Noisy <br>
&#8220;Zukofsky&#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'>Or <span class=GramE>this,</span> entitled &#8220;Placitas&#8221; and dedicated to L.Z.:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:4.2in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:right'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>The trees&#8217;<br>
noise of<br>
the sea<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'>Or this, entitled &#8220;POEM&#8221;:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>One two<br>
three there<br>
are three are<br>
never seen<br>
again.<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'>These three all are the work of Saroyan. <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 word that turns out to be important to both poets is <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>crickets. </i>Not only does Saroyan have a couple of poems that allude not just to the critter, but to the great summer drone of insects, one of Grenier&#8217;s <a href="http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/LANGUAGEn5/pictures/001.shtml"><span style='color:black'>best known essays</span></a> explores the ways in which Keats&#8217; own use of the term &#8211; &#8220;hedge-crickets sing&#8221; &#8211; milk <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'>words of all possible letter/phonemic qualities without really challenging notion of English word/morpheme as basic unit of &#8216;meaning.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><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'>My favorite of Saroyan&#8217;s several cricket poems is one that falls into the neo-<span class=SpellE>Zukofsian</span> category:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Not a<br>
cricket<br>
<br>
ticks a<br>
clock<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'>But when Saroyan moves away from this one area that he shares with Grenier, he goes back toward either a conceptual poetics and/or a </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>New York</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> one. These two poems appear on facing pages in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Pages</i>: <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>cat<br> book<br>
city<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'>And<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Ted <span class=SpellE>Ted</span> <span class=SpellE>Ted</span> <span class=SpellE>Ted</span><br>
Ted<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 first depends entirely on scale of referents for its impact, something I can&#8217;t imagine Grenier ever <span class=GramE>doing,</span> the second may be a parody of the NY School&#8217;s (esp. Gen 2) penchant for name dropping. Or it might be the most NY School poem ever written.<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'>Grenier&#8217;s default mode, in sharp contrast, tends toward documentation:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>of life days like<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>*<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>a port to a green<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>*<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>rain drops the first of many<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>*<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>repetitive bird and black<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'>Each of these four one-line poems can be read both as an instance of language-in-the-world and as a study in form. It requires an almost obsession focus on the language itself. With Saroyan, not so much:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:2.0in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Later<br> <br>
the atelier<br>
<br>
ate her.<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&#8217;s not that Grenier does the <span class=SpellE>micropoem</span> <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>better</i>, whatever that means, than Saroyan. Nor is it that Saroyan is the original, Grenier the copy. Rather, what each was seeking to find &amp; explore was ultimately something different about language &amp; the poem. Which suggests that even one-line poems can (are) so thoroughly stylized that one can discuss their relationship to different literary movements. This makes me wonder what a new formalist one-line poem would look like &#8211; not a couplet, not a haiku, but a real single-line work of art. How would it then enact its values? What would it be able to look, see, do in the world of poetry? Or is it simply the case that new formalism, so called, is by definition incapable of writing so focused? I&#8217;d love to see someone try. <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:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#185; As part of Fran McCullough&#8217;s attempt to bring the second generation </span></span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>New   York</span></span></st1:PlaceName><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span></span><st1:PlaceType><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> out broadly through Harper.</span></span><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> Other books published by Harper during that period included Tom Clark&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Stones </i>(1969), his volume <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Air, </i>Dick Gallup&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Where I Hang My Hat </i>and Lewis Mac Adams&#8217; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Poetry Room </i>(all 1970). Then it stopped. Once Robert Duncan &amp; Robert Creeley left Scribner&#8217;s for New Directions, the publication of post-avant poets by the New York Trades largely came to an end, save for later collected editions of already canonic poets. The </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span  style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span   style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> had successfully defended what it saw as its turf. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Friday, January 24, 2003</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My blogs on the work of
Robert Grenier generated several responses. Allen Bramhall wrote with a
first-hand account of Grenier&#8217;s cards at </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial;">Franconia</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Arial;">College</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;"> (ellipsis in the original):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Dear Ron,<o:p></o:p></span></tt></div>
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<span class="GramE"><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">mention</span></tt></span><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;"> of Robert Grenier makes me jump
up. Robert arrived at </span></tt><st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Franconia</span></tt></st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;"> the second of my two years there.
