========================================================================= Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 14:04:45 -1000 Reply-To: redmeat@lava.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Weigl Subject: Re: I, Nikuko, am Listening to Buffalo Daughter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit nikuko: brush your teeth, dr. mooooog. yours, charles ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 01:35:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: As-Am poetics In-Reply-To: <199801302019.MAA13956@fraser.sfu.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Roy Kiyooka's _Mothertalk_, edited by Daphne marlatt, is indeed published by NeWest. #201, 8540--109th Street, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 1E6. It's $16.95 Cdn. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 06:57:21 -500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: bertha Subject: DEAD WOMEN POETS OF NYC & NYSTATE Comments: To: UB POETICS DISCUSSION GROUP - MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I'm working on a project involving dead women poets of NYC and NYState and would appreciate any names, locales, works, etc. (they don't all have to be Elizabeth Bishop & Marianne Moore). Reply can be sent to UB poetics or wordthur@catskill.net. Thanks. Bertha Rogers Editor, Bright Hill Press ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:27:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Indie Critics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Henry Gould wrote: > .... I would think you'd > be looking for an indi critic too - somebody with taste, judgement, > freedom, and an artistic instinct. I was going to rib you: how can someone with taste, judgment, freedom and an artistic instinct be independent? The deck's loaded! But then I remembered that we are family -par-alliance -- your Mandelstam being brother to my Celan, the poet who has been riding me for 30 years now & who's work gives a yardstick measure re poems-vs.-gab: Celan left slightly under a 1000 poems (oh, let's be pedantic: 974 exactly) while the Collected Prose (2 speeches/poetic statements, an early intro to a painter, a philosophical fiction & a few very small statements in answer to queries) comes to 55 pages -- if you use a largish font. There is also some 1000 pages of poetry translated into German from half a dozen languages: this work and the choice of poets PC chose to translate I take as a more real critical evaluation of poetry thna any number of crit-gab tomes. And, btw, it is always in Celan's translation that I read Mandelstam, not having Russian. -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:51:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: snip MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit k. lederer wrote: > It's funny-- > > My father always told me that "the best work" in English is often > surprisingly full of one-syllable words--Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, > &&&. I wonder with writing like this (which I like)--what to make of that > opinion--I suppose that "innovative" methodologies in poetry have > basically razed all notions of key poetic strategies--razed, > theoretically, the notion of "great works"-- > Katy -- much of that thinking goes back to Pound, I believe, trying in the early part of the century to clean out the Augian stables of Victorian/ Edwardian poetry & their superabundance of mellifluous multisyllabic latinate words by replacing them with sharp brief anglo-saxon ones. The revenge of the latins of course came in the seventies when frog-theory hopped the Atlantic Pond and nested on the lotus leaves of US academia. -- Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:38:33 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: Indie Critics In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:27:51 -0400 from Mandelstam said he wrote not for his contemporaries but for the unknown interlocutor of the future; I think you could say the same for Celan. They wrote poetry for Poetry. I can imagine a person out there who writes criticism for Poetry. The original framers of a subjective set of standards (OM's, Celan's yardstick) may only be ghosts; but this imaginary critic will understand Criticism itself as a genre with certain laws of its own, the first being "keep your distance". I realize my past few posts on this thread have set up an unrealistic ideal, and that poets have every right to be critics too, and scholars will probably write the best reviews, and critics have every natural right to review the work that really GRABS them. But at the core should be the fresh air of independent judgement, or critical self-respect. We should listen for those chimes of freedom & try to bring them forward, rather than march on in the endless grind of marginal/mainstream, tradition/experiment, my group/their group, your hustle/my failure, my publish/your tenure, tendentious business as usual. Criticism can be an art form too, if and when it's brave enough to look at poetry as something other than a career or a kind of translated politics. "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:31:05 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Indie Critics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-02-01 09:54:00 EST, you write: << But at the core should be the fresh air of independent judgement, or critical self-respect. We should listen for those chimes of freedom & try to bring them forward, rather than march on in the endless grind of marginal/mainstream, tradition/experiment, my group/their group, your hustle/my failure, my publish/your tenure, tendentious business as usual. Criticism can be an art form too, if and when it's brave enough to look at poetry as something other than a career or a kind of translated politics. "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." >> Henry, I couldn't agree with you more. However, the program you sketch out is as political as it gets; the difficulties arise, as I'm sure you know, whenever one attempts to determine which god is saying what. Joe Brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:41:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Welcome Message (FYI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Rev. 2-1-98 (This message is sent out to all new and renewing subscribers and it is sent out to the list at the beginning of every month) ____________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Poetics List & The Electronic Poetry Center sponsored by The Poetics Program, Department of English, Faculty of Art & Letters, of the State University of New York, Buffalo Postal Address: 438 Clemens Hall, SUNY, Buffalo, NY 14260 ___________________________________________________________ http://writing.upenn.edu/epc ___________________________________________________________ _______Contents___________ 1. 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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 glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu with the words EPC Press Listing in the subject line. You may also send materials on disk. (Write file name, word processing program, and Mac or PC on disk.) Send an e-mail message to the address above to obtain a mailing address to which to send your disk. Though files marked up with html are our goal, ascii files are perfectly acceptable. If yourword processor ill save files in Rich Text Format (.rtf) this is also highly desirable 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. 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Some announcements circulated through Poetics and the EPC have received a noticeable responses; it may be an effective way to promote your publication and we are glad to facilitate information about interesting publications. ____________________________________________________________________ END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:02:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Kiyooka's _Mothertalk_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Roy Kiyooka's _Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka_ is available from NeWest Press (we were very proud to publish this stunning & fascinating book). In the US, order from General Distribution Services Inc. Toll Free: 1-800-805-1083; fax: 1-800-481-6207; fax for ordering: (416) 445-5967. $16.95. I cant wait to get my hands on _Pacific Windows_! ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whose song is this anyway? Is it a song being sung on the narrow road to the North? Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:19:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: Indie Critics In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:31:05 EST from On Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:31:05 EST Joe Brennan said: > >Henry, I couldn't agree with you more. However, the program you sketch out is >as political as it gets; the difficulties arise, as I'm sure you know, >whenever one attempts to determine which god is saying what. There's a review in the NY Times Bk Review today of a new biography of Keats by Andrew Motion. The reviewer quotes some good examples of the "savaging" Keats took at the hands of the "indie-critics" of his time. That adds another layer of complexity to my modest proposal: Indie critics becoming an Institution. Another point the review makes is that Motion's earlier book on Philip Larkin did not idealize Larkin BECAUSE Motion knew him personally. That adds a 2nd layer of difficulty to my proposal. But I don't think you have to worry about the inescapable politics of subjectivity or objectivity. You just have to believe in the thin silver rope that dangles down from Poetry to the indie-critic. And of course, the only God of Poetry is Keats's Psyche. (I heard she joined the CP in 1924, was ostracized for "unwise associations" in 1926, fled to Zembla in 1928, escaped with Kinbote (Charles II of Zembla) in 1930, became a New Critic in 1932, became an Old Critic in 1934, converted to Catholicism in 1936, went to Poland in 1938, converted to Judaism in 1940, lived in Cracow until...) and lives under a pseudonym - Marie Czinski - in Chicago to this day, where she runs a day care center and writes for the Drawer. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:04:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: CFP: Hybridity & Asian-American Lit (3/1, MLA) (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thopught this might be of interest, given the current As-Am thread. DZ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 23:18:09 -0500 (EST) From: John Joseph Su To: cfp@english.upenn.edu Subject: CFP: Hybridity & Asian-American Lit (3/1, MLA) CFP: " ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF HYBRIDITY" I'm putting together a panel proposal for the 1988 MLA and am seeking submissions. How does contemporary Asian American literature complicate, revise, and offer alternatives to the valorization of cultural hybridity by literary and social theorists? Send proposals with brief vita by March 1 to John J. Su, department of English, university of Michigan, 3187 Angell Hall, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; or e-mail to sujohn@umich.edu =============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Jack Lynch: jlynch@english.upenn.edu =============================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:05:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: snip In-Reply-To: <199802010505.AAA26859@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII terrific flurry of writing posted by names that are all new to me on this list. welcome! and keep posting! the sheer quantity of posts, plus the intensity of recent activities here in loveley london ontario has forced me into lurkdom. we had a reading monday night ("poetry in lotion" -- kevin hehir has his series up and running here again), roy miki and ashok mathur joined frank davey et al. were here for a tribute to roy kiyooka on tuesday, then we had a weekend of readings/performances here this weekend: on friday, terri rowan from trent university, susan elmslie and masarah vaneyck from mcgill, theresa smalec from calgary/london, peter jaeger read from strech conflates (new out from tailspin; review forthcoming), and i gave my first reading yesterday in almost a year, from which i'm still buzzin... katy lederer (welcome to you also! enjoy yr posts...) wrote: "My father always told me that "the best work" in English is often surprisingly full of one-syllable words--Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, &&&. I wonder with writing like this (which I like)--what to make of that opinion--I suppose that "innovative" methodologies in poetry have basically razed all notions of key poetic strategies--razed, theoretically, the notion of "great works"--" this one knocked me off my feet when i first read it a few weeks ago, with its profusion of monosyllabs peppered with the occasional two-syllab give this stuff the drive and motility of a max roach drum solo (and yes they say coolidge was a jazz drummer) -- i absolutely HAD to read it aloud (try it!): "tends loom dial still around on it saying from turn means down forth the fewer this miss its thing back in a matter due a dial an it per pass upward forth see from post at bend on a miss dial a long but close light means those below will like twins around those then just back away still dial forth as like tends" [from "polaroid," in th american tree p. 249] raze away, tom orange ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:10:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: CFP: Hybridity & Asian-American Lit (3/1, MLA) (fwd) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Thopught this might be of interest, given the current As-Am thread. > > DZ By the way, that first word isn't a typo. It's just that most of the discourse on this list has been awfully transparent lately. I was only trying to call attention to the materiality of language. Or something like htat. dz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:28:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: References Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Don't you hate it when somebody says something vaguely provocative (or provocatively vague) and then just leaves? Well, an hour after my last post to the list I was ordered "to hospital" and have just returned, stuffed with strange new antibiotics and a couple of days of breathing oxygen and many, many exotic tests (all of which were negative, happily). There were just under 80 email messages awaiting me, mostly because the digest option of Poetics telescoped 150 into three. Matt, Rod, et al, I may have over or mal-construed Jeff Derksen in my previous message but even at the talk I was trying to articulate in my own words what I took as the gist of his argument, where I am no doubt also doing some appropriations. Tom, Kent, references: Steven Johnson, Interface Culture: How New Technlogy Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate (Harper/Edge, 1997). Johnson went to Brown where he studied semiotics, then Columbia to study lit. Feed is at either www.feed.com or www.feedmag.com. Manuel Castells is by training an urban planner (folks of a certain age in SF will recall that I brought him to Langton to talk during the period when he was advising what was then a new socialist regime in his native Spain). There's a big 3 volume series in progress (two books published), called The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol. 1 The Rise of the Network Society. Vol. 2 The Power of Identity. Both available from Blackwell. I was reading around Absence Sensorium today and agree with Tom totally about Dan. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:52:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: missing generation In-Reply-To: <34D358DD.17CF@concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 9:01 AM -0800 1/31/98, Rachel Loden wrote: >Thanks, Kevin K., Chris S., Laura M. and others for terrific posts. In >the early seventies I dropped out of a very active Berkeley reading and >publishing scene in which I had been increasingly "successful." It >seemed to me that in my milieu (with the important exceptions of Judy >Grahn and Kathleen Fraser) people were repeating themselves, and I was >irritated by the easy applause I was getting. I left the scene cold, >continued to write, and didn't send work out for fifteen years (was >probably also terrified by recognition, but that's another story). Soon >after this departure, I ran into one of the avatars of Berkeley poetry >of the time, a woman who has since gone on to become very famous for >work I don't respect. As we picked up our daughters at daycare she >asked me "So, have you RETIRED?" The edge of sarcasm was evident. > >But no--I hadn't retired. I didn't have words for what I HAD done, but >it's clear now that turning my back was essential. At the time, all I >could do was strap my daughter into her car seat and drive away. > >It's said that we're a nation of salesmen, and sometimes, even in the >odd precincts of poetry, it's just not okay to stop selling. > >Rachel Loden i'm very touched by this and other "personal" (but not creepily so, in my book) testimonials to one aspect of the fabric of the innner life vis a vis writing that gets ver short shrift on the list in general --the stories of silences, pains and struggles, material conditions (AIDS, childrearing, personal disappointments and losses, etc) that make the writing life not solely about "being productive" or being a good poet or a bad critic. gary s, i appreciate your question (what can i, maria, do to rectify the gender and race etc imbalance in the academy) but i must confess to having started a long post that got reactive and defensive, to the tune of "I'm dancing as fast as i can", and i can't do everything i'd like to do, etc. so the martyry, victimy tone crept in, and that's another story. thanks rachel--md ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:55:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Response to Maria's Question In-Reply-To: <01BD2D7A.CA6AAA50@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi gary, here's the response i mentioned in my other post, cleaned up (i hope) and de-martyrized. xo, md At 12:30 PM -0500 1/30/98, Gary Sullivan wrote: >Hello, again, Maria: > >Many kind thanks for answering some of my questions. But it's really the last >one that I think might be most relevant, so I'll re-ask it: Given what you & >others have said w/respect to academia: What, specifically, now, could you >ACTIVELY DO to help further nudge things forward, toward balance? Is there a >way you might be able to use, for instance, the Talisman anthology Dodie >and/or >Kevin mentioned (hi Kevin & Dodie!), like, create an event there at UMN to >somewhat coincide w/its publication? (I realize it would be difficult to get >something approved & planned for March or April.) I bet many of the >academics & >non-academics on this list would be willing to participate in that, or >anything >else for that matter. Though I agree with Henry Gould that the art-product, & >significant advancements of same, is made manifest, largely, by the >individual, >I'm also intrigued by Don Byrd's take, similar to Henri Lefebvre's meditation >on cities, which makes a distinction between "product" (the home-made) and >"oeuvre" (the culturally- or communally-produced), and privileges the oeuvre. >So, again: What, specifically & generally--above & beyond the writings on >Kaufman, Women of the Beat Movement, etc. you've already done--can you do >toward ensuring the oeuvre of the academy reflects gender & racial balance? > >Yours, > >Gary well gary, there's a lot i can do (beyond trying to get readers to come) to try to get my institution to reflect a racial and gender balance. i can (and do) teach courses that represent these interests. when i'm on admissions committees or in positions of power vis a vis hiring or admissions, i can (and do) advocate for this balance. when i serve on prelim or dissertation committees i can (and try to) influence the students' scholarship to include these matters. i exist in the academy, which means i am a woman in the academy, which means i represent different things to different people, hopefully some of them good. as for bringing specific poets out or trying to get 'em published, i can (and do) do that too. i can (and do) recommend projects i know of to the editors at the presses, both literary and academic, here. i could always do more, but as you may or may not know i am a person of limited energy. so i have to take it pretty easy. i do all the things i know to do, which i also believe to be within my capacity, and needless to say it's never enough. xo, md ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:20:41 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: old/young academic/non etc Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:58:34 -0800 >From: LAURA MORIARTY >Subject: old/young academic/non etc >I've been in the Bay Area forever (well since 73) and there has never not >been a lot going on - Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, Big Allis, and Ottotole > are among the mags that were edited by and/or published many in the >supposedly absent generation - jeez some of my best friends are in that >gen - Not to mention myself who at 45 and, in the *younger-person* >anthologies, am the same age as some of the old ones, as well the same age >as of some of the *younger* ones - Since I tend to agree with Laura about just about everything, I won't take issue with her=8Band I do think that there are complex reasons for people to write or not to write, and that it can get tedious, people blaming others for their inabilities to succeed. When I moved to the Bay Area in the late 70s, which was really the beginning of my becoming a writer, feminists told me that the language poets were domineering patriarchs. The queer scene told me that the language poets were domineering homophobes. And I saw many a poet try to get into those lofty ranks and fail, like a moth throwing itself at a light. Many of them ended up feeling burned--some of them were associated with the very magazines, "Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, Big Allis, and Ottotole," that Laura notes were publishing at the time. [Dan Davidson came to all this later on--I'm talking the early 80s before Dan was on the writing scene.] As far as who gained entry among the younger poets, looking back, there was a certain babe factor. Young attractive women such as Sandra Meyer and Johanna Jordahl seemed to be swept up in the beneficient arms of the group (to the dismay, I was told, of some of its female members). It seems to me that it was the young male poets who had the hardest time of it--like Daddy was never going to say, "Come be my equal." No way. Because I was developing a new kind of prose that I could exist within, I was mostly outside of this drama. When I first moved here, Tillie Olsen was much on the scene and there was endless discussion about her book _Silences_, which, for those of you not familiar with old feminist books, is about the reasons women stop writing, with lots of emphasis on Tillie's own life, how her role as Woman kept her from writing for years. There's this one story of hers that everybody read and talked about, about ironing her family's wash, and this idea that ironing somehow kept women from writing was a big image. A few years ago I was talking with someone who knew Tillie Olsen when she was young, and this person brought up the ironing story and said that Tillie never ironed, that her kids were always dirty with wrinkled clothes. My mother, who likes to go on about the condition of the kitchen floors of the various people she knows--the ultimate compliment being "so clean you could eat off of it"--my mother would have been shocked by Tillie Olsen. Recently I was at a dinner with a number of the older writers here in SF and a few of the younger writers, and the olders writers were entertaining the younger writers with battle stories of the poetry wars of the late 70s, early 80s. Some of them were outrageously funny. Memory is retrospective and we all remember things differently. I remember things differently than Kevin, for example--and from Laura and Tom and Gary as well. And many of my "memories" are handed down to me from others' confidences. Katy's received version may be myth, but like all myths, there's some truth to it. I hope someday that a social historian will write the story of the poetry wars. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:53:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: DEAD WOMEN POETS OF NYC & NYSTATE In-Reply-To: <199802011202.MAA22141@catskill.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm working on a project involving dead women poets of NYC and >NYState and would appreciate any names, locales, works, etc. (they >don't all have to be Elizabeth Bishop & Marianne Moore). >Reply can be sent to UB poetics or wordthur@catskill.net. Thanks. Anne Reeve Aldrich 1866-1892 Anna Eliza (Schuyler) Bleecker 1752-1783 Catherine Esther Beecher 1800-1878 Naomi Lebrescu Bercovici 1883-1957 Gertrude Bloede [Stuart Sterne] 1845-1905 Elizabeth Estelle Bogart 1806-? Anna Charlotte Lynch Botta 1815-1891 Mary Lydia Bolles Branch 1840-1922 Mary Dow Brine (c. 1800s) Mary (Edwards) Bryan 1838-1913 Alice Cary 1820-1871 Ella Maria (Dietz) Clymer 1856-? Nathalie Sedgwick Colby 1875-1942 Helen Gray Cone 1859-1934 Jane Elizabeth Dexter Conklin 1831-? Harriet Maxwell Converse [Ya-ie-wah-no; Salome; Musidora] 1836-1903 Lucretia Maria Davidson 1808-1838 Mary Aigne de Vere [Madeline S. Bridges] d.1920 Mary Lowe Dickinson 1839-1914 Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge 1831-1905 Emma Catherine (Manly) Embury 1806-1863 Mary Galentine Fenner 1839- Emily Ellsworth (Fowler) Ford 1826-1893 Julia (Boynton) Green 1861-? Zadel Barnes (Buddington) Gustafson [Axel Carl Johan Gustafson] 1841-? Sophia M. (Almon) Hensley 1866-? Marietta Holley [Josiah Allen's Wife; Jemyma] 1836-1926 Lucy Hooper 1816-1841 Laura Winthrop Johnson 1825-? Jennie E. Jones 1833-? Magdalene Isadora la Grange 1864-? Emma Lazarus 1849-1887 Estella Anna Blanche (Robinson) Lewis 1824-1880 Edith Willis Linn 1865-? Frances Aymar Matthews fl.1910s Alice Duer Miller 1874-1942 Marion Juliet Mitchell 1836-? Marianne (Craig) Moore 1887-1972 Laura A. Sunderlin Nourse 1836-? Emilay Sullivan Oakey 1829-1883 Elizabeth Martha Olmstead 1825-? Anna Campbell Palmer [Mrs. George Archibald] 1854-1928 Dorothy Rothschild Parker 1893-1967 Abigain Jemima Patton [Abby Hutchinson] 1829-1892 Mary Wright Plummer 1856-1916 Elizabeth (Stryker) Ricord 1788-1865 Charlotte Fiske (Bates) Roge 1838-? Anora "Anna" Kathleen (Green) Rohlf 1846-1935 Alice Marlan (Wellington) Rollins 1842-1897 Margaret Elizabeth (Munson) Sangster 1838-1912 Florence Smith 1845-1871 Jane Luella Dowd Smith 1847-? Jeanie Oliver Smith (c.1890s) Mary Louise (Roley) Smith 1842-? Anna Sophia (Winterbotham) Stephens [Jonathan Slick) 1810-1886 Mary Jane (Upshur) (Stith) Sturges [Fanny Fielding] 1828-? Edith Matilda Thomas 1854-1925 Kate "Katrina" (Nichols) Trask 1853-1922 Frances "Fanny" Jane (Crosby) van Allstyne 1820-? Mary (Westbrook) van Deusen 1829-? Metta Victoria (Fuller) Victor [Seeley Register; The Singing Sibyl] 1831-1886 Lucy Hall (Walker) Washington 1835-? Susan Archer (Talley) Weiss 1835-? Ella (Wheeler) Wilcox 1850-1919 Emma C. Willard 1787-1876 Julia Evelyn (Ditto) Young 1857-? Have fun.... Kali ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:52:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: from _At The Motel Partial Opportunity_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Strong eminence, unmistakable, fact-caked. You remember, breathlessly we leapt to the shore; returning breath demarcating our adventure. You propose for relief a vascularised syntype, you on accepting this alight. Stay put by whom. By you, stolid cheer in battery hope for consequence. Nicely, in mini-bursts. Flee the attempt, drive its pedals into its fleeing floor, well I try but you see still raped in pacted value-love, how little trying loves a reciprocated proposal, what can you do. Keep your wrist straight (not twist in or out) and flat (not bent, down or up). Or enable a refreshed sublime, glory never ending as such merely transabdominally fitted for our fate, high snugness. You try with repeated involved intention, remember how carelessly with life we sprinted, over to the secure donkeys, no change, as yet; a shredlet considered, but rejected with sincere amusement. Indomitable, value ridden eminence to raze, even to joy; yet furlongs wider than her hate stretches. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:54:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: from _Hate's Clitoris And Other Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As life were or were not put by distemper inter mixed beyond claim or my correct order, move to remantle gently; be where always and the turn from always lately gives in tact benefit. Still be lied by deed the slight purview beside you says you fit throughout, where finally who knows, is us loved. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:07:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Katy's short words MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Katy, epistemological breakthroughs aside, 'best works' aside, those short words are mighty interesting. For one, they're Anglo Saxon: house, boat, wood, rock, ice, water, man, woman, fire.... They are the things of this world, and were created in a far different time, out of far different impulses than current word-making. They share that, though: word-making. So, it's not that different at all. Now, whether or not one abandons that particular old sense of the world as discrete hunks of spirit and matter shuffled magically around, it is still there. The rest of the language has only acreted around it, as do the products of any innovative methodology we dream up. Those little old words can be approached and reseen with a new methodology. Celan does that. I'd say that was an equally fruitful path: to meet that vision head on. cheers, Harold rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:10:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Re: Indie Critics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Henry's >>If any of you are poets - & I have my doubts - I would think you'd be looking for an indi critic too - somebody with taste, judgement, freedom, and an artistic instinct. The rest is baloney. << You bet. Still, living in an almost perfect literary isolation in a vast land of pulp mills and, at the moment, frozen lakes, and, in a couple months, mud, I wouldn't mind if Henry's circus came to town for a few days. cheers, Harold Rhenisch rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 16:26:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: DEAD WOMEN POETS OF NYC & NYSTATE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It might be of interest that full texts of at least some of these poets can be found at the American Verse Project (http://www.hti.umich.edu/) Kali Tal wrote: > >I'm working on a project involving dead women poets of NYC and > >NYState and would appreciate any names, locales, works, etc. (they > >don't all have to be Elizabeth Bishop & Marianne Moore). > >Reply can be sent to UB poetics or wordthur@catskill.net. Thanks. > > Anne Reeve Aldrich 1866-1892 > Anna Eliza (Schuyler) Bleecker 1752-1783 > Catherine Esther Beecher 1800-1878 > Naomi Lebrescu Bercovici 1883-1957 > Gertrude Bloede [Stuart Sterne] 1845-1905 > Elizabeth Estelle Bogart 1806-? > Anna Charlotte Lynch Botta 1815-1891 > Mary Lydia Bolles Branch 1840-1922 > Mary Dow Brine (c. 1800s) > Mary (Edwards) Bryan 1838-1913 > Alice Cary 1820-1871 > Ella Maria (Dietz) Clymer 1856-? > Nathalie Sedgwick Colby 1875-1942 > Helen Gray Cone 1859-1934 > Jane Elizabeth Dexter Conklin 1831-? > Harriet Maxwell Converse [Ya-ie-wah-no; Salome; Musidora] 1836-1903 > Lucretia Maria Davidson 1808-1838 > Mary Aigne de Vere [Madeline S. Bridges] d.1920 > Mary Lowe Dickinson 1839-1914 > Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge 1831-1905 > Emma Catherine (Manly) Embury 1806-1863 > Mary Galentine Fenner 1839- > Emily Ellsworth (Fowler) Ford 1826-1893 > Julia (Boynton) Green 1861-? > Zadel Barnes (Buddington) Gustafson [Axel Carl Johan Gustafson] 1841-? > Sophia M. (Almon) Hensley 1866-? > Marietta Holley [Josiah Allen's Wife; Jemyma] 1836-1926 > Lucy Hooper 1816-1841 > Laura Winthrop Johnson 1825-? > Jennie E. Jones 1833-? > Magdalene Isadora la Grange 1864-? > Emma Lazarus 1849-1887 > Estella Anna Blanche (Robinson) Lewis 1824-1880 > Edith Willis Linn 1865-? > Frances Aymar Matthews fl.1910s > Alice Duer Miller 1874-1942 > Marion Juliet Mitchell 1836-? > Marianne (Craig) Moore 1887-1972 > Laura A. Sunderlin Nourse 1836-? > Emilay Sullivan Oakey 1829-1883 > Elizabeth Martha Olmstead 1825-? > Anna Campbell Palmer [Mrs. George Archibald] 1854-1928 > Dorothy Rothschild Parker 1893-1967 > Abigain Jemima Patton [Abby Hutchinson] 1829-1892 > Mary Wright Plummer 1856-1916 > Elizabeth (Stryker) Ricord 1788-1865 > Charlotte Fiske (Bates) Roge 1838-? > Anora "Anna" Kathleen (Green) Rohlf 1846-1935 > Alice Marlan (Wellington) Rollins 1842-1897 > Margaret Elizabeth (Munson) Sangster 1838-1912 > Florence Smith 1845-1871 > Jane Luella Dowd Smith 1847-? > Jeanie Oliver Smith (c.1890s) > Mary Louise (Roley) Smith 1842-? > Anna Sophia (Winterbotham) Stephens [Jonathan Slick) 1810-1886 > Mary Jane (Upshur) (Stith) Sturges [Fanny Fielding] 1828-? > Edith Matilda Thomas 1854-1925 > Kate "Katrina" (Nichols) Trask 1853-1922 > Frances "Fanny" Jane (Crosby) van Allstyne 1820-? > Mary (Westbrook) van Deusen 1829-? > Metta Victoria (Fuller) Victor [Seeley Register; The Singing Sibyl] 1831-1886 > Lucy Hall (Walker) Washington 1835-? > Susan Archer (Talley) Weiss 1835-? > Ella (Wheeler) Wilcox 1850-1919 > Emma C. Willard 1787-1876 > Julia Evelyn (Ditto) Young 1857-? > > Have fun.... > > Kali -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:32:38 -0500 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Modernism & PostModernism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David. Thanks for the post and the oppotunity to elaborate. Both modernism and postmodernism for me legitimate themselves by presenting modes for addressing conditions which engage other segments of the culture, be they psychoanalytic, scientific, philosophical, political, sociological etc. This I find to be the chief value of both. What distinguishes modernism is its treatment of fragmentation and specialization that it saw rocking Europe during and after World War I by attempting to remake culture in the poet's image. The moderns attempted to either create a new synthesis and/or to reinvent what they perceived as the old one. In fact there are both of these elements in all the moderns because all the moderns implicitly understood the value of historical context. The problem became to discover a new world within the individual voice of each poet profound enough to compensate for the what was perceived as the bankrupt condition of the world in which they found themselves. There is nothing poetically unique in that except that the moderns (at least the one's I'm thinking of here) used available texts, literally anything they felt relevant, as their actual materials. The thematic unity of David Jones' brilliant poems maintain a certain structural continuity as well by primarily limiting themselves to material from three historical sources. Olson on the other hand was at home with historical shards seeing quite accurately that history itself was only a jumble of fragments upon which any coherence was largely imposed. Pound interests me most, not only because the Cantos are probably the best of all the modernist works, but because even though he more or less invented the modernist mode, possibly coming to certain realizations as he edited Eliot's Ur-Wasteland, he was also ill-suited temperamentally to the task of stanching the fragmentation of a culture. Pound begins the Cantos in medias res almost as though coherence will someday present itself out of the mists like Ithaca to the wandering Greeks. I'm exaggerating a great deal here by ignoring the large poetic and intellectual experience Pound brought to the Cantos, but it still remains that he finally admitted that he could not make them cohere. It was through this ethos of failure of the poem's thematic structure that Pound made his most important discoveries and created the Cantos' most enduring passages. In the end Pound even more profoundly than Olson reflected our true historical condition by incorporating fragmentation and failure in a work of art which in so many ways paralleled the failure of his own personal history. Pound among all the modernists became an historical figure for better or worse and did it, in part, by resisting (to the point of madness) the unsculpturable lessons of his own chosen materials in the end succumbing, like the Cantos, to the very fragmentation he sought to overwhelm. By the time we get to the PostModernist, Olson is their true Penelope because we are prepared to accept the now overwhelmingly obvious condition of fragmentation. This is utterly legitimate; in fact it shows good sense. I'm just not certain that the role of poets is to show good sense. In this era of 'good sense', scientific method, modelling (not of the runway type), standardization, globalization, digitization etc., with all the dreams of the futurist's clean fascist lines realized, poets will have little or no role to play. They will have no role no matter how impeccably elegant their constructs, and no matter how much hermeneutical precision they achieve, no matter how fashionable they make formal and contextual randomness. Any solutions that I might propose would of course embody personal thematic materials. But as with all moderns this thematic material would not be restricted to my own navel. I have more than hinted at some of my concerns in other posts to this site and I intended to elaborate today but that would make this a very long post indeed. I would just like to say that the current attacks on some fifth generation academic heirs to some of the 'counterintuitive' conditions introduced over 80 years ago, should have presented an opportunity for poets too. That it presented no opportunity for those poets that support sciences purportedly pragmatic and authoritarian side is no surprise; the juggernaut hardly needs them. Among poets, individuals versed in the counterarguments are virtually non-existent. Don Byrd's statement that "The only poetry that I know that attempts to face this urgency [e.g. ecological disaster] is sentimental and hopelessly naive" is true but not uncorrectable. Fish, Aronowitz, Hayles et al aren't great; but they've hit upon some legitimate concerns as you can judge from the vehement response among the establishment; an establishment that fears history so much that it positions itself so that it must ridicule and deny the philosophical ruminations of the physicists that birthed their very enterprise. Seems to have some elements of Greek tragedy with the postmodernist philosophers as chorus?---Carlo Parcelli P.S. I can connect the dots between formal systems and ecological disaster but it ain't pretty. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:30:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: criticism rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'd like to second Rod Smith's post about the role of criticism in the work of poets at the present moment--there's no doubt, whether Henry thinks it's a cop-out or not, that having to teach 4-5 courses a semester at three different universities, plus do editorial work on the side, in order to provide myself with a fairly spartan existence does cut into the time I have for writing of any kind--and I know many other poets who have similar circumstances. Nonetheless, having been guilty of a few critical pieces anyway, I'd like to raise some further points suggested by Rod's post and Henry's responses to that and other matters. I think I would add to what Rod says that there is, among the poets he mentions, not simply a reticence about critical writing (although it is that in some cases) but actually a particular RESISTANCE to it that may be important to note. While I think what Juliana Spahr says about the greater attention to male language poets is certainly the case, I also think another related issue is that of the attention afforded to poets who write critically (whether in standard academic form or not) and those who do not do so. With some (but few) exceptions, larger reputations (in the academic world and elsewhere) have gone to those language writers who also publish criticism. Note that, for instance, a poet like Susan Howe has a much larger academic reputation than those, like Carla Harryman, who do not. Indeed I think it's safe to say that for the most part, the attention outside the world of poets that language writing has received has been due more to its criticism than its poetry. This fact, I think, is a direct function of the increasing lack of value placed by the academic world (and of course all of American culture) on anything other than criticism. Indeed, in retrospect one might say of language writing that its writers perceived the decreasing value of writing poetry at all without a critical defense of its value, although at the time it must have seemed that their use of philosphy, literary and cultural theory was allowing them to call into question much of the theoretically naive poetry of that time. But make no mistake: with few exceptions, almost all academic interest in language poetry has come from interest in its IDEAS, which the poetry, if you believe these takes, tends to serve as a kind of vehicle for--language poetry becomes ABOUT the materiality of language, an idea which critics can then discuss. Or poetry serves as a vehicle for discussing IDEAS about social inequality. Such ideas are of course valuable, but they are not the poetry itself, but rather extractions from its engagements, always themselves larger than simply the stating of ideas. Just as one recent for instance, the recent back-and-forth over Ron's Philly Talks far exceeds any recent back-and-forth about Ron's poetry. Poetry itself doesn't per se DEBATE, and therefore, despite being the ostensible reason behind this list, nonetheless serves as an often very shadowy other to what actually goes on here. All that said, I am not myself AGAINST criticism, and think that much of value can be done with it, as long that one recognizes that to engage in it is to engage with a cultural form that has increasing dominance over poetry. Some writers have responded to this dominance by alternative forms for criticism. But I think that for many of the poets whom Rod mentions, it does not go too far to say that they have actively rejected criticism of any form, as being, for the time in which they live, a coercive form of domination which they intend to resist. Does such a position go too far? Perhaps. Does it put them in the position of seeming "anti-theoretical"? Also perhaps, although I think not. So it's not simply lack of time, but in many cases REFUSAL to engage in a kind of writing that, whatever its value, simply seems too polluted by its connection to the active DENIGRATION of the writing they themselves love. I myself have chosen to write criticism for at least two reasons. One is that there are things one worth saying, to me at least, in criticism's possible forms. And the other is, to be quite blunt, the recognition that if I do not express ideas in their dominant form, I may be a short term contract professor/editor for the rest of my life, that is until I can figure out how to get out of the academic business entirely. Yet my own contradictory feelings on this subject have perhaps helped me to undermine myself, since when I do write criticism, I don't really use standard academic form, and so my work has no academic value. Still, I've had enough response from people to recognize that with few but significant exceptions, only poets respond to my poetry, while critical academics will sometimes respond to my ideas. I continue to believe that the poet-critic is a viable role, one that many great people on this list, like A.L. Nielsen, play quite valuably. But whatever we may think THEORETICALLY about the fact that poetry can contain elements of criticism, and that criticism can contain elements of poetry (that is, that the boundary can be undermined), there is no doubt that academic systems (again with rare exceptions) treat this split as though it's absolute. What form should a present moment poetics of criticism take? As many as necessary, it seems to me. Some of this criticism will contain promotion of the work it loves, some of it will not be academic close reading. Henry's attempts to pass off some kinds of criticism (those which deal with the work "directly," or which are closely critical of the writers with whom one is closest) won't hold, I don't think. I myself was glad that Steve Evans recent essay was not a close reading of poetry, and in fact I can think of VERY few literary close readings that don't quickly send themselves to the academic dustbin, my own included. In fact, if one were to take the relation between poetry and poetics as seriously as I believe we should, then that would mean that there might be as many forms for poetics as there would for poetry, indeed it might mean that the two terms in many cases would be no longer distinguishable. But for such a thing to happen, I think that we have to admit that we live in a world where the "observer," encased in the abstractions of "authoritative" and standardized critical forms, represents a way for the bureaucratic maintenace of literature (read: English departments) to continue without its own forms, both of writing and of administrating, being called into any kind of significant question. And for the poet who sees that and says, well, screw criticism entirely, I think we should have a great deal of respect, even if its a position some of us would not in fact share. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 19:09:08 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry gould Subject: Re: criticism rules In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:30:57 -0500 from Mark, while some of the points you make & those I've been stressing over the past week coincide (i.e. the dominance of "talk about" etc.), I get the feeling you haven't understood what I've been saying. The criticism I've been calling for is a different animal from "close reading" as you described it. You seem to think that there's either a positive review or a negative review. I'm suggesting that there's an intuitive, empathetic, informed, and independent criticism possible - which smells the existence of authentic poetry & points out its strengths & weaknesses, its attempts & motives in relation to its achievements. Is this fair to the poor little hard-workin' youngsters just trying to write a lyric? Yes it is - it might push them towards a saltier concept of their OWN real motives, talents, & originality. & it might just notice what they've been trying to do. I'm sorry to hear you're joining Rod Smith in the whimper mode. I don't think the forebears we follow - name whatever good poet of the past you wish - would catch themselves whining about their lack of time. The poetry of the past is in your nearest public library. The poetry of the present is on your computer. The criticism - if you feel called to it - is in your bones. So is the art & the poetry. It flows there close to whatever life you can call your own. The Indie Crit I been asking for runs somewhere between the bought-out academic mode you yourself debunked & the sub-critical chicanery of an unquestioning, unquestionable poetics. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 19:56:20 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lppl@AOL.COM Subject: New from GAZ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit NEW and ACTUALLY Available from GAZ: William Fuller's AETHER Within its 64 pages of bone-rattling bliss, The Fall of Money comes early, dressed as a range-fed Plotinus pearling a 10-ft. balsa dream into a mid- America, midwinter swell. Juggling, amongst others, William Walwyn, Khlebnikov, Schoenberg, Mother Hubbard, and J.H. Prynne, its harmonious verifications exceed all definition as lipid and protein. I am my nickname, Gold is Fire, superfluity punctures acquiescence, and other such ardor-induced critical barker's strategems. There is much that can be said for this book, and, satisfying Olson's wager, ie meaning is that which exists in and of itself, AETHER does say them. LONG LIVE AETHER!! Cover price: $10.00 (plus postage) For the Poetics List, this special offer: $7.00 postage paid To order: GAZ 129 Mountain Avenue Summit, NJ 07901 or email: lppl@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 23:54:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: criticism rules In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII henry, rod didn't seem to be whimpering to me. chris On Sun, 1 Feb 1998, Henry gould wrote: > Mark, while some of the points you make & those I've been stressing over > the past week coincide (i.e. the dominance of "talk about" etc.), I > get the feeling you haven't understood what I've been saying. The criticism > I've been calling for is a different animal from "close reading" as you > described it. You seem to think that there's either a positive review or > a negative review. I'm suggesting that there's an intuitive, empathetic, > informed, and independent criticism possible - which smells the existence > of authentic poetry & points out its strengths & weaknesses, its attempts > & motives in relation to its achievements. Is > this fair to the poor little hard-workin' youngsters just trying to write a > lyric? Yes it is - it might push them towards a saltier concept of their > OWN real motives, talents, & originality. & it might just notice what they've > been trying to do. > > I'm sorry to hear you're joining Rod Smith in the whimper mode. I don't think > the forebears we follow - name whatever good poet of the past you wish - > would catch themselves whining about their lack of time. The poetry of the > past is in your nearest public library. The poetry of the present is on your > computer. The criticism - if you feel called to it - is in your bones. > So is the art & the poetry. It flows there close to whatever life you can > call your own. The Indie Crit I been asking for runs somewhere between > the bought-out academic mode you yourself debunked & the sub-critical > chicanery of an unquestioning, unquestionable poetics. > - Henry Gould > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:02:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Tom Clark's poems & his "Stalin as Linguist" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I thank Carlo Parcelli for his second post, just read. What I want to say today has more reference to his prior post, of 1/30/98. It also refers to Dale Smith's praise of Tom Clark a couple weeks ago, and also to Joe Safdie's post of 1/23/98. Let me preface these comments by remarking that a day on the List is like a week in everyday life. So that, in responding to a post now 8 days old, I am carrying readers two months back, and I realize the chance that you-all still have the Tom Clark poems which Joe posted, is slim. But I am not about to copy them out again. These 3 poems are #s 43,44,and 45 from a work called "Early Warning," unknown to me. I can see the attraction they hold out : they constitute an us-&-them world, where "they" are every bit as despicable as "they" are always known to be, cowardly, secretive and vindictive in their unjustness, and where each reader is invited to identify with the poet to form an "us" that is better than his "they." One is thus offered some thing to belong to, a superior thing where one's allies will be likewise superior. Part of what is superior about the poet in these poems, is his attitude, made explicit in the lines "I'm/ (for instance) as ingenuous and naively trusting/ as your average Sudanese mercenary killer." One appreciates the twist of sense, which requires that one follow the syntax closely. Beyond that, one finds oneself in the presence (as it were) of "nobody's fool." a tough guy (albeit with a heart of gold--else we wouldn't be liking him) a bit like Bogart or Bukowski. Elsewise, there is the wit of analogy that delivers us to this bathetic present after a quick whip around the corners of a Malebolge (or so I feel); there are attractive passages where sound draws attention to meaning (the way "clones" recalls "drone" and picks up on the "stones" and "bones" from lines immediately previous) and by this process provides a further guarantee that this poet has an ear--is listening to his lines as they unfold, is _not_ asleep at the wheel. There is also the thrill, at watching the lid ripped off this particular can of worms. Ah, so just as we suspected, poets are as bad or worse than the rest of this wicked world! And here's a real poet telling us this! But my surrender to these poems doesn't last long. They lack, for one thing, a sense of history. Poets have been banding together against one another for millenia, so what's fresh about this content to excuse the traditionalist form? More of an objection, however, lodges in the wried logic. There is nothing I can find in the poem to ironize that one instance of "I"--I take the poet himself, Tom Clark, to be speaking, to be wanting to be heard speaking Tom Clark's mind.But Tom Clark is known to be (however relatively) a succesful writer, with dozens of books from distinguished houses. "To survive in the 'arts' you've got to be a belonger." Well, Tom Clark has survived, so to what does he belong, to which "school,...club,...cell,...lodge,...party...[or] police force" does Tom Clark owe his survival? His answer might lie in the "outsider" category. I cannot see how, in the dog-eat-dog world Clark depicts, this category is in any way superior or transcendent. How do these lines escape being as self-serving as anything that might be produced from "school, club, cell, lodge, party, police force" or cabal? It is not that I altogether disagree with his picture. It is rather that Tom Clark is no less a cannibal canine than the next man or woman. Despite his apparent admission of this, "to relate to history not forgetting the mistake of those who'd evade it," I do not find I can exit these 3 poems without feeling that Clark believes that he can, and has evaded it. While feeling, myself, that he has not. Because he cannot. Because (as he implies) none of us can. Here I refer my reader to Carlo Parcelli's post of 1/30/98, to his mention of "position/momentum paradox" and "influence of the observer upon the observed." And to what he deduces from these physico-philosophical quandaries : "every participant in the current debate is subject to these limitations [.]" I do not believe it is enough to acknowledge this truth then to proceed as though nothing was altered because of it. It is a truth that calls for constant attention. It explodes the us/them construction, _no matter the empirical persistence of such divisiveness_ . Both Tom and I (as any of you) being subject to these limits, I ask him, "Why do you create a world of attitude where you have always to be branded as 'distrustful, dangerously suspicious' as an 'outsider'--while holding down an inside post with Black Sparrow Press? " It is 35 years since Bukowski was named 'Outsider of the Year' and neither he nor the press that presented him has any pretense to outsider status today. As a category, in any case, 'outsider' today must include so many as to be meaningless. It remains "someone to be," if it's elsewise too scary walking down the street, or boring or whatever : Fred Dobbs. I do not find that the epiphany at the end of the 3rd of these poems is credible: "only makes me laugh and study/ ways to gain a new power over words/that are so stubborn, to steer them into/ clear and simple sentences is a good lifetime's work." It does not dissolve the paranoid portrait of hate and distrust and envy, or not persuasively to my reading. And while it is plain that Tom Clark is consumed by these vices, the poetry would be a big step closer to the greatness certain acolytes claim for it (not to mention Clark himself) were he to _assume_ and _own_ them. I do not think we inhabit times that permit such linear renunciation of indulged miseries. You _are_ what you _describe_ . It's the Tarbaby none can escape. (I use my own knowledge of my own powers of denial, my own hypocrisies, my own envy and mortifcation at exclusion, to decode Tom Clark). No part of any poem is _more_ than any other part. So I find these poems have a short life. They belong to a way of being that no longer works. I read them, as I read Bukowski, with some pleasure of recognition, but end up in nausea, at the impossible perspective : them=bad, us=good. (Even us=bad, them=good would be an improvement, but not for long; the entire divisiveness of these presumptions is deadly.) Perhaps a quick look at Clark's essay published in _Partisan Review_ in 1987 (reworked from an article in _Poetry Flash_ in 1985) and called "Stalin as Linguist" may help clarify what I think Clark needs to do in order to become the poet and intellectual he surely wants to be, given his envy and resentment of intellectuals and most other poets (those not in his club). He begins by citing Brecht : "To write poetry now, even on current events, means to withdraw into the ivory tower. It's as though one were practicing the art of filigree.There is something eccentric, cranky, obtuse about it. Such poetry is like the castaway's note in the bottle." Clark notes that Brecht issued this statement (a kind of renunciation, even in advance, of the contents of the _Selected Brecht_ I keep by this desk) in 1942. But Clark doesn't bring this up to qualify the renunciation; he doesn't point out that in the horror of civilized barbarism peaking in that year, such a sentiment might be heartfelt, but might be revisited and revised later. No, he says that "it has never been more applicable than at present." And to whom then does Clark apply it? Not to all poets, although that was surely Brecht's meaning. Not to himself, although as one writing poetry since 1942, he is just as surely included in Brecht's denunciation as anyone else. No, he singles out just one group, and applies what Brecht meant as general anathema, only to the Language Poets. Thenceforth, Clark proceeds with his attack on _In the American Tree_ . ("Well," as Mandy Rice-Davies would have repeated, "He would, wouldn't he?" -- he had been excluded). The kind of dodge by which Clark attmepts to enlist Brecht to attack Watten in this essay is all too common throughout his evaluative writing. It is dishonest, hypocritical, and bathetic. --Why does he need Brecht's posthumous assistance? Isn't Clark the equal of this situation without Brecht? But of equal importance, this ploy discloses, again, Clark's fantasies of superiority. Brecht damned all poetry, but Clark nimbly escapes the Brechtean thunderbolt. Or he does, in the eyes of such readers as need to turn a blind eye to their master's blindnesses, in order to go on belonging to ...something, and believing in ... someone. As though there weren't already their own intelligence to doubt, and their own intuitions to challenge, and the reading to be done from the list Parcelli supplies, if we are to make a poetry the measure of the going situation of mind and world. Believe in that! David ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:45:43 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again to the List so that anyone wishing to read Tom Clark's poems in relation to my recent posting may do so David Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >X-Priority: 3 >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:12:17 -0800 >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group >From: Safdie Joseph >Subject: Re: The new; Dale; langpo; tradition >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > It's hard to keep up lately -- did all these various and >variously interesting posts about the new vis-a-vis langpo really start >when David Bromige asked, innocently enough, if the list (January '98) >were pro- or anti- langpo? Did David ever really answer my response to >him last week before Dale (and, to a lesser extent, Henry) picked up the >ball? I wonder what percentage of time people actually SPEND on the list >-- an hour a day? More? This is the first chance I've had to respond to >things in a week, other than furtive back-channels . . . > > Anyway, a few thoughts about: > 1) Langpo. Yes, I agree it's sad when people feel they have to >make "large general statements," the distaste for which I suppose begat >Dale's readings of the Watten stanza followed by alternate readings by >cris and David and Joel. My question about that mini-thread is: when did >a poem's capacity to generate multiple interpretations become something >of value? Aren't we really going back to _Seven Types of Ambiguity_ >here? > > I noticed that Ron Silliman, in an essay I generally admired in >_ILS_ #4, had some kind words about the new critics, saying that their >"reactionary aesthetic and political worldview" was the only thing >really at issue; for many of us, though, the whole project of new >criticism was fundamentally unsound (perhaps for reasons of >"organicism") and langpo's early resemblance to that project generated >suspicion. In the same issue, he says "an issue that continually lurks >near the surface (and also near the heart) of almost all language >writing is an ambivalence of intention, of intentionality as such." >Well, call me a philistine, but I'm a little tired of "texts" that >demand such response -- they become too much of an intellectual parlor >game and such practice reduces the poem to the level of a jigsaw puzzle. >When I think of what I VALUE in poetry, I think of information (and not >solely in terms of Don Byrd's valuable example of such); I think of the >skillful demolition of linguistic habit, the "dead, stinking dead, >usages of the past"; I think of music; I think of truth and beauty; but >I never, NEVER think "gee I like this because I think it means one thing >but other people might think it means another." (I thought of this while >listening to the news last night and hearing "suborning of perjury is >difficult to prove because conversations are abstract -- it's difficult >to say what they mean" And if CONVERSATIONS are abstract . . .) > > So for me there's something attractive about what Henry calls >the poetry of plain statement (forgive me Henry if that's not exactly >what you said). Is there anyone on this list who doesn't REVERE early >Auden? As another example (and in answer to a request by David Bromige) >here's some stanzas from a long poem by Tom Clark, "Early Warning": > > 43 > Driven together by a desire to contend > Knowing no life but that of rivalry > They continued to buy and sell each other's souls > Even in this enclave of fugitives > Though allegedly they were dedicated to poetry > Instead it was envy that motivated them > So that they resembled rabid dogs > Traveling in a pack with maximum infighting > The attention of the group turned instantly to any > Renegade who threatened to outdistance > The rest, and this outlaw was collectively attacked > > 44 > Mutual reinforcement's the name of the game > to survive in the "arts" you've got to be a belonger > if not to a school, then to a club, > a cell, a lodge, a party, a police force, > only the party standard bearers > are awarded the laurels of the party > all non-belongers are branded "paranoid" -- > distrustful, dangerously suspicious (i.e., wise > to the condition of being outsiders); I'm > (for instance) as ingenuous and naively trusting > as your average Sudanese mercenary killer. > > 45 > There is no interpretation necessary. > You got to deal with the man the way > the man going to deal with you. No hate > but to relate to history not forgetting > the mistake of those who'd evade it. Sticks > and stones will certainly break my brittle > bones but the stunted drone of the many > poetry clones only makes me laugh and study > ways to gain a new power over words > that are so stubborn, to steer them into > clear and simple sentences is a good lifetime's work. > > Qualifications positively leap to the fore. I'm not claiming >this is one of Tom's best works; what I'm saying is that, for me, the >lack of necessity to "interpret" is sometimes a pleasure in and of >itself. > > 2) The New. I think that the question "Is Ron's alphabet >sequence really new?" is an ultimately degrading question. Shouldn't we >be asking instead "is it GOOD?" People on this list have called it >brilliant but still question its "newness" pedigree: this seems absurd! >Granted, one's relation to The Tradition can be transgressive -- it's >nice to assume that one would have been right there with Wordsworth and >Coleridge in the _Lyrical Ballads_ speaking the real language of men, >that one wouldn't have been among the Georgian poets Pound held up to >scorn in the Imagist Manifesto; as frequently stated in another context, >history is written by the winners. But for me, the anxiety of >determining if one's work is "truly, truly new" is academic in the worst >sense. That way lies fetishism. And again, it focuses attention (only) >on the material text rather than the world and its complicated and >complicating political environment that may have generated that text, >the environment we all return to with hopefully-freshened senses and new >understanding once we pick our eyes off the page. > > Jacques Debrot wrote not long ago about the "the mind's need and >capacity for self-estrangement." Sorry, but it's all I can do not to >feel estranged, and I don't think I'd turn to poetry first if I truly >wanted to feel such. Much too long a post; my apologies to all for that. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:28:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Indie Critics In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I cant figure out what the reference "indie critic" or "indi critic" is referring to. Does it mean a critic from India, or a critic of race cars? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 06:27:15 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: missing generation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Well being somewhat of an ex bay area-ite i feel i must weigh in on the= =0Apurported lack of a scene for folks my age (mid 30s to early 40s now).= i=0Alived in ben friendlander=92s apt for two years after he split to b= luffalot and=0Athe scene well just collapsed. that was 92 to 94. it the= n struck me that=0Athere may have been a reason why ben called the mag Da= rk Ages. i mean i never=0Agot laid. or took hallucinogens with anyone. = or went to ball games with=0Aanyone. =0A=0Athe people my age i remember= seeing, but who never hit on me i will list=0Abelow, along with their se= xual potentcy rating (10 being would be able to let=0Aperson perform fell= atio on me in public, 9 multiple wowies, 8 touched myself=0Awhen i though= t of person, 7 would metally undress person during my bubble=0Abath, 6 di= dn=92t need to use Stay Hard, 5 would not kick person out of bed for=0Aea= ting crackers, 4 didn=92t need to think of Pamela Anderson to achieve org= asm,=0A3 person must wear bag,,, etc).=0A=0A=0Aaiffe murry: 8=0A=0Aandre= a hollowell: 8=0A=0Aeleni sikelianos: 9 (10 if barefoot)=0A=0Acyndey c= hadwick: 9=0A=0Awayne smith: 9=0A=0Asteve dickison: 8=0A=0Anick robinso= n: 8=0A=0Asusan gevirtz: 9=0A=0Acolleen lookingbill: 8=0A=0Asteve farm= er: 8=0A=0Ascott bentley: 10=0A=0Alaura moriarty: 10=0A=0Adodie bellam= y: 10=0A=0Aspencer selby: 10=0A=0Amyung mi kim: 9=0A=0Apat reed: 9=0A= =0Aeileen corder: 8=0A=0Adan davidson: 10=0A=0Akevin mcgee: 8=0A=0A=0A= that=92s all i can think of, but as is said, i didn=92t get around much. = and=0Areally, all i wanted was to flirt with carla harryman, who is pret= ty much off=0Athe scale in anyone=92s book.=0A=0ABill Luoma=0A ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 08:06:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again In-Reply-To: from "david bromige" at Feb 1, 98 10:45:43 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to David B for his reading of Clark and reposting of such. My main problem with these sections of "Early Warning" - though I'm in basic agreement w/ David's reading - is that its very structure seems pretty hackneyed stuff: & I don't mean its not sufficiently "experimental": even among current examples of more traditional uses of structure it just seems kind of tired. Look what happens when you empty it of its buzz-words: "43 Driven together by a blank to blank Knowing no blank but that of blank They continued to blank each other's blank Even in this blank of blank Though allegedly they were dedicated to blank Instead it was blank that motivated them So that they resembled blank Traveling in a blank with maximum blank The attention of blank turned instantly to any blank who threatened to blank The rest, and this blank was collectively attacked" This is what I call "the cliche of syntax". A pretty old story indeed. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 08:03:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: crit rules My apologies to Mark & Rod for the querulous tone. Writing conditions are rarely simple & easy. This is not high school football & I'm not a coach. Auntie Hen was not nagging you for not being critics (Mark is a critic). As I said originally, poets themselves are conflicted with their own interests. This doesn't rule out dem writing crit but a lot of Indie Crits will be glad just to write good reviews. I know there are such people out there. My whole point was to characterize (1) the difference between true Indie Crit and the kind of writing bent on promoting the immediate status/recognition/advantage of a person or group; and (2) the difference between Indie Crit and scholarly writing. By differentiating it I was trying to bring it forward as a force for clearing the air and recognizing poetry when it happens. Indie Crits have a silver rope which attaches them directly to Poetry. You can get them at Adler's Hardware here in Providence; I can't vouch for other places. The one I got though is quite SHORT & doesn't allow me to reach several of the low-growth new species springing up. Is this a problem for other Indie Crits? - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 08:20:30 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jack Spandrift Subject: Re: Indie Critics In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:28:14 -0700 from On Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:28:14 -0700 George Bowering said: >I cant figure out what the reference "indie critic" or "indi critic" is >referring to. Does it mean a critic from India, or a critic of race cars? > George, I checked with the Anglo-Indie "buddy" of mine, Eric Blarnes - he seems to think an "Indie-Crit" is one of those lil critters you find all over India & in some large US cities around the kitchen sink & the breadbox - they are as fast as race cars - at least I think that's what Blarnes was saying - he was calling from Madras & the line was fuzzy - he kept saying - "pass th' gindie! pass th' gindie! em forster, em forster! forster!" Well, I don't know... - Jack Spandrift ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 07:35:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Modernism & PostModernism Comments: To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com In-Reply-To: <34D4DBE6.15E9@ix.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" in this realm let me recommend ira livingston's book, Arrow Of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernism, in the U of MN press's Theory Out of Bounds series. it's hard to characterize and idiosyncratic, but tht is part of what makes it anti-systemic and very charming and smart. At 3:32 PM -0500 2/1/98, R. Gancie wrote: >David. Thanks for the post and the oppotunity to elaborate. Both >modernism and postmodernism for me legitimate themselves by presenting >modes for addressing conditions which engage other segments of the >culture, be they psychoanalytic, scientific, philosophical, political, >sociological etc. This I find to be the chief value of both. What >distinguishes modernism is its treatment of fragmentation and >specialization that it saw rocking Europe during and after World War I >by attempting to remake culture in the poet's image. The moderns >attempted to either create a new synthesis and/or to reinvent what they >perceived as the old one. In fact there are both of these elements in >all the moderns because all the moderns implicitly understood the value >of historical context. The problem became to discover a new world within >the individual voice of each poet profound enough to compensate for the >what was perceived as the bankrupt condition of the world in which they >found themselves. There is nothing poetically unique in that except that >the moderns (at least the one's I'm thinking of here) used available >texts, literally anything they felt relevant, as their actual materials. >The thematic unity of David Jones' brilliant poems maintain a certain >structural continuity as well by primarily limiting themselves to >material from three historical sources. Olson on the other hand was at >home with historical shards seeing quite accurately that history itself >was only a jumble of fragments upon which any coherence was largely >imposed. Pound interests me most, not only because the Cantos are >probably the best of all the modernist works, but because even though he >more or less invented the modernist mode, possibly coming to certain >realizations as he edited Eliot's Ur-Wasteland, he was also ill-suited >temperamentally to the task of stanching the fragmentation of a culture. >Pound begins the Cantos in medias res almost as though coherence will >someday present itself out of the mists like Ithaca to the wandering >Greeks. I'm exaggerating a great deal here by ignoring the large poetic >and intellectual experience Pound brought to the Cantos, but it still >remains that he finally admitted that he could not make them cohere. It >was through this ethos of failure of the poem's thematic structure that >Pound made his most important discoveries and created the Cantos' most >enduring passages. In the end Pound even more profoundly than Olson >reflected our true historical condition by incorporating fragmentation >and failure in a work of art which in so many ways paralleled the >failure of his own personal history. Pound among all the modernists >became an historical figure for better or worse and did it, in part, by >resisting (to the point of madness) the unsculpturable lessons of his >own chosen materials in the end succumbing, like the Cantos, to the very >fragmentation he sought to overwhelm. >By the time we get to the PostModernist, Olson is their true Penelope >because we are prepared to accept the now overwhelmingly obvious >condition of fragmentation. This is utterly legitimate; in fact it shows >good sense. I'm just not certain that the role of poets is to show good >sense. In this era of 'good sense', scientific method, modelling (not of >the runway type), standardization, globalization, digitization etc., >with all the dreams of the futurist's clean fascist lines realized, >poets will have little or no role to play. They will have no role no >matter how impeccably elegant their constructs, and no matter how much >hermeneutical precision they achieve, no matter how fashionable they >make formal and contextual randomness. Any solutions that I might >propose would of course embody personal thematic materials. But as with >all moderns this thematic material would not be restricted to my own >navel. I have more than hinted at some of my concerns in other posts to >this site and I intended to elaborate today but that would make this a >very long post indeed. I would just like to say that the current attacks >on some fifth generation academic heirs to some of the >'counterintuitive' conditions introduced over 80 years ago, should have >presented an opportunity for poets too. That it presented no opportunity >for those poets that support sciences purportedly pragmatic and >authoritarian side is no surprise; the juggernaut hardly needs them. >Among poets, individuals versed in the counterarguments are virtually >non-existent. Don Byrd's statement that "The only poetry that I know >that attempts to face this urgency [e.g. ecological disaster] is >sentimental and hopelessly naive" is true but not uncorrectable. Fish, >Aronowitz, Hayles et al aren't great; but they've hit upon some >legitimate concerns as you can judge from the vehement response among >the establishment; an establishment that fears history so much that it >positions itself so that it must ridicule and deny the philosophical >ruminations of the physicists that birthed their very enterprise. Seems >to have some elements of Greek tragedy with the postmodernist >philosophers as chorus?---Carlo Parcelli >P.S. I can connect the dots between formal systems and ecological >disaster but it ain't pretty. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:22:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: 10E6 by Y2K+70 In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980131002535.00a6971c@pop1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bob Hale asks how goes the million poems project. Henry calls for an independent auditor from within the group. But Henry, that's like putting the director on the board! You would have to leave the group, zap the p-ram, rewind, disappear, watch yr parents make love! True, Barney Newman wrote nice things about birds and city planning. Would it be really be surprising if all these poets we are started talking about subjects other than the goddam importance of poetry? And if there were a paraphrasable meaning there nobody'd mentioned yet (notice: not 'thought of') would that be terrific. And if there suddenly proved to be poetry written before 1855, what of it? Short and long words, short and long vowels, no meaning but in variation. We are natural consultants. Or we're fluoridated consultants, either way, there is a common willingness to speak and to speak well about everyone else's business. Good! Now get yr sloppy knees out of Providence and start scraping at court like the rest of the masquers. Loshar haron, baby. Bob, I am subcontracting not by seance but by association. It still looks like forty poems a day for the next seventy years. Worst case is I become pharaoh and conscribe the entire output of the umfahs. Best case is the third bureaucratic dream and all that's asked is what Bruce said at your party, a thousand lines. Ah but then to have to Scheherazade for my supper and write each line a book of stone eight miles long! And call it the Strand. Henry, the truth is more important than novelty or mere quality, right? Why assume nobody knows this? If it's rollerderby you want, I can lend you my skate key. I'd rather make sense or nonsense of other arts and sports. The best criticism is living hell. OK enough stale syntax from me J ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:16:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: criticism rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey, Henry, thanks for your response! But I think you will note that the criticism which you call for actively does exist, if you have been paying attention. I think you HAVE been reading the various publications in which such criticism appears, but if you have not, let me point you in its direction: magazines like Talisman, Witz, the forthcoming Tripwire, Poetic Briefs as it appears on occasion, Chain, and others of longer and shorter tenures. I'm a little bit mystified as to why you think such criticism does not exist, unless you think that your broad generalizations that all contemporary critical writing is mere puffery is itself a statement of more than mere generalized anti-puffery. Do you really believe that what's going on with poets today can simply be reduced to a kind of mutual careerist ass-kissing, in which you yourself may be the only voice calling for a legitimate self-criticism? As an Ernest Hemingway character once said, "Isn't it nice to think so?" On the subject of "whining," while it's clear to me that the erosion in the quality of American work life, in the academic world and elsewhere, must primarily be laid at the door of the changing nature of American business-life (with its increasing consolidation of wealth at the top, and its elimination of stable jobs and a startlingly high rate of speed), I do feel that the sustained political ignorance of tenured English professors like yourself towards the rapidly decaying quality of academic life bears some responsibility for the troubled (some might say disastrous) conditions of life in English departments. Thankfully, some tenured English professors have both the grace and the courage to see that attacks on the tenure system, and the reliance on part-time professors with minimal salaries, no benefits, and very little ability to protect themselves from administrative whims represent a threat to their own, perhaps limited autonomy. That legitimate critiques of this system seem to you "whining" make it perfectly clear to me to what extent you remain part of the problem, rather than the solution. So, while I actually do enjoy your poetry, I'm afraid that cannot override the fact that in terms of those of us presently involved in seeking change in the academic world, your presence on this list, and in academic life, represents an ultimately negative force. And this is a great shame, because your energy and intelligence, both of which are clearly great, could be useful rather than destructive. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 21:55:32 +0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Weldon Sithiwong Subject: Art forms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you Henry Gould: "Criticism can be an art form too, if and when it's brave enough to look at poetry as something other than a career or a kind of translated politics." And, of course, poetry must be brave. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:06:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: criticism rules In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark Wallace's longish post was the first in this very prolific thread that I felt much positive response to. Great set of comments, Mark!! I read most things I hear of, that examine Langpo and other non-mainstream work,...and I strongly agree, that ideas rather than poetry have received most of the attention from acadominating commentators...And *the idea of the poetry*...Since the official verse kult'ure is very threatened by stuff that sounds interesting, they are much happier talking at and about the work, than listening to it, and engaging it. In general I've little use for Henry's indie productions, that have garnered so many expressions of support. I think the best and most useful and productive criticism and theory, is being done by poets. When I think of an indie critic, I picture Helen Vendler. Mark Prejsnar @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:35:39 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: The Necessity of Moral Perception I think that David's problem with Tom's poems is similar to problems some people have had in response to some of Henry's naked posts. The assumption is that both Tom and Henry stand aside from the critique they make. Others find find these judgments invalid because the authors offer their complaints from an isolated realm above that which they judge. But I think these blunt observations and direct engagements of moral and artistic values put both writers in extremely vulnerable positions. Anyone who offers a moral critique of an orthodox community risks the same rebuttals and diminishments that these exacting and demanding words provoke. Know one likes to be reminded that poetry, like everything else in this country, functions and has functioned on the same market values as business. PR is necessary or your poems risk an obscurity matched only by your life. Voices such as Tom's are reminders that you've got to have something to sell, something to bring for your business efforts. Promotion is not necessarily the problem, it's what you're promoting that raises eye-brows. Tom's and Henry's courage to state the obvious that few are willing to admit, however, is essential if poetry is to maintain a resemblance to its ancient roots and the possibilities of power those roots teach. Tom's critique stems from survival, anglo and monosyllabic. He sacrifices your good opinions of him in order to remind you that there are reasons besides our vanity and positions in the world of mammon to engage the art of poems. By the way, he may have quite a few books on the market, but he's made little profit on them, especially in recent years. At a time when other poets of his generation are accepting the rewards of their labor, Tom suffers under a weight of indifference due to the weak-minded and patheticall y fearful troops of the poetic apocolypse. Anyway, his dedication, vulnerabili ty, and willingness to speak clearly against the machines of our markets has cost him more than a perceived lack of irony. Selling is the game, but you've got to have something of value. That's why business is a more honest trade these days, if less glamorous and more tedious Dale Smith ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:44:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: criticism rules In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On Feb. 2, Mark Wallace said: > That legitimate critiques of this system seem to > you "whining" make it perfectly clear to me to what extent you remain part > of the problem, rather than the solution. So, while I actually do enjoy > your poetry, I'm afraid that cannot override the fact that in terms of > those of us presently involved in seeking change in the academic world, > your presence on this list, and in academic life, represents an ultimately > negative force. And this is a great shame, because your energy and > intelligence, both of which are clearly great, could be useful rather than > destructive. So much for the dialectic. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:33:23 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: crit rules/doesn't rule Jordan thinks I'm calling for an internal auditor so we can have more ISN'T POETRY GREAT writing. Jordy, you may be suffering from list- overdose, and it sure is nice when people think of things other than poetry to write about (like Newman). But you lookin in the wrong side of the mirror. Indie-critics aren't part of our club. Mark thinks I'm just generalizing by pointing out the diff between independence & individual/group puffery. I guess we see things differently. I have said all along that yes there are indie crits out there. But I stand by my exaggeration that 99% of what you find in the journals we jump on is either puffery or somebody's academic churn-out. Funny how it gets called "politics". Mark, I don't think you or Rod or anybody's whining. I apologize again for that. What I do say is that your tenure wars or job hassles, or Rod's take on the munchin'prole status of his generation - WHILE IT MAY BE OF GREAT INTEREST & EVEN AFFECT A POETIC STYLE - in no way proves that a poetry is beyond criticism. & I repeat: Indie crits will be the best readers of what's out there. p.s. I am not a tenured prof. I am a non-professional member of the SEIU Library Workers Union at Brown Univ. Library. I process book orders for a living & to pay child support, have been through a long strike in the not-distant past, & probably make about as much $$ as you do. Does that make me ineligible for your prof-wannabee club? Sorry, teach. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:58:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Situation #16 now available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Situation #16 is now available. It features the work of Anselm Berrigan, Anne Blonstein, Brenda Coultas, Jacques Debrot, Henry Gould, Jen Hofer, Brian Lucas, William Marsh, Chris Vitiello, and Terence Winch. Situation is edited by Joanne Molina and Mark Wallace. Subscriptions are $10 for four issues or $3 for back or single issues. All submissions must be accompanied by a SASE. Make checks payable to Mark Wallace. Send submissions or subscriptions to Situation, 10402 Ewell Ave., Kensington, MD 20895. We feel that this is one of our very best issues, so we hope you'll check it out. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:34:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: missing generation In-Reply-To: <69293074.34d5ad95@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bill! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:45:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: NIKUKO@SEXXXYGIRRRL.CUM Subject: Nikuko's Service Offer ###################################################################### ###################################################################### Hey Guys, Write Me! I'll do _Anything_ Just for You! - Nikuko!!!!! Nikuko p0 tc-1-119.fukuoka 2:10AM 0 w {k:14} cat passwd | grep nikuko nikuko:*:13788:22:Nikuko:/home/n/nikuko:/bin/ksh daemon:*:1:1:Nikuko1 System Daemon:/:nologin, comeon! sys:*:2:2:Nikuko1 Operating System:/tmp:nologin, comeon! bin:*:3:7:Nikuko1 BSDI Software:/usr/bsdi:nologin, comeon! operator:*:5:5:Nikuko1 System Operator:/usr/opr:nologin, comeon! games:*:7:13:Nikuko1 Games Pseudo-user:/usr/games:nologin, comeon! news:*:9:8:Nikuko1 USENET News:/var/news/etc:nologin, comeon! demo:*:10:13:Nikuko1 Demo User:/usr/demo:nologin, comeon! (I'm not Nice!) ###################################################################### # Format of headers # ###################################################################### H?P?Return-Path: <$g> Nikuko, eh? HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.$?_($?s$|from $.$_) $.by $j ($v/$Z)$?r with $r$. id $i$?u for $u; $|; $.$b H?D?Resent-Date: $a H?D?Date: $a H?F?Resent-From: $?x$x <$g>$|$g$. H?F?From: Nikuko, eh? $?x$x <$g>$|$g$. H?x?Full-Name: Nikuko, eh? $x # HPosted-Date: $a # H?l?Received-Date: $b H?M?Resent-Message-Id: <$t.$i@$j> H?M?Message-Id: <$t.$i@$j> # # ###################################################################### Script started on Tue Feb 3 02:23:09 1998 $ ps PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND 17546 p0- I 0:00.00 leave, Nikuko! +59 20548 p0 Ss 0:00.12 -ksh (ksh) 20580 p0 I 0:00.00 leave, Nikuko! +59 24744 p0 S+ 0:00.01 script ll 24756 p0 S+ 0:00.01 script ll 24757 p1 Ss 0:00.01 sh sh, shhh, Nikuko! (ksh) 24959 p1 R+ 0:00.00 ps $ exit Nikuko! Script done on Tue Feb 3 02:23:20 1998 ###################################################################### ###################################################################### ###################################################################### ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:56:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Benedetti Subject: Re: Toro Toro In-Reply-To: <46A2D9E54EB@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII "Beware of the bull with three horns" or "Don't try to milk a bull" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:22:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Re: Indie Critics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>I cant figure out what the reference "indie critic" or "indi critic" is referring to. Does it mean a critic from India, or a critic of race cars? Neither. It means "In dee Critic", meaning where to insert the poem. This reader is reminded of the German "Das Geld hier einwerfen!", stalwartly translated on coinboxes throughout Germany as "Throw your money in here." Harold Rhenisch rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:17:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Toro Toro In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On Feb. 2, David Benedetti wrote: > "Beware of the bull with three horns" > or > "Don't try to milk a bull" > Bully for you, David! Did you know, funny coincidence, that Uruguay's most famous contemporary writer is named Mario Benedetti? Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:16:44 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jack Spandrift Subject: Re: Toro Toro In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:56:47 -0700 from >"Beware of the bull with three horns" > or >"Don't try to milk a bull" Bene, bene, Benedetti - thou too hast read the parable aright, along with Brother Dale. For he that hath nought whereof to sell, behold, thou shalt find him doin' the street-shell game on Broadway. Behold, this is a hard saying for yon poets; hard indeed is the sell whereof I speaketh. For it would be better for them not to sell at all; lo, this is the Walter Mitty safeliest way of yon courageous Henry. - J amongst the Books Of... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:30:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "p. durgin" Subject: M. A. Tata Comments: To: Jack Spandrift In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sorry to clog the way with this sort of request (again), but would anyone have a snail-mail address for Michael Angelo Tata (poet featured in the latest issue of Mass Ave.)? I've gone and lost it. Thanks. Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:52:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: gerald burns Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Howdy. If anyone can tell me who the literary executor/copyright holder to Gerald Burns' estate is, please back-channel me. Your help is appreciated. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:45:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain On the contrary, I think Michael has just improved Tom's poem greatly! An excellent method of "making it new," Michael! Just leave it up to the reader's imagination -- make the reader the author -- isn't that one of the very tenets of the poetry you admire? I'll have some more to say about David's lively, intelligent yet ultimately un-generous post (which didn't, by the way, deal with the reason I posted those stanzas) as soon as I can -- but really, emptying verse of its so-called "buzz words" -- its CONTENT! -- to call attention to its syntactical framework seems an empty exercise indeed. > ---------- > From: Michael Magee[SMTP:mmagee@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 2:06 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it > available again > > Thanks to David B for his reading of Clark and reposting of such. My > main > problem with these sections of "Early Warning" - though I'm in basic > agreement w/ David's reading - is that its very structure seems pretty > hackneyed stuff: & I don't mean its not sufficiently "experimental": > even > among current examples of more traditional uses of structure it just > seems > kind of tired. Look what happens when you empty it of its buzz-words: > > "43 > Driven together by a blank to blank > Knowing no blank but that of blank > They continued to blank each other's blank > Even in this blank of blank > Though allegedly they were dedicated to blank > Instead it was blank that motivated them > So that they resembled blank > Traveling in a blank with maximum blank > The attention of blank turned instantly to any > blank who threatened to blank > The rest, and this blank was collectively attacked" > > > This is what I call "the cliche of syntax". A pretty old story > indeed. > > -m. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 16:41:44 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Tom Clark's moral perception Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dale, and the matter of the Brecht quote that Tom so immorally misapplied? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 20:21:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available In-Reply-To: from "Safdie Joseph" at Feb 2, 98 02:45:36 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hmm...this seems "ultimately ungenerous," I thought mine was a somewhat interesting excercise, I rather like my version, pot-shots at the "poetry I admire" aside, now that I think about it; but, oh well, back to my little laboratory of "experiments" (that's what the poets you admire think of the poets I admire, isn't it?). Last of my tit-for-tat, -m. According to Safdie Joseph: > > On the contrary, I think Michael has just improved Tom's poem greatly! > An excellent method of "making it new," Michael! Just leave it up to the > reader's imagination -- make the reader the author -- isn't that one of > the very tenets of the poetry you admire? > > I'll have some more to say about David's lively, intelligent yet > ultimately un-generous post (which didn't, by the way, deal with the > reason I posted those stanzas) as soon as I can -- but really, emptying > verse of its so-called "buzz words" -- its CONTENT! -- to call attention > to its syntactical framework seems an empty exercise indeed. > > > > > > ---------- > > From: Michael Magee[SMTP:mmagee@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU] > > Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 2:06 AM > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it > > available again > > > > Thanks to David B for his reading of Clark and reposting of such. My > > main > > problem with these sections of "Early Warning" - though I'm in basic > > agreement w/ David's reading - is that its very structure seems pretty > > hackneyed stuff: & I don't mean its not sufficiently "experimental": > > even > > among current examples of more traditional uses of structure it just > > seems > > kind of tired. Look what happens when you empty it of its buzz-words: > > > > "43 > > Driven together by a blank to blank > > Knowing no blank but that of blank > > They continued to blank each other's blank > > Even in this blank of blank > > Though allegedly they were dedicated to blank > > Instead it was blank that motivated them > > So that they resembled blank > > Traveling in a blank with maximum blank > > The attention of blank turned instantly to any > > blank who threatened to blank > > The rest, and this blank was collectively attacked" > > > > > > This is what I call "the cliche of syntax". A pretty old story > > indeed. > > > > -m. > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 21:22:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ben Carrelis Subject: Celan/Montale/Olson/Coatlicue On a certain level - like one of the allegorial levels in Dante's INFERNO, where each character is both irrefutable and damned - Henry the Bull's call for a independent critic - the Voice of the General Reader - is relentless & undefeatable. The most cogent counter-argument simply points out the limitations of that argument while augmenting its undeniable results. Here in Sydney a study group has evolved into four separate groups in dialogue, each based on a different subject: Celan, Montale, Charles Olson, and the as-yet unread (for the most part) Mexican poet Guada L. Coatlicue. The impact of Coatlicue's feminist subsumption & rewriting of the three male Euro-American authors within a historical-personal _allegoria tota_ is difficult to encapsulate; but in relation to Henry the Bull's Papal Bulls, one comprehends perhaps more deeply than was intended the meaning of "bull darkness". To summarize: poetry, along with music & visual art, has enacted a trajectory of autonomy over several generations; the most intense and productive creations require a SPECIAL READING alert to the allegorical motives of the text. Henry"s "washed clean" indie crit is to the "bought out" poet-as-con-artist as Coatlicue's poet-as-hermetic secret is to Henry's indie-crit. I.e. the indie-crit as representative of an aesthetic surface response will never penetrate the interior motive of the poet-as-such. The best way to support this argument is to "read" the last 7 days of Henry the Bull postings in allegorical fashion. At the center we find the poem "Hieroglyph" which enacts a finally unproblematic response to "Papa" the housebuilder & (Judaic?) Sphinx-interpeter; an unproblematic reading in isomorphic equilibrium with the unproblematic relationship of "independent critic" and "honest poem". Place this in the context of the total U.S. culture in which the "Papa" in the White House faces a "sementically" charged analysis of shattered presidential authority: we have a compensatory complex which begins to reveal the tragi-comic ENACTMENT of American reality. From the Sydney perspective, down here way south of the Meridian & out of the loop & very close to Poe's TEKE-LI-LI, what surfaces is America's dramatic AGON-EKSTASIS - the fateful LACK of an independent high culture expressed as the acting-out of theatrical DISASTER at all levels crossing the Black VERNal JORDAN toward.... ??? Minstrel showbiz???? - Ben Carrelis, a.k.a. "Edgar Allan Poe" p.s. one should point out, however, that, whatever the limitations of Henry the Bull's analysis, our counter-analysis only reinforces his "prophetic" enunciation. Why? Because if the presence of independent criticism is a tragic phantasm of the Bullish imagination, then the "blurb" as expression of appeal to the "general reader" (i.e. "this poet is going to change your world") is DOUBLY fantastic - and, in Henry's words, a true example of CHICANERY. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:16:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: pumping poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Patrick Pritchett wrote (wisely I thought): > In other words, in the mutually interdependent > world of the ten kajillion things, you can't have the one without all > the others too. What you're really talking about is the end of a > capital-based society - the end of the opposition between purity of > vocation and Mammon - and a return to a gift economy. Well not really a > return, but... Ja love, y'all. Lovely moment on public radio, caught with half an ear: William "Daddy bought me a magazine" Buckley is being interviewed and the mostly very deferential interviewer screws his courage to the sticking place and asks: "Do you see any contradiction between your Christian faith and your faith in capitalism?" Buckley continues to wax grandiloquently about this and that, ducks the question. Time runs out and the interviewer tries one last time: "So--do you see any conflict between your faith in Christianity and your faith in capitalism?" There's an awkward silence and then Buckley says "Noooo. If I saw any contradiction, I'd have to give up my faith in Chris--I'd have to give up my faith in capitalism." God bless the child, Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:34:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Uh, (Was Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe Safdie (hi neighbor) wrote: >I'll have some more to say about David's lively, intelligent yet >ultimately un-generous post (which didn't, by the way, deal with the >reason I posted those stanzas) as soon as I can Since Dale Smith began his recent tirades by calling David Bromige a "self deluded, lying coward" & a "guardian of banality", among other things, I think a willingness on Bromige's part to continue ANY form of dialog with Smith is more than generous. If Smith were interested in engaging in a discussion about the issues it might come of something, but given that his argument reduces to "if you knew him, you'd know that what he writes is what poetry is & always has been, nothing else is poetry & anyone who can't see this as the ultimate truth is an stupid asshole", I'm not sure that I can foresee any generous end to the current discourse. A charmingly romantic gesture on Smith's part, I suppose, but not the way to try to talk among folks who are, whether he likes it or not, peers. &, Joe, David's reading of the Clark passages you quoted deal EXACTLY with the reasons you posted those stanzas, by pointing out that >the >lack of necessity to "interpret" which you find to be >a pleasure in and of itself is only unnecessary if you buy into the presuppositions of the writer's "plain statements." See you on the block, Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 23:23:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: First Intensity In-Reply-To: <34CF4DEE.2A3E@acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone know the mailing address for First Intensity? Thanks, Katy katherine-l-lederer@uiowa.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 13:47:36 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: contents MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII does anyone know what will be included (i.e., the table of contents) of the soon to appear 2 volume Library of America Gertrude Stein? presumably not the entire text of Making of Americans but at around 1100 pages per volume it might be quite alot of everything else. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:38:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Response to Maria's Question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yow! I'm sorry, Maria! I really never meant to put you on the defensive, nor did I mean to imply you weren't dancing as fast as you can. I know you are! My question was probably very naive; I was under the assumption that your original question ("anyone else noticed imbalance?") implied longing for some more-than-individual push toward rectification. Further assumption being that any such nudge might, at this time, be communal, as opposed to individual, effort. I thought you were calling to arms! & was kinda prompting you further, wondering if you had some ideas you were tempted to throw out. Anyway, putting you on the defensive was really the last thing on my mind. Forgive me! Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:15:16 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Re: criticism rules Yeah. And what are these changes? Do you mean the ones that continue to turn the academy into a dalliant intstitution of artistic and intellctual pretensions? The continued attempts of jealous critics to remove power from the poets in order to fulfill their own uncreative hunger for the poet's intuitive abilities? The continued removal of literature from practical interprative skills? The alienating and continued building of obscure hermetical theories of vain and deluded investitures? I may be wrong, but part of the academy's failure is that it has allowed critics to distort the balance of art and interpretation *and quite a few of the poets bought into that*. The problems facing those of us who want to know something, regardless of which side of the academic fence you're on, is practical. As poetry and criticism blur into a more and more similar form, the power of both weakens. But perhaps I'm missing something of this new academy. I hope so. Maybe I'm wrong. Steve Evans is certainly a dedicated critic. Maybe there are others with devotion to poetry, rathe than to ideas about it. Rar. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU In-Reply-To: On Feb. 2, Mark Wallace said: > That legitimate critiques of this system seem to > you "whining" make it perfectly clear to me to what extent you remain part > of the problem, rather than the solution. So, while I actually do enjoy > your poetry, I'm afraid that cannot override the fact that in terms of > those of us presently involved in seeking change in the academic world, > your presence on this list, and in academic life, represents an ultimately > negative force. And this is a great shame, because your energy and > intelligence, both of which are clearly great, could be useful rather than > destructive. So much for the dialectic. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 22:25:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Baker Subject: Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Blank to Blank-- This Threaded Way M pushed Mechanic feet-- or, as Lehman reports from the mainstream: Iowa City was said to be the place where all aspiring poets went, their poems written on water, with blanks instead of words Mark Baker ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:46:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport, anthropology-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Rachel, Interesting issues--I suppose that I would have to hone in on the question you ask about the connection between Nick Regiacorte's work and Josh May's work. This kind of questions brings up something really fascinating--I think--something that answers to a lot of the recent posts on the list about criticism in general-- I think (as a sometimes-critic, and also as a poet) that good criticism is usually a homage to one's own taste-- If I like a writer's work, I want people with whom I share "discourse" to be familiar with that person's work-- I want that person to be able to publish a book if that's what he or she wants to do-- I want to convince people that this writer is as good as I think he or she is so that, finally, I can further enjoy this person's work and share it with others-- If I like a writer, I want to "share" that writer with others-- Now of course my take on the writer is going to be highly situated--highly personal-- If I set up camps or groups of writers--it is merely according to my whims, my take on their work-- Perhaps (as is true of my magazine) I would try to put writers in various contexts together so that certain aspects of their work might be highlighted and (inevitably) other aspects of their work be de-emphasized-- I don't think there's anything wrong with this approach-- Personally, I was trained in anthropology as an undergrad-- I also majored in English-- In the early 90s, the two disciplines shared a lot of concerns (vis-a-vis Foucault, Greenblatt, Derrida etc). I always found that the debates that were current in anthro at the time applied readily to issues in lit crit. How can an observer even pretend to be objective about another culture (poetic?)? How can one still write ethnography (criticism) in the context of the "new" "world system" (or, alternatively, the newly homogenizing, and increasingly market-driven "academic economy")? How can anthropologists continue to practice ethnography in light of their traditional (whether purposeful or no) collusion with colonial forms of oppression-- e.&&&& All of these questions resulted in some pretty simple answers: The anthropologist should try to make it clear to the reader--to the best of their ability--their situation, where they're coming from. Pretentions toward objectivity were abandoned in some regards in 80s and early 90s anthro-- The anthropologist should, perhaps, focus on cultures that have been considered heretofore not so "strange" or "exotic"--science, governement, stock-market culture, gamblers in Vegas etc. (Mimesis and Alterity by Michael Taussig is interesting in this regard--) (This issue echoes, I think, this notion that critics are inevitably the "oppressors"--that somehow it seems that only poets should be "allowed" to write criticism--or perhaps that poets should never be allowed to write it--the binary is similar in either case) The anthropologist should keep a number of ethical imperatives in mind at all times: Do not "study a culture" to its detriment-- Do not collude with the "forces of oppression"-- Do not make claims about a given culture (poetic?) without having done the necessary research-- Etc. I think that most of the above leads to one conclusion in particular-- The best way to encourage fair and ethically sound criticism (of a culture--of a book of poetry?) is to encourage all different types of people to practice such criticism-- Rather than push objectivity, perhaps we should try a new approach--and push subjectivity. That's how I do my criticism--that's how I edit. Sometimes my "subjectivity" demands that I publish work that isn't "perfect" because it still contributes to a larger dialogue in which I may be "subjectively" interested-- I try to have braod representation (race, gender, poetic camp, ability to craft a poem etc) in my magazine because it is in my best interest--intellectually and socially--to encourage an array of voices, approaches, poetics--even "abilities." I like to put Nick R and Josh M together because of my highly subjective interest in some of the tonal strategies they both employ-- This is because I am very interested in tone in my own writing-- I also mention them because I go to school with them and am forced to engage with their work on a daily basis-- These are not, in my view, things to be ashamed of--they are partialities, yes, but they are my partialities--partialities that I would never expect anyone else to take on--though I would love it if they did-- Yours, Katy (Mrs. Robinson Upstairs) **** On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, R M Daley wrote: > katy > weez down here in the midwest shur are grateful for 't all the talkin > bout things in-teelekchul- > > but just to ask which generation is it that one belongs to ifn this is the > case - ie, what if this seemingly necessary definition-by-generation is > not so necessary seeming? in this belly of the beast even, arent there > first years, second years, undergrads, not-in-the-workshoppers, undergrads > in workshops, ... - just to say that maybe a 'critical' take understood > via singular constructions such as generational, or gender, arent so > useful finally- and like you say, how bout looking at the 'work' (as > opposed to the 'play'??)- in this respect, > i'm interested in the link you imply in work such as nick regiacorte's and > that of say, josh may - both of whom have writing around, maybe not in the > 'successes' form of a book contract or even a single publication, but > beyond this, what gives? - in the end, what is the motivation to say 'this > work belongs in this camp, this one belongs over here'? reviews aside, > which do seem to function purely as PR (have never personally read a > scathing review of any book, poetry), 'critical' work, as you have said > before, can certainly be that kindo f thing taht tells you as much about > how a reader reads as a writer writes - well that these are more closely > related in process (read: simultaneous) than the terminological > distinction between 'reader' and 'writer' ('critic' and 'writer') makes > them out to be > > rd > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 07:18:27 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L.MacMahon and T.R.Healy" Subject: short words Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The discussion of short words and so on recalled Beckett's poem _Thither_, the title being a wry mini-doc on nationalism. In Ireland th will most likely be pronounced d or t. So, many of my compatriots would pronounce it _Tidder_ (Titter is possible but not used. In Gaelic it would be pronounced h giving us combinations like _Hitter_ and so on.) Also, few enough Catholic Paddies would know the word, which appears in _The Book of Common Prayer_ and the Authorised Version, thus fencing off the main religious menus. Denoting motion towards, this out-of-date couple of syllables, shibboleth and thumbnail history glosses many of the circles around which we, in this bi-partite island, have gone and are likely to continue going for some time. Randolph Healy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 16:32:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: CCCP (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In case anyone's interrailing ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 17:47:35 +0000 From: Peter Riley To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Subject: CCCP Update: Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry April 25th-27th at Kings College Cambridge We have had several setbacks in programming, notably the death of John Forbes, so there are still some gaps and uncertainties. At present the line-up looks like this--- Roy Fisher, Anthony Barnett, Helen Macdonald, Keston Sutherland, Peter Gizzi, Lee Ann Browne, Peter Blegvad, Lisa Jarnot, Olivier Cadiot, Philippe Beck (unconfirmed), Michelle Grangaud (uncomfirmed). Plus a John Forbes memorial, music(?) and an exhibition of visual arts by or associated with Tom Raworth. Booking enquiries: Ian Patterson, Kings College Cambridge, CB2 1ST. 01223 331196. email: ikp1000@cam.ac.uk John Tranter has asked me to mention that anyone interested to find out more about the late John Forbes could consult the Jacket Magazine website http://www.jacket.zip.com.au where in issue #3 there is a poem by Forbes, and will later be a memorial section. /Peter Riley ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 06:00:18 -0500 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: First Intensity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit k. lederer wrote: > > Does anyone know the mailing address for First Intensity? > > Thanks, > Katy > katherine-l-lederer@uiowa.edu Lee Chapman Editor First Intensity P.O. Box 665 Lawrence, KS 66044 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 08:04:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport, anthropology-- In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:46:07 -0600 from On Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:46:07 -0600 k. lederer said: > >I think (as a sometimes-critic, and also as a poet) that good criticism is >usually a homage to one's own taste-- > >If I like a writer's work, I want people with whom I share "discourse" to >be familiar with that person's work-- > >I want that person to be able to publish a book if that's what he or she >wants to do-- > >I want to convince people that this writer is as good as I think he or she >is so that, finally, I can further enjoy this person's work and share it >with others-- > >If I like a writer, I want to "share" that writer with others-- > >Now of course my take on the writer is going to be highly >situated--highly personal-- > >If I set up camps or groups of writers--it is merely according to >my whims, my take on their work-- Katy, I think the position you've laid out here is probably standard for the field at the moment. And if you read Ben Carrelis' interesting post from Australia, you'd understand that your position is the "safest", considering, as Ben pointed out, the dense, hermetic and highly autonomous nature of contemporary work & the need for a deep grounding in it before "standards" of criticism can be applied. Nevertheless, if this is the best that editors & critics can do, I find it rather sad. My call is for a truly independent criticism - in which critics maintain a concept of poetry-in-general - ADMITTEDLY SUBJECTIVE & developmental, perhaps, but still, a PERSONAL STANDARD - which allows them to write in truly critical fashion: i.e. as an interpreter, perhaps even a praiser, of work, but NOT as an advocate. Such independent criticism would require a style and approach which equals in originality & rectitude the individual standard "Henry" said is a requirement for making poetry itself ("the word on the line"). I am not trying to debunk your kind of criticism; in a multifarious world of deep writing such exploration is natural and necessary. All I am asking is that you & others not DENY the very possibility of a criticism which MEASURES (by its own standards) rather than PROMOTES a particular writing. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:14:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: "indie" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The term "indie" is a net term, or so I think -- it claims to mean "independent" but really just means "individual" and refers to sites on the net where someone offers opinion or analysis on his own hook, i.e. not as part of an institution. Examples from the industry I know best include the sites of Dave Winer www.scripting.com/davenet/ or Doc Searls' Reality 2.0 at www.searls.com/r2.html or Chris Locke(aka Rage Boy)'s site at http://www.rageboy.com. (These are all friends of mine, so if you don't like their work tell somebody else) There are equivalent sites by the hundreds of thousands I'd guess on every topic. Tom Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:04:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Tom Clark's Brecht quote Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I didn't read Tom Clark's Partisan Review essay; I didn't even hear much about it at the time. Hence I wasn't aware that he'd used Brecht's 1942 quote as a way to characterize language poetry. David Bromige's excellent post on Clark, which btw exemplifies the ways a poet can be a wonderful critic, does not all the same go far enough in showing us the nature of this ugly smear (and, by implication, this ugly man). All I know of the essay (& I expect never to know more) is its title (reference to Stalin) and the Brecht quote (reference to Hitler). That's enough for me. The title quotes a poem by Watten (I don't remember which, however), which itself refers to the fact that Stalin authored (i.e. somebody wrote for him) a pamphlet on Linguistics. It's among my books somewhere, but I can't locate it easily enough to find and supply its title. I'm sorry not to be able to be more specifically helpful re: Barry's poem or Stalin's pamphlet. Obviously, the reference to this work or self-positioning of Stalin is the entry point to whatever world of reference, thought, analysis, feeling is opened up in Watten's line (for an analysis of which however I'd need the context at hand). Obviously, also, it is *not* a simple naming of Stalin as a linguist. Neither simple identification, nor any kind of naming of an authority. Nor is it a characterization of language. It would appear, however, that this is how Tom Clark wants to use it. He wants to use it against his fellow poets. The moreso given his really quite disgusting appropriation of Brecht's words to the identical purpose of harming his fellow poets. My work is associated with the group of poets Tom Clark sought to flavor with the odor of fascism, of Stalinism. It's more than a decade ago, but I can smell the brush he waved past my face. I'm also a Jew. Most of my family on my father's side and many on my mother's side were killed by Nazis. I don't mind if Tom Clark sells himself; I don't even mind if he sells himself to the devil. And I don't think my personal history condemns his foul words. But, I do tend to take this kind of thing a little personally. I don't want that brush in my face. For a long time, I studied with Hannah Arendt, author of Eichmann in Jerusalem. I struggled with the conclusion to that book, in which Arendt at once acknowledges the immorality of punishment by death and at the same time approves the execution of Eichmann. I went to see her in her office with my struggle. I well remember her words that there are people who exclude themselves from the social contract by their actions, who put themselves outside of moral consideration. It was in this way that she could accept and even underline the execution of Eichmann. What exists on that scale also exists on a smaller scale. I'm not suggesting that Tom Clark put himself outside the moral order -- not at all. But that intellectual act was outside the moral order, hintingly associating poets around him with fascism and Stalinism and by contrast obviously positioning himself in the role of resist- ance, the moral role -- selling himself in that role -- I find that disgusting. For every person who pushes himself forward at another's expense in this manner, there are acolytes waiting to line up behind the effort. I'm sorry to see Joe Safdie and Dale Smith line up behind Tom Clark's effort to position his poetic career on the backs of his peers. Perhaps Joe at least will say that his relation to this is more complex; that he is not a supporter of the position. I don't think Dale has that option, except by way of changing his mind (which would be welcome). I also don't think, however, that there is a more complex or nuanced response available. Casuistry is not a noble art of mind. Tom Clark's undeniable verbal skill and nimble imagination don't militate against purpose; they only make it more necessary to resist that purpose. Tom Mandel Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 08:49:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Winter poetry in Boulder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Poetics. Rachel Levitsky here to report on last Thursday's Left Hand Reading. Listling Patrick Pritchett, Naropa student, Megan Marsnik, and CU Creative Writing chair, Marilyn Krysl took the audience, which was mostly sitting on the floor since to our surprise the previous owner took the chairs with him when he moved and sold the building to health food giant Wild Oats (no one is sure of future fate of reading space, but all signs suggest there is reason to be worried) like I said, we took a ride around the world, from Pritchett's journey into chemistry of the fire burns Joan of Arc--it's parallel agency with language: "Fire as verb as noun as endless altar and supercollider" to Megan Marsnik's (four) stories covering (inhabiting) the terrain of domesticity, ending with a scathing, hilarious spoof on the halo of reception that pregnancy receives, the assumed bliss of a woman in that compromised state. to Marilyn Krysl's exquisite economy of words, crossing with the economy of India, her travels in South Asia, including a few month's work at a Mother Theresa hospice, turned into careful, eerily passionate collection of poems _Warscape With Lovers_ which earned Krysl the Cleveland State Poetry Center prize. The Series has four open slots, and the second to last was filled by Marc DuCharme, who blasted out an incredible collaboration, the collaborators name I can't remember, that wouldn't quit, as wouldn't Marc's brilliant presentation. What I remember is the poems repeatedly expressed desire to end itself, but couldn't, without covering all of it. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:35:17 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Uh, Actually, my 'argument' said that there is a vulnerability in these poems that David did not acknowledge. If I confused this with Tom's personal life it's because I find poetry to be personal as well as a public statement, reflec tion or expression etc... And the 'us-them' bianary I'm accused of does not originate with me. Scroll through the archives of this list and you will find plenty of examples in which Tom or Ed have been branded with various stigmatas that place them well outside of the poetics community shared by many here. I d on't know what else it takes to 'engage' on this list, by the way. As a 'peer' I think I've responded with generous efforts to explain my positions. Maybe referring to David, in a moment of anger, as a self-delusional coward, etc. was out of line. But as a guardian of... something...I still have no doubts. Just as I, for whatever reasons of dementia and devotion, respond in kind to comment s I find floundering in the usual realms of accepted platitudes. If that's 'charming' or 'romantic' great. And by the way, those poems Joe posted, though apropos to the discussion, aren't very representative of Tom's work. But I doubt if this list would generate much discussion about his poems on Keats, say. Or other unfashionable subjects like that. The syntax might be too 'uninteresting.' As if sintax was the only measure of verse. The sensual pleasures of language - the music, the rhythm - can be as entertaining as the mental stimulation of syntax. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Joe Safdie (hi neighbor) wrote: >I'll have some more to say about David's lively, intelligent yet >ultimately un-generous post (which didn't, by the way, deal with the >reason I posted those stanzas) as soon as I can Since Dale Smith began his recent tirades by calling David Bromige a "self deluded, lying coward" & a "guardian of banality", among other things, I think a willingness on Bromige's part to continue ANY form of dialog with Smith is more than generous. If Smith were interested in engaging in a discussion about the issues it might come of something, but given that his argument reduces to "if you knew him, you'd know that what he writes is what poetry is & always has been, nothing else is poetry & anyone who can't see this as the ultimate truth is an stupid asshole", I'm not sure that I can foresee any generous end to the current discourse. A charmingly romantic gesture on Smith's part, I suppose, but not the way to try to talk among folks who are, whether he likes it or not, peers. &, Joe, David's reading of the Clark passages you quoted deal EXACTLY with the reasons you posted those stanzas, by pointing out that >the >lack of necessity to "interpret" which you find to be >a pleasure in and of itself is only unnecessary if you buy into the presuppositions of the writer's "plain statements." See you on the block, Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 08:20:59 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Henry, I admire your commitment tp this issue! In the last post you wrote:All I I am asking is that you & others not DENY the very possibility of a criticism which MEASURES (by its own standards) rather than PROMOTES a particular writing._ And if a poetry does _measure up_ (to my own critical standards), do I then _promote_ it? Would expressing too much delight in the work count as promotion (if I were a critic with a large audience)? For all the occasional swipes it's fashionable to take at Helen Vendler, I must admit that I love reading her on Wallace Stevens--in large part because she's so clear about how much she loves his work. Isn't that how we often explain art to each other--by pointing out the qualities that delight us? Karen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:45:59 -0700 Reply-To: David Benedetti Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Benedetti Subject: Re: I can't see now by forwarding this In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joe--you can't really separate the syntax from the content. On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > I'll have some more to say about David's lively, intelligent yet > ultimately un-generous post (which didn't, by the way, deal with the > reason I posted those stanzas) as soon as I can -- but really, emptying > verse of its so-called "buzz words" -- its CONTENT! -- to call attention > to its syntactical framework seems an empty exercise indeed. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:46:53 -0700 Reply-To: David Benedetti Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Benedetti Subject: Re: criticism rules, or non-rules In-Reply-To: <9802021207113.4892326@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Dale M Smith wrote: > As poetry and criticism blur into a more and more similar form, the > power of both weakens. > I find the opposite. When poetry expands to "include" criticism--or critical tactics--it gets more interesting for me, and loses nothing, only gains. Postmodern criticism is sometimes poetic. Postmodern poetry is sometimes quite "critical." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:59:10 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Wallace Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: criticism rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My apologies to Henry Gould for misstating his academic position, and for my harshness of tone, although undoubtedly there were aspects of what he said that were upsetting to me. Actually--how do these rumors get started?--somehow or other I was completely convinced that he was a university professor. In any case, I receive the poetics digest and didn't see that Henry had probably posted a more generous response to the debate BEFORE my last response. I wouldn't have continued in the tone that I did if I had known. I think I would still suggest, Henry, that there may be more independence in the poet-critic voices than you quite give credit for. We don't simply promote each other, without critique, although it seems to me that there are certain environments in which this kind of promotion is called for--and sometimes this list is such an environment. Rather sharp debate continues among poets and poet-critics of all stripes, and some of the writers whose recent work I admire highly I have also been critical of when the situation seems to call for it. I have a huge amount of admiration for Ron Silliman, but when I think he's wrong about something, which is actually rarely, I'm quite ready to say so. The criticism of Steve Evans is of profound current importance, yet I have published and posted commentary which also includes those places where I've found his arguments less than sufficient, to me at least. And I think many other poets and critics are involved in this sort of activity also. Ultimately, I don't think the difference is between critics with cultural and poetic investments and those free of such investments, but between the various kinds of investments that all critical writing has--its loyalty or not to certain writers, its involvement with the industry that makes its own existence possible, perhaps its financial concerns. I agree with Dale Smith that writers need to "come clean" with the underpinnings of their various allegiances, but I don't think that there is some independent space outside of those allegiances. Does that mean such criticism is biased, as well as fractious, etc? Certainly. But I frankly see such overt partiality, if handled with an attempt to make such partiality clear rather than a hidden subtext, as essentially a positive force. Indeed the only way it could not be such would be if we still entertained the fiction that a purely "objective," unattached criticism could possibly exist. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:00:50 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: contents MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Schuchat Simon wrote: >does anyone know what will be included (i.e., the table of = >contents) of >the soon to appear 2 volume Library of America Gertrude Stein? > >presumably not the entire text of Making of Americans but at = >around 1100 >pages per volume it might be quite alot of everything else. > I would love to know as well. I hope that some of the collected works that = didn't appear in that Yale GS will be available. Also, I think Brewsie and = Willie is a must of the later work. And since the Van Vechten collection = did Tender Buttons and the Autobiography of ABT in their entirety, it = seems pointless to duplicate these. How about Geography and Plays in its = entirety? Hey, Library of America, if you're listening, give us Geography = and Plays! Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:32:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Response to Maria's Question In-Reply-To: <01BD2FD7.6D442AE0@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:38 PM -0500 2/2/98, Gary Sullivan wrote: >Yow! I'm sorry, Maria! I really never meant to put you on the defensive, nor >did I mean to imply you weren't dancing as fast as you can. I know you are! My >question was probably very naive; I was under the assumption that your >original >question ("anyone else noticed imbalance?") implied longing for some >more-than-individual push toward rectification. Further assumption being that >any such nudge might, at this time, be communal, as opposed to individual, >effort. I thought you were calling to arms! & was kinda prompting you further, >wondering if you had some ideas you were tempted to throw out. Anyway, putting >you on the defensive was really the last thing on my mind. Forgive me! > >Gary Sullivan >gps12@columbia.edu see, i've just enacted one of the ways in which i don't get more done; i bristle, misunderstand something, and communication gets weird. no harm done gary yr a pal and i appreciate your style. when i asked the question --anyone else noticed imbalance --it was, of course, coming from someplace, but the question was not simply rhetorical; i.e. the aanswers, particuarly laura moriarty's, have indicated that there is probably more to the picture than i'm figuring into the picture. as for communal strategies, hmmm; i don't know what i cd do, at the U. not that many folks are interested in the kind of writing i'm interested in (poetry); my grad seminars usually draw abt 4 students and are in constant danger of cancellation (meaning that i'd "owe" the U a course somewhere down the line). The amount of $ it costs to even bring one writer (expenses plus honorarium) is prohibitive. the amount of arranging and organizing it takes to bring even one writer is, for my limited energies, prohibitive. after the series you participated in, i was told that in the future i shd focus on more "nationally known" figures (i should've retorted "known to whom?" or, "some of these folks, like erik belgum, are *inter*nationally known") --but what "nationally known" figure wd come for the miniscule $50 honoraria you all got? (which brian and i secured by listing y'all as "human subjects" on the grant proposal). anyway, there i go whining again. sorry! again, no harm done. xo, md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:32:37 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: criticism rules In-Reply-To: <9802021207113.4892326@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:15 PM -0600 2/2/98, Dale M Smith wrote, in connection w/ a general riff about the academy's attact on poetry: >... The continued removal of literature from practical >interprative skills? *** it gets worse, dale. there are those of us who don't even believe in the concept of "practical interpretive skills" as opposed to other methods of apprehension. -md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 13:23:13 EST Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: hen Comments: Originally-From: Karen Kelley From: hen Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi Henry, I admire your commitment tp this issue! In the last post you wrote:All I I am asking is that you & others not DENY the very possibility of a criticism which MEASURES (by its own standards) rather than PROMOTES a particular writing._ And if a poetry does _measure up_ (to my own critical standards), do I then _promote_ it? Would expressing too much delight in the work count as promotion (if I were a critic with a large audience)? For all the occasional swipes it's fashionable to take at Helen Vendler, I must admit that I love reading her on Wallace Stevens--in large part because she's so clear about how much she loves his work. Isn't that how we often explain art to each other--by pointing out the qualities that delight us? --- I have no quarrel with this. I think a serious critic will explain HOW a particular work measures up to WHAT standards; that these standards will be fairly perceptive, consistent, and informed by wide reading; and that the critic will display a certain CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE which manifests itself in ORIGINALITY - i.e. not the writing of a protege, a worshipper, a party-line adherent, or a hack. Tell me something about poetry in your review; don't just blindly glorify your subject. The whole thrust of this thread has been to alert people to the amount of "overdetermined" pure peddling that goes on, and that if you're an honest critic, you are separating yourself from ALL that; you have a choice when you sit down to write. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:40:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport, anthropology-- Comments: To: "k. lederer" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Katy Lederer makes some fine points here, which I see operating in support of Don Byrd's very sensible suggestion that one should review one's friends. Why not? DH Lawrence wrote (contra Eliot) that all good criticism is subjective. Of course, TSE was subjective too - he just liked to pretend he wasn't. Sound familiar HG? That all good criticism involves a sympathetic reading of a work seems to me axiomatic, if I may make that pronouncement. Where is the so-called "independence" in that? It's less a matter of personal Olympianism than it is of "like to like." Nietszche rightly mocked the cult of the individual - "you claim you are free? Then show my your master stroke!" (Crude paraphrase from _Zarathustra_). To rephrase my earlier comment, Henry Gould wants to rescue the poem's original use-value from its current market-value. Grandiosity notwithstanding, this is a laudable goal. But as Mark Wallace pointed out in his excellent post, there's plenty of critical work already out there which accomplishes just that and to cite some specific examples, I'll mention again Hank Lazer's _Opposing Poetries_ which is as judicious a book of criticism as one could ask for. There are others. John Taggart's _Songs of Degree_ comes to mind. Criticism which is not intensely partisan is very probably not worth a damn (though this too can be carried to an extreme) and unless I'm way off, you seem to agree, Comrade Hank. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: k. lederer To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport, anthropology-- Date: Monday, February 02, 1998 1:46PM I think (as a sometimes-critic, and also as a poet) that good criticism is usually a homage to one's own taste-- How can an observer even pretend to be objective about another culture (poetic?)? Rather than push objectivity, perhaps we should try a new approach--and push subjectivity. Yours, Katy (Mrs. Robinson Upstairs) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:17:05 EST Reply-To: Mark Wallace Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Henry Gould Comments: Originally-From: Mark Wallace From: Henry Gould Subject: criticism rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark Wallace wrote: Ultimately, I don't think the difference is between critics with cultural and poetic investments and those free of such investments, but between the various kinds of investments that all critical writing has--its loyalty or not to certain writers, its involvement with the industry that makes its own existence possible, perhaps its financial concerns. I agree with Dale Smith that writers need to "come clean" with the underpinnings of their various allegiances, but I don't think that there is some independent space outside of those allegiances. Does that mean such criticism is biased, as well as fractious, etc? Certainly. But I frankly see such overt partiality, if handled with an attempt to make such partiality clear rather than a hidden subtext, as essentially a positive force. Indeed the only way it could not be such would be if we still entertained the fiction that a purely "objective," unattached criticism could possibly exist. I appreciate your kind reaction to my somewhat baited remarks in previous posts. But the above paragraph shows where we are in basic disagreement. The argument I have tried to make over the past few days is that just as the poet needs to have a ferocious sense of personal responsibility for his or her "word on the line", the substantial thing a critic has to offer in this arena is a free devotion to poetry in its entirety and a ferocious disposition to make an independent reading of every new work. I don't disagree with you that the storm and stress between poets and groups in their jockeying for attention, recognition, and authority may be a healthy thing. It's probably both healthy and unhealthy in various ways. I simply would not call them (to paraphrase Montale) free critics. The poetry world perhaps above all others is swallowed up in feverish "promotion" simply because there are no agreed-upon standards and no one outside the poetry world is listening. There never will be agreed-upon standards; but there will be critics who will hold themselves aloof from the buddy-system, careerism, politics, and puffery for the sake of criticism itself. Believe in the silver circus thread up to the tightrope. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:40:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: The task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 1. Poets should do criticism. 2. They should do (in large part) criticism that allows 'em to spell out their interests and poetics. 3. This means a large amount of what they publish should be *positive* and should *promote*...This'll mean they are often promoting poets they have much in common with, and thus fairly often their freinds. They should nevertheless be able to make a free-standing intellectual argument of reasonable coherence (and energy and interestingness) as to why such poetry is good (or energetic, or interesting).. 4. They should think long and hard before being sharply critical of other poets, because most of us have few enuff resources as things stand.. 5. They should even try to promote and find value in work that is quite different from their own. 6. If they feel it is truely in the interests of the art to be negative about someone, they should slash away (..if they feel comfortable taking the same medicine back!) 7. Poets should do criticism. In general, I find, they are the ones who have something interesting to say. mark @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:58:32 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: missing gens, maria's q &c. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT maria, rachel, kevin, dodie, pat, juliana, gary -- i had poetics switched off but my friend chris alexander forwarded me your posts b/c he thought they would be of interest to me -- rachel's & maria's responses to gary's q's abt. community interest & confuse me -- i had thought the 70s-80s were a time of community & visibility building for women poets (as juliana points out -- how(ever), & Tuumba & O (tho the latter 2 not specifically geared twd. publishing women) -- which is part of the topic of an essay i'm currently writing, or a dissertation i'm working on??)); weren't there also a lot of writing groups, etc? since i *realized* innovative women poets (living 7 years in cambridge mass didn't help) I've wanted to find out more & there are a great deal of (both poetry & poetics) anthologies now -- but i always feel like i'm doing double-time (trying to read both genders) this is perhaps silly but i wish it weren't so. I want to have all that stuff in place -- a history of writing, not just men writing (re juliana's point abt langpo-originary tales) -- "annals" to turn to & i don't want to "discriminate" by only writing about or reading women -- but there isn't a lot out there, there are gaps -- probably b/c, as maria points out, the longer the trip the lower a woman's survival rate. so i feel like a first-wave feminist (researching -- not whole canons (thank god!) -- but unearthing bits of history) when i want to be more "post-feminist" or postmodern (in the sense of there is only difference, we are all other). Which brings me to the question of feminism & writing as praxis. It seems to me that if a woman in any way writes innovative poetry then she is a feminist, that her feminism somehow preceeds but doesn't determine her need to write (as it did say, in the 70s, e.g. Fraser's "poem in which my legs are accepted" (and the whole her early books) That is, feminism functions in the same way that *any* writer's politics are a precedent (e.g.less *overtly* feminist works, like Hejinian's _The Cell_ & Dahlen's _A Reading_) -- i guess i'm just tired of feminism being a woman-thing -- again, wanting to be a postmodern feminist -- but not having the tools (the tradition, the annals) to do that. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 13:42:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Nowak Subject: Call for Papers (Xcp) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics, a journal of poetry, poetics, ethnography, and cultural & ethnic studies, seeks submissions, proposals, and inquiries regarding potential publication in its forthcoming volumes: Xcp no. 3: "Fieldnotes & Notebooks" -- scheduled to appear: October 1, 1998 -- submissions due by: May 1, 1998 Xcp no. 4: "Voyage/Voyageur/Voyeur" -- scheduled to appear: February 1, 1999 -- submissions due by: September 1, 1998 Xcp no. 5: "Dia/Logos: Speaking Across" (plus a special Nathaniel Tarn section) -- scheduled to appear: July 1, 1999 -- submissions due by: February 1, 1999 Xcp 2000: "Documentary in the New Millennium" -- scheduled to appear: January 1, 2000 -- submissions due by: August 1, 1999 All correspondence should be accompanied by an SASE and directed to: Mark Nowak, ed., Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics, c/o College of St. Catherine-Mpls., 601 25th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN, 55454. E-mail inquiries can be made by writing the editor: manowak@stkate.edu. Visit our website for more information and updates: http://www.stkate.edu/xcp/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 15:00:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: Celan & Visual Poetry In-Reply-To: <34D47918.722670D2@cnsunix.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks to Pierre Joris for his comments on Celan and Mandelstam-- Later this year will be appearing an anthology by forty visual poets from around the world--two works apiece--made in response to a poem of Celan's, "Blackbird"--the anthology contributors are visual poets who have been contributing to Harry Burrus' O!!ZONE in the last two years and is edited by David Stone--in Baltimore. When more information is forthcoming, it wil be forwarded-- dave baptiste chirot ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 15:25:22 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Re: criticism rules Yeah. I can tell that by a lot of the criticism out there, Maria. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU In-Reply-To: <9802021207113.4892326@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> At 12:15 PM -0600 2/2/98, Dale M Smith wrote, in connection w/ a general riff about the academy's attact on poetry: >... The continued removal of literature from practical >interprative skills? *** it gets worse, dale. there are those of us who don't even believe in the concept of "practical interpretive skills" as opposed to other methods of apprehension. -md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:00:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Quinn Subject: query: jazz and spoken word In-Reply-To: <199802031951.MAA03130@bobo.oz.cc.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I am compiling an annotated discography of jazz/spoken word recordings for a research project on the history of jazz and the unsung voice. I would greatly appreciate any assistance with titles, web sites or other sources where jazz/spoken word recordings might be found. Please backchannel. Many thanks, Richard Quinn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:17:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: The task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Prejsnar wrote: > 1. Poets should do criticism. > > * * * > > > 7. Poets should do criticism. In general, I find, they are the ones who > have something interesting to say. > The state of the academy is such that there are no more than half a dozen graduate programs where one can learn enough about contemporary poetry to even begin the work of criticism. One can learn to be excellent critics of Stevens in many English Departments and one might learn how to read Yeats, perhaps even Williams. I suppose you can still learn Eliot (who was about the only one you could learn when I was an undergraduate). It will be hard to learn how to read Pound, even harder to learn how to read Hart Crane, almost impossible to learn Gertrude Stein, even H.D. or Marianne Moore. Notably none of these poets were born in the 20th century. Of poets, born in this century, you will be able to learn how to read them only to the extent they resemble the known modernist masters. Thus, you will be able to learn to read Ashbery to the extent that he resembles Stevens (not very much); you will be able to learn read Olson to extent he resembles WCW (hardly at all); you will not be able learn any thing about reading Coolidge or Mayer because you can't learn how to read Stein. Pound said that the "beaneries" lag behind poetry by fifty years. This situation, if any thing, has gotten worse since he wrote. I can think of very little I have read about poetry by critics who were not at least occasional poets which has been of much use to me either as a poet or a reader of poetry. Biographies are some times useful occupations of academic's time, and often the best academic criticism is a kind of disguised biography (e.g. Kenner's The Pound Era). This is not a new situation. Most often, you will find that if an academic critic has something interesting to to say, s/he is cribbing off the criticial writings of poets. If you want to know about poetry, read poets, beginning with Coleridge or Sidney or Dante. You will find more in the letters of Keats or even the essays of Mathew Arnold, for pete's sake, about poetry than you will in the writings of contemporary Ph.D. critics from the best graduate schools, who are likely (still! what? forty or fifty years after Roy Harvey Pearce) still to be reading all American poetry only to the extent that it resembles Emerson. This, of course, is quite reasonable. For the most part, Ph.D.s in English, to the extent they are taught poetry at all, are taught it with the view toward teaching it to undergraduates who, for the most part could hardly be less engaged. This is grim task, to face 40 young people, who consciousness can be completely absorbed by MTV, and to try to get them to notice the linguistic curiosities of "The Snowman" or "To Elsie." I know, I have done it far too often myself. Please do not misunderstand. I am completely with the undergraduates. I agreee that they should not be required to show up and listen to Professor X groan on about the symbolist tradition or writing in the American language or how this dead white male or female is important for resembling some deader white male or female. And save us from any one who would pretend to be independent. Independent, of what? "Oh, I am independent, I have no commitments whatever." After all, criticism is its own test: it is useful, if it is useful. We will know whether it is honest or not if it helps us read the poet under discussion, other poets, if it helps us write poems. Good criticism, by and large, is probably rarer than good poetry. I find myself going back to the same things again and again: essays by Stein, Pound (especially the essays and reviews on music), Williams, H.D., Hart Crane's letters, essays by Olson and Duncan, a remarkable piece entitled "Burden of Set" by Gerrit Lansing, a number of pieces by some of contemporaries. db -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:28:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: missing gens, maria's q &c. Comments: To: linda russo MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Linda Russo raises an interesting point about "feminism being a woman-thing." I would like to think "we" are moving beyond that into a broader definition of feminism, though this may be disturbing to more traditional feminists since it seems to imply a waning of political attention to women's issues - I would hope it would be just the opposite, though. Certainly vis-a-vis Cixous' idea of ecriture much experimental writing would fit broadly under the feminist rubric, but if it does, then again, the definition of that term is changing. I attended a talk given by Susan Faludi last fall here in Boulder (ratio of women to men in attendance roughly 3:1). Many women were upset when she announced that her new book would be looking at (heterosexual) men's issues re: relationships, empowerment, etc. They took this as a betrayal but it seemed to me not only like a generous gesture, but like the next logical step. As you say, Linda, it's difficult terrain to negotiate since there's little or no precedence to rely on. Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin seem to be offering alternative/postmodern models for gender that challenge and expand the narrow parochial views of the Catherine MacKinnon camp but my sense is that no one's too clear about the Big Picture or where theory and praxis are leading next. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: linda russo To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: missing gens, maria's q &c. Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 6:58AM Which brings me to the question of feminism & writing as praxis. It seems to me that if a woman in any way writes innovative poetry then she is a feminist, that her feminism somehow preceeds but doesn't determine her need to write (as it did say, in the 70s, e.g. Fraser's "poem in which my legs are accepted" (and the whole her early books) That is, feminism functions in the same way that *any* writer's politics are a precedent (e.g.less *overtly* feminist works, like Hejinian's _The Cell_ & Dahlen's _A Reading_) -- i guess i'm just tired of feminism being a woman-thing -- again, wanting to be a postmodern feminist -- but not having the tools (the tradition, the annals) to do that. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:26:06 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Well, David . . . > These 3 poems are #s 43,44,and 45 from a work called "Early Warning," > unknown to me. > It's the last poem (in 66 sections) of a book Tom published in 1984 entitled _Paradise Resisted: New and Selected Poems_ from (yes) Black Sparrow. (I reviewed it in _Poetry Flash_ by the way). As I said in my post, it's not his best, nor one of my favorites, nor even, as Dale says, particularly representative -- it is quite funny in parts, as is the whole book. But just after the three stanzas I quoted comes one quite different in tone: 46 Copper, iron, lead, graphite, phosphate, zinc . . . Palm oil is used for margarine, soap, lubrication. The ground nut and cola nut produce oils. Cotton becomes flax. Export of coffee, grains, fabrics, oil, gold, rubber, fruits, this is the story of colonialism in Africa. The story of human labor turned into money for distant people to create pyramids of power in banks is the story of Europe. This is where we got the language we use. And then, finally, section 47, which I'll quote only in part as it deals with the appropriation question you raise: . . . The industrial world gave us the computer world we employ today. Uranium, radium, tin, iron, spices. Diamonds. Food for thought. It all came from somewhere. You can't give anything back but you can stop taking it. Start making and using it. Only if you get the sentences clear. I don't admire the music or rhythm here, particularly (but the fact that you can't separate them, or the syntax, from content, David Benedetti, was EXACTLY my point!); I do admire what I call a certain "high seriousness" -- an ambition that arises from clear-eyed social perceptions and entrepreneurial realties, informs the poems, and leads (ideally) to other spheres of action than ones purely aesthetic; I admire the implication that these economic and entrepreneurial realities affect the way we, as poets, set up shop; and yes, I admire the lack of ambiguity! In terms of the "big political ideas" bandied about a few days ago, I feel globalization is even more pernicious and dangerous than ecological disasters . . > I can see the attraction they hold out : they constitute an > us-&-them world, where "they" are every bit as despicable as "they" > are > always known to be, cowardly, secretive and vindictive in their > unjustness, > and where each reader is invited to identify with the poet to form an > "us" > that is better than his "they." One is thus offered some thing to > belong > to, a superior thing where one's allies will be likewise superior. > This is grade-school Jung (projections, "otherizing the other" etc.) and frankly beneath you. Do you really think he's calling for (yawn) "followers" here? > Part of what is superior about the poet in these poems, is his > attitude, > made explicit in the lines "I'm/ (for instance) as ingenuous and > naively > trusting/ as your average Sudanese mercenary killer." One appreciates > the > twist of sense, which requires that one follow the syntax closely. > Beyond > that, one finds oneself in the presence (as it were) of "nobody's > fool." a > tough guy (albeit with a heart of gold--else we wouldn't be liking > him) a > bit like Bogart or Bukowski. > In fact, "one" knows that these are indeed the weakest lines of the original stanzas I quoted. > Elsewise, there is the wit of analogy that delivers us to this > bathetic > present after a quick whip around the corners of a Malebolge (or so I > feel); there are attractive passages where sound draws attention to > meaning > (the way "clones" recalls "drone" and picks up on the "stones" and > "bones" > from lines immediately previous) and by this process provides a > further > guarantee that this poet has an ear--is listening to his lines as they > unfold, is _not_ asleep at the wheel. > One gets a lot less these days, no? > There is also the thrill, at watching the lid ripped off this > particular > can of worms. Ah, so just as we suspected, poets are as bad or worse > than > the rest of this wicked world! And here's a real poet telling us this! > Which will come as no surprise to the denizens of this list, to be sure, but might, to others -- hanging out one's dirty laundry in public might be declasse, but it can also clarify oppositions, energize . . . > But my surrender to these poems doesn't last long. They lack, for one > thing, a sense of history. Poets have been banding together against > one > another for millenia, > really? Ben Jonson and Bill? Keats and Leigh Hunt? Who are you thinking of, exactly? And what relevance does it have to, uh, "today"? > so what's fresh about this content to excuse the > traditionalist form? > Oh god -- not that! We must at all costs and moments avoid tradition, right? > More of an objection, however, lodges in the wried logic. There is > nothing > I can find in the poem to ironize that one instance of "I"--I take the > poet > himself, Tom Clark, to be speaking, to be wanting to be heard speaking > Tom > Clark's mind.But Tom Clark is known to be (however relatively) a > succesful > writer, with dozens of books from distinguished houses. "To survive in > the > 'arts' you've got to be a belonger." Well, Tom Clark has survived, so > to > what does he belong, to which > "school,...club,...cell,...lodge,...party...[or] police force" does > Tom > Clark owe his survival? > I'm not sure of his relation to the owner of Black Sparrow press -- but I think we should, in all cases possible, publish with people and presses we know. That's not always possible, of course. > His answer might lie in the "outsider" category. I cannot see how, in > the > dog-eat-dog world Clark depicts, this category is in any way superior > or > transcendent. How do these lines escape being as self-serving as > anything > that might be produced from "school, club, cell, lodge, party, police > force" or cabal? > > It is not that I altogether disagree with his picture. It is rather > that > Tom Clark is no less a cannibal canine than the next man or woman. > Despite > his apparent admission of this, "to relate to history not forgetting > the > mistake of those who'd evade it," I do not find I can exit these 3 > poems > without feeling that Clark believes that he can, and has evaded it. > While > feeling, myself, that he has not. Because he cannot. Because (as he > implies) none of us can. > > Here I refer my reader to Carlo Parcelli's post of 1/30/98, to his > mention > of "position/momentum paradox" and "influence of the observer upon the > observed." And to what he deduces from these physico-philosophical > quandaries : "every participant in the current debate is subject to > these > limitations [.]" I do not believe it is enough to acknowledge this > truth > then to proceed as though nothing was altered because of it. It is a > truth > that calls for constant attention. It explodes the us/them > construction, > _no matter the empirical persistence of such divisiveness_ . Both Tom > and I > (as any of you) being subject to these limits, I ask him, "Why do you > create a world of attitude where you have always to be branded as > 'distrustful, dangerously suspicious' as an 'outsider'--while holding > down > an inside post with Black Sparrow Press? " It is 35 years since > Bukowski > was named 'Outsider of the Year' and neither he nor the press that > presented him has any pretense to outsider status today. As a > category, in > any case, 'outsider' today must include so many as to be meaningless. > It > remains "someone to be," if it's elsewise too scary walking down the > street, or boring or whatever : Fred Dobbs. > To the extent that anyone tries to cash in on his or her status of "outsider", yes, I agree that's fairly reprehensible. I don't see him doing this here. > I do not find that the epiphany at the end of the 3rd of these poems > is > credible: "only makes me laugh and study/ ways to gain a new power > over > words/that are so stubborn, to steer them into/ clear and simple > sentences > is a good lifetime's work." It does not dissolve the paranoid portrait > of > hate and distrust and envy, or not persuasively to my reading. And > while it > is plain that Tom Clark is consumed by these vices, the poetry would > be a > big step closer to the greatness certain acolytes claim for it (not to > mention Clark himself) were he to _assume_ and _own_ them. > > I do not think we inhabit times that permit such linear renunciation > of > indulged miseries. > Do we live in times that permit non-linear renunciation of them? > You _are_ what you _describe_ . It's the Tarbaby none > can escape. (I use my own knowledge of my own powers of denial, my own > hypocrisies, my own envy and mortifcation at exclusion, to decode Tom > Clark). No part of any poem is _more_ than any other part. > I'm with you CLOSELY here -- but feel you hang too much on the outsider tag. I leave the rest of your post for tomorrow, as this is already long and as I haven't actually read the essay in question -- I just remember the article in _Poetry Flash_ that was apparently its genesis. (But Herb! I don't agree that David is here responding to my "interpretation" riff at all! Perhaps it's just too late, or I'm too dense . . ) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:45:59 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: The task of criticism In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:17:02 -0800 from On Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:17:02 -0800 Don Byrd said: > > And save us from any one who would pretend to be independent. >Independent, of what? "Oh, I am independent, I have no commitments whatever." > > After all, criticism is its own test: it is useful, if it is useful. We >will know whether it is honest or not if it helps us read the poet under >discussion, other poets, if it helps us write poems. Good criticism, by and >large, is probably rarer than good poetry. I agree that good criticism is rare; I admit that the best is done by poets. I've been marking poets' conflict of interest as yet another way of pointing to the fact that criticism is a worthy art in itself. You only have to pretend to be independent if you don't believe you can be in reality. Are you saying that those who write about contemporary poetry must sell it to each other rather than weigh it in their own personal scale of values? That the aim of writing about poetry is to boost the recognition level of your own friends and allies? Do you think there's no point in distinguishing between reviews treating friends and associates and reviews done cold? Clearly a general understanding of poetry according to you is beyond the reach of the ordinary grad student, much less the ordinary citizen (I haven't been to grad school myself, so I'm not the one to judge there); reviews therefore will be a minor, generally worthless venture - there's bigger fish out there, right? But one implication of what I've been trying to drum into this list is that if critical values were more honest, and yes, INDEPENDENT, said critics might just find an avenue of access to a general public for poetry, and your examples of poets we need to "learn to read" might find a wider, more educated audience. But as long as poets, editors, and academics deny the value of "keeping one's distance", they will continue to write only for themselves. Maybe deep down that's what they want - save the secret knowledge for the elite. Nevertheless, I don't want to give the impression that being "independent" is simply a vehicle for reaching a wider audience; that's only a side effect. I have been frankly dumbfounded at some of the responses to my posts on this list. Utterly amazed that the simple principles of honest writing are considered unknown, needless, irrelevant matters; that the concept of weighing the values of a work of art according to autonomous personal values would be called pompous, naive, hypocritical, etc. & you're the icing on the cake, Don Byrd. I am stunned. If he speaks for a general consensus on this list, I say, you people can have your fishbowl. It's not worth the water poured into it. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:25:48 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Fwd: Word and Music series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part0_886562759_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_886562759_boundary Content-ID: <0_886562759@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII --part0_886562759_boundary Content-ID: <0_886562759@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from relay31.mail.aol.com (relay31.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.31]) by air19.mail.aol.com (v38.1) with SMTP; Tue, 03 Feb 1998 21:24:50 -0500 Received: from dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.8]) by relay31.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id VAA21726; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 21:24:29 -0500 (EST) Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id UAA09463; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:21:44 -0600 (CST) Received: from nyc-ny9-15.ix.netcom.com(199.183.204.47) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma005483; Tue Feb 3 19:56:14 1998 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:58:10 -0500 To: Chaskett@spacebros.com From: Chaskett@spacebros.com (Fred Yablonski) Subject: Word and Music series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit WORDS & MUSIC a series of collaborations between musicians & writers February 4-8 at the Knitting Factory Wednesday feb. 4 8pm: Tracie Morris/Marvin Sewell (see Sunday NY Times for an article on Tracie...) 9:30pm: "Brides of Poetry": Barb Barg, Brenda Coultas, Julia Patton, Wanda Phipps, Lars Askesson, Anders Griffin, Andrea Pierotti, Dave Sewelson Thursday feb. 5 8pm: Tracie Morris/Badal Roy 9:30pm: Edwin Torres, Gina Bonati, DJ wally, Ladislav Czernezk Friday feb. 6 8/9:30pm: Ronny Someck (Israeli poet)/Elliott Sharp Saturday feb. 7 8pm: Nick Zedd, Jennifer Blowdryer, Mark Kramer, Rockets Redglare featuring the premiere of the film SCREENTEST '98 9:30pm author Jack Womack/Elliott Sharp Sunday feb. 8 8pm: Bob Holman/Dan from www.coolout.com 9:30pm: Bob Holman/Vito Ricci THE KNITTING FACTORY 74 Leonard Street New York City 212 219 3006 --part0_886562759_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 20:02:35 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: Rachel, criticism, 420 E Davenport Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:23 PM 2/3/98 EST, ornery gould wrote: Tell me something about >poetry in your review; don't just blindly glorify your subject. yeah -- seems to me the best criticism, reviews and elsewhere, answers not "for whom the bell tolls" but "how it makes that particular tone when struck that particular way" / close reads that give us Poetry by showing how the chosen poetry resonates -- meaning i guess i agree / how hard is it though, critics out there, to detach oneself from the promotion, really? / seems one's selection of subject matter alone communicates preferences / but i missed big sections of this thread, so i might be a dollar short, etc. bill (hope we can play with your name too henry? :) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh PaperBrainPress Voice & Range Community Arts National University wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu http://www.dtai.com/~bmarsh snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:35:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: Uh, (Was Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Since Dale Smith began his recent tirades by calling David Bromige a "self >deluded, lying coward" & a "guardian of banality", among other things, > In general, the quality of insults lately hasn't been up to the standards I'd expect from a group of avant=garde poets. j. Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:52:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Was: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980203223744.3c1f4d16@mail.airmail.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >In general, the quality of insults lately hasn't been up to the standards >I'd expect from a group of avant=garde poets. Joe, you are getting crusty in your old age Tim ______________________________________________________________ Tim Wood tim_wood@datawranglers.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 00:34:28 -0500 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: Uh, (Was Re: I see now that by forwarding this I can make it available again) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe Ahearn wrote: > > > > >Since Dale Smith began his recent tirades by calling David Bromige a "self > >deluded, lying coward" & a "guardian of banality", among other things, > > > > In general, the quality of insults lately hasn't been up to the standards > I'd expect from a group of avant=garde poets. > > j. > > Joe Ahearn > _____________ > joeah@mail.airmail.net Sensing a thread, Joe, I propose a Disstionary: gluteal guru crambo-ass odious odist panegyrical persiflageur obsequious obloquist ani-pest terza reamer ovine Ovidian epiglam figure of preach ictus rectus dicktyl oral poet can zone & invite the collegium opprobrium to revise & extend my remarks. Respectfully submitted, Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 00:30:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: a posting to poetics In-Reply-To: <980130111441_1631349223@mrin51.mx> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The wonderful Jen Hofer will be reading with the fabulous Rachel Blau du Plessis: HERE 6th Ave b/w Spring and Broome 3:00 pm Sat 2/7/98: $5 NYC ATTEND! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 23:39:40 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: Love Poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At risk of using the list as a Dear Abby column, I seek advice regarding the sending of love poems. Valentine's Day is next Saturday. I don't plan to send out any love poems and here's why. I was dating this girl for a while. Things were going well. I took her to see David Bowie. We talked about stuff. We had crazy nights. We even went to a friend's wedding together. I sent her, like, a poem a week, or something. I also sang to her over the phone. Then I sent her a poem by Andre Breton (see below). She freaked out. Our relations broke off within a week. It wasn't the singing. Suddenly, she said I was a weirdo. It was the Breton. But the one of the first poems I sent her was by Clark Coolidge! What gives? My woman with her forest-fire hair With her heat-lightning thoughts With her hourglass waist My woman with her otter waist in the tiger's mouth My woman with her rosette mouth a bouquet of stars of the greatest magnitude With her teeth of white mouse footprints on the white earth With her tongue of polished amber and glass My woman with her stabbed Eucharist tongue With her tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes With her tongue of incredible stone My woman with her eyelashes in a child's handwriting With her eyebrows the edge of a swallow's nest My woman with her temples of a greenhouse with a slate roof And steam on the windowpanes My woman with her shoulders of champagne And a dolphin-headed fountain under ice My woman with her matchstick wrists My woman with her lucky fingers her ace of hearts fingers With her fingers of new-mown hay My woman with her armpits of marten and beechnuts Of Midsummer Night Of privet and angelfish nest With her seafoam and floodgate arms Arms that mingle the wheat and the mill My woman with rocket legs With her movements of clockwork and despair My woman with her calves of elder tree pith My woman with her feet of initials With her feet of bunches of keys with her feet of weaverbirds taking a drink My woman with her pearl barley neck My woman with her Val d'or cleavage Cleavage of a rendezvous in the very bed of the mountain stream With her breasts of night My woman with her undersea molehill breasts My woman with her breasts of the crucible of rubies With her breasts of the specter of the rose beneath the dew My woman with her belly of the unfolding fan of days With her giant claw belly My woman with her back of a bird fleeing vertically With her quicksilver back With her back of light With her nape of rolled stone and damp chalk And a falling glass that's just been sipped My woman with her rowboat hips With her hips of a chandelier and arrow feathers And the stems of white peacock plumes Her hips an imperceptible pair of scales My woman with her buttocks of sandstone and asbestos My woman with her buttocks of a swan's back My woman with her buttocks of springtime With her gladiolus sex My woman with her sex of placer and platypus My woman with her sex of seaweed and old-fashioned candies My woman with her mirror sex My woman with her eyes full of stars With her eyes of violet armor and a speedometer needle My woman with her savannah eyes My woman with her eyes of water to drink in prison My woman with her eyes of forests forever beneath the axe With her pale eyes of sea-level air-level earth and fire ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 01:03:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Uh In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980203223744.3c1f4d16@mail.airmail.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> >>Since Dale Smith began his recent tirades by calling David Bromige a "self >>deluded, lying coward" & a "guardian of banality", among other things, Bromige is neither of those things. He is a noble soul, and he is always fair and thoughtful. He looks good in a straw hat, and behind the wheel of a 1963 Lincoln. He has nice long hands and good fingernails. He is a faithful friend and an unusually perceptive reader. He is a good father and brave poet. And he is my pal. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 01:05:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980203225256.007b34c0@mail.datawranglers.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>In general, the quality of insults lately hasn't been up to the standards >>I'd expect from a group of avant=garde poets. Avant-barde poets are nothing more than fiddlers with their own strings, players with their own poop, self-regarding nincompoops with the intellectual capacities of plaid-wearing baboons. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 19:43:46 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In a post ignored by many about period style I noted that the first poem by Bruce Andrews I ever read was published in the Paris Review, chosen by Tom Clark (at least Tom Clark was the poetry editor of the Paris Review at the time, and its hard to imagine George Plimpton picking Bruce's works though not impossible I confess). it seems to me that this is a measure of evidence that the issue at hand is not aesthetic. I don't know the "Stalin as linguist" essay, but this constant harping on the Hitlerian or Stalinist methodology of TC is a little grating. I am probably not the only one on the list who can say this, but I have lived in a neo-Stalinist society and the ad hominen attack is one characteristic of Stalinist polemic. It would not surprise me if TC, in either the Poetry Flash or Partisan Review or whereever, used Stalinist argumentation, but it doesn't further anyone's understanding to use it back at him. Underlying most polemic in Stalinist society was stuff like envy, resentment, you attacked my friend or even attacked me so I will crush you in return, etc. It was always difficult to learn what the original pretext, even, of an attack was -- did Jiang Qing really send those people to jail because they knew her as a young actress, or was it how they treated her when she was a young actress, or what? Part of it is just power, and the smaller the stakes, the more violent the struggle. I don't know what lies at the real root of the anti-Tom Clark emotion that occassionally erupts on the list. I have trouble thinking of him as the "real enemy," that's all. Four poets were just arrested in Guizhou, for planning to start a magazine. Anyone else on the list hear about it? Anyone know where Guizhou is? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:01:13 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: call for sound work Comments: To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The (Corsican) magazine Doc(k)s[sous rature] is calling for work, in preparation of a special issue: "Sound, Voices, sousRature(Poetry)" "Laut, Stimmer, sousRature(Dicht)" "Suoni, Voci, sousRature(Poesia)" "Sons, Voix, sousRature(Poesie)" "Lyd, Stemmer, sousRature(Dikt)" to be published on CD Material accepted of about two minutes duration on audio tape cassettes, aiff files, syquest (44/88 Mb), zip, Mac & PC Floppies. &/or image files, texts, theory, etc. to: Ph. Castellin / Jean Torregosa Akenaton - Doc(k)s 12 Cours Grandval F Ajaccio 20 000 Corsica, France Tel 95 21 32 90, Fax 95 21 32 90 email: akenaton_docks@sitec.fr ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:07:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: oh Henry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henry-- What is the reason for losing your cool when people disagree with you? We're all expressing our positions as straightforwardly as we feel them. Obviously, this issue matters a lot to you--as it should (and I respect you for it)--but you know full well that speaking your mind means that others will do so back. I do know that there's something about e-mail that encourages displays of anger (I've done my share), but I think in this case we're all trying to proceed civilly. Let me be perfectly clear. I am not aware of having EVER claimed, in print, to like the work of someone whose work I do not like, to advance my career or anybody else's. Hell--what career do I have anyway, when it comes to that? Your suggestion that this is what ALL poets and critics are doing is generalized and incorrect. Your suggestion that we are all DUPES of our cultural investments is insulting. You seem like a nice guy, and I know you don't MEAN to be insulting in this case--you think your position is correct, and you are mystified that others do not agree. But others DON'T agree, in this case, and are quite independently able to say so. I and many others are perfectly capable of deciding what we don't like, and why, and being honest with ourselves about it. Does this really seem strange to you, that there would be other and perhaps many other sophisticated, intelligent, and critically insightful folks in the world, who quite correctly don't see themselves as dupes? I feel completely capable of saying exactly what I mean, and of considering, ethically, what the consequences for myself and others of such action is. And I will say what I mean to whoever it matters to say it to. But I do not think that the sense of "independent critic," as you are using it, takes sufficient account of the complexity of what it means to be human and involved. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:31:17 EST Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: The task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Given the poetry/criticism thread I keep reading, I thought I'd throw out the following fun-sounding symposium happening here: "Critical Painting: The Influence of Criticism on Artistic Production" February 24, 1998 6-7:30 pm Aidekman Gallery Tufts University Medford, MA for reservations call (617) 627-3493 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:47:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: The task of criticism In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 3 Feb 1998, Henry Gould wrote: > Are you saying that those who write about contemporary poetry must > sell it to each other rather than weigh it in their own personal scale > of values? That the aim of writing about poetry is to boost the recognition > level of your own friends and allies? Do you think there's no point in > distinguishing between reviews treating friends and associates and reviews > done cold? Clearly a general understanding of poetry according to you One of the great problems, Henry, with all your posts on this topic, is suggested by your word-choice here. One of the most central and important things about the poetry scene most of us inhabit, is that it's *not* about selling. You define the whole world of poetry activities as about: boosting; recognition; selling; markets. The list of negative and capitalist-oriented buzzwords that can be derived from your posts, is scarifying. This has to be said once and for all, because there seems to be an awful lot of confusion wafting around about it: choosing to do poetry *removes* a person from the capitalist cash nexus in most respects. I try hard to see this as a positive thing, like bohemians of old. but there's no getting around it: it's a deeply destructive and painful thing. People find it very hard to live. A few mainstreamers get grants, etc., but in general there is no connection between material gain, comfort, the capitalist marketplace in any usual recognized sense, and poetry. This is *very* different from music, mainstream narrative fiction, the visual arts to an extent, the performing art activities to a large extent. My own past involvement with music on a professional level gives me some sense of the differences involved. Thus my insistence on being supportive where possible. In the accents of my native Northeast, Poets, they got enough to worry about, already! Sure, much about ego etc. is at stake. Big F'ing deal. I honestly don't think the push and pull between different tendencies of poets is as bad a thing as your posts suggest. It's probably a good thing. The *last* thing we need are "independent critics" to act as arbiters. Let a thousand groupuscules bloom. Let 'em argue out poetics, politics and the rest of it. If people with similar work as poets help each other, that's fundamentally a good thing. But it sure has nothing to do with "selling". One of the important things about this list is the ability of poets to hash out ideas and preferences, and to point to work that represents what they value. Mark P. @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 08:55:16 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Stalin as What? Tom Mandel: I responded to your post yesterday, but for some reason it never made it to the list. Hopefully this one will. First of all, I don't see how anyone can better their *careers* as a poet by standing up for Tom Clark. That's more like suicide in certain company these days. You might actually *read* the articles in question, both 'Stalin as Linguist essays, before you go too much further out of your way condemning the man as a fascist. He addresses a herd-like behavior among a certain group of poets at a particular moment in time. He was responding to various pressures of the day. It's all quite clear if you just check out what he wrote. It might complicate your ad hominem impulses. Tom is more than capable of standing up for himself and I shouldn't be the one to speak for him (but he's wise enough to avoid this list, unlike me). But I do want to defer to you, to help ease the vehemence of your feelings abou t this. I'm sure you feel an extraordinary amoun of pain at the loss of your family. And I do not want to in any way detract from the dignity of you feelin gs about this. Nor do I want to see Tom Clark unfairly accused so casually. He has a certain amount of dignity too. If you want to discuss Tom's work, the way Joe has been doing to eloquently, I think that is fine. But this kind of ritual blood-letting is really destructive to more than just Tom Clark. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:22:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980204073940.00a5f7ac@pop1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Great POST, Rob Hale. Even though I cannot offer you advice, I guess it depends on the woman. I remember being in Pierre Joris' class a couple years back and having been so thoroughly inundated in a certain kind of "feminism" had internalized this idea that FREE UNION was a sexist poem, would certainly not (to paraphrase Moxley) "agitate the beloved into loving you" and sure enough the smartest and most attractive (to me) women in the class told me they loved that poem so there's no formula but i do think much of my poetry is "about" the tension between respect and even passion for feminism (though i am skeptical that there really can be a male feminist) on the one hand and one's status as a "male desiring subject"..... and though i don't really wish to once again be accused of being a languagepoetbasher, this issue was something i found lacking in many of the male langpos. well i have a lot more i could say on this, but i will wait to digest the implications of your message rob. Your message was quite courageous. thanks, chris stroffolino On Tue, 3 Feb 1998, Robert Hale wrote: > At risk of using the list as a Dear Abby column, I seek advice regarding the > sending of love poems. Valentine's Day is next Saturday. I don't plan to > send out any love poems and here's why. > > I was dating this girl for a while. Things were going well. I took her to > see David Bowie. We talked about stuff. We had crazy nights. We even went to > a friend's wedding together. I sent her, like, a poem a week, or something. > I also sang to her over the phone. Then I sent her a poem by Andre Breton > (see below). She freaked out. Our relations broke off within a week. > > It wasn't the singing. Suddenly, she said I was a weirdo. It was the Breton. > But the one of the first poems I sent her was by Clark Coolidge! > > What gives? > > > > My woman with her forest-fire hair > With her heat-lightning thoughts > With her hourglass waist > My woman with her otter waist in the tiger's mouth > My woman with her rosette mouth a bouquet of stars of > the greatest magnitude > With her teeth of white mouse footprints on the white > earth > With her tongue of polished amber and glass > My woman with her stabbed Eucharist tongue > With her tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes > With her tongue of incredible stone > My woman with her eyelashes in a child's handwriting > With her eyebrows the edge of a swallow's nest > My woman with her temples of a greenhouse with a slate roof > And steam on the windowpanes > My woman with her shoulders of champagne > And a dolphin-headed fountain under ice > My woman with her matchstick wrists > My woman with her lucky fingers her ace of hearts > fingers > With her fingers of new-mown hay > My woman with her armpits of marten and beechnuts > Of Midsummer Night > Of privet and angelfish nest > With her seafoam and floodgate arms > Arms that mingle the wheat and the mill > My woman with rocket legs > With her movements of clockwork and despair > My woman with her calves of elder tree pith > My woman with her feet of initials > With her feet of bunches of keys with her feet of > weaverbirds taking a drink > My woman with her pearl barley neck > My woman with her Val d'or cleavage > > Cleavage of a rendezvous in the very bed of the mountain > stream > With her breasts of night > My woman with her undersea molehill breasts > My woman with her breasts of the crucible of rubies > With her breasts of the specter of the rose beneath the > dew > My woman with her belly of the unfolding fan of days > With her giant claw belly > My woman with her back of a bird fleeing vertically > With her quicksilver back > With her back of light > With her nape of rolled stone and damp chalk > And a falling glass that's just been sipped > My woman with her rowboat hips > With her hips of a chandelier and arrow feathers > And the stems of white peacock plumes > Her hips an imperceptible pair of scales > My woman with her buttocks of sandstone and asbestos > My woman with her buttocks of a swan's back > My woman with her buttocks of springtime > With her gladiolus sex > My woman with her sex of placer and platypus > My woman with her sex of seaweed and old-fashioned > candies > My woman with her mirror sex > My woman with her eyes full of stars > With her eyes of violet armor and a speedometer needle > My woman with her savannah eyes > My woman with her eyes of water to drink in prison > My woman with her eyes of forests forever beneath the > axe > With her pale eyes of sea-level air-level earth and fire > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:24:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Poets are nothing but a box of cassette tapes that you never get around to playing because they are not labelled! (okay, i can do better than that. sorry). chris On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, George Bowering wrote: > >>In general, the quality of insults lately hasn't been up to the standards > >>I'd expect from a group of avant=garde poets. > > Avant-barde poets are nothing more than fiddlers with their own strings, > players with their own poop, self-regarding nincompoops with the > intellectual capacities of plaid-wearing baboons. > > > > > George Bowering. > , > 2499 West 37th Ave., > Vancouver, B.C., > Canada V6M 1P4 > > fax: 1-604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:33:01 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Love Poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Next time, show the poem first -- saves time & trouble. Joe Brennan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:40:18 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, uh uh Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Why debase baboons? Joe Brennan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:17:21 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: oh Henry In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:07:35 -0500 from Mark, I'm trying to challenge you people. I feel like somebody who's just discovered the obvious. I hadn't given it much thought either until it seemed to be staring me in the face. & the obvious sometimes makes emperors with no clothes of us all. there's more enterprise in going naked, as Yeats put it. Someone may challenge me someday, & I may take it as an insult too. This email medium is something we're all getting used to. Henry the Bull has abused it more than most - the bull can be a bully. But if I've offended you or Don Byrd personally I apologize. My feeling is that the ideal conversation - whether in person or on email - has something tough as well as fair about it. Without that you lose a lot of the humor. God is no respecter of persons, as it's written - why should we pamper each other? Why do I think of the Russians? They are terrible people - but they know how to cut each other to pieces - intellectually, satirically - without OFFENDING each other or breaking friendships. Joe Ahearn was right about the low calibre of poetic insulting in our day and age. Is this another symptom of overall backscratching? But I'm not interested in ad hominem & all that. I'm just seriously taken aback & as a result I am vehement. Call it a rhetorical ploy, if you will. But I consider it worth fighting for. The fact is, I think you all ARE sold out, bankrupt, blind, mealy-headed whippersnappers. Ben Carrelis thoroughly deconstructed Henry the Bull's "idealistic" rhetoric. Yay Aussies! But Henry's not being dreamy. He's somebody guarding a line. THEY SHALL NOT PASS. I can dig that. - Jack Spandrift, a.k.a. "Henry Gould" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:45:02 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: The task of criticism In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 4 Feb 1998 09:47:14 -0500 from I want to tell people about a new hobby club I've joined called Peasle Collecting. Peasles are those small red buttons that used to be worn by IWW lefties & other working class heroes from 1867-1943. There are clubs springing up all over the US; they're really fun and nobody tries to put you down because you can't buy or sell peasles, they are out of the capitalist system. Billy Haberson is the biggest collector in my area - he has 47 DIFFERENT PEASLES in many shapes and sizes. A lot of people are jealous but Billy doesn't make fun of anybody even if they're beginners & only have one or two peasles. There's a newsletter called PEASLES UNITE that you can get for FREE from Jackie Snipp - I'll backchannel you the address if you want. But it would be nice if you sent them a few bucks for postage - it's really a shoestring operation. PEASLES UNITE!! - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:04:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I read Don Byrd's post from yesterday with some interest. I remember my own undergraduate days (late 70s) in an English dept. where I was told that WCW was a "bad influence" and where Ashbery was considered out of the mainstream. I guess I never expected to get what I wanted from classes, which was what the library was for. I can't agree that the lag between academia and contemporary poetics is worse than in Pound's day, however. Books by Bob Perelman and Charles Bernstein are published by major university presses; look at dissertations by people like M. Damon, J. Conte, Fredman, and the like. Then go back to the 1920s and 1930s (or even 50s) and look for the equivalent. While I don't want to say everything is great in academia (far from it) I am suspicious of the "things are worse than ever" school of thought when the comparison does not take into account actual facts. My perspective is perhaps skewed by the fact that I am not in an "English" dept. and thus don't have to deal with anything in this field unless it interests me personally; thus I can ignore the things that may annoy others of you. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:19:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ShaunAnne Tangney Humanities 8-13-1997 Subject: Re: The task of criticism In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, Mark Prejsnar wrote: > > One of the great problems, Henry, with all your posts on this topic, is > suggested by your word-choice here. One of the most central and important > things about the poetry scene most of us inhabit, is that it's *not* > about selling. You define the whole world of poetry activities as about: > boosting; recognition; selling; markets. The list of negative and > be an awful lot of confusion wafting around about it: choosing to do > poetry *removes* a person from the capitalist cash nexus in most respects. > I try hard to see this as a positive thing, like bohemians of old. but > there's no getting around it: it's a deeply destructive and painful > thing. People find it very hard to live. A few mainstreamers get grants, > etc., but in general there is no connection between material gain, > comfort, the capitalist marketplace in any usual recognized sense, and > poetry because there is relatively little money to be made being a poet, many poets find themsleves within the academy, making a paycheck that keeps the roof over one's head and they computer plugged in, or at least the penicls sharpened. once within the academy, poets are asked not only to teach "creative writing" but also "poetry" courses--they are asked, in effect to become critics. to become critical enough to be able to pass onto students poetry, to be able to say this is a peom because it does _x_; this poem reflects "modern angst," "the romantic self," "postmodern sense of play." we can debate the value of this kind "criticism," but i think it shows where poets, poetry, and criticism insersect in this world where poets often must becaome critics. which is to say that poets and critics are by necesity often the same folk. and i find that the criticism in the one constantly influences the poetry in the other > It's probably a good thing. The *last* thing we need are > "independent critics" to act as arbiters. Let a thousand groupuscules > bloom. Let 'em argue out poetics, politics and the rest of it. If people > with similar work as poets help each other, that's fundamentally a good i tell my students that writing happens in community, not alone. the academy, criticism, poetry, poetics--these are all communities, and for me they are all very provocative communities, communities which encourage me to write, inform my writing, criticize my writing, welcome my writing--i doubt i could be a poet--or a critic--w/o them. and, i reiterate, the criticism ever reinforms the poetry, just as the poetry ever rearranges the criticism. best, shaunanne > > Mark P. > @lanta > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:57:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Golumbia Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: from "louis stroffolino" at Feb 4, 98 10:24:15 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit louis stroffolino wrote: > > Poets are nothing but a box of cassette tapes that you never get > around to playing because they are not labelled! > (okay, i can do better than that. sorry). chris I don't know Chris ... i think that one was pretty good! -- dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu David Golumbia ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:39:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Finnegan Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, uh uh Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit As the old man used to say: "Get off your ars(e) poetica and get a real job." Finnegan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:55:35 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: task of criticism University press publications by Perelman, Bernstein et al are part of the problem addressed. Critics parading as poets parading as... The American academy stinks and has stunk from day one. That it is somehow sympathetic to langpods reveals how bankrupt their project has become. It's a bore all around. The universities have never been sympathetic to the vernacular and so langpo dismantled WCW's ground breaking work on that scale and cashed in on a language of reductive, conceptual space dust. Onward Citizens, to the interstellar voids of Orion! To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU I read Don Byrd's post from yesterday with some interest. I remember my own undergraduate days (late 70s) in an English dept. where I was told that WCW was a "bad influence" and where Ashbery was considered out of the mainstream. I guess I never expected to get what I wanted from classes, which was what the library was for. I can't agree that the lag between academia and contemporary poetics is worse than in Pound's day, however. Books by Bob Perelman and Charles Bernstein are published by major university presses; look at dissertations by people like M. Damon, J. Conte, Fredman, and the like. Then go back to the 1920s and 1930s (or even 50s) and look for the equivalent. While I don't want to say everything is great in academia (far from it) I am suspicious of the "things are worse than ever" school of thought when the comparison does not take into account actual facts. My perspective is perhaps skewed by the fact that I am not in an "English" dept. and thus don't have to deal with anything in this field unless it interests me personally; thus I can ignore the things that may annoy others of you. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:20:08 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT agreeing w/ chris s., it is a great poem; speaking as a particular woman (which the response depends on) i think i'd mixed messages if it were sent to me. it is not just a sexist poem, but an imperialistic poem i don't think anyone want to be referred to as "my woman" (maybe an under-30's understanding of this) But to be "my woman with" -- especially when "my woman's" (and not at all "my"/mine) attributes are all physical -- so exposed, granted no privacy, no complexity, no emotion -- at least not any autonomous privacy, complexity, emotion. Made HIS mystery only, inspiring his emotions, descriptions (& yes some amazing language) but that's all. its sort of like a vivisection & on the other side of it -- a response might be to the hyperbole of it -- which of course makes it an amazing poem, but not so much a flattering set of utterances. > but i do think much of my poetry is "about" the tension between > respect and even passion for feminism (though i am skeptical that > there really can be a male feminist) on the one hand and one's > status as a "male desiring subject"..... > and though i don't really wish to once again be accused of being > a languagepoetbasher, this issue was something i found lacking > in many of the male langpos. well i have a lot more i could say on > this, but i will wait to digest the implications of your message rob. i'd like to hear more . . . > On Tue, 3 Feb 1998, Robert Hale wrote: > > > At risk of using the list as a Dear Abby column, I seek advice regarding the > > sending of love poems. Valentine's Day is next Saturday. I don't plan to > > send out any love poems and here's why. > > > > I was dating this girl for a while. Things were going well. I took her to > > see David Bowie. We talked about stuff. We had crazy nights. We even went to > > a friend's wedding together. I sent her, like, a poem a week, or something. > > I also sang to her over the phone. Then I sent her a poem by Andre Breton > > (see below). She freaked out. Our relations broke off within a week. > > > > It wasn't the singing. Suddenly, she said I was a weirdo. It was the Breton. > > But the one of the first poems I sent her was by Clark Coolidge! > > > > What gives? > > > > > > > > My woman with her forest-fire hair > > With her heat-lightning thoughts > > With her hourglass waist > > My woman with her otter waist in the tiger's mouth > > My woman with her rosette mouth a bouquet of stars of > > the greatest magnitude > > With her teeth of white mouse footprints on the white > > earth > > With her tongue of polished amber and glass > > My woman with her stabbed Eucharist tongue > > With her tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes > > With her tongue of incredible stone > > My woman with her eyelashes in a child's handwriting > > With her eyebrows the edge of a swallow's nest > > My woman with her temples of a greenhouse with a slate roof > > And steam on the windowpanes > > My woman with her shoulders of champagne > > And a dolphin-headed fountain under ice > > My woman with her matchstick wrists > > My woman with her lucky fingers her ace of hearts > > fingers > > With her fingers of new-mown hay > > My woman with her armpits of marten and beechnuts > > Of Midsummer Night > > Of privet and angelfish nest > > With her seafoam and floodgate arms > > Arms that mingle the wheat and the mill > > My woman with rocket legs > > With her movements of clockwork and despair > > My woman with her calves of elder tree pith > > My woman with her feet of initials > > With her feet of bunches of keys with her feet of > > weaverbirds taking a drink > > My woman with her pearl barley neck > > My woman with her Val d'or cleavage > > > > Cleavage of a rendezvous in the very bed of the mountain > > stream > > With her breasts of night > > My woman with her undersea molehill breasts > > My woman with her breasts of the crucible of rubies > > With her breasts of the specter of the rose beneath the > > dew > > My woman with her belly of the unfolding fan of days > > With her giant claw belly > > My woman with her back of a bird fleeing vertically > > With her quicksilver back > > With her back of light > > With her nape of rolled stone and damp chalk > > And a falling glass that's just been sipped > > My woman with her rowboat hips > > With her hips of a chandelier and arrow feathers > > And the stems of white peacock plumes > > Her hips an imperceptible pair of scales > > My woman with her buttocks of sandstone and asbestos > > My woman with her buttocks of a swan's back > > My woman with her buttocks of springtime > > With her gladiolus sex > > My woman with her sex of placer and platypus > > My woman with her sex of seaweed and old-fashioned > > candies > > My woman with her mirror sex > > My woman with her eyes full of stars > > With her eyes of violet armor and a speedometer needle > > My woman with her savannah eyes > > My woman with her eyes of water to drink in prison > > My woman with her eyes of forests forever beneath the > > axe > > With her pale eyes of sea-level air-level earth and fire > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:20:08 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: missing gens, maria's q &c. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT pat pritchett wrote: > Linda Russo raises an interesting point about "feminism being a > woman-thing." I would like to think "we" are moving beyond that into a > broader definition of feminism, though this may be disturbing to more > traditional feminists since it seems to imply a waning of political > attention to women's issues - I would hope it would be just the > opposite, though. Certainly vis-a-vis Cixous' idea of ecriture much > experimental writing would fit broadly under the feminist rubric, but if > it does, then again, the definition of that term is changing. --yes-- or rather the feminine rubric, as cixous' idea has more to do with the biological fact of writing out of a woman's body; which, more generally speaking, maybe has more to do w/a certain attention one produces to their material conditions in the world; Maybe all experimental writers feel "feminized" by their culture, in the sense of being put in a place of objectness (e.g. the consumer, the client) or powerlessness (the debtor, the constituent). Cixous, btw & to the dismay of many, eschews a feminist label, preferring to align herself with a Derridian theory of difference.(as Irigaray also has more recently come to do). > I attended a talk given by Susan Faludi last fall here in Boulder > (ratio of women to men in attendance roughly 3:1). Many women were > upset when she announced that her new book would be looking at > (heterosexual) men's issues re: relationships, empowerment, etc. > They took this as a betrayal but it seemed to me not only like a > generous gesture, but like the next logical step. As you say, Linda, > it's difficult terrain to negotiate since there's little or no > precedence to rely on. Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin seem to be > offering alternative/postmodern models for gender that challenge and > expand the narrow parochial views of the Catherine MacKinnon camp > but my sense is that no one's too clear about the Big Picture or > where theory and praxis are leading next. The question maria's & rachel's responses raised for me is: we can theorize (Butler & Rubin as Pat points out) a more postmodern feminism, we can, in writing (which is the same as theorizing) practice it (re DuPlessis' _Pink Guitar_ ; Scalapino's sense of recent women's poetry constructing a "women's kind of attendance to the object" an "opportunity or context of apprehension" rather than constructing a subjectivity -- but in the practice of our everyday lives . . . there, yes, it is literally a difficult terrain to negotioate, where things don't seem to change much. Perhaps they change enough (thinking both of Joan Retallack's notion of Poethics, and of chris stoffolino's response to Robert Hale's love poems -- his attempt in hiw work to pay attention to feminist/male subjectivity tension) -- linda russo > > Patrick Pritchett > ---------- > From: linda russo > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: missing gens, maria's q &c. > Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 6:58AM > > Which brings me to the question of > feminism & writing as praxis. It seems to me that if a woman in any > way writes innovative poetry then she is a feminist, that her > feminism somehow preceeds but doesn't determine her need to write > (as it did say, in the 70s, e.g. Fraser's "poem in > which my legs are accepted" (and the whole her early books) > That is, feminism functions in the same way that *any* writer's > politics are a precedent (e.g.less *overtly* feminist works, > like Hejinian's _The Cell_ & Dahlen's _A Reading_) -- > > i guess i'm just tired of feminism being a woman-thing -- again, > wanting to be a postmodern feminist -- but not having the tools (the > tradition, the annals) to do that. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:08:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: <199802041657.LAA06310@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Poets are nothing but a box of cassette tapes that you never get >> around to playing because they are not labelled! >> (okay, i can do better than that. sorry). chris > >I don't know Chris ... i think that one was pretty good! Sounds like a compliment to me. God forbid everything I right is all identical and boxable. Perhaps that's part of why we're poets instead of something easily categorizable like musicians... Tim ______________________________________________________________ Tim Wood tim_wood@datawranglers.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:11:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Request for assistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Angela, I don't know the answer, but the question was clearly asked at one of those dreary receptions, after a few drinks: thish! What I'll do is forward your quest(ion) to the Poetics List, which might be cheating, but what the hell, it's law school. I'm sure someone there will know. best, Sylvester p.s. listers, please respond to her directly. S. >Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 23:45:58 -0500 >From: Angela Martin >Organization: University of Georgia School of Law >MIME-Version: 1.0 >To: pollet@maine.maine.edu >Subject: Request for assistance > >Hello, >Our law professor has sent us on a wild goose chase. The story goes >that an English poet was speaking at a college and an admirer asked, >"when you wrote this, did you intend thish and this and this?" The >asnwer came, "I diid not intend it then, but I do now." We are to find >out the poet's name. I am ina race with 76 other students and need your >help. >Thank you, >Angela Martin > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:32:45 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear Robert Hale, Number one--the poem is good, but...surely you do see how such a poem = objectifies women? The woman in the poem is not an equal, but a possession.= And she's not a whole person, but rather a list of favorite parts. = Number two--I can't imagine a woman alive who doesn't grimace at the = description "rowboat hips" or, worse, "buttocks of sandstone and asbestos."= = This is not a love poem, it is a statement of ownership. If you really = want to send a love poem, why not write one yourself? Or stick with = Shakespeare--he's already been test-marketed and proven effective. A final thought--brevity is crucial. The longer a love poem goes on, the = more chances it has of saying something stupid (sorry for the = unintentional echo of a Frank and Nancy Sinatra song). With advice to the lovelorn, this is Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D Robert Hale wrote: >At risk of using the list as a Dear Abby column, I seek advice = >regarding the >sending of love poems. Valentine's Day is next Saturday. I don't = >plan to >send out any love poems and here's why. > >I was dating this girl for a while. Things were going well. I = >took her to >see David Bowie. We talked about stuff. We had crazy nights. We = >even went to >a friend's wedding together. I sent her, like, a poem a week, or = >something. >I also sang to her over the phone. Then I sent her a poem by = >Andre Breton >(see below). She freaked out. Our relations broke off within a = >week. > >It wasn't the singing. Suddenly, she said I was a weirdo. It was = >the Breton. >But the one of the first poems I sent her was by Clark Coolidge! > >What gives? > > > >My woman with her forest-fire hair >With her heat-lightning thoughts >With her hourglass waist >My woman with her otter waist in the tiger's mouth >My woman with her rosette mouth a bouquet of stars of > the greatest magnitude >With her teeth of white mouse footprints on the white > earth >With her tongue of polished amber and glass >My woman with her stabbed Eucharist tongue >With her tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes >With her tongue of incredible stone >My woman with her eyelashes in a child's handwriting >With her eyebrows the edge of a swallow's nest >My woman with her temples of a greenhouse with a slate roof >And steam on the windowpanes >My woman with her shoulders of champagne >And a dolphin-headed fountain under ice >My woman with her matchstick wrists >My woman with her lucky fingers her ace of hearts > fingers >With her fingers of new-mown hay >My woman with her armpits of marten and beechnuts >Of Midsummer Night >Of privet and angelfish nest >With her seafoam and floodgate arms >Arms that mingle the wheat and the mill >My woman with rocket legs >With her movements of clockwork and despair >My woman with her calves of elder tree pith >My woman with her feet of initials >With her feet of bunches of keys with her feet of > weaverbirds taking a drink >My woman with her pearl barley neck >My woman with her Val d'or cleavage > >Cleavage of a rendezvous in the very bed of the mountain > stream >With her breasts of night >My woman with her undersea molehill breasts >My woman with her breasts of the crucible of rubies >With her breasts of the specter of the rose beneath the > dew >My woman with her belly of the unfolding fan of days >With her giant claw belly >My woman with her back of a bird fleeing vertically >With her quicksilver back >With her back of light >With her nape of rolled stone and damp chalk >And a falling glass that's just been sipped >My woman with her rowboat hips >With her hips of a chandelier and arrow feathers >And the stems of white peacock plumes >Her hips an imperceptible pair of scales >My woman with her buttocks of sandstone and asbestos >My woman with her buttocks of a swan's back >My woman with her buttocks of springtime >With her gladiolus sex >My woman with her sex of placer and platypus >My woman with her sex of seaweed and old-fashioned > candies >My woman with her mirror sex >My woman with her eyes full of stars >With her eyes of violet armor and a speedometer needle >My woman with her savannah eyes >My woman with her eyes of water to drink in prison >My woman with her eyes of forests forever beneath the > axe >With her pale eyes of sea-level air-level earth and fire > >-------------------------- >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: doug@HERRING.COM >Received: (qmail 28310 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 07:36:03 = >-0000 >Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) > by herring.com with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 07:36:03 -0000 >Received: (qmail 8579 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 07:35:44 = >-0000 >Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) > by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 07:35:44 = >-0000 >Received: from LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU by = >LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 27919632 = >for > POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 4 Feb 1998 = >02:35:41 -0500 >Received: (qmail 23643 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 07:35:40 = >-0000 >Received: from cadiz.etak.com (HELO cadiz) (198.6.248.11) by > listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 = >07:35:40 -0000 >Received: from etak.com by cadiz (8.7.2/Gateway-2.1) id = >XAA21635; Tue, 3 Feb > 1998 23:28:19 -0800 (PST) >Received: from viangchan-pc.etak by etak.com (8.7.2/Mailhub-2.1) = >id XAA25058; > Tue, 3 Feb 1998 23:32:31 -0800 (PST) >X-Sender: hale@pop1 >X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"us-ascii" >Message-ID: <2.2.32.19980204073940.00a5f7ac@pop1> >Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 23:39:40 -0800 >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group = > >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group = > >From: Robert Hale >Subject: Love Poems >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Henry Gould wrote: > Steve Evans, bless his brilliant soul, is a good example: look at his ILS > essay on the process of literary change. How erudite, how stylized - > & how the poets are bumped in at the beginning & end almost as a footnote. > It's an example of how TALKING ABOUT IT is a major form today, and exhibits > all the incestuous poeto-academo atmosphere I've been railing against. > Now all you street-talkin' anti-intellectuals, don't get the idea I'm on > your side. I LIKE Steve's writing. It's just not the criticism (that > essay anyway) that Rod Smith et al's "generation" might need. Henry-- Personally, I found Evans' essay extremely "liberating" as an "emerging" poet-- It strikes me that one of the primary theses of that piece--one which appears most forcefully at the start of the essay--provides younger writers with a way out from under any detrimental criticism that might come their way. To be more clear: Evans suggests vis-a-vis Hegel that one of the reasons for the regular dismissal of "the avant-garde" is that a lot of the work they do is as yet invisible to the eyes of those steeped in the "ideologies" (I don't think this is the right term, but it'll do) of their times. In other words, avant-garde poets don't get any credit because a lot of the work their doing is (1) unrecognizable through the political, aesthetic, and institutional lenses of the time, and (2) perhaps not even "substantive" as so much of their energy must be spent simply "escaping"--or reinventing-- the assumptions of the time. Thus, the more established (traditional, mainstream, what have you) aestheitics of the time are able, perhaps, to "produce" more, and more visible works-- (An image I get here through a Marxist lens: that mainstream writers already have an aesthetic "factory," so to speak, at their disposal--they have access to a predetermined means of (artistic) production-- Innovative writers, however, must manufacture the machinery anew--) The implications for younger writers here are astonishing-- That perhaps "older" writers--even those of the avant-garde variety--may also be unable to fully "see" (perceive is probably a better word) the "new" in the younger generation's works-- Perhaps the "older" writers might claim that the young ones are "lazy," "apathetic," etc. (sound familiar?), because they cannot "see" the work that goes into simply "emerging"-- Evans doesn't make such arguments explicitly--but I think these analogies are more than available (particularly in light of the postscript in which he basically credits such writers as Brown, Jarnot, Moxley, Spahr, Stroffolino, and Rothschild for, in some regards, freeing "the avant-garde" from the aesthetic prison (not intentionally a prison, but an effective one none the less) of Langpos. Breaking out of prison is hard work! And usually happens when no one is looking. In other words, I think that this essay represents PRECISELY the kind of criticism that "Rod Smith's Generation" might need-- *** > ...I am speaking as a poet who has played > by what I consider the rules for over 30 years. My rules are: do the > poem. Send it to magazines & contests. Think about what you are doing - > maybe write an essay about it. That's it. In my experience "doing > the poem" has absorbed the energy. Maybe I am a fanatic, or a hedgehog > in Isaiah Berlin's sense, or a totally introverted recluse. These rules seem to contradict each other, Henry. Sending to mags and contests doesn't absorb any energy? Do introverts write lots of essays? Send to contests? (Emily--) *** be looking for an indi critic too - somebody with taste, judgement, > freedom, and an artistic instinct. The rest is baloney. It's the kind > of baloney Emily Dickinson was concerned about, & that led Uncle Walt > to write reviews of himself under a pseudonym. Not to mention Edgar > Poe. That's a complicated murder story in which the autopsy was > suborned. It seems to me that "taste, judgement, freedom, and artistic instinct" are also forms of baloney. Yours, Katy > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:52:04 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: NY, NY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I will be in NYC 25-28 of April and would like to do a reading to promote = my book TEA (Wesleyan Univ. Press). If anyone knows of a venue that would = be available, I would greatly appreciate the assistance. I will be reading = here in San Francisco at A Different Light on 22 March, at Wesleyan Univ. = on 29 April and at Prairie Lights in Iowa City on 1 May. = Thanks, Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:09:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark & Ambiguity In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe Safdie wrote: >(But Herb! I >don't agree that David is here responding to my "interpretation" riff at >all! Perhaps it's just too late, or I'm too dense . . ) While David may not be responding directly to your interpretation riff, he IS reading the poems that you praised for their plain statement in a way that differs markedly from your reading of them. (At least I assume it differs: since in keeping with your claim that the poems are transparent, you just pointed at them, rather than offering any reading.) Your initial response to his failure to accept the poems in the same manner as you did is that he's being ungenerous. Your further response is to quote more of the poem (further pointing) and quibbling about minor points. To respond to your earlier question, there was consciously ambiguous writing long before Empson, going back at least to Defoe & other early novelists. As for reading texts in ways that counter the original intentions, well, that goes back at least a couple of thousand years. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:10:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: <9802030924437.4930414@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dale, I think the vulnerability you respond to is based more on your knowledge of Tom Clark & where he's coming from than anything in the cited poems themselves. & the various sensuous pleasures we all find in poems are matters of taste, and far from absolute. As to generosity, you're correct in stating that you've been more than generous with your positions. However, you've been far from generous in accepting that other readers among your peers could honestly find fault with your oft-stated opinion of Clark & Dorn's stature as the true living ascended masters of the universe. People will read the poems or they won't. They'll write about the poems here (or elsewhere) or they won't. They'll like the poems or they won't. No amount of name calling or bullying will change that. Poems (& poets) shouldn't need bodyguards. If you can't accept that other poets can honestly differ with your opinions on "two of the most brilliant and dedicated men to engage the art of verse this century", it isn't the fault of these other readers, but with your unwillingness to allow for differences on the issue. There's 600 people on this list. We don't all agree on anything substantive, we're certainly not all going to agree with you on something like this. We also don't all agree that Barrett Watten is the living embodiment of Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer. If you search the archives of this list as you propose, you will find several discussions of Clark & Dorn as bad men, just as you'd find several discussions of the evil rise of language poetry in the Bay area 20 years ago. But you'll also find Ron Silliman including a book by Clark in a list of books he wishes were in print again. You'll find David Bromige was the first to note that Clark's Junkets on a Sad Planet were published in book form in response to a query on a recent verse biography of Keats. You'll find Gunslinger coming up in a very recent discussion of books that might excite usually bored students in introductory literature classes. The us-them binary isn't as simple as you wish to make it. >Actually, my 'argument' said that there is a vulnerability in these poems >that David did not acknowledge. If I confused this with Tom's personal life >it's because I find poetry to be personal as well as a public statement, >reflec >tion or expression etc... And the 'us-them' bianary I'm accused of does not >originate with me. Scroll through the archives of this list and you will find >plenty of examples in which Tom or Ed have been branded with various stigmatas >that place them well outside of the poetics community shared by many here. >I d >on't know what else it takes to 'engage' on this list, by the way. As a >'peer' >I think I've responded with generous efforts to explain my positions. Maybe >referring to David, in a moment of anger, as a self-delusional coward, >etc. was >out of line. But as a guardian of... something...I still have no doubts. >Just >as I, for whatever reasons of dementia and devotion, respond in kind to >comment >s I find floundering in the usual realms of accepted platitudes. If that's >'charming' or 'romantic' great. And by the way, those poems Joe posted, >though >apropos to the discussion, aren't very representative of Tom's work. But >I doubt if this list would generate much discussion about his poems on Keats, >say. Or other unfashionable subjects like that. The syntax might be too >'uninteresting.' As if sintax was the only measure of verse. The sensual >pleasures of language - the music, the rhythm - can be as entertaining as the >mental stimulation of syntax. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:08:50 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, uh uh MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I thinks it was Steve McCaffrey what coined the arse poetica. Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D James Finnegan wrote: >As the old man used to say: > >"Get off your ars(e) poetica and get a real job." > >Finnegan > >-------------------------- >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: doug@HERRING.COM >Received: (qmail 21176 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 19:09:24 = >-0000 >Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) > by herring.com with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 19:09:24 -0000 >Received: (qmail 27820 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 17:39:51 = >-0000 >Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) > by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 17:39:51 = >-0000 >Received: from LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU by = >LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 27951683 = >for > POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 4 Feb 1998 = >12:39:46 -0500 >Received: (qmail 26266 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1998 17:39:45 = >-0000 >Received: from imo15.mx.aol.com (198.81.19.170) by = >listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu > with SMTP; 4 Feb 1998 17:39:45 -0000 >Received: from JforJames@aol.com by imo15.mx.aol.com = >(IMOv12/Dec1997) id > NAGDa29748 for ; = >Wed, 4 Feb 1998 > 12:39:36 -0500 (EST) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-type: text/plain; charset=3DUS-ASCII >Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 41 >Message-ID: >Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:39:36 EST >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group = > >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group = > >From: James Finnegan >Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, uh uh >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:09:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let me get this straight--that people in universities study language poetry reveals that they are beyond the pale--then presumably those who dismiss language poetry, for the same reasons that Dale M. Smith does (what does the edu on his or her e-mail address stand for by the way?) are perhaps indicative that the university is not as rotten as all that. There are enough people in the university with enough common sense to dismiss "a language of conceptual, reductive space dust" (who is being reductive here?) in favor of the pure williamcarloswilliamsian Amercain vernacular. Thank god! No matter that Coolidge, Howe, and Scalapino (among others) are vernacular poets in the profoundest sense. But perhaps Dale Smith is not really in the university, appearances notwithstanding. One of those people who are not "real" academics because they are still pure of heart. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:09:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: missing gens, maria's q &c. Comments: To: linda russo MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Maybe part of the problem of change vis-a-vis the postmodern subject - and specfically the postmodern feminine subject - can be summed up by a quote form Nancy Hartsock which Charles Altieri uses to preface his _Subjective Agency_ : (I paraphrase) "Why is that it just when minority groups decided to no longer be objects of history but subjects that the whole idea of the subject suddenly became problematic?" Why indeed? I haven't read Altieri's book yet, so I don't know how he addresses this. I'd venture to say, though, that the absence of a precedent, of a history, of a blueprint, while confusing, can also be liberating - a chance to write a new map for femina cognita. It's interesting that Cixous declines to place her project under the feminist banner, opting instead for a broader and decidedly more abstract one. This highlights one of the big differences between French feminism and American feminism, as I understand it: that the former is more philosophically-driven, the latter more politically-driven - and the gap between them seems to be widening. These are all rather obvious observations and the question remains: what then must we do? Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: linda russo To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: missing gens, maria's q &c. Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 5:20AM but in the practice of our everyday lives . . . there, yes, it is literally a difficult terrain to negotioate, where things don't seem to change much. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:30:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Love Poems Comments: To: linda russo MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain yes - I think DeBeauvoir objected to Breton's romanticism on more or less the same grounds: woman as object of mystical infatuation and reverie. Though I confess I was much taken with this poem when I was 21. And I sympathize with Robert Hale. The best thing to do is to give someone your own poems, I think. Then if those are rejected, you can have a great time getting drunk and feeling gloriously bitter (not that I'm making light of yr situation...). My first wife thought my poems were crap - and she was probably right, but she was also very harsh. My second wife loves them - but then, I've improved somewhat. In the interim between them, such offerings were usually met with baffled silence and/or polite horror. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: linda russo To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Love Poems Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 5:20AM agreeing w/ chris s., it is a great poem; speaking as a particular woman (which the response depends on) i think i'd mixed messages if it were sent to me. it is not just a sexist poem, but an imperialistic poem i don't think anyone want to be referred to as "my woman" (maybe an under-30's understanding of this) But to be "my woman with" -- especially when "my woman's" (and not at all "my"/mine) attributes are all physical -- so exposed, granted no privacy, no complexity, no emotion -- at least not any autonomous privacy, complexity, emotion. Made HIS mystery only, inspiring his emotions, descriptions (& yes some amazing language) but that's all. its sort of like a vivisection & on the other side of it -- a response might be to the hyperbole of it -- which of course makes it an amazing poem, but not so much a flattering set of utterances. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:59:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Dear Simon (that IS your first name, yes? And your server reverses them the way mine does?): Thank you for this eloquent and sadly un-obvious post. It makes perfect sense to me and I wish its sentiments to travel widely ("Go, little book . . ."). As one who has also used labels like "fascist" loosely, and who has been corrected for such usage by residents of the formerly communist nation of the Czech Republic, I propose that participants of this list TRY to watch their language (who else but us?) As you say, "Stalin as Linguist" was Tom's title -- so technically it was he who first used that particular brush -- but your post contains so much wisdom in a short amount of space ("the smaller the stakes, the more violent the struggle") that I can only recommend that people read it again. Thanks. > ---------- > From: Schuchat Simon[SMTP:schuchat@MAIL.AIT.ORG.TW] > Sent: Thursday, February 05, 1998 12:43 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark > > In a post ignored by many about period style I noted that the first > poem by Bruce Andrews I ever read was published in the Paris Review, > chosen by Tom Clark (at least Tom Clark was the poetry editor of the > Paris Review at the time, and its hard to imagine George Plimpton > picking > Bruce's works though not impossible I confess). it seems to me that > this > is a measure of evidence that the issue at hand is not aesthetic. > > I don't know the "Stalin as linguist" essay, but this constant harping > on > the Hitlerian or Stalinist methodology of TC is a little grating. I > am > probably not the only one on the list who can say this, but I have > lived > in a neo-Stalinist society and the ad hominen attack is one > characteristic of Stalinist polemic. It would not surprise me if TC, > in > either the Poetry Flash or Partisan Review or whereever, used > Stalinist > argumentation, but it doesn't further anyone's understanding to use it > back at him. > > Underlying most polemic in Stalinist society was stuff like envy, > resentment, you attacked my friend or even attacked me so I will crush > you in return, etc. It was always difficult to learn what the > original > pretext, even, of an attack was -- did Jiang Qing really send those > people to jail because they knew her as a young actress, or was it how > they treated her when she was a young actress, or what? Part of it is > just power, and the smaller the stakes, the more violent the struggle. > I > don't know what lies at the real root of the anti-Tom Clark emotion > that > occassionally erupts on the list. I have trouble thinking of him as > the > "real enemy," that's all. > > Four poets were just arrested in Guizhou, for planning to start a > magazine. Anyone else on the list hear about it? Anyone know where > Guizhou is? > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:05:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert, it's a great poem, albeit with all the issues addressed by Rachel etc. But, uh, not to trash your representation of the issue, could it have not that much to do with the poem? Maybe she was looking for a way out, and Breton was the excuse she needed. Just a thought. . . Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:11:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ -----Original Message----- From: David Kellogg To: UB Poetics discussion group Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 6:05 PM Subject: Re: Love Poems >Robert, it's a great poem, albeit with all the issues addressed by Rachel >etc. But, uh, not to trash your representation of the issue, could it have >not that much to do with the poem? Maybe she was looking for a way out, and >Breton was the excuse she needed. > >Just a thought. . . > >Cheers, >David >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >David Kellogg Duke University >kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric >(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 >FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:09:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dale Smith wrote: >University press publications by Perelman, Bernstein et al are part of the > problem addressed. Critics parading as poets parading as... The American >academy stinks and has stunk from day one. That it is somehow sympathetic >to langpods reveals how bankrupt their project has become. It's a bore all >around. The universities have never been sympathetic to the vernacular and >so langpo dismantled WCW's ground breaking work on that scale and cashed in >on a language of reductive, conceptual space dust. Funny, I have been teaching _Spring and All_ this week and last, and reading it again (along with its Dada contemporaries) has reminded me of some of the multiple places language poetry comes from. Jesus Christ, Dale, is your world really this black and white? Or are you just in a flame-bait kind o'mood? Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:16:15 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Finnegan Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit be looking for an indi critic too - somebody with taste, judgement, > freedom, and an artistic instinct. The rest is baloney. It's the kind > of baloney Emily Dickinson was concerned about, & that led Uncle Walt > to write reviews of himself under a pseudonym. Not to mention Edgar > Poe. That's a complicated murder story in which the autopsy was > suborned. In response to the above, Katy writes: It seems to me that "taste, judgement, freedom, and artistic instinct" are also forms of baloney. Your last statement is too nihilistic for my taste. I think the "indie critic" is wonderful ideal. Though somewhat romantic. If such a person exists, no doubt certain biases, theoretical tethers, bind him/her, no matter how much s/he might strain to be free of such strictures. I will also note that critics more often quote poets and poet-critics, rather than other critics. (Anecdotal, no statistical study to back up this assertion.) Literary criticism is, as others have said, an artform in and of itself. Yet I believe there's a natural bias among poets to know what another poet might think, not what the critic thinks that poet thinks—horse’s mouth & all that. Finnegan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:27:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: task of criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jonathan MAYHEW wrote: > One of those people who are not "real" academics because > they are still pure of heart. There are no really happy places for poetry right now. When I was at the University of Kansas, Jonathan, John Fowler (the editor of R/ft) ran a wonderful book store a few doors down from the Student Union (in fact, next door to where "the Great White Dog of the Rock Chalk" in Ed Dorn's poem "wandered through the door of Western Civilization,") and then John Moritz ran one next door to the old Rock Chalk Cafe itself, a little further down Oread Avenue, and when Caterpillar or Io would come in the poets would gather and talk far into the night. Happily there were people like Ed Grier and Roy Gridley, great scholars of Whitman and Browning and great readers of contemporary poetry, who would let me write a dissertation about Charles Olson. Most of the faculty was not clear about the difference between Charles Olson and Elder Olson (a name that will be familiar to elders on the list at most). To be sure there are some hiding places. Higher education, after all, is a huge enterprise; one will find a little of every thing. But the University as an institution has never been a happy place for poets. Some legendary member of the Harvard English department, once asked if there were any poets in the department, replied, "They don't have elephants in the zoology department, do they?" Some version of this attitude continues to prevail. In all this talk of criticism, there have been few examples of good criticism. I would like to recommend Jed Rasula's _The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects, 1940-1990_. The writing is dazzling, the knowledge of the field encyclopedic, the judgements, as far as I can see, honest and fair. It will make clear why there is so little really good criticism: there simply aren't many people who know the field. Something of this order is required if you are going to have a real criticism. Rasula's book is published by a quintessentially academic publisher, The National Council of Teacher's of English. How does it change our judgement of the book that he is also the author of one of the most original books of poetry of the last 20 years? _Tabula Rasula_. I believe he is preparing now another manuscript of poems for publication. It has been 13 years since the last one. Of course, this is not the way to build a career as a poet, but is it a reasonable way for a poet to go about his or her work? It is interesting to note T.S. Eliot published only a little over 200 pages of poetry, some of it fairly slight. Whitman and Stevens both well less than 600 pages. Pound, Williams, and HD wrote big chunks of their more substantial oeuvres after they were 60. Don -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 19:17:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Zamsky Organization: SUNY-Buffalo Subject: Re: Was: Re: Uh, MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "easily categorizable like musicians" ???? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 19:56:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: task of criticism In-Reply-To: <01bd31c1$ea1166a0$49cc0398@DKellogg.Dukeedu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, David Kellogg wrote: > Funny, I have been teaching _Spring and All_ this week and last, and reading > it again (along with its Dada contemporaries) has reminded me of some of the > multiple places language poetry comes from. Coincidently, speaking of Dada, it was on Feb 5 1916 that Hugo Ball noted in his diary that the very first evening at the brand new Cabaret Voltaire was a tremendous success. 82 years and it seems like only. . . etc etc. re: Don Byrd's note that many of us younger folks don't know Elder Olson: actually, I'm quite familiar with the name: he's the guy many of the old-timers in various EngDepts I have known thought I was referring to when I mentioned Charles Olson. Leads to some interesting miscommunications when two people start talking about poetic form and one is talking about El and the other Chas Olson. Dave Zauhar ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:07:57 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My respose is much like Linda Russo's: I love the poem, and I love Breton, but if someone gave it to me (how long were you dating?) I might get that uh-oh,-he's-gonna-make-me-a-muse feeling, which is awfully constricting. I don't think she reacted to its being "out there" (she didn't mind Coolidge), so much as she might have been unable to understand how you saw HER in relation to the text (geez, why'd he give me _this_???). Haven't you noticed that when you give someone (esp. a lover) a poem, they read it like there's a secret message inside? I love Breton, but what is it about him that's so creepy? I think perhaps it's his sense of entitlement. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 20:55:37 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:44 -0600 from On Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:44 -0600 k. lederer said: >The implications for younger writers here are astonishing-- > >That perhaps "older" writers--even those of the avant-garde variety--may >also be unable to fully "see" (perceive is probably a better word) the >"new" in the younger generation's works-- > >Perhaps the "older" writers might claim that the young ones are "lazy," >"apathetic," etc. (sound familiar?), because they cannot "see" the work >that goes into simply "emerging"-- > >Evans doesn't make such arguments explicitly--but I think these analogies >are more than available (particularly in light of the postscript in which >he basically credits such writers as Brown, Jarnot, Moxley, Spahr, >Stroffolino, and Rothschild for, in some regards, freeing "the >avant-garde" from the aesthetic prison (not intentionally a prison, but an >effective one none the less) of Langpos. Breaking out of prison is hard >work! And usually happens when no one is looking. > >In other words, I think that this essay represents PRECISELY the >kind of criticism that "Rod Smith's Generation" might need-- Katy, I'm glad you got something out of that essay; he's a snazzy writer. But you don't need a dress-up of Hegel & Marx for the precisely OLD idea (I mean like, old since Greek & Roman times) that the old fogies won't be able to understand the youngsters. Maybe it's just that a card-carrying "youngster" is saying it for you (& insists on harping on the "generation" thing just so you don't forget)... My point was that such advocacy is only a beginning, if anything. I think you need to open the mental blinders. Critic does not necessarily = "mainstream establishment person out to judge us by outmoded standards of (baloney) taste". That is a cartoon of a critic. In my mind, critic = "somebody who loves poetry enough to dig into it backwards & forwards, past & present, and say something intelligent (if subjective) about the style, mindset, aims, effects, contradictions, connections, strengths, imitations, originalities, meaning, impact, development... etc of what s/he reads". I don't think of standards as a set of hoary rules; I think of standards as the feel of a good ear for syntax, sound, meaning, and complexity. Wouldn't you rather read some of this than various gang-approval ratings, blurbs, or tossed-off empty retchings which pass for "criticism?" THAT IS ALL I'M SAYING. > >*** >> ...I am speaking as a poet who has played >> by what I consider the rules for over 30 years. My rules are: do the >> poem. Send it to magazines & contests. Think about what you are doing - >> maybe write an essay about it. That's it. In my experience "doing >> the poem" has absorbed the energy. Maybe I am a fanatic, or a hedgehog >> in Isaiah Berlin's sense, or a totally introverted recluse. > >These rules seem to contradict each other, Henry. Sending to mags and >contests doesn't absorb any energy? Do introverts write lots of essays? >Send to contests? (Emily--) > All I meant was, MOST of my energy (like 98%) goes into DOING the poems (until I joined this list [sigh]). Does anybody know what I look like? Seen me gladhanding at conferences? Reading anyplace outside Providence? Published much? (these are rhetorical questions) Maybe it's because I only write haiku about buffalo - that could be it. I'm also not a prof, not a writing teacher, not a grad student, not a novelist, not a journalist, not a professional poet, not a performance artist; the only wannabee I am is wannabee out on the road again with my guitar - but then I really would have to be running from the law. Ask Jack about that. > >It seems to me that "taste, judgement, freedom, and artistic instinct" are >also forms of baloney. Yes, the word "taste" always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I like baloney better myself. But judgement, freedom, artistic instinct... there they go now, off to the next reality... all words become dust through repetition... anything can be turned into a joke... "the laughter of fools is like fire crackling under a pot" [Proverbs]. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 23:06:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: missing gens, maria's q &c. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Linda Russo wrote: <> there is one other myth to help put stuff in place re the origins of langpo,,, and which complicates juliana's orginals somewhat: bruce andrews and charles bernstein were in bernadette mayer's st marks seminar in the 70s and learned all their tricks (except their penchants for grabbing power and engaging in heterosexual monogamy) from her. Later they were "mean" to her and either excluded her from being a language poet or else were remiss in acknowledging that they learned everything from her. Ange Mlinko brought this up on the list some time back and Charles Bernstein responded with a forceful denial. Now they are doing the macarena. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 22:09:13 -0500 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pat, Does your change in estimation re Breton's poem reflect what you said earlier, i.e., that "one of the big differences between French feminism and American feminism, as I understand it: that the former is more philosophically-driven, the latter more politically-driven" ?? & if so, how? Do you [if you do] shrink a bit from Breton now more for political or for philosophical reasons? How do you feel about the widening of the gap between American & French feminisms? --Dan Zimmerman pritchpa wrote: > > yes - I think DeBeauvoir objected to Breton's romanticism on more or > less the same grounds: woman as object of mystical infatuation and > reverie. Though I confess I was much taken with this poem when I was 21. > And I sympathize with Robert Hale. The best thing to do is to give > someone your own poems, I think. Then if those are rejected, you can > have a great time getting drunk and feeling gloriously bitter (not that > I'm making light of yr situation...). My first wife thought my poems > were crap - and she was probably right, but she was also very harsh. My > second wife loves them - but then, I've improved somewhat. In the > interim between them, such offerings were usually met with baffled > silence and/or polite horror. > > Patrick Pritchett > ---------- > From: linda russo > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Love Poems > Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 5:20AM > > agreeing w/ chris s., it is a great poem; > speaking as a particular woman (which the response depends on) > i think i'd mixed messages if it were sent to me. > it is not just a sexist poem, but an imperialistic poem > i don't think anyone want to be referred to as "my woman" > (maybe an under-30's understanding of this) But to be "my > woman with" -- especially when "my woman's" (and not at all > "my"/mine) attributes are all physical -- so exposed, granted > no privacy, no complexity, no emotion -- at least not any > autonomous privacy, complexity, emotion. Made > HIS mystery only, inspiring his emotions, > descriptions (& yes some amazing language) > but that's all. its sort of like a vivisection > > & on the other side of it -- a response might > be to the hyperbole of it -- which of course makes > it an amazing poem, but not so much a flattering > set of utterances. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 20:48:24 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Re: simon schuchat, response to b on c Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Simon, just want to be clear in front of the List that you do not intend your gdneral complaint re the cyclical irrational anti-Tom Clark eruptions to apply to my careful posting re the contradictions in his poetry and his criticism. If my post struck you as emotional, I hope you also saw the evidence of what aroused it: the mis-use of Brecht and the 'one-law-for-me-another-for-you' tenor of those of his poems provided to the List by his fans. You might want to look at Clark's article "Stalin as Linguist." It's in a Partisan Review for 1987, no doubt in a library near you. On the other hand, if you wish to retain the obviously sunny portrait you have of Tom Clark, you might not. For me, it is an issue of the mis-use of language by a person whose abilities should know better, a person in a position to unjustly affect for the worse the condition of current poetry, thus,sooner or later, society and knowledge. It has nothing to do with Tom Clark's person, for who has not basked in his sunny charm, noted his nifty ability to hear _le dernier cri_ , or been taken with his fetching ways? I still recall our first meeting--it happened on the beach at Bolinas, in the late 60's. My wife and I were being lectured (in a kindly way) by Margot Patterson Doss, doyen of guided walks, on the varieties of pebble that make up that beach, agates of several kinds, etc. Tom Clark meanwhile had appeared, accompanied by Lewis Warsh and, I think, Joanne Kyger. Getting into the spirit of things very nimbly, Tom Clark pointed to a pair of large tires among the flotsam and cried, "Two Nymphomaniacs!" --revealing himself already aware of the trouble with signifiers that was to be the bread-and-water of a generation. So please do not put the cart before the horse where I am concerned. Address the issues I have raised first, if you please, before broadcasting fire-retardant. Because, even though many of us are fond of Tom, it is not impossible, is it, that so rugged an Outsider might cut a few corners in his zeal to see justice done, whether west or east of the Pecos? Corners dear to those of us who prize reason, language, poetry, truth and justice every bit as much (well, nearly) as Clark himself? David Bromige. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:08:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Zamsky Organization: SUNY-Buffalo Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been itching to say something in response to many of the representations of criticism/academia as some sort of vile enterprise that lives a sort of parasitic life off of the "real" importance of poetry. On the one hand, my response goes something like: hogwash. All of us critics get into the game because of the great pay and fantastic cultural clout allotted to literary critics? Please... come on. Whether or not you agree with someone's aesthetic or critical perspective, the fact is that every academic I know gets into it because of a love for the work. I mean, if we were truly opportunists, you'd figure we'd go after something with some kind of material reward. Which gets me to the second of probably many hands. I couldn't agree more with Henry Gould: I think you need to open the mental blinders. Critic does not necessarily = "mainstream establishment person out to judge us by outmoded standards of (baloney) taste". That is a cartoon of a critic. In my mind, critic = "somebody who loves poetry enough to dig into it backwards & forwards, past & present, and say something intelligent (if subjective) about the style, mindset, aims, effects, contradictions, connections, strengths, imitations, originalities, meaning, impact, development... etc of what s/he reads". I don't think of standards as a set of hoary rules; I think of standards as the feel of a good ear for syntax, sound, meaning, and complexity. Wouldn't you rather read some of this than various gang-approval ratings, blurbs, or tossed-off empty retchings which pass for "criticism?" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 22:11:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: safdie on bromige on clark Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joe, I wish I'd had the education you had! You got Jung's theory of Projection in the fifth grade?! I didn't get it till I'd left high school, and then, I only got Freud's. I was beginning to suppose I'd lost my ability to make matters plain, but now I see it is the gap in our educations that is causing us trouble. I guess if I'd heard about Projection when I was in knee-pants, it would be old hat to me as well by now. Whether it contained a grain of truth or not, I'd have put it away along with other childish trifles. I see that, for readers weary of zykoanalysis, those of us still trapped in the shadow of Mitteleuropa are worse than nerds in lederhoesen. I dunno--I just can't help myself! I keep hearing echoes of what isn't made explicit, in the words people use! In all that's Yin, I sniff some Yang : all that's Yang, some Yin. (Getting closer to Jung, now). Face-value is only one way I take people! You mean that Chuck Hurwitz really would have returned me $100 for every $1 I invested? You mean money isn't shit, thick rich warm doo-doo forevermore? You think that someone else's poem means exactly what you say? To another? You think when I told my wife I was having trouble understanding stale myth, that wasn't a Freudian slip? In another vein, I know that there's no end to reading, where poetry and other human behavior goes, not for me, and you can well believe it makes me not easy to live with. So I should probably shut up. But I probably won't. It was nice of you, Joe, to ask me and my wife to go to the Fair with you, in Seattle. I hope Poetry isn't going to come between us like the Rock of Gibraltar--I'd sooner it came between us like a scrabble game. David ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 22:15:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: Re: Love Poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Interesting in most of the responses, and I thank all who volunteered advice/criticism (Chris Stroffolino, Linda Russo, Doug Powell, Karen Kelly), is the notion of the great/good poem that everyone seems to love/like, yet must read a bit tougher (sexist, imperialist) for legitimate personal/political/identity reasons, especially in the context in which I was presenting it. That's a weird sensation and maybe that's what is so ultimately disconcerting about the poem and the manner in which it engages or alienates the reader. Critiquing surrealist poetry is like critiquing film a la Christian Metz, how do you effectively critique something you love/hate, the imaginary signifier. There is a tremendous transference there, which explains my inability to see the poem as anything other than something for her, even though I was well aware of its political risks. Also, what happens to the language when it's delivered as such a message? -- the route as part of a text "loved" when isolated, packed and unpacked, yet trouble-making when delivered? Someone suggested that something besides the poem caused the breakup. Not true. And I like (a strange word here) the idea that a poem can be that powerful, even if it results in a loss. (I guess I am a weirdo) She wrote me a letter, by the way, which eluded to the poem as an indication that I felt more passionately for her than her for me therefore we must end. There was no mention of offense, though it may have been sublimated in some way, which is why I posted the list. I wrote some love poems (as some of you suggested), but there is nothing like a Breton love poem, and it is a love poem, contrary to opinion, very complicated, I think, and emotional (whatever these words mean), all these things in a very exterior, and arguably, male way. Concrete obscurity (O'Hara) -- probably not the best thing for a relationship. Bernardette Mayer has some great love poems. I'll send her's from now on. (But I won't stop sending Breton). She introduced me to the Coolidge love poem, which I'd never read in that way. I feel better. At 03:30 PM 2/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >yes - I think DeBeauvoir objected to Breton's romanticism on more or >less the same grounds: woman as object of mystical infatuation and >reverie. Though I confess I was much taken with this poem when I was 21. >And I sympathize with Robert Hale. The best thing to do is to give >someone your own poems, I think. Then if those are rejected, you can >have a great time getting drunk and feeling gloriously bitter (not that >I'm making light of yr situation...). My first wife thought my poems >were crap - and she was probably right, but she was also very harsh. My >second wife loves them - but then, I've improved somewhat. In the >interim between them, such offerings were usually met with baffled >silence and/or polite horror. > >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- >From: linda russo >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Love Poems >Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 5:20AM > >agreeing w/ chris s., it is a great poem; >speaking as a particular woman (which the response depends on) >i think i'd mixed messages if it were sent to me. >it is not just a sexist poem, but an imperialistic poem >i don't think anyone want to be referred to as "my woman" >(maybe an under-30's understanding of this) But to be "my >woman with" -- especially when "my woman's" (and not at all >"my"/mine) attributes are all physical -- so exposed, granted >no privacy, no complexity, no emotion -- at least not any >autonomous privacy, complexity, emotion. Made >HIS mystery only, inspiring his emotions, >descriptions (& yes some amazing language) >but that's all. its sort of like a vivisection > >& on the other side of it -- a response might >be to the hyperbole of it -- which of course makes >it an amazing poem, but not so much a flattering >set of utterances. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 22:13:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: nico vassilakis Subject: A Short Lived Fontanel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII the formalities of receiving I think ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:11:25 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". isn't this just the whole problem with Breton (& Donne & Plutarch for that matter?) ? ! ? sorry -- i couldn't resist ... but not to overlook "My Woman" & its fill-in-the-blank functionality the male reader consigning to himself the fantasy of ownership; -- in the blazon enough parts will the anonymous (female) body make. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:31:04 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT *snip* > Also, what happens to the language when it's delivered as such a message? -- > the route as part of a text "loved" when isolated, packed and unpacked, yet > trouble-making when delivered? > i can only guess that you wanted "my woman with" to translate into "you"; odd that "my woman with" seems so fill-in-the-blankish except(!) when a specific "subjectivity" is demanded of it; i.e. "my susan with" might work but "i, susan, with" won't. *snip snap* > I wrote some love poems (as some of you suggested), but there is nothing > like a Breton love poem, and it is a love poem, contrary to opinion, very > complicated, I think, and emotional (whatever these words mean), all these > things in a very exterior, and arguably, male way. yes, in the way that it is all cock. i.e. he loves her with his cock or with whatever else skin he can glom all over her -- the old standby question -- do you think he respects his "woman with"? is there a being beneath this mass of female goodness? yes, it's nice to receive compliments re your bod. -- but to the exclusion of ? ? ? -- i'm reacting now out of context, of course, you couldn've sent a love poem praising her mind, her ideals, &c her bank account, i dunno, but i'd like to know of some poems that do! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 03:10:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear ROBERT From my P.O.V. as a "female desiring subject" -- my guess would be the "buttocks of sandstone and asbestos" reference is what did you in. In the late 20th century it's beyond kinky, it's proven cancerous. And never rely on the wedding date aura as meaningful toward longevity--it's a proven ruse. So here's my Valentine offering for the love lorn: Thirst for Jennifer A poem does not exist until it is written. The reader experiences it's newness, as Discovery, the next moment, the same Poem is ancient, having always been known, somewhere, Somewhere central. Needed. Like this: The lover does not exist until she has come into view as Revelation Creation You need her--though you’ve Never seen her before, Never possessed her. Once Excavated, she is permanent, In your thoughts, the seeing you do in your head. A terrific thirst Accompanies moments Without her. It is At once delicious and horrible. Delicious hope: this thirst will eventually be relieved; Horrible what you know: what is possible, or probable: Eternity of no resolve All my best Valentine wishes to all R D Levitsky ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:09:56 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Breton's woman, Breton's poem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andr=E9 Breton poem:=20 "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 07:11:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Uh, In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" herb rites: We also don't all agree that Barrett Watten is the living embodiment of Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer. *** we don't? i want my money back. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:18:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: Love Poems Comments: To: Robert Hale MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Interesting discussion / problem / question, Robert. Pablo Neruda has many (seems to me) kindred poems. One wonders to what extent they may sometimes conjure similar (to those noted, briefly, on list) reservations. Octavio Paz, I guess, wrote sometimes in a not dissimilar manner, but not I think so diehard & prolix as Neruda. I guess his *Twenty Love Poems & a [whatever it was]* (translated by WS Merwin long ago) are just a few of the many. Such poetry gives unembarassed voice to the textures of subjectivity. Such things can, however, prove embarassing, esp. if not cushioned by some sort of usefully abstracting cultural context. Troubadorian cultures are very distant from 90s film & t.v., and it can be hard to find a route of communication between the twain. From vantage of the latter, for former can seem madness / danger. Vice versa presumably? Love & aculturation-problems. Difficulty of arriving at shared language? So much depends upon a red herring. d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 06:36:21 -0500 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit linda russo wrote: > > > Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". > > isn't this just the whole problem with Breton (& Donne & Plutarch for > that matter?) ? ! ? > sorry -- i couldn't resist > ... but not to overlook "My Woman" & > its fill-in-the-blank functionality > the male reader consigning > to himself the fantasy of ownership; > -- in the blazon enough parts will the anonymous (female) body make. Oh, well, I can't resist either: does the phrase "my man" resonate? Do women never act as if "their men" belong to them? Never exhibit possessiveness, or objectify? Never fantasize ownership? Does the assumed [male-only] delight in female body parts have a counterpart in women? {"What do women want?" asked Freud] Do women desire/delight in/ objectify some aspect of men whose 'wholeness' somehow makes their appetites acceptable? ["I want your baby"?] A woman, in marriage, has traditionally taken her spouse's _name_! [All part of a male plot of ownership, no doubt, but long an object of desire by [poor, misled, victimized?] women... I like the Breton as a poem. Does anyone know a poem by a woman about a man which reveals a female perspective as starkly as Breton's seems to reveal a male's? Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:43:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: simon on "stalinism?" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Simon S. refers to (whose?) "constant harping on the Hitlerian or Stalinist methodology of TC" (Tom Clark) as "a little grating." ..."if TC, in either the Poetry Flash or Partisan Review or whereever, used Stalinist argumentation, ...it doesn't further anyone's understanding to use it back at him." Pointing out that he used it is using it back at him? Tom Mandel Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:46:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: sigh, yikes, forget it... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dale Smith says I accused Tom Clark of being a fascist. That's asinine. I don't even know the man. Dale also says Tom Clark "addresses a herd-like behavior among a certain group of poets at a particular moment in time" (viz. in his essays titled "Stalin As Linguist"). Here, the way people so often do in arguments, Dale makes my point for me. There was no herd-like behavior, Dale. Yet you refer to it as literal fact, a literal fact that Tom Clark "addresses." Finally, you accuse me of an ad hominem argument. No, Dale: when you call David Bromige a "sniveling something or other" (sorry, can't remember what) *that* is ad hominem. When I say Tom Clark appropriated words Bertolt Brecht used against fascism to use them against language poets, thereby subtly conflating language poets and fascism, that's analysis. And, in an even more final finality, here's some advice: the more you "defend" Tom Clark in this instance the more trouble you cause his name. He said what he said, and time and readers establish the value of the work and people he slammed. Pointing to pile of dogshit on the floor and saying "lookat them rare white truffles" may be satisfying to you, but it's no help to the hound. Better you cite work of his you like. I used to like his book _Stone_ very much (I hope I'm rightly remembering the title -- esp. as I can see the cover of the book in my mind!) and his book made entirely from the vocabulary of Neil Young lyrics (name of that?). Tom Mandel Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:56:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" PAX I make a pact with you, Ron Silliman-- I have admired your poems long enough. I come to you as a prodigal pup; Weaned at a dozen fat anthologies. I am old enough now to make an end. Whitman broke the new wood, Pound put in time to carving. We watch the blasted stumps in the open fields Leak black ink of American grain. I make a pact with you, venerable LangPoets-- I have invested in your works long enough. I look back at you as a honorable bunch Laying new asphalt over the old roads; I am old enough now to map an end. It was you who splintered the carved wood, Now it is time for recycling. We have a cool climate and a rich soil-- Don't let the mulcher come between us. I make a pact with you, my contemporaries-- For to know you better there is time enough. I come to you with no gifts But that of mutual comradeship; I am ready to make friends. Look around us at all this damned wood, It is time to sort out what you want. We have glasses of water nursing new roots-- Let there be communication between us. --daniel bouchard <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 09:05:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "David R. Israel" Subject: Re: The task of criticism Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mark P.(@lanta) -- good points. -- > . . . . . This has to be said once > and for all, because there seems to be an awful lot of confusion > wafting around about it: choosing to do poetry *removes* a person > from the capitalist cash nexus in most respects. I try hard to see > this as a positive thing, like bohemians of old. but there's no > getting around it: it's a deeply destructive and painful thing. > People find it very hard to live. A few mainstreamers get grants, > etc., but in general there is no connection between material gain, > comfort, the capitalist marketplace in any usual recognized sense, > and poetry. This is *very* different from music, mainstream > narrative fiction, the visual arts to an extent, the performing art > activities to a large extent. >> by the by, there's a fine essay exploring this topic (strewn w/ some facts & figs) by Sam Hamill in his essay-book, *The Poet's Work*. While I've not followed the Gould/Wallace debate in all particulars, Mark's recent decent self-defense gives pause. That he's involved in & engaged w/ poetry that he likes because (truth to tell) he really likes it, seems clear to the point of near-unarbuability, to anyone who's attended even a sporadic few of the numerous & proliferous local readings he's forever organizing & promoting here in DC. I don't think Henry's notion of the indie-critic is necessarily a bad one necessarily. On the other hand, I've certainly noted, in music, that the really good critical writers usually don't distance themselves socially from the subjects of their enthusiasm. Even if they are (often) frustrated composers taking up the critic garb -- Kyle Gann (of Village Voice fame) being a good instance. Engagement with the creative work of one's time needn't preclude various forms of engagement with the makers thereof; in fact, the idea of objective standards -- the book are pure object sans personal tegument -- seems a weird one in some respects. For whom is the writing written? (Possibly, a few friends?) A glance back at the history of poetry suggests this has many a worthy precedent. stray thoughts d.i. . ..... ............ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ > david raphael israel < >> washington d.c. << | davidi@mail.wizard.net (home) | disrael@skgf.com (office) ========================= | thy centuries follow each other | perfecting a small wild flower | (Tagore) //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 06:15:43 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Tranter wrote: > I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andre Breton > poem: > > "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" > > Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble. All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." Were ruminants sexier in those days? Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:07:57 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: The task of criticism In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 5 Feb 1998 09:05:19 -0500 from On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 09:05:19 -0500 David R. Israel said: > >I don't think Henry's notion of the indie-critic is necessarily a bad >one necessarily. On the other hand, I've certainly noted, in music, >that the really good critical writers usually don't distance >themselves socially from the subjects of their enthusiasm. Even if >they are (often) frustrated composers taking up the critic garb -- >Kyle Gann (of Village Voice fame) being a good instance. > >Engagement with the creative work of one's time needn't preclude >various forms of engagement with the makers thereof; in fact, the >idea of objective standards -- the book are pure object sans personal >tegument -- seems a weird one in some respects. For whom is the >writing written? (Possibly, a few friends?) A glance back at the >history of poetry suggests this has many a worthy precedent. All right, Israel, I'll chill out on my standards a little. If you're a critic, you can meet poets or other critics during daylight hours in non-alcoholic snack bars. You can write your own poetry, but only for translation (by a non-friend) into Navajo. (Did anyone see the obituary for the Navajo artist - 90 yrs old - who was a Navajo code-talker in WW II? Did you know that the general who was part of the battle of Iwo Jima said the battle could not have been won without frontline Navajos relaying strategy in Navajo code? This in spite of the fact that most of them were punished severely all through public school for speaking Navajo - outlawed on school premises? Everything that rises must converge.) Somehow I get the feeling some people just are never going to get it. I don't know what they do when they stand up or sit down to write. Do you know why "poetry" AND "poetry business" are utterly disdained - derided - the dudville of American culture? Precisely because poets ARE SO AT HOME IN LANGUAGE THAT THEY FAIL TO RECOGNIZE HOW SERIOUSLY NON-WRITERS TAKE THE WORD - ESPECIALLY THE WRITTEN WORD. IN THEIR LITTLE ARTY-FARTY CLUBS THEY'RE PLEASED AS PUNCH IF SOMEBODY THEY KNOW LIKES WHAT THEY HAVE WRITTEN. YOU SHOULD TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WRITING IS LIKE FOR A JUDGE WRITING A DECISION OR A LAWYER WRITING A LEGAL BRIEF OR A REPORTER DESCRIBING A SITUATION. YOU SHOULD HAVE A SENSE OF PRIDE IN YOUR WORK SO THAT IT STANDS APART FROM YOUR SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS. PARADOXICALLY, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THAT CRITICISM (& POETRY) CAN BECOME A TRULY COMMON GOOD RATHER THAN AN IN-JOKE. SAM HAMILL & HIS ILK WHO WRITE ABOUT POETRY AS A SPECIAL BREED, A CALLING APART, A HOLY CLAN OUTSIDE THE PHILISTINE WORLD (IF THIS AS ISRAEL IMPLIES IS THE GIST OF IT) ARE SIMPLY PIMPS FOR A SUBCULTURE. POETRY IS NOT A SUBCULTURE. - Henry Gould p.s. you think the idea of objective standards is weird. Even weirder is the fact that lines from the Bible keep coming to me unannounced during this thread. Like: "You are the salt of the earth. If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no better than to be thrown out & trampled underfoot by men. Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Or how about this one (paraphrase from inexact memory): "And what shall you give for your soul? Beware that you gain the whole world and lose your own soul." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:31:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: task of criticism In-Reply-To: <9802041151523.4989754@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, Dale M Smith wrote: > University press publications by Perelman, Bernstein et al are part of the > problem addressed. Critics parading as poets parading as... The American > academy stinks and has stunk from day one. That it is somehow sympathetic > to langpods reveals how bankrupt their project has become. It's a bore all Er....this is obviously some new meaning of the word "sympathetic", of which I was previously unaware. As for bankruptcy, Dale, people who live in glass poetics.... Mp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 07:25:39 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: Response to Bromige on Clark & Ambiguity In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Joe Safdie wrote: > >>(But Herb! I >>don't agree that David is here responding to my "interpretation" riff at >>all! Perhaps it's just too late, or I'm too dense . . ) & my ill thought-out & petty response to this went out without re-reading, something I try not to do. This resultied in a lack of the usual, what's the word I was just reading it the other day, here it is, gentility for which this list is justly known. My apologies to Joe, & to any other readers who wasted their time on it. The excuse, or better, the occasion for my poorly conceived post of is the beginning of tax season, when there's (finally) a little too much work. Gotta go. & now, back to the decorum you're used to on the poetics list. Bests, Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:53:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: "My man" Comments: To: Daniel Zimmerman In-Reply-To: <34D9A435.7F9@idt.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dan Z, the only poem I can think of offhand that contains "my man" is one of the early Plath poems about Hughes, the one where he is presented as a sort of force of nature as he trods about the Yorkshire countryside flushing rabbits and naming lapwings. The "my man" in that poem never fails to make me cringe, although perhaps that is only because of historical perspective/outside-the-poem considerations. As for women taking husband's names, I confess publicly: the sole and only reason I took my husband's name was its sound value--it sounded better with my first name than what I had been going by, and was eminently pronounceable. (I'm related to Kaczynskis. Ironic foreshadowing.) So I go into a store to buy a pair of Doc Martens at a ridiculous clearance price, and I give the worker my credit card, and she says, "Your name sounds famous." I bask in this for about two seconds, and then say, "Do you mean the McVeigh who blew up a building, or the McVeigh who got spied on by the Navy?" She laughs. Gwyn "still no relation" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:52:37 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: <199802041813.LAA17672@gos.oz.cc.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think it rasies real and interesting issues, the Breton poem; and as Linda Russo has said, it has plenty of good points, which makes its sexism all the more disquieting (and productive to think about...) Of course on one level this is very *standard* sexist belittlement for the period. However it's also very much part of a standard repertoire of images that the core Surrealist poets loved. In the last few days I've been glancing at Eluard for the first time in a while, and it sure is very close to his love poems. In interesting contrast to Breton and Eluard, take a look at Rene Char. He doesn't use such (interesting but) uniform and boilerplate imagery...AND when he addresses a woman there is much more complexity of tone; the imagery is more unexpected and not quite as likely to be a 1920's update of Petrarchian list/sonnet modes. In one sense, the problem is inherent in the Surrealist belief in sensory imagery (mostly, visual imagery) as the basis of poetry. But that makes the problem harder to ignore, it's not the source of it..The source of it is patriarchal politix. Rereading all of this it sounds pretty harsh; I'd never give my woman-friend this particular poem, but..I certainly see the appeal of its energy, and slightly transgressive boldness. All of which were more startling and bracing when the poem was written, than in today's culture. I know feminist women who while they'd be amused at the archaic objectifying attitudes in the Breton would also appreciate its force as poetry and not be expecially offended by it. But that it would be fairly disturbing to a woman doesn't much surprise me...It's moderately disturbing to me. Mark P @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:09:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem In-Reply-To: <34D9C98F.5996@concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" actually, Rachel, I think Solomon did OK for himself. though when it comes to goats, comparisons are odorous. Shall I compare thee to a summers' day? best, Sylvester At 6:15 AM -0800 2/5/98, Rachel Loden wrote: >John Tranter wrote: > >> I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andre Breton >> poem: >> >> "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" >> >> Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble. > >All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." >What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock >of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of >sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." > >Were ruminants sexier in those days? > >Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:59:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Request for assistance In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sylvester, Posting from another Georgia law school, I have to say that's a moderately interesting story....Why the heck would a law professor want someone to track it down?? Must be one of those "law and literature movement" types, eh? (Actually, all I've encountered of those folks since entering the world of law,...it is to snooze. A more mainstream bunch of depressing attitudes toward writing would be hard to imagine!) Is it because the poet was one of those legal poets (most of us aspire to be illegal, of course)...Reznikoff? Stevens? Mp @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:18:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit well, now that stroff has flushed me out as teaching twisted love poems like Breton's, let me submit this: in French it's of course "ma femme" — the translation I use is Antin's which says "my woman" -- but there exists another more recent one that tries to p.c.fy (I guess, or else legalize the free union) the poem by translating "ma femme" as "my wife." Does that make any difference? Breton was, is, a marvellous poet -- he was also a tyrannical and masterful _leader maximo_ of surrealism ( for all you younglings who feel that langpo was/is somehow an imposition on the landscape, check out how avant-garde groups were run -- and who was run out of town -- when Breton was waging his poetry wars -- langpo, in comparison, is a charitable organisation) and he was — ugh, o tempora, o mores, if I still have some pig-Latin — a male chauvinist pig of the first order, even if that poem was adressed to his legal spouse. linda russo wrote: > > Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". > > isn't this just the whole problem with Breton (& Donne & Plutarch for > that matter?) ? ! ? > sorry -- i couldn't resist > ... but not to overlook "My Woman" & > its fill-in-the-blank functionality > the male reader consigning > to himself the fantasy of ownership; > -- in the blazon enough parts will the anonymous (female) body make. -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:25:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem Comments: To: Rachel Loden MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Nah Rachel - he was just getting a "schwing effect" contemplating the Queen of Sheba's munificent dowry. The love poem as naked agrarian-holdings lust (man as nomad/monad - woman as farm catalog?) Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Rachel Loden To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem Date: Thursday, February 05, 1998 8:15AM John Tranter wrote: > I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andre Breton > poem: > > "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" > > Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble. All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." Were ruminants sexier in those days? Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 21:46:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Fwd: call for sound work MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >From the British Poets List. Thought it might be of interest here. Harold Rhenisch rhenisch@web-trekl.net *** The (Corsican) magazine Doc(k)s[sous rature] is calling for work, in preparation of a special issue: "Sound, Voices, sousRature(Poetry)" "Laut, Stimmer, sousRature(Dicht)" "Suoni, Voci, sousRature(Poesia)" "Sons, Voix, sousRature(Poesie)" "Lyd, Stemmer, sousRature(Dikt)" to be published on CD Material accepted of about two minutes duration on audio tape cassettes, aiff files, syquest (44/88 Mb), zip, Mac & PC Floppies. &/or image files, texts, theory, etc. to: Ph. Castellin / Jean Torregosa Akenaton - Doc(k)s 12 Cours Grandval F Ajaccio 20 000 Corsica, France Tel 95 21 32 90, Fax 95 21 32 90 email: akenaton_docks@sitec.fr ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:30:10 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Rasulating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Don, I'm delighted to hear that Rasula is going to publish something soon. I just spent 6 or 8 months getting the Emory library to acquire and catalog Tabula Rasula (it is in print folks) and I highly recommend that people seek it out. Not much like anything else, and brilliant. Its use of typography and drawing and graphic elements makes it germane to the recent vizpo threads by the way. As I posted to the list around a year ago, American Poetry Wax Museum is indeed a really impressive and useful social/critical/historical analysis of U.S. poetry in the 20th century. It was here on the list that I first heard of it, I think. One of the list's many very valuble functions. Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 09:43:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: Love Poems Comments: To: Daniel Zimmerman In-Reply-To: <34D9A435.7F9@idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Daniel Zimmerman wrote: > linda russo wrote: > > > > > Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". > > > > isn't this just the whole problem with Breton (& Donne & Plutarch for > > that matter?) ? ! ? > > sorry -- i couldn't resist > > ... but not to overlook "My Woman" & > > its fill-in-the-blank functionality > > the male reader consigning > > to himself the fantasy of ownership; > > -- in the blazon enough parts will the anonymous (female) body make. > > Oh, well, I can't resist either: does the phrase "my man" resonate? > Do women never act as if "their men" belong to them? Never exhibit > possessiveness, or objectify? Never fantasize ownership? Does the > assumed [male-only] delight in female body parts have a counterpart in > women? {"What do women want?" asked Freud] Do women desire/delight in/ > objectify some aspect of men whose 'wholeness' somehow makes their > appetites acceptable? ["I want your baby"?] A woman, in marriage, has > traditionally taken her spouse's _name_! [All part of a male plot of > ownership, no doubt, but long an object of desire by [poor, misled, > victimized?] women... > a woman taking her spouse's name (?!) as 'long an object of desire for women'? how long? when, why? it seems to me that to assume a husband's name hardly compensates for the loss of one's property rights, inheritance rights, well lets just say legal standing - could ever have compensated for becoming legally a piece of property, could ever have been part of any ECONOMY of desire, as Freud might like to narrativize - a very tricky man , that guy, and quick with a sleight of rhetorical hand - but I've yet to see a movie ad campaign that strecthes its male lead all over the ad poster in nothin but a fig leaf (a la Great Expectations- great expectations!) - no one's even speculating on a 'male polt of ownership' really, I dont think- something like that would be too ridiculously sinister, too obviously ludicrous, too easy - the point in part here is, Linda's point, that to draw distinctions between feminist and non-feminist by the actual biological sex of a person at this point is silly - and counterproductive and moreover, feminist should be emptied of this kind of reference-value at this point - because gosh, woman are taught to desire possession of women's bodies in a similar degree, if not in a similar nature, as men- ecriture feminine can be read as essentialist and exclusive, but why go to the trouble of such a reading when there is cixous, derrida, delueze, doing a lot more > I like the Breton as a poem. Does anyone know a poem by a woman about a > man which reveals a female perspective as starkly as Breton's seems to > reveal a male's? > hmm right- this is kind of where it gets down and dirty (obvious), right? - marianne moore's love poems seem to be lamenting the positioning of woman as dead babies - see "roses only,' ' your thorns are the best part of you' - mina loy writes great lyrics about moon rotting - sylvia plath you know wrote lots to her father - there just doesnt seem to be much of a tradition of women writing literally about their muse's (dead) body - there is , however, a lot of lyrical work out there by women that partakes of the same strategies, privileged subject positions, as that of the cold lonely isolated seer-sage-poet who writes over the dead body of the beloved - which take 'poetry' as a deity and 'poet' as their license to more or less wave phallus all over the page - nothing. everything. rd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:53:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Dan Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, Tom: >I miss Dan, and I wish he were here so I could throttle him for what he did. I've been thinking about responding for a week--not that it needs a response; simple, direct, moving statement that it is. But . . . well, Tom, no one knows why anyone chooses to commit suicide, but I know Dan thought about it for quite a while; it wasn't a sudden or rash decision. We had long talks on the phone about it, and he and my wife wrote back & forth about it a couple of years before he did it. (She was very much into the Hemlock Society for a while.) My first correspondence from Dan, in mid-1986, was a short note: "I was just about to kill myself--then, your letter! Now . . . something to live for!" not quite direct quote, but very close, & similar in tone--a "joke." Whenever he would bring suicide up as an option, I would try to argue against it, but what effective argument can you offer someone who is: (a) impoverished (Dan lived on $500 SSI checks in an increasingly expensive San Francisco--he was never able to receive arts grants unless special "payment arrangements" were made because if he reported it, the gov't would take it right out of his SSI "income"); (b) suffering physical deterioration (beyond his heart-valve replacement, & constant migraines, Dan was diagnosed with hepatitis in early 1996); and (c) as headstrong & often frustratingly single-minded as Dan was? I mean, I argued w/him about it quite a bit, but obviously not well enough. Some have speculated that Dan killed himself as a big "fuck you" (to whom, I don't know--maybe everyone?), or as a way of directing attention to his work, & even one person thought he might have done it because the hepatitis was making him look less-than-attractive. I think--& this is equally speculative--he was long-fascinated by suicide as an option, probably romanticized it a bit), and his health & economic situation were growing increasingly difficult to deal with. Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most influential 20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I think Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any numerologists out there? There are many things I wanted to throttle Dan for over the years--if you'd been at his memorial you'd have heard "Dan was the most difficult person I've ever known" a bazillion times from as many people--but his suicide wasn't one of them. Maybe I exhausted myself arguing with him about the "futility" of his life--no life, I felt, is futile. One thing I could never argue with him about was what a cold, money- & fame-hungry, spiritually empty, overall fucked up culture we live in. (One of his favorite topics. He could not NOT write the kind of poetry he did, nor could not NOT do agit-prop art.) Anyway, I didn't lead the life he did, don't know with how much dignity I could have lived it, nor for how long I'd've lasted. Of course I'd rather have him here than not; he was one of my best friends, I more than loved getting new work from him--I consistently learned from it--& he was one of the best (& most consistently honest) readers of my own work I've ever had. Anyway, Tom, I've got all of Dan's papers, & am about to start looking for a publisher for _culture_. Any suggestions? Willing to help pitch it? (Not a rhetorical question.) Also: Anyone who corresponded with Dan, or wrote anything about his work, or would like to, please back-channel me when you have a moment--I've been wanting to put together something about his work, assuming it's of interest to others out there. Thanks, Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:00:58 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Love Poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit what's so "tricky" about Freud? In my experiece he's one of the most ethical and open thinkers of this century --at least, I've always found that to be so. Will you please elaborate, with textual citations if possible, what "tricks" he's turned? joe brennan my intervention has nothing to do with the Breton purge currently under way -- joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:26:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: "My man" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Any number of song lyrics, and particularly the blues, which often rises to antbody's idea of poetry. Check out Bessie Smith's "Empty Bed Blues"--"My new man done left me..." At 10:53 AM 2/5/98 -0500, you wrote: >Dan Z, the only poem I can think of offhand that contains "my man" is one >of the early Plath poems about Hughes, the one where he is presented as a >sort of force of nature as he trods about the Yorkshire countryside >flushing rabbits and naming lapwings. The "my man" in that poem never >fails to make me cringe, although perhaps that is only because of >historical perspective/outside-the-poem considerations. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:27:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" jennifer moxley's "three graces" or what is it (i don't have the book --imagination verses -- w/ me) about 3 guys as muses is a lovely female poet looking at male muses poem... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:29:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: criticism rues Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well . . . among the poets whose letters have been published or deposited in public collections the "whimper" factor is fairly high and fairly consistent across the aesthetic board -- I've never found a writer who did not complain of too little time -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:28:36 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" oh fr heavens' sake. women didn't "take" their husbands names in the sense of usurping and colonizing them; their husbands' names were forced on them as insignia of those husbands' ownership of those wives. i'm sorry, but to claim otherwise is simply either disingenuous, an attempt at rhetorical provocation, or so staggeringly naive that further discussion of equity between genders is pointless. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:34:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem In-Reply-To: <34D9C98F.5996@concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ruminants have always been sexy. The Song of Songs was written for an audience whose members would have had an immediate visual association with the imagery. So, that tightly-packed flock of goats undulating across the mountain in the distance could call to mind the flow and movement of hair, and the sheep, in a snowless landscape, would have been the paradigm of whiteness (as swan's down is for Jonson in "The Ode to Charis"--another nearly obsolete image). The elder tree pith is certainly recherche but probably refers to the lady's tan. At 06:15 AM 2/5/98 -0800, you wrote: >John Tranter wrote: > >> I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andre Breton >> poem: >> >> "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" >> >> Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble. > >All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." >What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock >of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of >sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." > >Were ruminants sexier in those days? > >Rachel Loden > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:49:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Rachel, I loved this post-- I agree with not only the "content," but with the TONE of it as well-- Yours, Mrs. R. *** On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, R M Daley wrote: > On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Daniel Zimmerman wrote: > > > linda russo wrote: > > > > > > > Correction: for "Rache" substitute "Linda Russo". > > > > > > isn't this just the whole problem with Breton (& Donne & Plutarch for > > > that matter?) ? ! ? > > > sorry -- i couldn't resist > > > ... but not to overlook "My Woman" & > > > its fill-in-the-blank functionality > > > the male reader consigning > > > to himself the fantasy of ownership; > > > -- in the blazon enough parts will the anonymous (female) body make. > > > > Oh, well, I can't resist either: does the phrase "my man" resonate? > > Do women never act as if "their men" belong to them? Never exhibit > > possessiveness, or objectify? Never fantasize ownership? Does the > > assumed [male-only] delight in female body parts have a counterpart in > > women? {"What do women want?" asked Freud] Do women desire/delight in/ > > objectify some aspect of men whose 'wholeness' somehow makes their > > appetites acceptable? ["I want your baby"?] A woman, in marriage, has > > traditionally taken her spouse's _name_! [All part of a male plot of > > ownership, no doubt, but long an object of desire by [poor, misled, > > victimized?] women... > > > a woman taking her spouse's name (?!) as 'long an object of desire for > women'? how long? when, why? it seems to me that to assume a husband's > name hardly compensates for the loss of one's property rights, inheritance > rights, well lets just say legal standing - could ever have compensated > for becoming legally a piece of property, could ever have been part of any > ECONOMY of desire, as Freud might like to narrativize - a very tricky man > , that guy, and quick with a sleight of rhetorical hand - but I've yet to > see a movie ad campaign that strecthes its male lead all over the ad > poster in nothin but a fig leaf (a la Great Expectations- great > expectations!) - no one's even speculating on a 'male polt of ownership' > really, I dont think- something like that would be too ridiculously > sinister, too obviously ludicrous, too easy - the point in part here is, > Linda's point, that to draw distinctions between feminist and non-feminist > by the actual biological sex of a person at this point is silly - and > counterproductive and moreover, feminist should be emptied of this kind of > reference-value at this point - because gosh, woman are taught to desire > possession of women's bodies in a similar degree, if not in a similar > nature, as men- > ecriture feminine can be read as essentialist and exclusive, but why go to > the trouble of such a reading when there is cixous, derrida, delueze, > doing a lot more > > > I like the Breton as a poem. Does anyone know a poem by a woman about a > > man which reveals a female perspective as starkly as Breton's seems to > > reveal a male's? > > > > hmm right- this is kind of where it gets down and dirty (obvious), right? > - marianne moore's love poems seem to be lamenting the positioning of > woman as dead babies - see "roses only,' ' your thorns are the best part > of you' - mina loy writes great lyrics about moon rotting - sylvia > plath you know wrote lots to her father - there just doesnt seem to be > much of a tradition of women writing literally about their muse's (dead) > body - there is , however, a lot of lyrical work out there by women that > partakes of the same strategies, privileged subject positions, as that of > the cold lonely isolated seer-sage-poet who writes over the dead body of > the beloved - which take 'poetry' as a deity and 'poet' as their license > to more or less wave phallus all over the page - > > > nothing. everything. > > rd > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 16:46:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew D Epstein Subject: Re: Dan Davidson In-Reply-To: <01BD323D.69E48620@gps12@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >>Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most influential 20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I think Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any numerologists out there?<< Not to say you're not onto something numerological, but O'Hara died soon after he turned 40 (in 1966). Andrew Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:29:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client pobox.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem In-Reply-To: Rachel Loden "Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem" (Feb 5, 6:15am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Feb 5, 6:15am, Rachel Loden wrote: > Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem > John Tranter wrote: > > > I think Robert Hale ran into trouble with this line from the Andre Breton > > poem: > > > > "My woman with her calves of elder tree pith" > > > > Where I come from, a remark like that can get a fellow into trouble. > > All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." > What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock > of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of > sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." > > Were ruminants sexier in those days? > > Rachel Loden >-- End of excerpt from Rachel Loden Don't know about any ruminants, but archaelogists in Israel found a tablet bearing the news, "Palace intern tells all about Solomon." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 17:44:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Love Poems Comments: To: Daniel Zimmerman MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Hi Dan. When I think about it, I guess my feeling for Breton waned a long while back without my really noticing it much. So I couldn't say it's driven by a particular decision or attitude arrived at after the consideration of such factors as his sexism, or whatever. My favorite French surrealists were always Eluard and Desnos, and then later, Char. That's not to stay I don't have a soft spot for the Sur-Commandante. Just last week I bought a used copy of the _Manifestos_ - (sold the old one in a periodic purge to buy new books). It was a very important book for me once upon a time and had a tremendous effect on the way I thought about poetry, about language. So I honor Breton for that. As for the gap between American and French feminism, I'll have to get back to you on that - I just don't know enough to make an intelligent comment on the situation. From what little I've read, there seems to be a perception, at least here in the US, that French feminists have moved so far into the poststructural camp as to neutralize the enactment of any coherent political agenda. And that's because the political front of feminism has thus far relied on - in a sort of gentlewoman's agreement - to set aside the issue of essentialism vs. constructionism, and for the sake of promoting specific socially progressive programs, etc. acted as though there were no ontological rift, that something called the "universal woman" exists and can be appealed to in arguments with legislators and the like. It's a very interesting problem. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Daniel Zimmerman To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Love Poems Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 9:09PM Pat, Does your change in estimation re Breton's poem reflect what you said earlier, i.e., that "one of the big differences between French feminism and American feminism, as I understand it: that the former is more philosophically-driven, the latter more politically-driven" ?? & if so, how? Do you [if you do] shrink a bit from Breton now more for political or for philosophical reasons? How do you feel about the widening of the gap between American & French feminisms? --Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 16:07:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: "my man" (for Gwyn McVay) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sur cette terr', ma seul' joie, mon seul bonheur, C'est mon homme, J'ai donne/ tout c'que j'ai, mon amour tout mon coeur, A mon homme, Et me^me la nuit Quand je re^ve, c'est de lui De mon homme Ce n'est pas qu'il est beau, Qu'il est riche ni costaud, Mais je 'aime, C'est idiot et fout des coups, j'ai prend mes sous, Je suis a bout Mais malgre/ tout Que voulez-vous, Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau Qu' j'en d'viens marteau, Des qu'il s'approch' c'est fini Je suis a lui, Quand ses yeux sur moi se pos'nt ca m'rend tout chose, Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau Qu'au moindre mot, je suiss f'rait fair'n' importe quoi. J'tue-rais ma foi, J'sens qu'il me vendrait infa^me, Mais je n'suis qu'un' femme. Et j'lai tell'ment dans la , etc. It costs me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got--it's my man Cold and wet, tired you bet, but all that I soon forget With my man He's not much for looks, and no hero out of books__is my man Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, But I love him! I don't know why I should, He isn't good, Hen isn't true, He beats me too. What can I do? O my man I love him so, he'll never know, All my life is just despair, but I don't care When he takes me in his arms the world is bright, allright; What's the difference if I say, I'll go away, When I know I'll come back on my knees some day? For whatever my man is I am his forever more! Oh my man I love him so --- da capo, etc. Albert Willemetz et Jacques Charles, music by Maurice Yvain English tr. by Channing Pollock as sung by Fanny Brice in "Ziegfield Follies of 1921" This would appear to contain everything that American feminism dreads--understandably--the way doctors dread penicillin-resistant bacteria. All compressed into some 30 bars...sorry I cant append the music, which is kind of neat. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:46:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 2:00 PM -0500 2/5/98, Joe Brennan wrote: >what's so "tricky" about Freud? In my experiece he's one of the most ethical >and open thinkers of this century --at least, I've always found that to be so. >Will you please elaborate, with textual citations if possible, what "tricks" >he's turned? > >joe brennan > >my intervention has nothing to do with the Breton purge currently under way -- > >joe what purge? did i miss something? a breton binge? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:49:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: fwd query In-Reply-To: <199801310708.CAA31882@dept.english.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi all, i received the below; can anyone help? thanks; md X-From_: jajphill@apex.net Mon Feb 2 19:40 CST 1998 From: "Jamie Phillips" To: Maria Damon Subject: Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:40:09 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Hello My name is jamie Phillips i was looking for something on the line of Volenteers and Angles in a Poem i Work in a Nursing Home and had a 16 yr old Girl who was a Volenteer and she was the Best in the world !! was tragicly Killed in a Auto accident and i wanted a Poem to read in Honor of Her just curious do you know of anything like that ? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:05:03 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: end of love poem _in RI_ No one will blame me on the whispering shore for lingering so long near your small rose island. Bees' slow honey is the measure of summer; morning and sundown, by that rose double-arch. And my tongue's dark island leaves a late russet shadow-- dry relic of the voyage, our lips' broken compass. - ol' Hen Gould [ca. 1985] ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:00:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: "my man" (for Gwyn McVay) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David, I am as chamrmed by this piece as you are. But, without speaking for Gwyn or anyone else, I think the point is that it would be nice for a change if these were a man's words, just for a change.... Very different from the Breton piece, it seems to me.... George Thompson > Sur cette terr', ma seul' joie, mon seul bonheur, C'est mon homme, > J'ai donne/ tout c'que j'ai, mon amour tout mon coeur, A mon homme, > Et me^me la nuit Quand je re^ve, c'est de lui De mon homme > Ce n'est pas qu'il est beau, Qu'il est riche ni costaud, Mais je 'aime, > C'est idiot et fout des coups, j'ai prend mes sous, Je suis a bout > Mais malgre/ tout Que voulez-vous, Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau > Qu' j'en d'viens marteau, Des qu'il s'approch' c'est fini > Je suis a lui, Quand ses yeux sur moi se pos'nt ca m'rend tout chose, > Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau Qu'au moindre mot, je suiss f'rait fair'n' > importe quoi. J'tue-rais ma foi, J'sens qu'il me vendrait infa^me, > Mais je n'suis qu'un' femme. Et j'lai tell'ment dans la , etc. > >It costs me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got--it's my man >Cold and wet, tired you bet, but all that I soon forget With my man >He's not much for looks, and no hero out of books__is my man >Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, But I love him! >I don't know why I should, He isn't good, Hen isn't true, He beats me too. >What can I do? O my man I love him so, he'll never know, >All my life is just despair, but I don't care When he takes me in his arms >the world is bright, allright; What's the difference if I say, I'll go away, >When I know I'll come back on my knees some day? For whatever my man is I >am his forever more! Oh my man I love him so --- da capo, etc. > >Albert Willemetz et Jacques Charles, music by Maurice Yvain >English tr. by Channing Pollock > >as sung by Fanny Brice in "Ziegfield Follies of 1921" > >This would appear to contain everything that American feminism >dreads--understandably--the way doctors dread penicillin-resistant >bacteria. All compressed into some 30 bars...sorry I cant append the music, >which is kind of neat. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:45:05 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I've been waiting for someone else to mention this, but in the interests of unifying threads, isn't it fortunate that Robert Hale didn't give his friend, instead of MA FEMME, Tom Clark's "YOU" sequence from STONES with its line about "my Andre Breton dream of cutting off your breasts with a trowel" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 20:47:07 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT pat & dan -- i think i could offer some illumination here -- though not tons more than pat who's pretty on the mark -- but sadly i must "set no mail" & happily prepare for a weekend in SF -- -- linda russo > Hi Dan. > > When I think about it, I guess my feeling for Breton waned a long while > back without my really noticing it much. So I couldn't say it's driven > by a particular decision or attitude arrived at after the consideration > of such factors as his sexism, or whatever. My favorite French > surrealists were always Eluard and Desnos, and then later, Char. > That's not to stay I don't have a soft spot for the Sur-Commandante. > Just last week I bought a used copy of the _Manifestos_ - (sold the old > one in a periodic purge to buy new books). It was a very important book > for me once upon a time and had a tremendous effect on the way I thought > about poetry, about language. So I honor Breton for that. > > As for the gap between American and French feminism, I'll have to get > back to you on that - I just don't know enough to make an intelligent > comment on the situation. From what little I've read, there seems to be > a perception, at least here in the US, that French feminists have moved > so far into the poststructural camp as to neutralize the enactment of > any coherent political agenda. And that's because the political front of > feminism has thus far relied on - in a sort of gentlewoman's agreement - > to set aside the issue of essentialism vs. constructionism, and for the > sake of promoting specific socially progressive programs, etc. acted as > though there were no ontological rift, that something called the > "universal woman" exists and can be appealed to in arguments with > legislators and the like. It's a very interesting problem. > > Patrick Pritchett > ---------- > From: Daniel Zimmerman > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Love Poems > Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 9:09PM > > Pat, > Does your change in estimation re Breton's poem reflect what you > said > earlier, i.e., that > > "one of the big differences between French feminism and > American feminism, as I understand it: that the former is more > philosophically-driven, the latter more politically-driven" > > ?? > > & if so, how? Do you [if you do] shrink a bit from Breton now more for > political or for philosophical reasons? How do you feel about the > widening of the gap between American & French feminisms? > > --Dan Zimmerman > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 22:36:32 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: my mistress' eyes are (love poetry thread) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" nothing like the sun. (Rae Armantrout: "At first we loved because we startled".) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 22:47:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: "my man" (George Thompson's post) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" George, Your point is well-taken, _if_ when you wrote "if these were a man's words" you intended "if these were a woman's words"--a reading that the context urges. And I would agree, that _once again_ , it is a man's "trip" (or 3 different men, actually) being "laid on" women. I was off-point, somewhat--although Fanny Brice, a woman, made it a big hit. "Buying in", I suppose. David ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 01:46:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: various - a spray MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It might be interesting to compare Barrett Watten's Bad History IX, "Presentation" (see Antenym #14) to the Tom Clark excerpt Joe Safdie posted Jan 24 (recently reposted by David Bromige). Coincidentally parallel subject matters in both poems, with very different treatments (as would be expected). Both seem to write of peer pressure & peer pleasure within overlapping, "warring" poetry communities: Watten, from the viewpoint of a shared poetic tendency (always plural, never singular); Clark, as someone who claims to have miraculously eluded all tendential poetic groupings (always singular, never plural) - as David has so excellently, in my view, recently detailed for us. Perhaps Steve Carll, who edits *Antenym*, could post that section of Watten's poem, if he's here? There is no "good" and "bad" in this suggested comparison, either - even though I side with David's view on Tom's poems - because Watten's poem is itself, it strikes me, oddly ahistorical in its address to a generality - "they." ...I'd be curious to know what others think. During so much of the recent discussion I have gone back tangentially and for a sort of touchstone for my own thinking to a "chapter of verse" in Bob Perelman's poem by that name to be found in his last book, *Virtual Reality*. I wonder who on this list finds this quotation, in the way that it negotiates values for the social through various "walls" of individualism, to be a compelling one, or even an interesting one. It's a seemingly real plain statement: "Poetry begins, not between individuals within a community, but rather at the points where communities end, at their boundaries, at the points of contact between different communities." Where are the ends - and are they coterminous with the ends, as in the goals - of our communities, or are we a part of the same community even if we take opposing sides on fundamental issues of poetics? (The latter a question of scale, to some extent, that Ron critically addressed as an entropic state of current social affairs, in his PhillyTalks.) What does it mean to think of "poetry" as *not* "beginning between individuals within a community" - in other words, within the same community? "Community" of course can also be an imaginary construct (if it's ever anything else). I kind of lump together under one claim some variety of positions that a number of people on this list have recently marshalled forth - those positions having to do with reinvoking that famous "figure of outward" ("figure" as in figure of thought/speech): the outcasted male individual hero loner poet-thinker. Perhaps that's a caricature? Still, the shared claim these positions hold I think is the one that is swilling the last dregs of that sad legacy of the imaginary politics of anarchism in the US. In this recent listserve revival, it has taken such a reified form that its once communal politics can hardly be perceived - by those very champions of this view - in the vocabulary used to identify its social positioning - this given the already vastly reified "social" landscape of this nation, in the midst of its bathetic attempts to clutch to such a stripped landscape for support. Not that anyone will find and of this of interest, but: I just want to say in advance that at present I can't post to the listserve as often as I'd like. Please don't take my possible further silence on these things as mean indifference. Oh no! Oh, no! Mais non! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 22:52:16 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: Sex, Power and Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I respond here, not exclusively to Linda, but to her remarks in this note and another, in addition to numerous posts by others that invite a similar reading of Breton's "Free Union" along a similar course, that of male power objectifying and controlling women -- the sway of which I underestimated in the heat of my picaresque adventure. I would also venture another interpretation of "exterior" that might lead somewhere other than the phallus and its well-worked calculus and mass redundancy. Exteriorization as a "positive task" (Deleuze and Guattari) working against interiorizing forces -- control, perversion (you name it), those which "no longer open to any outside." Then exteriorization is the highest, and albeit most abstract, task of love. I guess I consider this romantic in the context of my delivery of Breton to "my woman", but as I try to explicate I realize how ethereal it can be and probably was to her. There seems to be some consensus over the idea that the love poem must strive for egalitarian goals, though I think the "heat" I mentioned above makes this very difficult to achieve. And as Pierre eluded to, the Surrealists, Breton esp., cared little for egalitarianism or any other such bourgeois concepts. I am not a Surrealist, but as I recall, a blurb on my work once mentioned the influence. To summarize, I quote Mariana Valverde from her "Sex, Power and Pleasure" (a book given to me by an ex-girlfriend, which I obviously have had trouble applying in real life -- I keep forgetting that I have lit cigarettes already as I am writing this so the ashtray has three camels burning simultaneously in it, all mine!): "The task is not to reject all objectification in favour of an impossible ideal of pure subjectivity, but rather to integrate the two aspects of human existence. The task is to remain a full human subject even while someone is considering us as a potential erotic object, and vice versa. An eroticism that is both sexy and egalitarian is one in which both partners are simultaneously subject and object, for one another as well as for themselves." This sounds good (utopian?), but I keep forgetting that I have lit cigarettes already as I am writing this so... Lastly, what about the use of "My lover" as the addressee? Bill Luoma has used this quite successfully, I think, in recent love poems of his. At 12:31 AM 2/5/98 +0000, you wrote: >*snip* > >> Also, what happens to the language when it's delivered as such a message? -- >> the route as part of a text "loved" when isolated, packed and unpacked, yet >> trouble-making when delivered? >> >i can only guess that you wanted "my woman with" to translate into >"you"; odd that "my woman with" seems so fill-in-the-blankish >except(!) when a specific "subjectivity" is demanded of it; >i.e. "my susan with" might work but "i, susan, with" won't. > >*snip snap* > >> I wrote some love poems (as some of you suggested), but there is nothing >> like a Breton love poem, and it is a love poem, contrary to opinion, very >> complicated, I think, and emotional (whatever these words mean), all these >> things in a very exterior, and arguably, male way. >yes, in the way that it is all cock. i.e. he loves her with his cock >or with whatever else skin he can glom all over her -- >the old standby question -- do you think he respects his "woman >with"? is there a being beneath this mass of female goodness? >yes, it's nice to receive compliments re your bod. -- but to the >exclusion of ? ? ? -- i'm reacting now out of context, of course, >you couldn've sent a love poem praising her mind, her ideals, &c her >bank account, i dunno, but i'd like to know of some poems that do! > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 15:11:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anybody know how long this custom has been in force (and where and among which classes)? I'm not sure if Marie-Antoinette was "Mrs. Bourbon," less sure if the Wife of Bath took her various husbands' names, and I think what's customary in non-European societies is quite variable. But I don't know. Property laws, it's worth pointing out, were passed for the convenience of the propertied class. Before the Industrial Revolution made a lot of the old divisions of labor obsolete the lower classes were often more egalitarian in terms of gender than their "betters." I hope I'm not being naive in suggesting that while Maria is in general terms certainly correct these issues are probably far more complex and nuanced. I await enlightenment. At 01:28 PM 2/5/98 -0600, you wrote: >oh fr heavens' sake. women didn't "take" their husbands names in the sense >of usurping and colonizing them; their husbands' names were forced on them >as insignia of those husbands' ownership of those wives. i'm sorry, but to >claim otherwise is simply either disingenuous, an attempt at rhetorical >provocation, or so staggeringly naive that further discussion of equity >between genders is pointless. > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 20:57:19 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: Re: to Gwyn McVay In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980206065216.00a7a38c@pop1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Gwyn--would you back-channel me very soon, please? Thanks, Susan ______________________________________________ Susan M. Schultz Dept. of English 1733 Donaghho Road University of Hawai'i-Manoa Honolulu, HI 96822 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/schultz http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/tinfish ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 19:52:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain yeah, but those tablet-loids were notoriously murky. Other than w/ his thousand wives, the guy was in fact celibate. d.i. >>> William Burmeister Prod . . . Don't know about any ruminants, but archaelogists in Israel found a tablet bearing the news, "Palace intern tells all about Solomon." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 02:25:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joshua N Schuster Subject: spraying the communities Comments: cc: lcabri@dept.english.upenn.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is a thread in common with Louis' post and the Clark issue that I feel is worth following. I went to read the Tom Clark essay today. Probably worth mentioning some things before all is swept away. The Brecht quote introduces the piece and is completely contextless, not even a footnote provided, so I have no idea when the quote was written. Clark uses it to frame langpoetry as academic and negatively obscure. Now that Clark has thrown out context, that social and historical stuff that induces meaning, he is happy to provide his own version of context, calling all langpoetry leftist and group-centered. He quotes only one poem, a section from a Watten piece, not to analyze but to show that the title "'Stalin As Linguist'" comes from Watten (hence the quotes around the title). We assume the analogy between group-project and Stalinism and case closed. The whole thing is harshly vague and is an example of the kind of criticism I find as absolute bullshit, the "I hate this, I hate that" criticism. And, oooh, I find the academic slander particularly compelling. The fact that it is on this list in all its glory is sickening. It's all shit, let's burn the universities. Better yet, burn the critic-professors, especially that Derrida, root of all obscure academic prose. The example of Derrida interests me very much, as he has been bashed by Tom Clark as well as several language poets over the years, and of course by almost every professor and, now, watcher of Woody Allen movies. I'm not going to proceed on a lengthy defense here, but I will honestly and forcefully say that Derrida's writing is powerful, concise, and stunning. I find his texts on Jewish themes and on poetry to be genuinely intense. His project is fine-tuned and demanding, and I don't think I would be a poet or a critic if it were not for his writing. Maybe it is worth noting Derrida has not spent the majority of his career in the heart of the University system. For many years he has held a "tutor" position at the Ecole Normale, about the equivalent of what most grad students get as their first job. It's also worth mentioning Derrida's essay "The University in the Eyes of its Pupils" (diacritics, 1983), where Derrida does what he often does to characterize institutions (and, of course, also with philosophically dramatic terms). He points out the tendency to destroy and demolish institutions is always linked with the tendency to praise and commendably name them. The essay is very particular about what this may mean, and most of Derrida, as usual, is about raising these issues. There are more questions in Derrida's writing than most other essays. Derrida does insist that community and institution must be re-thought. In his major essay on Levinas he calls the context of his critique "the community of the question". That word "community" is used so often, certainly by me too, that it loses much of its relevance. But I use this word to be the real context and substance of language writing, the context I seem to most admire them for, a context exactly like what Derrida calls "the community of the question". Now, Ron Silliman, for example (not to pick on Ron, but his Philly Talk here still resonates), has recently suggested such a community was a heroic moment in writing, while I completely disagree with such a heroic view of history, myself preferring the project of what Greil Marcus calls "secret history". Anyways, such heroism should not obscure what is so valuable in the cliched but genuine project of community. Even if communities find foundations in what will ultimately lead to their own downfall, the search is inherently important. That search takes place in the community of the question, and for me it welcomes both Derrida and language poetry in the *academy turned upside-down* (any reading of langpoetry and Derrida would be blind to miss the intense criticism both sustain against the university. It is some of the best criticism out there, much better than the solitary and blessed poet trashing all professors). But Tom Clark will forever fail to see how langpoetry is a community (of questionings) and not a totality. Langpoetry and the University certainly do not present the only results of community (not even close), and to me, if either of these "institutions" are to be surpassed, in good faith, it will come by a rethinking of naming, of grouping, of making context in a socially and historically changing world. What is exciting is the ways in which these searches continue, even in the heart of the worst corners of the worst public/private education systems, even in the most absurd and inviting ways. What if in some perverted way, bureaucracy implicitly lead the way out of bureaucracy? What if in some terrible corner of a paragraph or a library there appeared a clue into a new understanding of community? Better we should smash it before it adds up to that pile of shit we call context. Joshua Schuster ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 20:15:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Rachel Loden asks: > >All this puts me in mind of "the song of songs, which is Solomon's." >What sort of reaction did he get with lines like "thy hair is as a flock >of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of >sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing . . ." > >Were ruminants sexier in those days? > In fact, Rachel, they were. Very much. As for Solomon's song itself, I liked Mark Weiss's remarks very much. But the proper answer to your question is that they were. Very much. And not just ruminants. Have you ever heard of the Vedic horse sacrifice? Whenever people ask me why I study Sanskrit, I always respond with the question, "Have you ever heard of the Vedic horse sacrifice?" It leads to a spirited justification of philology. You poets think you know things.... But the things I know.... Well.... Like what the horse and the chief queen did.... Well.... Why, it is even better than Breton. George Thompson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 20:59:42 -0500 Reply-To: daniel7@IDT.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Zimmerman Organization: Bard-O Subject: Re: "my man" (for Gwyn McVay) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit david bromige wrote: > > Sur cette terr', ma seul' joie, mon seul bonheur, C'est mon homme, > J'ai donne/ tout c'que j'ai, mon amour tout mon coeur, A mon homme, > Et me^me la nuit Quand je re^ve, c'est de lui De mon homme > Ce n'est pas qu'il est beau, Qu'il est riche ni costaud, Mais je 'aime, > C'est idiot et fout des coups, j'ai prend mes sous, Je suis a bout > Mais malgre/ tout Que voulez-vous, Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau > Qu' j'en d'viens marteau, Des qu'il s'approch' c'est fini > Je suis a lui, Quand ses yeux sur moi se pos'nt ca m'rend tout chose, > Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau Qu'au moindre mot, je suiss f'rait fair'n' > importe quoi. J'tue-rais ma foi, J'sens qu'il me vendrait infa^me, > Mais je n'suis qu'un' femme. Et j'lai tell'ment dans la , etc. > > It costs me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got--it's my man > Cold and wet, tired you bet, but all that I soon forget With my man > He's not much for looks, and no hero out of books__is my man > Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, But I love him! > I don't know why I should, He isn't good, Hen isn't true, He beats me too. > What can I do? O my man I love him so, he'll never know, > All my life is just despair, but I don't care When he takes me in his arms > the world is bright, allright; What's the difference if I say, I'll go away, > When I know I'll come back on my knees some day? For whatever my man is I > am his forever more! Oh my man I love him so --- da capo, etc. > > Albert Willemetz et Jacques Charles, music by Maurice Yvain > English tr. by Channing Pollock > > as sung by Fanny Brice in "Ziegfield Follies of 1921" > > This would appear to contain everything that American feminism > dreads--understandably--the way doctors dread penicillin-resistant > bacteria. All compressed into some 30 bars...sorry I cant append the music, > which is kind of neat. Thank you, David. Exactly the tune I had in mind when I put "my man" in quotes. Dan Zimmerman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:08:48 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Words/Music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sunday feb. 8 8pm: Bob Holman/DJDan from www.koolout.com 9:30pm: Bob Holman/Vito Ricci THE KNITTING FACTORY 74 Leonard Street New York City 212 219 3006 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:13:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: "my man" (for Gwyn McVay) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >>> Hen isn't true, Gracious, and it contains a slur on Jack Spandrift's pseudonym too. g. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:58:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Breton poem Perhaps it doesn't mean anything, but if I remember correctly Breton at first pretended that the poem wasn't his & that it had been sent to him anonymously(?) in the mail. The similarity Mark P. sees to Eluard is revealing (although most Surrealist poetry strikes me as quite similar), because when Eluard was shown the poem he immediately declared the unknown writer a genius & proposed that they launch a citywide search for him in Paris. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:09:10 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Check out _Investigating Sex_ by Jose Pierre. It is conversations among Breton, Eluard, et al re: sex, and directly addresses, well, as much as they were inclined to be direct, the surrealist attitude toward women & sex & poetry, etc. etc. One thing I found interesting was Breton's violent homophobia; to him SEX = WOMAN (and, it would seem, WOMAN = SEX). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:59:18 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Celan to Mandelstam You will think I am some kind of Blakean avatar, a brass cube of rectal rectitude, a meatlocker out to reduce everything to legal jargon & professional swordsmanship. But you will be wrong. "I am the Lion left out of your play." * Here is a Celan poem considered to be addressed (in a sense) to Mandelstam (trans. Michael Hamburger): BELOW Led home into oblivion the sociable talk of our slow eyes. Led home, syllable after syllable, shared out among the dayblind dice, for which the playing hand reaches out, large, awakening. And the too much of my speaking: heaped up round the little crystal dressed in the style of your silence. --Paul Celan --HG ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:12:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980205135635.00714e64@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:56 AM 2/5/98 -0500, daniel bouchard wrote: >PAX > >I make a pact with you, Ron Silliman-- >I have admired your poems long enough. >I come to you as a prodigal pup; >Weaned at a dozen fat anthologies. >I am old enough now to make an end. >Whitman broke the new wood, >Pound put in time to carving. >We watch the blasted stumps in the open fields >Leak black ink of American grain. > >I make a pact with you, venerable LangPoets-- >I have invested in your works long enough. >I look back at you as a honorable bunch >Laying new asphalt over the old roads; >I am old enough now to map an end. >It was you who splintered the carved wood, >Now it is time for recycling. >We have a cool climate and a rich soil-- >Don't let the mulcher come between us. > >I make a pact with you, my contemporaries-- >For to know you better there is time enough. >I come to you with no gifts >But that of mutual comradeship; >I am ready to make friends. >Look around us at all this damned wood, >It is time to sort out what you want. >We have glasses of water nursing new roots-- >Let there be communication between us. > daniel i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about 80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," "recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the "Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" however is gladly accepted best, bill marsh - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh PaperBrainPress Voice & Range Community Arts National University wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu http://www.dtai.com/~bmarsh snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:33:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Breton+Eluard One more thing, if this anecdote is true, it would make *Eluard* the real object of the poem's seduction, wouldn't it? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:43:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: Request for assistance In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey, Mark. I thought it was curious too--she said she'd let me know the outcome. I assume it's just training of the sort you'd give a private detective. After forwarding to the list i sent her another message saying "Oh, by the way, that will be $750. plus expenses." At 10:59 AM -0500 2/5/98, Mark Prejsnar wrote: >Sylvester, > >Posting from another Georgia law school, I have to say that's a moderately >interesting story....Why the heck would a law professor want someone to >track it down?? Must be one of those "law and literature movement" types, >eh? (Actually, all I've encountered of those folks since entering the >world of law,...it is to snooze. A more mainstream bunch of depressing >attitudes toward writing would be hard to imagine!) > >Is it because the poet was one of those legal poets (most of us aspire to >be illegal, of course)...Reznikoff? Stevens? > >Mp >@lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:56:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "p. durgin" Subject: Call for work --> Comments: To: Henry Gould In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII KENNING, a newsletter of poetry, poetics, & other genres of new non-fiction writing, announces a call for expository, theoretical, and critical writing for upcoming issues. Your wonderings and deliberations on current poetics issues & practicioners of the language arts are welcomed. Please back-channel with proposals (informal) and/or details, or contact the editor, myself, at the address below. Premier issue out soon, watch the list for this announcement. Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:19:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: movie query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So I wrote this poem from an image which comes from a gesture in a movie and I think it is The Conformist, not sure, must know. Having a bit of trouble finding it to rent in the neighborhood, haven't gone further yet. Here it is: A man in a black trenchcoat gestures to a woman by placing his thumb on his lips. She does the same, perhaps later. It's French. ?????? thanks, rachel ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:11:08 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: Dan Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: Re: Dan Davidson O'Hara would have been about 39 when he was hit by that dunebuggy. Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D Gary Sullivan wrote: >Hello, Tom: > >>I miss Dan, and I wish he were here so I could throttle him for what he = did. > >I've been thinking about responding for a week--not that it needs a = response; >simple, direct, moving statement that it is. But . . . > >well, Tom, no one knows why anyone chooses to commit suicide, but I know = Dan >thought about it for quite a while; it wasn't a sudden or rash decision. = We had >long talks on the phone about it, and he and my wife wrote back & forth = about >it a couple of years before he did it. (She was very much into the = Hemlock >Society for a while.) My first correspondence from Dan, in mid-1986, was = a >short note: "I was just about to kill myself--then, your letter! Now . . .= >something to live for!" not quite direct quote, but very close, & similar = in >tone--a "joke." Whenever he would bring suicide up as an option, I would = try to >argue against it, but what effective argument can you offer someone who = is: (a) >impoverished (Dan lived on $500 SSI checks in an increasingly expensive = San >Francisco--he was never able to receive arts grants unless special "= payment >arrangements" were made because if he reported it, the gov't would take = it >right out of his SSI "income"); (b) suffering physical deterioration (= beyond >his heart-valve replacement, & constant migraines, Dan was diagnosed with >hepatitis in early 1996); and (c) as headstrong & often frustratingly >single-minded as Dan was? I mean, I argued w/him about it quite a bit, = but >obviously not well enough. > >Some have speculated that Dan killed himself as a big "fuck you" (to whom,= I >don't know--maybe everyone?), or as a way of directing attention to his = work, & >even one person thought he might have done it because the hepatitis was = making >him look less-than-attractive. I think--& this is equally speculative--he = was >long-fascinated by suicide as an option, probably romanticized it a bit), = and >his health & economic situation were growing increasingly difficult to = deal >with. > >Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most = influential >20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I = think >Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any >numerologists out there? > >There are many things I wanted to throttle Dan for over the years--if you'= d >been at his memorial you'd have heard "Dan was the most difficult person = I've >ever known" a bazillion times from as many people--but his suicide wasn't = one >of them. Maybe I exhausted myself arguing with him about the "futility" = of his >life--no life, I felt, is futile. One thing I could never argue with him = about >was what a cold, money- & fame-hungry, spiritually empty, overall fucked = up >culture we live in. (One of his favorite topics. He could not NOT write = the >kind of poetry he did, nor could not NOT do agit-prop art.) Anyway, I = didn't >lead the life he did, don't know with how much dignity I could have lived = it, >nor for how long I'd've lasted. Of course I'd rather have him here than = not; he >was one of my best friends, I more than loved getting new work from him--= I >consistently learned from it--& he was one of the best (& most = consistently >honest) readers of my own work I've ever had. > >Anyway, Tom, I've got all of Dan's papers, & am about to start looking = for a >publisher for _culture_. Any suggestions? Willing to help pitch it? (Not = a >rhetorical question.) Also: Anyone who corresponded with Dan, or wrote = anything >about his work, or would like to, please back-channel me when you have a >moment--I've been wanting to put together something about his work, = assuming >it's of interest to others out there. > >Thanks, > >Gary Sullivan >gps12@columbia.edu > > >RFC822 header >----------------------------------- > >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: doug@HERRING.COM >Received: (qmail 2943 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1998 20:01:04 -0000 >Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) > by herring.com with SMTP; 5 Feb 1998 20:01:04 -0000 >Received: (qmail 22933 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1998 19:03:58 -0000 >Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) > by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Feb 1998 19:03:58 -0000 >Received: from LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU by LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 28040858 for > POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU; Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:03:53 -= 0500 >Received: (qmail 41 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1998 19:03:10 -0000 >Received: from mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu (128.59.35.143) by > listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Feb 1998 19:03:10 -0000 >Received: from montgomery (montgomery.hist.columbia.edu [128.59.226.188]) = by > mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA27774 = for > ; Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:03:00 -= 0500 > (EST) >Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:53:18 -= 0500 >X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"us-ascii" >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Message-ID: <01BD323D.69E48620@gps12@columbia.edu> >Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:53:16 -0500 >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group >From: Gary Sullivan >Subject: Re: Dan Davidson >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:14:51 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Dan Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit gary since I live out here in cowpoop pasturealville & am total unfamiliar with Dan Davidson's life & work, could you post a bit of the ms "culture" that you speak of? listening miekal ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:36:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carolyn Guertin Subject: 44 In-Reply-To: <01BD323D.69E48620@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most influential 20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I think Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any numerologists out there? bpNichol too, at 44. ________________________________________________ Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 Website: http://www.ualberta.ca/~cguertin/Guertin.htm "I have doubted my belief in sentences because of their refusal to recall certain things" -- Brenda Hillman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:37:52 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: valentine's criticism poem In-Reply-To: <199802051406.JAA31118@radagast.wizard.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT valentino: I think critics need to be purged of friends. only people with no friends enough to be objective. I remember the critics were sent to live in a remote cabin with just a dog for company, and after of 5 years living they had to kill the dog; I think they called it Trancendental Meditation. it didn't take a spousal name to penetrate the economy of de- sire in that cabin. I know that it's too late for me ["too late for me"] to be a really good critic, but I'm still inviting you to my party (& you, Kent). .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 15:24:42 EST Reply-To: EHatmaker@infonet.tufts.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Hatmaker Subject: Re: "My man" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The Bessie Smith lyrics reminded me-- didn't Shirley Anne Williams write a series on Bessie Smith lyrics? Does anyone know how or if she brought attention to the whole "my man" issue? I'm also reminded of an old movie based on, I think, a Cornell Woolrich (sp?) novel called "No Man to Call Her Own"-- Barbara Stanwick, preganant and abandoned, is in in train wreck with couple and is mistaken for the bride, taken in, falls in love with the groom's brother. Seems in both cases-- the Bessie Smith lyrics and the movie that the desire to "own a man" comes from a pretty desperate place in a number of ways (emotionally, financially, socially). I'm not sure that I'd equate this with what's going on in the Breton poem. Maybe this is less the case with the Plath poem. e. hatmaker ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:48:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: query: jazz and spoken word Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" DON'T send those answers the back way -- post 'em here so that I can see them too ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 16:06:24 -0500 Reply-To: kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Dan Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gary & other followers of the late Daniel Davidson, could someone post a bibliography of published (and possibily unpublished work). I've been interested in his work since you (Gary) sent me the collab with Tom Mandel. Who published that? thanks-jk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:26:19 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oh for Heaven's sake, Maria. Your posts have always been intelligent and I've always looked forward to them, but you've lost me this time with your sweeping generalizations about gender equity. Sorry, but I have to say this. My wife took my name neither to be usurped and colonized nor to be a piece of property, and would find this discussion silly, whatever her reasons were (and they were her own). Furthermore, she is neither usurped nor colonized. 17 years ago I put her through university. For 12 years I have cared for our children and home, put her through graduate school (and did not go myself), assisted her hugely with her thesis, moved to follow her job, and I continue to support her in her difficult, all-consuming professional life daily. I may be so "staggeringly naive that further discussion of equity between genders is pointless" and she may be too, but my experience is that roles have as much to do with inequity as do genders: a man today caring for his children is at as much of a social and political disadvantage (in fact more of one) than a woman today caring for hers. Whatever happened in the past, happened, and let's talk about it, let's fix it as best we can, and if it is still happening, let's fix it now as well, but let's not claim more than should be claimed. I am not knocking my choices, because I know they have been good, but if that's not equity and support, what on earth is? Making her stay home against her will so that she could look after the children on 1/3 the salary, so that I could grow bitter and not write? Both of us go to work and send the kids to daycare? Not have kids? Split up? Tell her she has to take back her maiden name? She can change her name to anything she wants, any day. There, I said it. Harold Rhenisch rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 20:15:20 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: Breton's woman, Breton's poem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually I love the Song of Solomon--just in case that wasn't clear; have made ruthless use of it in my own work (as will be evident in a piece forthcoming in _non_). Do wonder, though, about the translation of certain lines, such as "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him." Kinky? Rachel, ruminating ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:22:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: LAURA MORIARTY Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: <199802060340.UAA20017@bobo.oz.cc.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have to say that I was wooed - entirely successfully - by a Breton-reading, surrealist-leaning poet who dedicated the first issue of his first magazine to me (but didn't publish me in it) - after which I pointed out that I was not content to be anyone's goddamned muse, thank you very much) and we were together forever till he died - It's not the Breton - it really depends on the babe - ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:04:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: "My man" Comments: To: Elizabeth Hatmaker In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII and then there's JONI MITCHELL's "my old man" (one could love the way she objectifies men)....chris On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Elizabeth Hatmaker wrote: > The Bessie Smith lyrics reminded me-- didn't Shirley Anne Williams write a > series on Bessie Smith lyrics? Does anyone know how or if she brought > attention to the whole "my man" issue? > > I'm also reminded of an old movie based on, I think, a Cornell Woolrich (sp?) > novel called "No Man to Call Her Own"-- Barbara Stanwick, preganant and > abandoned, is in in train wreck with couple and is mistaken for the bride, > taken in, falls in love with the groom's brother. > > Seems in both cases-- the Bessie Smith lyrics and the movie that the desire > to "own a man" comes from a pretty desperate place in a number of ways > (emotionally, financially, socially). I'm not sure that I'd equate this with > what's going on in the Breton poem. Maybe this is less the case with the > Plath poem. > > e. hatmaker > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:33:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: various - a spray In-Reply-To: <199802060646.BAA89898@dept.english.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Louis Cabri--in taking off from a line from Perelman about poetry and its hypothetical location BETWEEN communities rather than between individuals--makes an interesting point that, for me, raises the question of identity as a differential and what may be the "reactive nature" of it (identity). For, perhaps we all have some pre-existing idea of what this "listserv community" entails, is constituted by (though of course it's an "imaginary construct")) and there is a very valid perspective from which "those positions having to do with reinvoking that famous figure of the outlaw (figure as in figure of thought/speech) : the outcasted male individual hero loner poet-thinker" though "a caricature" must be seen in relation to the assumptions of the "imaginary construct" of this "listserv community." And perhaps the VALUE of such an "outlaw figure" position--apart from any question of intrinsic value which I am going to BRACKET for now--is precisely in the way it may place the tension BETWEEN communities WITHIN a community. Thus, maybe it's not coincidental that Joshua Schuster finds the fact that "academic slander" can be found in all its glory on this list both "sickening" and "compelling". Ah, such ambivalence we may locate in the individual Joshua Schuster, taking a position against other individuals (in this sense the "sickening" is suppossed to take precedence over the "compelling"), or we may locate it in between two communities, whose "competing discourses" play themselves out in the words of (or mind of) Joshua Schuster. ----- Again, I keep thinking of that quote by Mr. Bernstein about being a "communist in st. petersburg and a capitalist in leningrad". As for me, I don't think I'd say half the things I say on this list if I were in other contexts. When I was on the CAP-L list alot, i tended to be part of a "unified front" with Ron SIlliman strangely enough In U-Mass MFA prgram creative writing class with James Tate I defended Bernstein. Of course I would defend Tate here (and not JUST for reactive reasons, but I'd be lying to say such reasons don't play at least some part in it)... Anyway, just some friday morning thoughts.....chris On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Louis Cabri wrote: > It might be interesting to compare Barrett Watten's Bad > History IX, "Presentation" (see Antenym #14) to the Tom > Clark excerpt Joe Safdie posted Jan 24 (recently reposted > by David Bromige). Coincidentally parallel subject matters > in both poems, with very different treatments (as would be > expected). Both seem to write of peer pressure & peer > pleasure within overlapping, "warring" poetry communities: Watten, > from the viewpoint of a shared poetic tendency (always > plural, never singular); Clark, as someone who claims to > have miraculously eluded all tendential poetic groupings > (always singular, never plural) - as David has so excellently, > in my view, recently detailed for us. Perhaps Steve Carll, > who edits *Antenym*, could post that section of Watten's > poem, if he's here? There is no "good" and "bad" in this suggested > comparison, either - even though I side with David's view on Tom's > poems - because Watten's poem is itself, it strikes me, oddly > ahistorical in its address to a generality - "they." ...I'd be > curious to know what others think. > > During so much of the recent discussion I have gone back > tangentially and for a sort of touchstone for my own > thinking to a "chapter of verse" in Bob Perelman's poem by > that name to be found in his last book, *Virtual Reality*. I > wonder who on this list finds this quotation, in the way that > it negotiates values for the social through various "walls" > of individualism, to be a compelling one, or even an > interesting one. It's a seemingly real plain statement: > > "Poetry begins, not between individuals within a > community, but rather at the points where communities end, > at their boundaries, at the points of contact between > different communities." > > Where are the ends - and are they coterminous with the > ends, as in the goals - of our communities, or are we a part > of the same community even if we take opposing sides on > fundamental issues of poetics? (The latter a question of > scale, to some extent, that Ron critically addressed as an > entropic state of current social affairs, in his PhillyTalks.) What > does it mean to think of "poetry" as *not* "beginning > between individuals within a community" - in other words, > within the same community? "Community" of course can > also be an imaginary construct (if it's ever anything else). > > I kind of lump together under one claim some variety of > positions that a number of people on this list have recently > marshalled forth - those positions having to do with > reinvoking that famous "figure of outward" ("figure" as in > figure of thought/speech): the outcasted male individual > hero loner poet-thinker. Perhaps that's a caricature? Still, > the shared claim these positions hold I think is the one that > is swilling the last dregs of that sad legacy of the imaginary > politics of anarchism in the US. In this recent listserve > revival, it has taken such a reified form that its once > communal politics can hardly be perceived - by those very champions > of this view - in the vocabulary used to identify its social > positioning - this given the already vastly reified "social" > landscape of this nation, in the midst of its bathetic > attempts to clutch to such a stripped landscape for support. > > Not that anyone will find and of this of interest, but: I > just want to say in advance that at present I can't post to > the listserve as often as I'd like. Please don't take my possible > further silence on these things as mean indifference. Oh no! > > Oh, no! > > Mais non! > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:26:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: "My man" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Small grammatical point: "ma femme" is possessive, whereas "mon homme" is possessed. George Thompson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:15:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael J. Kelleher" Subject: alyricmailer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------8766963DBEDC1D3FA65978C9" --------------8766963DBEDC1D3FA65978C9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BE SUBVERSIVE: READ POETRY ON THE JOB ANNOUNCING THE PUBLICATION OF: a l y r i c m a i l e r AN E-BROADSIDE FEATURING (AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE) A SELECTION FROM AN INDIVIDUAL POET. This edition's poet is Dan Machlin. Dan Machlin was born and raised in the west 20's in Manhattan and now resides in Brooklyn. He is a graduate of the M.A. Poetry Program at City College of New York and of Bernadette Mayer's workshop at St. Mark's and his work has appeared in several poetry mags, including Whatever and Torque. He is the former curator of The Segue Performance Space Poetry/Performance series and a spring 1998 curator for the HERE series in NYC. a l y r i c m a i l e r is an autonomous editorial production of The Small Press Collective, Buffalo, NY. The url, for those whose e-mail server does not read html, is: http://writing.upenn.edu/~mjk/hotpotato.htm (Free) Subscriptions, queries (only, not submissions), comments, complaints to mjk@acsu.buffalo.edu. I hope to have another completed this month. Enjoy. Michael Kelleher --------------8766963DBEDC1D3FA65978C9 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BE SUBVERSIVE:

READ POETRY ON THE JOB

ANNOUNCING THE PUBLICATION OF:

a l  y  r  i  c m  a  i  l  e  r
 
 

AN E-BROADSIDE FEATURING (AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE) A SELECTION FROM AN INDIVIDUAL POET.

This edition's poet is Dan Machlin.

Dan Machlin was born and raised in the west 20's in Manhattan and now
resides in Brooklyn.  He is a graduate of the M.A. Poetry Program at
City College of New York and of Bernadette Mayer's workshop at St.
Mark's and his work has appeared in several poetry mags, including
Whatever and Torque.  He is the former curator of The Segue Performance
Space Poetry/Performance series and a spring 1998 curator for the HERE
series in NYC.

a l y r i c m a i l e r  is an autonomous editorial production of The Small Press Collective, Buffalo, NY.

The url, for those whose e-mail server does not read html, is:

http://writing.upenn.edu/~mjk/hotpotato.htm

(Free) Subscriptions, queries (only, not submissions), comments, complaints to mjk@acsu.buffalo.edu.

I hope to have another completed this month. Enjoy.

Michael Kelleher --------------8766963DBEDC1D3FA65978C9-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:31:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert J Tiess Subject: Re: Call for work --> "p. durgin" writes: >KENNING, a newsletter of poetry, poetics, & other genres of new >non-fiction writing, announces a call for expository, theoretical, and >critical writing for upcoming issues. Your wonderings and deliberations >on current poetics issues & practicioners of the language arts are >welcomed. Please back-channel with proposals (informal) and/or details, >or contact the editor, myself, at the address below. Premier issue >out soon, watch the list for this announcement. > > Patrick F. Durgin Dear Mr. Durgin, Your newsletter sounds promising. From the post above, I am guessing you are more interested in prose pieces than poetry at this time. Are you open to poetry submissions, and, if so, are there any additional guidelines? For the past few months I have been considering the physical page's dimensional impact on poetry's lineation, how it essentially dictates the width and flow of the modern poem. I will be recording my conclusions in an essay entitled, "8 1/2 x 11," and I expect it to be well under a 1,000 words. Would you be interested in such a piece? As for myself, I am a poet and an electronic publisher of free an e-zine and poetry anthologies (see Poetfest link below). My works have appeared in a variety of publications, including English Journal, Amazing Computing, Poetpoetzine, Midwest Poetry Review, and EWG Presents. I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, Robert J. Tiess ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robert J. Tiess - rjtiess@juno.com Home page - http://members.tripod.com/~rtiess Poetfest - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7101 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:11:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: various - a spray In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:33:04 -0500 from Stroffolino makes some good points along the Cabri & Schuster thread, mainly by not insisting on a simple solution (as I so often do). Though the poem gets written by the individual it's always in response to a group situation, even if it's addressed to a single "other" person. So the group is always an implicit sounding board. This goes for criticism as well. But I think those who criticize Tom Clark (& me) for playing the super-individualist card might consider what we're playing it against. "Talk about" poetry, "talk about" poetry communities, is all well and good, especially for those (academic) communities for whom such talk is literally their bread and butter; "isn't it nice to think so," as Mark Wallace so aptly quoted Hemingway - especially when some poetry collectives will actively & persistently promote the history & analysis of their community within the academic community; both groups get to think they're talking about something important! Isn't that nice? All I've been saying, and perhaps all Tom Clark said (I haven't read it), IS - that, for us, when the chips are down, when the bell tolls, when the fat lady sings, when closing time comes, at the stroke of midnight, etc. etc. - my poems - whether they're responding to the group or not - my poems are my poems. I wrote them. Me, the individual. I put things in them myself. And when they're written, hey, I still wrote them. My poems are different from your poems. Part of my effort (& I mean EFFORT) is to make them different from yours. I see a major part of the intrinsic value of a poem is its utter uniqueness. I stand firmly with both Celan & Mandelstam who, again and again, said (in OM's words) "Do not compare. The living is incomparable." You must look for it yourself. So you can talk all you want about poetic communities. This list is a poetic community. For all I know, it's affected my writing. But when I go into the room & close the door to write - a poem, a review, whatever - I want nothing to do with you. & I don't want any favors. I want to reach the "cold" reader, the dispassionate critic, the average Joanne. Because they are my criterion for my own truth. What's your criterion? The echo of praise, the warm comradely hug? "Men seek glory from one another, but they do not seek the glory that comes from God." - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:39:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Dan Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, Miekal, Joel, Carolyn & others: Since, Miekal, I know you have web access (& Joel, you no doubt do as well), you can read at least one section from _culture_, "An Account," at: http://www.system-zero.com/cyanosis/Text/poetics/anaccount.html I'd be happy, Miekal, to mail you a copy of "Product," the first section of _culture_, which my wife & I published in 1990 or 1991. Back-channel me your address. Joel, I have to go administer language exams most of the day today, & only have e-mail at work, but if no one else has posted a bibliography by Monday, I'll do that then. As far as _Absence Sensorium_, Dan & Tom's collaborative poem, it was published by Potes & Poets Press: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses/ganick/potes.html I think I paid $14 for it--not sure if you have to add postage to that or not. Thanks, Carolyn, for reminding me that bp nichol, too, was 44--& to everyone else who reminded me O'Hara was (wow) younger. No coincidence: I opened my e-mail program up this morning . . . to exactly 44 messages. What do you say, think, when things like this happen? Unbelievable. Yours, Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:58:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" harold, i was talking about historical context and ongoing inequities, not specific cases. of course men suffer socially and economically when they take on traditionally "feminized" roles. that fact, to me, underscores my point that we live in a sexist society. sure, individual women take their husbands' names for any number of reasons: they sound better; carrying their father's name, with which they're saddled at birth, is no less sexist; it's more convenient for childrearing and record-keeping, etc. All of these except the first (aesthetics) to me underscore the fact that we live in a sexist society. the passion of your post, and the unusualness of the choices you've made, to me underscore the fact that we live in a sexist society that makes such choices remarkable. my hat's off to you for the choices you have made. i wasn't, though, talking about individual volition; i was responding to what i felt was a glib suggestion that women "taking" their husband's names was equivalent to men "taking" their wives as possessions; can't remember who made that post now. bests, maria d At 2:26 PM -0800 2/5/98, Harold Rhenisch wrote: >Oh for Heaven's sake, Maria. Your posts have always been intelligent and >I've always looked forward to them, but you've lost me this time with your >sweeping generalizations about gender equity. Sorry, but I have to say >this. > >My wife took my name neither to be usurped and colonized nor to be a piece >of property, and would find this discussion silly, whatever her reasons >were (and they were her own). Furthermore, she is neither usurped nor >colonized. 17 years ago I put her through university. For 12 years I have >cared for our children and home, put her through graduate school (and did >not go myself), assisted her hugely with her thesis, moved to follow her >job, and I continue to support her in her difficult, all-consuming >professional life daily. I may be so "staggeringly naive that further >discussion of equity between genders is pointless" and she may be too, but >my experience is that roles have as much to do with inequity as do genders: >a man today caring for his children is at as much of a social and political >disadvantage (in fact more of one) than a woman today caring for hers. >Whatever happened in the past, happened, and let's talk about it, let's fix >it as best we can, and if it is still happening, let's fix it now as well, >but let's not claim more than should be claimed. I am not knocking my >choices, because I know they have been good, but if that's not equity and >support, what on earth is? Making her stay home against her will so that >she could look after the children on 1/3 the salary, so that I could grow >bitter and not write? Both of us go to work and send the kids to daycare? >Not have kids? Split up? Tell her she has to take back her maiden name? She >can change her name to anything she wants, any day. > >There, I said it. > >Harold Rhenisch >rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:58:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i believe that in one of the chinese languages, the word "four" is a synonym for "death," and thus is often avoided. if doubled, that wd seem to suggest an untimely or otherwise noteworthy-for-its-tragicness death. coming up on 43--md At 1:36 PM -0700 2/5/98, Carolyn Guertin wrote: >Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most influential >20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I think >Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any >numerologists out there? > >bpNichol too, at 44. > >________________________________________________ >Carolyn Guertin, Department of English, University of Alberta >E-Mail: cguertin@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca; Tel/FAX: 403-432-2735 >Website: http://www.ualberta.ca/~cguertin/Guertin.htm > >"I have doubted my belief in sentences because >of their refusal to recall certain things" >-- Brenda Hillman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:59:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980205101226.007c6100@nunic.nu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:12 AM -0800 2/5/98, William Marsh wrote: >At 08:56 AM 2/5/98 -0500, daniel bouchard wrote: >>PAX >> >>I make a pact with you, Ron Silliman-- >>I have admired your poems long enough. >>I come to you as a prodigal pup; >>Weaned at a dozen fat anthologies. >>I am old enough now to make an end. >>Whitman broke the new wood, >>Pound put in time to carving. >>We watch the blasted stumps in the open fields >>Leak black ink of American grain. >> >>I make a pact with you, venerable LangPoets-- >>I have invested in your works long enough. >>I look back at you as a honorable bunch >>Laying new asphalt over the old roads; >>I am old enough now to map an end. >>It was you who splintered the carved wood, >>Now it is time for recycling. >>We have a cool climate and a rich soil-- >>Don't let the mulcher come between us. >> >>I make a pact with you, my contemporaries-- >>For to know you better there is time enough. >>I come to you with no gifts >>But that of mutual comradeship; >>I am ready to make friends. >>Look around us at all this damned wood, >>It is time to sort out what you want. >>We have glasses of water nursing new roots-- >>Let there be communication between us. >> >daniel > >i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about >80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create >land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil >depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of >soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit >the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," >"recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or >not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication >as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the >"Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and >literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's >been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through >this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, >probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the >future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor > >i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a >farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, >watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a >hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact >is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new >relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" >however is gladly accepted > >best, >bill marsh > funny you shd mention this, bill; but it reminds me of something that resonates w/ the other list-thread on the honesty or not of critics. one thought i always bring to books when i review them is, "was this book worth cutting down trees for?" of course the answer is almost always negative but of course i don't feel i can say that in a review, it sounds way too harsh. but often i think that way: if this is an assistant professor coming up for tenure, and needs to publish, is it worth the trees? if this book is by a dean or tenured full prof whose future is not at issue, is it worth the trees? you'll notice that content has not yet entered the picture. that's because, with very few exceptions, most of the academic manuscripts or books i'm asked to review *really* don't add much to human knowledge, and certainly don't add as much as trees do to the quality of human life. so, i'm expecting excoriating messages back from all and sundry, accusing me of utter corruption. so ask yourself: is *your* book worth the trees? most of us have such small print runs it's okay (yes, i think about that too), esp the chapbooks etc., and those show such a spirited do-it-yrself energy that i think they're definitely worth it; i'm talking mostly about the academic book industry. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:59:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Celan to Mandelstam In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:59 PM -0500 2/5/98, Henry Gould wrote: >You will think I am some kind of Blakean avatar, a brass cube of rectal >rectitude, a meatlocker out to reduce everything to legal jargon & >professional > swordsmanship. But you will be wrong. > r u kidding? i think many folks on the list find your persistence and idealism very inspiring even if they (we?) don't agree on particulars. so stop w/ this "you think i'm this, you think i'm that, but yr wrong" rhetoric already. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:00:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: spraying the communities In-Reply-To: <199802060725.CAA28542@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" bravo for this tour de force, josh!--md At 2:25 AM -0500 2/6/98, Joshua N Schuster wrote: >There is a thread in common with Louis' post and the Clark issue that I >feel is worth following. > >I went to read the Tom Clark essay today. Probably worth mentioning some >things before all is swept away. The Brecht quote introduces the piece >and is completely contextless, not even a footnote provided, so I have no >idea when the quote was written. Clark uses it to frame langpoetry as >academic and negatively obscure. Now that Clark has thrown out context, >that social and historical stuff that induces meaning, he is happy to >provide his own version of context, calling all langpoetry leftist and >group-centered. He quotes only one poem, a section from a Watten piece, >not to analyze but to show that the title "'Stalin As Linguist'" comes >from Watten (hence the quotes around the title). We assume the analogy >between group-project and Stalinism and case closed. The whole thing is >harshly vague and is an example of the kind of criticism I find as >absolute bullshit, the "I hate this, I hate that" criticism. > >And, oooh, I find the academic slander particularly compelling. The fact >that it is on this list in all its glory is sickening. It's all shit, >let's burn the universities. Better yet, burn the critic-professors, >especially that Derrida, root of all obscure academic prose. > >The example of Derrida interests me very much, as he has been bashed by >Tom Clark as well as several language poets over the years, and of course >by almost every professor and, now, watcher of Woody Allen movies. I'm >not going to proceed on a lengthy defense here, but I will honestly and >forcefully say that Derrida's writing is powerful, concise, and stunning. >I find his texts on Jewish themes and on poetry to be genuinely intense. >His project is fine-tuned and demanding, and I don't think I would be a >poet or a critic if it were not for his writing. > >Maybe it is worth noting Derrida has not spent the majority of his career >in the heart of the University system. For many years he has held a >"tutor" position at the Ecole Normale, about the equivalent of what most >grad students get as their first job. It's also worth mentioning >Derrida's essay "The University in the Eyes of its Pupils" (diacritics, >1983), where Derrida does what he often does to characterize institutions >(and, of course, also with philosophically dramatic terms). He points out >the tendency to destroy and demolish institutions is always linked with >the tendency to praise and commendably name them. The essay is very >particular about what this may mean, and most of Derrida, as usual, is >about raising these issues. There are more questions in Derrida's writing >than most other essays. Derrida does insist that community and >institution must be re-thought. In his major essay on Levinas he calls >the context of his critique "the community of the question". > >That word "community" is used so often, certainly by me too, that it loses >much of its relevance. But I use this word to be the real context and >substance of language writing, the context I seem to most admire them for, >a context exactly like what Derrida calls "the community of the question". >Now, Ron Silliman, for example (not to pick on Ron, but his Philly Talk >here still resonates), has recently suggested such a community was a >heroic moment in writing, while I completely disagree with such a heroic >view of history, myself preferring the project of what Greil Marcus calls >"secret history". Anyways, such heroism should not obscure what is so >valuable in the cliched but genuine project of community. Even if >communities find foundations in what will ultimately lead to their own >downfall, the search is inherently important. That search takes place in >the community of the question, and for me it welcomes both Derrida and >language poetry in the *academy turned upside-down* (any reading of >langpoetry and Derrida would be blind to miss the intense criticism both >sustain against the university. It is some of the best criticism out >there, much better than the solitary and blessed poet trashing all >professors). But Tom Clark will forever fail to see how langpoetry is a >community (of questionings) and not a totality. > >Langpoetry and the University certainly do not present the only results of >community (not even close), and to me, if either of these "institutions" >are to be surpassed, in good faith, it will come by a rethinking of >naming, of grouping, of making context in a socially and historically >changing world. What is exciting is the ways in which these searches >continue, even in the heart of the worst corners of the worst >public/private education systems, even in the most absurd and inviting >ways. What if in some perverted way, bureaucracy implicitly lead the way >out of bureaucracy? What if in some terrible corner of a paragraph or a >library there appeared a clue into a new understanding of community? >Better we should smash it before it adds up to that pile of shit we call >context. > >Joshua Schuster ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:31:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bill, Thanks for your response. Having only resubscribed to the Poetics list this past week I was afraid my post--a response to the discussion of Ron's perceived lack of a "crystallization" among younger writers--was lost to ears no longer tuned in to the topic. (I had been following the discussion on the archives.) I took a week just to think about it. It's been discussed on a smaller list and, having bounced ideas around with Steve Evans and Douglas Rothschild over the weekend, I only wrote the "PAX" poem-- half satire--on Thursday night. I should like to address your comments by connecting them with certain statements of Ron's in the PHILLY TALKS. The poignancy of his thought (one I don't think Jeff Derksen responds to adequately, although he does cover other areas with adroitness) is caught when he questions what it means to be writing in today's world--after 1979 I think is the date; in a world where Palestinians suffer oppression but are only portrayed in American mainstream press as terrorists, or where the genocide going on in East Timor isn't portrayed at all. (I don't have the TALKS before; I'm sorry if not getting this 100%.) Those were two examples that Ron used. The environment is certainly another; one certainly not restricted by national borders. I think if there were to be a "crystallization" among younger writers (and I'm not advocating one) it would be centered such social questions of writing. Or, if I were to advocate a "crystallization" that's the one I would choose. You've got to understand: when poets are aware of things like this (if I anticipated any poet would be it would be Ron Silliman) I am fairly excited, but when poets actually speak of them, in public, in the context of writing; well, it gives me quite a rush. Why? Because many of the poets I love (in the 20th century anyway) are concerned with such things in their poems. Form is an afterthought for me. I'm not being as explicit as possible about this (probably making myself out to be a agenda-packing poet seeking to fancy up a message to an arts crowd) but this will have to do here, and as I don't yet have a book published I cannot refer you to my poems. The agrarian metaphor in "PAX" (or aboreal even) stems from the poem's model, Ezra Pound's "Pact" found in PERSONAE. The metaphor, like a lineage of poetics, runs through the century from Williams, Duncan ("open fields"), to the "Tree" anthology--well, I'm not saying anything people on this list don't already know but I think the "nursing new roots" image in the end is where I stand on this. The invitation to "mutual comradeship" stands. By the way, where is Ron? I hope your cold is gone. - daniel bouchard Bill Marsh wrote: >i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about >80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create >land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil >depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of >soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit >the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," >"recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or >not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication >as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the >"Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and >literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's >been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through >this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, >probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the >future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor > >i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a >farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, >watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a >hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact >is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new >relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" >however is gladly accepted > >best, >bill marsh > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:42:32 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Harold's fretfully defensive post is interesting. Yeah, in fact I don't think there's much question but that a woman's surrender of her name is preposterous and grotesque. But it's a basic political point, Harold, not (at least as far as I'm concerned) an ad feminam attack on any given individual. Capitalism sucks too, but I'm enmeshed in it by having to work for a wage, by watching its television, buying its books. That's not a moral failure, it's an ongoing social dynamic. (Yes I know I know someone's going to pipe up to suggest archly or otherwise that it *is* a moral failure! you can find someone to defend--or attack--anything on this list!) Even more to the point I suggest you consider disavowing marriage itself. Cast out the great satans of church and state. Erika and I have been together for 16 years and very happy indeed without their benefits! Mark P. @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:53:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Dan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I've written to Gary Sullivan. All I'll say here is that I meant my words (wish he was here so I cd throttle him for what he did) to express my longing for his presence and my distress that he cannot be reached. Tom Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:47:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: ma femme Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Pierre writes: "in French it's of course "ma femme" =97 the translation I use is Antin's which says "my woman" -- but there exists another more recent one that tries to p.c.fy (I guess, or else legalize the free union) the poem by translating "ma femme" as "my wife." Does that make any difference?" The American English phrase "my woman" is simply *not* a translation of the French "ma femme". In French, that phrase *means* (denotes, points at, identifies) "my wife." Just as "ma femme de menage" *means* my maid and not "my woman-who-orders-household." The phrase "my woman" is full of romantic (literarily, I mean) overtones and symbolic connections (to "woman"), and universalisms (viz. a man and a woman). Using it in the translation skews the poem.=20 Breton is *investing* the quotidian relationship -- husband and wife -- with qualities foreign to it or transformative of it, and investing the *object* he views from within that matched-pair relationship with mystical qualities. Using "my woman" to translate "ma femme" removes the point of the poem entirely. The result -- to me -- is utterly leaden. Whereas in French I liked it a lot. I highlight the word *object* because obviously the poem *objectifies* his wife. Ooooh, the shame of it. And, if I've effectively (however lightly) skimmed responses to it here, this fact has not gone unnoticed, as many a better-knowing head has nodded. One of Tom's Ten Ways To Let The Fly Out Of The Bottle (available to grad students at a nominal cost) is this: *all* sex and all sexual relationships involve objectification. More sex implies more objectification. Or, as Breton might have said on one occasion or another: "amusez-vous bien." )Now I'm going to hear it!( Tom=20 Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:19:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Dan Davidson In-Reply-To: <01BD32DA.B23E2B40@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gary--not sure you need more for this sad list, but lately I've been copy-editing the Collected Poems of Stuart Z. Perkoff (which will be around 500 pages) & he died a couple of weeks before his 44th birthday. Be well, all you youngsters. Sylvester > >Thanks, Carolyn, for reminding me that bp nichol, too, was 44--& to everyone >else who reminded me O'Hara was (wow) younger. No coincidence: I opened my >e-mail program up this morning . . . to exactly 44 messages. What do you say, >think, when things like this happen? Unbelievable. > >Yours, > >Gary Sullivan >gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:16:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Love Poems/"there, I said it" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit & a damned good thing you did, too. joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:15:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: "my man" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Cold and wet, tired you bet.... ..I'm sure everybody on this list knows the incredible version of this song by Billie Holiday. and then there's her "Nobody's business but my own" (won't call no copper if I'm beat up by my poppa), and... My man wouldn't fix me no dinner talk about my supper man he put me out of doors took a matchbox to my clothes.... (as opposed to...) "my momma gave me something going to carry me through this world" Somebody, whoeverbody, let me know when the dissertation's finished. I want to read all about it. Tom Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:25:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Request for assistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mark (et al): I promised to forward the results--maybe I should add I've never had sexual relations with that woman (in case Kenneth Starr is on the list). Congratulations to the anonymous person who actually came up with the reference. I had heard it, but it was lost in the murk of post-44dom. Sylvester >Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:15:39 -0500 (EST) >From: Angela Martin >X-Sender: ticho@archa13.cc.uga.edu >To: sylvester pollet >Subject: Re: Request for assistance >MIME-Version: 1.0 > >Sylvester, Sylvester, Sylvester, >You DID it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >It worked and you are great! (No matter about those things other people >say!) >The answer was Robert Browning and someone from your list helped me. >As for any fees I owe, I am not far into contract law, but I think I can >come up with some defense. >Also, even before I had the right answer, I appreciated you and your >humor. The law books tend to get a person down sometimes and I really >needed your dose of kindness. >You are forever a scholar and a gentleman! >Your very dear friend, >Angela >P.S. Have you been hurt in an accident? > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:20:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: LAURA MORIARTY Subject: Re: various - a spray In-Reply-To: <199802060646.BAA89898@dept.english.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Fascinating posts! Louis, Joshua, Chris 1. That male-hero poet is often actually a family unit in which the woman is a key but silent figure - rarely a writer herself - who makes the world being spoken out of - 2. It is an interesting characterization - that edge of community idea - It suggests a Janus-like facing both ways - perhaps a multiple betrayal - which seems potentially very productive - Perhaps the more totally one is compromised but committed (the relentlessly feminist male poet, the male-identified female poet, the Oxford-educated Indian poet etc) the more interesting and mutiply legible the writing would be - 3. As one who might be regarded as anti-academic or anti-theory, I would like to say emphatically that I am not - I simply think that in the interface between those two communites sometimes the poet who writes academic essays (or who specifically addresses that community) is valued for that reason more than others who do not - so that such writing (not only critical, but critical within a certain format) becomes part of the poet job description - Which in itself is not bad, but leads to visibility issues - 4. Who are your imagined (actual) readers? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:41:49 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hen Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:56:35 -0500 from Dan's attitude toward the sister & brotherhood of poets could be usefully contrasted with my own. A political awareness & a political poetics could, I imagine, be just as clearly articulated by a loner writing for everybody as by a buddy writing within a movement. I've been trying to argue that there's a problem with the buddy system: uncritical promotion. How do you deal with that, Dan? How do you deal with the HISTORICAL & POLITICAL PROBLEM of juntas - generational, tribal, factional, ideological - which to me seem so much "part of the problem"? I am fully aware of the energy that builds among people sharing the details of what they're doing, going over it, reading together, getting into the complexity, teaching, talking about what's happening. I am fully aware of the vulnerability - the basic amateurism - of all the lonely poetasters out there, yearning for the food of the mind. Still. I hate groups using the echolalia technique of self-praise; I hate the self-justifications, magnifications, of groups. [They get in the way of my own.] How do YOU deal with this issue? Give me the stolen air of solitude & uncorrectness. silence, exile, cunning. if only! [I could use some more cunning & silence] - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:55:19 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Slander and Context It's quite a laugh to see defensive postions played out so unjustly on this list. I'm sure I could take anyone's words out of context also, and apply them to malignant ends to support my own positions. But I don't because it's unfair and pathetic. No one here has ever said or done something they regret? Who has unguarded moments of weakness? Who never gives in to a desire to 'act out' in social situations to make a point, to reveal humor, or yeah, even to piss someone off? Are there no pattern recognigitons in human character? Public language? We are no longer discussing poetics, but opposing dissent within a community with the kinds of responses that actually validate many of the social perceptions acknowledged in both 'Stalinist as Linguist' essays. Further more, these attempts to degrade someone in absentia is like beating a kitten in a sack. At least those articles appeared within the community Clark was a part of. The problem is not so much with him now, but with the fact that anyone dares challenge this 'community' in any way outside of 'polite' discourse. The most lame, thoughtless opinions imaginable are perfectly accepted as long as they don't rub against the communal grain. But dissenting opinions are challenged with ruthless rhetorical twists. Henry Gould has been much more articulate and generous than myself re: issues of poetic value. What he suggests, however, is science fiction because, as you can tell from this list, the reality of our poetics is business and politics, the kind that some here cherish more than the poetry Henry obviously loves. I was drawn back onto this list (feeling myself, whether I like it or not, to be a part, in some way, of this community) because Bromige made certain disparaging remarks about Tom Clark. I said what I had to say about Watten et al. He and others responded in turn about Clark. I did not agree entirely with those responses, nor did Bromige et al with mine. Now suddenly, the scale has escalated and nothing is based on a 'generou' or 'reasonable' exchange of opinion, but on decontextualized 'snips' from one man's life. I've said it before and I'll say it now. The heart of the issue is that this community refuses dissent from within or without. If it does not reek of precious Derrida it's in bad odor. If someone challenges our poetic assumptions they are disposed of in ways that are measured by the 'politeness' of the opposing opinions. Maybe it's the electronic medium that forces us to be so reductive. Maybe it's just greed and a desire to measure our precious *intelligence* and self-righteousness against others. Who the fuck knows. But I'm posting this now before I say something I don't wanna say. Besides. I've gotta go chase 'nymphomaniacs' on my computer screen. That's obviously more *fun* than hanging out here all day. Dale ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:10:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980205151108.006badb0@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On the surname question: In Latin America and Spain (probably other places) a wife adopts the name of her husband ("de" so and so--de meaning "of") _but_ also keeps in active use her own name, which in turn is passed down to her children. All people, then, carry the names of both parents. Unfortunately, this more "liberated"practice seems to have had little effect on a decidedly patriarchal and machista tradition. Kent > Anybody know how long this custom has been in force (and where and among > which classes)? I'm not sure if Marie-Antoinette was "Mrs. Bourbon," less > sure if the Wife of Bath took her various husbands' names, and I think > what's customary in non-European societies is quite variable. But I don't > know. > Property laws, it's worth pointing out, were passed for the convenience of > the propertied class. Before the Industrial Revolution made a lot of the > old divisions of labor obsolete the lower classes were often more > egalitarian in terms of gender than their "betters." > I hope I'm not being naive in suggesting that while Maria is in general > terms certainly correct these issues are probably far more complex and > nuanced. I await enlightenment. > > At 01:28 PM 2/5/98 -0600, you wrote: > >oh fr heavens' sake. women didn't "take" their husbands names in the sense > >of usurping and colonizing them; their husbands' names were forced on them > >as insignia of those husbands' ownership of those wives. i'm sorry, but to > >claim otherwise is simply either disingenuous, an attempt at rhetorical > >provocation, or so staggeringly naive that further discussion of equity > >between genders is pointless. > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:41:49 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eric Blarnes Subject: I say I say, we've had a bit of a term break here in ivy-spivied old Left Overbie, so wouldn't you know I've been perusing your "poetics" list rawther more diligently, a pot of the old kishkim near at hand in my beloved librurry... I say, there has been quite a tussling and jostling of elbows round this bit about - whatchymicallit, "Indie-Criticism" - quite a baffling & buffeting, soreheads & all... & it did occur to me to wonder what the Bard, dear o' Shakespeare, would think of all this... rawther a solid poet there, I should say - though Ben Jonson wrote "would he had blotted a thousand [lines]" - now was that independent of you, Ben? Rawther a spot jealous, no doubt - My "good buddy" [heh heh] Ben Carrelis down Aussie way back- channeled to say "Anybody who trumpets so loud & often on that d--d list as Mr. Gould can't be anything but a GODAWFUL poet" - but I say, I won't get into any odd hummingem hereabouts... Anyhow, what about Shakespeare? Well I pulled down my folio completus & what did I find? The plays are chock full of what you call "Fools for Love". Whether it's Antonio in MERCHANT throwing his fortune away for love of his "buddy" Sebastian, or Marc Antony tossing off the Empire for sweepie Cleopat, why, these types are EVERYWHERE!!! So I think we might assume the Bard would say : why, we're all fools for love - love of poetry, love of our pals, love of our foreberries, love of glory - & the one who sets himself up as the cool objective cucumber must be... THE BIGGEST FOOL OF ALL! - and, if I might paraphrase you dashed Yanks - "that's no bull!" Oh I say Henry, don't cry... there there... that's a good little indie-boy... Remember, it's almost Valentine's Day - now there was a fool if ever... - Eric Blarnes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:50:34 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Love Poems In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Now I remember that patronymics as we know them, even in parts of western Europe, are fairly recent. Norwegians (and other Scandinavians?) had no family names until required for the convenience of census-taker and taxman in the mid nineteenth century. When told to choose a last name most males (they got to choose) opted for the name they'd always been called by, so there are a lot of John son of Johns (Jansen, Jonson, etc., depending on country) in the Oslo phone book. Icelanders still do it the old-fashioned way--everybody is somebody's son or dottir, and last names change with each generation. When did Smith become a last name instead of a career-choice? Incidentally, my wife and I each legally retain our own last names. This was fine with the powers that are in Las Vegas, where we tied the knot--didn't even raise an eyebrow at the record clerk's. I don't know what the current law is in other states, but I knew a couple back in the sixties la femme of which had to change her name legally back to what it had been before marriage. I think that was in Maryland. At 07:58 AM 2/6/98 -0600, you wrote: >harold, i was talking about historical context and ongoing inequities, not >specific cases. of course men suffer socially and economically when they >take on traditionally "feminized" roles. that fact, to me, underscores my >point that we live in a sexist society. sure, individual women take their >husbands' names for any number of reasons: they sound better; carrying >their father's name, with which they're saddled at birth, is no less >sexist; it's more convenient for childrearing and record-keeping, etc. All >of these except the first (aesthetics) to me underscore the fact that we >live in a sexist society. the passion of your post, and the unusualness of >the choices you've made, to me underscore the fact that we live in a sexist >society that makes such choices remarkable. my hat's off to you for the >choices you have made. i wasn't, though, talking about individual >volition; i was responding to what i felt was a glib suggestion that women >"taking" their husband's names was equivalent to men "taking" their wives >as possessions; can't remember who made that post now. bests, maria d > >At 2:26 PM -0800 2/5/98, Harold Rhenisch wrote: >>Oh for Heaven's sake, Maria. Your posts have always been intelligent and >>I've always looked forward to them, but you've lost me this time with your >>sweeping generalizations about gender equity. Sorry, but I have to say >>this. >> >>My wife took my name neither to be usurped and colonized nor to be a piece >>of property, and would find this discussion silly, whatever her reasons >>were (and they were her own). Furthermore, she is neither usurped nor >>colonized. 17 years ago I put her through university. For 12 years I have >>cared for our children and home, put her through graduate school (and did >>not go myself), assisted her hugely with her thesis, moved to follow her >>job, and I continue to support her in her difficult, all-consuming >>professional life daily. I may be so "staggeringly naive that further >>discussion of equity between genders is pointless" and she may be too, but >>my experience is that roles have as much to do with inequity as do genders: >>a man today caring for his children is at as much of a social and political >>disadvantage (in fact more of one) than a woman today caring for hers. >>Whatever happened in the past, happened, and let's talk about it, let's fix >>it as best we can, and if it is still happening, let's fix it now as well, >>but let's not claim more than should be claimed. I am not knocking my >>choices, because I know they have been good, but if that's not equity and >>support, what on earth is? Making her stay home against her will so that >>she could look after the children on 1/3 the salary, so that I could grow >>bitter and not write? Both of us go to work and send the kids to daycare? >>Not have kids? Split up? Tell her she has to take back her maiden name? She >>can change her name to anything she wants, any day. >> >>There, I said it. >> >>Harold Rhenisch >>rhenisch@web-trek.net > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:36:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "my man" In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980206101555.007d5100@postoffice.bellatlantic.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I believe it's "Ain't nobody's business if I do", not "but my own." Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:45:34 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jaqck Spandrift Subject: reading announcement uh, can everybody please send your posts in iambic pentameter, please? That will help me with the flow & continuity. Thanks. - Jack Spandrift, dramaturg-wannabee oh, yeah. That pompous, pedantic, picayune, pigheaded Poet-of-Crapola Henry Gould will give a benefit reading at Transit Books in Providence on Thursday, Feb. 19th, at 7 PM. Transit Books, corner of Governor & Transit. Call 401-751-6271 for directions. Benefit for that truly tart-smelling tissue of turgid tree-rot ["All indie-crit MUST alliterate!" - Henry Gould, 10.4.86] NEDGE. $3. = a whole mess of oral Gould, a free copy of the object of abjectivity itself, & refreshments. Be there or be intelligent. Cold out there, Hen? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:54:07 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Catherine Daly Subject: machine translation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit FYI: alta vista now has machine translation free at http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/babelfish.altavista.digital.com/ Catherine Daly cadaly@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:57:06 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) I too thoroughly enjoyed Dan Bouchard's poem, and am glad to see a poem enter into the discussion, the poem as a mode of thinking.... Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:53:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980206143130.006881d8@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" daniel glad you're back / i too have Silliman's Philly Steak right next to me and plan to get to it as soon as i'm done here / but to a couple of your points At 09:31 AM 2/6/98 -0500, you wrote: The poignancy of his thought (one I >don't think Jeff Derksen responds to adequately, although he does cover >other areas with adroitness) is caught when he questions what it means to be >writing in today's world--after 1979 I think is the date; in a world where >Palestinians suffer oppression but are only portrayed in American mainstream >press as terrorists, or where the genocide going on in East Timor isn't >portrayed at all. (I don't have the TALKS before; I'm sorry if not getting >this 100%.) Those were two examples that Ron used. The environment is >certainly another; one certainly not restricted by national borders. I think >if there were to be a "crystallization" among younger writers (and I'm not >advocating one) it would be centered such social questions of writing. Or, >if I were to advocate a "crystallization" that's the one I would choose. i think i agree here / are "such social questions of writing" also social questions of living, and living questions of...? / seriously, the "crystallization" that has probably itself gotten too much press here would, will, might center on the articulation of these questions, as well as the articulation of the activities (writing, living, arguing, challenging) to which the questions refer / so we have to be direct / and to my mind, addressing below, questions of form, practice, social awareness, political struggle, global survival, can inform each other / as thoughts as well as afterthoughts / an integrated approach seems necessary / i'm being vague too, but put the question: what are the "social questions of writing"? >You've got to understand: when poets are aware of things like this (if I >anticipated any poet would be it would be Ron Silliman) I am fairly excited, >but when poets actually speak of them, in public, in the context of writing; >well, it gives me quite a rush. Why? Because many of the poets I love (in >the 20th century anyway) are concerned with such things in their poems. i understand the "rush" you're talking about / it's the rush i get when a good poet says anything in public, given that the voices with which the public speaking world is saturated are rarely those of poets / Ron S is often a wake-up call, when he addresses the issues like the ones you mention / when the "talk" turns to address possible generational disparities and shortcomings, the effect might not be so thrilling, as some here have suggested / maybe a 'turning against' when some folks think greater solidarity is in order? / again, i have to read the thing >The agrarian metaphor in "PAX" (or aboreal even) stems from the poem's >model, Ezra Pound's "Pact" found in PERSONAE. The metaphor, like a lineage >of poetics, runs through the century from Williams, Duncan ("open fields"), >to the "Tree" anthology--well, I'm not saying anything people on this list >don't already know but I think the "nursing new roots" image in the end is >where I stand on this. okay, and i think here's where some of the nursing gets done / i liked your poem, by the way bill > > >Bill Marsh wrote: >>i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about >>80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create >>land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil >>depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of >>soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit >>the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," >>"recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or >>not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication >>as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the >>"Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and >>literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's >>been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through >>this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, >>probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the >>future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor >> >>i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a >>farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, >>watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a >>hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact >>is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new >>relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" >>however is gladly accepted >> >>best, >>bill marsh >> ><<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Daniel Bouchard >The MIT Press Journals >Five Cambridge Center >Cambridge, MA 02142 > >bouchard@mit.edu >phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh PaperBrainPress Voice & Range Community Arts National University wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu http://www.dtai.com/~bmarsh snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:46:03 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Sexy Ruminants MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" And for Gertrude Stein, "cow" meant "orgasm." As in "As a Wife has a Cow: = A Love Story." Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:05:37 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: "my woman" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As the countdown to Valentines Day proceeds, here's another entry,a blues-y number sung feelingly, in his lower register, by Bing Crosby (who wrote it together with "Wortell and Wallman" [genders unknown]) backed by a studio orchestra conducted by Victor Young and containing among others Tommy Dorsey and Eddie Lang, on 2/23/32 : "my woman, is mean as she can be my woman, she makes a fool of me never treats me good, dont know why I should/ love her "she's lying, when she say 'I love you' I know it, but what am I to do? though she makes me cry, I dont care cos I/ love her "once I laughed at love, thought it all wrong then she came along, like a new song now I sing a blue song "my woman, she has a heart of stone not human, but she must be my own till the day I die, I'll be loving/ my woman" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:04:03 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: my man (for Gwyn McVay) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: RE: my man (for Gwyn McVay) A lovely song for which many a queer man still gets teary-eyed. I wonder = if those boys who wrote it were queer? In that case, the female singer = becomes the wonderful beard through which these sentiments can be = expressed. And there's certainly an altogether different conotation of "my = man" when it's uttered by another man, mais non? As for Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and many other early blues singers, their = male muses were often "bulldaggers" (the term of the day) or butch girls. = This gives the possessive "my" a much different function, akin to when you = order eggs benedict in a restaurant and you get something with cheese = sauce instead of hollandaise. The waiter then tells you, "this is our eggs = benedict" meaning "our version of." Oh my man I do love him so, whatever = gender he happens to be... Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D david bromige wrote: > Sur cette terr', ma seul' joie, mon seul bonheur, C'est mon homme, > J'ai donne/ tout c'que j'ai, mon amour tout mon coeur, A mon homme, > Et me^me la nuit Quand je re^ve, c'est de lui De mon homme > Ce n'est pas qu'il est beau, Qu'il est riche ni costaud, Mais je 'aime, > C'est idiot et fout des coups, j'ai prend mes sous, Je suis a bout > Mais malgre/ tout Que voulez-vous, Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau > Qu' j'en d'viens marteau, Des qu'il s'approch' c'est fini > Je suis a lui, Quand ses yeux sur moi se pos'nt ca m'rend tout chose, > Je l'ai tell'ment dans la peau Qu'au moindre mot, je suiss f'rait fair'n'= > importe quoi. J'tue-rais ma foi, J'sens qu'il me vendrait infa^me, > Mais je n'suis qu'un' femme. Et j'lai tell'ment dans la , etc. > >It costs me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got--it's my man >Cold and wet, tired you bet, but all that I soon forget With my man >He's not much for looks, and no hero out of books__is my man >Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, But I love him! >I don't know why I should, He isn't good, Hen isn't true, He beats me too.= >What can I do? O my man I love him so, he'll never know, >All my life is just despair, but I don't care When he takes me in his = arms >the world is bright, allright; What's the difference if I say, I'll go = away, >When I know I'll come back on my knees some day? For whatever my man is I >am his forever more! Oh my man I love him so --- da capo, etc. > >Albert Willemetz et Jacques Charles, music by Maurice Yvain >English tr. by Channing Pollock > >as sung by Fanny Brice in "Ziegfield Follies of 1921" > >This would appear to contain everything that American feminism >dreads--understandably--the way doctors dread penicillin-resistant >bacteria. All compressed into some 30 bars...sorry I cant append the = music, >which is kind of neat. > > >RFC822 header >----------------------------------- > >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: doug@HERRING.COM >Received: (qmail 1108 invoked from network); 6 Feb 1998 01:23:11 -0000 >Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) > by herring.com with SMTP; 6 Feb 1998 01:23:11 -0000 >Received: (qmail 19772 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1998 23:52:28 -0000 >Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) > by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Feb 1998 23:52:28 -0000 >Received: from LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU by LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 28049901 for > POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU; Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:52:24 -= 0500 >Received: (qmail 5392 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1998 23:51:28 -0000 >Received: from smtp.metro.net (HELO baldr.metro.net) (205.138.228.126) by > listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Feb 1998 23:51:28 -0000 >Received: from ig061.228.dial.innovation.com (ig061.228.dial.innovation.= com > [205.138.228.61]) by baldr.metro.net (NTMail 3.02.13) with = ESMTP id > ta799259 for ; Thu, 5 Feb = 1998 > 16:07:48 -0800 >X-Sender: dcmb@mail.metro.net (Unverified) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"us-ascii" >Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 16:07:48 -0800 >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group >From: david bromige >Subject: "my man" (for Gwyn McVay) >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 15:50:05 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Nowak Subject: Lee Chapman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Could someone please backchannel me Lee Chapman's e-mail address? Thanks... manowak@stkate.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 17:44:02 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bobbie West Subject: numerology and death Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In some Chinese dialects, 44 is pronounced something like "sz sz sz," which is uncomfortably similar to the Chinese for "die! die! die!" Bobbie West ---------------------------------- >>Dan died at the age of 44--the age that too many of my own most influential 20th century artists left: Maya Deren, Paul Blackburn, Lew Welch, and I think Frank O'Hara (not totally sure about O'Hara, but pretty sure). Any numerologists out there?<< ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 21:02:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: "my man" (George Thompson's post) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >George, Your point is well-taken, _if_ when you wrote "if these were a >man's words" you intended "if these were a woman's words"--a reading that >the context urges. And I would agree, that _once again_ , it is a man's >"trip" (or 3 different men, actually) being "laid on" women. I was >off-point, somewhat--although Fanny Brice, a woman, made it a big hit. >"Buying in", I suppose. David David, Thanks for understanding what I meant, not what I said. George ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 07:01:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Winter/spring Subtext readings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Here's the next few months of Subtext readings in Seattle. All on the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 7:30 pm at the Speakeasy Cafe amidst the new condos & restaurants of Belltown. These readings finish out the current curatorship by Ezra Mark & begin the next curatorship by Nico Vassilakis. February: Lynn Tillman/Jeff Derksen March: Judy Radul/Nico Vassilakis April: Crag Hill/Maris Kundzins May: Anselm Hollo/Jim Jones talk on Kerouac in Seattle (workshop with Hollo the following Friday & Saturday) June: Jean Day/Seattle-area writer to be confirmed Regrets only Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 09:18:24 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Not just in some, but the major dialects of Chinese (Cantonese, Shanghainese, Min-nan hua & Northern Mandarin) "4" is a homophone for death, but the heavy taboo avoidance unlucky aura is strongest among the Cantonese. But 4 is not always unlucky in Chinese, viz the Buddha's 4 Noble Truths or Deng Xiaoping's 4 Cardinal Principals or Zhou Enlai's 4 modernizations. A Shanghainese or Taiwanese would pronounce "44" more or less as "si si si" (four ten four/death death death) since those dialects don't clearly distinguish between "si" and "shi" Repeating the 4, in some schools of fengshui, would negate it. (To return like a dog to my vomit, that was called "negating the negation" in Stalinist dialectics.) Being a lyric poet after 40 is pretty difficult, unless you're going to be a dirty old man ala Yeats. According to Confucius, "at 40 I was no longer confused" (15 I became intent on study, 30 I was established, 40 no longer confused, 50 knew the will of heaven, 60 obeyed the will of heaven, at 70 I could do whatever I wanted because my desires no longer were inappropriate -- Analects II.4) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 06:54:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: movie query In-Reply-To: <34DA02A3.6488@ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In Godard's Breathless "Belmondo" rubs his thumb across his lips in response to looking at a Bogart poster. I don't remember if Seberg later makse the same gesture. >So I wrote this poem from an image which comes from a gesture in a movie >and I think it is The Conformist, not sure, must know. Having a bit of >trouble finding it to rent in the neighborhood, haven't gone further >yet. > >Here it is: A man in a black trenchcoat gestures to a woman by placing >his thumb on his lips. She does the same, perhaps later. It's French. > >?????? > >thanks, >rachel Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:23:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Joe Brennan wrote: > what's so "tricky" about Freud? In my experiece he's one of the most ethical > and open thinkers of this century --at least, I've always found that to be so. > Will you please elaborate, with textual citations if possible, what "tricks" > he's turned? > > joe brennan > > my intervention has nothing to do with the Breton purge currently under way -- > > joe > joe - i'd say fer sure see his intorductory lectures and the essay n "femininity" - - where he says things like "women are certainly the inferior sex, this is determined biologically, but of course i'm not really qualified to say something like this' - thats more or less a summary when the amazing part about it really is his rhetorc- i menat in a good, interesting way really, though i could never call it 'ethical' or 'open-minded' - his conclusions themselves are pretty ridiculous and a lot of work has been done since to un-do it - a la irigaray who uses his same rhetorical technique - steals his fire but turns it more or less the other way 'we like white space' rd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:46:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: Shuster, on Anti-academicism, Derrida, Community Comments: To: djb85@csc.albany.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joshua N Schuster wrote: > And, oooh, I find the academic slander particularly compelling. The fact > that it is on this list in all its glory is sickening. It's all shit, > let's burn the universities. Better yet, burn the critic-professors, > especially that Derrida, root of all obscure academic prose. A distinction should be made between the Idea of the University and the University as an administrative and regulatory unit. The Idea is one of the bravest and most beautiful we have: a universe of knowledge, a repository of what humans have learned, and a place to advance that knowledge. I agree certainly that Derrida represents some of the best of what that ideal has been able to produce in recent years. His writing is "powerful, precise, and stunning," an epic effort to recooperate a cultural tradition that has run away with itself and left much of the best of what humans have left seeming quite irrelevant. That he is touched upon in a Woody Allen movie is hardly negative. In fact, it proves that he is actually producing an effect. And there are other great academics--Deleuze should be mentioned. And it has been little noticed, the academic wheels move so slowly, that Derrida has moved beyond deconstruction to a new constructivism (_On the Name_, for example, is constructivist in much the sense that term was used in both the art and in formal logic in the early part of this century. I do not have the book at hand, but it ends saying, we must "construct a logos that look like a living creature," or something of that sort. It is an attempt to recover the Plato of _Timaeus_, among the most mythological and mystical of Plato's writings. If you want to talk academic work, this is what it is really about. This turn should not be a surprise to to any one. There are very positive mentions of Plotinus and Neoplatonism (and _On the Name_ is classic Neoplatonic move) as early as _Speech and Phenomena_, but academics, especially American academics, saw in deconstruction nothing but away to avoid all but the narrowest kind of longing subject in ruthless social context. Moreover, no one noticed that all of this might have something to do with a Neoplatonism that was resurgent in 1) the Eliot's interest in metaphysical poetry (and, thus, the whole of New Criticism); 2) Pound's interest in Gemisto's and Ficino's centrality to the Italian renaissance; 3) the Blake-Yeats tradition of vision; or 4) Olson's anti-metaphysical stance in "Human Universe" and his redevelopment of constructivism (in a very precise sense) through the mathematical philosophy of Herman Weyl and others. It also should have been apparent, from the moment that Derrida appeared as a figure working through the interstrices of the post May 68 and the malaise of the Heideggerian philosophy was that he beginning to arrive what had been many of the central themes of American philosophy and poetry since William James. Without any disrespect for Derrida, I would suggest that the Derrida phenomena in the America university is an extraordinary example of the way in which the institution contrives through the most arcane and bureaucratic of its structures to function as a regulatory force in the culture. It is not because of demonic plot or vicious administrators; most everyone is doing what they do with the best of motives and the worst of results. I have worked in universities since 1971, but I had no idea how minutely the administrative structure of the university controls what is, in sum, purveyed as knowledge before the last three years, when I have served as Director of Graduate Studies. It is a remarkable system which gives everyone the experience of freedom and largely manages to cancel out that freedom. It must the understood that the university is inherently the most conservative institution in the culture: its sole purpose is to take the accumulated knowledge and pass it on to the next generation. It works very well in stable times, and it thrives (though it does not work well) in times that can imagine themselves to be stable (e.g. the 50s), but it is utterly incapable of dealing with profound and rapid change--those times when some threshold is crossed, e.g. now. db -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:24:00 -0500 Reply-To: Keston Sutherland Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: advertisement Comments: cc: subpoetics-l@hawaii.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Barque Press, a little outfit newly transplanted from Cambridge (I) to Cambridge (II), has a few titles from its list currently available in the US, if anyone's interested. These are: Andrea Brady _open bond_ (96) Andrea Brady _Of Sere Fold_ (97) Jordan Davis _Upstairs_ (97) Keston Sutherland _Girls At Trusion_ (97) Keston Sutherland _At The Motel Partial Opportunity_ (98) All are $3 including postage, except the _Motel_ piece, which is bigger/glossier hence: $4. Anyone keen, e- me with an address. Thanks, Keston ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 23:06:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Re: Daniel Davidson In-Reply-To: <199802060548.AAA14337@mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Gary Sullivan, In June, 1991 Daniel Davidson sent me a copy of his strikingly excellent book of prose poems "Product" with a brief note containing some kind words about my own work. He sent the book and the note partly in response to Cydney Chadwick having mentioned to him how much I admired a piece called "Transit" which was published in Avec. I admired and enjoyed "Product" immensely and put it in an easy to reach place, and read it often. When I learned of Davidson's suicide I was very saddened, a feeling poignantly sharpened by the publication, soon after, of his masterful poetic collaboration with Tom Mandel titled "Absence Sensorium" (Potes and Poets Press, 1997). No doubt Tom Mandel has been deeply affected, as have many others. This project to get something together about his work would be an opportunity as well,of course, for everyone to learn more about Davidson and his powerful writing, which included an issue of A.bacus (#95) ("from Culture"), and the magisterial "Image", a Zasterle Book (1992) with the resonantly atmospheric kind of cover art and book design so often associated with that remarkable press in the Canary Islands, also responsible for Allen Ginsberg's mysterious final book, "Luminous Dreams" (1997), as well as as Tom Mandel's "Ancestral Cave(1997):"intimate conversation only slightly removed/ from silence, a remove to the distance/of barbarian chatter, the/candles sputter, the world outside/the window dies." I hope you have the opportunity to follow through on this project, one that I will gladly support any way I can. Very best wishes, Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:25:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: laura moriarty's e-ddress Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Listfellows : forgive me conducting private biz in public, but how else to reach you, Laura ? Your posting today still has the SFSU e-ddress. But my reply to yr message re "sublime" was returned to me after 72 hours from that e-ddress. Can you explain b-c, and repeat the question re my text? Thanks, David ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:26:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" maria why not ask that question of books? -- no excoriating responses here / this is one of the reasons i adore chapbooks, and small press runs, and the "made-to-order" policy of some micropresses -- seems like such an efficient use of resources (in most cases, not all) -- not to mention the aesthetics and practicality of the chapbook mode: ease of portability, speed of production, light weight (fits well in the backpack or back pocket, etc.), reading in one sitting (generally) / a friend of mine starting a magazine mentioned that he'd decided to find more money and go upscale for fear that readers would treat the lowscale production as a disposable item -- i was disheartened by this, treasuring perhaps more than my perfect-bounds the chaps and *little* books coming from presses extinct and extant: i think of them as something like notations of a more current practice, a little more fresh and alive sometimes than the slicker flat-spines (staple-lovers unite?) / i'm trying to get a small chapbook series off the ground and hope to tap into some of these values -- using all tools and materials as efficiently as possible in a small way similar to the way native americans used the whole buffalo, hide to marrow / waste and inefficient use of resources analogous to the practices of factory farms (recycling cow parts into cow feed doesn't cut it for me) is again another thing that motivates on several fronts, poetic and otherwise / as for trees (it's all related, all of it) we save a lot of paper here on Poetics, and e-mags obviously offer an attractive alternative, plus personal web publishing, etc. / i wonder though if anyone has calculated the resource-draw of all this personal computer use (silicon, plastics, electricity, phone lines, capital, etc.) / what uses more resources, for example: a 1/2 ounce letter posted in the mail, or a 5 Kb file posted to Poetics? (all things considered) / i'd assume the former, but i ain't sure all best, bill At 07:59 AM 2/6/98 -0600, maria damon wrote: >At 10:12 AM -0800 2/5/98, William Marsh wrote: >>At 08:56 AM 2/5/98 -0500, daniel bouchard wrote: >>>PAX >>> >>>I make a pact with you, Ron Silliman-- >>>I have admired your poems long enough. >>>I come to you as a prodigal pup; >>>Weaned at a dozen fat anthologies. >>>I am old enough now to make an end. >>>Whitman broke the new wood, >>>Pound put in time to carving. >>>We watch the blasted stumps in the open fields >>>Leak black ink of American grain. >>> >>>I make a pact with you, venerable LangPoets-- >>>I have invested in your works long enough. >>>I look back at you as a honorable bunch >>>Laying new asphalt over the old roads; >>>I am old enough now to map an end. >>>It was you who splintered the carved wood, >>>Now it is time for recycling. >>>We have a cool climate and a rich soil-- >>>Don't let the mulcher come between us. >>> >>>I make a pact with you, my contemporaries-- >>>For to know you better there is time enough. >>>I come to you with no gifts >>>But that of mutual comradeship; >>>I am ready to make friends. >>>Look around us at all this damned wood, >>>It is time to sort out what you want. >>>We have glasses of water nursing new roots-- >>>Let there be communication between us. >>> >>daniel >> >>i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about >>80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create >>land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil >>depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of >>soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit >>the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," >>"recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or >>not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication >>as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the >>"Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and >>literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's >>been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through >>this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, >>probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the >>future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor >> >>i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a >>farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, >>watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a >>hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact >>is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new >>relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" >>however is gladly accepted >> >>best, >>bill marsh >> > >funny you shd mention this, bill; but it reminds me of something that >resonates w/ the other list-thread on the honesty or not of critics. one >thought i always bring to books when i review them is, "was this book worth >cutting down trees for?" of course the answer is almost always negative >but of course i don't feel i can say that in a review, it sounds way too >harsh. but often i think that way: if this is an assistant professor >coming up for tenure, and needs to publish, is it worth the trees? if this >book is by a dean or tenured full prof whose future is not at issue, is it >worth the trees? you'll notice that content has not yet entered the >picture. that's because, with very few exceptions, most of the academic >manuscripts or books i'm asked to review *really* don't add much to human >knowledge, and certainly don't add as much as trees do to the quality of >human life. so, i'm expecting excoriating messages back from all and >sundry, accusing me of utter corruption. so ask yourself: is *your* book >worth the trees? most of us have such small print runs it's okay (yes, i >think about that too), esp the chapbooks etc., and those show such a >spirited do-it-yrself energy that i think they're definitely worth it; i'm >talking mostly about the academic book industry. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh PaperBrainPress Voice & Range Community Arts National University wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu http://www.dtai.com/~bmarsh snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 14:05:54 -0500 Reply-To: soaring@ma.ultranet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dw Subject: Re: various - a spray MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I second Maria's "bravo" regarding Josh Shuster's post--that post helpfully focused the thread on community not careerism. Of course, "careerism" is a peculiarly awful academic disease, and I am sure that its various manifestations and self-serving politics grate on the nerves of those both inside and outside the academy. BUT I cannot accept disaffection with the academy as a rationale for bashing what little intellectual and affective life there is among those who claim to be poets--whatever the community to which they claim allegiance. I want to talk about that "affective" life in so far as it is able to manifest itself electronically. It seems to me that we censor one another dreadfully--projects, rallying cries, and bashing aside. It seems to me that no one posts without a degree of prudence or grain of salt concerning reception. If I were to offer a project for a cyber community--it would be to to create a space where there was less harping on and anticipation of resistance. There very impossibility of doing what I propose (intrinsic as that impossibility is to the construction of power/knowledge loops) probably speaks more to the death of my own soul and to my fascination with the destructive processes I see at work here than it does my desire to express myself freely. Maybe only to the extent that desire to express oneself (an illusory right nourished by mother's milk, apple pie, and media exposure) is subject to mangling and frustration do any of us even attempt to write--so lets tread lightly on that ground even as we map the terrain. Don Wellman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:07:05 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: my man MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: RE: my man Tom Mandel wrote: >Cold and wet, tired you bet.... > >..I'm sure everybody on this list knows the incredible version of this = song >by Billie Holiday. > >and then there's her "Nobody's business but my own" (won't call no copper >if I'm beat up by my poppa), and... > I believe the correct title is "T'aint nobody's business if I do" and I = believe it was written by Fats Waller and Andy Ratzof. Two mens. Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:30:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nikuko@SEXXXYGIRRRL.CUM Subject: From Kon as well (this is from both of us!) (Hey, sorry guys, no sex in this one! But K & I think _a lot_ at times!) The Game of Japan (of Signifiers) Mendicant monks, we are on the road of total dissolution, along which a stream hampered by concrete flows, down predestination, we're carrying the magatama jewel, curved like liver like tear like conch like Nikuko, we're biting the head off to make kami-gods, we're biting the middle to make more of 'em, we're biting the tail, just when we thought there wasn't any more, we're biting each other, falling over in the ha-ha-onsen, suddenly switched, I've got my mouth fastened on some nether parts of me that hurt hurt hurt, they disappear along with the rest of my jewels, so like liver like tear like conch or ouroboros, I go in, she's elsewhere, smarter with all this Nikuko- biting, oh reader here I am!, until somewhere my toe meets my head and I'm an inch of flesh, all necessary for the jewel-cushion, Yasaka-jewels, you would've heard of them! on the couch, coach, shaped like conch - see where language gets you, not a bit of it!, hurt hurt hurt, you'll never guess what I'm typing with (it's not what you think, Yasaka!), I'm sitting on the conch ii We travel to Beppu where we make a big storm and a tsunami fills all the onsen with frothy-fish-foam and someone makes an island. iii There are trees on the island, there's a dragon and a cave made of burning human skin, the skin grows from the outside in, it's like a yakitoriya there, all warm and would-be pretty good to eat, but the dragon likes the roof, her flame goes out in the rain, you can only imagine the rest of this, how we burrowed and made little rooms for ourselves, ringing our begging-bowls, playing shakuhachi, until she gave up, in, out, 10,000 yen for the troubles, and how they emerged in Ireland. iv We leave the island, heading for a place that makes crows constantly. v In this place, there's a parliament of birds deciding on a proper constitution. So it includes homage to the emperor, a clean death for all traitors, exchange students and retributions well-crafted for certain crimes and misdemeanors, take care of the shrine! which means liquid for everyone, you might think someone would care in the midst of all this chaos. But now there's a text and everyone can read, and happily everyone does the production, even criminals who gladly retribute. Now we collect money from the criminals, because we rebuild the onsen, that's so necessary. It's quite nice now and not very expensive, and a writer like me can disgorge, unravel, open up like a box of shogi pieces which can't play the game of Japan. I will sit down at my desk with my brush. I will ink the inkan and ink the computer. I will portray my whole life, mendicant, auspicious, medieval. You will not believe the lovely jewels, curved, bitten in three places, tongues torn from mouths, just lovely talk. There's no mouth (against which the tongues) pressed against the skin against the dragon cave. The skin against the cave was comfortable, warm, worn; the cave wore the skin. vi The skin against the cave was the cave, the game of Japan. vii I sit at my desk and oh I am bleeding to death! I cannot, oh, type, touching myself in this matter, the A B I D E already have disappeared "in the manner of painting." You will see depth when something goes wrong and there is a big fixture (interlinear chandelier) in a space in which I am a magatama jewel. Now you will bite me in three places, what I call "the game of Japan." viii The apology for all peoples, which I make, a life of regret. That I am not all peoples, that I am on the exterior of any skin for any house containing any plant or animal. I am called a "covering." A "covering" may be a surface with thickness, and may serve the purpose of rainful- keeping-away. Together we meet again and shake hands and smile and the sun is warm (we have made it that way). And we are mendicant monks; we are wandering. We're on the road of total dissolution. There's a stream hampered by something or other, and we've got these jewels. ix _I'm bitten._ ______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 01:04:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: ma femme MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear Tom, I tend to agree with the bottom half of your response (that’s where the sex and the objectification is) but I believe that in the top half (that’s where the words are) you are a bit too trenchant in your decisions re French. “Femme” is “woman.” The possessive pronoun “ma” can turn it indeed all too easily into “my wife.” But it does not do so necessarily. Thus, “ma femme” is, literally and in _most_ other senses, “my woman.” “My wife” is “mon épouse.” Of course “ma femme” is often, even mainly in everyday speech *also* used to refer to “the wife,” the way the brits say “the missis.” But “femme” in French also always retains exactly what you say of the English word, which “always is at bottom “woman,” and “full of romantic (literarily, I mean) overtones and symbolic connections (to "woman"), and universalisms (viz. a man and a woman). Using it in the translation skews the poem.” The favorite sport of the surrealists was “chercher la femme,” and that didn’t mean they were looking for their spouses -- the latter a happily nearly unused term these days. What we in fact have is, as so often, the case of an English that’s richer than the French, and in this case, has three terms, woman/ wife/ spouse instead of the French doublet femme/épouse — with femme having to carry the load of both woman and wife. And the word does carry it. Which is why you are right — if you want to read, as you do, the poem primarily as Breton “*investing* the quotidian relationship -- husband and wife --with qualities foreign to it or transformative of it.” But that’s a very limited reading, whatever the legal relationship Breton had with the specific woman (if there is one) he is addressing with/in the poem . (And we know, see below, that he was not addressing his wife.) Anybody French coming to the poem will first hear “woman” — and “woman” in exactly that sense that a blues singer will say “my woman” and maybe later, at a 2nd, 3rd or 10th reading, could think of the “wife” qua legal spouse — but legal niceties are not really on the front burner in a poem titled FREE UNION. Therefore translating it as “my woman” may miss a little of the complexity, but translating it as “my wife” misses most of the richness of the address and limits it to one small facet. And one facet that Breton did *not* intend. The date of composition of the poem is 20 & 21 May 1931. Breton had by then been definitely separated from his first wife for a number of months, was thus unmarried, footlose and “cherchait la femme,” and was in fact alone that month after a number of brief liasons. And he had not yet met the woman who would become his second wife, Jacqueline Lamba, to whom he would write in a letter dated 4/10/39: “greet the beautiful landscape [of Lyons-la-Forét where she was] which after all inspired me to write ‘Free Union’ for you whom I didn’t even know then.” Of course he kept on to "chercher la femme," and on the copy of his volume _Poèmes_ which he offered to his next (3rd & last) wife Elisa in 1948, Breton wrote as dedication:”’My wife with hair...’ / so it was you / my love / so true I didn’t back then / give it a face / though it was in early 1931/ that you came to France / for the first time.” Breton certainly addressed the poem to “l’éternel féminin,” and not to the /a / one or the other / spouse. Final verification: I just read the French poem to mi compañera who happens to be the genuine article, ie native French, & asked her who she would translate it into English — "lady" was what she said immediately (and Paul Blackburn may well have used that term, had he translated the poem) but rejected "wife" out of hand. PS. In an early ms. of the poem, he compares “his” woman’s breasts to “la beurrée verte,” — a strange cocktail consisting of 1/4 absinthe, 1/4 gin, 1/4 beer and 1/4 basic eau-de-vie. He dropped that image in the final version. Pierre Tom Mandel wrote: > Pierre writes: > > "in French it's of course "ma femme" — > the translation I use is Antin's which says "my woman" -- but there > exists another more recent one that tries to p.c.fy (I guess, or else > legalize the free union) the poem by translating "ma femme" as "my > wife." Does that make any difference?" > > The American English phrase "my woman" is simply *not* a translation of the > French "ma femme". In French, that phrase *means* (denotes, points at, > identifies) "my wife." Just as "ma femme de menage" *means* my maid and not > "my woman-who-orders-household." > > The phrase "my woman" is full of romantic (literarily, I mean) overtones > and symbolic connections (to "woman"), and universalisms (viz. a man and a > woman). Using it in the translation skews the poem. > > Breton is *investing* the quotidian relationship -- husband and wife -- > with qualities foreign to it or transformative of it, and investing the > *object* he views from within that matched-pair relationship with mystical > qualities. Using "my woman" to translate "ma femme" removes the point of > the poem entirely. The result -- to me -- is utterly leaden. Whereas in > French I liked it a lot. > > I highlight the word *object* because obviously the poem *objectifies* his > wife. Ooooh, the shame of it. And, if I've effectively (however lightly) > skimmed responses to it here, this fact has not gone unnoticed, as many a > better-knowing head has nodded. > > One of Tom's Ten Ways To Let The Fly Out Of The Bottle (available to grad > students at a nominal cost) is this: *all* sex and all sexual relationships > involve objectification. More sex implies more objectification. Or, as > Breton might have said on one occasion or another: "amusez-vous bien." > > )Now I'm going to hear it!( > > Tom > > Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com > ******************************************************** > Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com > 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 > Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 > ******************************************************** > Join the Caucus Conversation -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 09:20:11 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Danny Huppatz Subject: Re: spraying the communities MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable it seems to me joshua (& louis) have raised some key issues with regard = to thinking politics & its relation to culture. if, as louis suggested, = community is an imaginary construct, perhaps it is also, importantly, a = political construct. that is, i think of this list is in a sense, a new = kind of community, a community with a range of new possibilities (a = literary community that allows easy exchange inside/outside the = academies, over national borders?).=20 politically, a thinking of community needs to be fluid. as louis = suggested, poetry is always written from within a community, it has to = be - & this literary community it comes from extends not only through = space but through time. following derrida, the writing of jean-luc nancy on community offers = some interesting insights on contemporary concepts of community. = briefly, nancy suggests (out of bataille & blanchot) community as a = process that allows the possibility of constructing particular, specific = subjectivities. more precisely for a literary community, a community = that is articulated when the limits of language/knowledge/subjectivity = are reached, a kind of exposure that unworks any simple transfer of = meaning. nancy, bataille and blanchot (in "the unworkable community") think = community not as a abstract formal category, but as an operation, a = process on the material plane, a passing-between at the fluid borders = between singularities. i use the term singularities rather than subject = because it allows several (an infinite?) number of singularities within = a subject. its a little philosophical (sorry) but a way of thinking = beyond the "outcasted male/female individual hero" character. perhaps = also deleuze & guattari's notion of the book as an assemblage - with the = "author" merely one point in the convergence of variously formed = matters, different dates & speeds ... sprayed thoughts dan dan huppatz melbourne ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 15:48:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Rhenisch Subject: Re: Love Poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria, thanks for a wise and measured reply to my passionate post. Yes, it is true, we live in a sexist society. As far as historical context and ongoing inequities goes, it's all a mess, and I guess I was trying to say that all this stuff does come down to specific cases, so we all have to be careful how we describe things. Best, Harold rhenisch@web-trek.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 13:34:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Incorrect MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I haven't been able to closely follow the list of late, but after going through some of the posts on the "My Woman" thread, I feel like I might have something wrong with me, both personally and politically, for I've always found Breton's poem to be absolutely fantastic, a strange, disturbing, funny, mesmerizing, joyful, life-affirming, truly erotic poem. It never occured to me that there was something "wrong" with it. Desnos always does more for me, but Breton's poem is one I would have liked to have written, that's for sure. I guess that might sound "unfeminist" of me, but I don't know how else to say it. What, really, is so anachronistic or objectionable about the body of the beloved as, yes, _object of desire_, the body of the beloved as ecstatic "occasion" for unbounded and lustful praise? Any way you cut it, there's a certain objectifying drift to the erotic. And insofar as the charged polarities of eroticism lay the bed for the incandescence of union and climax, couldn't we agree that erotic objectification is, ipso facto, more natural than cultural--"objectionable" only in the sense that eating meat is objectionable? (One can _choose_ not to eat meat, but the human drive to eat the flesh of other beings is not going to go away.) One can be "proper" in the sense of sexual politics, and those politics are surely important; but it's good to always keep in mind that the great thing about sexual passion, when it's good, is that it throws propriety out the window. And Breton's poem is, in the first instance, a poem of unjambed sexual passion. (Which, as I partly read it, says both that he wants to do her and that she does _him_, that she ultimately makes shreds of his drive to "own" or "control" her in the social sense of those terms.) Why not admire the paean for what it most deeply is: a wild loosing of unconscious, sexual desire, that most profound and unbidden force from which life and language spring. Heaven forbid that poetry become a tool to regulate the flow of that force by means of the qualifications of "correctness". ["Heaven forbid that the body of the other (pulsing quasar--primordial black hole) be shorn from me, cease being impossibly far yet still sensed, sending callings of its fathomless death through billions of years, emitting reason-collapsing surprise to the one who lusts, who listens there entranced, entranced for there's nothing she can do about it, that's just the way the universe is my swelling sex, the beloved as event horizon from whose sucking edge nothing in language escapes." --Margarita Risoldo, Cuban soap-opera star, thanking Bill Clinton for a signed copy of Leaves of Grass] It was grossly incorrect to be sure, but probably not for nothing that Stephen Hawking (who said yes) bet another physicist (who said no) a year's subscription to Penthouse over whether a black hole could come to a singularity of infinite density and pop clear out of space and time. Whoever lost the bet got the Penthouse as consolation. Hawking won, proving, perhaps, that even the weirdest puzzles and mysteries of the universe are never fully free from the groin. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 14:31:14 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael McColl Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Steve Evans article? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Would someone kindly backchannel me with a reference for the Steve Evans' article on poetry that was recently discussed? thanks, Mike McColl ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 16:50:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Dan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've responded to Tom Mandel. All I'll say here is that I wrote my original response fully understanding, and appreciating, what he says below. Gary On Friday, February 06, 1998 10:53 AM, Tom Mandel [SMTP:tmandel@SCREENPORCH.COM] wrote: > I've written to Gary Sullivan. > > All I'll say here is that I meant my words (wish he was here so I cd > throttle him for what he did) to express my longing for his presence and my > distress that he cannot be reached. > > Tom > > > Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com > ******************************************************** > Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com > 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 > Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 > ******************************************************** > Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:37:18 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: movie query In-Reply-To: <34DA02A3.6488@ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Godard's "Breathless." At 01:19 PM 2/5/98 -0500, you wrote: >So I wrote this poem from an image which comes from a gesture in a movie >and I think it is The Conformist, not sure, must know. Having a bit of >trouble finding it to rent in the neighborhood, haven't gone further >yet. > >Here it is: A man in a black trenchcoat gestures to a woman by placing >his thumb on his lips. She does the same, perhaps later. It's French. > >?????? > >thanks, >rachel > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:44:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Sex, Power and Poetry In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980206065216.00a7a38c@pop1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Though I am interested In Linda Russo's (and others) endeavour to combine the "feminism" thread with Rob Hale's original seduction valentine's day query (and now that I think about it; I think I was the one who first made this connection by bringing up the idea of how Free Union's "sexism" may depend on the reader), I want to again open up the question (which may have gotten a little lost in the shuffle) of writing as seduction in "amorous" contexts..... If one writes a love poem, an epideictic praise poem (like, say, Elvis Costello's: "I can tell you that I like your sensitivity, but you know it's the way that you walk") one if often, of course, trying to persuade (forensic?).... Now, if poetry is beyond rhetoric, as many argue (though not in poetry if poetry is beyond rhetoric), the forensic or persuasive asepct of poetry should not be as important as the poem as a "self-sufficient act of mind," an aesthetic object whose SUCCESS should not be measured by the degree to which one has actually persuaded the lover of the "troth" of one's love, has reassured the lover, but by some other standard (and this can lead one to POLITICAL analysis of love poems, the poem is "not really about love" , not really about the person to whom it pretends to be addressed, may be really about politics [like all those blues songs by black men can really be about how white america doesn't requite their love as a subtext], that the poet is in love with love and that this, in a non-medieval age of non-troubador, non-minnesingers, is of course BAD: "you can't have sex with a muse" they say)..... but if we try to take such love poems in face value, whether they are praise poems, complaint poems, etc.... one does suspendpolitical questions and even aesthetic questions aside from "are my trousers tight enough" (again, O'Hara) but, as so often happens, one may write a love poem for someone (the person that inspires it) and either cannot send it, will not send it, or will find it "unsuccessful" (falling on deaf ears) and then, seeing that one has a reading coming up and wants to read something new, will read it to others, and then the "you" of that poem becomes a "she" (or "he"), unless someone else can have the "act of faith" (aka delusion) that the poem is "about" that person, and then the poem is "a success" (but such may seem to the poet a "hollow success"--- DOUG CRASE has a very good essay that reads ASHBERY's "project" in such terms by the way). THE SF Hippie underground folks, the diggers I think (unless it was the motherfuckers) said "to love is to fail"... and I still think it's important to clear a space for poems (AND poets) who, let's say may be a little shy and introverted, and feel maybe a little uncomfortable around people in "normal" situations and who maybe decide to use writing as "a sophisticated form of personal ad", as a kind of "compensation", or even as an attempt to find a soulmate, a double, in ways that "social life" and the spontaneous exigencies of wit and the marketplace and parties do not allow (at least for some of us, not all of us), or even, dare i say it, a "higher" way that may make it obvious that the writer of the poem is somehow DIFFERENT from one's Tarzan and Trump and that that difference, despite what the "world" says, is not always crippling--and that it means the writer is interested in more than the attributes of the body of the beloved and wants to be loved for more than that as well....Well, I'll stop here. gotta run to teach yet another class (adjunct salary toothless benefits!). Chris On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Robert Hale wrote: > I respond here, not exclusively to Linda, but to her remarks in this note > and another, in addition to numerous posts by others that invite a similar > reading of Breton's "Free Union" along a similar course, that of male power > objectifying and controlling women -- the sway of which I underestimated in > the heat of my picaresque adventure. > > I would also venture another interpretation of "exterior" that might lead > somewhere other than the phallus and its well-worked calculus and mass > redundancy. Exteriorization as a "positive task" (Deleuze and Guattari) > working against interiorizing forces -- control, perversion (you name it), > those which "no longer open to any outside." Then exteriorization is the > highest, and albeit most abstract, task of love. I guess I consider this > romantic in the context of my delivery of Breton to "my woman", but as I try > to explicate I realize how ethereal it can be and probably was to her. > > There seems to be some consensus over the idea that the love poem must > strive for egalitarian goals, though I think the "heat" I mentioned above > makes this very difficult to achieve. And as Pierre eluded to, the > Surrealists, Breton esp., cared little for egalitarianism or any other such > bourgeois concepts. I am not a Surrealist, but as I recall, a blurb on my > work once mentioned the influence. > > To summarize, I quote Mariana Valverde from her "Sex, Power and Pleasure" (a > book given to me by an ex-girlfriend, which I obviously have had trouble > applying in real life -- I keep forgetting that I have lit cigarettes > already as I am writing this so the ashtray has three camels burning > simultaneously in it, all mine!): > > "The task is not to reject all objectification in favour of an impossible > ideal of pure subjectivity, but rather to integrate the two aspects of human > existence. The task is to remain a full human subject even while someone is > considering us as a potential erotic object, and vice versa. An eroticism > that is both sexy and egalitarian is one in which both partners are > simultaneously subject and object, for one another as well as for themselves." > > This sounds good (utopian?), but I keep forgetting that I have lit > cigarettes already as I am writing this so... > > Lastly, what about the use of "My lover" as the addressee? Bill Luoma has > used this quite successfully, I think, in recent love poems of his. > > At 12:31 AM 2/5/98 +0000, you wrote: > >*snip* > > > >> Also, what happens to the language when it's delivered as such a message? -- > >> the route as part of a text "loved" when isolated, packed and unpacked, yet > >> trouble-making when delivered? > >> > >i can only guess that you wanted "my woman with" to translate into > >"you"; odd that "my woman with" seems so fill-in-the-blankish > >except(!) when a specific "subjectivity" is demanded of it; > >i.e. "my susan with" might work but "i, susan, with" won't. > > > >*snip snap* > > > >> I wrote some love poems (as some of you suggested), but there is nothing > >> like a Breton love poem, and it is a love poem, contrary to opinion, very > >> complicated, I think, and emotional (whatever these words mean), all these > >> things in a very exterior, and arguably, male way. > >yes, in the way that it is all cock. i.e. he loves her with his cock > >or with whatever else skin he can glom all over her -- > >the old standby question -- do you think he respects his "woman > >with"? is there a being beneath this mass of female goodness? > >yes, it's nice to receive compliments re your bod. -- but to the > >exclusion of ? ? ? -- i'm reacting now out of context, of course, > >you couldn've sent a love poem praising her mind, her ideals, &c her > >bank account, i dunno, but i'd like to know of some poems that do! > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:38:09 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:53:42 -0800 from I also enjoyed Dan's poem as independently as the three of us could. I think politics is in the air (always), inescapable, and is actually made by people who make difficult decisions, usually involving renunciation, in order to "go public" or get involved. Such decisions then become part of the atmosphere WITHIN the poem and add to its depth. Anyway, this is just one angle on a many-sided phenomenon. What I wanted to say was it seems important that Dan framed his "transition" via Pound's transition out of Whitman. But in political terms I think one might just as well stay with Whitman and the Gilded Age and the Populist movement of a hundred years ago, the milieu Whitman was saying farewell to. The underlying theme of gardening and the earth speaks to that earlier (pre-Pound) tradition as much as or more than to the Pound & post-Pound era. As I see it, in a global economy where Brazilians & Indonesians are forced out of work & off-land by the millions; where small American farmers are becoming a thing of the past; where "government" as we knew it (based on civic involvement) is fading - the struggle is really between the common good and Mammon. This is a simplistic (populist) view, but I think the idea of a populist solidarity of consciousness regarding re-establishing local/state/ national government responsibilities regarding land, access to skills, access to housing, and other basic necessities of civil society is more fruitful than either sub-governmental identity politics or euro-style socialism. Post-beat, post-New York, post-langpo poetry might just as well go back to Whitman and start fresh. Plus we have peazles for everybody. C'mon along! - Henry Gould p.s. I hope Dale Smith will hang around. & I scorn with utter scorn you scolders out there who whenever somebody gets into something negative - criticism for the academy, questioning a poetics, challenging the networks - you have to chime in with your scolding and cheerleading, i.e. "yeah, let's talk about COMMUNITY..." - as if raising questions about some of the stagnating aspects of community isn't doing just that. Go scold yourselves. If you don't allow criticism your communities are bolshie-fascist consortiums of dead brain matter. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 14:06:35 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: Slander and Context Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At first I thought Dale's post was supposed to be a satiric instance of the topic indicated in the subject line. but that delusion is hard to maintain to the end of the piece -- check out the lines about the supposed intolerance for anything that doesn't reek of Derrida -- then, if you happen to be new to the list, look back through the archive at some of the rather heated exchanges about Derrida in the past -- and that's a particulalry odd charge to make in the context (yes, there is one) of discussion about an article by Tom Clark on Barrett watten and others -- and what's this "at least" about Clark's articles in the context of a community he was a part of? that need some explaining, unless the community in question is all the book stores of the United States Fact of the matter is that there are severe problems of logic and evidence evident in Clark's essay, some of which have been adduced in the process of this exchange -- and none of which have anything to do with refusal to hear dissent -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:29:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Love poems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit P. Pritchett wrote: As for the gap between American and French feminism, I'll have to get back to you on that - I just don't know enough to make an intelligent comment on the situation. From what little I've read, there seems to be a perception, at least here in the US, that French feminists have moved so far into the poststructural camp as to neutralize the enactment of any coherent political agenda. And that's because the political front of feminism has thus far relied on - in a sort of gentlewoman's agreement - to set aside the issue of essentialism vs. constructionism, and for the sake of promoting specific socially progressive programs, etc. acted as though there were no ontological rift, that something called the "universal woman" exists and can be appealed to in arguments with legislators and the like. It's a very interesting problem. Yes Pat, excellent post, as Lorenzo Thomas said this summer at Naropa re: representational poetry/narratives and social change. They are _not_ the same thing. Cool & Free language and ERA doesn't make. Rachel ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 17:34:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: spraying the communities MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Danny Huppatz wrote: > > > nancy, bataille and blanchot (in "the unworkable community") Danny,"unavowable" is how I translated it, which ain't "unworkable" -- given that the French is "inavouable." That's Blanchot's term. Nancy's term (taken from Blanchot) is "désoeuvrée" -- an extremely difficult term to translate: the translator of the Nancy book used "inoperative" which it ain't either. In my intro to Blanchot's book, I tried the word "the unworking" for "désoeuvrement." (If you don't have access to the book or my intro, adn are interested, let me know & I'll post the page or so I wrote there about the difficulties of translating this word/concept on the list or backchannel. -- The word is important because it is a concept, maybe one of the most interesting ones in Blanchot's work) Pierre (who these days seems to be slugging it out in the fields of translation again, ugh) -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 16:26:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Good sex MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Pierre: Your reply to Tom Mandel which just came on ("re: ma femme"-- sorry, accidentally deleted, so not below) argues that "femme" is best read as "woman" rather than "wife". However, looking at Antin's translation in Poems for the Millenium, I see that the choice is "wife," which you refer to in your reply to Tom as a "PC ified" interpretation. Just wondering if you might be thinking of substituting DA's version with another in future editions? Also, I was happy to notice that Tom makes an argument about "objectification" that is similar to mine. My only difference with Tom here would be that "objectification" is a quality intrinsic to the "erotic gaze" but not necessarily to the climactic levels of sexual union, where erotic objectification, along with everything else, more or less ceases to exist. At least when sex is good. I still say that 'Free Union' is not a poem about "ownership" but rather a very healthy yearning for good sex transformed into ecstatic verse. Breton the sexist transcends his plebeian sexism here. Hurrah for poetry. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 14:58:39 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: sex power poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Chris Stroffolino's posting says volumes, makes all kinds of sense of the process whereby not only a *love* poem gets to be. (I hadnt heard the diggers : "to love is to fail," before, either; something to chew on.) I can remember the first poem I ever wrote (unfortunately), and it was a love-lament; but I can't remember who had made me blue enough to write. I thought Chris had written "minneswingers" but that was me reading him. Like to applaud Kent's post re-objectification, also. (It was a good place to remark that humans qua species are cannibal). Amorous companions (depending upon temperament) may become further aroused by having their parts named and appreciated--"pointed out," I suppose. The poetry-reading is not the bedroom, though. I remember my wife (a former wife) taking exception to a poet (here nameless) describing his penis (still attached) floating in the bathwater: "I dont want to have to picture _that_ " This-all started, right?, when Robert Hale reported scant success resulted from giving that Breton poem to a romantic interest? Perhaps there's a touch of "one-size-fits-all" about sending another man's poem to court the woman you want to make "yours". What if she falls for Breton instead? The conclusion to that thought is, "write your own and give her that," but I never did, not until it was too late, or otherwise a redundancy. During courtship, I may have said lines from other people's poems, but I tried to disguise them as my own, spontaneous phrases. And in fact it was spontaneity, recall on the instant. Anyway, I have met Robert Hale, and I don't think he needs Breton or any of those latin lovers to help him. George Bowering, before he married himself, used to say love-poetry to my wife (my former wife), with what success I was never quite certain. I know that she laughed a lot whenever his name came up. She admired his fingernails, too, in those years romantically stained with nicotine. db 3 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 17:10:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: a posting to poetics (late) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980206112657.007d18b0@nunic.nu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" whew, i'm relieved! after i sent that post, i didn't get any POETIX mail for over a day, and started to fantasize that i'd just thrown my community away w/ my grandiose challenge: are the books we read or write worth the trees it takes to print 'em? don't think i don't ask this about my own work. anyway, sorry for blurting out my unlovely trade secrets in my usual compulsive rush to share all... my apologies to all. it's not tax season for me as it is for herb, but other circumstances are conspiring to warp my personality still further...md At 11:26 AM -0800 2/6/98, William Marsh wrote: >maria > >why not ask that question of books? -- no excoriating responses here / this >is one of the reasons i adore chapbooks, and small press runs, and the >"made-to-order" policy of some micropresses -- seems like such an efficient >use of resources (in most cases, not all) -- not to mention the aesthetics >and practicality of the chapbook mode: ease of portability, speed of >production, light weight (fits well in the backpack or back pocket, etc.), >reading in one sitting (generally) / a friend of mine starting a magazine >mentioned that he'd decided to find more money and go upscale for fear that >readers would treat the lowscale production as a disposable item -- i was >disheartened by this, treasuring perhaps more than my perfect-bounds the >chaps and *little* books coming from presses extinct and extant: i think of >them as something like notations of a more current practice, a little more >fresh and alive sometimes than the slicker flat-spines (staple-lovers >unite?) / i'm trying to get a small chapbook series off the ground and hope >to tap into some of these values -- using all tools and materials as >efficiently as possible in a small way similar to the way native americans >used the whole buffalo, hide to marrow / waste and inefficient use of >resources analogous to the practices of factory farms (recycling cow parts >into cow feed doesn't cut it for me) is again another thing that motivates >on several fronts, poetic and otherwise / as for trees (it's all related, >all of it) we save a lot of paper here on Poetics, and e-mags obviously >offer an attractive alternative, plus personal web publishing, etc. / i >wonder though if anyone has calculated the resource-draw of all this >personal computer use (silicon, plastics, electricity, phone lines, >capital, etc.) / what uses more resources, for example: a 1/2 ounce letter >posted in the mail, or a 5 Kb file posted to Poetics? (all things >considered) / i'd assume the former, but i ain't sure > >all best, >bill > >At 07:59 AM 2/6/98 -0600, maria damon wrote: >>At 10:12 AM -0800 2/5/98, William Marsh wrote: >>>At 08:56 AM 2/5/98 -0500, daniel bouchard wrote: >>>>PAX >>>> >>>>I make a pact with you, Ron Silliman-- >>>>I have admired your poems long enough. >>>>I come to you as a prodigal pup; >>>>Weaned at a dozen fat anthologies. >>>>I am old enough now to make an end. >>>>Whitman broke the new wood, >>>>Pound put in time to carving. >>>>We watch the blasted stumps in the open fields >>>>Leak black ink of American grain. >>>> >>>>I make a pact with you, venerable LangPoets-- >>>>I have invested in your works long enough. >>>>I look back at you as a honorable bunch >>>>Laying new asphalt over the old roads; >>>>I am old enough now to map an end. >>>>It was you who splintered the carved wood, >>>>Now it is time for recycling. >>>>We have a cool climate and a rich soil-- >>>>Don't let the mulcher come between us. >>>> >>>>I make a pact with you, my contemporaries-- >>>>For to know you better there is time enough. >>>>I come to you with no gifts >>>>But that of mutual comradeship; >>>>I am ready to make friends. >>>>Look around us at all this damned wood, >>>>It is time to sort out what you want. >>>>We have glasses of water nursing new roots-- >>>>Let there be communication between us. >>>> >>>daniel >>> >>>i'm interested in your statement here, especially given the fact that about >>>80% of old-growth forest in the U.S. has been lost (most of it to create >>>land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed) and topsoil >>>depleted 75% for sake of same (not to mention chemical contamination of >>>soil and water--fertilizers, etc. to sustain growth) / so i have to admit >>>the running conceit here ("wood," "rich soil", "water nursing new roots," >>>"recycling") resonates oddly for me--not just for its irony, intended or >>>not / the "American Grain" you refer to and "American Tree" by implication >>>as well lead me to think that what does separate writers today from the >>>"Tree" group is precisely our relationship to REsources, figuratively and >>>literally -- the american tree hasn't just been carved and splintered, it's >>>been cut down, paved over, then re-paved / planting "new roots" through >>>this kind of surface and in this kind of soil would be difficult indeed, >>>probably impossible / hydroponics and tree farms: maybe that's where the >>>future of poetry lies if we pursue the metaphor >>> >>>i don't know where you hail from, but having spent some time working on a >>>farm in Illinois (shutting windows when the pesticide truck comes through, >>>watching hillsides wash away, cleaning contaminated wells, etc.), i have a >>>hard time getting past the literal here / but quite seriously whatever pact >>>is made among writers today i think it needs to account for this new >>>relationship (to wood and word) / the invitation to "mutual comradeship" >>>however is gladly accepted >>> >>>best, >>>bill marsh >>> >> >>funny you shd mention this, bill; but it reminds me of something that >>resonates w/ the other list-thread on the honesty or not of critics. one >>thought i always bring to books when i review them is, "was this book worth >>cutting down trees for?" of course the answer is almost always negative >>but of course i don't feel i can say that in a review, it sounds way too >>harsh. but often i think that way: if this is an assistant professor >>coming up for tenure, and needs to publish, is it worth the trees? if this >>book is by a dean or tenured full prof whose future is not at issue, is it >>worth the trees? you'll notice that content has not yet entered the >>picture. that's because, with very few exceptions, most of the academic >>manuscripts or books i'm asked to review *really* don't add much to human >>knowledge, and certainly don't add as much as trees do to the quality of >>human life. so, i'm expecting excoriating messages back from all and >>sundry, accusing me of utter corruption. so ask yourself: is *your* book >>worth the trees? most of us have such small print runs it's okay (yes, i >>think about that too), esp the chapbooks etc., and those show such a >>spirited do-it-yrself energy that i think they're definitely worth it; i'm >>talking mostly about the academic book industry. >> > > >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >William Marsh >PaperBrainPress >Voice & Range Community Arts >National University >wmarsh@nunic.nu.edu >http://www.dtai.com/~bmarsh >snail: 1860 PB Dr. #4 >San Diego, CA 92109 >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 18:12:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: spice power poetry/Acker In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Apropos of nothing in particular, I like the Breton poem quite a bit more than the Plath poem, and nothing you can say could tear me away from my guy, my guy. There's a thoughtful article on Kathy Acker in the new /London Review of Books/--oddly bedfellow'd next to an article by Helen Vendler about Amy Clampitt--as well as a new Ashbery poem, presumably from the forthcoming book. Gwyn McVay ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:41:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: movie query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks all who responded with the movie. How embarrassing, mistook _The Conformist_ for French. So "Breathless" it is! Mark Weiss wrote: > > Godard's "Breathless." > > At 01:19 PM 2/5/98 -0500, you wrote: > >So I wrote this poem from an image which comes from a gesture in a movie > >and I think it is The Conformist, not sure, must know. Having a bit of > >trouble finding it to rent in the neighborhood, haven't gone further > >yet. > > > >Here it is: A man in a black trenchcoat gestures to a woman by placing > >his thumb on his lips. She does the same, perhaps later. It's French. > > > >?????? > > > >thanks, > >rachel > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 18:29:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: colding & heating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Much as Don Byrd distinguishes between the Idea of the University and the administrative, regulative, dissimulating "freedom" given by the university that is in fact an ideology of internalized constraints on what can be thought, done, and dispossessed, there is a distinction, following on Dan Huppatz's recent post, to make between individuality ("real") and singularity ("ideal"). I didn't make it in my last post. Individuality comes from individualism which is a political philosophy that has organized capitalism as we live it: no news there. Anarchism was once a powerful alternative - at the First International, over a hundred years ago, somewhere else (Europe/England). Singularity, on the other hand, is something elusive that can be found, sometimes, in poetry, always, in people. I and S might sound like they're the same thing. That's an illusion of representation. The one is not necessarily - at all, I'd stress - founded on the other. Singularity can be found in texts operating within different "metaphors we live by" than the cluster of metaphors constituting everyday late capitalist fuck that fuck you individualism (*we* are all up against the wall screaming, or chanting, fuck that fuck you). It can be found in texts operating even by the paradoxical metaphor of "aesthetic tendency" or "group formation." Similarly, whatever the opposite of singularity is - the bland, the generic? - it can be found in the poetic texts of the most forceful individualists. All of us are talking here, not writing poetry. What we are talking about has got to do as much with how we live our lives - according to what political codings - as it has to do with issues of poetics and of texts. On another related point, and directly contrary to some of the views recently expressed here, I think the one indisputable addition that "langpo" has given to "our" understanding of the politics of poetry is exactly poetry's *institutional* politics over the last six or so decades in the US - and that embraces the present moment still. But the present moment is a fleeting thing. We need to hold on to that hardwon - it cannot be stressed enough (but I didn't say "hardon") - political knowledge, make more of it apply to everywhere, including to the fact Laura Moriarty indicates, that writing poetics latches writing to agency in a way that writing per se won't, using it to dismantle the *byt* in all our systems, as Henry in his last postscript recognizes, whether they be the institution of the listserve, the institution of the individual or group, or the institution of the academy. Open the doors. Let secret histories be flagged (a form of opening) as secret histories that can't be revealed. The academic politics of poetry are not the only politics "out there." There is no reason why it should dominate this list. To have that would be a tragedy of myopia of enormously dumb proportions. The trees! Such a view is the failing-block of pedagogies that assume the walls of the classroom are the walls of the world. That space is a minute zone danced upon by Tom's flies (fly dry, fly) forever puzzled by McCaffery's bottle (I often do that dance and recognize it in others). The extent of its commitment to community is small - it is as Don says, ideally practiced by a few (yes, individual initiative!). That applies everywhere, though - not just in the university. After all, it's the condition of our daily life to be separated and only joined through the vague (bless Emerson): "I didn't know that in objectifying social relations I was having sex with them." -Louis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:47:04 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: male-identified female poet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Laura, you mention the "male-identified female poet." What does this term really mean? Anyone else have a definition? Karen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:11:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Nikuko [?] = [?] Sondheim Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just to clarify for any of you who may filter out the full email header that establishes the subscriber ID for any Poetics List message: Received: (from sondheim@localhost) by panix3.panix.com Message-ID: Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:30:21 -0500 From: Nikuko@SEXXXYGIRRRL.CUM Subject: From Kon as well (this is from both of us!) To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 13:06:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Dale Slander Context and Smith Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (my attorneys). Well, Dale, let's recall you kicked off this "reasonable discussion" by slandering me. Your excuse--that caused you to had lost the famous Dale Smith temper--was that I had made unsubstantiable remarks, slurs, about Tom Clark. I and others have done a great deal to substantiate these remarks since then. But you learn nothing. You don't address any of our discussions. You sit back and continue to fling doo-doo at anonymous targets. Cowardly, wouldnt you say? I can't imagine why you want to be on a list whose membership is trained to identify issues and then explicate a point of view with constant reference to that issue. All you appear capable of, is bitching and moaning. I regret that Tom Clark is not on this list. I have written nothing about him and his work, here--or anywhere else--that I would not say to his face. Dale, another point : speaking of _taking_ things out of context, Aldon Neilsen tells me that you re-print postings from this List in your magazine, without the permission of the authors (or, presumably, the Listmaster, who has told me that this is against the list-protocol). True, or False? David ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:26:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Good sex MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Kent -- hmm, sitting here late nights with some sippin'whiskey and posting to the list when I shld be in bed gets me muddled at times. Yes, the version of the Breton poem in the antho is Antin's and it uses the word "wife." It's a great version & totally likeable in exactly the way Tom described its eroticism as functioning — and as such things happen may have become _the_ american version. But I maintain my trasnlator's argument: "my woman" is what Breton meant, he may, does indeed insist that it is THE woman, the one "l'amour fou" or "Nadja" evocate, the main squeeze, the top lady, lo que quieres, but not that legalized union thing. For the rest I very much agree with your take as what the poem. Yes, it is not about ownership! There are two early versions before Breton gets the poem right -- with varying insistence or mentioning of body parts. Had I but the time, a learned exposé of why certain body parts are omitted or muted or relocated or exalted differently from the first draft to the final poem would be fun to do. Pierre KENT JOHNSON wrote: > Pierre: > > Your reply to Tom Mandel which just came on ("re: ma femme"-- sorry, > accidentally deleted, so not below) argues that "femme" is best read > as "woman" rather than "wife". However, looking at Antin's > translation in Poems for the Millenium, I see that the choice is > "wife," which you refer to in your reply to Tom as a "PC ified" > interpretation. Just wondering if you might be thinking of > substituting DA's version with another in future editions? > > Also, I was happy to notice that Tom makes an argument > about "objectification" that is similar to mine. My only difference > with Tom here would be that "objectification" is a quality > intrinsic to the "erotic gaze" but not necessarily to the climactic > levels of sexual union, where erotic objectification, along with > everything else, more or less ceases to exist. At least when > sex is good. I still say that 'Free Union' is not a poem > about "ownership" but rather a very healthy yearning for good sex > transformed into ecstatic verse. Breton the sexist transcends his > plebeian sexism here. Hurrah for poetry. > > Kent -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:57:48 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: Incorrect Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I think the response to the poem depends on whether you're a poet or a cop. joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:56:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: the T. Clark thread (and various others) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A law: In any institution, the viciousness of the back-biting and the loudness of the whining are inversely proportional to the seriousness of the issues and the proffered rewards. Backing-biting can be half retrieved by wit; whining can some times be converted to reasonable wit. This compensatory relief seems to have failed us. -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:23:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: sex power poetry In-Reply-To: <199802072242.PAA04421@polaris.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable wasn't that poet Poldy? At 02:58 PM 2/7/98 -0800, you wrote: >I think Chris Stroffolino's posting says volumes, makes all kinds of sense >of the process whereby not only a *love* poem gets to be. (I hadnt heard >the diggers : "to love is to fail," before, either; something to chew on.) >I can remember the first poem I ever wrote (unfortunately), and it was a >love-lament; but I can't remember who had made me blue enough to write. > >I thought Chris had written "minneswingers" but that was me reading him. > >Like to applaud Kent's post re-objectification, also. (It was a good place >to remark that humans qua species are cannibal). Amorous companions >(depending upon temperament) may become further aroused by having their >parts named and appreciated--"pointed out," I suppose. The poetry-reading >is not the bedroom, though. I remember my wife (a former wife) taking >exception to a poet (here nameless) describing his penis (still attached) >floating in the bathwater: "I dont want to have to picture _that_ " > >This-all started, right?, when Robert Hale reported scant success resulted >from giving that Breton poem to a romantic interest? Perhaps there's a >touch of "one-size-fits-all" about sending another man's poem to court the >woman you want to make "yours". What if she falls for Breton instead?=A0= The >conclusion to that thought is, "write your own and give her that," but I >never did, not until it was too late, or otherwise a redundancy. During >courtship, I may have said lines from other people's poems, but I tried to >disguise them as my own, spontaneous phrases.=A0 And in fact it was >spontaneity, recall on the instant. Anyway, I have met Robert Hale, and I >don't think he needs Breton or any of those latin lovers to help him. > >George Bowering, before he married himself, used to say love-poetry to my >wife (my former wife), with what success I was never quite certain. I know >that she laughed a lot whenever his name came up. She admired his >fingernails, too, in those years romantically stained with nicotine. > >db 3 > =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 23:15:02 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: colding & heating In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 7 Feb 1998 18:29:33 -0500 from Let me get this straight, Louis. Individuality is a phantasm of capitalism. But singularity is that elusive something (only anti-individualists can recognize) found in every person & in poetry. Okay. I think I got that. Next point. Talking about poetry gets at something that poetry can never get at by itself - mainly, the real subtext of a piece of writing. The poem layers all this shimmer that poetics can see through - basically, as Laura Moriarty put it, the Woman behind the Man. Right? Okay. That's criticism, I can dig that. Critics can see more in a poem than even the poet put in there. Nice going, critics. Keep diggin, maybe you'll get to China. Third point. There's all this politics out there - real life, in other words - & langpos seen some of that so bully for them give them tenure I say; why hassle the academy? Why hassle the academy? Because you think you're talking about poetry, & I think you're talking poetry out the door. - Henry Gould, individual poem-writer (interpret me! interpret me! it's all lumpy lumpen bourgeois delusions of the superstructure! interpret me! do it to me! read me! sigh... they're too busy reading Marx or some such endless translated shit...) (do you read me? am I open enough?) pearls before swine. water under the bridge. John Wieners deconstructed all of it long, long ago. "politics doesn't have the aura of literature" or something like that... another deluded psycho poem-maker... does he further the revolution? indeed he does; oh, his poem about Columbus Ohio is on the brink of Althusserian bishpedoolianism... yes, I agree, we should include that definitely in our next anthology of fucked-up heroes of the future... did we get the $$$ for that yet? George, where did you go last summer??? e v e r y l e t t e r i s h o l y & y o u m i s s e d t h e b o a t - a f t e r h i m , g i r l s !!!! c u t h i s b a l l s o f f !!! In this most p.c. empire of ours, poets are yids - Marina Tsvetaeva (slightly paraphrased) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 20:30:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: Steve Evans article? Comments: To: V2139G@VM.TEMPLE.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Would someone kindly backchannel me with a reference for the Steve >Evans' article on poetry that was recently discussed? thanks, Mike McColl "The Dynamics of Literary Change" vol1 #1 of the Impercipient Lecture Series, Feb. 1997. New address: Steve Evans, #9 rue Quinault, Paris 75015 France. email: Moxley_Evans@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:07:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: movie query In-Reply-To: <199802072023.NAA21945@polaris.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable yes she does. It's the last shot or enarly the last shot of the film, which= I haven't seen in many years so don't remember many plot details but saw many times before I stopped seeing it. anyway he's dying in the street and she's betrayed him in some way (to the cops? to save herself) and she watches him die and, preoccupied, unreadable, makes that gesture. it's an amazing moment. while we're at it there's Brando putting on Eva Marie Saint's dropped white glove in On the Waterfront, stretching it as he flexes his hand. a bit of improvisation, supposedly--she dropped the glove by accident while they were filming. what else? Tenney At 06:54 AM 2/6/98 -0800, you wrote: >In Godard's Breathless "Belmondo" rubs his thumb across his lips in >response to looking at a Bogart poster.=A0 I don't remember if Seberg later >makse the same gesture. > >>So I wrote this poem from an image which comes from a gesture in a movie >>and I think it is The Conformist, not sure, must know.=A0 Having a bit of >>trouble finding it to rent in the neighborhood, haven't gone further >>yet. >> >>Here it is: A man in a black trenchcoat gestures to a woman by placing >>his thumb on his lips.=A0 She does the same, perhaps later.=A0 It's= French. >> >>?????? >> >>thanks, >>rachel > > > >Herb Levy >herb@eskimo.com > =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 21:35:42 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: laura moriarty's e-ddress MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit david bromige wrote: > > Listfellows : forgive me conducting private biz in public, but how else to > reach you, Laura ? Your posting today still has the SFSU e-ddress. But my > reply to yr message re "sublime" was returned to me after 72 hours from > that e-ddress. Can you explain b-c, and repeat the question re my text? > Thanks, David I've been trying to reach you as well. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 15:53:49 +0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Weldon Sithiwong Subject: Love Poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Passion between a man and a woman can produce a feeling of ownership on the part of one or both. Whether one is poet or one is not, Breton's poem is recognizable passion. The current discussion emerged as a result of that recognition and rejection by a woman of a man. My woman, my man, my love, my anything and everything flows when passion whirls with the four winds. However fair we have endeavored to become, whatever archetypes we have succeeded in regulating to the siberian wastes of our inner worlds, we are what we have experienced. The force of passion, by it's very nature, is demanding, uninhibited, creative and destructive. It is the wind and fire which cleans the forest of our relationships and makes evident the paths we choose in the aftermath, when one may beware of Breton or embrace his passion. Rebecca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 10:22:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: sex power shakespearey In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Eric Blarnes brings up Shakespeare (though he confuses one Antonio for another, Sebastion and Bassanio, if not Ben Jonson for Samuel Johnson).... and david bromige suggests that mr. hale's "failure" might have been because of the "one size fits all" quality of the poem and so i say (though it's easier to tell someone else what to do than to be one to take my own advice---to paraphrase a repeated shakespearean device [Portia in MV, Ophelia's rebuke of Laertes before she turns pliable, the Queen to Bushy or is it Bagot or Green in RICHARD II, LEONATO to another antonio in MUCH ADO, etc.) Well, Mr. Hale, if you REALLY want to bw with this woman, if you still want to try to woo her in words and try one more time (at the risk of coming off as one "romantically overobsessed" etc.), maybe you could write her a LETTER that JOKES about the whole thing... a la the early scene ion 12TH NIGHT when VIOLA (disguised as Cesario) confronts Olivia with the prepared text from ORSINO which lies in her "MASTER'S BOSOM" and OLivia says "IN WHAT CHAPTER OF HIS BOSOM"?????????? It is a great instance of one of those ways Shakespeare can have his "romantic" cake and eat it (or diss it) too, a way to go beyond a narrow sense of petrarchan poetry while at the same time NOT ignoring (or absolutely debasing) the sentiments (tho one could say ideology) that give rise to it... while widening the idea of "poetry" to include wit and dialogue and all those heteroglossic things a lot of twentiethcenturialists (sic) like to think is part of the "NEW"..... chris ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:48:46 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit rd thanks for your response. the freud i know is different from the one that you describe. as some feminists have pointed out, his is the only theory of desire that we have. freud has probably done as much as any man in the ongoing effort to free women from the sexual stereotypes they were/are expected to conform to. i've read irigaray, paying special attention to specuulum of the other woman, and to be truthful i wasn't particularly impressed. in that work her rhetoric is very intense, as intense as the time in which it was produced. for me irigaray will only have lasting value to the extent that she's able to contribute a new vision of human sexuality & desire. her remarks have nothing to do with psychoanalysis, but only address the cultural mileau in which it developed. i find her remarks on lacan, within a context of psychoanalysis as theory, to be without any intellectual mooring. on the other hand, literally, she has the soul of a poet and is worth reading just for that. i understand my position isn't very popular these days, but generally the opposition i encounter is from observers who understand freud & lacan as philosophical entities that define a world view. nothing can be further from the truth. analysis is the most ethical praxis because it insists that all levels of desire be acknowledged whenever there's any human intercourse, but it is always (as olson points out)local. as freud advises at the beginning of the first introductory lectures, those who haven't undertaken an analysis are in no position to comment on it. anyway, i thought your remark was gratuitous and deserving a at least a small response. jb ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:15:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey, I've just discovered the UBPoetics archive function. Since the beginning of February, there have been as of this moment of writing 290 posts to Buffalo Poetics sent from 103 email addresses. There are rumoured to be 600 subscribers (but I haven't checked), or roughly a six-to-one ratio (or is that five-to-one?? my math...). Of those 103 active addresses, 6 are owned and operated by Henry Gould under various pseudonyms that this captive audience is familar with. So far this month the average is 2.8 posts per active email address (that's pretending Henry's 6 email addresses are separate people; the average figure would otherwise be lower than that). Henry Gould's total so far in February - in seven days, that is - is 22 posts, or about ten times as many posts as anyone else. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 12:00:56 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Organization: University of Alabama English Dept. Subject: Re: colding & heating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT in response to louis cabri, sat 7 feb, on individualism vs. singularity. in her 1928 book, =Anarchism Is Not Enough=, laura riding distinguishes among the "collective-real" (people in groups), the "individual-real," (a person in relation to reality, to the "real" world of nature, broadly considered), and the "individual-unreal." this last sounds akin to what you are calling "singularity." for riding, the realm of the individual-unreal was The One worth living for and in. and in writing poetry one accessed this realm and "discharged pieces of self" as she put it. not =one=self, "but self." in this unreal singularity one was truest to the self and to poetry. and effectively truest to other people as well. promoting what you call the hardwon. in participating in the institution of publishing (though never in academia), riding wanted people to =try= to live that individual-unreal even as she knew it was impossible. and the only thing worth trying, while always keeping in mind its impossiblity. what you wrote reminded me of her, hence the comment on =anarchism=. in either case the issue is maintaining one's deliberate ideals within necessary participation in the world. oneself as social construction is the "individual-real"; oneself as experientially incommensurable is the "individual-unreal," your "singularity." we can and do have both. at least this is my deliberate belief. and despite all those serious sentences, it's a belief that makes me delirious as o'hara: "YIPPEE!! I'm glad I'm alive!! I'm glad you're alive too, baby, because I want to fuck you" ("ode to michael goldberg ('s birth and other births)") yippee! lisa samuels ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 10:09:58 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: movie query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tenney Nathanson wrote: > > > while we're at it there's Brando putting on Eva Marie Saint's dropped white > glove in On the Waterfront, stretching it as he flexes his hand. a bit of > improvisation, supposedly--she dropped the glove by accident while they were > filming. > Isn't that an amazing moment? Intensely sexy. I've always assumed/wondered if it was improv. And then how delicately & awkwardly he seats himself on the swing, totally undermining the whole macho aura. There's a wonderful book of interviews w/Brando--_Conversations with Brando_. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:45:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >the freud i know is different from the one that you >describe. as some feminists have pointed out, his is the only theory of >desire that we have. well, hold on a minute. there is after all the two thousand year flowering of buddhism, state to state, age to age, India to Burma to Tibet, many languages, millions of people, that speaks precisely to DESIRE in all its subtle woundings. do i detect a faint whiff of eurocentrism? after all, even bob dylan, who is famous on this list made a pretty good record out of his theory of desire. we won't even mention that terrifying black poor American angel, Robert Johnson, and his theory of desire, which would be too scary, because he too like Sakyamuni and Ramblin Bob doesn't speak French and hasn't added the word THEORY to his thought. Joe Ahearn Rancho Loco Press Dallas Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 12:46:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <6728d314.34dd00f0@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII joe wow. having just been reading freud for about 2 years or so, i havent read a lot of the stuff that he is i think primarily cool for - interpretation of dreams, dora, wolfman, but i could never really consider becoming, shall i say, personally invested, in his method of "analysis," as you seem to be- how can any "analysis" be anything OTHER than some form of rhetoric- I hate to say that "everything's rhetorical", but isnt it? and this is also to say that i don't attach a perjorative connotation necessarily to the use of rheotoric - but my interest/attraction to freud is insofar as he is so amazingly unashamed in his use of it- and it goes somethin like this: for example, in his lecture on femininity, he begins with "To-day's lecture should have not place in an introduction, but it may serve to give you an example of a detailed piece of analytic work, and I can say two things to recommend it. It brings forward NOTHING but observed facts (his emphasis) , almost without any speculative additions, and it deals with a subject which has a cliam on your interest second almost to no other. Throughout history people have knocked heads against the riddle of the nature of femininity. Nor will you have escaped this problem--those of you who are men; to those of you who are women this will not apply--you are yourselves the problem." PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Freud begins , rhetorically establishes himself a problem--WOMEN!! They are, from the outset, taken as an aberration, the "other," as we who are perhaps too involved in post-structuralist analysis apt to call it- then again, maybe it isnt even MY problem, being a woman ps. Irirgaray has a PHD in philosophy and linguistics, which makes her on some level qualified to talk on the subject, I would think (and herself a practitioner of psycho-analysis) - it's just that she got kicked out for schoolin Lacan and Freud in a MAJOR WAY as a grad student at Vincennes sorry for the "gratuitous" nature of my last post forever female, rd ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 12:49:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980208134707.13078a44@mail.airmail.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 8 Feb 1998, Joe Ahearn wrote: > > > >the freud i know is different from the one that you > >describe. as some feminists have pointed out, his is the only theory of > >desire that we have. > > well, hold on a minute. there is after all the two thousand year flowering > of buddhism, state to state, age to age, India to Burma to Tibet, many > languages, millions of people, that speaks precisely to DESIRE in all its > subtle woundings. > > do i detect a faint whiff of eurocentrism? > > after all, even bob dylan, who is famous on this list made a pretty good > record out of his theory of desire. we won't even mention that terrifying > black poor American angel, Robert Johnson, and his theory of desire, which > would be too scary, because he too like Sakyamuni and Ramblin Bob doesn't > speak French and hasn't added the word THEORY to his thought. > > Joe Ahearn > Rancho Loco Press > Dallas > > > > Joe Ahearn > _____________ > joeah@mail.airmail.net > > > ps. AMEN brutha desire desire desire desire desire desire diesrei diesreiidesire deisire diedieds ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 14:17:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear rd, First, there is no such thing as a gratuitous post to POETICS, so far as I can see, and even if there were, I'm the last person you should apologize to. In fact, my feeling is that you should apologize to NO ONE. ('I am American artist / and I have no guilt' -- Patti Smith, the goddess). Second, I'm not very involved with Freudianism. I don't like about it the same things that you don't like. Freud did bring us some good things, in my opinion, including the theory and science of the unconscious, but he has his failings which I am tired of trying to to step around. I prefer Lacan, Kristeva, and Irigary, in fact, to Freud. But I felt that the previous post was managing to elide the non-European, non-theoretical world that teems. Hence what I said. Best wishes, jra At 12:46 PM 2/8/98 -0700, you wrote: >joe > >wow. >having just been reading freud for about 2 years or so, i havent read a >lot of the stuff that he is i think primarily cool for - interpretation of >dreams, dora, wolfman, but i could never really consider becoming, shall i >say, personally invested, in his method of "analysis," as you seem to be- > >how can any "analysis" be anything OTHER than some form of rhetoric- I >hate to say that "everything's rhetorical", but isnt it? and this is also >to say that i don't attach a perjorative connotation necessarily to the >use of rheotoric - but my interest/attraction to freud is insofar as he is >so amazingly unashamed in his use of it- and it goes somethin like this: > >for example, > >in his lecture on femininity, he begins with >"To-day's lecture should have not place in an introduction, but it may >serve to give you an example of a detailed piece of analytic work, and I >can say two things to recommend it. It brings forward NOTHING but observed >facts (his emphasis) , almost without any speculative additions, and it >deals with a subject which has a cliam on your interest second almost to >no other. Throughout history people have knocked heads against the riddle >of the nature of femininity. Nor will you have escaped this >problem--those of you who are men; to those of you who are women this will >not apply--you are yourselves the problem." > >PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE > >Freud begins , rhetorically establishes himself a problem--WOMEN!! They >are, from the outset, taken as an aberration, the "other," as we who are >perhaps too involved in post-structuralist analysis apt to call it- > >then again, maybe it isnt even MY problem, being a woman > >ps. Irirgaray has a PHD in philosophy and linguistics, which makes her >on some level qualified to talk on the subject, I would think (and herself >a practitioner of psycho-analysis) - it's just that she got kicked out for >schoolin Lacan and Freud in a MAJOR WAY as a grad student at Vincennes > > >sorry for the "gratuitous" nature of my last post > > > >forever female, >rd > > Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 14:29:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <6728d314.34dd00f0@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" jb comments: >as freud >advises at the beginning of the first introductory lectures, those who haven't >undertaken an analysis are in no position to comment on it. reminds me uncomfortably of some of the viet nam vets with whom i work (actually, the ones with whom i prefer not to work) who say, "man, if you haven't been there you got no right to talk about it." experience=authority. makes it hard to talk about the civil war, say (or maybe easier, since all who 'know' are dead and can't argue no more). still, seems essentially an anti-intellectual position, not tenable here. one might as easily argue that those who have gone through psychanalysis are among the least qualified to talk about it cuz of all the money & time they've invested. cognitive dissonance, y'know? like what makes a marine figure boot camp made him a 'man.' i mean, it *better* have, right? >freud has probably done as much as any man in the >ongoing effort to free women from the sexual stereotypes they were/are >expected to conform to. hmmm. the freud *i* know has done more than most men to provide ammunition for those who wish to preserve sexual stereotypes to which women were/are supposed to conform. most of all, perhaps, by creating/justifying the 'psychoanalytic relationship,' which is a hierarchical analyst/patient relationship based on the 'authority' of the analyst. i don't care for irigary particularly, but monique wittig, whose work i like very much, has something to say about this... >analysis is the most ethical praxis >because it insists that all levels of desire be acknowledged whenever there's >any human intercourse, but it is always (as olson points out) local. and this is exactly what i don't like about psychoanalysis--the position of moral superiority it assumes (must assume by virtue of its self-definition) over all other philosophies, while, at the same time, insisting it is not a 'philosophy' and is therefore above the sort of criticism that philosophies must endure. psychoanalytic theorists have seemed to me to be eurocentric to an extreme that would be laughable if the discipline weren't so powerfully entrenched. klaus theweleit, who writes so brilliantly on male fantasies, has done a rather pretty study of freud's own desires in his slim volume, _object-choice_. sticking my head out of the hole in which i've been working... kali ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 16:42:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Mudlark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... http://www.unf.edu/mudlark _________________________________________ announces the publication of A SOUND THE MOBILE MAKES IN WIND Fifty American Haibun by Sheila E. Murphy * * * * * * * * "For me, haibun seem to happen forth in full sound costume as my mind plays in the language only to find what later will be called work." --from the Author's Introduction * * * * * * * * Sheila E. Murphy's book manuscript LETTERS TO UNFINISHED J. was selected in this year's open poetry competition sponsored by Sun & Moon Press, and will be published by Sun & Moon. Dennis Phillips was the judge. FALLING IN LOVE FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU SYNTAX: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS has just been released by Potes & Poets Press. Recent works include A CLOVE OF GENDER (Stride Press, 1995). Murphy's work has been widely anthologized, most recently in FEVER DREAMS: CONTEMPORARY ARIZONA POETRY (The University of Arizona Press, 1997) and THE GERTRUDE STEIN AWARDS IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY (Sun & Moon Press, 1994, 1995). The Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series recently brought out an autobiography of Sheila E. Murphy, including photographs of Murphy with family and friends. Sheila Murphy co-founded with Beverly Carver and continues to coordinate the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Poetry Series, now in its eleventh season. Murphy is President of the management consulting firm Sheila Murphy Associates. Since 1976, she has made Phoenix, Arizona, her home. _________________________________________ William Slaughter, Editor E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:48:01 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: freud's trick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe Ahearn wrote: > well, hold on a minute. there is after all the two thousand year flowering > of buddhism, state to state, age to age, India to Burma to Tibet, many > languages, millions of people, that speaks precisely to DESIRE in all its > subtle woundings. Hi Joe, A few recommended titles, perhaps? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 13:18:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Call for Submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------9FDA95A03BDBDB4ADCB12D43" --------------9FDA95A03BDBDB4ADCB12D43 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cartograffiti, a new electronic magazine, requests submissions of original work in the following categories: 1) Prose works in literary and cultural criticism, including close readings; literary, cultural and political theory; journalism; and publication reviews. 2) Poetry and fiction. 3) Visual texts, including visual poetry, photographs and photographic reproductions of paintings, prints, etc. I would also like to encourage submissions which reconsider more “conservative” (usually due to publication expense) forms of textual visuality, e.g., photo-documented art and architecture criticism. If there is enough response, I would like to run a special issue on the poetics of the photographic essay. (NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ORIGINAL ART WORKS BY MAIL WITHOUT MAKING SOME PRIOR ARRANGEMENT WITH ME). 4) Multimedia and hypertext works, or projects written specifically for presentation in a web-based electronic medium. Here I would encourage poets and writers who have given some thought to hypertext as a compositional medium, but who lack the necessary technical training in HTML or other electronic text languages and software to approach Cartograffiti as a virtual gallery space. In other words, send me a proposal for an installation, and, if I have the time and interest, I’ll help with the staging. Obviously, the number of such projects I can do at any given time is extremely limited. Send work to: Cartograffiti c/o Taylor Brady 155 Park St., Upper Buffalo, NY 14201 or, if it is possible to present your text as ASCII only (or as an ASCII text with a short series of formatting instructions), to ltbrady@acsu.buffalo.edu. Please do not send work as an e-mail attachment. An early, abbreviated version of the first issue, featuring visual work by Michael Basinski and Wendy Kramer, is available online at http://writing.upenn.edu/~ltbrady/cartograffiti. Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti co-editor, Small Press Collective Visit the Small Press Collective homepage at http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc. --------------9FDA95A03BDBDB4ADCB12D43 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cartograffiti, a new electronic magazine, requests submissions of original work in the following categories:

1) Prose works in literary and cultural criticism, including close readings; literary, cultural and political theory; journalism; and publication reviews.

