=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 14:00:17 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: thinking about translation, re:Lorca (long)
A week or so back, Ernesto Grosman sent the RIF/T questionnaire
about translation to the list, shortly after I'd sent a translation
of the opening speech of Lorca's first play Bad Dream of the Butterflies.
My head has been absolutely buzzing with ideas since starting the
Lorca translation, and so I'm going to be arrogant enough to attempt
a public reply to the questions on Ernesto's questionnaire, with
mostly specific respect to this Lorca translation. Do, please, everyone,
leave this message here if this seems to you as arrogant a presumption
on my part as it seems to me, but I do want to answer:
> "QUESTIONNAIRE/CUESTIONARIO
*How would you define translation? As a process or as product?"
I am writing the Lorca very much for an ordinary theatre audience,
going on my feelings for what audiences around me have responded to
in theatre I've seen. I don't expect a very active audience, which for
me is required when I do what I think of as process work. For example,
as part of my long poem DISABUSE, I translate the opening pages of
Foucault's History of Sexuality - precisely as a *close reading*,
giving me the opportunity to offer frequent footnotes on what I think
is going on, where I differ as a thinker etc. In other words, I do
the Foucault translation as something to be read as part of the debate
on how readers *construct* and *write* what they think they're reading,
in other words a *process* that *appropriates* the original writing.
In a similar way, in the same long poem, I "translate" a new story, set
on a journey around the world by airplane from New Zealand to England,
pretty much line for line on top of the first Canto of the _Cantos of
Ezra Pound_. But this translation from Pound is much less antagonistic,
much more a way of saying that Pound has got at some essence of the pain
of travelling to and from loved ones, finding one's shipmates and so on.
My Lorca is much more a *product*, something vying to be published
as an official translation, not as a response of mine to Lorca but as
helping Lorca speak to the English-speaking.
>"*Who is translating?"
I was drawing especially on the persona of Joel Grey in _Cabaret_. My
first master of translation, Donald Davie, very much inspired me to choose
an existing English-speaking model - or preferably fuse two or more.
Nevertheless these are more like flavourings, the approach to language,
I think, remains very consistent from translation to translation of mine,
very mandarin and autocratic - when translating Foucault or Lorca or
Beckett or Mallarme or Rainault. In some ways I am attracted to translating
them because I have trouble being authoritative, governmental, about my own
themes and concerns, having gravitas, and want to learn how. My own work
is more process-like, written for other artists (not by utter choice, but
artists are who respond best to it, unlike the Lorca or others, who I've
shown to lots of appreciative people). My one exception is the Pound, which
struck a real chord of vulnerability and stoic suffering for me, but then
I wasn't having to be so close word-by-word.
> "*What is being translated?"
For me, something is being presented. It must be interesting to people
who only speak English, and it must be as interesting as work written
in English first. It's a lot like the problem with academic critical
essays; it mustn't be worthy and cold, so you have to work really hard
to read it; it must have joi de vivre, like Davie's essays or Marjorie
Perloff's.
> "*Do you consider some texts to be untranslatable? If so, how would you
describe the obstacle?"
Very pun-laden work seems hard, which I myself do; though my Foucault was
done precisely to rescue him, like a lot of the post-structuralists, from
readers (and his official translator) who were missing all his puns. I
translated him with lots of 1990s pop culture references, to try to put
his work back into a leather jacket not a dust jacket!
> "*Isn't the idea of "version" a funny place for the translator to be left
in?"
My Pound was a version, and the Lorca and the French poets a translation;
I don't like Robert Lowell's "versions" of poems at all; they're so
muscle bound and over-rich. As I say above, I think of the work as first
of all a rival for original poetry; the technical question of how close
the version is only interests me if I like it; I'm not a *translator*, or
a versioner; I *use* translation, like I *use* other forms, and get *used*
by them; lots of the writers who I know who are *translators*, who do whole
books of versions or translations, are awful.
>"*When see some of your own texts translated into a different language from
the one you wrote them in, what kind of relation would you established
between the two of them?"
I've had my writing set to music once; because I couldn't sing it, it was
too personal; the singer who set and sang it sang it from my heart.
"*Is it true that today there are fewer people translating? If so, why?"
I suspect there is just the same ratio of people doing good translations
to people doing bad work as there always was.
> "*What does it say about our present situation that translation
seems to occur almost only when the "original" material is has been
canonized within its own culture?"
This is a big one for me. I tend to re-translate, with the exception of
the Beckett, from bi-lingual editions, when the existing translation
really bums me out. I hate the fact that, like so many authors, they
are read badly; are in the public or canonical space but are not really
understood (like Pound's Selected Poems being bought only for the imagist
work, which is then travestied by admirers). The Lorca play I'm doing
has only been translated once, by Gwyn Edwards, who translates Lorca
wholesale - albeit from a deep love of Lorca - and seems to have rushed
over this one for comprehensive coverage at the cost of specificity. Most
translations are "canonised" oddly; my favourite approach would be to have
anthologies of translations of Lorca, or Mallarme, or Baudelaire, collecting
all the best translations of individual poems in magazines or the translator's
collected works, eg Davie's Collected Poems has several marvellous
individual translations, and he has many uncollected. My Lorca would have
the Station Hill translations, Langston Hughes' Blood Wedding, very little
by Gwyn Edwards. I'd ask the question: why do people feel safer reading
one foreign poet exclusively translated by one translator? I like the
Picador collected Rilke, and Michael Hamburger's Celan, Stephen Rodefer's
Villon, but few others on this model. I'm raising here the question of
collected work from a foreign writer writing in discrete different forms,
eg Lorca's many different types of play, or a lyric poet's different
poems.
>"*And what would be the possible relation between this kind of selection and
that other relationship between imperialism & translation?"
Lowell seems very imperialist, decadent and loud; my favourite translations
however make the English accomodate the other culture, the feel and the
facts, and send me to the culture; then it is up to *me*, as a person,
not to be imperialist; I think there are no signs of imperialist *writing*
or *translating*, though there may be larger effects, and the work may be
used as part of or to justify an imperialist strategy.
> "*Are you ready to accept translation as another way of writing?"
If there's time.
"*When you or somebody else refers to a text as illegible, what do you
does she/he mean by that? Do you see any connection between the notion
of a text being illegible and the task of translation?"
Most illegible things are illegible in their own way, a different way
from the way any other illegible thing is illegible. That different way
can be emulated in a translation.
"*Do you think of some texts as more worthy of a translation than others?
Could you elaborate on it?"
I do think people go for comfort too easily, and I do think some work is
more complex, and sometimes more true, than others; but I just want to
tell someone to stop, not make them. Then maybe they might teach me
something in their response.
"*Would you say that you translate a text or a person?"
In the Lorca, I did try to produce effects that would perturb a gay
separatist, or a homophobe; that would make a reader wonder where I
stand, and to emphasise an inwardness, a belonging, with both cruising
on the heath and living a regular life in the suburbs; trying to speak
the lingo, the parlance, of disparate groups; and to use nineties'
references, and to be a little brazen or shocking now, as I think Lorca
was then, while not losing a sense of it being a play from the 20s
altogether. I tried to avoid being one thing and not the other, as I
think that's what resonates for me in Lorca's vision of love. To learn
from, to be intimate, to steal, to go undercover, and to speak out from
within, a community, a friend, a text.
I'd also emphasise how much for me metaphor came up as a big
issue when translating Foucault and Lorca - so much so, that I was
making copious observations in a notebook about metaphor as a route
to everything; the Lorca really got me writing my own work again, a
sequence about metaphor, which I'll backchannel anyone who wants to
see it. It was the best way of reconciling the critical act of reading
as a trained critic, and the creative act of translation. By which I
mean, I would think of four or more sentences to translate one sentence
of the Lorca and then be able to discard them by alluding to it in a
metaphor. For example, the Lorca I sent has a second half which begins,
in paraphrase, a wood sylph who walks with the aid of crutches, and
who came from a Shakespeare play, met the poet one day after all the
cattle had been penned in, and gave the poet this story. I worked for
*hours* on this line; I was so interested that the sylph had come from
a Shakespeare play, I thought of Ariel as much as Titania, so interested
that a fictional character was talked about as living, so interested
in the fact that a fictional character had given a real author a play,
and so on. I really liked making the sylph a "veteran Shakesperean fairy"
as it could be an actor or a character, conjured up Gielgud and Wilde
and other queer men who are allowed to be fey and feminine and powerful
(which I want to be); I liked giving him a cane, rather than crutches,
for elegance and dignity in the advantage of being old enough to have
a cane where it's too much in a young man. I started out with a line not
in the Spanish at all; "so many are dying to get out of books", but then
just worked it in to "escaped to the living wood pulp of a real heath"
which is a pretty close if colourful periphrasis for Lorca's own emphasis
throughout the piece on how things usually get simplified by the way
they're put, in holy books and folk legends, and in the line on the fact
that the sylph comes from a *real* wood (there's that word *real* again!).
I really enjoyed the fact that the expression "gave him the plot" popped
into my head for "gave the poet this story"; like a lot of my translation
this carries a perfectly workable simple meaning, but also means "clued
him in", "wised up the dodo" etc.
> "*Do you consider yourself a translation?"
Not simply.
> "*Could you imagine life without translation?"
Yeah, I'd just live, others would just live. Unmanageable population
growth, and the fact that one of the major population killers, AIDS, is
killing off our world's best people, oppressed from birth and who sees
the world in more detail than a survivor who has to, would mean we'd
succumb to thoughtless regulation and regression. To fight for translation,
we must do much more than fight for words; luckily, translation will be
a luxury we'll have if we make the more basic simple changes.
Sorry to go on and on and on,
Ira Lightman
I.LIGHTMAN@UEA.AC.UK
P.S. I only have French, from classes between 11 and 18 years old,
and Latin. I worked through the Spanish of the Lorca by my French,
by intuition, by hard work, and with the existing Gwyn Edwards
translation. I didn't work with a Spanish dictionary or a Spanish
speaker.
P.P.S. I think of translation as emotional and cultural rather than
trying to match language to language - though as I've tried to show
above, I find all the responses that explode *out* of a reading of
the original find themselves folded back in, usually using metaphor,
in very similar word order in the translation.
P.P.P.S Further thoughts since writing the above two days ago. I've
since read the whole play through in the not so bad Gwyn Edwards version -
perhaps he sped through the intro speech and worked hard on the play
proper? It seems spooky, yet part of the kind of psychic atmosphere that
leads me to find works to read or translate in my path at crucial times,
that I finished my questionnaire with a reference to AIDS, which has been
much on my mind lately, and then found so much anticipated in Lorca's
play. I'd just read an Aaron Shurin piece on AIDS in the mag ACTS 10,
which I've had on my bedroom floor for a while but felt an urge to pick
up yesterday; then read the whole of the Bad Dream of the Butterflies,
then came onto campus today and found the recent New Republic issue
on AIDS - at no point did I do an archive search, or consciously purposed
to research AIDS more, it's just happened this way. Things to translate
fall into my path in the same way.
I don't know how I'm going to make the rest of my Lorca translation
accomodate all these contexts of reading, especially concerning AIDS, that
are, it seems to me, coming in in the exact space between reading and
reformulating-as-new-writing. One needs a politically and experientially
mature audience, as opposed to a stylistically or formalism-experienced
audience, to be able to do what I want. Once again, as in the veteran
fairy with the cane, there is a wounded butterfly, who the characters often
call a fairy, in the play, who is the wisest and most utopian soul. The
characters around the butterfly very simply, or synchronically one might
say, equate the butterfly's poorliness with what they see as the misguided
quest for a radical love/freedom/society; they don't see the butterfly
as a pioneer on a quest, as the pioneer of a future line, heroically
putting everything into the quest. Nor do they see the wounds as in any
way their fault, as something inflicted by the world they make, that the
butterfly strives through.
I don't know. I don't know now whether to write this translation
as a process work of reading, grounded on my assumption that it is impossible
to stage it, because there isn't a mature audience, one that won't, as
Lorca's introduction says, recoil or titter. What Aaron Shurin writes about
is a private, rejected world of heroes, extraordinary courage, people made
experts in sensitivity and powerful emotion. If I turned my translation
into a book, it would be a process work, for other vanguardists to read
and collaborate in - process as an act of community, not creating a
process in *any* reader, but a communique between reader/writers who *are*
in process already. The opening speech that I've already done was designed
to intrigue, haunt and stir up; to unsettle. I can't see a way right now to
do that with the whole play. For me, to make a product out of the Lorca
would be to make something opaque yet compelling - which I could do out
of the opening speech but not out of the play.
P.P.P.P.S AS I seem to be connecting translation with the questions of
health and dis-ease, and also fortuitious, oracular, "coincidence", I'll
mention too that I also found to hand a translation *from* English, of
a far from publically canonical figure, the English poet Tom Raworth,
by the French poet Pierre Alferi. This is in the bilingual pamphlet,
_The Mosquito and the Moon_, by Tom Raworth, Ankle Press, 1994, available
from 153 Gwydir Street, Cambridge - the publisher, Luke Youngman, is also
on e-mail, and anyone who mails me I'll forward e-mail to him.
The Mosquito and the Moon seems to me to be partly about how, if
you cannot maintain enough health, or you need a quicker cure because
you can't afford to take time off work, you can't avoid hospitals and
medical services, and you need in some way to surrender agency. Yet the
extent and the quality of the surrender affects how the bones set, and
the soul is affected. I quote the opening page:
c'est assez dur comme ca it is hard enough
plus qu'une affaire de croyance not merely a matter of belief
le bruit est un autre probleme noise is another problem
de limiter encore continuing yet to confine
le grand tas de depouilles the great heap of spoils
tourne a gauche dans la boutique turn left through the shop
ca cloche, une erreur de calcul something wrong, miscalculated
demolit les cellules breaking cells completely
mesurer n'est qu'un aspect measuring is an aspect
survivre pour produire surviving to produce
donner sur un chemin fini ending on a defined route
dispose en anneau arranged in a ring
petits trous ponctuels small localised holes
de reflexion profonde of intellectual depth
bariolee d'allusions heavily coloured by allusions
conduisit la voiture au parking brought the car to the kerb
parlant depuis un seuil speaking across a threshold
des signes au fusain pointent charcoal marks indicate
pierre alferi tom raworth
I'll start by saying I think this is great translation, great
bilingual work, where it is hard to see which is the original and which
the translation, line by line, as each manages either a more simple
plangency or a more haunting cadence of the "image"/"sense". Reading
through the whole book I notice, not as an iron rule, that the more
ironic and clipped the one side the more sobbing and heartwrenching the
other. The subject matter is *always* heartwrenching, but Raworth's
opening here (I think) is curt and almost spitting, where Alferi's
column is more sonorous and like a stately threnody. Yet, on the next page,
Raworth gets more sonorous and stately, Alferi gets more clipped (to
my ear):
vers la tete du lit towards the front of the bed
tragique mais respirant encore tragic but still breathing
ils portent les anciennes they carry the old
lettres couvrant des decennies letters running through decades
trouvant l'experience affective find emotional experience
pleine de mots filled with words
porteurs d'aleas bearers of randomness
heurtant et bousculant bumping and pushing
des signes intimement connus intimately familiar signs
(It's like all these terms - lettres, mots, porteurs, connus - are
familiarly treacherous to the wise French, language or person, yet freshly
and surprisingly treacherous to the more trusting naif English).
Last reflections then (anyone still reading?): is it because both
figures are currently non-canonical that the translator can be so equal
with the poet, or should that be the mark of all translation - while the
mark of all bad translation is that the original is like safe collateral
to draw on, dead and still fetching a good price, a possession passed around
but never understood, including by the translator, who doesn't wish to
suggest to the reader that the canonical figure may ever have been *alive*,
being treated as badly as the heroes of our day are being treated by most
readers, while they promote bad contemporary writers in emulation of what
they think the dead would have been to us now?
Two, is using biography to translate both (an idea of) the person
and the person's text *allowed* when the poets are contemporaries, have
met each other, speak each other's languages, have seen each other perform
at readings? Anyone who knows Tom at all knows that he has had many
setbacks to his health and medical interventions of a crass sort - can one
posit an Alferi showing he's taking the throwaway self-deprecations with
the pain they hide, as the currently more healthy do with stricken loved
ones? Certainly his care with mimicking Tom's reading style is amazing.
I recommend one way of reading this translation is listen to anyone's
recording of one of Tom's rapid-fire deliveries of his poems; Alferi has
really *got* the overall rhythm of heavily stressing the opening word of
a line then letting the cadence fall and quieten. The funny thing is that
I'm not even sure that that *performance rhythm* of Tom's is *in* the
English on the page; though it's something to keep in the ear if you go
back to the books after hearing him, he has other rhythms on the page too,
thought rhythms, paradoxes (what does a paradox *sound* like, say, in a
score?). Pierre Alferi's translation is also thus, for me, a reading, a
transcription foregrounding an aspect, so that one can go back to the
Raworth and fold that back in. Reading the columns together, for me, is
*like* reading Tom while hearing him, on tape, or at a reading, but not
*set in time*, as that would be. Even if I lose all Tom's recordings, and
can never find another, reading this bilingual edition will always
galvanise my memory again. Maybe this is not translation. Maybe this is
love not killing the author.
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 14:07:13 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: writing about the body
Hi POETICS people
I was sent the following poem backchannel after I posted a message
about writing and the body, and absolutely love it, so obtained
the writer's permission to forward it to the list. As I've said
to the writer backchannel, this poem brilliantly outmanoeuvred
my own message's attempt at critic's proscription: I was teasing
Jackson MacLow for using metaphors of penetration without really
examining them, ie using them as realist transparent language, and
called for a poetry questioning and denying itself metaphors of
penetration; the poem I'm forwarding however does not deny itself
metaphors of penetration, but uses them with an uncommon urgency
and relish in an unexpected direction that just as or in fact
more accurately does what I was hoping for. Sorry it's so late.
********************************************************
sonnets to bodily love
if my tongue were long enough
i'd let it drop down your throat
and push all the way to the inner
curl of your testicles, then
scoop it slowly around and up,
collecting all the warm bodies
of your insides in my tongue's
cradle, and draw it to my mouth
and swallow the life of you,
then i'd crawl my whole insides
into your waiting torso and remain
there, containing in my belly
your whole vitality, and
being the vitality of you.
or else i'd slip my two hands
under the invitations of your skin
and reach once more down this time
to the inside bottoms of your feet
to grasp the flesh and pull up
in a sacred rupture until your
body was all inside out, and then
i'd put my feet against the inside
flesh of yours and slowly mold
your skin to me like the visible
clay of love, pulling it right side
out again over the skin of me
so that not missing anything i'd be
inside the container of you.
"little nell"
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 11:26:19 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: writing about the body
I presume that the "backchannel" communication regarding the bacchanalian
poem (lovely) "sonnets to bodily love" is an intentional pun?
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 15:45:55 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Sentimentality and contempt
Ed Foster, and Poetics,
>Ed wrote:
What do we mean when we call someone's work sentimental? that it refers to
that
which it does not/cannot contain. i.e., it lies.
Doesn't it limit poetry too much to give up lies? Was Blake telling the
truth? Was Milton? Was Susan Howe? Was Ron Padgett? [Were poets only
"containers" between Whitman and Stevens?] And what exactly did Jackson mean
by "sentimental" when he said he stopped using a certain device because he
found he was generating sentimental works? Is this from Hume, or James
Whitcomb Riley?
Anyway, thanks, Ed, Dodie Bellamy, Carl Peters, Jim Rosenberg, Charles
Alexander, Marisa Januzzi and Alan Sondheim, for talking a little bit about
sentimentality.
I wonder if any so-called G2 writers could write something here about
contempt and its uses in poetry. (G1 writers and others with special
knowledge on the topic are also welcome to comment.)
Listening,
Jordan Davis
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Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 08:56:37 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
The old Man etc.: Hassan is Abba(toir)
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 18:52:46 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality and contempt
In message <2fce402c3de4002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> Ed Foster, and Poetics,
>
> >Ed wrote:
> What do we mean when we call someone's work sentimental? that it refers to
> that
> which it does not/cannot contain. i.e., it lies.
>
> Doesn't it limit poetry too much to give up lies? Was Blake telling the
> truth? Was Milton? Was Susan Howe? Was Ron Padgett? [Were poets only
> "containers" between Whitman and Stevens?] And what exactly did Jackson mean
> by "sentimental" when he said he stopped using a certain device because he
> found he was generating sentimental works? Is this from Hume, or James
> Whitcomb Riley?
>
> Anyway, thanks, Ed, Dodie Bellamy, Carl Peters, Jim Rosenberg, Charles
> Alexander, Marisa Januzzi and Alan Sondheim, for talking a little bit about
> sentimentality.
>
> I wonder if any so-called G2 writers could write something here about
> contempt and its uses in poetry. (G1 writers and others with special
> knowledge on the topic are also welcome to comment.)
>
> Listening,
> Jordan Davis
what's g1? what's g2? spicer cd be considered contemptuous, but it's an effect
of his desire for authenticity. impatient may be a kinder word. there's a book
called simply "Humiliation" by a medievalist at ? UWisc-Madison or Milwaukee?
or is it UMich? that might have something to do with the micropolitics (social
dynamics) of contempt...--maria
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 20:15:57 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Scroggins <scroggin@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU>
Subject: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506012357.TAA20654@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Maria:
G1 & G2 are generational handles _someone_ on the list dreamed up to
designate "older" & "younger" generation poets on the innovative side of
the equation: G1--Bernstein, Silliman, Hejinian, Scalapino, Watten, usw.
G2--Liz Willis, Juliana Spahr, Andy Levy, Melanie Nielsen, Jessica
Grim,usw. Shorthand wd. say _In the American Tree_=G1 and the O-blek
"New Coast" issue = G2. Gets kind of complicated when you have
not-so-young poets emerging late--is Cecil Giscombe (say) G1 or 2? He's
about the same age as Ted Pearson, but has only really hit the fan in the
last five years or so (after many moons in the vineyard of course). It
all reminds me of the "Baby Boomer"/"Generation X" thing--Dad insists I'm
a boomer, but is my only alternative to be a slacker?
Mark Scroggins
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Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 00:01:05 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Byrum <JMBYRUM@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: art after art after art
Dear Tony Green,
Thank you for your recent message. In 1979 I sat at my father's death bed.
He couldn't speak. When I tried to give him an awkward kiss, our glasses
collided. Then I left him and my mother to go back to work in another city
several hundred miles away where I lived (and still do). Then he died and I
wasn't there. Then I went back for the funeral. Now my mother is living in
our city and has lost most of her memory. I take care of her as best I can.
Now also I am sitting at the death bed of my marriage, which my conflicted
desires poisoned. It is hard to imagine ever feeling at peace again.
These are all real to me. Thanks for sharing your real.
Best to you all,
John Byrum
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Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 04:05:23 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: thinking about translation
Ira's wonderful post on translation reminded me of a story that Lydia
Davis tells. When she was translating Sartre's Life/Situations, she
brought the manuscript into the publisher in person (Viking? I forget).
The receptionist buzzed her editor on the intercom and said,
"The typist is here."
Ron Silliman
Rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 08:15:55 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: sentimentality
Sentimentality consists of experiencing or evoking emotion for
something which does not deserve the emotion.
Most commonly the inappropriate emotion is sympathetic to its
object: pity, love, affection, admiration, adoration. But there
are other kinds of sentimentality. For example, inappropriate
kinds of emotion. Adoration of George Patton, for example, would
seem to me sentimental (or worse). Admiration for certain traits
in Patton, perhaps not. It also seems to me that a bug accidentally
flushed down a toilet deserves a certain degree of sympathy, but
protracted mourning would seem sentimental to me, not to say
pathological.
There is also a kind of inverted sentimentality--a sentimentality
of understatement. Hemingway tried so hard to be unsentimental
that at times he is worse than the Poe of "Annabel Lee."
But there is an enormous problem in deciding what is sentimental
and what is not, especially if we are not going to allow the
cumulative wisdom and judgment of generations and multitudes of
others to affect how we view things. For the Nazi camp guard,
pity for a Jewish child was sentimentality. The Nazis didn't last
long. I have several pairs of socks that have lasted twice as long
as the Third Reich did. Unsound judgments about human things,
though they can always recur, tend not to hold up very well,
especially when they are shared only by groups or persons who
consider themselves specially elected and chosen--set above or
apart from other human beings. In such a context contempt for
everything beyond the pale is concomitant with sentimental
adulation.
Catullus's poem about the death of his girl friend's pet bird
balances a delicate cynicism against the intrinsic sentimentality
of its subject. Even the monks through whose hands the manuscripts
passed must have liked the poem, and people still read it. It
escapes sentimentality. Boorish and ill-tempered readers, of
course, can find reasons to dislike almost anything.
Williams's famous plums are full of affection, both for the plums
and for Floss. Crabby people might find his poem sentimental. But
people go on reading and liking that poem.
For really bad sentimental poetry, take a look at a lot of what
Yeats included in the 1936 OXFORD BOOK OF MODERN POETRY.
It is common to say of someone, "She (usually he) is a terrible
poet but a great anthologist (editor)," and I suppose the reverse
can be true, too.
Tom Kirby-Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 13:43:06 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: thinking about translation
Thanks for the message, Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 13:49:05 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: thinking about translation
Oh, I was signed off the list for a while, then got to look through the
May digest just now, and saw the questions about "sweet fumes of grass"
in the Lorca. Hur hur, that was cool, seems to be the tone. Lorca has
words to the effect "perfume of the grass", but I wanted to include
a contemporary allusion (as I explained in my long note yesterday), in
order to characterise another kind of mindless pleasure community, as
mindless as a straight community that has a "natural love, only concerned
with how to love". A kind of pastoral stupidity in an urban community.
Having said which, I emphasise that I say it all with Lorca's own sense
of love - that mindless pleasure is not easily dismissed, but nor are
the arguments against it. I do hate drugs myself, though, and my Lorca
would consider them an enemy of poetry, the way they're normally done,
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 11:45:22 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
It's interesting that scroggins names as g2ers the most derivative poets
of the gi styles in the New Coast anthology....just an onservation
(i mean observation)....
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 10:25:13 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506020121.SAA14373@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Mark Scroggins" at
Jun 1, 95 08:15:57 pm
Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early
twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation.
We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you,
he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's
a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence.
By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means.
Ryan
(p.s. if anyone is in vancouver after the Blaser conference or is
here anyway, Lindz and I are reading at the Vancouver Press Club on
June 14--you can backchannel me for more info if it tickles your
fancy)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 10:41:24 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506021224.FAA10552@whistler.sfu.ca> from "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH"
at Jun 2, 95 08:15:55 am
It seems to me that this issue of sentimentality has everything to
do with the hallmark discussion which floated around this list when
I first signed on. I think the sentimentality being picked on here
is tha hallmark of hallmark. But what about sentimentality in music
or painting? Is it less problematic then? I find whitman extremely
sentimental, but it works for me. Same with Vivaldi. I think Nichol
tried to publish poetry's obituary in the Toronto Star (?), which is
very touching. So, i suppose my question really is are we quick to
think of sentimentality as graceless because it is more common to
the grocery store library?
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 17:43:47 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality and contempt
jordan, you miss the point, i think. there's no reason not to work from/with lies, but there's all the difference between that and the work that insists that it contains x and in fact only refers to it. and that's not poetry but rhetoric.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 19:39:36 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
>some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means...
a term coined by Alfred Jarry in _Ubu Roi_, originally being
a transrational system in which opposites are seen as neither
contradicting each other nor resolving, but as coexisting as
an open-ended, continually variable system, irrational and
energy-producing...
carried forward by the "college de 'pataphysicque", whose
"members" included Raymond Queneau, who later was associated
w/ OuLiPo...
(this lifted & badly paraphrased frm the introduction to
_Pataphysical Poems_ by Queneau, translated by Teo Savory)
cheers
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 18:37:47 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506022155.OAA02092@unixg.ubc.ca>
On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote:
> Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early
> twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation.
> We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you,
> he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's
> a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence.
>
> By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means.
>
> Ryan
>
I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've
been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack
a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they
were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully
aware that everything has been done before.
I'm a lyrical vulture,
A scavenger of verse.
I don't pick bones,
I pick words.
Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday.
I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 22:12:34 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
"Sentimentality is a failure of feeling"--Stevens
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 19:50:09 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506030138.SAA19157@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson"
at Jun 2, 95 06:37:47 pm
>
> On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote:
>
> > Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early
> > twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation.
> > We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you,
> > he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's
> > a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence.
> >
> > By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means.
> >
> > Ryan
> >
> I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've
> been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack
> a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they
> were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully
> aware that everything has been done before.
>
>
>
> I'm a lyrical vulture,
> A scavenger of verse.
> I don't pick bones,
> I pick words.
>
>
> Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday.
>
> I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better.
>
>
>
> Lindz
>
hell, anything they can -- we can do better!
c
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 00:32:26 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Byrum <JMBYRUM@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In a recent post, Ryan Knighton asked what pataphysical means. It means if
you can pat it, its physical.
John
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:27:13 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: pataphysics
If I remember correctly one of the arguments of pataphysics was that
to have a body was a good thing because if you have a body you can
wear clothes, and clothes have pockets, and pockets are extremely
useful. I believe that was a contention of Doctor Faustroll, Jarry's
Professor of Pataphysics, whose eyeballs were vessels of India ink in
which swam golden spermatozoans.
Merdre!
Tom Kirby-Smith
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:03:43 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In message <2fcfce1715d7002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> >
> > On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote:
> >
> > > Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early
> > > twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation.
> > > We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you,
> > > he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's
> > > a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence.
> > >
> > > By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means.
> > >
> > > Ryan
> > >
> > I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've
> > been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack
> > a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they
> > were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully
> > aware that everything has been done before.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm a lyrical vulture,
> > A scavenger of verse.
> > I don't pick bones,
> > I pick words.
> >
> >
> > Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday.
> >
> > I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better.
> >
> >
> >
> > Lindz
> >
>
>
> hell, anything they can -- we can do better!
> c
come on guys, chill in this generational warfare, i certainly can't tell what
age anyone is from their posts (except, i must say, lindz, when you got into the
i'm white and sick of kissing ass routine --that sounded kinda young, too much
like my students resentful of their compulsory "cultural pluralism" classes)
--many of us 30 and 40 somethings never developed a work ethic either --which is
why we have teaching positions that allow us to play around on the e-nets
provided by our employers.--md
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 10:14:49 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
there are two very distinct definitions of "sentimentality" floating here: the hallmark variety, which is the conventional, more limited use of the word, and the eighteenth-century's distinction, which is close to 60's discussions of authenticity.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 07:25:37 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Rothenberg's Gematria
--picked this up at the blaser fest. what a wonder-full bk! --gematria as
concrete poetry! --just a thot...
interesting, tho: my receipt -- the invoice they gave me when i bought
the book is number "33" -- christ's age when he was crucified. my bill
came to $26.43: that works out to 6
33 works out to 6; hence: with that other 6 i get: 66
so my invoice as ready-made, comprised of both sacred and profane
aspects
Donne
Donn e
Donne
Donn e
Donne
Donn e
Donne
c
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:54:00 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: missing mail
Poetics List -- Just back from several weeks out of the country to find
that weeks of my e-mail have disappeared (from about May 10 to the end of
May). I'm sorry to have missed the poetics discussions -- but if there's
anyone out there who sent a personal message, please resend.
Sandra Braman
s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 11:14:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: speaking of blaser conf.
speaking of the blaser conference, cd someone --or several of you --so we can
compile a composite profile --give us a report over the net for those of us who
are interested but unable to attend? hi pts, lo pts, entertaining anecdotes,
and overall vibe-picture? how's he doing anyway? descriptions, poems, riffs,
meditations and reminiscences? thanks in advance! --maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 13:52:28 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506030437.VAA08469@ferrari.sfu.ca> from "John Byrum" at Jun 3,
95 00:32:26 am
I originally asumed it had something to do with my dad getting
a check-up (cymbal clash please)
John B. wrote:
>
> In a recent post, Ryan Knighton asked what pataphysical means. It means if
> you can pat it, its physical.
>
> John
>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 13:57:12 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506031406.HAA06643@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at Jun
3, 95 09:03:43 am
Maria daemon:
I can't speak fo rLindz or Carl, but I didn't mean to pitch a post
about "generational warfare". I still can't figure out which one is mine.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 16:27:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me
In-Reply-To: <199506032058.NAA05568@unixg.ubc.ca>
On Sat, 3 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote:
>
> I can't speak fo rLindz or Carl, but I didn't mean to pitch a post
> about "generational warfare". I still can't figure out which one is mine.
>
My intention isn't warfare either, just mild reactive annoyance. And ryan
it seems to me that you straddle genertions.
And on the "apology" thing that stirred up so much hot water awhile ago
I have had some new experiences. I recently spent several hours at
Chicago airport and was amazed that every worker in the service industry
was of a non-white ethnic background. This is something I had never
experience before as the tertiary economy is the basis of most economic
activity in Vancouver. I'm used to a melting pot, where I work seven
different languages are being spoken at all times. Race or ethnic
background has never inhibited anyone that I know from moving up in the
world, but obviously that is not the case elsewhere. Therefore my rant
was more self indulgent than analytical of a whole system.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 10:57:06 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: articles of (praps) interest in jPMC
saw a coupla pieces in the latest jrnl of postmodern culture that
might be of interest to folks here; & so this forward of abstracts
& instructions...
lbd
POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE
P RNCU REPO ODER E P O S T M O D E R N
P TMOD RNCU U EP S ODER ULTU E C U L T U R E
P RNCU UR OS ODER ULTURE
P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER ULTU E an electronic journal
P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER E of interdisciplinary
POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE criticism
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 5, Number 3 (May, 1995) ISSN: 1053-1920
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ABSTRACTS
Paul Naylor, "The 'Mired Sublime' of Nathaniel Mackey's
_Song of the Andoumboulou_"
ABSTRACT: This essay situates Nathaniel Mackey's ongoing
serial poem, _Song of the Andoumboulou_, in the tradition
of the American "world-poem" begun in _The Cantos_ of Ezra
pound and continued in Louis Zukofsky's _A_, H.D.'s
_Trilogy_, and Robert Duncan's _Passages_. Each of these
works, in their own distinct way, holds out the possibility
of a utopian vision created in and by poetry. Yet these
previous instances of the world-poem often have the
unfortunate effects of reducing cultural diversity to a
transcendent sameness in the service of an all-encompassing
view of world history, in effect all too evident in parts
of _The Cantos_. Mackey's _Song of the Andoumboulou_ not
only extends the genre's range of cultural references by
bringing together the traditions of African-American music,
Caribbean and Arabic poetry, and West African mythology,
among others, with the Western traditions of philosophy,
poetry, and music; it also attempts to cure us of the
desire to reduce the representation of diversity and
difference to the kind of all-encompassing sameness that
compromises some of the initial instances of the American
world-poem. --PN
Elisabeth A. Frost, "Signifyin(g) on Stein: The Revisionist Poetics
of Harryette Mullen and Leslie Scalapino
ABSTRACT: This article takes Stein as one (if not the
only) source for feminist avant-garde poetry--writing that
uses experimental language to distinctly feminist ends. A
number of recent feminist poets owe a debt to _Tender
Buttons_, and Stein's work remains a subject of homage.
But, changes working their way through feminist thought
appear in some feminist avant-garde writing that doesn't
simply acknowledge Stein's language experiments but
contests them as well. I examine the influence of, and
divergence from, Steinian poetics in Harryette Mullen and
Stein's "modern" vision by merging "public" speech and
"private" experience--the language of the public spheres of
the street and the marketplace with the experiences of
intimacy and the erotic. Mullen and Scalapino blur the
border between public and private discourse that Stein
relied upon in order to reveal (and, paradoxically, *not*
reveal) her lesbian sexuality in a revolution of ordinary
domestic language. In response in part to Stein, each poet
illuminates language as a locus of the political and the
erotic, altering both eroticized and "public" language as
signs of a culture in need of a fundamental awareness about
the relationships between our most private and public acts.
--EF
-----------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO GET PMC BY ANONYMOUS FTP:
All PMC files are available via anonymous ftp; to retrieve items
in this way, ftp to:
ftp jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Log in as "anonymous" or "ftp" using your email userid as a password.
When you have logged in, type:
cd pub/pubs/pmc/issue.595
-----
HOW TO GET PMC BY GOPHER:
PMC's gopher server is at:
jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Once you've connected, choose "Publications of the Institute" and
then choose "Postmodern Culture": you will find a menu listing all
published issues of the journal, and within each issue, full text
of all the issue's contents.
-----
HOW TO GET PMC BY WORLD-WIDE WEB:
If you have access to a World-Wide Web client, you will find the
hypermedia version of PMC at:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/contents.all.html
Once you've connected, you will find all back issues arranged by
volume and issue, but also arranged by category (all the reviews,
all the popular culture columns, all the creative works, etc.).
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 19:09:19 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: "pataphysics
additional note to ryan re "pataphysics: --be interested in hearing what
you think abt bp's essay: "The Pata of Letter Feet, or, The English
Written Character as a Medium for Poetry" (_open letter_1985 [or 86?]),
which i consider the best and most direct article on the subject.
mccaffery, at the blaser conference yesterday, was introduced as north
america's leading "pataphysician [the word is supposed to be written with
the double _"_ in front of the p, and left open], but i disagree with that
completely. north america's leading, most outstanding, poet of this other
dimension is _bpNichol_ -- but you knew i was going to say that...
...the blaser fest was outstanding. i'm exhausted!
take care,
c
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 17:13:10 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: sentimentality
I saw Benjamin Britten's _War Requiem_ this weekend, and it seemed to me
to be a sentimental *event*. Some lovely atonal music, and some lovely
vocal arrangments, but the atheism in Britten seemed puerile, the parts
mimicking the sound of war excruciating, and above all, the dumbheaded
applause - as if here we are attending a piece of work that has to
thoroughly and cathartically (and popularly) tackled war that there will
never be war again, ho ho. People clapping themselves for coming. No
room for saying, I liked that bit, but I didn't like this bit, because
that would be to be pro-war, to make a technical criticism of a piece that
is anti-war. And what I would say was sentimental was the way that, as a
narrative, a kind of modernist opera rather than a collection of songs,
the piece did nothing to attack British culture, and actually revelled
in the possibility of *emotional release only in extremity* (you can care,
and love, in warfare); having said that, it is the *framing* which I find
sentimental, the actual moments of release were often gorgeous, and I would
happily make myself a tape of my favourite bits and play them out of
context. I spoke to several music students who didn't care about the
overall framing, don't have any feel for musical narratives, but just see
the narrative as an arbitrary structure for some lovely music. I think
that attitude is sentimental, and that actually most of these music
students are profoundly conservative and reactionary politically, and
happy to be British. On the other hand, maybe someone was there who would
have been frightened off if the piece had been more holistically exciting
and challenging (it sets Wilfred Owen's poetry, which I think is often
also enjoyed sentimentally and not holistically); maybe that person is
now "sentimental* but got off on the "non-sentimental* fragments, would
have been frightened off *if* the whole piece had been "non-sentimental*
ie maybe sentimentality exists in time, as part of process; or maybe
a person might attend "sentimental" art and live a non-sentimental life,
so is the art sentimental?
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 17:45:21 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: I wannabe a G1-abee
As Ron Silliman says in the introduction to In The American Tree, one
will often find that the younger poets are often truer to the theory of
earlier practitioners than the earlier (now older) practitioners is;
one will find too that one of the most exciting thing about the Language
Writers was that they went back to the last two turning points, of
projective verse and modernism, and included back in all the things the
prjectivists and modernists left out, like stein and the futurists.
As Ron also said, generations tend to pull in the more marginal figures
from an older group and make them central ancestors; he also said that
generations tend to hit a critical mass; I, for one, see this happening
and would be happy to put a list of ten names in a sealed envelope to
be opened in ten years' time when they've all redrawn the map. Anyway,
a decent open interest and respect for each other would be healthy,
especially since, as I for one have said before, it sticks in the craw
to be told that us poets in our twenties are doing work derivative of
others, only nostalgic and plagiaristic, when that is very clearly what
many from G1 have been doing for ten years! At least our work is going
to change!
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 09:56:11 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
I liked what you said, Ira, concerning the Britten experience. And am
reminded that the construct of an audience is putty in the hands (that is, a
laboratory) of/for anyone wanting to play the buttons, construct an imagined
harmony that matches something sought in mind. Pseudo "faiths" seem to grow
out of an assemblage of people. In which reacting to this or that would be
to violate the "agreed upon" (although it's really forced) the reigning
sentiment. Overall, sentimentality is a cheap replacement for honesty.
Something truly felt tends to be individual. It would be too coincidental
for hoards of people to feel in unison; my own feelings seem so specific (It
would be hypocrisy for me to presume to presume use of the plural!).
A side note: isn't it frustrating when the textual component is there to
prop up or otherwise not disturb a centrally musical event?
Happy Monday!
Sheila
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 10:10:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: adios muchachos
In-Reply-To: <9506051618.AA17732@hub.ubc.ca>
Went to the last reading of the conference last night, Bowering was his
usual "kid in a candy store" charming, Ondaatje was enthralling, and
here's to Sharon Thesen's latest work *Aurora*, everyone must get this book.
I'm running out of email time so I have to combine messages.
Kevin
Ryan, passed on the message, sorry I didn't meet you, but I'll see what I
can put together. He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and
we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference
was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air.
Chris S.
GOt the book today, I'll get back to you after I have a chance to look at
it for a bit.
Welcome home to everyone else, it will be good to get some action on the
line again.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 19:34:36 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Thanks for what you posted, Sheila. Is it a pop vs classical thing, I
wonder... er, no, I answer myself, but the sweeping statement says something:
like the way I've never been to a Dylan concert that wasn't totally
exciting *for nearly everyone in the room* for a few minutes, part of a song,
or a whole song. And, of course, being a fan of a new band and seeing them
when they're fresh, tends to unite the room in a way that's not phony. Or
(but this is where the pop vs classical thing breaks down) being at a new
composition by a groundbreaker, like maybe at a New Music concert in the
fifties, or at a Judith Weir concert when she was just starting - when you
know the normal classical audience is going to hate it (though they'll
later swallow and assimilate it). My flatmate, Mike Higgins, does this
pieces with two or three sustained chords filling the room, and they always
unite everyone who goes - it's so strong an experience, requiring such
endurance (for maybe an hour), that you bump into another of the, usually
no more than forty-strong, audience, and you kind of feel like you've
shared a big experience. I also went to the Beethoven symphony that was
written after Napoleon's return(?) at the same cathedral where the Britten
was played, and it *did* seem to be about war and excite the audience, and
yet the Beethoven didn't seem as sentimental as the Britten was.
I'd love to know the specific examples you were thinking of, of
words being used incidentally to the music. Mike says, after living with
me, he's really embarrassed by all the titles he used to give to his
pieces! I was commissioned to write words for an electro-acoustic piece
by a friend here, and I wanted to get past the usual "musician's use of
words, which for me was either didactic romanticism, like Owen, or
fragmentary modernism, using words for the sound but in a really
word-hating "words can't move one like music" kind of way.... So I wrote
something, as asked, with lots of onomatopeia, but threaded them slyly
into a Basil Bunting-like narrative.
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 11:53:54 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Kevin or Dodie
In-Reply-To: <199506051618.JAA02564@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun
5, 95 05:13:10 pm
Hi.
It was wonderful to have finally met some efaces.
I said i would send some schtuff to you, however Mirage
doesn't have an address.
Could you forward me one?
You can backchannel me at knighton@sfu.ca
Best,
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 14:58:58 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: adios muchachos
Thanks, Lindz, for agreeing to supply "canadian stuff" to Ryan and others
of us who might want it. I was particularly glad to hear your enthusiasm
for Sharon Thesen's book, as I've always found her work courageous and
dynamic, altogether its own, and altogether unknown any place I've lived.
But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and
we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference
was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm
not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some
personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have
loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My
own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a
few people who are on this poetics list as well.
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 16:25:58 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: message fr criss cheek
cris, hi: are you out there? --just wanted to know if you received my
last post re the visual poetries loop? experiencing some challenges here
trying to work the cc and alias functions, and understand there are some
alternatives which we could discuss
look forward to hearing from you,
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 22:43:06 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Poetics List Reviews
Poetics List Reviews
from Loss Glazier
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Bernstein, _The Subject_. 1995.
Handsomely-produced booklet from Meow Press containing the libretto of
_The Subject_ from a scenario conceived with Ben Yarmolinski and as
produced in NYC in 1992.
But a person who calls himself a psychologist
is in a peculiar position these days. Experiments
show that Norway rats
die quickly if their whiskers are clipped
and they are thrown into
tanks of water.
This libretto now in print. Edition of 300, available from SPD.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth Sherwood, _Text Squared_. 1995.
A tactile relation to the text as this book unfolds into juxtaposed
folds. To a pattern of textual variants and overstrikes and pattern:
"loosened there began to try save words bring back to turn there is
nothing more in beginning than say return seems less..." Edition
of 100, a Tailspin Chapbook, where the writer is sculptor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 22:09:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf.
In-Reply-To: <199506031617.JAA09433@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at Jun
3, 95 11:14:56 am
Well, for me the lowest point of the Blaser conference was when my
wife fell head over heels over Pierre Joris!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 01:19:25 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf.
In-Reply-To: <199506060509.BAA10694@sarah.albany.edu> from "George Bowering"
at Jun 5, 95 10:09:03 pm
>
> Well, for me the lowest point of the Blaser conference was when my
> wife fell head over heels over Pierre Joris!
>
Shucks honey, for me the lowest moment was when one George Bowering
introduced me as being from Belgium!
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 23:29:16 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: adios muchachos
In-Reply-To: <199506060009.RAA06943@unixg.ubc.ca>
But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and
we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference
was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm
not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some
personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have
loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My
own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a
few people who are on this poetics list as well.
Charles,
I wasn't replying to Ryan, rather Ryan was approached by Kevin
Killian at the reading last night and I accompanied Ryan to the reading
along with Reg ( new to the list). Kevin expressed an interest in
receiving new Canadian poetry from Ryan and I and any others we knew
because he had little except from established writers. The western
reference is just part of the continuing war amongst East and West in
Canada. We the west ( Granola Heads) enjoy poking at the Snobs with snow
in the east. As far as I know Ondaatje was the only Eastern based writer
at the reading last night.
It's all part of the Canadian mentality, if you say you're driving
across Canada it means you're either going east to Toronto or Montreal, or
west to Vancouver. The prairies and the maritimes although great sources
of Canadian culture are not included in the concept of the civilized
world. They are a source of great insecurity and pride. My Mom's a
maritimer (Newfie) which puts me at the but of several jokes. I'll leave
you with one (note my Mom has seven brothers)
How does a Newfie girl stay a virgin?
Run faster than her brothers.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:18:38 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Some questions:
*Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert
move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig?
Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the
physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)?
Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is
professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet?
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 14:28:17 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: message fr criss cheek
X-cc: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@panix.com>,
braman sandra <s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>,
"I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@east-anglia.ac.uk>,
Caroline Bergvall <bergvall@dcolarts.demon.co.uk>,
Erik Belgum <belgu003@gold.tc.umn.edu>,
Gary Sullivan <gpsj@primenet.com>,
John Cayley <cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk>,
Robert A Harrison <Robert.A.Harrison@jci.com>,
"Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@indirect.com>,
John Byrum <JMBYRUM@aol.com>,
Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>,
w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz, Blair Seagram <blairsea@panix.com>,
selby@slip.net
Hi - posting this broad - it's still the mechanics of construction
discussion.
>cris, hi: are you out there? --just wanted to know if you received my
>last post re the visual poetries loop? experiencing some challenges here
>trying to work the cc and alias functions, and understand there are some
>alternatives which we could discuss
>
>look forward to hearing from you,
>carl
hi carl I am here and listening. Just soaked in exams this couple of weeks
and reeling from a conference as you must also be.
>Hi,
>My name is Jody and I'm helping Carl with this. We tried to create a
>private group with aliases here to simplify this, but our software won't
>let us put outside addresses in alias groups. The easiest way to do this
>would be for you to use a programme called majordomo which is quite
>common at unix sites, or perhaps you have access to listserver software.
>These sorts of programmes are really the only reliable way to manage
>lists. Without them your group will probably be unmnageable in any
>practical sense. Contact your system/mail administrator(s) and see if
>they can help.
>
>Jody
>gilbert@sfu.ca
I'm aware of the majordomo system and no i don't have access to that
listserv software. It's how I get info on Chiapas through Harry Cleaver at
Texas for example.
I wanted to do it like Funkhauser's d i u and that's the system i was
trying. But i categorically don't want to 'run a list' or become any kind
of surrogate sysop. It just seemed that there were areas of discussion,
particularly in respect of visual and performance poetries that could be a
thread running parallel to but not clog into the main 'poetics' list. I'd
hoped to kickstart something that would grow organically and be de-centred
and self-generative.
What next?
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:32:50 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: a=a is sentimentality
Ed,
Okay, but what's poetry got to do with truth value? And what thing doesn't
exactly fill the container of itself? Sounds. Sounds like. Sounds like teen
spirit.
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:57:47 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: a=a is sentimentality
Jordan,
It seems to me that if you are going to move from "sentimentality" to
the question of "truth value" then you are now in the realm of
subjectivity-objectivity, and in this realm it seems to me that
either kind of language approaches "truth" though in different ways.
Moreover, poetic Objectivism, for instance, is at heart, perhaps,
grounded in subjectivity, whereas philosophical objectivism is
grounded in . . . ?--that is, say, Quine versus Heidegger. As Rorty
wrote some time ago already, "Non-Kantian philosophers like Heidegger
and Derrida [versus Neo-Kantians like Putnam, Strawson, and Rawls]
are emblematic figures who not only do not solve problems, they do
not *have* arguments or theses." Rorty continues: Derrida is the latest
in a line of philosophers who attempt "to shatter the Kantians' ingenuous
image of themselves as accurately representing how things really are."
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 11:58:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: a=a is sentimentality
tho liking teen spirit, it's a problem. sounds=true, well, the greeks undid that, i mean c. 5th cent. b.c.e., that'll do for a date as well as any. and, ah, what doesn't fill the container of itself? well, whatever PROPOSES to be, tho on 3rd thought
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:35:17 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: WITZ
ANNOUNCEMENT
The new issue of _Witz_, a journal of contemporary poetics, is now
available.
This issue (volume III, number 2) contains essays by Mark Wallace
("On The Lyric As Experimental Possibility") and Karl Young
("Roman Reading"). There are two reviews of Don Byrd's _The
Poetics of the Common Knowledge_, one by Robert Grenier and one by
Chris Stroffolino. Daniel Barbiero reviews _The Art of Practice_;
and Harry Polkinhorn reviews a number of books from Left Hand
Press.
_Witz_ is published in a newsletter format (8-1/2" x 11"), sixteen
to twenty pages per issue, stapled.
A single copy is $4, but if you'd like a sample copy, send a
55-cent stamp to the address below.
Individual subscriptions are $10 for three issues ($30 for
institutions). Please make checks payable to Christopher Reiner
and send them to:
WITZ
10604 Whipple Street
Toluca Lake, California 91602
If you have any questions about _Witz_, or if you'd like to send a
review or essay, you can e-mail me (creiner@crl.com) or send it by
regular post. Subjects and themes are always open (i.e., I don't
do theme issues).
ASCII files of previous issues (1.1 to 2.1) of _Witz_ can be
downloaded from the Electronic Poetry Center. All back issues
are available from me.
I was going to include a list of back issues and their contents, but
it ran a little long (about 75 lines). I'll e-mail it to anyone
who wants it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Reiner
creiner@crl.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 12:40:59 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: New Releases From Hard Press/Lingo
Date: 06 Jun 95 09:49:17 EDT
From: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com>
Hard Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 184 West Stockbridge, Ma., 01266
413-232-4690
email: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com>
New from Hard Press:
=============================================================
lingo: A Journal of the Arts
Issue # 4 featuring a 30-page music section including Mark Swed on new
composers who incorporate pop elements into concert music and Peter
Occhiogrosso's Highly Selective Guide to Recent Concert Music * Kent Jones
on Abel Ferrara and his Films * Color Portfolio including Philip Guston,
Anna Bialobroda, and Noel Dolla * Art essays by John Yau and Raphael
Rubinstein * Hubert Selby Jr.'s short story A Christmas Tale * Photography
by Judy Fiskin, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ben Watkins, and others * Keith &
Rosmarie Waldrop Interview Claude Royet-Journoud * Chris Stroffolino
reviews David Shapiro's After a Lost Original * Work by Bob Perelman, Dodie
Bellamy, Lisa Jarnot, Will Alexander, Kevin Killian, Kim Lyons, Anselm
Hollo and many more.
$12.50
============================================================
THE DESIRES OF MOTHERS TO PLEASE
OTHERS IN LETTERS
By Bernadette Mayer
A monumental St. Bernadette to the initiates, this work has achieved
something like the status of "Manuscript Classic." An epistolary text which
takes as its formal parameters the nine months of Ms. Mayer's last
pregnancy-an augury by bee sting- and writes the reader's psyche to the
fences... $12.95
============================================================
LOWELL CONNECTOR: LINES AND SHOTS FROM KEROUAC'S TOWN
By Clark Coolidge, Michael Gizzi, and John Yau. Photographs by Bill
Barrette and Celia Coolidge.
As homage to a writing hero, and as catalyst for their own work, the
authors of Lowell Connector made several trips to Kerouac's hometown of
Lowell, Massachusetts. The procedure was to visit specific sights described
in Kerouac's work, taking in the homes, haunts, schools and literary
memorials as a kind of memory protein in the activation of their own work.
$12.95
============================================================
New From HARD PRESS:
House of Outside First Book Series
Solow
By Lynn Crawford
Haven't wanted to read anything lately, certainly not any of the 500
manuscripts and galleys I get a year. However, I found Solow facinating. It
reminds me of early John Hawkes which is still for me the best Hawkes. The
whole dreamscape was especially vivid.- Jim Harrison $10.00
============================================================
The Geographics
By Albert Mobilio
This impressive first book manages the double ground of a nightmarish
surrealism and a dryly perceptive wit. It's as if Humphrey Bogart were
taking a good, if final, look at what's called the world. These are poems
of a survivor, urbane, intellegent, fact of hope and despair equally. The
Geographics is an ultimate detox center for "reality" addicts as thinking
becomes the only way out. - Robert Creeley $10.00
============================================================
Hard Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 184 West Stockbridge, Ma., 01266
413-232-4690
email: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com>
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith
kgolds@panix.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:06:20 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Ira asks:
>*Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert
>move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig?
It would appear that music DOES move more than poetry. The combination is
even MORE potentially stirring than music independently.
>Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the
>physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)?
I think that music is more closely connected to the core of us. That the
materials being worked with are inherently capable of a generating a more
powerful response.
As one who made a conscious choice to replace musical composition and
performance with poetry composition and performance, I actually felt I'd
shifted over to a medium that is congenial to music in ways that some
writers don't get into. Not that everyone should. It's just a auditory
inclination.
>Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is
>professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet?
Most poets do not rehearse very much at all. Some sterling performers
prepare the frame that allows the nuances to emerge and show in the actual
performance. Discipline is at the core of any human competence.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:10:54 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: a=a is sent
In-Reply-To: <199506061334.AA26969@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu>
Ira: Hey, put the names in an *electronic* envelope, how about!
I don't think music moves more than poetry in performance, but then this
might be a question of audience. I'm in New York City, where "concert"
very often means $20/ 2 drink min., or else snoozing retirees on their regular
matinee expedition. (On the other hand, the first time I saw "The Rites
of Spring" performed by an orchestra was at Carnegie Hall, and there was
a white-haired woman in front of me who came to life to the extent that
she worked the brown velvet ribbon right off the back of her head, with
all her air conducting and seated ballet twists.)
I would love to reroute the sentimentality thread toward the question of
beauty. (WAIT, don't hit the delete button yet...) In the past couple of
yrs I've asked some people on this list the question "What about beauty,"
and interestingly I've found that while one might expect to be lectured
on the institutional underpinnings of that construction, in fact I've
been treated to just the opposite. One poet told me to read Sobin. A
friend who used to help run the Kitchen told me to listen to Morton
Feldman's THREE VOICES FOR JOAN LA BARBARA, a setting of a Frank OHara
poem which sounds like a vocal snowfall. And I heard "beauty," and I am
still wondering how it is that when you ask, people who one mght think
would've discarded the word as too problematic in fact have a special
category for it, a sort of unacknowledged one. Sentiment, Subjectivity,
or something else? ------------------------Marisa
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:51:31 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506061221.FAA21148@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun
6, 95 01:18:38 pm
>
> Some questions:
>
> *Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert
> move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig?
>
> Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the
> physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)?
>
> Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is
> professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet?
>
> Ira
>
---what a wonderful series of questions. my first initial response is
that rock, pop or whatever is the ultimate art form -- i can't qualify
that -- i'm going on instinct, and that "rock stars" are the real _Shamans_
c
---
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 11:09:57 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: message fr criss cheek
In-Reply-To: <199506061333.GAA23982@whistler.sfu.ca> from "cris cheek" at Jun
6, 95 02:28:17 pm
cris, hi:
--with respect to what you noted regarding the formation of a list for
visual/sound poetry, i'm told a list can be enacted here (at simon fraser
univ. in vancouver), and if you wish to consider that i can get the ball
rolling. but i know this is completely your baby, and it will remain so.
like yourself, though, i have a serious interest in and love of
"concrete," and want to do anything i can to re-invent the public for it.
but it's your call
look forward to hearing from you
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:10:11 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: discipline
In-Reply-To: <199506061221.FAA21148@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun
6, 95 01:18:38 pm
Ira asks in a recent post "is discipline uncool in a poet".
A wonderful question, I think, being unestablished and undefined
by a tradition or "school", as of yet.
Reg and I were discussing this very problem recently, which is,
in some respects, a source of great despair to us.
My understanding is that Vancouver is not unlike many other cities
in the dynamics of its younger poetry scene (I mean the scene freqented
by G1'ers, or goners, if you like).
REg teaches at Simon Fraser and I study there and perhaps for this
reason our poetry is very aware of its historicity, of where matters
of style and imagination come from, and that whole business of the
anxiety of influence. When I look at some of my poems in a stack,
it reminds me of little league and how you had to shake the hands
of all the other team's players when the game was over:"Good game,
good game, good game....". Each poem acknowledges with love who
I've been playing with and against. And I think this is necessary
and inevitable for a time.
But there is an open-mike circuit in Vancouver which is not interested
in "traditions" or the discipline which informs a work. Rather,
it is a fast, aggressive and usually nihilistic crowd which resents
academically informed work. I think Patrick Lane described this circuit
of poets as wanting poems to work like t.v. chat shows: confessional,
sensational, voyeuristic and quick. I suppose this is a tradition now,
maybe cultivated from a media interpretation of the beats, on the
surface. But it is very popular and what students and the like
want to hear while they're drinking. I've written poems specifically
for this kind of occasion with some success, and it was fun. But that
was all it was about.
So, my question is, how does tradition and its disciplines fit into
a venue or readership where entertainment and mass production are the
rules of the game? Perhaps I'm just whining out of personal taste, but
this is not the league I want to play in, despite its growing popularity.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 17:34:39 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995
Warren Sonbert died on Wednesday, at home and surrounded by friends. He was
47 years old.
I got the news in a letters from Lyn Hejinian and Tom Mandel. Tom wrote:
Charles,
the news may have reached you already. Warren died yesterday
(wednesday) at 10:30 am. In his bed, in his sleep, and with friends at his
side.
Beth and I had been in SF the whole weekend, left tuesday, and were
with him daily. He was conscious on thursday when we arrived, tho in pain
with organs failing and unable to speak or to move much, and would confirm
requests by squeezing his hand around yours. We read to him, to a strong
attention. Whitman.
The days that followed he was agitated, feverish, only occasionally
responsive (hands) and in much discomfort increasing. By sunday evening it
had become obvious that fluids and pureed food only caused intense pain and
prolonged it too, by whatever number of hours or few days, and the decision
was taken to limit them severely and to up his morphine substantially.
By monday afternoon, when I kissed him goodbye, he was fading and
probably not conscious of one's presence or only fleetingly and as shallow
this sense of any world as his breath, shallow, effortful, unsustaining.
I will miss him, deeply and for a long time.
tom
*
Lyn, after telling me the news, and remembering Warren, mentioned that there is
to be a screening of his early films at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco
on June 22. Carla Harryman will introduce.
**********************************************************************
Warren's wonderful, poetic, films immeasurably enriched the art of cinema.
His 15 films are:
Amphetamine (1966). "First film, heavy influence by Goddard and Warhol --
designed to shock." (sound/10 min.)
Where Did Our Love Go? (1966). "First pleasure romp: along the various venues
of culture, circa 1966, New York." (sound/15 min.)
Hall of Mirrors (1966) -- made while a student at NYU film school:
`correcting' dailies from a 1947 murder film, with added sequences of Rene
Ricard at home, Gerard Malanga at a show of Lucas Samaras's `Hall of Mirrors'.
(sound/7 min)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1967). "Mutual (I film them, they film each other)
portraits of eight New York couples, mercifully, you'll be relieved to learn,
only one pair of whom are still together. Editing in camera" (sound/30 min.)
Holiday (1967). "High spirited glances (along with *Truth Serum*) at Coney
Island, Appalachian Trail, New Jersey, the Janis Gallery." (silent/15 min.)
Truth Serum (1967). (silent/12 min)
Carriage Trade (1971) -- the first film of his most characteristic mode
consisting of a procession of intercut images, an open-ended collage of shots
taken in widely disparate locations. Warren himself wrote: "Magnum opus (and
my first real silent) made up of section of [early films]. The strategies of
combing `old' images with recent trips through Asia, North Africa, Europe and
North America. I went to see this film with my daughter Emma (then 9) this
past fall; it played as part of the Museum of Modern Art's October Sonbert
retrospective. It is hard to believe that a film this stylistically
commanding and elegant was made by Warren when he was in his early 20s. Like
many of Warren's films, there is an elegiac quality to the passing of the
images, of the evanescent quality of scenes screened, time slipping by.
(silent / 61 min.)
Rude Awakening (1972). "Tautening this silent period's approach." (silent/36
min)
Divided Loyalties (1978). "Further development of editing concerns."
(silent/22 min.)
Noblesse Oblige (1981). "Furthest distillation (along with *The Cup and the
Lip*) of later manner editing/dislocation approach." (silent/58 min.)
A Woman's Touch (1983). "A backslide into earlier `personality' scheme."
(silent/23 min.)
The Cup and the Lip (1987). (silent/20 min.)
Honor and Obey (1988). "Quick setting (two weeks?) of a film on a dare for
the NY Film Festival." (silent/22 minutes.) Since Warren often worked for
years on setting, eg cutting, his films, his comment is striking. It was fun
to see Sonbert's film as among the few such works shown at the NY Film
Festival. At this point, such films were shown as shorts, accompanying
feature films, always provoking the ire of the "sophisticated" film festival
audience. The running joke was that someone would yell out "SOUND!". Later,
the festival grouped such films together under the title "avant garde visions"
as I recall: they've got narrative we've got visions. Actually, Sonbert's
films are a running revision of the possibility of narrative in the cinema.
Friendly Witness (1989). NY Film Festival again with music/image interplay.
(32 min.)
Short Fuse (1991). "Last NY Film Festival music/image experiment." (37 min.)
[All quotes from the flier for his October 1995 MoMA retrospective.]
*
Whiplash - According to Tom Mandel a rough cut of this film exists; hopefully,
a version of this final film will one day be available.
((((())))))
"The body dies, the body's beauty lives" -- Wallace Stevens
On the Poetics list there has been a recent discussion of sentimentality and I
suppose it's in a notice like this that it is most difficult to find a balance
between sentiment and substance. Because nothing you can say can account for
the fact of Warren's death at 47 and because grief over Warren's dying also
echos with that of many others of our generation who have died of AIDS. So
there is a need to balance that hideous, unrepresentable, general fact with
the specifics of this particular person.