<span class="GramE">he</span> has influenced me greatly, even tho I have not
stayed in touch with him since leaving school. <span class="GramE">his</span>
curiosity and openness remain lessons to me as a reader and writer. I remember
him hauling out his batch of cards and saying he didn't know what to do with
them. <span class="GramE">sometime</span> after that he filled a hallway, that
was normally given over to displays of photographs and prints, to a... well I
want to say a performance of his cards. <span class="GramE">he</span> pinned them
in neat rows and columns on the corkboard. I remember seeing him at it, and
there was something of a graffiti artist's earnestness about where he was doing
this. <span class="GramE">the</span> hallway was rather dark but with the white
cards notably brighter. I did not expect the visceral effect of seeing so many
of his pieces on display. <span class="GramE">there</span> was and is a neat
feeling to holding a pile of his poems on your lap or spreading them across a
table or the floor, but the hallway display was of a different order. I
remember waiting for those poems to appear in some published form, because he
had said he wanted to bring them out somehow. <span class="GramE">his</span>
poster </span></tt><st1:city><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Oakland</span></tt></i></st1:place></st1:city><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">* is one attempt to make a display
of his works. <span class="GramE">the</span> </span></tt><st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Franconia</span></tt></st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;"> hallway was much more spacious,
of course, and whether or not he was satisfied with how the poster worked, it
was different from filling a hallway. I remember sticking a poem on the wall, a
quiet homage I think, not to horn in but because it felt right. <span class="GramE">the</span> display seemed to ask for response, as in an addition of
voice or something such. <span class="GramE">no</span> one else saw fit to chime
in, but as I said, the hallway display bore at least a little of the sense of
graffiti. <span class="GramE">anyway</span>, I was quite ignorant about poetry at
the time, and the year with Robert threw all sorts of mysteries at me, Olson,
Stein, Coolidge, Ashbery, Saroyan. <span class="GramE">he</span> got Coolidge,
Ashbery, and even Larry Eigner to read at </span></tt><st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Franconia</span></tt></st1:place><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">, no small feat considering the
school's proximity to nowhere. <span class="GramE">it</span> pleases me that you
speak of him.<o:p></o:p></span></tt></div>
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<span class="GramE"><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">yours</span></tt></span><tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;"> sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></tt></div>
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<tt><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Allen Bramhall<o:p></o:p></span></tt></div>
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<st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Barrett
 Watten</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;"> notes that <span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>published the selection entitled &#8220;30
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences</i>&#8221; with (not in) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This 5,</i> not no. 4, which places the
publication date in the Winter of 1974, rather than the Spring of the previous year,
as I&#8217;d indicated. I also suggested that the selection was 30 cards, but in fact
the cards are printed on both sides &#8211; unlike the <a href="http://findaid.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft5k4005j1/C02/190733839">200
copy Whale Cloth Press box edition</a> &#8211; which, with a card set aside for the
title, made it just 16 cards. Watten also reminded me of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences from Birds</i>, another selection of the cards that was
published by Curtis Faville&#8217;s L Press in 1975. I know I had that at one time
&amp; I&#8217;ve never sold a Grenier item in my life, but like the poster, it seems
to have wandered off on its own. According to Faville, only 100 copies were
published to &#8220;little or no feedback.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Bob Grumman posted a dissent
to the Poetics List that said, in part:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ron also opines that Grenier's &#8220;<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences</i> still qualifies as the
furthest anyone has pushed poetry &amp; form in the investigation of the
world.&#8221;&nbsp; I AM enough of a literary historian to know that this is
certainly not true.&nbsp; It may be possible reasonably to claim that Grenier
pushed poetry and form as far as anyone, but further?&nbsp; It's extremely hard
to make comparisons (because of the apples/pears problem, among other things)
but it seems to me Ron is overlooking Stein, Pound, Cummings and Aram Saroyan,
for a start--and all of visual poetry and later <span class="SpellE">pluraesthetic</span>
works.&nbsp; I would add that in some respects, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences</i> is pretty straightforward minimalism that's been around
quite a while.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Grumman is on target in that
I did not make myself very intelligible with that statement, since that
assertion could be taken to mean almost anything. His alternative suggestions
illustrate the point nicely. All four writers Grumman cites were interested in
various extensions of poetic form &#8211; Stein &amp; Pound making profound
contributions in that area, <span class="GramE">cummings</span> &amp; Saroyan
more modest ones. What Grenier did was to focus on what linguists still call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parole,</i> the language as she is spoke by
them what <span class="GramE">speak</span> it. Neither Stein, Pound, <span class="GramE">cummings</span> nor Saroyan focus on that particular dimension,
although Stein comes closest &amp; has a sense of grammar &amp; discourse as
developed as anyone has ever had. However, like Joyce, she has a 19<sup>th</sup>
century-centric sense of language as infinitely plastic &amp; malleable that
language itself does not bear out (hence the failure of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Finnegans Wake</i>). Unlike Joyce, Stein seems to have had a stronger
sense of self-confidence in her own analytical skills with regards to the
language &#8211; she never is in thrall to the 19<sup>th</sup> century concept of
language as historic philology, which bedevils both Joyce &amp; Pound (&amp;, I
dare say, Kenner). Where Stein &amp; Grenier diverge most strongly is that
Stein&#8217;s interest lies principally in the compositional possibilities of
language, whereas Grenier is most focused on, as the famous &#8220;On Speech&#8221; flatly
states, &#8220;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">the</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> word
way back in the head that is the thought or feeling forming out of the &#8216;vast&#8217;
silence / noise of consciousness experience world <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">all the time<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i></b> as
waking/dreaming, words occurring and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">these
are the words of the poem . . . . </b>(<span class="GramE">boldface</span> in the
original)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This is, it seems to me, as
true of the scrawl works of today as it was of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences.</i> One might say that Stein &amp; Grenier were on parallel
tracks, headed however in opposite directions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are of course
antecedents for Grenier&#8217;s minimalism &#8211; really a mode of gigantism, in that he
is literally putting elements of language under a microscope: Stein&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tender Buttons, </i>Creeley&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pieces</i>, many short poems by Zukofsky
&amp; even Aram Saroyan&#8217;s brief foray into innovative poetics in the 1960s.