2) Poetry and fiction.

3) Visual texts, including visual poetry, photographs and photographic reproductions of paintings, prints, etc. I would also like to encourage submissions which reconsider more “conservative” (usually due to publication expense) forms of textual visuality, e.g., photo-documented art and architecture criticism. If there is enough response, I would like to run a special issue on the poetics of the photographic essay. (NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ORIGINAL ART WORKS BY MAIL WITHOUT MAKING SOME PRIOR ARRANGEMENT WITH ME).

4) Multimedia and hypertext works, or projects written specifically for presentation in a web-based electronic medium. Here I would encourage poets and writers who have given some thought to hypertext as a compositional medium, but who lack the necessary technical training in HTML or other electronic text languages and software to approach Cartograffiti as a virtual gallery space. In other words, send me a proposal for an installation, and, if I have the time and interest, I’ll help with the staging. Obviously, the number of such projects I can do at any given time is extremely limited.

Send work to:

 Cartograffiti
 c/o Taylor Brady
 155 Park St., Upper
 Buffalo, NY 14201

or, if it is possible to present your text as ASCII only (or as an ASCII text with a short series of formatting instructions), to ltbrady@acsu.buffalo.edu. Please do not send work as an e-mail attachment.

An early, abbreviated version of the first issue, featuring visual work by Michael Basinski and Wendy Kramer, is available online at http://writing.upenn.edu/~ltbrady/cartograffiti.
 

Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
co-editor, Small Press Collective
Visit the Small Press Collective homepage at http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc.
 