Warren had an extraordinary grace both in his films and in his life. Talking
about this quality of Warren's with Abby Child yesterday she said "he was a
`prince'". But only in the sense that he made you feel graceful too, to be
with him, to talk of movies or poetry or music or gossip about friends. He
seemed to live a charmed life -- travelling the world, attending operas in
Europe and North American, having his work shown at Festivals and museums.
But charms are haunted.
As part of his MoMA retrospective, Warren got to pick four feature films that
he particularly liked, and these were shown alongside his films. For those
who can't get one of Warren's films, rent a video of one of these and watch it
in his honor: Lubitsch's "The Man I Killed (Broken Lullaby)" (1932), Wilder's
"Kiss Me Stupid" (1964), Preminger's "The Cardinal" (1963), and Vertov's "Man
with a Movie Camera" (1929). Last night, AMC was playing one of the Sirk
films that Warren loved: "Imitation of Life" (where early on the earnest young
photographer tells of his implausible ambition to have his pictures shown at
the Museum of Modern Art). When I mentioned this to Tom Mandel he pointed to
Sirk's "Magnificent Obsession"; catch it, if you can, *tonight* on AMC.
When Warren was visiting us in the Fall, Emma was taping interviews of
friends, relatives, and neighbors. She asked Warren what his favorite holiday
was. He said, "Halloween, because I like to dress up."
This prince is dead. His films live to light up the shadow his death has
cast.
--Charles Bernstein
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 14:28:14 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Clark <clarkd@SFU.CA>
Subject: GIANTESS: the organ of the New Abjectionists
In-Reply-To: <199506061820.LAA21712@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Christopher Reiner"
at Jun 6, 95 09:35:17 am
Dear All,
The first issue of *GIANTESS : the organ of the New Abjectionists* --
an 18-page stapled object which opens to 28 cherry inches widthways -- is now
available. We exhausted a first run, giving it away at the
Blaserfest here, but will print further copies for those of you who
have been waiting for your subscription copy (GIANTESS is the defunct
*Q'ir'i* collapsed into the sadly defunct *Barscheit*), or for others who
want to order copies or begin a subscription in the next couple of
months (ie before the next issue).
Please send $4 for an issue, postpaid. Or subscribe for $9 for three
issues (or $5 with a subscription to RADDLE MOON).
Single copy orders and subscriptions to : 2239 Stephens Street,
Vancouver, BC, V6K 3W5 Canada.
We can bank United Statesian money/cheques/money orders; please be
tactful however and refrain from "converting" : $4 is $4, $9 is $9.
The first issue has :
the opening pages of *Phatic*, a novel in progress by Lisa Robertson;
"Punctured," Dodie Bellamy's response to the fundamentalist comic
artist, Jack Chick;
Christine Stewart's "Classical Tragical Play," *DuRiving*; and
Catriona Strang's poem, 'Gap'
RADDLE MOON 14 (product description following in a day or two) is due
from the printer this weeks. A good time to subscribe/support,
with our thanks; it absolutely helps. (*Raddle Moon* subscriptions are
$12 for two issues; $24 for four, etc.; single copies are $7, back
list [various prices] is available.)
My email is : clarkd@sfu.ca
Good to meet and re-meet so many of you here. I wish we could do this
-- I mean something like -- every year.
good wishes,
Susan Clark
clarkd@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 15:21:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: discipline
I like Ryan's move on the question of whether discipline is uncool,
placing at the boundary between the university/small presses (often
run by people trained in the university) and the open-mike scene
which often expresses contempt for that poetry. It seems to be a
question of whose camp one is in: the university has never recognized
anything as poetry except that which it chooses to anthologize, and
its anthologies reflect its concerns. The open mike business is
anarchic, poet as punk, and doesn't leave a record of itself because
it can't concentrate that long. Then there are people like me on the
margins of both comfortable in neither. Now what, eh?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:04:21 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: discipline
In-Reply-To: <199506070038.RAA22895@ferrari.sfu.ca> from "Reginald Johanson"
at Jun 6, 95 03:21:03 pm
The open mike scene is usually disappointing, isnt it, Reg? If it
isnt, why isnt it?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:20:23 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506062000.NAA04352@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Carl Lynden Peters"
at Jun 6, 95 10:51:31 am
Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I
figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric
guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they
do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole"
on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000
points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look
how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That
ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by
the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord
strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music
entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They
usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that
likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some
brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It
might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what
if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are
really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And
when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious
adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo
from great 1940s Black artists.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:29:33 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: adios muchachos
In-Reply-To: <199506060632.XAA11181@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson"
at Jun 5, 95 11:29:16 pm
I dont know where Lindz gets the idea about east-west bashing at the
Blaserfest and readings. I was there all the way and didnt notice it.
It is also not true that Ondaatje was the only eastern Canadian poet
at the readings; there were plenty. McCaffery and Mac Cormack, Robt
Hogg, Victor Coleman, for examples. Erin Moure was there. And we
embraced all these people as ourselves.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:30:39 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf.
In-Reply-To: <199506060521.WAA07977@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Pierre Joris" at
Jun 6, 95 01:19:25 am
Yeah, Pierre, but I also introduced Eshleman as being from Kalamazoo.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 00:50:32 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506070427.AAA17780@panix4.panix.com>
You're serious? You're really serious? You don't get Hole? If it's satire
below, it's missing the point; if it's not, I'm scared...
Alan
On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote:
> Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I
> figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric
> guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they
> do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole"
> on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000
> points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look
> how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That
> ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by
> the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord
> strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music
> entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They
> usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that
> likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some
> brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It
> might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what
> if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are
> really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And
> when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious
> adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo
> from great 1940s Black artists.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:57:09 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506070452.VAA17279@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Alan Sondheim" at
Jun 7, 95 00:50:32 am
Well, if "Hole" is satire, it's about as funny as Conan O'Brien.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 01:03:46 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506070458.AAA21783@panix4.panix.com>
I was referring to your writing; I like Hole, a hell of a lot better than
Nirvana for that matter, the energy, the edge, Love's writing on the Net
which is some of the best and most intense stuff I've seen. I don't even
think that Monk would figure music to be "about" technique, and I
wouldn't care how many chords Hole does or doesn't use, any more than I
care about the range of PJ Harvey's voice or Bratmobile's backup. It's
like worrying Robert Frank's focusing and grey scale. It's about
something else and you may not like it but you're missing it wide of the
mark.
Alan
On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote:
> Well, if "Hole" is satire, it's about as funny as Conan O'Brien.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:37:38 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
In-Reply-To: <199505310325.UAA21811@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at May
30, 95 10:23:56 pm
Oh hell, ten or however many years ago people were telling me that
ABBA was good, so I listened and it was crap, and now those people
are making fun of it. Now they say listen to Hole, so I listen to
Hole. It is crap. So I await another decade. I just dont get the
withitness that intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb
children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:46:48 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: art after art after art
In-Reply-To: <199505261845.LAA23717@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Herb Levy" at May
26, 95 10:21:02 am
I remember that some time in the 50s Marshall McLuhan said something
to the effect that the artists are not ahead of their time, but that
they are in the present, while most people are living in the past. He
later used the trope of the rear view mirror.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 01:46:08 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
In-Reply-To: <199506070540.BAA26704@panix4.panix.com>
It's probably hard for you to believe but the "withitness" is simply
loving the music. And what constitutes children's music? And what's the
waiting another decade bit? I still listen to the Sex Pistols and they're
not exactly Monk-like; I listen to them more than Monk in fact. I'm not
arguing taste with you, it's the blatant dismissal of stuff that's I find
bizarre. So you don't like it? I don't like Monk. I don't remember Abba,
but I listen to SPK, Albert Ayler, and Hole. And now that I think of it,
thank God a lot of this stuff is children's music...
Alan
On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote:
> Oh hell, ten or however many years ago people were telling me that
> ABBA was good, so I listened and it was crap, and now those people
> are making fun of it. Now they say listen to Hole, so I listen to
> Hole. It is crap. So I await another decade. I just dont get the
> withitness that intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb
> children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 02:00:31 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: art after art after art
In-Reply-To: <199506070549.BAA27731@panix4.panix.com>
This brings up a constant argument I have here in NY in relation to the
artworld; the Net itself seems to embody more interesting (no def. here)
aesthetics than the artworks placed upon it or using it. As if artists
are attempting to keep up with a culture that has by and large
outstripped them.
In this regard, I'm amazed at the inventiveness, say, of MOOs, of Usenet
groups such as alt.destroy-the-internet and alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.
verb, alt.dirty-whores, or the Monster Truck Neutopians on alt.society.
neutopia, of John December's Web Pages, and so forth. The mirror you
mention may well be a computer screen, accessible to all, and "art"
itself is becoming unclear, blurred, muddied. I'd say that most artists I
know are living in the past in relation to the Net, and an awful lot of
Net people are burning towards the future, artists or not.
Sorry for the meandering reply.
Alan
On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote:
> I remember that some time in the 50s Marshall McLuhan said something
> to the effect that the artists are not ahead of their time, but that
> they are in the present, while most people are living in the past. He
> later used the trope of the rear view mirror.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 00:09:57 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: discipline
Ryan, I enjoyed your post about discipline (one of my favorite topics!).
The short answer would be that for whatever level of intensity you choose
for the discipline you want or need, there will be a venue. The bell curve
is alive and well out there. No need to genuflect to any process that's not
enough for you.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:43:51 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Sentimentality, music etc
In-Reply-To: <199506070402.FAA12584@tucana.dur.ac.uk>
Re: Britten's War Requiem: it's necessary for players and audience to
make some attempt to think it back to its original context, or at
least out of the rather sterile concert hall context. Written late 50s
early 60s, (a time when the UK certainly did need refocussing on the
wastage of war, which isn't to say that other places/times
didn't/don't) for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral (Coventry,
you remember, was the city the Allies allowed to be destroyed rather
than reveal to the Germans that they'd cracked their radio code) by a
gay pacifist who was still (at that time) outside the UK
establishment, its intention was to "reach" a lot of people. To do
this, Britten opened out and simplified his style a lot (it's not
atonal music in any sense) and chose "accessible" texts by Owen - to
my mind, mistakenly (when Tippett came to write his polemic piece "A
Child of Our Time" he wrote his own libretto). The key to it all is
the Dies Irae: normally when composers set this they go for a big,
wrath-filled, melodramatic sound - Britten's is the only setting I can
think of which is tiny, guilt-ridden and fearful. The war music,
likewise, should be clumsy and childish. The whole thing is stamped
with the human and fallible, and a performance which doesn't respect
this, I'd say, would fail.
But there's a tendency these days in concert performances and
recordings to go for "lovely sounds" in contexts where it's not
appropriate (Gorecki suffers from this, to my ears) - as if we looked
at those Goya execution scenes and said they had "lovely colours".
This comes down to "dumbheaded" audiences and (in the case of music)
insincere performances. And it suggests to me that sentimentality (if
that's what this love of lushness is) is to do with audiences and
consumers, rather than makers of things. Now (to take my own case) I
freely confess to being both - and it's possible that if a consumer
response slips into my poetry (and I don't cut it out) the result is
sentimental poetry. In which case, let he/she who is without wotsit
cast the first thingumy.
Cards on the table: I was never a very good performing musician, and
any explanation I give as to why I shifted from a formal musical
training to poetry could be tempered with cries of "sour grapes". But
it does seem to me that much of the music bizz is to do with
consumerism ("giving the public what they want") rather than actually
making anything. There are exceptions, of course. Equally, I'm often
horrified by the amateurishness of many poets over their
reading/performance practice (one UK poet who turned up to give a
reading actually prefaced it with "I don't think I'm a very good
reader, I think my poems are better studied on the page..." but he
still claimed his fee). Uncool it may be, but (to the consternation of
my family) I do indeed read work aloud during the composition process,
and when preparing for a reading. I used at one stage to record
myself, and play it back to myself, as part of this process. It was
very instructive, and also very destructive.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 04:29:36 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: adios muchachos
Thanks, Lindz.
Being originally from Oklahoma, I think I understand. Although it should be
noted that several of the second or third wave New York School poets (Ron
Padgett, Joe Brainard, and a couple of others) are actually from Oklahoma
and followed Ted Berrigan from Tulsa to NY after he taught in Tulsa for one
or two years.
Me, I went west, and only recently ended up in this upper Midwestern place
which is still foreign territory.
But wasn't Steve McCaffery at the Vancouver reading? Is he considered
Eastern Canadian, or as a migrant from England, is he altogether out of
the Canadian east/west context?
I'd be proud to be a Maritimer, too.
all best,
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:39:12 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf.
In-Reply-To: <199506070434.AAA08366@sarah.albany.edu> from "George Bowering"
at Jun 6, 95 09:30:39 pm
>
> Yeah, Pierre, but I also introduced Eshleman as being from Kalamazoo.
Well, George, someone or other will have seent hat as the high or low
point, as the case may be.
But kidding aside, the high point of the conference was obviously
Robin, & given that Robin was there all the time, the high point was
all the time. I had a wonderful time, so, thank you Vancouver & -ites.>
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:48:31 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995
So--why doesn't somebody with money (like James $herry or somebody)
put on a Warren Sonbert retrospective and film festival in some poetry/art
space in NYC (and somebody else can do it on the west coast)---
The reason i ask is because there is so little crossover between genres
these days---it seems the specialization of the art world is harder
to overcome than it was 35 or even 20 years ago--Who are the young
experiental filmakers of my generation? (or of LINDzzzzz's generation)?
Are they too busy trying to get funding to come down and meet us
poets? Are they working in video? Maybe I haven't looked around
enough, so I'm trying to keep my eyes pried open. Chris (oh--I got
off the point--the point is that for those of us who have only the
vaguest memory of Sonbert from college experimental film shows--
it would be good for the poetry community to actually get out
of its sick little "words words words" attitude at least for awhile
and come together over (it)).....
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:52:53 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Mr. Peters certainly sounds snooty today--
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:03:08 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
And george bowering also claims that intellectuals could only possibly
like bands like Hole and not the "hard stuff" for spurious reasons of
"hipness"----
When I worked on the editorial board of a poetry magazine in the late
80's--the editor made me listen to PARSIFAL (sp?) and if i seemed
appreciative I was in (it was part of the screening process)---
Ironically, his love of OPERA--especially aryan opera--and other
"difficult high culture"(and yes I know opera was ORIGINALLY low
culture--like jazz before it was called "African American Classical")
was not parelleled in his love of literature--he went for the Bly,
Hugo,Logan nexus in poetry. I on the other hand preferred Ashbery,
O'Hara, etc---but to "unwind" found myself listening more to rock and
blues and reggae and stuff than classical and even jazz...
I certainly do not want to be dogmatic about this, or eclectic--
but just who ARE these people to be so PRESCRIPTIVE about what music
a good poet should listen to---it guarantees nothing, my friends,
except perhaps a verbal sophistication when talking to someone
like a famous poet who doesn't like talking about poetry at parties
and so you gotta find something else to talk about (and "politics"
gets boring--so it turns to music--but then there's these fights
over music--I was a t a party once where one friend called another
"a musical nazi")...
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:06:20 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: a=a is what does bad poetry do
Marisa,
Okay, let's go the other way.
Ed,
Now don't you proposition me!
Burt,
Re truth: Ed started it!
Question for the group--what harm does bad poetry do?
Love,
Jordan
("Sincerity is verbal etiquette--it works for some boys"--Barscheit Nation)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:51:59 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc
Just to say I really found Ric's posting informative. Also want to support
Alan (yeah a Bratmobile fan!): there is a way of looking a song that uses
three chords as minimalist, a la Reich and Glass, as milking a small
set of materials for all you can. Oh I like Nirvana and Hole and Abba,
and Debussy and Ravel and Berio, but I absolutely hate any jazz other than
fifties be-bop. Oh, and I've also done quite intellectual work at open
mike events, with all the timing and precision and rehearsal and intensity
I can manage, and it usually gets respect. If I stood there hating that
audience for not being a trained avant-garde audience I'd get nowhere.
That isn't selling, or selling out, it's communicating, give a little,
demand a little. Plus of course a pop artist can be a much more effective
bridging person than most arts programmes or courses; I'm thinking of the
way Cobain drew a lot of people's attention to neglected independent label
bands *or* the way Lennon name-dropped (and engaged with) Stockhausen and
Yoko Ono in other arts.
But I don't think rock is the highest art form, I think there are people
for whom each of the arts form is the highest, and if yours is not it,
and you can still get at what the spirit of pure form is in their form
ie make your music sculptural, or your cooking painterly, you can win
them over *and* stretch yourself at the same time. *I* was *trying* in
my original questions to ponder if it wasn't that any art, say music
instead of poetry, was an intrinsically higher art - but that poets could
learn from musicians, as Sheila was saying; I'm often ashamed to take
Mike, my flatmate who writes classical music and pop songs with me, to
poetry gigs because, as he memorably put it me after one event: "poets
really have it easy". He can't get *any* of his scores, or writing about
music, published or distributed or performed, except by himself.
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:20:24 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: NEW POETRY FROM SPUYTEN DUYVIL
From: TESLA::KIMMELMAN 7-JUN-1995 11:18:47.12
To: ADMIN::KIMMELMAN
CC:
Subj:
ANNOUNCEMENT
New poetry books from Spuyten Duyvil:
Wave-Run by Tod Thilleman ($7.95):
about Wave-Run:
"Those who sound the language of Tod Thilleman's Wave-Run may at first feel submerged in a foreign language only to arrive at a later--and deeper, more alive--realization of english and of a different sea."
- John Taggart
"Thilleman's craft, the drive and punning images of his language, movingly replay in contemporary terms the old myth of Ocean and our fascinated love of it."
- Michael Heller
Also from Spuyten Duyvil:
Musaics by Burt Kimmelman ($8.95)
about Musaics:
". . . artful, fastidious, learned--in love with the world of painting and the intricacies of language."
- Alfred Kazin
"We find the arts restate the questions we have been asking and the ways they clean and stretch our questions reward us more than answers would."
- William Bronk
After Asia by Michael Stephens ($10.00)
about After Asia:
"A lovely book of poems! So various and human and (usefully) sweet! These poems are a pleasure! Oh!"
- Robert Creeley
Books may be purchased from SPD / Small Press Distribution (1-800-869-7553), 1814 San Pablo avenue, Berkeley, CA 94702; or at individual prices plus $1.50 shipping and handling ($.50 for each additional book) from Spuyten Duyvil (1-212-978-3353), Box 1852, Cathedral Station, NYC 10025.
Coming soon from SD:
Occur by Wayne Oakes.
about Occur:
". . . one page story-moments limned in the ink of intensity."
- Ed Sanders
The Ceiling of the World by Alice Rose George.
about The Ceiling of the World.
". . . exquisite . . . intensely ecstatic. . . ."
- Carol Muske
"Alice Rose George transforms our shared world from heartbreak to a difficult and qualified joy."
- April Bernard
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:14:10 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
>...I just dont get the
>withitnessthat intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb
>children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff.
sound like you think it's an either/or choice? or am i misreading.
i enjoy hole, & monk, & bach, & gid tanner and the skillet lickers
(who could probably play a whole barndance w/ only 2 chords)...
all for different reasons & in differnt ways. or, to bring it
back to poetics, i've even read some bukowski that i enjoyed--
why compare apples & sardines, or choose between 'em? unless
yr trying to impress...
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:49:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Actually actual?
true, chris, so very true. arab music is good, those modes and all that, plus bach for complex baroque interiors, but KISS, all those old recordings still wonderful. hey, anyone who's prescriptive about anything is only one thing: wrong.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:09:07 EDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Linda Lane Reinfeld <lreinfeld@ECKERT.ACADCOMP.MONROECC.EDU>
Subject: singing benna
Just rereading Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" for a class I'm teaching tonight
and wishing I knew what "benna" sounded like... Standard references in the
public library don't help. Here's some context:
"... is it true that you sing benna in Sunday School? ... don't sing benna in
Sunday School ... but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday
School..."
If you've got a fast answer for me, please email to
lreinfeld@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu
Thanks -- Linda Reinfeld
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:58:31 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: a=a is what does bad poetry do
jordan, jordan, as Keats said, "I look upon fine Phrases like a Lover." And the _harm_ in bad poetry? Well without "fine Phrases," how/what can one feel?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:45:13 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: open mike scene, music etc.
Various posters on open readings:
>But there is an open-mike circuit in Vancouver which is not interested
>in "traditions" or the discipline which informs a work. Rather,
>it is a fast, aggressive and usually nihilistic crowd which resents
>academically informed work. I think Patrick Lane described this circuit
>of poets as wanting poems to work like t.v. chat shows: confessional,
>sensational, voyeuristic and quick. I suppose this is a tradition now,
>maybe cultivated from a media interpretation of the beats, on the
>surface.
>question of whose camp one is in: the university has never recognized
>anything as poetry except that which it chooses to anthologize, and
>its anthologies reflect its concerns. The open mike business is
>anarchic, poet as punk, and doesn't leave a record of itself because
>it can't concentrate that long. Then there are people like me on the
>margins of both comfortable in neither. Now what, eh?
This is the gap into which I've fallen, too. I've never felt comfortable in the
poets' pub scene - too many first-years in DMs in love with the idea of being a
Poet, rather than with poetry itself. On the other hand, I feel distanced from
the university scenes (not having studied the arts at university) and believe
that poetry _deserves_ an audience wider than a small circle of poets and
professional critics.
I used to run the NZ Poetry Society in Wellington, and this was the closest
thing to a happy medium that I've come across. There were a fair number of
people not directly associated with the Victoria University Press mafia, but
still with a serious interest in poetry as literature (rather than therapy),
involved in the society. Of course, the open readings always attracted a hard
core of (WARNING! non-PC terms ahead) little old ladies reading haiku about
their cats, and gruff old men reciting ballads about pig hunting, but at least
there was an attentive audience for difficult, thoughtful, and/or experimental
work.
> Ironically, his love of OPERA--especially aryan opera--and other
> "difficult high culture"(and yes I know opera was ORIGINALLY low
> culture--like jazz before it was called "African American Classical")
> was not parelleled in his love of literature--he went for the Bly,
> Hugo,Logan nexus in poetry. I on the other hand preferred Ashbery,
> O'Hara, etc---but to "unwind" found myself listening more to rock and
> blues and reggae and stuff than classical and even jazz...
It's interesting that the "alternative" sub-culture of pub poetry is far more
conservative stylistically (and even in terms of content) that what might be
termed the "mainstream", whereas the opposite is the case in pop music. I
wonder if this is because populist (written) poetry does not really exist these
days, so that the "mainstream" is defined by academic and government-funded
cultural groups, rather than commercial demand. Hence your average pub poet
fumes because his predictable and poorly-written teen-angst rant was rejected
by Landfall, and consoles himself by telling himself that he is too dangerous
and radical for the conservative elite. Maybe if pop music worked the same way,
then M People and Brian Adams would consider themselves subversive.
> Oh I like Nirvana and Hole and Abba,
> and Debussy and Ravel and Berio, but I absolutely hate any jazz other than
> fifties be-bop.
I've never been able to understand the appeal of grunge. Maybe I'm Generation W
(I'd much rather wear Armani than Mossimo). I got fed up with the way that pub
poets idolise the cliche of poet as self-destructive visionary outsider, a la
Bukowksi, Dylan Thomas, James K. Baxter, Jim Morrison etc. After sitting
through one too many "Elegy for Kurt Cobain", I wrote the following, and read
it at the poets' pub:
That stupid club
----------------
Hart Crane
Sylvia Plath
Anne Sexton
John Berryman
Ian Curtis
Kurt Cobain
...think of it
as evolution in action
Well, it got a reaction at least (the last lines are from Niven and Pournelle).
Apologies to anyone on the list who might have known any of the above - it's
the _romanticisation_ of suicide to which I object.
I still read occasionally at the poets' pub in Auckland, but I won't be for a
while, since on Monday nights I'll be attending a writing group run by Alan
Loney. I guess that shows where my allegiances might be heading!
Tom Beard
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:46:12 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <01HRF56NIR2G8ZE54A@albnyvms.BITNET> from "Chris Stroffolino" at
Jun 7, 95 09:52:53 am
----i don't get this -- what are you talking abt?
c
>
> Mr. Peters certainly sounds snooty today--
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:24:30 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: George Bowering <bowering@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf.
In-Reply-To: <199506071339.JAA17575@loki.albany.edu> from "Pierre Joris" at
Jun 7, 95 09:39:12 am
Pierre, it was just amazing that Blaser went to everything. Not just
because of his health, but because he's notoriously not at
everything; or if he does gfo to something he leaves the second it's
over. People remarked on this. I take it that Blaser was showing his
respect for all the people. I think that he was really mived around.
I bet he's been resting ever since.
Hey, Vancouver was glad to have all you folks. Van. loves big p[oetry
things.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:04:59 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506070427.VAA16068@whistler.sfu.ca> from "George Bowering" at
Jun 6, 95 09:20:23 pm
wait, let me explain a little: i should have specified this, but i was
thinking of the context they have -- which is usually a context which
gives them a large and immediate audience. --and i certainly think there
are musicians out there who take their art seriously. what abt neil
young? some real rock & roll
c
>
> Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I
> figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric
> guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they
> do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole"
> on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000
> points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look
> how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That
> ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by
> the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord
> strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music
> entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They
> usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that
> likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some
> brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It
> might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what
> if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are
> really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And
> when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious
> adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo
> from great 1940s Black artists.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:47:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Maria Damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: discipline
In message <2fd528fd57dd002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> The open mike scene is usually disappointing, isnt it, Reg? If it
> isnt, why isnt it?
this, like (I'm sorry folks) the hallmark card discussion, is of interest in my
thinking about what what poetry is or might/cd./ (not "should," tho i think
people may have a deeply buried "should" in there under everything) do, be, etc.
what is it that one expects that results in disappointment when it's not there
in an open mike scene. and, as george asks, when one isn't disappointed, what is
it that is there, what expectation is being met? i for one enjoy open mike
readings if there's a lot of energy there and the participants are excited about
what they're doing. md
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:28:39 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: EFF Newsletter (fwrd)
I am forwarding the new issue of EFF newsletter. At the very end of the
message, many screens away for those of you like me who must scroll this screen
to screen, is SUBSCRIPTION information for EFF. Since each of you can
subscribe to this yourself, it is not my plan to forwarded further
issues to POETICS. However, if people on the list would prefer to have these
newsletters forwarded to the list, send me (not the list) a message.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 19:13:41 -0400
From:editor@eff.org
To: effector mailing list <effector@eff.org>
Subject: EFFector Online 08.07 - June 6 '95 - ALERT: Last chance on Exon bill!
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EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 07 June 6, 1995 editors@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424
IN THIS ISSUE:
ALERT: Communications Decency Act - Imminent Passage or Failure - Act NOW!
The Latest News
What You Can Do Now -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens
Senate Contact List
For More Information
List Of Participating Organizations
Newsbytes
Dole/Grassley Legislation Threatens Online Free Speech - Worse Than CDA
New Draft of Communications Decency Legislation
Sen. Lott to Attempt to Rip Sysop Defenses from Exon Bill
The Other Side of the Coin: Feinstein Bill v. Bomb Material Online
Prodigy Potentially Liable for User Postings
Calendar of Events
Quote of the Week
What YOU Can Do
Administrivia
* See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more
information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ALERT: Communications Decency Act - Act NOW!
* EMERGENCY UPDATE: Just as this issue was going to virtual press, more and
* very dire news has arrived. Senators Bob Dole (R-KS) and Charles Grassley
* (R-IA) have announced they are sponsoring, and probably introducing very
* soon, new Internet censorship legislation even more threatening
* to free speech than the Exon "Communications Decency Act". Unlike the
* Leahy alternative to the CDA, the Dole/Grassley legislation is not,
* according to sponsor Grassley, intended to be offered as a replacement
* for the Exon language in the Senate telecom reform bill, but rather is
* intended as free-standing bill. As CDT, a member of the Stop314 Coalition
* with EFF, notes, the advent of the Dole/Grassley bill creates an even
* greater need for support of Senator Leahy's alternative (S. 714). If
* the Senate rejects Senator Leahy's alternative, it will pass either the
* Exon bill or the even more draconian Dole/Grassley proposal, and the
* net as we know it will never be the same again. Please, take the very
* few minutes it will require to call your Senators and sign the Leahy
* petition, as detailed in the lead article below. More info on the
* Dole/Grassley proposal is in the Newsbytes section of this newsletter.
Below is the latest action alert from the Stop314 Coalition (including EFF).
*This may look like alerts you've seen on previous days and weeks, but it
is new.* Please take the time to check it out - the time has come to
direct your activism toward your Senators. The petition drive for the
Leahy opposition bill has receive over 20,000 signatures in a very short
time, but it is not enough. Please pardon the length of this EFFector,
but this is the most important action alert that has appeared in EFFector
this year.
________________________________________________________________________
CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE EXON/GORTON COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
Update: -Senate changes gears, we're caught with little time
-What You Can Do Now (US and non-US citizens)
CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
June 6, 1995
PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL June 20, 1995
REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS
Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org)
[NOTE: EFF has added two bracketed additions to the "What You Can Do Now"
section, in light of the sudden appearance of the Dole/Grassley bill
and the Lott amendment.]
________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
The Latest News
What You Can Do Now -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens
Senate Contact List
For More Information
List Of Participating Organizations
________________________________________________________________________
THE LATEST NEWS
The Senate is ready to act on the Telecommunications Reform Bill this
week, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, June 7th. We had thought the
Counter Terrorism bill would take all week, but the Senate changed its
schedule without consulting us. :-)
(We sincerely apologize for issuing another alert on the heels of the
prior one, but the Senate's readiness to move on this legislation was
not anticipated. We'll watch out for such a situation again and avoid
releasing two alerts so close together in the future. We also apologize
for the length of this Alert, but it contains the entire Senate contact
info.)
Note that there are few people who don't know about the bill. However
if you are unfamiliar with the bill, take a moment to retrieve the
materials listed in the "For More Information" section.
________________________________________________________________________
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens
The Telecomm Reform Bill, will, in all likelihood, include either the
Exon Amendment (formerly the Communications Decency Act) or the Leahy
Amendment. It is essential that the Leahy language be substituted for
Exon's, and therefore it is essential:
1. That all citizens call or fax their Senators as soon as possible.
There is no time for written letters and email is too easily
discounted or ignored. Non-U.S. citizens should contact Vice
President Gore. Note, if you decide to send a fax, you'll want to
write an expanded version of the statement below.
It's very important that you always be cool, collected, and polite.
U.S. citizens:
<call your Senators' offices, contact info below>
"Hello, Senator ________'s office"
"Hi, I'm a constituent and would like to register my
opinion on the Telecommunications Reform bill to the
Senator."
"Hold On please. Alright, go ahead."
"Please vote to remove the Communications Decency Act provision
(Title 4 of S652) from the Telecomm Reform bill and
replace it with the Leahy alternative (S714). My name and
address is ________."
"Thanks for calling."
<click>
[Addition in light of emergency update: Ask your Senators to also
oppose the Lott amendment S.714, and to oppose the Dole/Grassley
alternative to the CDA.]
Non-U.S. citizens:
<call, fax, or send email to Vice President Gore>
"Dear Vice President Gore,
The world looks to the United States as one leader in
developing a Global Information Infrastructure. Title 4 of
the Telecomm Reform bill (the Communications Decency Act)
[like the Dole/Grassley Internet censorship bill,]
imperils that leadership. Please work to remove it from the
Telecomm Reform bill (S652) and replace it with Senator
Leahy's sensible alternative (S714). I'm calling from
____________."
2. Send VTW a note telling us what you did. If you contacted your two
Senators, send a letter to vtw@vtw.org with a subject line of
"XX ack" where "XX" is your state. For example:
To: vtw@vtw.org
Subject: OH ack
I called my Ohio Senators and expressed my opinion.
If you contact Senators outside your state, please let us know what
state you're from.
If you contacted Vice President Gore, send a letter to vtw@vtw.org with
a subject line of "gore ack". For example:
To: vtw@vtw.org
Subject: gore ack
I called VP Gore and expressed my opinion. I'm from France.
An automatic responder will return an updated contact tally.
3. Forward this Alert to relevant forums on other online services and
BBS's. Check the letter you get back to see which Senators are
underrepresented by citizen contacts. Forward the Alert to any
friends and colleagues in those states.
4. If you haven't yet signed the petition to support Sen. Leahy,
do so now. Send mail to vtw@vtw.org with a subject line of
"send petition" for directions.
5. Congratulate yourself! Your two-minute activism joins that of many
thousands of others over the past two months.
________________________________________________________________________
SENATE CONTACT LIST
Vice President Gore can be reached at:
White House comment line
Telephone: (202) 456-1111 (M-F 9-5 EST)
Facsimile: (202) 456-2461 (M-F 9-5 EST)
Email: vice-president@whitehouse.gov
US Senate Listing:
D ST Name (Party) Phone Fax
= == ============ ===== ===
R AK Murkowski, Frank H. 1-202-224-6665 1-202-224-5301
R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044
D AL Heflin, Howell T. 1-202-224-4124 1-202-224-3149
R AL Shelby, Richard C. 1-202-224-5744 1-202-224-3416
D AR Bumpers, Dale 1-202-224-4843 1-202-224-6435
D AR Pryor, David 1-202-224-2353 1-202-224-8261
R AZ Kyl, Jon 1-202-224-4521 1-202-224-2302
R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-202-228-2862
D CA Boxer, Barbara 1-202-224-3553 na
D CA Feinstein, Dianne 1-202-224-3841 1-202-228-3954
D CO Campbell, Ben N. 1-202-224-5852 1-202-225-0228
R CO Brown, Henry 1-202-224-5941 1-202-224-6471
D CT Dodd, Christopher J. 1-202-224-2823 na
D CT Lieberman, Joseph I. 1-202-224-4041 1-202-224-9750
D DE Biden Jr., Joseph R. 1-202-224-5042 1-202-224-0139
R DE Roth Jr. William V. 1-202-224-2441 1-202-224-2805
D FL Graham, Robert 1-202-224-3041 1-202-224-2237
R FL Mack, Connie 1-202-224-5274 1-202-224-8022
D GA Nunn, Samuel 1-202-224-3521 1-202-224-0072
R GA Coverdell, Paul 1-202-224-3643 1-202-228-3783
D HI Akaka, Daniel K. 1-202-224-6361 1-202-224-2126
D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747
D IA Harkin, Thomas 1-202-224-3254 1-202-224-7431
R IA Grassley, Charles E. 1-202-224-3744 1-202-224-6020
R ID Craig, Larry E. 1-202-224-2752 1-202-224-2573
R ID Kempthorne, Dirk 1-202-224-6142 1-202-224-5893
D IL Moseley-Braun, Carol 1-202-224-2854 1-202-224-2626
D IL Simon, Paul 1-202-224-2152 1-202-224-0868
R IN Coats, Daniel R. 1-202-224-5623 1-202-224-8964
R IN Lugar, Richard G. 1-202-224-4814 1-202-224-7877
R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-224-8952
R KS Kassebaum, Nancy L. 1-202-224-4774 1-202-224-3514
D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 1-202-224-0046
R KY McConnell, Mitch 1-202-224-2541 1-202-224-2499
D LA Breaux, John B. 1-202-224-4623 na
D LA Johnston, J. Bennett 1-202-224-5824 1-202-224-2952
D MA Kennedy, Edward M. 1-202-224-4543 1-202-224-2417
D MA Kerry, John F. 1-202-224-2742 1-202-224-8525
D MD Mikulski, Barbara A. 1-202-224-4654 1-202-224-8858
D MD Sarbanes, Paul S. 1-202-224-4524 1-202-224-1651
R ME Snowe, Olympia 1-202-224-5344 1-202-224-6853
R ME Cohen, William S. 1-202-224-2523 1-202-224-2693
D MI Levin, Carl 1-202-224-6221 na
R MI Abraham, Spencer 1-202-224-4822 1-202-224-8834
D MN Wellstone, Paul 1-202-224-5641 1-202-224-8438
R MN Grams, Rod 1-202-224-3244 1-202-224-9931
R MO Bond, Christopher S. 1-202-224-5721 1-202-224-8149
R MO Ashcroft, John 1-202-224-6154 na
R MS Cochran, Thad 1-202-224-5054 1-202-224-3576
R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262
D MT Baucus, Max 1-202-224-2651 na
R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594
R NC Faircloth, D. M. 1-202-224-3154 1-202-224-7406
R NC Helms, Jesse 1-202-224-6342 1-202-224-7588
D ND Conrad, Kent 1-202-224-2043 1-202-224-7776
D ND Dorgan, Byron L. 1-202-224-2551 1-202-224-1193
D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 1-202-224-5213
D NE Kerrey, Bob 1-202-224-6551 1-202-224-7645
R NH Gregg, Judd 1-202-224-3324 1-202-224-4952
R NH Smith, Robert 1-202-224-2841 1-202-224-1353
D NJ Bradley, William 1-202-224-3224 1-202-224-8567
D NJ Lautenberg, Frank R. 1-202-224-4744 1-202-224-9707
D NM Bingaman, Jeff 1-202-224-5521 na
R NM Domenici, Pete V. 1-202-224-6621 1-202-224-7371
D NV Bryan, Richard H. 1-202-224-6244 1-202-224-1867
D NV Reid, Harry 1-202-224-3542 1-202-224-7327
D NY Moynihan, Daniel P. 1-202-224-4451 na
R NY D'Amato, Alfonse M. 1-202-224-6542 1-202-224-5871
D OH Glenn, John 1-202-224-3353 1-202-224-7983
R OH Dewine, Michael 1-202-224-2315 1-202-224-6519
R OK Inhofe, James 1-202-224-4721
R OK Nickles, Donald 1-202-224-5754 1-202-224-6008
R OR Hatfield, Mark O. 1-202-224-3753 1-202-224-0276
R OR Packwood, Robert 1-202-224-5244 1-202-228-3576
R PA Santorum, Rick 1-202-224-6324 1-202-228-4991
R PA Specter, Arlen 1-202-224-4254 1-202-224-1893
D RI Pell, Claiborne 1-202-224-4642 1-202-224-4680
R RI Chafee, John H. 1-202-224-2921 na
D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293
R SC Thurmond, Strom 1-202-224-5972 1-202-224-1300
D SD Daschle, Thomas A. 1-202-224-2321 1-202-224-2047
R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259*
R TN Thompson, Fred 1-202-224-4944 1-202-228-3679
R TN Frist, Bill 1-202-224-3344 1-202-224-8062
R TX Hutchison, Kay Bailey 1-202-224-5922 1-202-224-0776
R TX Gramm, Phil 1-202-224-2934 1-202-228-2856
R UT Bennett, Robert 1-202-224-5444 1-202-224-6717
R UT Hatch, Orrin G. 1-202-224-5251 1-202-224-6331
D VA Robb, Charles S. 1-202-224-4024 1-202-224-8689
R VA Warner, John W. 1-202-224-2023 1-202-224-6295
D VT Leahy, Patrick J. 1-202-224-4242 1-202-224-3595
R VT Jeffords, James M. 1-202-224-5141 na
D WA Murray, Patty 1-202-224-2621 1-202-224-0238
R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393
D WI Feingold, Russell 1-202-224-5323 na
D WI Kohl, Herbert H. 1-202-224-5653 1-202-224-9787
D WV Byrd, Robert C. 1-202-224-3954 1-202-224-4025
D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 na
R WY Simpson, Alan K. 1-202-224-3424 1-202-224-1315
R WY Thomas, Craig 1-202-224-6441 1-202-224-3230
________________________________________________________________________
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information on the Communications Decency Act, visit the
following resources:
Web Sites
URL:http://www.panix.com/vtw/exon/
URL:http://epic.org/
URL:http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/
URL:http://www.cdt.org/cda.html
FTP Archives
URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/policy/freespeech/00-INDEX.FREESPEECH
URL:ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Alerts/
Gopher Archives:
URL:gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon
URL:gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Alerts
Email:
vtw@vtw.org (put "send help" in the subject line)
cda-info@cdt.org (General CDA information)
cda-stat@cdt.org (Current status of the CDA)
________________________________________________________________________
LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have
joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the
Communications Decency Act.
In alphabetical order:
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) infoaclu@aclu.org
American Communication Association (ACA) comminfo@cavern.uark.edu
American Council for the Arts
Arts & Technology Society cyberguy@well.com
biancaTroll productions bianca@bianca.com
Californians Against Censorship Together BobbyLilly@aol.com
Center For Democracy And Technology (CDT) info@cdt.org
Centre for Democratic Communications (CDC) cshariff@aztec.co.za
Center for Public Representation (CPR) mgpritch@facstaff.wisc.edu
Computer Communicators Association community@pigpen.demon.co.uk
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility cpsr@cpsr.org
Cross Connections staff@xconn.com
Cyber-Rights Campaign cyber-rights@cpsr.org
CyberQueer Lounge tomh@cyberzine.org
Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC) efc@graceland.uwaterloo.ca
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) info@eff.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation - Austin eff-austin@tic.com
Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) efa-info@efa.org.au
Electronic Frontiers Houston (EFH) efh@efh.org
Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire (EFNH) efnh@mv.com
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) info@epic.org
Feminists For Free Expression (FFE) FFE@aol.com
First Amendment Teach-In croth@omnifest.uwm.edu
Florida Coalition Against Censorship pipking@mail.firn.edu
FACTS (Friendly Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students)
jt885291@oak.cats.ohiou.edu
Hands Off! The Net baby-x@phanton.com
Human Rights Watch (HRW) infohrw@hrw.org
Inland Book Company David1756@aol.com
Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. aka. NovaLink
Inst. for Global Communications igc-info@igc.org
National Libertarian Party 73163.3063@compuserve.com
Libertarian Party (national) (LP) lphq@access.digex.net
Marijuana Policy Project MPProject@AOL.com
Metropolitan Data Networks Ltd.
MindVox system@phantom.com
National Bicycle Greenway cycleam@cruzio.com
National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) ncac@netcom.com
National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) info@nptn.org
National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO) kip@world.std.com
Oregon Coast Rural Information Service Cooperative
Panix Public Access Internet info@panix.com
People for the American Way jlessern@reach.com
Rock Out Censorship TWieseROC@aol.com
Society for Electronic Access sea@sea.org
The Thing International BBS Network (TTNet) info@thing.nyc.ny.us
The WELL info@well.com
Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) vtw@vtw.org
(Note: All 'Electronic Frontier' organizations are independent entities,
not EFF chapters or divisions.)
[End of Alert]
------------------------------
Subject: Newsbytes
------------------
* Dole/Grassley Legislation Threatens Online Free Speech - Worse Than CDA
[This summary provided by Center for Democracy & Technology, info@cdt.org]
The Dole/Grassley bill would create new penalties in Title 18 for all
operators of electronic communications services who knowingly transmit
indecent material to anyone under 18 years of age. The bill would also
create criminal liability for system operators who willfully permit minors
to use an electronic communications service in order to obtain indecent
material from another service.
The Dole/Grassley bill would impose criminal liability on online service
providers, electronic bulletin board operators, as well as any other entity
that uses computer storage to deliver information to users, including video
dialtone services, cable television video on demand services, etc. The
degree of knowledge required to impose liability is unclear, but it appears
that an entity could be said to have the requisite knowledge if it is
merely informed by a third party that some material on its system is
indecent.
The text of the Dole/Grassley bill (currently unintroduced and without a
bill number) is at:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/dole_grassley_95.bill
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/dole_grassley_95.bill
gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, dole_grassley_95.bill
* New Draft of Communications Decency Legislation
Sen. Exon, the Dept. of Justice, and some unnamed online service providers
have attempted to fix the "bugs" in the Exon/Gorton Communications
Decency Act, recently folded into the Senate telecom reform bill, S.652.
All in all, the amendment fixes only superficial problems, leaving the
core faults of the bill intact.
The revisions are not currently out of the draft stage as far as can be
determined, but may be intended to be introduced by Exon on the Senate
floor in an attempt to convince the Senate that the CDA is "fixed" and
should be preferred over the Leahy counter-legislation. The draft changes
various minor parts of the bill (e.g. changes "knowingly and willfully" to
"knowingly"); allows but fails dismally to require that the implementation
of technology to enable the user to restrict or prevent access to "obscene,
lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent" material may be used to avoid
liability on the part of system operators; and separates out some
offenses from others more clearly. The revisions also aim to
satisfy the concerns the Justice Dept. had regarding the poorly written
CDA's negative effect on law enforcement's ability to enforce "dial-a-porn"
statutes and (to the DoJ's credit) its negative effect on the protection
citizens enjoy under privacy laws. Whether the changes actually do
address these problems is highly questionable.
The Exon legislation revised by this draft amendment will remain
unconstitutional, as it still attempts to ban expression protected by the
First Amendment. Even the regulation of indecency has been limited by
the courts to very narrowly defined circumstances - none of which apply
to online media. Such restrictions, even if eventually overturned after
years of expensive legal battles, will greatly hamper networking
development and will stifle freedom of expression online, rendering all
electronic communications subject to censorship so that adults are
limited to accessing and expressing only that which is suitable for
children.
Additionally, the new version introduces a new problem: It protects only
large commercial service providers from more-restrictive state laws. The
draft states: "No State or local government may impose any liability
for commercial activities or actions by commercial entities...that is
inconsistent with the treatment of those violations under this section..."
EFF concurs with the Center for Democracy & Technology in finding no
valid argument for according greater protection to commercial than
non-commercial speech. Indeed the entire history of commercial
regulation and free speech jurisprudence in the U.S. points in the
opposite direction. The CDA revisions would leave individuals, educational
institutions, non-profit organizations, users' groups and all others
besides commercial interests subject to whatever censorship measures states
might wish to enact on whatever whim.
The draft changes to the Exon bill, showing what was deleted and what was
added, are available at:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s652_051995_amend.draft
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s652_051995_amend.draft
gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Legislation/Bills_by_number, s652_051995_amend.draft
* Sen. Lott to Attempt to Rip Sysop Defenses from Exon Bill
CDT in their alert regarding the Dole/Grassley bill also note that
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) has announced plans to introduce an amendment to
S.652 to remove all of the service provider defenses from the Exon
language (the CDA). *This move would make the Exon bill even more of a
privacy and free speech threat than the original Exon bill.* Holding
system operators liable for the posts of users over which they hold no
editorial control threatens to put most providers out of business, stifle
free expression online, and force the remaining providers to become
full-time censors and invaders of user privacy.
[Apologies to those who also receive CDT newsletters and get essentially
two copies of this information, but its relevance here and its effect on
the now extreme urgency of the main action alert in this newsletter and
on the Leahy petition drive requires at least summarizing the main points
here again.]
The text of the Lott amendment will be available as soon as we receive it
from:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/
gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts
Look for a file with "lott" in the filename.
* The Other Side of the Coin: Feinstein Bill v. Bomb Material Online
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has drafted an amendment to the Senate
Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention bill, S.735, of Sen. Dole. Like the CDA
revisions, this remains an unintroduced draft, on hold until its parent
bill is in open discussion in the Senate. The draft intends to:
"prohibit the dissemination of information on the making of explosive
materials with intent or knowledge that such information will be used for
a criminal purpose."
The draft amendment would mandate up to twenty years in prison for anyone
who "teach[es] or demonstrate[s] the making of explosive materials, or...
disseminate[s] by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part,
the manufacture of explosive materials" if the person even "resonably
should know" that such explosives or information "is [sic] likely to be
used for, or in furtherance of, a federal offense or other criminal
purpose affecting interstate commerce."
Though the legislation does not directly mention the Internet, it is
certainly drafted to apply to online media, and was inspired by what
Feinstein perceives (or hears about in the media, since it is unlikely
the Senator has actually ever logged in and found any bombmaking
instructions online) as tools for terrorism on computer networks. The
agenda is clear. Feinstein, herself a near-victim of a failed letter-bombing
attempt, along with other legislators, representatives of the
Administration, and spokespersons from the civil liberties community,
participated in a May 11 Senate Terrorism Committee hearing on "The
Availability of Bomb Making Information On The Internet". Feinstein
suggested that bomb-making data be banned from the net, according to
_Interactive_Week_. Calling such materials information that "teaches
people to kill" she stated that it is "pushing the envelope of free
speech to the extremes." Feinstein was asked, and did not answer, if
she intended to ban such materials (e.g. the widely available
_Anarchist_Cookbook_) from bookstores, after she suggested
that the "doctrine of prior restraint is one we have to look at",
because such information "isn't what this country is all about."
Others likely to support the Feinstein amendment if introduced when the
anti-terrorism bill hits the Senate floor include Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and
the Justice Department. Kohl at the same hearing commented that Americans
would be shocked at the "dark back alleys of the Internet... In other words,
the industry acts now, or Congress will do it for you... After all, if we
have the technology to get kids on the Internet, we have should have the
technology to get them off." Expanding on the overused outrage-generator of
protecting kids from the evils of electronic communications, Dep. Asst.
Atty. Gen. Robert Litt, testified, "Not only do would-be terrorists have
access to detailed information on how to construct explosives, but so do
children."
Experienced BBS and Internet users may marvel at the seeming gullibility
of these hearing pronouncements. It is clear that Kohl, Feinstein and Litt
are unware, or choose to ignore, that most of the material they are
decrying is actually written by minors - neither very accurate nor
likely at all to be used by terrorists - and that far more reliable
information on topics like the anatomy of a bomb can be had from most
public libraries (e.g. in the _Encyclopaedia_Britannica_), and from the
U.S. government itself. Brock Meeks writing for _Interactive_Week_
notes that the very bomb type used to destroy the Federal Building in
Oklahoma City is covered in a "detailed recipe" in the Forestry
Service's own readily available _Blaster's_Handbook_.
Others at the hearing, including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), warned against
looking to censorship for a solution. Leahy retorted that the real problem
is "harmful and dangerous conduct, not speech". Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA),
who chaired the hearing, appeared to remain rather neutral on the issue,
being neither certain that censorship and access restriction to online
material was technically feasible, nor encouraged to call for censorship
by the DoJ's admission that they had no evidence at all of crimes taking
place as a result of information gathered from the Internet.
The full text of the Feinstein draft can be found at
http://www.eff.org/Bills_by_number/s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft
gopher.eff.org, 1/Legislation/Bills_by_number, s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft
There's plenty more to worry about from this and other anti-terrorism
legislation, most of which proposes one or more unconstitional
"solutions" to perceived problems, and many of which seek to expand, in
some cases radically, law enforcement and intelligence wiretapping
authority and abilities. These bills, archived by bill number, are
also available in the Bills_by_number directory at the sites above.
* Prodigy Potentially Liable for User Postings
In a case that could have major ramifications for BBS system operators and
Internet newsgroup moderators, a New York state trial court ruled that
communications service provider Prodigy Services Company may be liable for
potentially libelous statements made by one of its users. Prodigy was sued
by the securities investment banking firm of Stratton Oakmont, Inc., and
its president, Daniel Porush, for statements made by an unidentified poster
on Prodigy's Money Talk bulletin board. The statements claimed that
Stratton Oakmont committed criminal and fraudulant acts in connection with
the initial public offering of stock of Solomon-Page, Ltd.
Stratton Oakmont and Porush sued Prodigy, the volunteer moderator of the
Money Talk forum, and the anonymous user who made the postings. Prodigy
filed a motion for summary judgment, asking to be dismissed from the case
on the claim that Prodigy could not be held responsible for the postings of
its users.
On May 24, 1995, the court held that Prodigy had editorial control over the
messages in the Money Talk forum and was therefore liable for the content
of those messages. According to the New York Supreme Court (which is a
trial level court in New York), Prodigy's policy of systematically
monitoring messages made it liable for the content of these messages.
In addition, the court held that since Prodigy directed and controlled the
actions of volunteer Board Leaders, at least for the limited purpose of
monitoring and editing the Money Talk bulletin board, Prodigy was
responsible for the actions of its Board Leaders.
------------------------------
Subject: Calendar of Events
---------------------------
This schedule lists EFF events, and those we feel might be of interest to
our members. EFF events (those sponsored by us or featuring an EFF speaker)
are marked with a "*" instead of a "-" after the date. Simlarly, government
events, such as deadlines for comments on reports or testimony submission, are
marked with "!" in place of the "-" after the date.
If you know of an event of some sort that should be listed here, please
send info about it to Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org)
The latest full version of this calendar, which includes material for
later in the year as well as the next couple of months, is available from:
ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff
gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff
http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff
Updated: Jun. 6, 1995
June 7-
9 - Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Applications on Wall Street; Pace University, New York City, NY.
Contact: +1 914 763 8820 (voice), +1 914 763 9324 (fax)
Email: satwell@mcimail.com
June 8-
10 - Exploring the VideoClass Alternative; Raleigh, N. Carolina.
Email: tom_russell@ncsu.edu
June 11-
14 - Society & the Future of Computing (SFC'95); Tamarron Lodge,
Durango, Colorado. Sponsored by the Assoc. for Computing
Machinery, LANL, U. of Md., IEEE. Speakers will include Phil Agre
(UCSD), Leslie Sandberg (Institute for Telemedicine), Wm.
Halverson (PacBell), Don Norman (Apple), Linda Garcia
(Congressional Office of Technology Assessment), John
Cherniavsky (Natl. Science Found.) and several others.
Email: sfc95@lanl.gov
WWW: http://www.lanl.gov/LANLNews/Conferences/.sfc95/sfcHome.html/
June 13-
15 - IDT 95 - 12th Congress on Information Markets and Industries;
Paris, France. Organized by ADBS (a society of information
professionals), ANRT (National Association of Technological
Research), and GFII (French association of information industries).
Contact: +33 1 43 72 25 25 (voice), +33 1 43 72 30 41 (fax)
June 17-
19 - NECC'95: Emerging Technologies and Lifelong Learning: 16th Annual
National Educational Computing Conf., sponsored by International
Society for Technology in Education; Baltimore, Maryland.
VP Gore and Sec'y. of Labor Robert Reich invited as keynote
speakers. Other speakers include: John Phillipo (CELT), Frank
Knott (MGITB)
Contact: +1 503 346 2834 (voice), +1 503 346 5890 (fax)
Email: necc95@ccmail.uoregon.edu
June 18-
21 - ED-MEDIA'95; Graz, Austria. A world conference on educational
multimedia and hypermedia. Sponsor: The Association for the
Advancement of Computing.
Contact: +1 804 973 3987 (voice)
Email: aace@virginia.edu.
June 24-
28 - Workshop on Ethical & Professional Issues in Computing;
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY. Deadline for submissions:
Apr. 15.
Contact: +1 518 276 8503 (voice), +1 518 276 2659 (fax)
Email: cherkt@rpi.edu
June 27-
29 - Women in Technology Conference: Channels for Change; Santa Clara
Conv. Ctr., Santa Clara, Calif. Speakers include: Gloria Steinem.
Sponsored by Int'l. Network of Women in Technology (WITI).
Contact: +1 818 990 1987 (voice), +1 818 906 3299 (fax)
Email: witi@crl.com
June 28-
30 - INET '95 Internet Society 5th Ann. International Networking
Conf.; Honolulu, Hawaii. Sponsored by Internet Society (ISoc).
See Jan. 13 for proposal deadline
Contact: +1 703 648 9888 (voice)
FTP: ftp.isoc.org, /isoc/inet95/
Gopher: gopher.isoc.org, 1/isoc/inet95
WWW: http://www.isoc.org/inet95.html
Email: inet95@isoc.org
July 5-
7 - Key Players in the Introduction of Information Technology: Their
Social Responsibility & Professional Training; Namur, Belgium.
Sponsored by CREIS.
Email: nolod@ccr.jussieu.fr, clobet@info.fundp.ac.be
July 5-
8 - Alliance for Community Media International Conference and Trade
Show. [See Jan. 31 for proposal submission deadline info].
Contact: Alliance c/o MATV, 145 Pleasant St., Malden, MA 02148
Fax: (617) 321-7121; Voice: Rika Welsh (617) 321-6400
Email: matv@world.std.com
July 5-
8 - 18th International Conf. on Research & Development in Information
Retrieval; Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, Wash.
Email: sigir95@u.washington.edu
July 6-
7 ! Interoperability & the Economics of Information Infrastructure;
Freedom Forum, Rosslyn, Virginia. IITF/NSF/Harvard/FFMSC joint
workshop to "analyze and evaluate economic incentives and
impediments to achieving interoperability in the National
Information Infrastructure. The goal is to help agencies,
associations, the Administration, and the Congress to develop
sound policies for realizing the vision of a seamless,
interoperating NII. Deadline for proposals: Mar. 17. Deadline
for submissions: June 15.
Contact: +1 617 495 8903 (voice), +1 617 495 5776 (fax)
Email: kahin@harvard.edu
July 11-
15 - '95 Joint International Conference: Association for Computers and
the Humanties, and Association for Literacy and Linguistic
Computing; UCSB, Santa Barbara, Calif. Will highlight the
development of new computing methodologies for research and
teaching in the humanities
Contact: Eric Dahlin, +1 805 687 5003 (voice)
Email: hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
July 22-
26 - Syllabus'95; Sonoma State U., Rohnert Park, Calif.
"The premier conference covering the use of technology in the
curriculum"
Contact: 1-800-773-0670 (voice, US-only), +1 408 746 200 (voice,
elsewhere)
Email: syllabus@netcom.com
------------------------------
Subject: Quote of the Week
--------------------------
In light of the advent of Sen. Feinstein's draft bill, we'll keep last
issue's quote of the week for this issue too:
"It is no solution to define words as violence or prejudice as
oppression, and then by cracking down on words or thoughts pretend that
we are doing something about violence and oppression. No doubt it is
easier to pass a speech code or hate-crimes law and proclaim the streets
safer than actually to make the streets safer, but the one must never be
confused with the other...Indeed, equating "verbal violence" with
physical violence is a treacherous, mischievous business."
- Jonathon Rauch, in an essay in _Harper's_Magazine_, May 1995
Find yourself wondering if your privacy and freedom of speech are safe
when bills to censor the Internet are swimming about in a sea of of
surveillance legislation and anti-terrorism hysteria? Worried that in
the rush to protect us from ourselves that our government representatives
may deprive us of our essential civil liberties?
Join EFF!
------------------------------
Subject: What YOU Can Do
------------------------
* Communications Decency Act (the Exon Legislation)
The Communications Decency Act poses serious threats to freedom of
expression online, and to the livelihoods of system operators. The
legislation also undermines several crucial privacy protections.
Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt.
affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own
Senators and ask them to support the replacement of Exon's
communications decency language in the Senate telecom reform bill s.652
with S. 714, Sen. Leahy's alternative to the Comm. Decency Act. Explain
quickly, clearly and politely, why you feel the Exon language is dangerous.
S.652, the Senate telecom deregulation bill, now contains Sen. Exon's
"Communications Decency Act" (formerly S.314.) The House version of the
CDA, H.R.1004, is essentially stalled. The House telecom reform bill
will almost certainly include the Leahy language, a fact that may be
worth mentioning to your Senators.
For more information on what you can do to help stop this and other
dangerous legislation, see:
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/
gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts
http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/
If you do not have full internet access, send your request
for information to ask@eff.org.
* The Dole/Grassley Draft Internet Censorship Bill
As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose this legislation,
and to support the Leahy amendment to S.652.
* The Lott Draft Amendment to the Exon Legislation
As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose this amendment to
the Senate Telecom Bill. Ask the to not only oppose this but oppose all
of the Communications Decency Act, urging them to support the Leahy
alternative, currently S.714.
* The Feinstein Draft Internet Censorship Bill
As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose the addition of
any such legislation, particular that authored by Sen. Feinstein, to the
Dole "Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act", S.735. You may also wish
to express your concerns about other civil liberties problems raised by
the bill, and encourage your Senator to vote against such proposals until
a proper study and period of public evaluation an input have taken place.
* Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are
Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress
is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of
making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues.
EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well
as lists of Congressional committees. These lists are available at:
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/
gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes
http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/
The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively.
Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their
own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such
information provided. If you do not know who your Representatives are,
you should contact you local League of Women Voters, who typically maintain
databases that can help you find out.
* Join EFF!
You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard
in government are important. You have probably participated in our online
campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to
protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your
opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join
EFF today!
For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any
message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form.
------------------------------
Administrivia
=============
EFFector Online is published by:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
1667 K St. NW, Suite 801
Washington DC 20006-1605 USA
+1 202 861 7700 (voice)
+1 202 861 1258 (fax)
+1 202 861 1223 (BBS - 16.8k ZyXEL)
+1 202 861 1224 (BBS - 14.4k V.32bis)
Membership & donations: membership@eff.org
Legal services: ssteele@eff.org
Hardcopy publications: pubs@eff.org
General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org
Editor:
Stanton McCandlish, Online Services Mgr./Activist/Archivist (mech@eff.org)
This newsletter printed on 100% recycled electrons.
Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed
articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce
signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express
permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ-
ually at will.
To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message body of "subscribe
effector-online" (without the "quotes") to listserv@eff.org, which will add
you to a subscription list for EFFector.
Back issues are available at:
ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/
gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector
http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/
To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or
er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get
the file "current" from the EFFector directory at the above sites at any
time for a copy of the current issue. HTML editions available at:
http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/HTML/
at EFFweb.
End of EFFector Online v08 #07 Digest
*************************************
$$
--Boundary (ID 5DUVCRxR4cSyiQPnYiT/yw)--
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:36:48 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc
In-Reply-To: <00991877.16418D60.3310@cpcmg.uea.ac.uk> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun
7, 95 03:51:59 pm
It seems that this dichotomy of three-chord vs. non-three-chord
music dovetails into the, albeit short, "discipline discussion.
I would agree with George on the basis of craft and complexity
that Hole lives up to its name. But I too find that when you
aren't looking for a bravado fireworks of musical discipline,
there is a raw grace to powerchords which enoys the subtlety
of broad strokes. Fine. Posing I don't need. Jesus & Mary Chain,
the old stuff like Psychocandy, comes to mind. Biker disco.
I find my favourite music falls into genre bending. Tom Waits and
Cowboy Junkies have opened me to Western and Crooning by interrogating
the conventions and storylines that accompany, usually. Tom Waits
acts, assumes a voice and character: Gun Street Girl, for ex. The
music follows not out of loyalty to theory or tradition, but to the
costumes and cracks.
asdf
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:54:16 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: discipline
In-Reply-To: <199506070710.AAA23612@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Sheila E. Murphy"
at Jun 7, 95 00:09:57 am
Sheila,
I'm glad you enjoyed the post and I appreciate your encouragement.
I think what is daunting,t o me, is that Vancouver is not yet
a metropolis bursting at the seams. The result is a small scene,
say, six or seven open mike venues, usually run by friends with
similar expectations about mikepoetry and presuppositions about
the audience. The result is deja-vu from club to club and an
incestuous quality.
Case in point:
One reader at a local club reads everyweek with great applause
and guffaw because he is soooo offensive and gross: "Fuck cops /
they should die with guns up their ass" stuff. The audience
gets a kick out of watching how naughty someone can be, it seems.
He now has a large following and because he sells seats his friends
are reading too: same stuff. One even wrote a tribute to the
"cop guy", as he's known.
I don't think this is a new situation in poetry, but it is felt
more where venues and audience's are limited and liminal. It also
makes me wonder more about the audience than the writer: is this
a community of poetry readers which has always been, or is it new
and growing?
