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Showing posts with label <b>longpoem</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Thursday, January 09, 2003</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Rachel Blau DuPlessis has
told me, on more than one <span class="GramE">occasion, that</span> no writer of
long poems before me apparently commented in any particular detail on the
process of starting or constructing such a work. But DuPlessis has herself done
so, at least partly (&amp; to some degree indirectly), in an essay entitled
&#8220;Haibun: &#8216;Draw Your Draft,&#8217;&#8221; in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress/holhdand.htm">H.D. and Poets After</a></i>,
edited by </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">a <span class="SpellE">Krolik</span> <span class="SpellE">Hollenberg</span>. It&#8217;s an interesting volume overall with poets
Alicia <span class="SpellE">Ostriker</span>, </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Robert Kelly</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">, Sharon <span class="SpellE">Doubiago</span>, Frances <span class="SpellE">Jaffer</span>, Kathleen Fraser, Brenda Hillman, Leslie Scalapino, <span class="SpellE">Nate</span> Mackey &amp; Carolyn <span class="SpellE">Forché</span>
in addition to DuPlessis writing on their relationship to Hilda Doolittle, each
in turn followed by a second essay by a scholar on the same topic &#8211; Burt <span class="SpellE">Hatlen</span> contributes the companion to DuPlessis&#8217; essay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A sample passage:<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; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">No
plan, no design, no schemata. Just a few procedures: placing works on the big
stage of the page, making each <span class="GramE">be</span> itself intact and
autonomous but connected to themselves as they emerged. No continuous
narrative. No myth as explanation. Here <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts</i>
are very different from H.D.&#8217;s long poems and quite related to Objectivist
ethos and poetics. The works are influenced by Objectivist argument and
propositions about reality. That the image is encountered, not found, as Oppen
proposed. That <span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
and</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a </i>(said Zukofsky testily)
are words worth investigating, as suggestive and as staggering in their
implications as any epic or myth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Even though DuPlessis ranges
far beyond just her relationship to H.D., there is no single summation here &#8211;
indeed, DuPlessis warns in an end note, that this account is far from
comprehensive, citing a wide range of other sources &amp; influences as diverse
as Rae Armantrout &amp; Clayton Eshleman.* In an unnumbered note, DuPlessis
comments that &#8220;I also follow the &#8216;hermetic&#8217; encoding in H.D. that involves
having an H and a D in titles that consider her.&#8221; Thus, &#8220;Draft 12: Haibun.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The conjunction of these
factors &#8211; the charged, but non-exclusive discourse with modernism, the concern
with the letter, brought up something very different to mind, a poem,
specifically this:<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 style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">There is more here than memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<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;">Reading
</span></span><st1:city><st1:place><span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Paterson</span></i></span></st1:place></st1:city><span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">on the bus, back &amp; forth.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span class="GramE">Across the city.</span> <span class="GramE">The 210.</span> <span class="GramE">A man &amp; a city.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I am not a man &amp; this is
not my city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<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;">Williams
though as a guide.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span class="GramE">His universals as particulars,
ideas in things.</span> <span class="GramE">His rhythms.</span> Every rhythmic
shaking (like a belly dancer), splashing (like the <span class="GramE">Falls</span>)
lines. <span class="GramE">Insistences.</span> Insistence on persisting. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Stuck <span class="SpellE">stuck</span>
<span class="SpellE">stuck</span> the W &#8211; a poem in the new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sulfur </i>began with a quote from Bréton that the surrealists opposed
the W to the V of the visible &#8211;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The W atop Woodward&#8217;s &#8211; the
big, brick, block-long (almost &#8211; next building west was Woolworth&#8217;s &#8211; another W
(west a W, was a W)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">These excerpts come from the
very first section of George Stanley&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_ronsilliman_archive.html%2385889670">Vancouver,</a></i>
