I’ve had this mental block with the fourth issue of Antennae, Jesse Seldess’ biannual out of Chicago. I really shouldn’t – I have work in the issue, one poem having actually been selected for the next edition of The Best American Poetry. But when I was thus informed, I had no idea where my own copy of the issue was – nor, for that matter, even what it looked like. I usually make reasonably meticulous (tho not perfect) notes for the bibliography that is up on the Electronic Poetry Center, but when I looked at my notes, I still had it listed as “forthcoming.”

 

So I asked Seldess to resend it, which he kindly did, & the instant I opened the package I slapped my forehead. I knew exactly where my earlier copies were –I could see them from where I’m sitting right now. But I hadn’t associated the little mag in the brown paper wrapper whose “logo” for the issue is, literally, a coffee stain from the bottom of a mug. Not just any mug either – a “Wings to Wisdom LLC commemorative mug” from a new age self-empowerment seminar that took place in Honolulu back in the summer of ’02. Antennae’s verso page credits Ryan Weber & entitles the coffee ring “Stop Seeking Start Seeing,” which is in fact the title of one of Eva Eschner Hogan’s seminars. That title just about captures my relationship to Antennae!

 

Inside are contributions by several people who should be familiar to readers of this blog: Stacy Szymaszek, David Pavelich, Kasey Mohammad, Jules Boykoff, Kaia Sand, John M. Bennett. But the one who really gets & holds my attention the first time seriously through Antennae is Heather Nagami. She has a series of ten poems, “The Agenda,” that all center around public &/or administrative discourse. “Roll Call” is the first and longest piece in the issue:

 

The new owner of a convenience store

on the southwest part of town

would like to keep the liquor license held by the previous owner;

 

he’s gotten rid of the liqueurs and other quick fixes,

reducing the store’s alcohol supply from four doors to three,

an accommodation that would be made only by a family man, such as himself,

 

especially considering the loss of profit –

alcohol sales being the main source of income

for such a small outfit, like cigarettes

 

at the Oriental and American Food store

on the corner of Grand and Stone,

not that it’s a small place, but surely less populated

 

than Albertson’s or Fry’s,

and while his corner store brings customers,

there’s gotta be that extra bottle to keep them on his corner instead of the one

 

two blocks down, which is exactly

what Council Member West has a problem with:

why does the neighborhood need another store selling liquor

 

when there already is one only two blocks east?

Council Member West thinks that the Mayor and all of the Council Members

should remember what happened when too many licenses were given on 4^th Avenue.

 

Council Members Ronstadt and Anderson agree, and so does Ibarra,

who generally agrees with Leal, though Leal, the council member

for the ward in which the store is located, says nothing.

 

Juice, Council Member West commands,

peering down toward the man behind the mike. I think you’ll

be surprised at how many people will be plenty happy with juice.

 

Hardly ever has found language, appropriated discourse sounded more closely attuned to what Ms. Niedecker once referred to as the “condensary” of poetry – not Reznikoff’s Testimony, nor the early novels of Kathy Acker. One could characterize this as a narrative poem – it tells a story that will be familiar in any state in which liquor licenses are controlled at the local level – but I think that’s a misreading. Nagami is hearing that, certainly, but she is, I think, listening for all the other elements in the language, up to & including the delicious double meaning of the poem’s key word, Juice.

 

I think I can demonstrate this conclusively with the next poem in the sequence, “The Tale of the Substitute Motion”:

 

Council Member Ronstadt makes the motion that Council Member Ibarra replaces with a substitute motion; but Council Member Dunbar (new since the elections) asks Vice-Mayor West to address Ronstadt’s motion, which, says West, has not been seconded, and Dunbar seconds, though it’s too late to second it because Council Member Scott has just seconded the substitute motion.

 

The Rube Goldberg-esque quality of legislative process, even in a midsized city like Tucson*, amounts to a kind of perpetual motion machine that, for all of its furious activity, remains eternally static. What strikes me as a reader is the degree to which these texts remain true to their source materials while demonstrating a total commitment to the traditional effects of poetry – concision, a foregrounding of the formal elements of poetry, even a goofball elegance that has much to do with the New York School’s commitment to wit.

 

I first heard “The Roll Call” at a workshop Lisa Jarnot & I jointly gave at POG in Tucson last spring. It’s great to see it here amid the entire sequence of “The Agenda.” All are well written & together these poems make me want to turn on my local cable access channel just to hear small town pols talk zoning. What a great project!

 

 

 

* The same council members remain in office &, yes, current Vice-Mayor Ronstadt is related to the singer, as well as being the current iteration of one of Tucson’s leading political dynasties.