Best,
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:07:24 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: fibrous optical site locations
Comments: cc: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@panix.com>,
braman sandra <s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>,
"I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@east-anglia.ac.uk>,
Caroline Bergvall <bergvall@dcolarts.demon.co.uk>,
Erik Belgum <belgu003@gold.tc.umn.edu>,
Gary Sullivan <gpsj@primenet.com>,
John Cayley <cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk>,
Robert A Harrison <Robert.A.Harrison@jci.com>,
"Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@indirect.com>,
John Byrum <JMBYRUM@aol.com>,
Mn Center For Book Arts <mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>,
w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz, Blair Seagram <blairsea@panix.com>,
selby@slip.net
>cris, hi:
>
>--with respect to what you noted regarding the formation of a list for
>visual/sound poetry, i'm told a list can be enacted here (at simon fraser
>univ. in vancouver), and if you wish to consider that i can get the ball
>rolling. but i know this is completely your baby, and it will remain so.
>like yourself, though, i have a serious interest in and love of
>"concrete," and want to do anything i can to re-invent the public for it.
>but it's your call
>
>look forward to hearing from you
>carl
Carl, all bowing and kssing of hands aside - help - it's not 'my baby',
the point I was hoping to make. It's a shared interest and I was seekng a
simple mechanism for exchange. So if there's majordomo tech at Simon Fraser
and there's the energy to set that in motion I'd say great, please go for
that.
>cris--
>
>yesterday blair sent me a gif of a visual poem via e-mail. it worked
>beautifully! this is the way to go!
Backing this message up. That's all. Waiting to hear from others but my
sense is go on Carl - yep, let's move. Doesn't preempt poetics list
discussions or digests in that space either.
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:48:14 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: fibrous optical site locations
In-Reply-To: <9506072104.aa07536@post.demon.co.uk> from "cris cheek" at Jun 7,
95 09:07:24 pm
criss,
ok, i'll see what i can do, and get back to you soon
take care,
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:51:54 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: discipline
On June 6, George Bowering said that the open mike scene was usually
dissapointing. And I would say yes it is--but disappointing to whom,
and why? Disappointing very often to me, but is that strictly a
matter of bruised ego that then gets intellectualized into a
statement like "they wouldn't know a good poem if one slapped them in
the face"? I think there may be something of this in my
disappointment. And, as someone else has mentioned here (sorry name
escapes me) the young poet whose stuff is rejected by the lit.
establishment university people says the same thing and goes to the
open mike night where they *really* appreciate *real* poetry etc. So
maybe, if myself and others are on the margins between these two (and
other) traditions that's actually a rather dynamic place to be,
drawing (hopefully) on the best of all of it.
reg
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:36:50 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: opportunity knocks
Hey people,
I'm putting together a reading series for the fall and winter of next year,
for Small Press Traffic. It is to be an experimental series with a heavy
multi-cultural emphasis--and it is to highlight 5 small presses (one press
per evening, two readers published by that press), to promote those
presses. Included in the project will be a newsletter with work by the
readers, as well as reviews of various books by the presses. There is some
money for this, but I'm not sure exactly how much. All the readers will be
paid. I may do more than 5 evenings.
So, anybody interested in this? Anybody published by a small press
planning to be in the Bay Area in the fall or winter? I'd like to put a
tentative list together by the end of this month.
Thanks,
Dodie Bellamy
And, Maria D.--other than the fact that Susan Howe's reading was
mouth-gapingly incredible, anything else interesting I'd have to say about
Blaserfest would be strictly backchannel, i.e., Gossipfest. <grin>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 19:08:54 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc
In-Reply-To: <00991877.16418D60.3310@cpcmg.uea.ac.uk>
I had another meeting with someone from Cybermind today and we were
talking about alternative rock music and both realized that strangely
enough it's the one area that's remained impervious to academia. Even
performance art/video have their place in the middle of the university,
but it's hard to assimilate Hole and the like and that's part of what's
incredible about the music, that it can be analyzed (to death) within
institutional structures, but remains outside, even with recording
contracts, etc. Just a look at CBGB's compared to St. Mark's down the
street or a writing class. So there's a lot of nervous energy and some
incredible stuff going on at what might still be considered the margins
(Soul Coughing for example)...
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 19:30:39 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506071805.LAA20998@fraser.sfu.ca>
I've known a fair number of rock stars, some were students of mine, some
just friends, and they took their work as seriously as I take mine or as
the poets I've known take theirs. I don't see why rock isn't as much an
art as any other cultural form; I don't even see what possible argument
could be made against it. If you don't like it, fine, but not to _recog-
nize_ it as art is something else again. I wouldn't want to be the
student for example of someone who couldn't understand why I'd take Hole,
whatever, seriously.
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:46:01 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: hole
In-Reply-To: <199506070431.VAA11937@unixg.ubc.ca>
On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote:
> I dont know where Lindz gets the idea about east-west bashing at the
> Blaserfest and readings. I was there all the way and didnt notice it.
> It is also not true that Ondaatje was the only eastern Canadian poet
> at the readings; there were plenty. McCaffery and Mac Cormack, Robt
> Hogg, Victor Coleman, for examples. Erin Moure was there. And we
> embraced all these people as ourselves.
>
I seem to remeber several references to grilling and serving sundried
things in a couple poems, which are things I never hear or see in TOronto.
Victor himself who just moved west 18 months ago seemed pretty eager to
boast of seeing the light and moving west. At the same time there was a
sense of I've been ther, done that, lived the tough life in the east, but
I'm adjusting to things out here.
Aswell personally I don't mind Hole, it's good to listen to loud
and jump around to when I'm feeling pissy. But Courtney Love is an idiot.
I read in an interview with Trent Reznor( Nine Inch Nails) that when she
was opening for them she passed out on a pool table after a show. HEr
band mates proceeded to hike her dress up under her pits and snap shots of
her panties and bare ass. Now that is grunge.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:57:12 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Watts <cwatts@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: adios muchachos
In-Reply-To: <199506060632.XAA11181@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson"
at Jun 5, 95 11:29:16 pm
Lindz,
You forgot to mention (notice?) that in addition to Michael Ondaatje,
there were Bob Hogg (Ottawa), Steve McCaffery (Kingston/Toronto),
Karen Mac Cormack (ditto), Jed Rasula (ditto), and Victor Coleman
(Toronto if there ever
was one). And from east of Vancouver but still in the west: E.D.
Blodgett (Edmonton), Fred Wah (Calgary), Hilary Clark (Sakatoon).
Certainly not a huge showing of easterners, but certainly not an
attempt to freeze out easterners.
In fact: Brian Fawcett (previously
of Vancouver but now of Toronto) was asked (couldn't come); Lola
Tostevin (Toronto) was asked, thought she might, but ultimately
couldn't come; Nicole Brossard (Montreal) was asked; couldn't come. A
serious miss, someone I wanted to have but never quite got to: Chris
Dewdney (Toronto). It would have been wonderful to have Chris there,
as it would have been to have Nicole and Lola and Brian. Yes, it's
true, there was a much greater representation of the Canadian west
than of the east (what would you expect of a festival in honour of a
poet whose residence for the past thirty years has been in Vancouver,
whose closest friends are in Vancouver?) but "Toronto bashing?" Never
even a consideration. Remember that Coach House (Toronto) published
THE HOLY FOREST. More important issues than local rivalries were the
stuff of the conference. I can't imagine a non-issue more beside the
point, or more grotesquely misrepresenting the spirit of the
conference and festival--which included quite a few writers from
outside Canada.
Charles Watts>
> But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and
> we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference
> was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm
> not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some
> personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have
> loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My
> own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a
> few people who are on this poetics list as well.
>
> Charles,
>
> I wasn't replying to Ryan, rather Ryan was approached by Kevin
> Killian at the reading last night and I accompanied Ryan to the reading
> along with Reg ( new to the list). Kevin expressed an interest in
> receiving new Canadian poetry from Ryan and I and any others we knew
> because he had little except from established writers. The western
> reference is just part of the continuing war amongst East and West in
> Canada. We the west ( Granola Heads) enjoy poking at the Snobs with snow
> in the east. As far as I know Ondaatje was the only Eastern based writer
> at the reading last night.
> It's all part of the Canadian mentality, if you say you're driving
> across Canada it means you're either going east to Toronto or Montreal, or
> west to Vancouver. The prairies and the maritimes although great sources
> of Canadian culture are not included in the concept of the civilized
> world. They are a source of great insecurity and pride. My Mom's a
> maritimer (Newfie) which puts me at the but of several jokes. I'll leave
> you with one (note my Mom has seven brothers)
>
>
> How does a Newfie girl stay a virgin?
>
> Run faster than her brothers.
>
>
> Lindz
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 18:11:23 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: sentimentality
Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always
defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this
(w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them
saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend
thinks he's an artist."
reg
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 12:46:08 +1000
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
>Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always
>defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this
>(w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them
>saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend
>thinks he's an artist."
>reg
I thought Pete "bloody" Townshend was a poet!!! Seriously, I 'discovered'
poetry by reading the lyrics to rock songs as a teenager and I still think
'pop' music can be taken seriously. Of course there is pop music and pop
music - one might have trouble taking Abba seriously while it is far too
easy to take Nick Cave seriously! Could I ask the question can one take
'jazz' seriously. I mean some of those jazz players..........
Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 13:00:12 +1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc
>I had another meeting with someone from Cybermind today and we were
>talking about alternative rock music and both realized that strangely
>enough it's the one area that's remained impervious to academia. Even
>performance art/video have their place in the middle of the university,
>but it's hard to assimilate Hole and the like and that's part of what's
>incredible about the music, that it can be analyzed (to death) within
>institutional structures, but remains outside, even with recording
>contracts, etc. Just a look at CBGB's compared to St. Mark's down the
>street or a writing class. So there's a lot of nervous energy and some
>incredible stuff going on at what might still be considered the margins
>(Soul Coughing for example)...
>
>Alan
There have been some attempts that have almost succeeded. Back in the late
70's when I was an undergrad at Sydney Uni the Philosophy dept had split in
two with the traditional philosophers going one way and the marxists,
feminists, punks etc going the other. I remember some amazing aesthetics
discussion on punk culture/music . Some of the lecturers were in a band
called The Slugfuckers - great stuff.
Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 23:07:58 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
In-Reply-To: <199506080111.SAA21438@fraser.sfu.ca>
Depends on the musicians. Many of the ones I know would find it absurd
_not_ to be considered artists. The same as poets or any other group.
And who cares how Courtney behaves? Rimbaud was a model, Chatterton?
People are people...
Alan
On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, Reginald Johanson wrote:
> Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always
> defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this
> (w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them
> saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend
> thinks he's an artist."
> reg
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:02:42 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: sensitive
In-Reply-To: <199506080057.RAA23315@monashee.sfu.ca>
I only attended the sunday night reading, not the Saturday night
reading which had a by far more diverse and longer line up. I was merely
refering to murmurs I heard in passing through the crowd during the
intermissions. I might be hyper sensitive to Easterns because of recent
experiences on campus when young Torontonians folk west to get their BA,
take up snowboarding and excahnge snow for mild rainy winters. All I
ever hear is " This is such a town. . ." "We had/ got /did / this ages
ago in Toronto. . ." " Everyone is so laid back and happy here, what's
wrong with you people." and so forth. I was merely pleased that on
Sunday the west was being appreciated. Some of my favorite writers are
from the east, some of my most dear friends are in the east.
But what I've constantly been overwhelmed by lately is the
emerging regionality of Canada. In matters of economy, geography, and
social atmosphere I find relationships form from North to South. Seattle
has more incommon with Vancouver than Calgary, Winnipeg or Toronto. In
matters of writing I find the same trend follows. I can only write what
I know and feel and represent wher I have been. And from MY
interpretaion of the SUnday night reading western Canadian experinces
were largely the basis of the reading. Victor even presented a poem (
the title escapes me ) about how he had to adjust to living in Vancouver
(remember the alphabet poem).
Ondaatje spole beautifully of the unearthing of Buddhist statues,
now although he resides in eastern Cnada this is an out of Province,
country, continent, experience. He may not write about Canada, but I
belive Cnada does exsist if not influence his writing. Would coming
through slaughter be the same book if was written in the Queen Charlottes?
Or a better example is Runnign In the Family, the duality of experience
between Sri Lanka and Canada is totally evident in the writing.
My point is geography affects/ infects not only writing, but
audiences, and conferences, and readings.
LIndz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 00:30:37 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Byrum <JMBYRUM@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Hey George, listen to some Nirvana. Good stuff, some interesting lyrics
reminiscent of Lang Po approaches to composition; sung in gravelly voice and
"scream style", with suitably "bad" "I can't give a shit 'cause the world's
too fucked up (teen angst)" guitars & arrangements.
Nirvana was the best available in the current "alternative" entertainment
scene.
NOTE: This reply has:
Half of tongue in cheek, half drug along ground.
John Byrum
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 22:26:01 +0100
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995
Thank you Charles for reminding us all about Warren Sonbert.
>Warren Sonbert died on Wednesday, at home and surrounded by friends. He was
>47 years old.
He
>seemed to live a charmed life -- travelling the world, attending operas in
>Europe and North American, having his work shown at Festivals and museums.
>But charms are haunted.
>
Oh how I remember how I kept bugging Warren to "cast" me in one of his
films & him explaining patiently that his films weren't really "cast" in
that way-he said once that my shadow could appear in one-but that wasn't
enough for me . . . I remember how he was so generous & expansive & we
argued about George Cukor over and over. How when my 2nd play appeared he
wrote this thumbs-up review in the paper that thrilled all of us who were
in it, tho' I knew he only came in the 1st place to take in Carla
Harryman's skillful, wiggy impersonation of Dodie. Oh, when will this
terrible disease leave us all alone & go back to whatever hole it climbed
out of in space, but that will never happen unless we do more. God bless
him & thank you again, Charles.
-Kevin Killian
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 23:36:41 +0100
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Report on Blaser Conference
Maria Damon wrote:
>speaking of the blaser conference, cd someone --or several of you --so we can
>compile a composite profile --give us a report over the net for those of us who
>are interested but unable to attend? hi pts, lo pts, entertaining anecdotes,
>and overall vibe-picture? how's he doing anyway? descriptions, poems, riffs,
>meditations and reminiscences? thanks in advance! --maria d
My Report-Kevin Killian
Brief & sketchy. Okay, well the "hi pts" for me were as follows:
Dodie is right about Susan Howe & that she stole the show during this one
long reading with 22 poets. She stood on tiptoes and read & made everyone
else seem half baked-no-pallid. Well actually I enjoyed some other
readings quite a bit-incl. Deanna Ferguson, Dorothy Lusk Trujillo or
whatever her name is, and other Canadian poets new to me. Pierre Joris,
your camel poem sure pleased the crowd, or was it camels, or horses?
Steve McCaffery is a God. Susan Clark gave a very emotional, moving
reading, and Lisa Robertson is becoming the new updated Elizabeth Smart.
I had heard Karen MacCormack here in San Francisco before, but now she is
even better, understated, in control, dignified, a dynamo too.
Joanne Kyger read a piece about seeing Quan Yin-the Buddhist goddess-or
whatever-and Dodie interviewed her in the women's "washroom" asking her if
she really saw Quan Yin and JK said, "Yes, but you have to be on the right
substance."
Gosh, I seem to be praising all these women, well, that's me to a T. I
didn't even mention Anne Waldman yet, a show all to herself . . . And what
about that Rachel Blau Du Plessis! Rachel if you're listening to this,
"Drafts" 24 has opened up to a new theatricality & largeness of expression
and scope that's just marvelous.
Several have noted how Robin was in attendance during every event-for 4
days, from 9:30 a.m. till past midnight. Needless to say I didn't match
his record & there were several panels I skipped or missed. I don't have
his stamina-however maybe if it was all about me I would have attended it
all too. His reading which climaxed the whole affaire was outstanding, he
read "Exody," "Even on Sunday," the new poem "Nomad" and another poem
that's in progress, very much so.
Great starpower! Speaking of which, I have a new dream man, Canadian poet
& novelist Michael Ondaatje. We had heard that he was the sexiest writer
in Canada, which is not quite the case close up, but nevertheless he has
piercing blue eyes & this wonderful accent I could listen to for a week on
end. Dodie spotted him first but I wasn't far behind. After that, all he
had to do was open his mouth or eyes and we were transfixed, like two
American rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Duh. A
genius as far as I'm concerned. Dodie was quite jealous when she overheard
M.O. telling Catriona Strang that she was brilliant.
Okay, but Catriona was brilliant; the performance she gave with Francois
Houle, the avant-garde clarinetist, playing 2 clarinets at once at times,
while Catriona barked out syllables, words, gritty demanding sentences,
around the letters "R" and "B" made a sensation at the Festival Opening.
Charles Bernstein opened the "opening" with a very smart witty talk that
hit the right notes, including a rapidfire mention of all the groups Robin
has been associated with (Boston Gang, Vancouver poets, SF Renaissance, New
American poets, Berkeley Renaissance) then reminding us that he has been
all these things and more and none.
The organizers worked like dogs. I felt sorry for them but they did not
seem to be feeling sorry for themselves. Bravo to all! I saw most of
Charles Watts and Karen Tallman but everyone seemed totally together.
I did feel the strange disquieting presence of Warren Tallman, like a
ghost, haunting the whole conference and the whole city and I kept
wondering what he was making of all this hoopla.
One man called "Robert Hullot-Kentor" gave a fine, iconoclastic paper, very
Adorno-based, basically saying that there's no point to recovering the
public world, that today there's no public and in fact no world.
Next door to the Emily Carr School where the panels were held was a very
fine show called "In Search of Orpheus: Some Bay Area Poets & Painters
1945-65," curated by Scott Watson. Jess, Tom Field, Harry Jacobus, Blaser
himself, Lyn Brockway, a bright crayon drawing by Spicer, etc., etc, most
of the work from Blaser's own collection. Here the work of Fran Herndon
shone like a revelation. Here were the lithographs she did for Spicer's
book The Heads of the Town up to the Aether, and the larger sports-themed
collages you can see reproduced in Jim Herndon's book "Everything as
Expected." Fran Herndon was in Vancouver attending the conference in
person & received a tremendous ovation when picked out of the audience and
introduced. It's about time such a talented artist began receiving the
recognition due her. So to see it all happening before one's eyes was an
incredible lift. (Best news is, some of the work-including that shown at
the gallery- is for sale) (and not expensive either) (E mail me for more
details if you're interested)
Kristin Prevallet made a stir with her slide presentation, during the first
panel, "Companions," outlining the life & work of the late Helen Adam.
Prevallet's research into the Adam papers at the Lockwood Library showed us
all for the first time the extent and power of Adam's greatness as a poet &
writer. And artist too, for Prevallet was able to bring out of the
archives several-eight or nine?-of Helen Adam's unique collage-based works,
which were shown in the Scott Gallery as part of the Orpheus show-in fact
it's hard to figure how incomplete the show would have been without them.
For bibliophiles-the appearance of a dozen or so copies of Helen Adam's
rare White Rabbit book "The Queen o' Crow's Castle" (1958) ill. by Jess-on
the book table-for sale-and only $15.00 (Canadian) apiece-would have made
you swoon! Try and get one in San Francisco for less than $100.00
(American)-and these were white as snow, no trace of fading or foxing-MINT!
Well-they're all gone now for sure!
In fact the book table-book section-organized by Vancouver's Black Sheep
Books-was totally tempting & I must have spent, oh, God, I don't even want
to remember.
I had fun having lunch with Joanne Kyger, Dora FitzGerald, George Stanley
and Fran Herndon one sunny afternoon & then all of them sparking each other
to more and more remembrances of Spicer faster than I could take it all in
. . . and introducing them to Kristen so that they could tell her all
about Helen Adam . . . I had this eerie feeling of history right in my
hands.
There could have been another wonderful reading just culled from those who
were there in the audience, quite a swell crowd including Lee Ann Brown,
Elizabeth Willis, Erin Moure, Myung Mi Kim, Kevin Magee, Laynie Browne,
Matthew Stadler, Colin Smith, etc., etc.
I felt safe going up to Vancouver because, with the help of so many pals, I
had secured quite a number of "tributes" to Robin from those who could not
attend. With those in my attache case I felt like a king. Ellen Tallman &
I got to read them out loud at the dinner. Some of them were from people
on this Poetics List, and I will be writing to you privately, each of you,
to thank you at length, but for now let me close by thanking you all in
toto-Giorgio Agamben, Don Allen, Bruce Andrews, James Broughton, Cid
Corman, Robert Creeley, Samuel R. Delany, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Gluck,
Barbara Guest, Thom Gunn, Lyn Hejinian, Jess, Robert Kelly, Gerrit Lansing,
Denise Levertov, Jackson Mac Low, Bob Perelman, Avital Ronell, Claude
Royet-Journoud, Ron Silliman and I'm leaving 1 or 2 out. But thanks to you
all!
And then to come back home and realize that Warren Sonbert was dying just
when DB and I were getting onto the plane.
All right! That's enough from me. P.S., to Maria, Dodie is still going to
mail you her version of events, BlaserFest Back Channel. You too Rae.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 09:43:54 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: More on the Blaser Do
Further high points of the Blaser conference for me included Kevin
himself (too modest, I guess, to mention his own performance) with his
darkly humourous account of the inescapable brutalities of eros in the
Blaser/Duncan/Spicer circles, Peter Quartermain's marvelous discussion
of laughter generally and specifically in Robin's poems, George
Stanley's poetic response to the eros panel, Peter Middleton's
wonderful invocation of Winie the Pooh in his discussion of
performance, Steve Dickison's discussion of various musics (Feldman,
Nono, etc.) contemporary with Robin's writing employing parallel
compositional principles, and the conversation provoked by the last
panel between Don Byrd, Charlie Altieri, and Robin about questions of
agency, form, and structure. Even in sketching out this little
recollection, I'm leaving out so much that I enjoyed and was provoked
by. Kevin pretty well covered the poetry (and music) part of things,
although let me just mention here the readings by Norma Cole (remember
her "catastrophes"?) and Michelle Leggott. Not to mention Fred Wah and
George Bowering. Wow. I could just go on and on. I'm still buzzing.
Robert Hullot-Kentor's presentation on the impossibility of recovering
a public world when the world is determined by the Market was certainly
provocative and interesting, though I did feel we may have recovered a
little corner of it, or at least temporarily occupied it. (It was toward
the back of that big open market where a group of us had lunch.)
The fact that this moment was made possible by and pitched its tent in
the middle of Robin's poetics was itself a testament to the continuing
power of the image to move us to marvels. It may not have been the
Pyramids or Chartres Cathedral, but, man, we were, as they (used to)
say, groovin'.
Best,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 09:52:16 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: RFC822 error: <W> SUBJECT field duplicated. Last occurrence was
retained.
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Warren Sonbert
* * *
Independent filmmaker Warren Sonbert, 47, died May 31 at his home in San
Francisco, of complications from AIDS. His work is of particular interest
to poets, and not just because he counted many poets and writers,
especially in New York and San Francisco, among his friends.
Warren's career as a filmmaker began in the mid-60s while he was still at
NYU film school. Although based in San Francisco since the early 1970s, he
spent much time in New York and traveled frequently throughout North
America and Europe, making nearly 200 personal appearances at one-person
shows of his work. Passionate interest in film, opera, classical music,
other performing and visual arts, and travel is reflected in his films,
which document a life totally engaged in art and in the daily experience
that provides the artist's material.
The titles of his later films reveal a poet's concern with ironies and
valences of received phrase--Carriage Trade, Rude Awakening, Divided
Loyalties, Noblesse Oblige, A Woman's Touch, The Cup and the Lip, Honor and
Obey, Friendly Witness, Short Fuse--just as his earlier titles conjure up
the mid-60s New York underground where he came on the scene--Amphetamine,
Where Did Our Love Go?, Hall of Mirrors, Truth Serum, The Bad and the
Beautiful, Holiday--not to mention his lifelong fascination with Hollywood
and the narrative film.
Warren's own work is non-narrative, not following characters through a
foregrounded plotline but, rather, has been called collisional montage.
"Critics have tried to pin down Sonbert's cinema with catchy formulations .
. . . His works are not really diary films, since their carefully shaped
contours are determined more by aesthetic insight than daily experience,
and to compare them with 'explosions in a postcard factory' is to
acknowledge their boisterous variety while missing their ecstatic
precision," wrote Christian Science Monitor review David Sterritt.
Of his own work, Warren said, "I think the films I make are, hopefully, a
series of arguments, with each image, shot, a statement to be read and
digested in turn," ("Film Syntax," a transcript of a talk that is at once
an intensely close reading of several shot sequences and a primer on the
art of film, published in Hills, 1980, republished by So. Illinois
University Press in Hills/Talks, ed. Bob Perelman).
Asked about discontinuity by David Simpson in a mid-80s interview, Warren
said, "For me, one of the aspects of producing works, or art, let's say, is
that there's definitely an element of disturbance, or astounding--sort of
like some kind of conjuring trick. And one thing that's always attracted me
about film, as opposed to photography or painting, is the ability to do
that by removing an image and replacing it with another. And it's both an
aesthetic and moral, ethical choice to do that. . . . The works that most
astound and influence me are the ones that I can't, as you say, predict. .
. ." Anyone pondering the affinity between Warren and poets could start
right there.
Although film was his primary medium, Warren was just as serious and
meticulous about his writing. His music, opera, book, and film
reviews--sometimes written under the Scotty Ferguson byline (protagonist of
Hitchcock's Vertigo, perhaps Warren's favorite narrative film) appeared for
years in weekly gay publications in San Francisco. Not a musician himself,
he was intensely involved in the classical and operatic repertoire.
Warren made 18 films, widely exhibited at arts, educational, and cultural
institutions in the United States and Europe, as well as at the world's
major film festivals. He was honored by numerous retrospectives, by six
Cineprobes at the Museum of Modern Art and six Biennals at the Whitney
Museum of American Art. His films are in the collections of more than a
dozen prominent archives and universities. He also taught filmmaking at the
San Francisco Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
and Bard College, and gave graduate seminars at a dozen other institutions.
Warren is survived by his companion, Ascension Serrano, of San Francisco;
his father, Jack Sonbert, of San Diego; and two brothers. For over 15 years
he lived with graphic designer and art historian Ray Larsen, who died in
1992.
The San Francisco Cinematheque is presenting a tribute to Sonbert,
including an exhibition of three of his early films, 7:30 p.m., Thursday,
June 22 at the Media Screening Room, Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena
Gardens. Admission, $6.00.
A memorial is planned for July at the San Francisco Zen Center Green Gulch
Farm in Marin. Date to be announced.
The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film in New York City is hosting an
informal memorial gathering Wednesday evening, June 28, in the upstairs
screening room. Call Department of Film for details.
--Alan Bernheimer
abernhei@hooked.net
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:48:54 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: note: previous Sonbert post is by Alan Bernheimer
The previous message on Warren Sonbert is by Alan Bernheimer. The forwarded
header making that clear was automatically removed in transmission. Alan
asked me to pass on his obituary for Warren to our list.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:12:40 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference
>
> My Report-Kevin Killian
>
> Brief & sketchy. Okay, well the "hi pts" for me were as follows:
>
>
wowie zowie baby yr so fine --thanks for the exhaustive and jealousy-inducing
rundown, kevin. i've enjoyed george b's and pierre j's one-liners and lindz's
regional radar (i agree, lindz, that regionalism is a huge under-theorized area
--my big discovery when i took this job at MN and was utterly unprepared for the
profound culture shock that plunged me into a spectacular 2-year depression).
jeez, why'd i put papergrading before blaser? sorry robin. when's the next
blaserfest?--maria
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 16:29:57 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: hole
But in Hole's performances, the band is really tight and together, which
is a mark of a band, I mean it's not just the number of chords you
compose with, or how you arrange them, it's getting four musicians to
play as a synergy and in time, this is very *rare*, and also only partly
true of the two guys in Kurt Cobain's backing band. Tom, I say let the
elegies to Kurt flow; he was a better artist than you or I or 90% of
this list's members will ever be, musically anyway. And the arrangements
in Abba's songs were amazing; technically they were much more ambitious
and experimental with melody and harmony than many pop bands; do their
critics on this list mean that Abba were "bad" because they were kitsch
(though they still tug mine and many a queer person's heartstrings) or
silly Swedes or what; Elvis Costello has admitted to getting most of
his early musical ideas from Abba, the whole of Oliver's Army for
example; his lyrics may not seem sentimental (macho, misogynist, crap,
overblown, yes), and Abba's seem sentimental; but Abba are better.
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:49:48 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Watts <cwatts@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: sensitive
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950607203713.5260B-100000@interchg.ubc.ca> from
"Lindz Williamson" at Jun 7, 95 09:02:42 pm
Thanks, Lindz, for yr response to my somewhat heated riposte to the
remark that "Toronto bashing was in the air." I also think that place
is an important non-dismissible ground for writing, and I hear what
you say about the evident regionalism of thought in Canada. But the
poetics that formed the issues of concern in the Recovery of the
Public World conference have less to do with regionalism or with the
notion of place as represented in much criticism and writing of the
sixties, seventies, eighties than with resistance to a
monocultural hegemony which would override particulars and differences
of place, culture, sexual, social, ideological diversity; so that, in
this sense, your remarks on region are very welcome, since they do
speak of a particularity that living in the west or in Ontario or
wherever imparts to a writer's work caught, as it is, within a larger
issue of contending with that monocultural drive which would flatten
or uproot or nomadize the diversities.
Charles
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 18:02:55 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Who killed Laura Ranger?
The big news in New Zealand poetry recently has been Laura Ranger - a ten-year
old Wellingtonian whose first book, `Laura's Poems', was the best selling NZ
book for quite some time. Not just best-selling book of poetry, but beating
novels and non-fiction, and probably selling more than all other NZ poets put
together for several years.
Her work shows definite talent, and many of the poems are enjoyable in their
own right, but it says something about the audience for poetry when it takes
non-textual factors like age to make a poet a best-seller. Of course,
everyone's asking `Can she live up to our expectations, or will the media hype
kill her talent?' - many other `child prodigies' have been stifled by this sort
of pressure.
Partly in response to this, also mulling over in my head Eco's `Interpretation
and Overinterpretation' re Rorty's idea of `using' a text (is there a line
between use and abuse?), also discovering how close the vocabulary of the
senses is to erotic language (or perhaps that sexuality is essentially
innocent?), and getting in a few playful digs at PoMo tropes - here are three
found poems in possibly dubious taste. The numbers in the left margin are page
references to the original lines in `Laura's Poems'.
The Postmodern Laura
43 i sat on th ledge &
25 blue irises
28 appear
36 in th heart
42 they crawl on yr eyes
39 the wind
57 is begging to get thru
41 the wind is writing
55 but i cannot tell
20 i can't tell where it is
56 or how to speak th language
55 i have a secret word
43 it was knowledge
Laura and Sappho
18 She's got extremely long legs,
34 worn out stockings,
42 with huge green eyes.
35 she arrives home sighing,
19 as soft as a cat.
23 In my room
23 I play with Eloise.
40 Her hair curls,
39 the clouds curl and turn,
40 she reaches out to touch me.
45 I go mining for gold.
Who killed Laura Ranger?
12 My skin is as smooth
37 as a burnt piece of coal.
57 The crescent moon
24 is as white as a hospital room.
15 He knows I am writing a poem now,
61 his ears soar up and down.
54 Outside, everywhere,
45 the dollars flutter to the ground.
60 This is a smelly verse --
57 it gets dark,
48 the colour is lost.
39 I grow as cold as stone.
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:52:55 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: palinode on a nightingale
Ed et al
So what will happen if we talk about beauty? Hasn't there been a shift in
what poets consider necessary for a poem, away from beauty and towards heat
death? Might be nicer to talk about subject/verb agreement. What do people
wish would happen on this list?
Speculating,
Pinky
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:36:31 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: More on the Blaser Do
In message <199506081343.JAA06727@blues.epas.utoronto.ca> UB Poetics discussion
group writes:
> Further high points of the Blaser conference for me included Kevin
> himself (too modest, I guess, to mention his own performance) with his
> darkly humourous account of the inescapable brutalities of eros in the
> Blaser/Duncan/Spicer circles, Peter Quartermain's marvelous discussion
> of laughter generally and specifically in Robin's poems, George
> Stanley's poetic response to the eros panel, Peter Middleton's
> wonderful invocation of Winie the Pooh in his discussion of
> performance, Steve Dickison's discussion of various musics (Feldman,
> Nono, etc.) contemporary with Robin's writing employing parallel
> compositional principles, and the conversation provoked by the last
> panel between Don Byrd, Charlie Altieri, and Robin about questions of
> agency, form, and structure. Even in sketching out this little
> recollection, I'm leaving out so much that I enjoyed and was provoked
> by. Kevin pretty well covered the poetry (and music) part of things,
> although let me just mention here the readings by Norma Cole (remember
> her "catastrophes"?) and Michelle Leggott. Not to mention Fred Wah and
> George Bowering. Wow. I could just go on and on. I'm still buzzing.
>
> Robert Hullot-Kentor's presentation on the impossibility of recovering
> a public world when the world is determined by the Market was certainly
> provocative and interesting, though I did feel we may have recovered a
> little corner of it, or at least temporarily occupied it. (It was toward
> the back of that big open market where a group of us had lunch.)
> The fact that this moment was made possible by and pitched its tent in
> the middle of Robin's poetics was itself a testament to the continuing
> power of the image to move us to marvels. It may not have been the
> Pyramids or Chartres Cathedral, but, man, we were, as they (used to)
> say, groovin'.
>
> Best,
> Mike
> mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
thanks to you too, mike, i'm getting a contact high just from reading all these
groovy names and lists and topics and vibes. --md
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:49:48 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
>Hey people,
>
>I'm putting together a reading series for the fall and winter of next year,
>for Small Press Traffic. It is to be an experimental series with a heavy
>multi-cultural emphasis--and it is to highlight 5 small presses (one press
>per evening, two readers published by that press), to promote those
>presses. Included in the project will be a newsletter with work by the
>readers, as well as reviews of various books by the presses. There is some
>money for this, but I'm not sure exactly how much. All the readers will be
>paid. I may do more than 5 evenings.
>
>So, anybody interested in this? Anybody published by a small press
>planning to be in the Bay Area in the fall or winter? I'd like to put a
>tentative list together by the end of this month.
>
>Thanks,
>Dodie Bellamy
>
>And, Maria D.--other than the fact that Susan Howe's reading was
>mouth-gapingly incredible, anything else interesting I'd have to say about
>Blaserfest would be strictly backchannel, i.e., Gossipfest. <grin>
Hi Dodie, you mean this year or next year? I'm serious. You talking '96
here or ? Cause whether it would interest you or not - and you nothing
about my stuff I'm going to be over in fall '96 at conference in New
Hampshire and plan doing events with Allen Fisher and Miles Champion and
Sianed Jones under the Sound & Language curtain.
love and love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:50:01 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: tendermentality
It's hard to believe - coming back here to talk of beards and pipes and
whether drains are slacks or who's drugs were those notes. If PJ Monk or
Sun Fitgerald discipline our hearts the most. Which art is higher or where
lower orders work two chords who cares.
Thanks to Alan Sondheim and Bob Drake for touching ground.
Thanks also for the tender posts on Warren - moved
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 18:01:35 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rae Armantrout <RaeA100900@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
Dear Dodie,
Fanny and I were talking about trying to get a reading in the Bay Area.
Well, actually, Fanny wanted to read at Cal and I 've been trying to
investigate that remote possibility, but it's just too daunting. Maybe we
could read in your series. We've both been published by Sun And Moon - though
in her case it was fiction not poetry. I might try to scam some sort of
reading in Vancouver too. I've never been there (and I'm still awaiting the
real conference gossip).
Rae
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:53:30 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Watts <cwatts@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference
In-Reply-To: <v01510101abfbca4d2a41@[140.174.229.197]> from "Kevin Killian" at
Jun 7, 95 11:36:41 pm
Thank you, Kevin (I still feel a bit as if I'm onstage making another
announcement, but this one is heart felt) for this report, for your
superb perceptions of events at the conference & readings. I had
thought to add, as I was reading, that you had made a great
contribution by seeking out so many letters and kudos from friends of
Robin's, and now you've made even that easier by remembering them
yourself. But you neglected to mention the enormous gifts you gave the
conference in the form of your own reading, among the most moving I
heard, and your brilliant paper on the enmitous wars of the Spicerites and
Duncanians, with Robin the triage man getting hit more often than not
himself (everything Kevin said is true, Robin told me). My absolute
gratitude to you, you wonderful, generous man, you maker. (I mentioned
to Daphne Marlatt, that at one point I'd thought to subtitle the
conference "A conference of the birds," as in the medieval Arab and
European tales of which Chaucer's "Parlement of Foules" is a late
example. Your paper gave that early thought, considered and then
dropped, new meaning!
Love,
Charles
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:24:46 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Poetics Backfiles
Poetics list backfiles have been updated in the EPC for the months of
April and May, 1995. The search feature will be updated momentarily.
Best wishes,
Loss
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:56:20 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: EPC Indexes - wow
Just finished generating the index for the entire EPC (Poetics Archive
index also done) and how's this the _dictionary_ for the EPC contains
over 1 million words (1,090,000 plus). Our collective vocabulary
exceeds the average desk dictionary by FIVE times. Interesting, no?
(Please bear with me, I'm spending my evening generating EPC indexes
so maybe I'm in a haze here but if you throw out those scientific
terms in most dictionaries, we have really collectively used a lot of
unique words!)
Well, not meant for response really but just interesting, with
my hands deep into the gears of the machine, how much has been
generated!
Loss
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 20:24:09 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
Jorday Davis writes,
"So what will happen if we talk about beauty? Hasn't there been a shift in
what poets consider necessary for a poem, away from beauty and towards heat
death? Might be nicer to talk about subject/verb agreement. What do people
wish would happen on this list?"
What is "heat death?"
Ah, beauty . . .
Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind.
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:36:37 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Diane Marie Ward <dward@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Music, culture & Sondheim
Irony, Coincidence, or Psychic Powers?
As I sauntered over to my computer with blackberry tea in hand, I
thought it might be wise to put in a cassette tape to listen to as I catch
up on 4 days worth of email. I had 2 requirements: 1.) the music must
provide a stress release & 2.) have an enigmatic quality - I did not want
to be force-fed emotions or (God forbid) sentimental moanings from
mainstream radio. My right hand reached for Beethoven's Heroica, but my
left grabbed Hole's cassette. It was amusing that as I began to read Alan
Sondheim's defense of Hole, she began to below through my speakers "I'm
Miss World..." (Definitely a scene suitable for a Dickens novel!) If I
may note, last week Martha Stewart was the Goddess of the Week and now
Courtney Love is : the ultimate gulf between these 2 women is undeniable,
but the fact that both are of interest to poets rests in the fact (I
believe, and please pardon me if this has been written prior) that each
represents an extreme in contemporary culture, and the EXTREME is a
function of the REAL.
If I may offer 2 quotes in support of Sondheim from D.H. Lawrence's Studies
in Classic American Literature:
"You can idealize or intellectualize. Or, on the contrary, you can let
the dark soul in you see for itself. An artist usually intellectualizes
on top, and his dark under-consciousness goes on contradicting him beneath."
"Everything has its hour of ridicule - everything."
---------------------------------------------------
--possessor of many Martha Stewart gardening books & cooking videos
Diane Marie Ursula Ward
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 15:02:19 GMT+1300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Wystan Curnow <w.curnow@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland
Subject: Re: Who killed Laura Ranger?
Comments: To: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Dear Tom,
Shouldn't we tell them the real NEWS flash, that Michele
Leggott arrived home from Vancouver and the Blaser fest where she read from
DIA yesterday to learn on the TV news that night that that collection had
won her the National Book Award for Poetry? Michele, as well as Bob Creeley
and myself, gave presentations at the STASIS Conference in Auckland this
morning, and it seemed her feet were still some distance from the ground.
Wystan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 20:08:48 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: discipline
Reginald Johanson posts:
>On June 6, George Bowering said that the open mike scene was usually
>dissapointing. And I would say yes it is--but disappointing to whom,
>and why? Disappointing very often to me, but is that strictly a
>matter of bruised ego that then gets intellectualized into a
>statement like "they wouldn't know a good poem if one slapped them in
>the face"? I think there may be something of this in my
>disappointment. And, as someone else has mentioned here (sorry name
>escapes me) the young poet whose stuff is rejected by the lit.
>establishment university people says the same thing and goes to the
>open mike night where they *really* appreciate *real* poetry etc. So
>maybe, if myself and others are on the margins between these two (and
>other) traditions that's actually a rather dynamic place to be,
>drawing (hopefully) on the best of all of it.
I get frustrated with the open mic poetry scene in S.F.--it's
anti-intellectual, anti-"craft", and generally run like a rock-n-roll scene;
there are "stars" whose big egos are indulged, which discourages them from
veering outside of certain narrow conceptualizations of "life". It's poetry
as psychotherapy--and yet there *is* that energy and enthusiasm. If it can
only be connected to the deeper places in the soul--and it can and
occasionally is...
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 19:21:31 -0600
Reply-To: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: peter quartermain <quarterm@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Summer break and a book
Let this lurker violate (!) his lurkerdom and announce
that I'm off to England (to work, of course!), return 15 July,
leaving the list for the duration. I'll catch up on my delinquent
mail back channel before I leave.
and add this, first: on 11 May Charles Bernstein said "some
people on this list . . . have books out in the past few years
but never announced them." Let me mention Richard Caddel's editing
of _SHARP STUDY AND LONG TOIL: BASIL BUNTING SPECIAL ISSUE_ of the
Durham University Journal, March 1 1995, available for ten pounds
from Basil Bunting Poetry Centre, Durham Univesity Library, Palace
Green, Durham DH1 3RN -- add about a pound for postage. This really
good collection includes work by Basil Bunting, Carl Rakosi, Eric
Mottram, Tony Lopez, Roy Fisher, Catherine Walsh, Susan Howe, Robert
Creeley, George Evans; and prose by Donald Wesling, Peter Quartermain,
John Seed, Harry Gilonis, Joseph Vicary, Peter Robinson, Rebecca
Smalley, Mary de Rachewiltz, Dennis Goacher, Stephen Rodefer and
Charles Tomlinson, plus some good book reviews by such as Wendy Mulford,
Tony Baker, Ken Edwards, and others. Well worth the small money (about
$21.00 or so USA).
Back in five weeks!
__________________________________________________________________________
Peter Quartermain
128 East 23rd Avenue voice and fax (604) 876 8061
Vancouver
B.C. e-mail: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca
Canada V5V 1X2
__________________________________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:42:18 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: poetry 'n roll
Hi all--
Of course, 90% of the people making rock 'n' roll are simply doing it for
the ego boost, just like 90% of the people writing poetry probably are. But
there are some (like Cobain, Love, some of the open-mic crowd, and of course
most of you folks!) who really are tapping a source way deeper than the lack
of whatever-it-is-we-usually-look-for-in-art would lead us to believe. KC's
*articulation* of self-hatred, insecurity, etc. is actually profoundly
moving in much the same way, to me, that Monk's dislocations of rhythm and
melody are. To say this is not to idolize self-destruction--hell, I wish
he'd had a way of stepping out of that space that he mapped so well for
us--only to acknowledge how intense an experience he was able to
communicate. The first influences on my poetry also were musical: Lennon,
Morrison, Dylan, etc. Following is one of a series of poems I've been
working on that take the lyrics to a pop song and reconfigure them, creating
a response-poem out of a popsong vocabulary (which of course deals with
music and musicality in a completely different way, but the fact that the
music *moves* the words is central to both, I think...)
Hey, Your Highness' Complaint
for Kurt Cobain
A new angel's debt to breath drawn down into pisces:
Hey, you orchids left me no advice box inside forever yet;
I just throw back your priceless complaint, I got one broken wait
shaped in black magnet, wish shaped of heart-like pit.
A locked hymen (your new I) could cut forever umbilical meat.
Baby's been in your trap, a she-box to turn your weeks to noose.
When black for priceless tar--hey, can I eat right advice forever?
I've been new, myself, so weak in complaint I'm eating your debt.
I've got your eyes' wait on when I cancer your advice,
am hair and heart, I've got priceless debt, I've a climb,
wait...forgive...
Steve
p.s. right on Ira Lightman!
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:42:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: a=a is what does bad poetry do
Jordan Davis asks:
>Question for the group--what harm does bad poetry do?
>
>Love,
>Jordan
None--that's why it's bad. Now that's a kind of flip, overly reductive way
of saying what I really want to say, which is, first of all, that there
really isn't any "bad" poetry except as a subjective category--there's only
stuff that doesn't work for me *as poetry*. As to harm, I've been thinking
a lot lately about the notion that it's fear of death that keeps us from
really living, and therefore to decide to live is to accept (and hence risk)
harm and death; similarly, to decide to attempt to think outside the models
provided and encouraged by the culture is to risk harm to one's sanity. I
find that poetry which works for me often risks these kinds of harm; poetry
which doesn't, doesn't.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:14:10 -0700
Reply-To: Eric Michael Vacin <emvacin@cats.ucsc.edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Eric Michael Vacin <emvacin@CATS.UCSC.EDU>
Subject: reading in Santa Cruz
If anyone is going to be in Santa Cruz tomorrow (June 9) Robert Gluck
and Earl Jackson will be reading at the Casa Nova Cafe on Pacific at 6 p.m.
The reading will celebrate the first issue of Red Wheelbarrow, a student
run publication at UC Santa Cruz.
E.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 00:21:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: EPC Indexes - wow
In-Reply-To: <199506090156.VAA14402@orichalc.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss
Glazier" at Jun 8, 95 09:56:20 pm
Re the vocabulary of the EPC index, per Loss Glazier's comment -- the
average high school graduate has a vocabulary of only about 10,000 words
-- we aim only to get them up to about 40,000 by the time they graduate
college. Average computer vocabulary much higher. Shakespeare the
writer, of course, who used the largest percentage of the 2-1/2 million
words in English....
EPC is doing well! Sandra Braman
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:41:50 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marjorie Perloff <perloff@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 7 Jun 1995 to 8 Jun 1995
In-Reply-To: <199506090401.VAA25387@leland.Stanford.EDU>
We all owe Kevin an enormous debt for his wonderful account of the
conference.!! Mike too.
Well, those of us who couldn't come are green with envy! It's wonderful
to know such festivals still occur!
Kevin: I hope you'll write it up and send to a "public" place. The
Chronicle of Higher Education?? The NY Times? The Village Voice? The
word needs to get out!
Thanks!
Marjorie Perloff
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 09:43:34 GMT0BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Peter Larkin <LYAAZ@LIBRIS.LIB.WARWICK.AC.UK>
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK LIBRARY
Subject: New Publication
Prest Roots Press has recently published a new title by Drew Milne
(editor of the poetry magazine "Parataxis"). The collection called
"Carte Blanche" is printed letterpress (Dante Monotype),
thread-sewn with printed card covers, 22pp. ISBN 1 871237 14 9. It can
be ordered from Paul Green, Spectacular Diseases, 83B London Road,
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire PE2 9BS UK at $14 plus postage. Here is
a sample from p.19:
Wild rose nor old man's
beard, rambling on, nor
may, blackthorn blossom
to quickset hedge, clipped
so low in bonds of peat,
well moulding, for you
to cease to be, o worms
for her proud to tread on.
Take a chopin of soup,
a scone a day, whiles
fasting, whiles getting
meat, at a squeeze, so
to drops, so democrat
bloody, factions cut to
your every throat, but
here you are no relief.
("a chopin of soup" ((not langpo whimsy)) = a Scots half-pint)
Peter Larkin
Philosophy & Literature Librarian
University of Warwick Library,
Coventry CV4 7AL UK
Tel:01203 524475
Fax:01203 524211
Email: Lyaaz@Libris.Lib.Warwick.ac.uk
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 07:16:50 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference
>Thank you, Kevin (I still feel a bit as if I'm onstage making another
>announcement, but this one is heart felt) for this report, for your
>superb perceptions of events at the conference & readings. I had
>thought to add, as I was reading, that you had made a great
>contribution by seeking out so many letters and kudos from friends of
>Robin's, and now you've made even that easier by remembering them
>yourself. But you neglected to mention the enormous gifts you gave the
>conference in the form of your own reading, among the most moving I
>heard, and your brilliant paper on the enmitous wars of the Spicerites and
>Duncanians..
worth mentioning, fr those of us who missed both, kevin's interview w/
david bromige which appeared in Arshile #3 (PO Box 3749, Los Angeles
CA 90078; $10.50), which is subtitled "war in heaven: jack spicer vs.
robert duncan 1962-64."
lbd
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 08:00:58 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
In-Reply-To: <950608155255_66358547@aol.com> from "Jordan Davis." at Jun 8,
95 03:52:55 pm
Who says heat death can't be beautiful?
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 08:39:31 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 7 Jun 1995 to 8 Jun 1995
>
> Well, those of us who couldn't come are green with envy! It's wonderful
> to know such festivals still occur!
>
> Kevin: I hope you'll write it up and send to a "public" place. The
> Chronicle of Higher Education?? The NY Times? The Village Voice? The
> word needs to get out!
>
> Thanks!
> Marjorie Perloff
i agree. plus, kevin, what a great epilogue some of this might make for your bio
of spicer. anyone else with rich descriptions? this ongoing encomium is great!
esp for creating literary history via legend --one such legend is being
constructed right now --and i don't mean that cynically but with excitement
--the Blaserfest as historical marker of convergence of canada/us, language
poetry/spicer-kreis, gay aesthetics/mainstream avant-garde, etc. md.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 09:44:56 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Pangborn <V072GDXG@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
Charles Alexander asks
>What is "heat death?"
It's what's supposed to happen to our universe at the end of
time: total entropy, all energy differences evened-out, nothing left to
happen. An interesting conjecture, often (mis)taken for an inevitability
by science buffs. It stands thus, also, for a postmodernist tendency
to abandon hope of progress, to theorize exhaustion, etc. An ultimate
pessimism: maybe an excuse, for some, for cynicism. The whimper at the
other end of things from the big bang.
As for
>Ah, beauty . . .
>
> Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind.
>
let's go, hey wait, I'll grab my camera. But doesn't that beast hide in
a most arduous terrain? I hear it immediately decomposes when you shoot it.
--JimP
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 11:17:04 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
Jordan,
What do you mean by "heat death"? Is it a form of desire?
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 12:20:09 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger)
Hi
I'd like publication/ordering info for "Laura's Poems."
Readers of this list may know the book "Poems of a Little Girl" by Hilda
Conklin (or Conkling--book's elsewhere). It was a best seller here earlier in
the century. Conklin's poems were collected by her mother (an english
professor at Smith, I think) and published by a major house (Macmillan, I
think) around the time she was ten. She has a clear, startled and excited
style, especially in the poems her mother transcribed when she was five.
Also worth examining are David Shapiro's poems in _January_ and _Poems from
Deal_, written and published mainly before the author's twentieth birthday.
For that matter, David's son Daniel's poem "The Boss Poem" in _After a Lost
Original_ bears reading and re-reading.
Love,
Jordan
P.S. What do you wish would happen here?
(Shout out to Jim Pangborn for clarifying "heat death")
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 12:27:16 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
oh, jordan, get off it. where, as rilke spent his life saying, does beauty begin?
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 11:31:43 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: desire
isn't everything desire..... SBraman
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 13:07:44 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
This message by ED FOSTER had no message attached to it---
This has been happening alot lately---
I wonder why....
Now that i got your attention
I should probably tell you
that I've been getting alot of things in the mail lately--
So--here's a plug--
AVEC and WITZ---theough there's been a "divorce" between these
two venues, there's much interesting--Steven Farmer, Joe Ross--
etc...
Then there's PHOEBE--edited by Jean Donnelley (who appears in new
Sulfur too) which has incredible pieces by Jennifer Moxley, Heather Fuller
and Leslie Scalapino and others....
Then there's Jennifer Moxley's own THE IMPERCIPIENT--which has
work by Joe Ross again (much more up my alley than AN AMERICAN VOYAGE)
and Kevin Davies and others--seems like there's a new "political
lyric" kinda of voice...
I also got the Barret Watten (Free Barry not JAWS!) of AERIAL/EDGE--
and it featurs some interesting writing as well. Alan Davies provides
an interesting perspective which makes the book less of a mutual
admiration society roast than it might otherwise be--the collaboration
poem between Barret and Carla Harryman is interesting. Silliman is
thoughtful...Scalapino again....I have not read the whole thing yet.
I also got COMPOUND EYE today---
In any event--
it's so much more exciting than hearing Duncan ramble on and on about
"CHarles Olson, he was a Big Man--A real big man"--Ho hum so was
davey crocket--in the NEw SULFUR--I say this not out of animosity
towards Duncan but to once again bring up the idea of "career trajectory"
and how this plays into the quality of the work---Dear Clayton, etc.,
not everything Duncan did was tinged with the gold of the prophets or
whatever----
So---FOR THOSE WHO DIDN'T GET TO GO TO VANCOUVER--
let's have our own little Duncan-Spicer battle--
I'll side with Spicer 9it will be like baseball...I usually
got picked last and once when i was a third baseman I got bored
and when the bat hit the ball I ran home---I don't think I've
played baseball since I'm 6--though that song "Boys Of Summer"
is "nice")----Chris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:23:35 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Blaserfest Back Channel
Here's one tidbit I left out of my backchannel report on BlaserFest that I
thought I would share with all you front-channel guys.
I talked with a couple of poets who said friends of theirs were giving out
conference fashion awards. One of them said that his group decided that
the best dressed were going to get Blaser Awards, and the worst dressed
were going to get Spicer Awards. I was then, of course, quickly
complimented on my conference wardrobe......but I was a bit dubious.
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 13:23:24 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: poetry 'n roll
Oh--I forget to mention--in my list of recent magazines read and rec'd
that there's also the "dreaded" APEX OF THE M #3--just out--It has
great poems by Virginia Hooper and Kristen prevallet--There's also
an article on Blake by Penquin Poet Liz Willis an article for those
interested in the size of Christopher Columbus's "LOG" and yet
another installment in CHRIST ENTERS MANHATTEN or is it CHRIST
NOW FINDS HIMSELF SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE--I always forget....chris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:29:35 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
Sorry, Cris, but it's fall of '95 and winter of '96.
xox,
Dodie
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:41:39 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: SPT reading series
Rae,
I have to book many multi-cultural writers to fulfill the grant
application, at least one per reading. I think I could book either you or
Fanny, but I'd have to pair you with a multi-cultural writer published by
Sun And Moon. Any ideas. Fiction is totally fine.
xox,
Dodie
p.s. I feel guilty about the things I said to you about the "crazy" poet
I've been writing to. It turns out, of course, that we've become very
close and he's as normal and I am at least, and that both of us were having
a lot of misunderstandings due to the extravagances of our written
exchanges. I don't like to be spreading rumors about people I care about,
especially when they're based on misunderstanding. I was very frustrated
when I wrote about him to you, and should have kept my tongue/fingers
still.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 16:04:58 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rae Armantrout <RaeA100900@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
Dear Listees,
Apparently the message I intended to send to Dodie went into the List.
Sorry. Technology is not my friend.
Rae A
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 16:10:57 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Blaserfest Back Channel
In-Reply-To: <v01510101abfdc22ef4f2@[140.174.229.214]> from "Kevin Killian" at
Jun 9, 95 10:23:35 am
The best whiff of nostalgia I heard was from George.
Driving to Simon Fraser after the conference finale,he said to
me there were moments during readings and panels that he listened
for Spicer's grunt or guffaw and consequent stomp to the nearest
pub. Or something in that ballpark.
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 18:40:09 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: mea culpa listserv
My message to Rae Armantrout was supposed to be personal and not to the
whole listserv. Ooops! Oh my God! I *know* this social embarassment is
my karma for Blaserfest Back Channel. Oh Gods of Propriety and Good Taste
please forgive me for all my sins past and present.
Blushing,
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 20:52:23 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: EMF Info (fwd)
& here's a bit more info about EMF. They will also be happy to have
input & queries (many on this list are well versed in word/music
matters & should, if they feel so, make suggestions for the eMUSIC
catalogue)
Pierre
Forwarded message:
> From EMusF@aol.com Fri Jun 9 19:38:13 1995
> From: EMusF@aol.com
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 19:34:49 -0400
> Message-Id: <950609193448_67660039@aol.com>
> To: Emfnet@aol.com
> Subject: EMF Info
>
> Dear Colleague, Friend, Listener,
>
> We'd like you to know about Electronic Music Foundation. That's why we've
> sent you an introductory eMUSIC catalog. If you've received duplicate
> mailings, we apologize. We do not want to clutter the wires. Consequently,
> to remain on our mailing list after you've read this letter, please do
> something: buy a disc, become a Charter Subscriber, or say something simple
> like "Please keep me on your list."
>
> Here is some basic information.
>
> EMF was founded in September 1994 as a not-for-profit organization in New
> York State, USA. EMF's trustees are Joel Chadabe, Paul Lansky, and Neil
> Rolnick. Its mission is to disseminate important information and materials
> related to the history and current development of electronic music. As EMF's
> president Joel Chadabe put it, "The development of electronic musical
> instruments through the twentieth century is a fascinating and wonderful
> history that should be documented for now and for the future. Yet the most
> important work of the pioneering composers, engineers, and
> entrepreneurs-including recordings, photographs, and other important
> documents-is often difficult to find."
>
> Our next projects are an electronic music photo archive and an information
> dissemination center.We've begun the process of creating an archive of
> photographs dealing with the history of electronic music. The archive will
> be made available to scholars and the general public in various formats,
> including photographic prints, photo-CDs, and books.
>
> Our information center will publish a newsletter highlighting the
> availability of historically important materials-and informing subscribers as
> to the location and availability of composers' archives, museums and
> collections of historical electronic instruments, and other historical
> materials and electronic music projects around the world.
>
> Through its information center, EMF also plans to sell books and other items,
> organize conferences and concerts, produce historically important compact
> discs and other materials, and provide archival services such as posthumous
> cataloging, evaluation, placement, storage, and/or dissemination of a
> composer's works.
>
> Our international group of Advisors and Charter Subscribers currently
> includes Jon Appleton, Larry Austin, Marc Battier, Gerald Bennett, John
> Bischoff, Jack Body, Jurg Brennwalder, Herbert Brun, Thomas Buckner, Warren
> Burt, Joseph Celli, Chris Chafe, Jacques Chareyron, Hugh Davies, Christopher
> Dobrian, John Duesenberry, John Eaton, Simon Emmerson, Emmanuel Ghent, Robert
> Gluck, Jonathan Harvey, Folkmar Hein, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Francisco
> Kropfl, Paul Lansky, Otto Laske, George Lewis, George Logemann, Peter
> Manning, Max Mathews, Barton & Priscilla McLean, Eduardo Miranda, Gordon
> Monro, Stephen Montague, Dexter Morrill, Larry Moss, Randy Neal, Phill
> Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Marc Paping, Godfried-Willem Raes, Michel Redolfi,
> Juan I Reyes, Tom Rhea, Alistair Riddell, Jean-Claude Risset, Curtis Roads,
> Neil Rolnick, Carla Scaletti, Wayne Siegel, Bruno Spoerri, Carl Stone, Mark
> Sullivan, Richard Teitelbaum, Diane Thome and Robert Austin, Robert Scott
> Thompson, James Tobias, Kazuo Uehara, Alvise Vidolin, Felix Visser, David
> Williams, Jan Williams, Patte Wood, David Worrall, Scott Wyatt, Iannis
> Xenakis, and David Zicarelli.
>
> We invite you to join us as a Charter Subscriber-to the eMUSIC Inner Circle,
> to our newsletter, indeed to all of our activities-by making a one-time
> tax-deductible contribution to EMF. We suggest $100. We do accept credit
> cards-Mastercard/Visa. If you can't contribute the full amount now, a pledge
> or partial payment will signify your interest.
>
> We'll be grateful for your support. And we'll return it to you manyfold in
> the form of discounts, free discs, or other services. If you're a
> professional, look upon a Charter Subscription as a professional
> subscription. If you're a listener, look upon it as making available a world
> of interesting materials.
>
> Please be in touch with us by phone, fax, letter, or electronic mail. Our
> email address is EMusF@aol.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
>
>
> Julie Panke
> Executive Director
>
> ================================================
> Electronic Music Foundation
> 116 North Lake Avenue
> Albany NY 12206
> USA
> Tel: (518) 434-4110
> Fax: (518) 434-0308
> Email: EMusF@aol.com
>
> ####
>
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 20:48:51 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Intro to eMUSIC (fwd)
Thought the annoucement & catalogue below would be of interest to the
inhabitants of this n-space. It truly is a good & useful setup. Enjoy.
Pierre
Forwarded message:
> From EMusF@aol.com Fri Jun 9 19:37:57 1995
> From: EMusF@aol.com
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 19:37:26 -0400
> Message-Id: <950609193725_67659896@aol.com>
> To: Emfnet@aol.com
> Subject: Intro to eMUSIC
>
> WELCOME TO eMUSIC!
> =============================== APRIL-MAY 1995
>
> eMUSIC is a new worldwide service that -- for the first time -- gives you
> easy, direct-mail access to any and all compact discs of experimental,
> exceptional, and/or electronic music. Wherever you live, eMUSIC brings you
> CDs that may be hard to find, discs published by small companies or
> independent composers, even recordings you may not have known existed.
>
> If you're a composer, compact discs of your works will be available through
> eMUSIC. If you're a listener, eMUSIC gives you immediate access to some of
> the world's most interesting music. If you're both -- well, better yet!
>
> How does it work? Every month or so we'll send you a brief catalog of
> selected discs available through eMUSIC. You'll find electronic music
> history, unusual sounds, new ways of combining words and music, new
> approaches to improvisation, computer music, interactive music, portraits of
> composers, 20th-century virtuosi...and more! Our goal is to make available
> every disc of experimental, exceptional, and electronic music -- in short,
> eMUSIC.
>
> In this introductory catalog, we're setting the tone (so to speak). You'll
> find compact discs from the United States, Canada, France, Australia,
> Germany, and Switzerland. You'll find two unusual packages representing the
> two first European studios of the 1950s: a definitive collection of Pierre
> Schaeffer's work in musique concrete and a collection of Stockhausen's early
> work in Cologne. And you'll find a special offer.
>
> But if you don't find what you're looking for, just ask for it. For
> information on how to order CDs, read the "How to Order" section that follows
> the listing of discs. We suggest you also read the section called "Join the
> Inner Circle."
>
> =============================== THE DISCS
> PIONEERS: and a special!
> Take 'The Art of the Theremin' free
> with a Charter Subscription!
> ===============================
>
> THE ART OF THE THEREMIN
> First demonstrated in 1920, the Theremin is played by moving one's hands in
> the air. Clara Rockmore is its first virtuoso, accompanied here by Nadia
> Reisenberg, pianist. The package includes an informative booklet. It's all
> beautiful magic.
> => eMUSIC #DE-100 ($15, or free this month with Charter Subscription)
>
> PIERRE SCHAEFFER: MUSICAL WORKS
> The definitive collection, including 'Etude aux Chemins de Fer' ('Railroad
> Study', 1948), the first piece of musique concrete, and 'Symphonie pour un
> Homme Seul' (1950, 'Symphony for One Man Alone'). Four discs and a book of
> essays (in French) and photographs.
> => eMUSIC #IN-106 $49
>
> STOCKHAUSEN: ELEKTRONISHE MUSIK 1952-1960
> Includes 'Etude' (1952), composed at Pierre Schaeffer's studio in Paris,
> 'Studie I' (1953), 'Studie II' (1954), 'Gesang der Junglinge' (1956), and
> 'Kontakte' (1960). Also a book of essays and articles on the music in German
> and English, scores, and photographs.
> => eMUSIC #ST-100 $36
>
> ELECTRO ACOUSTIC MUSIC CLASSICS
> Includes Edgard Varese' 'Poeme Electronique' (1957), first performed at the
> Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958 in a building designed by
> Iannis Xenakis who was at the time working for Le Corbusier as an architect;
> Iannis Xenakis' 'Mycenae-Alpha' (1978), composed with Xenakis' original UPIC
> System, a graphic input device that let him "draw" sounds; Milton Babbitt's
> 'Philomel' (1963) with sounds of the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer and Judith
> Bettina, soprano; and Roger Reynolds' 'Transfigured Wind IV' (1985),
> computer sounds and flutist Harvey Sollberger.