 
  --------------9FDA95A03BDBDB4ADCB12D43-- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 18:14:18 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Well Joe, on this list I'm not surprised at any of the whiffs some folks seem to inhale. I've never heard of Buddhism being reduced to a theory, but I'm am after all eurocentric thru & thru -- as is everyone else on this net. However, if you have some textual citations, or if you are yourself a practicing buddhist who's managed to cross the cultural boundry that Whorf declares is impossible to cross, I'm willing to take instruction. Ditto for Dylan & Johnson. One shouldn't confuse an aesthetic for a theory. I also see no reason why Johnson's express of desire should be any scarier than yours. joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 18:43:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In the first place to say that everything is rhetoric is to imply that in this regards all things are equal. I don't believe that such is the case. I'm not trying to argue that Freud was a feminist, or that his remarks about women generally are au current with contemporary ideas on the subject. Freud was a member of the viennese bourgoise, this is no secret. But the expanse and strength of Freud is his discovery of unconscious processes, and to point out the extent to which arrested desire determined conscious thought. This was an unpopular thought then, and it's an unpopular thought now; but the whole basis of the freudian method is devoted to the bringing into conscious thought as much as possible of what was heretofore denied to it. If ethical behavior requires one to consider all of the possibilities of an action before deciding how to act, then the freudian method must be viewed as ethical in both praxis and result, and Freud's ethics, if you remember, are what we're discussing. There's a difference between being wrong, and being unethical. What you or I choose to embrace in our respective searches isn't germane to the discussion, except that as you don't have the experience as to what's valuable in freudian analysis, you're left to critiques of matters that practically speaking are not meaningful to any discussion of it. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 18:52:23 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joe You don't have to step around Freud's failings any more than modernists have to apologize for the brutality of Pound, who has a hell of a lot more to answer for. What's interesting in Freud is what seems to interest you. As far as liking Lacan is concerned, Lacan is so freudian that for a long time he was the only commentator who seemed to understand him; one simply can't separate Lacan from Freud except in the extensions of freudian thought he was able to master. As Lacan points out, if you don't understand Freud, you can't understand him. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 16:12:19 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm looking for online work by Sally Doyle, or perhaps suggestions about where to find printed work. Thanks! Karen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 19:59:34 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:15:33 -0500 from On Sat, 7 Feb 1998 22:15:33 -0500 Louis Cabri said: >So far this month the average is 2.8 posts per active email address >(that's pretending Henry's 6 email addresses are separate >people; the average figure would otherwise be lower than >that). Henry Gould's total so far in February - in seven days, >that is - is 22 posts, or about ten times as many posts as >anyone else. Eric Blarnes, Jack Spandrift, and that new list member Ben Carrelis are more complete individuals than I am. They contradict me constantly, undercut me viciously. Where would we be without Ben Carrelis' sharp analysis of the historical conditioning of HG's "idealism"? Gould would probably still be sending sonnets about his "papa" the carpenter. I will say, though, Louis, that after that last over-the-top Gould snarl Eric called a video conference and we firmly decided that since the battle for indie-crit has been a resounding victory (as I'm sure all 600 of you will agree) it's time for us to settle down, chill out, relax, and, basically, SHUT UP for a while. Bob Grumman started it, it's all his fault. I didn't know you guys & gals were all part of an ultra- literary mafia. Now we all know better & will wait peacefully for the millennium and the next virtual-reality p.r. poetic steamroller to ride the hokum to glory. It's all penmanship, right, Shem? - Henry Gould, the Quiet American ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 08:55:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: who published Absence Sensorium Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joel K. asks who published Absence Sensorium, the long poem that Dan Davidson and I wrote together. AS was entering production when Dan killed himself. Absence Sensorium was published by Potes & Poets in Autumn '96. Its ISBN# is 0-937013-64-1 Tom Mandel Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 09:13:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: my French insistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I wrote my words on "ma femme" in too much of a hurry, the way one will *insist* on something knowing one hasn't the right amount of time/attention to _explore_ that same thing. As compensation for not having the time/attention to explore it. As if "I don't have the time not to be right about this." The result was I was incorrect and also that I ignored the context I was writing about. That Breton's poem was *not* about his wife makes my insistance on the meaning of the term look all the more foolish, don't you agree? While I'm at it, thanks to Doug P. for pointing out that it was Fats Waller and (...forgotten), not Billie Holiday, who wrote Nobody's business.... Tom Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 21:16:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Freud's weirdnesses about sexuality and women and the irrefutability of psychoanalysis are all well-known, and beyond justification. But... I like his refusal to accept things at face value. I like his conviction that if you look long enough you will find another motive. I like his belief that all things are signs of other things. I like his ambivalence about culture. I like his passion for the primitive. I like his semitism in the face of all that anti-semitism. I trust his motives more than, say, Jung's. George Thompson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 21:46:57 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: simon@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: Re: freud's trick Dear Joe Brennan, For the Buddhist theory and analysis of the mind, please see Abhidharma texts, the Abhisamya lankhara, or even the Abhidharma Kosa. Re Whorf: well, no, that isn't a Whorf declaration. cordially, beth simon ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 20:07:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Freud'd truck Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > and this is exactly what i don't like about psychoanalysis--the position of > moral superiority it assumes (must assume by virtue of its self-definition) > over all other philosophies, while, at the same time, insisting it is not > a 'philosophy' and is therefore above the sort of criticism that philosophies > > must endure. psychoanalytic theorists have seemed to me to be eurocentric to > an extreme that would be laughable if the discipline weren't so powerfully > entrenched. > klaus theweleit, who writes so brilliantly on male fantasies, has done a > rather pretty study of freud's own desires in his slim volume, > _object-choice_. > sticking my head out of the hole in which i've been working... > kali Hi Kali. (pog goes public?) One interesting avenue here: a lot of the sharpest critiques (I mean--in my opinion--smartest, not most stinging) of Freud have been written by using Freud's own analytic techniques on Freud's text (and not to show that they're impoverished techniques, but the reverse): Kristeva and Irigaray, esp. Like: Freud tells us somewhere (dream book) that if the analysand says about a dream "I dunno who that woman in the dream was, but one thing I DO know is that it was NOT my mother," we can read "that was my mother." So Kristeva: when Freud insists that the only unambivalent relationship in human intercourse is between mother and infant son, we can safely read..... And then this becomes part of a terrific essay, "Place Names" in /Desire in Language/. There's also Sam Weber and Neil Hertz, in this vein. see you around the neighborhood, Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 20:15:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <199802090247.TAA23912@polaris.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" also: I dunno that it speaks to "desire" exactly, but see also the sometimes annoying D T Suzuki's terrific /The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind/ [=mu nen] Tenney At 09:46 PM 2/8/98 -0500, you wrote: >Dear Joe Brennan, >For the Buddhist theory and analysis of the mind, please see >Abhidharma texts, the Abhisamya lankhara, or even the Abhidharma Kosa. > >Re Whorf: well, no, that isn't a Whorf declaration. > >cordially, >beth simon > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 22:27:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: freud's trick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Freud's major ethical failing (that was the beginning of the thread, no?) lies, I believe, way beyond the gender question discussed these last few days on the list. The man did come up with the concundrum of the "death instinct" and then used it to justify the wholesale slaughter of millions during World War One, with no gender distinction. "It's not the Kaiser, its your own lil'ole Thanatos makes you wanna inhale that nasty stuff . So just get back down into them trenches and breathe in deeply..." -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 22:40:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wait a minute, wait a minute. I know that, this being the Poetics List, rhetoric is the final judge. But please tell me where exactly Freud applies the death wish to "justify the wholesale slaughter of millions during World War One".... Just chwcking the facts here... GT >Freud's major ethical failing (that was the beginning of the thread, no?) >lies, I >believe, way beyond the gender question discussed these last few days on >the list. >The man did come up with the concundrum of the "death instinct" and then >used it to >justify the wholesale slaughter of millions during World War One, with no >gender >distinction. "It's not the Kaiser, its your own lil'ole Thanatos makes you >wanna >inhale that nasty stuff . So just get back down into them trenches and >breathe in >deeply..." > > >-- >========================================= >pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 >tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >"What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to >a single vice is that we have several of them." > La Rochefoucauld >========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 20:18:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: machine translation In-Reply-To: <199802072016.NAA19917@polaris.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Catherine-- are you sure the url is right? I get something weird when I point to this. thanks Tenney At 12:54 PM 2/6/98 -0500, you wrote: >FYI:=A0 alta vista now has machine translation free at >http://ad. doubleclick.net/adi/babelfish.altavista.digital.com/ > >Catherine Daly >cadaly@aol.com > =20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:22:45 +1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: my my MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: d powell > As for Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and many other early blues singers, their male muses were often > "bulldaggers" (the term of the day) or butch girls. This gives the possessive "my" a much different > function, akin to when you order eggs benedict in a restaurant and you get something with cheese sauce > instead of hollandaise. The waiter then tells you, "this is our eggs benedict" meaning "our version of." Oh > my man I do love him so, whatever gender he happens to be... This is a good reminder that to use the phrase "my X" does not always imply ownership of X, just a relationship to X. Give ratings out of 10 for the extent to which "my" implies possession in each of the following: my man my woman my father my mother my house my street my city my world my friend my colleague my boss my body my mind my words my God my name Tom Beard ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 01:56:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: PhillyTalk 4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The recent Freud & Ron Silliman/Jeff Derksen list discussions might segue well into this announcement of PhillyTalk 4: new work by & a dialogue between Jena Osman & Tina Darragh. Tidbits: Dreams, Tina writes in the newsletter, "are not limited to Freudian analysis." Her recent "Dream Rims" poems, for instance (see example in Chain #4), "obliterate," according to Jena, "the concept of dreams as something to decode." Tina considers Joan Retallack's important essay ":Re:Thinking:Literary:Feminism: (three essays onto shaky grounds)" as the "companion piece to what Ron & Jeff have written about re: community/dialogue" (see PhillyTalks #3). For Tina & Jena it seems the outcome is a new means & meaning for claims of what might be called sub-sentential language use, as well as for distinguishing "chance" & "error" in, on one hand, Joan & Tina & Jena's work, & on the other, John Cage and Jackson Mac Low's. Selection of books & articles they discuss: Tina Darragh, Striking Resemblance (Burning Deck, 1989); a(gain)2st the odds (Potes & Poets, 1989); adv. fans - the 1968 series (Leave Books, n.d.); Interview with Tina Darragh by Joan Retallack (Rod Smith's _Aerial_ #5, 1989) Jena Osman, Twelve Parts of Her (Burning Deck, 1989); underwater dive - version one (paradigm press, 1990); Amblyopia (Avenue B, 1993); recent poems at her Buffalo website & in Conjunctions (Spring '97) Joan Retallack, "Poethics of a Complex Realism," _John Cage: Composed in America_, eds. Marjorie Perloff & Charles Junkerman (U Chicago P, 1994); ":Re:Thinking:Literary:Feminism: (three essays onto shaky grounds)," _Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory_. Lynn Keller & Cristanne Miller, eds. U Michigan P, 1994) Barbara Marie Stafford, _Body Criticism_ (MIT, 1991) PhillyTalk 4 is available for $2 (or donation) from me at 4331 Pine St., #1R, Philadelphia, PA, 19104. Don't forget that this ongoing dialogue will culminate in #6, the response issue to #s 1-5, for which I am now encouraging contributions (deadline May 1st) - but more on that later. *** I should also say, for the record, that Jeff Derksen couldn't have responded to all that Ron Silliman had to say because Ron had, as it happened to work out, the last word in the exchange in #3. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 06:59:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: PhillyTalk 4 Dear Louis, I think I sent you only $2 for #s 2 & 4, will send you another buck this a.m. jacques ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 07:07:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Oops! My *PT* post was obviously not intended for the list -- sorry. jd ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:32:15 -0500 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Incorrect In-Reply-To: <50CECF22F47@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Kent, about the Breton poem. (And, indeed, about feminist analysis in culture in general, in relation to most things going on in our culture...) And, for that matter, this is also a point about poetry, I think... I have trouble with your unmodulated response to the Breton poem and its (pretty complex) resonances on the level of sexual politix...*Why* does your appreciation of the thing as a fairly compelling piece of poetry preclude there being something (as you put it) *wrong* with it?? As I suggested in a post a number of days ago, its being vibrant and compelling as poetry simply makes it more the case (not less) that it's disturbing and perturbing. (I prefer these words to "wrong"). As for what it is that's disturbing and perturbing...Well, that has to do with the isolation of the woman as an isolated icon, reduced to erotic attributes devoid of agency, that can be typified (but does not entirely derive from) the petrarchian poetry mode..and the way this links to various modes of consciouness and behavior that rob people in general of agency and dignity, but which are particularly built into patriarchal cultural patterns. A poem can have plenty "right" about it, but still also have plenty "wrong" about it. Poetry (like reality, with which it has much in common) often has a number of dimensions at once! Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:46:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Loner vs. Buddy System Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Henry, I don't imagine even you imagine that you are the Loner you think you are. If you were you wouldn't be preaching the "Indie" Gospel to the heathen, or engaging so much on the POetics list in general. I don't have my books at this computer terminal: could someone please quote Oppen into the Poetics Record ("the isolated man fails . . . but I will listen")? But what bugs me, Henry, is that you deliberately misread (or overread) a term like "mutual comradeship." Bad Henry, naughty and obdurate! (The "mutual" by the way I take from Kropotkin's MUTUAL AID, a book that debunks "survival of the fittest" (capitalism) and instead stresses, well, mutual aid among species (lower case-ism); and "comrade" I use in the literary sense Jennifer Moxley does, which is appropriate and endearing.) How you extracted "uncritical promotion" from my post is hardly worth addressing and I am only writing this because I like you, buddy. If anything the spirit of PAX goes AGAINST movements, but promotes COMMUNICATION between individual poets. Besides, Louis Cabri has already noted that you are a movement within yourself: Gould promotes Spandrift, Spandrift promotes Blarnes, Blarnes promotes Spandrift promoting Gould . . . so there's a taint of hypocrisy in all this. Also, my apologies to Jeff Derksen for saying he failed to address some comments of Ron's. As was pointed out to me, Ron's word was the last in that exchange. - daniel bouchard <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:05:12 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: O List-Master Please forgive my transgressions, for I have published from one of the many fierce debates catalogued in your archives. Forgive my diabolical and unsubstantiated outbursts, yay, surely the symptoms of a deranged character. Forgive me for pointing out that orthodox opinion on this list goes unchallenged, but that statements of heretical nature are reviled and torn into shreds. Forgive me for persevering where I am not welcome. Forgive me for making enemies of sheep and for blowing spit wads at the guardians of moral virtues. Forgive me for recognizing the contradicitons of values, where the subject-less superiority of the lang-poem is maintained by agressive egos who have invested much into the maintenance of their identities as morally conscious social poets. Forgive my irascibility and my corruptive presence. Forgive me for not knowing my place. Forgive my bad manners. Forgive me for saying that the sacred realm of poetry is nothing more than a series of business transactions. Forgive me for questioning the thin facades of power. Forgive me for ignoring mine enemies'logic. Forgive my own reductive claims about the inferiority of the university: it is only inferior for poets (& o poets, how many of you will be granted permission to work within those walls? how many really want to?). Forgive me for saying, Let those without blemish cast the first stone. Forgive me for not letting the names of my friends go publicly condemneded in my presence, with only vile and jealous substantiations that resound with alarming emptiness. Forgive me for swimming with sharks and for disrupting the stupor of the community my enemies guard. Forgive me for not playing the game by your rules. And again, forgive me for publishing those email threads in which my magazine went publicly descried. For I have not sought to better my position, but to reveal the depth of contradiction at work in the mechanations of the poetic court. For my belief in the historical presence and reality of the poem grates against the social protocol of those who have turned poetry into mere language, wresting from it the emotional and vital power of an active intelligence. Yay, for we are all deep in the shadows of our own selfish progress, deep in the obscurities of our private wills. Forgive me, for those who crave power shall find it and those who crave poetry will make it. And from this conflict the rest of the world will lift its hind leg dog-like and piss as it has always done. But I humble myself now before you o master. For I see that my uncouth presence reveals how firmly fastened are your walls. I shall take my meat and bread in the forest and wait there, with Sir Henry and a merry band of revellers complete with lute and tabor. We'll light a fire, drink strong mead and wassail that graciousness that lets us live. Like all good politicians, ye have mastered the double talk of rhetoric. Language is truly a tool of the great. Sir Dale ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 11:01:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Heather Fuller and Mark Wallace reading in NYC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those of you who live in New York City or who will be there this weekend, Heather Fuller and I will be reading there this Sunday, at the Zinc Bar. We'd be very happy to see you there. Here's the full info: Poetry Reading at the ZINC BAR Sunday, Feb. 15th, 6:30 p.m. HEATHER FULLER, author of PERHAPS THIS IS A RESCUE FANTASY MARK WALLACE, author of NOTHING HAPPENED AND BESIDES I WASN'T THERE THE Zinc Bar is located at 90 W. Houston St., near the corner of West Houston and LaGuardia. It's one flight down from street level, so be careful not to miss it. /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 10:57:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: Freud'd truck In-Reply-To: <199802090318.UAA05324@polaris.azstarnet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 8 Feb 1998, Tenney Nathanson wrote: > > > > and this is exactly what i don't like about psychoanalysis--the position of > > moral superiority it assumes (must assume by virtue of its self-definition) > > over all other philosophies, while, at the same time, insisting it is not > > a 'philosophy' and is therefore above the sort of criticism that > philosophies > > > > must endure. psychoanalytic theorists have seemed to me to be eurocentric > to > > an extreme that would be laughable if the discipline weren't so powerfully > > entrenched. > > klaus theweleit, who writes so brilliantly on male fantasies, has done a > > rather pretty study of freud's own desires in his slim volume, > > _object-choice_. > > sticking my head out of the hole in which i've been working... > > kali > > > Hi Kali. > > (pog goes public?) > > One interesting avenue here: a lot of the sharpest critiques (I mean--in my > opinion--smartest, not most stinging) of Freud have been written by using > Freud's own analytic techniques on Freud's text (and not to show that they're > impoverished techniques, but the reverse): Kristeva and Irigaray, esp. Like: > Freud tells us somewhere (dream book) that if the analysand says about a dream > "I dunno who that woman in the dream was, but one thing I DO know is that it > was NOT my mother," we can read "that was my mother." So Kristeva: when Freud > insists that the only unambivalent relationship in human intercourse is > between > mother and infant son, we can safely read..... And then this becomes part of a > terrific essay, "Place Names" in /Desire in Language/. There's also Sam Weber > and Neil Hertz, in this vein. > > see you around the neighborhood, > > Tenney In addition to these works, I'd add Marie Balmary's book, translated into English as _Psychoanalyzing Psychoanalysis: Freud and the Hidden Fault of the Father_ (Johns Hopkins, 1982. trans by Ned Lukacher). The French title, by the way, sounds a lot cooler: _L'homme aux statues: freud et la faute cache du pere_. Dave Zauhar ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 11:32:41 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Loner vs. Buddy System In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:46:58 -0500 from On Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:46:58 -0500 daniel bouchard said: > >But what bugs me, Henry, is that you deliberately misread (or overread) a >term like "mutual comradeship." Bad Henry, naughty and obdurate! > >(The "mutual" by the way I take from Kropotkin's MUTUAL AID, a book that >debunks "survival of the fittest" (capitalism) and instead stresses, well, >mutual aid among species (lower case-ism); and "comrade" I use in the >literary sense Jennifer Moxley does, which is appropriate and endearing.) >How you extracted "uncritical promotion" from my post is hardly worth >addressing and I am only writing this because I like you, buddy. Dan, I don't think I extracted anything from your poem. I asked you how "mutual comradeship" addresses the issue of uncritical nepotism. If you don't think this is worth addressing, we don't have much to talk about on this particular issue. Comradeship is one thing; a covenant which establishes justice is another. There is nothing without the poison of the law. Law and love are an insecapable mutuality. The law for workers in poetry is WHAT'S ON THE PAGE. > >If anything the spirit of PAX goes AGAINST movements, but promotes >COMMUNICATION between individual poets. Besides, Louis Cabri has already >noted that you are a movement within yourself: Gould promotes Spandrift, >Spandrift promotes Blarnes, Blarnes promotes Spandrift promoting Gould . . . >so there's a taint of hypocrisy in all this. These alter-guys also point out the limitations & lacunae of Gould. It's a 2-way street. Of course there's no ultimate Loner Genius. That's bull! But I see an element of ethics involved in the individual writer standing by his or her word. Ethics as well as sheer INTEREST. I don't deny that great art is made by groups of people working closely together. Or that critics themselves learn from each other in groups & apprenticeships & shared vocabulary. All I've said from the beginning is that my experience of making poetry involves solitude, privacy, individuality, and the search for authenticity and originality. I'm not bragging - I think this is the average experience of it. & I simply extend this practice to the art of writing criticism - & I think it's a great advantage - if it can be done - in weighing what a piece of writing accomplishes irrespective of the ambitions of its author. I'm sorry list if I repeat myself, but I feel CHALLENGED to defend my position. I agree with you, Dan, that a peaceful mutuality between poets is often extremely productive and leads to new plateaus of development. This has happened in my life continually - I don't live in a cave making poems out of bearshit, believe it or not. But in the end the bottom line of mutual respect between artists lies ON THE PAGE, not in the buddy system. & if I don't like your work I'm going to tell you so. This is basic ethics of "mutuality". - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:51:02 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: 44 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: Re: 44 In Japanese, the word "shi" is both "four" and "death" as well. Many = superstitious Japanese replace "four" with a nonsense word when giving = addresses, phone numbers, etc. that contain a four. Tea cups are sold in sets of five, and if one cup is broken, the whole set = is thrown out--at least, this is a custom that still is observed by some = Japanese. Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D Schuchat Simon wrote: >Not just in some, but the major dialects of Chinese (Cantonese, >Shanghainese, Min-nan hua & Northern Mandarin) "4" is a homophone for >death, but the heavy taboo avoidance unlucky aura is strongest among the >Cantonese. But 4 is not always unlucky in Chinese, viz the Buddha's 4 >Noble Truths or Deng Xiaoping's 4 Cardinal Principals or Zhou Enlai's 4 >modernizations. > >A Shanghainese or Taiwanese would pronounce "44" more or less as "si si = si" >(four ten four/death death death) since those dialects don't clearly >distinguish between "si" and "shi" > >Repeating the 4, in some schools of fengshui, would negate it. (To >return like a dog to my vomit, that was called "negating the negation" in >Stalinist dialectics.) > >Being a lyric poet after 40 is pretty difficult, unless you're going to >be a dirty old man ala Yeats. > >According to Confucius, "at 40 I was no longer confused" > >(15 I became intent on study, 30 I was established, 40 no longer >confused, 50 knew the will of heaven, 60 obeyed the will of heaven, at 70 >I could do whatever I wanted because my desires no longer were >inappropriate -- Analects II.4) > > >RFC822 header >----------------------------------- > >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: doug@HERRING.COM >Received: (qmail 301 invoked from network); 7 Feb 1998 20:22:56 -0000 >Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) > by herring.com with SMTP; 7 Feb 1998 20:22:56 -0000 >Received: (qmail 19443 invoked from network); 7 Feb 1998 20:22:38 -0000 >Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) > by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 7 Feb 1998 20:22:38 -0000 >Received: from LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU by LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 28142012 for > POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU; Sat, 7 Feb 1998 15:22:35 -= 0500 >Received: (qmail 27465 invoked from network); 7 Feb 1998 01:13:55 -0000 >Received: from unknown (HELO mail.ait.org.tw) (203.75.224.6) by > listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 7 Feb 1998 01:13:55 -0000 >Received: (from schuchat@localhost) by mail.ait.org.tw (8.7.5/8.7.3) id > JAA23059; Sat, 7 Feb 1998 09:18:24 +0800 (CST) >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=3DUS-ASCII >Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 09:18:24 +0800 >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >Sender: UB Poetics discussion group >From: Schuchat Simon >Subject: Re: 44 >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >In-Reply-To: > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 10:07:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:48:46 EST >From: Joe Brennan >Subject: Re: freud's trick >i've read irigaray, paying special attention to >specuulum of the other woman, and to be truthful i wasn't particularly >impressed. in that work her rhetoric is very intense, as intense as the time >in which it was produced. for me irigaray will only have lasting value to the >extent that she's able to contribute a new vision of human sexuality & >desire. her remarks have nothing to do with psychoanalysis, but only address >the cultural mileau in which it developed. Now, I love Freud--because he's so dark and sticky and he added the word "uncanny" to my vocabulary. But, how could one possibly consider Freud and not consider the "cultural mileau" in which his theories were developed? One should never forget that his wonderfully twisted and sicko model of the human psyche is just that--a model. My office is at New College, and the other day when I was in the kitchen slicing my daily orange, I heard this woman's voice booming from down the hallway, "What people forget is that Freud destroyed an entire generation!" I copied that into the journal. Received wisdom. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:37:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Japanese Characters Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I need the Japanese characters for the numbers 1-10. Can anyone suggest a source for downloading the font for those? I work on a MAC in Word & Pagemaker, etc. Is it possible I already have them somewhere in the computer? etc. etc. Thanks. Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 12:55:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: query In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i'm far from my library alas, and from good bookstores. can anyone quick give me a citation for robt duncan's "song of the borderguard"? muchos appreciados. --md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:21:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Japanese characters Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just found a way to get them, I think, from Shareware.com--thanks, & I'll let anyone know the details if there's interest. S. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:24:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:07 AM -0800 2/9/98, dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: >>Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:48:46 EST >>From: Joe Brennan >>Subject: Re: freud's trick > >>i've read irigaray, paying special attention to >>specuulum of the other woman, and to be truthful i wasn't particularly >>impressed. in that work her rhetoric is very intense, as intense as the time >>in which it was produced. for me irigaray will only have lasting value >>to the >>extent that she's able to contribute a new vision of human sexuality & >>desire. her remarks have nothing to do with psychoanalysis, but only address >>the cultural mileau in which it developed. > >Now, I love Freud--because he's so dark and sticky and he added the word >"uncanny" to my vocabulary. But, how could one possibly consider Freud and >not consider the "cultural mileau" in which his theories were developed? >One should never forget that his wonderfully twisted and sicko model of the >human psyche is just that--a model. > >My office is at New College, and the other day when I was in the kitchen >slicing my daily orange, I heard this woman's voice booming from down the >hallway, "What people forget is that Freud destroyed an entire generation!" >I copied that into the journal. Received wisdom. > >Dodie great post, dodie. now, my personal fondness for freud stems from the dumbest and most ethnocentric of reasons --he was jewish and enjoyed being jewish. most of his clientele was not simply the viennese bougeoisie, but the *jewish* viennese bourgeoisie (mostly women, too). the photos of him fleeing nazified vienna for london in his eighties are heartbreaking. sure his vision was limited and patriarchal, why wouldn't it be? you don't have to swallow something wholesale in order to find it productive, moving, interesting, suggestive. i'd say the nazis destroyed an entire generation --several in fact --about three. but "freud destroyed" has a nicer rhyme. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:23:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: A ship called Comrade In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On Feb 9, Henry Gould, replying to Dan Bouchard: > But in the end the bottom line of mutual respect between artists lies > ON THE PAGE, not in the buddy system. & if I don't like your work I'm > going to tell you so. This is basic ethics of "mutuality". - Henry Gould May I propose that this nicely condenses and closes Henry's protracted and snit-causing argument? Now if everyone can agree that community and comradeship can be _deepened_ by mutual, vigorous and public critique among friends... And this list-space might be a good testing ground of that: For example, Mark Wallace challenges himself to write a review that is critical of Steve Evans's ethereal, Ecole de Paris criticism (he might say, for example, that Steve has proven to us that he knows one hell of a lot about Hegel and French cinema, but how on earth does this _really_ relate to the poetry he likes), giving Steve a chance to show that he takes Mark's critique in Hegelian spirit by publishing one of Mark's lectures as an ILS pamphlet (something which, of course, everyone now wants to have), followed by a searing, leave-em-at-a-loss riposte as appendix from Jordan Davis; Dan Bouchard, who edited the fine and late Mass. Ave. might writie a review, reflecting seriously on whether the poems by Susan Schultz and Lisa Jarnot were really representative of their best work, and then reflecting in turn on whether the buddy-system had something to do with him publishing them instead of the poems of someone not already in the mutual back-scratching name-loop; Henry himself might take the embarrassingly fawning review he recently wrote of fellow Providencer Jennifer Moxley and re-write it in true indie-crit style, offering that perhaps this review was so obsequious that it might even be taken as an unintended parody of everything that is wrong with buddy-crit, and so on. The possibilities are endless. These would be just a few quick suggestions. But it would be fantastic if everyone could go after those they admire (and I admire all those I have mentioned above) without anyone getting pissed off! All hands on board the ship called Comrade, its nuclear weapons polished and ready for use, if necessary, to slow the spread of weapons of mass destruction! (This last sentence has no intended relationship to what precedes it, but in the manner of poetry's accidental accretions perhaps it may. May have a relationship, that is.) Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:53:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: CFS: _Time-Sense_, a Gertrude Stein quarterly (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thought this might be of interest to a few Stein scholars/fans, etc. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago "My religion makes no sense and does not help me therefore I pursue it." --Anne Carson ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:07:09 -0800 (PST) From: Sonja Streuber To: MLA Grads Cc: sarahleo@pacbell.net, skornfeld@openhorizon.com, Stafford Subject: CFS: _Time-Sense_, a Gertrude Stein quarterly ********************** ***_TIME-SENSE_*** ********************** an electronic quarterly on the art of Gertrude Stein invites submissions, both critical and creative, in written, visual, and aural media. Recent Stein criticism has addressed such issues as her postmodern disjunctive style, representation and the body, exile and bio/geography, and Stein's connection with the other arts. Some criticism has tried to reconstruct her texts, reading them from the point of view of queer, ethnic, and theological studies. Artists have set her words to other words, to visual art, to music, and to performance. In other words, the vastly expanding field of Stein studies today ranges from textual and psychoanalytic observations to cultural studies and artistic experiments. In this context, an ongoing examination of how we make sense of Stein in our time is due. _Time-Sense_ welcomes written submissions from all theoretical, critical, and creative approaches, and artistic submissions in all reproducible media. ********************** *** Please *** ********************** - send written submissions (including file copy on 3.5 disk) in regular MLA-format to Sonja Streuber, Department of English, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (electronic inquiries welcome at shstreuber@ucdavis.edu) and - send visual/ audio submissions as .WAV, .AU, .MOV, or quicktime files to Stafford, 1261 Howard Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103-2711 (electronic inquiries welcome at webmaster@tenderbuttons.com). ********************** Annual Deadlines: ********************** for the March issue--February 1. for the June issue--May 1. for the September issue--August 1. for the December issue--November 1. ****************************************************************************** Sonja H. Streuber shstreuber@ucdavis.edu Department of English * University of California * Davis, CA 95616 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:13:39 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Freud MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I had thought Freud pretty much discredited, both ethically and scientifically, except in the academic humanities where it doesn't matter whether a theory is valid, as long as it serves the purposes of an argument. In Crews' debate with the analysts in the NYRB the psychoanalysts basically concede all his important points, but still persist in their devotion to the Master. For anyone thinking Freud was ethical a look at his correspondence with Fliess should be instructive. As for theories of desire Freud got his from literature in the first place. I think we have lots of them, e.g. in Petrarch. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 "The only thing that prevents us from giving ourselves up to multiple vices is that so many of us devote ourselves to a single one." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:17:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Incorrect Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain I tend to agree with Mark. There's no such thing, really, as an uncomplicated, unmediated sexual response, whether in a poem or in a bed. We may think that in the throes of passion we're throwing propriety out the window (bye-bye!) but usually we're just substituting one set of responses - or subtle agreements - for another. I don't mean to sound reductionist here, as though we're simply a bunch of automatons engaged in baboon-sex or whatever. But I do think that in general we're a lot less free than we typically imagine ourselves to be. The transparent liberating gesture is a simplicity arrived at only through great labor. Breton's poem is brimming with linguistic invention and brio - but it still posits woman as vessel, as inspiratrix, as the passive receptacle of the Other, a repository denied agency - and this is where metaphysics and erotics run headlong into each other smack! ker-pow! Breton's litany - like so much of his stuff - has, to me, a distinctly and carefully programmatic feel, not automatic at all, but exactly plotted. Notice how much of the imagery conflates his wife with nature - nature with a capital N as the ultimate tragic invention, perhaps, of the objectifying erotic male gaze, all those raped virgin acres of "The Gift Outright," etc. Breton's language takes this unnamed woman and makes of her a monument to worship, make love to, whatever - it transforms her miraculously into everything, it seems, but what she is. But maybe that's all he - or anyone - can do. And lest anyone think I'm a cold fish, I'll confess that my own love poems are drowning in nature imagery too. Romantic love, which is a cultural refinement - a behavioral evolution as well as an ethical one - just seems so damned "natural." Well, maybe it is at that. Though I tend to think not. Rather, it's a case where culture has improved on the existing, "natural" state of affairs, even though it feels like love is a Return to some originary, primal state. So that the cultural becomes the natural. And the source of much confusion. Making it up as I go along, Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Mark Prejsnar To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Incorrect Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 8:32AM Kent, about the Breton poem. (And, indeed, about feminist analysis in culture in general, in relation to most things going on in our culture...) And, for that matter, this is also a point about poetry, I think... I have trouble with your unmodulated response to the Breton poem and its (pretty complex) resonances on the level of sexual politix...*Why* does your appreciation of the thing as a fairly compelling piece of poetry preclude there being something (as you put it) *wrong* with it?? As I suggested in a post a number of days ago, its being vibrant and compelling as poetry simply makes it more the case (not less) that it's disturbing and perturbing. (I prefer these words to "wrong"). As for what it is that's disturbing and perturbing...Well, that has to do with the isolation of the woman as an isolated icon, reduced to erotic attributes devoid of agency, that can be typified (but does not entirely derive from) the petrarchian poetry mode..and the way this links to various modes of consciouness and behavior that rob people in general of agency and dignity, but which are particularly built into patriarchal cultural patterns. A poem can have plenty "right" about it, but still also have plenty "wrong" about it. Poetry (like reality, with which it has much in common) often has a number of dimensions at once! Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:43:03 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT accd to Spencer Selby's Exp Mag list # 50 No Roses Review (ed. Carolyn Coo) is located at 1322 N. Wicker Park Chicago -- but this seems no longer to be the case. Does anyone know of its whereabouts? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:45:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "p. durgin" Subject: t r i p w i r e Comments: To: Mark Wallace In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Has anyone else out there heard of a new mag. called "Tripwire"? I'm looking to obtain a copy. . .perhaps someone's seen it or has a contact address? Thanks -- Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:13:08 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: a ship called comrade Now, listers, I would ask you to turn to page ### in your EPC archives, as Comrade Kent suggested, and re-read carefully the Moxley review by Gould he describes. "Fawning" is the word; uncritical or sub-critical it surely is. Now go out & buy the book if it's not out of print yet. Gould never claimed to be much of a critic himself. That's why he's looking so hard for one. Kent, can we call the ship "Sophie" instead? I'll explain some day. She sails in a window, in an apartment not far from the Neva, in Petersburg... - Prince Gyenri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:38:08 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Announcement: JENNIFER MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable nominative press collective announces... Alan Sondheim's JENNIFER "Think of Jennifer-Julu, Julu-Jennifer as system resonances, interferences or viruses occasioned by intervention. Their psychoanalytics tangles on and off the Net =96 as strange attractors, they shape discursive formations, nodes of theoretical focus. Similar to "deconstruction" (Derrida's "Letter to a Japanese Friend"), Jennifer and Julu fissure as contested sites, split or sputter across applications, networks, texts. Subject and body are at stake, problematized through the specificities of unfocused language . . . " (Alan Sondheim) copies are approx. 50 pp., printed on acid-free paper and hand-sewn Japanese-style between black coverstock. $8 / $12 institutional. to order, contact me via email or @ the address given below. apologies for not having a sample up on our homepage (as we generally do) =97 I'll try to put one together by the end of the week. best, Chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:54:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maryrose Larkin Subject: Re: address query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Carolyn Koo (editor of no roses) may be reached at carkoo@aol.com Maryrose Larkin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:09:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grotjohn Organization: Mary Baldwin College Subject: Re: 44 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In Korea, at least when I lived there, buildings did not have fourth floors. Well, they had them, but they were numbered five. It was explained to me that four signified death (chuk ul sa--deathly four, or, maybe four, signifying death), though the Korean words for "four" (both of them--sa and nyet)are not the same as the word for "death," at least not the one that I know (chuk um). Perhaps the four/death equation has some relation to Chinese having been the written language of Korea for many hundreds of years, though the Chinese words always (or almost always, at least) had Korean pronunciations, which is why the phonetic match may not be true. But now, on further research (my wife looked in a dictionary for me--a good place to go when thinking about what a word might mean, I guess). The Korean word for death based on the Chinese is "sa-mang," and the "chuk ul sa" above may very well be using the "sa" of "sa-mang," which indeed does sound like the "sa" for four. So, there you go. -- Bob Grotjohn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:41:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Sex Objects MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT It's nice to finally find something to disagree on with Mark P and Pat P. But guys, I just don't see Breton's poem as sexist in any way. That the addressee has no "agency" does not seem a good argument: Should everyone in a poem have "agency"? And besides, I don't see Breton as having much macho agency in this poem at all--why, he's reduced to a kind of primal glossolalia, the femme doing jiu-jitsu flips on the poor man's capacity to think "like a man" and bring her under the power and control of his reason. It may be that you're right, Pat, that sexual expression is predominantly a cultural construction, but I don't think so. Each culture has its own rituals and oddities to be sure, but in sex, at bottom (though here I want to say that I don't consider myself an expert, because I've only had sex once--when I was nineteen), all cultures exhibit _animal_ behavior. I don't mean "animal" like when one gets excited and just goes crazy-- I mean in the sense of ritualistically objectifying the other, of focusing on the desired one without giving a hoot for his or her "agency"; I mean fixating on body parts, and showing the other your own "parts", whether the showing be a blue, bulging throat, a crimson rump shoved into the air, or a love poem full of surrealist images. Anyway, speaking of the animal kingdom, I did just get something from Eliot Weinberger apropos this discussion-- a wonderful little essay on the poetry of Sappho in the context of zebra finches, Australian bush turkeys, Archbold bowerbirds, guppies, cichlids, cockroaches, aphids, bonolos, echidnas, crocodiles, and other creatures great and small doing their poignant best to have sex with others of their kind. It is titled "Sex Objects," and it begins with a quote from a Poetry Flash review of Guy Davenport's _7 Greeks_: "For those who object to sexual objectification, Sappho may present problems." If anyone would like to see this, I'd be happy to forward back-channel. A great read. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:30:24 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: fwd query In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Maria =96 oddly enough, I rec'd exactly the same message (ad literam) the same day. anyone else? I thought it was just Henry fooling around (!). there must be (there must be) a book that indexes poems by content, sort of like one of those books of jokes & quotations used in speeches etc. Any reference librarians out there? best, Chris > hi all, i received the below; can anyone help? thanks; md > > X-From_: jajphill@apex.net Mon Feb 2 19:40 CST 1998 > From: "Jamie Phillips" > To: Maria Damon > Subject: > Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:40:09 -0600 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > X-Priority: 3 > X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 > > Hello My name is jamie Phillips i was looking for something on th= e > line of Volenteers and Angles in a Poem i Work in a Nursing Home and ha= d a > 16 yr old Girl who was a Volenteer and she was the Best in the world !! > was tragicly Killed in a Auto accident and i wanted a Poem to read in > Honor of Her just curious do you know of anything like that ? > .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 18:28:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: ( Received on motgate.mot.com from client mothost.mot.com, sender burmeist@plhp002.comm.mot.com ) From: William Burmeister Prod Subject: Surf music Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Although your world wonders me With your majestic superior cackling hen Your people I do not understand So to you I wish to put an end And you'll never hear surf music again -Jimi Hendrix, "Third stone from the sun" Disclaimer: The word "hen" in this context shall not be construed as referring to any person, living or otherwise, or name of person heretofore construed as construed nor shall any individual, singularity, sexual object, critic, marginalized poet, or person claim ownership of said word as an apellation for the sole purpose of claiming damages to said name for the abuse of the same or penalties shall be administered and the penalties administered shall be deemed stiff indeed. -Free Willy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:45:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In the best Buddhist tradition, I'll say that I am hardly in a position to instruct anyone. My practices of sitting and writing are more than adequate to reinforce my claim to ordinary understanding of ordinary things. If you are looking for texts, see my previous post to the list. For Dylan, see the album DESIRE. And, yes, Robert Johnson's aesthetic is scarier than mine. I never wrote, after all: Me and the Devil walkin' side by side. Gonna beat my woman till I'm satisfied. For a look at Johnson, see the recent complete Robert Johnson on (I think it is) Atlantic. The set is in any case extremely available, includes all the songs Johnson recorded, and contains complete biographical information and the text of the complete lyrics. You're right that one shouldn't confuse an aesthetic for a theory. An aesthetic is preferable. At 06:14 PM 2/8/98 EST, you wrote: >Well Joe, on this list I'm not surprised at any of the whiffs some folks seem >to inhale. I've never heard of Buddhism being reduced to a theory, but I'm am >after all eurocentric thru & thru -- as is everyone else on this net. >However, if you have some textual citations, or if you are yourself a >practicing buddhist who's managed to cross the cultural boundry that Whorf >declares is impossible to cross, I'm willing to take instruction. Ditto for >Dylan & Johnson. One shouldn't confuse an aesthetic for a theory. I also see >no reason why Johnson's express of desire should be any scarier than yours. > >joe brennan > > Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:48:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >What you or I choose to embrace in our respective searches isn't germane to >the discussion, except that as you don't have the experience as to what's >valuable in freudian analysis, you're left to critiques of matters that >practically speaking are not meaningful to any discussion of it. > >Joe > > This is the nut of ONE of my problems with Freudianism. After all, Joe, why should you assume to judge the validity of anyone's experience, even mine? And yes, there are others besides you who have experienced Freud at depth. And who disagree with what you say here. Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:55:37 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: last week at Small Press Traffic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I was wondering, Dodie, if you might not report to the List some semblance of a review of the Duncan proceedings last week? Yet another S.F. event I would have dearly loved to attend . . . if all hasn't yet washed away . . . Joe _________________________________________________________ > ---------- > From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM[SMTP:dbkk@SIRIUS.COM] > Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 3:50 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: next week at Small Press Traffic >=20 > Small Press Traffic presents: >=20 > Thursday, February 5, 7:30 p.m. >=20 > =B3Fragments Of A Disorderd Devotion=B2: > Robert Duncan=B9s Legacy Today >=20 > Norma Cole, Michael Davidson, Diane di Prima, Robert Gl=FCck, Barbara > Guest, > Thom Gunn, Fran Herndon, Susan Howe, Nataniel Mackey, Michael = McClure, > Duncan McNaughton, Michael Palmer, Jerome Rothenberg, Aaron Shurin, > Mary > Margaret Sloan, David Levi Strauss, Susan Thackrey and others >=20 > Robert Duncan, who died ten years ago on this very date, is the > subject of > our gala reading at the New College Theater, the very site where he = so > often spoke himself as director of the Poetics Program. These are > walls > haunted by a great spirit! This event--organized by Norma Cole, > Michael > Palmer and Susan Thackrey--celebrates the life and work of Robert > Duncan, > and his influence on poetry and poetics today. Duncan (1919-1988) = was > an > arts activist, political organizer, teacher, editor, theorist, early > gay > liberationist, critic, typist, rebel, playwright, controversialist, > neuromancer, art writer, =B3Black Mountaineer,=B2 visual artist, = essayist, > publisher, aesthete, dandy, conscience and wizard. He was one of the > architects of the Berkeley Renaissance, the Poetry Center at San > Francisco > State University, the =B3San Francisco Renaissance,=B2 the =B3New = American > Poetry,=B2 the Berkeley Poetry Conference of 1965, and the Poetics > Program at > New College. Above all he was one of the towering poets of the 20th > Century. His major books, still in print, include _The Opening of = the > Field, Bending the Bow, Roots and Branches_, and two volumes of > _Ground > Work_. Tonight some of his friends, admirers, students, and others > with a > =B3disorderd devotion=B2 to RD read from his work in celebration of a > great > American legacy. Expect surprises! >=20 > New College Theater > 777 Valencia Street > $5 >=20 > ------------------------------ >=20 > Friday, February 6, 7:30 p.m. >=20 > Charles Alexander > Scott Bentley >=20 > Charles Alexander=B9s books of poetry include _Hopeful Buildings_ = (Chax > Press, Tucson, 1990) and _arc of light / dark matter_ (Segue Books, > New > York, 1992). He is the founder and director of Chax Press (Tucson). > Ron > Silliman writes, "Charles Alexander pushes the envelope of what is > possible > in writing even further, to the ends of the universe. And beyond. . = . > This > is the most sensuous, intelligent, rewarding writing I=B9ve read in > ages.=B2 >=20 > Scott Bentley has for the past ten years been a =B3freeway flying > teacher of > writing,=B2 at present teaching both at California State University = at > Hayward and at Canada Community College. Scott is the author of = three > books: _Edge_ (Birdcage Chap Books, 1987), _Out of Hand_ (Parentheses > Writing Series, 1989), and _Ground Air_ (O Books, 1993). His writing > is > limber, smart, sexy and perverse, a feather tickling the neck of a > Christmas goose, an almanac for amorists, a prescription Rx for the > valentine blues. >=20 > New College Theater > 777 Valencia Street > $5 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:52:05 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: freud's trick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Joe, Your reference to Pound is spot on. I have been stepping around Mr. EP for a very long time now. He is still the Modernist of choice for me. I can't apologize for him, I find much of what he did deplorable, but I greatly admire the Cantos. I also prefer Mr. Freud to Mr. Jung and to many of the current maifestations of psychiatry. But I AM tired of stepping around him. I guess this makes me a neo-Poundian, not a neo-Freudian (my admiration for Mr. Lacan nothwithstanding). At 06:52 PM 2/8/98 EST, you wrote: >Joe > >You don't have to step around Freud's failings any more than modernists have >to apologize for the brutality of Pound, who has a hell of a lot more to >answer for. What's interesting in Freud is what seems to interest you. As >far as liking Lacan is concerned, Lacan is so freudian that for a long time he >was the only commentator who seemed to understand him; one simply can't >separate Lacan from Freud except in the extensions of freudian thought he was >able to master. As Lacan points out, if you don't understand Freud, you can't >understand him. > >Joe > > Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 20:56:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: Announcement: JENNIFER In-Reply-To: <16D1423031F@ALEX.LIB.UTAH.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE I received my copy the other day. It's very handsomely done. I'm still not sure what critical tools to use in discussing these entities (perhaps entirely new ones), but I am much intrigued by the shapes and thoughts and desires that coalesce out of the swirl of words and commands. I hope to write more about the book in the coming weeks. Just recovering from bronchitis myself. Is it the poet's disease (dis-ease?) of the 1990s???!!! congrats to Chris and Alan. Steven On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Christopher W. Alexander wrote: > nominative press collective announces... >=20 > Alan Sondheim's JENNIFER >=20 > "Think of Jennifer-Julu, Julu-Jennifer as system > resonances, interferences or viruses occasioned > by intervention. Their psychoanalytics tangles on > and off the Net =96 as strange attractors, they shape > discursive formations, nodes of theoretical focus. > Similar to "deconstruction" (Derrida's "Letter to > a Japanese Friend"), Jennifer and Julu fissure as > contested sites, split or sputter across applications, > networks, texts. Subject and body are at stake, > problematized through the specificities of > unfocused language . . . " (Alan Sondheim) >=20 > copies are approx. 50 pp., printed on acid-free > paper and hand-sewn Japanese-style between > black coverstock. $8 / $12 institutional. >=20 > to order, contact me via email or @ the address > given below. apologies for not having a sample > up on our homepage (as we generally do) =97 I'll > try to put one together by the end of the week. >=20 > best, Chris >=20 > .. >=20 > Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective >=20 > email: calexand@library.utah.edu > snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 > press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ >=20 __________________________________________________ Steven Marks http://members.aol.com/swmarks/welcome.html __________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 20:20:42 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Announcement: JENNIFER MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steven Marks wrote: I'm still not > sure what critical tools to use in discussing these entities (perhaps > entirely new ones), but I am much intrigued by the shapes and thoughts and > desires that coalesce out of the swirl of words and commands. the jennifer julu interchanges were to my liking, one of the most inviting subtexts passing thru the poetic list, & I too was hot to publish these works thru Xexoxial, but being years behind on commitments Im gratified that Chris has transmogrified alan's digital yearnspeak to the world of books & paper. (now if only I can get Chris to trade me for a few xe goodies... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 20:22:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <2c3a4a70.34de4329@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I love Freud. I really do love him. I think he's a great writer--very funny. Smart. Witty. Clever-- But how can he be credited with "liberating" desire? With "allowing" us to speak our true minds? (It seems that some of the lauding of Freud that has gone on in this thread has to do with such liberations--) So I have two questions: 1. Let's just say Freud (particularly Interp of Dreams) allows us to examine our "sublimated" desires--to acknowledge what we truly desire--perhaps expunging it? How is this different than the confessional? In what ways is it a discourse that allows us to go beyond the confessional and enter the realm of the therapeutic? If I am a woman of Freud's era, how will it help me to know what I "reallY' feel? If I am a frustrated subject--politically, economically, and intellectually oppressed by my society, then what good does it do me to understand my true desires? In other words: Who is allowed to desire? Who is able to do something about their desires? How is psychoanalysis a means toward pacification? These are old questions--but I think still refute the notion that Freud liberated desire in any sense-- 2. How is the location, identification, desublimation etc of imbricated with the writing of poetry? With the production of art? Is art a form of desublimation? Is a psychoanalytic model of desire anathema to the production of art? Is a discourse that is buttressed by the concepts of "normalcy" andthe recognition of perhaps anti-social desire anti-artistic? I am not harkening back to the suicidal poet model here--the psychoanalysis of Plath or Sexton--but rather to the very notion which seems to be present in this thread that Freud is good because his discourse helps us to REAVEAL what had previously been CONCEALED. Tillich, for one, defines religion as that which passes from man to god--revelation as that which passes from god to man. How can a discourse based on revelation be anything but corrupt? Be anything but a tool for those who wish to control? Be anything but dangerous? I guess I have a third question as well. How is Freud anything other than the logical conclusion to intellectual impulses of the sixteenth century? I have a quote to follow, but am afraid I will get cut off by my phone... so I'll continue in another post-- Cordially, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 20:37:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <2c3a4a70.34de4329@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It seems to me that Freud's "trick" is a pretty old one-- "Let us call the totality of the learning and skills that enable one to make the signs speak and to discover their meaning, hermeneutics; let us call the totality of the learning and skills that enable one to distinguish the location of the signs, to define what constitutes them as signs, and to know how and by what laws they are linked, semiology: the sixteenth century superimposed hermeneutics and semiology in the form of similitude. To search for a meaning is to bring to light a resemblance. To search for the law governing signs is to discover the things that are alike. The grammar of beings is an exegesis of these things.... 'Nature' is trapped in the thin layer that holds semiology and hermeneutics one above the other; it is neither mysterious nor veiled, it offers itself to our cognition which it sometimes leads astray, only in so far as this superimpositionnecessarily includes a slight degree of non-coincidence between the resemblances.... A dark space appears which must be made progressively clearer. That space is where 'nature' resides, and it is what one must attempt to know...." (Foucault: Order of Things, pp. 29-30) Then Freud: "There is often a passage in even the most thoroughly interpreted dream which has to be left obscure; this is because we become aware during the work of interpretation that at that point there is a tangle of dream-thoughtswhich cannot be unravelled and which moreover adds nothing to our knowlegde of the content of the dream. This is the dream's navel, the spot where it reaches down into the unknown. The dream-thoughts to which we are led by interpretation cannot, from the nature of things, have any definite endings: they are bound to branch out in every direction into the intricate netweork of our world of thought. It is at some point where this meshwork is particularly close that the dream-with grows up, like a mushroom out of its mycelium.: (Interp. p. 564 Avon, 1965) Then Foucault: Such, sketched in its most general aspects, is the sixteenth-century episteme. This configuration carries with it...(cont in next message...) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 20:58:26 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: freud's trick In-Reply-To: <2c3a4a70.34de4329@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ...a certain number of consequences. "First and foremost, the plethoric yet absolutely poverty-stricken character of this knowldge. Plethoric because it is limitless. Resemblance never remains stable within itself; it can be fixed only if it refers back to another similitude, which then, in turn, refers to others; each resemblance, therefore has value only from the accumulation of all the others, and the whole world must be explored if even the slightest of analogies is to be justified and finally take on the appearance of certainty....And for this reason, from its very foundations, this knowledge will be a thing of sand. The only possible form of link between the elements of this knowledge is addition. Hence those immense columns of complilation, hence their monotony. By positing resemblance as the link between signs and what they indicate..., sixteenth century knowldge condemned itself to never knowing anything but the same thing, and to knowing that thing only at the unattainable end of an endless journey. (Order of Things. p. 30) Then Freud: (One could open Interp almost anywhere--) But how about....HERE! "Dreams of missing a train deserve to be put alongside examination dreams on account of the similarity of their affect, and their explanation shows that we shall be right in doing so. They are dreams of consolation for another kind of anxiety felt in sleep--the fear of dying. 'Departing' on a journey is one of the commonest and best authenticated symbold of death..." (p. 420) Or HERE! "In an analysis which I was conducting in French a dream came up for interpretation in which I appeared as an elephant. I naturally asked the dreamer why I was respresented in that form. 'Vous me trompez' ['you are deceiving me'] was his reply (trompe='trunk'). "The dream-work can often succees in representing very refractory material, such as proper names, by a far-fetched use of out-of-the-way associations...." (p. 448) In other words--I think Freud is terrif to read--a brilliant poet, if you will--but I don't credit him with inventing a discourse that in any way, shape, or form liberated desire-- Rather he seems to be the apotheosis of an impulse toward "knowledge" that began in the 16th century and had as one of its primary objects the taming of "irrationality" and thus the urther denial of the kinds of desires that Freud purportedly "resues" or "dredges up" or otherwise "desublimates"--how is this different, again, than the confessional? How is this any kind of liberation? As a woman I feel that Freud has done little to help me out-- In his wake I see lots of talk-shows and diet plans--lots ofmen who claim that I or some other woman is delusional--hysterical etc. I know that Freud may not have meant for such ramifications--but they are real--and are in many regards his legacy. I don't think there is anyfeasible way to claim that Freud helped women, regardless of the historical context in which he worked-- (I think that Marx--another thinker whose ideas have been popularized--is a good counterexample--an interesting contrast to Freud in that Marxist disurses seem difficult to bend toward any form of "oppression"--whetheer of wmen. of men. or of children--of black, white, or red etc) Yours! (Sorry for the length, there...) Katy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 14:14:27 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: John Tranter Subject: Jacket # 2 - Ashbery Issue - is complete. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcement - current February 1998 - Jacket # 2 is complete. Jacket magazine - free, fast-loading, international, full of stylish writing - on the Internet, at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au Jacket # 2 is now complete. It focuses mainly on the work of JOHN ASHBERY - John Ashbery : two interviews (1985 and 1988), and a new Ashbery poem / Marjorie Perloff on "Normalizing John Ashbery" / John Tranter : 3 John Ashberys / Eliot Weinberger on James Laughlin (1914-1997) / David Lehman - more on the Ern Malley hoax / Bob Perelman's "The Marginalization of Poetry" discussed by Silliman, Lauterbach, Spahr, Evans and Kate Lilley... and Bob Perelman! / poems by Peter Riley, Lee Ann Brown, John Kinsella, Eileen Myles, August Kleinzahler, Jennifer Moxley, Robert Adamson, Forrest Gander, Tim Davis, Michael Heller, Denis Gallagher / Eliot Weinberger - Letter from New York: "Vomit" / and other poems and articles. In November 1997, Jacket was the featured Internet site on the Electronic Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The EPC is a leading experimental poetry site. In December 1997, Jacket was among the top recommended sites on Web Del Sol, a major literary arts Internet conglomerate site in the US. In December 1997, Jacket won the "Best of the Web" award from the Poetry Mining Company, an Internet site in New York. The first issue of Jacket contains interviews with English poet Roy Fisher and Australian aboriginal poet Lionel Fogarty, a piece on cyber-poetry in the age of the Internet, a look at the 1943 hoax poet Ern Malley (including rare childhood photos!) , work by Charles Bernstein, Elaine Equi, Pamela Brown, Alfred Corn, Joanne Burns, Tracy Ryan, Carl Rakosi, Beth Spencer, Peter Minter, Susan Schultz and Paul Hoover, together with reviews, other prose and poetry pieces and plentiful photos and art work. Jacket # 1 was complete in October 1997. Jacket # 3 is being uploaded as we speak, and will be complete in late April 1998. It already contains poems by Joel Lewis, Michele Leggott, Kris Hemensley, Peter Gizzi, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Tom Clark and Johanna Drucker, and a review of Charles Nicholl's enlightening biography "Somebody Else - Rimbaud in Africa". Issue # 3 is dedicated to the memory of the Australian poet JOHN FORBES, who died unexpectedly on 23 January at the age of 47 at his home in Melbourne. It contains a poem by him ("Speed: A Pastoral"), and poems by some of his friends. Jacket is free, and (thus) is at present unable to pay contributors. Also, I don't have the time yet to deal with unsolicited submissions. Sorry. Jacket editor John Tranter's e-mail address is jtranter@jacket.zip.com.au Please tell your friends about Jacket, whose motto is "bop till you drop!" from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 19:51:25 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Re: freud's trick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit k. lederer wrote: > > > 1. Let's just say Freud (particularly Interp of Dreams) allows us to > examine our "sublimated" desires--to acknowledge what we truly > desire--perhaps expunging it? How is this different than the confessional? > In what ways is it a discourse that allows us to go beyond the > confessional and enter the realm of the therapeutic? If I am a woman of > Freud's era, how will it help me to know what I "reallY' feel? If I am a > frustrated subject--politically, economically, and intellectually > oppressed by my society, then what good does it do me to understand my > true desires? In other words: > > Who is allowed to desire? > Who is able to do something about their desires? > How is psychoanalysis a means toward pacification? > These are old questions--but I think still refute the notion that Freud > liberated desire in any sense-- > I think we are looking at this, as we did the Breton poem, as if our contemporary politics were applicable in Breton's/Freud's time. I don't think a bourgeois woman of Freud's time would have conceptualized her self as "politically, economically, and intellectually >oppressed by ...society." It's always seemed to me that Freud's suggestion that there is a part of people that is NOT bound by civilization's mores, that is grasping and aggressive and violent and animal, and most importantly, not subject to simple conscious controls, to banishing that "bad impulse" was amost dramatic and amazing concept to come up with given HIS place in history. And he realized that our narratives are how we FIND and come to terms with these hidden inner realities (and I've always thought that idea quite poetic). But as far as questions like _Who is allowed to desire? Who is able to do something about their desires? How is psychoanalysis a means toward pacification?_ go, I think they are based on a contemporary discourse that would not have registered in Freud's time. Oh, and there's a wonderful book by Peter Gay (who also wrote a Freud bio), called _The Bourgeois Experience_ and for a spectacular poetic account of an analysis (a woman's analysis) by a Freud-like analyst, check out Marie Cardinal's _The Words to Say It_, a beautifully written book regardless your interest or non-interest in psychoanalysis. Admittedly, I love Freud, and enjoyed (okay, largely in retrospect) my own analysis immensely. But I would hazard to say what brings analysis (at least in my case) from confessional to theraputic (though "therapy" doesn't do the process justice) may well be the quality of the "evenly hovering attention" of an analyst who can feel/withstand/encompass the analysand's emotions while NOT inserting himself into the narrative as a confessor. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 21:30:26 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henry-- I think that by far the best "criticism" of a poem is a new poem-- As far as the Evans article--I don't think of it as "criticism" so much as "elucidation"-- Perhaps the young/old thing is an old and oft-addressed problem--but it doesn't mean that it doesn't need re-stating generation after generation-- And Evans states it beautifully--in beautiful language-- And clearly--in terms that I can understand-- I LOVE HIS ESSAY! And thank god for the mental blinders--otherwise I might be blinded by your utter brilliance-- Yours, Katy L. *** On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, henry gould wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:44 -0600 k. lederer said: > >The implications for younger writers here are astonishing-- > > > >That perhaps "older" writers--even those of the avant-garde variety--may > >also be unable to fully "see" (perceive is probably a better word) the > >"new" in the younger generation's works-- > > > >Perhaps the "older" writers might claim that the young ones are "lazy," > >"apathetic," etc. (sound familiar?), because they cannot "see" the work > >that goes into simply "emerging"-- > > > >Evans doesn't make such arguments explicitly--but I think these analogies > >are more than available (particularly in light of the postscript in which > >he basically credits such writers as Brown, Jarnot, Moxley, Spahr, > >Stroffolino, and Rothschild for, in some regards, freeing "the > >avant-garde" from the aesthetic prison (not intentionally a prison, but an > >effective one none the less) of Langpos. Breaking out of prison is hard > >work! And usually happens when no one is looking. > > > >In other words, I think that this essay represents PRECISELY the > >kind of criticism that "Rod Smith's Generation" might need-- > > Katy, I'm glad you got something out of that essay; he's a snazzy writer. > But you don't need a dress-up of Hegel & Marx for the precisely OLD idea > (I mean like, old since Greek & Roman times) that the old fogies won't > be able to understand the youngsters. Maybe it's just that a card-carrying > "youngster" is saying it for you (& insists on harping on the "generation" > thing just so you don't forget)... My point was that such advocacy is only > a beginning, if anything. > > I think you need to open the mental blinders. Critic does not necessarily > = "mainstream establishment person out to judge us by outmoded standards > of (baloney) taste". That is a cartoon of a critic. In my mind, critic > = "somebody who loves poetry enough to dig into it backwards & forwards, > past & present, and say something intelligent (if subjective) about the > style, mindset, aims, effects, contradictions, connections, strengths, > imitations, originalities, meaning, impact, development... etc of what > s/he reads". I don't think of standards as a set of hoary rules; I think > of standards as the feel of a good ear for syntax, sound, meaning, > and complexity. Wouldn't you rather read some of this than various > gang-approval ratings, blurbs, or tossed-off empty retchings which pass > for "criticism?" THAT IS ALL I'M SAYING. > > > >*** > >> ...I am speaking as a poet who has played > >> by what I consider the rules for over 30 years. My rules are: do the > >> poem. Send it to magazines & contests. Think about what you are doing - > >> maybe write an essay about it. That's it. In my experience "doing > >> the poem" has absorbed the energy. Maybe I am a fanatic, or a hedgehog > >> in Isaiah Berlin's sense, or a totally introverted recluse. > > > >These rules seem to contradict each other, Henry. Sending to mags and > >contests doesn't absorb any energy? Do introverts write lots of essays? > >Send to contests? (Emily--) > > > All I meant was, MOST of my energy (like 98%) goes into DOING the poems > (until I joined this list [sigh]). Does anybody know what I look like? > Seen me gladhanding at conferences? Reading anyplace outside Providence? > Published much? (these are rhetorical questions) Maybe it's because > I only write haiku about buffalo - that could be it. I'm also not a prof, > not a writing teacher, not a grad student, not a novelist, not a journalist, > not a professional poet, not a performance artist; the only wannabee I am > is wannabee out on the road again with my guitar - but then I really would > have to be running from the law. Ask Jack about that. > > > > >It seems to me that "taste, judgement, freedom, and artistic instinct" are > >also forms of baloney. > > Yes, the word "taste" always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I like > baloney better myself. But judgement, freedom, artistic instinct... > there they go now, off to the next reality... all words become dust > through repetition... anything can be turned into a joke... "the laughter > of fools is like fire crackling under a pot" [Proverbs]. > - Henry Gould > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:10:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: colding & heating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lisa, to me you have recuperated what Riding's words worked for when they worked for poetry. "Unreal" strikes me as one of those frequent words of hers that is attempting to do and say more than its cultural grammar can at the time support. Oppositional matrices - "real" vs."unreal" - fade before its sense. What is the lineage of the "individual-unreal"? What if it were Whitman! Not "precipitant of the American character," as the standard critical reading has it, but he who differentiates between individualism, which "isolates," and "personalism," which "fuses, ties, and aggregates . . . fraternizing all" (_Democractic Vistas_). "Personalism" thus is not identical to personal expression. I've found numerous historical resonance for this word, but Whitman's usage, it seems, is distinct. Anyone who can help me would be very welcome. -louis Where then, fellow citizens Of this post-carnal matter, Is each the next and next one, Stretching the instant chain Toward its first-last link, The twilight that into dawn passes Without intervention of night.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But where? where? If I have so companioned? Here, here! --Laura Riding ("I Am") ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 23:13:15 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Da Slander Con and mYth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit david bromige wrote: > > (my attorneys). > Dale, another : speaking things out context, > Neilsen tells me re-print postings this List your > magazine, permission the authors presumably, the master told me this is the list-protocol). TruFals? David Just to go on record that I, Amendant Hardiker have been a proponent of creative plagiarism & appropriation since the international festival of plagerism (sic) in 1988 at which point I officially denounced the use of copyright. swearby, Amendant Hardiker ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:50:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: law & love Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Quoth the good Dr. Gould -- << . . . Law and love are an insecapable mutuality. The law for workers in poetry is WHAT'S ON THE PAGE. >> once it was the splotch on page once it was the note in air that seems now a distant age bird don't always live in cage glance ain't ever lost in stare once it was the splotch on page love were hardened into rage anger melted lost its flare that seems now a distant age theatre didn't need a stage meditation sought no chair once it was the splotch on page music for the likes of Cage hiding open everyewhere that seems now a distant age soon descends the macrophage homer blindly go prepare! once it was a splotch on page? that seems now a distant age d.i. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 22:12:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Duncan tribute at Small Press Traffic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:55:37 -0800 >From: Safdie Joseph >Subject: Re: last week at Small Press Traffic > >I was wondering, Dodie, if you might not report to the List some >semblance of a review of the Duncan proceedings last week? Yet another >S.F. event I would have dearly loved to attend . . . if all hasn't yet >washed away . . . Nothing was washed away, but perhaps some people stayed away from the Duncan tribute February 5th because our local weathermen were predicted 5 inches of rain and winds of 80 miles an hour . . . Nevertheless hordes of people came and they were just about hanging from the rafters, approximately 140 of them (people, not rafters). The evening had a long program with 19 speakers, but wrapped itself up in 2 hours and 15 minutes--it could have been a lot worse timewise. Susan Thackrey, the MC, was good at crowd management, announcing there would be no formal "break" but encouraging people to get up, mill around, between readings, etc. Here are some of the highlights . . . a surprise visitor from Buffalo, Robert Bertholf, opened the show detailing the latest finds of Duncaniana and also updating us all on the plans to publish Duncan's "Collected Works" (California) . . . In honor of the doubling that runs throughout Duncan's poetry, Jack and Adelle Foley read alternating lines and then simultaneously poems by Duncan and Foley . . . A seven minute excerpt from Richard Moore's (1966?) NET Poetry USA Duncan documentary was shown, big, blown up, only a little grainy and reddened across the edges, Duncan reading "The Dance," etc in front of a mirror . . . Aaron Shurin's reading of "Passages 18: The Torso" was very crisp and clear and seductive . . . Readers were given five minutes apiece and many chose to read from RD's own work . . . Surprising how many read from the two big last books of "Ground Work," don't remember anyone reading from "The Opening of the Field," but maybe this isn't surprising since many were Duncan's final students from New College during the Ground Work years. Thom Gunn read the one about the cat, you could almost picture the cat creeping up and down his leather jacket as he did so . . . . Then there were some who reminisced--Michael McClure a real pro, commanding and v. insightful; the artist Fran Herndon spoke off the cuff about her earliest meetings with Duncan and Jess in 1957, Stinson Beach, painting, etc. One of the luckiest breaks was that the photographer Harry Redl happened to be in town (visiting from Vancouver) with some of his prints, and the black cotton curtains were taped back from New College Theater's white walls, and a selection of his photos were quickly hung before the show. Redl was the Viennese man about town in North Beach in 1957-1960, the photographer who took the famous photos of poets for the Evergreen Review "San Francisco Scene" issue of 1957. He was introduced to the crowd by Michael Palmer but alas did not speak. The photos are amazing. So it was a mass reading and a vernissage all at the same time esp. nice for those who missed the Whitney Beat Culture show where so many of Redl's works were shown. Jerome Rothenberg (who read from "Seedings" his poem inspired by Duncan) first met RD in 1950 or 1960, on his first day in San Francisco, RD took him to a cafe, Harry Redl happened to take their picture, the picture happened to be one HR had with him, the whole evening was filled with this kind of serendipidity or "Inspiriting" as RD might have said . . . David Levi Strauss. returning to San Francisco after many many years away (and afterwards remarking on how many streets and sights had changed) read briefly, again from "Ground Work," great to see him again in the parlieus of poetry . . . Susan Howe was supposed to come but she was too ill to travel up from Palo Alto (she's better now) and the rains kept away Barbara Guest. One young woman blanched visibly when told Howe was not there, a big pile of Howe's books on her lap slipped. Jess did not show up either but no one really expected him to . . . Duncan McNaughton read Yeats' "The Phases of the Moon" replete with high drama, many many sips of water and a beautiful, sonorous delivery, which seemed to last forever, tho' it couldn't have lasted more than 25 minutes, could it? Kush was taping the whole event and will sell copies of the event (back channel if anyone's interested) . . . In the spirit of things--in the memorial spirit we are undergoing in San Francisco these days--under the sign of Thanatos--he gave out copies of Ira Cohen's 1981 photo of Robert Duncan massaging Kathy Acker's shoulders, a very touching portrait . . . The unenviable task of last reader was saved for Michael Davidson, who gave the most acclaimed reading of all, mostly a memoir of writing his dissertation on RD, very funny, wry, ironic, reflexive, loving and tender, enough to make RD's ghost flit in front of us, live, on stage, just for a minute-- It's been pointed out on this list that Duncan made many an enemy, but the Duncan who came through at this tribute was well-loved, in a way that others can only aspire to. His enormous influence on the poetry scene from the Bay Area and beyond was palpable in the moisture-laden air. Kevin Killian & Dodie Bellamy (Thanks again to Norma Cole, Michael Palmer, and Susan Thackrey for organizing the whole thing--merveilleuse!) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:54:38 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Announcement: JENNIFER Comments: cc: BRUNI MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable nominative press collective announces... Alan Sondheim's JENNIFER "Think of Jennifer-Julu, Julu-Jennifer as system resonances, interferences or viruses occasioned by intervention. Their psychoanalytics tangles on and off the Net =96 as strange attractors, they shape discursive formations, nodes of theoretical focus. Similar to "deconstruction" (Derrida's "Letter to a Japanese Friend"), Jennifer and Julu fissure as contested sites, split or sputter across applications, networks, texts. Subject and body are at stake, problematized through the specificities of unfocused language . . . " (Alan Sondheim) copies are approx. 50 pp., printed on acid-free paper and hand-sewn Japanese-style between black coverstock. $8 / $12 institutional. to order, contact me via email or @ the address given below. apologies for not having a sample up on our homepage (as we generally do) =96 I'll try to put one together by the end of the week. best, Chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 07:28:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: bb's bd MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Today one hundred years ago Bertolt Brecht was born -- "-- oh show us the way to the next whisky bar!" & "what kind of times are these when talking about trees is almost a crime because it avoids speaking about so many brutalities?" & much more on what Sartre called "the insurmountable horizon of communism" happy bd, bb, Pierre -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 07:40:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: INDIVIDUAL-UNREAL In-Reply-To: <6A57AF65024@english.as.ua.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks Lisa Samuels and Louis Cabri for excellent posts on Ms. (Riding) Jackson. I have some thoughts on the matter: A couple of questions for Louis. One) When you (LOuis) write: "to me (Lisa) you have recuperated what Riding's words worked for when they worked for poetry" I detect the deployment of an assumption (too common) I think needs to be challenged: that Riding Jackson RENOUNCED poetry. She may have renounced "poetry as such" (but in terms of RATIONAL MEANING, only insofar as poetry is a "name" and not a "word."). Perhaps, "working for poetry" is the problem and maybe one could understand Riding as asking: "ask not what words can do for poetry but what poetry can do for words" (sorry about the Lee Harvey Oswald quality here)-- The way I see it, her later (post-poetry) writing, like THE TELLING (or "Engaging The Impossible", which in light of Ms. Samuel's remarks is especially worth considering--or even the Preface to the Selected Poems) can be seen as "working for poetry" or, MORE IMPORTANTLY, working AS poetry (if one is willing to consider a poetry not in the narrow "new critical" sense, or even perhaps the narrow 1998 sense), and Riding, even as (Riding) Jackson, seems to me to be more interested in critiquing the generic CRUTCH of poetry rather than poetry itself. It is the extreme endeavour of "space clearing" for the possibility of the "individual unreal" that I find almost everywhere in her work, the shucking off of the "baggage" of the "individual real" (which may be seen as the "expressive" self....). Two) 2). Louis, how does the word "unreal" "do and say more than its cultural grammar at the time can support?" What "cultural grammar" do you feel is necessary to support her terminology or matrix? Does such technology, lacking in 1928, exist now? And, if so, for whom (and how do you know?) By the way, I don't think she's posing a simple "oppositional matrix" (real vs. unreal), because it is complicated by the combination of another simple oppositional matrix (collective vs. individual), and one may notice that the "fourth term" (like the "fourth wall" of "theatre") is conspiciously absent (i.e. Ms. Samuels makes no mention of the possibility of a "collective unreal"---perhaps because, for Riding, the "individual unreal" IS one with "the collective unreal"). Well, I would be curious to see if anybody wants to continue this. (I also like Lisa's connection with O'Hara and LC's connection with whitman...) Chris Stroffolino On Sun, 8 Feb 1998, Lisa Samuels wrote: > in response to louis cabri, sat 7 feb, on > individualism vs. singularity. > > in her 1928 book, =Anarchism Is Not Enough=, laura riding > distinguishes among the "collective-real" (people in groups), the > "individual-real," (a person in relation to reality, to the "real" > world of nature, broadly considered), and the "individual-unreal." > this last sounds akin to what you are calling "singularity." for > riding, the realm of the individual-unreal was The One worth living > for and in. and in writing poetry one accessed this realm and > "discharged pieces of self" as she put it. not =one=self, "but > self." in this unreal singularity one was truest to the self and to > poetry. and effectively truest to other people as well. promoting > what you call the hardwon. in participating in the institution of > publishing (though never in academia), riding wanted people to =try= > to live that individual-unreal even as she knew it was impossible. > and the only thing worth trying, while always keeping in mind its > impossiblity. > what you wrote reminded me of her, hence the comment on > =anarchism=. in either case the issue is maintaining one's deliberate > ideals within necessary participation in the world. oneself as social > construction is the "individual-real"; oneself as experientially > incommensurable is the "individual-unreal," your "singularity." > we can and do have both. at least this is my deliberate belief. > and despite all those serious sentences, it's a belief that makes > me delirious as o'hara: > "YIPPEE!! I'm glad I'm alive!! > I'm glad you're alive too, baby, because I want to fuck you" > ("ode to michael goldberg ('s birth and other births)") > > yippee! > lisa samuels > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 07:45:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: bb's bd In-Reply-To: <34E039F5.4DC149B1@cnsunix.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Happy Birthday, Bertolt! Does anybody know where one can find his specific mention of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, by the way, in his writing on theatre? 