which I found at the very end of his most recent book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.newstarbooks.com/Booksinprint.htm#poetry">At Andy&#8217;s</a></i>,
an echo of how the first of DuPlessis&#8217; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts</i>
appeared at the back of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabula Rosa</i>
(Potes &amp; Poets, 1987). I&#8217;ve compared </span><st1:city><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Vancouver</span></i></st1:place></st1:city><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">&amp; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts </i><a href="http://www.ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_ronsilliman_archive.html%2386102935">before</a>,
but these additional layers of correspondence amaze me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">DuPlessis, in &#8220;Haibun,&#8221;
speaks also of memory:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">At a
certain point in this exploration of the <span class="SpellE">rhetorics</span> of
&#8220;drafting&#8221; I realized that I was constructing a texture of déjà vu, a set of
works that mimicked the productions and losses of memory. And that the works
were my own response both to the memorializing function of poetry and to my own
bad memory. &#8220;An exploration of the chaos of memory (obscured, alienated, or
reduced to a range of natural references) cannot be done in the &#8216;clarity&#8217; of a
linear narrative&#8221;** . . . . <span class="GramE">Bad memory.</span> <span class="GramE">Bad dog.</span> <span class="GramE">Bad <span class="SpellE">bad</span>
memory.</span> The poem replicates (but neither reconstructs nor represents) a
space of memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Part of what amazes me in
these convergences is that if I were to construct a scale of the poets who had
some relation to the journals <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Caterpillar
</i>&amp; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sulfur</i>, edited by Clayton
Eshleman, according to the degree of Jack Spicer&#8217;s influence perceptible in their
<span class="GramE">poetry,</span> Stanley &amp; DuPlessis would almost be the
opposite extremes. Yet here are two projects that are, if not parallel, at
least so filled with resonances back &amp; forth, that each poem works in part
to illuminate the other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* Caveat
lector: my name appears in that list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">** <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/sc_add_query.cgi/99/virginia/89005469.ctl">Caribbean
Discourse: Selected Essays</a>, </i>by <span class="SpellE">Edouard</span> <span class="SpellE">Glissant</span>, p. 107. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Wednesday, December 18, 2002</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Between the poem &amp; the
longpoem come several intermediate modes. One that interests me greatly,
because it&#8217;s one with which I have a lot of personal affinity, is the
booklength poem that might not (yet) be a longpoem in the true sense of taking
a decade or more to compose. It can be &#8211; although not always is &#8211; really the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poem as book</i> (which, conversely, almost
always means the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">book as poem</i> also),
calling up that curious zone in which the transpersonal elements of a text
become deeply immersed with the qualities of embodiment that bookmaking
represents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Jack Spicer was a master at
this level. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">After Lorca, The Heads of the
Town Up to the Aether, Language </i>&amp; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Book
of Magazine Verse</i> were all composed as much as books as they were poems.
Gilbert <span class="SpellE">Sorrentino&#8217;s</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The <span class="SpellE">Orangery</span></i> is another volume that comes
immediately to mind as an exemplar of this mode &#8211; as are Charles Alexander&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">arc of light / dark matter,</i> Ted
Berrigan&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sonnets</i>, John
Ashbery&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Poems, </i>Lyn Hejinian&#8217;s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Life</i>, Robert Creeley&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pieces,</i> Barrett Watten&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Progress, </i>David Melnick&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pcoet, </i></span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Tom Mandel</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prospect of
Release</i>, &amp; more than a few books each by both Bernadette Mayer &amp;
Clark Coolidge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">At the heart of the poem as
book is not just having a project that is sufficiently large enough to warrant
capturing as a whole between two covers, but rather one that understands itself
in precisely such terms, that takes its own free-standing nature as a given.