> => eMUSIC #NE-103 $16
>
> ROARATORIO
> One of John Cage's big big big works, composed in 1979, with Cage reading his
> text 'Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake', Irish musicians
> playing and singing, and all the sounds mentioned in Finnegans Wake as
> assembled by Cage on a 62-track collage tape. Two discs include a
> conversation between Cage and Klaus Schoning (who commissioned the work for
> the WDR in Cologne) and Cage reading his text. Also two booklets with
> essays, conversations, and the text.
> => eMUSIC #MO-108 $26
>
> FORBIDDEN PLANET
> The original 1956 soundtrack to MGM's 'Forbidden Planet' by Louis and Bebe
> Barron. In their words, "We created individual cybernetic circuits for
> particular themes and leit motifs..." One of the first electronic film
> tracks.
> => eMUSIC #GN-100 $15
>
> JAMES TENNEY: SELECTED WORKS 1961-1969
> Tenney began at Bell Labs at the dawn of computer music. He led the way.
> This disc includes 'Collage #1 ("Blue Suede")' (1961), 'Analog #1: Noise
> Study' (1961), and other early pieces.
> => eMUSIC #AR-106 $14
>
> RISSET
> Classics of elegant computer music. Includes 'Inharmonique' (1977), which
> relates sound and harmony; 'Sud' (1985), based on sounds of the sea near
> Marseilles; 'Dialogues' (1975), for flute, clarinet, piano, and percussion
> with taped computer sounds; and 'Mutations' (1969), composed at Bell Labs in
> New Jersey.
> => eMUSIC #IN-103 $16
>
> JOHN CHOWNING
> Breakthrough moments in computer music, including 'Sabelithe' (1966, revised
> 1971), 'Turenas' (1972), 'Stria' (1977), and 'Phone' (1981). Chowning aimed
> at sounds that were special to computers yet expressive and beautiful. In
> 'Stria', for example, the sounds are simply out of this world.
> => eMUSIC #WE-102 $19
>
> MORTON SUBOTNICK: TOUCH
> Subotnick was there to play the first Buchla synthesizer in 1963. In 'Touch'
> (1969), he touches things to control the sound. 'Jacob's Room' (1986), on the
> other hand, is hi-tech drama with Joan La Barbara, soprano. From 'Touch' to
> 'Jacob's Room' is technology time travel.
> => eMUSIC #WE-104 $19
>
> TERRY RILEY: IN C
> A fabulous performance of music that changed the world. It's about patterns,
> shifting tonalities, energy, all around C. 30 musicians playing 30
> instruments plus. 'In C' was originally commissioned in 1964 by the San
> Francisco Tape Music Center.
> => eMusic #NA-120 $16
>
> ===============================
> COMBINING WORDS AND MUSIC:
> in opera, sound poetry, and improvisation
> ===============================
>
> TRANSPARENCE
> Marc Battier, in Paris, transforms -- using Phonogramme, a graphic audio
> program -- a fragment of speech by Henri Chopin, a well-known French pioneer
> of sound poetry. You hear his voice for a few seconds only, but it's under
> everything. As Battier puts it, "The voice of the poet... is reincarnated as
> a new skin, it changes form, it is in mutation, it is re-invented." It also
> produces extraordinary sounds.
> => eMUSIC #UN-100 $16
>
> KURT SCHWITTERS: URSONATE
> 'Ursonate', a verbal sonata, is a legend of sound poetry, finished in 1932.
> Invented words are used as motives, rhythms and themes, and combined in the
> form of a sonata. Eberhard Blum brings more than twenty years of
> performances to this disc.
> => eMUSIC #HA-216 $19
>
> eL/AFICIONADO
> An electronically-accompanied opera by Robert Ashley, in his words "scenes
> from the life of an 'agent'... 'debriefing' to a jury of Interrogators..."
> With Thomas Buckner, Robert Ashley, Jacqueline Humbert, and Sam Ashley, all
> singing and speaking. The textures and electronic orchestrations are, as in
> all of Ashley's music, seductive, beautiful and evocative. Libretto
> included.
> => eMUSIC #LO-101 $16
>
> 73 POEMS
> Joan La Barbara's vocal-electronic settings of Kenneth Goldsmith's
> multi-level, evocative, sometimes lyrical, sometimes funny, 73-part poem.
> It's an exceptional marriage of words and word-sounds as music.
> => eMUSIC #LO-123 $15
>
> MACHINE FOR MAKING SENSE
> Five from Australia. Chris Mann and Amanda Stewart read and sing their
> poetry while Stevie Wishart plays violin and hurdy-gurdy, Jim Denley plays
> winds, and Rik Rue manipulates sounds, and everyone plays with electronics.
> Quite an incredible, rich, complex, and wonderful improvisation.
> => eMUSIC #OO-117 $15
>
> VALIS
> An electronic opera by Tod Machover, commissioned by the Pompidou Center in
> Paris for its 10th anniversary in 1987. It's based on the science fiction
> novel by Philip K. Dick. Many voices sing and speak with keyboard,
> percussion and electronic techniques developed at IRCAM and MIT. Original
> English version. Libretto included.
> => eMUSIC #BR-101 $16
>
> ===============================
> PLAYING TOGETHER: unusual approaches
> to group activity.
> ===============================
>
> THE HUB: COMPUTER NETWORK MUSIC
> Music by John Bischoff, Tim Perkis, Chris Brown, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Mark
> Trayle, and Phil Stone, all in the San Francisco area. Their "Hub" is a
> central computer which takes what someone plays and interprets it for the
> others so that they're all acting on the same data. It's a network approach
> to group performance.
> => eMUSIC #AR-101 $14
>
> CONCERTO GROSSO
> Richard Teitelbaum composed this -- well, he devised the system that produced
> it -- in 1985. Improvisations by Teitelbaum (keyboard and computer), Anthony
> Braxton (saxophones), and George Lewis (trombone) alternate with
> computer-controlled acoustic grand pianos and synthesizers. Lively and
> musical.
> => eMUSIC #HA-118 $19
>
> NO WORLD (TRIO) IMPROVISATIONS
> Joseph Celli and Jin Hi Kim, with Alvin Curran, Malcolm Goldstein, Shelley
> Hirsch, Adam Plack, and Mor Thiam, come together as a global-village
> improvisation group. There's an Australian didjeridoo, Korean komungo and
> piri, African percussion, oboe, English horn, violin, voice, and electronics,
> and sounds like never before.
> => eMUSIC #OO-102 $15
>
> MOVIN' ON
> Updated jazz. Bruno Spoerri plays saxophones, Synthophone (electronic
> saxophone invented by Martin Hurni in Switzerland), synthesizers, and a
> Macintosh computer. Reto Weber does a lot with percussion. With Albert
> Mengelsdorff, trombonist, and Ernst Reijseger, cellist.
> => eMUSIC #TU-100 $15
>
> THOUSAND YEAR DREAMING
> Parts of it fully scored, parts improvised, Annea Lockwood has assembled Jon
> Gibson, Art Baron, Libby Van Cleve, J.D. Parran, Michael Pugliese, Scott
> Robinson, John Snyder, Charles Wood, and Peter Zummo to play didjeridoo,
> conch shell, trombone, oboe, English horn, clarinet, contrabass clarinet,
> tam-tam, clapping sticks, frame drums, pod rattle, tam-tam, superball,
> waterphone, and stones. The title refers to Australian aboriginals' sense of
> history as dreaming, and the titles of the sections-breathing and dreaming,
> the Chi stirs, floating in mid-air, in full bloom-describe the moods.
> => eMUSIC #WN-109 $15
>
> ===============================
> MUSIC ABOUT SOUNDS: finding and
> making new sounds at home and abroad.
> ===============================
>
> DENIS SMALLEY: IMPACTS INTERIEURS
> For Smalley, "The starting point is always the sound..." 'Valley Flow'
> (1991) is the sound of the Canadian Rockies. And what a stunning sound!
> Also included: 'Piano Nets' (1991), 'Wind Chimes' (1987), 'Clarinet
> Threads' (1985), and 'Darkness After Time's Colours' (1976).
> => eMUSIC #IM-106 $15
>
> MILA'S JOURNEY INSPIRED BY A DREAM
> Eliane Radigue synthesizes atmospheres. Her sounds fill the air, suggesting
> peace, time and transformation. This sound is an environment for Milarepa's
> songs (Milarepa was an 11th-century Tibetan poet who taught through singing),
> sung here by Lama Kunga Rinpoche in Tibetan and recited by Robert Ashley in
> English.
> => eMUSIC #LO-113 $15
>
> HOMEBREW
> Paul Lansky takes banged kitchen objects, traffic noises, fairytales,
> clapping, a shopping mall, and transforms the sounds. It's an homage to his
> family. Can computer music be charming? Yes.
> => eMUSIC #BR-107 $15
>
> ANGELS AND INSECTS
> David Dunn looks to the biosphere: "Beneath the water's surface are a
> variety of plants and small insects... While the sounds above water are
> comfortable and familiar, those occurring under the surface are shocking...
> as if controlled by a mysterious but urgent logic..." They make for
> compelling music.
> => eMUSIC #WN-108 $15
>
> RAINFOREST IMAGES
> Priscilla and Barton McLean went far afield for these sounds, among them
> Peruvian and Australian bird calls, wooden recorders, and didjeridoo, all
> processed electronically in studios in Australia and New York.
> => eMUSIC #CA-104 $15
>
> OCEAN FLOWS
> Rik Rue, Australian sound artist, records sounds and creates soundscapes.
> 'Ocean Flows' is about ocean waves over beaches and rocks. 'Ebbs Tides and
> Flows' uses the sounds of Sydney Harbor. 'Goondiwindi', an Aboriginal word
> meaning "water flowing over rocks," is a water-sound exploration of crevices,
> channels and caves. It's hearing a whole new world in what we think we know.
> => eMUSIC #TP-103 $19
>
> ===============================
> COMPILATIONS: surveys, group portraits,
> overviews, variety.
> ===============================
>
> THE VIRTUOSO IN THE COMPUTER AGE (II)
> Music from five US studios, including Larry Austin's 'Life Pulse Prelude'
> (1984), based on sketches for Charles Ives' unfinished Universe Symphony;
> Gareth Loy's 'Blood From A Stone' (1992), for Max Mathews' electronic
> violin; Chris Chafe's and Dexter Morrill's 'Duo Improvisation' (1991), with
> celletto (Chafe's electronic cello), trumpet, and computer; Neil Rolnick's
> 'The Persistence of the Clave' (1992); Rodney Waschka II's 'Last Night'
> (1990), for alto sax and piano; Jon Appleton's 'Homenaje a Milanes' (1987),
> for Synclavier; and Larry Polansky's '(And to rule...)(Cantillation Study
> #2)' (1988), for flute and computer. Assembled by Larry Austin.
> => eMUSIC #CE-111 $15
>
> SEAMUS
> A selection, mostly for taped sounds with and without acoustic-instrument
> performances, compiled by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the
> United States. Includes Larry Nelson's 'Order and Alliance'(1991), Scott
> Wyatt's 'Counterpoints' (1992), Joseph Koykkar's 'Triple Play' (1992), Joseph
> Anderson's 'in mosaic' (1992), Charles Mason's 'The Blazing Macaw' (1992),
> Stephen Beck's 'Love's Not Time's Fool' (1992), Eric Chasalow's 'Fast
> Forward' (1988), and Paul Koonce's 'Whitewash' (1992).
> => eMUSIC #SE-100 $15
>
> JEWEL BOX
> Music, performance art, and radio works by Anne LeBaron, Laetitia Sonami,
> Sussan Deihim, Bun Ching Lam, Catherine Jauniaux, Ikue Mori, Sapphire, Mary
> Ellen Childs, and Michelle Kinney, all exceptional women composers and
> performance artists with something to say. Sometimes something spellbinding.
> Storytelling and sounds from harp to household objects to electronics to
> electronically treated speech.
> => eMUSIC #TE-101 $16
>
> AUSTRAL VOICES
> Exceptional voices from Australia. Alan Lamb records "telegraph wires
> singing in the wind." Alistair Riddell plays a computer-driven piano. Sarah
> Hopkins extends cello and vocal sounds in the "natural unhurried rhythms of
> the environment of the Northern Territory." Warren Burt composes for his
> specially made and tuned tuning forks. Ros Bandt records in a hollow
> concrete cylinder five floors underground in Melbourne. Jeff Pressing plays
> sequencers and synthesizers. Ross Bolleter uses the ruined piano at the
> Nallan sheep station north of Perth.
> => eMUSIC #NA-107 $16
>
> ===============================
> COMPOSERS: discs that are indicators
> to a single composer's approach.
> ===============================
>
> FRANCOIS BAYLE: FABULAE
> Bayle is director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicale in Paris and inheritor
> of the tradition of musique concrete. He stretches the tradition. His
> sounds start from acoustic activities -- xylophone glissandi, bird calls,
> wind, percussion, harps, water bubbling -- but the total effect is of an
> unlimited orchestra accompanying an imaginary ballet.
> => eMUSIC #IN-124 $16
>
> GIUSEPPE G. ENGLERT
> Englert was a founding member of the Groupe Art et Informatique de Vincennes
> (GAIV) in Paris. He's always looked for new ways to compose, to think.
> 'Sopra la Girolmeta' (1991), the electronic work here, is about algorithms
> and interactivity. Also: 'Les Avoines folles' (1963) for string quartet;
> 'Fragment & Caracol' (1974) for orchestra; 'La Joute des Lierres' (1966)
> for string quartet; and 'Babel' (1983) for orchestra.
> => eMUSIC #GR-101 $19
>
> PAULINE OLIVEROS: CRONE MUSIC
> Originally composed to accompany the actors' amplified dialog throughout
> Mabou Mines' production of 'Lear', here it's performed by Oliveros on her
> expanded accordion -- which employs electronics to process the instrument's
> sound during performance.
> => eMUSIC #LO-112 $15
>
> JERRY HUNT: GROUND
> Hunt performed with devices -- usually his own inventions, often involving
> visuals and collaborations with other artists -- linked together in systems.
> As he puts it, "congruent layers of associations of inflection-calls
> evoke... point specific, melody-action strings embedded in a reference
> context of conventions of performance." At some point in your life, you must
> experience the originality of Jerry Hunt's personality.
> => eMUSIC #OO-107 $15
>
> DEXTER MORRILL: GETZ VARIATIONS
> Underneath Morrill's computer music lurks the soul of a jazz musician. It's
> in the turns of the phrases, moods, rhythms, colors. 'Getz Variations'
> (1984), 'Sketches for Invisible Man' (1989), and 'Six Studies and an
> Improvisation' (1992) all involve saxophones and computers, the lyrical and
> the interesting. David Demsey plays the saxophones.
> => eMUSIC #CE-120 $15
>
> ALCIDES LANZA: TRILOGY
> Lanza grew up in Argentina, lived in New York, and now lives in Montreal.
> 'Trilogy' is an autobiographical cycle of songs presented as an evening of
> music theatre for singer, electronic sounds, and lights, with texts in
> English, French, Spanish, and an invented language, sung here by the
> impressive Meg Sheppard.
> => eMUSIC (#SH-100) $16
>
> ROBERT NORMANDEAU: LIEUX INOUIS / UNHEARD-OF PLACES
> Normandeau's unheard-of places are in the scenes depicted by his sounds, of
> wind, footsteps, water, words... and synthesized electronic sounds, composed
> in Montreal, Quebec, Bourges (France), and Ohain (Belgium). With evocative
> audio imagery veering between narration and abstract sound, his music casts a
> spell.
> => eMUSIC #IM-101 $15
>
> MICHEL REDOLFI: DESERT TRACKS
> Redolfi directs the Centre International de Recherche Musicale in Nice, but
> he's also spent a bit of time in California. In 'Desert Tracks' (1988), you
> feel the space and heat of the Mohave, of Death Valley -- in Redolfi's words,
> "the shivering resonances of the landscapes..." Also: 'Too Much Sky' (1984)
> and 'Pacific Tubular Waves' (1979), inspired by the California coast.
> Redolfi's sounds glitter like the waves.
> => eMUSIC #IN-105 $16
>
> CARL STONE: MOM'S BAR-B-Q
> "Sometimes," Stone says, "I'm simply attracted to a kind of wonderful
> moment..." So he takes the moment and makes something special, like the
> extraordinary sound transformations in 'Banteay Srey' (1991) and 'Shing Kee'
> (1986). Also: 'Gadberry's' (1989), 'Mom's' (1990), and 'Chao Nue' (1990).
> => eMUSIC #NA-114 $16
>
> NEIL ROLNICK: MACEDONIAN AIR DRUMMING
> Rolnick gets around. He was in Yugoslavia for the sounds in 'Macedonian Air
> Drumming' (1990), which he performs with Air Drums. And 'ReRebong' (1989)
> uses Indonesian gamelan sounds. 'Sanctus' (1990), a score for Barbara
> Hammer's film, is electronically-processed fragments from masses by Machaut,
> Byrd, Bach, et al. 'Balkanization' (1988) uses Balkan folk songs.
> => eMUSIC #BR-105 $15
>
> MARY JANE LEACH: CELESTIAL FIRES
> Here's music -- 'Bruckstuck', 'Green Mountain Madrigal', 'Mountain Echoes',
> and 'Ariel's Song' -- performed by the New York Treble Singers, a chorus of
> women's voices which makes the sounds float like clouds on a breezy day.
> There's also 'Feu de Joie' and 'Trio for Duo', instrumental and vocal
> pieces.
> => eMUSIC #XI-106 $15
>
> PHILL NIBLOCK: FOUR FULL FLUTES
> Niblock records instruments, in this case played by flutists Petr Kotik and
> Eberhard Blum, and mixes the sounds in multiple layers and clusters to form a
> big sound, sometimes strident, sometimes harmonic. As Tom Johnson said of
> Niblock's music, "It must be heard to be believed." It's true.
> => eMUSIC #XI-100 $15
>
> BOB WILLEY: PEACE PIECES
> Willey lives in California and, in his words, this disc is "new age jazz
> bossa nova folk electronic instrumental experimental." Actually, it's more
> than that: it's California new age jazz bossa... It's also Norway,
> Casteneda, and other places and writers, and it puts a hi tech approach in
> the service of easy listening.
> => eMUSIC #OU-100 $15
>
> =============================== HOW TO ORDER
>
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>
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 23:55:25 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Organization: sirius.com
Subject: Fireworks at NYU Kerouac Conference
I hope you've all read this message from "Levi Asher," which I read on the
alt.books.beatgeneration newsgroup.
Can anyone on our poetics list confirm this first-hand account of World
War III at NYU? Enjoy!
K. Killian
> RINGSIDE SEAT
>
> NICOSIA VS. CHARTERS AT THE KEROUAC CONFERENCE
>
> June 6, 1995
>
> The Writings of Jack Kerouac conference at New York University began
> on June 4 as scheduled -- and that was about the last thing that went
> the way it was supposed to. The first sign that events were spinning
> out of control came when the Unbearables, an inspired and largely
> disorganized group of angry writers planning to protest the
> complacency and dullness of the NYU event, got more publicity in
> publications like the Village Voice (and in web sites like Literary
> Kicks) than the official conference got. They announced a series of
> alternative events, like a Jack Kerouac Impersonators Spontaneous
> Prose contest, to take place at the same time as the official events.
>
> I exchanged e-mail with a few of the Unbearables, and promptly decided
> to cast my lot with them. I wasn't sure how much they would have to
> say, but whatever it was at least it was going to be new, and they
> weren't planning to lighten my wallet by $140 for "registration"
> either. Also, panel discussions bore me and I hate wearing "HELLO! My
> Name Is ..." tags. Easy decision.
>
> The Unbearables' protest, though, ended up being upstaged by a much
> more shocking one. The fate of Jack Kerouac's estate and legacy has
> been a topic of controversy for some time now; the Sampas family
> (Kerouac's last wife was Stella Sampas) owns everything, basically,
> and Jack's daughter Jan has been vying for a share. Jan Kerouac was
> barely recognized as a daughter by Jack during his lifetime, and her
> attempts at being included in the "family" now have mostly been
> rebuked. Jan (author of a couple of books, including Baby Driver,
> which I heard was pretty good) has also been very sick with kidney
> failure lately, and this may have contributed to the intensity of
> feeling she has been expressing about the ownership of her fathers'
> estate.
>
> That's enough background -- now I'll get to the fireworks. Gerald
> Nicosia, author of the most recent and most acclaimed major Kerouac
> biography, Memory Babe, was apparently not invited to participate in
> any part of the NYU conference. Ann Charters, author of the first
> major Kerouac biography, Kerouac (published in 1973), was invited.
> Because Ann Charters has been considered 'friendly' by the Sampas
> family while Nicosia has expressed support for Jan Kerouac, Nicosia
> believes that his exclusion from the conference was a conspiracy
> against himself and Jan.
>
> This may very well be the case. But get this : Nicosia showed up at
> the conference anyway, wearing a black t-shirt that said
>
> "Gerald Nicosia ...
> A tiresome wannabe"
> -- Ann Charters
>
> on the front. On the back were pictures of Jan and some member of the
> Sampas family (I didn't get a good enough look), and, in rock-concert
> style bold colorful print, the words "KEROUAC VS. SAMPAS". He also
> wore his "HELLO! My Name Is ..." tag upside down, and had replaced the
> words "Kerouac Conference" with "Sampas Conference."
>
> I found this very surprising. Nicosia is quite an established figure
> in the Kerouac 'field,' and I've heard people praise his book -- the
> longest and most thorough as well as the most recent of all the
> Kerouac biographies -- more than any other, including Charters'. He
> was certainly risking his reputation by airing his grievances in such
> a public fashion.
>
> It is also admirable, I suppose, that he is doing this not for
> himself, but for Jan Kerouac. At the same time, as I watched him
> wander the lobby outside the auditorium where booksellers and
> Kerouac-interest-groups had set up tables and where people like me
> (who hadn't paid to get in) hung around taking in the scenery, I
> detected a certain psychotic intensity to the expression on his face,
> and it occurred to me that he was maybe taking this all a little too
> seriously.
>
> This opinion was reinforced when I talked to some other people hanging
> out around the lobby. I heard that somebody -- either a Jan/Nicosia
> supporter, or Nicosia himself -- had disrupted one of the conferences
> in the morning. Later I was talking to someone else about the Beat
> figures who were hanging around the lobby (at that moment, Anne
> Waldman, Joyce Johnson and Ray Bremser as well as Nicosia) and this
> person was telling me about the conversations he'd had with them. He
> looked at Nicosia and advised me, "Don't talk to him unless you want
> to do a lot of listening."
>
> That was Act One : Act Two took place at Biblio's bookstore in
> Tribeca, where the Unbearables were staging their Jack Kerouac
> Impersonators Contest. Ann Charters showed up with her husband Sam (a
> legendary Blues author, who wrote Country Blues and The Blues Makers,
> and who played a very important part in the late-fifties/early-sixties
> rediscovery of Robert Johnson, Son House and many other old bluesmen).
> They were sitting at a table with a very nice guy I'd recently talked
> to in the NYU lobby (Ralph, from Minneapolis) and since Ralph offered
> me a seat near him, I suddenly found myself sitting next to Ann and
> Sam Charters. Then in comes Gerald Nicosia, still wearing his black
> t-shirt with the nasty Ann Charters quotation on the front, and he
> heads straight for our table. Ann sees him coming and looks away.
> "Excuse me, Ann," Gerald Nicosia says. "I just had to ask you ... do
> you think it's right that I was forcibly removed from the conference
> this morning under threat of police intervention?"
>
> Or something like that. Ann tries to play it cool. "I know nothing
> about it, Gerald. I had a cold today, and wasn't even at the
> conference."
>
> "Well, do you think it was right? And do you think it's right that
> so-and-so Jan Kerouac-this and Sampas-family that and so-on and
> so-forth ..." all in a strident, nearly-threatening tone of voice. He
> did not seem far from physical violence, although this would not have
> been much of a problem, as Sam Charters was about a foot taller and a
> hundred pounds heavier than Nicosia. Ann kept trying to put off his
> questions. "I'm very sorry that happened, Gerald" "I really don't know
> what it is you want me to do about that" and so on. Nicosia walked
> away, simmered for a few minutes, then came back even angrier and
> started in again.
>
> All the time I'm sitting there thinking : Wow. I'm sitting here
> watching the two major Kerouac biographers duke it out, and I got a
> ringside seat.
>
> I'm now going to do something I've never done before in Literary
> Kicks. I've never expressed my opinion on the Jan vs. Sampas Family
> hijinks, and that's mainly because I think the whole thing is kind of
> dumb. I also don't think it's very interesting to serious Kerouac
> readers -- although from my seat at Biblio's I have to admit it was
> starting to get pretty damn interesting.
>
> Anywhere, here's how I call it, for what it's worth :
>
> 1. Every family has problems, and there is nothing surprising about
> the fact that Jan Kerouac (Jack's daughter from his second marraige,
> and a daughter that he refused to recognize and almost never met) is
> not friendly with the family of Jack's last wife. I'm not saying the
> Sampas family is right to snub her, or that she should not feel free
> to express how she feels about being snubbed. But like I said, every
> family has problems, and I don't see why this particular problem
> (which is all about money, really, and has nothing to do with incest
> or rape or death or drugs or anything like that) should be blown up
> into such a major public issue.
>
> 2. Jan Kerouac and Gerald Nicosia are saying that the Sampas family
> is getting rich by selling off the Kerouac papers little by little,
> and that they should instead donate or sell the entire Kerouac
> archive to a library. Well ... okay, whatever. My problem with this
> argument is : who really cares? Maybe it's better for a single
> library to own the whole thing, but is this really a critical issue?
>
> You all know how much I care about Kerouac's life and work. But
> let's admit it ... the guy published enough stuff even during his
> lifetime to keep his readers busy for years, even decades. And
> that's not to mention his voluminous letters and journals and art
> notebooks, and the reminiscences of his many friends and lovers and
> compatriots. If you put me in a room with the entire Kerouac archive
> right now, I don't honestly know how interested I'd be. Shit, I
> haven't even gotten around to reading Vanity of Duluoz yet!
>
> I always find it ridiculous when people make too big a deal over a
> writer's personal archive. No writer is that good. Kerouac was a
> man, not a holy savior. Just chill out, everybody, all right?
>
> 3. By the end of the night I had spoken to Ann Charters, and I liked
> her. I'm aware that many serious students of Beat literature
> consider her to be a little too chummy with some of the major living
> Beat figures (mainly, Ginsberg). She's been accused of prettying up
> the truth in some sections of her book, and she's even been dissed
> here in Literary Kicks by Tim Bowden in his Carolyn Cassady memoir
> (he accuses her of bringing a friend to Carolyn's house to engage
> Carolyn in a vapid discussion while she -- Ann, that is -- furiously
> scribbles notes from Carolyn's personal papers.) So I feel she's
> already been raked over the coals, and I would just like to say a
> word in her defense.
>
> This woman wrote about Jack Kerouac in 1973, back when nobody took
> him seriously as a writer. I mean, NOBODY. Her book wasn't even
> published by an established firm : Straight Arrow Books was a
> division of Rolling Stone magazine. That was what the mainstream
> literary world thought of Jack Kerouac back in '73, four years after
> his death. It took courage, vision and selfless dedication to devote
> her career to a a writer whose literary reputation had never been
> good, and was now in a state of utter ruin.
>
> Now everybody from Viking Penguin to New York University kisses
> Kerouac's ass, and it's an all-new world for Beat scholarship. But
> let's have a little respect for the person who put her reputation on
> the line back when it meant something. Yeah, Nicosia is sticking up
> for Jan Kerouac. But Charters once stuck up for Jack Kerouac, and
> that means something more.
>
> Okay, I'm done talking about this. I'd like to conclude this report
> with a big "YEEE-HAHHH!" for the Unbearables, who put on a fun, truly
> spontaneous show at Biblio's. It started off with some jokes that were
> pretty dumb, focusing mainly on a burly guy in a moustache running
> around in a wig and housedress pretending to be Kerouac's mother.
> Kinda cute, kinda reminiscent of The Diggers, but also much too long.
> Some of the audience left during this part, but then the night started
> to get going, and a session of Kerouac-inspired spontaneous rants and
> readings began to really generate some steam. Some of it was even good
> writing, and almost all of it was good ranting. The Unbearables are a
> cool bunch; I've heard they've previously protested the bad poetry in
> the New Yorker, to which I can only say : what about the shitty
> fiction?
>
> At one point during the Sip A Beer With Mrs. Kerouac Contest I leaned
> over to Ann Charters and said "You know, it just occurred to me that
> you're the only person in this room who actually did sip a beer with
> Mrs. Kerouac."
>
> She replied, "It was actually champagne. She only drank champagne."
>
> "Oh really?" I said. "Expensive stuff, or cheap?"
>
> "Cheap stuff," Ann Charters said.
>
> That's the end of my report. You'll notice I didn't say anything about
> the conferences themselves. They're still going on today, as I sit at
> home writing this up. I have a feeling I'm not missing much. As for
> what's going on in the lobby ... I think I've seen enough already.
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Levi Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com
>
> Creator of Literary Kicks, the Beat Literature Web Site
> URL: http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/LitKicks.html
>
> Please preview my new Web project, Queensboro Ballads
> URL: http://levity.willow.com/brooklyn/
>
> "How can you have any pudding if you won't eat your meat?"
> -- Pink Floyd
> ----------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 09:29:54 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fireworks at NYU Kerouac Conference
In message <9506100652.AA06348@SIRIUS.COM> UB Poetics discussion group writes:
> I hope you've all read this message from "Levi Asher," which I read on the
> alt.books.beatgeneration newsgroup.
>
> Can anyone on our poetics list confirm this first-hand account of World
> War III at NYU? Enjoy!
>
> K. Killian
>
>
> > RINGSIDE SEAT
Well, that's all fine and well, but ... i hate to be pedantic but...how was the
conference? any good papers? any good readings? anything other than
"dysfunctional family systems" run rampant? (too bad my "beat sensibilities"
class just ended, this would've been a fine way to conclude, by bringing in a
long printout of family feudings. --maria d
> > ----------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 10:30:07 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
Dodie--Maybe Rae could read with Will Alexander--I don't know many
other multiculturals Sun & Moon has published...
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 10:55:20 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: opportunity knocks
OOPS---ignore my message to Dodie too--chris s.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 11:08:50 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
I'm surprised no one's corrected me--
I quoted Duncan's "Olson was a big man" and said SO WHAT!--So was
DAVEY CROCKETT--I think it's really Daniel Boone--
"With a corn cob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of..."
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 15:22:35 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Welcome to Poetics msg (revised)
Rev. 6-10-95
____________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Poetics List
&
The Electronic Poetry Center
____________________________________________________________________
_______Contents___________
1. About the Poetics List
2. Subscriptions
3. Who's Subscribed
4. Digest Option
5. When you'll be away
6. Archives of the Poetics List
7. To Subscribe to RIF/T
8. Interfaces, HTML, URL
9. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC)
10. How to Reach the EPC
11. Poetics Archives at EPC
12. Publishers & Editors Read This!
_______________________________
Appendix I: Some Links via EPC
Appendix II: Archives (Alternate)
[This document was prepared by Charles Bernstein (bernstei@ubvms.cc.buffalo.
edu) and Loss Pequen~o Glazier (lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu).]
____________________________________________________________________
1. About the Poetics List
Please note that this is a private list and information about the list
should not be posted to other lists or directories of lists. The idea
is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general
interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume
managable. Word-of-mouth (and its electronic equivalents) seems to be
working fine: please feel free to invite people you know to sign-up.
It is easier for me if they sign-up by themselves AND send me
(bernstei@ubvms) a note telling me how they heard about the list. I
will send them *this* document in reply.
____________________________________________________________________
2. Subscriptions
The list has open subscriptions. You can subscribe (sub) or
unsubscribe (unsub) by sending a one-line message, with no subject
line, to:
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
the one-line message should say:
unsub poetics
{or}
sub poetics Jill Jillway
(replacing Jill Jillway with your own name; but note: do not use your
name to unsub)
I will be sent a notice of all subscription activity.
____________________________________________________________________
3. Who's Subscribed
To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu; leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message
blank. In the body of your e-mail message type:
review poetics
____________________________________________________________________
4. Digest Option
The Poetics List can send a large number of individual messages to
your account to each day! If you would prefer to receive ONE message
each day, which would include all messages posted to the list for that
day, you can now use the digest option:
Send this one-line message (no subject line) to
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
set poetics digest
NOTE:!! Send this message to "listserv" not to Poetics or as a reply
to this message!!
You can switch back to individual messages by sending this messagage:
set poetics mail
____________________________________________________________________
5. When you'll be away
You can temporarily turn off your mail by sending a message:
set poetics nomail
& turn it on again with: set poetics mail
____________________________________________________________________
6. Archives of the Poetics List
There are two ways to get archives. The easiest way is to use the
archives of the list at the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), for which
see section 11 below. The other is described in Appendix II.
____________________________________________________________________
7. To Subscribe to RIF/T
To subscribe to RIF/T, the e-poetry magazine at UB's Poetics Program:
Send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave
the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of
your e-mail message type:
subscribe e-poetry John Milton
replacing your real name for "John Milton"
You will receive a confirmation of your subscription soon thereafter.
____________________________________________________________________
8. Interfaces, HTML, URL (EPC Preface)
Before describing the resources of the EPC and how to gain access to
it, it is useful to understand a few Internet concepts.
8.1 Interface
Gopher is an ascii-based interface that offers access through the
selection of menus; the web is an ascii-based interface that offers
access through _screens_ of information with links to other areas
appearing as highlighted text; Mosaic is a graphical interface
basically superimposed on the Web structure that offers images, sound,
video, and allows you to use your mouse as a navigational tool. The
EPC is accessible through any of these interfaces. It is presently
evolving strongly towards exclusive Web/Mosaic access.
Even as activities converge, it is also the time of divergent
interfaces. I am often surprised by the number of our contributors and
participants who do not even have gopher access. Most people, we
figure, have at least gopher access, though Web access is quickly
becoming a standard. Mosaic, it would be assumed, though assuming
predominance in the University setting, has hardly become a reality
for most dial-up users, particularly internationally.
8.2 HTML
The standard for Web/Mosaic documents is the markup protocol called
html. These are imbedded codes that you will see once in a while when
you download an html document. These codes give instructions to the
software about highlighting, fonts, and screen layout, as well as
providing for the _hot links_ that make possible Web/Mosaic
navigation.
8.3 URL
A URL, a "uniform resource locator," is to the Internet what a social
security number is to a person. In a web/mosaic interace, the "go to
URL" option will specify a specific and unique Internet address for
you to go to.
____________________________________________________________________
9. What is the Electronic Poetry Center?
The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is
to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of
activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the
world. The Center provides access to numerous electronic resources in
the new poetries including RIF/T and other electronic poetry journals,
the POETICS List archives, an AUTHOR library of electronic poetic
texts, and direct connections to numerous related electronic
RESOURCES. For texts housed at the Electronic Poetry Center, texts are
"definitive" texts inasmuch as, prior to posting, they have been
approved by their producers. JOURNALS distributed by the EPC include:
DIU / Albany
EPC.News / Buffalo
Experioddi(cyber)cist / Florence, AL
Inter\face / Albany, NY
Passages: A Technopoetics Journal / Albany, NY
Poemata - Canadian Poetry Assoc. / London, Ontario (Info)/
RIF/T: Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics / Buffalo
Segue Foundation/Roof Book News / New York
TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition / Lakewood, Ohio
We Magazine / Santa Cruz
Witz / Toluca Lake, CA / via Syntax
The Center also provides information about contemporary print little
magazines and SMALL PRESSES engaged in poetry and poetics. The Poetry
& Poetics DOCUMENT Archive provides access to a number of documents of
use to poets, teachers, and researchers. Here you will find essay
material and recent obituaries. The EPC also presently offers GALLERY,
SOUND, EXHIBITS, and an ANNOUNCEMENTS area.
The Electronic Poetry Center is administered by Loss Glazier and
Kenneth Sherwood in collaboration with Charles Bernstein. If you have
comments or suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, do not
hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier, lolpoet@ acsu.buffalo.edu
or Kenneth Sherwood, e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
____________________________________________________________________
10. How to reach the EPC
Via the World-Wide Web, the Center can be reached at
http://writing.upenn.edu/internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift
(no spaces in the address)
(Alternatively, you may gopher to writing.upenn.edu. And use the
"Search Wings" feature to locate the EPC. Web access is, however,
recommended.)
Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access.
Also ask about setting a "bookmark" through your system for quick and
easy access to the Center when you invoke your interface.
____________________________________________________________________
11. Poetics Archives via EPC
Go to the EPC and select Poetics from the opening screen. Follow the
links to Poetics Archives. You may browse the archives by month and
year or search them for specific information. Your interface will
allow you to print or download any of these files.
____________________________________________________________________
12. Publishers & Editors Read This!
PUBLISHERS & EDITORS: Our listings of poetry and poetics information
is open and available to you. We are trying to make access to printed
publications as easy as possible to our users and ENCOURAGE you to
participate! Send a list of your press/publications to
lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu with the words EPC Press Listing in the
subject line. You may also send materials on disk. Though files marked
up with html are our goal, ascii files are perfectly acceptable.
Send us extended information on new publications (including any back cover copy
and sample poems) as well as complete catalogs/backlists (including excerpts
from reviews, sample poems, etc.). Be sure to include full information for
ordering--including prices and addresses and phone numbers both of the press
and any distributors.
Initially, you might want to send short anouncements of new publications
directly to the Poetics list as subscribers do not always (or ever) check the
EPC; in your message please include full information for ordering. If you have
a fuller listing at EPC, you might also mention that in any Poetics posts.
____________________________________________________________________
Appendix I: Some Links Provided by the EPC
Alternative-X
Basil Bunting Poetry Centre (Durham, England)
[Informational]
Best-Quality Audio Web Poems (Rhode Island)
Carma Bums 'Tour of Words'
CICNET Electronic Journal Archive
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
(Virginia)
Internet Poetry Archive (North Carolina)
Michigan Electronic Text Archive
Nous Refuse Discussion List (Illinois)
Postmodern Culture (North Carolina)
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine
____________________________________________________________________
Appendix II: Alternate Method for Receiving Poetics Archives
You may also receive Poetics archives by e-mail, though the language
is somewhat arcane.
To receive postings for a particular month, for example, send an
e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
leave the subject line of the message blank and in the body of the
message type:
get poetics.log9505 f=mail
Replace 95 (two digits) with the year and 05 (two digits) for the
month you seek.
For a complete list of available back files, send the message
index poetics f=mail
____________________________________________________________________
END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 16:50:34 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: hole/cobain/abba
Ira:
>Tom, I say let the
>elegies to Kurt flow; he was a better artist than you or I or 90% of
>this list's members will ever be, musically anyway.
I'll reserve judgement on Cobain's music, but I _do_ think that many of his
followers are responding more to his life/death than to his music. I know
people who have painted pictures or written poems "i.m. K.C.", but who admit to
having heard nothing except _Smells like Teen Spirit_. Commercially, death is a
smart career move. I just get sick of the Rock cliche of "live fast, die
young", and I get especially annoyed at those who believe one has to be
psychotic/addictive/angst-ridden/poor/smelly/revolutionary/suicidal in order to
be creative. Yawn.
>And the arrangements
>in Abba's songs were amazing; technically they were much more ambitious
>and experimental with melody and harmony than many pop bands; do their
>critics on this list mean that Abba were "bad" because they were kitsch
>(though they still tug mine and many a queer person's heartstrings) or
>silly Swedes or what
I agree that many Abba songs stand up very well as cover versions, a sign that
song-writing and not just star hysteria was a reason for their success. Chris
Knox did an amazing rendition of "Knowing me, knowing you", and I loved
Erasure's CD-single "Abba-esque". Incidentally, there's an Aussie band of Abba-
imitators called "Bjorn Again" who released a CD of Erasure covers called
"Erasure-ish". Hyperreal!
This has probably already strayed far enough from Poetics, so I won't describe
what _I_ call great music (especially since so much of it is instrumental:
Orbital, Kraftwerk, Black Dog, Steve Reich, Michael Nyman) except to mention
that my lyrical buttons are pushed by Bristol bands - Portishead, Tricky,
Massive Attack. Chilling poetry.
Tom.
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 16:20:24 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger)
Jordan:
>I'd like publication/ordering info for "Laura's Poems."
Published by Godwit Publishing Ltd, P.O. Box 4325, Auckland 1, New Zealand,
ISBN 0 908877 63 3.
>Readers of this list may know the book "Poems of a Little Girl" by Hilda
>Conklin (or Conkling--book's elsewhere).
Another NZ example is Gloria Rawlinson, who is now in her 70s, and has had a
collection "Gloria In Excelsis" published recently by Riemke Ensing as a gift.
And Wystan, thanks for pointing out Michele's success. DIA deserves to sell as
many copies as "Laura's Poems": it's full of poetry that enchants, bewilders,
intrigues and excites me. I'm particularly glad that it beat "Skinning a Fish".
I didn't hear about the results until yesterday, since I've been on nightshift,
and my connection to the "Real" has been even more tenuous than usual.
Tom.
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 12:55:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Music, Sentimentality, and a discrete indiscreet BlaserCon comment
After coming back from the much fabled (and rightly so) BlaserCon '95 to a
week of intermittent Domain Name System errors ("none of the known name
servers are responding"), I'm ready to wade into the ongoing musical
debate. I read a lot of this in big chunks and hope I have correctly
attributed any quotes. I also missed how this thread got titled
"sentimentality" but that's not important.
A few people (Diane Ward & Luigi Bob Drake - thanks for reminding me of Gid
Tanner & the Skillet Lickers - come to mind, I'm sure I've left out some
others) note that different musics serve different functions. But much of
the discussion seems to fall into a kind of cliched jazz versus rock
argument. "if it's too loud, you're too old" kind of argument, with all
that that characterization implies for both sides of the, uh, discourse.
I'm particularly unclear about George Bowering's insistence on the primacy
of "the hard stuff" here, given the range of his interests within jazz.
George, it can't just be that Hole's use of only 2 or 3 chords bothers you,
'cause the Ayler Bros. (& I have just sent you something about Don on the
back channel) used the same 2 or 3 chords (and, though Ayler's music was
timbrally very odd, it was most often limited to traditional harmonic
structures). And the Aylers, as you recall, were damned loud live, too.
So what is it really?
Ira's three questions early on (& the responses from Sheila Murphy and
others) raise some of the issues that distinguish music from, not just
poetry, but most of the arts. Music may not be more moving than, say,
poetry, but there are more standards (which differ greatly according to
genre & style, which I think calls into question much of the above
referenced Bowering/Sondheim discourse) as to what constitutes a
"successful" performance in music.
This is especially an issue for me after seeing/hearing more than fifty
poets read in four days at BlaserCon. I have to say that some of the
"best" readers, as far as performance skills go, were not the best readers
as far as getting their work across. Some of the more performative
readings were distracting and in one or two instances seemed to contradict
the sense of the text being, uh, intoned.
But that's a matter of taste and it seems that by tradition we only make
critical comments about music on poetics-list, so let me here invoke
another poetics-list tradition.
"Oops, I didn't mean for that to go out to the whole list. Sorry."
Anyway, I've rambled in various directions for long enough.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 12:55:50 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Thanks for the EMF catalog
I moved this from the body of the much longer music morass I posted earlier
to ensure that my thanks to Pierre Joris for posting the EMF catalog to
poetics didn't get lost.
So thanks, Pierre, for getting this catalog on-line here. It's already
given me something to point at for a couple of backchannel talks about new
music.
I'd only heard about EMF in the formative stages from some folks. Now that
it's a happening thing, I find it's a nicely quirky collection of music,
with a lot of very good music.
There's also a few things I wouldn't want the people who live upstairs to
listen to, but I can't hear most of the music they play (& they certainly
hear more than their share of weird crap) so why should I complain?
They don't have anything by Band of Susans yet, but I'm sure that'll soon
be remedied.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 15:54:42 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry <jsherry@PANIX.COM>
Subject: The Bearables
Comments: To: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199506110403.AAA14770@panix4.panix.com>
This may sound hopeless, but WHO ARE the Unbearables and are they really
as unbearable as all that? What are their names and where do they
publish? James (Pplease reply direct to me since I can't always get to
the listserv>)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:20:55 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: sentimentality
Not a word about the wonderful musics before Bach in Europe. Fact is
if you go at it with focussed determination you can get to anyplace
in music.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 15:03:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: cobain
Hey LC, LC, You're alright by Me, Superstar
If Kurt Cobain deserves a Leonard Cohen heaven then so do I.
I too worship sex in temples of suffering where the music and noise are
so loud
they make my insides hurt.
I am equally cursed as I only know Warhol Messiahs that bring
deliverance to
the pop world. Consumption is my motto as I swallow myself in order not
to be
eaten alive by paisley clean bureaucratic barracuda.
I long to be that silver star shining momentarily on the silver screen
with or without
packaging and plastic.
A truly tragic ending is so much more fun than fanning the
proverbial
embers of talent.
To strive, to seek and not to yield means nothing to me, I do not have
Ulysses
strength or pride. Good things do not always come to those who wait.
I want to explode in a vibrant flash and be consumed by my own
brilliance, never
to fade into the shadows of the next trend, but to be the innovator herself.
I want to feel as though I'm not supposed to be here, ahead of my time or
trapped in millennia past.
Alienation is respectable, the sad distance protects and preserves an
icon from
years of abuse and misuse.
Poor milk at my idol's feet in the temple when I'm gone, but don't embalm
me
like little Lenin or the righteous Ramesses. Tattoo my name across your
chest but don't condemn me to this place any
longer than I have already beared.
I've practiced the art of the disgusting and
You see I want to be free when I travel to my Leonard Cohen heaven of sex
and
religion,
I need to meet my maker head on so I can see what Nirvana really smells
like.
Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 18:36:25 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: All about the taking
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950612092055.1120@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz> from
"Tony Green" at Jun 12, 95 09:20:55 am
Just finished rereading Rat Jelly, one of my favourites, right now,
and was smitten with aquestion for the list(ners), spurred by the
following, unfolding:
TAKING
It is the formal need
to suck blossoms out of the flesh
in those we admire
planting them private in the brain
and cause fruit in lonely gardens.
To learn to point the exact arc
of steel still soft and crazy
before it hits the page.
I have stroked teh mood and tone
of hundred year dead men and women
Emily Dickinson's large dog, Conrad's beard
and, for myself,
removed them from historical traffic.
Having tasted their brain. Or heard
the wet sound of a death cough.
Their idea of the immaculate moment is now.
The rumours pass on
the rumours pass on
are planted
till they become a spine.
Every noticed how often "brain" occurs in Ondaatje's poetry?
Very stark. Anyhow, as some of you may have noticed, I am really
interested in influence. My question is not just what do we make
of/with influence, the "taking", but what is the mechanics of
influence? How does one translate the inertia?
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 14:25:24 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: All about the taking
Dear Ryan, that sounds like the historical effort that could be
called appropriation of the personae of the "past" a kind of
inhabitation of the self-portrait of the deceased, a way to shift
one's identity, not necessarily amelioration, to become something one
would wish oneself to be, by the process of bio-graphy. That "taking
"is all about the giving of whatever one is able to the deceased (love, pity,
questioning, argument, what else?) The deceased are different
teachers from the living in the exercise of their usually kinder
seeming authority. What do you have on this, it interests me too,
and I'm just sketching aloud here...(too damn tired after a long
seminar to articulate anything so big as a theory). The statements
in the verses seem to lead to somewhere about the same kind of
place?
Best
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:40:31 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: The Unbearables/letter from a young poet
James:
The Unbearables are published (I believe) by Grove. Their Andre Breton is Ron
Kolm. Their Eluard is (was?--I think they excommunicated him after the New
Yorker printed him) Sparrow. Christian X. Hunter, Michael Carter, Jill
Rapaport, Buddy Kold, and dozens of others are associated with the group,
which met regularly at Cafe No Bar on 9th btw 1 and A for a year or so.
Rilke:
Okay, I'm off it. Now, tell me (without cribbing from Zukofsky) what are the
minimum and the maximum bounds on a poem? What does a poem have to do to be a
good poem?
Love,
Elvis aron presley
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:40:56 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: name calling
Chris S.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Marisa J.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Maria D.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Kenny G.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Lisa J.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Sheila E.
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Curious
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 11:44:03 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger)
i met/corresponded with conklin many years ago; the odd business of a poet
whose career ended before she started high school. as i remember, she eventuallylived in a no where town, easthampton, massachusetts. she died a few yrs ago (?)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 12:13:49 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH <cf2785@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: BOMB PLANS AVAILABLE
This message just appeared on the Aerospace List. I thought
it's appearance might be of interest to members of this
list.
Forwarded message:
Posted: Mon, Jun 5, 1995 6:23 PM EDT Msg: IVJF-5161-3293/20
From: ("RFC-822": <(a)uga.cc.uga.edu:owner-aerosp-l(a)SIVM.SI.EDU>,
SITE:INTERNET)
CC: abutrica/NASA
Subj: Historic / Scientific Documents *** Just Released!!
Ref No: (q)15967 Mon Jun 5 18:22:48 1995(q)(a)
gateway.sprint.com
Message Id: sprintf.me.966:05.06.95.22.22.45:us/tel
email/internet
Authorized by:
:(C:USA,ADMD:telemail,
PRMD:internet,
RFC-822"LWALLYSEAG(a)AOL.COM)
Content: Important
Original Encoded Information: iA5Text
We share a similar interest in the History/Science of WWII. I have a good
friend who just retired as the Associate Director of Los Alamos Natl Labs in
New Mexico.
He gave me the plans to the FAT MAN & LITTLE BOY Atomic Bombs. (Unique
commemorative, declassified and "just" released!)
This is a "must have" for anyone interested in History or Science. I can
provide a Museum quality reproduction (1st Draft ) of these documents to you
if you are interested.
If you are willing to cover my costs, I will gladly
send them to you.
My "cost" of production and 1st class postage is $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping
for each set.
I have a limited supply of 1st drafts, so please let me know asap.
( please forward to anyone who might be interested or benifit from these. )
Make check payable to: Jeff Slaton
Sincerely,
Jeff Slaton
6808 Truchas Dr. NE
Albq., NM 87109
"Support The Sciences"
2
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 13:53:49 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Internet Censorship (Exxon/Gorton bill)
I received this message today from Lucy Komisar of PEN American Center, about a
matter that affects all on this list but which only those of us in the U.S. can
do much about.
****
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:12:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Internet censorship on Senate floor
The attempt to censor the Internet comes up on the floor tomorrow, Tuesday.
It's important for senators to get calls from their constituents. Long
distance to Washington is NOT necessary--just call your senators' local
offices--they keep a record.
Say you want the Senator to vote against the Exon/Gorton and
Dole/Grassley amendments to censor the Internet and for the Leahy bill.
The operator will ask for your name and address, and that's it. Takes 2
minutes.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 11:18:56 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: All about the taking
In-Reply-To: <199506120136.SAA13270@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Ryan Knighton" at Jun
11, 95 06:36:25 pm
ryan,
have you read bloom's _anxiety of influence_? --
i've only read one essay by bloom, although that title has come up of
late in recent converstations. from what i gather, he talks abt strong
poets and weak poets, and how in order for a weak poet to become strong
seeks to misread the precursor poet --but that's overly sketchy, i know...
...influence and choice...?
take care,
c
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 15:48:05 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Call for Essays
****************** CALL FOR ESSAYS *******************
I am currently investigating the possibility of putting together an
anthology of essays on American prosodies after Whitman and Dickinson
(and by "American" I mean the whole hemisphere).
I'm thinking of prosody in its most expansive sense, the overall sonal
structure of the poem, including rhythm, syntax, rhyme, and lineation.
This does NOT include discussions of poetics. Approaches might include
anything from discussions such as Duncan's "The Adventure of Whitman's
Line" to more technical essays, such as Donald Wesling's "The
Prosodies of Free Verse." I am not primarily interested in strictly
quantitative analyses, i.e. finding the perfect system for measuring
speech rhythms, unless they are tied to insights into the poem as a
meaningful act.
Several years ago Douglas Messerli announced such a book (it was
called *The New American Prosody*) but he finally had to abandoned it
when he couldn't get enough material. Let's try it again. I think
there's a definite need for it.
Anyone with material or ideas, please contact:
Michael Boughn
653 Euclid Ave.
Toronto ON M6G 2T6
Canada
e-mail: mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 16:07:12 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: Call for Essay
Further to my last post about a prosody anthology, does anyone know of
any other lists where interested poets and scholars might be hovering?
If so, would you please send me relevant addresses back channel?
Thanks,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 17:02:35 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: improved system of writing
Anybody want to go in on the $97 with me?
Jordan
Improved System of Writing
Most readers/writers of written matter are aware of, but generally accept as
practically unavoidable, occasional time-consuming, irritating, often
irreconcilable, ambiguities/puzzles/incompleteness in written matter, eg: the
intended leftward/rightward semirange of an "and/or" or hyphenation function;
the intended antecedent of a parenthesized expression, or of a pleural or
possessive ending of a word, or the intended antecedent of a word or other
syntax portion that suggests the presence of a pertinent antecedent (eg such
"procedents" as viz, ergo, eg, ie, therefore, whereby, wherefore, whereas,
thus, or, and, but, so, such as, for example), or the intended procedents of
antecedents, eg the intended procedents of the above procedents serving as
antecedents; the intended leftward range of a comma; what word(s) a modifier,
such as an adjective or adverb (eg two nouns separated by an "and" and
preceded by an adjective, which may or may not be intended to modify the
second noun); the intended grouping of words intended to function as a group;
an intended syntactical step in a sentence, or an intended substep within
such a step (eg steps of various orders); an improper/desperate use of a
comma.
A typical reason for the presence of such
ambiguities/incompleteness/imprecision in written matter is often one or more
unnecessary limitations imposed by typical antiquated syntactical methods, eg
the difficulty or apparent impossibility of obtaining greater
clarity/precision/depth without substantial loss of compactness eg
conciseness/succinctness, eg to make written matter clear/thorough it
sometimes has to become quite lengthy/ponderous/cumbersome, utilizing only
conventional syntactical techniques, such as using typical punctuation
marks/optimally selecting words and their best order. This unnecessarily
limits the practicality/efficiency/potency eg multidimensionality of written
matter. There is also a need for efficiently, eg compactly, indicating a
desired repetition of a selected syntax portion.
My improved system of writing is not, of course, purported to be perfect, nor
to be a method of speedwriting eg shorthand, but nevertheless offers various,
apparently novel, syntactical-in-a-broad-sense techniques that address, and
appear to substantially satisfy, the fairly-obvious longstanding widespread
need for improved syntactical methods/tools for facilitating more efficient,
practical, potent, compact, improved written matter eg a
system/protocol/syntactical toolbox for substantially reducing the
above-mentioned limitations of conventional antiquated syntactical
techniques. To receive additional information on the recently improved
system, please write; please send your letter requesting such additional
information, and enclosing your check for ninety-seven dollars (U.S. $97.00)
to cover handling and mailing costs, to Mark Schuman; 101 G Street S.W. #516;
Washington, D.C. 20024. Thank you. If, in your future readings, you look for
and note the occasional such deficiencies, you may be surprised at their
frequency of occurrence. Also, my improved system of writing tends to compact
written matter in general, eg even when inefficient use of typographical
space appears to be the only deficiency. If you wish more information, please
see above in this paragraph, and acknowledge receipt of all info.
The recently improved system utilizes a moderate number of symbols
inter-/intrameshed with words, and coding; it appears to be novel, practical,
and useful, and should facilitate improved written-matter-in-a-broad-sense.
For more info, please see the preceding paragraph. Generally, especially if
not all of the available features of the new system are selected, most words
should no such symbol on or next to ^it^.
--Copyright (C) 1995 Mark Schuman
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 18:38:22 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction
I am creating a John Cage WWW Site on our WFMU server. To my knowledge,
there is no Cage homepage/resource currently on the net. I am soliciting
material for the page: ascii, html-tagged docs, BBedit docs, jpegs, gifs,
etc. relating to John Cage, his life, his work, those who worked with
him, etc. At this point, I am only looking for text & visuals--later we
can add audio clips. The site is well traveled and I would like to
include as many related links as possible. Things are just under
construction now but we should have the site up and running by
the end of the summer. Thanks in advance for your interest. Please
forward this message to those who might be interested.
Kenneth Goldsmith
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
check out WFMU's homepage: http://wfmu.org
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 17:52:42 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling
In message <950612094046_68995951@aol.com> UB Poetics discussion group writes:
> Chris S.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Marisa J.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Maria D.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Kenny G.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Lisa J.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Sheila E.
> What do you wish would happen on this list?
>
> Curious
> Jordan
do you really wanna know? there are many answers to that question. i want the
list to provide me with an exciting social life. I want the list to provide me
with an exciting intellectual life. i want the list to provide me with a
network of likeminded folks all over the world so that i have at least one
kindred spirit in every port. i want someone to offer me a great job. i want
the euphoric bliss of the ages. secrets of the universe. a great relationship.
instant talent and smartness. uninhibited creativity that finds its perfect
expression every time, movement into space with untrammeled decency clarity and
adventure.
on a more pedestrian level, i want to learn how to read some of the newer work
that intimidates me. i like the energy i feel from it, but feel inadequate
sometimes to interact with it (let alone to teach it, though one of my fantasies
is also to one day not have to teach). i want opportunities to meet, help and
be helped by, others who are in touch with the spirit of poesie. basically, i
guess you could say i want community. did you mean by the question, what
content do i want to see? let me think about that and get back to you later.
--maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 20:21:32 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950612182652.17064A-100000@panix.com> from
"Kenneth Goldsmith" at Jun 12, 95 06:38:22 pm
Kenneth,
Please post the Cage URL to this list when it is up or even partially
up so that we may link to it from the EPC.
Loss
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 21:55:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Cayley <cayley@SHADOOF.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Golf was invented in China
Could someone re-post this to one of those *huge* PoMo lists or newsgroups.
I guess this will qualify as the world's greatest simulacrum:
>[CND, 06/11/95] BEIJING -- Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty and
>the start of the famous ancient Silk Route is to be re-built to attract more
>visitors, Reuter reported. The city will preserve traditional Chinese city
>design such as gates, watchtowers and terraces. No construction date or
>cost were revealed, however, it will be the world's biggest replica
>metropolis. Chang'an is located near Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province
>in central China. (Kun Wang, Jian LIU)
-----------
John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}]
PERMANENT ADDRESS: 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK
Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
TEMPORARY FROM 17 MAY TO 5 AUG 1995:
St Leonards Island PO Box 62 Port Carling Ont. P0B 1J0 Canada
Tel & Fax (705) 769 3598 Email: cayley@inforamp.net
SUMMER 1995 URL: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley
-----------
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:45:34 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: name calling
What about me, Jordan?
Just kidding. Don't let anybody shut you down by pretending that "we've
answered all these questions before," because the fact is, often we haven't
really answered the question, only finessed it into a question we *can*
answer; and even with the questions we do answer, the whole world changes
underneath and leaves the answer looking embarrassed and the question
needing to be paid attention to anew.
I *wish* eternal inner (and outer) PEACE would break out on this list, but
I'd settle for many intelligent, inspired people feeling free to communicate
with each other about what concerns them and about what provokes thought and
feeling.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:45:41 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: The Unbearables/letter from a young poet
>Rilke:
>Okay, I'm off it. Now, tell me (without cribbing from Zukofsky) what are the
>minimum and the maximum bounds on a poem? What does a poem have to do to be a
>good poem?
Just blow my mind, baby; just blow my fucking mind.
Steve (live well die when you're damn good and ready) Carll
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 21:38:04 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: name calling
I'm grateful for the question: "What do you wish would happen on this
list?" which of course engenders potential sheepishness, as anything I wish
that I've not already tried to make happen volleys right back in the form of
"Why NOT" - What, after all, could stop desire except a) Lethargy b) Guilt
c) Fear d) Lack of Imagination e) Many More Unnamables I'd Just As Soon Not
Seep Into My Body's Brain.
(Ah, denial!)
Maria does a nice job of kicking off an answer. Community's a nice start.
One thing I'll admit, having been asked this open thing: I have for many
years relished my correspondence with several individuals who have become
close through the medium of letters. That kind of thing can happen (the
one-to-one) electronically, and does. In SOME, certainly not all,
instances, the billboard motif of the list is difficult, as private
relationships have their own subtlety and craft themselves of a privacy that
is itself delicious beyond what group things usually do for me.
And yet, with that, the list offers DIFFERENT things. It was a good
vicarious experience to hear many views of the Blaser conference. Perhaps
just good to know that it existed and brought so much dazzlement and warmth
to so many people, who held and projected what had happened for them. In
this way, the list is BETTER THAN private correspondence. So, more of that.
What I'd like to see MORE OF is the sharing of new work via the list. Maybe
group creations.
Yet maybe I don't. You'll notice that I haven't started either one of these
myself. Why not?
One thing I definitely like are QUESTIONS that bring up issues that people
want to whiffle around. It's nice to listen (not to deny the eyes) and to
toss in something when it is possible to think back.
Are you sorry you asked (me)? But it's good to be asked.
Sheila E.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 01:08:03 -40962758
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Rosenberg <jr@AMANUE.PGH.NET>
Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction
Kenneth Goldsmith:
> To my knowledge,
> there is no Cage homepage/resource currently on the net.
This is incorrect. There is a John Cage Internet mailing list maintained by
Joeseph Zitt, who also hosts a Cage home page. His URL is:
http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/
The Cage home page hangs somewhere off of his home page. I believe the
correct E-mail address to subscribe to the E-mail list is:
majordomo@bga.com
with the line
subscribe silence
--
Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/
CIS: 71515,124
WELL: jer
Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 09:27:43 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: everywhere and nowhere
Maria, Steve, and Sheila,
Thanks. It made me happy to read what you wanted to happen. It does seem like
there is a common (strong) interest in radical poetries among the readers of
this list. Maria, I'd like to get some energy for/a way into reading newer
work, too. For instance, could somebody discuss the ideological distinction
between writing in Poetic Briefs/Situation and writing in Apex/Chain? (Maybe
we've all heard enough about that. How about someone offering a brief
introduction to the work of Mark Wallace, or Chris Stroffolino, or Kristin
Prevallet?) Could somebody say something about the work by younger poets in
New York that claims to be "against form"?
Some people have been posting poems from time to time--reading back through
the monthly journals I found poems by Bill Luoma, Charles Alexander, Alan
Sondheim and others. It seemed to me like a pretty good (i.e. friendly) way
to publish.
And how about collaborative works through this list? Maybe a MUD or a MOO or
an IRC, some real-time area, would be a better place to write as a group. I
don't quite know how those areas work, though. Maybe Chris Funkhouser can
explain a little?
Chris F.,
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Dodie B.,
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Charles B.,
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Tan L.,
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Carla B.,
What do you wish would happen on this list?
Interested and listening,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 08:32:11 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling
In message <199506130245.TAA21460@slip-1.slip.net> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> What about me, Jordan?
>
> Just kidding. Don't let anybody shut you down by pretending that "we've
> answered all these questions before," because the fact is, often we haven't
> really answered the question, only finessed it into a question we *can*
> answer; and even with the questions we do answer, the whole world changes
> underneath and leaves the answer looking embarrassed and the question
> needing to be paid attention to anew.
>
> I *wish* eternal inner (and outer) PEACE would break out on this list, but
> I'd settle for many intelligent, inspired people feeling free to communicate
> with each other about what concerns them and about what provokes thought and
> feeling.