&amp; if one examines a book such as Saroyan&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pages </i>(Random House, 1969), you can find a few pieces that are
reminiscent of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences:</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;">incomprehensible</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;"> birds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;">cat</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;">book</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;">city</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Or even<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="SpellE"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt;">lobstee</span></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">But these works merely put the
proverbial toe in the water compared with Grenier&#8217;s exploration of the whole
ocean.** A good part of what make <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sentences
</i>such a profound experience is its scale &#8211; 500 poems with no set order. I
find that reading the work over &amp; over &#8211; the forthcoming website
underscores this aspect of the experience, especially since the cards are
shuffled each time one begins again &#8211; is when I start to get, literally, &#8220;into
the work.&#8221; <span class="GramE">A single poem, or even the selections published by
Watten, Faville or to found in <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> the American Tree</i>,
don&#8217;t</span> begin to approach this project. It is a classic instance of a text
that resists excerpting or editing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Grumman&#8217;s other alternatives
&#8211; &#8220;all of visual poetry and later <span class="SpellE">pluraesthetic</span>
works&#8221; &#8211; reinforces the point. Such poetries, which can be both delightful
&amp; dazzling (no argument there, I hope), tend to move towards the graphic or
whatever other media pluralizes them &amp; thus even </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">furth</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">er from any focus on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parole</i>. They may at times be grammatological, in the sense of
invoking the written system of a language, but they&#8217;re seldom truly <span class="GramE">linguistic</span>. Part of what makes Grenier&#8217;s recent <a href="http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&amp;d/grenier/lgrena00.htm">scrawl writing</a>
so fascinating is that he has taken on both the linguistic &amp; grammatological
dimensions simultaneously. The scrawl works are virtually the only intermedia
writing I can think of that isn&#8217;t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">déjà
toujours</i> &#8220;poetry &amp;&#8221; &#8211; as in &#8220;poetry &amp; dance,&#8221; &#8220;poetry &amp;
painting,&#8221; &#8220;poetry &amp; music,&#8221; &#8220;poetry &amp; anime,&#8221; &#8220;poetry &amp;
programming,&#8221; &#8220;poetry &amp; laundry.&#8221; Those ampersands invariably seem fatal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* The
poster is, in fact, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CAMBRIDGE M&#8217;ASS</i>. </span><st1:city><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Oakland</span></i></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> was a chapbook. Both were published by Tuumba Press, the
poster in 1979, the chapbook in 1980.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">** There is
a good doctoral dissertation to be had in figuring out why Saroyan, for all
purposes, abandoned poetry while Grenier, in the face of little early
recognition, persisted &amp; took his project so much further. Why &amp; how do
artists make such choices? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, September 19, 2002</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In his statement for Michael
<span class="SpellE">Lally&#8217;s</span> 1976 anthology, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">None of the Above,</i> the late Jim Gustafson admonished, &#8220;Suggest that
one strives to read something more than the books that come in the mail.&#8221; It&#8217;s
not bad advice, but doesn&#8217;t account for the unexpected delights that once in a
rare while do turn up. Joseph Massey&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Minima
St. </i>(Range Press, 2002) is just such a treat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">In actuality, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Minima St. </i>(a self-published limited
edition chapbook with a press run of just 50 copies) wasn&#8217;t a total surprise.
Rae Armantrout, who had received the book in her mail ahead of me, had written
to say that I would like the work. The poems are, as the title wryly implies,
minimalist:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Awakened<br />
by the ticking<br />
<br />
not the alarm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Such close attention to
detail demands both precision and a sense of balance &#8211; the stanza break prior
to the last line is the poem&#8217;s most important moment. As a whole, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Minima St.</i> manages both values well. I
vacillate between a preference for poems like the one above, which focus on an
individual element, and other pieces that are less completely descriptive,
where the text pushes the reader some to make the connections:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Gulls &#8211;<br />
<br />
collapsed<br />
song<br />
<br />
weighs<br />
sun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The off-rhyme pulls together
the imponderables: how songs might collapse, the weight of sun, what any of
this has to do with gulls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Minima St. </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">fits
into a long tradition of self-published first books mailed out to potentially
sympathetic readers that can be traced back at least far as Whitman&#8217;s initial
edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leaves of Grass</i>. In its
use of short forms, hard-edged lines, commitment to precision, and especially
its fondness for the strategically placed em dash, the most obvious predecessor
to Massey&#8217;s volume might be George Oppen&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Discrete
Series.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Interested readers might be
able to obtain copies by emailing <a href="mailto:rangemag@aol.com">rangemag@aol.com</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<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>
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<h2 class='title'>Ketjak</h2>
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<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>
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<h2 class='title'>Other Books in Print</h2>
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<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 />
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<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.
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