Book design, of course, allows for a lot of fudging &#8211; the 64-page volume that
was my own </span><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Paradise</span></i></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;"> was a 35-page manuscript. Whatever its integrity as
a poem or project might be, it was <span class="SpellE">Rosmarie</span> Waldrop
who had the formal sense to see that work as book. Thus, not every poem (or
poetic series) of size carries this sense of itself as a condition of the
writing. Of the volumes listed in the previous paragraph, the one I sometimes
wonder about in these terms is Berrigan&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sonnets.</i>
As wonderful as they are &#8211; and they hold up to rereading after rereading over
the decades, as rich &amp; glittering as ever &#8211; Berrigan was such a young
writer when he composed that sequence that it&#8217;s not clear to me that he was yet
even thinking in terms of books at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">What calls this to mind is a
volume entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.apogeepress.com/books_bkhrs.html"><span class="SpellE">bk</span>
of (h<span class="GramE">)<span class="SpellE">rs</span></span></a></i> by Pattie
McCarthy. It&#8217;s a dense, rich, sometimes dark (&amp; sometimes playful) volume
clearly conceived &amp; written precisely as a book. For a relatively young
poet &#8211; I believe this is only her second volume &#8211; it&#8217;s a project of stunning
ambition &amp; self confidence. And, as readers of this blog will have figured
out by now, these are qualities in poetry that I completely endorse. The title
alone announces that this will not be an &#8220;easy&#8221; read &#8211; although, because this
work is so well written, there are constant &amp; continuing pleasures in doing
so, making <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bk</i></span>,
if not an &#8220;easy&#8221; read, at the very least a delightful one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">McCarthy&#8217;s model of course
is the medieval book of hours, which between the 13<sup>th</sup> &amp; 15<sup>th</sup>
centuries was the most popular of all book forms, but which today is remembered
principally for the detailed illustrations that decorated these favored objects
of the rich. As her use of abbreviations makes evident (&amp; the Apogee Press
design reinforces, especially in the dense prose of the third section),
McCarthy is interested primarily in the intellectual / social / spiritual
elements of the form, not its role in a history of design. The first section of
the book does indeed follow the &#8220;hours&#8221; of medieval practice &#8211; matins, lauds,
prime, <span class="SpellE">terce</span>, <span class="SpellE">sext</span>, none,
vespers &amp; <span class="SpellE">compline</span> &#8211; actually set times of day
for traditional sets of prayer. The second section is, as one would expect in
this form, is called &#8220;(p<span class="GramE">)<span class="SpellE">salter</span></span>,&#8221;
&amp; while the psalms or songs that follow are less <span class="SpellE">polyvocalic</span>
that either the first or third sections of this book, one would be hard put to
characterize them as lyrical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I suspect that a reader who
was more of a Christian than I would see more levels &amp; depths of reference
here than do </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">I.</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;"> It&#8217;s one thing for me to recognize the use of Julian
dating in &#8220;(p<span class="GramE">)<span class="SpellE">salter</span></span>,&#8221; but
quite another for me to understand quite what to do with it. At that level, I
have to ask myself just how much I trust where the author is going,
particularly one who, like McCarthy, actively invokes a broad a range of
reference, especially in the 21 prose paragraphs of the volume&#8217;s third &amp;
final section, where the sense of density is accentuated by McCarthy&#8217;s
resistance to upper case. Since at no point where I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can </i>follow does she ever once misstep, my gut feel is to trust
completely the places where I simply have to acknowledge my own limits as a
reader. A passage like the following demonstrates absolute ability in total
control:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">the</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">
second letters of the original seven<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">antiphons</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">
read backwards yield the acrostic :<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I
shall be with you tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">divinations</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> to undertake &#8211; times<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">&amp; purposes to be determined regionally.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I&#8217;m
not one for a public shrove.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">a</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> green
winter makes for a fat churchyard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">a</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> long
winter makes for a full ear. <span class="GramE">poke</span><o:p></o:p></span></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><span class="GramE">holes</span> in
eggshells to keep<o:p></o:p></span></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><span class="GramE">witches</span>
from going to sea. <span class="GramE">we</span> look down into it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">bk</span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> of (h)<span class="SpellE">rs</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;"> will probably look like early work one day to
McCarthy, precisely because she demonstrates herself taking on such a range
&amp; such steep challenges that you can almost palpably feel her growth as an
artist in these pages &#8211; the literary equivalent of, say, a Beatles album like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rubber Soul</i>, where the <span class="SpellE">Fab</span> Four just start to make the move from best-in-class of
the genre they&#8217;ve inherited toward working on some whole other level that will
transform not merely their own work, but that of everyone else around them. I