>
> Steve
the nature of this msg makes me wonder: jordan davis, why dd you ask me (imagine
italics on that final syllable)? have i indicated discontent? --maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 11:13:48 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: everywhere and nowhere
>For instance, could somebody discuss the ideological distinction
>between writing in Poetic Briefs/Situation and writing in Apex/Chain? (Maybe
>we've all heard enough about that. How about someone offering a brief
>introduction to the work of Mark Wallace, or Chris Stroffolino, or Kristin
>Prevallet?
jordan--
i'd very much recommend Mark Wallace's piece "On the Lyric as
Experimental Possibility" which appeared in the latest WITZ (spring
'95; 10604 Wguooke St,m Toluca Lake CA 91602; creiner@crl.com)
as a piece of that puzzle... praps mark or chris reiner (WITZ
editor) would be willing to post it, here or at the epc...
luigi
TRR/Burning Press
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 09:45:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Christopher Reiner <creiner@CRL.COM>
Subject: Re: everywhere and nowhere
Comments: To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.freenet.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199506131513.LAA26689@eeyore.INS.CWRU.Edu>
On Tue, 13 Jun 1995, Robert Drake wrote:
> jordan--
>
> i'd very much recommend Mark Wallace's piece "On the Lyric as
> Experimental Possibility" which appeared in the latest WITZ (spring
> '95; 10604 Wguooke St,m Toluca Lake CA 91602; creiner@crl.com)
> as a piece of that puzzle... praps mark or chris reiner (WITZ
> editor) would be willing to post it, here or at the epc...
>
> luigi
> TRR/Burning Press
I'm a little behind in uploading issues to the epc, but if anyone wants a
paper copy of the new Witz, just send me a 55-cent stamp to cover the
postage. The address is
Witz
10604 Whipple Street
Toluca Lake, CA 91602
I'm also interested in responses to Mark Wallace's piece.
--Chris Reiner
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 16:24:25 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: singling
Maria Damon wrote:
the nature of this msg makes me wonder: jordan davis, why dd you ask me
(imagine
italics on that final syllable)? have i indicated discontent? --maria d
Not at all! I was just curious what you would wish.
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:01:18 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: name calling
Dear Jordan,
I'd like to see the power of the practice of poetics (in any/all
"discourse(s)") demonstrated everywhere. The hope I have of any
institution (this list included) is that it'll work to that end.
Although collab on poems is a nice thought (a why-not), how about
(collaborating on) ways of making poetics
effective as a way of intervening in all the sites
where the arts can be practised, from the obvious of poetry
publication to all aspects of the academy and the media.
There is an old question lurking here: Does poetry or does poetry
not (in the maybe subtle and maybe long-term sense) change the
world"? Isn't the pen mightier than the sword? (esp.
when "the darkness surrounds us"?).
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 18:32:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: MEMORABILIA
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950614090118.288@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
We, the self-proclaimed editors, Nicole Critten and Lindsey (LINDZ)
Williamson wish to welcome you to the first, and definately not the last,
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO MEMORABILIA..
For those who write, we offer the opportunity to be published,
along with other local writers (Vancouver, lowermainland, B.C.), in an
uncensored forum that is circulated in outlets chosen to provide you with
excellent public exposure.
For those who read, we wish to provide you with a window into the
writing of fresh local talent and encourage your particpation in, and feed
back on, what you discover in our pages.
Each issue will be loosely based around a theme of importance,
such as a time, mood, or place. However, we offer a theme only as a rough
creative outline for each issue and encourage any form of expression or
response. Memorabilia is a paper with an ecclectic spirit so do not feel
limited or inhibited: if it's art, we want to see it!
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
THE SECOND ISSUE OF
MEMORABILIA
Lies and confessions-childhood, marital, professional, religious, little
white lies to cover your ass, big white lies to cover your ass-we ask for
all forms of creative expression on this theme by July 10, 1995. We
remind you that space is limited so keep all pieces short. Please send a
self-addressed-stamped-envelope and $5.00 for each previously unpublished
submission to help us cover our costs. Only submissions received by mail
will be accepted. We regret that we can't publish everyone, but we will
send everyone the edition they applied to appear in. Please note also
that you waive all publication rights upon sending us your work. If you
have any questions or wish to order a subscription (Issue One is
available, featuring Ryan Knighton and Reg Johanson) feel free to write or
e-mail us at critten@unixg.ubc.ca. Send submissions to:
MEMORABILIA
3675 W 3rd Ave
Vancouver, B.C.
V6R 1M1
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 01:39:44 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950614090118.288@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
Jordan: well, like everybody, I want to see my name in lights,
so thanks! How disarming it is to be "called." Suddenly I was playing
the third quarter of a game there and a pompom seemed to rustle.
I absolutely second "what Maria said." And what Jordan said, too:
one of the reasons I'm here is for as warm a hand-in as possible to the
aesthetics of the very very new. And people on this list have in fact
pushed me to read things I wouldn't have had the incentive to read
otherwise, like that whole damn double O-Blek (you know who y'all are)
and also Rilke, lately, and Jordan Davis in something called Arris.
My test of a new poem is pretty pedestrian: the first thing I
usually check, is: what is the poet's relation to language, and does s/he
seem to have bought into some obnoxious idea about how it ought to
circulate or not? Admittedly, I often miss out on stuff that has a
certain 'finish' to it, even if it's actually smart (for instance, I'm
still struggling past Merrill's veneer)... I'd be curious to hear about
poets people on this list have reconsidered at one point or another, and
why.
I'd also like to see more from Tony Green and anyone else on the
"power of the practice of poetics"-- Tony: what do you mean by 'power,'
and what by 'practice'? (anecdotes, please!)
Three things on my mind lately: finishing this l-o-n-g Mina Loy
bibliography, the dynamics of literary revivals, and Salt Lake City.
It would be an act of charity if anyone on the list can tell me
(backchannel) what's going on with poetry, Salt Lake City, and the
University of Utah... someone mentioned Utah once, and I meant to be all
over the reference but wasn't. I am moving and I'm grateful you people
will all seem to be in the same 'place.'
Bye for now--- Marisa
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 00:02:26 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction
Kenneth -
Don't stop working on your Cage website, but you should know that there are
a few more than the one by Joseph Zitt that Jim Rosenberg gave the URL for
earlier. I'm not sure, but by now there may be links to these from this
web site.
One is part of the New Albion Records site. They have a page for each of
their artists and their Cage website includes a long autobiographical text
& a very good discography of Cage's recordings. For a commercial venture
this site is quite low key and is very informative about the various
composers and performers who have recordings on New Albion.
<http://newalbion.com>
Another web site on Cage probably isn't permanent. It's from the
Philadelphia Museum of Art where the traveling exhibition <Roly Holy Over>
(which I'm sure I spelled wrong) is currently being shown. The last time I
checked this one was kind of rudimentary as far as information goes, but
has a few nice examples of scores and other graphic works from the
exhibition.
<http://www.libertynet.org/~cage/index.html>
There's a page with a lot of links to Cage references of various sorts
(some are pretty minor indeed) at
<http://www.emf.net/~mal/cage.html>
Bests,
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:50:26 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: What is this list for?
In-Reply-To: <199506140509.GAA12624@tucana.dur.ac.uk>
I'm amazed how often this topic crops up when self-evidently the
purpose of the list shifts and veers as topics come and go. "Out here"
in a fairly isolated situation I DO relish the contact which it
brings, and the simple billboard function, which I'd like to see more
of. I'd like more:
- conference reviews
- poetry reading reviews
- mag & chapbook reviews
- "rediscovered texts" reviews
- where "review" is a few lines, rather than full academic discourse!
- "Keep it short, boys!" - Val Raworth, preface to a Harwood/Raworth
poetry reading.
Of course, I like some of the "abstruser musings" too, and when I
don't, technology provides me with the solution (delete key). But I do
agree that the list isn't the place where personal identities come
over, or where personal messages are appropriate - backchannels are
the place for that. Indeed, backchanneling contact has for me been one
of the most directly useful products of this list.
If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK
librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their
e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to
police the internet" and so forth. And that some initial linguistic
research (I'm sorry, I don't have the reference) suggest that folk are
much more likely to be rude, as in abusive, in e-mail correspondence,
than in letters or face-to-face. On which note:
Footnote: I dumped the Hole/Love exchanges down to a rock musician I
know, who said, (on the phone) Dad, WHY are you reading this blairite*
fanzine crap?
*blair'ite: n. & adj. Squishy socialist; of or pertaining to the
chattering classes.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:37:07 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
thank you Ric Caddel for the adjective "blair'ite"---Is this then
a "blairite" message? That thanks you for the lamnguage with which
it can condemn itself? I mean language. Mean language. Squishy
socialist--yes backchannel----In America, very little gets done
on the FLOORS of congress---if you only knew the dealing that goes
on in the back of the store---- chris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:42:54 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling
Re.: Power and practice of poets. Are indeed poets the legislators of
the world? I don't know, but I do believe that poetry soars, while
politics snores. Down with the utilitarian, Tony Green!!
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:47:57 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
I can't say how happy I am to read Richard Caddel's wonderfully candid
remarks about how this list ought to function. New to this list myself,
I have bit my tongue--and glad I did because I would have called for
something perhaps too prescriptive. Yet I must say that my heart in hiding
stirs for Mr. Caddel's words. BACKCHANNEL IS A GOOD THING, otherwise the
list becomes too cumbersome. No?
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:08:33 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
Richard Caddell writes:
I'm amazed how often this topic crops up when self-evidently the
purpose of the list shifts and veers as topics come and go.
Well... sort of. Then later, he writes:
If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK
librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their
e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to
police the internet" and so forth.
Richard,
I wasn't thinking about limiting the functions of this list. I was hoping
people would say what they wanted to see--more like market research than the
star chamber (maybe they're not the same thing!).
Poetics,
What "general" magazines do you read? ("General"=high circulation
quasi-literary)
Love,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:08:43 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
Richard Caddel wrote:
>But I do agree that the list isn't the place where personal identities come
>over .....
God forgive that our personal identies arise when discussing writing! Beat
the personal out of writing/reading with a stick, right? Keep that writing
in its analytical cage, boys!
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:07:32 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
>
> Poetics,
> What "general" magazines do you read? ("General"=high circulation
> quasi-literary)
>
> Love,
> Jordan
Jordan, i welcome your questions as inviting interaction, much like the "what
everybody's reading" q a few months ago. it never crossed my mind that you were
trying to police the internet. As for journals etc., i (try to) read Public
Culture, Diaspora, and occasionally Cultural Anthropology. I have no
subscriptions to "literary" periodicals except pmla (which hardly qualifies) but
do i read it? nahhh --except for the professional notes and comments at the
end. kkillian has sent me a coupla back issues of Mirage, and Gary Sullivan
lent me some stuff like grand central. i just picked up the "IT's the Jews!"
issue of Long Shot, which I find quite wonderful (esp the cover photo). i was
on the editorial board of Signs, that academic feminist journal, for about a
year (very demystifying). I've got a coupla issues of Chain that i've lent out
to students and colleagues cuz they seem so apropos their work.
best--maria
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:01:48 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
In-Reply-To: <emu-ct08.1995.0614.095027.dul0ric@venus.dur.ac.uk> from
"R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" at Jun 14, 95 10:50:26 am
> If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK
> librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their
> e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to
> police the internet" and so forth.
A note on this is that the current U.S. debate is called (I'm not
making this up) the "jeans vs tux" paradigms of the Intenet. The
former being wild and unrestrained; the latter being formal,
controlled, and regulated. There _is_ some possibility that all we are
doing here may be over in a flash (a la the sixties) because the tux
forces are not inconsequential in influence and power. It's a curious
predicament, possibly deadly, but maybe not so curious if you think
that in the US, all media is strictly regulated...
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:56:50 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: List fantasies
Jordan Davis write:
>Dodie B.,
>What do you wish would happen on this list?
Frankly, I don't have an agenda, even an imaginary one, for this list. I'd
like it if more women wrote in, because there's certainly enough amazing,
smart, opinionated women signed up on the list.
Let's do some retro-feminist thinking about this, sort of a stroll down
memory lane, and think about why more women don't post to this list. Two
reasons come to mind. The first one is kind of French--I think a lot of
the gals out there are happy wallowing around in their jouissance, and
really aren't drawn to partake in a lot of the abstract b.s. that goes on
here. Who can blame them--it's hard to get all that motivated about the
poetics listserv to cease and subvert it--most of the women on this list
*do* have a life.
Secondly, there are those old monster feelings of invalidation. I remember
reading a very painful essay by a young female poet in which she talked
about her fear of speaking, of expressing her opinions--without the
slightest suggestion that this was an issue bigger than her personal
psychology. (Did somebody flush the seventies down the toilet? Gloria
Steinam where are you!) I wanted to put my arm around her shoulder and
say, "Honey, you're not alone." Actually, I think there are a lot of
sensitive guys out there who share similar insecurities. Around the time I
read this woman's essay I was writing a long article on religious cults
(which will finally be published June 22 in the San Diego Reader--S. CA
campers, check it out!). I fantasized my own feminist New Age Movement,
the motto of which would be WHO GIVES A SHIT. It's easy. You think, "Blah
Blah will think I'm stupid if I say that." What do you say to yourself?
"Who gives a shit!" It works in all social situations, not just in poetics
discussions. Remember: Blah Blah must be saying "Who gives a shit" to
himself all the time or he wouldn't be throwing out his inane opinions as
if they were the god's truth.
I hope none of you think I'm silly and stupid and small and ugly for
writing this. Who gives a shit!
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:23:10 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
In-Reply-To: <199506141601.MAA15775@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss
Glazier" at Jun 14, 95 12:01:48 pm
electrically each come and go
talking of
till human voices wake us
and drown
(make no mistake, this iis a love song)
ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 08:40:43 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: What is this list for?
For Marisa (put that way this is not a personal back-channel msg so
evades the tux policers) more you handle Bunting's chisel on a
regular basis -- the more useful you get with
yr students fr' instance -- something along those lines
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 14:43:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: LAURA MORIARTY <moriarty@MERCURY.SFSU.EDU>
Subject: Cole/Moriarty reading
For those who are in or will be in the Bay Area June 19th, Norma Cole and
I (Laura Moriarty) will be giving a reading in Cole Swensen's new series
at the Minna St. Gallery on Minna and Second St. in downtown SF. Time is,
I believe, 8PM.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 19:10:13 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: CagePage Update
This internet is mind-boggling. Just as I put out my call for material for
my CagePage I, purely by *chance* stumbled across a trove of Cage material,
as well as New Music sites. Never think that something hasn't already been
done out there on the net--the vastness both numbs & juices the mind. So, I
will continue to built my CagePage and again, I ask all of you out there
who have written about Cage to email me material so we can build yet
another resource, with its own particular slant, whatever that may be. Any
material is acceptable--old or new--published or unpublished. Multiplicity
and abundance continue to be the guiding principles here.
Here's what I found:
New Albion Records with a terrific Cage/New Music resource:
http://newalbion.com/
The John Cage Mailing List: files & subscription info:
http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/Cage/
The John Cage Page: A guide to Cageian resources on the Net:
http://www.emf.net/~mal/cage.html
NewMusNet: New Music forums and resources on the Net:
http://www.tmn.com/0h/Artswire/www
NewMus MusicNet: a tri-quarterly New Music Journal in PDF format:
http://www.tmn.com/0h/Artswire/www/NewMusNet/nmmn.html#NewMusVols
Pauline Oliveros Foundation:
http://www.tmn.com/0h/Artswire/www/pof/pof.html
Deep Listening Catalog: highly experimental music
http://www.tmn.com/Artswire/www/NewMusNet/dlcat.html
Jim Rosenberg: our very own! Thanks Jim!:
http://www.well.com/user/jer/
These are just jumping off points!
Peace,
Kenny G
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
http://wfmu.org/~kennyg/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 21:33:14 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: name calling
Hi Marisa:
How 'bout E.E. Cummings? He's kind of "The Great Lost Modernist," having
gotten lost somewhere between, say, Pound and Stein, but his work manages to
incorporate proto-language tactics (look at that bent syntax!),
concrete-visual layouts (most of his poems fit on one page, and, as he
referred to himself as a "poet-painter", he worked diligently on their
shape) *and* sound-poetry (his transcriptions of New York and Boston
tough-guy dialects are quite funny). And when he transcends his upper-class
racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia and just plain sentimentality, his
astounding lyricism can transport his work to a really deep connection with
the earth. Unfortunately, as Jack Foley once told me, "most people get into
Cummings when they're 16, and so they leave him behind when they leave their
16-year-old selves behind."
Steve
Marisa Januzzi writes:
... I'd be curious to hear about
>poets people on this list have reconsidered at one point or another, and
>why.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 05:27:55 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: jeans vs tux
>A note on this is that the current U.S. debate is called (I'm not
>making this up) the "jeans vs tux" paradigms of the Intenet. The
>former being wild and unrestrained; the latter being formal,
>controlled, and regulated.
If you think that it's impossible to be wild and unrestrained while wearing a
tux, then you've been hanging out with the wrong crowd :-)
More seriously, isn't the Internet big enough for both? I mean, places with
formal controls (such as a moderated list) should be able to coexist with the
"wild and unrestrained" (alt.let.it.all.hang.out). In real life, one can wear a
dinner suit to a ball on Saturday night, then wear jeans to brunch on Sunday.
Why not on the Internet?
Formality can give freedom. For instance, learning how to tie a bow tie and
what to do with one's wing collars gives one the freedom to attend formal
occasions, without losing one's ability to wear jeans. Conforming with the
stylistic rules of an online journal gives one the right to contribute to the
discourse of the journal, without losing the right to slum it on IRC.
Maybe there's an analogy in poetry. Learn the rules, _then_ break them. Perhaps
sequences such as _Jerusalem Sonnets_, _Willy's Gazette_, _Sonnets for Carlos_
and _Blue Irises_ (sorry about the parochial examples) would lack some of their
power if they hadn't had the formality of the sonnet form for the poems to
struggle against and subvert. One can knock a wall down, or dig underneath it,
or look for a hidden door, or climb it and admire the view. The absence of
rules is _not_ the key to freedom, despite what Lindsay Perigo (another
provincial reference) might say.
Of course, no-one wants to wear a dinner suit every day, or write in rhyming
couplets all the time, or have the cybercops breathing down their necks. One of
the reasons that I admire Edwin Morgan is that he can write something as
formal as _Glasgow Sonnets_, and then experiment with concrete and sound
poetry. I hope the `tux forces' (although to me, a dinner suit conjures up
associations of glamour and flamboyance - how about `grey flannel Brooks
Brothers suit forces'?) keep their grubby hands and small minds off the net;
but I still see a place for formal, regulated spaces on the Internet.
Your humble servant,
Tom Beard
(loosening the half-Windsor knot on his tie
as 5:30 approaches)
P.S. Have you ever turned up to a function (opera, film premiere etc) wearing a
dinner suit, only to find everyone else wearing jeans? One wonders now who is
orthodox and who heterodox.
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 02:37:31 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling/cummings
In-Reply-To: <199506150433.VAA10316@slip-1.slip.net>
Hi Steve, and everyone:
cummings! Well anyway, Laura Riding agreed with you, in about 1924, when the
critics remembered cummings had grazed in the Loygardens @1916....when
Mina Loy, via Paris and Florence, was helping to bring the 'poet-painter'
concept alive in New York....
But it's funny you should bring him up; he's the writer I was thinking of
through the whole 'sentimentality' thread, and he's unbearable (on for
instance prostitutes), but there *is* something in cummings-- a lyricism
like there is in Berrigan maybe-- that I feel I can't do without. So lately I
was waving some new poetry around and saying "I want what cummings had"
which is probably *not* what Tony Green means by taking up the chisel on behalf
of one's students.....the contrivance of lush feeling
This was, by the way, an isolated incident.... --------Marisa
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 23:31:10 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: klobucar <klobucar@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: new web site
Announcing a new World Wide Web initiative to stimulate critical discussion
and debate on aesthetics and technology as these cultural components
continue to influence each other at the end of the twentieth century. A
fresh writing project on the Web called "Infusion" will soon begin
publishing in electronic form. Essays and reviews are now being solicited
on electronic art in general or any topic concerning the place and effect
of aesthetic theory within electronic media. Questions and responses can
be mailed to either my e-mail address: klobucar@unixg.ubc or that of the
site on which Infusion will be run - front@wimsey.com. The address of the
magazine is as follows: http://www.wimsey.com/~front/infusion. Comments
and criticism appreciated.
Infusion is designed to facilitate a more informed and critical awareness of
cultural production on the internet. Reviews and discussions of various
internet sites will follow, each one providing its own series of
hypertextual links to the actual site under investigation. Emphasised
within these writings are the radically new conceptions of both space and
time endemic to the medium of cyberspace itself. Not in any way bound by
traditional, institutional demarcations between the artwork and its
critique, the reviews that originate at this site will feature a much more
interactive model of comment and analysis. These writings will seek ideally
to interconnect with their own objects of critique, providing more than
just commentary or general criticism: Infusion will remain, above all, an
exercise in critical engagement. The electronic medium of the internet
inspires a whole series of new challenges for the contemporary cultural
worker. The very technology itself demands different skills and objectives
within the cultural sphere. Those who choose to ignore these changes run
the risk of seriously limiting their respective social "voices". A new
media framework requires new social responses. It is hoped, therefore, that
the following electronic spaces will collectively provide a suitable
discourse for creative,thoughtful reflection befitting these technologies.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 09:25:58 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: sun & moon/sentimentality
Poetics
The second we stopped sending messages with the header "sentimentality" the
anthology _50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics_ arrived at St Marks
Books. (It's a pretty great read, modelled apparently on the old New
Directions annuals. Writers from the publisher's list and then writers the
publisher admires all in one handy book--does anyone know if S&M plans to do
this again?)
Barbara Guest, from _Ojjiba_
of sentimental values none no more than a spasm the arm goes over and down
and over in il splash drank a tumbler then greenleaf and swimming dog
muscular gladioli goodly frere _unio mystica_ we perceive a grass ship
[_il splash_ seems to be the _selah_ of this poem]
F.T. Marinetti, from _Dunes_
SENTIMENTAL
blinded {on the young explorors be-} blinding
by {trayed by wives lovers} by
tears {solemnity of a cuckold} red tears
{on the equator}
The book (which maybe could have used more proofreading) includes a lively
section from Lyn Hejinian's _Sleeps_, some Forties by Jackson MacLow, a
typographically enhanced translation of _Vladimir Mayakovsky: Tragedy_, a
poem by Charles Henri Ford (That's where the ND feeling comes from), Celine
(or that), Queneau (or that), Michael Palmer, Charles Bernstein, Fanny Howe,
David Bromige, etc., etc.
If you buy only three anthologies from Sun & Moon this year...
(Could somebody say a little about _I Novissimi_, the Giuliani anthology from
S&M? I'm, as they say in the back of the magazines, curious...)
Love,
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 09:45:59 CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Prof. R. Prus" <prusr@BABBAGE.SOSU.EDU>
Subject: long shot
In-Reply-To: <2fdf15b74970002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>; from "maria damon" at Jun
14, 95 12:07 (noon)
To Maria Damon or Anybody,
Maria mentioned the journal Long Shot, particularly the issue
"It's the Jews." Would anybody have the address so I can subscribe
to it?
randy prus
prusr@babbage.sosu.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 08:56:00 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Don Cheney <Don_Cheney@UCSDLIBRARY.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: Ah! Theology!
I just got back from the audiologist. I have had ringing in
my left ear for two months now. One of the audio tests they
did with me was to speak words into my headphones and have
me repeat the words (and to guess at the word if I didn't
hear the word clearly). So the audiologist is pronouncing
words in my ear and I'm repeating them out loud. But what
is happening with me is I'm trying to figure out what the
pattern is to the words they're using and then when I had
trouble hearing the words I thought of it as an auditory
Rorschach test (at one point I said "shotgun" to what
sounded like "shotgun" to me, but by that time I had also
figured out somewhat of a pattern and that was: the words
related to children: playground, school, etc. and I was
throwing "shotgun" into that mix!). At one point all I
heard was a phoneme and repeated that. Before I latched on
to the idea that these words related to children, I tried to
make a narrative out of the words and I tried to figure out
what different sounds these words made and what that pattern
might be. I also wondered who made up the words because
even though they were certainly throwing these words at me
for their SOUND value they also have meanings attached to
them that resonate in your brain as your repeating them out
loud. All in awl, a very interesting experience.
Don Cheney
dcheney@ucsd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 10:38:49 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: sun & moon/blue M&Ms
Jordan's comments on the Sun & Moon _50_ anthology _almost_ make me wish
I'd picked that up instead of their _Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative
American Poetry 1993/94_. But not quite.
It's a good digest of various current scenes (though there're things I'd
have liked to see included that aren't) drawn from magazines, most of which
don't show up in Seattle. &, a real breakthrough here, NAFTA in action, it
includes Canadians and, I think, one Mexican as "Americans." 's about
time, eh?
But really, I just wanted to say that Jordan's use of the abbreviation S&M
for Sun & Moon reminded me of the blue M&M I had yesterday. They're a
darker blue than I'd expected, replacing the light brown ones.
For the Canadians on the list, M&M's are kind of like the candy <Smarties>.
I don't know the equivalent in other countries.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 12:53:35 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: name calling/cummings
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950615022231.24042E-100000
@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu> from "Marisa A Januzzi" at Jun 15,
95 02:37:31 am
Anybody ever heard cummings read? There's actually a small clip
of him reading pretty how town on Encarta for cd-rom. His voice
and its natural rhythm are very lyrical to begin with (breath of
line is quite honest, I think). He sounds like a hybrid of
W.C. Fields and the voice of Winnie the Pooh. How fictionally
appropriate.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 16:03:57 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Extract from silence-digest
Folks--
I found this gorgeous sentiment while leafing through the archives of
"silence-digest", the John Cage mailing list. Thought some might find it
inspiring:
silence-digest Wednesday, 15 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 007
http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/Cage/cage0107.html
From: "Myron Bennett"
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 11:57:08 -0500
Subject: Greetings, and Happy New Ears
==============================CUT===============================================
One of the wonderful fruits of John's coming to Cincinnati was that he
became acquainted with Jeanne Kirstein, who was a Pianist In Residence
at the Conservatory (part of U.C.) (and wife of Jack Kirstein, then cellist
with the LaSalle Quartet.) John fell in love with how Jeanne played his
pieces, and chose her to record for Columbia "The Early Piano Music of
John Cage". During the time of recording in New York, on one of her returns to
Cincinnati, Jeanne told me that one day, as they were listening to a
playback, John said to her in a somewhat wistful tone, "This makes me
realize that I could have been a composer."
Peace,
Kenny G
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg/
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 13:25:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: All about the taking
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950612142524.736@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz> from "Tony
Green" at Jun 12, 95 02:25:24 pm
Tony, sorry it took me so long to reply, but I had a reading to
get ready for, which was helpful.
I really, reallly enjoyed your post, and I think you've articulated
something I've felt while writing.
I have several poems in which I deal with this issue,and while
I was getting ready to read I noticed I formally treat influence
through parataxis or an angular jarring of styles, I suppose like
language poetry, only style is the unit of interrogation. It strikes
me that the result is violent, as in fusion or fission, and this is
the noise of the self and its tongue reconfiguring to accomodate
personnae, love and whatever else is engaged. I think this is
where Ondaatje's verse about "a spine" being bred is born.
It seems language can't just be "the furniture in the room" becase
the process doesn't feel that benign. Of course, this is assuming
we can say history and influence can be thought of as "other" in
Spicer's system.
Hmmm.
Best
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 08:33:46 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: sun & moon/blue M&Ms
Hi Herb, there was a great moment when Kelly Bundy thought hers was a
W & W.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 08:38:03 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: name calling/cummings
Dear Marisa, I was not wanting to specify What, contriving lush
whatever is chiselling...
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 16:05:37 CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: eric pape <ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
In-Reply-To: <01HRJEOUM3UG8ZEHPI@albnyvms.BITNET>
Chris: Recent scholarship suggests Davy Crockett was a woman. One of the
many who "passed" in those days. Coincidence?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 16:25:35 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: long shot
In message <POETICS%95061511015583@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> UB Poetics discussion
group writes:
> To Maria Damon or Anybody,
>
> Maria mentioned the journal Long Shot, particularly the issue
> "It's the Jews." Would anybody have the address so I can subscribe
> to it?
>
> randy prus
>
> prusr@babbage.sosu.edu
here it is:
Long SHot productions, inc.
p.b. box 6238
Hoboken NJ 07030
md
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 17:56:07 -0400
Reply-To: Robert Drake <au462@cleveland.Freenet.Edu>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Drake <au462@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU>
Subject: Re: long shot
last address i have:
Long Shot
PO Box 6231
Hoboken NJ 07030
luigi
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 18:07:39 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: sun & moon/blue M&Ms
Herb Levy wrote:
>But really, I just wanted to say that Jordan's use of the abbreviation S&M
>for Sun & Moon reminded me of the blue M&M I had yesterday. They're a
>darker blue than I'd expected, replacing the light brown ones.
The abreviation S&M would never make me think M&Ms, Herb.
You poets have such clean minds.
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 20:58:35 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: name calling/cummings
Ryan Knighton writes:
>Anybody ever heard cummings read? There's actually a small clip
>of him reading pretty how town on Encarta for cd-rom. His voice
>and its natural rhythm are very lyrical to begin with (breath of
>line is quite honest, I think). He sounds like a hybrid of
>W.C. Fields and the voice of Winnie the Pooh. How fictionally
>appropriate.
There's almost 200 minutes of Cummings on two Caedmon releases recorded c.
1940 and c. 1960, and issued in 1975: poems, bits of plays and a section
from _Eimi_, his Soviet travel journal. And that's not including the
nonlectures, which are also out there somewhere. You pegged his voice
perfectly, Ryan.
How many know that Cummings was one of the first American painters to be
identified with the Cubists? There's an excellent book by Milton A Cohen
called _Poet and Painter: The Aesthetics of E.E. Cummings' Early Work_ that
traces the development of EEC's work in both media and explains why he came
to be seen as more experimental in his poetry and less so in his painting as
time went on. It's on Wayne State University Press.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 10:30:12 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Mag-u-like
In-Reply-To: <199506150403.FAA16216@tucana.dur.ac.uk>
As a librarian I suffer from information overload so tend not to read
too many "general" mags on a regular basis (in the UK so many of them
are just packaging jobs anyway), just specifics in a different field.
BBC Music Magazine Earthcare (because it's there) The European
(bi-weekly with really eccentric sports coverage) The Gramophone New
Scientist Private Eye and World Wildlife are in the recent scan pile.
Different field: The Ecologist European Access European Urban and
Regional Studies Musical Quarterly The Strad, again, recent scans.
And some from the world of lit:
Fragmente (new issue just out, ed. Anthony Mellors, English Dept,
Durham University, try the new poems by Harriet Tarlo, Tony Lopez,
Peter Middleton etc).
Object Permanence (new issue due July, ed. Peter Manson Flat 3/2 16
Ancroft St Maryhill Glasgow G20 7HU).
Mandorla (ed. Roberto Tejada was through Durham last week, his address
Apartado postal 5-366 Mexico DF, Mexico 06500) nice-looking bilingual
Spanish/English job.
And although I can't read it I do enjoy scanning:
Literatura na Swiecie (ed. Piotr Sommer, ul. Zgoda 9m.42, 00-018
Warsaw). All in Polish, carefully produced translations of world
writers from a national and ideological range which wd certainly lead
to a great fight were they ever to have a L.naS christmas party...
"learn the rules then break them" I like -
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x
x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x
x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x
x x
x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x
x - Basil Bunting x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 09:32:59 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: James Sherry c/o <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: The Unberables (fwrd from James Sherry)
[I am reposting this message for James Sherry:}
> ******
Jordan,
> Thanks so much for your reply. Who would've thot Ron Kolm would be a
> rabble rouser after all these years. But these guys are already in that
> group. sparrow hung out with Alan G. for all those years and Ron was
> always pushing beats when he was selling books on 8th St. So it's kinda
> like Lamar Alexander who claims to be a political outsider, but just got
> several million dollars in severance pay supported by the govt during a
> merger of two weapons giants. Ah well life goes on.
>
> I can really only tell you what poetry is not and what it was, not what
> it is or will be since that has to be defined at the poem and then known
> only by reading. but I am not a good answerer of questions, more of an
> asker to paraphrase another writer you would not want me to.
>
> Thanks so much for the info. JAMES
>
> > [from Jordon Davies:]
> > James:
> > The Unbearables are published (I believe) by Grove. Their Andre Breton is Ron
> > Kolm. Their Eluard is (was?--I think they excommunicated him after the New
> > Yorker printed him) Sparrow. Christian X. Hunter, Michael Carter, Jill
> > Rapaport, Buddy Kold, and dozens of others are associated with the group,
> > which met regularly at Cafe No Bar on 9th btw 1 and A for a year or so.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 08:49:08 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale
In message <950615.160655.CDT.ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU> UB Poetics discussion
group writes:
> Chris: Recent scholarship suggests Davy Crockett was a woman. One of the
> many who "passed" in those days. Coincidence?
can u tell us more? what are your sources?--md
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 10:16:53 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Bernstein <BERNSTEI@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Think the Reverse
Tom Beard writes, mentioning traditional forms, "learn the rules, _then_ break
them."
I like to "think the reverse" whenever possible and even if not:
break 'em enough times you won't have to learn 'em, or the rules will have
changed, or you will change them, or make up your own rules and don't follow
those either; anyway whose rules are they?, I didn't see the signs, musta
missed them in the duststorm; or as we say in Medias Res (Medias Res, Nevada)
-- rope 'em and then learn 'em, shoot 'em and then cook 'em (chop up fine
before marinading indefinitely), float jerkily and carry a Bic pen at all
times, where aim I?, is this my fear / or did I just step into the public
sphere?, are you there Mordred?; Give me your tired tuxes, your tattered
nabobs of oligarchy yearning to Keep that Smut Off the Net, Thank you Sen.
Exxon the open spaces around here were scaring me, how many syllables can you
fit on the head of a pin cushion? what's that spell, Mario? who are you
calling a verse? That's not what I meant y'all, not what I meant at all.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 08:59:31 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: S&M/M&Ms (blue)
Tony, as Dodie noted, any memory of Kelly Bundy has been cleaned out of my
mind. Who's that?
Dodie, when people don't get my (stupid) jokes I can get surly & maniacal.
&, hey, watch who you go calling a poet, especially around here. I don't
want to have any rumors starting.
Bests
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 13:08:45 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Leftwich <SLeftwich@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
Charles,
I wrote this about a year and a half ago. It'll be in the next issue of
TEXTURE.
The rule is "thou shalt not steal".
Jim
IN MEDIAS RES
The mere word 'freedom' is the only one that still excites me. The verb to
be admits the assertion. I don't believe in automatic writing either as a
literal possibility or as a utopian or propagandistic literary value. There
is no such place as the economy, the self. And if anything, the kind of
'dream logic' juxtapositions that characterize much surrealistic work seem to
me a candied souping up of traditional literariness, especially in so far as
has been drawn upon in so much post-war American poetry (of what has been
called 'the bird flew through my pillow' sort).
This is the right occasion to recall that the unconscious that all true
poetry calls upon is the receptacle of original relationships that bind us to
nature. This is not a sentence. The words merely crawl across the page,
leaving a trail of syntax. It is not the sky we mean, but the past, a
non-existent wall. Everything happens as though, prior to the secondary
scattering of life, there was a knotty primal unity whose gleam poets have
honed in on. Yet the narrative crosses the garden, cool and damp.
I guess it's a certain kind of depth of field that surrealist eery
dreaminess highlights that I would prefer to see diminished or framed.
Little nicks in the silence come to a period. Within us, all the ages of
mankind. Within us, all human kind. Within us, animal, vegetable, mineral.
To try and tell a story is to make a purgatory of the real.
Mankind, distracted by its activities, delighted by what is useful, has
lost the sense of that fraternity. These words scratched my way slowly into
existence. Clarity is an effect operating on the reader that has more to do
with hypnosis than understanding. The purpose of the work was the
transformation of the worker. No such thing as a phrase.
The earth, draped in its verdant cloak, makes as little impression upon
me as a ghost. I have no conception of what I have to say which I then want
to put into writing. The writing itself shows me what I have to say, and
it's always news to me.
I use chance as a discipline, to free my mind, my ego, from my likes and
dislikes, so that I can flow with a larger set than I comprise. The idea of
getting all the material in a poem totally 'spontaneously' from my 'self'
seems boring to me - my interest in writing is to be able to incorporate
material from disparate places. The image is a pure creation of the mind.
It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Insist on
what's present (broken glass, nearly powdered) - a drunken man,
half-sleeping, at the feet of two cops. Crushed plastic orange juice bottle
- there's no horizon in a tunnel. Existence is elsewhere.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 10:33:08 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
Charles B.:
>I like to "think the reverse" whenever possible and even if not:
>
>break 'em enough times you won't have to learn 'em, or the rules will have
>changed, or you will change them, or make up your own rules and don't follow
>those either; anyway whose rules are they?
I can't agree with you more. As as prose writer, I always feel fortunate
that I never had a single course in prose writing (beyond Freshman comp),
particularly how to write a short story. Sometimes in writing I think it
is very useful to have something to write against, but it brings shivers of
revulsion (Kevin recently reread Powers of Horror for his Blaser talk, so
JK is on my mind) to think of me having this spectre of traditional
narrative and plot structure and character development (this is much worst
than the skin on the top of old milk, uurrrrghhhhfffffff!) to settle my
stomach over. I've got plenty else to think about in structuring my work.
I basically learned to write through imitation, and I often had no idea in
the beginning why I was doing much of what I was doing in narrative. I saw
somebody else doing it and I thought it was neat, so I'd try it.
Particularly I copied techniques of a very talented schizophrenic woman in
Bob Gluck's writing workshop--transcending linearity was like breathing for
her, while I was at home pulling my hair out over it.
Now I could give a theoretical rationalization for everything I do, but the
theory came later (and deepened my work, I think)--again, I approached it
always from a gut level. I read theory to find more neat things, most of
the neat things I found were in art and psychoanalytic film theory rather
than in literary theory. I usually feel much more akin to what's going on
in the art world than in the writing world, plus it was easier to seize and
adapt neat things that were tangential to what I was doing.
I should be honest and say that Bob Gluck was guiding me through this
process, but usually in his kitchen rather than in the writing workshop.
Scooping salmon patties from a frying pan, he would give me gentle little
nudges like, "Dodie, if you take the personal and push it as far as you
can, it becomes universal."
In my own writing workshop I've had students who were amazingly well-versed
in theory, but who wouldn't have a clue as to how apply that knowledge to
their own work. It's like teaching somebody grammar and then expecting
them to speak English. It ain't gonna happen that way.
"Learn the rules then break" them sounds like such a militaristic approach
to innovation.
xox,
Dodie B.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 13:46:32 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: material from disparate places
material from disparate places is written by me (by the me that is me --or,
sometimes, i) so, what is not me that i write? (answer: nothing)
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 13:52:59 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Mail List: Concrete
as some of you may know, cris cheek has attempted to put together a mail
list for discussions on visual/concrete and sound poetries. he recently
noted to me that he is without a system which receives and forwards posts
to a group (apologies for lack of technical language here -- i'm new to
all of this); however,
i've talked with some people here at sfu and it's possible to establish a
mail list which would focus on this form of poetry. based on my few
exchanges with cris, i am aware that there is an interest for this. so,
to take this one step further, anyone interested in being a part of a
discussion group on visual/concrete poetry please let me know via
back-channel. if the interest in there there is certainly no problem in
proceeding. perhaps one of the issues which can be explored here in
regards to this poetry is poetic collaboration on the net... i know there
has been some interest expressed in that of late
best to all,
carl
clpeters@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 18:12:09 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: News Flash
The July issue of _Internet World_ p. 112 lists the EPC as the "major
poetry list." Though they got Poetics and the EPC slightly confused;
it's interesting that we're mentioned in the "big" press.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 01:05:37 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: News Flash
Loss Glazier informs us:
>The July issue of _Internet World_ p. 112 lists the EPC as the "major
>poetry list." Though they got Poetics and the EPC slightly confused;
>it's interesting that we're mentioned in the "big" press.
I thought this list was supposed to be a SECRET. Who squealed? :-)
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 09:26:17 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Thoreau Lovell <tlovell@MERCURY.SFSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: material from disparate places
". . . by the me that is me--or, sometimes, i . . ."
SOMETHING NEITHER VIVID NOR CONCRETE
"I wish to speak to the real self
the one holding the pencil awkwardly.
But you write with a fountain pen
says the argumentative father in the brain.
Or is it in the mind? Oh I prefer the heart.
The brain is the one with the wires.
The mind is an onion.
The heart looks like a Valentine.
How am I supposed to know, is the question
put to us by the son, who speaks for the father
Who is asleep, Dummy, says the son, and the sawdust
shifts to the wrong side of the head
which awakens the father, who is rational
yet says in a pipe-in-the-mouth voice,
'One never knows,'
recalling as to how the search for the real onion
(peeling and peeling) made him cry."
To the real "Guitart," it was a joy to discover this and other of your
poems in the 1986 Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Literature,
1960-1984 (ed. Luby and Finke).
Thanks!
TL
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Thoreau Lovell Five Fingers Review ^
tlovell@sfsu.edu PO Box 15426, SF CA 94115 ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 09:39:37 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: News Flash
Steve Carll sez:
>
>I thought this list was supposed to be a SECRET. Who squealed? :-)
Steve, anyone with a web-browser can read the archived wisdom of this list
at the EPC.
This explains why, recently, so many books by George Bowering have been
turning up in used book stores around the world. Hole fans have been
de-accessioning his works since word got out that he doesn't like the band.
So check out those bargains in the alternative CanLit section of your local
book store today.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 14:54:39 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: News Flash
In-Reply-To: <199506170805.BAA14519@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
17, 95 01:05:37 am
> >The July issue of _Internet World_ p. 112 lists the EPC as the "major
> >poetry list." Though they got Poetics and the EPC slightly confused;
> >it's interesting that we're mentioned in the "big" press.
>
> I thought this list was supposed to be a SECRET. Who squealed? :-)
Actually, we're still in the clear! They didn't give out the Poetics
address, only the e-poetry address (which subscribes one to RIF/T and
related publications)...
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 01:32:12 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
think esrever eht, break dem rules, what rules? what thinking? think? anarky
rools / wiv an iron fist, orright? write a sonnet of 20 lines, claim this is
due to inflation, wot, theft against the law, I swear officer i never knew; but
listen up, my dog was silent for 5'42", a record? a recording I'll market as
_JC, the extended remix_, so learn 'em & break 'em, break 'em & make 'em,
floating smoothly with a Waterman, where was I? question mark at the end, is
that a rule. I wish I was mad againe, worst than that, much wurst (yes pleaze,
w/ relish, ooh u r offal (but i like u) gut level, not spirit level)) in -
what? they're meant to add up? honest officer i &c... but start again (agin) w/
a peaceful innovation, AWOL from th avant-garde (a military term), another
cuppa candy soup, vegetable soup, animal, mineral in point-of-fact (Point-of-
Fact, Essex; ostensibly near Clacton-on-Sea, but really (Real) near Pontefract,
actually) where we say "reverse of what (tahw)? Whatya rebelling against
Charlie?" "Don't tell me whaddya got" riding off into the duststorm in his
leather tux ...
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 22:12:38 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: material from disparate places
Thanks for the poem, Thoreau. Reminds me of "Borges and I" (you know, the
one by Borges). Writing seen as a kind of extremification of the experience
of identity moving through vastly different spaces in the psyche, yet
somehow maintaining a thread of unity (Amazingly.) Or sometimes not. A kind
of Multiple Personality Order.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 16:27:28 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Marisa A Januzzi <jma5@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: name calling
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950616083803.928@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
Contriving Lush Whatever
Hi everyone; I've been saving this clipping for you electric entities for
three days now:
Karen Finley's doing Martha Stewart in nightclub performance
"'I won't actually play Martha,' she said yesterday [to a New York Times
guy], 'but I will take her spirit and go over the top with it.'"
There's also a book involved, but I'm thinking it can't be better than the
one about cats who paint.
---Marisa
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 09:27:57 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
There are rules as prescriptions, which in the arts are never better
than rules of thumb for tiros -- knights before bishops, castle
early -- , these are broken commonly and necessarily as occasion
demands. Occasion's demands get met by what though --- a routine
consideration of known options accumulated from other seemingly like
occasions? That's the hidden face of accumulated internalised rules
of procedure called experience?
The rules problem is at its worst in the first formulations of
academies, especially where it is recognised that no rules can meet
every occasion. Our common (on this lists recent posts anyway)
unwillingness to countenance rules is like the familiar cry of
Romantics faced with the authority of academies in the 18/19th
centuries, all hardened up for us by Modernist revolts. Rules are
maybe now not so important as knowing strategies for working with
writing and publishing. That's often an interesting matter for this
list. But how to write how to read how to de-stress how to bring up
your baby how to deal with any number of problems on the non-fiction
shelves is all to do with finding rules with allowances for
occasional individual variations: the usual foundations of a
discipline. Teachers get stuck with it easily. "Give us a rule so we
can please you to get good grades". I have students who complain
that I "set essay topics" that are too broad and leave too much
freedom of choice. I should be more "directive". The answer could
be not rules, but motivation. "Once you know what you want, maybe you can
think of a way to get it". I like thinking the reverse, obverse,
perverse too.
If your organs were available for easy transfer to
another, and you could choose, would you offer parts in the personal
column of the local paper, or go down to the supermarket and offer,
say, your brain, to a casual passer-by that looks like they could use
it? This is a perplexing topic that I discussed with a friend at the
weekend. Anyone who could draw up rules for this situation please
advise.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 16:24:08 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
what rules?
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 17:38:27 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
In message <MAILQUEUE-101.950619092757.1856@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz> UB Poetics
discussion group writes:
>
>
> If your organs were available for easy transfer to
> another, and you could choose, would you offer parts in the personal
> column of the local paper, or go down to the supermarket and offer,
> say, your brain, to a casual passer-by that looks like they could use
> it? This is a perplexing topic that I discussed with a friend at the
> weekend. Anyone who could draw up rules for this situation please
> advise.
in high school i wrote a short story about a guy who, believing himself the
ultimate philanthropist, gave away his body parts one by one to deserving
individuals in need, replacing them with mechanical parts (he was rich enough to
do this medically, but thought simply giving money away a "cheap" sort of
philanthropy). he believed that as he physically became more mechanical, he was
in fact --metaphysically, though of course i didn't use the term at the time
--becoming more "human," in the sense of "humane," --more of a mensh, which, of
course, means person. the writing wasn't that good (telos/theme driven) but i
still think the idea's kinda cool. --md
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 11:55:15 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
Hi M a r i a, given the difficulties and perhaps serious
disaadvantages that my friend and I work
under (regarding brains), we were
not sure that the offer of them as
spare parts to others would be
philanthropic: but it is more than
a little interesting that your giver-figure made a sacrifice that was
not a sacrifice and regarded what he was giving up as of useful
significance. We were thinking perhaps more of exchanges. I will
relay your reply to my friend, Pamela Honum who is not
on e-mail. Thank you for the information. I'd love to see the story.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 22:00:52 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
>what rules?
--charles alexander
you rule, dude. Huh-huh, huh.
Steavis
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 11:46:56 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: rules and reverse thinking
i have news for you: rules are disappearing everywhere, even from linguistic
models. there are no syntactic rules anymore: only 'constraints'.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 13:02:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In the spirit of adhocracy, arbitrary contructs offer useful tension while
we're making something. Left to ossify, these things get pointed at as
funny fossils. And only contribute in the past. For the one who used them.
Back to the old absolute versus relative thing!
SEM
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 14:08:47 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
>i have news for you: rules are disappearing everywhere, even from linguistic
>models. there are no syntactic rules anymore: only 'constraints'.
you there:
syntactic rules,
rules only no news.
models: linguistic
i have for from everywhere
even disappearing
constraints are
'are' anymore.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 17:24:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <v01520d01ac0b91836565@[192.0.2.1]>
On Mon, 19 Jun 1995, Herb Levy wrote:
> >i have news for you: rules are disappearing everywhere, even from linguistic
> >models. there are no syntactic rules anymore: only 'constraints'.
>
> you there:
> syntactic rules,
> rules only no news.
> models: linguistic
> i have for from everywhere
> even disappearing
> constraints are
> 'are' anymore.
>
Hi. New to this list, and it seems traditional to at least say hi.
That done:
Buckminster Fuller writes:
In short, physics has discovered
That there are no solids,
No continuous surfaces,
No straight lines;
Only waves,
No things,
Only energy event complexes,
Only behaviors,
Only verbs,
Only relationships.
I like that. I like physics. Physics makes theory into art--or maybe I
mean to say art out of theory. . . which is what I am currently trying to
do w/ my own poems--including working on a "love" poem out of the above.
In physics, the rules are the art, and I shudder at the thought of losing
such precious babies hastily tossing out any bathwater. . .
good to be here on this provocative list--
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 21:17:02 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
So, Chaos theory? A poetics of Fuzzy Logic, say?
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 20:44:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.91.950619171851.7583B-100000@pogonip.scs.unr.edu>
from "Shaunanne Tangney" at Jun 19, 95 05:24:03 pm
i remember in art school they always told us: "learn to draw before you
abstract." i always hated that. i felt there were other ways of drawing,
that what was important (at least for me, then -- and now) was process,
the knowing&unknowing of the act, the moment of the act of doing and
undoing. it's taken a few degrees but i think, for the most part, i've
gotten rid of that rule, ironically: "learn to draw before you abstract."
reading and poetry had a lot to with that -- saving me... ...i mean.
to learn to draw i learnt to write
when i went to graduate school i worked with a professor who taught
drawing and sculpture. one semester in a drawing course he gave he
wouldn't let anyone _draw_ -- that is, _draw_ with pen or pencil on
paper, nothing like that. what they did was for the whole term they just
talked about drawing, and they studied the etymology of the word. he was
adament abt this, too, because if he noticed you "regressing" and
starting to draw he'd fail 'ya! no one failed. fact, i think he gave
everyone all _A_s. well desrved, too. i saw their work in an exhibition at
the close of the year. it was stunning!
best,
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 09:40:04 BST
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From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" <R.I.Caddel@DURHAM.AC.UK>
Subject: The Written Record...
The Written Record...
Evidence brought to light in April this year by Andrew Crozier
(University of Sussex) now demonstrates that the essay published by
the Basil Bunting Poetry Centre under the title of _The Written
Record..._ is not in fact by Basil Bunting, but by "Roger Kaigh", the
pseudonym of Louis Zukofsky's friend Irving Kaplan. The essay is
concerned with the unreliability of the written record... Dr. Crozier
will publish his work on the origins and ascription of this paper in
due course; meanwhile the Directors of the Bunting Centre issue this
statement to avoid further confusion.
The essay was purchased, together with a group of papers by Bunting,
Zukofsky and others, from the Bunting estate in 1988. Its initial
identification was made by Peter Makin, Peter Quartermain and Richard
Caddel at that time, on the strength of the circumstancial evidence of
its discovery, and its contents. Any confusion caused by this
premature judgement is very much regretted. The essay has been
available in the Basil Bunting Poetry Archive - where it has been
consulted by numerous Bunting and Zukofsky scholars - since 1988, and
since March 1994 it has been available in published form in the
Centre's publication _Three Essays_. At no time has its ascription
been queried.
We are therefore grateful to Dr. Crozier for identifying the piece as
"Paper" by Roger Kaigh (referred to and quoted from by Louis Zukofsky
in his own essay "American Poetry 1920-1930"), and for his work on the
Kaigh/Kaplan-Zukofsky connection. It still remains a matter of
conjecture how the piece, without its title page, or any authorial
statement, came to be in Bunting's possession, but its importance to
him - demonstrated in the other pieces in _Three Essays_ - is evident.
We are pleased that the piece has now been correctly identified, and
that an important unpublished paper which had been thought lost is now
identified and accessible. We are of course also eager to contact
Irving Kaplan or his heirs at an early stage.
Richard Caddel / Diana Collecott
Directors
Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
University of Durham
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Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 08:21:35 -0500
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From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
and, to say it again, who?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 08:24:29 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
hey, tho, doesn't "constraints" sound even worse than "rules"?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 08:30:49 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In message <00992212.7C3C8C60.21@admin.njit.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> So, Chaos theory? A poetics of Fuzzy Logic, say?
>
> Burt Kimmelman
> kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
oooh, let's be a little more friendly to first-time posters on the list, okay
bro?--
maria
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 15:12:49 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
It was really good (to my eyes) to see ShaunAnne's introductory message,
and its reference to and quotation from Buckminster Fuller. ShaunAnne,
are you a Bucky fan? I am. Does anyone on the list read his poetry, or
interest themselves in his importance to poetry? Zukofsky, I know, cited
his work, as did John Cage. Anyone know any other examples? (oh, also,
anyone interested in the slightly hushed-up aspect of Fuller's enthusing
about marriage and relationships but in fact being a philanderer - as he
admits in an interview in Martin somebody's book on him - that is, that
Fuller didn't, unusually for him, incorporate his *practice* in the area
of sexual relationships into his general *theory*, but still talked as if
he believed in (and practised) monogamy, as if monogamy was more aligned
to his *theory* than polygamy...)
Anyway, I for one want to welcome ShaunAnne to the list,
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 10:48:53 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: as a rule
to herb@inuit
as a rule i am not constrained enough to respond.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 11:14:31 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: the new physics poem
one problem with the new physics poem is that you cannot use the word 'only'
because it doesnt qualify as a verb so you cannot have a new physics poem with
the line 'only verbs' and that is too bad because it would be nice for new
physics poems to be self-referential just like most other old physics poems.
but ShuAnn i do want to see your verb-rich (straightline-poor) love poem.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 09:14:21 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
>In message <00992212.7C3C8C60.21@admin.njit.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
>writes:
>> So, Chaos theory? A poetics of Fuzzy Logic, say?
>>
>> Burt Kimmelman
>> kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
>
>
>oooh, let's be a little more friendly to first-time posters on the list, okay
>bro?--
>maria
It's funny, Maria, but I didn't suspect that Burt's post was unfriendly. I
guess chaos and fuzzy logic are okay by me.
Dodie
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Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 13:23:00 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: thinking in reverse
Not to take an oblique tack on this issue (which I think started out as a
spanking of someone for the ((incomplete)) tag at the end of their message
and not as a response to a question-- a _very_ Stalinist move, I thought,
Charles) but rather than ignore everything and hope that by so doing we won't
have to learn anything, might it not be more pleasing to make up or
misunderstand the "rules"? and then break them? Subversion instead of
revolution....
Just a nutty idea
Jordan
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Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 10:52:23 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <2fe6cd8839ed002@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, maria damon wrote:
> In message <00992212.7C3C8C60.21@admin.njit.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
> writes:
> > So, Chaos theory? A poetics of Fuzzy Logic, say?
> >
> > Burt Kimmelman
> > kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
>
>
> oooh, let's be a little more friendly to first-time posters on the list, okay
> bro?--
> maria
>
oh, no! I loved it! And reply yes!
I have written a poem called "Chaos Theory" and it is all about
mysterious attractors and other fuzzy things!
Best,
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 11:00:41 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <009922A8.C53EAEC0.3570@cpcmg.uea.ac.uk>
I am here replying en mass to all who welcomed me and sallied forth on
the issue of physics/poetry.
No, I don't read B. Fuller, as of yet! Looks like I should. However all
of this will have to wait as I am currently studying for comps!
I like the thoughts re: only not qualitfying a verb, and that why can't
new physics be self-referential as was old physics--I ask in return, can
anything be self-referential in the pomo, that is, to my mind, the here
and now?
Some might argue that we can only be self-referential. . .
I'm interested in anyone's thoughts here.
I also think of Calvin (of comic strip fame) "verbing" words (like when
you send something in any big city via bicycle messenger, you "messenger"
it)--this seems distinctly pomo. I see the pomo as distinguished by a
sense of timelessness; hence, verbing words seems so very appropriate.
Also connecting physics and poetry. . .
But now I'm soapboxing. . !
Finally, several expressed interest in seeing the poem, but I do not know
the etiquite on this list. Do we post actual poems and discuss them, or
just [poetics in general? I'm game for either, but do not want to upset
the format here!
Thanks for the warm welcome, all!
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 14:23:17 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
the Martin [somebody] is probably Martin Duberman and his book about
Black Mountain. But see also a decades later study of Black Mountain
by, her name escapes me--more up to date and filled with great detail,
and gorgeous to look at.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 18:44:47 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
> >i have news for you: rules are disappearing everywhere, even from linguistic
> >models. there are no syntactic rules anymore: only 'constraints'.
>Only relationships.
>I like that. I like physics. Physics makes theory into art--or maybe I
>mean to say art out of theory. . . which is what I am currently trying to
>do w/ my own poems--including working on a "love" poem out of the above.
>In physics, the rules are the art, and I shudder at the thought of losing
>such precious babies hastily tossing out any bathwater. . .
Words like 'constraints' and 'relationships' sound very much like rules to me.
Yes, physics is all about rules - whether we discover the rules that govern the
universe, or create rules to make useful predictions about our sense-data -
whichever way you look at it, we are looking for rules. That's what
intelligence is for.
Language is all about rules too - grammar, syntagmatic/paradigmatic
relationships, denotations, connotations (a meaning doesn't have to be in the
dictionary to constitute a rule of signification), genres, rhymes schemes. The
very fact that at least some of you (I hope) have some idea of what I'm talking
about means that we share some of these rules.
In creative writing, we are free to choose whatever rules we want for our work,
and them break them as we feel fit. Go ahead, write a sestina with one word on
each line (Dinah Hawken), an elegy consisting of a question with no question
mark (W.S. Merwin), a haiku that doesn't follow the 5-7-5 rule (just about
everyone). Your poem can gather up the tension that comes from straining
against its structures, and use it to its advantage.
There's no-one standing over you with a big gun, saying "thou shalt write in
iambic pentameter". At least, I hope there isn't. If there is, it's time to
inquire into what purposes (aesthetic, political, cultural, inertial) those
rules are serving. You may find the rules useful. You may want to challenge
them. Either way, you have learnt something.
We are subject to rules whenever we speak or act. It's to our advantage to
understand those rules, via theory, reading and/or experimentation. Then:
follow them, bend them, break them, change them, subvert them, or some
combination of the above. Unless we understand the rules, we will not have
these options.
Tom.
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 14:49:44 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: rules
Music resembles poetry, in each are nameless graces which no methods
teach and which a master hand alone can reach. If, where the rules
not far enough extend (since rules were made but to promote their
end) some lucky license answer to the full the intent proposed, that
license is a rule.
In other words, make up your own rules.
Don't worry too much about breaking them. Someone else will take
care of that. Something there is that doesn't love a rule.
By the way, is the rule when reading Olson that I have to draw a
breath inward every time I drop down a line? Is the dizziness that
results from hyperventilation when this is tried supposed to be part
of the poem? Is it permissible to break Olson's rules while reading
his rule-breaking poetry? Or is that against the rule?
Sometimes it is hard to get clear answers. I once asked a specialist
in Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" what it was all about. The reply
was, "I cannot answer that question in the face of obvious
hostility."
It was Shelley who set us all going about rules. "Poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the world."
Tom Kirby-Smith
English Department
UNC-Greensboro
Greensboro NC 27412
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:34:47 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
Carl Lynden Peters comments on learning "Drawing" before doing
"Abstraction" are echoed throughout a cautious middle-ground view of
artists like Picasso who learnt academic practice "the rules" BEFORE going off
the rails. Is Gertrude Stein some poetic equivalent, learning the
rules of syntax BEFORE writing unpublishable "distortions".
A
painter friend claims to have avoided art school drawing practice
"from the model" from the very beginning, knowing that what he wanted
to do was make "abstract painting". Nobody has ever seemed to notice
that he was disadvantaged by the lack of "drawing". His work,
however, has always been located within the "abstract" tradition,
i.e.the governing principles, or Rules, that could be ellicited from
the study of early modern abstraction (or later versions of same, say
1960's-70's abstraction). Syntactic variation of standardized
communication patterns of syntax in writing has, as most people on
this list will know, a history or tradition.
Rool brae king's a
ploy wivorfforitie? It
could come in handy when the authority is an imposition
of a power one cannot respect, an invitation to others to
recognise the actual conditions of writing, opposing freedom
to constraints, breaking bonds, and in turn establishing
bonds, seeming to oblige the next generation to go on breaking
old bonds in the
same way (as per the not so long ago debate between so-called
G1 and G2)
What, asked my daughter, in the car this morning, in the thick of the
rush-hour traffic, is a Goody-Goody Two Shoes? I thought to answer
by taking a short cut on the footpath and cut back into the line some 500
metres further along (but did nothing of the sort), continued to
creep along at 10 k p h
Arriving too stressed out to prepare a lecture I sit here writing to
the List instead.
Good mornings begin without Gillette: I'm letting my beard grow.
love
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:36:16 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
fuzzy logic or something all around my chin
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:21:57 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In message <Pine.OSF.3.91.950620105111.12439A-100000@pogonip.scs.unr.edu> UB
Poetics discussion group writes:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, maria damon wrote:
>
> > In message <00992212.7C3C8C60.21@admin.njit.edu> UB Poetics discussion
> > > group
> > writes:
> > > So, Chaos theory? A poetics of Fuzzy Logic, say?
> > >
> > > Burt Kimmelman
> > > kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
> >
> >
> > oooh, let's be a little more friendly to first-time posters on the list,
> > okay
> > bro?--
> > maria
> >
>
> oh, no! I loved it! And reply yes!
> I have written a poem called "Chaos Theory" and it is all about
> mysterious attractors and other fuzzy things!
>
> Best,
> ShaunAnne
okay, cool. welcome to the list.--md
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:24:32 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: gates's sob
what do you all think of skip gates's piece "sudden def" in the latest new
yorker (latest at least given the minnesota time lag i suspect plagues me, since
people in nyc were calling saying, you gotta read this a full week before it
appeared in my mailbox). i've got some reactions but wanna hear you-all's
before going full throttle.
maria
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 18:06:23 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
Tom , you talk of sestinas and haiku and elegies and that's all fine. When
I said "what rules?" I meant to imply that no one is obliged to follow such
defined forms, even though the departures from the farm may be what ignites
the poem. One can, of course, and such poems can be dynamic. But I often
find that the work I read again and again makes its own structures, so that
part of the joy of reading is finding such structures, including how and
when and why they are followed and not followed. But when is making it up
oneself, it is difficult to think of the structures and forms one invents
as rules or constraints, rather they seem more like methods or even,
forbid, poetics.
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 18:09:06 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
By all means post poems. My own experience is that there may be just a
little, or no response at all, on the list, but usually a bit more response
off-list or back channel. Not much response to poems when they are posted
on the list, although such postings happen now and then. I don't know why
such reticence follows poems. Still I get the sense the postings of poems
is appreciated by many people on this list.
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:20:27 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: rules and reverse thinking
I want a devotional poem; faith ecstatic loss in divinity
beyond difference not I but neti neti sketching negative space
useless poems sopping beer on the last bar before leaving
a stinking saddhu in diapers and hair no pen or paper only water
mantric and outside and hostile and immune and no grinning
and nothing to say in the cave merely barking Siva Siva Siva
not even listening in the dark to the rock bark it back
it's quits with Krishna Krishna Krishna with the milk on his chin
a cobra snake for a necktie and a chimney of skulls
cringing peasants piling rice and bananas at the mouth
waiting not for oracles for rewards for blessings just waiting
not as consumers critics supplicants doctors of philosophy
just waiting itself without expectation or meaning
woithout questions collecting decollecting recollecting
one saddhu among uncountable one cave among uncountable
common as god among uncountable gods in the wink of a Brahma
one Brahma among uncountable and back and back and back and back
and desire folding petals into the belly of Vishnu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 12:19:23 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: thinking in reverse
Dear Jordan, what you suggest is really useful (about
misunderstanding rules and then acting on them). In
lower ranks of administrators this is often called for as defence
against insane seeming instructions from on high, and may
be called Creative Administration. Indeed it can be subversive. I'm
glad to hear this valuable tactic brought to public attention.