2) and, if you haven't already, read his SONG OF THE CUT_PRICED POET (for the first third of the twentieth century when poetry was no longer paid for). this is your assignment (and maybe next year I'll be able to use the german word for alienation effect in an essay without always having to look it up). Chris On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Pierre Joris wrote: > Today one hundred years ago Bertolt Brecht was born -- >=20 > "-- oh show us the way to the next whisky bar!" >=20 > & >=20 > "what kind of times are these when > talking about trees is almost a crime > because it avoids speaking about so many brutalities?" >=20 > & much more on what Sartre called "the insurmountable horizon of > communism" >=20 > happy bd, bb, >=20 > Pierre > -- > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D > pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 > tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu > http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------= -- >=20 > "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to > a single vice is that we have several of them." > =97 La Rochefoucauld > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:03:54 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: colding & heating In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:10:48 -0500 from On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:10:48 -0500 Louis Cabri said: > >What is the lineage of the "individual-unreal"? > >What if it were Whitman! Not "precipitant of the American >character," as the standard critical reading has it, but he who >differentiates between individualism, which "isolates," and >"personalism," which "fuses, ties, and aggregates . . . >fraternizing all" (_Democractic Vistas_). "Personalism" thus >is not identical to personal expression. > >I've found numerous historical resonance for this word, but >Whitman's usage, it seems, is distinct. > >Anyone who can help me would be very welcome. You might also look at Whitman's singular use of the word "disintegrated" in Song of Myself. It means, I think, "given an identity" (in the cosmos) by being "de-integrated" - separated, precipitated-out, of the whole. I think Whitmans's style is based on a balance between the particular, the individual, and the whole - the balance gives it that "anonymous" character which is one sign of real poetry... - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:17:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hen Subject: Re: Surf music In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 9 Feb 1998 18:28:47 -0500 from On Mon, 9 Feb 1998 18:28:47 -0500 William Burmeister Prod said: >Although your world wonders me >With your majestic superior cackling hen >Your people I do not understand >So to you I wish to put an end >And you'll never hear surf music again > >-Jimi Hendrix, "Third stone from the sun" > Is this Hendrix coming back to say goodby to the Beach Boys? And so castles made of sand drift into the sea eventually... (surf music...) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:25:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: colding & heating In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henry, is it balance? or ambivalence? (tension)? "these are not the me myself"--- a tension between the "self" which is REALLY an impersonal force (and the mistaking of this "impersonal force" for the "person" Walt Whitman may be why some call him megalomaniac) and the more brooding self that champions what Wordsworth would call obstinate questionings but is generally sad, desperate and pathetic (though these are not necessarily pejorative terms). Such is this dialectic, this unresolvable tension... -------- Since I've gotten into this 19th century groove (the class I'm teaching soon [adjunct salary toothless benefits]), I want to ask CAN ANYBODY SUGGEST A GOOD TRANSLATION EDITION OF GIACOMO LEOPARDI? I can't believe I haven't really read him before.... he seemed more fashionable in the 1920s in the USA than in any time since. Any help would be appreciated. CHris On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Henry Gould wrote: > On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:10:48 -0500 Louis Cabri said: > > > >What is the lineage of the "individual-unreal"? > > > >What if it were Whitman! Not "precipitant of the American > >character," as the standard critical reading has it, but he who > >differentiates between individualism, which "isolates," and > >"personalism," which "fuses, ties, and aggregates . . . > >fraternizing all" (_Democractic Vistas_). "Personalism" thus > >is not identical to personal expression. > > > >I've found numerous historical resonance for this word, but > >Whitman's usage, it seems, is distinct. > > > >Anyone who can help me would be very welcome. > > You might also look at Whitman's singular use of the word "disintegrated" > in Song of Myself. It means, I think, "given an identity" (in the cosmos) > by being "de-integrated" - separated, precipitated-out, of the whole. > I think Whitmans's style is based on a balance between the particular, > the individual, and the whole - the balance gives it that "anonymous" character > which is one sign of real poetry... - Henry G. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:20:24 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hen Subject: Re: law & love In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:50:29 -0500 from On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:50:29 -0500 David Israel said: >Quoth the good Dr. Gould -- > ><< . . . Law and love are an insecapable mutuality. The law for workers in >poetry is WHAT'S ON THE PAGE. >> > >once it was the splotch on page >once it was the note in air >that seems now a distant age > >bird don't always live in cage >glance ain't ever lost in stare >once it was the splotch on page [I heard the trees talking in the forest about poetry]: Time now for the trees to shroud the earth with their dark branches, time when the wind dies down and over the still mirror a faded voice is whispering. Time again to climb into the old music box in the forest, and wind the iron spring: it is letter by letter, line by line. - ol' Hen Gould [ca. whenever] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 13:29:01 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sean bonney Subject: Poetry is not a subculture MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII re Henry Gould's posting on 5th Feb re the task of crit, particularly the upper case rant ending POETRY IS NOT A SUBCULTURE Firstly, whats so bad about being a subculture when the dominant one is so banal, and in that banality so brutal (check the current shituation viz Clinton & the UKs own glorious ambassador of idiocy Blair) Anyway, Henry's notes got me thinking about the marginal position we often find ourselves in. It should be clear to everybody that the way poetry is taught in school puts most people off - these people aren't just 'outside' poetry, a lot of them actively dislike it - seen as elitist and irrelevent, the residue of a best forgotten culture that existed pre-MTV etc, containing no joy fun or pleasure, which are surely among the main reasons that we all got involved in the first place. Result is, post-school a lot of people are disinclined to go to poetry because it carries too many school-time horror memories. Here in Britain you find undergraduates who still define a poem as something that rhymes. Fine, forget em, we're not in the business of mass markets anyway, and maybe elitism isn't that bad after all, if the alternative is such spectacles as the massed ranks of the Tory Party singing Blake's lyrics as emblems of bigotry, capital etc - all the stuff that Blake loathed. It seems to me that people see poetry as a joke because they don't know what it is; the most pleasure I've got from my own readings is folks coming up afterwards saying they usually hate poetry but loved mine (make of that what you will!). A lot of people are THREATENED by the perceived difficulties etc, and react accordingly. It isn't a case of us learned poets against the philistine world; its just that much of what we say only has interest to each other, hence a discussion group like this. Example: photographs of deep space engage me more than anything else, but if someone in the pub starts talking about the finer points of astro-physics my eyes glaze over. Lets not forget that this is always the position that poets have been in. Blake and Shelley were small press activists. Its just now perhaps the situation is more complicated - self consciousness produced by media etc etc. Sometimes in the info-babble that we're all a part of it seems the only possible option is an ironic silence (Rimbaud pissing in the shadows) - but even thats useless, stand there silently and no-one will notice, you'll just end up getting run over by a truck. ---------------------- el0p71e9@liverpool.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 13:31:51 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sean bonney Subject: Missing persons MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Can anybody give me some info on Claude Pelieu. I know that he published a couple of things with Beach Books in the 60s, and was associated with Burroughs. Anybody know anything since then? Is he still active? Is he still alive? ---------------------- el0p71e9@liverpool.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:47:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Broaden yr horizons MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I seldom stray off poetix here, and when I do it's for the sake of politix. But country blues is a major passion of mine, so in the wake of several mentions of Robert Johnson, let me just drop this... Possibly 5,000 tracks of interest were recorded between 1927 and 1940, that could be called country blues or closely-allied urban blues, such as boogie piano and piano-based blues vocals. The extent to which Johnson is the only artist people've heard of, is frightening. A whole lot of this stuff is available on reissues. Just to name the darker more brooding types, who'd appeal to Johnsonites, check out most anything by: Barbacue Bob Blind Willie McTell Charlie Lincoln (typically chauvinist, I start with Atlanta artists) Peg Leg Howell Charley Patton Tommy Johnson Bukka White Memphis Minnie Peetie Wheatstraw Sleepy John Estes Son House Henry Thomas Blind Lemon Jefferson This list suggests a couple of things, of course: country blues was dominated by men, women having strongly dominated the jazz/vaudeville-related "composed" blues of 1919-1929, typified by Bessie Smith and producer/bandleader/composers like Handy. (Much beyond Smith is worth listening to in that genre also, by the way) Nonetheless, Memphis Minnie, with hundreds of 78s to her name, was a truly dominant figure, the most imaginative of blues songwriters and famous for the brilliance of her guitar work. (Her three successive husbands were all major blues singer/guitarists, and were always her prime collaborators in person and on record; but it was always quite clear that she was the prime artist.) Second, this list mostly excludes trends outside the "deep blues".. Such as East Coast and much of Texas and Memphis and "Bluebird beat" and jug bands. Most of those trends are more uptempo and "good-timey" and that puts off some blues fans I know. But in my opinion they represent some of the best pop music ever produced in the US or anywhere else, with formal range and fascinating lyrics replacing pure somberness. Not to mention *energy* (Peter Guralnick writes accurately that the great jug bands were "the rock and roll bands of their time," and the parallel is quite exact for conveying the kind of rush they provide.) Third, how can a poet resist a genre where making up your nom du disque was itself to compose a sort of mini-poem?? (see list above) (There were lots more women in country blues besides Minnie, by the way, but unfortunately most only had one or two 78s released, and so you need to seek 'em out on various muti-artist compilations.) Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:01:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Missing persons MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Claude Pélieu & Mary Beach are well and alive in upstate New york (well, Claude is a bit the worse for the wear; Mary, closing in on eighty is doing wonderfully -- making collages every day -- both are in fact the last great collage-artists of the age). Claude has done mainly visual work in the last few years (many hundreds of collages, even though arthritis in the hands is making the scissor work difficult), though there is also a fair amount of writing writing: I am editing a Selected Pelieu right now. A number of small press books have come out in France these last 10 years. Obviously, last year's disappearance of AG & WSB hit them hard. Pierre sean bonney wrote: > Can anybody give me some info on Claude Pelieu. I know that > he published a couple of things with Beach Books in the > 60s, and was associated with Burroughs. > > Anybody know anything since then? Is he still active? Is he > still alive? > > ---------------------- > el0p71e9@liverpool.ac.uk -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:57:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: A recently discovered poem by Mme Breton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My husband with the ingrown toenail of a scorpion. My husband with the superego of a protestant preacher, with the ego of an Argentine city, with the id of a Paris Brothel. My husband with the homophobia of a scared rabbit. My husband with the necktie of a surrealist. My husband with suspenders of Derridean deconstruction. My husband with eyebrows of caviar and earwax of votive candles. My husband with armpits of Lithuanian landfills. My husband with the sexual politics of a Trotskyite baboon circa 1938. My husband with the sexual politics of a poet. My husband with the sexual politics of a Mormon polygamist. My husband My husband My husband forgive the lameness of this effort. Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:01:34 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: john kinsella Would someone please back-channel a current e-mail address for John Kinsella? I've tried sending to jvk@hermes.cam.ac.uk and the message gets bounced back.... Thanks. Hank Lazer hlazer@as.ua.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:23:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: 44 Freud Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii 44 was the uniform number chosen by Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey and Reggie Jackson (the latter two in homage to the first), none of whom ever played in Japan a la Cecil Fielder, Don Blasingame or other US baseball players trying to stretch out or pump up stalled careers (fewer players have followed the path of Warren Spahn and George Brunet (who pitched until he was nearly 50) by going to Mexico instead). I forget what Spahnie's number was, although I did see him pitch once as an SF Giant (this was before Mexico) in addition to many times in a Milwaukee uniform. Still, my favorite post-US-major league event remains Louis Tiant's stint in the short-lived Senior Baseball League where he was traded from one team in Florida to another in return for 500 stuffed teddy bears. I have too many friends who are Freudian analysts to treat as casually as I've seen here, although its problematics could take a generation of careers to fully explore. One thing that the Freudians did which has had a huge impact in the US was to keep certification away from the university system as such (Dale Smith would approve) by setting up their own institutes. One thing this did was guarantee that there was no professor on campus who was ever the "official" Freudian in the psych department, which in turn meant that anybody in any department could volunteer for that social role, including, back when I was a student at UC Berkeley, Freddy Crews, a shallow opportunist who was widely regarded as in the sweepstakes for most boring professor in the department (Mark Schorer and Tom Parkinson competed as well and I always thought that Schorer won out simply because he'd had a 20 year head start on Crews and 10 on Parkinson) -- Crews used to teach a literature and ideology course that was a tribute to predictability and certainly never thought to try reading "unideological" texts in those terms. Anyhow, Freudianism as an ism became both a free floating signifier of the worst sort on every campus AND has become, as a formal system among professional analysts who are painfully aware of their outsiderness to the university system, fairly defensive. It's a system in which trying to think clearly or even halfway intelligibly about Freud's limits (as well as strengths) is all but impossible, though I am sure that there are careers to be made in the trying. Rethinking Marx is not dissimilar as a project beset with problems at the moment, as in The Work of Art in the Age of Hypertext etc. But I think the real lesson to be drawn from the Freudian adventure in the US has been what it's revealed about how universities function when a major trend in social analysis (and you never had to agree with any of Freud to see it was at least that) is set loose under those special terms. That's why I think it's so important that we stress, over and over, that the legitimation of poetry is something that occurs OFF campus, typically in the major urban areas but inevitably not in the MFA programs or the various anglophile critical programs (the latter these days falling all over themselves to tell us just how fab fab fabulous the new Ted Hughes' collection of necromancy is). Louis, thanks for the exact details re the Archives and the list -- I think that tends to point out the nature of the discourse here rather well. As I've said before, if there are 500 folks "subscribed" and a max of 50 messages possible per day, people should think very hard before posting more than one. Ron (still has pneumonia after 46 days) Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:42:03 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Organization: University of Alabama English Dept. Subject: Re: INDIVIDUAL-UNREAL MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT dear chris & louis, yes, it's right to set aside the notion of an oppositional matrix, or at least binary, between "real" and "unreal". i'd say riding wants "collective-real" and "individual-real" to tango or tangle together so that "individual-unreal" can have the rest of the thought space. she performed a similar operation with "become" and "becoming", setting them alongside or opposite each other so that they could struggle publicly while the more important fact of "UNBECOMING" might be what individual-unreal selves were striving toward. while i have not seen an exact predecessor for "individual-unreal", louis, such terms were being used by an assortment of such odd contemporaries as wyndham lewis, in the context of coming up with vocabularies to fight "the historical sense" and the individual in the queue of tradition, etc. riding explicitly addresses (& disapproves of) lewis, still caught in the "real" according to her. i think your formulation of asking what poetry can do for words is a good one, chris -- and what it can do for humans, of course, too, in their efforts to be perfectly understood for and by one another. looking straight into the eye of the impossible. odd that she always reminds me of kathy acker's way of putting it, given how riding would disapprove of this: "the demand for an adequate mode of expression is senseless." nothing is enough. lisa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:22:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Re: spraying the communities Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Pierre Joris should post the page of his intro to Blanchot's book on community if only because it is one of the best lessons in translation there is. Scott Pound ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:48:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grotjohn Organization: Mary Baldwin College Subject: Re: 44 Freud MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote: > > 44 was the uniform number chosen by Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey and Reggie > Jackson (the latter two in homage to the first), none of whom ever played in > Japan And they are still alive. Being baseball immortals, I suppose they will ever die. At least their numbers won't. While in this non sequitorial realm--here is my favorite baseball poem: Gertrude Stein on the designated hitter (I don't think she likes it, but I am not sure) and other baseball stuff (Stanzas in Meditation, #IX) How nine Nine is not mine Mine is not nine Ten is not nine Mine is not ten Nor when Nor which one then Can be not then Not only mine for ten But any ten for which one then I am not nine Can be mine Mine one at a time Not one from nine Nor eight at one time For which they can be mine. Mine is one time As much as they know they like I like it too to be one of one two One two or one or two One and one One mine Not one mine As so they ask me what I do Can they but if they too One is mine too Which is one for you Can they be like me I like it for which they can Not pay but say She is not mine with not But will they rather Oh yes not rather not In won in mine in three In one two three All out but me. I find I like what I have Very much. -- Bob Grotjohn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:02:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Missing persons In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Isn't pierre joris's cat named after Pelieu? chris On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, sean bonney wrote: > Can anybody give me some info on Claude Pelieu. I know that > he published a couple of things with Beach Books in the > 60s, and was associated with Burroughs. > > Anybody know anything since then? Is he still active? Is he > still alive? > > ---------------------- > el0p71e9@liverpool.ac.uk > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:18:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: ocratic meditation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As per Ron, I have thought hard, and am posting my second message of the day.... I strongly recommend -ocracy: parts 1-4 by Peter Ganick and Sheila Murphy (Norman OK : Texture Press, 1997). This has been my favorite rush-hour reading for the past few days. Its swoop and verve and pointed changes of image-center keep me rivited, and make bus-commuting fade into the background. It'll be too paratactic for some of our commonsensepods; but this is really fine writing and fun writing. It's verse, which mutates its grain and tempo between sections; kinda like the traditional approach to different tempi between movements of a classical piece. (..but not as drear and plodding in execution as the sleepy Possum) The center shifts relentlessly like Ron himself; but less social surface and more of the roil and smoke underlying awareness, the tumult of how awareness clashes with our violently disunified culture. Not enuff center?? Imitative form notwithstanding, scattershot effect (scattershot intention?) would be the main fault in the piece. It sounds great read aloud and is pretty funny too. Barbara Hocker's minimalist cover art is appropriate and amusing as well..... Mark P. @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:58:58 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "p. durgin" Subject: Re: Broaden yr horizons Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On country blues, American folk music, the best place to begin, I think, is with "Before the Blues" vol.s I - III, on the yazoo label. I happen to work in a c.d. shop which specializes in these genres, so let me know if I can help. Also, "American Primitive" on the Reverent label. That is, raw gospel 78's. Patrick F. Durgin ` ` ` ` ----->*<----- ` K E N N I N G| ` anewsletterof| ` poetry&poetic| ` s418BrownSt.#| ` 10IowaCityIA5| ` 2245USA\/\/\/| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:26:43 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: O List-Master Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I suppose the term "listserv" might convey some sense of mastery, but . . . a bit of "creative" appropriation might have been considerably more interesting -- but, call me old fashioned and orthodox, I am of the opinion that reprinting people's email posts with no notification fits poorly with the pose adopted ("how firmly fastened are your walls" etc.) -- Isn't this the same person who criticized people for speaking of Tom Clark outside his presence???? No, forgive us, Oh Dale, for having thought to converse with you openly and, we thought, honestly. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:21:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Broaden yr horizons Comments: To: "p. durgin" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, no this isn't that necessary "a place to begin.." You can really begin anywhere, depending on what type of blues you lean toward...It is not a genre that needs a detailed introduction However, Yazoo is the premiere label for reissues. For completeness, there are now dozens of specialty labels, many of 'em excellent, like Blues Classics, Document etc. These can't be found in many stores. The best way to find out about them is to get on the mailing list of an outfit called Roots & Rhythms (details on demand); unless of course you live in Boston, then you can mosey over to Cheapo Records in Central Square, like generations before you. You can also use a local bookstore or library to read the detailed essay/notations in the Blackwell Guide to Blues Records; I have the first edition, edited by the dean of blues scholars, Paul Oliver. A brand new 2nd edition is just out and I can't vouch for it as I haven't seen it, but it's probably just as solid. On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, p. durgin wrote: > > On country blues, American folk music, the best place to begin, I > think, is with "Before the Blues" vol.s I - III, on the yazoo label. I > happen to work in a c.d. shop which specializes in these genres, so let me > know if I can help. Also, "American Primitive" on the Reverent label. > That is, raw gospel 78's. > Patrick F. Durgin > > ` > ` > ` > ` ----->*<----- > ` K E N N I N G| > ` anewsletterof| > ` poetry&poetic| > ` s418BrownSt.#| > ` 10IowaCityIA5| > ` 2245USA\/\/\/| > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 13:01:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: Broaden yr horizons Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" can we get address or other info on Reverent records,,, that collection of gospel 78s sounds like something I'd like to get my hads on ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:35:19 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Re: O List-Master Well, I did seek forgiveness... But the difference is that I said nothing in my magazine against anyone. All dialogue comes from each person's own mouth. My editorial concern was to represent a single thread that took place re the editorial practice of Mike and Dale's. As I stated in my intro I wanted to broaden the audience for this extremely lively group of exchanges. By the way, my new email account doesn't give individual names with each post. I only know for sure who is writing when the post is signed. But I have a feeling, due to his brilliant ability to sniff out thin contradictions and to gauge levels of honesty, that I am replying to Aldon Nielson. Well, I'm glad you're interested in the magazine. If you, David Bromige, Susan Schul tz, Hugh Steinberg, Simon Schuchat, Maria Damon, Robert Drake, Mark Weiss, Sylvester Pollet and Eliza McGrand will backchannel me with your addresses I'll be sure to send one off to you (send $5 and I'll put you on the list for #8!). *Honestly* it's a very interesting exchange. I've already sent copies to Dodie, Kevin and Juliana. Thanks for staying on me though to get these out to the others. Dale To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU I suppose the term "listserv" might convey some sense of mastery, but . . . a bit of "creative" appropriation might have been considerably more interesting -- but, call me old fashioned and orthodox, I am of the opinion that reprinting people's email posts with no notification fits poorly with the pose adopted ("how firmly fastened are your walls" etc.) -- Isn't this the same person who criticized people for speaking of Tom Clark outside his presence???? No, forgive us, Oh Dale, for having thought to converse with you openly and, we thought, honestly. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:14:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Wesley Vogel Subject: Re: Broaden yr horizons Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-02-10 15:54:00 EST, you write: << Roots & Rhythms (details on demand); >> Yes, I'd love those details!! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:27:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Private property MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The idea that Dale "pirated" material by printing e-mails in the feisty Mike and Dale's Younger Poets from a list discussion relating to _that same magazine and its editorial policy_ strikes me as a bit ridiculous. Obviously, if these had been private communications Dale would have needed permission to reprint, but anything that appears here is already freely available to millions and should just be thought of as in the public domain. Why not? If Dale did something wrong by doing what he did then so did Postmodern Culture when it reprinted posts of a rather "personal" nature from the discussion here after Allen Ginsberg's death. Some of my own words are in there and nobody contacted me-- should I consider calling the lawyers? Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:42:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Dan Davidson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" whoever was collecting Dan's work -- sorry I didn't get the message saved, with the names attached -- I have audio tape of Dan reading from the radio program I used to do -- Would be happy to dupe the tape for you if you'd like a copy -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 16:42:28 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: of the ridiculous and the sublime Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" any number of issues seem to have gotten mixed together oddly in Kent's post -- I'm headed back into the arms of El Nino, so only have time for a few quick takes -- 1) Did Postmodern culture in fact reprint entire posts from the list? I haven't seen that issue, so don't know. This has nothing to do with calling lawyers, but if they did, they should not have. What I did see was a review article in which some posts were quoted, but perhaps that was a different issue? Could you give me the number so I can try to see it at their site? 2) The POETICS list is available to "millions" only in the strictest sense, since the "millions" would either have to subscribe or hack into it -- 3) In either event, this has nothing to do, so far as I can see, with the question of whether or not somebody has the right to print pages of POETICS list discussion in their magazine with neither permission nor notice. The fact that some of the posts were about the magazine's editorial policy has nothing to do with it -- the fact that Kent writes a post here about the policy of Postmodern Culture in reprinting Poetics list posts would not authorize them to reprint his post -- and forgetting numbering -- as I've said here any number of times -- I assume that anything I post to the list MAY reappear somewhere else -- I assume this because of what I know of human nature, and because it has already happened in the past -- That does not mean that it is OK for anybody who wants to, at any time, in any place, to republish such posts -- Is it really that ridiculous to ask that somebody who plans to reprint posts from this list should at least notify the writers and provide copies? and let me make it clear, since I imagine most on the list haven't seen Dale's mag., this is not a personal complaint -- from what I saw in the copy that was shown to me briefly in SF there are few of my words in there -- but the episode has a bad smell to me -- The "list owner" has pretty much had a hands off policy towards what goes on here, and that's one of the things that has made the list what it is -- and I'm not asking that anybody be kicked out, or that anybody be told to shut up, or that anything official be done by anybody -- I AM asking that we respect one another enough to act in such a way that all will continue to feel that they can speak freely in this environment was going to get to the sublime, but I see my car floating away -- so I will float after it -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:50:47 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: colding & heating Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ou might want to look at Italo Calvi9no's _Six memos for the next millenium_ Perhaps, Leopardi is ready for a comeback. tom bell At 08:25 AM 2/10/98 -0500, louis stroffolino wrote: > Since I've gotten into this 19th century groove (the class I'm > teaching soon [adjunct salary toothless benefits]), I want to > ask CAN ANYBODY SUGGEST A GOOD TRANSLATION EDITION OF GIACOMO > LEOPARDI? I can't believe I haven't really read him before.... > he seemed more fashionable in the 1920s in the USA than in any > time since. Any help would be appreciated. CHris > >On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Henry Gould wrote: > >> On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:10:48 -0500 Louis Cabri said: >> > >> >What is the lineage of the "individual-unreal"? >> > >> >What if it were Whitman! Not "precipitant of the American >> >character," as the standard critical reading has it, but he who >> >differentiates between individualism, which "isolates," and >> >"personalism," which "fuses, ties, and aggregates . . . >> >fraternizing all" (_Democractic Vistas_). "Personalism" thus >> >is not identical to personal expression. >> > >> >I've found numerous historical resonance for this word, but >> >Whitman's usage, it seems, is distinct. >> > >> >Anyone who can help me would be very welcome. >> >> You might also look at Whitman's singular use of the word "disintegrated" >> in Song of Myself. It means, I think, "given an identity" (in the cosmos) >> by being "de-integrated" - separated, precipitated-out, of the whole. >> I think Whitmans's style is based on a balance between the particular, >> the individual, and the whole - the balance gives it that "anonymous" character >> which is one sign of real poetry... - Henry G. >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:50:50 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: 44 baseball poems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Spahn was 21. He aslo is in one of the most famous baseball poems, "Spahn and Sain, and two days rain." - although it might be forgotten now. If there is a run on Brave (Milw) numerology, what were the numbers of Burdette, Buhl. Crandell, Bruton,....? tom bell At 09:23 AM 2/10/98 -0600, rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote: >44 was the uniform number chosen by Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey and Reggie >Jackson (the latter two in homage to the first), none of whom ever played in >Japan a la Cecil Fielder, Don Blasingame or other US baseball players trying >to stretch out or pump up stalled careers (fewer players have followed the >path of Warren Spahn and George Brunet (who pitched until he was nearly 50) >by going to Mexico instead). I forget what Spahnie's number was, although I >did see him pitch once as an SF Giant (this was before Mexico) in addition >to many times in a Milwaukee uniform. Still, my favorite post-US-major >league event remains Louis Tiant's stint in the short-lived Senior Baseball >League where he was traded from one team in Florida to another in return for >500 stuffed teddy bears. > >I have too many friends who are Freudian analysts to treat as casually as >I've seen here, although its problematics could take a generation of careers >to fully explore. One thing that the Freudians did which has had a huge >impact in the US was to keep certification away from the university system >as such (Dale Smith would approve) by setting up their own institutes. One >thing this did was guarantee that there was no professor on campus who was >ever the "official" Freudian in the psych department, which in turn meant >that anybody in any department could volunteer for that social role, >including, back when I was a student at UC Berkeley, Freddy Crews, a shallow >opportunist who was widely regarded as in the sweepstakes for most boring >professor in the department (Mark Schorer and Tom Parkinson competed as well >and I always thought that Schorer won out simply because he'd had a 20 year >head start on Crews and 10 on Parkinson) -- Crews used to teach a literature >and ideology course that was a tribute to predictability and certainly never >thought to try reading "unideological" texts in those terms. Anyhow, >Freudianism as an ism became both a free floating signifier of the worst >sort on every campus AND has become, as a formal system among professional >analysts who are painfully aware of their outsiderness to the university >system, fairly defensive. It's a system in which trying to think clearly or >even halfway intelligibly about Freud's limits (as well as strengths) is all >but impossible, though I am sure that there are careers to be made in the >trying. Rethinking Marx is not dissimilar as a project beset with problems >at the moment, as in The Work of Art in the Age of Hypertext etc. > >But I think the real lesson to be drawn from the Freudian adventure in the >US has been what it's revealed about how universities function when a major >trend in social analysis (and you never had to agree with any of Freud to >see it was at least that) is set loose under those special terms. > >That's why I think it's so important that we stress, over and over, that the >legitimation of poetry is something that occurs OFF campus, typically in the >major urban areas but inevitably not in the MFA programs or the various >anglophile critical programs (the latter these days falling all over >themselves to tell us just how fab fab fabulous the new Ted Hughes' >collection of necromancy is). > >Louis, thanks for the exact details re the Archives and the list -- I think >that tends to point out the nature of the discourse here rather well. As >I've said before, if there are 500 folks "subscribed" and a max of 50 >messages possible per day, people should think very hard before posting more >than one. > >Ron (still has pneumonia after 46 days) Silliman > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:00:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: colding & heating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lisa & Chris, "ask not what words can do for poetry but what poetry can do for words"? Caesar is exactly the problem. Is it the problem with all the late Riding? I haven't read the just-published _Rational Meaning_ yet, so I'm going on, say, _The Telling_ when I think that it is. What is this imperial "word" of truth in 'late Riding'? It's not the same "word," for me, as when, in her earlier critical prose even, she uses "individual-real" & other terms (1928). It's not the genre status of her late writing, Chris, that is the issue for me but exactly this changed set toward the word. Lisa, I agree: she's going *beyond* oppositional matrices (that's what I meant, Chris) with some of those early words. These are the rational matrices in relation to which most terms establish their common value. I'm saying "individual-unreal" becomes virtually a neologism. It's beyond the usual understanding of "unreal" that is got from thinking of "real." She has an inadequate vocabulary at hand *but* it's not her fault - it's the cultural grammar of her time and she is impatiently pushing elements of it to their limits in order to attempt to exceed the given, outrageously inadequate meanings in circulation (anarchism is NOT enough, as Lisa says). To the extent that she goes "beyond," her prose is "poetic" -- but so what, really. I don't see what the word "poetic" adds or takes away to the event. But saying this is not asking "what poetry can do for words," which is a different trajectory on the word entirely. Maybe the fourth possibility ("collective-unreal"), insofar as it might have a negative spin for her (very likely, no?), is what she calls the "zeitgeist" in her long first essay in _Contemporaries & Snobs_. I'm interested in objectifying rules. That's not the same as ruling objectively. And it's definitely not subjectifying rules. I think when Riding goes metaphysical at the end there, in _The Telling_ in particular, she's subjectifying rules (despite all her objectivity) in order to rule objectively. Subjectifying rules - which leads back to singularity. I don't know about the *words* of a "philosophy," an "equipment for living," of the singular. I don't know if I like to work toward that way. I know I don't, in fact. Because Riding is substituting one "generic CRUTCH," as you put it, Chris, poetry, for another, philosophical prose. Trying to 'tie it all together' in discursive philosophical prose. Mistake! Poetry is not The Concept, but it can simulate it perfectly well, so why not do that? Nor do I think all poetry should be singular, as if it were an ideal *value* or condition beyond history (so I reject someone's [not you, Chris or Lisa] constant invocation -- in a Turtlewax Antique-Charm Polish & homsespun proverbial vernacular of the staid backwoodsman, whose profile's no problem if you're walking passed it by the log cabin display on the lawn outside the Howard Johnson's, but *month after month of living in the cabin* is like your screen freezing on Hokey Hill in a virtual world of Disney -- of a universal standard that you apparently find in all good poetry, viz: "the impersonal." The personal is really impersonal? Not my conclusion, anyway.) In fact I don't think you are saying this at all, Lisa - that rather it's a finding your way, whatever means, into the contingent historical present in all its absolute impossibility. "The demand for an adequate mode of expression is senseless." I can see, Lisa, how you mean that to refer to Riding. However, if that is read as Riding, then sense itself is not adequately undermined by being brought beyond its limit, as in her early work, because what's happened instead is that the limit - rationality - has become a site of semantic investment, & arbiter of the truthful word. That's how I feel about her later stuff. I want to read the dictionary book; hopefully will find time this summer. -louis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:46:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: Private property In-Reply-To: <570D446508C@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Obviously, if these had been private communications Dale >would have needed permission to reprint, but anything that appears >here is already freely available to millions and should just be >thought of as in the public domain. I don't think so, Kent. After all, many people post poems on this list, and I hardly think that means they are giving up their copyright. Quoting from posts on this list might fall under the "Fair Use" rules, but reproduction of a series of posts in their entirety certainly violates copyright. Because one chooses to publish in a venue that allows millions of folks to see one's work doesn't mean one gives up all right to choose *which* venue will publish one's work. (In your terms any author of a bestseller would lose the right to control reprints.) What it comes down to *should* be courtesy, even before we begin discussing the issue of legality. On another list, long ago, I heard that quite a bit of my writing had been lifted and reprinted in hard copy, by authors who never asked me if I minded my work being reproduced in journal form. (Joe surely remembers the "Alex" incident on the old Technoculture list.) I did not *like* the author of the piece that lifted my work, and I'd have denied him the opportunity to reprint my posts on those grounds. That's my right. I'm the author; I own the copyright, I get to say who publishes my stuff, outside of quotations extracted under Fair Use. >If Dale did something >wrong by doing what he did then so did Postmodern Culture when it >reprinted posts of a rather "personal" nature from the >discussion here after Allen Ginsberg's death. Some of my own words >are in there and nobody contacted me-- should I consider calling the >lawyers? Yes, PMC was wrong, too, if they didn't contact you first, though it's, of course, your choice to call a lawyer or to let it go. Just because a practice has become ubiquitous doesn't make it ethical. And I'm surprised that Dale is able to rationalize publishing those pieces simply because they talk about "his" journal. Hell, even if somebody writes a bad review of my book, I still don't own the rights to go around reproducing the review in my publications. This is a pretty cut-and-dried matter. There are lots of sites which discuss copyright in e-space, and I doubt one of them will say that what Dale did was okay, either ethically or legally, however justified he may feel. Kali ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:22:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: O List-Master Comments: cc: ecds@UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dale-- i ov course would appreciate seeing a copy of your magazine; if you've reprinted any of my posts to the list, even moreso... are those posts credited? in context? i wait w/ baited breadth... bob drake/burning press po box 585 lakewood oh 44107 >Well, I did seek forgiveness... But the difference is that I said nothing >in my magazine against anyone. All dialogue comes from each person's own >mouth. My editorial concern was to represent a single thread that took >place re the editorial practice of Mike and Dale's. As I stated in my intro >I wanted to broaden the audience for this extremely lively group of exchanges. > >By the way, my new email account doesn't give individual names with each >post. I only know for sure who is writing when the post is signed. But I >have a feeling, due to his brilliant ability to sniff out thin contradictions >and to gauge levels of honesty, that I am replying to Aldon Nielson. Well, >I'm glad you're interested in the magazine. If you, David Bromige, Susan Schul >tz, Hugh Steinberg, Simon Schuchat, Maria Damon, Robert Drake, Mark Weiss, >Sylvester Pollet and Eliza McGrand will backchannel me with your addresses >I'll be sure to send one off to you (send $5 and I'll put you on the list for >#8!). *Honestly* it's a very interesting exchange. I've already sent >copies to Dodie, Kevin and Juliana. Thanks for staying on me though to >get these out to the others. > >Dale > > > > > > > > > > > > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >I suppose the term "listserv" might convey some sense of mastery, but . . . > > >a bit of "creative" appropriation might have been considerably more >interesting -- but, call me old fashioned and orthodox, I am of the opinion >that reprinting people's email posts with no notification fits poorly with >the pose adopted ("how firmly fastened are your walls" etc.) -- Isn't this >the same person who criticized people for speaking of Tom Clark outside his >presence???? > >No, forgive us, Oh Dale, for having thought to converse with you openly >and, we thought, honestly. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:28:36 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: of the ridiculous and the sublime Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 04:42 PM 2/10/98 -0800, Aldon Nielsen wrote: about a post about publishing something without permission possibly If someone does something obnoxious, it isn't less obnoxious if legal, ethical, or whatever even though this seems to be the thing to do these days. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 18:34:49 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: of the ridiculous and the sublime In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980210164228.00a2bfdc@popmail.lmu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Aldon wrote: > >2) The POETICS list is available to "millions" only in the strictest sense, >since the "millions" would either have to subscribe or hack into it -- All posts made to the list are available to anyone with a Web browser right here: & have been for a very long time. Anyone can read it at any time regardless of the so-called closed status of the list. This is mentioned in the Welcome Message that's often posted to the list & that I'm sure we've all read before saving to our hard drives. Certainly (if we're to claim this is some kind of community) it makes sense for folks on the list to ask others if it's okay to quote them, but being outside of the academic world I don't know the protocol of the need to do so. Such need is less clear for those who stumble or otherwise come across the archives and search for information relevant to something they're writing about. For such purposes, the archive is just another resource out there. While it might be nice if they were to do so, I doubt that everyone who finds a useful quote in, say, your book Black Chant will ask your permission before adding it to their term paper or thesis. I've seen a few footnoted citations of posts to the list (Perloff on Yasusada, Altieri on BlaserCon), I imagine there've been others, the PMC article I guess being one of them. Since Dale's offered to provide copies for those whose words are reprinted, I think the problem's now the more abstract one of a realizing that every word written here is published on the Web. Good luck with your floating car. Bests, Herb Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:55:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Ahearn Subject: Re: ocratic meditation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sheila Murphy's 50 haibun over on William Slaughter's Mudlark site are pretty damned interesting, too. http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/ There, that's my one message for the day. (Thanks, Ron, for reminding us to use the aether wisely. And sorry about yr pnuemonia.) Joe Ahearn Rancho Loco Press Dallas At 12:18 PM 2/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >As per Ron, I have thought hard, and am posting my second message of the >day.... > >I strongly recommend -ocracy: parts 1-4 by Peter Ganick and Sheila Murphy >(Norman OK : Texture Press, 1997). > >This has been my favorite rush-hour reading for the past few days. Its >swoop and verve and pointed changes of image-center keep me rivited, and >make bus-commuting fade into the background. It'll be too paratactic for >some of our commonsensepods; but this is really fine writing and fun >writing. It's verse, which mutates its grain and tempo between sections; >kinda like the traditional approach to different tempi between movements >of a classical piece. (..but not as drear and plodding in execution as the >sleepy Possum) The center shifts relentlessly like Ron himself; but less >social surface and more of the roil and smoke underlying awareness, the >tumult of how awareness clashes with our violently disunified culture. >Not enuff center?? Imitative form notwithstanding, scattershot effect >(scattershot intention?) would be the main fault in the piece. > >It sounds great read aloud and is pretty funny too. Barbara Hocker's >minimalist cover art is appropriate and amusing as well..... > >Mark P. >@lanta > > Joe Ahearn _____________ joeah@mail.airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:25:12 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: colding & heating In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:00:36 -0500 from On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:00:36 -0500 Louis Cabri said: > >Nor do I think all poetry should be singular, as if it were an >ideal *value* or condition beyond history (so I reject >someone's [not you, Chris or Lisa] constant invocation -- in >a Turtlewax Antique-Charm Polish & homsespun proverbial >vernacular of the staid backwoodsman, whose profile's no >problem if you're walking passed it by the log cabin display >on the lawn outside the Howard Johnson's, but *month after >month of living in the cabin* is like your screen freezing on >Hokey Hill in a virtual world of Disney -- of a universal >standard that you apparently find in all good poetry, viz: >"the impersonal." The personal is really impersonal? Not my >conclusion, anyway.) In fact I don't think you are saying this >at all, Lisa - that rather it's a finding your way, whatever >means, into the contingent historical present in all its >absolute impossibility. Louis, could you clarify for us the argument of that "someone" you're planting satirical sides of shrubbery around? "Someone" argued once that the process of writing poetry sometimes involves individual effort - even an effort to excel, differentiate from the rest, find a unique voice, perhaps even beat the rest at their own game - which complicates the "group solidarity" so cherished by those who want to "make a difference", and needs to be taken into account when encountering poetry. "Someone" argued that some critics might see poetry as an art of words - words wrought to their most complicated - and that these critics might be able to "see" better if they are free from extra-literary allegiances, and write better if they share the poet's own drive for uniqueness. "Someone" argued once (in a much earlier thread) that great poetry exhibits an anonymous objective quality - the poet breaking through the shell of individuality, exceeding personal limits. Now you are saying this same "someone" was therefore arguing that poetry was a "value" beyond history? I think you're pinning "someone" with an argument they never made. But as long as you don't name that "someone", Louis, you can keep talking only to Lisa - and "someone" won't call you on it & disprove you. You may think a certain poetry club-du-jour is actually "changing history" by transvaluing literary values; you are welcome to your belief. "Someone" will wait to see what the indie-critics make of it - as poetry. - Henry Gould, the one & only "someone" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:39:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Daniel Davidson - Partial Bibliography MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, Joel, Nick, & others: Thanks everyone who backchanneled & Nick, for your post. Also, thanks to everyone who posted various Eastern-filtered readings of 44. I'll post an "official" call for work on Dan's life & art in the next couple of days. As per Joel's request, what follows is a list of some of Daniel Davidson's work. I'll start with _culture_, listing the books that make up that longpoem, in the sequence Dan had planned for them. Following that are lists of all published books and all works published in magazines through 1991. I've been sick for several days plus had to move from the Bronx to Manhattan, and then from Manhattan to Brooklyn, so what follows is by no means complete. It hopefully gives you a lot to look for until I've put together a more complete list, which I'll probably send to the EPC rather than posting (& post to say it's there.) (Joel: see, esp., his review of Collobert's _It Then_--I seem to remember you mentioning w/interest Collobert's work.) _culture_ "Product" "Bureaucrat, my love." "An Account" "Transit" "Image" "Desire" "Anomie" PUBLISHED BOOKS _Product_, e.g. press (1991) -- e-mail me for more info _Weather_, Score (1992) -- e-mail Crag Hill (orion@pullman.com) for more info _Image_, Zasterle (1993) _Absence Sensorium_, with Tom Mandel, Potes & Poets (1997) WORK PUBLISHED IN MAGAZINES (THROUGH 1991) 1984 Beatitude "The Months of Winter" "Gift" 1985 If "And the sun is falling" 1986 If "Stigmata of the Verb To Be" "Something" If "Negotiations" 1987 Alchemy "Incident" Ironwood 29 "Notes on a New Architecture" "Calculation to Zero" Athena Incognito "Stigmata of the Verb To Be" "Estimates" Transfer 53 "Small Journey" "Necessary Conditions" 1988 Athena Incognito "Pleasures of the Flesh" Ink 2 (SF) "Correspondence" "And the sun is falling" NRG 29 "Involvement" Transfer 54 "Divertimento" "In Via Nuova" 1989 Dead Fish "Dead Fish" Ink 3 (SF) "Negotiations" Polaritz Etzeztz "Negotiations" Polaritz Etzeztz from _Weather_ 1990 Central Park 17/18 from "Collected Works" Hole 2 from "Shine" O.ARS 5 from "Shine" Stifled Yawn 1 from "Product" Writing 25 from "Long Division" 1991 Aerial 5 from "Long Division" Review, "If There Is A Body, I Am It." _It Then_, by Danielle Collobert Anderson Valley "Ode to Corporate Bungholes" Advertiser Avec 4 from "Transit" Cyanosis 1 from "Image" Hambone 9 Review "Diversity, Reference and the Expanded Voice." _Lucid Interval as Integrated Music_, by Ed Roberson Lift 6 From _Weather_ Lift 7 From "Long Division" Talisman from "Transit" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:11:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: of the ridiculous and the sublime In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980210164228.00a2bfdc@popmail.lmu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Aldon: I agree with everything below. Dale's wrist has been properly slapped, and I assume that next time (if there is one) he will ask permission, which I also assume that most of those affected would have granted. That said, can we move on? At 04:42 PM 2/10/98 -0800, you wrote: >any number of issues seem to have gotten mixed together oddly in Kent's >post -- I'm headed back into the arms of El Nino, so only have time for a >few quick takes -- > >1) Did Postmodern culture in fact reprint entire posts from the list? I >haven't seen that issue, so don't know. This has nothing to do with >calling lawyers, but if they did, they should not have. What I did see was >a review article in which some posts were quoted, but perhaps that was a >different issue? Could you give me the number so I can try to see it at >their site? > >2) The POETICS list is available to "millions" only in the strictest sense, >since the "millions" would either have to subscribe or hack into it -- > >3) In either event, this has nothing to do, so far as I can see, with the >question of whether or not somebody has the right to print pages of POETICS >list discussion in their magazine with neither permission nor notice. The >fact that some of the posts were about the magazine's editorial policy has >nothing to do with it -- the fact that Kent writes a post here about the >policy of Postmodern Culture in reprinting Poetics list posts would not >authorize them to reprint his post -- > >and forgetting numbering -- > >as I've said here any number of times -- I assume that anything I post to >the list MAY reappear somewhere else -- I assume this because of what I >know of human nature, and because it has already happened in the past -- >That does not mean that it is OK for anybody who wants to, at any time, in >any place, to republish such posts -- > >Is it really that ridiculous to ask that somebody who plans to reprint >posts from this list should at least notify the writers and provide copies? > >and let me make it clear, since I imagine most on the list haven't seen >Dale's mag., this is not a personal complaint -- from what I saw in the >copy that was shown to me briefly in SF there are few of my words in there >-- but the episode has a bad smell to me -- The "list owner" has pretty >much had a hands off policy towards what goes on here, and that's one of >the things that has made the list what it is -- and I'm not asking that >anybody be kicked out, or that anybody be told to shut up, or that anything >official be done by anybody -- I AM asking that we respect one another >enough to act in such a way that all will continue to feel that they can >speak freely in this environment > >was going to get to the sublime, but I see my car floating away -- so I >will float after it -- > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:47:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: ocratic meditation Comments: cc: pog@listserv.arizona.edu In-Reply-To: <199802101756.KAA01003@polaris.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sheila-- is any of this up on a web site, maybe a teaser? or might it be put up?= sounds great. thanks Tenney At 12:18 PM 2/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >As per Ron, I have thought hard, and am posting my second message of the >day.... > >I strongly recommend -ocracy: parts 1-4 by Peter Ganick and Sheila Murphy >(Norman OK : Texture Press, 1997). > >This has been my favorite rush-hour reading for the past few days.=A0 Its >swoop and verve and pointed changes of image-center keep me rivited, and >make bus-commuting fade into the background.=A0 It'll be too paratactic for >some of our commonsensepods; but this is really fine writing and fun >writing.=A0 It's verse, which mutates its grain and tempo between sections; >kinda like the traditional approach to different tempi between movements >of a classical piece. (..but not as drear and plodding in execution as the >sleepy Possum) The center shifts relentlessly like Ron himself; but less >social surface and more of the roil and smoke underlying awareness, the >tumult of how awareness clashes with our violently disunified culture. >Not enuff center?? Imitative form notwithstanding, scattershot effect >(scattershot intention?) would be the main fault in the piece. > >It sounds great read aloud and is pretty funny too.=A0 Barbara Hocker's >minimalist cover art is appropriate and amusing as well..... > >Mark P. >@lanta > =20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:03:10 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: Kinsella - e-address Thanks one & all. I've received John Kinsella's correct e-mail address.... Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 22:25:56 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: in queue MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I dont have ron's email infront a me anymore, but Ive a different desire with this list, with spending time with the energetic presence different voices project outward here. so Im thanksful for a rush of henry spandrift blarnesian crackerbox collectibles, I relish it when there's a stepping forward to say what you gotta say. & I dont believe that the 50 a day limit is throttling any voice that wants to pump it up, as all messages go in queue, & theoretically we could get a very interesting poetics list timewarp going, if we were all now reading & responding to messages from 3 days or 3 weeks or 3 years ago, does it really matter.... miekal ron my lover here is battling pnemonia & you gotta get the chi going with lotsa of the chinese tonic roots, osha, garlic, & after you feel better, give it that much time more of rest, otherwise it dont go away... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 22:26:31 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: in queue MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I dont have ron's email infront a me anymore, but Ive a different desire with this list, with spending time with the energetic presence different voices project outward here. so Im thanksful for a rush of henry spandrift blarnesian crackerbox collectibles, I relish it when there's a stepping forward to say what you gotta say. & I dont believe that the 50 a day limit is throttling any voice that wants to pump it up, as all messages go in queue, & theoretically we could get a very interesting poetics list timewarp going, if we were all now reading & responding to messages from 3 days or 3 weeks or 3 years ago, does it really matter.... miekal ron my lover here is battling pnemonia & you gotta get the chi going with lotsa of the chinese tonic roots, osha, garlic, & after you feel better, give it that much time more of rest, otherwise it dont go away... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:27:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria, you've probably got this by now, but: "The Song of the Borderguard" was published in _A Book of Resemblances_ and appears again in _Selected Poems_, ed. Robert J. Bertholf(New York: New Directions, 1993), pages 22-3. I don't know if the page reference changes for the revised edition of the Selected. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ -----Original Message----- From: Maria Damon To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 2:37 PM Subject: query >i'm far from my library alas, and from good bookstores. can anyone quick >give me a citation for robt duncan's "song of the borderguard"? muchos >appreciados. --md > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:47:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Missing persons MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit louis stroffolino wrote: > Isn't pierre joris's cat named after Pelieu? chris > > Claude?-- No that was Dorn's horse's first name. -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:57:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: doings in LA Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" last Thursday at Loyola Marymount University an unexpectedly huge crowd turned out for a reading by Juan Felipe Herrera -- hit of the evening was a poem titled "Foodstuffs They never Told Us About" -- a poem whose origins were Herrera's long-term desire to use the word "foodstuffs" in a poem. Herrera read mostly from a new manuscript titled "Don't Worry, Baby." Random lines transcribed from the title poem: I worry about exotic birds learning too much English. I worry about the Governor's face muscles. I worry about the return of folk singers. I worry about people who use the word "folk." I worry about Spielburg's next ethnic movie. I worry about drive-by's low on gas. I worry about Beijing doing Elvis. I worry about Russian women becoming rednecks. I worry about poets who believe in publishing. I worry about the word "alien" becoming too familiar. I worry about the ass on the other side of the glass ceiling. I worry about performance art going into the poetry business. I worry about copycat do-gooders. I worry about insurance agents posing as poets. I worry about the complexion of beans. I worry about VFW halls that have Taco Thursdays. I worry about rappers entering a spelling bee. I worry about guys locked up so they can write. Herrera'a new book of prose, _Mayan Drifter_, is out from Temple University Press. next up here -- David Bromige and Michael Davidson. Will announce date and time in a few weeks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 17:17:32 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: "Indie Critics," Evans, Rod Smith, baloney-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > > Henry-- > > I think that by far the best "criticism" of a poem is a new poem-- > > As far as the Evans article--I don't think of it as "criticism" so much as > "elucidation"-- > > Perhaps the young/old thing is an old and oft-addressed problem--but it > doesn't mean that it doesn't need re-stating generation after generation-- > > And Evans states it beautifully--in beautiful language-- > > And clearly--in terms that I can understand-- > > I LOVE HIS ESSAY! > > And thank god for the mental blinders--otherwise I might be blinded by > your utter brilliance-- > > Yours, > Katy L. > > *** > > On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, henry gould wrote: > > > On Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:44 -0600 k. lederer said: > > >The implications for younger writers here are astonishing-- > > > > > >That perhaps "older" writers--even those of the avant-garde variety--may > > >also be unable to fully "see" (perceive is probably a better word) the > > >"new" in the younger generation's works-- > > > > > >Perhaps the "older" writers might claim that the young ones are "lazy," > > >"apathetic," etc. (sound familiar?), because they cannot "see" the work > > >that goes into simply "emerging"-- > > > > > >Evans doesn't make such arguments explicitly--but I think these analogies > > >are more than available (particularly in light of the postscript in which > > >he basically credits such writers as Brown, Jarnot, Moxley, Spahr, > > >Stroffolino, and Rothschild for, in some regards, freeing "the > > >avant-garde" from the aesthetic prison (not intentionally a prison, but an > > >effective one none the less) of Langpos. Breaking out of prison is hard > > >work! And usually happens when no one is looking. > > > > > >In other words, I think that this essay represents PRECISELY the > > >kind of criticism that "Rod Smith's Generation" might need-- > > > > Katy, I'm glad you got something out of that essay; he's a snazzy writer. > > But you don't need a dress-up of Hegel & Marx for the precisely OLD idea > > (I mean like, old since Greek & Roman times) that the old fogies won't > > be able to understand the youngsters. Maybe it's just that a card-carrying > > "youngster" is saying it for you (& insists on harping on the "generation" > > thing just so you don't forget)... My point was that such advocacy is only > > a beginning, if anything. > > > > I think you need to open the mental blinders. Critic does not necessarily > > = "mainstream establishment person out to judge us by outmoded standards > > of (baloney) taste". That is a cartoon of a critic. In my mind, critic > > = "somebody who loves poetry enough to dig into it backwards & forwards, > > past & present, and say something intelligent (if subjective) about the > > style, mindset, aims, effects, contradictions, connections, strengths, > > imitations, originalities, meaning, impact, development... etc of what > > s/he reads". I don't think of standards as a set of hoary rules; I think > > of standards as the feel of a good ear for syntax, sound, meaning, > > and complexity. Wouldn't you rather read some of this than various > > gang-approval ratings, blurbs, or tossed-off empty retchings which pass > > for "criticism?" THAT IS ALL I'M SAYING. > > > > > >*** > > >> ...I am speaking as a poet who has played > > >> by what I consider the rules for over 30 years. My rules are: do the > > >> poem. Send it to magazines & contests. Think about what you are doing - > > >> maybe write an essay about it. That's it. In my experience "doing > > >> the poem" has absorbed the energy. Maybe I am a fanatic, or a hedgehog > > >> in Isaiah Berlin's sense, or a totally introverted recluse. > > > > > >These rules seem to contradict each other, Henry. Sending to mags and > > >contests doesn't absorb any energy? Do introverts write lots of essays? > > >Send to contests? (Emily--) > > > > > All I meant was, MOST of my energy (like 98%) goes into DOING the poems > > (until I joined this list [sigh]). Does anybody know what I look like? > > Seen me gladhanding at conferences? Reading anyplace outside Providence? > > Published much? (these are rhetorical questions) Maybe it's because > > I only write haiku about buffalo - that could be it. I'm also not a prof, > > not a writing teacher, not a grad student, not a novelist, not a journalist, > > not a professional poet, not a performance artist; the only wannabee I am > > is wannabee out on the road again with my guitar - but then I really would > > have to be running from the law. Ask Jack about that. > > > > > > > >It seems to me that "taste, judgement, freedom, and artistic instinct" are > > >also forms of baloney. > > > > Yes, the word "taste" always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I like > > baloney better myself. But judgement, freedom, artistic instinct... > > there they go now, off to the next reality... all words become dust > > through repetition... anything can be turned into a joke... "the laughter > > of fools is like fire crackling under a pot" [Proverbs]. > > - Henry Gould > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 20:38:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthew Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: Private property Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just as a point of information: the material from Poetics that is reprinted in the PMC piece in question consists of a very brief posting from Charles Bernstein announcing Allen Ginsberg's illness, and then (about) six lines of the renga authored by various members of this list. Alhough I understand how one could argue that a principle is what's at stake in the juxtaposition with Dale Smith's actions, any real comparison between the two seems overstated to me. Matt ====================================================================== Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia mgk3k@virginia.edu or mattk@virginia.edu Department of English http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ The Blake Archive | IATH ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 02:05:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: set poetics nomail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm always reachable backchannel. Will be off for awhile, at least til end of April. I'll send, via another subscriber, info on upcoming PhillyTalks etc. Thanks many of you for exciting discussions; good luck weathering more of them! By "Polish" in my last post I only meant polish (i.e. for the Turtlewax). I regret the line "The Trees!" if Maria felt impinged. louis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 23:40:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Raworth & Flores at SPT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Small Press Traffic presents: Tom Raworth Paul Stojsavljevic Flores =46riday, February 13, 7:30 p.m. New College Theater 777 Valencia Street $5 In a dark crowded Rio club he approaches the microphone with superb assurance, the long slinky black gown by Jean-Louis hugging his every curve =2E . . a glorious mane of red-gold curls flows behind him, seductive even i= n Gilda=B9s black and white . . . while peeling off one long clingy opera glov= e he sings "Put the Blame on Mame" in a sultry croak . . . no . . . wait . . =2E that was *Rita Hayworth* . . . . This is *Tom Raworth,* the legendary UK poet, the dean of "English language writing," making his first appearance at Small Press Traffic. He's written forty books including a recent Selected Poems 1987-1995 Clean & Well Lit (Roof Books). He approaches the microphone with superb assurance. . . . Paul Stojsavljevic Flores was born in the doorway of a steel mill in Gary, Indiana, and now resides in the sourdough comb of San Francisco. He came to poetry through breakdancing and poprocking out of pepperspray webs fronting the courthouses of downtown San Diego. Shifting in and out of rumba candela tempos and uniting the here-to-never-before-seen with the vas-a-ver-lo-que-te-va-a-pasar, his poetry has appeared in Mirage #4/Period(ical) and 14 Hills. He is also the winner of the 1997 Bay Guardian Open Poetry Contest. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 00:25:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: 44 Freud In-Reply-To: <34E084D2.473D@cit.mbc.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sheila Watson, Canada's best ever fiction writer, died last week, age 88. She was bpNichol's favourite. He made it to 44, and as he was born in '44, died in '88. He never carried a smokeless revolver, or drove an Oldsmobile, though. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 00:32:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hugh Steinberg Subject: Re: colding & heating Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" louis stroffolino wrote: > >> Since I've gotten into this 19th century groove (the class I'm >> teaching soon [adjunct salary toothless benefits]), I want to >> ask CAN ANYBODY SUGGEST A GOOD TRANSLATION EDITION OF GIACOMO >> LEOPARDI? I can't believe I haven't really read him before.... >> he seemed more fashionable in the 1920s in the USA than in any >> time since. Any help would be appreciated. CHris W.S. DiPiero has done a pretty good translation of Leopardi's Pensieri. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 00:42:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: 44 baseball poems In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980210235050.00a39788@pop.usit.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think Spahn was 21. He aslo is in one of the most famous baseball >poems, "Spahn and Sain, and two days rain." - although it might be >forgotten now. It is a long way from forgotten. One reads an article that mentions it at least once a year. It is certainly more often mentioned than Greater than his brother Joe, Dominic Dimaggio. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 06:47:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Re: 44 Comments: To: d powell In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It's not a nonsense word at all. It's built-in and is "yon." "Yon" means four, just like "shi" does. I just haven't heard anything else - but then I'm in Fukuoka, in the south-west. Alan On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, d powell wrote: > Reply to: Re: 44 In Japanese, the word "shi" is both "four" > and "death" as well. Many superstitious Japanese replace "four" with a > nonsense word when giving addresses, phone numbers, etc. that contain a > four. > > Tea cups are sold in sets of five, and if one cup is broken, the whole > set is thrown out--at least, this is a custom that still is observed by > some Japanese. > > Doug > ===================================================== > D A Powell doug@redherring.com > ===================================================== > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 07:48:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: robert drake Subject: Re: ocratic meditation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" tenney, & all-- part 3 was published in potepoetzine one; available at the cybpheranthology: www.burninpress.org/va/vaintro.html luigi burningpress >Sheila-- > >is any of this up on a web site, maybe a teaser? or might it be put up? sounds >great. > >thanks > >Tenney > >At 12:18 PM 2/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >>As per Ron, I have thought hard, and am posting my second message of the >>day.... >> >>I strongly recommend -ocracy: parts 1-4 by Peter Ganick and Sheila Murphy >>(Norman OK : Texture Press, 1997). >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:02:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: spraying the communities MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Scott Pound wrote: > I think Pierre Joris should post the page of his intro to Blanchot's book > on community if only because it is one of the best lessons in translation > there is. > > Scott Pound Scott -- here's the page (or 2 re the tranlation of "désoeuvrement") -- Pierre: from : Preface to Maurice Blanchot’s THE UNAVOWABLE COMMUNITY (Station Hill Press 1988) .... The term that has caused the greatest problems [in translation] is without a doubt désoeuvrement, and its derivate, désoeuvrée, which appears in the title of Nancy's essay, but is very much a Blanchot word. The word has at its core the concept of the "oeuvre" (work, body of work, artistic work, etc.) and implies a range of meanings: idleness, a state of being without work, unoccu pied, etc. After various attempts of maintaining this semantic range (and considering keeping Lydia Davis' early rendering of the word as "worklessness"), I decided to use the term "the unworking" — first suggested to me by Christopher Fynsk. It is a key term in Blanchot's thinking and it would be useful here to quote certain relevant passages from both Blanchot and Nancy. The word appears in its common meaning of "idle, at loose ends, finding oneself with nothing to do, etc." in Blanchot's fiction as far back as the 1952 book Celui qui ne m'accompagnait pas ; but even here already the author playfully worries the word, making it yield a one-page medita tion on its meaning and excavating in the process the core-sème "oeuvre": Though I did not feel tired, I was disoriented and prodigiously idle (désoeuvré ); this idleness (désoeuvrement ) was also my task, it kept me busy: maybe it represented a lull (un temps mort ), a moment of giving up and of blacking out on the part of the watcher, a weakness that forced me to be myself all alone. But the empty chur ning I was caught in had to have another meaning, evoking hunger, evoking the need to wander, to go further, while asking "Why did I come in here? Am I looking for something?", though maybe I was not looking for anything and maybe further on was yet again the same as right here. That much I knew. To know was part of that solitude, cre ated that solitude, was at work (à l'oeuvre ) in that idleness (désoeuvrement ), closing off the exits. Out of idleness I asked him....." The full philosophical and literary complexity of the term is worked out later, most fully in the1969 essay, "The Absence of the Book" (cf. The Gaze of Orpheus , pp.145 -160) where Blanchot writes: To write is to produce absence of the work (worklessness) [désoeuvrement ]. Or: writing is the absence of the work as it produces itself through the work and throughout the work. Writing as worklessness (in the active sense of the word) is the insane game, the indeterminacy that lies between reason and unreason. What happens to the book during this "game", in which workless ness is set loose during the operation of writing? The book: the pas sage of an infinite movement, a movement that goes from writing as an operation to writing as worklessness; a passage that immediately impedes. Writing passes through the book, but the book is not that to which it is destined (its des tiny). Writing passes through the book, completing itself there even as it dis appears in the book; and yet, we do not write for the book. The book: a ruse by which writing goes to wards the absence of the book. It is exactly that little parenthesis, "(in the active sense of the word)," that is problematic in the translation of the term désoeuvrement with the passive worklessness. (There may be a radical cultural difference at work here: the puritan impulses of Anglo-American culture blocking the very possibility of a positive, active connotation to be attached to the notion of an absence of work?) All of Nancy's essay builds up to a point, two-thirds of the way through, where the word "désoeuvrée", announced in the title in relation to community, finally gets stated. It comes after a critique of the Cartesian im manentist subject, seen by Nancy as "the inverted figure of the experience of community": That is why the community cannot come within the province of the work [l'oeuvre]. One does not produce it, one experiences it as the ex perience of finitude (or: its experience makes us). The community as work, or the community through works, would presuppose that the common being, as such, is objectifiable and producible ( in places, per sons, edifices, discourses, institutions, symbols: in short, in subjects). The products of operations of that type, no matter how grandiose they want, and sometimes manage, to be, never have more communitarian existence than the plaster torsos of Marianne. The community takes place of necessity in what Blanchot has called the unworking [désoeuvrement ]. Before or beyond the work, it is that which withdraws from the work, that which no longer has to do with production, nor with completion, but which encounters interrup tion, fragmentation, suspension. The community is made of the inter ruption of the singularities, or of the suspension singular beingsare. It is not their work, and it does not have them as its works, not anymore than communication is a work, nor even an operation by singular beings: for it is simply their being - their being in suspension at its limit. Communication is the unworking of the social, economic, techni cal, in stitutional work . After its long incubation in Blanchot's fictions and essays, after Nancy's book and Blanchot's response to it, le désoeuvrement , "the un working" is clearly emerging as one of the most centrally active concepts of contemporary thought not only in relation to the work of writing, but also — as Nancy's last sentence makes clear — in relation to a wide array of other concerns. The necessary tentativeness in the translation of the term is, in a way, proof of the concept's very vitality, that is to say, its active complexity. 1 To be published shortly in a translation by Lydia Davis under the title "The One Who Was Standing Apart From Me" by Station Hill Press. The occurrence of désoeuvrement I am referring to can be found on page 70 of the French edition. Clearly, translating désoeuvrement with the literary/philosophical term "the unworking" would not work in this narra tive context. The translation here is mine. 2 Again, in French the word désoeuvrement as used in the last sentence implies an active sense the English word "worklessness" does not convey. Another Blanchot translator, Ann Smock, uses the word "uneventfulness" to translate désoeuvrement. In a footnote to her translation of L'Ecriture du Désastre, (University of Nebraska Press, 1986) she writes: "The uneventfulness of the neutral wherein the lines not traced retreat" is my elaboration upon Blanchot's expression "le désoeuvrement du neutre". Le dé soeuvrement is a word Blanchot has long used in close association with l'oeuvre (the work of art, of literature). It means the work as the work's lack ? the work as unmindful of being or not being, as neither present nor absent: neutral. It also means idleness, inertia. My word "uneventfulness" tries to express this idea of inaction, of nothing's happening, and my additional phrase "the lines not traced retreat," recalling an earlier expression in this book, "the retreat of what never has been treated", seeks to retain the relation which this fragment is evoking and which is, so to speak, spelled out in the word désoeuvrement: the relation between the work and its denial. Between writing and passivity, be tween being and not being a writer, being and not being the subject of the verb "to write." Although I would agree in the main with her understanding of the concept of désoeuvrement, I cannot comprehend why she feels it necessary to add at this point the phrase "the lines not traced retreat", which seems like a gross translator's inter ference with the Blanchot text. I can only suggest that she must have felt uneasy with her translation of désoeuvrement as "uneventfulness", and therefore wants to "explain" the term further. Clearly, "uneventfulness" does carry some of the meaning of the french word, though she loses the notion of the "oeuvre", the work. -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 07:57:21 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: colding & heating In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:25:12 EST from On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:25:12 EST Henry Gould said: > Now you are saying this same "someone" was therefore >arguing that poetry was a "value" beyond history? I think you're pinning >"someone" with an argument they never made. But as long as you don't >name that "someone", Louis, you can keep talking only to Lisa - >and "someone" won't call you on it & disprove you. You may think a certain >poetry club-du-jour is actually "changing history" by transvaluing >literary values; you are welcome to your belief. "Someone" will wait >to see what the indie-critics make of it - as poetry. Oh dear, now I've gone and driven Louis Cabri off the list. Add this to my list of crimes, Ron Silliman. I wanted to say to Louis that IF he's saying I argued poetry was "above" history, he's right, I did, and I'm wrong to deny it. I see I contradicted myself (above) yesterday & have had to rethink this. I don't think poetry's above history, I think that poetry is more expressive of the history it's in than "history" does or talking- historically-ABOUT-poetry does. For a long time, in the academy, theory had the upper hand over poetry itself. Scholars weren't that interested in the poems per se but in the material influences & historical conditions informing them. Steve Evans's "Change" essay maybe culminates & overturns this trend: he says, in effect, "history with regard to poetry is a sort of in-between, incipient-decadent, TIME OF WAITING in which only the agents themselves (the poets) have the vaguest notion what they are saying-doing (and even they feel conflicted & confused about this)"[MY paraphrase]. Rod Smith's title of his book IN MEMORY OF MY THEORIES is apropos here. We talk at cross purposes, we get into arguments, because we all have different things we want to talk about. I find the argument that "our poetry is above criticism because it's part of a historical trend that renders criticism obsolete" to be a specious way to justify anything - lack of talent, non-literary motivations, anything. A new artistic development will indeed overturn (temporarily) past "standards" - but criticism - via good indie-critics - has a way of gradually responding to change - on its own aesthetic terms. I'm not saying the process is perfect or even very sensible. But I will say that in the battle between theory and poetry, or poetry and talking-about-poetry (and there is such a battle) a recognition that poetry "makes its history" on its own terms (the terms of poetry) might be a way to see through a lot of promotional or purely academic "talk about". Do I want to silence "talk about"? Not at all. The academics & critics who "see" motives & meanings in poems - historical, political, etc. - are irreplaceable. But when it gets to the point that "someone" like me has to defend the mere existence of an "individual agent" in the process of making poems, then maybe "something" is missing in all the "talk-about". I hope Louis Cabri will rejoin this list. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 07:40:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: O List-Master In-Reply-To: <199802110222.VAA16239@csu-e.csuohio.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ditto, but my e address has changed and i realize folks aren't getting thru to me. the "maroon" has been dropped from the address, so i'm now damon001@tc.umn.edu bests, maria d ps in the future i'd like to be asked first, all ye who want to publicize this public list, thanks At 9:22 PM -0500 2/10/98, robert drake wrote: >dale-- > >i ov course would appreciate seeing a copy of your magazine; >if you've reprinted any of my posts to the list, even moreso... >are those posts credited? in context? i wait w/ baited breadth... > >bob drake/burning press >po box 585 >lakewood oh 44107 > >>Well, I did seek forgiveness... But the difference is that I said nothing >>in my magazine against anyone. All dialogue comes from each person's own >>mouth. My editorial concern was to represent a single thread that took >>place re the editorial practice of Mike and Dale's. As I stated in my intro >>I wanted to broaden the audience for this extremely lively group of >>exchanges. >> >>By the way, my new email account doesn't give individual names with each >>post. I only know for sure who is writing when the post is signed. But I >>have a feeling, due to his brilliant ability to sniff out thin contradictions >>and to gauge levels of honesty, that I am replying to Aldon Nielson. Well, >>I'm glad you're interested in the magazine. If you, David Bromige, Susan >>Schul >>tz, Hugh Steinberg, Simon Schuchat, Maria Damon, Robert Drake, Mark Weiss, >>Sylvester Pollet and Eliza McGrand will backchannel me with your addresses >>I'll be sure to send one off to you (send $5 and I'll put you on the list for >>#8!). *Honestly* it's a very interesting exchange. I've already sent >>copies to Dodie, Kevin and Juliana. Thanks for staying on me though to >>get these out to the others. >> >>Dale >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >> >>I suppose the term "listserv" might convey some sense of mastery, but . . . >> >> >>a bit of "creative" appropriation might have been considerably more >>interesting -- but, call me old fashioned and orthodox, I am of the opinion >>that reprinting people's email posts with no notification fits poorly with >>the pose adopted ("how firmly fastened are your walls" etc.) -- Isn't this >>the same person who criticized people for speaking of Tom Clark outside his >>presence???? >> >>No, forgive us, Oh Dale, for having thought to converse with you openly >>and, we thought, honestly. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:19:24 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Finnegan Subject: Re: leopardi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-02-11 04:45:29 EST, you write: << CAN ANYBODY SUGGEST A GOOD TRANSLATION EDITION OF GIACOMO >> LEOPARDI? >> Eamon Grennan translated a selection Leopardi's poems-- published last year by Princeton U. Press. Finnegan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:21:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Missing persons In-Reply-To: <34E0AED6.CBFE5C5C@cnsunix.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mais Pierre, it would seem completely appropriate to name any cat "Claude" (or D. Claude, if you support that practice), much as the shaven sheep from "Wallace and Gromit" is named "Shaun." > > Isn't pierre joris's cat named after Pelieu? chris > > > > > > Claude?-- No that was Dorn's horse's first name. > -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:21:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: in queue Comments: To: Miekal And MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain I concur. Henry's heteronymic prolixity was at least one reason the list has been so all-fired hot these past few weeks. Wasn't it just a month ago people were complaining about how dull it was? As for those who choose not to post, let them croak undisturbed in the swamp. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Miekal And To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: in queue Date: Tuesday, February 10, 1998 4:26PM I dont have ron's email infront a me anymore, but Ive a different desire with this list, with spending time with the energetic presence different voices project outward here. so Im thanksful for a rush of henry spandrift blarnesian crackerbox collectibles, I relish it when there's a stepping forward to say what you gotta say. & I dont believe that the 50 a day limit is throttling any voice that wants to pump it up, as all messages go in queue, & theoretically we could get a very interesting poetics list timewarp going, if we were all now reading & responding to messages from 3 days or 3 weeks or 3 years ago, does it really matter.... miekal ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:56:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Hale Subject: GANG OF FOUR Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" All this talk about the various associations of the word for the number 4 in East Asian languages has led me to ask (of any Chinese historians/linguists out there): was the name "Gang of Four" intended to mean something in addition to the four Chinese accused of various crimes and conspiracies against Mao during the Cultural Revolution? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:51:09 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Shemurph@AOL.COM Subject: Re: ocratic meditation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit RE: Tenney's Question about -ocracy (12-part collaboration by Peter Ganick and myself: Thanks for asking, Tenney! I'm looking forward to your reading in Tucson on the 18th at 8:00 p.m. (anyone on the list in the area, don't miss it!) While -ocracy is not on the net, it IS available in three separate chapbooks: parts 1 - 4 published by Texture Chapbook Series: 36 ISSN 1063-1895 3760 Cedar Ridge Drive Norman Oklahoma 73072 (1997) $6.00 parts 5 - 7 published by Runaway Spoon Press 1708 Hayworth Port Charlotte, FL 33952 Port Charlotte, FL $5.00 parts 8 - 9 - published by Nominative Press Collective PO Box 522402 Salt Lake City, Utah 84152-2402 $5.00 These are available through me, also, if you prefer. Sheila Murphy 3701 E. Monterosa #3 Phoenix, AZ 85018-4848 shemurph@aol.com ISBN 1-57141-050-3 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:24:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Why I'm not an experimental poet Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Reading Crayon's festschrift for Jackson Mac Low of late (a really great job in every department), I was intrigued at Mordecai Mac Low's discussion of his father's work as an instance of scientific methodology in process, since Mordecai is in particular position to know whereof he speaks on this topic. I still feel profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of the "experimental" tho, what with its sense that "this may not work" and the "trial and error" sense of process. But today I've discovered a deeper reason why I'm not an experimental poet. West Chester University's 4th annual summer writers conference (June 10-13) focuses this year on "Exploring Form & Narrative" and offers a workshop on "Experimental Forms" taught by...Dana Gioia. I'm not making this up. Some of the other sessions to be taught: Meter (Timothy Steele), Rhyme (Charles Martin), the Sonnet (RS Gwynn), French Forms (Phillis Levin) and Blank Verse (Alfred Corn). There is also an "Introduction to Form" taught by Cynthia Zarin who, as the brochure says, has work that "appears frequently in The New Yorker." There will also be a "celebration" of the Hudson Review (Louis Simpson, Daniel Hoffman, Frederick Morgan etc) and there's a call for critical papers on the poetry of Amy Clampitt, Literary Quarterlies, Translation and "individual authors or subjects relevant to the conference theme." More details including scholarship info at: www.wcupa.edu\_ACADEMICS\sch_cas\poetry\ Cost ranges between $250-499 for the whole shebang, which includes a picnic and dance. Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that one could get real value from some of the sessions (Marilyn Nelson is teaching a master class, for example), but the idea that this claustrophobic convocation on pattern represents the idea of "form" insults my intelligence as it should that of any poet born after Baudelaire and Blake. That it is being held at a state institution borders on theft of public resources. So that is why I am not an experimental poet. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:27:26 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: set poetics nomail In-Reply-To: <199802110705.CAA59532@dept.english.upenn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 2:05 AM -0500 2/11/98, Louis Cabri wrote: >I'm always reachable backchannel. Will be off for awhile, at least til end >of April. I'll send, via another subscriber, info on upcoming PhillyTalks >etc. > >Thanks many of you for exciting discussions; good luck weathering more >of them! > >By "Polish" in my last post I only meant polish (i.e. for the Turtlewax). >I regret the line "The Trees!" if Maria felt impinged. nah, that was pretty benign, i had it coming --md > > >louis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:27:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: query In-Reply-To: <01bd3649$23cd1fc0$49cc0398@DKellogg.Dukeedu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks david --how are you anyway these days? At 12:27 PM -0500 2/10/98, David Kellogg wrote: >Maria, you've probably got this by now, but: "The Song of the Borderguard" >was published in _A Book of Resemblances_ and appears again in _Selected >Poems_, ed. Robert J. Bertholf(New York: New Directions, 1993), pages 22-3. >I don't know if the page reference changes for the revised edition of the >Selected. > >Cheers, >David >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >David Kellogg Duke University >kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric >(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 >FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ >-----Original Message----- >From: Maria Damon >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 2:37 PM >Subject: query > > >>i'm far from my library alas, and from good bookstores. can anyone quick >>give me a citation for robt duncan's "song of the borderguard"? muchos >>appreciados. --md >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:16:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: 44, baseball, Foucault MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > >I think Spahn was 21. He aslo is in one of the most famous baseball > >poems, "Spahn and Sain, and two days rain." - although it might be > >forgotten now. > > It is a long way from forgotten. One reads an article that mentions it > at > least once a year. It is certainly more often mentioned than > > Greater than his brother Joe, > Dominic Dimaggio. > Nice, George! The first verse is not forgotten, true, but wasn't it "Spahn and Sain and PRAY for rain"? -- the reference being, of course, to the team having little chance to win without those two on the mound? Later bastardized by the California (it figures, right?) Angels with "Tanana and Ryan and then start cryin' ". Pitchers and catchers report this weekend . . . On another note, thanks to Katy Lederer for posting a section from Foucault's only truly valuable work for my poetics, _The Order of Things_ (but what do I know, I like Baudrillard too, even his little masterpiece of invective _Forget Foucault__). But I'd like to ask Katy (and anyone else who has ventured through the formidable prose of this work), what she thinks of the period he deals with BEFORE the dead-end of the 16th century, namely the pre-Renaissance system of order and meaning, when things were luminous and so were their signs? For me, John Dee and Ficino and Pico (see, in another context, Don Byrd's recent post about neo-Platonism) always existed as alternatives to late 20th-century semiotics -- even though my pal Duncan McNaughton lectured me lately that nothing was ever truly lost. So for me it's Giordano Bruno, si -- Derrida, no! Happy to be 44 years old until a couple of days ago . . . Joe Safdie > George Bowering. > , > 2499 West 37th Ave., > Vancouver, B.C., > Canada V6M 1P4 > > fax: 1-604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:07:19 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Manfred Obenzinger Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The bad-boy angel sometimes named Satan (the nephew of that other Satan) is called No. 44 in Mark Twain's "Mysterious Stranger" manuscripts. Perhaps Twain was on to something. In any case, once this number is exhausted the discussion can move on to 666. Hilton Obenzinger ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 13:57:38 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Franco Subject: mr gerrit lansing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dreamer of the purified fury and fabulous habit. The Word of Mouth reading series will present a special evening at Waterston's books [Newbury at Exeter St, Boston] GERRIT LANSING A 70th Birthday celebration Wed. Feb 25th 1998 7pm Free Reading by Gerrit Lansing and readings fromthe field of his work by Joseph Torra, William Corbett, Raffael de Gruttula, Ange Mlinko, Michael Franco, Isabel Pinto Franco, Thorpe Feidt, Elie Yarden, Christopher Sawyer Laucanno, Patricia Pruitt, and other "special guests" Any one on the list wishing to send greetings to Gerrit can do so via Email [Mfranco34@aol.com or on foot @ 34 Jason Street Arlingotn Ma. 02174-6409] all best Michael Franco/Wom. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:25:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: sublimating the ridiculous MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Well, I was going to let the issue go, but since the nuclear-powered wagons of indignation have been circled, I suppose at least _one_ charge of the light brigade is in order. But speaking of matters pertaining to the ethics of writing, let me say first that I will soon be posting some information concerning another issue that has come to my attention only this morning--one that I believe makes the controversy over Dale's failure to give list members "advance warning" look like a spit-wad fight. It's going to be very, very interesting to see what the response is here. If any, that is. Aldon Nielsen asks: >1) Did Postmodern culture in fact reprint entire posts from the >list? I haven't seen that issue, so don't know. This has nothing to >do with calling lawyers, but if they did, they should not have. Aldon, I'm not sure I follow your point here. You seem to imply that printing _parts_ of posts is ethical practice, but not printing posts _in whole_--or at least that the former is more appropriate than the latter. (Up to one quarter of a post? one-third? no more than five-eighths? What about one-sentence posts? No reprinting because they can't be excerpted?) Frankly, if an editor is going to reprint my words, I'd much prefer to have them in the full context I had originally given them. Wouldn't you? Would it have been more "proper" of Dale to subjectively choose portions of the posts in question rather than to provide a full and faithful record of the discussion? How so? Truth is, I don't think you can answer this convincingly without appeal or recourse to artificially imposed restrictions of copyright on this medium, which, of course, you may sincerely think is a good idea. I don't. I am not being nit-picky here, quibbling with a slight and peripheral aporia in your argument. I am saying that the big and unacknowledged sub-text of your opening question is that posts on this list are akin to private literary property subject to the protocols of copyright and the academic rituals of "fair use". And to that I say hogwash. I _do_ agree with you that editors should, as a matter of personal courtesy, inform people that their posts will be printed elsewhere, or that post-authors should automatically be sent a copy of the reprint. Dale, I'm sure, will agree that he could and should have done this (though let's be clear that to his credit he reprinted every single word of every post he selected, right down to the numbers and headers, providing a true sense of the original context of the exchange so that no one was in any way misrepresented.) But the key point in this matter is whether or not the post-author's "permission" is required, and particularly when what is being reprinted directly pertains to the editorial policy of the editor's journal. The answer, to my mind, is an emphatic No. (nota bene: In fact, Aldon, if the matter were sufficiently interesting to them, it would be perfectly correct and appropriate for the editors of Postmodern Culture to reprint my public posts on the list regarding their journal without seeking my "permission.") It really comes down to the greater context and background history that creates the curious sort of language game we are a part of here. And that greater context is that our discourse here is available, immediately and freely (in every sense of that word), to millions on the World Wide Web. Once we freely choose to enter it, we choose to enter an unprecedentedly collective space, one that is qualitatively different in form and dynamic from the traditional means of literary packaging and commodification. I don't want to sound arrogant about it, but we list members should really just get used to this and stop thinking that rules and protocols and "personal values" that have their origins in 17th century social and cultural relations--and which have formed the legal and ideological proprieties of print culture up to the present--apply in any feasible way to a mode of information production that has radically superseded those relations and made the ideology of authorship engendered by them something akin to the tenuous status of the Right of Estate around the time of Cromwell. (A tortuously long sentence, but for a sophisticated and elegant explanation of the development of writing as individual property see Susan Stewart's _Crimes of Writing_.) So my point would be, absolutely and in principle, that the Buffalo Poetics list is an always/already free and public space, and when one posts something (argument or poem or mixture of the two) in such a radically democratic forum _it should be with the assumption_ that those bytes of information are free for the taking and sharing. It will undoubtedly be the case that mechanisms of capitalist legality will come to be rigidly imposed on the web too, but until then I modestly propose: If one wants to claim his or her words as private property, well, then he or she should go publish them in institutional mediums where his or her "authority" (and all the psychological security provided by that notion) is firmly guaranteed by the State. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:00:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r.drake" Subject: Re: ocratic meditation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" sheila-- peter ganick pub'd pt. 3 in potepoetzine #1 online; archived at: http://www.burningpress.org/va/vaintro.html (in case he hadnt told ya...) lbd >RE: Tenney's Question about -ocracy >(12-part collaboration by Peter Ganick and myself: > >Thanks for asking, Tenney! I'm looking forward to your reading in Tucson on >the 18th at 8:00 p.m. (anyone on the list in the area, don't miss it!) > >While -ocracy is not on the net, it IS available in three separate chapbooks: >... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:21:28 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: ocratic meditation In-Reply-To: <199802111248.HAA21859@csu-e.csuohio.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Luigi Bob Drake wrote: > part 3 was published in potepoetzine one; available at the cybpheranthol= ogy: > > www.burninpress.org/va/vaintro.html I published parts 8 & 9; there's not much you can read from my site (one page =96 it's really a teaser!), but you'll find it in the section of in-print books: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/presswork/index.html or you can head to the main section (URL below) and follow the "presswrk" link. There's some of Sheila's work in the n/formation archive (under "previous"), issue #2; issue #1 contains a reprint of one of Peter's chapbooks. Chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:29:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: query In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" oops, meant to back-channel, and here i am wasting one of my 5 daily msgs on an apology for another one of the 5.--md At 11:27 AM -0600 2/11/98, Maria Damon wrote: >thanks david --how are you anyway these days? > >At 12:27 PM -0500 2/10/98, David Kellogg wrote: >>Maria, you've probably got this by now, but: "The Song of the Borderguard" >>was published in _A Book of Resemblances_ and appears again in _Selected >>Poems_, ed. Robert J. Bertholf(New York: New Directions, 1993), pages 22-3. >>I don't know if the page reference changes for the revised edition of the >>Selected. >> >>Cheers, >>David >>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>David Kellogg Duke University >>kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric >>(919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 >>FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Maria Damon >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 2:37 PM >>Subject: query >> >> >>>i'm far from my library alas, and from good bookstores. can anyone quick >>>give me a citation for robt duncan's "song of the borderguard"? muchos >>>appreciados. --md >>> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:36:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pritchpa Subject: Re: Sex Objects (late reply) Comments: To: KENT JOHNSON MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Kent - I'm just as thrilled as you are to be at loggerheads! I like your image of "primal glossalalia" (possibly redundant?) - though I don't see it that way. Breton's litany, as I said before, has to me a somewhat mechanical feel to it. My point about "agency" is that a "good" love poem ought to make room for that in some way. It's not obligated to, as you point out, but I think it will suffer as a result, be less than what it could. As for whether or not sex is essential or constructed, I would say that all the colorful examples you use to support your claim for it as being essential really support mine! (how's that for jiu-jitsu eh?) The repertory of gestures you cite comprises a language, a basic grammar of sex, a set of signs which even most animals evidently must employ in order to commence passion. In humans, certainly, the highly stylized vocabulary by which we express and enact the rites of love confers on that enactment a greater degree of passion and gravity. Having said that, I'm in danger of doing a double jiu-jitsu on myself, since you could argue that this is just what Breton is doing in his poem - performing an erotic incantation, calling the whole into being through a fetishistic invocation of parts. I refer once again to De Beauvoir's highly useful chapter on Breton's vision of woman in _Second Sex_. According to her, Breton conflates woman with both nature and poetry - she is the "mediatress," and "the key" - to the world, to revelation. Breton's idealisation does not address whether love performs the same service for women. "Woman interests him only because she is a privileged voice." But this investing of woman as privileged object by Breton also has the effect of robbing her of privilege. Which leads us back to your and Tom Mandel's earlier remarks about the ineluctable "objectification" of the Other. Riverrun, past Steve and Eydie's... Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: KENT JOHNSON To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Sex Objects Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 3:41PM It's nice to finally find something to disagree on with Mark P and Pat P. But guys, I just don't see Breton's poem as sexist in any way. That the addressee has no "agency" does not seem a good argument: Should everyone in a poem have "agency"? And besides, I don't see Breton as having much macho agency in this poem at all--why, he's reduced to a kind of primal glossolalia, the femme doing jiu-jitsu flips on the poor man's capacity to think "like a man" and bring her under the power and control of his reason. It may be that you're right, Pat, that sexual expression is predominantly a cultural construction, but I don't think so. Each culture has its own rituals and oddities to be sure, but in sex, at bottom (though here I want to say that I don't consider myself an expert, because I've only had sex once--when I was nineteen), all cultures exhibit _animal_ behavior. I don't mean "animal" like when one gets excited and just goes crazy-- I mean in the sense of ritualistically objectifying the other, of focusing on the desired one without giving a hoot for his or her "agency"; I mean fixating on body parts, and showing the other your own "parts", whether the showing be a blue, bulging throat, a crimson rump shoved into the air, or a love poem full of surrealist images. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:03:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet In-Reply-To: <1998211121639426962@ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > West Chester University's 4th annual summer writers conference (June 10-13) > focuses this year on "Exploring Form & Narrative" and offers a workshop on > "Experimental Forms" taught by...Dana Gioia. > > I'm not making this up. This will be the literary equivalent of "How To Catch a Roadrunner" taught by Wile E. Coyote. Dave Zauhar ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:09:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet In-Reply-To: <1998211121639426962@ix.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >So that is why I am not an experimental poet. > >Ron Silliman I second that. To me, it always sounded like someone who was experimenting at being a poet. Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:27:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Reprinting material posted to Poetics In-Reply-To: <199802110138.UAA164034@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My own sense of this issue is stated in the welcome message and underscored by recent posts on the matter by Aldon, Kali, and Matt. I should note that David Caplan, the author of the PMC article, did contact me, twice, even though the quotations he was using were authorized by fair use (he didn't need my permission or anyone else’s for anything quoted in his article). Writers have the right to quote from excerpts of published material in the course of a discussion of that material and you don't need to get permission to do that (and that accounts for citations of the list in the footnotes to a number of articles: quoting from the list is no different than quoting from a printed source in that respect). Printing a work in its entirety is another matter. I can't tell if this is terrifically dull or interesting in some way ... But so much these days strikes me like that. By the way, here is the information on that PMC essay: "Who's Zoomin' Who?: The Poetics of www.poets.org and writing.upenn.edu/epc" by David Caplan http://jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU/pmc/issue.997/review-7.997.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:28:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: 44, baseball, Foucault In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wasnt it Foucault, who published in _Transition_, his poem, "These are the saddest of possible words? Tinker to Evers to Chance..." etc? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 14:31:19 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Tills Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, "experimental" takes sad thumping there, again. "Poetry," perhaps worn out anyway, doesn't fare well, either. There may not be alternative terms... Circumventing, or out and out dismantling, the advertizing game altogether? What's been done in other cultural situations when similar co-opting has rendered terms meaningless or otherwise degraded them? "Scientific Creationism" is an example of the degradation of "science" that James Eldredge ("Creationism isn't science") and others have had to struggle with; the term and movement threatened, among other things, science education in the schools. (Of course, "poetry" has already been ruined "in the schools"... "Literature," "multi-culturalism," even "English" anymore, generally.) Personally, smile, I believe you are most definitely "an experimental poet," by the way, and Plaina Joyless, obviously, most definitely is Not "an experimental poet" anymore than Pat Robertson is a "scientist." But I'm flirting with the issue. Hmm, just reading some Nancy Chodorow (Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory--by the way, Freudians and "anti"freudians on the list, Chodorow has got a bit to say about Freud and Lacan one won't find in dull and thin texts). Anyway, come across the term "orthodox," as in orthodox psychoanalysis, but also, orthodox buddhist, orthodox jew, orthodox whatevers. Perhaps start a longterm campaign referring to academic and mainstream poetries as "orthodox poetries"? Ah, just skirting the issues again. Steve Tills rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote: > Reading Crayon's festschrift for Jackson Mac Low of late (a really great job > in every department), I was intrigued at Mordecai Mac Low's discussion of > his father's work as an instance of scientific methodology in process, since > Mordecai is in particular position to know whereof he speaks on this topic. > > I still feel profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of the "experimental" > tho, what with its sense that "this may not work" and the "trial and error" > sense of process. But today I've discovered a deeper reason why I'm not an > experimental poet. > > West Chester University's 4th annual summer writers conference (June 10-13) > focuses this year on "Exploring Form & Narrative" and offers a workshop on > "Experimental Forms" taught by...Dana Gioia. > > I'm not making this up. > > Some of the other sessions to be taught: Meter (Timothy Steele), Rhyme > (Charles Martin), the Sonnet (RS Gwynn), French Forms (Phillis Levin) and > Blank Verse (Alfred Corn). There is also an "Introduction to Form" taught by > Cynthia Zarin who, as the brochure says, has work that "appears frequently > in The New Yorker." > > There will also be a "celebration" of the Hudson Review (Louis Simpson, > Daniel Hoffman, Frederick Morgan etc) and there's a call for critical papers > on the poetry of Amy Clampitt, Literary Quarterlies, Translation and > "individual authors or subjects relevant to the conference theme." > > More details including scholarship info at: > www.wcupa.edu\_ACADEMICS\sch_cas\poetry\ > > Cost ranges between $250-499 for the whole shebang, which includes a picnic > and dance. > > Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that one could get real value from > some of the sessions (Marilyn Nelson is teaching a master class, for > example), but the idea that this claustrophobic convocation on pattern > represents the idea of "form" insults my intelligence as it should that of > any poet born after Baudelaire and Blake. That it is being held at a state > institution borders on theft of public resources. > > So that is why I am not an experimental poet. > > Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:46:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: them boots Comments: cc: davidi@mail.wizard.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain found poetry? | Twice Around the World | | There used to be this old saying | that the lie can be halfway | around the world before the truth | gets its boots on | | Well today the lie can be | twice around the world | before the truth gets out of bed | to find its boots d.i. << Wednesday February 11 1:46 PM EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a meeting with reporters Wednesday that "we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with" the Internet because of the handling of White House sex scandal stories on Web sites. In an otherwise low-key question and answer session, Mrs. Clinton was at her most intense when asked whether she favored curbs on the Internet, which has been accused of disseminating rumor and gossip to the news being reported. "We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values ... Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?," she said. "There used to be this old saying that the lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on," Mrs. Clinton added. "Well, today, the lie can be twice around the world before the truth gets out of bed to find its boots." >> http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/980211/wired/stories/clinton_1.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:02:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm OK, better than I was feeling at Minnesota, that's for sure. Looks like I'll be staying at Duke for another year. Did I tell you the story of my rejection from Villanova? I was "too identified with cultural studies." Jesus. But my writing is actually going pretty well; I'm focused -- it's time to fish or cut bait, as Olson once said. Would you care to see the draft opening chapter of my book? (Maybe that's too much to read right now.) Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Program in Writing and Rhetoric (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 660-4381 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:57:38 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jack Spandrift Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:07:19 -0800 from Prejsnar, name that blues song: "got me a 44..." [this is a query] - Spandrift ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:05:12 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale M Smith Subject: Why I'm not an experimental poet "Scientific method in process" might produce some 'interesting' work in poetry, but of a rather limited sort. Neo Formalism, on the other end of the spectrum, can be of interest too, though more than often lands in the mud. It seems to me though that the Mac Low Method shares at least one common element with its formal nemesis. Both purposely limit their palate in order to discover something new, or to compress language to such a degree that it functions indepenendent, or at a greater distance from, an author's intent. The results often stink on either end, and there are University departments eager to vacuum the mess on both sides. What little there is of worth coming out of all this poetry is probably an accumulation of a life's attention to both language and the environment of the poet. A prophet like Blake is rare and offers less of an experimental gesture than a blunt hammer slammed on the anvil. His example makes puddles of the extremes poetry today offers on the left or the right. It's not so much an experiment as being charged with a daring to step into unknown, and hence, unexplored regions. But Blake didn't 'experiment' or play with language so much as execute it in such a way that it conveyed the depth of his emotionally active intelligence. Still, that neo formal stuff seems like it would have some possibility, in that it worked for Keats et al. Just as, I suppose, at one time it was very liberating to create poem out of random words spilled to the floor (the way you can do it on a refrigerator now - magnetically). Both sides seem to have lost something though. What Blake was after is probably unimagininable to practitioners of today's poetic cousins. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Reading Crayon's festschrift for Jackson Mac Low of late (a really great job in every department), I was intrigued at Mordecai Mac Low's discussion of his father's work as an instance of scientific methodology in process, since Mordecai is in particular position to know whereof he speaks on this topic. I still feel profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of the "experimental" tho, what with its sense that "this may not work" and the "trial and error" sense of process. But today I've discovered a deeper reason why I'm not an experimental poet. West Chester University's 4th annual summer writers conference (June 10-13) focuses this year on "Exploring Form & Narrative" and offers a workshop on "Experimental Forms" taught by...Dana Gioia. I'm not making this up. Some of the other sessions to be taught: Meter (Timothy Steele), Rhyme (Charles Martin), the Sonnet (RS Gwynn), French Forms (Phillis Levin) and Blank Verse (Alfred Corn). There is also an "Introduction to Form" taught by Cynthia Zarin who, as the brochure says, has work that "appears frequently in The New Yorker." There will also be a "celebration" of the Hudson Review (Louis Simpson, Daniel Hoffman, Frederick Morgan etc) and there's a call for critical papers on the poetry of Amy Clampitt, Literary Quarterlies, Translation and "individual authors or subjects relevant to the conference theme." More details including scholarship info at: www.wcupa.edu\_ACADEMICS\sch_cas\poetry\ Cost ranges between $250-499 for the whole shebang, which includes a picnic and dance. Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that one could get real value from some of the sessions (Marilyn Nelson is teaching a master class, for example), but the idea that this claustrophobic convocation on pattern represents the idea of "form" insults my intelligence as it should that of any poet born after Baudelaire and Blake. That it is being held at a state institution borders on theft of public resources. So that is why I am not an experimental poet. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 10:24:19 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Jacket, again Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Something happened to the Poetics List digest for 8 to 9 February making it unreadable on my computer. It contained the following announcement, which I hope listmembers won't mind if I re-post, in case others missed it too. JT ============================================== Announcement - current February 1998 - Jacket # 2 is complete. Jacket magazine - free, fast-loading, international, full of stylish writing - on the Internet, at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au Jacket # 2 is now complete. It focuses mainly on the work of JOHN ASHBERY - John Ashbery : two interviews (1985 and 1988), and a new Ashbery poem / Marjorie Perloff on "Normalizing John Ashbery" / John Tranter : 3 John Ashberys / Eliot Weinberger on James Laughlin (1914-1997) / David Lehman - more on the Ern Malley hoax / Bob Perelman's "The Marginalization of Poetry" discussed by Silliman, Lauterbach, Spahr, Evans and Kate Lilley... and Bob Perelman! / poems by Peter Riley, Lee Ann Brown, John Kinsella, Eileen Myles, August Kleinzahler, Jennifer Moxley, Robert Adamson, Forrest Gander, Tim Davis, Michael Heller, Denis Gallagher / Eliot Weinberger - Letter from New York: "Vomit" / and other poems and articles. In November 1997, Jacket was the featured Internet site on the Electronic Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The EPC is a leading experimental poetry site. In December 1997, Jacket was among the top recommended sites on Web Del Sol, a major literary arts Internet conglomerate site in the US. In December 1997, Jacket won the "Best of the Web" award from the Poetry Mining Company, an Internet site in New York. The first issue of Jacket contains interviews with English poet Roy Fisher and Australian aboriginal poet Lionel Fogarty, a piece on cyber-poetry in the age of the Internet, a look at the 1943 hoax poet Ern Malley (including rare childhood photos!) , work by Charles Bernstein, Elaine Equi, Pamela Brown, Alfred Corn, Joanne Burns, Tracy Ryan, Carl Rakosi, Beth Spencer, Peter Minter, Susan Schultz and Paul Hoover, together with reviews, other prose and poetry pieces and plentiful photos and art work. Jacket # 1 was complete in October 1997. Jacket # 3 is being uploaded as we speak, and will be complete in late April 1998. It already contains poems by Joel Lewis, Michele Leggott, Kris Hemensley, Peter Gizzi, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Tom Clark and Johanna Drucker, and a review of Charles Nicholl's enlightening biography "Somebody Else - Rimbaud in Africa". Issue # 3 is dedicated to the memory of the Australian poet JOHN FORBES, who died unexpectedly on 23 January at the age of 47 at his home in Melbourne. It contains a poem by him ("Speed: A Pastoral"), and poems by some of his friends. Jacket is free, and (thus) is at present unable to pay contributors. Also, I don't have the time yet to deal with unsolicited submissions. Sorry. Jacket editor John Tranter's e-mail address is jtranter@jacket.zip.com.au Please tell your friends about Jacket, whose motto is "bop till you drop!" from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9212 2350 http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/tranter/3poems-interview.html Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:32:33 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Finnegan Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-02-11 16:07:13 EST, Ron Silliman wrote: << Now, I'm perfectly willing to concede that one could get real value from some of the sessions (Marilyn Nelson is teaching a master class, for example), but the idea that this claustrophobic convocation on pattern represents the idea of "form" insults my intelligence as it should that of any poet born after Baudelaire and Blake. >> Ron, I think understand the irritation behind your remarks, but is it necessary for those who've exploded the borders of poetry to cavil at those who want to implode poetic space? Aren't there infinite possibilities in both directions? (To paraphrase Niels Bohr, the language of the inside of the atom is the language poetry.) It's not a conference that appeals to me particularily, but I don't think any one contingent/movement (not language writing, & certainly not the new formalism) has cornered the market on innovation--not yet anyway. Finnegan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:43:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kali Tal Subject: Re: sublimating the ridiculous In-Reply-To: <585CB2F081A@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Kent, You might as well declare your backyard a nuclear-free zone while you're at it.... >But the key point in this matter is whether or not the post-author's >"permission" is required, and particularly when what is being >reprinted directly pertains to the editorial policy of the editor's >journal. The answer, to my mind, is an emphatic No. (nota bene: In >fact, Aldon, if the matter were sufficiently interesting to them, it >would be perfectly correct and appropriate for the editors of >Postmodern Culture to reprint my public posts on the list regarding >their journal without seeking my "permission.") Well, to many other folks' minds, the answer about permission is an emphatic *yes*, and what makes your assertion of eminent domain any more valid than their assertion of intellectual property rights? "stealin my shit from me / don't make it yrs / makes it stolen," as shange notes. >And that greater context is that our discourse here is available, >immediately and freely (in every sense of that word), to millions on >the World Wide Web. Once we freely choose to enter it, >we choose to enter an unprecedentedly collective space, one that is >qualitatively different in form and dynamic from the traditional >means of literary packaging and commodification. I don't want to >sound arrogant about it, but we list members should really just get >used to this and stop thinking that rules and protocols and "personal >values" that have their origins in 17th century social and cultural >relations--and which have formed the legal and ideological >proprieties of print culture up to the present--apply in any feasible >way to a mode of information production that has radically superseded >those relations and made the ideology of authorship engendered by >them something akin to the tenuous status of the Right of Estate >around the time of Cromwell. Oh, nonsense. Folks blathering about the "new and unprecedented" nature of e-communication make me tired. Ain't nothin new about this--it's same-old same-old. People talk, share ideas, share work, write to each other. Everybody thought *television* was gonna be some new, liberating medium. See any sign of it? And, while we're at it, why shouldn't anything broadcast on TV be "free" as well? Surely the logic behind your argument about POETICS should hold for broadcast TV. And what's this silliness 'bout a "radically democratic" forum? What's "democratic" about POETICS? It's a free-for-all w/a benign dictator--votes don't carry any weight here. Email listservs are publications, like other publications--they just get into print quicker. I refuse to give up my rights to the material I produce in this space any more than I'd give 'em up if I published in a hard-copy journal. >If one wants to claim his or her words as private >property, well, then he or she should go publish them in >institutional mediums where his or her "authority" (and all the >psychological security provided by that notion) is firmly guaranteed >by the State. Sorry to inform you, but the state protects "authority" on the internet as well--as any site devoted to the legal issues of internet publication will demonstrate. Just try lifting a Disney cartoon off their site and see how quick they slap you with a suit. Copyright is there to protect the interests of the author--interests, I'd think, that many of us share. If I *want* to give my work away, fine. (And I do--I publish most of what I write on the Net, so people can see it for free.) But it ain't your right to *take* it (and particularly take it and *sell* it) unless I give my permission. Bah. Kali ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:20:02 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: Poetry is not a subculture MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: RE: Poetry is not a subculture sean bonney wrote: >re Henry Gould's posting on 5th Feb re the task of crit, >particularly the upper case rant ending POETRY IS NOT A >SUBCULTURE > >Firstly, whats so bad about being a subculture when the >dominant one is so banal, and in that banality so brutal >(check the current shituation viz Clinton & the UKs own >glorious ambassador of idiocy Blair) > >Anyway, Henry's notes got me thinking about the marginal >position we often find ourselves in. It should be clear to >everybody that the way poetry is taught in school puts most >people off - these people aren't just 'outside' poetry, a >lot of them actively dislike it - seen as elitist and >irrelevent, the residue of a best forgotten culture that >existed pre-MTV etc, containing no joy fun or pleasure, >which are surely among the main reasons that we all got >involved in the first place. Result is, post-school a lot >of people are disinclined to go to poetry because it >carries too many school-time horror memories. Here in >Britain you find undergraduates who still define a poem as >something that rhymes. > >Fine, forget em, we're not in the business of mass markets >anyway, and maybe elitism isn't that bad after all, if the >alternative is such spectacles as the massed ranks of the >Tory Party singing Blake's lyrics as emblems of bigotry, >capital etc - all the stuff that Blake loathed. > >It seems to me that people see poetry as a joke because >they don't know what it is; the most pleasure I've got from >my own readings is folks coming up afterwards saying they >usually hate poetry but loved mine (make of that what you >will!). A lot of people are THREATENED by the perceived >difficulties etc, and react accordingly. > >It isn't a case of us learned poets against the philistine >world; its just that much of what we say only has interest >to each other, hence a discussion group like this. Example: >photographs of deep space engage me more than anything >else, but if someone in the pub starts talking about the >finer points of astro-physics my eyes glaze over. > >Lets not forget that this is always the position that poets >have been in. Blake and Shelley were small press activists. >Its just now perhaps the situation is more complicated - >self consciousness produced by media etc etc. Sometimes in >the info-babble that we're all a part of it seems the only >possible option is an ironic silence (Rimbaud pissing in >the shadows) - but even thats useless, stand there silently >and no-one will notice, you'll just end up getting run over >by a truck. > True, poetry is a marginalized artform--even at the queer bookstores, = where that which is marginal is reclaimed, poetry still gets shoved into = the back of the store (just the way queer literature gets shelved in = mainstream bookstores). But this does not make poetry a "subculture." In = order to constitute a subculture, poets would have to share common rituals,= dress, speech, etc. and, generalizations about poets aside, there is no = critical mass of shared traits from which to argue the existence of such a = subculture. If anything, judging from the poets I have known, poets belong = to a kind of "anti-subculture." But even that assessment is reductive. = Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:23:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: Foucault, Ron's experimentalism and Baseball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Safdie Joseph wrote: > On another note, thanks to Katy Lederer for posting a section from > Foucault's only truly valuable work for my poetics, _The Order of > Things_ (but what do I know, I like Baudrillard too, even his little > masterpiece of invective _Forget Foucault__). But I'd like to ask Katy > (and anyone else who has ventured through the formidable prose of this > work), what she thinks of the period he deals with BEFORE the dead-end > of the 16th century, namely the pre-Renaissance system of order and > meaning, when things were luminous and so were their signs? Before Foucault was Foucault, at least in the U.S., Rich Grossinger translated that early section of _The Order of Things_ for his Ph.D. language exams at the University of Michigan and published it in _Io_, #4 (probably 68 or 69). He neglected to note that this was an early section out of a history, and many of us first new of Foucault as a weird French magus... By the way, I would recommend _Io_ to any one who can find a file of them. Much of the vitality of the poetry of that period resulted from the fact that it was being cooked up in close connection with large doses of information about stuff. I suppose some of the information in _Io_ would now seem new-ageish, but, of course, it was pre-new-age. And (I had changed the original subject line, but now I can add baseball again) in addition to issues on doctrine of signatures, ethnoastronomy, ecology, etc., there is a great issue on baseball. As I noted in that earlier post, Derrida comes closer to a kind of Neoplatonism with every book. _On the Name_ is closer to the writings of renaisance magicians than to the Nietzsche and Heidegger that he begun with. Ron, one of the generation of our father-poets, and I do not remember which one, but I am inclined to think it was Jackson, objected to being called an experimental poet on the grounds that experimenting implied that one did not know what one was doing. The poem was not an experiment, it was an event. Or would it have been David Antin? don -- ********************************************************************* Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) Department of English State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 19:37:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: A personal appeal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I had mentioned in my previous message that I would be posting information about an issue that had recently come to my attention. I hereby give Postmodern Culture, Lingua Franca, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mike and Dale's Younger Poets, and anyone who would like, permission to reprint this message and to do so without first consulting me. In the past months I have been engaged in correspondence with one of the world's most prominent visual poets (as well as theoreticians of visual poetics). This poet is Latin American and is fairly out of touch with recent developments in the "non-visual" poetry scene in the U.S. This poet had enthusiastically agreed to collaborate with me in the editing of an anthology of Latin American visual poetries from Noigandres on, including essential theoretical works, and we had begun to discuss this in some detail, including plans for my visiting him in South America for a long stay during my sabbatical this year. My sabbatical is due to be approved (a formality) next week by the board of trustees of my college. My application is completely based on a description of the above project, for which there has been considerable enthusiasm and support here. Two days ago I received a long letter from the poet I have mentioned telling me that he was greatly looking forward to undertaking this project, that he was organizing his "complete" archives of Latin American visual poetry, and assuring me that what would be produced would be a document of the first power. This morning I received a letter from this poet and it said (I gloss and paraphrase) the following: "My dear friend Kent: I find myself in an extremely uncomfortable position. I have received various communications from close friends in the United States who strongly question my relationship with you. These are people to whom I owe my loyalty since some of them helped secure my release from prison under the junta and have helped my work in many ways...... I feel it is important for you to settle your situation with those circles of the American critcal community which seem so antagonistic toward you. I hope you will be able to overcome this unfortunate situation and that we might be able to reestablish our collaboration." Some important things stand out here: 1) It is quite evident, I think it's safe to say, that this sabotaging of an important and needed project is related to the opinions of certain people about another project I have been involved in and which has caused a fair amount of discussion and controversy. 2) That what is involved is, to some degree, an organized campaign, since the "various communications" arrived within the past two days. 3) That those involved in successfully urging an end to the professional and personal relationship that had been established between myself and the other person in question are willing to scuttle a good faith and seriously undertaken effort--one that aimed to give exposure to relatively unrecognized poets in Latin America-- and that they are willing to do this to placate their own discomfort and dissapproval about another body of work. I want to make it clear that I hold no resentment whatsoever toward the poet for his decision to postpone our collaboration. He is a person who has worked with a great deal of vision and selflessness, and he is someone who has put his life on the line in the struggle for justice in his country. It is completely understandable that he would wish to excercise the utmost caution in light of such strong and unexpected warnings (eventhough he was aware of the controversy around the Yasusada work and I had sent him a copy of the book). I have written him that I understand that he has been placed in a very awkward and difficult position and that his loyalty to previous friendships is important. But I did tell him that I felt his friends had acted in ways that are unprincipled beyond belief and that it was still my hope that we might be able to clarify the matter. Therefore, I am writing this as an open appeal to those who are involved in poisoning this importnt project to have the self-respect and professional integrity to come forward and explain your actions. I have never shied away from discussing my ideas and feelings about the Yasusada writings, and if you feel that work somehow disqualifies me from undertaking this project then I would invite you to a dialogue. Have the courage to approach me personally. And I am making this appeal here because I know that those involved are on or in close contact with people on this list. And you have behaved rather disgracefully. Kent Johnson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:55:35 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII shi is the "on yomi" or sino-Japanese word, while "yon" is 4 in the "kun yomi" or yamato-kotoba indigenous Japanese reading. I don't think that variations in usage are regional, more than you use one in some circumstances and the other in other circumstances. On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Alan Myouka Sondheim wrote: > It's not a nonsense word at all. It's built-in and is "yon." "Yon" means > four, just like "shi" does. I just haven't heard anything else - but then > I'm in Fukuoka, in the south-west. > > Alan > > On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, d powell wrote: > > > Reply to: Re: 44 In Japanese, the word "shi" is both "four" > > and "death" as well. Many superstitious Japanese replace "four" with a > > nonsense word when giving addresses, phone numbers, etc. that contain a > > four. > > > > Tea cups are sold in sets of five, and if one cup is broken, the whole > > set is thrown out--at least, this is a custom that still is observed by > > some Japanese. > > > > Doug > > ===================================================== > > D A Powell doug@redherring.com > > ===================================================== > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:00:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Re: 44 Freud In-Reply-To: <199802110652.BAA01003@mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Ron, This has to be short because it is very close to dinner time and I don't want to wait to send this. Sorry to hear about your pneumonia- Miekel's advice sounds very good- especially the rest. (By the way, Miekel,I hope Liz Was is feeling better too!) I appreciated your post on Freudian analysis, though I must confess to racing through or missing some of the other posts on this topic. I especially enjoyed what you said about Professor Crews, whose articles in the New York Review of Books were recently thrown out by me, with some regret, because they were in the class of "I must respond to this in some way." What you said about it being good that psychoanalysis is taught at private institutes is true, I guess. I am a graduate of one such place, the Postgraduate Center, in NYC. I guess I consider myself a post Freudian analyst, as most analysts I'm sure would say. I am very interested in hearing more about the reputation of psychoanalysis among poets. Best wishes, Nick ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:02:02 -0800 Reply-To: d powell Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: d powell Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Reply to: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet sylvester pollet wrote: >>So that is why I am not an experimental poet. >> >>Ron Silliman > >I second that. To me, it always sounded like someone who was = experimenting >at being a poet. Sylvester Which is why I hate being called "an experimental queer writer," because = it sounds like I'm experimenting with being queer. I'll have those critics = know, I have it down to a science now, thank you very much. Oh yes, = special thanks to the Boy Scouts of America, where I earned an extra merit = badge--the one they don't talk about. Doug =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D D A Powell doug@redherring.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 21:20:58 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Warren Spahn or warring spam? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I *think* Warren Spahn wore # 23.... [Re: intellectual property and Dale Smith the reprinter of posts, I must start by reminding you that I haven't agreed with anything Dale has said here recently if ever. However, this is *not* in fact a private space, but a public conversation. What is said here is already published; it is utterly public. Grab a phrase from a post here and search for all its words and the author's name using any search engine on the net, for example. I bet the engine returns the post you hold in email. Anyone, iow, can get to this list, subscribed or not.} ...Perhaps it is that Spahn won 323 games -- can that be true? That's a lot of games. Tom Mandel Tom Mandel tmandel@screenporch.com ******************************************************** Screen Porch * http://screenporch.com 4020 Williamsburg Ct, Ste 200 * vox: 202-362-1679 Fairfax, VA 22031 * fax: 202-364-5349 ******************************************************** Join the Caucus Conversation ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 21:35:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:05:12 CST from On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:05:12 CST Dale M Smith said: > >Still, that neo formal stuff seems like it would have some possibility, in >that it worked for Keats et al. Just as, I suppose, at one time it was >very liberating to create poem out of random words spilled to the floor >(the way you can do it on a refrigerator now - magnetically). Both sides >seem to have lost something though. What Blake was after is probably >unimagininable to practitioners of today's poetic cousins. > Letters don't need iron. They are already fully magnetized. The question is does the poet have any iron in the stomach. Blake ate crowbars for breakfast. Melville, on the other hand, was a born harpoon. (I'm a little red fire truck.) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 22:40:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: No Play MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - No Play Nikuko speaks (kabuki voice throughout): "I, Nikuko, do beg you to sew my eyes shut! Oh, I have not seen so much horror in world! But, I, Nikuko, want to experience total bliss! I want to do one-man sumo with fearsome opponents! I will fight me in blackness of invisible enemies! I will fight police throwing me in filthy cell! Do you like elimination of "a" "the" articles now such? Do wrap me in kimono-cloth, strangle in transparent tape! I will know ecstasy! Then I will bring "you" ecstasy! I will make "you" verb in my vagina! Do you like forbidden pleasure? Jewel-Lotus-Magatama-Pleasure? You will have rope through labia to pull my deep joy-suffering! You will have me, do you like Oriental face? Deep cast of eyes wide open for your english-teaching insert! Where you are from, they have automobiles! I so like to drive! Oh deep American boy, I will make you drive in my vagina! I do like overdrive-gear-shift-nitro-burn as well! I will do one-man sumo with fearsome opportunities!" _____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 22:54:26 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Why I'm an experimental poet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit after having a shitty day debugging somebodies' netscape problems it a real cheer to come home & seeing everybody throwing "experimental" on the passe terminologly of 20th century scrapheap. Ive been discribing my work as experimental as opposed to sound/text/sound, intermedia, multimedia, interdiscinplinary etc etc since very young, and being one whose spleen be to never do the same thing twice, find many perks in the ambiguity of the designation experimental or experimedia, thinking of mad science in the way that tentitively, a convenience has brought life & performance & text & neoism into the realm of scientific --inquiry. involve everyday in the play of children orchids & rocks Harry Kemp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 00:57:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Israel Subject: Re: A personal appeal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Kent -- sorry to hear about ths snafu. Good luck w.r.t. its resolution. d.i. . ..... ............ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////\\\\\ > david raphael israel < >> washington d.c. << | davidi@mail.wizard.net (home) | disrael@skgf.com (office) ========================= | thy centuries follow each other | perfecting a small wild flower | (Tagore) //////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\///// ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 21:08:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Intellectual property MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On Feb 11, Kali Tal wrote: >Well, to many other folks' minds, the answer about permission is an >emphatic *yes* True enough! >and what makes your assertion of eminent domain any >more valid than their assertion of intellectual property rights? why nothing, at least not in any final sense. I mean life is full of unfinished arguments, right? But you're sort of adding to _my_ argument-- i.e. when it comes to staked claims of "intellectual property," no matter how barbed the fence that is strung, we are dealing in an area of undecidability, of utter subjectivity and will. The fence is a phantasm, a shimmer of false consciousness, a little fart of history. Who wrote the deed you are holding in your hand? >Oh, nonsense. Folks blathering about the "new and unprecedented" >nature of e-communication make me tired. Shoot, that was the first time in my life I have ever said anything mildly theoretical about the Net, and I thought I was going to blow everyone away! >Ain't nothin new about this--it's same--old same--old. People talk, >share ideas, share work, write to each other. Thus, the ruling class will sleep more soundly tonight, for nothing ever really changes. And all the work on that doggone Telecommunications bill! >And while we're at it, why shouldn't anything broadcast on TV be >"free" as well? Surely the logic behind your argument about POETICS >should hold for broadcast TV. I am all for free TV!! Did I sound like I wasn't? But capital does these weird things to freedom... >and what's this silliness 'bout a "radically democratic" forum? >What's "democratic" about POETICS? OK, radically democratic and _open_? I mean that when I press the send button for this, people who aren't subscribed to the list can read it before it's posted to the subscribers. It is available, always/already (forgive me for that term), to millions. Why (and this is the main question I was posing) would I be so protective about my post? What leads me to desire to control its distribution if I've already willingly entered it into an uncontrollable space? And don't tell me I'm being silly because, well, not that many people peek at the Poetics archives... >I refuse to give up my rights to the material I produce in this >space any more than I'd give 'em up if I published in a hard copy >journal. Fair enough. But then perhaps you should join the campaign to more effectively extend existing copyright law into the Web? And actually, here's a question. Let's say you had participated in the Mike and Dale's discussion and Dale had called to tell you he wanted to reprint your posts in full, along with numerous others. And let's say that you were in a bad mood or something like that and said No. And let's say that Dale said, Well I wan't _asking_ you, I was just informing you because this discussion is about the integrity of my magazine. And then he went ahead and did it. Published it, I mean. You have one call. Who do you call first? >Sorry to inform you, but the state protects "authority" on the >internet as well--as any site devoted to the legal issues of >internet publication will demonstrate. Just try lifting a Disney >cartoon off their site and see how quick they slap you with a suit. Yes, thank you for that information. But is this a settled issue or a contested one, still very fluid, with important implications. I'm open to having my mind changed on this issue, really, I am. But here's a last and very serious question: Why would you want to be on the same side of this "intellectual property" issue as the Disney Corporation? >Bah. Bah to you too. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 23:16:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: [Fwd: Urgent on Iraq - Please note the signers!!; U.S. v. Iraq: A Study i (fwd)] Comments: To: llnuss@planet.com.mx, laura@naropa.edu, Lisa Miller , mmeighan@rmii.com, MNoyes1234@aol.com, MBPratt@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Received: from spot.Colorado.EDU [128.138.129.2] by in5.ibm.net id 887153491.59240-1 ; Tue, 10 Feb 1998 23:31:31 +0000 Received: from localhost (andersd@localhost) by spot.Colorado.EDU (8.8.5/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p) with SMTP id QAA24274; Tue, 10 Feb 1998 16:31:16 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 16:31:15 -0700 (MST) From: ANDERSON DAVID To: dedsec01.mcolyvas@eds.com, frans@sopriswest.com, gwen@netone.com, klockeb@colorado.edu, kristen@euclid.colorado.edu, levitsk@ibm.net, lykinsg@aol.com, mesrod@juno.com, RSell56069@aol.com, shelleyt@ucsub.colorado.edu, valenzue@spot.colorado.edu, lharris@du.edu, mciver@orci.com, steve.sargent@hq.doe.gov, Taz33547@aol.com Subject: Urgent on Iraq - Please note the signers!!; U.S. v. Iraq: A Study i (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 10 Feb 1998 14:32:06 From: DavidMcR@aol.com Reply-To: "Conference labr.party" To: Recipients of conference Subject: Urgent on Iraq - Please note the signers!!; U.S. v. Iraq: A Study i [Apologies for duplicates as a result of cross-posting.] >>PLEASE JOIN WITH US AT THIS CRUCIAL TIME. >>To find out about COME email to INFOCOME@MiddleEast.Org >>To find out about MID-EAST REALITIES email to INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org >>------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> D O N O T B O M B I R A Q >> >>This very important and timely Statement from the Committee On The >>Middle East is now available for downloading and printing. >> >> TO VIEW ON THE WEB: >> http://www.MiddleEast.Org/iraqhtm.htm >> >> WINDOWS WORD VERSION - 2 pages >> For duplication on both sides of one 8 x 11 paper. >> http://www.MiddleEast.Org/iraq.doc >> >>To publish this unique and important Statement in Washington, and to >>distribute it to the American and International Press, we need your >>help and support. If you would like to help please email to >>COME@MiddleEast.Org or call 202 362-5266. >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>Email copy of Statement follows: >> >>- D O N O T B O M B I R A Q >> >> A Public Statement from the >> COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST >> >> The following is a statement from the Committee On >> The Middle East (COME) concerning the American >> threats to bomb Iraq. We urge you to circulate it >> as much as possible. The International Advisory >> Committee of COME, including Middle East experts >> and professors throughout the world, is listed at >> the end of the Statement. >> Please join with us and support our efforts at >> this critical time. >> To reach COME: >> Phone: 202 362-5266 >> Fax: 202 362-6965 >> Email: COME@USA.NET >> Web: http://WWW.MiddleEast.org >> >> D O N O T B O M B I R A Q >> >> While the United States clearly has the military power to further >>devastate and prostrate Iraq, we strongly believe that the course the >>U.S. has chosen is not only grossly unjust, but also exceedingly >>hypocritical and duplicitous. We further believe that though the U.S. >>may be able to pursue its imperial policies without substantial >>opposition in the short term, the policies being pursued today, >>especially the new and massive military assault being prepared against >>Iraq, are likely to have tremendously negative historical ramifications. >> As Middle East experts and scholars - many with close and personal >>ties to this long troubled and misunderstood region - we feel a >>political, a moral, and a historical responsibility to speak up in >>clear opposition at this critical time. >> >> Origins of Today's Imbroglio: >> >> Throughout this century Western countries, primarily the United >>States and Great Britain, have continually interfered in and >>manipulated events in the Middle East. The origins of the >>Iraq/Kuwait conflict can be found in the unilateral British decision >>during the early years of this century to essentially cut off a >>piece of Iraq to suit British Empire desires of that now faded era. >> Rather than agreeing to Arab self-determination at the end of World >>War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Western nations conspired >>to divide the Arab world into a number of artificial and barely viable >>entities; to install Arab "client regimes" throughout the region, to >>make these regimes dependent on Western economic and military power >>for survival; and then to impose an ongoing series of economic, >>cultural, and political arrangements seriously detrimental to the >>people of the area. This is the historical legacy that we live with >>today. >> Throughout the 1930s and the 1940s the West further manipulated the >>affairs of the Middle East in order to control the resources of the >>region and then to create a Jewish homeland in an area long considered >>central to Arab nationalism and Muslim concerns. Playing off one regime >>against the other and one geopolitical interest against another became a >>major preoccupation for Western politicians and their closely associated >>business interests. >> >> Following World War II: >> >> After World War II, and from these policy origins, the United States >>became the main Western power in the region, supplanting the key roles >>formerly played by Britain and France. In the 1960s Gamel Abdel Nasser >>was the target of Western condemnation for his attempt to reintegrate >>the Arab world and to pursue independent "non-aligned" policies. By the >>1970s the CIA had established close working relationships with key Arab >>client regimes from Morocco and Jordan to Saudi Arabia and Iran - >>regimes >>that even then were among the most repressive and undemocratic in the >>world - in order to further American domination and to secure an >>ever-growing supply of inexpensive oil and the resultant flow of >>petrodollars. >> By the late 1970s the counter-reaction of the Iranian revolution was >>met with a Western build-up of the very same Iraqi regime that is so >>condemned today in a vain attempt to use Iraq to crush the new Iranian >>regime. The result was millions of deaths coming on top of the >>terrible devastation of Lebanon, itself a country that had been severed >>from Greater Syria by Western intrigues, as had been the area of >>southern Syria, then known as Palestine. Additionally the Israelis >>were given the green light to invade Lebanon, further devastate the >>Palestinians, and install a puppet Lebanese government - an attempt >>which failed leading to an American and Israeli retreat but ongoing >>militarism to this day. Meanwhile, throughout all these years Western >>manipulation of oil supplies and pricing, coupled with arms sales >>policies, often seriously exacerbated tensions between countries in >>the region leading to the events of this decade. >> >> The Gulf Conflict: >> >> It was precisely such American manipulations and intrigues that led >>to the Gulf War in 1990. Indeed, we would be remiss if we did not note >>that there is already much historical evidence that the U.S. actually >>maneuvered Iraq into the invasion of Kuwait, repeatedly suggesting to >>Iraq that it would become the pivotal military state of the area in >>coordination with the U.S. Whether true or not the U.S. subsequently >>did everything in its power to prevent a peaceful resolution of the >>conflict and for the first time intervened with massive and overwhelming >>military force in the region creating today's dangerously unstable >>quagmire. >> The initially stated American goal was only to protect Saudi Arabia. >>Then after the unprecedented military build-up the goal became to expel >>Iraq from Kuwait. Then the goal evolved to toppling the Iraqi >>government. And from there the Americans began to impose various limits >>on Iraqi sovereignty; took over much of Iraq air space; sent the CIA to >>repeatedly attempt to topple the Iraqi government; and placed a >>near-total embargo on Iraq that many - including a former Attorney >>General of the United States - have termed near-genocidal. The overall >>result has been the subjugation and impoverishment of Iraq and the >>actual death of approximately 5% of the Iraqis as the direct result >>of American sanctions, plus the reallocation of oil quotes and >>petrodollars to American client-states. >> With the Clinton Administration, the U.S. began to insist on the >>"dual containment" of both Iraq and Iran - both countries which just a >>few years ago the U.S. was working very closely with and providing >>considerable arms to. With few in the press able to remember from >>one year to the next, or to connect one historic event with another, >>somehow Washington has come to insist on Iraqi disarmament and Iranian >>strangulation. Furthermore, these policies are being pursued even >>while Israel and key Arab client states are receiving American weapons >>in ever larger amounts, with Israel's weapons of mass destruction >>making her forces 7 to 8 times stronger than all Arab armies combined. >>Furthermore still, the U.S. and Israeli strategic alliance has never >>been closer, the U.S. has repeatedly helped Israel defy the will of >>the international community and the United Nations, and the U.S. >>continues to champion a disingenuous Israeli "peace process" which >>in reality on the ground continues to dispossess the Palestinians >>and to corral them onto reservations in their own country! >> >> The Future: >> >> In a future statement we will move on to the crucial subject of what >>alternative policies the United States should be pursuing. But at this >>critical moment we are compelled to come forward and urgently condemn >>the policies now being pursued by the United States and regional ally >>Israel. We call for an immediate cessation of the economic embargo >>against Iraq, an end to U.S.-imposed restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty >>and airspace, and most of all immediately suspension of all plans to >>attack Iraq using the overwhelming technological and military >>instruments >>available to the U.S. >> If the U.S. continues to pursue its current policies then we >>conclude and predict it will not be unreasonable for many in the world >>to brand the U.S. itself as a arrogant and imperialist state, and if >>that becomes the historical paradigm it will be both understandable >>and justifiable if others pursue whatever means are available to them >>to oppose American domination and militarism. Such developments could >>quite possibly lead to still more decades of conflict, warfare, and >>terrorism throughout the region and beyond. >> >> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * >>COME Advisory Committee: Arab Abdel-Hadi - Cairo; Professor Nahla >>Abdo - Carleton University (Ottawa); Professor Elmoiz Abunura - >>University of North Carolina (Ashville); Professor Jane Adas - Rutgers >>University (NJ); Oroub Alabed - World Food Program (Amman); Professor >>Faris Albermani - University of Queensland (Australia); Professor Jabbar >>Alwan, DePaul University (Chicago); Professor Alex Alland, Columbia >>University (New York); Professor Abbas Alnasrawi - University of Vermont >>(Burlington); Professor Michael Astour - University of Southern >>Illinois; Virginia Baron - Guilford, CT.; Professor Mohammed Benayoune - >>Sultan Qaboos University (Oman); Professor Charles Black - Emeritus Yale >>University Law School; Professor Francis O. Boyle, University of >>Illinois Law School (Champlain); Mark Bruzonsky - COME Chairperson >>(Washington); Linda Brayer - Ex. Dir., Society of St. Ives (Jerusalem); >>Professor Noam Chomsky - Massachusetts Institute of Technology >>(Cambridge); Ramsey Clark - Former U.S. Attorney General (New York); >>Professor Frank Cohen - SUNY, Binghamton; John Cooley - Author, Cyprus; >>Professor Mustafah Dhada - School of International Affairs, Clark >>Atlanta University; Zuhair Dibaja - Research Fellow, University of >>Helsinki; Professor Mohamed El-Hodiri - University of Kansas; Professor >>Richard Falk - Princeton University; Professor Ali Ahmed Farghaly - >>University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); Professor Ali Fatemi - American >>University (Paris); Michai Freeman - Berkeley; Professor S.M. >>Ghazanfar - University of Idaho (Chair, Economics Dept); Professor >>Kathrn Green - California State University (San Bernadino); Nader Hashemi - >>Ottawa, Canada; Professor M. Hassouna - Georgia; Professor Clement >>Henry - University of Texas (Austin); Professor Herbert Hill - >>University of Wisconsin (Madison); Professor Asaf Hussein - U.K.; >>Yudit Ilany - Jerusalem; Professor George Irani - Lebanese American >>University (Beirut); Tahir Jaffer - Nairobi, Kenya; David Jones - >>Editor, New Dawn Magazine, Australia; Professor Elie Katz - Sonoma >>State University, CA; Professor George Kent - University of Hawaii; >>Professor Ted Keller - San Francisco State University, Emeritus; >>John F. Kennedy - Attorney at Law, Washington; Samaneh Khader - >>Graduate Student in Theology, University of Helsinki; Professor >>Ebrahim Khoda - University of Western Australia; Guida Leicester, >>San Francisco; Jeremy Levin - Former CNN Beirut Bureau Chief >>(Portland); Professor Seymour Melman - Columbia University (New >>York); Dr. Avi Melzer - Frankfurt; Professor Alan Meyers - Boston >>University; Professor Michael Mills - Vista College (Berkeley, CA); >>Kamram Mofrad - Idaho; Shahab Mushtaq - Knox College; Professor Minerva >>Nasser-Eddine - University of Adelaide (Australia); Professor Peter >>Pellett - University of Massachussetts (Amherst); Professor Max Pepper, >>M.D. - University of Massachusetts (Amherst); Professor Ruud Peters - >>Universiteit van Amsterdam; Professor Glenn Perry - Indiana State >>University; Professor Tanya Reinhart - Tel Aviv University; Professor >>Shalom Raz - Technion (Haifa); Professor Knut Rognes - Stavanger College >>(Norway); Professor Masud Salimian - Morgan State University >>(Baltimore); Professor Mohamed Salmassi - University of Massachusetts; >>Qais Saleh - Graduate Student, International University (Japan); Ali >>Saidi - J.D. candidate in international law (Berkeley, CA); Dr. Eyad >>Sarraj - Gaza, Occupied Palestine; Henry Schwarzschild - New York >>(original co-founder - deceased); Professor Herbert Schiller - >>University of California (San Diego); Peter Shaw-Smith - Journalist, >>London; David Shomar - New York; Dr. Manjra Shuaib - CapeTown (South >>Africa); Robert Silverman - Montreal; Professor J. David Singer - >>University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); Professor Majid Tehranian - >>Director Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy (University of >>Hawaii); Dr. Marlyn Tadros - Deputy Director, Legal Research and >>Resource Center for Human Rights (Cairo); Professor John Williams - >>College of William and Mary; Ismail Zayid, M.D. - Dalhousi University >>(Canada). >> >> COME - 202 362-5266 - Fax: 202 362-6965 - Email: COME@USA.NET ================================= From: MID-EAST REALITIES X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Subject: Author condemns U.S. policies toward Iraq - _______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org M E R E X C L U S I V E : AUTHOR CONDEMNS U.S. POLICIES TOWARD IRAQ __________________________________________________________________ TO RECEI cdp ignored 10934 excess bytes ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 23:18:08 -0800 Reply-To: kkel736@bayarea.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Organization: Network Associates Subject: Lee Chapman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oops, I know someone recently gave Lee Chapman's (First Intensity) earth address--would you please again? Karen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 23:52:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: socopo reading : charles alexander Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" monday nite at the cinnabar theater in petaluma a welcome chance to hear fellow-listling charles alexander read his poetry. He read from "pushing water", a title that surely helped open up the work. . .earlier that day i had watched a waterfall & rapids, fascinated to see the rocks "pushing water" into serried patterns of many variations, but that's not the only way to hear those poems. They surely are generously available to being read from several approaches. Also he read his postcard series, and it was an intense pleasure to follow his handling of the small space. Intellectual jazz, where "a tear is an intellectual thing". Also reading : roderigo toscano, and hung q. tu. Nor had I heard either of these read before, and have no sure sense of their work on the page. The smoosh of traffic from petaluma bvd interfered (i wass sitting at the back of the room) but i began to cotton to both roderigo's hard-edge urban scapes and hung's lilting insinuations, want more, apologize for the sketchiness of these registrations. 25 is a good crowd in that space, a sign that the once-monthly series is catching on, and well it might, thanks to layne russell and steve tills and the hard work they do to spread the word. we did announce it on the johnny otis saturday morning matinee live-feed to kpfa berkeley, but i forgot to ask if anyone there came for that cause. The second monday of each month, and in march, a panel on present practice and the troubadors, with peter gizzi, steve farmer, and, we hope, susan gevirtz. db 3 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 06:53:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: sublimating the ridiculous In-Reply-To: <585CB2F081A@student.highland.cc.il.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" kent johnson goes on at some length about the list being a "free and open space" and thus what people post is not theirs. i suggest you all look at the welcome message that says that posting on the list is a form of publication. now, in my book, publication means publication, i.e. if your name is on it, it's yours. if someone wants to loosely paraphrase what's said on the list without attributing authorship, that's one thing; but if people's specific words are quoted and their names appeared somewhere in their own post and the quoted material, i would consider this to be publication and subject to the same general courtesies that apply to photocopying someone's work, citing it in your own work, etc. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:07:19 EST Reply-To: Irving Weiss Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Irving Weiss Subject: Exhibits outside USA Comments: cc: wr-eye-tings@sfu.ca I know that Miekal And some months back sent out information about the Bent Goncalves experimental poetry exhibit in Brazil, but I don't remember seeing any mention about other Latin American and European exhibits, some of which I learned about from Clemente Padin. So here, if you will excuse repetition, are some announcements, including a reminder about the Brazilian show. FRACTART 1998 POESIA VIXUAL VI International Biennial of Experimental Poetry (Fractal/Global Festival of Polypoetry-Hypertext-Multimedia Poetry) Mexico City, Mexico D.F. University Museum El Chopo, among other sites. Submit: projects and artwork for the Internet; fax; computer and video poetry (American System); personal interventions (performance and polypoetry); visual, concrete, and graphic poetry; sound poetry; installations; book objects; etc. If you send anything by Internet, use the following email addresses: 74052.446@CompuServe.COM postart@mail.internet.com.mx mab@hap9000a1.uam.m General adviser on multimedia and internet will be Jose Diaz Infante DEADLINE for artworks sent by postal service will be August 1998. Please send works by postal service to: Cesar Espinosa ARACELI ZUNIGA Apdo. Postal 45-615 06020 Mexico, D.F. Mexico Tel fax: 670 8949 (There is no indication of when the exhibit takes place.) Works submitted will not be returned but will become part of the Poesia-Virtual-Mexico/Internacional, A.C.., archive. American organizers for the USA: Dick Higgins and Harry Polkinhorn ============================================= Exhibition of Visual Poetry entitled "2000 - The Third Millenium VI BRAZILIAN CONGRESS OF POETRY Bento Goncalves, Brasil Deadline September 10, 1998 (There is no indication of when the exhibit takes place) Submit 2 or 3 visual poems ( maximum sizes 42 x 30 cm) to: Ademir Antonio Bacca PO Box 41 Bento Goncalves-RS BRAZIL 95700-000 Co-ordinators: Clemente Padin, Fernando Aguiar, Hugo Pontes will select visual poetry submissions for printing in a special number of the newspaper Garatuja, to include at least one poem from each poet. All work submitted will be retained for inclusion in the exhibition archives. We will appreciate your sending books, catalogues, magazines, etc. also for inclusion in the permanent archives. ================================================ MAIL ART EXHIBIT CHIAPAS The First Social Revolution of the III Millenium The right of all peoples to fight with the weapons of ethical and social justice to lead free and decent lives. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation of Chiapas, Mexico, is fighting to overcome the social and economic inequalities forcing countless millions of human beings all over the world to live and die like animals in hunger and deprivation. "We are all Marcos" fighting with reason, truth, and for the justice of our cause to raise the standards of living for our people. We are simply unable to exist as we do, struggling to improve our living conditions, unless our lives are valued according to basic human principles. "Others" also live and suffer as we do under a system that wields powers often unwanted by them. Our human nature , our human essence, enables us to recognize that their "otherness" is ours, even if they fail to think like us. The bloodless revolution in Chiapas launched by the people and their representatives and modified by world public opinion, through revolutionary announcements in all media, above all through the Internet, have made the humanitarian principles of The First Social Revolution of the III Millenium a model to follow. Mediums: no restrictions, including street mail, e-mail, and fax. Forms and types: no restrictions, but all submissions must be in two dimensions (no cartons or boxes, no artists' books, no sculptures, etc.) All submissions will be exhibited and every artist will receive written acknowledgment of his participation in the exhibit. The exhibition will be located at AEBU, the Uruguayan Employee Bankers Association, Montevideo, Uruguay, and later in other cities of the interior. After the exhibition, all the works of art received will be turned over to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Chiapas, Mexico. Deadline: July 30, 1998 (No indication of when the exhibit will take place.) Please send all submissions to: Clemente Padin C. Correos Central 1211 11,000 Montevideo URUGUAY ============================================= Centre Culturel Aragon Oyonnax Place Georges Pompidou 01100 Oyonnax, France Tel. 04.74.81.96.80 Fax. 04.74.81.96.86 Exposition BOITE POSTALE 03.98 March 23 to May 16, 1998 and from there to other locations Please send messages, decorated envelopes, unusual letters, objects of all kinds to be hung on the white walls of the exhibit hall, to Chantal Rigolet Bopite Postale 0398 01108 Oyonnax Cedex (There is no deadline given.) ============================================== Irving Weiss http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/6316/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:18:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: 44 In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I always thought it was "Been All Around This World"--"open up that door / Before I have to come on in with my old .44"-- On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Jack Spandrift wrote: > Prejsnar, name that blues song: > > "got me a 44..." [this is a query] > > - Spandrift > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:38:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Foucault, Ron's experimentalism and Baseball MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Don Byrd wrote: > ... Ron, one of the generation of our father-poets, and I do not remember > which one, but I am inclined to think it was Jackson, objected to being > called an experimental poet on the grounds that experimenting implied that > one did not know what one was doing. The poem was not an experiment, it was > an event. Or would it have been David Antin? that was Jackson, I believe. But when I read Ron's post what came to mind immediately were Antin's lines: "If Robert Frost is a poet, then I don't want to be a poet, if Robert Lowell is a poet that I don't want to be a poet...." And Derrida's new book " Le monolinguisme de l'autre" (well, one of the three 1996 books) is all about the I of the author (JD), is in fact pure autobiography "I am the most Judeo-Franco-Maghrebian of all" -- And weaves a gorgeous piece of writing out of his musings on his (not-under-erasure) origins and lack of a (jewish) mothertongue. -- (I think a shortened version came out in English as "Echoes from Elsewhere.") Spring training just around the corner & from the Io issue on baseball, here's a Ken Irby line to ponder: "...the problems of prosody for a narrative of pitchers are the pitchers' problems of the musculature facing home..." Pierre (wearing his favorite Mets t-shirt) ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel/fax (518) 426 0433 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What often prevents us from giving ourselves over to a single vice is that we have several of them." — La Rochefoucauld ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 07:05:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> >> West Chester University's 4th annual summer writers conference (June 10-13) >> focuses this year on "Exploring Form & Narrative" and offers a workshop on >> "Experimental Forms" taught by...Dana Gioia. >> >> I'm not making this up. Fill us in. Who is Dana Gioia? I take it that she or he is some kind of non-experimental writer? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 10:03:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: 44 baseball poems In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980210235050.00a39788@pop.usit.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII it's "pray for rain" of course Mark P. On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Thomas Bell wrote: > I think Spahn was 21. He aslo is in one of the most famous baseball > poems, "Spahn and Sain, and two days rain." - although it might be > forgotten now. If there is a run on Brave (Milw) numerology, what > were the numbers of Burdette, Buhl. Crandell, Bruton,....? > tom bell > > At 09:23 AM 2/10/98 -0600, rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM wrote: > >44 was the uniform number chosen by Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey and Reggie > >Jackson (the latter two in homage to the first), none of whom ever played in > >Japan a la Cecil Fielder, Don Blasingame or other US baseball players trying > >to stretch out or pump up stalled careers (fewer players have followed the > >path of Warren Spahn and George Brunet (who pitched until he was nearly 50) > >by going to Mexico instead). I forget what Spahnie's number was, although I > >did see him pitch once as an SF Giant (this was before Mexico) in addition > >to many times in a Milwaukee uniform. Still, my favorite post-US-major > >league event remains Louis Tiant's stint in the short-lived Senior Baseball > >League where he was traded from one team in Florida to another in return for > >500 stuffed teddy bears. > > > >I have too many friends who are Freudian analysts to treat as casually as > >I've seen here, although its problematics could take a generation of careers > >to fully explore. One thing that the Freudians did which has had a huge > >impact in the US was to keep certification away from the university system > >as such (Dale Smith would approve) by setting up their own institutes. One > >thing this did was guarantee that there was no professor on campus who was > >ever the "official" Freudian in the psych department, which in turn meant > >that anybody in any department could volunteer for that social role, > >including, back when I was a student at UC Berkeley, Freddy Crews, a shallow > >opportunist who was widely regarded as in the sweepstakes for most boring > >professor in the department (Mark Schorer and Tom Parkinson competed as well > >and I always thought that Schorer won out simply because he'd had a 20 year > >head start on Crews and 10 on Parkinson) -- Crews used to teach a literature > >and ideology course that was a tribute to predictability and certainly never > >thought to try reading "unideological" texts in those terms. Anyhow, > >Freudianism as an ism became both a free floating signifier of the worst > >sort on every campus AND has become, as a formal system among professional > >analysts who are painfully aware of their outsiderness to the university > >system, fairly defensive. It's a system in which trying to think clearly or > >even halfway intelligibly about Freud's limits (as well as strengths) is all > >but impossible, though I am sure that there are careers to be made in the > >trying. Rethinking Marx is not dissimilar as a project beset with problems > >at the moment, as in The Work of Art in the Age of Hypertext etc. > > > >But I think the real lesson to be drawn from the Freudian adventure in the > >US has been what it's revealed about how universities function when a major > >trend in social analysis (and you never had to agree with any of Freud to > >see it was at least that) is set loose under those special terms. > > > >That's why I think it's so important that we stress, over and over, that the > >legitimation of poetry is something that occurs OFF campus, typically in the > >major urban areas but inevitably not in the MFA programs or the various > >anglophile critical programs (the latter these days falling all over > >themselves to tell us just how fab fab fabulous the new Ted Hughes' > >collection of necromancy is). > > > >Louis, thanks for the exact details re the Archives and the list -- I think > >that tends to point out the nature of the discourse here rather well. As > >I've said before, if there are 500 folks "subscribed" and a max of 50 > >messages possible per day, people should think very hard before posting more > >than one. > > > >Ron (still has pneumonia after 46 days) Silliman > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:00:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Freud and Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ron Silliman's post on Freud was thought provoking. I am wondering whether a Freudian Institute is less an academy than a university (is). If you are a Freudian in an English dept., you will be around people who can tell you you are full of it on a daily basis. Whereas in a Freudian institution presumably everyone will be a Freudian, creating a sort of wierd insular feeling. Ths is perhaps why Crews, boring though he might be, ran circles around the analysts in his debate with them. I was frustrated by this debate, because I wanted to hear better arguments from the Freudian defenders, but they were utterly lame. As for the institutionalization of poetry, and the insistence that poetry be legitimated OFF campus...yes, it should. But Silliman wrote in a 1990 essay that every English dept. should have a specialist in post 1945 literature, that the university was a useful site of contestation, etc...Does this represent a change in thinking, or am I misreading something here? Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese 3062 Wescoe Hall University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:30:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: 363 Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Warren Spahn won 363 games, not 323, although he was born on April 23 in 1921 in Buffalo, NY, which makes him an honorary member of this list, no? And one year senior to Jackson. Spahn also won 4 world series games, not included in this total. No, Finnegan, I don't think that the history of literature is as value neutral as you make it sound. Innovation is not a value to pre-modernists, such as the majority of those who will be at West Chester. Tim Steele writes as if the 19th century is still up for grabs. And it amounts to fraud to tell students otherwise. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 07:16:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Warren Spahn or warring spam? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980211212058.009016e0@postoffice.bellatlantic.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >...Perhaps it is that Spahn won 323 games -- can that be true? That's a lot >of games. > >Tom Mandel He won a LOT more than that. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 10:34:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: CALL FOR WORK MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Poems, essays, letters, etc. sought for a publication observing the life, work and passing of Bay Area poet/agit-prop artist Daniel Davidson. Please extend this request to others you think might want to contribute. Query or send work to: Gary Sullivan Department of History 611 Fayerweather Hall Columbia University New York, NY 10027 or by e-mail to: gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:09:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Shoemaker Subject: Re: Foucault, Ron's experimentalism and Baseball In-Reply-To: <34E27935.8DA221D1@nycap.rr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think maybe the "father-poet" below is Stein. steve On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Don Byrd wrote: > Safdie Joseph wrote: > > > On another note, thanks to Katy Lederer for posting a section from > > Foucault's only truly valuable work for my poetics, _The Order of > > Things_ (but what do I know, I like Baudrillard too, even his little > > masterpiece of invective _Forget Foucault__). But I'd like to ask Katy > > (and anyone else who has ventured through the formidable prose of this > > work), what she thinks of the period he deals with BEFORE the dead-end > > of the 16th century, namely the pre-Renaissance system of order and > > meaning, when things were luminous and so were their signs? > > Before Foucault was Foucault, at least in the U.S., Rich Grossinger > translated that early section of _The Order of Things_ for his Ph.D. > language exams at the University of Michigan and published it in _Io_, #4 > (probably 68 or 69). He neglected to note that this was an early section > out of a history, and many of us first new of Foucault as a weird French > magus... > > By the way, I would recommend _Io_ to any one who can find a file of > them. Much of the vitality of the poetry of that period resulted from the > fact that it was being cooked up in close connection with large doses of > information about stuff. I suppose some of the information in _Io_ would > now seem new-ageish, but, of course, it was pre-new-age. And (I had changed > the original subject line, but now I can add baseball again) in addition to > issues on doctrine of signatures, ethnoastronomy, ecology, etc., there is a > great issue on baseball. > > As I noted in that earlier post, Derrida comes closer to a kind of > Neoplatonism with every book. _On the Name_ is closer to the writings of > renaisance magicians than to the Nietzsche and Heidegger that he begun with. > > Ron, one of the generation of our father-poets, and I do not remember > which one, but I am inclined to think it was Jackson, objected to being > called an experimental poet on the grounds that experimenting implied that > one did not know what one was doing. The poem was not an experiment, it was > an event. Or would it have been David Antin? > > don > -- > ********************************************************************* > Don Byrd (djb85@csc.albany.edu, dbyrd1@nycap.rr.com) > Department of English > State University of New York > Albany, NY 12222 > 518-442-4055 (work); 418-426-9308 (home); 518-442-4599 (fax) > The Little Magazine (http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/) > ********************************************************************* > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:51:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Re: Why I'm not an experimental poet In-Reply-To: <9802111658102.5262899@utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Not to suggest that Ron Silliman IS making this up, but I checked the website mentioned in his post (for the same reason, I guess, that some motorists gawk at automobile accidents on the highways), and it says that the "Experimental Forms" class is taught by Charles Martin, and that Dana Gioia is teaching "Translation" (The "Master Class" is Molly Peacock's, and Alfred Corn is "Working in Rhyme" and Marilyn Nelson is doing "The Sonnet"). The keynoter, by the way, is Anthony Hecht. Still have to agree with the gist of his post concerning formatted pre-fab poetry being passed off as the last word on poetic form. And for those prices, there better be an open bar at all the receptions. David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago "My religion makes no sense and does not help me therefore I pursue it." --Anne Carson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:22:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: sublimating the ridiculous In-Reply-To: <585CB2F081A@student.highland.cc.il.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well Kent, I also will wade in, since we are **all** refusing to drop the issue, and since it's reasonable pertinent to the concerns we all have here on the List, about how writing "acts" in public spaces... Aldon and you are two of the really lively presences on the list, who contribute a lot, for my money...And I do think that between you you've articulated the issues with exceptional clarity... I think Aldon is basically right on this one. Various qualifications can be made..To an extent quoting without asking permission can be lived with. But oddly enuff, for the one that's arguing the laisse faire libertarian sort of position, you're reducing everthing too much to a level of highly technical, "literal" rule-interpretation. No, this isn't a matter for litigiousness. But I would absolutely state (as someone who posts here a certain amount) that I HOPE that as a matter of courtesy and probity I be asked before anything I post here (especially other than very brief snippets) be quoted in a public forum. That is largely how writing works and how writers and poets should behave toward each other. I know you're busy disassembling the social construction of the poet-author and all, and I think you're creating some very interesting waves while doing it. And yes like any form of publication this is a very public space. But ! I still exist in three dimesnions some of the time (I think) and have various personal and intellectual reasons I'd like to have some say in where and how my thoughts and involvements are used and abused. I may not get what I want, but if you try sometime you can....At least state your basic principles, and wishes... stonily, Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:39:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Warren Spahn or warring spam? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980211212058.009016e0@postoffice.bellatlantic.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm not sure about Spahn's win total...But it was very impressive and (as he does tend to remind people in interviews...!) should always be placed next to the fact that 3 or 4 of what should have been his greatest years were spent fighting in WWII. Also, he was one of the great hitting pitchers of all time. I've always thought that the possiblity tha the pitcher might get a dramatic and game-deciding hit, added to the dynamism and excitment of a game. Must have been the case when you watched Ruth as a pitcher too, or Gibson. One other point: Spahn is helping Ted Williams with his public campaign to get Shoeless Joe (no, that's not another one of my country blues favorites) into the Hall of Fame. A huge hand to both of 'em.... Mark P. On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Tom Mandel wrote: > I *think* Warren Spahn wore # 23.... > > [Re: intellectual property and Dale Sm