don&#8217;t want to overstate the case here, but <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bk</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> of (h<span class="GramE">)<span class="SpellE">rs</span></span> </i>is a
fascinating view of an artist right at the inflection point of her career. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, December 16, 2002</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Commenting upon George
Stanley&#8217;s excerpt from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_ronsilliman_archive.html%2385889670">Vancouver</a></i>
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Poker </i>turned out to bring
goodies in time for the holiday season. </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Kevin Davies</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;"> sent me a copy of another excerpt from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Book One</i> and I was directed to yet another
shining example in the new issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooNine/stanley.html">Shampoo</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></i>by <span class="GramE">editor</span> Del
Ray Cross. This last piece has two different descriptions of the late Angela
Bowering that make me envious of those who knew her, as well as further
confirmation of my theory of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vancouver</i>
&amp; the poetry of transit. The poem also has<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;
</span>a wonderful dictum that I suspect Stanley would like to believe &#8211; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">write carelessly </i>&#8211; tho in fact he is one
of the great careful writers of our time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">All of which made me think
of how we begin the longpoem, those of us who do write them, and that one of my
New Years Resolutions for 2003 is to read Rachel Blau DuPlessis&#8217; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.upne.com/0-8195-6485-0.html">Drafts 1-38, Toll</a> </i>with
the kind of long, slow, luxuriating attention that I believe it deserves. So I
got a jump on the new year and sat down &amp; read (reread, really) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Draft 1: It, </i>first in the large Wesleyan
University Press edition, then in the even larger (at least in terms of page
size) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Temblor 5</i> where I first
encountered this poem back in 1987. Way back when, I don&#8217;t think it struck me
how one of the keys to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts </i>was
(or, really, back then, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would be</i>) how
each section always links to a title, most often (but not always) a single word<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> &#8220;Links to a title&#8221; may seem a funny
way of phrasing this, yet I sense that these are not titles in the same way
that, say, &#8220;The Multiversity&#8221; is the title for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Passages 23</i> for Robert Duncan or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise</i> is the title of one section of my own <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alphabet. </i>As I think becomes clear when reads DuPlessis, every word
for her is always provisional. The monumental aspect of poetry titles seems
something very different &#8211; and yet, these aren&#8217;t &#8220;captions&#8221; either, at least
not in the way that Benjamin distinguishes between those two categories, one
name the work, the other pulling out a highlight or foregrounding some element
within. My own sense here at least at this point, is that DuPlessis uses these
words &amp; phrases to identify territories in the vicinity of which the poems
then work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In 1987, I knew DuPlessis as
one of several poets whom I might characterize as post-Objectivist, a grouping
as diverse as John Taggart, Michael Heller &amp; Armand Schwerner. DuPlessis
was notable also for being the one woman who seemed actively drawn to this
literary tradition. But nothing in her (first?) book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wells</i> (<span class="SpellE">Montemora</span> Supplement, 1980)
prepared me for this suddenly expansive use of the page. Perhaps if I had read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gypsy / Moth</i></span> <span style="font-family: Arial;">(Coincidence Press, 1984) more attentively, I would
have realized that its title page, assigning the two poems of that volume to a
longer project, the &#8220;History of Poetry&#8221; (and with the word <s>Keats</s> both
printed and <span class="SpellE">X&#8217;d</span> out right in the center of the page),
was in fact announcing DuPlessis&#8217; taking on of something of greater scale, not
just in size but also in intellectual ambition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">DuPlessis is more explicit
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabula Rosa </i>(Potes &amp; Poets,
1987), which includes 17 pieces from the &#8220;History of Poetry,&#8221; including the two
David Sheidlower had published in the earlier book. The section &#8211; it forms the
first half of the book &#8211; has an epigram that is telling: &#8220;She cannot forget the
history of poetry / because it is not hers.&#8221; That was the clearest statement
yet of DuPlessis&#8217; own sense of herself as writing as an outsider, a position
that will very much inform <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts. </i>The
second half of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabula Rosa</i> is, in
fact, entitled &#8220;Drafts,&#8221; &amp; reprints the first two from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Temblor</i>. But it also contains a serial poem, &#8220;Writing,&#8221; that, with
commentary, runs 30 pages, longer than the two sections of DuPlessis&#8217; new
longpoem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">&#8220;Writing&#8217;s&#8221; ultimate
relation to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts </i>isn&#8217;t self-evident
&#8211; it&#8217;s not included here in the Wesleyan edition. Reading it, it feels (very
much as the &#8220;History of Poets&#8221; does for me also) as a necessary step for DuPlessis
to clear the ground on which she could begin the true longpoem. Already in
&#8220;Writing,&#8221; DuPlessis is moving away from standard type-driven forms.