Best
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:32:04 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: rules
In-Reply-To: <9DC997A09A7@fagan.uncg.edu> from "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" at Jun 20,
95 02:49:44 pm
>
> By the way, is the rule when reading Olson that I have to draw a
> breath inward every time I drop down a line? Is the dizziness that
> results from hyperventilation when this is tried supposed to be part
> of the poem? Is it permissible to break Olson's rules while reading
> his rule-breaking poetry? Or is that against the rule?
>
--what abt intention: Olson's intention that the poem be read that way
(i.e., the breath line). would that constitute a rule?
best,
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:49:53 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <76155.mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Charles Alexander wrote:
> By all means post poems.
OK, here goes (this is the one after the Buckminster Fuller quote I
posted to this list previously):
NIGHT SWIMMING
we do not surface
for now we let it
rest between us
heavy and massive but
we could not lay
our cards upon it or our
bodies upon it
it goes without measure we like
to say it is
beyond measure but
without line or plane it is
merely measureless
measure is within
periodic disturbances
voluntary movements
body against body
gravity and light
energy seeking
body seeking body
seeking energy freed
from itself we are
only behaviors
only verbs
measure is within
without the selfish center
without the thin skin
of past and future
time and space we are
only relationships
from here the stars
seem to shiver and so
we surface
(May, 1995)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 21:37:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In message <76007.mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes:
>
even though the departures from the farm may be what ignites the poem...
>
> charles
>
bright lights big city! especially in the pastoral tradition, don't you think,
where, like stein in paris, it takes a deracination to ignite the language...
nice, charles. sorry i missed the other evening. how was it? i think a reply
over the net (not backchannel) might actually be welcome since describing poetic
events seems to be something we do well here and enjoy reading about --best,
maria
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 19:47:33 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
ShaunAnne,
Poems get posted all too infrequently, and I've gone on record (sounds a bit
too rulesy!) as one who'd like to see MORE of 'em.
So post away! Would love to see your poem.
And welcome!
Sheila Murphy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 00:51:14 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
It's hard to tell if Reginald Johnson's poem is a parody of the
ethnopoetic kind of mode or an attempt to accept its tonal and
vocabulary (and ideological, sorry!) premises---
I say this especially in reference to his
"it's quits with Krishna Krishna Krishna" which seems to undercut
the seeming celebration of such Eshelmanisms the poem elsewehere
flaunts, presumably, shamelessly----chris stroffolino
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:09:12 -40962758
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From: Jim Rosenberg <jr@AMANUE.PGH.NET>
Subject: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
The concept of "a poetics of chaos or fuzzy logic" is not just a serious
idea, it is an actuality. There is no "uncertainty principle" in a poem that
appears in print in the sense that one is not in doubt as to whether a
particular word or phrase does or does not occur in the poem. For hypertext
or other forms of interactive work, the situation is quite different. There
may be no guarantee that a reader will *arrive* at any given lexia. The
software may or may not allow sequential access to "all" the lexia. So now
we face the question: how do we know that a given phrase is actually present
in the work? There is only a *probability* that it will be encountered.
Fuzzy logic poetics is a very exact description of what happens here. The
situation gets even more elaborate with algorithmically generated work like
John Cayley's. Where the text is generated on the fly by an algorithm,
uncertainty is even greater.
[For those not familiar with hypertext rhetoric terminology, 'lexia' is a
term borrowed by George Landow from Barthes to describe the "nodes" in a
hypertext. Of course, some of us question the fixity of this concept.]
--
Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/
CIS: 71515,124
WELL: jer
Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:47:33 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: skipping def
Maria
I find I've been reading the New Yorker a lot lately too.
I liked Holman's reaction to Ginsberg's optimism.
As usual I got something from the minuscule bits of poetry that were screened
through the prose.
The piece really reminded me of the kind of profile Rick Rubin (name?) used
to get when rap was new and Def Jam didn't have comedy installed in its
middle yet. I.E. there are these black performers and they're all right but
let's talk to the promoter, the mastermind. I _like_ Bob Holman. I just
thought it was a curiously journalistic piece.
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:54:15 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <m0sOPWr-000FYeC@amanue.pgh.net> from "Jim Rosenberg" at Jun 21,
95 09:09:12 am
To me, the term "a poetics of fuzzy logic" is less than appealing. The
reason is that the word "logic" in the phrase, resonant of "logical,"
implies that there is some desired goal. (Isn't fuzzy logic _in part_
used to help you, say, find information when you don't quite know what
you are asking for?) "Fuzzy" also implies a lack of precision, which I
do not think is a fair critique of a poetic text.
Another distinction is very important. In my writing about this topic,
I have always distinguished between "closed" hypertextual systems (a
diskette for example and a program specifically used to run the
hypertext) and an "open" system, say such hypertextual works as
occurring on the Net, where the software is "generic" and the
"peformance" or presentation of the work can occur in multiple
situations.
As to whether a reader has access to the full lexia; depending on the
designer of the system (aka writer) this is not a matter of chance,
but squaring off to some of the assertions made by Landow and others,
it is a matter of the author's _intention_. Yes, such an intention
persists. What the text does allow is multiple possible readings; the
degree of this multiplicity is in the author's hands (and partly in the
software's).
Access to the lexia? Yes, it is more _marked_ here, i.e., there may be
entire sequences of text that by some choice the reader makes, she
will never arrive at. (Sort of like the standard film motif where
pausing once at a newsstand throws your cosmic timing off so that you
subsequently miss the chance bumping into your ideal mate by half a
second. Thus you spend your life lonely.)
However, the tension of hypertext should not convince one that this
partial lexia problem is limited to our technological space. Take for
example the book - and here two instances. Lexical meanings of words
the reader may miss because she does not know the word, does not
relate to the association the writer has intended, or has a strong
personal association that overrides the writer's. Second, thinking of
references within texts to other texts, not everyone can leap out of
bed and pick up a text which the author has just alluded to, to read
the passage in context and pick up the contextual lexia that might
possibly be the heart of the author's reference...
This is not a disagreement with the post cited below, simply some
extensions of it into our common space.
I also wish to mention that RIF/T will issue, as part of its
"associated files" feature, the first in a series of such online
hypertextual works. This will be included in RIF/T's next issue (to
appear within the next two weeks).
> The concept of "a poetics of chaos or fuzzy logic" is not just a serious
> idea, it is an actuality. There is no "uncertainty principle" in a poem that
> appears in print in the sense that one is not in doubt as to whether a
> particular word or phrase does or does not occur in the poem. For hypertext
> or other forms of interactive work, the situation is quite different. There
> may be no guarantee that a reader will *arrive* at any given lexia. The
> software may or may not allow sequential access to "all" the lexia. So now
> we face the question: how do we know that a given phrase is actually present
> in the work? There is only a *probability* that it will be encountered.
> Fuzzy logic poetics is a very exact description of what happens here. The
> situation gets even more elaborate with algorithmically generated work like
> John Cayley's. Where the text is generated on the fly by an algorithm,
> uncertainty is even greater.
>
> [For those not familiar with hypertext rhetoric terminology, 'lexia' is a
> term borrowed by George Landow from Barthes to describe the "nodes" in a
> hypertext. Of course, some of us question the fixity of this concept.]
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 06:56:03 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
>and, to say it again, who?
I'm sorry ed, who what?
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 06:56:15 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: rules: rule or suck?
Hi all (and welcome Shaunanne):
Well, the world is marked by structure, and rules seem to "govern"
structure. But structure is fluid, so the question is, when we break the
rules of a particular structure, are we following a set of overarching
rules governing the fluidity of structure? And if we are, can we live with
such rules, since they allow us so much freedom with regard to "subverting"
the rules of the level we're more used to being oppressed by them on?
I think of rules as useful learning tools. It's true that some people's
intuition in some areas allows them to leap over the need to learn this way,
and that even those who do learn through rules will hopefully transcend the
need for them. So maybe the only thing we need to require of rules is that
they do open out somewhere and let us continue down our path on our own.
I think this may be what Carl's professor (and zen, for that matter) was
trying to get at. Once we've been acculturated and internalized the
culture's rules, we may need to work our way through them until we've
exhausted their particular logic, and only then can we burst out of them.
BTW, great poems Herb Levy (love that editing) and Shaunanne (is the title
related at all to the REM song, or should i be ashamed of myself for even
asking?)
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 06:56:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: bucky fuller
Hey all:
I'm just remembering a book a friend from college long ago was excited on
finding a copy of. It was a Bucky Fuller book which had 3 or 4 different
narrative threads all running simultaneously in different parts of each page
(e.g., one running across the center of each page, one in a different
typeface in the upper right ). Anyone know what book I mean and what it's
called?
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:36:20 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Marshall H. Reese" <risarano@ECHONYC.COM>
Subject: TV appearance
Ligorano/Reese
67 Devoe Street, Bklyn, NY 11211
For Immediate Release Contact: Nora Ligorano/Marshall Reese
fax/phone (718) 782-9255
Contract with America limited edition underwear to be featured on
Lifetime Television's "Biggers & Summers" Talk Show
Artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese will present their
limited edition of "Contract with America" underwear on live
television Friday, June 23 at 11:00 AM EST. Their appearance on
Lifetime Television's new "Biggers & Summers" show will reach 64
Million viewers nationwide.
Since the inauguration of their highly successful limited edition
"Contract with America" underwear, news stories about the artists
have appeared in hundreds of newspapers, on radio and television
across the country. The limited edition briefs even brought an official
response from the Republican Party after the artists sent pairs to
President
Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich and
other elected officials in Washington, D.C.
The Associate Chief Counsel of the Republican National Committee
wrote the artists Rto discontinue [their] unauthorized use of the
Contract with
America logo and text immediately.S The ACLU Arts Censorship Project and
cooperating attorney Elizabeth McNamara of the law firm Lankenau, Kovner
and
Kurtz responded on behalf of the artists that Rthe art project is a
classic
example of political satire...The combined impression is clearly
humorous, and
obviously meant to parody the Contract with America."
The artists plan to print a second edition of 300 pairs of "Contract
with America" underwear (200 mens and 100 womens). The second
edition will sell for $50.00 per pair, plus $5.00 shipping and handling
charges and New York state sales tax, where applicable.
The "Biggers & Summers" Show is cablecast on channel 12 in
Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is rebroadcast on the West Coast at 11:00
AM Pacific coastal time, check local listings.
For more information contact Ligorano/Reese at (718) 782-9255.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:22:23 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: rules: rule or suck?
In-Reply-To: <199506211356.GAA17521@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
21, 95 06:56:15 am
>
> I think this may be what Carl's professor (and zen, for that matter) was
> trying to get at. Once we've been acculturated and internalized the
> culture's rules, we may need to work our way through them until we've
> exhausted their particular logic, and only then can we burst out of them.
>
hey, steve. the professor i referred to has had, continues to have, the
strongest, deepest influence in both my creative life and on my aspirations
to teach. i asked him once what influenced him the most in his teaching. "The
military," he said. --he served 2 or 4 tours of duty in Vietnam
best,
carl
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:27:34 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Keeling <keeling@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
In-Reply-To: <199506211356.GAA17525@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
21, 95 06:56:22 am
> Hey all:
>
> I'm just remembering a book a friend from college long ago was excited on
> finding a copy of. It was a Bucky Fuller book which had 3 or 4 different
> narrative threads all running simultaneously in different parts of each page
> (e.g., one running across the center of each page, one in a different
> typeface in the upper right ). Anyone know what book I mean and what it's
> called?
>
Hi Steve,
I believe you're referring to _I Seem To Be A Verb_, Bantam Books 1970.
--john
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:33:45 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Mail List: Concrete
In-Reply-To: <199506162053.NAA27067@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Carl Lynden Peters"
at Jun 16, 95 01:52:59 pm
Good morning, all!
--To all who expressed an interest in a mail list on concrete/visual,
sound and performance poetry -- exellent: we've gotten a good response
Next step is to name it. what are your suggestions? i was talking with
the computer guy here at sfu and the name _DADA Poetries_ came to mind.
What would you prefer?
all the best,
carl
clpeters@sfu.ca
n.b.: cris, give me a call. thanks
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:49:33 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Mail List: Concrete
In-Reply-To: <199506162053.NAA27067@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Carl Lynden Peters"
at Jun 16, 95 01:52:59 pm
...or this: DADA-List-Poetries
DADA-List
dadalist
deadalus (can't sp it!)
into th' great wwwwwwwwwide open~~~
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:54:35 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: rules: rule or suck?
Steve -
>BTW, great poems Herb Levy (love that editing)
That wasn't a poem, I was just following a rule.
As I've said before, I'm not a poet (but I play one on TV).
Bests
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:54:41 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
>
>I'm just remembering a book a friend from college long ago was excited on
>finding a copy of. It was a Bucky Fuller book which had 3 or 4 different
>narrative threads all running simultaneously in different parts of each page
>(e.g., one running across the center of each page, one in a different
>typeface in the upper right ). Anyone know what book I mean and what it's
>called?
Steve -
I don't know Fuller's work very well, it might have been a book (can't
remember the name right now) published by Something Else Press. But it
really could be any one of several books, you'll have to look them over and
see which one your friend had.
I thought of these off the top of my head, but, as I said, I don't know
Fuller's work. I'm sure that others on the list could provide further
(and/or better) references. (For instance, I recall another book like this
by Fuller with the words <Hannah Weiner> in the title, but I'm blocking on
the full title of it.)
<Panopticon by Steve McCaffery> by Buckminster Fuller
<Glas by Jacques Derrida> by Buckminster Fuller
and of course,
<_Homage to Creeley_>
<Explanatory Notes by Jack Spicer> by Buckminster Fuller
(There should be a full underline between the first three and the next two
words of this title. This effect is not possible in terminal mode.
Sorry.)
Bests,
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 15:27:52 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: wabbit season
Hail Poetics
Loss Glazier wrote:
>"Fuzzy" also implies a lack of precision, which I
do not think is a fair critique of a poetic text.
Since we all seem to have respect for critique, could we start listing what
constitutes "fair critique"? I would suggest that some quality like accuracy
or precision can be attributed to a poem, and that someone who fancies that
quality might miss it in a "vague" or "abstract" poem. I myself like vague
and precise poems. However.
Also, Loss, is the interactive poem you mentioned the one compiled at the
EPC? Would it be possible for future contributors to the poem to see where
their lines go once they're written? (I mean, to access the poem in
progress?)
With love
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 08:42:20 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: show yr poem
HERE is my poem
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 14:06:50 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: It's just that it reminds
In-Reply-To: <950620132257_98640428@aol.com> from "Jordan Davis." at Jun 20,
95 01:23:00 pm
Here's to O'Hara and the bit of solace he's given me:
It's just that it reminds
God it must be 9:45 on a Tuesday
night bordering on evening at least
once a week in a lifetime of poetry
and once again i'm tipping my hat to the breeze
thinking bout those motes and tropes in the nooks of streets which
were somehow left behind. I didn't do it I think
and walk into Sophie's cause we agreed
it's the only place worth patronizing
for a muffin although I really want a donut
and I have coffee but it really isn't the same
as what I hoped for when I think of Sam's Diner
or an extinct species of time and place thereabouts.
I don't know where anyone else came from here
but when I was born I distinctly remember I thought
lab coats were lovely and it would be very pleasant
for us all to wear them and our first impressions
on our sleeves and so I open the paper hoping
to see you in the funny pages but you haven't even left
a note and I think how good Rex Morgan is looking
these days despite his strips irreverence for
novelty or thereabouts.
There's an Elvis impersonator outside
and two nylon kids are eating up to me
before giving the country the thumb and really
I just can't wait for Reg or George or someone
larger than this vinyl booth to shuffle in
and declare war on austerity in the service industry.
And I just have to say to Frank and his absence
that when I think about you somewhere
there is grace in living as variously as possible
although I usually can't help but feel full and fed up
since my eyes are too big for my stomach
and so to you I must ultimately confess in all sincerity that I shouldn't
have ordered
the cosmos when it wasn't mine.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 14:08:53 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: a devotional poem
Chris--
I can't tell either. But at the very least I was in earnest about
wanting a devotional poem. And it is quits with Krishna, the fop.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:23:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
yah, yah, yah, poetry doesn't have rules, sometimes it doesn't even have words.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:25:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules
the breath line is not a rule, dude, it's what you do; rules are things you break. yah, yah, yah.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:27:26 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
who what, steve? why?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 14:39:40 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: open mic
21 Titles For the Open Mic
"A Desperate Cry for Help"
"I'm Going Straight To Hell"
"Boxes, Handbags, Lunchbuckets"
"I'm A Sorry Bastard"
"I'm A Suffering Bastard"
"Eggs"
"They Calls Me Iron John, Bitch"
"A Dipped Cone"
"Why I never Get Mail"
"Begging Your Pardon"
"Viva Existentialista"
"Generous Helpings and Large Portions"
"Bruce, Bob, and Jack in A Car Between Bakersfield and Vegas"
"Honey Can't You Be Persuaded"
"Baby When Will You Be Convinced"
"I'm Feeling Moody"
"Sweety Sooty Sweaty So and So"
"My Ugly Son, His Beautiful Wife"
"I'm Not Listening I want Your Boots"
"This Poem Isn't Really About Anything It's Just something I Thought
About On The Bus On The Way Over Here Tonight I Don't Know It's About
Suicide Or Masturbation Whatever You Get Out Of It"
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 14:57:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
In-Reply-To: <01HRZ50OVOOQBSOINF@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU> from "Edward Foster"
at Jun 21, 95 05:23:30 pm
rules, schmules. well, that kinda follows one, don't it?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:15:52 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: open mic
hey everybody, in the coming year i'll be writing an essay on slams and open
mike readings (sorry, i prefer that spelling cuz the other looks like it shd be
sd "mick") and am interested in presenting your (selective, collective and
singular) views, as "background," "foreground" (a la text collage) or points of
disputatious analysis --a few folks hve said stuff, (I dig reginald johnson's
list of titles, and some of the earlier discussion, plus i'm still waiting on
responses to my gates/new yorker question. so send your thots and monologues
either front or back channel for private consumption or mass/coterie
entertainment.--
maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 11:15:21 GMT+1200
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From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: rules
somewhere in an interview Ed Dorn made it clear he couldn't see how
it could be a rule, this breath length sorry forgotten ch and verse
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 00:15:50 +0000
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From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
> It was a Bucky Fuller book which had 3 or 4 different
>narrative threads all running simultaneously in different parts of each page
>(e.g., one running across the center of each page, one in a different
>typeface in the upper right ). Anyone know what book I mean and what it's
>called?
>
>Steve
R.Buckminster Fuller 'I Seem To Be A Verb' (Bantam 1970) fits the photofit Steve
The blurb reads 'R.Buckminster Fuller: Comprehensive designer, inventor,
engineer, mathemetician, architect, cartographer, philosopher, poet,
cosmologist, choreographer, visionary - celebrated for developing geodesic
houses that fly and for dymaxion ways of living.'
written with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore
and prefaced with a quote - 'There's a smell of paint in here' (overheard
at The Museum of Modern Art
I especially enjoy the cap on The
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:01:22 -0700
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From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules: rule or suck?
In-Reply-To: <199506211356.GAA17521@slip-1.slip.net>
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995, Steve Carll wrote:
>
> BTW, great poems Herb Levy (love that editing) and Shaunanne (is the title
> related at all to the REM song, or should i be ashamed of myself for even
> asking?)
>
> Steve
>
Thanks. No. No.
--ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 17:12:12 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: open mic
In-Reply-To: <199506212139.OAA20642@fraser.sfu.ca>
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995, Reginald Johanson wrote:
> 21 Titles For the Open Mic
>
> "A Desperate Cry for Help"
>
ok--rookie on the list: what's the Open Mic?
Thanks!
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 20:53:49 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
beautiful poem, one that reminds me of oppen or bronk or rakosi or maybe
niedecker.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 21:01:29 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: gates's sob
I loved the gates piece (tho have only read the first half--obeying the rules
of reading?); I think he makes a great journalist, and the rap poem he
quotes was great (def?), and the piece has reconciled my own struggles
about rap as poetry and generally about high and low art etc. so i guess
what i'm saying is that the piece came along for me at the right time.
i wish something could now reconcile my conflicted feelings about the
tina brown stewardship (if that is what it is).
burt kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 21:04:52 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
speaking of hypertext theory sources--have you read J. David Bolter's
book Writing Space?
Anyway, c'mon! Physics is today's poetry--particle or cosmic--let's face it!
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 21:08:10 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
is fuzzy logic imprecise. is logic teleological by nature?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 20:22:35 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
ShaunAnne writes:
>I like the thoughts re: only not qualitfying a verb, and that why can't
>new physics be self-referential as was old physics--I ask in return, can
>anything be self-referential in the pomo, that is, to my mind, the here
>and now?
>Some might argue that we can only be self-referential. . .
>I'm interested in anyone's thoughts here.
Good, cause I have some.. .:-)
I see postmodernism as distinguished by its self-conscious
self-referentiality. I also see "the here and now as not reducible to the
postmodern, specifically with regards to this discussion, in that it
includes the self but doesn't refer all of what is back to the self.
>I also think of Calvin (of comic strip fame) "verbing" words (like when
>you send something in any big city via bicycle messenger, you "messenger"
>it)--this seems distinctly pomo. I see the pomo as distinguished by a
>sense of timelessness; hence, verbing words seems so very appropriate.
Yes, I liked that cartoon; what I thought was interesting was Hobbes' (and,
I got the impression, Bill Watterson's) reaction, something to the effect
that, with this attitude toward language, soon we won't be able to
communicate through it anymore. And yet, as Cummings saw so clearly, this
is one of the ways language generates new ways of communicating, and English
is, it seems to me, particularly adept at the trick of "verbing". Cummings
was trying, in his own words, "to undress one by one the soggy nouns whose
agglomeration constitutes the mechanism of Normality, and finally to
liberate the actual crisp organic squirm--the IS" (from "Gaston Lachaise",
in _A Miscellany Revised_, October House, 1965, if anyone's interested.)
So it goes way back before pomo (unless you're using pomo as a synonym for
what is "ahead of its time", or "avant-garde", or whatever.) What is pomo
is the emphasis on shifting the parts of speech of words, part of the pomo
project of blurring distinctions, although it's perfectly within the wider
syntactic "rules" of the English language to do so in this fashion. But, I
ramble...
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 20:22:46 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules
>>
>> By the way, is the rule when reading Olson that I have to draw a
>> breath inward every time I drop down a line? Is the dizziness that
>> results from hyperventilation when this is tried supposed to be part
>> of the poem? Is it permissible to break Olson's rules while reading
>> his rule-breaking poetry? Or is that against the rule?
>>
>
>--what abt intention: Olson's intention that the poem be read that way
>(i.e., the breath line). would that constitute a rule?
>
For that matter, are we breaking the rule by reading the poem silently to
ourselves (no matter how we breathe) rather than aloud so the breath line
actually means something?
Just thinking "aloud",
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 23:38:51 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <009923A3.940F3F30.18@admin.njit.edu>
fuzzy logic's precisely imprecise.
in set theory can refer to the degree of membership in a particular set
or the potential of belonging to a particular set
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995, Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT wrote:
> is fuzzy logic imprecise. is logic teleological by nature?
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 21:52:26 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
(with apologies to reginald johanson)
I want ecstatic loss, divinity
sketching the last bar
water and no grinning
in the dark waiting questions
collecting uncountable gods
and desire folding petals
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 22:00:09 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
> bright lights big city! especially in the pastoral tradition, don't you think,
>where, like stein in paris, it takes a deracination to ignite the language...
>nice, charles. sorry i missed the other evening. how was it? i think a reply
>over the net (not backchannel) might actually be welcome since describing poetic
>events seems to be something we do well here and enjoy reading about --best,
>maria
Maria, OK, farms into form . . .
Friday night was a treat. Gary Sullivan and Curt Anderson and Anthony
Schlegel and Jonathan Brannen and Joel Kuszai and I all read works. Very
boyish indeed, as Marta Deike and Cheri Hickman forgot to bring their
works. I showed a video a group in Tucson, Video Art Network (there were
some women in that collective who helped make this video, including one,
the incomparable Nancy Solomon, whose stamp was evident), made as a
response to a poem of mine. Jonathan Brannen read, entire, his marvelous
Thing is an Anagram of Night, a densely philosophical work whose thinking
is firmly from the ground up, desire and wonder making time with the
universe. A few other non-poets were there as well, so the talk ranged from
writing to love to philosophy (one current student working on Lacan and
Deleuze had a lot to say) to music until about 2:30 in the morning. Cats
and children joined in the reading (not planned, but not unwelcome) as
well. Sorry you missed it, but I consider King Crimson a worthy alternative.
love,
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 22:23:47 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Night Swimming
Shaunanne, your poem of the "measureless" is quite measured, from "not
surface" to "surface," a distinctive poem about thinking being. Strangely
physical and somehow also not at all physical, that unspoken "it" and the
shivering stars.
Thanks
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 04:47:52 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
Charles:
>Tom , you talk of sestinas and haiku and elegies and that's all fine. When
>I said "what rules?" I meant to imply that no one is obliged to follow such
>defined forms, even though the departures from the farm may be what ignites
>the poem.
In which case the question might not be "what rules?" but "which rules?". In
reply to another post, language in its most utilitarian form is all about
following rules (that's why I used a comma in this sentence, and didn't spell
"rules" as "selur" or "roolz" or "gdztr"), and language in its more creative
forms is about breaking rules.
Of course, all uses of language fall somewhere on the following/breaking
continuum. One can write a prose poem that breaks all of the rules of "poetry"
as a Georgian might have defined it, but still follows the rules of the English
language. Or one could write a sound or concrete poem that follows none of the
rules of language, but is still based upon a formal structure of some kind.
Even aleatory poems are based upon some system of assigning dice throws (or
whatever) to language elements.
>One can, of course, and such poems can be dynamic. But I often
>find that the work I read again and again makes its own structures, so that
>part of the joy of reading is finding such structures, including how and
>when and why they are followed and not followed.
Another post asked "Is reading finding rules?" I'd say that reading is some
combination of finding/constructing rules. This is what human brains do
extremely well - find rules in complex, initially confusing data.
>But when is making it up
>oneself, it is difficult to think of the structures and forms one invents
>as rules or constraints, rather they seem more like methods or even,
>forbid, poetics.
Rules/structures/constraints/patterns/methods/techniques/systems/poetics -
maybe they're all the same thing?
Tom
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 22:12:20 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Sheila E. Murphy" <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
Charles, sounds like a GREAT night! Wish I could've been there. Reminds me
of some of the great events you generated in Arizona. We miss you here!
Love,
Sheila
P.S. Did you tape this?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 05:49:04 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995 22:12:20 -0700,
Sheila E. Murphy <semurphy@INDIRECT.COM> wrote:
>Charles, sounds like a GREAT night! Wish I could've been there. Reminds me
>of some of the great events you generated in Arizona. We miss you here!
>
>Love,
>
>Sheila
>
>P.S. Did you tape this?
>
>
Thanks, Sheila. I miss you here & miss Arizona here too (I probably sound
like a broken record to people here, as I say that all the time, and it's
true).
Yes, we taped it, with a centrally placed omnidirectional microphone,
leaving tape on through video, intermittent conversation, everything. I
haven't listened to it yet. It may be intolerable. I'll let you know.
all best,
c
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 08:23:02 -40962758
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Rosenberg <jr@AMANUE.PGH.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Loss Glazier:
> To me, the term "a poetics of fuzzy logic" is less than appealing.
Acutally, I don't really care for it myself, and am certainly *NOT*
evangelizing for it; since the subject did come up -- in a context where
some folks weren't sure whether the reference was "serious", I wanted to
point out that the *concept* is out there, and yes it is serious.
> Isn't fuzzy logic _in part_
> used to help you, say, find information when you don't quite know what
> you are asking for?)
No. Fuzzy logic means a logic in which truth values are *probabilities* in
the range 0 to 1 rather than integers, such as the usual *exactly* 0 or 1 of
two-valued logic. The issue is: what are the implications for discourse if
we can only assess to a given probability whether something is "there" in
the work. This really does have a direct correlation to certain things in
physics, where you may only be able to get a probability for a measurement.
> As to whether a reader has access to the full lexia; depending on the
> designer of the system (aka writer) this is not a matter of chance,
> but squaring off to some of the assertions made by Landow and others,
> it is a matter of the author's _intention_. Yes, such an intention
> persists. What the text does allow is multiple possible readings; the
> degree of this multiplicity is in the author's hands (and partly in the
> software's).
This is getting a bit confused. In every hypertext I've ever looked at, there
was no issue of "partial access" to a lexia. Access is not at issue here.
When a hypertext is large, the number of *paths* explodes exponentially. But
the reader *arrives at* a lexia via a path. With linear writing, the only
way a reader can fail to arrive at a given word is to give up -- or skip
ahead. But in a hypertext, one can fail to arrive at a lexia by simply not
having chosen a path that links its way there. The issue is not access but
*coverage*. Most literary hypertexts give you no way of telling whether or
not you've been to every lexia. That means anyone discussing a hypertext
has only a *probability* that any given reader will happen to have encountered
the lexia in question.
> Take for
> example the book - and here two instances. Lexical meanings of words
> the reader may miss because she does not know the word, does not
> relate to the association the writer has intended, or has a strong
> personal association that overrides the writer's. Second, thinking of
> references within texts to other texts, not everyone can leap out of
> bed and pick up a text which the author has just alluded to, to read
> the passage in context and pick up the contextual lexia that might
> possibly be the heart of the author's reference...
These are valid points. Lots of folks have argued that hypertext is more
like linear writing than some of the polemic would have it, and vice versa;
certainly intertextuality and hypertext are deeply related. Still, without
trying to be too argumentative, there is more than just a difference of
degree if the "uncertainty factor" is inherent and pervasive rather than
the exception.
--
Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/
CIS: 71515,124
WELL: jer
Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 09:03:37 -0400
Reply-To: John_Lavagnino@Brown.edu
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: John Lavagnino <John_Lavagnino@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Q: What's the opposite of fuzzy logic?
A: Fussy logic.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 09:06:58 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
oh kimmelman---okay--sure,physics may very well be one acceptable
poetry possibility--but don't IMPOSE IT on us--
"let's face it!"---or deface it-- cs.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 10:08:53 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" <KIRBYS@FAGAN.UNCG.EDU>
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Subject: breath rules
I think there is someone on this list who heard Olson read his poems.
Did he actually stop and breath in at the end of each line?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 09:11:10 CST6CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Organization: The University of Alabama
Subject: Re: Fireworks at NYU Kerouac Conference
Kevin--
From the hinterlands of Tuscaloosa, thanks, thanks, thanks, for your
reports--Blaserfest & the passed along Kerouac events.
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 09:47:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
.
>
> Friday night was a treat. Gary Sullivan and Curt Anderson and Anthony
> Schlegel and Jonathan Brannen and Joel Kuszai and I all read works. Very
> boyish indeed, as Marta Deike and Cheri Hickman forgot to bring their
> works. I showed a video a group in Tucson, Video Art Network (there were
> some women in that collective who helped make this video, including one,
> the incomparable Nancy Solomon, whose stamp was evident), made as a
> response to a poem of mine. Jonathan Brannen read, entire, his marvelous
> Thing is an Anagram of Night, a densely philosophical work whose thinking
> is firmly from the ground up, desire and wonder making time with the
> universe. A few other non-poets were there as well, so the talk ranged from
> writing to love to philosophy (one current student working on Lacan and
> Deleuze had a lot to say) to music until about 2:30 in the morning. Cats
> and children joined in the reading (not planned, but not unwelcome) as
> well. Sorry you missed it, but I consider King Crimson a worthy alternative.
>
> love,
>
> charles
>
> charles alexander
>
charles thanks, what a rich description of what must have been a rich night. i
do wish i'd been able to come, since i --unlike most of the friends i mentioned
my evening w/ king crimson --didn't really know king c beyond a "sound" and a
reputation as artsy and eccentric. i had fun too, though it took half-way into
the show to really grok the spirit and truly come alive with the jive ("I DID")
it was an anthropological experience, great people-watching, and of course,
fripp belew and bruford and that bald guy are obviously really talented
musicians. acid rock, as i realized when i went to see the long version of
woodstock last year, is a specialized genre. tho as a kid i loved jefferson
airplane, country joe, vanilla fudge (anyone remember their great cover of the
supremes' you keep me hangin on, with oedipal ejaculations throughout ("mama?
i'll be good...")) etc (the west coast sound rather than the brits) i can see
how my elders would have felt mystified and excluded. king c: lots of lights and
movement, lots of dramatic shifts of tone, fripp has a great voice too, kinda
waily.
still, i'd have dug the equally (and less structured, it seems, as the state
theatre had assigned seating) bacchanalian apollonian/dionysian thrill of your
gathering.
love, maria
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 11:25:57 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Robert Kelly <kelly@BARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: breath rules
In-Reply-To: <A07F00F24B0@fagan.uncg.edu>
He did not.
RK
On Thu, 22 Jun 1995, H. T. KIRBY-SMITH wrote:
> I think there is someone on this list who heard Olson read his poems.
> Did he actually stop and breath in at the end of each line?
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 17:19:10 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Sappho
Hallo all,
An old college friend recently told me at a wedding that Anvil Press,
a quite conservative but fairly well-distributed British poetry press,
is compiling, with her co-editorship, an anthology of Sappho
translations through the centuries. They're quite weak, she tells me,
on twentieth-century Sappho translations. I mentioned to her the
book Safety, by Stephen Rodefer, that has some quite good slangy
versions. Does anyone else know any, particularly by (those still
claiming to be, Stephen) gay or lesbian or bisexual authors?
Best wishes
Ira Lightman
I.LIGHTMAN@UEA.AC.UK
P.S. ShaunAnne, I liked your poem a lot, one of the ones I've most
enjoyed on the list while I've been on it. The Buckminster Fuller
references have interacted with editing I'm doing of a book to be
brought out by Cris Cheek; as I was proofing the opening piece,
something I wrote about painting and other things, I remembered
Buckminster Fuller's rule: there is no "up" and "down" in universe,
only "in" and "out" (ie an aeroplane doesn't go "up" into the sky,
it goes "out" from the planet, at a longer radius, then "comes in to
land" - one of the only bits of idiom Fuller approved of as
post-flat-earth-language). I noticed, reading through my piece, that
I'd used the line "its composite sunbeams bouncing off the north wall
five feet up from the ground and the west wall three feet up from
the ground". In other words I broke a rule I'd agreed to let Fuller
bind me by; I edited this to "five feet out from the ground" and
"three feet out from the ground". Interestingly, the body of the
piece accomodates the change quite comfortably, indicating to me
that my sense of space, and the construction of a description,
has actually radically subconsciously altered; instead of merely
being "pc" in vocabulary choice, which would perhaps be an example
of rule-following that is missing the consciousness-raising or
wider rationale of the rule, I have let a rule work its way in and
change and make other rules around it.
Anyway, I "reprint" the piece below, as I'm adding it to a
section of my book entirely composed of pieces sent to POETICS, where
it fits best - and thus it now fits even better....
METAPHORS FOR THE SPACE OF MUSIC
Being with an assumption that good can be shown to be the best possible
course of interaction, to any new-born child, and add only as a rider that
a new-born child may yet test your notion of good. Encourage and do not
disapprove the thought-process of the child testing your notion of good,
discuss it and let it grow as a thing of imagination in the theatre of
your conversation, between you and the child. Thoughts are put into action
too soon only because too many of us cannot incarnate a theatre of
conversation, a place made by thought and only visible to thought and only
by thought may we sit in it or walk its boards. This is a shame. For in
that theatre a new born-child may be so moved by thought. In a common way,
all may too be moved by gesture and other language, but there is a cubist
composition called thought which is suggested by all the gestures in a
conversation (the conversation includes all we know of each other, including
what we have elicited as likely true of what we hear and see reported of
each other). The composition is not on one plane. It is a cubist composition,
with time in it. In some gestures, the light is of such and such a quality,
its composite sunbeams bouncing off the north wall five feet out from the
ground and the west wall three feet out from the ground, so picking up the
colours of those parts of the north wall and the west wall, themselves
being absorbed by those parts of the north wall and the west wall and
rebounding as from a mirror or from mud variably. In other gestures, the day
has moved on, the sunbeams hit different walls or new parts of the same walls,
less or more spongy, of new hue. In some gestures, the painter walks up to
the sitter to a nearness of four feet. In other gestures, the painter walks
back ten feet and eight feet to the right. On the flat surface of the
composition, all the gestures are recorded, but not in (one idea of)
proportion to each other. When it was early in the day, the painter, at a
nearness of four feet, drew the sitter's left cheek as the light of that
time of the day reflected on the sitter and the painter and the page; when
it was later in the day, the painter, having walked ten feet backwards and
eight feet to the right, drew the sitter's left eyebrow in the different
light of that time of the day, on whatever part of the page seemed to the
painter to invite that gesture to be drawn upon it. Thus the flat surface of
the composition on the page at the end of the day had drawn upon it a
line that had originated as a drawing of the sitter's left cheek and at
the same time also drawn on it a line that had originated as a drawing of the
sitter's left eyebrow; the latter line, on the flat page, was to the right
and *below* the former line. The composition was not a photo-lookalike. It
would be impossible to produce a photo that would look like the composition,
although both might have been of the sitter. One could picture the sitter in
her or his absence, by looking at the cubist composition, by taking each line
into one's mind, imagining each minus or plus close-up, compensating for
by adding to or subtracting from the saturation of light in the line, adjusting
left and right on the colour spectrum for hue. One would not thus make a photo
in one's mind. One would make a three-dimensional sculpture vibrating in
time, the fourth dimension. One would massage either the sitter's head or,
more accurately, the space exactly around the sitter's three-dimensional
outline, with the mind not the hand, as if there were hands in the mind
which there are. One would see light bouncing off the sitter, a whole day's
refracted beams, of many lengths and hues. If one had oneself been the
painter, one might hear all the sounds one had heard during that day,
bouncing in from the world and on the recycled breath carrying the unique
intonations and even sometimes formulations of that day. All moments
of all days are unique, and here there is a cubist composition which acts
as a mnemonic for remembering some. The cubist composition of thought in
the theatre of conversation is painted by all involved, each is
sitter and painter. There we test the notion of good we live. The new-born
child joins with us in showing such and such is part of good not evil, or
the new-born child contemplates doing something that is not good and, without
disapproval, I and the new-born child contemplate the contemplation, mentally,
in the theatre and thus the evil is only contemplated and not acted, and
the mental did no harm. Good is not a regulation accepted. It and evil
are embodied in the theatre, evil is shown to be short-term, for one can
spend one hour in the theatre and see much more than one: hour of imagined
time and space; one is long-term in order to sit or paint in the theatre;
by the dimensions of the theatre evil is only short-term and thus really
boring. The sitter is not the painter, the painter not the sitter, all are
not alike in the theatre; yet via Carl Rogers, Stanislavsky and Walter
Benjamin's communing almost to identity, I have got to the theatre, got
back there. In fact, when two meet (or more than two) and accept equally
the painter and the sitter within them, then starting out with the attempt
to identify from the inside (if you. like, via R, S or B) can be discarded.
and conversation begin. The theatre, or cubism, or R, S, or B, may get you
there, but they are not there. There is conversation.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 13:30:16 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
To Steve Carll et al.:
Re.: "verbing" and other "transitizing of verbs inherent and/or verbs as
back-formationed nouns:
We today in English may have a proclivity for verbing because of our
sensibility, that is, our high-tech way of life demands an (to borrow
from the big man) "instanter" perceptual existence and because English
is the most analyzed (i.e., broken down into constituent parts) languane
[correction: language] in the world.
Let us compare with ancient Roman Latin. That Latin was highly inflected
or rather synthesized (the opposite of analyzed). Also, the ancient
writers did not even bother to show visual breaks between words (the
cursive script just flowed on and on and in Greek often wrapped to the next
line backwards, called boustrophedon [sp?] meaning like the route a plow and
its horse would take in the field--plowing meaning writing is a very old
metaphor, by the way]); so, thinking about rules (I digress here), I guess
the ancients had to be damn sensitive readers who found out the rules of the
writing as they went along.
Anyway, there are more discrete units in modern English.
Questions for all:
What was the frequency of neologism and hapax formation in the ancient inflected
world?
Does present-day avant-garde poetry (e.g. Language Poetry--or is this now
G3 status and thus relegated to the ancient mists of historical time) depend
more on new usages and the like than modern or older poetry?
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 14:57:37 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Re: w.s.
In-Reply-To: <950621152751_99484853@aol.com> from "Jordan Davis." at Jun 21,
95 03:27:52 pm
> Also, Loss, is the interactive poem you mentioned the one compiled at the
> EPC? Would it be possible for future contributors to the poem to see where
> their lines go once they're written? (I mean, to access the poem in
> progress?)
Jordan, I am at work trying to implement a program that will make this
possible. Hopefully, soon!
(Then there would be a link that offers access to the poem in
progress.)
Loss
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:23:00 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Okay Chris Stroffolino. the life of the mind!
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:29:37 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: breath rules
nor did williams. but creeley does (or used to).
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 12:42:29 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: rules and reverse thinking
Charles--
Thank you. Much better.
reg
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:07:13 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
kimmelman writes:
>
> Questions for all:
>
> What was the frequency of neologism and hapax formation in the ancient
> inflected
> world?
>
>
> what's hapax --happy accidents?
maria
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 19:56:15 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Mail List: Concrete
Carl, top work. PLease keep me informed.
Don't respond to DADA Poetries personally - arguably locates it too
specifically in a historical frame. Also gives the impression of being a
list for DADA related activity and could tell more for the general
interested browser. Having said which, 'naming problem' is common.
I'll think on it,
I know - how 'bout dada poetries? No, I'll think about it - but don't
wait up
love and thanks
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:48:33 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Message for cris cheek...
cris, hi:
can you back-channel me yr e mail address. sorry, i had it but have
misplaced the file
take care,
carl
clpeters@sfu.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 20:27:48 -0300
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "In the beginning was nostalgia. --Alan Halsey"
<NDORWARD@AC.DAL.CA>
Subject: Re: Sappho
Ira: if it's not exactly a "translation" of Sappho, Steve MacCaffery's
_Intimate Distortions_ is at least an interesting "reading-through" of
Sappho. Semi-irrelevant anecdote: when I was at U of T I went to a reading
by Doug Chambers and Thom Gunn--Chambers read from a marvelous "Homo
Horace" series of translations--as he remarked at the start of the reading,
he got tired of reading translations of Virgil and Sappho that made them
sound heterosexual, so thought he'd return the favour with Horace. Anyone
know if "Homo Horace" was ever published? --Nate Dorward.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 16:58:19 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Night Swimming
In-Reply-To: <90066.mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995, Charles Alexander wrote:
> Shaunanne, your poem of the "measureless" is quite measured, from "not
> surface" to "surface," a distinctive poem about thinking being. Strangely
> physical and somehow also not at all physical, that unspoken "it" and the
> shivering stars.
>
> Thanks
>
> charles alexander
> chax press
> minnesota center for book arts
> phone & fax: 612-721-6063
> e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
>
Thanks. And yes, quite measured--I suppose some kind of Shelleyan or
Wordsworthian "poet" (Measure is within) leaking out--was it WW who said
that we need measure to control the emotion? (I should know that!) I
don't know if it is always true for poetry, but it seem true inmy life!
Best,
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 17:09:12 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
In-Reply-To: <199506220322.UAA08277@slip-1.slip.net>
On Wed, 21 Jun 1995, Steve Carll wrote:
> ShaunAnne writes:
>
> >I like the thoughts re: only not qualitfying a verb, and that why can't
> >new physics be self-referential as was old physics--I ask in return, can
> >anything be self-referential in the pomo, that is, to my mind, the here
> >and now?
> >Some might argue that we can only be self-referential. . .
> >I'm interested in anyone's thoughts here.
>
> Good, cause I have some.. .:-)
>
> I see postmodernism as distinguished by its self-conscious
> self-referentiality. I also see "the here and now as not reducible to the
> postmodern, specifically with regards to this discussion, in that it
> includes the self but doesn't refer all of what is back to the self.
I guess I was thinking about stmts like Patricia Waugh's: "Both feminism
and Postmodernism have extended our awareness that one of the effects of
modernity is that knowledge reflexively enters and shapes experience and
then is shaped by it in an unprecedentedly self-conscious fashion."
Which says to me a loss of self at the expense of knowledge, but sure
could be read as almost the opposite.
Anyway, this is not a pomo list! I do appreciate your thoughts, though,
Steve, esp those on verbing being earlier than pomo. I do see literary
modernism as the last gasp of modernity, and modernism, so perhaps
cummings gloming onto it is perfectly prophetic.
And on that lousey alliteration,
ShaunAnne
> Yes, I liked that cartoon; what I thought was interesting was Hobbes' (and,
> I got the impression, Bill Watterson's) reaction, something to the effect
> that, with this attitude toward language, soon we won't be able to
> communicate through it anymore. And yet, as Cummings saw so clearly, this
> is one of the ways language generates new ways of communicating, and English
> is, it seems to me, particularly adept at the trick of "verbing". Cummings
> was trying, in his own words, "to undress one by one the soggy nouns whose
> agglomeration constitutes the mechanism of Normality, and finally to
> liberate the actual crisp organic squirm--the IS" (from "Gaston Lachaise",
> in _A Miscellany Revised_, October House, 1965, if anyone's interested.)
>
> So it goes way back before pomo (unless you're using pomo as a synonym for
> what is "ahead of its time", or "avant-garde", or whatever.) What is pomo
> is the emphasis on shifting the parts of speech of words, part of the pomo
> project of blurring distinctions, although it's perfectly within the wider
> syntactic "rules" of the English language to do so in this fashion. But, I
> ramble...
>
> Steve
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:05:12 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
you mean a text is fixed from the writer's point of view. wouldn't
bowers, tansell, mcgann and others question the notion of a single intention.
intention at what stage of creation of the final draft, etc.? anyway,
when i reread a poem of mine i see what i have said, often seeing
things not seen by me before when either reading or writing it.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:13:26 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
maria--wonderful not-quite-false etymology!! Hapax is a word that has
been used only once in all of time/history.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:09:39 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: breath rules
I recall Olson's reading-breathing as emphatic and dramatic. Did he ALWAYS
honor line breaks in the manner I've heard Creeley do--the answer is no.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 22:31:34 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
Comments: To: krickjh@mcgraw-hill.com
>Kenneth,
>
>Whatever became of the "Bedside" reading lists you started?
>I thought that was a wonderful idea. Last one I saw was
>March.
>
>John Krick
john--
i like the idea of "bedside reading" lists a lot also. however, the nature
of things on the net/mailing lists seems to be an ever-changing
proposition; the minute you try to capture something, it has a way of
eluding you. hence, the "bedside reading" was a March theme, and a
strongish one at that. (Loss had gone so far as to ask if i would "edit"
something to this effect each month--which i was/would be pleased to do.)
however, it played itself out and disappeared within a week or two. i put
up calls for more "bedside reading" lists but recieved no more responses.
so--i let it go.
if there is still interest, i would certainly continue with my
accumulations, as long as people post/email "bedside reading" material. i'm
happy to oblige.
thanks for your interest.
peace,
kenny g
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg/
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 20:07:16 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Loss Glazier begins a recent post with:
>To me, the term "a poetics of fuzzy logic" is less than appealing. The
>reason is that the word "logic" in the phrase, resonant of "logical,"
>implies that there is some desired goal. (Isn't fuzzy logic _in part_
>used to help you, say, find information when you don't quite know what
>you are asking for?) "Fuzzy" also implies a lack of precision, which I
>do not think is a fair critique of a poetic text.
Well, yes, individually, the terms "fuzzy" and "logic" may have the
implications you suggest, but put them together and you've got a whole
different animal. It's kind of an oxymoron, the "fuzzy" part undermining
and qualifying the "logic" part by introducing intuitive leaps and such
("fuzzy" logic is used to compensate for unquantifiable variables that spoil
the predictions of "hard" logic). It thus doesn't so much imply a lack of
precision (and anyway, I think there's a difference between an implication
and a full-blown critique) as point up what the drive for precision may
leave out.
I don't know if that makes it any more appealing to you, but it's another
way of looking at it, anyway.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 20:04:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" <anielsen@SPARTA.SJSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Return of the Repressed
In-Reply-To: <9505050400.AA02718@isc.sjsu.edu>
Several people who attempted to reach A.L. Nielsen by e-mail in recent
weeks have received their own messages by return mail with cryptic
references to the unavailability of the person so addressed. While it is
always heartening to reread one's own missives, some have expressed
concern about the institutional viability of said Nielsen. The computer
at San Jose State University, upon being told that Pete Wilson intended a
run for the presidency, collapsed like Lana Turner.
All's well now, however. If any of you have been spurned by the account
known as anielsen@sparta.sjsu.edu, please give it another try now.
peripherally yours,
aldon
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:51:03 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Night Swimming
>Thanks. And yes, quite measured--I suppose some kind of Shelleyan or
>Wordsworthian "poet" (Measure is within) leaking out--was it WW who said
>that we need measure to control the emotion? (I should know that!) I
>don't know if it is always true for poetry, but it seem true inmy life!
>
>Best,
>ShaunAnne
>
>
I'm not certain about that quote, although Zukofsky did say that in poetry,
emotion is a matter of cadence. I don't have at hand the exact phrasing.
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:45:47 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules/poems after poetry?
Herb:
One often finds poetry strewn around by non-"poets" in non-"poetic" forms.
You call 'em as you see 'em, and I'll do the same.
Take care!
Steve
>
>>BTW, great poems Herb Levy (love that editing)
>
>
>That wasn't a poem, I was just following a rule.
>
>As I've said before, I'm not a poet (but I play one on TV).
>
>Bests
>
>
>Herb Levy
>herb@eskimo.com
>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:45:56 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules: rule or suck?
Carl Linden Peters notes:
>hey, steve. the professor i referred to has had, continues to have, the
>strongest, deepest influence in both my creative life and on my aspirations
>to teach. i asked him once what influenced him the most in his teaching. "The
>military," he said. --he served 2 or 4 tours of duty in Vietnam
Hmm...not what I would've expected from the US military (no offense to any
US vets on the list), but certainly the potential to learn the
self-discipline which is also needed in zen can be found there. Interesting
point!
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:46:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
why, where steve what who, ed.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:46:06 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
John Keeler:
>I believe you're referring to _I Seem To Be A Verb_, Bantam Books 1970.
THAT'S IT!!!
Thanks. Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:48:58 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules and reverse thinking
Thanks for the advance preview of the King C show, Maria--I'm going to see
them Monday in S.F. But I think it's adrian belew who does most of the
singing, at least in K.C. (tho I haven't heard much of the new
material--maybe fripp does finally take over some of the vocals!)
I myself favor British psychedelia over American--it seems to want to
*create* a psychedelic experience through the popsong format, whereas the
Dead, Airplane, etc. seem to assume that the listener is already in the
psychedelicized space and just want to be the aural wallpaper in the trip
room. Which is not necessarily to knock such bands, I just think the UK
version is more psychedelic as music, in and of itself. But I'm 28 and
wasn't there for either kind when it was emerging, so whatta I know? Anyway.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:49:24 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: open mic
>ok--rookie on the list: what's the Open Mic?
ShaunAnne:
It's a poetry reading (or any kind of performance) where the performers
aren't announced ahead of time--anyone can just go and sign up and perform.
They're marked by loads of fresh energy and rawness of presentation--and by
really trite crap (sometimes simultaneously). Come to S.F. and you can go
to two or three a night, every night. All you can stand.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:57:43 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: rules, reverse thinking, calvin, and cummings
ShaunAnne:
>I guess I was thinking about stmts like Patricia Waugh's: "Both feminism
>and Postmodernism have extended our awareness that one of the effects of
>modernity is that knowledge reflexively enters and shapes experience and
>then is shaped by it in an unprecedentedly self-conscious fashion."
>Which says to me a loss of self at the expense of knowledge, but sure
>could be read as almost the opposite.
Well, we gotta keep the models flexible. All things call forth their opposites.
>Anyway, this is not a pomo list! I do appreciate your thoughts, though,
>Steve, esp those on verbing being earlier than pomo. I do see literary
>modernism as the last gasp of modernity, and modernism, so perhaps
>cummings gloming onto it is perfectly prophetic.
I think a lot of modernist artists have elements that can't be contained in
that box and have to be dealt with as pomo--Cocteau, as Stephen Barker has
argued, Stein and Woolf, Hart Crane, with his "hurricane poetics" and his
subversively strategized homoeroticism...but you're right, we could all be
here forever (or at least indefinitely suspended in the continuing present)
talking about postmodernism.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 22:19:38 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <199506230307.UAA23035@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
22, 95 08:07:16 pm
Fuzzy logic sounds to me like 'warm and fuzzy'; comfort in negative
capability or some such thing.
I like to think of the poet as actingt out of entrapment, the king
in Calvino's "A King Listens". The poet makes stories and counter
stories to accompany the echoes around and plotting. A word or
phrase echoes throughout the castle of the poem, suggesting
shapes and distances, a narrative of corridors in which plots
or unplots are made. A Poetics is to exercise power, like a king,
when no power is evident or able. As O'Hara says, you go on your
nerve, and Calvino's king is nervous.
Then again, as A. Bergman says, I'm in a fresh hell right now and
perhaps a little fuzzy for wear.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 01:22:56 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: a clove of gender
yo sheila murphy, how can i get hold of your book called a clove of gender?
gary sullivan read from it tonight chez moi and the desert wildflowers part is
gorgiosorooni. in fact, how can i get hold of two copies of the book, cuz i
have a friend who is into poetry and also into western agricultural history who
liked the poems immensely as well.
best, maria d
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 10:09:59 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: cobain
lindZ--I loved your Kurt Cobain poem---I too want to explode in a
violent flash---you sound GREAT!---wish i could drop over for
an afternoon--chris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 10:16:50 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Bob Perelman <perelman@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: hapax
In-Reply-To: <2fe9cd7026f2002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> from "maria damon" at Jun 22,
95 03:07:13 pm
answer to Maria's question about hapax:
hapax legomenon = greek for 'used only once' 'single occurrence'. If a
word is found only once, how can you be sure what it means. I gave Apollo
a xxcjxc = a can of baked beans? a purple Chevy? a daffodil dipped in nutmeg?
a broken vibrator? a three-legged goat?
Interesting poetics questions that reverberate through much of the
discussion here. A lot of the assertion of faith in singularity,
marginality is tending toward hapax-ville. But that makes political,
communal collective political force rest on singular ironies. This is a
paradox that may be 'productive' on the local level (screens, pages full
of words), but beyond that (distribution, impact, others, public)
possibly not.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 10:37:52 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Comments: RFC822 error: <W> Incorrect or incomplete address field found and
ignored.
Comments: RFC822 error: <W> Incorrect or incomplete address field found and
ignored.
From: Charles Bernstein <POETICS@UBVMS.BITNET>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Comments: To: bernstei@UBVMS.BITNET
test too
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 10:53:56 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kenneth Goldsmith <kgolds@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re[2]: Reading lists
Comments: cc: krickjh@mcgraw-hill.com
>>Kenneth,
>>
>>Whatever became of the "Bedside" reading lists you started?
>>I thought that was a wonderful idea. Last one I saw was
>>March.
>>
>>John Krick
>
>john--
>
>i like the idea of "bedside reading" lists a lot also. however, the nature
>of >things on the net/mailing lists seems to be an ever-changing
>proposition; the >minute you try to capture something, it has a way of
>eluding you. hence, the >"bedside reading" was a March theme, and a
>strongish one at that. (Loss had >gone so far as to ask if i would "edit"
>something to this effect each >month--which i was/would be pleased to do.)
>however, it played itself out and >disappeared within a week or two. i put
>up calls for more "bedside reading" >lists but recieved no more responses.
>so--i let it go.
>
>if there is still interest, i would certainly continue with my
>accumulations, >as long as people post/email "bedside reading" material.
>i'm happy to oblige.
>
>thanks for your interest.
>
>peace,
>
>kenny g
Kenneth,
Well, it's too bad there was such a dearth of response after
the first. I thought it was a cool idea and had hoped to see
more. Even though I don't get to read probabaly MOST of the
mail that this list generates, it remains my **first source of
info about books I think I MIGHT want to read**. There aren't
many places you can go for that sort of thing.
John Krick
john and all--
let's fire it up again! for those of you who missed it the first time: my
favorite part of vanity fair is when they ask famous people what they are
reading before they go to bed at night. instead, wouldn't it be great to
hear what people were reading whose minds & ideas we could actually
respect? i'm happy to compile a monthly list of recommended/bedside reading
lists for all on this list.
peace
kenny g
=============================================================================
Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg/
kgolds@panix.com
kennyg@wfmu.org
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 09:28:57 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kit Robinson <krobinson@BANDO.COM>
Subject: Sappho
Reply to: Sappho
Ira,
Bill Luoma (on this list) has also translated Sappho.
Kit Robinson
krobinson@bando.com
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 13:41:28 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Bedside reading
Books on the windowsill by my bed:
First Love and other stories, Ivan Turgenev
The Witch, Anton Chekhov
Wayfarers, Knut Hamsun
The Art of Telling, Frank Kermode
Tulsa Kid, Ron Padgett
The Silver Dove, Andrey Biely
Defoe, Leslie Scalapino
Torque #1, #2, #3
The Impercipient #9 (I think)
My Trip to New York, Bill Luoma
Vexillum, Bob Hale
Lapsis Linguae, Marcella Durand
And in heavy rotation:
The Exact Change Yearbook 1995 cd (esp. Berrigan/Mayer)
Love
Jordan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 09:27:00 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Don Cheney <Don_Cheney@UCSDLIBRARY.UCSD.EDU>
Subject: workside reading
I find the books I'm reading broken into 3 distinct PLACES. The
first is literally what is on my bedside table. The second is
books located on my desk at home. The third is books located at
work (as opposed to work-related). The latter books are either in
transition to home or are books I read during lunch breaks.
I'm at work now and these are the books on my shelf:
ZEN BUDDHISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS (Fromm, Suzuki...)
ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES
A DAY AT THE BEACH (Grenier)
POESIES (Catullus translated into French)
DUSK ROAD GAMES (Grenier)
POETAS NORTEAMERICANOS (Blackburn/Corman/Eshleman/Enslin
translated into Spanish)
SOBRE LA PROSA LITERARIA (Shklovsky in Spanish)
TOO HOT TO HANDLE (Juvenile baseball novel for my son Max)
THE BEAST 2 (Juvenile horror for my son Max)
HAND SHADOWS (TO BE THROWN UPON THE WALL) a republication of an
1859 book of hand shadows (for my brother John in prison--I
photocopied the various drawings of hand shadows and sent them to
him)
HOW TO PITCH (Bob Feller)
MODISMOS (Familiar English-Spanish expressions) (by Mrs. Anness.
& Mr. Boughton. (a random selection gives us: "That codfish
smells to Heaven. Ese bacalao huele a rayos."
THE GATELESS BARRIER (Aitken)
SOCCER FOR JUNIORS (I'm an assistant coach for my son's team this
year)
CATULLUS'S COMPLETE POETIC WORKS (RABINOWITZ, tr.) just got this
on sale at UCSD bookstore yesterday
AREAS LIGHTS HEIGHTS (Eigner) just got this also
NOW ZEN (Charlotte Joko Beck)
--Don Cheney--
dcheney@ucsd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 14:48:29 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sappho
In-Reply-To: <199506231644.JAA22007@lanfill.lanminds.com> from "Kit Robinson"
at Jun 23, 95 09:28:57 am
If memory serves, Thomas Meyer did translations of Sappho -- & Tom's
work should be read more, check out his collection _Sapho's Raft_ from
the Jargon Society.
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 14:38:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: current summer reading
1. johanna drucker, dark decade
2. the new yorker
3. bruce robbins, ed. The Phantom Public Sphere
4. weekly rob breszny horoscope
5. a student paper on paul bowles
5. the floating bear compilation
6. daily mpls star tribune horoscope
7. roadmaps to colorado
8. a dictionary of word origins ("slam" "open" etc)
9. various insurance policies so i can be covered during my upcoming sabbatical
10. other randomly fluffy stuff
boy o boy, what a usefully humiliating exercise. i better upgrade pronto.
thanks.
md
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 16:00:32 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Scheil <cschei1@GRFN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
In-Reply-To: <v01510101ac0f9dc6a7cc@[166.84.247.22]>
Well, I've got a few books of interest I've been looking at lately--hope
nobody minds if I chime in here...
1. Raising Holy Hell (Bruce Olds) A fictionalized life ofJohn Brown,
due out in September. Amazing book--very powerful, though it bogs down in
the last fifty or so pages, after Lee and JEB Stuart crash Brown's party
at Harpers Ferry. This is by far the best review copy to cross my desk
this year...
2. Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Jan Potocki) This was mentioned in
Perec's bk (A Void) & just came out in an English translation.
Hallucinatory & dense--imagine a new Decameron co-written by Goya &
Hoffman, wardrobe by Edith Head, sets by Lautremont...
3. Exact Change Yearbook, At Passages, From the Other Side
of the Century: all part of my vacation Michael Palmer festival. Very
interesting to hear Palmer read his new Poems. I'd not imagined his voice
sounding like it does; the surprise I felt was akin to the first time I
heard Creeley or Williams read--how hearing the poets voicing radically
changes the way one reads the written work--the way theauthors diction &
intonation get somehow ingrained in yourhead & you find yourself
internalizing their vocalization. A bit disturbing, that--almost as if the
very act of listening to a recording imposes some kind of individualized
canonic reading, underming whatever tactical method of poetic speech
you've brought to the written text...
4. Passing Duration, Four Lectures: I've always gotten the sensethat
Rodefer's work is somehow out there pacing the Langpo boundaries (maybe
event horizon is a better term...). Ghosts of events in those sentences,
gesturing toward some alien narrative in hopes of arriving at
atmosphere--The same thing I feel reading Coolidge sometimes. Is there
anything available since Passing Duration that I might have missed?
Also, quick question to the G1 folks: does anyone remember a poetry
festival at a place called Thomas Jefferson College (now GrandValley
State University) near Grand Rapids, MI in the spring of 74? Oppen,
Reznikoff, Ed Dorn, Rothenberg(I think he was there..) were all in attendance
& the readings & roundtables were all either filmed or recorded on audio.
The rumor here is that there are still copies floating around, but no
one at the University has the slightest idea where one might get a copy...
If anyone attended or remembers seeing or hearing footage from this event,
please backchannel me...
yrs,
Chris
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Scheil > Our life is endless in the way that our visual field
cschei1@grfn.org < is without limit. --Wittgenstein
snail mail: >
317 Prospect #4 < Let me say this. Neak Luong is a blur. It is
Grand Rapids, MI 49503 > Tuesday in the hardwood Forest. I am a visitor
______________________ < here, with a notebook --Michael Palmer
_______________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 16:38:01 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
Good to see HAMSUN and HALE on Jordan Davis' bedside list--
My own is too over the place now--and like Beckett's "Malone" (or is
it MOLLOY) I will have to save my inventory for later----chris
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 17:08:03 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: a clove of gender
On Fri, 23 Jun 1995 01:22:56 -0500,
maria damon <damon001@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>yo sheila murphy, how can i get hold of your book called a clove of gender?
>gary sullivan read from it tonight chez moi and the desert wildflowers part is
>gorgiosorooni. in fact, how can i get hold of two copies of the book, cuz i
>have a friend who is into poetry and also into western agricultural history who
>liked the poems immensely as well.
>
>best, maria d
>
>
Yes, I just got A Clove of Gender in the mail today. Terrific! Thanks,
Sheila.
charles
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 18:38:34 +0100
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Bedside reading
This is Kevin Killian. I'm glad to see this feature return, as I too read
Vanity Fair regularly tho' the book list is not my favorite. The true
crime articles are.
Here is what I've just picked up from around my bed:
"Vel" by Peter Inman-fantastic. Four stars to you, P. Inman. We printed
one of these poems in"Mirage #4/Period[ical]" but now I see, it was not the
best one after all, there are many, many just as good or better!
"Castle King Four," by Jim Reagan, who sent me this book, haven't read it
yet, don't know why he sent it. He said it was a peace offering. I don't
know who he is! Seems to be a novel that pits Nazis against the OSS.
"Sliver," by Ira Levin. I read it about every six months. Dodie wrote a
paper about it once, for Todd Baron and Carolyn Kemp's zine "REMAP," on
"narration." "A zillion times better than the movie," she says. When is
the Ira Levin Conference happening?
Claude Royet-Journoud, "A Descriptive Method," tr. Keith Waldrop-it's
small, I should have finished this last week. Didn't. Just found it.
"Berlin Diptychon" by John Yau & Bill Barrette. I'm copying one of the
poems here, "The Night Beast is Best," for my new poem, which will have a
better title. This book is very luxe, glossy, heavy ink smell, has Berlin
written all over me.
"Tender Agencies," by Dennis Denisoff. Why this book isn't a best seller
I'll never know. Dennis D. is so smart & so accessible. He is a former
member of the Kootenay School and from what I understand will be working at
Princeton this fall. Yay Dennis.
"Abusing the Telephone," by Dennis Barone. We had Dennis B. read at Small
Press Traffic where he read some of this. We were screaming, kind of. I
mean it was sedate in a way. This is a very fiction collective kind of
book, tho published by Drogue. Dennis, any one of these tales could have
been a novel, I say, expand, don't contract, be expansive like Whitman.
2 new books by Alice Notley. Haven't opened it yet.
Thom Gunn, "The Man with Night Sweats." Thom Gunn is a local hero & a
swell guy. This book is his best one yet.
"Arshile #4" ed. Mark Salerno. Arshile #4 features an interview with
Gilbert Sorrentino. I always wondered why I had never met GS since he
works at Stanford and I'm in San Francisco. Now I find that "the Bay Area
is so utterly antithetical to me that I find myself, at all times,
struggling against its cuteness, its apathy, its general air of paralysis,
its relentless small-townishness, so that it's hard to imagine being
'mellowed out' in the throes of battle. I don't quite know what it is
about the place, but the entire Bay Area, with the source of infection
being, of course, that citadel of provincialism, San Francisco, has the air
of an amateur stage production set in sinister natural surroundings." What
a jerk. How about that "source of infection" metaphor Mr. Sorrentino? Are
we afraid of the AIDS virus at Stanford University? Anyhow Arshile #4 has
this wonderful piece in it by Yoko Ono and as usual a marvelous cover, this
time by Jasper Johns.
Bruce Andrews, "Ex Why Zee," collected, I don't know, work for the
"theater"? Black and white drawing on the front, "pathetic masculinity" as
the art forum says. "Abject art" my favorite. All these little men
running around doing disgusting things, . . . four stars for the cover
alone, belongs in the Whitney.
"Apex of the M" #3. Read it from cover to cover searching for the
explanation from the editors, why on earth they went ahead last time and
printed that work by King Homophobe Ed Dorn! No explanation, still. One
editor told me that if they explained every editorial policy they made it
would be too long a magazine. Fine. Just wanted to put in my 2 cents on
this subject. Again.
"Everything as Expected," by James Herndon. This book, from the 70's, is
the essential insider's guide to the collaboration between Jack Spicer &
Fran Herndon. Color plates. Seven of these collages were shown at recent
Blaser conference. Five stars.
"Tony & Susan," by Austin Wright. I think I got this mixed up with "Austin
and Mabel" but instead of being about the relatives of Emily Dickinson it
is some kind of literary horror novel. Check it out. I'm up to Chapter
Five.
"Esther: Her Murder Haunts a Small Town in Oklahoma." True crime book.
Esther is a schoolteacher, in her seventies I think, I think she was
murdered in her sleep by some former students, but she's just gone to bed
just now at the place I've put it down.
"Written in Blood," by Caroline Graham. She is my new favorite detective
writer. Okay, so the ends of her books are always stupid.
"Empire of Words: the Reign of the OED," by John Willensky. This guy
teaches at UBC and this book studies the use of citation in the different
editions of the OED to come to some conclusions about cultural studies.
Work it, girl.
Finally I've come to the floor. Okay and one last book I've just finished
from the library, "The Juror," by George Dawes Green. had to get this one
since it's the basis of the upcoming Demi Moore picture. The back jacket
says that Dawes Green is a poet and the author of "the acclaimed novel "The
Caveman's Valentine" and he looks about 12. Excellent! George Dawes Green
are you on this poetics list? Come on down!
Thank you Kenneth Goldsmith for arranging this group.
Yours-Kevin K. 1995
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 00:54:01 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Juliana Spahr <V231SEY9@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
I love these lists also. Although Kevin's has made mine feel
inadequate. My excuse is moving. I've been trying to refile
but I've also pulled out all these old books that I found
while trying to alphabetize:
Mary Butts Imaginary Letters; Crystal Cabinet; Traverner Novels;
(by the way, any Butts fans out there, would love some info
back channel about any good criticism, I haven't found much
at all good or bad, and info about the Crowley-Butts connection
and her opium addiction (?).
Don DeLillo, Libra
Keri Hulme, Bone People (which has been abandoned as unreadable)
Ben Friedlander (there is an image of a knot for the title) (this
is available from Meow Press); recommended
Rachel Tzvia Back, Litany (also Meow Press and recommended)
Prosodia / 5 (nice mix of writers, mainly west coast; put
out by the students of the New College of California Poetics Prog)
Bloo (good pieces by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian and Pat Reed)
Lesli Scalapino, Defoe (I love this book and have become obsessed
with it in the same way that I became obsessed with Fanny Howe's
Saving History last year)
a large stack of fashion magazines where I have actually
been spending most of my reading time
I would like it if people on this list would just post a
brief message about something good they have read whenever
they read it and how to get it. I mean both stuff that is
available at any Barnes and Noble and stuff that comes in
the mailbox. In more cases than not that usually motivates
me to obtain said item and in more cases than not I am glad
that I did.
Juliana
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 21:55:22 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: bedside reading list
Hi all--here's what's threatening to fall on me and crush me in my sleep:
_How Things Work: Science For Young Americans_, a 1941 textbook with some
truly freaky illustrations.
_Earth and Sky Every Child Should Know_, similar, except w/a 1910 copyright.
Mark Twain, _The Innocents Abroad_.
Thich Nhat Hahn, _The Blooming of a Lotus_, a wonderful book of simple
meditations.
Levi-Strauss, _The Savage Mind_. Learned a new word ("moiety") from this
one. Means "half." Not a hapax--he uses it twice.
A stack of submissions to Antenym, the magazine I edit (#7 due out in
August, featuring [at least] George Albon, John Olson, Colleen Lookingbill,
Darlene Tate, J.R. Willems, John Taggart, Charles Borkhuis, Michael
Basinski, Brian Boury, Andrew Joron, Michael Price, Kristin Burkart, Sheila
E. Murphy, Carol Ciavonne, Larry Eigner, Mike Kettner, I.E. Skin, Jean Day,
and Bob Heman). Now if I can only figure out in what order to present them!
_Six By Seuss_. Of course.
And soon--
Buckminster Fuller, _I Seem To Be A Verb_. Soon as I can get my hands on a
copy.
Sweet dreams!
Steve
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Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 03:16:55 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: bedside reading list
Okay--I'll chime in---
I'm reading these unpublished manuscripts---
I am extremely knocked out by Ben Friedlander's reading of Frank
O'Hara AND YOU BIG NAME PUBLISHERS OUT THERE ARE FOOLS NOT TO
JUMP ON IT WHILE YOU CAN----
This is the kind of "literary criticism" one does not see often--
Then I'm reading THE FATE OF THE SELF (By Corngold--first time in
paperback of a 1985 book---I'm reading this for possible "academic
use" so i'm reluctant to mention it here, as is my reading in
Shakespeare criticism--Susan Snyder, H.T. McCrary, etc. etc---
) Also got the EXACT CHANGE BOOK---The Stein piece (and Spahr's
intro.) is great. Peter Gizzi's new manuscript has a great poem
to Mark McMorris in it...and I got the new Garret lansing HEAVENLY
TREE book...
I'm sure I'm leaving things out...I read "Marriage" by Marianne
Moore the other day---I often spend a whole night on one page!
I read O'Hara's "To An Actor Who Died" because it's original title
was "To Laura Riding" and "everybody" is telling me I should read
Agamban very soon---
It would be interesting if we could talk more about why we're reading
(or what is happening why reading) than merely about WHAT--but perhaps
that is not a function of the list....chris
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 03:03:02 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
Am I the only person who sees Charles Bernstein's formatting of the
Artifice of Absorption into lines as a totally Fullerian exercise
(intended--and successfully--to make the piece the absorbing gesture it
so breathtakingly is)?
Fuller was a longtime Navy member, was he not?
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 03:14:47 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
I've always thought that a good portion of what made the avant-garde so
much more interesting than "traditional" poetics (tho I think that the
AG is a specific historic tradition in its own right, a historic
international "community" in all the senses of identity politics), is
that AG poets, by ignoring or breaking "trad" rules, take on the
responsibility for any/all elements in the work of art, rather than
simply having them "drag on as empty habit." In that sense, Kerouac,
say, is a totally rule driven poet (wild form is a Formalism, no?).
Whereas more trad poets seem to incorporate vast amounts of stuff into
their work without much reason for it being there, so that it tends to
sit like old lumpy oatmeal. There's been a discussion of metrics on the
CAP-L list for the past month full of anxiety over "correct"
interpretations, whether a spondee can be a spondee, whether variation
is just that or is a sign of incompetence, etc.
So when I hear of a reading such as Charles Alexander described or read
a text such as ShaunAnne's, it thrills me to realise that there are
people out there who take total responsibility for their rules.
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 03:25:18 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
>
>2. Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Jan Potocki) This was mentioned in
>Perec's bk (A Void) & just came out in an English translation.
>Hallucinatory & dense--imagine a new Decameron co-written by Goya &
>Hoffman, wardrobe by Edith Head, sets by Lautremont...
>
In the 1960s, there was a wonderful Polish film mostly (but not
entirely, as I recall) in black & white of this same novel, with a
great hauting score by Penderecki. Very Borges'ian, a narrative within
a narrative within a narrative within.... It used to play at the
Central Cedar Cinema off Polk Street (right next to a fire house and
the only theatre I've ever been to that was actually in an alley,
almost impossible to find if you didn't know it was there) and was a
very cult thing. I must have seen it ten times, but it seems (like
virtually all European cinema) to have disappeared from American
screens. Batman Forever was on 20% of all theater screens in the US
last week. Sigh.
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 03:29:55 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: breath rules
Never heard Olson live (was in the same room with him only once in my
life and that, the Berkeley Poetry Fest of '65, before I knew who he
was), but my sense of the recordings I've heard and/or own is that he
tended to speed up his reading of any text from slow almost overblown
beginning to rapid end. Only a few texts actually follow that format on
the page (long lines to open, short to close).
Zukofsky (again from recordings) seems to have paused every SECOND
line.
And then there was the period around 1970 when Duncan paused three
beats between each line, marking them with his hand and for awhile even
counting them outloud (I remember a series of readings of all of
Passages done over 3 consecutive Fridays when he did that
throughout--totally distracting).
Ron
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 07:17:35 -0400
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From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
In-Reply-To: <199506241003.DAA16883@ix6.ix.netcom.com> from "Ron Silliman" at
Jun 24, 95 03:03:02 am
No Ron, you're not. Thought the same thing when I first laid eyes on
Artifice of Absorption. & I have always loved Bucky's description for
his kind of formatting: he called it "ventilated prose."
& yes, Bucky was in the navy, circa WWI, in 1918 for sure, until 1922
when he did "US Naval Reserve Activities." BY 1923 water wasn't
enough so he took to the air, what he called "Early Flying Actvities."
There's a piece of his called _Early Influences_ in which he talks in
some detail about his experiences in the Navy.
Pierre
>
> Am I the only person who sees Charles Bernstein's formatting of the
> Artifice of Absorption into lines as a totally Fullerian exercise
> (intended--and successfully--to make the piece the absorbing gesture it
> so breathtakingly is)?
>
> Fuller was a longtime Navy member, was he not?
>
> Ron Silliman
> rsillima@ix.netcom.com
>
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 10:17:31 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: bucky fuller
i'd love to know more either via back channel or publicly how Artifice of
Absorption is Fullerian, if you can take the time.
burt kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 08:58:03 -0800
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ray Davis <raydavis@BEST.COM>
Subject: Re: The Rich Little School of Poetics
>Zukofsky (again from recordings) seems to have paused every SECOND
>line.
Imagining an extremely precise and tidy Groucho Marx will help one recreate
Zukofsky's rhythms while reading his poetry.
Similarly, Margaret Dumont will give you a very close approximation of
Gertrude Stein.
(Steven Wright, of course, works for a lot of LangPo.)
Ray
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 19:12:19 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: bedside reading list
I "forget to mention" (or "censored") that I'm also reading a lot
of student papers in this summer class i'm teaching. A "reading
literature" course that is weighted towards poetry and the reading
of "non-poetic" texts "poetically"--I organized the course loosely
around the theme of "NOTHING" and have not used official anthologies
so i could include Stevens ("Adagia"), Mayer (Sonnets and "the obfuscated
poem") O'Hara, Cage, Stein, Riding, Kafka, Beckett, Ellison, Baraka,
Ferlinghetti, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Dudley Randall, Blake in one
class (also Brecht and Rilke)---I've selfishly swept up my students
in my summer reading--but I "commit" to the list and so it's no more
"free" in a way than had i gone with a "conventional" commercial
anthology---thank "god" for copy shops that 'pirate" things---
Chris S.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 17:37:10 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <950623134126_100913753@aol.com> from "Jordan Davis." at Jun 23,
95 01:41:28 pm
Not much at the moment:
Two by George Stanley: "You" and "Opening Day". He said to me last
night that "Tacoma" was one of the worst hangovers.
bill bissett's "Animal Uproar", iwth a wonderful Kerouac tribute in
it.
Al Purdy's "The Woman on the Shore". You have to be in the mood.
Joyce, "Ulysses". It has to be done.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 09:43:29 -0400
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From: Loss Glazier <lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: Related Lists
I'm trying to add a list of related lists to the EPC so I thought I'd
throw out for suggestions what you might see as lists related to these
interests.
Please let me know what you'd add to this list! (Also, if you have
current addresses, that would help. Another thing, the archive address
for ht_lit does not seem to work for me?)
RELATED DISCUSSION LISTS
-------------------------------------------------------
*AVANT-GARDE*
avant-garde@lists.village.virginia.edu
(is this one of those listproc and not a listserv?)
-------------------------------------------------------
*CAP-L*
--------------------------------------------------------
*HT_LIT*
ht_lit--the hypertext and literary theory mailing list.
This mailing list was created in February 1995 to provide a forum for
discussion of hypertext fiction, hypertext and literary studies, and
hypertext theory.
To subscribe, send an email message to the server:
subscribe@journal.biology.carleton.ca
with the following body in the message:
subscribe ht_lit [<address>]
this will subscribe yourself (or <address> if specified) to ht_lit.
-----
The posting address is
ht_lit@journal.biology.carleton.ca
-----
Postings to the list will be archived on the web at
http://chat.carleton.ca/~kmennie/ht_lit.html
-----
The list owner is kmennie@chat.carleton.ca
-------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 22:44:29 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Scheil <cschei1@GRFN.ORG>
Subject: Just another poem
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950623155112.11311A-100000@freenet.grfn.org>
I guess I've lurked long enough, enjoying everyone's efforts. Time to
throw something out & hope for the best...
Klatch of Mandingos, consumptives gone
trolling the swamps for cast-off
injection dies sees this & counts
coup on that pious oracular
gang of tunneler kids I'll portray
with an oval of semtex affixed
to my head, an elegant toque for this
bayou of implicate photon decay,
this digitized couplet of glass
in the form of a surgical saw.
You see? The cognitive mist is
only a symbol: fissile, hermetic, as lambent
a synod of gnats as you're ever to find
in a cloud chamber bowl, glad-handed
then shunted then groused like a cup
of strontium milk, like a methadone
dose in a tumbler of pus.
Now even the tutors agree:
a deistic fist up the ass of
the cynic Lovejoy ain't near
impasse enough to preserve this
corpse from ballastic decay,
from assuming the form of an aerial
putsch, cap-a-pied & entangled again
in that cloud-like helix
of vernacular birds exploding
through the cockpit door,
their hideous scything librettos
deployed like a slew
of God's own cochlear tongs.
You'd just as soon say what next
then to see this end (as it must)
in arthritic paroxysyms of guillotine
japes: Chop, Chop! The author must fall!
Or do (as he will) one last opium trick,
diving over the wall in a thrilling
escape, though covered with audience
mucus & blood to demonstrate his
nostalgic devotion to porn--
"its perrenial nature, its ironic gaze,
akin as it is
to cinema-verite..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Scheil > Our life is endless in the way that our visual field
cschei1@grfn.org < is without limit. --Wittgenstein
snail mail: >
317 Prospect #4 < Let me say this. Neak Luong is a blur. It is
Grand Rapids, MI 49503 > Tuesday in the hardwood Forest. I am a visitor
______________________ < here, with a notebook --Michael Palmer
_______________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 13:44:35 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: cris cheek <cris@SLANG.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Message for cris cheek...
>cris, hi:
>
>can you back-channel me yr e mail address. sorry, i had it but have
>misplaced the file
>
>take care,
>carl
>
>clpeters@sfu.ca
Either we're using very different systems or you'll find it in the header
of this message.
If not it cris@slang.demon.co.uk
love
cris
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 10:26:27 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Pangborn <V072GDXG@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Burt Kimmelman's first question,
>is fuzzy logic imprecise[?],
has been pretty well answered: it's precise but dangerously
arbitrary, guessing at quantifications in order to calculate
unknown probabilities. Science needs this tool
because it can't do what art can: handle many concerns
at once.
Burt further asks
>is logic teleological by nature?
(perhaps asked rhetorically) since Loss's complaint assumes
that "logic" necessarily means goal-directed reasoning.
Such is logic's usual application, but it consists merely
of ways to transform and manipulate statements
keeping strict track of their resultant
truth values. You could do that all day and still get
nowhere.
In pursuit of a "Fuller" understanding, I'd like to add
that the Buckyism about "in" and "out" instead of "up" and "down"
forms part of a more complex observation:
No scientist would suggest that any part of the Universe
Is identifiable as "up"
Nor any other locale as "down."
Yet individual scientists themselves
As yet reflex spontaneously
In an "up" and "down," conditioned-reflex miasma.
Their senses say reflexively,
"I see the sun is going down,"
Despite that scientists
And almost everyone else have known theoretically
For five hundered years that the Sun is not going down at dusk
And rising at dawn.
What is more important in this connection
Is the way in which humans reflex spontaneously
For that is the way in which
They usually behave in critical moments,
And it is often "common sense" to reflex
In perversely ignorant ways
That produce social disasters
By denying knowledge
And ignorantly yielding to common sense.
--R. Buckminster Fuller, _Intuition_ (New York: Doubleday 1972), 103.
You have to clear your mind of *cant*, in other words--but you also
have to realize that you finally *can't*, and deal with that.
A commonplace? Maybe. But it bears repeating, since we continuously
forget. That's one reason there's art.
--Jim
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 16:09:52 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Jim,
As the one who put out the remark about Bucky's use of up, down, in, out,
and, indeed, shake it all about, I just wanted to say: thanks for the
lovely quotation, illuminating what i was referring to; and sorry if
I presented an ignorant write-up of Bucky, because what you posted was
what I thought I'd said,
Thanks,
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 16:36:31 BST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "I.LIGHTMAN" <I.Lightman@UEA.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
Just thought I'd chip in, stirred by KK's wonderful list:
I don't tend to have books on the go, tend to skim them or read a few
pages very intently; recent books thus treated have been - the opening
page of Derrida's Signeponge, the autobiographical sections of Derrida's
Memoirs of the Blind, bits mostly from the Blue Book in Steve Benson's
_Blue Book_ book; Chaucer's The Parlement of Foules, because it looks
like Britain's ruling Conservative party is about to elect a new leader
and Prime Minister (Chaucer *pretends*, it seems to me, to have a limited
view of love as monogamous marriage but offers a fable that is more
complex and leaks yearning for a wider love, platonic and/or non-monogamous,
also a sense of government that all potential leaders should subdue
themselves to, although this, and this is the flaw in all the leaks,
doesn't escape positioning women as passive and men as active); have
also been reading through all Leave books' latest pamphlets, especially
Sianne Ngai's amazing My Novel, and Kevin Killian's Santa. Oh, I have been
dipping in and out of the memoirs of the physicist Richard Feynmann's
_Surely You're Joking Mr Feynmann?_, which are lucid, chatty words of
a extraordinary curious boy in love with practical science, about which
subject he would never dream of being as patronising as he is in his book
about his three wives; Feynmann is such a relief from the superstring and
chaos theory and Stephen Hawking books that so many of the musicians I
know seem to be reading, because it's about computation and physical
experiment, constructing equipment and making things, not thinking about
time or light. Feynmann is the most enjoyable science book I've read since
reading Bucky, or Hugh Kenner on Bucky, the next best thing. Also, spent
a long morning reading Leo Bersani's infuriating essay "Is the Rectum a
Grave?" in _AIDS, Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism_ ed Douglas Crimp
(infuriating because I share some of the critiques and hate others,
especially his oh-so-Freudian attack on child abuse campaigners as being
anti-sex; read in "anti-rape" for "child abuse" and see how it reads).
Also, am in love with Richard A. Bernstein's essay in _Working Through
Derrida_, ed Gary B.Madison, in which Bernstein judiciously and warmly
anaylses *both* Derrida *and* Habermas fairly, trying to work on the
join of modernity and postmodernity in very lucid readable prose.
I do tend to have television serials on the go; am currently watching
all the Jon Pertwee _Dr Who_ series from 1970-74, the latest _Deep Space
Nine_ episodes, the lesser known British sci-fi shows, _Sapphire and
Steel_ and _The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy_; also the loveable
cartoon character Jay Sherman on _The Critic_; my opinion about all
of them is we don't make shows like that any more, that passion and
high seriousness, complexity of characterisation, and taking the work
seriously.
That's my list,
Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 11:58:44 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
i'm trying to recall the name of an icelandic poetic form where the first
half of the line makes an assertion and the second half echoes it in
different words. would this be a kind of fuzzy logic procedure, and
indeed one that calls back to itself and perhaps in essence such a poem
proceeds with no end in mind.
anyone have any "fuzzy logic" poems?
what is the difference betw chaos and complexity (and how does fuzziness work
into this relationship?
bk
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 11:59:51 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Jim,
Is your explanation about why science needs the fuzzy logic tool and art
doesn't in line with Carnap?
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 12:01:56 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Jim,
Re.: your "that's one reason there's art": do you mean that the imaginative
procedures of, say, cosmologists are different from those of poets?
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 12:36:54 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
how, steve, the only question now is how.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 13:25:05 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Bedside Reading
In-Reply-To: <00992745.18DD3FB0.49@admin.njit.edu>
Dear PoPeople,
I'm new to this list, and I'm intrigued by the bedside reading idea.
Although I'd have to disagree with one previous writer (whose message I
unfortunately deleted) about lists from people we respect. Information
about (or from) people I don't respect is as interesting, and revealing,
to me as any other. (Revealing as much about me as anybody else). That
said, respect me or no, here's some stuff I've been reading/thumbing
through:
1. Rosemarie Waldrop, A KEY INTO THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA, along with an
edition of Roger Williams book of same name (her major "source") I got out
of the local Divinity School library.
2. Denis Devlin, COLLECTED POEMS
3. R.C. Lewontin, BIOLOGY AS IDEOLOGY
4. Humberto Maturana & Francesco Varela, THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
5. Magazines: NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, T.V. GUIDE
6. Palmer, AT PASSAGES
7. Thomas Kinsella, FROM CENTRE CITY, BLOOD AND FAMILY, and AN DUANIARE:
POEMS OF THE DISPOSSESSED, 1600-1900, (the last translations from Irish).
8. A history of a local research park I'm proofreading.
9. Henri Lefebvre, THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE
somehow this list seems "tame"
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 14:13:54 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
I've been in Russia for 2 weeks and have missed everything! it
seems, at least abt 300 of something (messages).
I cd have read the entire discussion of "opportunity" and "rules"
sure, but... Can someone summarize in abt 25 words what the issue
with rules is/was? Nothing is liker a rule than the (supposed)
absence thereof. Ditto opportunity. What did I miss?
Ron, thanks for mentioning the wonderful '60s Polish movie of
"manuscript" - and even more so for recalling the Cento-Cedar
Cinema (how it sticks in my mind, anyway). What a great place!
What was the movie theatre on Powell just on the Chinatown
side of Broadway - different double feature everyday, as I
recollect (repeatedly)?
Tom Mandel
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 14:19:02 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tom Mandel <tmandel@UMD5.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: breath rules
Re: marking the beat with one's hand, a Duncan affect to be sure:
I remember when I first arrived in SF (earlyisyh 70's) and started
going to poetry readings, and encountered this annoying
"sensitive bandmasterism" - I think it took me a year or more to
figure out that it identified a Duncan acolyte. An awful lot of
leaden music got underlined in that manner, and I'm gonna bet
that Bayareans (at least of similar or longer vintage than mine)
will be able to reel off who these, then, youngish poets were/are.
Tom Mandel
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 15:10:30 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Bucky
I'd been trying to decide whether or not to confess to the list
that I knew I was ready for graduate school when, in the early
1980s, I was spending my nights sitting up writing a Buckminster
Fuller dictionary. Then this came along -- Sandra Braman
> Subject: BUCKMINSTER FULLER'S CENTENNIAL SYMPOSIUM AND CELEBRATION
>
>
> For further Information:
>
> Peter Meisen, Nanci Hartland, Patricia Stevens
> GENI (Global Energy Network International)
> 425 West "B" Street, Suite B-11
> San Diego, CA 92138 USA
> (GENI is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation)
> Tel: (619)595-0139
> Fax: (619)595-0403
> E-mail: Internet: geni@cerf.net
> or America Online: geniproj@aol.com
> or Compuserve: 75543.520@compuserve.com
> WWW Home Page: http://www.geni.org/
>
>
>
> Buckminster Fuller's Centennial
> Symposium and Celebration
> "Rediscovering the GENIus in us all"
> July 14-16, 1995
> San Diego, California
>
> DESCRIPTION
>
> A three day event to celebrate the 100th Birthday of R.
> Buckminster Fuller, the "Leonardo Da Vinci of our time."
> Events to include: Opening Ceremony and Reception, several
> World Game presentations, Benefit Concert, Film Festival,
> Bucky for Kids children's festival, Exhibits, Seminars and
> Panel Discussions.
>
>
> "For the first time in the history of humanity, it is
> evident that there is enough of the fundamental metabolic
> and mechanical energy sustenance for everybody to survive at
> high living standards"
> -- Buckminster Fuller
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> R. Buckminster Fuller, Jr. was born in Milton,
> Massachusetts, on July 12, 1895. He is best known for
> inventing the Geodesic dome, the most famous example of
> which was the United States Pavilion at the Montreal World's
> Fair, Expo '67. Throughout his lifetime, Fuller introduced
> ground-breaking ideas in the fields of architecture, design,
> art, engineering, education, cartography and mathematics.
> Fuller called himself a "Comprehensive Anticipatory Design
> Scientist" -- and committed his life to finding the global
> strategies to make humankind "a success in the universe."
>
> Fuller believed that human evolution could best be promoted
> by reforming the living environment through design on all
> levels rather than by reforming people through economics
> and/or politics. His Design Science also addressed energy
> harvesting, transporting and food gathering, all informed by
> his concept of dymaxion = dynamic + maximum + tension.
> (i.e. ever-increasing performance using ever less investment
> of materials.)
>
> By 1983, at the end of his eighty-seven years, Fuller had
> written more than twenty books, held twenty-seven patents
> for his inventions and had received forty-seven honorary
> doctorate degrees and numerous awards, including the United
> States Medal of Freedom and the American Institute of
> Architects' prestigious Gold Medal Award.
>
> Participants will discover, experience and participate in:
>
> * World Game -- Play on the world's largest and most
> accurate map -- the Dymaxion Map scaled to 70' by 35'.
> Stride a gymnasium-size map with fellow global citizens,
> developing strategies and working together to solve the
> world's problems.
>
> * Film Festival -- Attend screenings of Buckminster Fuller
> films -- hear Bucky speak and relive his life's work so you
> can use his teachings in your own life
>
> * "Bucky for Kids" Children's Festival -- Build Tensegrity
> Structures (nature's own building blocks) and Dymaxion Domes
> -- Learn the basics of "Synergetics" and Buckyballs.
> Introduce tomorrow's leaders to the ideas that are shaping
> their future.
>
> * Bookstore -- View Bucky's artifacts, exhibits and books --
> the gifts Bucky left for all of us.
>
> * Benefit Concert -- Musical greats who share Bucky's vision
> for the world.
>
> * Expert seminars and panels -- Hear personal stories and
> lifelong lessons from people who carry on Bucky's work
> today.
>
> This event will engage you in the question that Bucky lived
> by: "If the success or failure of this planet, and of human
> beings
> depended on how I am and what I do;
> How would I be? What would I do?"
>
>
> Core Components of the Symposium - Celebration:
>
> OPENING PANEL, BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION & CELEBRITY RECEPTION
>
> Friday evening July 14 Venue: UCSD Mandeville Auditorium
>
> Honorary Chair: Walter Hickel, former Governor of Alaska
>
> Format: Presentation on stage to theater audience. Several
> VIP guests discuss and recall Bucky's influence on their
> personal lives, in the world and his relevance today and
> into the future.
>
> * Entertainment to include:
>
> - Brief video excerpts of Bucky and his ideas shown throughout
> the evening
>
> - Music videos: "What One Man Can Do" (John Denver)
> "Fool on the Hill" (Beatles)
> - Theater/Dance: Rick Perkins, dramatic presentation of
> Bucky
> "World Game" dance piece with Dymaxion Map
> - Readings: co-authors Peter Wagschal, Anwar Dil
>
> * Allegra Snyder (Bucky's daughter) and Jaime (Bucky's
> grandson) have a special tribute -- this would include
> personal stories from family and close friends. On film,
> Bucky to sing "Home, Home on a Dome" -- and everyone then
> sings Happy Birthday. A toast is delivered, thanking Bucky
> for his vision and integrity.
>
> * A Dymaxion Birthday Cake is presented and pieces cut for
> all
>
>
> Discussant/Presenters:
>
> * Allegra Snyder, daughter of Buckminster Fuller
> * Amy Edmondson, author "A Fuller Explanation" (on Synergetics)
> * Kiyoshi Kuromiya, adjuvant on "Critical Path" and "Cosmography"
> * Harold Kroto, co-founder, Buckminsterfullerene
> * Peter Meisen, President, Global Energy Network International
> * Eugene Ray, Chairman Environmental Design Department, SDSU
> * Don Richter, Temcor (retired) built 5000 domes around the world
> * Peter Wagschal, VP, National University, editor with Bucky, "On
> Education"
> * Anwar Dil, USIU, co-author with Bucky, "Humans in Universe"
>
> Production Team:
>
> * Ashley Gardner, The Ashley Gardner Group, Audio/Video Production
>
> * Doug Jacobs, Artistic Director of San Diego Repertory Theater
> * Joel Heathcote, Lighting Artist and Designer
> * William Martin, WisdomKeepers Productions
>
> The WORLD GAMES
>
> Thursday July 13 (Children and Students) (this is a special
> pre-centennial event)
> Venue: UCSD Mandeville Auditorium
>
> Saturday July 15 (Adult and Student) Venue: SDSU Peterson Gym
> Sunday July 16 (Invitational -VIP) Venue: SDSU Peterson Gym
> Sponsor:
> SDSU Environmental Design Dept.
>
> The World Game is a multi-media event. The participants
> become the world's leaders, regional citizens, news
> reporters, business moguls and representatives of
> international organizations such as the World Bank and
> United Nations. Armed with the latest data, equipped with
> food, natural resources, money, energy, technology and
> military expenditures as they are distributed in the world
> today, players stand on the most accurate map of the world,
> the Bucky Dymaxion Map scaled out to 70' x 35' (the size of
> a basketball court).
>
> Left to negotiate with neighboring and far away nations to
> find global solutions for local problems, participants are
> quickly engaged in a fast-moving interactive simulation
> where global problems are identified, addressed and solved,
> leaving participants with a new understanding of world
> issues. Since they began with Buckminster Fuller over
> twenty years ago the World Game Institute has continued to
> hold this game in more than 30 countries around the world.
>
>
> "BUCKY FOR KIDS" -- a Children's Festival and
> Bookstore/Exhibit
>
> Saturday and Sunday July 15 - 16 Venue and Sponsor: San
> Diego Natural History Museum
>
> Two Components:
>
> 1. An Exhibit of Buckminster Fuller's Artifacts and Bookstore outside
> the San Diego Natural History Museum:
>
> * Models, Artifacts from the Buckminster Fuller Institute
> * Dome and structural modellers to bring their artifacts
> * Fuller's books, Dymaxion Maps, etc. sold in bookstore
> * Display of Windstar environmental technologies
> * Computer Animation of the Global Energy Grid
>
> 2. A Children's festival surrounding the big tree outside the Museum
> to include:
>
> * Building dymaxion models and geodesic domes
> * Making dymaxion map puzzles and playing games with their maps
> * Soccer balls used to teach about Buckminsterfullerenes
> (Buckyballs)
> * Children's mural
> * Balloon makers creating tensegrity structures for children's
> hats, etc.
> * Face painting with dymaxion designs
>
> SPECIAL GUEST SEMINARS
>
> Saturday and Sunday, July 15 - 16 Venue and Sponsor:
> National University
>
> * Amy Edmondson on "Synergetics: Nature's Mathematics and
> Structure". Amy is author of A Fuller Explanation, a
> layman's understanding of Bucky's math -- simple enough for
> a child, important enough for every scientist. Nature's
> geometry is the basis for the mathematics that explains the
> universal building systems -- from the atomic to the
> galactic scale.
>
> * Kiyoshi Kuromiya (adjuvant to Fuller on two books) and
> Graeme Edwards "Critical Path discussion group. Fuller's
> culmination of his life's thinking, "humanity does have the
> option to survive if we choose a comprehensive anticipatory
> design science revolution."
>
> * Don Richter, Michael Jantzen, Eugene Ray, Peter Pearce,
> Jay Baldwin (all leading edge designers) from the
> architectural community on "Architecture, Space and
> Environmental Design". The geodesic dome is the world's
> most lightweight, strong and portable structure ever
> designed. These architects/designers begin with the
> philosophy, "reform the environment and not the man", and
> take Bucky's ideas of structure into housing and regional
> planing for the next century.
>
> * Harold Kroto, University of Sussex, co-founder of the
> Buckminsterfullerenes i.e. "Buckyballs" -- the molecular
> breakthrough of the decade. Fuller predicted the discovery
> of the Carbon 60 molecule, since nature would clearly have
> this structure in its repertoire. Buckyballs have
> tremendous potential in the fields of lubricants and
> superconductors.
>
> * Peter Meisen on the "Global Electric Energy Grid" --
> Bucky's number one priority for the planet from the World
> Game. GENI conducts education and research into the
> international and inter-regional transmission of
> electricity, with a specific emphasis on the interconnection
> of renewable energy resources to improve the quality of life
> for everyone.
>
> * Wayne Morgan and Blair Singer on "Generalized Principles
> of Universe Applied to Business". Precession, leverage,
> synergy and duality will be presented and experienced.
> "Since energy plus knowledge are always increasing, human's
> wealth is forever expanding."
>
> * Barbara Marx Hubbard on the "Spiritual, Social, and
> Scientific Fulfilment of Buckminster Fuller's Vision through
> Conscious Evolution". Bucky's vision blends scientific
> progress, ephemeralization (doing more with less), and
> spiritual interconnectedness with humanity's opportunity "to
> make the world work for everyone."
>
> * Video excerpts from "The Future of Business", and
> discussion with Randy Craft (Dr. Fuller called this video
> library "the most concise recapitulation of my entire life's
> activities ever delivered before humans to date.")
>
> Each of the above workshop/presentations are half and full
> day sessions. Given the anticipated interest, some
> sessions will be repeated a second time.
>
> FILM FESTIVAL
>
> Saturday and Sunday July 15 - 16 Venue and Sponsor:
> Reuben H Fleet Space Theater
>
> Honorary Chair: Tony Huston, film maker
>
> Continuous screenings of:
>
> * "Buckminster Fuller and Spaceship Earth," a 60 minute
> tour de force documentary on the thinking of Buckminster
> Fuller, produced by award winning film-maker Robert Snyder
>
> * "Ecological Design - Inventing the Future," 18
> designer/architects including Dr. Fuller present ideas,
> prototypes and models of appropriate technology and
> ecological design. Produced by Chris Zelov and Brian Danitz
>
>
> DYMAXION CAR
>
> Saturday and Sunday, July 15 - 16 Venue: San Diego
> Automotive Museum
>
> In 1933, Buckminster Fuller designed and built three
> Dymaxion Cars. They were energy efficient, lightweight,
> aerodynamic and recyclable. Compared to the Model Ts of the
> day, this automobile design was decades ahead of its time.
> Built by the 4D Company in Bridgeport, CT, this is the only
> Dymaxion car in existence today and is normally shown at the
> National Auto Museum in Reno, NV.
>
> We are fortunate to have this one-of-a-kind vehicle -- as
> one artifact that illustrates Buckminster Fuller's
> comprehensive anticipatory design science thinking.
>
>
> BENEFIT CONCERT
>
> Saturday Evening July 15 Venue: Humphrey's by the
> Bay
>
> Several major artists had a close affinity with Buckminster
> Fuller and wrote songs about him and his work:
>
> * Invitations have been sent to several major artists to
> perform in honor of Bucky's Centennial Celebration
>
> * Celebrity artists invited to play the World Game
>
> * Large Dymaxion Map as stage backdrop. Screens on stage
> view Bucky photos
>
> * All concert coordination, promotion, ticketing handled by
> local promoter
>
> * Potential to tape for future national broadcast
>
>
> EVENT SYMPOSIUM/CELEBRATION PARTICIPANT COST
>
> * Registration of $150 for a three day event includes:
> Opening Celebration, World Game, Benefit Concert, Film
> Festival, Children's Festival, Guest Seminars
>
> * Students pay half price
>
> * Events will also be listed and priced separately
>
> * All registrants to pay for own travel and lodging
>
> Possible Additional Components being considered:
>
> * Uplink or simulcast various parts of the event for
> distribution through learning channels, cable and public
> broadcasting. This could raise additional funds. To be
> done with assistance of local stations. Possible
> broadcasters: KPBS, ITV and National University
>
> * Production and documentation of events (audio, video and
> written)
>
> * Andrew Long and Company perform their "Nine Chains"
> theater and dance
>
> EVENT PRODUCTION:
> Executive Producer: Peter Meisen
> Coordinating Producer: Nanci Hartland
> Volunteer Coordinator: Patricia Stevens
> Volunteer team: 60 to help with Marketing and Logistics
> Fiscal Agency: GENI to handle all accounting and
> registration
>
> MARKET RESEARCH:
>
> Who's the market?
> * all former students, those who saw Bucky speak or bought his
> books
> * membership of the sponsoring organizations
> * all related associations and organizations
> Why are they going to come?
> * reconnect with the experience that Bucky created in their
> lives
> * learn more of his design science thinking
> * celebrate Bucky's genius and his vision for the world
> * commit to "what each individual can do"
> What's in it for them?
> * meeting with like minded people from around the world
> * encounter cutting-edge thinkers, educators and leaders
> * expanding one's ability to do creative and innovative original
> thinking by studying the educational thought processes of
> Buckminster Fuller
> * learning the progress of Bucky's ideas becoming real in the
> world
> * "rediscover the genius in themselves"
> What's the cost?
> * $150 -- an excellent value for a three day event (Students
> half
> price)
> * participants to cover travel and lodging
> Who's the Program Committee?
> * This is made up of members of the Sponsor group and Production
> Team
>
> CENTENNIAL EVENT SPONSORS
>
> Auto Trader Magazines Critical Path Project
> Diego and Son Printing Robert Driver Insurance Company
> Global Energy Network International HPCwire
> KNSD TV Channel 39 The Light Connection
> National University Peace Resource Center of San
> Diego
> Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater San Diego AIA (Architects)
> San Diego Earth Times San Diego Natural History Museum
> SDSU Environmental Design Dept Shapery Enterprises
> Society for Computer Simulation SuperCamp/Learning Forum
> Union Bank World Affairs Council
>
> In cooperation with the Buckminster Fuller Institute
>
> Global Energy Network International (GENI) is a tax exempt,
> IRS 501(c)(3) organization in the United States. We conduct
> education and research into the international and inter-
> regional transmission of electricity, with a specific
> emphasis on the interconnection of renewable energy
> resources to improve the quality of life for everyone.
>
> In his book "Critical Path", Buckminster Fuller calls the
> interconnection of renewable energy resources the planet's
> "highest priority global objective."
>
> GENI's work is founded on the principles of the World Game.
> GENI's mission is to accelerate the attainment of the
> optimal sustainable energy solutions in the shortest
> possible time for the peace, health and prosperity for all.
>
> For further information on the Fuller Centennial Symposium
> and Celebration contact:
>
> Peter Meisen
> Nanci Hartland
> Patricia Stevens
> GENI (Global Energy Network International)
> P O Box 81565
> San Diego, CA 92138 USA
> TEL: 619-595-0139
> FAX: 619-595-0403
>
> Email: Internet: geni@cerf.net
> or America Online: geniproj@aol.com
> or Compuserve: 75543.520@compuserve.com
>
> WWW Home Page: http://www.geni.org/
>
>
> GLOBAL ENERGY NETWORK INTERNATIONAL
> Peter Meisen
> P.O.Box 81565
> San Diego, CA 92138
>
> (619) 595-0139
> FAX: (619) 595-0403
>
> =======================================================
> +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | CRTNET is edited by: |
> | |
> | Tom Benson | INTERNET: t3b@psuvm.psu.edu |
> | Dept. of Speech Communication | BITNET: T3B@PSUVM |
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>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 16:35:44 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Bedside Reading
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950626131336.26591B-100000@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu>
Right, add to previous message, forgot book #10 (slipped between two
notebooks in my bookbag, most central of the lot just now)
10) Descartes, DISCOURSE ON METHOD and MEDITATIONS
(central b/c I'm writing a poem which cuts-up the DISCOURSE)
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 16:52:41 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Night Swimming
In-Reply-To: <88278.mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
On Thu, 22 Jun 1995, Charles Alexander wrote:
> >
> >
> I'm not certain about that quote, although Zukofsky did say that in poetry,
> emotion is a matter of cadence. I don't have at hand the exact phrasing.
--nice. And come to think of it I think WW was talking about metre as
what we need to control emotion--more similar.
--ShaunAnne
>
> charles
>
> charles alexander
> chax press
> minnesota center for book arts
> phone & fax: 612-721-6063
> e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 18:49:35 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
>What was the movie theatre on Powell just on the Chinatown
>side of Broadway - different double feature everyday, as I
>recollect (repeatedly)?
>
>Tom Mandel
>
That was the Times Theatre. Every doubleheader cost 99 cents and I
spent a fortune at that place. When it was replaced by a Chinese
produce market, I was amazed to see how small it was. (I used to see
Francis Ford Coppola there back in the early 70s, all by himself in
the back.)
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 19:22:26 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Think the Reverse
Wow:
>how, steve, the only question now is how.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 14:12:03 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Reading lists
Dear Tom Mandel , re" rules " etc I can on the instant recall no clear
conclusions, through normal forgetfulness, I hope.
To add to the confusion here is an after-note, by means of some fairly well-cooked English translation of
Andre (acute)
Felibien (acute on first e) secretary of the Academie (acute) Royale
de Peinture et Sculpture etc etc of Louis XIV in the Preface to the
Entretiens.
1. In practice he found out that "one meets a thousand
difficulties in the execution of a work, that cannot be overcome by
the learning imparted by all the precepts". (1725, ed. p,.25, Garland
reprint)
2. "If there is a way of making the different parts of a painting
appear advantageously, giving to each its proper strength, beauty
and gracefulness, it is a means that does not consist in rules that
can be taught, but it is discovered by the light of reason, and in
this matter one must sometimes conduct oneself in opposition to the
rules." (ibid.p.26).
(He is talking about the composition of the whole, worked out in
advance of the "execution" of it...)
Thus the problem in the later 17th century formulation of a rationale
for instruction of aspiring painters in how to compose history paintings (and elsewhere for
composing epic). It implies, I suppose, a function for the resulting
pictures: they are usually big, to be seen at a distance, and such that the moral shall be
clearly seen, quickly and easily in all and any of the details, not
least of which is an insistence on lucid rational structures of
representation. Moreover, within the early academy every picture
comes to be looked on as a staging of a coherent moment of time
as in a drama. (as I recall, by the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury in
?1713)
Best
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 21:39:37 -1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Susan Schultz <sschultz@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 25 Jun 1995 to 26 Jun 1995
In-Reply-To: <95Jun26.180735hst.11352(6)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu>
I, too, really like the "bedside reading" feature of the list.
Here are some that are, actually, closer to the couch:
1) VOLCANO, by Garrett Hongo, in which he recounts his search
for the Big Island childhood he never had. An honest attempt, woefully
written (he puts Keats and Shelley in a cuisinart and pours the remains
over fields of lava).
2) THE WINGED SEED, Li-Young Lee. A memoir/prose poem about
growing up in Indonesia and rural Pennsylvania, as the son of a Chinese
fundamentalist Christian father. Interesting experiment, which most
often works, except when he addresses his beloved.
3) TURNING JAPANESE, David Mura. Yes, there's a theme here.
Memoir of an Asian-American poet from Minnesota who lived for a year in
Japan; interesting "identity" study. I like his prose better than his
poetry, which sounds more like, well, prose.
4) DICTEE, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Memoir in experimental pieces,
which I haven't yet finished. But there's a strong article on her by
Shelley Wong in _Feminist Measures_, edited by Lynn Keller and Cristane
Miller (Michigan)--good on the "problem" with Asian-American experimental
writing and identity politics.
5) Lots and lots of Gertrude Stein.
6) XENIA, by Arkadii Dragomoschenko. Wonderful meditative passages.
7) CANNIBAL, by Terese Svoboda. OK, so she's a friend of mine.
I heard her read sections of this book about her travels in the Sudan at
our new Barnes and Noble; they put her in the cookbook section.
8) Poems by Sudesh Mishra, a poet from Fiji who lives in
Australia. Rather Walcottesque in its metaphorical density; his claim
is, however, that this work IS experimental in his context.
I also confess to an over-fondness toward Nirvana's Unplugged cd,
though I'm perhaps too late for the rock lyric discussion of a while
back. Great rendering of a Leadbelly song.
Enough for now; keep the lists coming!
Susan Schultz
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 09:18:38 EDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rachel Loden <74277.1477@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: breath rules
Only saw Olson read once, at Berkeley Poetry Conference July
12-23, 1965 (or so it says here on my "admission card," which
I've somehow managed to schlep through the decades). No memory
of him pausing after lines, although that wasn't a very
representative reading--was it? I was too young (17) to really
read all the social subtexts going on, just knew that the Don
Allen anthology was coming fabulously alive around me. I do
seem to recall an indignant Duncan storming out...
Also: happy Frank O'Hara's birthday (June 27)--he would have
been 69 today.
--Rachel Loden
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 09:36:55 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 25 Jun 1995 to 26 Jun 1995
In message <Pine.SUN.3.91.950626212254.18708C-100000@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
UB Poetics discussion group writes:
>
>
> 4) DICTEE, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Memoir in experimental pieces,
> which I haven't yet finished. But there's a strong article on her by
> Shelley Wong in _Feminist Measures_, edited by Lynn Keller and Cristane
> Miller (Michigan)--good on the "problem" with Asian-American experimental
> writing and identity politics.
>
>
the most beautiful piece of "criticism" or commentary on this work is _Excerpts
from Dikte for Dict e_ by Walter K. Lew, available from SPD I think. it's a
"critical collage," with intertexts, photos, movie stills, just gorgeous.
there's also a book called something like "writing nation, writing self," or
some such, put out as a companion volume to dictee by the third woman press,
edited by elaine kim and someone else. it's a volume of critical essays on
dictee. but walter's book is breathtakingly beautiful, not a standard work of
"criticism" at all.
md
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 10:54:35 -0400
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From: Jorge Guitart <MLLJORGE@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: bedside reading
recommended for bedside reading and also for when you are considerably more
alert:
"The Great Limbaugh Con and Other Right-Wing Assaults on Common Sense"
by Charles M. Kelly
Santa Barbara: Fithian Press, 1994
(14.95 at Barnes & Noble)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 11:06:38 -0500
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From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Bedside Reading
bedside reading this week includes autobiography of annie besant, james wilhelm's new anthology of gay poetry from antiquity, various motorcycle mags, alice notley's new book, travel guide to italy (for dreams), book on egyptian art, huysman. -ed
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 10:18:35 CST6CDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Organization: The University of Alabama
Subject: Re: Reading lists
Bedside, officeside, studyside readings:
1. Nathaniel Mackey - _Discrepant Engagement_ and _School of Udhra_
2. Golf Digest
3. Video: John Coltrane: The Coltrane Legacy (includes cuts with
Eric Dolphy)
4. bpNichol - The Martyrology - long-term reading, have made my way
through books 7&8 and am dipping into the 9th & last
5. Zukofsky _A_ - another long-term reading; oddly enough found the
first 100 or so pages not so hot (as in what's the big deal here?)
though now into A-12 ok I see the big deal....
6. Creeley - _Windows_
7. _Larry Rivers_ - big retrospective book of paintings
8. Barbara Guest _Selected Poems_
9. Emily Dickinson
10. Gil Ott - _Wheel_ - a beautiful Chax Press book (beautiful work
both by Gil & by Charles Alexander!)
11. Northwestern University Press's _Stein Reader_
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 10:31:28 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Doom Patrols (Reading list)
As long as I'm giving out URLs, one of my summer reading books is not yet
in print and only available on-line, Steve Shaviro's "Doom Patrols." It
can be found at <http://dhalgren.english.washington.edu/~steve/doom.html>.
Based on the chapters I've read so far, I highly recommend it to anyone on
poetics list.
It's not, and not about, poetry, but it's the first prose book I've read in
a while that's given me the same buzz as the all-over, personal inner-mind
sprawl of many recent longpoems.
"Doom Patrols" is an autobiographical work of literary theory; a rich blend
of gender theory, electronic culture, comic books & films, true
confessions, (very) revisionist post-structuralist thought, rock & roll,
self-exposition, new (&old) abjectionists) and more. Chapter titles
include: David Cronenberg, Kathy Acker, Dean Martin, Daniel Paul Schreber,
Walt Disney, Cindy Sherman, et al.
Chris Stroffolino and others who were discussing criticism about pop music
forms a while back, might find Shaviro's chapter Bilinda Butcher, about the
band My Bloody Valentine, to be of interest.
I don't just read one thing at a time, but this post is already too long,
so I'll save the rest of my summer reading list for another time.
Bests,
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 13:43:48 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
I'm in the middle of revising a book length manuscript on medieval
lit. so i won't include the "stuffy" reading surrounding my bed.
but other things include:
Richard A. Lanham, THE ELECTRONIC WORD: DEMOCRACY, TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS
The latest New York Review of Books (article by Kempton on THE SECRET WORLD
OF AMERICAN COMMUNISM; and I hope to get to Menand's review of Gass's THE
TUNNEL)
The latest issue of Nutrition Action Newsletter (great summer fruit
soup recipes)
Rochelle Owens, RUBBED STONES
I'm afraid that's it.
- Burt Kimmelman
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 13:56:55 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Scroggins <scroggin@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <01HS750HD7IQ9OYCP7@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
I'm a sucker for bedside reading lists (and desert island lists, and
really all sorts of lists).
Leon Howard's biography of Herman Melville; way out of date, but
beautifully printed.
Richard Ellmann's Joyce biography.
Erwin Panofsky's Studies in Iconology.
Christopher Hill's Milton and the English Revolution.
Louis Untermeyer's unintentionally hilarious anthology of Robert Frost poems.
Gil Sorrentino's Aberation of Starlight.
Hugh Kenner's The Counterfeiters (again).
Various offprints from various friends and acquaintances.
The latest Talisman, and (of course) Ed Foster's book of poems.
Mark Scroggins
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 10:31:20 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Herb Levy <herb@ESKIMO.COM>
Subject: Re: Bucky Fuller
For those who are interested in R Buckminster Fuller, I've run across
references to an e-mail mailing list, geodesic-list, that focuses on his
work. I haven't subscribed so I don't know how active it is, but the FAQ,
drawn mostly from postings to geodesic-list, was interesting enough.
To subscribe send the message <subscribe geodesic your name> to
<listserv@ubvm.bitnet>. Yes, oddly enough, geodesic-list also comes out of
SUNY-Buffalo.
The address for the Bucky FAQ is
<http://switchboard.ftp.com/0/BF/fuller-faq.html>. I can't tell the
difference in this font, so perhaps I should note that the second unit of
this URL is a zero, not the letter <O>.
Herb Levy
herb@eskimo.com
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 15:04:12 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: The imaginative procedures of cosmologists
On Mon, 26 Jun 1995, Burt Kimmelman <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU> wrote:
> Re.: your "that's one reason there's art": do you mean that the imaginative
> procedures of, say, cosmologists are different from those of poets?
Considering this proposition, I surfed over to the NASA web page and came
up with the following:
THE IMAGINATIVE PROCEDURES OF COSMOLOGISTS
higher level conclusions surfaced
NASA is defining and executing
a new way of doing business
not some vision on the distant horizon
farming-out is a reality
management/transition plan
"farming-out process" critical
management across the entire life cycle
(through development operations utilization)
total erosion of the NASA skill base
to assure quality products
-- Complexity of the automation implementation and the stability of the
process to be automated must be weighed against the return on the investment
there is a requirement for human/decision intervention
the process is unstable
the way-of-doing business
make certain skill levels obsolete
long-time "accepted decompositions"
delivery of an unusable system (costly ops)
Cow's [sic] can cause.
(word salad from the second NASA workshop on mission operations,
"Hunting Sacred Cows").
Obviously, cosmologists and poets have similar imaginations ;-).
Seriously, though, the question of "reasons for art," like most talk
about the aesthetic or other justifications/sacralizations for poetry,
makes my eyes glaze over.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 12:21:11 +0100
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Kevin Killian <dbkk@SIRIUS.COM>
Subject: Re: Doom Patrols (Reading list)
Herb,
Steve Shaviro is a friend of mine--he's the person who told me to get on
the net--late one night in a bar in Seattle. The rest is history. But,
beyond *Doom Patrols,* which is great, I think Steve has the best home page
I've ever seen. I could spend hours there. Did you check out the stuff
for his Electronic Culture class? Steve is amazing--you should also check
out his book *The Cinematic Body.* I pastiched part of it in my final
letter from Mina Harker.
Dodie Bellamy
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 16:55:30 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: JOEL KUSZAI <V369T4KJ@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: txt: Report on Community (Vancouver & Minneapolis)
NOTE:
I've been travelling between Michigan and
Vancouver and Minneapolis before returning
here to Buffalo and haven't had access to my e-
mail. Soon I will travel to the EPC to check out
what I missed. In the interim, here's my
contribution to the Vancouver poetry conference
and as well my take on what I believe to be a
crisis in contemporary life and poetics (at least
for me).
Report on Community
for Robin Blaser, J.L. Nancy, and the poetic communities of Vancouver
and Minneapolis.
"not community to which at stake the fact of people
1.
technopolitical
And what retreats from tends to reveal
And not to argue to sameness in the itself is anonymity
this conception of the "common
another subject would sublate me
for any ability on its part as appearing
this specifically designates community:
they are shared, their singular beings
as singularity, paper, to distribute
share as a essential formulation
of the question
as something which is "unworked"
between it and itself." (27) authoritites:
made up divisions beyond avoid despair
it would not be the very historical moment
women, be work, or dominion"
not incompatible with be left
without being able to
the existence be
This is undoubtedly not the together
fulfilled infinite identity of community
is be able, at the end of this
A Tentative be:
"Can the law of being without another
because it resists and becauses it makes
because finitude is communitarian
and because it cannot be whose belonging been
in no way as appears, it presents itself between
the much more piercing and dispersed
beyond social enough for social praxis?
2.
The first part the sociopolitical, a claim and a substantiality
productive. simple happiness as comes
and not the "exteriority of a product"
against which I pose more simply and
even more accused of nihilism
of a willful and real reinscription of alone;
in relation to which, and as such, is its impossibility.
All of which feeding into historical
although I dont want to down-play would
(and be irresponsible) Being in common
means to bemoan the "loss of community,"
a tendency (if not directly)work of being-together
failure of one may give (x).
definitions of terminology
or philosophical subsumption, a mutuality
confronts lovers with a study by Blanchot
married to Eurydice a "part" imperative
the wake of society. a continuous presence
in the work, such as communication
to apprehension and perception
"that the 'old' abolishes limit
and suppositionless and ideas about
whenevers of that construction:
what it does about community.
3.
The community itself arises
like a sub-stance
to be in Cartesian touch
is receptive to what is at causes.
Thus, according to this view,
celebrated we belong, the naming center
"gravest and question whether
the center of this question,
then, is the logic of this
the Inoperative
"individual common--which is that lack of exposed,
in communication, eroded the possibility of
between gods, the cosmos, animals,
beings to one another ... (38)
Since one cannot escape this logic
living absconditus--to be measured
named in abstraction
we are most obviously
What is at Stake
4.
Communication with the my death
is my communication.
individual freedoms operating as communication.
It is itself as communion--but joy--even in its turn
is a Communism, as Sartre said,
"the communitarian minimum in the social akin
disappears, giving way to communitarian." (26-27)
community can occur from without for contagion
revealed constantly turning limit
I community But community
not sublate the finitude it exposes
by submitting its peoples formulation
community itself absorbed into a common example
and other oppressed communities be formulated
all which would community
is the natural necessity
the community exists partly in the "in-common,"
community of those who dangerously--and in community
finitude itself opens, shares the confines."
community does not consist
in the community of two
is not the identity of the general
In community, extremity of sharing
that finitude provides work of community
This outside it and from without
simple association
the motto of the Republic
They are poised at the love
peoples who in their imaginations may comprise
this formulation we "wasting away" compearance
exposed or what "impersonality of the conceived
of oneself (i.e. as belonging to a concept
a fundmental that the individual
(perhaps traditional political consequences
requires the 'members' have consideration.
My construction of existences consists of its sharing
because this when constantly nothing is constitute
by what "we call constituted through knowledge
constituted not only a fair mentioned
constitution consists of or what it
constrasts, as a limit
does not proceed from construction
resorts to the nature of the word construction
of love in/upon the contemporary thought
5.
death the work is interior to the discussion of death
we are serviced by this question of "alone"
death of the individual, no longer having, in any death
by community (and therefore the death)
neither death nor because it would place
deconstructive position of violence--a mystical definition
freedom of adequate discussion of what constitutes
the totality of the Being always presents itself
at a hearing and before the always presents itself
being-in-common and as an earlier question)
that segmentation is always an edge
of violence which analysis sets
Toward dislocations, disruptions,
something, which myself,
distinct from society
(a sameness, as distribution
"destructive" of political division
doubt more determining a political
and social drawn to a complex of questions
drowning in the instant of intimacy.
We know that the community construction
of essence empires--perhaps just as unrelated a people
from a formless ground
only essences of such a community exists
(such ethical construction,
anything can be ethical
is destroyed and
not as even in its isolation or
at the limit, forget questions
about the formation of form
in any empirical or ideal place
loses the forms trying to write it out.
This violence founds community.
Contrary to a framework writing
the hypostasis retains little to surmount
unraveling that occurs
6.
Love does not complete is not helplesslessness
we expect addressing this question:
"what is here is the "retreat" of historical analysis
the singular being (27) history the community
finitude itself must hope to find
(in tentative formuation)
splintering ideological correlatives of the ceaseless upheavals
ideologies of there is no individual).
It exposes community as immanent
no communis con deus barbarism
the death of each one deconstructive
is always expressed as meaning in having died
simply surrounds it
escapes the logic of the political and
this type of general, any discussion of its glory
would need to be able to say
finitude would be difficult
to the dispersed liberal
would merely be a mechanics of force
should be and speech
can unravel society
edge itself substance
could ever be taken hold of
the fear that The kiss, in spite of everything, is not speech
it shared the veiled resistance to a closed system
somthing which is not work, but moment of love revealed
physical to the validity or invalidity of finitude
of loving immanence and rhetoric of community
shares a distracted commitment not of whisphers
On the contrary, love, provided it is not itself
what would be completely what one would hope
no part moves democracy
to resolve the conflict particular communities themselves identify
the attempts to recusitate new pertinent political theoreticians
preceding philosophical language anterior to any philosophy
calls this is truly ironic
that we own philosophy's reductive totalizations
and their exigency politics: 'left' means, at the very least,
the positing of Community isn't some position that I hold
this is why it is haunted by principally of the sharing, diffusion,
individuation detaches closed produced
a community made of retreats
in the face of Rousseau:
ruins of a community.
7.
singularity the regulation 'of'--the genitive
of singularity of their love of community.
But as singularity that
is then here both empty sharing
is explicit, society as syntax, perhaps we can discover
technopolitical dominion
and thereby the only terms the individual has
The face of the very mean an essence of the confines of singularity
in the contemporary ("post-industrial") world
the work of sharing of finitude, or more exactly,
unwitting collusion within being-the-one-with-the-other
to which we are exposed
being-with (with-being)
and the expression/exposure
of the beings
and as such it is itself a finite
of the communal for most of us
but the the discussion of community
or "what the terms of the discussion
discourse on community
begins for them to foreclose
they the bonds of social interaction open
subsumed within what is beyond
such wasting each other gives rise
appears or compears (com-parait)
The societal formulations from a desire for what she calls
radical the remaining possibilities
or community within (opposed to a society, etc.).
What does it within the finite limits of our own
"singular" without getting into vulgarizations
that may the word 'in' expose to the substance
but rather word important among these senses
the work now forms the possibility of ever arriving
work of place of something for which we have work
(it can be neither subject nor object) work.
But in fact it is the work
the working community
would mistakenly name
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 17:00:00 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9506271312.A14679-0100000@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
I'm on the road (talking in LA) so my reading's what I have here: Heiner
Muller, Material (just got it in German to correlated with the English
texts of his I've read - his writing continues to amaze), the three new
translations of Michel Serres' work (which has always affected my own),
the new James Ellroy, Kroker's Spasm, and Inside the Information Super-
highway, one of my course books, by Nicholas Baran, simple, up-to-date,
thorough..
Alan looking forward to the new Annette Messager show and catalog at
LACMA -
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 20:47:49 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Pangborn <V072GDXG@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Ira--
Responding to Burt's clear-eyed questions about logic, I thought I saw
a chance to do my favorite net-thing, which is tie, weave, or otherwise braid
various conversational threads together. In this case I did it clumsily
indeed, if I came off as saying "Look, here's something ignorant Ira missed."
What I'd rather hoped to say was something more like "Look, here's a way in
which Fuller's observation, recently, perceptively noticed by Sorry-I-forget
-whom (i.e. you), reinforces a poetically useful sense of what logic, smooth or
fuzzy, is and ain't."