Handwritten in one section are these sentiments: &#8220;wanting to have her book
virtually nameless / what is the most transparent name?&#8221; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabula Rosa</i>, in spite of its pun, &#8220;Writing&#8221; and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts </i>all seem possible responses to
that question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabula Rosa </i>and the Wesleyan edition, DuPlessis will publish three
more collections of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts: <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">A volume from
Potes &amp; Poets entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts</i>,
containing numbers 3 through 14<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">A large &amp;
wonderfully designed Singing Horse Press edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Draft X: Letters</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Another volume
from Potes &amp; Poets entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drafts
1-XXX, <span class="GramE">The</span> Fold</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">&#8220;It&#8221; is as contra-auspicious
a title one might propose for the opening of a longpoem, which is the point.
The poem itself begins with an initial &#8220;N.&#8221; that is then repeated, followed by
two hand drawn <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N</i>s, large &amp;
asymmetrical, giving the page as much a sketch of a mountaintop (my immediate
thought, seeing them, was Wordsworth&#8217;s alps &#8211; Bunting&#8217;s version of same also &#8211;
although to a later reader the use of the hand here would no doubt call up Bob
Grenier&#8217;s own &#8220;scrawl&#8221; texts*), followed by a section divider, which in this
piece is a pair of equal signs. Thus signs &amp; sounds are all that we are
given in the very first section. There is not even one vowel. &amp; the
consonant chosen (no accident here) comes more than halfway through the
alphabet itself. There&#8217;s no way to make a word out of this, the way one could
stretch &#8220;m&#8221; into &#8220;<span class="SpellE">mmmmmm</span>.&#8221; The use of the period with
each &#8220;N&#8221; reinforces its &#8220;vocal but <span class="SpellE">subverbal</span>&#8221;
qualities, just as the mountain tops carry us back to a time when language is
as much picture as conventional representation of sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Think of every longpoem you
have ever read &#8211; none has an opening passage even remotely like this. No jewels
&amp; diamonds, no round of fiddles, no going down to the ships. The closest I
can imagine is </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">Duncan</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">&#8217;s reference to a cat&#8217;s purr, but that is at the
start of the second <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Passages, </i>not the
first. So, even if we buy the scrawled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N</i>s
as mountain tops, any allusion to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Prelude</i> is at best an echo that tugs ever so faintly in the work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The second passage is
everything the first one is not:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">and</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">
something spinning in the bushes<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>the
past<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span class="GramE">dismembered</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>sweetest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<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><span class="GramE">dizzy</span> chunk
of song<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here
suddenly we have miracles, memory, history, fragmentation, qualities, <span class="GramE">the</span> whole idea that song, for example, might be
characterized as a &#8220;dizzy chunk.&#8221; When I get to this moment, I do in fact hear
an echo from the start of a longpoem, but on a very different order: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I thought that if I could put
it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to
leave all out would be <span class="GramE">another,</span> and truer way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span class="GramE">clean-washed</span>
sea<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The flowers were.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">John Ashbery&#8217;s &#8220;The New
Spirit,&#8221; the start of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Poems </i>(which
I will always read as one), presents a very similar opposed pair &#8211; but note
that DuPlessis has reversed the order, or at the very least suggested that
possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">One
image or theme that runs through this passage is light: &#8220;all the sugar is
reconstituted: / sunlight&#8221; or &#8220;light this / governed being:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span><span class="GramE">that</span>?&#8221; This question of embodiment leads to the
section&#8217;s last stanza, which transforms a <span class="SpellE">Zukofskian</span>
moment of closure that is almost stunning in how directly DuPlessis gets to it&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">plunges</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> into every object<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">a</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> word and then some<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>chuck
and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="SpellE"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">pwhee</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> wee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">half</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">tones</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">have</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> tune&#8217;s <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">heft</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">There
are no half measures in these two passages &#8211; DuPlessis takes you right smack
into the heart of writing with all of its epistemological &amp; ontological
questions in what amounts to a &#8220;take no prisoners&#8221; directness. The ambition of
the moment is both sweeping and </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">brea</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">th-taking. We are </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">ind</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial;">eed at the cusp of a great adventure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* I&#8217;m not sure whether any of Grenier&#8217;s scrawl works, which
I believe existed by the mid 1980s, had appeared anywhere that DuPlessis might
have seen them at this point in history. My guess is not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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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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