At the same time, I thought (reflexively?) that what Fuller says in that
passage--about "common sense" putting very frequent pitfalls in everyone's
path, no exception for me nor thee--bears a lot of repeating, but not because I
suppose it to be big news to you, informed and accomplished as you are. More
like ballplayers keeping up the chatter on the baseball diamond, constantly
reminding one another of what they already know. "Play's to third." "He's a
whiffer." It helps, no?
--Jim
Ira wrote:
>
>As the one who put out the remark about Bucky's use of up, down, in, out,
>and, indeed, shake it all about, I just wanted to say: thanks for the
>lovely quotation, illuminating what i was referring to; and sorry if
>I presented an ignorant write-up of Bucky, because what you posted was
>what I thought I'd said,
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ira
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 18:04:15 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: bedside reading--and reverse thinking
Comments: To: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950627165628.10502A-100000@panix3.panix.com>
--sorry to worry this like a puppy w/ an old shoe, but--
as I take my PhD comps in August, my bedside reading is a little. . .
um--perverse?!--right now--and today as I was reading Derrida I found this:
"One goes from blindness to the supplement. . . . Blindness to the
supplement is the law. ANd especially blindness to its concept.
Moreover, in order to see its meaning, it is not enough to locate its
functioning. The supplement has no sense and is given to no intuition.
We do not therefore make it emerge out of its strange penumbra. We speak
its reserve."
So--writing is always already thinking in reverse? Supplement (words)
have no meaning in and of themselves, only when we re-apply presence/self
to them do they/can they mean--but they are at first our escape from
presence/self--?
hmmm. . . I knid of like this--writing is always already thinking in
reverse. . .
back to the books!
ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 18:33:08 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
In-Reply-To: <766BF8E2658@as.ua.edu> from "Hank Lazer" at Jun 27,
95 10:18:35 am
inspired by all that's out there, here's my list fr the month:
_the presocratics_, by philip wheelwright. a general text chosen fr its
contextualizing approach. interested in pursuing pythagoreanism and
cont. art. might have some value
_on christian doctrine_, st. augustine
-revelations of divine love_, julian of norwich
-the temple-, george herbert: interesting -- i found a copy of _the
temple_ in the UBC bkstore a few days before the blaser conference. colin
browne presented a paper on herbert there which was incredible! timing is
everything
everything and anything by bpNichol. re reading bk 1 for the
3rd or 4th time. the first few pages always astound me! everything he
does in the other bks is set down there: "premonition of a future time or
line we will be writing" ... "a future music moves now to be written" ...
_the surrealist parade_, by wayne andrews (i'm certain he's the author:
just picked it up at a used bkstore. it looks like it's written part
documentary/part journal, which is why i bought it. it also contains some
hugo ball quotes which i've never come across previously
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 21:41:06 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jim Pangborn <V072GDXG@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Burt K. writes:
>
>Jim,
>
>Is your explanation about why science needs the fuzzy logic tool and art
>doesn't in line with Carnap?
>
Not sure I could sort out a pedigree for this notion. I get my sense
of what logic is first from reading Quine (who often takes issue with Carnap),
then from Peirce and Dewey. Taken as a whole, it's a discipline relating
more directly to statements than to states of affairs. Sorry, whosever eyes
glaze on this stuff . . . Logic is one of the ways people deal with questions
in the spirit of "If it's safe to say P, then what else is safe to say?" Logic
goes at this by way of analyzing grammatical transformations. As to what is
safe to say in the first place, we look elsewhere than to logic for that (with
an important exception: logic looks for instances where P is safe to say merely
because all sentences with the same grammatical form P are safe to say, like
"I only drink when I'm alone or else with somebody," which must be true, or
safe to say, but only trivially).
In this sense, logic is a game (or maybe a playing field) where one of
the ground rules is "say one thing at a time." This ties it in with what I've
called science, a method applying logical procedures to investigate nature.
It usually goes unstated, but science is largely built upon this one-thing-at-a
-time rule. No rules = sorry, game called on account of obscurity. Science
wants one statement, one related set of variables, one question at a time. Too
many uncertainties in play = unsafe playing conditions, confusion, nonscience.
But as we know, the world doesn't have to play by these rules. Often
people come upon knots, clouds of multiple, indivisible considerations. There
are more things, etc., Horatio. People will not limit their wondering to
well-formed, stand-alone, single-vision questions. To think knotty, cloudy
considerations through, we resort to art. (This is not a commutative
proposition, tho: I do not say "the thinking-through of gnarly questions = a
good-enough definition of art." Art is a means well suited to this need, is
all.)
Fuzzy logic, and fuzzy set-theory from which it derives, announces
itself as a rapprochement between science and the way most people actually
think. It arises from the attempt to get computers to behave intelligently--a
goal that has not, say the least, been met. I don't believe it is the best
way to effect that rapprochement. For one, they haven't come up with an
agreeable axiom for fuzzy implication. More importantly, it works by
instantiating dummy values in place of uncertainties. I see now that I really
agree withLoss Glazier on this: fuzzy logic, if not logic at large, is in a
strong sense antithetical to poetics, which works *with* uncertainties. Our
Unclear Heritage, so to speak.
Do physicists have a different imagination from poets? In this view,
not at all; but they do adhere to very different procedures, develop different
reflexes, get stuck in different ruts, harbor different expectations, etc.,
etc. Do footballers have a different imagination from chessplayers? Who would
know? Maybe, but . . .
--Jim
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 22:41:12 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950627165628.10502A-100000@panix3.panix.com> from
"Alan Sondheim" at Jun 27, 95 05:00:00 pm
Re:
>
> Alan looking forward to the new Annette Messager show and catalog at
> LACMA -
>
Oh do -- it is great, we saw it in Paris in May, & the catalogue is
worth getting, absolutely splendid. -- & anybody on the list who may
not know Messager's work -- if you can get to LACMA do so!
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 03:02:32 EDT
Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: beard@MET.CO.NZ
Subject: Re: bedside reading
My bedside/coffeetable/briefcase reading lists:
Bedside: _Selected Poems 1950-65_ Robert Creeley
_Lacan_ by Malcom Bowie (a good cure for insomnia)
_Back in the USA_ by Wystan Curnow
Coffeetable: _Holding Company_ by David Howard
1995 Film Festival Programme
1995 Spring/Summer catalogue, V2 by Versace
Latest issues of _Sport_ and _Landfall_
Briefcase: _DIA_ by Michele Leggott
Latest issue of _Printout_
_Laura's Poems_ by Laura Ranger (material for found poetry)
_Smells like Avant-Pop_ by Mark Amerika and Lance Olson
(downloaded from Alternative-X)
_Mid-latitude Cyclone Models_ (work, not play)
______________________________________________________________________________
I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard
I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz
I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand
I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/
and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 15:46:56 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Dear Jim, interesting commentary on Logic. Turning to
poems, paintings etc etc, THE ARTS, one finds enigma,
paradox, ciphers that remain always resistant to final decipherment,
although logic be applied to answering the questions they ask. I don't
think of arts as illogical, or subject to vagueness, so much as inviting
speculations and dreams with almost no limitation.
I note that in this view, artworks are not consumable, because they are
inexhaustible. It is not the case, we know, that a painting once seen by
one person disappears from sight for evermore. We all know, too, that
the answers proposed by one person to the questions it asks does not
exhaust its possibilities. Artworks appear to lure one into
understanding them, which can be a long and arduous process of
discoveries about, for instance, society, self and about the
mysterious workings of media. Recuperation and cooptation and
consumerisation cannot entirely submerge these possibilities, even
thouh they may reduce the social impact of radical novelty.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 20:52:50 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <01HS7P6PPGWI9OYY3H@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> from "Jim Pangborn" at
Jun 27, 95 08:47:49 pm
what's the relationship btwn rhyme and reason? Serendipity and causality?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 21:10:33 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Jim Pangborn points out:
> Fuzzy logic.... More importantly...works by
>instantiating dummy values in place of uncertainties. I see now that I really
>agree with Loss Glazier on this: fuzzy logic, if not logic at large, is in a
>strong sense antithetical to poetics, which works *with* uncertainties. Our
>Unclear Heritage, so to speak.
[sorry about the dreadful editing]
This is an excellent point that's escaped me until now. It's almost a
reaction to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, giving the barest nod to all
that escapes reduction to logical principles and then proceding to reduce
them anyway, the admission that this reduction is only provisional lost
under the extension of logic's dominion.
This sounds like an anti-logic, anti-science post, but it's not.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 21:57:48 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Reginald Johanson <reginalj@SFU.CA>
Subject: bedside reading
Next to my bed-cum-magic carpet are nothing but travel books--the
good stuff, mind you:
Bruce Chatwin, "The Songlines", "What Am I Doing Here"
Paul Theroux, "Paddling the Pacific"
Paul William Roberts, "A River in the Desert", "Empire of the Soul".
Fact is I wish I was them. And if not them then to be at least as
good a liar.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 02:47:05 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <199506280241.WAA04200@loki.albany.edu>
Messager's show at Josh Baer a year ago in NY was the bests show of the
season I think along with Holzer's Lustmord. I met her (AM) in Paris
years before, she was with Christian Boltanski - she should have been
known here all along -
Alan
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 08:10:26 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Michael Boughn <mboughn@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950627165628.10502A-100000@panix3.panix.com> from
"Alan Sondheim" at Jun 27, 95 05:00:00 pm
> I'm on the road (talking in LA) so my reading's what I have here: Heiner
> Muller, Material (just got it in German to correlated with the English
> texts of his I've read - his writing continues to amaze), the three new
> translations of Michel Serres' work (which has always affected my own),
> the new James Ellroy, Kroker's Spasm, and Inside the Information Super-
> highway, one of my course books, by Nicholas Baran, simple, up-to-date,
> thorough..
Alan:
Would you pass on the titles of the Serres books? It would be much
appreciated. Thanks.
Best,
Mike
mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 09:15:20 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: The imaginative procedures of cosmologists
David Kellogg:
Is risk assessment a kind of fuzzy logical thinking? (Just kidding.)
Burt Kimmelman
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 09:26:36 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Jim,
Poetry's first functions were to remember things and to explain things (or
is the latter mythology cum science?). So today since mallarme, perhaps,
poetry is language per se (is this a writing supplement Shaunanne?). And
today cosmologists explain in languages that appeal to us (we can't go for
the old personification game any longer). As for history, I think of
Carnap again and what I take to be his eloquent and ultimately futile
insistence on quantification of phenomena (pace, Husserl et al.). But
what IS history writing (a supplement).
If I'm not making sense then forgive me my confused and I guess confusing
ramblings.
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 09:33:23 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
I will be teaching a course in spring 96 called twentieth century aesthetics
and technology.
any suggestions?
Burt Kimmelman
kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
or write via snail:
dept of humanities
new jersey institute of technology
newark, nj 07040
USA
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 11:36:23 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@PANIX.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <199506281210.IAA22311@blues.epas.utoronto.ca>
The Natural Contract, Genesis, and Between Science and History w/Bruno
Latour - there are also the older volumes, Detachment, Hermes, and The
Parasite.
Alan
On Wed, 28 Jun 1995, Michael Boughn wrote:
> > I'm on the road (talking in LA) so my reading's what I have here: Heiner
> > Muller, Material (just got it in German to correlated with the English
> > texts of his I've read - his writing continues to amaze), the three new
> > translations of Michel Serres' work (which has always affected my own),
> > the new James Ellroy, Kroker's Spasm, and Inside the Information Super-
> > highway, one of my course books, by Nicholas Baran, simple, up-to-date,
> > thorough..
>
> Alan:
>
> Would you pass on the titles of the Serres books? It would be much
> appreciated. Thanks.
>
> Best,
> Mike
> mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:23:04 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
burt: "twentieth-century aesthetics and technology"? first off, my sympathies, but as you must do it, try kenner, also all that baloney about typewriters and the modern poem. scratch technology deeply and you're in the 18th cent.; all reactionaries.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:14:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
re: rhyme/reason, despite ways they're argued apart, reason's rhyme of a productive but attenuated sort, yes? reason tries to be the perfect rhyme, or near it; ever-so-little left over from the equation. reason's for the precious, those w/out energy
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:16:12 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
reason/rhyme: reason's, i think, like a night with your friend when you did everything right but never wrinkled the sheets.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:51:22 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lee Chapman <Leechapman@AOL.COM>
Subject: Bedside reading
The latest pile of not-read-yets (purchased at my local Waldenbooks couple of
weeks ago) includes:
DISTANT RELATIONS (Carlos Fuentes)
THE ALIENIST (Caleb Carr)
ASPHODEL (H.D.)
TRINITY FIELDS (Bradford Morrow)
THE PUSHCART PRIZE '94/'95 (I actually ordered this; glad to see a story from
Lucia Berlin's Black Sparrow book, SO LONG, in there; more people should know
her work.)
CHAIN/2 (Juliana Spahr was nice enough to send a copy; haven't had time to
read much yet, but was entirely knocked out by Janet Zweig's HER RECURSIVE
APOLOGY, an exercise in extremist excellence.)
The list of have-reads includes:
ALL ACTS ARE SIMPLY ACTS by Ed Foster (Lovely, thanks, Ed. By the way, is the
new TALISMAN out? Any chance I could get a copy??)
THE GEOGRAPHICS by Albert Mobilio
STROMATA by David Miller
BERLIN DIPTYCHON, poems by John Yau, photographs by Bill Barrette
I'm in the middle of Bradford Morrow's THE ALMANAC BRANCH (whew! weird! just
my style!).
Like another on this list (I'm afraid I've forgotten who), I recently
received a 1990 novel by one Jim Reagan (Castle King-Four) with that same
cryptic note; mine reads: ....this is a peace offering made to you in the
memory of (not knowing who the mentioned people are, I'll leave that out)...
Never heard of any of them before either. You have to admit, though, he got
our attention!
For some reason, I find it very interesting to see what different people are
reading. Hope this list continues. With love from a newcomer,
Lee Chapman (FIRST INTENSITY)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:05:02 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In message <009928C2.ADAF394E.92@admin.njit.edu> UB Poetics discussion group
writes:
> I will be teaching a course in spring 96 called twentieth century aesthetics
> and technology.
>
> any suggestions?
you've probably already got this one, but heidegger's the question of
technology. and benjamin's the work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction.--what's on yr syallabus so far?--md
>
>
> Burt Kimmelman
> kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
>
> or write via snail:
>
> dept of humanities
> new jersey institute of technology
> newark, nj 07040
> USA
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 10:32:09 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <199506280410.VAA05434@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
27, 95 09:10:33 pm
>
> Jim Pangborn points out:
>
> > Fuzzy logic.... More importantly...works by
> >instantiating dummy values in place of uncertainties. I see now that I really
> >agree with Loss Glazier on this: fuzzy logic, if not logic at large, is in a
> >strong sense antithetical to poetics, which works *with* uncertainties. Our
> >Unclear Heritage, so to speak.
> [sorry about the dreadful editing]
>
> This is an excellent point that's escaped me until now. It's almost a
> reaction to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, giving the barest nod to all
> that escapes reduction to logical principles and then proceding to reduce
> them anyway, the admission that this reduction is only provisional lost
> under the extension of logic's dominion.
>
> This sounds like an anti-logic, anti-science post, but it's not.
>
> Steve
>
--ana-logic?
c
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 14:10:29 EDT
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lisa Samuels <lsr3h@DARWIN.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In-Reply-To: <009928C2.ADAF394E.92@admin.njit.edu>; from "Burt Kimmelman
-@NJIT" at Jun 28, 95 9:33 am
and ref. Mark Seltzer's book =Bodies and Machines=, if you
haven't already.
lisa samuels
According to Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT:
>
> I will be teaching a course in spring 96 called twentieth century aesthetics
> and technology.
>
> any suggestions?
>
>
> Burt Kimmelman
> kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
>
> or write via snail:
>
> dept of humanities
> new jersey institute of technology
> newark, nj 07040
> USA
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 12:10:43 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Lindz Williamson <lmichell@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <199506280457.VAA16586@fraser.sfu.ca>
NExt to my lumpy futon is
Mikhial Bulgakov's The White Guard
Daphne MArletts's Ghost Works
Hyemeyohsts Storm's Lightningbolt
Good Stuff, eh. -Lindz
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 15:46:42 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rae Armantrout <RaeA100900@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
My list isn't as long as some, but...
Alan Golding's FROM OUTLAW TO CLASSIC
Agamben's STANZAS
Messerli's GERTRUDE STEIN AWARDS FOR INNOVATIVE POETRY
Hardy's A PAIR OF BLUE EYES
I don't have the books right here so apologies if I got any titles wrong.
Rae Armantrout
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 16:35:29 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Jake Berry <BugsD@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Reading lists
Reading several at once as usual. And other things.
1. French Poetry 1820-1950
2. Hank Lazer - THREE OF TEN
3. Selected Poems of Stephan Mallarme
4. Complete Poems of Hart Crane
5. Fellini's 8 1/2
6. The Ellington Suites (CD)
7. Tao Magic (Calligraphy and Talismans)
That and more.
Jake Berry
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 15:08:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Bedside reading
In-Reply-To: <950628154641_80220674@aol.com> from "Rae Armantrout" at Jun 28,
95 03:46:42 pm
New list (I love this list idea)
Bowering A Place to Die (a great spicer circle story opens this)
Delilo Mao II
Brautigan Willard and his Bowling Trophies (I was reading
my brother's copy of The Alligator Report and wanted something in
that ilk)
M. Duras 2 by Duras (a wonderful wee treasure pblsht by the
Coach House gooody basket)
Philip K. Dick Puttering about in a Small Land (now, I'm not much of
a sci fi fan, but George Stanley insisted I read this. In reture he
would read Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel. Apparently Puttering isn't
as good as Scanner Darkly. Anyone read him before?)
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 10:22:51 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
suggestion, Burt, Johanna Drucker's Theorizing Modernism, sorry no
detail on hand
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 16:24:12 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950629102250.704@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
a couple of things come to mind--ecclectic thinking but you could go a
million ways w/ this as posts already illustrate.
Kern's _The Culture of Time and Space_
Clarke's _Rendevouz with Rama_
John Bradley, ed. _The Atomic Ghost_ (GREAT poetry anth)
Rand's _The Fountainhead_ (yeah, I know. . . but. . . )
DeLillo's _Ratner's Star_
Foster's _New York by Gaslight and Other Urban Sketches_
This sounds like an interesting course--good luck!
--ShaunAnne
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 11:52:48 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Blade Runner
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 16:56:05 -0700
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From: Carl Lynden Peters <clpeters@SFU.CA>
Subject: VP Mail List update
just a brief note to let you know that the mail list for concrete/visual,
sound and performance poetries is currently in process of being
activated. --will keep you posted as developments occur. it should be
ready any time now. much positive interest expressed for it which is
great. some interesting mail-list title suggestions came in and took a brief
survey with friends around the department today. it was either going to
be _Calligrams_ (thanks! tony) or _wr-eye-tings_ (cris). the new title is:
_WR-EYE-TINGS_ --congratulations cris!
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 21:58:58 -0400
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From: Jim Pangborn <V072GDXG@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
What a territory to cover! I'm muy jealous.
Some things you might want to look at (a very incomplete list):
Marshall Berman, _All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_
Hugh Kenner, _The Mechanic Muse_
Daniel Czitrom, _Media and the American Mind_
McLuhan, _Understanding Media_ or one of the Fiore collaborations
Cecilia Tichey, _Changing Gears_
Heidegger, "The Q. Concerning T." (already suggested, here seconded
despite its big-time abstruseness)
Benjamin, "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire"
Sigfried Giedion, _Mechanization Takes Command_
Peter Jukes, _A Shout in the Street_
Jackson Lears, _No Place of Grace_
Marjorie Perloff, _The Futurist Moment_
Friedrich Kittler, _Discourse Networks_
Have fun!
--Jim
>
>I will be teaching a course in spring 96 called twentieth century aesthetics
>and technology.
>
>any suggestions?
>
>
>Burt Kimmelman
>kimmelman@admin.njit.edu
>
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 21:57:43 -0500
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From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
pangborn writes:
>
>
> Some things you might want to look at (a very incomplete list):
>
> Marshall Berman, _All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_
> Hugh Kenner, _The Mechanic Muse_
> Daniel Czitrom, _Media and the American Mind_
> McLuhan, _Understanding Media_ or one of the Fiore collaborations
> Cecilia Tichey, _Changing Gears_
> Heidegger, "The Q. Concerning T." (already suggested, here seconded
> despite its big-time abstruseness)
> Benjamin, "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire"
> Sigfried Giedion, _Mechanization Takes Command_
> Peter Jukes, _A Shout in the Street_
> Jackson Lears, _No Place of Grace_
> Marjorie Perloff, _The Futurist Moment_
> Friedrich Kittler, _Discourse Networks_
>
> Have fun!
>
> --Jim
>
>how cd i forget, the futurist manifesto, or -i if there are more than one.
also, avital ronell's the telephone book, though it's a real trip! maybe just a
coupla excerpts.--md
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 20:31:25 -0700
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Ryan:
>what's the relationship btwn rhyme and reason? Serendipity and causality?
Like most thingks that seem to oppose one another, they spend a lot of time
becoming one another, blending and blurring boundaries between. Rhyme makes
notions reasonable; reason gets broken down and sneaked into rhyme.
Causality is a kind of serendipity (you know, it's the kind of serendipity
that has a cause), which then lends itself to other branches of other causal
chains without ever being quite incorporated within them.
Steve
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 22:01:53 CST
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From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
>> I will be teaching a course in spring 96 called twentieth century aesthetics
>> and technology.
>>
>> any suggestions?
>
>you've probably already got this one, but heidegger's the question of
>technology. and benjamin's the work of art in the age of mechanical
>reproduction.--what's on yr syallabus so far?--md
>>
Yes, that's great. But why not also throw in Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy as well as works by Jackson Mac Low. And perhaps, in considering the
alphabet as a technology, Johanna Drucker's Visible Word. I'd also love to
know what you end up with.
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 15:35:22 +1000
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: AWOL: Hazel Smith - Poet Without Language
********************************************************************************
AUSTRALIAN WRITING ONLINE is a small press distribution service and
writers' resource service designed to help Australian writers, magazines,
journals and publishers to reach a wider audience through the internet. As
a first step we will be posting information and subscription details for a
number of magazines and publishers to a number of discussion groups and
lists.
AWOL also posts a monthly Happenings list. This is a guide to readings,
book launches, conferences and other events relating to Australian
literature both within Australia and overseas. If you have any item which
you would like included in future listings please contact AWOL on email
k.mann@unsw.edu.au (this is a temporary address for the first three week
sof July) or write to AWOL, PO Box 333, Concord NSW 2137,
Australia.
AWOL postings are also available by snail mail - please contact us for details.
AWOL will have its own address by the end of July. To contact us please use
k.mann@unsw.edu.au - however, it may take sometime to respond to your
post.
AWOL posts are archived on the WWW at the following address
http://www.anatomy.su.oz.au /danny/books/index.html then click on
Australian Writing OnLine.
********************************************************************************
Hazel Smith with austraLYSIS: Poet Without Language: Poems, Performance
Texts and Text-sound works (Compact Disc: Rufus Records).
"...complex verbal rhythms (are) a very exciting extension ..(of) the way
rap uses the syllable as a percussive unit" Gail Brennan Sydney Morning
Herald
"convincing proof of the arrival for good of the female poetic voice"Joy
Wallace Pages UK
"the impressive title-track...familiar reading styles and predictable voice
inflections are disrupted by multi-tracking...the voice becomes a truly
flexible instrument"John Jenkins Overland
Poet Without Language is a CD of poetry, text-sound and performance works
by Hazel Smith. Three of the works,Poet Without Language, Caged John
Uncaged and Silent Waves were written in combination with musician Roger
Dean.They are performed by Smith with Roger Dean and Sandy Evans, members
of the contemporary music group austraLYSIS.
In the poems experimentation with language is to the fore and Smith, who
now refers to her work as "feminist performance linguistics", demonstrates
her central concern with forging a new language, one relevant to her
particular position as a woman, musician and poet.
The performance texts and text-sound pieces take this quest for a new
language further through an exploration of the interface between language
and music. This involves the application of musical techniques, such as
rhythmic notation, to language, and the use of technologies such as
sampling and multi-trackling, so that language is dislocated and
re-synthesised into complex semantic and sound structures.
Hazel Smith lived in England until she moved to Australia in 1989. Her
volume Threely was published by the Spectacular Diseases Imprint in England
1986, and her volume Abstractly Represented: Poems and Performance Texts
1982-90 was published by Butterfly Books in 1991. Some of her work was
included in the 1991 anthology Floating Capital: New Poets From London,
Potes and Poets Press, U.S.A. A 1994 issue of the U.K. poetry journal Pages
is devoted to her work.
Hazel has given performances in many countries including Australia, Great
Britain, USA, Belgium and New Zealand, and also on the ABC, BBC and US
radio. Her collaborations with Roger Dean, have been broadcast extensively,
and their piece Poet without Language was nominated by the ABC for the
Prix Italia in 1993.
Hazel is a lecturer in the School of English at the University of New South
Wales. She is also an internationally active violinist and leader of the
contemporary music group austraLYSIS.
_____________________________________________________________cut here_________
ORDER FORM
HAZEL SMITH
POET WITHOUT LANGUAGE
Compact disc RF005
$27.00 (Australian) including post and packaging
Available from:
Rufus Records
PO Box 116 Paddington 2021 Australia.
Telephone: international + 61 2 362 4531.
Fax: International + 363 5341.
Number of copies:...... ($27.00 Aust. each)
Payment enclosed: $......
Send to:
Name:...........................................................................
...........................................................................
Postal address: ..............................................................
..............................................................................
Your Email address ...................................
For further information contact Hazel Smith at H.Smith@unsw.EDU.AU (Note
Hazel will not be checking her mail until 10 July).
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 22:56:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <199506290331.UAA26356@slip-1.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Jun
28, 95 08:31:25 pm
I suppose, when I asked this, these were the issues I was thinking
about.
It seems that rhyme and reason, in my mind, demonstrate and acot
out of the paradox you find in "cleave". Causality and serendipity,
as Steve nicely states it, do tend to bleed into and out of
one another, which raises in my mind difficult narrative issues.
I think it was Hume who argued along these lines, positing that
the eight ball sinks by virtue of perfect coincidence, autonomous.
Any hand is as likely as a royal flush. I'm not sure hou to handle
this in the narrative I want to spin, but it seems, at one angle,
that all of these matters result from desire; a desire for pattern
which mean by both predictability (Zola or James) and, on the
other side, astonishing improbability (aleatoric or OUlipean).
Steve wrote:
>
> Ryan:
>
> >what's the relationship btwn rhyme and reason? Serendipity and causality?
>
> Like most thingks that seem to oppose one another, they spend a lot of time
> becoming one another, blending and blurring boundaries between. Rhyme makes
> notions reasonable; reason gets broken down and sneaked into rhyme.
> Causality is a kind of serendipity (you know, it's the kind of serendipity
> that has a cause), which then lends itself to other branches of other causal
> chains without ever being quite incorporated within them.
>
> Steve
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 01:59:39 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Chris Stroffolino <LS0796@ALBNYVMS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
marisa---i just read your note (there are 44 others for me--ugh--and
non of them are by you) and thank you for being sympathetic again--
(none of them--not non--belated typo recognition--aren't they all?)
and it was good talking earlier and then I sat down with O'Hara
(and Lansing--who I'm suppossed to review for Foster--is sooooo stiff
by comparison--but then so am i too much)---"sat down with O'hara"--
what a weird phrase---anyway he wrote--
"You enable me, by your least remark,
to unclutter myself, and my neerves thank you for not always laughing"
Which made me think of a feeling towards you (nerves)--
A feeling towards something between us that is neither you nor I
And that doesn't at all seem accurate but vague and the urge to
"express the unexpressable" is not perhaps the quickness that makes
one want to blow the lid off self-consciousness (so-called
"spontaneous" torrents recollected tranquilly) and ask you
if you're still looking for "questions for kenneth" (a quiz-show)--
did you (or jordan) ask him whether he thinks he might have had
a any influence on O'Hara's work--and if so, where? Many people seem
to make their relationship into a one way street--but that can't
be true, can it?
----I hope you read this before you go (so you can have it in your
head to keep you company on the plane....) Love, chris
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Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 23:02:16 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950629115248.256@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz> from "Tony
Green" at Jun 29, 95 11:52:48 am
As Tony, I say Blade runner loud.
Star wars to boot--both dark and epic.
I think Oliver Wendel Holmes wrote about the camera and argued
that the image would move beyond record into reality. I read
it a while back. Can't recall the title.
George Mead and the Chicago School of communication theorists.
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 01:16:43 -0500
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Brian W Horihan <hori0001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: bedreading
hello everyone, i've been sort of evesdropping for a while,
getting my bearings, and, since this bedside reading list is fun and
inviting, i thought i'd go and venture a post. so, though i feel rather
young and unqualified, here's mine:
PRISON NOTEBOOKS, A Gramsci
WHAT IS CINEMA? V.1, Andre Bazin
UNDERGROUND CINEMA, Parker Tyler
SONNETS and MEMORIES, Bernadette Mayer (thanx for these md, enjoying
and trying to get through them)
MIRACLE OF THE ROSE (again), J Genet
APPARATUS, ed. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
TEARS OF EROS, G Bataille
Various things on ancient Greece for summer class
i think i'll have to look at that MS FOUND AT SARAGOSSA people
have been mentioning. and a film w/ music by penderecki, wow
goodnight,
brian
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 02:52:36 -0700
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
My two cents (heavily restricted of late due to moving--I still have
20+ cartons of books, mostly fiction & poetry, boxed in the attic
waiting for the arrival of $1000 in bookcases I bought on Monday):
Snow Crash by Neil Stephanson (very good, but not as good as the blurbs
on the jacket make out)
Heat, by Stuart Woods (his worst--I may never read another...)
Pronto, by Elmore Leonard (he's become very gentle and humorous since
he stopped drinking)
Sessions, by Eli Goldblatt (Chax Press! Some wonderful pieces here that
reminds me a lot of my own impulses in the poem "Hidden"--I haven't met
Eli yet, but since we now live in the same area, I'm looking forward to
it)
Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, edited by Gretchen
Bender & Timothy Drucker (lots of "celebrity" critics--Aronowitz,
Laurie Anderson, Andrew Ross, Paula Treichler, Kathleen Woodward,
Langdon Winner--mostly showing how little knowledge of technology they
really have)
CIO magazine
Service News
Information Week--the best technology mag around
PC Week
Been waiting for my sub to The Nation to catch up w/ me on this
coast....
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 03:08:24 -0700
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
I totally agree w/ Walter Benjamin and w/ Marshall Berman.
I would also include Society of the Spectacle by Guy DeBord, Writing
Degree Zero by Roland Barthes, What is Literature? by Sartre, recent
writing (about PCs and poetry) by Charles Bernstein, Mayakovsky's How
are Verses Made, Williams Spring & All, Perelman's The Trouble with
Genius, Fred Jameson on Late Capital
As for Blade Runner (a great movie I've seen 5 or 6 times), I'd use it
only if/as I used Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K.
Dick. (Also Dr. Bloodmoney, The Man in the High Castle). Good point for
talking about essentialism in forms...
Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon, Dhalgren by SR Delaney, Geek Love, work
by Cage and Duchamp
Ron Silliman
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 08:56:23 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Pierre Joris <joris@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In-Reply-To: <199506291008.DAA12171@ix2.ix.netcom.com> from "Ron Silliman" at
Jun 29, 95 03:08:24 am
Also the superb (& unhappily much neglected) collection of essays on
"guns and men in the West; the car as an image of escape, in film,
literature and everyday life; fears of invasion from underground or
outer space; the interaction of culture and technology in US history
-- via American fiction and pulp novels, B-movies and art films, rock
lyrics and poetry" by Eric Mottram, called BLOOD ON THE NASH
AMBASSADOR (Hutchinson Radius)
=======================================================================
Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it.
Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux
SUNY Albany |
Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You
tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how
email: | such things get around."
joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother.
=======================================================================
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 09:20:12 -0400
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From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Burt
You might for argument's sake teach some letterpress books from Toothpaste or
Burning Deck or Tuumba, or even something mimeoed, as a way to talk about
slippage, or restricted access, or receding possibilities. "A Funny Place" by
I think Richard Snow about the history of Coney Island from Adventures in
Poetry might be suitably perverse about this (and the "period" quality all
technological advances keep latent until they're renovated--viz letterpress,
mimeo, super-8, pixelvision).
Jordan
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Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 09:28:22 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Ed,
Interesting thought about the 18th century and 20 C tech. How so?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 09:30:32 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
yes, rhyme in its original and largest sense means agreement. is reason
then based on agreement?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 08:47:14 CST6CDT
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Hank Lazer <HLAZER@AS.UA.EDU>
Organization: The University of Alabama
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
perhaps consider the movie _Koyaanisqatsi-?
Hank Lazer
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 10:00:46 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
To Everyone Who Has Sent Me A List For My Tech/Aesth Course:
Thank you so very much for your time, energy and most of all information
(data?).
The two winners far and away were Heidegger and Benjamin--both of whom
I feel have been built upon eloquently by more recent others but still
worth the read--though H's two essays, "Building Dwelling Thinking" and
"The Thing" are better as far as understanding tech from the philsoophical
p of v.
I guess that I should--what the heck (gotta practice communicating over
the transom in child-talk--thank you, mr. exon)--send my rather antiquated
syllabus and will do so soon as I get a moment to upload.
Ryan:
Have you seen Alan Bullock's essay (in an anthology about Modernism) on
the effect of photography on everything, ina way how it engendered Modernism?
Lastly, yes I know wht I just said about Heidegger's "Question" but I can't
resist sharing with you this brief passage from the essay:
"Technology . . . is no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing.
If we give heed to this, then another whole realm for the essence of
technology will open itself up to us. It is the realm of revealing,
i.e., of truth."
BK
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 11:28:06 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <MAILQUEUE-101.950628154656.480@ccnov2.auckland.ac.nz>
I'm still new to this list, still feeling my way. I didn't catch the
original post on this subject, but Tony Green's intervention touched a
few issues dear to me heart.
On Wed, 28 Jun 1995, Tony Green wrote:
> I note that in this view, artworks are not consumable, because they are
> inexhaustible. It is not the case, we know, that a painting once seen by
> one person disappears from sight for evermore. We all know, too, that
> the answers proposed by one person to the questions it asks does not
> exhaust its possibilities. Artworks appear to lure one into
> understanding them, which can be a long and arduous process of
> discoveries about, for instance, society, self and about the
> mysterious workings of media. Recuperation and cooptation and
> consumerisation cannot entirely submerge these possibilities, even
> thouh they may reduce the social impact of radical novelty.
True enough, but it seems to me that the same thing could be said about
most meaningful events, given a context in which one is willing to call
that event "art." To put it another way, the cultural framing of an event
as artistic encourages the viewer/reader/consumer *not* to throw it away
-- such frames say, *watch out, you haven't exhausted this yet* -- whereas
other cultural and institutional frames do not. So that the question of
its exhaustibility is not inherent in anything having to do with the work
as such.
I'm sorry, I know the frame is an inadequate and overused metaphor. But
you get the drift. (Tony Bennett (the critic, not the crooner) makes a
related point in *Outside Literature*, only to say there ain't no
outside). My aim is not to say that you *can* exhaust art, but rather to
say that inexhaustibility is not *special* to art, even if it might be
special (for historical reasons) to aesthetic contextualization.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 11:33:26 -0400
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Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Issa Clubb <issa@VOYAGERCO.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
Hi all. Well, seeing that another young lurker has come out of the shadows
emboldens me to also appear. Besides, what better way to join a poetics
list than to list what you read? Anyway, here goes:
Defoe, Leslie Scalapino
At Passages, Michael Palmer
Leviathan, Paul Auster
Resisting the Virtual Life (anth)
about to begin the Decameron
Also the discussion of fuzzy logic and/or poetics has been interesting; I'm
just getting back into some work I did a couple of years ago, in college,
about poetry as a nervous system, taking most of my source material from
recent research into neural networks & optics & holography. I think it is
spotty poetically, & the net.utopia undercurrent, which I was fairly
unaware/uncritical of then, makes me blush now, but I'm still interested in
the way scientists are forced to make use of metaphor to do their work.
Then I like stealing the metaphors, phrases etc. & making poems out of
them.
i.e.,
"The hornlike structures are the last silhouette, the well-known shape of
niches in the structure and operation of the nervous system. Human density
contains specialized internal packing, and thus maximum surfaces, and thus,
while other regions appar to have permeation channels, much of the water
may be bound in a gel-like matrix..."
One thing I find interesting about contemporary science, related to poetics
& art practice in general, is its recent (relative to the arts) discovery
of the "process" as an organizing principle.
Issa Clubb
__________________
Issa Clubb
issa@voyagerco.com
Voyager Art Dept.
(212) 343-4213
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 13:15:58 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In message <2D2E935283@as.ua.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes:
> perhaps consider the movie _Koyaanisqatsi-?
>
> Hank Lazer
and apollinaire's zone? --md
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 16:41:25 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Jordan Davis." <Jordan70@AOL.COM>
Subject: Malley Affair
Dear Everybody,
Juliana Spahr suggested that we drop a line immediately upon reading
something interesting.
_The Ern Malley Affair_ by Michael Heyward, Faber & Faber, (London, Boston)
284 pp., $12.95 US, $19.99 Canada
in paper and available through Barnes & Noble (they have several copies at
the Astor Place branch,) is notable for the clarity with which it deals with
the complexities of taste, literary identity, and experimental writing. The
book seems (from here) a subtle treatment of the literary scene in Australia
in the 40s, particularly of the self-regard of Max Harris and the stance of
his magazine, _Angry Penguins_, that so irritated James McAuley and Harold
Stewart, two poets in an OSS-sounding organization called the Directorate of
Research and Civil Affairs, that they manufactured, with the aid of a
collected Shakespeare, the Concise Oxford Dictionary, a Dictionary of
Quotations, and a US Army report on mosquito control, Ern Malley and his
poems. In an afternoon. Ahem. Anti-hegemony and Edgar Allen (sic!) Poe take
note:
Malley was born in an idle moment that afternoon in the spring
of 1943. After lunch McAuley and Stewart had the place to them-
selves: there were no urgent telegrams to deal with, no research
jobs to finish on the double. Here was their chance to do something
they'd fantasized about, take _Angry Penguins_ down a peg or
two. Another issue was just out--they thought it reached new
heights of pretension. They set to work improvising Ern Malley,
their Primitive Penguin, writing his poems out on an army-
issue, ruled quarto pad, tearing each page off as they filled it.
Heyward is not _totally_ convinced of the merit of the poems, which are
collected in the book (as are Malley's Ernst-ish collages), but he does cite
defenders of the work including Judith Wright, John Tranter, John Ashbery and
Kenneth Koch. Some effects of the hoax were: to unbalance the equation of
value between a work of poetry and the name on it; to suggest, very early on,
the possibility that work generated by chance and mischief (and with
deliberate disregard for taste) can be taken for beautiful and meaningful;
and to turn public attention to poetry (albeit disastrously).
Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.
Love,
Jordan
PS
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 09:21:58 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Thinking of David Kellogg' comments on institutional framing
determining
that what it encloses determines how it is understood,
I wonder whether that framing isn't in fact based on such separations
and distinctions as appear to be fuzzed in the discussion of fuzzy logic
in poetics as opposed to unfuzzy logics supposedly outside poetics.
If as I guess the things designated as artworks are mainly
interesting to look at, hear, whatever, because of their enigmatic
and inexhaustible possibilities, then I'd guess the institutional
formations are useful and effective, in that respect.
That doesn't mean I hope that the actual choices of what is and what
is not included as Art are already decided once and for all. On the
contrary, the canon can and does shift, and the canon is the site of continual
(art) politics. Arthur Danto's sense of something lost and gone
forever cannot hold up the process and maintain the limits of art.
Yes, if you were to isolate (frame) any "event" (i.e.tell the story of
it, photograph it, plan to have it occur, for instance,) -- there
could well be someone sho will regard it as really interesting them,
as enigma, paradox, etc etc, that is, use it as if it were an art
work and want to designate it as such (for inclusion in the canon).
But the warning note sounded from the direction of an institutional
theory about specifying what is and is not art, as I began to, with
respect to fuzzy logic, is something that has stopped me in my
tracks for a good half hour.
Cheers
at some point before Warhol's Brillo Box.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 09:34:27 GMT+1200
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Tony Green <t.green@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ>
Organization: The University of Auckland
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
the Brillo box at the end goes with the Arthur Danto sentence or
sandwich, how scrambled did this get?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 17:48:19 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Rod Smith <AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM>
Subject: fuzzy bookside bedding
Hello poetics,
Suppose it may have been noted, but Joe Ross has poems in _Avec_ &
_Impercipient_ from something called "The Fuzzy Logic Series"-- he's referred
to them as "Ashberyan" and they do seem so. Particularly compared to other of
his work.
Re my own bed:
I'm taken at the moment by _Touch Monkeys: Nonsense Strategies for
Reading Twentieth-Century Poetry_ by Marnie Parsons. U.Toronto Press
overpriced hardcover. Interesting reading of Stein/Zukofsky/Language through
Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, etc. using Kristeva to very good end. Though she
gets Cage wrong I think. But I would.
Also the new Hobsbawm _Age of Extremes_ very excellent.
Really wanted to like Deirdre Bair's _Anais Nin_ --more
interested in Bair than Nin, i.e. why did she choose to write about her
following Beckett & Beauvoir-- but it's fallen to the wayside.
Also I have many copies of _Aerial 8: Barrett Watten_ beside
my bed which I certainly recommend. $12.95 to Aerial/Edge, POBox 25642, WDC
20007. I'll be posting soon a longer description of that as well as backlist
info.
Lightning w/ logic: dogs bark at strangers. Not enough & too
much? or Maybe you had too much too fast. Can the Fuzzy be more than
metaphorical? as Chaos Theory was a hot metaphor in the arts a few years ago.
Not to dismiss description but I want to see it happen. I mean, The
sun _is_ one foot wide. How?
Rod
Rod
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 15:02:01 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: tech/aesth/photography
In-Reply-To: <0099298F.AB3649B4.56@admin.njit.edu> from "Burt Kimmelman
-@NJIT" at Jun 29, 95 10:00:46 am
Burt,
No, I haven't seen the essay you mentioned. Where does it appear?
I found where the Holmes schtuff is; I read about it in an essay
by Stuart Ewen called "Goods and Surfaces". He also wrote another
fine essay on media and aesthetics called "The Marriage Btwn Art
and Culture". Both essays can be found in a book called _All
Consuming Images_, Basic Books, 1988.
I would appreciate the details on the Modernism piece, if you
have them.
Take care,
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 15:09:41 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950629111757.14668A-100000
@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu> from "David Kellogg" at Jun 29,
95 11:28:06 am
Tony and David,
I'm really enjoying these posts on the subject of exhaustability
and its orbiting issues.
I suppose, at some level, this discussion is propelled by how
art plays in a disposable culture. Will the image, as a technological
output, or is the image already viewed as disposable, less
resonant than the word. Rather than driven by the inertia of
art, it appears that we are driven by its dissipation behind us:
art fuelled like Wile E. Coyote--driven because the bridge is
collapsing behind him, not because there is something on the
other side.
Ryan
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:28:05 +1000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Mark Roberts <M.Roberts@UNSW.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Malley Affair
>Dear Everybody,
>
>Juliana Spahr suggested that we drop a line immediately upon reading
>something interesting.
>
>_The Ern Malley Affair_ by Michael Heyward, Faber & Faber, (London, Boston)
>284 pp., $12.95 US, $19.99 Canada
>
>in paper and available through Barnes & Noble (they have several copies at
>the Astor Place branch,) is notable for the clarity with which it deals with
>the complexities of taste, literary identity, and experimental writing. The
>book seems (from here) a subtle treatment of the literary scene in Australia
>in the 40s, particularly of the self-regard of Max Harris and the stance of
>his magazine, _Angry Penguins_, that so irritated James McAuley and Harold
>Stewart, two poets in an OSS-sounding organization called the Directorate of
>Research and Civil Affairs, that they manufactured, with the aid of a
>collected Shakespeare, the Concise Oxford Dictionary, a Dictionary of
>Quotations, and a US Army report on mosquito control, Ern Malley and his
>poems. In an afternoon. Ahem. Anti-hegemony and Edgar Allen (sic!) Poe take
>note:
>
> Malley was born in an idle moment that afternoon in the spring
> of 1943. After lunch McAuley and Stewart had the place to them-
> selves: there were no urgent telegrams to deal with, no research
> jobs to finish on the double. Here was their chance to do something
> they'd fantasized about, take _Angry Penguins_ down a peg or
> two. Another issue was just out--they thought it reached new
> heights of pretension. They set to work improvising Ern Malley,
> their Primitive Penguin, writing his poems out on an army-
> issue, ruled quarto pad, tearing each page off as they filled it.
>
>Heyward is not _totally_ convinced of the merit of the poems, which are
>collected in the book (as are Malley's Ernst-ish collages), but he does cite
>defenders of the work including Judith Wright, John Tranter, John Ashbery and
>Kenneth Koch. Some effects of the hoax were: to unbalance the equation of
>value between a work of poetry and the name on it; to suggest, very early on,
>the possibility that work generated by chance and mischief (and with
>deliberate disregard for taste) can be taken for beautiful and meaningful;
>and to turn public attention to poetry (albeit disastrously).
>
>Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.
>
>Love,
>Jordan
>
>PS
The 'Ern Malley Affair' had a profound effect on poetry in Australia. It is
possible to argue that it was one of the main reasons why modernism
virtually bypassed Australian poetry until the late sixities. It took a
younger group of poets - John Tranter's so-called Generation of 68 - to
storm the journals and over turn the applecart in the late sixities.
Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:33:42 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: READINGS FOR COURSE IN AESTHETICS AND TECHNOLOGY
From: TESLA::KIMMELMAN 29-JUN-1995 20:31:36.96
To: ADMIN::KIMMELMAN
CC:
Subj: aesthetics and technology
To All Tech-Aesthetes:
Here as promised is a list, one which I myself have added to though this is not
reflected here, which I threw together a couple of years ago when I was first
proposing my 20th century Tech and Aesthetics course for college juniors and
seniors:
Auster, Paul, City of Glass.
Barrett, Edward. The Society of Text: Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Social
Construction of Information.
Benjamin, Walter. "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."
Bolter, J. David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of
Writing.
Bullock, Alan. "The Double Image."
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.
Derrida, Jacques, Paraesthetics.
____, The Truth in Painting.
Ferguson, Eugene S. Engineering and the Mind's Eye.
Goldberger, Paul. The Skyscraper.
Hacker, Andrew. Two Nations: Black and White.
Hans, James, The Forms of Attention.
____, The Play of the World.
Hardison, O. B. Disappearing through the Skylight. New York: Viking.
Hindle, Brooke. Emulation and Invention.
Heidegger, Martin., Poetry, Language, Thought.
____. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
Huizinga, Johann. Homo Ludens.
Johnson, Philip and Mark Wigley. Deconstructivist Architecture.
Keller, Evelyn Fox. Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays on Gender,
Language and Science.
Kraus, Rosalind E., The Optical Unconscious.
Landow, George P. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical
Theory and Technology.
Malloy, Judy. Its Name Was Penelope.
Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and Pastoral Ideal in
America.
Miller, Carolyn. "Technology as a Form of Consciousness."
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy.
Orwell, George. 1984.
Perloff, Marjorie. The Futurist Moment.
Rothenberg, David. Hand's End.
Snyder, Gary. Good, Wild, Sacred.
Steinman, Lisa M., Made in America: Science, Technology, and American
Modernist Poets.
Segal, Howard P. Technological Utopianism in American Culture.
Slatin, John. "Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium."
Winner, Langdon. The Whale and the Reactor.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:40:41 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Re.: David Kellogg's reply viz Tony Green: "Paging Chrysto!"
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:42:33 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
Issa,
Have you seen Ark by Ronald Johnson?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:51:30 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech/aesth/photography
Ryan,
I think it's a paperback published at least 10 years ago called Essays
on Modernism, but I wouldn't swear to this. Let me hunt around and get
back to you.
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:56:17 EST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Bullock Essay
Ryan,
the essay is called "The Double Image" by Alan Bullock. In a book called
Modernism. Ed. by Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane. Penguin 1976 (but
still worth the read).
Cheers,
Burt
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 21:05:43 CST
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Charles Alexander <mcba@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
After reading the suggestions for this tech & aesthetics course below
by Ron, and after thinking of my own suggestions and all that I can
remember, I have to ask -- Have there been any suggestions of books by
women other than Johanna Drucker? Wouldn't it be an exciting task to
imagine and teach a course on twentieth century technology and aesthetics
using only texts by women?
charles alexander
>I would also include Society of the Spectacle by Guy DeBord, Writing
>Degree Zero by Roland Barthes, What is Literature? by Sartre, recent
>writing (about PCs and poetry) by Charles Bernstein, Mayakovsky's How
>are Verses Made, Williams Spring & All, Perelman's The Trouble with
>Genius, Fred Jameson on Late Capital
>
>As for Blade Runner (a great movie I've seen 5 or 6 times), I'd use it
>only if/as I used Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K.
>Dick. (Also Dr. Bloodmoney, The Man in the High Castle). Good point for
>talking about essentialism in forms...
>
>Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon, Dhalgren by SR Delaney, Geek Love, work
>by Cage and Duchamp
>
>Ron Silliman
>
>
charles alexander
chax press
minnesota center for book arts
phone & fax: 612-721-6063
e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 23:38:19 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: tech/aesth/photography
In-Reply-To: <199506292202.PAA14673@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Ryan Knighton" at Jun
29, 95 03:02:01 pm
Ammendment to the Stuart Ewen essay: it's "Teh Marriage Btwn Art
and Commerce", not Culture.
sory
Rnya
lt of topsy twodae
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 23:45:42 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Ryan Knighton <knighton@SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Bullock Essay
In-Reply-To: <009929EB.3E6A66C4.35@admin.njit.edu> from "Burt Kimmelman
-@NJIT" at Jun 29, 95 08:56:17 pm
Thanx Burt.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:06:05 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Malley Affair
In-Reply-To: <950629164123_80991829@aol.com>
I have wanted to read that book for a while. In a review I read
somewhere, the reviewer noted, if I remember correctly, that John Ashbery
apparently once used Malley in a final exam for a modern poetry course: the
exam has two poems, one by "Malley" and one by Kreymborg or some other
modernist they haven't read. Anyway, no information is included with the
poems. The question goes like this: one of these is a forgery/parody, one
is by a "legitimate" modern poet. Which one? Write an essay defending
your choice.
I have wanted to steal that question ever since.
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 09:08:48 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
In message <85802.mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes:
> After reading the suggestions for this tech & aesthetics course below
> by Ron, and after thinking of my own suggestions and all that I can
> remember, I have to ask -- Have there been any suggestions of books by
> women other than Johanna Drucker? Wouldn't it be an exciting task to
> imagine and teach a course on twentieth century technology and aesthetics
> using only texts by women?
>
> charles alexander
>
>
yay charles. first i shd say that i was so moved by your earlier suggestion that
the alphabet be considered a technology that i incorporated it (with proper
citation) into a paper i'm working on with a friend --about of all things, women
as textile workers and intellectual workers --in which the question concerning
technology and women looms (pun partially intended) pretty large. my friend is
also a western agricultural historian, and her current research project involves
indigenous women's non-plow agricultural technology. many books on women and
tech have yet to be written, unless, as yuo have suggested, the common
understanding of tech. be considerably widened. --md
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:41:29 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
distinction between rhyme and reason is false; reason is subcategory of rhyme, as is, fer instance, set theory, capitalism. correspondence. conventional ding-ding-ding rhyme is/was to be metaphor for the rest in infinite webbed universe.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:49:18 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Burt (fellow tech prof): re: 18th/20th cent. parallel, we'd better get together for lunch on that one, has to do with current tech strains rooted in the enlightenment and amazing faith in binary thought--i.e., thinking only what's predicated. -ed
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:49:47 -0400
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Issa Clubb <issa@VOYAGERCO.COM>
Subject: Re: bedside reading
>Have you seen Ark by Ronald Johnson?
no... do tell.
issa
__________________
Issa Clubb
issa@voyagerco.com
Voyager Art Dept.
(212) 343-4213
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:53:34 -0500
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Edward Foster <EFOSTER@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
is reason based on agreement, asks burt. don't know what reason is based on but, yes, agreement, correspondance, of a certain kind through, in, of time.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 10:01:21 -0700
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: UB Poetics discussion group <POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "M. Magoolaghan" <mmagoola@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Re: fuzzy bedside reading logic
In-Reply-To: <950629174816_81037585@aol.com>
Dear All,
Not sure what the point of this exercise is--seems kinda pretentious to
me. But hey, I'm as pretentious as the next guy/gal, maybe moreso. So
here's my contribution to the onerous summer reading list:
1) Richard Shusterman, _Pragmatist Aesthetics_, Blackwell 1992. Chap. 2
gives a concise history of the study of aesthetics that might be relevant
to those involved with the thread on art & aesthetics a while back.
2) Hilary Putnam, _Realism with a Human Face_. Pragmatism in a
non-Rortian/poststructuralist key.
3) Theodor Adorno, _Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic_, trans. &
intro. by Robert Hullot-Kenter. Hullot-Kenter read a mind-blowing paper
at BlaserFest '95 on the link between ethics & aesthetics. In view of
the dominance of the market in shaping aethetic values and reception
and the cancellation of the possibility of meaningful ethical reflection
by pervasive multinational corporate capitalism, he asked, what's
the point of beating this non-issue to death? Touche'.
4) Rod Smith's _The Boy_ & Jeff Derkson's _Dwell_ (poems).
5) Aerial 8 (fantastic issue) and Raddle Moon 13, special section on
"Woman/Writing/Theory." And just in: Situation 9 (thanks Mark!).
6) Edgar O'Hara, _Cedazo Tan Chucaro_. Anyone else interested in
this dynamite Peruvian poet?
7) Leslie Anne Boldt-Irons, _On Bataille: Critical Essays._
8) Don Byrd, _The Poetics of the Common Knowledge_. Indispensable wisdom.
9) Paul Fry, _A Defense of Poetry_. Possibly dispensable wisdom.
10) Robert Musil's _The Man without Qualities_. Where has this guy been
all my life? A serious revelation. _Five Women_ (just finished) also
amazing.
11) _The Guitar Handbook_. Oh, and if Hank Lazar can mention Coltrane as
bedside reading, let me mention Mingus' _Ah hum_ and _Mingus Dynasty_,
serious jazz for serious hepcats.
I read these simultaneously while standing on my head and composing
violin sonatas using aleatoric methods derived from chaos theory.
Pretentious enough for ya?
MM
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Smile, reality is exactly as it is represented in our conceptual scheme.
--Norm Mooradian
Michael Magoolaghan ! Box 354330
University of Washington ! Seattle, WA 98l95-4330
Dept. of English ! mmagoola@u.washington.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 12:33:06 -0500
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From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: women & tech
A couple of good books about women and technology by women:
- Lana Rakow, Gender on the Line, about women and the telephone
- Joli Jensen on women and the typewriter, dono't have the title here
Sandra Braman
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 13:54:31 -0400
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From: John F Roche <roche@PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject: Tech and aesthetics/how to teach
I'd add Henry Adams' chapter "The Virgin and the Dynamo," from _The Education_.
Also, Dos Passos, _Manhattan Transfer_, and Tillie Olsen, _Yonnondio_.
Anything by Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis Mumford, or Paolo Soleri.
Critical studies include Miles Orvell, _The Real Thing_; John Kasson, _Amusing
the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century_; Jeffrey Meikle,
_Twentieth Century Limited_; Richard G. Wilson, et. al., _The Machine Age in
America_; and John Kouwenhoven's chapter on "Steel, Stone, and Jazz" in _Made
in America_, Eileen Boris, _Art and Labor_; Jeanne M. Weimann, _The Fair
Women_; and Alan Trachtenberg, _Brooklyn Bridge, Fact and Symbol_..
Also Chaplin's "Modern Times" and documentaries like "The City," "The River,"
"The Plough That Broke the Plains," and "The World of Tomorrow."
John Roche
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 14:37:42 EDT
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From: Lisa Samuels <lsr3h@DARWIN.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Subject: Re: women & tech
In-Reply-To: <199506301733.AA16184@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>; from "braman sandra" at
Jun 30, 95 12:33 pm
for more 'women & tech', see at least some parts of
Donna J. Harraway, =Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The
Reinvention of Nature=
ls
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 14:17:04 -0500
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From: braman sandra <s-braman@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: writing as technology
In-Reply-To: <2ff4056d2c52002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> from "maria damon" at Jun 30,
95 09:08:48 am
Well, just to bring the circle of discussion around, it was Buckminster
Fuller who first talked about writing as the first technology ....
S Braman
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 15:34:36 -0400
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From: David Kellogg <kellogg@ACPUB.DUKE.EDU>
Subject: malley affair
Well of course I was wrong about Ashbery, it wasn't Kreymborg or even a
modernist but *Geoffrey Hill*, and the story, including the full text of
Ashbery's exam question, is told in The Ern Malley Affair pp. 233-4 (which
book I just got from the library to accompany me to Quebec next week --
will be incommunicado, return the 8th.)
Cheers,
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Kellogg The moment is at hand.
University Writing Program Take one another
Duke University and eat.
Durham, NC 27708
kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --Thomas Kinsella
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 14:50:01 -0700
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From: Shaunanne Tangney <st@SCS.UNR.EDU>
Subject: Re: women & tech
In-Reply-To: <199506301733.AA16184@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
how about Elizabeth Gaskell's _North And South_
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 19:15:00 -0500
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From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: women & tech
In message <Pine.OSF.3.91.950630144912.16026A-100000@pogonip.scs.unr.edu> UB
Poetics discussion group writes:
> how about Elizabeth Gaskell's _North And South_
or some stuff by constance penley. donna haraway's been mentioned. she's a
goodie, too.
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 17:38:13 -0700
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
>yes, rhyme in its original and largest sense means agreement. is reason
>then based on agreement?
Burt:
Blake thought so--that's why he was against it (it messed with his notion of
visionary individualism). The scientific paradigm, that product of the Age
of Reason, is basically an agreed-upon set of assumptions about the way the
world works, which becomes the basis for all scientific work (Cf. Thomas S.
Kuhn, _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_.)
Steve
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 17:38:42 -0700
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
>Tony and David,
>I'm really enjoying these posts on the subject of exhaustability
>and its orbiting issues.
>I suppose, at some level, this discussion is propelled by how
>art plays in a disposable culture. Will the image, as a technological
>output, or is the image already viewed as disposable, less
>resonant than the word. Rather than driven by the inertia of
>art, it appears that we are driven by its dissipation behind us:
>art fuelled like Wile E. Coyote--driven because the bridge is
>collapsing behind him, not because there is something on the
>other side.
>
>Ryan
And since Heidegger's name has been popping up lately, I'll throw this in:
"the poet also uses the word--not, however, like ordinary speakers and
writers who have to use them up, but rather in such a way that the word only
now becomes and remains truly a word" ("Origin of the Work of Art")
Tetsuaki Kotoh, interpreting this stance, writes that :
"As *Gerede* ["idle talk" or "chatter"], language...provides comfort and
security by giving everything out as unmysterious and self-evident...[but at
times] language as *Gerede* collapses and is no longer viable...when the
meaning-relations of everyday language collapse as a whole, one is thrown
into an incomprehensible chaos of phenomena without meaning...the world
becomes disconnected from language and floats by itself...one is unable to
speak...the moment of combustion is pure silence beyond where language is
exhausted...there the primordial reality of the world, which cannot be
reached by language, keeps silently boiling up...the language of the true
self emerges from this silence."(in _Heidegger and Asian Thought_, U of
Hawaii Press, 1987)
Steve
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 18:00:29 -0700
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: fuzzy bedside reading logic
>Dear All,
>
>Not sure what the point of this exercise is--seems kinda pretentious to
>me. But hey, I'm as pretentious as the next guy/gal, maybe moreso. So
>here's my contribution to the onerous summer reading list:
So what is this exercise pretending to do that it's not in fact doing?
Just askin',
Steve
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 18:00:37 -0700
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From: Steve Carll <sjcarll@SLIP.NET>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
How about Italo Calvino's _Cosmicomics_?
Steve
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 21:05:57 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Maria,
I enthusiastically recommend for a solid intro. Walter Ong's book
Orality and Literacy (re. alphabet as tech, etc.). I guess the alphabet
is inevitably to be seen as a technology since it comes with writing.
You might want to look at Hand's End by David Rothenberg who builds on
Heidegger; R argues that language is a technology (I'm only half
convinced and doubt I'll go the other half but who knows?).
Also I recommend Evelyn Fox Keller's books especially the earlier stuff
though the later is more elaborated but more hastily written and thus
for me not as satisfying a read. Also Marion Namenwirth's stuff. Both
address women and science / women and technology mostly having to
do with the way the cultures of science and tech work and showing how
scientific knowledge is "skewed" by male perceptions. Very interesting
and at times even exciting stuff.
Burt
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 21:10:05 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic Poetics
Ed,
Reason is subcategory of rhyme out of Plato?
Burt
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 21:11:37 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Ed,
Okay on lunch and 18th century until Heisenberg, no?
Where you wanna eat and when?
Burt
PS Let's do backchannel?
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 21:16:54 EST
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From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" <kimmelman@ADMIN.NJIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: writing as technology
Sandra,
where can I read more about Bucky and writing?
Burt
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 18:31:03 -0700
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From: Ron Silliman <rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: tech and aesthetics / how to teach?
Chax wrote, rightly,
Have there been any suggestions of books by
>women other than Johanna Drucker? Wouldn't it be an exciting task to
>imagine and teach a course on twentieth century technology and
aesthetics
>using only texts by women?
>
Somebody mentioned Avital Ronnell and I think Stein was also cited.
I would add Donna Haraway's _Simians, Cyborgs and Women_ (her
"Manifesto for Cyborgs," included here, was first published in
Socialist Review). Still the best single source on "pomo" topics there
is.
Anything by Sandra Harding on feminism & science would also be of
value, tho she is, by nature, a more "normative" academic author.
Meaghan Morris (sp?) has done work on malls that would be good to
juxtapose with Baudelaire & w/ Benjamin on Baudelaire. (and, generally,
I don't agree that people have gone beyond Benjamin in writing on
technology, with the possible exception of Haraway. Benjamin's work has
brought forth an enormous amount of deritive drivel, attempts at a
politicized MacLuhanism. But it's precisely how he is NOT a MacLuhan
that is of interest.
I'd add Kathy Acker and several poets whose work shows up in discussion
on this list.
There are real questions of genre that also enter into this discussion.
Just a thought,
Ron Silliman
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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 21:22:11 -0500
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From: maria damon <damon001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: boulder CO
a few weeks ago i wrote in response to the question
"what do you want to see happen on the list"
that i wanted a community, a kindred spirit in every port.
Now, i'm setting out on a road trip to boulder CO where I
will spend at least a week, possibly two. any boulderites on the list I cd meet
while i'm there? are there any listers who know of inexpensive places to stay
for a coupla nights? i'm taking at least a week's worth of poetics classes at
naropa, am anxious to keep my expenses down, and haven't yet been able to find
lodgings (nobody answers their phones there it seems). i'm taking laptop and
modem with, so please don't hesitate to post or back-channel me any time in the
next week or so. thanks. i'm also suffering terrible performance anxiety about
taking these workshops, since i did it in my early 20 in the late 70s and got a
bit battered by some macho style criticism. as a "critic" primarily, i feel
inadequate to the task of "producing" poetry --i'm not spontaneous enough, not
hip enough, i'll be exposed as a fraud, etc....so, sorry everyone for this
abjectionist slip, but that's where it's at tonight, june 30, 1995, as i stand
on the brink of whatnext. blaser's going to be there next wk, hope to catch
some of the afterglow of the blaserfest that's been on everyone's lips and
fingertips of late.--maria